Petrarch's War: Florence and the Black Death in Context

This revisionist account of the economic, literary and social history of Florence in the immediate aftermath of the Black Death connects warfare with the plague narrative. Organised around Petrarch's 'war' against the Ubaldini clan of 1349–1350, which formed the prelude to his meeting and friendship with Boccaccio, William Caferro's work examines the institutional and economic effects of the war, alongside literary and historical patterns. Caferro pays close attention to the meaning of wages in context, including those of soldiers, thereby revising our understanding of wage data in the distant past and highlighting the consequences of a constricted workforce that resulted in the use of cooks and servants on important embassies. Drawing on rigorous archival research, this book will stimulate discussion among academics and offers a new contribution to our understanding of Renaissance Florence. It stresses the importance of short-termism and contradiction as subjects of historical inquiry.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: plague in context: Florence 1349–50; 1. Petrarch's war; 2. The practice of war and the Florentine army; 3. Economy of war at a time of plague; 4. Plague, soldiers' wages, and the Florentine public workforce; 5. The bell ringer travels to Avignon, the cook goes to Hungary: towards an understanding of the Florentine labor force, 1349–50; Epilogue: why two years matter (and the short-term is not inconsistent with the long-term).

About the Author :
William Caferro is Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of History and Professor of Classics and Mediterranean Studies at Vanderbilt University, Tennessee. He has held fellowships at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, Villa I Tatti in Florence and the Italian Academy at Columbia University and, in 2010, he received a Simon R. Guggenheim fellowship. He has written widely on medieval and Renaissance Italy, including Mercenary Companies and the Decline of Siena (1998), The Spinelli of Florence: Fortunes of a Renaissance Merchant Family (2001), John Hawkwood: An English Mercenary in Fourteenth-Century Italy (2006), which won the Otto Gründler Award from the International Medieval Congress, and Contesting the Renaissance (2010).

Review :
'In Petrarch's War, William Caferro magisterially opens a window onto the complexities and unintended consequences of past lived experience, enlisting economic, military, literary, and social history into a densely contextualized snapshot of Florence in the aftermath of the Black Death. In this important book Caferro shows us how the war waged by Florence against the Ubaldini clan in 1349–50 is an integral part of a cultural mosaic that encompasses tesserae as diverse as soldiers' wages and the power plays of intellectuals.' Teodolinda Barolini, Columbia University, New York 'Once again, William Caferro has produced a first-rate book. Based on vigorous and meticulous archival digging, shaped by his acute intelligence, and drawing on his sympathetic but not uncritical knowledge of the existing historiography, Caferro has produced a highly original interpretation of mid-fourteenth-century Florentine history. Cutting through compartmentalized subjects that are often examined in isolation from each other … Caferro has fashioned an analytical narrative that is bound to attract the attention of all scholars of late medieval and early modern Europe … William Caferro can now rightfully claim a place among the most original and productive historians of his generation.' Anthony Molho, European University Institute, Florence 'A strikingly original study that mixes military history, economic history, and literary analysis, Petrarch's War will interest historians across fields and disciplines. Specialists of Renaissance Florence will contend with something new. Anyone grappling with questions of method will find it thought-provoking.' Francesca Trivellato, Yale University, Connecticut 'History is a story that relies on details and imagination. This microhistory is an excellent example of this approach; it sheds new light on three critical years in mid-14th-century Florence: 1348, 1349, and 1350. Readers learn new facets of Petrarch's and Boccaccio's roles in the war with the Ubaldini clan and with each other. Exploration and analysis of archival sources reveal the scope of the Florentine army and its expenses, pay grades, and civilian support. … An exciting read that will force numerous reassessments of the historical art. Highly recommended.' S. Bowman, Choice '… Petrarch's War is an excellent study … the work is absorbing and excellently argued; there is something to learn in every chapter and the historiographic conclusions are worth contemplating at length for anyone interested in our use and study of the past.' Adam Franklin-Lyons, H-Net Reviews 'Caferro's research has, through wide-ranging archival investigation, revealed new things about a very particular moment in Florentine history.' William Landon, Journal of Modern History 'Petrarch's War will be of interest to medievalists who agree that short-termism, contradiction, anomaly, and historical models are research methods to be considered for micro-historical studies, including the conflict and historical consequences leading the city of Florence to attack the Ubaldini clan.' Caterina Agostini, Heliotropia