The Color Purple. by Gerry Enck, Docent. 2004 Florence, in the fifteenth century, was a city-state ruling not only
Florence but (with interruptions) Prato, Pistoia, Pisa, Volterra, Cortona, Arezzo, and
their agricultural hinterland. The peasants were not serfs but partly small proprietors,
mostly tenant farmers, who lived in houses of crude cemented stone much as today, and
chose their own village officials govern them in local affairs.Machiavelli did not disdain
to chat and play with these hardy knights of the field, the orchard, or the vine. But the
magistrates of thc cities regulated sales, and, to appease a troublesome proletariat, kept
food prices too low for peasant happiness; so the ancient strife of country and city added
its somber obbligato to the songs of hate that rose from embattled classes within the city
walls. In 1300 Federigo Oricellarii earned his surname by brining from
the East the secret of extracting from lichens a violet pigment (orchella,
archil). This technique revolutionized the dye industry, and made some woolen
manufacturers into what today would be millionaires. In textiles Florence had
already reached by 1300 the capitalistic stage of large investment, central provision of
materials and machinery, systematic division of labor, and
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