Tyler Cowen chats with the remarkable Ada Palmer

About Palmer:

Ada Palmer is a Renaissance historian at the University of Chicago who studies radical free thought and censorship, composes music, consults on anime and manga, and is the author of the acclaimed Terra Ignota sci-fi series, among many other things.

Tyler sat down with Ada to discuss why living in the Renaissance was worse than living during the Middle Ages, how art protected Florence, why she’s reluctant to travel back in time, which method of doing history is currently the most underrated, whose biography she’ll write, how we know what old Norse music was like, why women scholars helped us understand Viking metaphysics, why Diderot’s Jacques the Fatalist is an interesting work, what people misunderstand about the inquisition(s), why science fiction doesn’t have higher social and literary status, which hive she would belong to in Terra Ignota, what the new novel she’s writing is about, and more.

Here's one excerpt from the conversation:

COWEN: There’s so much wonderful art from the Florentine Renaissance, as you quite well know. If you had to try to explain that with as few dimensions as possible in the explanation, why did that happen when and where it did?

PALMER: Two reasons, and I’m going to give the post-Renaissance one first. Because Florence came to be a center of the Renaissance and, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries, came to be a center of the Grand Tour and a place that everyone always had to go visit during the formation of an upper-class education, for the populations that are reading Sherlock Holmes live when it comes out, Florence has always been greatly respected and therefore protected.

Whenever Florence has been in danger from something, those dangers have pulled back. Even during World War II, for example, both Axis and Allies were under strict orders never to damage the artistic legacy in Florence, even as they were allowed to bomb the heck out of Milan and its historic center, Genoa and its historic center, Naples and its historic center.

So, one of the reasons Florence seems to have so much more art than everywhere else is that more of it has survived, which is a decision made by the later centuries by valuing Florence in a unique way, Venice being its rival in that degree of affection.

As for why the art got there in the first place, the short answer is that it’s a defense mechanism. Remember, Renaissance Italy is a bunch of little, tiny city-states, each of them its own country. They all hate their neighbors and are facing constant small-scale warfare, like the wars between Florence and Pisa or between Florence and Siena.

Meanwhile, outside of Italy, there are these large, ambitious, centralized powers, the Kingdom of France, the Kingdom of Aragon, the Ottoman Empire, the what we call Holy Roman Empire — they would just say Empire — to the north that wants to conquer things because it brings in income and it results in acclaim for the monarch. [...]

COWEN: But how does art protect them? How does that explain wonderful art in Florence?

PALMER: Imagine for a moment that you are the French ambassador, and you’re on your way to Rome to meet with the pope because the French king always needs this. Now, if you’re an ambassador, you’re, at minimum, the son of a count because only aristocracy can be ambassadors. On your way south, you’re stopping off in different cities, including Florence.

Now, you already have a terrible opinion of Florence because Florence is a pit of merchants, scum, and villainy. Florence, in order to prevent noblemen from taking over the republic, literally executed everyone in this city who had a drop of royal blood or noble blood. So, it’s just commoners. There’s not a single person in this city who is of sufficient right to be worthy to talk to you. In addition, Florence has such a terrible reputation for sodomy, homosexuality, and perversion that the verb to Florentine is literally the word for anal sex in five different European countries, including in France.

So, you’re on your way to this city, and it’s full of merchant scum and they’re all perverts and there isn’t even anyone there who’s worthy to host you on the way. You’re going to stay with your dad’s banker because he’s the only Florentine whose address you’ve got. You show up in the city, and you reach the city, and suddenly, wait a minute, it’s full of these gorgeous ancient Roman bronzes. Wait a minute, they can’t be ancient Roman bronzes. They look like they’re new, but that technology doesn’t exist. That technology was lost centuries ago.

Then you go to the banker’s house, and he greets you humbly at the door saying, “I’m sorry, my house is unworthy to host your excellency,” and he invites you inside, and you look around the courtyard, and it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before, with these round circular arches that let enormous amounts of light shine in on the gardens and the statues. You’ve never seen this before. Wait, you have seen this before. It looks like the ruins of the Roman villa in the backyard of your father’s castle where you grew up, but that doesn’t exist anymore. Those arts were lost.

In the middle of the courtyard, there’s a gorgeous statue, an ancient Roman statue of Bacchus or Dionysius, and next to it, there’s a brand-new statue that’s obviously new because it hasn’t even turned green yet. The bronze is still ruddy. But that technology, you know, doesn’t exist.

In the corner, there are some men dressed in strange robes speaking a language you’ve never heard, and you say, “What language are they speaking?” The banker says, “Oh, they’re speaking Ancient Greek. They’re Plato scholars.” And you say, “But Ancient Greek is lost, and Plato is lost. How do you have this?” “Oh, we have lots of Ancient Greek here. Look, here’s my grandson, Lorenzo. He’s just written a sonnet in Ancient Greek about the three parts of the soul.” And then, here’s a little boy reciting a sonnet to you about the nature of the soul in Ancient Greek.

You’re like, “Where am I? All of this stuff is impossible.” And that’s the moment that your host, Cosimo de’ Medici, turns to you and says, “Would France like to make an alliance with Florence?”

You could say no, right? You could say, “No, we’re going to come here, we’re going to bring our army. We’re going to mop the floor with you because you’re helpless compared to our giant forces, and we’re going to burn this down and take the gold, and all of this will be gone, and we’ll be rich.”

Or you could say, “Yes. Let’s make an alliance. Send me a bronzesmith and an architect and a Greek tutor and a Plato scholar, and we’re going to bring them to the court in France, and the king is going to do his court like this. Then, when the envoys from England show up, they’re going to feel like uncultured country bumpkins, just like I feel now.” That’s how it’s a defense mechanism, because they are helpless on the military game, but they are so ahead on the culture game that you don’t want to hurt them. You want to befriend them so that you can have the art.

There's much more at the link.