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Middle Age in Tuscany Italy

The first barbarian invasions were just temporary storms. With the Long bard conquest Tuscany started a new era; it reached a political and military prominence as a land bordering with Byzantine dominions. The Long bard settlements in Tuscany were quite large in Lucchesia, Gargagnana, and Lunigiana, near Pistoia, Siena and Chiusi.

The Long bards also established a new arrangement of road nets. Via Cassia, which was too exposed to Byzantine attacks and often blocked by the bog of Chiana, changed its route into the one we have today, through Radicofani, Siena, Valdelsa, Lucca.

This caused the progressive decay of Chiusi, a decline of Florence but some improvement for Siena.

The new route became, together with Flaminia, the most important one in the centre of Italy, used by pilgrims (for this it was know as Via Romea or Francigena) and also by distinguished people.

The route was lined with inns and controlled, along its most dangerous part, by the Abbey of San Salvatore on Mount Amiata, then the largest monastic centre in Tuscany. Gaul domination (774-888) didn't alter the situation. The Long bards were substituted by the Gaul’s or by other German tribes. At the same time the area along the coast suffered from neglect, also because of the raids by the Saracens and Normans from the sea. Only Pisa didn't surrender, maintaining contacts with Corsica and Sardinia. Feudal Tuscany wasn't a unitary political system, especially from the half of XI th century when towns (as Pisa, Siena, Firenze, Pistoia, Arezzo,) began to gain power and to make their own specific requests. Lucca lost power in favour of Pisa that obtained naval victories against the Saracens from Africa and Spain.

At that time Tuscany was enriched by new political and religious ideas (two new religious orders were established, the Camaldulian and the Vallombrosian). Tuscany was changing deeply: the local town authorities gradually established their rule and fought their own wars (Pisa against Lucca, Firenze against Fiesole, and Siena against Arezzo). Feudality rapidly yielded to the expansion movement of the towns. By the XIIth century Tuscany had been prevented neither by the resistance of the bishops nor by the vigorous imperial policy of Federico Barbarossa and Enrico VI.

Until the early decade of XIII th century Pisa was the most developed among Tuscan towns while Lucca slackened. Siena, however, outdid Florence in financial matters, for the speculations of its bankers who were in connection both with the Roman Curia and the sovereigns in France and England.

Florence, however, slowly became the hegemonic leader, developing its industries (mainly textile) and commence. Tensions increased and worsened, while Federico II decided to use the Italian towns as support for his policy against the Papacy. After Federico's II nd death (1250) the popular forces reacted and there were real constitutional change, with the inclusion, in the town government, of a new class: the craftsmen.

The favour won by popular governments, after a period of heavy imperial pressure (by Ghibellines), made the people side with the Guelph. In the decade 1250-1260 Florence was at the head of the Guelph towns. A vigorous government, full of initiative led to the political supremacy of the textile industry and of financial investments, Florence proved to be the first town in the Middle age to experience capitalist enterprise. The economic supremacy of Florence in Tuscany (and the importance it had at an international level as well), was marked, at that time, by the coinage of a golden coin (florin). As for the two old rival towns, Siena and Pisa, the former went into a stage of slow decline. The latter was defeated in a naval battle near Meloria and had to struggle in order to gain some power on the mainland. The supremacy of Florence began to extend also to arts and culture thanks to "dolce style nuovo" and the age of Dante.

It was the end of the Middle Age; a new era, mainly secular and enlighten by a bourgeois mentality was beginning. Root of a new Italian nation flourished; Italy, still lacking a political unity, would for centuries find cohesion in a common language and a literary tradition. In this way the role of Tuscany, and of Florence in particular of dominating the whole Tuscany, since then the history of Florence was the history of the entire region.

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