In 1378 Salvestro de Medici leads a revolt of the Ciompi ('clogs', that is, the artisans in the cloth- finishing workshops). The merchant guilds and local nobility aided by mercenary bands fairly quickly overcome it by force and 'attrition', but it leaves its mark in a constitution to all appearance highly 'free' and democratic in that it provides for representation on the governing Signoria of both the 'major' city guilds, or corporations, and a number of 'lesser' ones alongside.

There are also strains between what one might call the cosmopolitan magnates, who comprise the leading members of the wool and finishing and silk and moneychangers' and law guilds (thepopolanigrassi), and at the other end of the citizen scale the 'small man' (the popolo minuto) or workshop masters with no inkling of world affairs or high finance, too'selfish', it is said, to consider the republic's interest as a whole.

There are also the 'ancillary' members of lesser guilds (sottoposti), whose rights and protections are limited, and livelihoods precarious; or, again at the other end of the scale, a landowning country gentry, which on occasion is aligned with one or other faction in the town.

A 'Guelf party' (originally pro-pope, anti-emperor) tends to serve as one coalition grouping of magnates and also middling citizens (mezzani), with conservative aims. But there are also one or two great houses which allow it to be felt that they have strong sympathy for the lower guilds; the Medici are a notable example. The republic, for all its wealth and prestige, is thus in 1400 politically unstable and its social stratification is under a number of strains arising both from the international economy and from its own constitution. In the course of the century the former become more serious; but the latter are disguised or transformed entirely to the benefit of a coalition of magnates dominated by Giovanni's son Cosimo and (in time) his great-grandson Lorenzo the Magnificent.

It is essential to see the Renaissance in this setting: at the outset it concerns only a tiny sector of the population. To perceive this we have only to look at the life and world of one particularly well- documented middling citizen in Florence—Francesco di Marco (1335- 1410), the merchant of Prato so brilliantly evoked by Iris Origo. Francesco, a self-made man and a native of the little satellite town of Prato, migrates to papal Avignon and strikes out in general trade on his own; he returns to Prato, and then becomes a citizen of Florence, only when the revolt of the Ciompi is safely over. Once settled in the big city he assimilates; he is a mezzano with ambitions. He joins the silk guild (suitable for those intent on general import and export business); through agents and factors he trades profitably in Aragon, Venice, Naples; he also joins the money-changers' guild and embarks on a banking venture (interrupted by a recurrence of the plague in 1400). Because his correspondence and books of account survive, we have an extremely accurate view of his daily life and outlook. Like greater men, he invests his surpluses in land around Tuscany and builds a private house in Prato. He keeps a low profile for fear of heavy taxation, and though rich, lives frugally; but like all merchants, he has a certain fastidiousness in clothing. To welcome an old friend he orders a good chicken and a bottle of wine, and notes down the outlay. He works from dawn to night, and demands the same from his score or so of employees, chides inattention to detail, records everything in his double-entry books.

A good Christian, he judges the monks and friars very unsatisfactory custodians of charity; at his death he wills his fortune to good works, but not at their hands. His house, which is well equipped, boasts several sacred pictures and frescoes, supplied by local talent; this is as normal as owning silver forks or painted store- chests, and in any case while in Avignon Francesco has dealt in religious pictures specially imported from Florence. But—and here is the point that catches the eye—he is not remotely interested in what these pictures represent (he leaves that to his factor), and to him they are not even an investment: like other chattels he values them simply at cost, and Iris Origo notes that cost is chiefly accounted for as the price of materials consumed. He treats the painters he hires as the artisans they in fact are; he even sacks them on the job on one occasion, and is sued by their guild for unpaid wages.

This quite wealthy citizen is no worshipper of the arts; he is, though, very close to the ideals of austerity, money-seeking, and level- headedness, which dominate Florence and which arc similarly exhibited by another run-of- the-mill Florentine, Giovanni Morelli (1371- 1441) who leaves behind him a chronicle of his times for the edification of his son. In this world, art is artefact and artists arc artisans. Yet as early as 1446 Brunelleschi will be given a state funeral in the Duomo, the dome of which he built, and by the end of the century the Florentine-trained Michelangelo and Leonardo will behave, and wish to be treated, as though they are no less to be respected than their exalted patrons. 

From a starting point in this world of Florentine business life, paths lead in many directions for individuals as merchants,  politicians, priests, navigators and artists.  The Renaissance in Florence ends with the the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent and the expulsion of the de' Medici family in 1494.