Prosperity or Hard Times in Renaissance Italy?

Thirty-five years ago Robert Lopez, by his own description, “narrowly escaped lynching” at the hands of non-economic historians for proposing that economic depression was a fundamental cause of the cultural outpouring of the Renaissance (Lopez, 1953). Several years later, Lopez took heart that, despite “their occasional retard,” cultural historians were coming round to his view (Lopez and Miskimin, 408-09). Today, the situation is nearly reversed. A growing number of economic historians no longer subscribe to the depression thesis while most non-economic historians do. I will not speculate about whose “retardation” is to blame, but would like to take stock of some issues raised by the depression debate—a debate that transcends economic issues and raises important questions about definitions, periodization, and the cultural implications of economic conditions.