I’ve been in 15th century Florence, to be precise, colloguing with Petrarch, Pico della Mirandola, Savonarola, Cosimo and Lorenzo de’ Medici, Machiavelli, and others. As a traveler in time and space, I was eager to share my thoughts on the American present, which for them is an unimaginably distant future.
The present tense of verbs, vocabulary for getting around and talking about the weather.
While the Ciompi were clashing with the Grassi, Archbishop Giovanni Visconti’s nephew, Bernabò Visconti (who had allied himself by marriage to Mastino II della Scala of Verona), was constructing a powerful base in Central Italy by conquering papal territory on the Tuscan border.
The Guelph elite might have regained power permanently had the various families been able to work together in harmony, but the Donati, Adimari, and Tosinghi were constantly at odds.
Florence had always been close to Rome, and her relationship with the Papacy would be encouraged by the war which broke out between Florence and Ghibelline Pisa and then with Ghibelline Siena.
I am going forward on the assumption that everyone has received his copy of Living Lanugage.
What we do know is the Florence was settled by Romans in the late Republic but was never as important as nearby Fiesole, much less Lucca or Pisa
Cyril Kornbluth was a popular science fiction writer of the 50’s and 60’s, and a frequent collaborator with the somewhat better known Frederick Pohl.
Machiavelli had to walk a thin and twisting line, balancing his love of republican liberty with the practical realities of an Italy engulfed in strife between the regional powers and the periodic invasions of Barbarians.
Our next program abroad is scheduled to begin roughly, for Oct 16/17 and will last 7 days with the possibility of additional days in Rome.
