Italian City-States 1300-1500 — Florence, Venice, Milan, Rome: Whose City-State Was It?

Display image of Brunelleschi's dome on Florence Cathedral 1436. Ask: 'What does this dome ask us to believe about human possibility?' Bridge to humanism.

• Display Brunelleschi's dome image
• Ask the dignity-of-human-possibility question
• Introduce 'humanism' vocabulary

M-7-S-CUL-02-B Illustration

High-resolution color photograph of Brunelleschi's 1436 dome Santa Maria del Fiore Florence Cathedral with cutaway diagram showing inner + outer dome structural innovation; scale figure shows ~91m height.

Five city-states — Florence (republic dominated by Medici banking 1434-1494, then republic 1494-1512, Medici again, Grand Duchy of Tuscany 1569-1737); Venice (Most Serene Republic 697-1797 — merchant-oligarchic government with Council of Ten and Doge); Milan (Visconti duchy 1395-1447, Ambrosian Republic 1447-1450, Sforza duchy 1450-1535); Rome (Papal States — papacy as government, Borgia + Della Rovere + Medici popes); Naples (Aragonese kingdom). Italian humanism — studia humanitatis (grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, moral philosophy) — based on classical Latin (Cicero, Virgil) and Greek (Plato, Aristotle in original Greek) recovered from monasteries + Byzantine refugees after 1453 + Arabic translations from Toledo + Naples (G7-Fall connection!). Pico della Mirandola's 1486 Oration on the Dignity of Man — 'O highest and marvelous felicity of man! To him it is granted to have whatever he chooses, to be whatever he wills.' But — whose humanism? Christine de Pizan 1405 had already raised the question. Sofonisba Anguissola (b.1532) + Lavinia Fontana (b.1552) painted professionally despite restrictions. Joan Kelly-Gadol's 1977 question 'Did women have a Renaissance?' answered with qualified NO.

• Both political forms supported Renaissance, with different constraints. Venice's stability came partly from EXCLUSION; Florence's vitality came partly from elite COMPETITION.

  model Florence was nominally republican (Signoria elected by guilds) but Cosimo de' Medici (1389-1464) ran it via patronage; Venice was explicitly oligarchic — Maggior Consiglio became hereditary after 1297; Florence's instability included Pazzi conspiracy 1478 + Savonarola 1494-1498; Venice was famously stable 1100 years.

  prompt Compare Florentine government 1434-1492 (Medici dominance via banking + papal-tax contracts) with Venetian government 1297-1797 (closed oligarchic Council via Serrata del Maggior Consiglio 1297).
• model Pico claims humans are self-fashioning ('to be whatever he wills'). This is humanist confidence. BUT — Pico says 'man' (homo); Christine de Pizan 1405 had asked whether 'woman' was included; Indigenous + African peoples Europeans would encounter 1492+ were often EXCLUDED from 'man' (Lessons 11-17 + Las Casas/Sepúlveda 1550 Valladolid).

  prompt Read aloud one sentence from Pico's Oration. What does it claim about human possibility? Whose possibility?

• Name 5 Italian city-states and one feature of each.
• What is studia humanitatis?
• Who was Christine de Pizan and when did she write?

M-7-S-CUL-02-A Map

16x20 inch laminated MG-9 showing Florence/Venice/Milan/Rome/Naples/Genoa c.1450-1550 with color-coded governance legend; each city labeled with ruling family + population + named humanist.

MG-9 Map

MG-9 ITALIAN CITY-STATES Map — 16x20 inch laminated showing Florence + Venice + Milan + Rome + Naples + Genoa + Ferrara + Mantua + Urbino c.1450-1550; each labeled with: ruling family/government + population + major industry + named humanists/artists. Includes inset of Medici banking branches across Europe.

• Pairs: label 5 Italian city-states + 1 (Genoa) on MG-9 map and write governance type for each.

  scaffold Legend on MG-9 with governance-type icons.
• Source-card practice: apply MG-7 Q1 SOURCING + Q5 NMAI 'whose voice is silent' + NEW Q8 ENCOUNTER MULTI-PERSPECTIVE to Pico's Oration. One sentence per question.

  scaffold Sentence frames on MG-7 reverse.

M-7-S-CUL-02-C Diagram

8.5x11 laminated double-sided MG-7 with all 8 questions (G7-Fall 7 + new Q8 Encounter Multi-Perspective) and sentence frames on back.

MG-7 Diagram

EIGHT-Question Source Card — laminated 8.5x11 double-sided REPLACING G7-Fall 7-Question Source Card with NEW 8th question for G7-Spring multi-perspective encounter analysis. All 7 G7-Fall questions retained + Q8 ENCOUNTER MULTI-PERSPECTIVE: From whose perspective is this encounter told? Whose perspective is missing? How would the same event read from the missing perspective? Includes sentence frames in English + Spanish + Nahuatl/Quechua/Persian/Arabic transliteration glossaries; available in 14pt dyslexic font + audio version.

• Name 3 Italian city-states and their governance type.
• What is humanism, in one sentence?
• Sticky to MG-23 about Italian Renaissance women.

• Recite FIVE PROMISES
• Add stickies to MG-23
• Preview Lesson 3 — the Medici and patronage

• Find an image of any Renaissance artwork by a NAMED woman artist (Anguissola, Fontana, Properzia de' Rossi, or another); name artist + work + date.