timeline of classical compositions and political events

However, in the summer of 1348 the Black Death struck, reducing the population by half. Just before the middle of the 14th century, Florence had become a metropolis of about 90,000 people, making it one of the great cities of Europe (alongside Paris, Venice, Milan, and Naples). Political parties grew up along the issues of aggressive expansion and preservation of peace the former policy was embraced by the Blacks (Neri the rich merchants), the latter by the Whites (Bianchi the lesser citizens). The city’s podesta, or chief magistrate and police chief, could be selected only from the major guilds. With a balance between its leading merchant families, Florence was now ruled by its guilds, divided into seven major guilds and a number of minor ones. No one could have guessed what the next hundred years would bring. At the dawning of the 20 th century the world stood on the edge of immense change. The painter Vassily Kandinsky created this image in 1913 entitled, 'Composition 7'. Locally, Florence also added neighbouring cities to its sphere of influence and obliged rival powers-Pisa, Siena, Pistoia, and Arezzo-to become its allies. Artistic expression changed dramatically in the 20th century. From such a foundation, Florentine families, led by the Bardi and the Peruzzi, came to dominate both banking and international merchant business. They took over papal banking monopolies from rivals in nearby Siena and became tax collectors for the pope throughout Europe. Then the resolution in 1266 of a bitter strife between two internal factions oriented respectively toward papal (Guelf) and imperial (Ghibelline) protection resulted in victory for a group of Guelf merchant families in the city (as well as the exile in 1302 of Florence’s greatest poet, Dante Alighieri).

The great irony of Manets reputation as a controversialist is that. In terms of age, he found himself sandwiched between the generation of the great Realists, such as Gustave Courbet, and the Impressionists, most of whom were born in the 1840s. The rise of the Florentine woolen cloth industry and of banking provided a basis of capital. Édouard Manet was born in 1832 into an upper-class family with strong cultural and political ties. 1 & 2) During the 12th and 13th centuries the economic and political power of the city grew steadily.

Timeline of classical compositions and political events