Rome reborn on the Arno: Republican spatialities and the uses of the past

Abstract

Studies on the reception and impact of ancient models in the emergence of Republican civic structures during the Renaissance have adopted, either of two competing models: continuity or reform. The purpose of this article is to engage in this debate by exploring how the ideals of ancient Roman Republicanism were adopted and utilized in the making of new civic spaces and in the formation of institutions in Renaissance Florence. The article examines four key aspects of this transformation: 1) the self-identification of the leaders of Florence with the ancient Romans in Florentine public monuments 2) the reconstruction of administrative spaces and the attempts at realizing the ideals of citizen participation in government; 3) the reformulation of the ideas of Republicanism and popular sovereignty in Florence during the corporatist-republican system exemplified by the guilds; and 4) the emerging ideas of an ideal city, such as those presented by the architect Leon Battista Alberti, and his reinterpretation of ancient Roman ideals. What the article illustrates is the complexity and strategic dynamism of relations that Florence had to not only its own past as a Roman city but to the ideal of ancient Rome and its Republics.

Keywords

• Florence
• spatiality
• Republicanism
• public space
• reception studies