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woven. “What in the whole world,” Bruni asked, “is so splendid and magnificent as the architecture of Florence?” “Wherever you go,” he eulogized,
you can see handsome squares and the decorated porticos of the homes of the noble families, and the streets are always thronged with crowds of men … Here large groups of people gather to do their business and enjoy themselves. Indeed, nothing is more pleasant.
    The private houses that lined the streets—“which were designed, built, and decorated for luxury, size, respectability, and especially for magnificence”—were particularly awe inspiring, and Bruni declared that even if he had “a hundred tongues, a hundred mouths, and a voice of iron,” he could “not possibly describe all the magnificence, wealth, decoration, delights, and elegance of these homes.” And above all these houses, all these churches, and all this splendor loomed the imposing edifice of the Palazzo Vecchio, the center of government in Florence. Like an admiral in his flagship, the proud palazzo seemed to Bruni to stand atop the finest city in Italy, looking down approvingly at the abundance of balance, peace, and beauty below.
    It was a sentiment that grew only stronger as the years went by. In his De illustratione urbis Florentiae , published ca. 1583, but most probably written in the last years of the fifteenth century,Ugolino Verino observed that “every traveler arriving in the city of the flower admires the marble houses and the churches textured against the sky, swearing that there is no place more beautiful in all the world.” Indeed, Verino—like Bruni—was acutely conscious that his abilities were insufficient for the task of describing this most awe inspiring of cities. “How can I properly describe the paved and spacious streets,” he asked,
designed in such a way that the traveler’s journey is impeded neither by mud when it rains nor by dust during the summer, so that his shoes are not dirtied? How can I sufficiently praise the grand temple supported by majestic columns consecrated to the Holy Ghost [Santo Spirito], or the Church of San Lorenzo erected by the pious Medici … ? What can one say about the great Cosimo’s magnificent palace, or about the four large bridges crossing theArno, the river which runs through the city before flowing into the Tyrrhenian Sea?
    It was no surprise that—as Verino’s near contemporary the merchantGiovanni Rucellai reported—“many people believe that our age … is the most fortunate period in Florence’s history” or that Verino himself could mock the ancients by claiming that their “Golden Age is inferior to the time in which we now live.”
    It all looks too good to be true. And the fact is that it was too good to be true. Despite the fantastic praise that Salutati, Bruni, and Verino heaped upon Florence, the visible signs of the city’s wealth coexisted with—and even depended upon—conditions that spoke to a very different mode of existence and that ultimately (if indirectly) contributed toward Michelangelo’s broken nose.
    Regardless of its wealth, Florence continually struggled to overcome the unpleasant effects of its thriving mercantile trade. The ostentatious displays of wealth indulged by the city’s merchants were frequently the object of opprobrium, not least from theDominican friarGirolamo Savonarola, whose attacks on the rich concentrated on their luxurious palaces, extravagant clothing, and lavish private chapels. It all struck a discordant note with the standards of living experienced by the overwhelming majority of ordinary Florentines.As mercantile fortunes rose, the wages of the unskilled fell.Poverty was always around the corner. Begging was rife, and crime was endemic. Lacking any clear conception of economics as a distinct sphere of activity, the city government continually and unsuccessfully grappled with vast disparities in wealth, poor standards of living, and rampant disease. For more