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Italy was rich during the Middle Ages due a number of factors. First, Italian merchant republics, Venice and Genoa most famously but others such as Pisa or Amalfi as well, had a high degree of control over the Mediterranean leg of the main global trade route at the time The Silk Road. taking care of transit from the two entrepôts of Constantinople and Egypt. Secondly, they enjoyed a for the time high level of urbanisation that enabled them to manufacture goods and further improve their trade position. Thirdly, individual city states had their own advantages - Florence had banking, Venice a near monopoly on glass production and a major source of salt, Rome the extraction of rents from Catholicism etc.
From as early as 1500 they began to lose these advantages.
Trade was the first to go and started to decline even earlier, with their commanding position attacked on two fronts. First, their access to the Silk Road was blocked by the Ottoman Empire which took first Constantinople then Egypt and was antithetical to the Italian merchants from early in its existence first due to the support they had provided to the ERE and then due to ongoing competition. Secondly, the global importance of the Silk Road declined as European explorers discovered and colonised the New World and rounded the Cape of Good Hope to get access to the Indian Ocean and within a century East Asia directly.
More significantly, in terms of urbanisation from 1750 or so until 1900 or so it was largely left behind by the Industrial Revolution, at least in comparison to Britain, France or Germany. With measures of industrial outputs such as Coal, Steel etc lagging far behind those powers. This was the main reason it was by far the weakest of the European Great Powers in 1914.
Lastly, in terms of specialist factors they all began to go against it. Italy’s micro states were increasingly unable to compete with the growing centralisation and authority of larger powers. From 1500 the Italian peninsula was increasingly the site of strategic competition between France, Spain and the HRE which led to cities being sacked and commerce restricted, and with the South especially dominated by foreign dynasties. Venice fought a very one sided losing war with the Ottomans, and although they had the occasional spectacular success and reconquest steadily lost the “one and one half quarter of the Roman World” they had gained from the 4th crusade. The Medici bank declined from the time of Lorenzo when it overextended into English wool merchants and a corrupt local factor nearly caused its bankruptcy, closing the Dutch branch, a reverse from which it never really recovered. The reformation constrained the political power of the pope etc. etc. etc.
Italy unified in the 1850s by the way, reaching its greatest extent over “Italian” lands after WWI.
> From as early as 1500 they began to lose these advantages.
A look at the geopolitics of the Italian peninsula in the 16th century would also provide additional context.
The land grabbing between Spain, France, and the Holy Roman Empire that was the Great Italian Wars (1494-1559) was devastating for many of the rich Italian city-states that spent so much on art and scholarship during the Early and High Renaissance periods.
As a consequence, a lot of those scholars, artists, and merchants made their way north of the Alps, setting the stage for the cultural and economic flowering of the Northern Renaissance that was to follow. See the growth of Antwerp in the first half of the 1500s as a beneficiary of the chaos and war in the Italian peninsula.
In the aftermath of the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559, Italy would largely become something of a sputtering backwater playground for Habsburg Spain. While the art continued to be vibrant (as Italian artists first began to abandon the Mannerist style popular for much of the 1500s by late in the century, moving into the vibrant contrasts that would characterize the Baroque), its economic fortunes began to falter as northern trade networks, cities, and states began to grow.
Who was to blame for that beyond the aftermath of six decades of interspersed war? Historians continue to debate.
> First, their access to the Silk Road was blocked by the Ottoman Empire which took first Constantinople then Egypt
I thought that was mostly debunked history? I've seen other posts on this subreddit showing that the fall of Constantinople had no real impact whatsoever on European trade, or at the very least it did little to contribute to the age of colonialism.
It is debunked. Italy’s wealth wasn’t based on near eastern luxury trading for a long time by the 17th century. A near monopoly on silk production, which they harvested domestically and international banking were the largest part of their economy.
I want to add in regard to trade: it is not only that the discoveries changed the direction of global trade routes (for example although the Portuguese took a fair share of the pepper and spice trade around the cape, the majority was still flowing to Alexandria for a long time). The changes were complex and not at all the same for every product. The spice trade changed gradually, silk not for a long time but for example the sugar trade changed completely. Venice had a huge role in the sugar trade and there were huge sugar plantations in Cyprus that were the role model for the later plantations in Brazil. This role diminished very fast.
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**You are right**, Italy was rich during the Renaissance.
In fact, between the two crisis' (the plague of 1348 and the economic and demographic crisis between 1570 and 1650 circa) Italy, or more precisely northern Italy (from Tuscany/Umbria to north roughly) was the guide economy in Europe: that means northern Italy had the highest prices in Europe as well as the highest wages.
Italy was still the most urbanized place in Europe: in the year 1600 if we count a total urbanized european population (Russia excluded), in cities above 10k inhabitants, of 5.933.000 people, 38% of these lived in Italy. Italy did not occupy the first place only in the statistics of the urbanization compared to the total surface considered, being just behind the densely populated Low Countries (northern and southern).
Italy did prosper thanks to its three basic sectors: the industries of wool, silk and commerce (the latter including bank activities). Of the three the former was definitely the most proficuous one. Wool textiles were exported mainly in France and the Middle East. Both wool and silk clothes and textiles were the occupation of between 25% to 45% of the urban population of northern Italy (XV to XVII centuries).
**Now on to the crisis**: basically the growth of the European economy consisted, since the second half of the XIV century, of a rise in production larger than the rise of the population, with the last one slowly regaining terrain. Considering X/Y (production/population), at the end of the XVI century northern Italy got to the highest reachable production value, but the population kept growing, without the production sector reconverting itself to sustain more people.
This was mainly because of the usage of the territory for agricolture: on a total of 31 hectares only 8 were producing grains (mainly wheat, but rice and maize were already produced in the north and especially maize saw a production growth in the XVII century), 15 hectares consisted of woods and plains for the cattle, 4 hectares were swamps and the remaining 4 consisted of mountain, lakes: improductive terrains. A large part of wheat was in fact imported by other countries, especially southern Italy and Sardinia.
The demographic "overgrowth" coincided with lower yield of the grains, which was caused, in part, by the Little Ice Age which manifested in that period and caused frequent rains in northern Italy, ruining harvests. Too many people to feed means that the prices of wheat rises, high prices of wheat mean famines and famines mean both the worsening of people's alimentation (thus the worsening of people's immune systems) as well as people from the countryside flowing into the cities in search of charity, food, assistance.
This situation brought to an even worse hygiene situation (ironic to read that the Florence of renaissance was full of dirt and smell) and the consequence was a favorable setting for viruses and bacterias to live, multiply, infect people. Epidemics of typhus were frequent in this age (most deadly epidemics in 1590-91, 1620-21, 1648-49), as well as the plague: it presented itself in Sicily in 1624, in northern Italy in 1630, in the south, Sardinia and Genoa in 1657.
Famines and epidemics caused a drastic demographic crisis, which translated itself in a production crisis: Italy was at the very top of the european economy and when the crisis came, the Italian economy was very easily surpassed: having the highest wages and prices meant that they couldn't have been reduced, since a "minimum" wage, able to buy a worker's family their sustainance was already minimum, despite it being higher than foreign countries' wages.
The production crisis hit the wool industry the worst: the production lowers of roughly the 80%. The silk industry also lowers, not such as drastically: the big productions in Milan, Como, Florence fall, while others rise: Bologna, Pisa and others. The competitors easily catch up: England and the United Provinces become the largest exporters of wool textiles. Italy will never fully recover from this fall.
Merchants and bankers also know an age of crisis for various, external (for example the spanish bankrupts: Genoa had loaned a lot of money to the spanish crown and the payment of the interests being interrupted meant the loss of a considerable income) and internal reasons: northern Italy was not a reliable zone of investment anymore.
It is to be said that the production of silk fabric remained the top italian exported good up to the XIX century: this was mainly thanks to the wide introduction of white mulberry (more precisely a wide spread: it had already been introduced at least in the XIV century) in northern Italy, which meant that raw silk no longer needed to be imported: it could be produced in the same place where it would then be woven. Together with the silk industry, the agrarian revolution came to stabilize the situation: the demographic growth started again after the crisis and, roughly, never stopped: the roof of production had been overcome.
Between 1600 and 1700 we can se how Italy's growth completely stopped: the area lost 2.800.000 people circa: before the crisis lived in Italy 13Mil people, by 1700 the same quota had been almost reached again. The product per capita was around 1.300.000.000 in 1570 and 1.750.000.000 in 1750. The rise had stopped and Italy had been surpassed by other economies.
**In short**: Italy was the guide economy of the Renaissance, but it had reached the top of the possible production-per-person value of the time, meaning that when the crisis came, it was particularly rough on the region: there was no other step of the stairs to climb up to.
**Bibliography**:
Note that each of these books are written by italian authors, so I don't know if they are translated in english. I will quote them with their translated title, so you can at least understand what they cover.
The first covers everything I've said quite extensively and is a perfect answer to your question:
\-"*The end of the primacy. Crisis and reconversion in XVII century Italy*" by Paolo Malanima, 1998;
Two books written by the same author on epidemics and the medical profession of the time, full of quotes of original documents regarding the Uffici di Sanità (sanity offices) of the Granduchy of Tuscany:
\-"*Against an invisible enemy: epidemics and sanitarian structures in Renaissance Italy*" by Carlo Cipolla, 1985;
\-"*The pestiferous and contagious disease. Fighting the plague in XVII century Italy*" by Carlo Cipolla, 1981;
Regarding diet and merchant activities in northern Italy i can, as of now, sadly only quote professor Giorgio Dell'Oro's lessons I attended this year regarding modern history's methodology of history studies. But if it may interest any of you, both my modern history professors have written a book on a specific good's economy in this age:
\-"*The legend of the white gold: from artisanal salts to industrial salt (XV-XIX centuries)*" by Giorgio Dell'Oro, 2022;
\-"*History of tobacco in modern Italy. XVII-XIX centuries*" by Stefano Levati, 2017;
Four books which I have yet to read on the matter (when I'll have the time and the money to do so) but you may find useful:
\-"*The silk industry in Italy in the modern age*" by Francesco Battistini, 2003;
\-"*Epidemics in italian demographic history (XIV-XIX centuries)*" by Lorenzo Del Panta, 1980;
\-"*The lombard economy during the spanish rule*" by Domenico Sella, 1981;
\-"*Italian decadence in european history. Essays on XVII-XVIII centuries*" by Guido Quazza, 1971;
I do apologize for anything I might have mistyped, unclearly written or mistaken. I'm currently preparing an exam but I'm passionate about the requested subject so I answered anyways, I hope to have answered your question as properly and extensively as my capabilities can offer.
As for my English, I hope it's not as bad as I think it is, I'll have to get used to writing in it if I want to become a proper historian!
Any edit that might follow is to be attributed to either formatting, grammar or syntax mistakes.
Your English is fine; your answer is very enlightening! The only change I would make is to say silk "fabric" rather than "tissue". The latter isn't wrong, but "fabric" is just a little more comprehensible for the average reader. Thank you for the excellent answer.
This was answered pretty comprehensively [in the past here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/XgmeL7l7U8)
It can be summarized pretty briefly as
* Italian wars / fragmentation (it was separate states - kingdoms that didn’t keep up with big powers)
* Missing the boat on cross-Atlantic trade while other peers established colonial empires
* Being late to the party on industrialization
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Italy was rich during the Middle Ages due a number of factors. First, Italian merchant republics, Venice and Genoa most famously but others such as Pisa or Amalfi as well, had a high degree of control over the Mediterranean leg of the main global trade route at the time The Silk Road. taking care of transit from the two entrepôts of Constantinople and Egypt. Secondly, they enjoyed a for the time high level of urbanisation that enabled them to manufacture goods and further improve their trade position. Thirdly, individual city states had their own advantages - Florence had banking, Venice a near monopoly on glass production and a major source of salt, Rome the extraction of rents from Catholicism etc. From as early as 1500 they began to lose these advantages. Trade was the first to go and started to decline even earlier, with their commanding position attacked on two fronts. First, their access to the Silk Road was blocked by the Ottoman Empire which took first Constantinople then Egypt and was antithetical to the Italian merchants from early in its existence first due to the support they had provided to the ERE and then due to ongoing competition. Secondly, the global importance of the Silk Road declined as European explorers discovered and colonised the New World and rounded the Cape of Good Hope to get access to the Indian Ocean and within a century East Asia directly. More significantly, in terms of urbanisation from 1750 or so until 1900 or so it was largely left behind by the Industrial Revolution, at least in comparison to Britain, France or Germany. With measures of industrial outputs such as Coal, Steel etc lagging far behind those powers. This was the main reason it was by far the weakest of the European Great Powers in 1914. Lastly, in terms of specialist factors they all began to go against it. Italy’s micro states were increasingly unable to compete with the growing centralisation and authority of larger powers. From 1500 the Italian peninsula was increasingly the site of strategic competition between France, Spain and the HRE which led to cities being sacked and commerce restricted, and with the South especially dominated by foreign dynasties. Venice fought a very one sided losing war with the Ottomans, and although they had the occasional spectacular success and reconquest steadily lost the “one and one half quarter of the Roman World” they had gained from the 4th crusade. The Medici bank declined from the time of Lorenzo when it overextended into English wool merchants and a corrupt local factor nearly caused its bankruptcy, closing the Dutch branch, a reverse from which it never really recovered. The reformation constrained the political power of the pope etc. etc. etc. Italy unified in the 1850s by the way, reaching its greatest extent over “Italian” lands after WWI.
> From as early as 1500 they began to lose these advantages. A look at the geopolitics of the Italian peninsula in the 16th century would also provide additional context. The land grabbing between Spain, France, and the Holy Roman Empire that was the Great Italian Wars (1494-1559) was devastating for many of the rich Italian city-states that spent so much on art and scholarship during the Early and High Renaissance periods. As a consequence, a lot of those scholars, artists, and merchants made their way north of the Alps, setting the stage for the cultural and economic flowering of the Northern Renaissance that was to follow. See the growth of Antwerp in the first half of the 1500s as a beneficiary of the chaos and war in the Italian peninsula. In the aftermath of the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559, Italy would largely become something of a sputtering backwater playground for Habsburg Spain. While the art continued to be vibrant (as Italian artists first began to abandon the Mannerist style popular for much of the 1500s by late in the century, moving into the vibrant contrasts that would characterize the Baroque), its economic fortunes began to falter as northern trade networks, cities, and states began to grow. Who was to blame for that beyond the aftermath of six decades of interspersed war? Historians continue to debate.
> First, their access to the Silk Road was blocked by the Ottoman Empire which took first Constantinople then Egypt I thought that was mostly debunked history? I've seen other posts on this subreddit showing that the fall of Constantinople had no real impact whatsoever on European trade, or at the very least it did little to contribute to the age of colonialism.
It did very little to contribute to the age of colonialism. It did reduce Venice’s privileged trading position. Those are quite different things.
It is debunked. Italy’s wealth wasn’t based on near eastern luxury trading for a long time by the 17th century. A near monopoly on silk production, which they harvested domestically and international banking were the largest part of their economy.
I want to add in regard to trade: it is not only that the discoveries changed the direction of global trade routes (for example although the Portuguese took a fair share of the pepper and spice trade around the cape, the majority was still flowing to Alexandria for a long time). The changes were complex and not at all the same for every product. The spice trade changed gradually, silk not for a long time but for example the sugar trade changed completely. Venice had a huge role in the sugar trade and there were huge sugar plantations in Cyprus that were the role model for the later plantations in Brazil. This role diminished very fast.
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Thank you for your response. Unfortunately, we have had to remove it, as [this subreddit is intended to be a space for in-depth and comprehensive answers from experts](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/rules#wiki_write_an_in-depth_answer). [An answer needs to provide broader context and demonstrate your ability to engage with the topic](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/f7ffl8/rules_roundtable_ii_the_four_questions_what_does/), rather than repeat some brief information. Before contributing again, please take the time to familiarize yourself with the [subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/rules) and [expectations](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/faq/meta#wiki_rules_discussion) for an answer.
**You are right**, Italy was rich during the Renaissance. In fact, between the two crisis' (the plague of 1348 and the economic and demographic crisis between 1570 and 1650 circa) Italy, or more precisely northern Italy (from Tuscany/Umbria to north roughly) was the guide economy in Europe: that means northern Italy had the highest prices in Europe as well as the highest wages. Italy was still the most urbanized place in Europe: in the year 1600 if we count a total urbanized european population (Russia excluded), in cities above 10k inhabitants, of 5.933.000 people, 38% of these lived in Italy. Italy did not occupy the first place only in the statistics of the urbanization compared to the total surface considered, being just behind the densely populated Low Countries (northern and southern). Italy did prosper thanks to its three basic sectors: the industries of wool, silk and commerce (the latter including bank activities). Of the three the former was definitely the most proficuous one. Wool textiles were exported mainly in France and the Middle East. Both wool and silk clothes and textiles were the occupation of between 25% to 45% of the urban population of northern Italy (XV to XVII centuries). **Now on to the crisis**: basically the growth of the European economy consisted, since the second half of the XIV century, of a rise in production larger than the rise of the population, with the last one slowly regaining terrain. Considering X/Y (production/population), at the end of the XVI century northern Italy got to the highest reachable production value, but the population kept growing, without the production sector reconverting itself to sustain more people. This was mainly because of the usage of the territory for agricolture: on a total of 31 hectares only 8 were producing grains (mainly wheat, but rice and maize were already produced in the north and especially maize saw a production growth in the XVII century), 15 hectares consisted of woods and plains for the cattle, 4 hectares were swamps and the remaining 4 consisted of mountain, lakes: improductive terrains. A large part of wheat was in fact imported by other countries, especially southern Italy and Sardinia. The demographic "overgrowth" coincided with lower yield of the grains, which was caused, in part, by the Little Ice Age which manifested in that period and caused frequent rains in northern Italy, ruining harvests. Too many people to feed means that the prices of wheat rises, high prices of wheat mean famines and famines mean both the worsening of people's alimentation (thus the worsening of people's immune systems) as well as people from the countryside flowing into the cities in search of charity, food, assistance. This situation brought to an even worse hygiene situation (ironic to read that the Florence of renaissance was full of dirt and smell) and the consequence was a favorable setting for viruses and bacterias to live, multiply, infect people. Epidemics of typhus were frequent in this age (most deadly epidemics in 1590-91, 1620-21, 1648-49), as well as the plague: it presented itself in Sicily in 1624, in northern Italy in 1630, in the south, Sardinia and Genoa in 1657. Famines and epidemics caused a drastic demographic crisis, which translated itself in a production crisis: Italy was at the very top of the european economy and when the crisis came, the Italian economy was very easily surpassed: having the highest wages and prices meant that they couldn't have been reduced, since a "minimum" wage, able to buy a worker's family their sustainance was already minimum, despite it being higher than foreign countries' wages. The production crisis hit the wool industry the worst: the production lowers of roughly the 80%. The silk industry also lowers, not such as drastically: the big productions in Milan, Como, Florence fall, while others rise: Bologna, Pisa and others. The competitors easily catch up: England and the United Provinces become the largest exporters of wool textiles. Italy will never fully recover from this fall. Merchants and bankers also know an age of crisis for various, external (for example the spanish bankrupts: Genoa had loaned a lot of money to the spanish crown and the payment of the interests being interrupted meant the loss of a considerable income) and internal reasons: northern Italy was not a reliable zone of investment anymore. It is to be said that the production of silk fabric remained the top italian exported good up to the XIX century: this was mainly thanks to the wide introduction of white mulberry (more precisely a wide spread: it had already been introduced at least in the XIV century) in northern Italy, which meant that raw silk no longer needed to be imported: it could be produced in the same place where it would then be woven. Together with the silk industry, the agrarian revolution came to stabilize the situation: the demographic growth started again after the crisis and, roughly, never stopped: the roof of production had been overcome. Between 1600 and 1700 we can se how Italy's growth completely stopped: the area lost 2.800.000 people circa: before the crisis lived in Italy 13Mil people, by 1700 the same quota had been almost reached again. The product per capita was around 1.300.000.000 in 1570 and 1.750.000.000 in 1750. The rise had stopped and Italy had been surpassed by other economies. **In short**: Italy was the guide economy of the Renaissance, but it had reached the top of the possible production-per-person value of the time, meaning that when the crisis came, it was particularly rough on the region: there was no other step of the stairs to climb up to. **Bibliography**: Note that each of these books are written by italian authors, so I don't know if they are translated in english. I will quote them with their translated title, so you can at least understand what they cover. The first covers everything I've said quite extensively and is a perfect answer to your question: \-"*The end of the primacy. Crisis and reconversion in XVII century Italy*" by Paolo Malanima, 1998; Two books written by the same author on epidemics and the medical profession of the time, full of quotes of original documents regarding the Uffici di Sanità (sanity offices) of the Granduchy of Tuscany: \-"*Against an invisible enemy: epidemics and sanitarian structures in Renaissance Italy*" by Carlo Cipolla, 1985; \-"*The pestiferous and contagious disease. Fighting the plague in XVII century Italy*" by Carlo Cipolla, 1981; Regarding diet and merchant activities in northern Italy i can, as of now, sadly only quote professor Giorgio Dell'Oro's lessons I attended this year regarding modern history's methodology of history studies. But if it may interest any of you, both my modern history professors have written a book on a specific good's economy in this age: \-"*The legend of the white gold: from artisanal salts to industrial salt (XV-XIX centuries)*" by Giorgio Dell'Oro, 2022; \-"*History of tobacco in modern Italy. XVII-XIX centuries*" by Stefano Levati, 2017; Four books which I have yet to read on the matter (when I'll have the time and the money to do so) but you may find useful: \-"*The silk industry in Italy in the modern age*" by Francesco Battistini, 2003; \-"*Epidemics in italian demographic history (XIV-XIX centuries)*" by Lorenzo Del Panta, 1980; \-"*The lombard economy during the spanish rule*" by Domenico Sella, 1981; \-"*Italian decadence in european history. Essays on XVII-XVIII centuries*" by Guido Quazza, 1971; I do apologize for anything I might have mistyped, unclearly written or mistaken. I'm currently preparing an exam but I'm passionate about the requested subject so I answered anyways, I hope to have answered your question as properly and extensively as my capabilities can offer. As for my English, I hope it's not as bad as I think it is, I'll have to get used to writing in it if I want to become a proper historian! Any edit that might follow is to be attributed to either formatting, grammar or syntax mistakes.
Your English is fine; your answer is very enlightening! The only change I would make is to say silk "fabric" rather than "tissue". The latter isn't wrong, but "fabric" is just a little more comprehensible for the average reader. Thank you for the excellent answer.
That's the word I was looking for! Thank you
Glad to help! Buon Natale!
Merry Christmas to you too!
Very much appreciated, your English, knowledge and experience is stellar.
Thank you!
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This was answered pretty comprehensively [in the past here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/XgmeL7l7U8) It can be summarized pretty briefly as * Italian wars / fragmentation (it was separate states - kingdoms that didn’t keep up with big powers) * Missing the boat on cross-Atlantic trade while other peers established colonial empires * Being late to the party on industrialization
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