Mercantilism AND The Italian Renaissance: Essay Sample

How Milan and Rome Differed

Christopher Duggan details the emergence of a new mercantile elite in his book, A Concise History of Italy, as well as its impact on the growth and changes of the local politics and social structures. The uprising of a new class upset the standing social structure, which then upset the political status quo. From the existence of this class, we see number political and social changes in Italy, but they are not necessarily uniform across the country as one might expect.
As Italy neared the year 1100AD, we see autonomy beginning to bloom in the civic incorporations that litter the Italian countryside. The mercantilism that Duggan discusses in this work is largely responsible for that, because the existence of a mercantile class is the only reason there could be a struggle over things like trade or relations between powers. There was something of a uniform growth of change in Italy as the mercantile class comes into its own, but there is no uniformity with regard to the particular nature of that growth between communities, which took on their own flavor of change - some having vastly different approaches to the new circumstances:

“The struggles out of which the communes grew varied in character from

place to place, but in general they were the product of an alliance between
the old military families (milites) and the new social groups and their
supporters (often referred to as the popolo), who found a common cause
in limiting the jurisdiction of the local bishop or count.” (Duggan 38)
But this won’t be a short lived movement. By the 1400s, we see what had been relatively minor eruptions of political change become the Italian Renaissance, but - of course - the path is not simple between these two things.
This desire for autonomy as well as the drive to obtain it happened as new modes of trade between the far east and Europe were explored and began to be used, creating a place for merchants in the Italian economy. This introduction of a new social class ignited something of a class struggle in Italian cities, and it was the origin of a desire to move toward autonomy in some places, such as Milan, because a non ruling class finally had enough power to enter the political arena.
In the city of Milan, the consuls and the bishops worked together well until there came to be a conflict over support for a war intended to secure control of the Alpine passes, which were instrumental in the new trade routes and had even been used by some to invade northern Italy - destroying Milan at one point. This conflict was directly tied to the existence of a mercantile class, as obviously passage ways through the Alps would have been meaningless without the mercantile system in place to use them. It is out of that disagreement, and the resulting tension between merchants and the clergy, that a drive toward autonomy was born. The popes of the time encouraged those with their own struggles against the Norman empire in the south. (Duggan 39)
In other places, such as Rome in the south of the country, it was little more than a new development with which to attempt to reach age old goals that had presented a long standing difficulty, because the power of this new class could be used to influence the Norman situation. Part of this difference can be attributed to the economic differences between these ares: the northern cities, like Milan, being far more prosperous than the central and southern cities, like Rome. The Norman presence in the south is largely responsible for the economic limitations there.
In the city of Rome, the mercantile classes were less prosperous because they were heavily taxed, they lacked the rich land of the north, and the southern ports were beginning to fail in favor of the trade routes that connected Northern Italy with the Mediterranean. The Normans, who were running the show in the south, did not dismiss the importance of the merchants or of trade, but they were far more interested in maintaining their political and personal authorities. (Duggan 40)
So, while the effect is not an immediate, causal relationship, the discovery of trade routes made way for a merchant class to manage them. This merchant class represented a new possibility of the non-Gentry to enter the political arena, and that they did. The existence of this merchant class, as well as the changing needs of the country at large because of the merchant class, drove Italian cities in directions they otherwise would not have gone. This created a very different political climate, which eventually became a very different social climate. These climates looked very little alike in different cities as is the case with Rome and Milan, but it was there nonetheless.

Work Cited

Duggan, Christopher. A Concise History of Italy. Cambridge [England: Cambridge UP, 1994. Print.