7 Comments
User's avatar
Eric Trules's avatar

Thanks for the synthesis of a lot of information and history.

Mark Monaghan's avatar

Tomas, thank you for your post! The research and scholarship are impressive and I learned a lot. I've visited most of the cities you reference, and now I want to revisit with your insights in hand. Cheers!

Ian Temple's avatar

I love that you’ve written this. I actually wrote a very similar piece for my family ahead of traveling there last year, so no one has ever seen it. (Literally, just 20 people or so). It has some slightly different emphases (commercial revolution, positive impact of some instability, need for the money makers to wash away their usurious sins, etc.), I missed the geographic factor, and I never really finished it, but it’s similar in other ways. Loved reading yours. would be curious your thoughts: https://ianrtemple.substack.com/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-florence

Shoni's avatar

Just had a read. Really cool!

Ian Temple's avatar

Nice! Thank you for checking it out! I just re-read it to see how it compares to Tomas' version. His is certainly tighter, but I feel like mine holds up and tells a bit more of the narrative.

When I was working on this for my family, I remember being like... how come no one else seems to have published a piece on this? It seems like a really interesting historical question. Glad that Tomas has changed that.

Shoni's avatar

Yours definitely has more of the story on the ground. Seems ripe for a dozen different Netflix series, hey? Although I'm sure lots of films/ TV shows have been made about aspects of it. The question of why there and why then is so interesting though.

BankerAtLarge's avatar

Excellent write up, Tomas. As usual!

I'm here for the Ninja Turtles reference😀 Also, looking at the guild shields, the Tanners and Shoemakers look related which makes sense but there's likely an article in the similarity between the Judges and the Innkeepers