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110-516: Timeline The maritime republics ( Italian : repubbliche marinare ), also called merchant republics ( Italian : repubbliche mercantili ), were Italian thalassocratic port cities which, starting from the Middle Ages , enjoyed political autonomy and economic prosperity brought about by their maritime activities. The term, coined during the 19th century, generally refers to four Italian cities, whose coats of arms have been shown since 1947 on

220-649: A biblical manner of clothing and hair style. The movement was originally formed in 1809 by six students at the Vienna Academy and called the Brotherhood of St. Luke or Lukasbund, after the patron saint of medieval artists. In 1810 four of them, Johann Friedrich Overbeck , Franz Pforr , Ludwig Vogel and Johann Konrad Hottinger moved to Rome , where they occupied the abandoned monastery of San Isidoro and were joined by Philipp Veit , Peter von Cornelius , Julius Schnorr von Karolsfeld , Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow and

330-492: A century of slow decline that ended with the Napoleonic invasion. The table below shows the periods of activity of the various maritime republics over the centuries. The expression maritime republics was coined by nineteenth-century historiography, almost coinciding with the end of the last of them: none of these states had ever defined itself as a maritime republic. Swiss historian Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi introduced

440-557: A characterizing trait was the mixture of elements of the various Mediterranean artistic traditions, mainly Byzantine , Islamic and Romanesque elements. The modern Italian communities living in Greece, Turkey, Lebanon , Gibraltar , and Crimea descend, at least in part, from the colonies of the maritime republics, as well as the language island of the Tabarchino dialect in Sardinia and

550-739: A commercial triangle between the Arab East, the Byzantine Empire, and Italy. Until the discovery of America they were therefore essential nodes of trade between Europe and the other continents. Among the most important products were: The maritime republics' great prosperity deriving from trade had a significant impact on the history of art, to the point that five of them (Amalfi, Genoa, Venice, Pisa and Ragusa) are today included in UNESCO 's list of World Heritage Sites . Although an artistic current common to all of them and exclusive to them cannot be described,

660-572: A dragon is used to conjure up the time pictorially. The Romantic interest in the medieval can particularly be seen in the illustrations of English poet William Blake and the Ossian cycle published by Scottish poet James Macpherson in 1762, which inspired both Goethe 's Götz von Berlichingen (1773), and the young Walter Scott . The latter's Waverley Novels , including Ivanhoe (1819) and Quentin Durward (1823) helped popularise, and shape views of,

770-469: A leading role in this development. As many as six of these cities — Amalfi, Venice, Gaeta, Genoa, Ancona, and Ragusa — began their own history of autonomy and trade after being almost destroyed by terrible looting, or were founded by refugees from devastated lands. These cities, exposed to pirate raids and neglected by central powers, organized their own defence autonomously, coupling the exercise of maritime trade with that of their armed protection. Thus, in

880-548: A long life, remaining independent until the Renaissance . Amalfi and Gaeta were instead the first to fall, having been conquered by the Normans in the 12th century. As highlighted in the following chronological table, the number of maritime republics has changed over the centuries, as follows: The following table compares the different duration of the maritime republics, their golden periods (indicated with more intense colours), and

990-434: A loose grouping of other German artists. They met up with Austrian romantic landscape artist Joseph Anton Koch (1768–1839) who became an unofficial tutor to the group and in 1827 they were joined by Joseph von Führich (1800–76). In Rome the group lived a semi-monastic existence, as a way of re-creating the nature of the medieval artist's workshop. Religious subjects dominated their output and two major commissions for

1100-539: A nineteenth-century genre of medieval poetry that included Idylls of the King (1842) by Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson and "The Sword of Kingship" (1866) by Thomas Westwood, which recast specifically modern themes in the medieval settings of Arthurian romance. Depictions of the Middle Ages can be found in different cultural media, including advertising. Film has been one of the most significant creators of images of

1210-549: A re-awakening of "High Church" or Anglo-Catholic self-belief (and by the Catholic convert Augustus Welby Pugin ) concerned by the growth of religious nonconformism. He went on to produce important Gothic buildings such as Cathedrals at Birmingham and Southwark and the British Houses of Parliament in the 1840s. Large numbers of existing English churches had features such as crosses , screens and stained glass ( removed at

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1320-410: A republican order, and Amalfi, which became a duchy in 945, are also called maritime republics, as the term republic should not be understood in its modern meaning: until Machiavelli and Kant , "republic" was synonymous with "State", and was not opposed to monarchy. The Crusades offered the opportunity to expand trade. Amalfi, Genoa, Venice, Pisa, Ancona and Ragusa were already engaged in trade with

1430-555: A term describing the post-modern study of medieval history and as a term for a trend in modern international relations , first discussed in 1977 by Hedley Bull , who argued that society was moving towards a form of "neomedievalism" in which individual notions of rights and a growing sense of a "world common good" were undermining national sovereignty . Leslie J. Workman , Kathleen Verduin and David Metzger noted in their introduction to Studies in Medievalism IX "Medievalism and

1540-481: Is a timeline of Italian history , comprising important legal and territorial changes and political events in Italy and its predecessor states, including Ancient Rome and Prehistoric Italy . Date of the prehistoric era are approximate. For further background, see history of Italy and list of prime ministers of Italy . Lucius Sicinius Vellutus , the plebs abandoned Rome for the nearby Monte Sacro . Marius

1650-643: Is a part of the study of the Middle Ages as a historical period. Monagle explains how in 1977 the International Relations scholar Hedley Bull coined the term " New Medievalism " to describe the world as a result of the rising powers of non-state actors in society (such as terrorist groups, corporations, or supra-state organisations such as the European Economic Community) which, due to new technologies, boundaries of jurisdiction that cross national borders, and shifts in private wealth challenged

1760-456: Is first recorded in 1604. "Medieval" first appears in the nineteenth century and is an Anglicised form of medium aevum . During the Reformations of the 16th and 17th centuries, Protestants generally followed the critical views expressed by Renaissance Humanists, but for additional reasons. They saw classical antiquity as a golden time, not only because of Latin literature, but because it was

1870-572: The " Dark Ages " , since the fall of Rome in the fifth century, owing to among other things, the loss of many classical Latin texts and to the corruption of the language in contemporary discourse. Scholars of the Renaissance believed that they lived in a new age that broke free of the decline described by Petrarch. Historians Leonardo Bruni and Flavio Biondo developed a three tier outline of history composed of Ancient , Medieval, and Modern . The Latin term media tempestas (middle time) first appears in 1469. The term medium aevum (Middle Ages)

1980-758: The Congress of Vienna decreed Genoa's annexation to the Kingdom of Sardinia . The artistic importance of Genoa has been recognized by UNESCO by listing the Strade Nuove and the complex of the Palazzi dei Rolli among the World Heritage Sites . The indissoluble link between Genoa and navigation is testified by Lancelotto Malocello , by Vandino and Ugolino Vivaldi , and most prominently by Christopher Columbus . Timeline of Italian history Timeline This

2090-471: The Duchy of Milan . The republic was weakened by the state's own arrangement, which, based on private agreements between the main families, led to incredibly short and unstable governments and very frequent factional strife. Following the plagues and foreign dominations of the 14th and 15th centuries, the city experienced a second apogee upon regaining self-government in 1528 through the efforts of Andrea Doria , to

2200-658: The First Crusade , which procured great privileges for the Genoese colonists in the Holy Land . The apogee of Genoese fortunes came in the 13th century, following the Treaty of Nymphaeum (1261) and the double victory over Pisa ( Battle of Meloria (1284) ) and Venice ( Battle of Curzola (1298)). "The Superb", a name for the city derived from Petrarch 's work Itinerarium breve de Ianua ad Ierusalem (1358) in which he described it, dominated

2310-579: The Garigliano (915). At the dawn of AD 1000 , Amalfi was the most prosperous city of Longobardia , and in terms of population (probably 80,000 inhabitants) and prosperity, the only one able to compete with the great Arab metropolises: it minted its own gold coin, the tarì , which was current in all the main Mediterranean ports; the Amalfian Laws , a code of maritime law which remained in force throughout

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2420-667: The Levant , but with the Crusades thousands of inhabitants of the seaside cities poured into the East, creating warehouses, colonies and commercial establishments. They exercised great political influence at the local level: Italian merchants set up trade associations in their business centers with the aim of obtaining jurisdictional, fiscal and customs privileges from foreign governments. Only Venice, Genoa and Pisa had territorial expansion overseas, i.e. they possessed large regions and numerous islands along

2530-719: The Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea and controlled a large part of Liguria , Corsica , the Sardinian Judicate of Logudoro , the North Aegean , and southern Crimea . The 14th century marked a serious economic, political and social crisis for Genoa, which, weakened by internal strife, lost Sardinia to the Aragonese, was defeated by Venice at Alghero (1353) and Chioggia (1379) and subjected several times to France and to

2640-671: The Middle Ages , date back to that time; in Jerusalem, the noble merchant Mauro Pantaleone built the hospital from which the Knights Hospitaller would originate. The far-sighted dukes of Amalfi were able to safeguard their power over the centuries, allying themselves, depending on the circumstances, with the Byzantines, the Pope, or the Muslims. On the basis of an erroneous reading of a passage by

2750-458: The Oxford Movement , which has been defined as "medievalism in religion." Ruskin connected the quality of a nation's architecture with its spiritual health, comparing the originality and freedom of medieval art with the mechanistic sterility of modernism in such works as Modern Painters , Volume II (1846), The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849) and The Stones of Venice (1851–3). At

2860-448: The de facto freedom acquired, the other to that of law. From an institutional point of view, in line with their municipal origins, the maritime cities were oligarchic republics, generally governed, in a more or less declared manner, by the main merchant families. The governments were therefore an expression of the merchant class, which constituted the backbone of their power. For this reason, these cities are sometimes referred to with

2970-429: The "causes of the rapid resurgence of Italian maritime trade - Amalfi, Venice, Genoa, Ancona, Pisa" and the "Settlement of the great Italian Navy". For the second class, at the beginning of the year, the teacher was arranged to recall the period in which the maritime republics grew and flourished. Every time the school programs were renewed, the study of the phenomenon of the maritime republics was always confirmed. In 1875,

3080-483: The "most remarkable fruit in English literature of the medieval revival", the modern workhouse is contrasted with the medieval monastery. He draws on Jocelyn de Brakelond 's twelfth-century account of Samson of Tottington 's abbotcy of Bury St Edmunds Abbey to answer the " Condition-of-England Question ", calling for a " Chivalry of Labour" based on cooperation and fraternity rather than competition and "Cash-payment for

3190-418: The 14th century, while Pisa declined to the point of losing its autonomy, Venice and Genoa continued to dominate navigation, followed by Ragusa and Ancona, which experienced their golden age in the 15th century. In the 16th century, with Ancona's loss of autonomy, only the republics of Venice, Genoa, and Ragusa remained, which still experienced great moments of splendor until the mid-17th century, followed by over

3300-813: The 1970s saw the discipline of medievalism become an academic area of research in its own right, with the International Society for the Study of Medievalism formalised in 1979 with the publication of its Studies In Medievalism journal, organised by Leslie J. Workman. D'Arcens notes that by 2016 medievalism was taught as a subject on "hundreds" of university courses around the world, and there were "at least two" scholarly journals dedicated to medievalism studies: Studies in Medievalism and postmedieval . Clare Monagle has argued that political medievalism has caused medieval scholars to repeatedly reconsider whether medievalism

3410-501: The 9th, 10th, and 11th centuries, they were able to go on the offensive, obtaining numerous victories over the Saracens , starting with the historic Battle of Ostia in 849. The traffic of these cities reached Africa and Asia, effectively inserting itself between the Byzantine and Islamic maritime powers, with which a complex relationship of competition and collaboration was established for

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3520-892: The Academy, Vol I" (1997) their sense that medievalism had been perceived by some medievalists as a "poor and somewhat whimsical relation of (presumably more serious) medieval studies ". In The Cambridge Companion to Medievalism (2016), editor Louise D'Arcens noted that some of the earliest medievalism scholarship (that is, study of the phenomenon of medievalism) was by Victorian specialists including Alice Chandler (with her monograph A Dream of Order: The Medieval Ideal in Nineteenth Century England (London: Taylor and Francis, 1971), and Florence Boos, with her edited volume History and Community: Essays in Victorian Medievalism (London: Garland Publishing, 1992)). D'Arcens proposed that

3630-504: The Amalfi people against Salerno, conquered the duchy. Amalfi remained substantially autonomous and often rebelled against the regents until 1100, when the last duke Marinus Sebastus was deposed by the Normans. This left Amalfi only an administrative autonomy, later revoked in 1131 by Roger II of Sicily . After the Norman conquest, the decline was not immediate, becoming in the meantime a seaport of

3740-691: The Arabs and founded mercantile bases in Southern Italy , North Africa and the Middle East in the 10th century. In the 11th century, Amalfi reached the height of its maritime power and had warehouses in Constantinople , Laodicea , Beirut , Jaffa , Tripoli of Syria , Cyprus , Alexandria , Ptolemais , Baghdad , and India . Amalfi's land borders extended from the Sarno River to Vietri sul Mare , while to

3850-694: The Casa Bartholdy (1816–17) (later moved to the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin) and the Casino Massimo (1817–29), allowed them to attempt a revival of the medieval art of fresco painting and gained then international attention. However, by 1830 all except Overbeck had returned to Germany and the group had disbanded. Many Nazareners became influential teachers in German art academies and were a major influence on

3960-637: The Divine in New York (one of the largest cathedrals in the world), as well as Collegiate Gothic buildings at Princeton Graduate College . On a wider level the wooden Carpenter Gothic churches and houses were built in large numbers across North America in this period. In English literature, the architectural Gothic Revival and classical Romanticism gave rise to the Gothic novel , often dealing with dark themes in human nature against medieval backdrops and with elements of

4070-587: The Medieval Church was taken into Enlightenment thinking by works including Edward Gibbon 's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–89). Voltaire was particularly energetic in attacking the religiously dominated Middle Ages as a period of social stagnation and decline, condemning Feudalism , Scholasticism , The Crusades , The Inquisition and the Catholic Church in general. The Gothic Revival

4180-452: The Mediterranean coasts. Genoa and Venice also came to dominate their entire region and part of the neighboring ones, becoming capitals of regional states. Venice was then the only one to dominate territories very far from the coast, up to occupying eastern Lombardy. Amalfi, Gaeta, Ancona, Ragusa and Noli, on the other hand, extended their dominion only to a part of the territory of their region, configuring themselves as city-states; however, all

4290-650: The Middle Ages since the early twentieth century. The first medieval film was also one of the earliest films ever made, about Jeanne d'Arc in 1899, while the first to deal with Robin Hood dates to as early as 1908. Influential European films, often with a nationalist agenda, included the German Nibelungenlied (1924), Eisenstein 's Alexander Nevsky (1938) and Bergman 's The Seventh Seal (1957), while in France there were many Joan of Arc sequels. Hollywood adopted

4400-502: The Middle Ages". The term has no clear definition but has since been used to describe the intersection between popular fantasy and medieval history as can be seen in computer games such as MMORPGs , films and television , neo-medieval music , and popular literature . It is in this area—the study of the intersection between contemporary representation and past inspiration(s)—that medievalism and neomedievalism tend to be used interchangeably. Neomedievalism has also been used as

4510-615: The Middle Ages. The same imagery would be used in Nazi Germany in the mid-twentieth century to promote German national identity with plans for extensive building in the medieval style and attempts to revive the virtues of the Teutonic knights , Charlemagne and the Round Table . In England, the Middle Ages were trumpeted as the birthplace of democracy because of the Magna Carta of 1215. In

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4620-523: The Norman-Swabian state. However, the commercial basin of Amalfi was reduced to the western Mediterranean and gradually the city was supplanted, locally by Naples and Salerno, and at the Mediterranean level by Pisa, Venice and Genoa. Genoa had revived at the dawn of the 10th century when, following the city's destruction by the Saracens, its inhabitants returned to the sea. In the mid-10th century, entering

4730-453: The Pendulum " (1842) and Nathanial Hawthorne in " The Minister's Black Veil " (1836) and " The Birth-Mark " (1843). This in turn influenced American novelists like Herman Melville in works such as Moby-Dick (1851). Early Victorian Gothic novels included Emily Brontë 's Wuthering Heights (1847) and Charlotte Brontë 's Jane Eyre (1847). The genre was revived and modernised toward

4840-610: The Reformation as having divided a once-unified and wealthy England into "masters and slaves, a very few enjoying the extreme of luxury, and millions doomed to the extreme of misery", while decrying how "this land of meat and beef was changed, all of a sudden into a land of dry bread and oatmeal porridge". In the Victorian era , the principal representatives of this school were Thomas Carlyle and his disciple John Ruskin . In Carlyle's Past and Present (1843), which Oliver Elton called

4950-674: The Reformation), restored or added, and most new Anglican and Catholic churches were built in the Gothic style. Viollet-le-Duc was a leading figure in the movement in France, restoring the entire walled city of Carcassonne as well as Notre-Dame and Sainte Chapelle in Paris. In America Ralph Adams Cram was a leading force in American Gothic, with his most ambitious project the Cathedral of St. John

5060-627: The Renaissance, but later, from the beginnings of the Reformation. In the Age of Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries, the Middle Ages was seen as an "Age of Faith" when religion reigned, and thus as a period contrary to reason and contrary to the spirit of the Enlightenment. For them the Middle Ages was barbaric and priest-ridden. They referred to "these dark times", "the centuries of ignorance", and "the uncouth centuries". The Protestant critique of

5170-612: The United States was held in Boston in 1897 and local societies spread across the country, dedicated to preserving and perfecting disappearing craft and beautifying house interiors. Whereas the Gothic revival had tended to emulate ecclesiastical and military architecture, the arts and crafts movement looked to rustic and vernacular medieval housing. The creation of aesthetically pleasing and affordable furnishings proved highly influential on subsequent artistic and architectural developments. By

5280-437: The city of Amalfi to the East is also testified by the art that flourished in the centuries of independence and in which Byzantine and Arab-Norman influences harmoniously merged. Towards the middle of the 11th century, the power of the duchy began to fade: in 1039, due to internal strife, it was conquered by Guaimar IV of Salerno , who would be expelled in 1052 by his brother John II . In 1073, Robert Guiscard , summoned by

5390-413: The confines of population growth, urban sprawl and industrialism, embracing the exotic, unfamiliar and distant. The name "Romanticism" itself was derived from the medieval genre chivalric romance . This movement contributed to the strong influence of such romances, disproportionate to their actual showing among medieval literature, on the image of Middle Ages, such that a knight, a distressed damsel, and

5500-441: The control of the Mediterranean routes. Each of the cities was favored by its geographical position, far from the main routes of passage of the armies and protected by mountains or lagoons , which isolated it and allowed it to devote itself undisturbed to maritime traffic. This led to a gradual administrative autonomy and, in some cases, to total independence from the central powers, which for some time were no longer able to control

5610-537: The dispute between Berengar II and Otto the Great , it obtained de facto independence in 958, which was then made official in 1096 with the creation of the Compagna Communis , a union of merchants and feudal lords of the area. Meanwhile, its alliance with Pisa allowed the liberation of the western Mediterranean from Saracen pirates. The fortunes of the municipality increased considerably thanks to its participation in

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5720-481: The early Middle Ages. They also had an essential role in the Crusades and produced renowned explorers and navigators such as Marco Polo and Christopher Columbus . Over the centuries, the maritime republics — both the best known and the lesser known but not always less important — experienced fluctuating fortunes. In the 9th and 10th centuries, this phenomenon began with Amalfi and Gaeta, which soon reached their heyday. Meanwhile, Venice began its gradual ascent, while

5830-412: The early beginnings of Christianity. The intervening 1000 year Middle Age was a time of darkness, not only because of lack of secular Latin literature, but because of corruption within the Church such as Popes who ruled as kings, pagan superstitions with saints' relics , celibate priesthood, and institutionalized moral hypocrisy. Most Protestant historians did not date the beginnings of the modern era from

5940-565: The eighteenth century in Western Europe , and gained strength during and after the Industrial and French Revolutions . It was partly a revolt against the political norms of the Age of Enlightenment which rationalised nature, and was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature. Romanticism has been seen as "the revival of the life and thought of the Middle Ages", reaching beyond rational and Classicist models to elevate medievalism and elements of art and narrative perceived to be authentically medieval, in an attempt to escape

6050-415: The end of the century with works like Robert Louis Stevenson 's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), Oscar Wilde 's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) and Bram Stoker 's Dracula (1897). Main article: Anglo-Saxonism in the 19th century The development of philology through the 17th-19th centuries as a subject of study in north west Europe and England saw increased interest in tracing

6160-449: The exclusive authority of the state. Monagle explained that in 2007 medieval scholar Bruce Holsinger published Neomedievalism, Conservativism and the War on Terror , which identified how George W. Bush 's administration relied on medievalising rhetoric to identify al-Qaeda as "dangerously fluid, elusive, and stateless". Monagle documents how Gabrielle Spiegel , then president of the American Historical Society "expressed concern at

6270-429: The expression and focused on the corresponding concept in his 1807 work History of the Italian Republics of the Middle Centuries . In Sismondi's text, the maritime republics were seen as cities dedicated above all to fighting each other over issues related to their commercial expansion, unlike the medieval communes , which instead fought together against the Empire courageously defending their freedom. In Italy, up until

6380-409: The extinct Italian community of Odesa . Amalfi , the first maritime republic to reach a leading importance, acquired de facto independence from the Duchy of Naples in 839 . That year, Sicard of Benevento , during a war against the Byzantines, conquered the city, and deported the population. When he died in a palace conspiracy, the Amalfi people rebelled, drove out the Lombard garrison and formed

6490-420: The fine arts of textiles, wood and metal work and interior design. Morris also produced medieval and ancient themed poetry, beside socialist tracts and the medieval Utopia News From Nowhere (1890). Morris formed Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. in 1861, which produced and sold furnishings and furniture, often with medieval themes, to the emerging middle classes. The first Arts and Crafts exhibition in

6600-642: The first half of the twentieth century pulp fiction writers like Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith helped popularise the sword and sorcery branch of fantasy, which often utilised prehistoric and non-European settings beside elements of the medieval. In contrast, authors such as E. R. Eddison and particularly J.R.R. Tolkien , set the type for high fantasy , normally based in a pseudo-medieval setting, mixed with elements of medieval folklore. Other fantasy writers have emulated such elements, and films, role-playing and computer games also took up this tradition. Modern fantasy writers have taken elements of

6710-404: The flags of the Italian Navy and the Italian Merchant Navy: Amalfi , Genoa , Pisa , and Venice . In addition to the four best known cities, Ancona , Gaeta , Noli , and, in Dalmatia , Ragusa , are also considered maritime republics; in certain historical periods, they had no secondary importance compared to some of the better known cities. Uniformly scattered across the Italian peninsula,

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6820-543: The folklore that fantasy drew on for its magic and monsters was not exclusively medieval, elves, dragons, and unicorns, among many other creatures, were drawn from medieval folklore and romance . Earlier writers in the genre, such as George MacDonald in The Princess and the Goblin (1872), William Morris in The Well at the World's End (1896) and Lord Dunsany in The King of Elfland's Daughter (1924), set their tales in fantasy worlds clearly derived from medieval sources, though often filtered through later views. In

6930-485: The four cities represented in the navy flag inspired the Regatta of the Historical Marine Republics . Armando Lodolini's 1967 book The Republics of the Sea resumed the previous long list of maritime republics: Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Ancona, Gaeta, and the Dalmatian Ragusa. Noli's status as a small maritime republic would only come into focus in later decades after previously being affirmed only at an academic level. In 2000, Italian president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi summed up

7040-416: The free republic of Amalfi. The people of Amalfi were governed by a republican order governed by comites , under which the praefecturii were in charge until 945, when Mastalus II assumed power and proclaimed himself duke . As early as the end of the 9th century, the duchy developed extensive trade with the Byzantine Empire and Egypt . Amalfitan merchants wrested the Mediterranean trade monopoly from

7150-434: The humanist Flavio Biondo , the invention of the compass was long attributed to Flavio Gioja from Amalfi. Despite the tenacious tradition that originated, a correct reading of Biondo's passage reveals that Flavio Gioia never existed, and that the glory of the Amalfi people was not that of inventing the compass (actually imported from China), but of having been the first to spread its use in Europe. The close bond that tied

7260-436: The idea that scholars of the historical medieval period might consider themselves licensed to in some way to intervene in contemporary medievalism", as to do so "conflates two very different historical periods". Eileen Joy (co-founder and co-editor of the postmedieval journal), responded to Spiegel that "the idea of a medieval past itself, as something that can be demarcated and cordoned off from other historical time periods,

7370-415: The idealised peasantry and medieval community, particularly of the fourteenth century, often with socialist political tendencies and reaching its height between about 1880 and 1910. The movement was inspired by the writings of Carlyle and Ruskin and was spearheaded by the work of William Morris , a friend of the Pre-Raphaelites and a former apprentice to Gothic-revival architect G. E. Street. He focused on

7480-435: The later English Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood . Eventually, medievalism moved from the confines of fiction into the immediate realm of social commentary as a means of critiquing life in the Industrial Era . An early work of this kind is William Cobbett 's History of the Protestant Reformation (1824–6), which was influenced by his reading of John Lingard 's History of England (1819–30), among other sources. Cobbett attacked

7590-419: The launch of European expansion towards the East and with the origins of modern capitalism as a mercantile and financial system. In these cities, gold coins , which had not been used for centuries, were minted, new exchange and accounting practices were developed, and thus international finance and commercial law were born. Technological advances in navigation were also encouraged; important in this regard

7700-432: The long list included Genoa, Venice, Pisa, Ancona, Amalfi and Gaeta. Crucial for the diffusion of the list of four maritime republics was a publication by Captain Umberto Moretti, who was tasked by the Royal Navy in 1904 with documenting the maritime history of Amalfi. The volume was released under the significant title The First Maritime Republic of Italy . From that moment on, the name of Amalfi definitively joined that of

7810-501: The maritime republics were important not only for the history of navigation and commerce: in addition to precious goods otherwise unobtainable in Europe, new artistic ideas and news concerning distant countries also spread. From the 10th century, they built fleets of ships both for their own protection and to support extensive trade networks across the Mediterranean, giving them an essential role in reestablishing contacts between Europe , Asia , and Africa , which had been interrupted during

7920-525: The maritime republics' historic role with these words: ... The Italy of the maritime republics ... reopened the ways of the world to Europe. Elements that characterized a maritime republic were: The economic recovery that took place in Europe starting with the 9th century , combined with hazardous mainland trading routes, enabled the development of major commercial routes along the Mediterranean coast. The growing autonomy acquired by some coastal cities gave them

8030-626: The mechanistic approach first adopted by the Mannerist artists who succeeded Raphael and Michelangelo . They believed that the Classical poses and elegant compositions of Raphael in particular had been a corrupting influence on the academic teaching of art. Hence the name "Pre-Raphaelite". In particular, they objected to the influence of Sir Joshua Reynolds , the founder of the English Royal Academy of Arts , believing that his broad technique

8140-534: The medieval as a major genre, issuing periodic remakes of the King Arthur , William Wallace and Robin Hood stories, adapting to the screen such historical romantic novels as Ivanhoe (1952—by MGM ), and producing epics in the vein of El Cid (1961). More recent revivals of these genres include Robin Hood Prince of Thieves (1991), The 13th Warrior (1999) and The Kingdom of Heaven (2005). While

8250-604: The medieval era. The same impulse manifested itself in the translation of medieval national epics into modern vernacular languages, including Nibelungenlied (1782) in Germany, The Lay of the Cid (1799) in Spain, Beowulf (1833) in England, The Song of Roland (1837) in France, which were widely read and highly influential on subsequent literary and artistic work. The name Nazarene

8360-411: The medieval fights. Their return in 1860 was a sign of fraternal affection and of the now indissoluble union between the two cities, as can be read on the plaque affixed after the return. In 1860, the study of the maritime republics as a unitary phenomenon was introduced in the school curriculum, further popularizing the concept. From that year forward, the high school program required students to address

8470-618: The medieval from these works to produce some of the most commercially successful works of fiction of recent years, sometimes pointing to the absurdities of the genre, as in Terry Pratchett 's Discworld novels, or mixing it with the modern world as in J. K. Rowling 's Harry Potter books. In the second half of the twentieth century interest in the medieval was increasingly expressed through form of re-enactment, including combat reenactment , re-creating historical conflict, armour, arms and skill, as well as living history which re-creates

8580-528: The ministerial indication was also followed up in the history program for technical institutes. That year, Carlo O. Galli claimed in a scholastic textbook that "among all the peoples of Europe, the one who in the Middle Ages rose first to great power" in navigation was the Italian people, and he attributed this to the independence enjoyed by "the maritime republics of Italy, among which Amalfi, Pisa, Genoa, Ancona, Venice, Naples and Gaeta deserve more mention". In 1895,

8690-515: The more generic term of "merchant republic". They were endowed with an articulated system of magistracies, with sometimes complementary, sometimes overlapping competences, which over the centuries showed a decided tendency to change - not without a certain degree of instability - and to centralize power. Thus the government became the privilege of the merchant nobility in Venice (from 1297) and the duke in Amalfi (from 945). However, even Gaeta, which never had

8800-425: The national imagination as an anticipation of the struggles of Italian patriots against foreign rulers. The episode, however, was included in the municipal epic and not in the seafaring one. In the first decades after Italian unification, post- Risorgimento patriotism fueled a rediscovery of the Middle Ages linked to a romantic nationalism , in particular to those aspects that seemed to prefigure national glory and

8910-514: The nineteenth century real and pseudo-medieval symbols were a currency of European monarchical state propaganda. German emperors dressed up in and proudly displayed medieval costumes in public, and they rebuilt the great medieval castle and spiritual home of the Teutonic Order at Marienburg . Ludwig II of Bavaria built a fairy-tale castle at Neuschwanstein and decorated it with scenes from Wagner 's operas, another major Romantic image maker of

9020-406: The other cities were still experiencing the long gestation that would lead them to their autonomy and to follow up on their seafaring vocation. After the 11th century, Amalfi and Gaeta declined rapidly, while Genoa and Venice became the most powerful republics. Pisa followed and experienced its most flourishing period in the 13th century, and Ancona and Ragusa allied to resist Venetian power. Following

9130-458: The other republics in the short list, shifting the imbalance towards the centre-north of the country with its presence. In the 1930s, a list made up of four names was consolidated: Amalfi, Pisa, Genoa and Venice. This finally led to the inclusion of the symbols of the four cities in the Italian Navy's flag. The flag, approved in 1941, would not be adopted until 1947 due to World War II . In 1955,

9240-441: The period of the maritime republics as that history's most glorious phase. At the end of the 19th century, the history of the maritime republics was thus consolidated and consigned to the 20th century. The number "four", which still often occurs today associated with maritime republics, is, as can be seen, not original: the short list of maritime republics was limited to two (Genoa and Venice) or three cities (Genoa, Venice and Pisa);

9350-425: The periods of rise and decline (more or less light colours), determined by the wars won or lost, the commercial colonies in the Mediterranean, economic power, territorial possessions, and periods of temporary subjection to foreign powers. A different colour has been used for Noli to indicate the period of its incomplete independence. The dates placed at the beginning and at the end of each time line respectively indicate

9460-569: The peripheral provinces: the Byzantine Empire, the Holy Roman Empire , and the Papal States . The forms of independence that were created in these cities were varied, and the modern approach to considering political relations, which clearly distinguishes between administrative autonomy and political freedom, makes it difficult to orient itself among them. For this reason, in the table below there are two dates relating to independence: one refers to

9570-454: The point that the following century was called El siglo de los Genoveses . This definition was not due to maritime trade, but to the impressive banking penetration lent by the Bank of Saint George , which made it an authentic world economic power: several European monarchies , such as Spain , were tied to loans from Genoese bankers and its currency, the genovino , became one of the most important in

9680-452: The post-unification cultural climate, it was considered essential for the formation of the modern Italian people to remember that within the maritime republics and municipalities arose the industriousness that inaugurated the new civilization. In the Regia Marina , established immediately after the achievement of national unity and therefore only in 1861, there were heated contrasts between

9790-428: The reign of Queen Victoria there was considerable interest in things medieval, particularly among the ruling classes. The notorious Eglinton Tournament of 1839 attempted to revive the medieval grandeur of the monarchy and aristocracy. Medieval fancy dress became common in this period at royal and aristocratic masquerades and balls and individuals and families were painted in medieval costume. These trends inspired

9900-504: The republics had their own colonies and warehouses in the main Mediterranean ports, except Noli, which used those of the Genoese. If the absence of a strong central authority had been the premise for the birth of the merchant republics, their end was vice versa due to the affirmation of a powerful centralized state. Usually independence could last as long as trade was able to ensure prosperity and wealth, but when these ceased, an economic decline

10010-469: The roots of languages and cultures including English, German, Icelandic and Dutch. Antiquaries of the time believed that languages and cultures were intertwined, and Old English texts, especially Beowulf , were claimed by antiquarians from each linguistic-cultural group as 'their' oldest poem. In England, Rebecca Brackmann argues that an increased interest in Old English and imagined Anglo-Saxon culture

10120-548: The sailor Augusto Vittorio Vecchi , founder of the Italian Naval League and better known as a writer under the pseudonym Jack la Bolina, wrote General History of the Navy , which was widely circulated and described the military exploits of the maritime cities in chronological order of origin and decay, from Amalfi to Pisa, Genoa and Ancona to Venice. In 1899, historian Camillo Manfroni wrote on Italy's maritime history, identifying

10230-401: The social and cultural life of the past, in areas such as clothing, food and crafts. The movement has led to the creation of medieval markets and Renaissance fairs , from the late 1980s, particularly in Germany and the United States of America. Neo-medievalism (or neomedievalism) is a neologism that was first popularized by the Italian medievalist Umberto Eco in his 1973 essay "Dreaming of

10340-506: The sole nexus", and for the leadership of paternalistic " Captains of Industry ". Along with medievalist writers Walter Scott , Robert Southey , and Kenelm Henry Digby , Carlyle was among the "important literary influences" on Young England , a "parliamentary experiment in romanticism which created considerable stir during the eighteen-forties," led by Lord John Manners and Benjamin Disraeli . Young England developed contemporaneously with

10450-402: The struggle for independence. The phenomenon of the "maritime republics" was then reinterpreted, freed from negative prejudice and placed side by side with the glorious history of the medieval communes; thus it also established itself on a popular level. Celebrating history, the Italian maritime cities did not consider their mutual struggles so much as their common seafaring enterprise. In fact, in

10560-478: The supernatural. Beginning with The Castle of Otranto (1764) by Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford , it also included Mary Shelley 's Frankenstein (1818) and John Polidori 's The Vampyre (1819), which helped found the modern horror genre. This helped create the dark romanticism or American Gothic of authors like Edgar Allan Poe in works including " The Fall of the House of Usher " (1839) and " The Pit and

10670-455: The unification, this determined a negative judgment on the maritime cities, because their history of mutual struggles appeared in stark contrast to the spirit of the Risorgimento . The only exception was considered the very difficult and finally victorious resistance of Ancona in the siege of 1173, which the city obtained against the imperial troops of Federico Barbarossa; that victory entered

10780-594: The urging of Carlyle, Ruskin, who identified as both a "violent Tory of the old school" and a "Communist of the old school", adapted this thesis to his theory of political economy in Unto This Last (1860), and to his "Ideal Commonwealth" in Time and Tide (1867), the characteristics of which were derived from the Middle Ages: the guild system , the feudal system, chivalry, and the church. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

10890-412: The various pre-unification navies: Sardinian, Tuscan, papal and Neapolitan. The exaltation of the seafaring spirit that united the maritime republics made it possible to highlight a common historical basis and overcome divisions. This necessitated the removal of ancient rivalries; in this regard, of great significance was the return of chains that had closed Pisa's port, which had been stolen by Genoa during

11000-581: The west it bordered the Duchy of Sorrento ; it also owned Capri , donated by the Byzantines as a reward for having defeated the Saracens at San Salvatore in 872. Furthermore, for only three years (from 831 to 833), the dukes Manso I and John I also had control of the Principality of Salerno , including the whole of Lucania . The Amalfi fleet helped to free the Tyrrhenian Sea from Saracen pirates, defeating them at Licosa (846), at Ostia (849), and on

11110-667: The world. However, the republic was then only independent de jure , because it found itself under the influence of the main neighboring powers, first the French and the Spanish, then the Austrians and the Savoys. The republic collapsed following Napoleon 's first Italian campaign : becoming the Ligurian Republic in 1797, it was annexed to France in 1805 with the second Italian campaign . In 1815,

11220-467: The year in which autonomy began and ended; any intermediate date indicates the year in which de facto independence passed to de jure independence. The notes refer to periods of temporary loss of freedom. The maritime republics reestablished contacts between Europe, Asia and Africa, which were almost interrupted after the fall of the Western Roman Empire ; their history is intertwined both with

11330-407: Was a group of English painters , poets , and critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt , John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti . The three founders were soon joined by William Michael Rossetti , James Collinson , Frederic George Stephens and Thomas Woolner to form a seven-member "brotherhood". The group's intention was to reform art by rejecting what they considered to be

11440-514: Was a result of, and in turn fuelled, political upheaval in the 17th and 18th centuries. Great Seal of the United States In the United States, Anglo-Saxon mythologies persisted, with Thomas Jefferson proposing that Hengist and Horsa were shown on the Great Seal of the United States . Romanticism was a complex artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of

11550-531: Was a sloppy and formulaic form of academic Mannerism. In contrast, they wanted to return to the abundant detail, intense colours, and complex compositions of Quattrocento Italian and Flemish art. The Arts and Crafts movement was an aesthetic movement, directly influenced by the Gothic Revival and the Pre-Raphaelites, but moving away from aristocratic, nationalist and high Gothic influences to an emphasis on

11660-482: Was adopted by a group of early nineteenth-century German Romantic painters who reacted against Neoclassicism and hoped to return to art which embodied spiritual values. They sought inspiration in artists of the Late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance , rejecting what they saw as the superficial virtuosity of later art. The name Nazarene came from a term of derision used against them for their affectation of

11770-457: Was an architectural movement which began in the 1740s in England . Its popularity grew rapidly in the early nineteenth century, when increasingly serious and learned admirers of neo-Gothic styles sought to revive medieval forms in contrast to the classical styles prevalent at the time. In England, the epicentre of this revival, it was intertwined with deeply philosophical movements associated with

11880-507: Was elected consul for the first of three years in a row. Civil wars would follow with the first breaking out in 238, another in 249 followed by a third in 253. From 235 through 284 the average reign of a Roman Emperor was just 18 months, down from average just over 9 years during the first centuries of the Empire. Medievalism In the 1330s, Petrarch expressed the view that European culture had stagnated and drifted into what he called

11990-612: Was the improvement and diffusion of the compass by the Amalfi people and the Venetian invention of the great galley . Navigation owes much to the maritime republics as regards nautical cartography : the maps of the 14th and 15th centuries that are still in use today all belong to the schools of Genoa, Venice, and Ancona. From the East, the maritime republics imported a vast range of goods unobtainable in Europe, which they then resold in other cities of Italy and central and northern Europe, creating

12100-550: Was triggered, ending with the annexation, not necessarily violent, to a strong and organized state. The longevity of the various maritime republics was quite varied: Venice had the longest life, from the High Middle Ages to the Napoleonic era ; Genoa and Ragusa also had a very long history, from the 1000s to the Napoleonic Age; Noli lasted as long, but stopped trading as early as the 15th century. However, Pisa and Ancona had

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