Tra decadenza e Rinascenza: spigolature sul Quattrocento a Pisa.
Gerardo De Simone
The fifteenth century was for Pisa an almost apocalyptic age: the glorious maritime Republic, queen of the Mediterranean sea in the past centuries, fell under the dominion of Florence and underwent a dramatic decay which affected demography, economy, culture and art. Nonetheless, eminent “foreign”, Florentine artists created exquisite masterpieces of International Gothic and Early Renaissance art destined to churches or patrons in the city, and its harbor allowed Pisa to remain a strategic centre of commerce. In the second half of the Quattrocento, the archbishop Filippo de’ Medici and Lorenzo il Magnifico promoted many architectural and artistic commissions: a Florentine-oriented development which was abruptly if temporarily interrupted after the descent of Charles VIII of France in Italy in 1494. The event gave Pisans the brief illusion of regaining their lost liberty.