Conflict and revolt in the name of unity
- Author(s)
- Katalin Prajda, John F. Padgett, Benjamin Rohr, Jonathan Schoots
- Abstract
We analyze public-policy speeches in the Florentine Consulte e Pratiche, immediately prior to the Ciompi Revolt, for signs of elite factional conflict, in the context of self-proclaimed unity. We employ three statistical analyses of these speeches in Latin: namely, scatterplots of word frequencies, Wordfish scaling, and regressions on speech-similarities. Plus we employ two qualitative analyses: a case study of the speeches of Lapo da Castiglionchio, leader of the Parte Guelfa faction, and a close examination of the rhetoric of unity in three important sets of meetings.
Our main finding is this: The runup to the Ciompi Revolt was crystalization of “unity of citizens” in the room of the Consulte e Pratiche and, among the same actors, crystallization of “unity of Guelfs” in the room of the Parte Guelfa, with a lack of recognition in the multivocal speeches in the former of the obvious contradiction with actions in the latter. In our opinion, the tragedy of “the valiant failure of republicanism” in Florence was that intense wishful yearning for unity in speech induced, under background conditions of deep social-class contestation about “Who is Florence?,” an intensification in action of the very revolutionary forces that it most desperately wanted to suppress.- Organisation(s)
- External organisation(s)
- University of Chicago, Harvard University
- Journal
- Poetics. Journal of Empirical Research on Culture, the Media and the Arts
- Volume
- 78
- No. of pages
- 23
- ISSN
- 0304-422X
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2019.101386
- Publication date
- 02-2020
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 601012 Medieval history
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Cultural Studies, Communication, Language and Linguistics, Sociology and Political Science, Literature and Literary Theory, Linguistics and Language
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/8dea3a06-14e4-4124-8aba-5dc666b02993