The fruit of liberty: political culture in the Florentine Renaissance, 1480-1550 9780674724525, 9780674726390

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I TATTI STUDIES IN ITALIAN RENAISSANCE HISTORY

Sponsored by Villa I Tatti Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies Florence, Italy

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The FRUIT of LIBERTY POLITICAL CULTURE IN

THE FLORENTINE RENAISSANCE, 1480-1550

NICHOLAS SCOTT BAKER

HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England 2013

Copyright © 2013 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Baker, Nicholas Scott, 1975—

The fruit of liberty : political culture in the Florentine Renaissance, 1480-1550 / Nicholas Scott Baker. pages cm. — (I Tatti studies in Italian Renaissance history) Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-674-72452-5 (alk. paper) 1. Florence (Italy) —Politics and government—1421—-1737. I. Title. DG738.13.B35 2013

945 .51106—dc23 2012051725

Non é il frutto delle liberta, né il fine al quale le furono trovate, che ognuno governi; perché non debbe governare se non chi é atto e lo merita. (The fruit of liberties and the end for which they were founded is not that everyone governs; since no one should govern except the able and deserving.) FRANCESCO GUICCIARDINI, Ricordi (ca. 1530)

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Contents

List of Illustrations ix

Preface xi Introduction States and Status in the Florentine Renaissance 1

1 Imagining Florence The Civic World of the Late Fifteenth Century 15

2 Great Expectations The Place of the Medici in the Office-Holding Class, 1480-1527 49

3 Defending Liberty The Climacteric of Republican Florence 98

4 Neither Fish nor Flesh The Difficulty of Being Florentine, 1530-1537 142

5s Reimagining Florence The Court Society of the Mid-Sixteenth Century 189

Conclusion Florence and Renaissance Republicanism — 228

Appendix 1: A Partial Reconstruction of the

Office- Holding Class of Florence, ca. 1500 235 Appendix 2: Biographical Information 254

Notes 279 Acknowledgments 357

Index 359

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Illustrations

1.1. Domenico Ghirlandaio, Confirmation of the Rule of

Saint Francis by Pope Honorius III (ca. 1479-1485) 24 1.2. Domenico Ghirlandaio, The Resurrection of the Roman

Notary’s Son (ca. 1479-1485) 25

(ca. 1485-1489) 27

1.3. Domenico Ghirlandaio, Appearance of the Angel to Zacharias

(ca. 1490) 29

1.4. Filippino Lippi, The Madonna Appears to Saint Bernard

1.5. Benozzo Gozzoli, Procession of the Magi—east wall (ca. 1459) 20

(ca. 1485-1489) 42 (ca. 1485-1489) 43

1.6. Domenico Ghirlandaio, The Birth of the Virgin—detail

1.7, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Visitation of the Virgin—detail

(ca. 1488) 44

1.8. Domenico Ghirlandaio, Francesco Sassetti and His Son Teodoro

2.1. Piero di Cosimo, The Liberation of Andromeda (1513) 66

(ca. 1475-1476) 84

2.2. Francesco Botticini, The Assumption of the Virgin—detail 2.3. Andrea del Sarto, Scenes from the Life of San Filippo Benizzi:

A Boy Is Healed by Touching the Saint’s Clothes (1510) 85

x List of Ulustrations 2.4. Pontormo, Joseph with Jacob in Egypt—detail (ca. 1518) 86

2.5. Pontormo, Portrait of Cosimo il Vecchio (ca. 1519) 87

(1528-1530) 19 3.2. Donatello, David (1409) 120 3.1. Pontormo, Portrait of a Halberdier (Francesco Guardi?)

(ca. 1528-1529) 123

3.3. Pontormo, Madonna with Child, Saint Anne, and Four Saints

3.4. Pontormo, Madonna with Child, Saint Anne, and Four

Saints—detail (ca. 1528-1529) 125

4.1. Bronzino, Portrait of Ugolino Martelli (ca. 1536-1537) 176 4.2. Michelangelo Buonarroti, Tomb of Giuliano de’ Medici,

Duke of Nemours—detail (1526-1533) 177 43. Bronzino, Portrait of a Lady in Red (ca. 1533) 180

(1546-1548) 206

5.1. Francesco Salviati, Portrait of a Florentine Nobleman

(ca. 1543-1548) 207

5.2. Francesco Salviati, Portrait of a Man with a Sword

Preface

All translations are my own except where noted. The original text of archival and manuscript material appears in the endnotes. The Florentine year began on 25 March rather than 1 January. All dates in both the text and the notes, however, appear in the modern style. The book epigraph is from Francesco Guicciardini, Opere inedite di Francesco Guicciardini, vol. 1 (Florence: Barbera, Bianchi e Comp., 1857), 124. The translation is my own.

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THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY

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Introduction States and Status in the Florentine Renaissance

ae ENDEMIC WARFARE AND POLITICAL TURMOIL marked the de-

cades between 1494 and 1559 in Italy, as the peninsula became the principal battleground between the dynastic and territorial ambitions of the Valois kings of France and the Trastamara and (after 1516) Habsburg kings of Spain. The city-state system of the fifteenth century collapsed, its conceits of power, influence, and European significance revealed as inadequate in the face of the economic and military might of the ultramontane monarchies. The political map of Italy shifted several times as previously independent states became the possessions or dependents of new masters, as new states arose, and old

ones altered regimes or institutions. The Duchy of Milan and the Kingdom of Naples fell under the government of Habsburgs, ruled by representatives of an absent overlord. The Republic of Venice lost, for a time, the entirety of its empire on the Italian mainland. In Rome, an imperial army humbled the papacy and brutally sacked the city. The experience of Florence in these years ranked among the most volatile: the city oscillated between more and less exclusive forms of republican government, endured several violent regime changes, and

2 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY came close to sack by foreign armies on no fewer than three separate occasions. This turmoil culminated in the collapse of the 250-year-old Florentine republic and the creation of a principality in its place. In 1529, the exiled Medici family—which had dominated Florence for the better part of a century—formed an alliance with Emperor Charles V. In August 1530, after a siege lasting ten months, the city’s government

surrendered to the imperial commander and accepted the return to power of the Medici. During the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the family had maintained its position by manipulating but not abandoning the republican institutions and traditions of Florence. In 1532, however, the new regime permanently altered the government of the city, abolishing the republican structures and creating a hereditary Medici principality. This book examines how this change in state occurred in cultural

terms. My object of study is the political culture of the Florentine office-holding class during the first half of the sixteenth century. I ex-

plore how it changed in dialogue with the institutional shift from a republican to a monarchical form of government, but more importantly how it stayed the same. The court society of the Medici principato

did not destroy or replace the civic world of the fifteenth-century republic in Florence; rather the former evolved from the latter. Concepts central to the civic republican tradition—liberty, public service, the common good—served to create, promote, and bolster the Medici principality in the 1530s and 1540s. A continuity of language and images, as well as of the men holding offices, existed from the late fifteenth to mid-sixteenth centuries in Florence. The office-holding class did not abandon the elements of republicanism that had been central to their social identity for over two centuries. Instead, the majority of the city elite’s reconceptualized their understandings of liberty, public service, and the common good in new ways. These reconceived meanings aided the social and cultural transition of the office-holding class from citizens into courtiers, as well as furthering the creation of the new princely government.

This cultural continuity suggests that Renaissance republics and principalities existed as two points on a continuum of political experi-

Introduction 3 ence rather than inhabiting opposite and contrary ends of an institutional and philosophical spectrum. This implies two important hypotheses. First, that republics and monarchies in early modern Europe were far closer in terms of political culture than the dominant paradigm for understanding Renaissance politics has depicted them to be.’ Second, that historians should perhaps consider the politico-cultural legacy of Renaissance republicanism as extending beyond “the Atlantic republican tradition,” beyond the emergence of participatory government, to its antithesis: the authoritarian state.* The phrase authori-

tarian state in my interpretation refers not to state building or the emergence of proto-modern states under the monarchies of ancien régime Europe but to a specific political culture: nonparticipatory, centralized, and antidemocratic. The experience of Florence during the first half of the sixteenth century helps to explain the continuing attraction of authoritarianism in Europe up to the mid-twentieth century. It places the authoritarian state back within the broader Western tradition, demonstrating that such polities were not aberrations to this tradition, not led astray on some misguided Sonderweg, but an essential part of Europe’s Renaissance inheritance. The cultural roots of the authoritarian state lie in the same soil that produced the liberal, participatory system. They both partake of a common cultural heritage. The end of the Florentine republic has attracted political and historical interest since the sixteenth century itself, due in large part to the profile of two Florentine thinkers: Niccolo Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini. Both members of the office-holding class who lived through most of the city’s period of turmoil (Machiavelli died in 1527, Guicciardini in 1540), they distilled their experiences into political and historical writings. In these works they grappled particularly

with the need to reconcile the republican principles of liberty and equality with the requirements of social order and effective government. Machiavelli’s death allowed him to avoid the climacteric of Florence’s political turmoil and the choices that accompanied it. His voice remained essentially (The Prince notwithstanding) a proponent of civic, if militant and imperial, republicanism. Guicciardini, in contrast, became in his later years one of the leading apologists for the Medici

4 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY principality and its principal theoretician, suggesting in 1536 that it represented the true fruit of Florentine liberty.4 In historiographical terms, Machiavelli has overshadowed Guicciardini, attracting the lion’s share of attention. This is not surprising. His simple yet elegant prose, his often confronting ideas, and his oc casionally provocative phrasing make Machiavelli a continuing and continual object of scholarly fascination and interest. But the issue that makes Machiavelli so attractive to historians, his startling originality, also seems to suggest that he is a less than ideal representative of the mental world of his contemporaries. As a result, Machiavelli appears rarely and only in passing in the following pages. Guicciardini—with his ambiguity, his sophistry, his more nakedly self-serving ambitions— presents a better candidate as spokesperson to posterity for the officeholding class of the early sixteenth century. This book aims to explain

these less-than-attractive traits, to explain how a man so obviously convinced of his own suitability for governance and, therefore, so com-

mitted to an idea of republican (if aristocratic) government in which he could exercise his talents became one of the principal accessories to the creation of the Medici principality. It does so by analyzing the social, cultural, and political world in which Guicciardini and others of his generation (born in the last two decades of the fifteenth century) lived. It examines the behavior and practices of the office-holding class, revealed in private letters, diaries, and commissioned works of art,

as they changed between the late-fifteenth and mid-sixteenth centuries. These sort of private sources are essential for the examination of Florentine political culture because, with the exception of the consulte e pratiche (an ad hoc advisory body), the records of the formal, political

institutions do not include discussion and debate, only the decisions made. As a result, they have limited value as evidence for behavior and

expectations. By contrast, the correspondence of members of the office-holding class is replete with political information and opinion. These letters provide the most valuable record of political culture, of the interests, values, and expectations of the city’s elite in the functioning of the government.

Introduction 5 In undertaking this analysis I am engaging with and building on two significant currents of historical research: the literature on Renaissance republicanism and that on the changes in state structures and political thought that accompanied the end of the Florentine republic. Since the mid-twentieth century, study of Florence’s republican

tradition has flourished. In recent decades, one prominent strand of historical interest—most commonly associated with, but not restricted to, the so-called Cambridge School—has focused on the contribution that the city’s republicanism had on the development of later political ideas and practices in Europe and its colonies. The most famous instance of this discussion is John Pocock’s examination of the Florentine influence on what he called “the Atlantic republican tradition”— the emergence of republican thought in seventeenth-century England

and eighteenth-century America5 Intellectual historians have arsued that—despite its eventual demise—the Florentine republic and Italian Renaissance republicanism more broadly constituted an essential stepping-stone to the development of pluralist, participatory democracies in Western Europe and North America. In so doing, they have demonstrated that the civic governments of north-central Italy from the thirteenth through the sixteenth centuries constituted an important moment in the development of the Western political tradition and its accompanying values of equality, individualism, selfgovernment, and civic responsibility.°

This recent focus on Florentine republicanism has to a certain extent obscured an earlier historiographical trend that saw the creation of the Medici principality as a central moment in the development of modern political structures in Europe. This eclipse occurred, at least in part, because much of the scholarship on Renaissance republics appeared in reaction to these older studies that had devalued or ignored the contribution of republicanism. Rudolf von Albertini, in whose footsteps I am walking in writing this book, situated his study of the end of the Florentine republic in terms of explaining the emergence of both the modern state and seventeenth-century absolutism.” Albertini saw this development as representing a clear break with the republican

6 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY tradition, describing it as the substitution of what he called a CounterReformation mentality for the Renaissance one.® Antonio Anzilotti, in whose footsteps Albertini himself walked, saw the seeds of monarchical absolutism under the Medici in the inadequacies of the republican constitution.? However, he too represented the shift from republic to principality, when it actually occurred, as a rupture and not in terms of

continuity. In the final chapter of his study, Anzilotti’s focus shifts abruptly from the Florentine elite of the republic to the secretaries and appointed ministers of the principato. This book, in a sense, combines and builds upon these two traditions. I am taking the idea of the enduring legacy and long-term historical significance of the Florentine republic from the scholars of republicanism but using this to describe—in a new way—the changes in

state structure that Anzilotti and Albertini examined. In this way, I will show how this fundamental and dramatic reorganization of Florence’s political institutions occurred with the participation of the office-holding class, through dialogue and consensus. The civilian magistrates of Renaissance Florence agreed to and aided the changes in state and status that occurred in the first half of the sixteenth century because they saw them as the best means of preserving the traditional values and expectations of the republican tradition.

The word stato, used by Renaissance Florentines and usually translated

into English as “state,” had multiple if interrelated meanings in the sixteenth century.'° Only very rarely, however, did it occur in Florentine writings in the sense that predominates today: referring to a territory coterminous with, as well as the apparatus of, the monopoly of violence and rule of law exercised by a sovereign government. In theoretical writings, stato referred to the constitution or form of govern-

ment. Authors from the late Middle Ages used it to translate and explain Aristotle’s tripartite division of government into monarchies, aristocracies, and democracies. From the fourteenth century, Florentines identified their political system as a stato popolare, a republic. In more concrete terms, they used the word as a synonym for the govern-

Introduction 7 ment itself, in an institutional sense, referring collectively to the actual offices and magistracies. From this meaning stato evolved to refer also to those who controlled these institutions of government, referring in

this case to the ruling group or regime. Hence the proliferation of phrases such as avere lo stato (having the state), while those who lost position within the reggimento could be spoken of having lost the state. To speak of the stato, then, meant to refer, respectively or simultaneously, to a type of government, the institutions of governance, and those who governed. It spoke to a social as well as a political place: to status as well as to state.

In Florence, as across Europe during the early modern period more broadly, the fundamental sociopolitical distinction divided the city into two classes: those permitted by statute and tradition to participate in the government, who could potentially avere lo stato—the officeholding class—and those excluded from the practice of governance: the populo minuto (little people). The line of demarcation between these two

groups was citizenship: a gendered, social, and economic concept in Renaissance Florence. Only men, over thirty years of age, enrolled in one the city’s twenty-one guilds, and who paid their taxes could become citizens. These mature males constituted the citizenry of the city, the office-holding class: the minority of Florence’s actual population privileged with the possibility of participating in the government. The distinction of participation—the legal possibility of it, not necessarily its actual practice—is an important one. The office-holding class was not the political class, a term too readily used by historians discussing early modern Europe. The popolo minuto, although excluded from

government, were certainly as political as the officeholders. Women too, of all social backgrounds, while legally forbidden from the practice of the stato, played political roles and had political agency.” The office-holding class of Florence embraced a broad range of socioeconomic states: not only the pan-European merchant-bankers but also small-time, local retailers and artisans. It did not form a homoge-

neous or a harmonious entity.'* A whole series of overlapping status groups or estates existed within its broad bonds: fluid categories that distinguished grades of social, economic, and political prestige." These

8 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY distinctions included the socioeconomic gulf that separated men belonging to one of the fourteen minor guilds from those enrolled in one of the seven major ones, who possessed a statutory majority on all decision-making bodies in the government. Other estates included those distinguishing men from magnate lineages—technically barred from holding offices between 1293 and the mid-fifteenth century—as well as the new men (gente nuova), whose ancestors had first held the highest posts in Florence only after 1343. In 1484, Piero di Jacopo Guicciardini—father of the historian and

political theorist Francesco—distinguished five estates within the office-holding class of Florence.'* At one extreme of this social spectrum he placed the old noble houses of the city, such as the Bardi and the Rossi, many of whom had roots as rural feudatories in Tuscany. At the other, he positioned the “ignoble” artisans and other minor guildsmen who were eligible to sit on the Signoria, the highest executive council of the republic, but had not done so. Just above this group came “the more noble artisans” as well as families belonging to the major guilds who had only recently had a member win a seat on the Signoria. Immediately below the noble houses Guicciardini placed the “ancient noble popolani,” the big people, the urban aristocrats whose ancestors

had triumphed in the political struggles of the thirteenth century. This category included Guicciardini’s own family, as well as many of the more familiar names from Florentine history, such as the Medici, Albizzi, Ricci, and Corsini. Finally, at the median point of the spectrum, he positioned those lineages “which, although not yet noble, nonetheless are not entirely ignoble and that, although new, have nevertheless enjoyed all the dignities [of government].”

The office-holding class was not, then, the ruling group or stato of Florence, the men who at a given time formed the governing regime.” Rather, the term refers to the entire class of men eligible—in a strictly literal and legalistic sense—to participate in the government of the city. It remains, deliberately, a loose and flexible term to permit analysis of political culture over a seventy-year period in which the stato changed several times. Given the political volatility of these years, together with the inherent social mobility that colored Florence through-

Introduction 9 out the Renaissance, attempts to define precisely the membership of the ruling group are useful only for limited moments of time.'® The political culture of the declining republic and emergent principality, however, encompassed not only those men active in the regime for any one period but also, and importantly, those excluded from it or who refused to participate in it. Moreover, the principal continuity that | want to emphasize is not the membership of the elite—the actual personnel of office holding—for which a fine-grained list of who was in or

out would be crucial. This continuity of membership is not, I think, particularly surprising. What this book emphasizes instead are the continuities in the political culture, which the office-holding class shared in and sustained, between the republic and principality. I am using the concept of the office-holding class in this book, then, in a qualitative, not a quantitative, sense.'” Several scholars have noted that at least three distinct and not necessarily overlapping indicators of

status operated in Renaissance Florence: political power, economic power, and social power, the latter referring to a mix of both intangible and more objective criteria such as family size, influence, and antiquity.’® The use of office-holding class as an analytic tool identifies all those

Florentines who had the possibility of access to the first of these indicators: formal political power. It does not measure only those who actually exerted such power, although they would have formed a specific subset within the broader class. Likewise, it does not effectively delineate economic or social power, although these indicators did sometimes overlap with political influence. What it does measure, or rather what it does describe, is the extent to which the Renaissance republican ideal of office holding—of government by civilian magistrates, of public service—penetrated Florentine society beyond the ranks of the patriciate. Much as one scholar has recently illustrated how the patrician ideal of patriarchal lineage diffused through the lower social orders of the city,'? conceiving of the existence of a broad office-holding class recognizes that what was essentially an elite political notion (and reality) had a broad social subscription by the late fifteenth century. The vigorous debates and conflicts over who, exactly, could and should participate in the government, which occurred during the very period

10 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY under examination in this book, testify to the importance of this concept to men from a wide variety of socioeconomic estates. Piero Guicciardini’s description of the office-holding class, outlined above, underscored the fluidity of social place within its ranks, which fueled and was fueled by the diffusion of the ideal of participation in government. He noted that the second-lowest estate consisted of men “recently exited” from the ranks of the very lowest status. His emphasis that the median grouping was “not yet noble” implicitly acknowledged that, with time, its members could earn such nobility. The yard-

stick that Guicciardini used for measuring social place was office holding, specifically presence or absence on the Signoria. The lowest of

the five estates contained men who, by statute and citizenship, could possibly sit on the republic’s executive but had not enjoyed that office. Above these men came those who had only recently obtained such a privilege. The median estate housed families that regularly achieved representation on this and all other of the most significant public magistracies, but that could not claim a history of some two centuries of political prominence, as their social superiors did. Only when discussing the two groups that he declared “noble” did Guicciardini ignore office holding. In his eyes, the summits of social and political prominence were indistinguishable. No need existed to relate the practice of government by the top two estates because it went, axiomatically, with their nobility. These two estates formed what is most conveniently described as the patriciate of Florence: families whose sociopolitical longevity, in a society of constant mobility, had assured them of at least the semblance of permanent prominence.”° Men born into patrician houses expected to hold the highest offices of the republic as their birthright. “The fruit of liberties and the end for which they were instituted is not government by everyone,” observed Francesco Guicciardini; “only the able and deserving should govern.’*’ Such sentiment captured the feeling of the Florentine patricians about the government of their city. Not only did

they expect to govern the republic, but they also conceived of themselves as the best possible stato Florence could enjoy.”

Introduction 11 The patrician estates of Renaissance Florence were not entirely immune to the social fluidity of the remainder of the office-holding class.

Beyond a minority of around twenty families, who held their place unyieldingly from the creation of the civic republican system in the 1280s, the patriciate’s makeup altered slowly but steadily over generations as political and economic fortunes rose and fell.*? The mobility that existed in Florentine society necessitated some means for those who did make it to its pinnacle to distinguish themselves as well as to attempt to cement their place, to achieve some permanence for their family. As they lacked any of the cultural resources available to most other contemporary European elites—such as nobility of blood or statute, or titles—except for wealth, the Florentine patricians had to manufacture a different way to express their legitimacy and secure their legacy. This problem received additional impetus from the nature of the government itself. The origins of the Florentine republic, as indeed

of most of the states of north-central Italy during the Renaissance, were illegitimate. The medieval communes of the peninsula had asserted their independence from their feudal overlord, the German emperor, based on fact and not law. While Bartolo of Sassoferrato arsued in the fourteenth century that the law had to accord with the facts and not vice versa, a lingering insecurity tainted the existence of the Italian city-states, especially the republics and especially in their dealings with monarchs and nobles.*4 The patricians of Florence, and indeed the office-holding class more broadly, found the perfect vehicle for justifying their sociopolitical predominance in the city and legitimizing their status beyond it in the realm of visual and material culture. It has recently become something of a truism of Renaissance historiography that the cultural production of the period constituted a means for the creation of identity.”> But I

want to demonstrate throughout this book that the connection between social status and cultural capital operated at an even more profound level than scholars have yet conceded. In addition to making an argument about the political legacy of Renaissance Florence, I want to

suggest an argument about its cultural legacy, because these two

12 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY inheritances cannot and should not be considered separately, but always and necessarily together. The patricians of Florence did not simply create social identities through visual means; they also reshaped the

city in their own image. They inscribed themselves on the material fabric of Florence: building palaces, decorating chapels, giving their name to streets and piazze. In doing so, not only did they assert their status, but they also built (literally) a profound, almost existential, connection to the physical urban landscape. Their material contributions, their ability to alter the topography, demonstrated a sense of permanence and possession. Florence belonged to the elite members of the office-holding class: the stato possessed the city. But this connection ran in the opposite direction also: the office-holding class belonged to the city too. They had no status or legitimacy outside its walls, beyond the material world they had built. They had no titles that an overlord, such as the German emperor or the French king, could recognize, no oaths of fealty they could transfer from one feudal master to another. They were merchants, with a legally uncertain grip on the government and

their place in society. Even as late as the mid-sixteenth century the status of the Florentine elite, as a group, was subject to mockery.*° This had significant effects on the political behavior of the officeholding class. It conditioned them to protect and prize Florence’s independence—physical and political—above all else, in order to defend their own social status.

Moreover, this is, perhaps, what made the Renaissance the Renaissance: the conjunction of insecurities about states and status with the economic means to produce cultural capital: to create legitimacy, history, identity out of paint, plaster, bricks, and mortar. A chemistry of social and political necessity, combined with economic and technical

ability, produced the cultural flourishing that still draws legions of tourists to the city on the Arno. The causes and reasons for the unprecedented and spectacular cultural production of a relatively small city in the space of three generations or so has remained the essential, yet unanswered, question for scholars of Florence. Without claiming to produce a definitive answer, I hope this book will provoke further dialogue on this important matter. The society and political realities of

Introduction 13 Florence in the fifteenth century, and indeed of most of the other citystates of north-central Italy, required a form of capital that the rest of Europe could recognize and understand: a cultural nobility. On the question of Florentine exceptionalism, then, this book proposes two answers. Politically, I argue that Florence looked a lot more like the rest of early modern Europe than many scholars have previously acknowledged. The political cultures of Renaissance republics and monarchies were not as antithetical as Machiavelli supposed. This does not dull the impact of Florence’s experience; rather it makes it more essential that historians understand and explain it in its entirety. In the realm of culture, however, I argue that Florence’s experience—

and that of Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries more broadly—was defining on the European stage. The intersection of this politics with a cultural sophistication and literacy largely unmatched north of the Alps did produce an exceptional creative flourishing: the Florentine Renaissance.

The principal human objects of this study are men drawn from the ranks of the patriciate. More specifically, it focuses on patricians born in the last two decades of the fifteenth century: men who were subsequently active in the public offices of Florence throughout the period

of transition from republic to principality; men who left a record of how they experienced this transformation. This group includes some perhaps familiar names, such Francesco Guicciardini (born 1484), the fabulously wealthy banker Filippo Strozzi (born 1489), and the historian Filippo de’ Nerli (born 1486). It also includes many men of lesser

profiles but equal significance—such as Benedetto Buondelmonti (born 1481), Antonfrancesco degli Albizzi (born 1486), and Filippo Strozzi’s elder brother, Lorenzo (born 1482)—as well as many men whose contributions to the narrative are less prominent but whose experiences provide greater breadth to the perspective.?’ The government of Renaissance Florence was a hypermasculine and socially exclusive space. Its structures banned participation not only by women, but by the majority of the male population of the city:

14 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY laborers, slaves, servants, foreigners, clerics, and youths. As a result the sources for studying the political culture of the city’s stato reside to a

greater extent, although not exclusively, in exchanges between elite males who had reached maturity.** Theirs was not the definitive or even representative Florentine experience. But they did play the central role in the eclipse and end of the republican government. The perspective of these men, as those who stood to lose the most politically from the creation of the principality but whose collaboration was essential for its success, is crucial to explaining how the change in states from republic to principato occurred. The stories of how the political transformation of sixteenth-century Florence affected the urban plebeians, the peasants of Florence’s surrounding district, and women from all walks of life, must wait for another day to be told and would not make sense without first understanding the events from the understanding of the patriciate. The story that this book recounts tells how men from the elite estates of the office-holding class experienced the changing states of the sixteenth century: the transition from the civic world of the republic to the court society of the principality. Their experiences and the meanings they attached to them reveal that the political cultures of Renaissance republics and monarchies did not exist in antithesis. The boundaries between them were permeable. Significant changes occurred in the creation of the Medici principality during the 1530s and 1540s but no radical or revolutionary rupture. The same images and concepts that had featured prominently in the republican tradition of Florence served to justify and aid the abolition of the republic’s institutions and the formation of the principato in its place. The failure of the Florentine

republic and the manner in which the Medici principality emerged suggest that the political heritage of Renaissance Italy extends beyond the pluralist, liberal democratic tradition with which recent scholarship has most readily associated it.

Imagining Florence The Civic World of the Late Fifteenth Century

os DURING THE DECADE of the 1480s, the painter Domenico Ghirlandaio and his workshop decorated chapels belonging to the Sassetti and Tornabuoni families with elaborate fresco cycles. The resulting

images are among the most brilliant and memorable creations from late fifteenth-century Florence. Ghirlandaio and his assistants interwove biblical and hagiographic narratives with scenes and figures from contemporary life. In this way, the frescoes served a purpose beyond their immediate devotional context by reflecting and reproducing the

social world of the office-holding class in Florence at the end of the fifteenth century. The ranks of mature men dressed in the red robes of state, the elegantly attired females, the potentially disruptive youths lingering on the peripheries, the emphasis given to appearance, the articu-

lation of gendered divides, and the indication of bonds of family and friendship all combined in Ghirlandaio’s paintings to give expression to an imagined community produced by the social and political organization of the city and which in turn reinforced and reproduced the same.

16 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY Societies do not exist solely in institutions, practices, economic functions, or relationships and networks. They exist also in the realm of the imagination.’ The individuals and collectivities that form any society do not perceive their social world only in terms of objective structures. They also imagine it and idealize it. This imagination— most clearly and usually expressed in stories, images, rituals, beliefs, values, and expectations—is not purely subjective but functions also as a product and a producer of the material and more objective manifestations of community. The form of government, nature of the economy, marriage and kinship practices, and a myriad of other factors all work to shape the social imagination and are in turn shaped by it. Of course, not all the members or groups of any given society imagine their world in the same way. The social world depicted in the Ghirlandaio frescoes was but one of probably several imagined communities that existed in fifteenth-century Florence.* The images in the Sassetti and Tornabuoni chapels depicted a limited, gendered, and specific imaginary: that of the city’s office-holding class, and, more precisely, of the men of elite orders of that class, the male patricians of Florence. Examining the social imaginary of the late fifteenth-century officeholding class through the lens of Ghirlandaio’s frescoes demonstrates how closely the identity of the city’s elite intertwined with the republican system of government and its attendant civic humanist mythology during this period. Despite the lengthy predominance of the Medici family during the fifteenth century in Florence, the political culture and social imagination of the office-holding class remained firmly civic in its nature. The men of the office-holding class imagined themselves as a self-reproducing fraternity of civilian magistrates, dedicated to the service of the common good of Florence. They inscribed this sociopolitical imagination and organization on the physical substance of Florence—in palaces, churches, and the names of streets—reflecting and reproducing the predominant order and so preserving their own place in Florence. The civic republican political culture imagined in Ghirlandaio’s frescoes constituted the essential glue that bound together the disparate estates of the office-holding class, above and beyond the statutory

Imagining Florence 17 bond of citizenship. While scholars have disagreed over its exact development, a general consensus exists that during the early 1400s a definable shift occurred in the imagination of the city, which affected both the nature and the rhetoric of government.? The older corporate social

world, based on the representation of stakeholders in the city—the guilds, the neighborhoods, the Guelf Party—was eclipsed by an emergent citywide elite, an oligarchy.4 These corporate institutions never entirely lost their role or influence in the civic life of Florence, but their continuation occurred under the shadow of a new political order and culture. In a mutually rewarding exchange, the emergent oligarchy became infused with the ideas and learning of revived classicism, practiced by the Florentine chancellor Coluccio Salutati and his disciples and most commonly labeled civic humanism by historians. Texts by men such as Salutati and speeches made in the governing councils of the city fused ideas of liberty, civic virtue, and public service adopted from classical sources into a potent mythology for the form, constitution, and ambitions of the Florentine government. A fundamental element of this myth was the praise of public service and the active life of

a good citizen: the practice of governance. Civic humanist writings embraced Cicero’s concepts of civic duty and patriotism as well as the Roman philosopher’s rhetorical techniques. The “noblest use of virtue,” he had asserted, “is the government of the State.°° Matteo Palmieri echoed this sentiment in Vita civile (14.49), concluding that the ulti-

mate purpose of virtue was to serve “the public government and universal health of the civic union and concord.””

This notion of public service for the common good made the political culture of fifteenth-century Florence republican. The office-holding class rendered this service to the mutual benefit of the citizenry. The city’s government was republican not in the sense of lacking a monarch

(although it did), but in the promotion of the res publica, the public things, the commonwealth.® Florence existed in this imagination, so-

cially and politically, as the collectivity of the office-holding class. Members of the city’s elite spoke of possessing a share in the state.? This ownership was not distributed equally or evenly: social distinc tions between the higher and lower estates mattered and had real

18 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY consequences in the field of power relations. But it did encourage notions of reciprocity and obligation to the greater whole of the class, to the public benefit. While the concept of “public” among fifteenthcentury Florentines does not accord with modern understandings of a clear distinction between public and private spheres or interests, they did conceive of Florence as a commonwealth, a res publica. This public space, such as it existed during the Renaissance, occurred at the point of greatest convergence between the various competing personal, familial, and corporate interests that jostled for space in the city: that is, in the administration and maintenance of Florence and its state, in the practice of governance, in the holding of offices. The political culture of civic republicanism celebrated the possibility for all members of the office-holding class to participate in the government of the city, to have a share (greater or lesser) in the state. It encouraged the imagination of the class as a fraternity—unequal in status but with common rights and obligations—as well as the promotion of a concept of common good: a notion that the best means of protecting personal, familial, or corpotate interests was balancing them through dialogue, discourse, and competition in the public sphere. This political culture served as one central referent for the frescoes created by Ghirlandaio at Santa Trinita and Santa Maria Novella.

Francesco di Tommaso Sassetti and Giovanni di Francesco Tornabuoni, respectively, commissioned the fresco cycles completed by Ghirlandaio during the 1480s. Both men belonged to the office-holding class and were prominent associates of the Medici family, which had dominated Florence since 1434. Sassetti worked as the general manager of the Medici bank from 1463 until his death. He served on the balie of 1471 and 1480, the plenipotentiary councils through which the oligarchic party, led by the Medici, controlled the city’s government.'° The Sassetti were new arrivals to social prominence in Florence: the family’s first representative on the Signoria sat in 1453, only twentyfive years earlier. Piero Guicciardini probably would have ranked them among the median estate of those neither noble nor ignoble. The deco-

Imagining Florence 19 ration of the chapel at Santa Trinita by Francesco Sassetti represented an assertion of even greater status, a coming out for his family as members of the city’s elite. Tornabuoni managed the crucial Roman branch of the Medici com-

mercial empire from 1464 until 1494, which explains his relative absence from public office in Florence. His brother Filippo, however, served on the balie of 1471 and 1480 as well as being one of the members of the Settanta (the Council of Seventy) at is inception in 1480." Giovanni and Filippo’s sister, Lucrezia, moreover, was the wife of Piero

di Cosimo de’ Medici and the mother of Lorenzo il Magnifico de’ Medici, the men who headed the Medici family from 1464 to 1469 and from 1469 to 1492, respectively.’ The Tornabuoni were a branch of the magnate Tornaquinci lineage that had changed their name in order to reclaim political rights in the city. As a result, despite sitting a man on the Signoria under the name of Tornabuoni for the first time only in 14.45, the family could claim ancient nobility in Florence. Giovanni Tornabuoni’s chapel, then, represented an affirmation of existing social place rather than an aspiration toward it. Sassetti and Tornabuoni were not only professional associates, social peers, and neighbors (both residing in the Lion Bianco district of

Santa Maria Novella) but also rivals in their chapel-building enterprises. The Sassetti family had held patronage rights over the altar in the main chapel of the Dominican basilica Santa Maria Novella until Giovanni Tornabuoni outmaneuvered and outbid his colleague to gain control of the entire chapel.” Perhaps Sassetti obtained some measure

of satisfaction in completing his chapel, relocated to Santa Trinita, first. Ghirlandaio and his assistants painted the Sassetti chapel between 1479 and 1485, completing the Tornabuoni cycle immediately afterward, between 1485 and 1490.

The commissioning of artists to decorate family chapels by men such as Sassetti and Tornabuoni constituted more than an act of conspicuous consumption; a complex of motives and desires operated in such an enterprise in a sustained and unified manner. As one historian

has recently observed, Giovanni Rucellai’s oft-cited dictum that he indulged in his mid-fifteenth-century building program “for the honor

20 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY of God, the honor of the city, and the memory of myself” reflected one cohesive impulse, not three separate or competing desires.’ Giovanni Tornabuoni echoed Rucellai in reference to the chapel at Santa Maria

Novella, stating that its decoration represented “an act of piety and love of God, to the exaltation of his house and family and the enhancement of the said church and chapel.” The impulse to build and ornament public and private edifices that so distinguishes Florence during the Renaissance involved a process of self-definition for the patricians who acted upon it.’° In addition to creating the wealth of material ob-

jects that still draw crowds of tourists to the city on the Arno, men such as Sassetti and Tornabuoni constructed social identities and power relationships in bricks and mortar, in plaster and paint.

In Italian, the English term “patronage” is served by two distinct words: mecenatismo (patronage of the arts) and clientelismo (political pa-

tronage and clientage). In the fifteenth century, however, Florentines did not make this same distinction. The world of politics and that (in the modern sense) of fine arts intertwined inextricably in Renaissance understanding.'” This is not to say that all the artistic commissions paid for by Florentine patricians constituted cynical manipulations of aesthetic sentiments for overtly political purposes. Indeed, no contemporary of Sassetti and Tornabuoni would or could have articulated such an assessment. Rather, the very act of building a palace, minting a medal, commissioning a portrait bust, or decorating a chapel—in addition to aesthetic, materialistic, egotistic, and religious motives—always and necessarily involved a political statement. The material and visual culture of Renaissance Florence not only reflected sociopolitical organization but also actively structured and constituted social and power relations within the city. The construction or purchase of an urban palace or the ornamentation of the neighborhood church expressed a visible and tangible assertion of status, influence, lineage, and prestige."®

The ability to shape the urban landscape—to provide affective material objects—became a central means for the Florentine officeholding class, especially the patriciate, to demonstrate, justify, create, and maintain its social prestige. To a certain extent this tendency reflected

Imagining Florence 21 the economic realities of fifteenth-century Europe. In the absence of deposit banking, and given the tendency of Florentine merchants not to accumulate capital in commercial enterprises, few other avenues for investment or expenditure offered themselves to the wealthy. The patricians of Florence invested their cash in things, in consumer commodities that, as well as reflecting and constituting their social identity, could be transformed back into liquid capital should the need arise.'? The inventory listing the possessions of the heirs of Puccio Pucci, compiled in 14.49, recorded that investments in real estate represented around 31 percent of the total value. Clothing and jewelry constituted a further 40 percent of the total.?° Just as the relationship between art and politics revolved around a complex of interacting impulses rather than simply reflecting cynical or overt manipulation, so too the economics of material culture in Renaissance Florence did not confine itself solely to investment needs and commodification. Central to the intersection of economics and aesthetics in the fifteenth century was the concept of magnificence: the celebration and justification of wealth and expenditure.*! The same civic humanist rhetoric that justified the political hegemony of a minority in Florence also provided a defense for their economic preponderance. Poggio Bracciolini had the figure of Antonio Loschi in his dialogue De avaritia (late 1420s) observe: “Money is very advantageous, both for the common welfare and for civic life.” A little further on, the protagonist Los-

chi argued that in the absence of private wealth, the cultural life of cities would founder, and public ornamentation, such as churches or colonnades, would not exist.?? The construction of palaces, the decoration of chapels, and the financing of public festivals or civic buildings constituted part of the patrician notion of public duty and service. The wealthy had an obligation to spend at least part of their patrimony on beautifying the city, whether through personal or civic commissions.”#

“Magnificence,” wrote Palmieri in Vita civile, “consists in the great expense of marvelous and notable works; for which reason this virtue cannot be employed except by the wealthy and powerful.” In the fourth and final book he noted that the splendid lives and personal ornamentation of private citizens formed an integral part of the civic life.*+ The

22 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY concept of magnificence endowed the wealth of Florentine patricians, and especially its expenditure on building or decoration, as beneficial to the commonwealth of the city. At a more profound level, the identity of Florence’s patricians depended upon their relationship with the physical city. Their social status and political prominence relied on a close material association with Florence itself. Aside from their wealth, the office-holding class of the city on the Arno possessed none of the cultural resources available to most other elites in early modern Europe to justify their social, economic, and political predominance. Without titles, nobility of birth, or even the juridical status enjoyed by comparable merchant aristocracies in Venice and Nuremberg, the patricians of Florence relied upon their ability to shape the urban geography of the city to support their power and influence. Building a palace, affixing a coat of arms to the exterior wall of a chapel, or bestowing of a family name on a piazza all demonstrated and cultivated a sense of possession by the city’s elite, as well as

a sense of inevitability or even eternity that justified the arbitrary sociopolitical organization as the natural order of things.*5 Florence belonged to the office-holding class, especially to the patriciate. Political behavior in the city during periods of unrest reflected this as an accepted reality. In times of internal conflict, mobs attacked the houses and property of the elite and not the institutions of the government. On 20 June 1378, during the Ciompi Revolt, groups of lower guildsmen and popolo minuto sacked and burned palaces belonging to members

of the office-holding class. On 8 April 1498, gangs destroyed the homes of Francesco Valori and Andrea Cambini, following the fall of Fra Girolamo Savonarola.?° The corollary of this close association, this existential relationship between social status and the material city, was that the sociopolitical prestige of the patriciate had no legitimacy outside of Florence.*” The fate of the elite, as a distinct and predominant estate, depended on the liberty of the city itself.

The defining ideological construct of the medieval Italian citystates, liberty possessed a double meaning. It meant independence from foreign rule, or sovereignty, and also the political freedom of civic

republicanism, the control over and sharing of the governance of the

Imagining Florence 23 city by the citizens.?° In the first emergence of this sense of liberty, during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, as the communes in north and central Italy struggled for autonomy against the German emperors, the twin concepts existed coherently. In the context of a conflict for political and military freedom from imperial rule, they reinforced one another. As early as the thirteenth century, however, a divergence developed as the majority of these city-states evolved into principalities. The ideology of many of the first signori argued that the endemic factionalism produced by civic government in fact undermined and weakened sovereignty. Even in the surviving republics, most notably in

both Florence and Venice, internal contradictions emerged as these cities sought to protect their own independence by depriving neighboring communes or lords of theirs.*? Despite this the concept of liberty, in both its meanings, continued to endure in fifteenth-century Florence, becoming central to the rhetoric of civic humanism and an important value of republican political culture.

The frescoes completed by Domenico Ghirlandaio in the 1480s provide a compelling example of the patronage of the office-holding class in Renaissance Florence, of how the images produced by such commissions shaped and reflected social identities, and how these images and identities intertwined with concepts of liberty, public service,

and the common good. For Francesco Sassetti, at Santa Trinita, the painter and his workshop executed a series of images from the life of the donor’s homonymic saint, Francis of Assisi. Of particular interest to

an assessment of the social imaginary of the Quattrocento elite are the two scenes that decorate the principal wall of the chapel behind the altar: Confirmation of the Rule of Saint Francis by Pope Honorius III (Figure 1.1) and The Resurrection of the Roman Notary’s Son (Figure 1.2).3°

The narrative of the first image occurs on the middle plane. Here, on the far right, a kneeling Saint Francis presents the rule of his order to Honorius III. Behind this scene, visible through a series of archways suggestive of an ecclesiastical interior, lies the Piazza della Signoria of Florence: the palazzo to the far left and the loggia (now the Loggia de’ Lanzi) in the center. The transposition of the depicted event from Rome to the city on the Arno testifies to the power of the

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1485). Fresco. Florence: Santa Trinita. (Photo: © 2011. Photo Scala, Florence.)

the scene. The youngest, Giuliano, leads the procession, flanked by Angelo Poliziano. Behind this pair come Piero, staring arrogantly at the viewer, Giovanni (the future Pope Leo X), and finally two men tentatively identified as Luigi Pulci and Matteo Franco. Both Francesco Sassetti and Lorenzo de’ Medici indicate their respective off spring. The former points across the scene at the trio of his eldest sons, while the latter gestures with his left hand toward the group emerging from the stairs. In the second image, The Resurrection of the Roman Notary’s Son, Ghir-

landaio once again shifted the sacred narrative from Rome to Florence. The miracle unfolds outside the doors of the church in which the

image resides, in the Piazza Santa Trinita. The Romanesque facade of the church is visible on the right, from which a group of figures emerges to witness the resurrection, while to the left stands the Palazzo Spini. The narrative drama unfolds in the center foreground. Upon a bed the

26 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY notary’s son, perhaps a portrait of the younger Teodoro di Francesco Sassetti, born the year his elder namesake died, rises from death under the blessing of the heavenly Francis, who floats above him. Male and female religious surround the miracle, witnesses to its occurrence. Two groups of contemporary portrait figures flank the sacred narrative, only very slightly engaged with its unfolding. On the left-hand side gathers a group of young men and women, who art historians have agreed represent the daughters of Francesco Sassetti with their actual or prospective husbands. The specifics of identity, however, remain uncertain. Among the females, the most youthful girl wearing the blue dress, who gazes out at the viewer, presumably represents Lisabetta, the youngest of Sassetti’s daughters. The other two girls with uncovered hair—the one kneeling in prayer and the other dressed in a damask gown with her hands folded over her belly—who flank the girl in blue are probably Maddalena and Selvaggia, both unmarried at the time of painting. Sassetti’s two married daughters, Violante and Sibilla, would then be among the other female figures gathered behind this more prominent threesome. None of the male figures has a secure identity. On the right-hand side gathers a group of more mature males, who appear completely disconnected with the miracle unfolding in their presence. Only three of these bear certain identifications. The

balding man, with his back to the viewer, represents Neri di Gino Capponi the elder, the grandfather and namesake of the husband of Violante Sassetti. To the extreme right, with his hand on his hip, stands

the artist himself, Ghirlandaio, in conversation with the man just to his left, his brother-in-law Sebastiano Mainardi. For Giovanni Tornabuoni, Ghirlandaio and his assistants completed a series of images from the lives of the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist, Tornabuoni’s homonymic saint and patron of the city. One scene, the Appearance of the Angel to Zacharias (Figure 1.3), holds spe-

cial interest.3' This image depicts an uncertain artificial space that appears both civic and religious, both open and enclosed. In the background, on the right, a triumphal arch opens through which a palace is visible. To the left, an overgrown wall topped by a relief-adorned panel partially obscures a classically inspired palazzo. An imposing loggia,

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Fresco. Florence: Santa Maria Novella, Tornabuoni Chapel. (Photo: © 2011. Photo Scala, Florence / Fondo Edifici di Culto—Min. dell’ Interno.)

decorated by antique reliefs and marble panels, dominates the center ground. It houses an altar at which the sacred narrative occurs: the appearance of the angel to Zacharias announcing the impending birth of his son, John. Just to the left of this scene, on the same level but outside the loggia, stands a group of four men dressed in the scarlet robes and cappucci (hoods) of the Florentine ruling elite. From left to right they represent the three lineages that diverged from the ancestral line of the Tornaquinci: the chapel’s patron, Giovanni Tornabuoni; Piero Popoleschi; and Girolamo Giachinotti, along with Giovanni's only surviving brother, Leonardo. To their left and right stand more ranks of mature

men. Mostly dressed in the red robes of office, these two gatherings consist predominately of more members of Tornabuoni’s extended family. Behind the men on the right side, almost under the triumphal arch stands a group of four unidentified women. In the front left, a quartet of prominent humanist scholars stands in conversation, representing, from the left, Marsilio Ficino, Cristoforo Landino, Angelo

28 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY Poliziano (a portrait comparable to that in Figure 1.1), and Gentile de’ Becchi, whose figure some have identified as Demetrio Chalcondilas.

In the right foreground, three youths consider the gathering of their elders.

The proliferation of contemporary portrait figures in both the Santa

Trinita and the Santa Maria Novella frescoes constitutes the most striking and, in analytic terms, valuable element of the decorative schema in each chapel. They present to the viewer and to the historian

an assertion of social identity and place on the part of the men who commissioned the images. The portrait types, full length and generally

utterly disconnected with the sacred narrative of the painting, also represent an innovative departure from tradition. Donor portraits in the Florentine style, while often separated from and marginal to the central action of a religious image, had previously always directed their

attention toward the sacred figures: presenting a guide to the viewer rather than a distraction. In Filippo Lippi’s The Madonna Appears to Saint Bernard (Figure 1.4), Piero di Francesco del Pugliese, although obviously outside of the drama, had himself presented as a pious observer meditat-

ing on the scene. Even in fifteenth-century paintings in which contemporary portraits appeared as participants within the narrative, such as Bennozzo Gozzoli’s magnificent Procession of the Magi (Figure 1.5), which

ornaments the chapel in the Medici palace, they consisted essentially of faces and took the form of actors in a sacra rappresentazione (sacred drama)

re-creating the story for the knowledge and benefit of the viewers. In Ghirlandaio’s frescoes in Santa Trinita and Santa Maria Novella, however, especially in the Appearance of the Angel and the Confirmation of the

Rule, the contemporary portrait figures dominate the images to the extent that they almost obscure the narratives.3? Aby Warburg speculated that these portraits served a purpose analogous to the life-size wax votives that fifteenth-century Florentines placed in Santissima Annunziata, expressing personal relationships between the represented person and the sacred figures.??3 Without discounting or displacing the very real spiritual motivations and concerns for salvation that drove men such as Sassetti and Tornabuoni to ornament chapels, the images they commissioned from Ghirlandaio, above all in the dominance of the portrait

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Figure 1.4. Filippino Lippi, The Madonna Appears to Saint Bernard (ca. 1490). Panel

painting, 208.4 x 195.7cm. Florence: La Badia. (Photo: © 2011. Photo Scala, Florence.)

figures, captured a particularly legible moment of social organization and imagination. They give visual form to the imagined community of the office-holding class. The organizing principles of the images consist of three distinct concepts: family, appearance, and gender.

Family, as a structure and a concept, lay at the heart of the social world

of the Florentine patriciate. It did so in the sense both of individual

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ence: Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, Capella della Trinita. (Photo: © 2011. Photo Scala, Florence.)

households (which could extend from one to three generations and included servants and slaves) and of lineage, embracing all the households who shared a surname.?4+ The evidence of Ghirlandaio’s frescoes

supports this doubled vision of family, depicting the Sassetti household but the Tornabuoni/ Tornaquinci lineage. In Santa Trinita, Francesco Sassetti appears with his sons and daughters only. By contrast, the images in Santa Maria Novella include representatives of four divergent lineages that all descend from the medieval line of the Tornaquinci: the Tornaquinci themselves, the Tornabuoni, the Popoleschi, and

the Giachinotti. The latter three branches all separated themselves nominally from their magnate ancestors during the fourteenth century in order to regain political rights in Florence. The chapel commissioned by Giovanni Tornabuoni suggests that they did not divorce themselves from a less tangible sentiment of family community be-

Imagining Florence 31 tween all four lineages. The decorative schemes of the chapels in Santa Trinita and in Santa Maria Novella, despite their apparent divergence, contain elements of both the dynastic household and the extended clan. This occurred because the lineage remained of continuing ideological and political importance in the later fifteenth century as a result of, not despite, the indubitable tendency toward economic

fragmentation within families and the associated socio-financial dynamism that makes identifying the Florentine elite so difficult to begin with. The lineage emerged in Florence during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as a means of fostering cooperation between men who shared a common name and ancestry. In the absence of civic institutions capable of monopolizing violence and in the face of competition from neighboring families, medieval patricians banded together for mutual defense. Kin cooperated to construct and maintain a defensible family compound in the city, and to coerce or threaten neighbors into submission. Lineages owned urban property, as well as ecclesiastical patronage rights, in common. Every mature male received a share of the indi-

visible economic patrimony. In the later decades of the thirteenth century, however, as the guild-based republic created stronger institutions and the legal sanctions of the Ordinances of Justice (which explicitly targeted the political culture of private violence and familial power), the lineage as a military entity became unnecessary, and even a liability. As a result the common patrimonies began to be divided and alienated between individual members.?°

This economic behavior—the tendency for Florentine households to pursue their own economic benefit—fostered social and political dynamism. While no exact correlation existed between wealth and power, a significant correspondence is visible between commercial and political success throughout the fifteenth century. The constitution of the office-holding class, and specifically of the patriciate, remains so difficult for historians to assess because it was fluid. Individuals, often on the basis of their mercantile success, rose to local and then communal

prominence. Correspondingly, once a member of the elite ceased commercial activities—either willingly or through financial collapse—he

32 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY normally fell into political obscurity. All four sons of Francesco Cambini, a linen manufacturer of little influence or prestige, followed this arc of sociopolitical development, albeit at differing levels. Whatever the high-water mark of prominence, for both Bartolomeo and Cam-

bino, who remained small-time merchants, as well as Niccolo and Andrea, who became pan-European merchant-bankers, loss of wealth or commercial establishments translated into obscurity in the corridors of power and prestige.*” Several other lineages display analogous developments. The Castellani, after playing a significant role in the oligarchic revival of the 1380s and 1390s, fade from view among the most important offices of the republic after 1407. From the turn of the

century their economic fortunes suffered a parallel decline?* The Della Casa lineage charted the same trajectory. After consistently seating members on the Signoria and its advisory colleges, the Dodici Bu-

onuomini (Twelve Goodmen) and the Sedici Gonfalonieri (Sixteen Standard-Bearers), from the last decade of the fourteenth century until the 1430s, the Della Casa disappear from the highest political offices (with one exception in 1474) until the last decade of the fifteenth century. The wealth of the family, having expanded in the early decades of the century, reached a peak in the 1450s and then plunged in an analogous fall? All the lineages in the preceding examples belonged to the fringes of the patriciate. None of them were “ancient popolani houses,” as Piero Guicciardini described them: those families who had formed part of the ruling elite from the foundation of the guild-based regime at the end of the Dugento, who had sat on the Signoria before 1300 and continued to appear in records of the highest offices since.4° The Cambini sat their first prior (the title given to members of the Signoria) in 1399, the Castellani in 1326, and the Della Casa in 1393. The very fact of the relatively late political appearance of these lineages, combined with the trajectory of rise and decline that all followed, underlines the fluidity and social dynamism of Renaissance Florence. According to one analysis, almost one-quarter of the lineages that formed the office-holding class in 1433 had achieved election to the Signoria only after 1382, one

century since the institution’s foundation.t' The predominance of

Imagining F lorence 33 these middling lineages—those that Guicciardini described as “although

not yet noble, nevertheless they are not totally ignoble“*—in these examples of social dynamism also highlights the absence of the two noble estates. These families, such as the Alberti, the Corsini, and the Ricci, appear to have achieved a relative immunity from sociopolitical decline, which their less prestigious peers did not. Hence, Filippo

di Matteo Strozzi endured three decades of exile and political ostracization after 1434 but retained his social prestige and increased his wealth during the same period (thanks in no small part to the labors of his mother). The Medici themselves did not suffer a loss of political influence or social prestige; if anything, both increased, despite the floundering of the family bank following the death of Cosimo il Vecchio in 1464. A multitude of factors contributed to these outcomes, and not all ancient patrician lineages enjoyed the same success: the Guadagni fell into political and economic obscurity following their exile and political ban in 1434.*3 In general, however, these older families endured in large part because of the ideology and concept of lineage. The very fact

of their enduring political prominence and their long genealogies provided an aura of immutability about these lineages. Combined with their material and geographic impact on the city—through the construction of palaces as well as the tendency for family compounds to lend their name to adjacent streets or piazze—this fostered a memory of the lineage not only for the members themselves but for the wider city.44 The Resurrection of the Roman Notary’s Son indicates how this assertion of

status, through association with the material world, operated. The identifiable Florentine location combines with the recognizable figures of Sassetti’s daughters and their husbands or francés in a message of familial prestige and social prominence. The church of Santa Trinita, visible on the right of the image, in which the fresco was painted, serves as the material reinforcement of sociopolitical identity. The depiction of the Piazza della Signoria with its imposing governmental buildings similarly contextualized the appearance of the Sassetti men in the Confirmation of the Rule of Saint Francis. The juxtaposition of the civic heart of

34 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY the city with the individuals testified to their claim over the levers of power in Florence. Taken together, these images depict the urban geography of social identity. They present two of the three key nodes within the city where the office-holding class would appear: the local church and the seat of government. The third was the family palace. While distinct, these three spheres were interdependent. They worked together, combining to underwrite and sustain the prestige and power of Florence’s elite at local, parish, and citywide levels. At each stage the

material supported and reinforced the social. Less prominent and less ancient lineages on an upward trajectory through the office-holding class attempted to reproduce this air of enduring inevitability and power by putting their own physical footprint on the urban space of Florence. Niccold di Francesco Cambini may have come from a humble, politically obscure background, but in con-

structing a palazzo and decorating a chapel in San Lorenzo, he appealed to a sense of lineage and hoped to define his family as powerful and enduring.*° Certain socially ascendant men went even further in

seeking to create an artificial memory of their family. In 1464, the banker Giovanni di Bono Boni began construction of a family palace that included deliberately old-fashioned or anachronistic features in an effort to cultivate a sense of ancient permanence. Some five years later, Francesco di Antonio Nori, instead of building a new edifice, acquired

a palace built around 1400, which was the largest building in his neighborhood. While Nori enlarged and tidied up the structure, he preserved the preexisting arms that decorated the palazzo’s exterior and also utilized non-current designs for windows, arches, and a corner colonette.*’ These men were not simply foolish or tactless arrivistes hopelessly mimicking the style of their social betters. Rather, they deliberately sought to create a memory of their lineage: a sense of continuity with the past, of permanency, of stability, of belonging. This was a political act. These men hoped to construct such a memory and identity not only for themselves and their heirs but also for their neighbors, enemies, friends, clients, and patrons. As Francesco Guicciardini, who distilled so much of the aristocratic prejudice and culture of the Flor-

Imagining Florence 35 ence patriciate, would observe in the early sixteenth century, “a good name is more valuable than great wealth.”4®

The convergence of two factors, interacting with the political cul-

ture of civic republicanism, resulted in a dramatic increase in the possession of surnames in Florence between the mid-fourteenth and later fifteenth centuries. In 1345, only around 13 percent of registered creditors of the Florentine public debt, the Monte Comune, identified themselves with a surname. By 1480, almost half of all households

submitting returns for the catasto—a direct income tax—possessed cognomens. The office-holding class had found it increasingly necessary and expedient to identify themselves individually for both administrative and cultural reasons. The need to distinguish between magnate and popolano lineages and to determine consanguinity for purposes of political eligibility, as well as to identify creditors and debtors of the commune, constituted the principal bureaucratic factors driving this process. By regulating their own political ambitions and economic position, the office-holding class could maintain the sense of reciprocity and equality of access that underlay the notion of the common good. Second, as a consequence, socially and politically prominent lineages came to consider possession of a surname a central component of their social identity and self-conception. The government and the city, in the imagination of the office-holding class, became a confederation of prominent families identified by possession of a cognomen.*? As Matteo Palmieri, in Vita civile, observed, “The consortorie and copious families, who, giving and receiving legiti-

mate marriages, with their familial alliances and love comprise a good part of the city.”*° Possession of a surname became a constitutive element of patrician status, and in doing so appealed to a concept of lineage, of family beyond the household that could guarantee and stabilize social and political place in the city through the vicissitudes of life>!

The appearance of some 210 households with no family name in the

ranks of the wealthiest in the city in 1480, as well as the political prominence of individuals such as Antonio di Bernardo di Miniato within the Medicean stato, should caution against too fixed a correlation

36 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY between possession of a surname and politico-economic success and remind historians of the high degree of social dynamism in Renaissance Florence»” However, these remain exceptions to a more pervasive trend. The 210 nameless households represented only 14 percent of the

wealthiest in the city, and only 11 of the 190 individuals who dominated the Medicean republic were not identified by a surname in the electoral records for the accoppiatori and balie between 1434 and 1494.

The possession of a cognomen indicated the enduring appeal of the concept of lineage: a sense of familial solidarity and identity extending beyond the household, of common ancestry, and a public memory of belonging to the city and its office-holding class.

The very act of patronizing and decorating a chapel within a prominent church, such as Santa Trinita or Santa Maria Novella, therefore constituted a public and material assertion of the power of the family name. Francesco Sassetti and Giovanni Tornabuoni inscribed their lineage and themselves upon the fabric of Florence. Sassetti appears with his immediate descendants—his sons and daughters— asserting the continuing strength of the name and household. Moreover, the appearance of the husbands and betrothed of the banker’s female offspring places his own family within the web of alliances that con-

stituted the patriciate, and recalls Palmieri’s description of the city. Tornabuoni presents himself with male kin from the four lineages descended from the medieval line of the Tornaquinci. The images invoke a memory of shared ancestry, of over two hundred years of sociopolitical prominence, as well as evoking the current vitality of the family.

The images in the chapels at Santa Trinita and Santa Maria Novella, then, underwrote the past, present, and future place of the two families in Florence, celebrating both household and lineage. The continuation of this social and political prominence depended on the free-

dom of Florence from foreign rule. The place of the office-holding class in the city, inscribed upon the city’s material fabric, intertwined with the concept of liberty understood as sovereignty. The prominence created, reflected, and memorialized in the Ghirlandaio frescoes de-

pended upon the continued liberty of the city. In both churches, the

Imagining Florence 37 assertion of social prestige and political prominence working in the fres-

coes through the concept of lineage received reinforcement in the appearance of all the family members represented: that is, in the clothes they wear.

One historian has recently observed that fifteenth-century Florence was a “cloth-sophisticated” society. The production of cloth, as well as clothing, constituted the major industry of the city, employed a great proportion of the population, and formed the basis for the wealth of many patrician families. Within this milieu, minimal variations in grade, expense, cut, and color could indicate shifts in wealth and prestige legible to much of the city®? As Niccolo Roberti, the Este ambassador to Florence, observed to the Duke of Ferrara on 11 March 1468, “this is a city which sets greater store by clothes than by virtue or anything else.>+ When discussing clothing in I libri della famiglia, Leon Battista Alberti observed through the voice of Giannozzo: “Clothes, my Lionardo, do you honor.” The elite of Florence invested much of their wealth in clothing and jewelry, material objects that represented

and constituted their identity as socially prominent and politically dominant. One scarlet cioppa (tunic), such as those worn by most of the males in the Ghirlandaio frescoes, would have cost around ninetynine florins in 1450, inclusive of cloth, dye, tailoring, and trimming with fur>°

The most striking aspect of the portrait figures in the images at Santa Trinita and Santa Maria Novella is the uniformity of the mature men depicted by Ghirlandaio. Especially in the Confirmation of the Rule and the Appearance of the Angel, only faces and idiosyncratic arrangements

of hoods or hats distinguish one man from the next. In contrast, the female members of the Sassetti appear individuated in The Resurrection of the Roman Notary’s Son, each distinct in appearance and dress. Given the sensitivity to and significance of clothing in Florence, these details must have constituted a deliberate choice by artist and client, based on

a common understanding shared with the wider audience of the images about how the office-holding class should appear. As much as the possession of a palace or a family chapel, clothing fashioned identity in the social world of Renaissance Florence. The axiomatic association of

38 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY honor and nobility with the wearing of red robes is revealed in the apocryphal quip, which Niccolo Machiavelli placed in the mouth of Cosimo de’ Medici, that “two lengths of red cloth make a gentleman.”>’

Francesco Guicciardini similarly observed that the ranks of the patriciate could always be replenished “by dressing the vile people in the crimson fabric produced in San Martino.”5®

All the mature males in Ghirlandaio’s frescoes appear dressed in variations of the one theme, and in varying shades of red5° They wear either a lucco or a cioppa, a calf-length tunic either sleeveless or with full-

length sleeves respectively. In the case of the former, a shirt and doublet cover the arms. Mantles or cloaks in the same color and fabric as

the tunics abound. In place of shoes, leather-soled hose cover lower legs and feet. In the Appearance of the Angel, most of the men also wear the cappuccio, the complicated hood worn either folded or rolled, often

in individual styles. Others wear hats or go bareheaded. The Florentine male of the office-holding class cultivated an outward appearance of apparently egalitarian uniformity.°° In a manner analogous to regulation of political ambitions—through mechanisms such as the divieto that prevented close kin from holding office concurrently or consecutively—that fostered the use of family names, the external sameness that characterized male apparel acted to reinforce the equality of access that underlay the republican constitution of Florence. Legally, if not in practice, all members of the office-holding class—those matriculated in one of the twenty-one guilds, who paid taxes in the city, who were not under a political ban of some sort—possessed the same political rights, although with an unequal division of places between the seven major and fourteen minor guilds of roughly three to one in favor of the former. The uniform depiction of the mature males in Ghirlandaio’s images formed a visual analogue to the ideology of the

civic republicanism of fifteenth-century Florence that conceived the city as a fraternity of citizens and celebrated public service to the common good. Leonardo Bruni, chancellor of the city-state, encapsulated this my-

thology in his 1428 funeral oration for Nanni Strozzi: “Equal liberty exists for all... the hope of winning public honors and ascending [to

Imagining Florence 39 office] is the same for all. ... This then is true liberty, this equality in a commonwealth.”*! In his early fifteenth-century panegyric the Laudatio florentinae urbis (ca. 1402), Bruni had described the government of Florence as consisting in “the action of the whole citizen-body acting according to the law and legal procedure.”® Similarly, Matteo Palmieri, almost half a century later, observed that “the state and firmament of every republic exists in civil union: to preserve this, it is necessary to maintain the citizen body and order with equal justice.”°? The preservation of this ideology existed not only in humanist treatises written for and by the patriciate. In 1495, the apothecary Luca Landucci identified the concept of equal access to public office, for all who qualified, as “the true manner of Florentine public life.°°4 Beyond the ideal con-

cept of a fraternity of citizens, the deliberate sameness of the male figures represents another defining element of republican Florentine ideology: selfless public service. The men appear literally in the uniform of the Signoria, underlining the public self of the officeholder over any other bonds of obligation, such as family or guild. According to Palmieri, every citizen elected to public office “before anything else understands that he is not a private person, but represents the universal body of the whole city.”®

The ocean of red paint used by Ghirlandaio in the Santa Trinita and Santa Maria Novella frescoes indicates that this ideology of fraternity and selfless public service formed a key part of the patrician male

self-definition. As much as belonging to an acknowledged lineage, holding public office and doing so (at least in theory) in the name of the

common good constituted key components of the public identity of the office-holding class. At another level, however, this ideology was just that: an imagined relationship to the sociopolitical reality.°° The mythology of a fraternity of mature males owing allegiance to some higher concept of the public good, and its visual presentation in Ghirlandaio’s frescoes, conveniently ignored the continuing operation of multiple social and economic ties that resulted in the individual being bound to a variety of obligations that often conflicted. This eventuated in an atmosphere of distrust, competition, and even paranoia.°” Not all

the citizens of Florence did gain the honor of sitting on the highest

40 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY councils of government and of donning the red robes of state. Many men from the lower orders of the office-holding class not only would never sit on the Signoria but also could not afford the expensive garments depicted in Ghirlandaio’s images.

The status and social differentiation that existed in fifteenthcentury Florence appeared subtly in the frescoes: in the understated but pointed allusion to Sassetti’s relationship with Lorenzo il Magnifico de’ Medici in the Confirmation of the Rule and in the careful positioning of the various figures in the Appearance of the Angel at varying removes from the sacred narrative.°* More openly than these muted distinctions,

the appearance of the female family members in the frescoes at Santa Trinita and Santa Maria Novella speaks to the sottogoverno of influence,

alliance, sociability, and patronage that turned the wheels of power behind the ideology of the public good.°?

Female patricians served their husbands or fathers as mannequins for the display of wealth and success.”° The lavish, costly damask gowns that feature so prominently in Ghirlandaio’s frescoes bear the weight of family honor and prestige. Each one would have cost at least three or four times the price of ninety-nine florins for a man’s cioppa.’”" On public occasions, festivals, holidays, and weddings, the women of patrician families embodied and transmitted the spirit of competition between their lineages that the uniform appearance of their husbands and fathers subsumed. On the feast of Saint John the Baptist, the city’s patron saint, the merchant aristocrats of Florence would display their wares and their wives in analogous splendor and style. Gregorio Dati observed on such occasions that the streets were “full of young women and girls dressed in silk and decorated with jewels and precious stones and pearls.””* Similarly, an anonymous poet recorded seeing “women, / who seemed like columns / Each more beautiful from the Prato to San Piero: / In their splendid dress / I saw that day a thousand queens.’”? Through the exchange of women and wealth, via marriage, patrician lineages formed alliances, extended their family, ended feuds, and cultivated a sense of common interests, of shared identity. The practice of homogamy became a material form of self-definition.”

Imagining Florence 41 Women of the social elite became most visible at the time of their marriage, when they bore the honor of their natal and affinal families literally on their shoulders. In 1447, Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi made note of the counter-trousseau lavished on her daughter, Caterina, by Marco Parenti at their engagement: “And as if married, he had a gown of crimson figured velvet made; and also a dress of the same fab-

ric: and it is the most beautiful fabric there is in Florence. ... When she goes out, she will wear more than four hundred florins on her back.” Almost twenty years later, when Alessandra’s eldest son, Filippo,

sought a wife, she instructed him: “Being beautiful, and the wife of Filippo Strozzi, she will need beautiful jewels; as you have honor in other things, so in this she does not wish to lack it.” One of Sassetti’s daughters, either Maddalena or Selvaggia, appears attired in an exquisite damask gown in The Resurrection of the Roman Notary’s Son. In the Tornabuoni chapel, Ghirlandaio depicted a daughter and a daughterin-law of the family in an identical manner: Ludovica Tornabuoni in The Birth of the Virgin (Figure 1.6), and Giovanna degli Albizzi Tornabuoni in the Visitation of the Virgin (Figure 1.7). All three were young women,

either betrothed or recently married. In fact, they probably appear in their wedding gowns. The Ghirlandaio frescoes create a dichotomy of appearance in which the male figures celebrate a fraternal unity as officeholders dedicated to the common good, while the females bespeak more specific and identifiable unions: those between houses and families that fostered competition and paranoia. The distinct public identities created for the male and female figures, through their material appearance, reinforced and reproduced the gender and power dynamic operating in Renaissance Florence. Historians have described the culture of the city on the Arno, and that of early modern Europe more generally, as patriarchal.7° Such a term has a fairly limited analytic use. It suggests a binary opposition between men and women, between separated male and female spheres, as

well as carrying associations of hierarchical division of power based only on horizontal distinctions of rank and status.””7 The abundant records produced by Florentines during the fifteenth century do not support such concepts or conclusions.

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Figure 1.6. Domenico Ghirlandaio, The Birth of the Virgin—detail (ca. 1485~1489). Fresco. Florence: Santa Maria Novella, Capella Maggiore. (Photo: © 2011. Photo Scala, Florence / Fondo Edifici di Culto—Min. dell’ Interno.)

This is not to deny the misogyny so prevalent in Renaissance Florentine culture: one need look no further than the well-thumbed pages of Machiavelli’s I! principe, with its use of violence against women as an

acceptable metaphor for male assertiveness in the world. Nor should such a consideration obscure the exclusion of women from public office, indeed from even entering the palace of the city’s government: witness the surprise and novelty accorded to Argentina Malaspina Soderini, when she moved into the Palazzo della Signoria in 1503 to live with her husband, Piero, the newly elected gonfaloniere a vita.7* Nor,

finally, should it preclude a consideration of the idealized image of paternity and the father: a cultural topos captured in another Ghirlandaio commission for Francesco Sassetti, a portrait of the banker with his son Teodoro, completed around 1485 (Figure 1.8). The tendency for patrician males to postpone marriage resulted ina

sizable age difference between men and women at the time of their

Imagining Florence 43

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first nuptials. The same impulse also resulted in men fathering children at the relatively advanced age of forty, on average, for the first birth. As a consequence, only exacerbated by the pan-European nature of Florentine commerce, especially at the level at which most patrician men engaged in business, their children often grew up with the absence of their biological father: a situation that fostered the idealization of paternal power and prestige.”? However, in terms of analyzing

the social and political culture of fifteenth-century Florence, the unself-conscious application of the term “patriarchy” obscures more than it reveals, not least because it refers to an ideology rather than a social form. Patriarchy does not explain how this society functioned, only how men idealized its functioning. An analysis of how the social and political culture of Florence valued male friendships, and of how the city accordingly constituted itself as a male homosocial sphere, better serves historical understanding.

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in the winter of 1531-32 very clearly counseled maintaining some form of civil government, with the most important powers of the stato held by council of citizen magistrates, over which Alessandro might

(Luigi Guicciardini) or might not (Francesco Vettori) have some form of veto. However, the men were clearly no longer advocating the continuation of Florence’s civic republican structures unchanged, nor even a return to the Medicean system of the fifteenth century. Instead, the vision presented in the pareri tended toward a tightly controlled,

150 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY very restricted oligarchic stato that centered on the Medici family and their partisans. On 4 April 1532, the balia passed a provision empowering a select committee to decide the future institutional structure of the city. The following day the Signoria, in line with this law, elected twelve men charged with this task: Francesco Guicciardini, Bartolomeo di Filippo Valori, Roberto d’Antonio Pucci, Francesco di Piero Vettori, Palla di Bernardo Rucellai, Roberto di Donato Acciaiuoli, Matteo d’Agnolo Niccolini, Matteo di Lorenzo Strozzi, Agostino di Francesco Dini, Giovanfrancesco di Ridolfo Ridolfi, Giovanni di Piero Capponi, and Jacopo di Bongianni Gianfigliazzi. Giovanfrancesco de’ Nobili, the current gonfaloniere di giustizia, sat on the committee ex officio.*° These

men represented the epitome of power and influence in the city: mature males who had held office for decades, nearly all over fifty years of

age, all with patrician surnames. Every one of the thirteen had also held a prominent position in the Medicean stato either before or after 1530.

On 27 April 1532, the new stato and constitution for the city emerged.

The relatively short time frame in which the reformers formulated these fundamental changes suggests either a high degree of agreement

and consensus among the thirteen men or (more probably) that the committee had met simply to flesh out the bones of a settlement predetermined in Rome. Indeed, a letter from Francesco Guicciardini, writ-

ten on 16 April, suggests that the Riformatori had decided upon (or accepted) the basic structures of the new government by that point, and discussions now concerned details of who should actually sit on what council.*”? The eventual provision, eleven days later, reveals the understandings and the expectations of the office-holding class for the future course of the city. Most significantly, and most clearly, these men did not conceive of the city becoming a centralized monarchy, but rather visualized a system analogous to the constitution of Venice: a permanent and aristocratic republic with a nominal prince. On paper, and in its initial context, the constitution of April 1532 represented not a triumph for the Medici, but for the office-holding class.

Neither Fish nor Flesh 151 The provision began with the most significant change: the abolition of the 250-year-old institution of the Signoria. This act possessed great symbolism, as much as it fundamentally altered the shape of the political landscape. Francesco Guicciardini observed that he could not conceive of “a greater novelty than removing the Signoria.” He continued, “It saddens many to deprive themselves of the dignity of gonfaloniere.””® To become one of the eight priors or the gonfaloniere di giustizia, or even

simply to learn that one’s name was included in the borse (electoral purses) for the executive, constituted the highest honor achievable under the republican constitution of Florence. Lineages, patrician or not, took pride in identifying their first ancestor to sit on this executive body: the closer the year of this initial election to the foundation of the Signoria in 1282, the more prestigious. One of the foundations of the oligarchic regime that had controlled

the city since the late fourteenth century had consisted in spreading the possibility of serving on the Signoria as widely as possible, no matter how slim the probability for the majority of the office-holding class of actually achieving this honor. The Medici perfected this process by including the names of ineligible men in the borse simply in order to have them “seen” (veduto) for office.*® To sit on the executive branch of

the government combined all the essential components of the patrician self-conception: honor, appearance, memory, gender, public service, and personal interest. It represented the very core and epitome of the imagined community of the Florentine office-holding class: a selfreproducing elite of red-robed mature males dedicated to the commonwealth of Florence through holding public office. It was the same fraternity visualized by Ghirlandaio in the 1480s. If the new constitution of April 1532 removed one of the central components of elite identity by abolishing the Signoria, it sought to refound and redraw the institutional basis of this identity through the creation of two new councils to replace the older communal bodies: the

Dugento (Two Hundred) and the Quarantotto (Forty-Eight), which also became known as the Senate. The creation of these two assemblies constituted a partial closure of the office-holding class. Their

152 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY membership was for life, and sitting on the Dugento became a prerequisite for holding any of the three most prestigious and important of-

fices of the new system: the Quarantotto itself, the Otto di Pratica, and the Ducal Council (later known as the Magistrato Supremo). In its initial conception, at least, the Dugento represented the permanent institutional analogy to the imagined community that the officeholding class had sought since the late fifteenth century. The Dugento evolved from the balia created on 8 November 1530. To the members of this preexisting body the new constitution added all the men currently sitting on the Signoria who were not already members of the plenipotentiary council, as well as an additional ninety-five men. Observing

that the size of this body, which numbered 242 men in its initial membership, “would make it very difficult to meet as often as necessary for the expedition of public affairs,” the constitution nominated forty-eight men from the Dugento to form an executive council: the Quarantotto.?° While the Dugento inherited the membership of the balia, the Senate gained many of the plenipotentiary council’s powers, including control over financial provisions, the election of the most important internal offices and magistracies as well as of the most prominent posts in the dominion, and the election of ambassadors and commissioners. The Quarantotto also had the responsibility of electing, from its own ranks, twelve accoppiatori, who in turn elected four ducal counselors (also drawn

exclusively from the Senate). Both the accoppiatori and the counselors served three-month terms. The four counselors, who were to meet together with Alessandro or his lieutenant, replaced the Signoria as the key executive body of the city and the final court of appeal. Unlike the older communal institution, however, its members had no obligation to live in the Palazzo della Signoria for the duration of their term, nor did their role exclude them from holding other offices, except those

outside the city, which would have necessitated their absence from Florence.? The provision of 27 April placed Alessandro de’ Medici at the summit of the new constitutional structure but addressed his role only after the powers and personnel of the new councils. The articulation of

Neither Fish nor Flesh 153 his position in the legislation was precise, and it tightly circumscribed his role as head of state: “And in order to give a head to the said counselors, in place of the gonfaloniere di giustizia .. . is and shall be Duke Ales-

sandro de’ Medici.” The use of “Duke” here referred specifically and only to Alessandro’s Neapolitan title, as the legislation made clear: “in future he will be called Duce of the Florentine Republic, as is called the Doge of Venice.”3* While the constitution continued by noting Alessandro’s absolute power of legislative initiative and the hereditary nature of his position, the initial exegesis of his role and title suggests that the men who wrote the 1532 constitution saw him as a prince in name alone: an institutional necessity that provided a “head” to the governmental structures. The analogy that the provision made to the doge invited comparisons beyond the form of title, to the broader structures and relationships of government in the Venetian republic. Like the Doge of Venice, Alessandro’s position provided him potential power and influence, but it did so at the center of a web of structures and, more significantly, of dispositions that circumscribed and limited his authority.?? The institutions of the Florentine state had changed, but the social imagination of the office-holding class was still in the midst of transition in 1532. The constitution of that year did give Alessandro an objective position

in the city: a permanent and institutionalized place and role in the structures of the state, visible and understandable both within and without Florence., Alessandro’s powers and status, unlike those of his fifteenth-century forebears, had a legal and constitutional provision. At the moment of the constitution’s promulgation, on 27 April, however, the new duke of the Florentine Republic did not yet have a place in the social world or imagination of the office-holding class. His position and title were unprecedented, and so unfamiliar. The pace of sociocultural change lagged behind the political transition of the city.

The difficulties that arose from the ambiguity of the 1532 settlement and the unfamiliarity of Alessandro’s position in Florence fell broadly into two categories. The first category embraced the city’s relationships with the emperor and the pope; the second, the perceptions

that members of the office-holding class had of Alessandro’s place

154 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY within Florence. The Duke of Penne owed his position in Florence to Charles V. The city had surrendered to Ferrante Gonzaga, the imperial captain general, on 12 August 1530. The terms of the capitulation had empowered the emperor to name his future son-in-law as head of state in Florence. Alessandro even owed his ambiguous title, duce of the

Florentine republic, to imperial reticence: only the emperor could bestow a ducal title for the city In the early 1530s, the emperor appeared, paradoxically, to be the best means of preserving Florentine independence. Charles V served as a key source of security and stability for Alessandro de’ Medici and the new regime.?> On I January 1535, Francesco Guicciardini observed to his eldest brother, Luigi, that the possible arrival of the emperor on the peninsula “would be an excellent [thing] and would stabilize the peace of Italy.” However, the imperial presence and support also contained an implied threat. Having installed Alessandro, Charles V could potentially remove him. The regime depended on imperial grace and favor, which

compromised the sovereignty of the city. As Antonfrancesco degli Albizzi had warned in July 1529, friendship with princes brought obligation and danger.” Supporters of the Medici and men associated with the regime kept a close eye on imperial doings, conscious that Charles’s support should not be taken for granted. In particular the advancement of the promised marriage between Alessandro and the emperor's illegitimate daughter, Margaret of Austria, became a barometer for imperial favor. On I January 1535, Francesco Guicciardini observed that “His Majesty appears most favorable toward Florence under the duke, in such a manner that here no one doubts that he will

give him his wife.” When Charles V embarked on his expedition against the Ottoman regent-governor Khayr ad-Din (Barbarossa) in North Africa later that year, Guicciardini prayed: “God willing the affair will succeed well, since for us there is no other foundation than his greatness.”3°

Imperial support remained a key pillar of the Medicean regime in the 1530s, however much it contained an implied limit of Florentine sovereignty. But the emperor and his agents did not intervene in the affairs of the city. Florence’s relationship with Clement VII, until his

Neither Fish nor Flesh 155 death in September 1534, was markedly different. A widespread perception existed that the pope still controlled affairs in Florence, either personally or indirectly through familiars such as Archbishop Schénberg. It appeared that, as in the 1520s, a foreign regime based in Rome, not in the Palazzo della Signoria or even in the Medici palace, ruled the city. Benedetto Buondelmonti’s letter to Francescantonio Nori in January 1532 revealed not only the pope’s control over Florentine constitutional affairs, but also the level of his involvement in such matters. Buondelmonti wrote: “If Luigi [Guicciardini| will write you can assure him that his letters will not go from Herod to Pilate but only into the hands of His Holiness, and then into the fire.”3? Clement VII's interest in managing the details of Florentine government continued even after the arrival and appointment of Alessandro in July 1531. A week after the Duke of Penne’s installation as capo of the republic, Bartolomea Pandolfini beseeched Lucrezia de’ Medici

Salviati: “Recommend Giovanni, my husband, at the Feet of Our Lord; and beg His Beatitude to be pleased to offer such grace that this time he will be seen for the gonfaloniere di giustizia.*° On 27 September, Filippo Valori informed his cousin Bartolomeo Valori: “Monsignore

the Most Reverend [Archbishop] of Capua has made it understood that Our Lord desires that five new Monte officials be created.”4! How-

ever, Alessandro was not completely without independence. Concern-

ing the appointment of Benedetto Buondelmonti as ambassador to Rome, Francesco Guicciardini observed: “I understand that Buondelmonti’s going to Rome originated with the Duke and that the pope did not expect it, having designated Domenico Canigiani.” As with the case of Charles V, the office-holding class viewed the pope’s role in Florentine affairs as generally beneficial. The extent to

which Clement VII’s presence appeared to preserve the regime of Alessandro became most apparent as the pope neared death. News of the pontiff’s illness during the summer of 1534 provoked a flurry of worried correspondence among supporters of the family. Echoing the fears that the death of Pope Leo X had aroused in 1521, this correspon-

dence revealed the extent of Medicean concerns that Alessandro’s place in Florence might not survive his papal cousin’s death. On 29

156 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY August 1534, Cardinal Giovanni Salviati observed to Filippo de’ Nerli that “I have heard, and feel the greatest pleasure concerning the good provisions made there [Florence] for the defense of the state whatever happens. But seeing Our Lord improve as well as he does, I hope that it will not be necessary to use them.” The most revealing correspondence came from Alessandro de’ Medici himself. On 27 July, he wrote to Francesco Guicciardini, “Your Lordship will have heard from other sources about the sickness of Our Lord and the danger everything is in.” The young duke continued, “Send me your judgment as to how I ought to govern myself concerning my place in this stato so that much better and more easily it can be maintained as you, my other friends, and I desire.” Almost a month later, Alessandro wrote again to Guicciardini, observing that “the death of [His Holiness] is expected with great fear.44 Clement VII's influence in Florence had a significant, but not totally determinative, influence on elite perceptions about Alessandro’s place in the city. In the early years of the young duke’s rule, until the pope’s death in 1534, the office-holding class sought familiarity in past practices. They conceived of the new stato as a renewal of that which had existed before May 1527. In this system Alessandro had no place despite the constitutional changes of 1532. Men seeking favor did not

turn to their nominal prince; rather they petitioned other men and women of influence, often the same patrons that had wielded power during the 1520s. The social world of Florence’s elite did not yet include Alessandro. He had a place in the institutions of the city, but he remained outside

the commonwealth of mature males and lineages that bound the office-holding class together: no regular disposition or practice existed

in Florence for a hereditary prince. Members of the office-holding class sought to advance their interests through the same channels and in the same manner that had worked in the 1520s: by petitioning people

close to the Medici and close to the papal court. On 25 September 1§31, the balia elected the Otto di Pratica to commence its six-month term the same day. One of the men elected, Zanobi di Nofri Acciaiuoli, thanked Bartolomeo Valori rather than Alessandro for the honor:

Neither Fish nor Flesh 157 “I recognize from your actions, the gentility of Your Magnificence and the love that you bear me.» More than any other person or family, however, the Salviati received

recognition for their close connection with Clement VII, especially Lucrezia de’ Medici Salviati, the wife of Jacopo, and her daughter Maria, the widow of the condottiere Giovanni de’ Medici (better known

after his death as Giovanni delle Bande Nere). They inherited the family’s mantle as a principal source of patronage from the 1520s. Lucrezia began receiving letters of recommendation within days of the

surrender on 12 August 1530 from men seeking to ingratiate themselves with the Medici and hoping for preferment in offices. “This [let-

ter] is to celebrate with Your Magnificence the recent events of the victory enjoyed in this City,” wrote Piero di Leonardo Salviati. He continued, “I tell [you] that through all the city no one does anything except shout Palle! Palle and bread!™° Lucrezia still received letters seek-

ing help even after the arrival of Alessandro in the city. Bartolomea Pandolfini requested that Lucretia petition Clement VII on behalf of her husband: “I pray Your Magnificence be pleased to do this deed, also with your Messer Jacopo, so that the desired effect occurs.” Letters from Bernardo Lanfredini, in his official capacity as podesta of Prato, testify to the influence wielded by Lucrezia and Maria Salviati early in 1533. Lanfredini acknowledged receipt of letters of recommen-

dation from Maria, and promised to do all he could for the persons concerned. On 26 March 1533, Lanfredini himself became the petitioner, as he sought office in the Otto di Pratica following his term in Prato: “I desire that Your Ladyship would write of this to the Magnificent Jacopo Salviati, or truly to the magnificent Madonna Lucrezia,

that they would be pleased for love of Your Ladyship to do what is necessary so that I might achieve my aim.”#®

The continuing influence of Rome over Florentine affairs, as well as

the perception that a diffuse patronage network including the extended relatives and friends of the Medici still had significant political clout, did have certain positive effects, the most significant being that it held in check the ambitions and defused the dissatisfactions of two

men in particular: Bartolomeo di Filippo Valori and Filippo Strozzi.

158 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY Both men had actively supported Clement VII during the siege of Florence: Valori as the pope’s representative with the imperial army and Strozzi as one of the principal financial backers of the expedition. Following the surrender of the city, they had sought rewards in Rome. Valori became president of the Romagna, and Strozzi, in partnership with Bindo Altoviti, returned to his former role as chief financier of Clement’s papal and dynastic policies. Both men received a seat on the Quarantotto at its creation in April 1532, but their personal ambitions

and future prosperity depended more on close ties to the pope than their profile among their peers in the city on the Arno.4? After the death of Clement VII, as personal difficulties and resentments previously held in check began to surface for both Strozzi and Valori, their isolation from the social world of Florence only increased. Strozzi’s principal problems in Florence after 1530 arose from per-

sonal relationships, the same source of his wealth and status. More precisely, these difficulties emerged from personal conflicts involving his children. Strozzi’s elder sons were around the same age as Alessandro de’ Medici and appear to have associated with the group of riotous youths who formed the duke’s court, including Paolantonio di Bartolomeo Valori, Giuliano di Francesco Salviati, and Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici (Alessandro’s future assassin). In May 1531, two of Strozzi’s sons, Vincenzo and Roberto, together with three other young

men, received an administrative slap on the wrist for abducting and raping a girl from Prato.° In May 1533, the Otto di Guardia fined another Strozzi brother, Fra Leone, a knight of Saint John of Jerusalem, and several other young men for playing a violent practical joke on a doctor from Pavia.’ On these occasions the Otto di Guardia tolerated this behavior. The younger Strozzi, however, soon discovered the limits of their aristocratic license. One story, related in several places, tells of a carnivalesque game of football played on Christmas Eve in 1532 by several

youths, including Roberto and Vincenzo Strozzi, that began at the Strozzi palace. As well as damaging merchandise in the Mercato Nuovo, the Mercato Vecchio, and along the Calimala, the youths apparently mocked Francescantonio di Francesco Nori, kicking and throw-

Neither Fish nor Flesh 159 ing the ball at him when he tried to intervene. According to the story, the Otto di Guardia arrested and imprisoned all the youths involved until Clement VII intervened to secure their release. This story has little documentary support. No record of arrest or release appears in

the deliberations of the police magistracy, nor was Nori (as all the versions of the tale confidently recount) a member of this office in December 1532.3 This does not mean that the account is a complete fabrication. More importantly, it does not weaken the symbolic significance of the affair, which, as Varchi succinctly stated, punctured the illusions of certain patricians who thought they could be equals of Alessandro, not his subjects. More significant than the alleged game of football was the noctur-

nal assault on Giuliano Salviati. Salviati had publicly insulted the honor of one Filippo Strozzi’s daughters, Luisa—who also appears to have associated freely with the court of Alessandro de’ Medici—and so public opinion held that her eldest brother, Piero, together with Fra Leone and Maso di Carlo Strozzi, were the masked men who waylaid and attacked Salviati on the night of 13/14 March 1534 as he returned from the Palazzo Medici. This event did actually occur. Luigi Guicciardini recounted the ambush, together with an intimation of Piero’s suilt, in a letter to Francesco Guicciardini on 1§ March. The Otto di Guardia held Piero and Maso Strozzi, together with Jacopo d’Antonio Pazzi and a Strozzi servant or familiar, Michele di Francesco, for investigation but released all four without charge on 30 March.*4 Filippo Strozzi had departed Florence the previous September as papal nuncio for the wedding of Caterina di Lorenzo de’ Medici and

the future King Henri II of France. He had a vested interest in the union, having loaned Clement VII the entire sum of Caterina’s dowry: 130,000 scudi. This loan overextended Strozzi’s financial empire and left him dangerously exposed. Despite his best efforts—spreading the risk via a consortium and demanding triple securities on repayment— Strozzi still bore an 80,000 scudi debt from the dowry at Clement’s death, almost half of it unsecured and irrecoverable. Strozzi never returned to Florence, becoming embroiled in legal problems regarding

his financial dealings in Rome as he attempted to recover from the

160 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY dowry loan. By January 1535, his sons too had departed the city and

openly associated with the Florentine exiles in Rome. In October 1536, the Otto di Guardia declared Strozzi as well as his sons Piero and Roberto rebels.5°

Bartolomeo Valori had difficulties of a more prosaic nature. While Benedetto Varchi recounts that Valori secretly hated Clement VII as early as 1531, the clearest evidence for his disaffection comes from several years later5’ Letters from his son Paolantonio—companion of the younger Strozzi—and his cousin Filippo di Niccolo, in the first half of 1536, are replete with references to financial troubles. On 14 April, Filippo Valori referred to “the very great financial disorder and debt” in which Bartolomeo found himself. The same letter made clear that part of this difficulty arose from investigations into the finances of the Romagna during Valori’s tenure as president, which had ended with

the death of Clement VII. Like Filippo Strozzi, Bartolomeo Valori lost his positions in the papal bureaucracy with the accession of the new pope, Paul IH1I5*° Strozzi and Valori had built themselves positions of power and influence through their personal relationship with Clem-

ent VII, which had brought them political and financial gains, but only outside of Florence. Once their benefactor and patron died, however, they found themselves without the cultural or social resources in

Florence necessary to preserve their position. Indeed, in the transforming social world of the emerging principality, no place existed for men of such independent ambition and profile. While Strozzi had the financial capability to withdraw immediately from Florence and at-

tempt to create a new life in Rome, Valori lingered in the city until 1536, when he too joined the Florentine exile community in the Eternal City.

The alienation of Filippo Strozzi and then Bartolomeo Valori precipitated a renewed struggle over the future of Florence and its form of government, as the Florentine exiles attempted to depose Alessandro and alter the political system in the city. Two principal points of conflict occurred: one discursive, at Naples in 1535-36, and the second

Neither Fish nor Flesh 161 military, in the summer of 1537. The responses of members of the office-holding class within Florence to their compatriots’ actions reveal the extent of changes within the social world and political culture of the city’s elite. The majority of the 191 men exiled in the final three months of 1530 had their sentences renewed in late November 1533 for an additional three years. Nearly all received new locations to serve their sentences

in. Both Jacopo Nardi, who was one of these exiles, and Benedetto Varchi reported that assignment of new locations placed great difficulty on men who had created new lives for themselves since leaving Florence. Many ignored the new directive, automatically making themselves rebels against Florence: forfeiting their lives and any possessions in the Florentine dominion. These rebels initially began to congregate in Venice, Pesaro, and other locations in the Duchy of Urbino.*? Fol-

lowing the death of Clement VII, however, and the election of the anti-Medicean Pope Paul III, many Florentine exiles began to gather in Rome.

With the arrival of Filippo Strozzi and his sons, two distinct factions formed in this diaspora. Strozzi, together with the Florentine cardinals, Giovanni Salviati and Niccolo Ridolfi, who had initially supported the Medici in 1530, formed a leadership group (called the maggiori by Nardi). At the urging of these men, the exiles made a common cause with Cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici, dissatisfied with being supplanted by his younger cousin.°° The exiles hoped to pry Charles V away from his support of Alessandro and to gain the emperor’s agreement to provide a new settlement for Florence’s government. Dissension and distrust between the maggiori and the other exiles, however, hampered diplomatic efforts. Clearly a significant divide (perhaps even more than one) existed in

the exile camp, although its exact contours are difficult to trace. The belief in liberty as the freedom of civilian government had not extinguished in the hearts and minds of some Florentines, especially among the fuorusciti (exiles). Jacopo Nardi, whose Istorie della citta di Firenze re-

mains a testament to his political sympathies, most obviously desired the restoration of a civic republican stato. Others presumably shared

162 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY Nardi’s values, but identifying them now is difficult. However, the maggiori—Strozzi, Valori, and the cardinals—who came to dominate the exiles’ cause after 1534 did not share this civic republicanism. Nothing

in their past actions or sympathies lends credence to the notion that they experienced a sudden and genuine conversion to a political ideol-

ogy that they had consistently rejected or even opposed for most of their lives. The most convincing explanation for their motivation comes from Bernardo Segni. Although writing about the cardinals alone, his judgment rings true for Strozzi and also Valori. After the death of Clement VII, Segni wrote, such men no longer felt themselves

obligated to the Medici family, reduced as it was to an illegitimate youth and the wife of a French prince. The aristocratic prejudice of these men rose up, and “they could no longer endure serving a bastard.”*' Of legitimate birth themselves and descended from Lorenzo il Magnifico—through their mothers in the case of the cardinals and by marriage for Strozzi—they rejected Alessandro’s rule because of personal, not political, convictions. In many ways, the leading exiles represented the mirror image of those members of the patriciate, such as Francesco Guicciardini, who remained in Florence, helping to create the new princely stato: identical but reversed. They all shared a common goal of attempting to preserve

the aristocratic, oligarchic dominance of the patricians in the city. They differed only over whether they believed this continued hegemony could be achieved with or without a nominal Medici prince. In January 1532, during the discussions about the constitution of Florence, Strozzi had outlined his views in a letter to Francesco Vettori. The “strength and steadiness of the stato seem to consist in creating a party that has no recourse to the popolo,” he wrote. The friends of the Medici should be declared noble, by public legislation, and only this nobility should govern, “excluding all others as plebeians.”®? Strozzi’s

views did not appear to alter much, although he presumably abandoned friendship with the Medici as a defining element in his vision. Writing the cardinals, as they traveled to Florence in 1537 to undertake negotiations, Strozzi observed, “Your Lordships can assure those citizens who fear the governo libero by offering that we will be satisfied with

Neither Fish nor Flesh 163 any form [of government] that pleases them, so long as it does not aim at tyranny.”°? Which is a rather roundabout way of declaring his support for the restoration of an oligarchic republic. Filippo Strozzi may

have deployed the language of liberty, but he did not intend to see a civic republican stato similar to that of 1527 restored in Florence. Tyranny, to him and the other maggiori, did not axiomatically equate

to monarchy but simply to any limit on their own ambitions and freedoms.°4

The exiles sent a double embassy to Charles V in Barcelona, with individual ambassadors for Strozzi, Cardinal Salviati, and Cardinal de’ Medici, as well as representatives of the greater body of exiles. Confusion over the aims of the embassy—whether the exiles would accept Alessandro’s replacement by Ippolito or only the restoration of the Signoria and the government of 1527—30—as well as the emperor's desire to embark on his north African campaign against Khayr ad-Din, led to failure. But Charles did promise to hear the exiles’ case at Naples

following his return. By the time this audience occurred, in January 1536, Ippolito de’ Medici had died, leaving the exiles without a nominal leader. Jacopo Nardi presented their case on three occasions, each time rebutted by Francesco Guicciardini on behalf of Alessandro. Despite

some support in the imperial court for the exiles’ cause, Charles V denied the exiles’ requests and backed his future son-in-law.®° With this imperial blessing, Alessandro de’ Medici reached the pinnacle of his power in Florence. He had defeated, rhetorically, the Florentine exiles, and the emperor had assured his position in the city. In February 1536, the duke finally married Margaret of Austria, Charles’s illegitimate daughter. But he did not live to enjoy his triumph for any great length of time. On the night of 6 January 1537, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, whose mysterious motivation continues to baffle

scholars, murdered Alessandro and fled Florence.°° As Alessandro lacked any legitimate offspring, and Lorenzo had removed himself from the succession through his actions, a hastily convoked meeting of the Quarantotto elected the next eldest Medici male as head of the city

on 8 January: Cosimo I, the son of Giovanni delle Bande Nere and Maria Salviati.°”? At the same time, the Florentine exiles, including

164 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY Antonfrancesco degli Albizzi and Bartolomeo Valori, met in a council of war in Rome. After much hesitation and diplomacy, as well as an

abortive attempt by Filippo Strozzi’s eldest son Piero to establish a bridgehead in the Florentine dominion, the exiles eventually committed to a military expedition against Florence in the summer of 1537. On I August, Florentine and imperial troops routed the outnumbered force led by the exiles at Montemurlo, northwest of Florence.® The battle at Montemurlo marked the culmination of a breakdown

of the consensus politics that had governed Florence since the late fourteenth century. This consensus had shaped the social world of the city’s office-holding class, laying the basis for the imagined community of the fifteenth century. Beginning with the unsuccessful Pazzi conspiracy against Lorenzo il Magnifico in 1478, this idea of consensus and the political culture of inclusion shaped by it began to fracture into two competing, exclusive visions of Florence: as either a stato governed by the Medici or one that excluded the Medici entirely. In both visions political opposition became increasingly intolerable and bloodshed became correspondingly acceptable.°? Following the coup d’état of 1527 and the siege of 1529-30, this rupture hardened into a cultural divide as the men exiled in the following months came to form a “contrary commonwealth”: a reconceived and relocated Florence existing outside the city walls.”° This cultural divide provoked a sense of alienation in Filippo Strozzi that led him to observe that he no longer knew if his former friends within Florence “are flesh or fish to me.””! While this idiom would more readily translate as “fish or fowl” in English, this

would only capture the material opposition between the terms. The confrontation between Carnival (flesh) and Lent (fish), which was so prevalent in early modern Europe, lent symbolic weight to Strozzi’s choice of words, capturing not just a difference in substance but also in culture.

The word that Florentines used in the sixteenth century for exile was fuoruscito: literally, one who has gone outside. They inherited the term from the medieval period of communal government, when exile had initially meant removal beyond the walls of the city: an exile was one outside the city”? Banishment from the city meant alienation from

Neither Fish nor Flesh 165 the principal sources of identity for members of the office-holding class: removal from the public magistracies, from the networks of friends, relatives, and neighbors, and from the physical city that underwrote their status and prestige. Dante Alighieri most eloquently captured the spiritual and mental anguish of exile: “How hard it is to tell what it was like, / this wood of wilderness, savage and stubborn / (the thought of it brings back all my old fears), / a bitter place! Death could scarce be bitterer.””3 More prosaically, Filippo Strozzi observed in 1537,

“I would like to be restored to my fatherland... because the name of rebel greatly damages my business dealings. ... Moreover, I would like to be able to finish the palace and reclaim my debts.””4 The exiles of 1530 were forcibly separated from the social fabric of the city by their sentences. This alienation affected not only their own experience— such as the feeling voiced by Dante in the fourteenth century—but also the perception of them by men still within the city. In Florence during the 1530s, the men exiled for political reasons after the siege became increasingly excluded from the reimagining of the city undertaken by the office-holding class. They lost their place in the social world and the imagined community of the elite. Men who

remained in Florence began to recast their onetime fellow citizens, men who had once been friends, relatives, or neighbors, as an external

other: a foreign threat to Florentine peace and stability. As early as 1531, Luigi Guicciardini, writing to his brother Francesco, referred to the exiles as “enemies.” On 10 June 1533, Luigi noted that “His Excellency of the Duke demonstrates, more every day, to be beyond his years

in patience, understanding, and everything.” He continued, hoping that this pleased God “because no other good can we have, nor in any other consists the health of this city, our enemies being more obstinate and poisonous than ever.””> The juxtaposition of “enemies” with the “health of the city” makes apparent the threat that Luigi perceived in the exiles: they challenged not only the Medici and their supporters but also the security and stability of the city as a whole. His choice of poisonous to describe the nature of this threat—implying noxious, external corruption—emphasizes its foreign, non-Florentine nature. In late 1534, Francesco Guicciardini used less confrontational language but

166 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY still underlined the growing divide between those within Florence and those without. Regarding the exiles, he observed: “I have always judged that they have little foundation and that they proceed from madness and desperation.” He added, “I know that I cannot trust these dishonest and malicious men, nor could anything ever persuade me otherwise because I know that they hold me in the greatest hatred.””° Francesco Guicciardini’s first reply to the challenges of the exiles, made in Naples at the beginning of 1536, contained a more rhetorically devastating representation of the exclusion of the exiles from the social world of Florence. In this oration, he divided the fuorusciti into three categories and summarily dismissed each one as no longer having a stake in the city and so no longer possessing the right to intervene in

Florentine affairs. Those who voluntarily departed the city and the Florentine cardinals had, through choice or vocation, abandoned any claim over the city and any role in its government. For the majority of the exiles, who had subsequently become rebels for breaking their bans following the extensions of 1533, Guicciardini saved his harshest lan-

guage: “If these complaints are proposed by rebels, we do not know how appropriate it is to hear them, as they can no longer be recognized in that fatherland, of which, for their demerits, they were justly and legitimately deprived.””” The exiles, Guicciardini argued, were no longer Florentines at all and so had no claim to a voice in the city’s affairs. Their act of rebellion, in not adhering to their new places of exile, had placed them outside the physical city, the political structures, the social

world, and even the imagination of the office-holding class to which they had once belonged. Prior to the death of Alessandro de’ Medici in 1537, the Florentine exiles remained only vaguely threatening. Following the assassination of the duke, however, the possibility of military action against the city increased together with internal anxieties. On 15 January 1537, Fran-

cesco Vettori captured both the fears of warfare and the sense then present in Florence of alienation from the exiles when he wrote to Filippo Strozzi: “You are held to be French, your Piero was and is in the pay of the Most Christian King [Francis I]; if one were to make any

mention of you, immediately we will come under suspicion and will

Neither Fish nor Flesh 167 have no means of dodging a Spanish governor; and even if the French

were here in support, they would ruin the country and the imperials the city."”® On 6 February, Girolamo Guicciardini wrote that the governors of Florence “are for doing everything in order to quieten external affairs with the exiles or others, in a manner that it will be easy to avoid war, but as it is one can judge the future badly.””? Five months later, as the threat of warfare deepened following the failure of diplo-

matic efforts, Isabella Guicciardini, the wife of Luigi, informed her husband of her fears and ominous signs of impending danger: a monstrous birth and an earth tremor.°° Around the same time Francesco Guicciardini observed, in relation to the city’s military preparations: “Here one sees nothing but darkness.”®!

The most compelling evidence of the manner in which the exiles of 1530 came to appear a threat to the security and peace of Florence comes not from the correspondence of men committed to the Medici family, such as Francesco Vettori or the brothers Guicciardini, but from the letters written to Filippo Strozzi from his elder brother Lorenzo in the months leading up to the battle at Montemurlo. As had occurred throughout their adult lives, Lorenzo maintained the family presence in Florence while Filippo absented himself for lengthy periods, and eventually removed himself permanently in 1533. Lorenzo had received a seat on the expanded balia of 29 August 1530; and he was

one of the few additional members nominated to the new balia of 8 November.® As such he automatically had a seat on the Dugento from its inauguration in April 1532, becoming part of the semi-closed officeholding class of the new principality. Lorenzo did not, however, hold any significant offices until after the death of Alessandro de’ Medici. This makes his correspondence more compelling. Lorenzo Strozzi was not a committed partisan of the Medici. Nor did he participate in the institutions of the new principate; but he shared opinions in common with men like Francesco Guicciardini who did. Lorenzo Strozzi’s let-

ters present the voice of a man outside the stato but within the officeholding class. These letters need to be read with care, because they contain an ele-

ment of rhetorical posturing: the brothers were alert to the continual

168 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY danger of the interception of their correspondence. Lorenzo, particularly, wrote with an eye toward protecting his own life and position in Florence.*3 Nevertheless, after the assassination of Alessandro in January 1537 Lorenzo became the most frank conduit for patrician opinion to reach his younger sibling. A determination that his brother was wrong emerged with increasing urgency in Lorenzo’s letters, alongside his obvious affection and concern for Filippo. Lorenzo felt that Filippo’s military preparations threatened the stability and security of Florence, and that Filippo had placed personal interest and ambition above the common good of the city. In this regard, Lorenzo positioned himself rhetorically as the voice of the office-holding class. Lorenzo ap-

pealed to his brother to act as a citizen rather than an exile, and to protect Florence’s best interests rather than his own. Following notification of the death of Alessandro, Filippo had left

Venice and traveled to Bologna, where he began to raise troops to complement those mustered by Cardinals Salviati and Ridolfi in Rome. On 4 February, Lorenzo wrote to his brother, urging him to “return to Venice and your commercial affairs, with whatever excuses occur to you, thus you will preserve the benevolence of all this City toward you and the credit that you have outside it.” Nine days later,

Lorenzo wrote again: “I do not want to fail in recommending your fatherland to you, however much I have seen and continually wish [to see] by your actions the love that you bear it.” The following day, 14 February, he stated optimistically: “When you act I know, as if I were certain, that you will do more infinite justice toward yourself and all us others, furnishing that security and quiet that every loving and good citizen ought to desire.” Almost a month later, toward the middle of March, Lorenzo warned Filippo, “It seems to me that men who place their own city in peril without any benefit are most imprudent.” On 26

May, Lorenzo expressed a hope that God would induce Filippo “so that you place public things before private affairs.”*4 Lorenzo Strozzi’s correspondence with his brother articulated and emphasized the distance between the office-holding class within Florence and those members of it that had become exiles and rebels in the

1530s. Lorenzo continually invoked and reminded Filippo of the obli-

Neither Fish nor Flesh 169 gations and duties of the citizen toward the commonwealth. While Lorenzo remained optimistic about his brother’s patriotism and good-

will toward Florence, he no longer held these attributes as certain. Filippo had never fully belonged to the social world of the officeholding class, owing to his career outside Florence and his preference for commercial over political success. His participation in the military adventurism of the exiles in 1537, however, placed him so far from the

expected behavior and disposition of the Florentine patriciate that even his own brother doubted him.

The correspondence of Lorenzo Strozzi makes clear that the concept of the common good retained its potency and significance after 130. He enjoined his brother to act as a “loving and good citizen” by placing the good of the city before any personal interests or ambitions. However, the common good referred to by Lorenzo in 1537 was not identical to that invoked by Leonardo Bruni at the beginning of the fifteenth century and by Matteo Palmieri in the 1440s, or even that embodied and envisioned by Ghirlandaio in the frescoes at Santa Maria Novella and Santa Trinita in the 1480s. The social imagination of the Florentine office-holding class was not immobile. Despite the lingering of residual practices and behaviors, as well as the continuing foreign influence over Florence, the city’s elite had begun to reimagine and reframe their social world in the face of the changes wrought in 1532. The Florentine office-holding class began to find a new familiar-

ity and a new regularity different from that of their fathers at the end of the fifteenth century. A new idea of the common good of the city began to emerge in the 1530s, one that emphasized peace and stability, that found strength in unity, that preferred a quiet life of civility—the pursuit of learning, literature, music, and the visual arts—over the demands of republican politics, and above all else, one that found its principal articulation in the defense of Florentine independence. Two key influences drove the reshaping and reimagination of the office-holding class and the common good after 1530. First, the changes in the objective structures of the city that occurred in 1532: the abolition of the Signoria, the creation of the two new councils that partially

closed the office-holding class, and the institution of Alessandro as

170 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY head of state with absolute and sole legislative authority as well as the prerogative to name replacements to both the Dugento and Quarantotto. The social imagination of the Florentine office-holding class did

not simply reflect the institutions and structures of the city; it also reproduced and shaped them. These institutions could not alter, therefore, without a correlated shift in how the elite imagined themselves. But the values, expectations, dispositions, and practices of the officeholding class could not change with the stroke of a pen as the forms of government had done. Such a transition took time. If the new constitution appeared in April 1532 as a triumph of oligarchic power in the city, it did so as the result of a lag between the political and the social.

The legislation altering the form of the government represented the last official expression of the old social world. Faced with a new politi-

cal reality in which offices were bestowed rather than allotted and in which the office-holding class no longer reproduced itself but was increased at the whim of a prince, the Florentine elite had to find new ways of conceiving their social place.

The changes in the institutions and structures of the city, mandated by the provisions of 27 April 1532, explain the why of the transformations in the social world that began to occur in the 1530s. The second influence over this process explains the how: the memory and legacy of the siege of Florence. The events of 1529—30 had brought the city to the brink of ruin: physical, financial, and political. Florence had been nominally free from imperial control since the twelfth century—the first record of consular government dates from 1138—and independent from interference by any emperor since the death of Emperor Henry VII in 1313. Over the next century and a half the city evolved from a self-governing commune into a territorial state controlling a large part of modern-day Tuscany. The arrival of French and imperial armies on the Italian peninsula at the end of the fifteenth century, however, exposed the conceits and precarious balance of the Italian city-state system: all five of the self-declared great powers of the peninsula faced the prospect of oblivion. Two, Naples and Milan, became directly subject to foreign administration. In 1509, Venice lost (if not permanently) its mainland Italian empire; and the sack of Rome in 1527 humbled the

Neither Fish nor Flesh 171 papacy. Florence too, in 1529~—30, lost virtually all its dominion to the

besieging imperial army. By August 1530, the governors of the city faced a choice between either surrendering to the demands of Ferrante Gonzaga or risking a battle within the city walls, which could only end

in either the destruction of Florence or its annexation into the Habsburg patrimony.

The feudal nobility of the Kingdom of Naples and the Milanese state could transfer their allegiance to the emperor without any loss of position. They kept their titles, their rank and status, and all their privileges.°> The office-holding class of Florence, however, had no other claim to their status than the city itself. The independence of the city was essential to the identity of the elite. Avoiding the loss of Florentine sovereignty became the key determinant of the practices and dispositions of the office-holding class in the wake of August 1530.

The institutionalization of Medici rule, in the provisions of 1532, served as the objective basis for preserving this independence. The emergent reimagination of the elite and the concept of the common good produced by and in turn reproducing these new structures acted to provide a new familiarity and regularity for the office-holding class. The recognition of the need for continuity and stability in the city’s government and elite expressed in the actions of the new stato immediately after the siege continued into the 1530s, fueling a desire for unity within the office-holding class. Internal conflicts and factional strife, seen as partly responsible for the destruction of the siege and the threat to Florentine independence, became anathema. Between 1528 and 1531, most likely during his enforced political inactivity during the siege, Francesco Guicciardini wrote two politico-historical works that laid a particular emphasis on unity as a source of security and strength for Florence. The first text, the Considerazioni intorno ai Discorsi del Machiavelli, con-

sisted of a commentary and critique of Niccold Machiavelli’s exegesis on the first decade of Livy’s histories. Guicciardini condemned Machiavelli’s claim that class conflict, preferably institutionalized in the structures of governance, provided the best means of protecting the civic freedoms and independence of a republic. “It was not... the division

172 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY between the plebs and the Senate that made Rome free and powerful,” Guicciardini thundered.*° Moreover, he continued, the Roman republic would have been better off had the reasons for this disunity never existed: “Those defects of the government, which were the cause for that city remaining full of tumults and sedition and the creation of the Tribunes, cannot be praised.”*” In the same period during which Guicciardini penned the Considerazioni he also wrote a second, brief, history of Florence: the Cose fiorentine.

The problem of factional conflict and internal divisions arose in this work also. Florence, Guicciardini observed, possessed the virtue and strong foundations necessary for the creation of the greatest empire on the Italian peninsula. Indeed, he continued, it would have acquired such a dominion, “if it had had the fortune of having within its walls a well-ordered government, the authority of which held the citizens united.” Alas, Florence, in Guicciardini’s opinion, possessed “this perpetual misfortune ... of always being in civil sedition.”®®

In his oration on behalf of Alessandro de’ Medici in January 1536, in Naples, Francesco Guicciardini connected the need for unity to the

preservation of independence and to the constitutional changes of 132. The reordering of the government occurred, he maintained, for “just reasons,” principally “to insure the fatherland” against the factional conflicts that had led to instability since 1494, which had in turn threatened the sovereignty of Florence. The thirteen reformers undertook the abolition of the Signoria and the elevation of Alessandro as permanent head of state for “the fortification and stability of [the government] and for its own security and benefit.”®® The creation of the Medici principate provided an institutional means for ending internal divisions in Florence by removing executive authority from

the impermanent Signoria. Since the late fourteenth century, the office-holding class had sought to establish a means for manufacturing consensus in government, initially through electoral controls, then via the unofficial position of the Albizzi followed by the Medici as charis-

matic centers for the elite.°° At the end of the fifteenth century the governors of the city turned to institutional means, forming the Consiglio Maggiore in 1494 and appointing a gonfaloniere a vita in 1502. In

Neither Fish nor Flesh 173 Guicciardini’s estimation the creation of the Medici principate in 1532 constituted the culmination and perfection of this process. By 1536, Francesco Guicciardini had become the leading apologist

for the Medici regime in Florence. Other members of the officeholding class, however, shared the desire for unity and the recognition that an end to internal conflicts could provide a bulwark against any recurrence of the events of 1529-30. Once again, the correspondence of Lorenzo Strozzi provides the principal example for opinions probably shared by the majority of his peers: men who were neither ardent

supporters of the Medici nor vehemently opposed to them but who desired above all else the maintenance of their sociopolitical status. On 14 February 1537, Lorenzo wrote to Filippo Strozzi urging him to consider “the security and quiet” of the city. Using language analogous to Guicciardini’s defense of the constitution of 1532, Lorenzo linked the preservation of Florentine independence with the maintenance of civil unity. The military preparations of Filippo and the other exiles threatened to reopen the conflicts of 1529-30 within the city, as well as revisiting the damage of war wreaked in that period. Franceco Vettori was more direct in a letter penned the following day. “It is possible... that your nature has changed so much, that from being the most patriotic man I| have ever known,” he rhetorically accused Filippo, “now you wish to become head of the exiles, to come to Bologna, to spend your money, and enter the Florentine territory and burn it, rob it, despoil it, and finally to imprison and kill its inhabitants.” Several days later, Lorenzo wrote once more to his brother. This letter not only deployed the same imagery and language of his previous epistle as means of appealing to Filippo not to threaten the internal peace of the city, but it also articulated the political agnosticism that motivated and underlay the desire for unity. Lorenzo observed that “I am writing, as always, as you know is my habit, for the benefit of the city and of who rules it.” Lorenzo identified with the city of Florence and its governors, which in both cases meant the office-holding class and especially the imagined fraternity of civilian magistrates, rather than with any faction. Lorenzo continued by urging Filippo to return to Venice, separating himself from the other exiles, who did not “desire the quiet and well-being of the fatherland as you [do].”?!

174 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY Concurrent with the expressions for unity and stability in the officeholding class, there emerged a growing rhetoric of withdrawal from public life. As early as 1529, Lorenzo Strozzi had expressed a preference for staying at his villa outside the city rather than submitting to the demands of public office: “Difficulties offend me nor have I found anything that delights me more than [fresh] air and for this [office] it is necessary to stay assiduously in the city.” He continued: “I have al-

ways desired to be in good grace with this government but I do not care to be adopted so quickly into something of such importance.” In the 1530s, such expressions became more common among members of the office-holding class. In the face of the tensions prevalent in that decade—the ambiguity of Alessandro’s position in the early years and the threat of the exiles later—the political agnosticism of the 1510s and 1520s deepened into a disposition that was rhetorically antithetical to political action. This language aimed at the avoidance of political conflicts rather than any real abandonment of office holding. The common good of the city was better served by unity and consensus than by the sort of factional and ideological disagreements that had fostered instability and led to the suffering of the siege. The holding of offices still remained prestigious as a source of honor and profit, the latter especially important in the ravaged economy after the siege. In his libro segreto, Luigi Martelli compiled a list of “all the offices of profit and honor that I, Luigi di Luigi d’ Ugolino Martelli, have

had.” He also carefully noted the salary that each paid post brought him, a central concern for a man with a large family.?? Possessing such magistracies continued to be a symbol of class distinction, becoming

even more pronounced in this regard following the partial closure of access to such distinction that occurred in 1532. But office holding in the 1530s became a product of rather than a producer of status.*4 On 22 December 1530, Girolamo Guicciardini expressed a wish that “we can pass the remainder of the time allotted us with more pleasure and leisure than we have done in the past.”®> Guicciardini penned this sentiment as a member of the Otto di Guardia appointed to begin their term in January 1531. His desire for a peaceful and pleasant existence stands in contrast to, and comments upon, the difficult duties of

Neither Fish nor Flesh 175 the previous Otto, responsible for the sentences of exile and execution passed in October and November 1530. In April 1536, Filippo Valori reported his stay in Certaldo—as a Florentine official—to his cousin Bartolomeo, in the following terms: “Being in this place of Certaldo most alone and deprived of doing and even less of hearing anything, I have taken great pleasure in freeing myself from both body and soul.”?° On 9 June 1537, Lorenzo Strozzi penned one of the clearest articulations of the disposition toward withdrawal from public affairs, while staying at the Strozzi villa of Santuccio. “I am inclined to recommend my lifestyle,” he informed Filippo, “of staying at the villa and enjoying the quiet.” He continued that he could not relate any news of events to his brother, because he stayed at the villa “not only on account of the air, but in order not to hear so often and so quickly infinite things that displease me.”?” Jacopo Guicciardini found a similar attraction to life outside the city walls, pursuing not only a rhetorical but also a physical withdrawal from public life, although he intimated a lingering sense that this was impossible. On 12 August 1537, he wrote to his eldest brother, Luigi, concerning public life in Florence: “If the means of fleeing it were to depart from the city and the company of men... and to come to the country and lead a solitary life, which one could easily do here—which without a doubt is a paradise—I above all others would do it.°9°

Even more compelling than the written testimony of this emergent rhetoric toward retirement from public life in favor of a private life of pleasant pursuits is the visual evidence from the same period. In the 1530s, Agnolo Bronzino produced a series of striking portraits of young patrician men in Florence. The paintings all share common pictorial elements: depicting solitary youths, dressed in black or dark clothing, in the act of, or surrounded by artifacts relevant to, cultural pursuits: art, literature, and music. Art historical analysis of these images has observed that these paintings appear to grapple with the problem of redefining identity following the siege of Florence.°® Even the most detailed exposition of these images, however, has analyzed only the

internal visual evidence of the portraits without considering the broader social and cultural context of their production.

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The Portrait of Ugolino Martelli (Figure 4.1), which opened this chap-

ter, provides one of the best examples. Ugolino sits in an ambiguous architectural space—neither internal nor external. His pose refers to (rather than directly quoting) Michelangelo’s Tomb of Giuliano de’ Medici,

in particular the seated figure of I bastoniere (Figure 4.2), as do many of

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178 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY these images, in the arrangement of the hands and the contrapposto posi-

tioning. In the upper-right-hand corner, the bottom angle of a Michelangelesque “kneeling” window intrudes. Behind the youth’s right-hand shoulder, at the end of the physical space depicted, stands a statue of David with Goliath’s head. Ugolino appears as if momentarily dis-

tracted from the act of reading. He gazes off to the left side of the frame, his right hand resting lightly on an open book on the table before him, his index finger holding his place in the text. The text of the open book is legible, identifying it as the opening passages of Book Nine of The Iliad. This choice has great significance: the ninth book of Homer’s poem details the cost of disunity within the besieging Hellenic camp and the attempt by Agammenon to heal his quarrel with Achilles. Its inclusion in the image invites comparison with the damage wrought by the political conflicts of 1527-30 and the continued threat posed to Florentine unity by the exiles. Moreover, the fact that this is alluded to by the act of reading suggests a distance from the practice of public affairs: they remain consigned now to the realm of literature.'°° Two other closed volumes also surround Ugolino. That on the table is an unidentified volume of Virgil, while that held in his left hand is a volume of Pietro Bembo. Even a cursory glance at this image, let alone the many other similar

ones painted by Bronzino in the same period, reveals that a social world far removed from that which motivated frescoes created by Do-

menico Ghirlandaio during the 1480s produced and was in turn reproduced by these portraits. The vast differences in representation between the portraits of the 1530s and the frescoes of the 1480s bespeak a transformation of self-conception and identity among Florence’s elite. Even the material of the images themselves, panel paintings produced for private consumption, as opposed to frescoes painted in public spaces, reveals the inward turn and withdrawal of the officeholding class in the wake of the siege. The great public frescoes of the 1480s presented the men depicted to the daily gaze of their neighbors,

both asserting and reproducing the social status and political role of the office-holding class. A painting such as the Portrait of Ugolino Martelli presumably hung on the walls of the family palace and had a more lim-

Neither Fish nor Flesh 179 ited audience and aim: the conjuring of an absent son, certainly, but also the reassurance of social position on a more intimate, familial scale. Martelli and Bronzino’s other portrait subjects appear not as part of a greater body—such as the imagined commonwealth of mature males depicted by Ghirlandaio—but as private individuals absorbed in solo pursuits. The emphasis of the paintings lies not on public service as the defining characteristic of the sociopolitical elite, but rather upon

education and the facility of time and leisure to follow cultural pursuits. The realm of cultural production and sophistication rather than of political activity appears as the place of elite practice.’ Certain pan-European currents of fashion also contributed to the depiction of Martelli: the popularity of solo portraiture and a preference for somber clothing promoted by courtly literature and the personal appearance of Charles V. To an extent, then, Bronzino’s images served as drivers of cultural change in Florence. They not only responded to shifts in the patrician imagination but also helped to produce a process of reimagining by presenting a new, different image of the elite, a depiction tied less to the political imperatives of Florence than to the cultural imperatives of a wider European scale. Like the changing appearance of men during the siege, Bronzino’s portraits suggest that youth occupied a front role in cultural shifts. A new generation was emerging, acculturated from their early years into a different way of being Florentine. While their fathers struggled with the anxieties and challenges of the decade, the young men of Bronzino’s imagining led the way forward to a more courtly society.

As opposed to the purely masculine social world of the fifteenth century, however, this new disposition opened to women also. Bronzino produced comparable images of elite females in the same period, such as the Portrait of the Lady in Red (Figure 4.3). The subject of this painting is probably Francesca di Jacopo Salviati, an aunt of Cosimo I, around the time of her marriage to Ottaviano de’ Medici in 1533.'°? The iden-

tification rests upon the Salviati colors of red and white, which the subject wears, as well as the peculiarly and specifically shaped diamond ring visible on the ring finger of her right hand. The form of this ring reproduces a Medici heraldic device used first by Piero di Cosimo and

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then by Lorenzo il Magnifico, indicating that the lady depicted is most likely a descendant of Lorenzo. Francesca was his granddaughter. The young lady sits on a richly decorated Savonarola chair, with small dog on her lap, presumably representing fidelity in her coming marriage.

Neither Fish nor Flesh 181 She wears an elegant gown of red with dark green sleeves over a white shirt. A gold chain adorns her neck, and rings grace each hand. Her left hand rests on the arm of the chair, while the right lies on a rosary in her lap. Like Bronzino’s male portraits, the positioning of her hands and body appear to refer to, without directly copying, Michelangelo’s II bastoniere. The lady sits in an ambiguous architectural space predominated by a concave alcove behind her, neither definably internal nor clearly external. Behind her and to the right of the image, two closed books rest on what appears to be a stone bench, such as those that adorned

the exterior of many Florentine palaces. The grotesque mascaron adorning the chair’s arm counters the poise and impassivity of the lady’s own features.

Very little iconographical difference exists between this female portrait and that of Martelli. While the young lady does not appear actively involved in cultural pursuits, the presence of the books in the painting indicates her access to learning and refinement. Her costume is more lavish than the appearance of Bronzino’s male portrait subjects, simi-

lar to the visual differences between the male and female figures in Ghirlandaio’s frescoes from fifty years earlier. However, the absence of

any public role for the male figures, unlike the images of the 1480s, softens this distinction and underlines the greater similarity between male and female in the emerging social world of the office-holding class under the Medici principate. What these images share with the earlier imaginings of the fifteenth century is as significant as the differences. The principal commonality is the physical and symbolic presence of the city of Florence itself. The

Ghirlandaio frescoes represented the public spaces of the city—the Palazzo and Piazza della Signoria and the Piazza Santa Trinita—in accordance with the very public nature of the social world of the officeholding class. The references to the city in Bronzino’s images from the 1530s are far more restrained, as befitted the growing rhetoric of withdrawal from public life. Nonetheless, while the spaces of the paintings

are not always certain, their settings are unambiguously Florentine. Often this florentinita presents itself elusively as a lingering sense in the shape and color of the stonework.'°? The quotation of Michelangelo’s

182 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY Bastoniere, common not just to the two images discussed here, refers not only to the actual sculpture but also to it as representative of the mate-

rial link between the space of the city and the office-holding class. It operated as a reminder of the patrician ability to shape the urban landscape. Michelangelo’s original was created for a Medici funeral monument at San Lorenzo. In the context of the 1530s, too, it carried an ac-

knowledgment of the cultural and political predominance of the Medici in the city. In the Portrait of the Lady in Red and the Portrait of Ugolino Martelli, how-

ever, the association is direct and specific. The stone bench behind the subject in the former image, as noted above, bears a direct resemblance to the public seating that encircled many patrician palaces in the city. The barred “kneeling” window in the upper right-hand corner of the latter image copies Michelangelo’s famous design for the closure of the corner loggia in the Medici palace. This design became hugely fashionable and was copied throughout the city. The identity of the office-

holding class still remained tied very closely to the city itself. The material space of Florence helped to produce and bolster the social position of the city’s elite citizens through their ability to influence and shape the urban geography. Moreover, as the experience of 1529— 30 had brought into sharp relief, the city underwrote their status at an

existential level. Should Florence cease to exist, completely or even simply in terms of political independence, the elite of the city would also lose their principal claim to social distinction and political power. In the rear of the Portrait of Ugolino Martelli stands the familiar Flo-

rentine image of David, triumphant with the head of Goliath at his feet: the embodiment of youthful virtu defending liberty. The presence of this potent representation could refer to lingering republican sentiment in the early 1530s. However, the images of Old Testament heroes

defeating tyranny, not only David but also Judith, had always possessed a Medicean as well as a civic reading.'°4 Beyond a possible endorsement of Medici rule, the depiction of David with Ugolino Martelli indicates how the office-holding class of Florence reinterpreted and reformed older images and associations to fit the emergent social world of the principate during the 1530s. The figure of David still rep-

Neither Fish nor Flesh 183 resented the virtt of the city’s elite defending the liberty and common good of the city. But the meaning of these concepts had changed. In the wake of the siege, which had brought the city to the brink of destruction or the loss of independence, a consensus emerged in patrician thought that identified liberty with sovereignty alone, that identified the common good of Florence with the preservation of its independence. The office-holding class rearticulated notions of serving and protecting the common good to justify the installation of Alessandro de’ Medici as a hereditary prince. After the factional conflicts of

127-30 had brought Florence into war with the two major powers remaining on the Italian peninsula—the emperor and the pope—an alliance with both the Habsburgs and the Medici and the fulfillment of Clement VII’s political ambitions provided the only viable path toward securing the long-term stability and sovereignty of Florence. In April 1533, Luigi Guicciardini observed that both the church and Florence “have done well with the imperial party.” He continued, “I do not know what could be a greater error than giving it cause for suspicion and reasonable doubt of our faith.°'°’ The concept of liberty as civic republicanism did not disappear but lingered as an ideal, espoused principally by some of the Florentine exiles.'°° In his defense of Alessandro’s regime, given at Naples in January 1536, Francesco Guicciardini made clear the meaning that liberty had acquired for the members of the office-holding class who had stayed in Florence. Replying to the exiles’ charge that the constitution of 1532

had broken the terms of the 1530 surrender, in which the emperor guaranteed the city’s liberty, he argued that the meaning of liberty in the document did not refer to any specific form of government: “The true sense of this clause is that His Majesty was given a free hand to ordain either a popular regime or that of the Medici, or whatever other form pleased him more.” Rather, liberty in the terms of the capitula-

tion referred only to Florence’s independence. The treaty obliged Charles V “not [to] place the city, which was always free, under foreign dominion, depriving it of its ancient privileges, preeminence, and liberty.” Guicciardini concluded that “one cannot say that [the emperor] did not preserve liberty; rather, it is necessary [to say] that he ordered it

184 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY much better than if he had restored a popular government.”'°”? The civic republicanism of the 1527-30 stato had not protected Florence’s liberty (independence). Rather, it had brought the city to the brink of ruin and of submission to foreign control. The installation of Alessandro as hereditary prince of the city would by contrast preserve the sovereignty of Florence. Supporting the Medici regime became, therefore, service to the common good, to the res publica. Guicciardini dramatically made this point in a letter to Roberto Pucci on 19 May 1537. He specu-

lated on rumors that the French, at the instigation of the Florentine exiles, would intervene militarily in Tuscany. “For us war will result in two terrible effects,” he wrote; “the destruction of the countryside, still suffering from the last war it will be reduced to nothing, and whatever remains in the end, whoever wins, will be the prize of the victors.”!°°

The correspondence between the Strozzi brothers following the death of Alessandro demonstrates how the concept of sovereignty motivated members of the elite within the city who supported Cosimo I and also some of the exiles, who opposed his accession. The principal

concern espoused by both Lorenzo and Filippo Strozzi was that Charles V might find an excuse or a reason to intervene in Florence and subject the city to direct imperial administration. This had occurred in Milan in 1533 when Francesco II Sforza died without a legitimate heir. As early as 20 January 1537, Filippo expressed concerns that “our city might easily fall into foreign hands.” At this stage, he expressed qualified support for Cosimo I, noting, “about the election of the capo I could not be more content as far as my private interests are concerned.”!°° Although he did not clarify the distinction in this letter, Filippo obvi-

ously separated the personal benefit that he might acquire from the election of Cosimo I—annulment of his sentence of rebellion—and what he perceived to be the larger good of Florence. As the months passed, Filippo agonized over whether military ac tion against the city would provoke an imperial coup de main or would in fact (if successful) prevent the government of Cosimo becoming a puppet for rule from Spain. In late February, Filippo considered that “moving with arms now would be the greatest service to Caesar [Charles V],

making him boss—with great justification—of all the important

Neither Fish nor Flesh 185 places in Tuscany.” He continued, observing that not only would mili-

tary action make the exiles infamous but that it would “not liberate [Florence], but enslave it more than it is at present.” Around the same time, however, Strozzi also worried that “the city hurries toward its

ruin and will become in short time, by necessity, the slave either of Vitello [Alessandro Vitelli] or of the Spanish or of the French, because Cosimo and the little bastard [Giulio di Alessandro de’ Medici] would

govern in name alone.”"° Filippo shared this sentiment with other exiles. Under interrogation following his capture at Montemurlo, Filippino di Bartolomeo Valori reported seeing a letter written by his second cousin, Francesco Valori, to the effect that the arrival of the Count of Cifuentes, an imperial representative, in Florence was the prelude to “removing the state from Lord Cosimo and placing it in the hands

of the Spanish." Opposed to this fear was a sentiment within Florence itself that, far from threatening the city’s independence, friendship with the emperor was the only means of preserving it. Attempting to persuade his brother against military action, Lorenzo Strozzi implored Filippo that “whoever wishes liberty and not servitude, the health and not the ruin of this our fatherland, needs... to take the side of His Majesty, or at least to hold himself neutral.°"* The protection of Florence’s liberty—that is, its independence—could only be assured by the goodwill of the emperor, which in turn could only be assured by the rule of Cosimo I.

Despite his concerns, Filippo Strozzi eventually decided that the risks of not acting outweighed the possibility of imperial intervention. His justifications for the military expedition against Florence demonstrated the cultural divide separating the exiles from their compatriots. The same language of public service and common good that Lorenzo Strozzi and Francesco Guicciardini deployed in support of the Medici principality and the imperial alliance threaded Filippo Strozzi’s letters in 1537. To Francesco Vettori he asserted, “If you have always found me loving toward the fatherland, you should not doubt my mind now.” To his brother Lorenzo, Filippo wrote, “I will always do my duty to the fatherland.”'3 By late July 1537, the Florentine exiles had amassed three

thousand troops at Mirandola, under the command of Fra Bernardo

186 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY Salviati, the younger brother of Cardinal Giovanni and a knight of Saint John of Jerusalem. A further twelve hundred infantry, commanded by Piero di Filippo Strozzi, had assembled at Bologna. The exact number of exiles involved in the military expedition remains unclear, but Jacopo Nardi’s estimate of fifty or sixty seems more likely than Benedetto Varchi’s of two hundred.'"4

Rather than waiting for Salviati’s detachment, Filippo Strozzi and Bartolomeo Valori led the exiles to Montemurlo, northwest of Prato, followed by Piero Strozzi’s forces. The exiles fortified the old castello above the town, while Piero ordered his troops at the crossroads beneath the mountain, where the road ran between Prato and Pistoia. He sent a detachment, commanded by Cecchino Tessitore and Sandrino da Filicaia, in the direction of Prato, hoping to ambush any approaching force. But troops dispatched by Alessandro Vitelli routed the ambuscade, leading Piero to ride to their aid. In the ensuing battle Piero lost his sword, and his troops became cut off from Montemurlo and had to retreat. The remaining exiles, trapped in the fortress, soon sur-

rendered. Bernardo Salviati finally arrived only after the imperial force had withdrawn with a large number of prisoners. Heavy rains had delayed his march. Despite uniting with Piero Strozzi and his remaining troops, Salviati judged it prudent to withdraw. The imperial detachment that achieved victory at Montemurlo re-

turned to Florence with fifty-one Florentine prisoners. Several of these men were subsequently ransomed or freed by the individual commanders who had captured them. Several others escaped. Filippo Strozzi, whom Alessandro Vitelli claimed as his own prize, was imprisoned in the Fortezza da Basso at Florence, which the imperial colonel held in the name of Charles V. Cosimo I had thirteen of the cap-

tured exiles and rebels executed, including Antonfrancesco degli Albizzi and Filippo Valori, alongside Bartolomeo Valori and his two sons, Filippino and Paolantonio, on 20 August." Strozzi remained imprisoned in the Florentine fortress despite the efforts of his sons and many others to persuade Emperor Charles V to liberate him. On 29 November, Strozzi informed Cardinal Giovanni Salviati that he had offered Vitelli a fifty thousand scudi ransom, but

Neither Fish nor Flesh 187 that his gaoler wanted ten thousand more. Above all else, Strozzi feared being delivered to Cosimo I: “the fate of the others makes me and my friends fear greatly.” A month later, Strozzi wrote to his son, Roberto, who was petitioning the emperor in person for his father’s release: “Here my affairs are in the worst state . .. this is the last act of the tragedy.’"° Filippo Strozzi eventually met a suitably tragic end, apparently tak-

ing his own life on 18 December 1538 while still imprisoned in the Florentine fortress."'7 Strozzi left behind a note claiming that he feared

falling into the hands of Cosimo and being tortured into admitting things “prejudicial to my honor.” He begged that he be buried in Santa Maria Novella, beside his wife Clarice de’ Medici, if Cardinal Innocenzo Cibo approved of his interment in sacred ground. Finally, in his best theatrical style, Strozzi consigned his soul to God, “humbly praying that, even if he wishes to bestow no other grace, he will at least set it in that place where Cato of Utica and other similarly virtuous men have made their end.”"® Marcus Portius Cato the Younger had sided with Pompey against Julius Caesar during the Roman civil war. Following the latter’s victory at Pharsalus, Cato had killed himself at Utica in 46 B.C.E. Later writers, including Lucan and Dante, presented Cato

as a moral force and guide to Marcus Brutus, who stayed above the factional conflict at the end of the Roman republic and committed suicide to avoid taking sides in the conflict that ended the republican system.''?

Strozzi’s theatrical invocation of Cato was a revealing moment. On the one hand, it was a personal cry of despair: the conjuring of a metaphorical plague on both the Medici and the Florentine exiles. By comparing himself with a man who refused to take sides, Strozzi expressed a dying wish to take back the choices that he had made, which had led to his imprisonment and death. From a different perspective, Strozzi’s invocation of a man who refused to choose highlighted the fact that most of the office-holding class of Florence did make a choice in the wake of the siege of 1529-30. The imposition of the Medici principate was not done to the office-holding class of Florence, but with them. Most members of the patriciate chose to support and advance the establishment of a form of government antithetical to

188 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY Florentine tradition. They saw in a Medici monarchy the best, and perhaps only, means of preserving the city’s independence and, so, their own status and prestige. This choice was not accompanied by a definitive break with the political culture of Florentine republicanism. Indeed,

many of the concepts, language, and images that had supported the republican tradition appeared as justifications for and defenses of the new principate. In the 1530s the office-holding class undertook a process of refashioning the meanings and understandings attached to these concepts. This process was not yet complete in the summer of 1§37. While the social world of the city’s elite was definably no longer in the civic tradition of the late fifteenth century, it was not yet a court society.

Reimagining Florence The Court Society of the Mid-Sixteenth Century

ae In THE MIDDLE OF THE 1540S, the painter best known as Francesco Salviati spent several years in his home city of Florence, a brief interval in a career otherwise spent predominantly in Rome. In this period he completed numerous portraits of Florentine men, youths, and boys. These images of elegantly attired male figures bear obvious debts to the influence of Bronzino in the positioning and accoutrements of the figures, as well as the linear architectural backgrounds visible in many of them. Among these portraits, one, featuring a young man clasping a pair of gloves (Figure §.1), stands out. Sometimes attributed to Michele Tosini and identified (improbably) as a posthumous portrait of Alessandro de’ Medici or (even more improbably) of the duke’s assassin, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, this image is unique for the allegorical landscape behind the central figure. A drawnback green curtain reveals, to the left of the panel, a landscape dominated by hyperbolic clouds blushed pink by dawn. Almost immediately behind the sitter’s right shoulder an incongruous collection of figures gather on a hillside, all of whom refer to the city of Florence. The reclining nude male is a personification of the river Arno. Beside him an

190 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY almost comical lion—the Marzocco, an old emblem of the city—peers out toward the viewer. To the left and in front of the river god, a female figure emerges in place of the stamen from a flower, which could possibly be a lily: an embodiment of the eponymous flourishing of Florence. To the right of the Marzocco, on a slight hillock, stands a broncone— the Medici emblem of the dry and broken yet flowering branch. This image presents no depiction of youthful virti defending the liberty of the city, as the images produced by Pontormo (Figure 3.1) and Bronzino (Figure 4.1) in the previous two decades had done. The languid youth who is the painting’s central subject poses with grace but disinterest. Indeed, Florence (in its allegorical form) appears in no need of defend-

ers. The iconography of the emblematic figures in the background suggests that the city flourishes, tranquil and peaceful, under the guardianship of the Medici, the turbulence of the decade between 1527 and 1537 forgotten. This image by Salviati contributed to and com-

mented upon a reformation of the social world and imagination of Florence’s of fice-holding class that occurred in the 1540s as the political structures of the city stabilized into a monarchical form that would

endure until the Risorgimento.' When Filippo Strozzi met his desperate end in December 1538, the intertwined fates of Florence and of the city’s office-holding class remained uncertain. Spanish troops still occupied the fortresses of Florence and Livorno. The nominal head of the government, Cosimo I de’ Medici, was an untried youth, only nineteen years old. The threat of renewed warfare between the Emperor Charles V and King Francis I of France still hung over the city, not least because Filippo Strozzi’s eldest son, Piero, apparently eager for revenge, had taken military service with the French monarch (he would rise to become Marshal of France). More profoundly, the exact nature of the political structures of Florence and the social world of the city’s elite remained unclear. The ambiguities of the 1532 constitution continued unresolved: Was Florence a republic with a prince (like Venice and Genoa), or something more akin to the monarchies of France and Spain? A decade later the fortunes of Florence and the city’s elite appeared clearer and more confident. Cosimo I had proven himself an adept

Reimagining Florence 191 politician, regaining control over the Tuscan fortresses, freeing the dominion from a foreign military presence, and allying himself by marriage with one of the most powerful Spanish noble houses.* Cosimo also asserted, more forcefully than his predecessor had done, his position as prince of the city and its territory. Not only did this confidence end the political ambiguity of Alessandro’s reign; it also provided a point of objective political stability around which the office-holding class could coalesce and create a new familiarity of social practice and social place. The decade following the defeat of the exiles at Montemurlo witnessed a reimagining by the officeholding class of their role and status in Florence. Most significantly, the defining feature of this role—the act of holding office—ceased to be a political act in the 1540s, becoming instead a symbol of status and princely favor. The social world and imagination that emerged by 1550 was distinctly courtly and no longer civic in its conceptualization and figuration. The social world of the Florentine office-holding class evolved into

a court society during the 1540s as the city’s elite reimagined their identity and position in order to accord with the political transformations of the previous decade. This Florentine court society emerged out of the civic world and imagination of the republican era. No radical

break or revolution occurred in the society and culture of the city’s elite. The court society of the 1540s evolved as a culmination of the processes that began in the 1530s: central concepts of the earlier civic republican social imagination underwent a reconceptualization rather than being abandoned. In this decade, the lag between cultural and political change closed. As the new objective structures of the principality achieved stability under Cosimo I, the office-holding class completed the alteration of their practices and attitudes to fit the political realities. While this change appears very sudden and almost without impetus in the 1540s, this habituation was, in fact, the culmination of

a decades-long process for the men born at the end of the fifteenth century, who by now were the mature males (entering their fifth or sixth decade) that had always dominated Florentine politics. The older

generation who had known and participated in the civic republican

192 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY stato of 1494-1512 (or even the Medicean republic that had preceded it)

were dead. The men who in 1550 held the traditional gerontocratic hold on Florentine offices had only youthful or childhood memories of the fifteenth-century civic republic, at best.4 In January 1$37, Cosimo I enjoyed a position even more ambiguous than that of his murdered predecessor. Alessandro de’ Medici had received support from both Pope Clement VII and Emperor Charles V. In addition to his imperial title, as Duke of Penne, the constitution of April 1532 recognized Alessandro as duce of the Florentine Republic. The provision passed by the Quarantotto on 9 January 1537, electing Cosimo as the duke’s successor, however, acknowledged the new signore only as “head and principal of the government of the city of Florence and its dominion and the magistrates and offices of these.”> Imperial

recognition of the Quarantotto’s provision did not arrive until 28 October. The diploma’s phrasing followed that of the Florentine provision, recognizing Cosimo as “head and principal” of the government;

but it also conceded to the new prince both the authority and the juridical position possessed by Alessandro at his death, including the late duke’s Florentine title: duce of the Florentine republic.® Alessandro de’ Medici had never made any attempt to claim a ducal title for Florence from his father-in-law. His surviving Florentine correspondence from the 1530s appears routinely with the simple signature “Alex. Med.”” Following the election of 9 January 1537, Cosimo I initially followed his predecessor’s practice, concluding his correspondence, “Cosmo Medici” or “Cosimo Medici,” as he had done prior his

new position.® Corresponding to his assertive foreign and domestic policies, however, the new signore soon laid claim to the title of Duke of

Florence for himself. By April 1541 he had abandoned his previous practice and now signed his letters “the Duke of Florence.”? Cosimo, like Alessandro, never received imperial concession to assume this title. He simply claimed it of his own volition. In 1576, when the Emperor Maximilian IT recognized Cosimo’s heir, Francesco, as Grand Duke of

Tuscany, the imperial diploma referred to the Medici prince as “the Third dux of the Florentine Republic,” refusing to acknowledge his father’s arrogation.’©

Reimagining Florence 193 The significance of Cosimo’s usurpation of the title of Duke of Florence extended beyond his own self-conception and political iden-

tity to affect the social imagination of the Florentine office-holding class as well. It provided a stability and clarity to the constitutional structures of the city, which the previous decade had lacked. In combination with the new signore’s program of institutional reform and his relations with the Spanish military presence in north-central Italy, the unilateral assumption of the ducal title helped to end the ambiguity of the 1532 settlement." It demonstrated that Cosimo’s position did not equate to that of the Venetian doge but rather to the dukes of Ferrara or Mantua and the kings of France or Spain. Under Cosimo the Flo-

rentine government, in the space of a decade, became thoroughly transformed from the aristocratic republic imagined by the thirteen reformers in 1§32 into a monarchy. Notably, some Florentines began to address Cosimo as “duke” prior to 1541, when he began to use the title in his correspondence.'* In part this usage probably evolved from habit

from Alessandro’s reign and also as a convenient shorthand for the Medici prince’s cumbersome official title. But it also represented an acknowledgment of the political realities of the stato and a desire for the permanence and clarity that Cosimo’s regime would bring. Cosimo’s own use of the title, then, may to a certain extent have responded to this usage by others. In May 1543, Charles V agreed to restore the fortresses of Florence and Livorno to Florentine control, ending the Spanish military pres-

ence in the territory. Later that same year Cosimo embarked on a program of administrative reorganization that progressively removed power from the civilian magistracies—the Quarantotto, the Otto di Pratica, and the Ducal Counselors especially—in favor of appointed ministers, secretaries, and bureaucrats." Cosimo’s self-declaration as

duke also demonstrated his independence. For the first time in the sixteenth century—excepting the six months between 1 September 1512 and the election of Giovanni de’ Medici as Pope Leo X in March 1513—a Medici ruler of Florence had no immediate, formal bond to an external power that could limit or compromise the sovereignty of the

city. The assumption of the title demonstrated that while Cosimo

194 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY owed a debt of fealty to Charles V, he did not experience an obligation

to submit every action to the emperor. This combination of clarity in the objective structures of Florence and vigorous assertion of Florentine independence from foreign control provided an atmosphere for the city’s office-holding class to reimagine their social world and identity. The constitutional changes of April 1532 resulted, initially, in the formation a more restricted office-holding class than had existed in the first three decades of the sixteenth century. In the inaugural Dugento, only 63 of the 239 members did not possess patrician surnames, a little over 25 percent. In the Quarantotto only three non-patrician names appeared: Giovanni di Bernardo Buongirolami, Bernardo di Carlo Gondi, and Francescantonio di Francesco Nori.'t Compared to

the distribution of seats on the comparable councils—the Ottanta from 149§ to Is12 and 1527 to 1530—these figures represent a tightening of access to the higher offices of the city. Forty percent of the men

drawn for the Ottanta in its two manifestations did not bear patrician surnames.’> The percentage of patricians on the councils of the principate in I§32 do compare with the membership of the Settanta between 1514 and 1527. Just below 90 percent of the men who sat on this Medicean council had patrician surnames."® In the later sixteenth century the office-holding class would become more diversified, as it evolved

from an exclusively Florentine entity into a regional elite including patricians from other Tuscan cities as well as nobles from other Italian and European states. But in the initial decades of the Medici princi-

pate’s existence, until the 1560s, the office-holding class remained almost entirely Florentine and patrician.'? As a result, the officeholding class in the 1540s was probably more culturally and socially homogeneous than in any other period since the thirteenth century. Prior to the mid-sixteenth century, a discrepancy existed between the imagined community of fraternal citizens and the reality of socioeconomic divisions within the office-holding class as a whole. The frescoes painted by Domenico Ghirlandaio in the 1480s (Figures I.1—1.3)

represented a limited vision available only to a minority of the men

Reimagining F lorence 195 eligible to sit on the commune’s magistracies. The restriction of the office-holding class after 1532, however, produced the potential for the imagination and actuality of the social world to accord more readily than

they had under the republic. The constitutional changes that formed the principate also structured a more elitist and aristocratic officeholding class. Francesco Guicciardini noted that the Riformatori had laid particular emphasis on the social status of the members of both the Dugento and the Quarantotto. “The principal importance of what has to be done now,” he wrote in mid-April 1532, as the committee argued over who would receive a seat on each council, “consists in electing these men carefully, and in placing for the foundation of the stato people who matter the most.”'® This greater distinction and definition reproduced itself in the appearance of the city’s elite also. In January 1550, Francesco d’Andrea Buonsignori recorded that the Quar-

antotto had passed a provision mandating that the members of the Ducal Council should distinguish themselves when in public or undertaking official duties by wearing “a [black] lucco lined with colored cloth and velvet slippers and a hat of silk.” When a counselor rode through the city, the provision continued, he had to have two servants accompanying him and “velvet trappings and coverings” for the horse." Among this more restricted office-holding class, however, the most

prestigious offices achieved a broader distribution than they had under the previous Medici regime of 1512-27. Between 1530 and 1550, 154 men, from a total possible of 320, sat on the Otto di Pratica, which

remained the most important magistracy until its gradual eclipse by the appointed Pratica Segreta after 1545. This ratio greatly exceeded the distribution for the same office between 1514 and 1527, when only 69 men of a possible 208 sat on the Otto. An inner circle of favored men did develop under the principate, similar to that which had existed

in the previous Medici regime, with twenty-one men appearing on the Otto on five or more occasions. However, the numerical predominance of these men was less than that of the seventeen men who monopolized the Otto between 1514 and 1527. The inner circle of the principate represented less than one-sixth of the membership of the

196 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY magistracy and accounted for fewer than 40 percent of the total seats on the magistracy until 1550. By comparison, the inner circle of the earlier stato represented almost one-quarter of the Otto’s members for the period and held over half of all the possible seats.*° Paradoxically, then, the office-holding class of the principate, although narrower, came closer to the egalitarian access to office imagined in republican Florence. This newly homogeneous office-holding class, under the emerging objective stability of Cosimo I’s rule, began to transform itself, consciously and actively, from citizens into subjects, from civilian magis-

trates into courtiers. New social practices and modes of behavior emerged in accordance with the political realities of princely government from the end of the 1530s. Most striking was the development of a pose of disinterest toward the political. Coinciding with the subsid-

ence of the posture of rhetorical withdrawal that had colored elite correspondence in the 1530s, this learned disinterest represented the maturation of the earlier impulse. It also constituted a stark contrast to

the behavior of the office-holding class in the republican era. The practice of governance in republican Florence, indeed the practice of civic republicanism itself, had been discursive. The exchange of ideas and opinions in a civic public sphere was essential to the formation of republican citizens and to the very notions of commonwealth and public good.*! Niccold Machiavelli’s famous suggestion that class conflict

had fostered and protected the political freedom of pre-Augustan Rome had acknowledged that dialogue or argument between interested parties had formed the basis of republican liberty. Matteo Palmieri, in the middle of the fifteenth century, had similarly remarked that civic republicanism demanded “free, true, and open” counsel.” Civic political discourse, then, constituted an essential part of the practice of governance and of civic republicanism in Florence prior to the late 1530s. The discourse occurred in many and multifarious ways, unfolding both within and without the actual magistracies of the state. In general, however, the discourse occurred off the record and so out of sight to historians. Except for the consulte e pratiche, the official records of Florentine institutions did not include debates or discussion.

Reimagining F lorence 197 Beyond the official structures of governance, in the intensely face-toface and intimate social world of Renaissance Florence, most of the discourse again took place beyond the gaze of the historian: on the street corners, at the Mercato Nuovo, in taverns and homes, in the corridors of the Palazzo della Signoria.*? For this reason, letters between members of the office-holding class from the period prove so valuable, because they provide a record of the civic political discourse, of the interest that members of the sociopolitical elite took in the functioning of the government and the affairs of the day in Florence. The private

correspondence of members of the office-holding class during the Is10s and 1520s, and even the early 1530s, is replete with political news, information, and opinion. Members of the city’s elite, absent from Florence on business or official duties, kept themselves informed

about the news of state from home. Francesco Guicciardini and his brothers, one of whom was often absent on the service of the city or the papacy, provide a particularly fertile source of correspondence. Simi-

larly, Filippo Strozzi and his brother Lorenzo maintained a regular exchange of news with each other and close friends such as Benedetto Buondelmonti.

While the trend of serial absences from Florence by at least one of the brothers Guicciardini continued under the government of Cosimo I, the political narrative that had sustained their correspondence dried up in the years after 1537. On 3 October 1539, Francesco Guicciardini reported to Luigi, serving as commissioner in Pisa, that “here things proceed as usual.”*4 In January the following year, Girolamo wrote to Luigi detailing news of affairs from France and Flanders but no mention of Florentine events, concluding, “there is no other news.””> Three years later, Jacopo Guicciardini sent Luigi, now in Castrocaro, a lengthy recitation of political news from England, Scotland, Flanders, and Sic ily, but his mention of Florentine affairs consisted only of observations on the agricultural outlook.*° This tendency to discuss political events from elsewhere in Europe—predominantly rumors concerning the Ottomans or the ongoing struggle between Francis I and Charles V— while observing that nothing new had happened in Florence recurs throughout the correspondence between the brothers after 1537. Only

198 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY with regard to agricultural or occasional bureaucratic difficulties did local affairs earn a mention.”’ The lack of interest in Florentine political affairs discernible in the Guicciardini correspondence emerged under the impetus of two impulses: one, practical, and the second, cultural. In the first place, the draining of political commentary reflected the increasing centralization of government in the hands of Cosimo I and appointed ministers or secretaries as opposed to the civilian magistrates of the officeholding class. As the city’s elite became excluded from the decisionmaking process, the Guicciardini brothers simply did not enjoy the same access to the corridors of power that had previously fueled their political knowledge. But this restriction of the role and competence of the office-holding class provides only part of the answer. The complex shift in political culture from the civic world of republican public life—of active engagement, debate, and competition—to the court society of a monarchical state had a more significant impact

in determining the studied disinterest adopted by the Florentine office-holding class. Part of the mélange of impulses that underlay this cultural shift evolved from the still pervasive memory of the siege of Florence: a lingering fear of any return to the factional conflicts of re-

publican politics that had resulted in the internecine bloodshed and suffering inflicted during and after the siege. This desire reached its pessimistic apotheosis in Francesco Guicciardini’s unfinished Storia d'Italia, written between the end of 1537 and the author’s death on 22 March 1540. The narrative coherence of Guicciardini’s last historical work lies in

the contrast that he makes between the peace and tranquillity of Italian affairs prior to 1494 and the violence and instability of the following decades.*® He presents the unraveling of the Italian city-state system as a tragedy, as a course of events determined by the flaws of political leaders, who then were unable to alter the path they had chosen: “Not remembering the frequent shifts of fortune and using the power given them for the common good for the harm of others, they made themselves, either through lack of prudence or through surfeit of ambition, the authors of new perturbations.””?

Reimagining Florence 199 Unlike his earlier histories, the Storia d’Ttalia did not focus on Flor-

ence specifically, but on affairs across the Italian peninsula as well as

events in ultramontane Europe that influenced the Italian states. However, Guicciardini’s personal experiences of events in the city on the Arno, especially between 1527 and 1537, had a measurable impact on the Storia’s overwhelming condemnation of the avarice, ambition, and short-sightedness of political leaders who pursued conflict as a tactic for their own advancement. Moreover, the Storia contained a pessimistic judgment about the futility of all political actions and intentions in the face of the variability of Fortune. Both these strands of Guicciardini’s narrative combined in the historian’s ironic description of the imprisonment of Lodovico Sforza, the deposed Duke of Milan, by Louis XII of France: “enclosing in a narrow prison the thoughts and ambitions of one whom the bounds of Italy had previously struggled to contain ...so varied and miserable is the human condition, and so uncertain to each one is his future well-being.”3° Guicciardini presented a narrative of political failure and futility: an expression of the withdrawal from public life experienced by the officeholding class of Florence in the 1530s taken to its extreme conclusion. To this pessimistic view the historical writings of Filippo de’ Nerli, Commentari dei fatti civili occorsi dentro la citta di Firenze, begun around 1534

but largely written between 1549 and 1§52, provide a counterpoint, illuminating a newer impulse toward disinterest in the realm of the political. Nerli presents political activity and interest—that quintessence of republican citizenship—not as futile but as no longer necessary under the reign of Cosimo I. The title of Nerli’s history indicates his concern with tracing the “civic doings” (fatti civili) of Florence from the early thirteenth century until the accession of Cosimo I and the battle of Montemurlo. Like most

other contemporary Florentine historians, Nerli viewed the course of the city’s history as one of civil dissent and conflict between various political factions: “This city never lacked reasons for scandal nor did it ever lack factions and civil sedition.”3! Beginning with the thirteenthcentury struggle between the pro-papal Guelf and pro-imperial Ghibelline factions, his narrative develops as a story of continuing civic

200 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY discord in Florence until the accession of Cosimo I in 1537. Nerli pres-

ents this moment not only as the endpoint of his own narrative but also as the End of History in Florence. He argued that the victory of Cosimo and the defeat of the exiles at Montemurlo “seem to have put a

stop and given an end to the many discords, ancient and modern, of our citizens.” He continued that having reached this point it no longer seemed necessary to continue to recount the fatti civili “because ... our citizens should no longer have cause to contend politically over matters of state and government, all the sum of the government being reduced in the authority of one sole Prince and one sole Lord.” The creation of the Medici monarchy, in Nerli’s narrative, provided the only possible means to circumvent the endemic factionalism of the city. The rule of Cosimo I, by removing political authority and decision making from

the office-holding class, removed the source of all internal conflict and discourse: control over the city and its government.?* Nerli’s triumphalist account notwithstanding, the cessation of the discursive practice of republicanism did not occur only in response to the ontological necessity of princely rule, the singularity of the prince’s interest. Key to the development of political disinterest were the sociocultural imperatives of the office-holding class’s process of renewal, their transformation from citizens into courtiers. This provided a pos-

itive counterpoint to the negative impulse that underlay the fear of factionalism and the memory of the siege of 1529-30. Members of the Florentine elite actively learned to become disinterested as they reimagined their place in the society and political structures of the Medici

principality. Such disinterest not only stood in stark contrast to the necessary interest of the republican citizen, but was also the quintessential characteristic of the courtier.

Success in a court society depended on the negotiation of the rules of etiquette and social skills required. Above all, the courtier required the ability to subsume his or her own interests, emotions, and desires to those of the prince and the court at large. “You ought to know, that it becomes you to moderate and order your habits,” wrote Giovanni della Casa in Galateo (1558), his dialogue on courtly etiquette, “not ac-

Reimagining Florence 201 cording to your own judgment but according to the pleasure of those whose company you frequent.”3? Baldassare Castiglione had Federico Fregoso, in the dialogue of II cortegiano (1528), caution prudence, discre-

tion, and self-consciousness in every action: “Let him consider well whatever he does or says, the place where he does it, in whose presence, at what time, why he is doing it, his age, his profession, the end he is aiming at, and the means by which it may be achieved.”34 Such advice

emphasized performance and the maintenance of an appropriate facade. It did not become the courtier to cultivate too open an interest or enthusiasm, for doing so without appearing ill-mannered and discourteous was difficult in the extreme. What court society required was a studied indifference, a calculated disinterest. Sprezzatura—the defining quality of Castiglione’s ideal courtier—translates more pointedly and accurately not as “nonchalance” but as “scornful indifference.”35 In the realm of action, the courtier scorned and appeared indifferent to the apparent difficulty of the task at hand, whether jousting, dancing, or conversing in a witty and erudite manner. In the realm of ideas, political or otherwise, the courtier appeared indifferent to ideological commitment. On several occasions in the II cortegiano, Lodovico Canossa warns against pedantry:

the social death of appearing too interested, too focused, too committed to a single idea or process.2° Indeed, when Lodovico himself and Federico become overly engaged in an argument about language, Emilia

Pia (who directs the game of the dialogue) interrupts not once but twice to forbid further discussion: “This argument of yours is too long and tedious.”3” The protagonists had become too interested in the outcome of their disagreement, rather than keeping to the courtly role of

providing entertaining conversation. The dialogic structure favored by Della Casa and Castiglione, as well as by the authors of most other courtesy books produced in the sixteenth century, represented the literary perfection of this attitude. Its open-ended, multivalent format permitted the presentation of multiple interests and points of view without the danger of the author appearing uncivil by closing off discussion and prescribing any one means to an end.?®

202 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY Of course, significant differences existed between the court of Urbino in the 1500s, as reimagined by Castiglione, and that of Florence in the 1540s. The holding of offices and the independent wealth of

the Florentine patricians (from both land and commercial investments) made their position more secure and dignified than that of the courtiers of the Montefeltro. The Florentine office-holding class did

not follow the advice of Castiglione as a prescription, but they responded to the same or similar cultural imperatives that structured II cortegiano and that would inspire Della Casa’s Galateo. Castiglione’s text was published five times between 1528 and 1§37 in Florence alone, and appeared in twenty-six Italian editions between 1530 and 1550. Some-

thing in the book spoke to the needs of the Florentine and other Italian elites.3?

The elite also responded to the fact that the holding of offices itself, under the new monarchical system, ceased to be a political act in the

same way that had it under the republican constitution. Prior to the institution of the principality, the distribution of offices had reflected the relative strength of various competing factions within the city’s office-holding class. The connections, loyalties, and alliances of the sottogoverno that operated behind the imagined fraternity of citizens determined an individual’s electoral success or failure. Political conflicts had occurred over control of the electoral mechanisms and inclusion in

the electoral system. As De’ Nerli observed, with the removal of the republican system that distributed offices by lot among the officeholding class and its replacement by a process ultimately determined arbitrarily by a prince, the engine driving these conflicts disappeared. The economy of political power, which in the republican system constituted a relatively free market of competing and often overlapping social configurations, had become a monopoly in which competition for offices was restricted.4° Previous factional allegiances, and even possible opposition to the Medici, did not preclude an individual from holding office under Cosimo, as the fortunes of men such as Antonio di Simone Canigiani and Luigi di Luigi Martelli testified. Canigiani had wed Argentina di Tommaso Soderini, and Martelli had married Margarita di Giovanvettorio Soderini. Under the Medici

Reimagining Florence 203 stato of 1512-27 this made both men politically suspect, and they sutffered accordingly from exclusion from public office during the 1520s: Martelli held one position—as podesta of Borgo San Lorenzo in 1526—

and Canigiani held none. In the republican system affinal relationships could affect political fortunes. In 1519, Filippo Valori recorded that he had difficulty finding a bride because the Medici “suspected Niccolo my father.’ Following the capitulation of the stato of 1527-30

to the papal-imperial army in August 1530, the Soderini again endured political reprisals for their prominent position among the antiMedicean alliance: eight members of the lineage were placed under bans of exile (more than any other single family), and one member, Luigi di Paolo, was executed in the final months of 1530. The exiles included the father-in-law of Antonio Canigiani.4? But under the Medici principate the fortunes of both Canigiani and Luigi Martelli flourished. Martelli, who enjoyed connections with Jacopo Salviati, began holding offices in January 1531, and in 1543 received a seat on the

Dugento.# In 1546, Canigiani was appointed to the Dugento also, and he then held offices regularly, if less often than Martelli.44 In a similar fashion, men such as Alessandro d’Antonio Malegon-

nelle, Alessandro di Niccold Antinori, and even Lorenzo Strozzi, brother of the ill-fated Filippo, who had been politically prominent during the stato of 1527-30, continued to hold offices in the Medici principality. Antinori, who had an especially prominent record of office holding between 1527 and 1530, received seats on the balie of Au-

gust and November 1530 and was appointed to the inaugural Quarantotto in April 1532. He then held prominent positions every year, serving on the Otto di Pratica, the Ducal Council, and as a Monte official on multiple occasions.4* Malegonnelle received a seat on the November 1530 balia, automatically becoming a member of the Dugento in April 1532. In 1537 he led the interrogations of the men captured at Montemurlo and subsequently received a place on the Quarantotto the same year. Like Antinori, he then regularly appeared on the most prestigious magistracies.*° Strozzi, like Malegonnelle, made the transition from the November 1530 balia to the Dugento. Although he only held one prominent office subsequently, this occurred in 1539 following his

204 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY brother’s unsuccessful armed rebellion, and the office was the most influential of all, the Otto di Pratica.4” The experiences of these three individuals, as well as those of Antonio Canigiani and Luigi Martelli, testify to the extent to which the holding of offices became disconnected from the political traditions of the republic following the ascension of Cosimo I in 1537.

One significant exception existed to the general atmosphere of amnesty that pervaded the office-holding class under Cosimo I. The rebels of the 1530s, either those captured at Montemurlo and imprisoned or those who had escaped, remained unforgiven and unreconciled. From 1537 and throughout the 1540s the Medici prince received numerous petitions from relatives of such men or from the individuals themselves seeking forgiveness for their offenses. Francesco di Niccolo Valori provided one particularly poignant example, imploring Cosimo to forgive “Filippo, my brother, [together] with the others of our house,” ina letter dated 20 August 1537, the day Filippo was beheaded.#° Braccio

di Battista Guicciardini wrote on behalf of his cousin and namesake, Braccio di Niccolo: “Confident in the beneficence and clemency of Your Excellency, humbly he beseeches you to deign to render him the grace of liberation from the prison where he has been held and presently finds himself.%° Vieri di Bernardo da Castiglione launched a veritable letter-writing campaign in order to free himself: “[ Your] most humble and miserable servant Vieri di Bernardo da Castiglione throws himself again at your most merciful feet, humbly beseeching that you should wish to deign for the love of Jesus Christ to do him the grace of releasing him from the Stinche.” This particular petition received only curt dismissal from Cosimo’s principal secretary, Lelio Torelli: “It is not yet time.” The others that followed received similar responses.>° The memory of these men remained so toxic that even individuals who had not played any role in the events of Montemurlo suffered punish-

ment for associating with them. In 1547, ten years after the battle, Filippo di Lorenzo Gondi received a sentence of three years in exile for

dining at the house of Piero di Filippo Strozzi in Venice.’ A distinc tion operated between individuals, such as Alessandro Antinori, who competed within the previous political framework, and those who had

Reimagining Florence 205 taken up arms to compete militarily with the monarchical system. This latter group remained very much political enemies of the Medici and the Florentine stato, while the former became fully integrated into the office-holding class of the principality. The changes in behavior and practice as they related to political affairs and activities, highlighted here across a variety of sources— the Guicciardini correspondence, the historical writings of Francesco Guicciardini and Filippo de’ Nerli, the political experiences of various members of the office-holding class—had a visual analogue in the portraits completed by Francesco Salviati during the 1540s. These images bear the obvious influence of the paintings completed by Bronzino during the 1530s. Salviati’s portraits present similar solitary male figures, elegantly attired in dark clothing. Several of the images also share linear architectural backgrounds that imply and conjure the Florentine urban landscape. But important differences separate these portraits from the 1540s from those by Bronzino of the preceding decade. The images produced by Bronzino had suggested a withdrawal from public life in favor of the cultural pursuits of art, literature, and music. A sense of interiority, seclusion, and uncertainty pervaded the images,

the product of the ambiguous and unsettled political landscape of Florence in the years between the siege and the assassination of Alessandro de’ Medici.

The images produced by Salviati in the following decade enjoy a lighter, more open and confident feel. Moreover, the references to withdrawal in favor of artistic or literary practices have all but vanished. Although its striking allegorical background is unrepresentative, the Portrait of a Florentine Nobleman (Figure 5.1) does otherwise reflect the

general visual tendencies and impact of Salviati’s other portraits. The youth sits contrapposto: his body angled toward the right of the image, his

head turned to the left. The very stylized positioning of the hands, like so many of Bronzino’s earlier portraits, quotes Michelangelo’s Tomb of Giuliano de’ Medici (Figure 4.2), loosely mimicking the placement in the earlier work. The youth wears a richly figured black overgarment— perhaps a cioppa or a long tunic—with a rose-colored doublet and white

shirt beneath. His raised left hand, with a ring on the little finger,

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holds pair of gloves with mannered ease. The Portrait of a Man with a Sword (Figure 5.2) is more typical of Salviati’s oeuvre, but also stylis-

tically very similar. The subject appears standing in a half-length portrait, his body angled toward the right with his head turned back toward the viewer to present a three-quarter profile. Behind him an

Reimagining F lorence 207

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elaborate linear architectural background frames and centers the viewer's focus. The subject wears a dark doublet, hat, and lace-collared

shirt. His right arm, bent at the elbow, crosses the bottom of the frame in front of his body. His right hand rests on the hilt of a sword,

208 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY which appears to rest point downward. His left elbow juts away from

his body and the viewer, suggesting that his unseen left hand rests on his hip. Several commonalities unite these images and the many other por-

traits of Florentines by Salviati, and while they share some of these harmonies with the portraits by Bronzino and even with the frescoes by Ghirlandaio from half a century earlier, the Salviati portraits clearly reflect and reinforce a different social world and imagination. The continued uniformity of appearance among the subjects constitutes the most obvious convergence between the images. The men depicted appear, with slight variations, in dark, simple yet elegant overgarments and lace-collared shirts. This uniform appearance, although markedly different in terms of detail, provides an analogous message to that of the ranks of red-robed men depicted by Ghirlandaio in the 1480s: it provides a sense of community and inclusivity. Like

its fifteenth-century forebear, the office-holding class of the midsixteenth century imagined itself as a homogeneous fraternity. In the social imagination, at least, no distinctions of hierarchy or rank separated the members.” Similar to the images produced by both Ghirlandaio and Bronzino, the Salviati portraits also conjured a sense of place, of belonging to Florence, of association between the city itself and the identity of the city’s elite. Although, with the exception of the allegorical figures in the Portrait of a Florentine Nobleman, in Salviati’s images this fiorentinita ap-

pears as much through the mimicking of Bronzino’s own architectural

forms as it does from any real sense of the Florentine urban landscape. Indeed the suggestion of Florence’s urban topography is so muted as to be negligible. Salviati’s images, unlike Ghirlandaio’s and Bronzino’s, are not singularly Florentine, but belong to a larger, panEuropean community of nobles and courtiers. As members of a princely

court and government, the office-holding class of Florence finally possessed a transferable legitimacy and credibility: a status recognized and recognizable across sixteenth-century Europe. The appearance of the men in Salviati’s portraits resembles those depicted by Bronzino in the previous decade. But the accoutrements

Reimagining Florence 209 and props of the images indicate a shift in the social world and imagination of the Florentine elite. The gloves and the sword—which are common not only to the images discussed here but to many of the portraits produced by Salviati in Florence during the 1540s—indicate a dramatic reconception of identity by the office-holding class removed from the anxiety and uncertainty of the 1530s. The trappings of Salviati’s subjects bespeak not introverted artistic pursuits but public display. The careful mannered positioning of the figures, the composed self-possession of their faces, the deliberate yet casually elegant inclusion of the gloves and the sword all reflect and help to constitute a new, reimagined community for the office-holding class: a community not of active citizens but of courtly aristocrats. The objects included with the men quietly suggest status and prestige.

The men themselves appear self-aware and conscious also of the viewer. A dialogue of display and response exists between the images—

not just in the common appearance of their subjects, but also in the self-conscious public presentation of each man5+ The depicted individuals appear to respond to the cultural imperatives articulated by Baldassare Castiglione. The overall effect of the portraits is an air of cultivated, self-conscious disinterest, a studied ease—in a word, the sprezzatura demanded by Lodovico of the perfect courtier In this regard, then, perhaps even more than Bronzino’s portraits from the previous decade, Salviati’s do not necessarily accurately reflect the reality of the men depicted. Instead they represent a vision of how both artist and subject thought a Florentine patrician should appear. In this sense, the images served as much to constitute as to reproduce the emergent courtly imagination. Like the Ghirlandaio frescoes, but unlike Bronzino’s portraits from the previous decade, these images represent assertions of identity and status to the viewer. They are far more open and public than the interior and introverted figures of the 1530s. Salviati’s subjects may be removed visually from the world of politics, but they are men engaged in public life. The public life of the office-holding class in the 1540s still revolved, as it had done in the fifteenth century, around their eponymous role as holders of public magistracies. Although the depiction and imagination

210 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY of the city’s elite continued down the path set by Bronzino in avoiding representations of men as officeholders, the act of office holding reemerged as a defining feature of elite identity and honor. In the developing stability of the state and the government under Cosimo I, the holding of office became central once more, and the language of interiority and withdrawal that had colored the period of Alessandro’s rule disappeared. Participation in the public magistracies had always possessed an as-

sociation with the personal honor of the individual. In 1472, Piero Capponi had begged Lorenzo il Magnifico de’ Medici to ensure that he became eligible to hold office “because life without honor is a living death.”>° In the 1540s, receiving and exercising public positions con-

tinued to relate to the honor of the man chosen. But while Piero Capponi, in the 1470s, implied that the act of sitting on a prestigious magistracy endowed or increased one’s honor, and indeed that absence from such positions equated to a loss of honor, members of the Florentine elite in the mid-sixteenth century understood such an act as reflecting their preexisting honor.

In the relatively closed and stable office-holding class that had emerged by the 1540s, office holding was a product of the elite’s social status, not a producer of their prestige. Domenico di Braccio Martelli, while serving as commissioner of Arezzo in 1537, equated his service

with his personal honor. In May, he reported a difference of opinion between himself and the local military commander over the punishment of a young man who had harassed and attempted to rape a married woman. The captain counseled that Martelli should not arrest the culprit and protested when he was in fact detained. Martelli felt that

his own honor was impugned by the captain’s behavior.’ Several months later, Martelli wrote to Cosimo I to complain that the bargello (police official) for the Florentine contado had entered Arezzo to arrest

one Guasparre Tondinelli without informing Martelli. An angry crowd of Tondinelli’s relatives and friends confronted Martelli, demanding to know the reason for his detention, embarrassing the commissioner, who felt his honor had suffered: “If Jacopo de’ Medici [the commissioner general] wants Guasparre, or any other man of this city,

Reimagining F lorence 211 he has only to inform me.”5° On both occasions, Martelli implied that his position as commissioner reflected his standing, and so anything that infringed his ability to exercise this office harmed his honor and status. In May 1544, Bindo d’Antonio Altoviti wrote to thank Cosimo for his election as a Monte official: “It certainly pleases me to receive such an honorable office.*>° Once again the phrasing suggests that Altoviti saw the office not as constitutive but as reflective of his honor.

His pleasure at the appointment derived from satisfaction that his status had been deemed worthy of such a position. As Altoviti went on successfully to decline the position, he obviously did not feel the need actually to hold the post in order to preserve his honor. Altoviti provides an illuminating example of how the elite of Flor-

ence understood office holding in the 1540s, through the persistent campaign that he waged to have a member of his family appointed to the Quarantotto. Like Filippo Strozzi, Bindo Altoviti had pursued a commercial rather than a political career, and his fortune and life centered on Rome and the papal court, not on Florence.°° Apart from one term on the Cento in 1527, and despite receiving a seat on the Dugento

in 1532, Altoviti had only held the office of Monte official prior to 1546.°' His apparent personal disinclination to pursue public office notwithstanding, as well as the tensions between the banker and Cosimo I over Altoviti’s relations with the Florentine exile community in Rome and his close association with the anti-Medicean Pope Paul IT], Altoviti became a vociferous advocate for his family’s representation on the Quarantotto. No member of the Altoviti had received a seat on

the inaugural senate, and neither Alessandro nor Cosimo had appointed a representative from the family to a position on the council in the succeeding years.° Upon learning, in December 1540, that Cosimo I planned to appoint

new members to the Quarantotto, Altoviti commenced petitioning the prince to choose his cousin Bardo di Giovanni as one of these. In January 1541, Altoviti equated a position on the Quarantotto with the honor and status of his entire lineage. He beseeched Cosimo to name Bardo to the senate “so that our house will no longer remain without such a dignity, not being inferior—neither in quality nor in service to-

212 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY ward Your Excellency and Your Most Illustrious ancestors—to the many other houses that have it.” In March 1541, Cosimo elected Bardo

to the Otto di Pratica. While this pleased Bindo Altoviti—*holding his every honor as my own’—the banker did not refrain from again requesting that his cousin receive a seat on the Quarantotto, “for [the] honor of my house.” In October, Altoviti once more petitioned the Medici prince. Again he noted that the absence of the Altoviti from the senate implied that their standing did not equal that of the families represented on the council: “especially seeing [the dignity of the

Quarantotto] conferred on many others, and on some more than once, which neither in quality nor in service to Your Excellency and

the ancestors of Your Most Illustrious House are superior to our House.”°3 No member of the Altoviti received a seat on the Quarantotto in IS4I. Altoviti recommenced his campaign in March 1546, again noting that his lineage equaled those already represented on the senate and so deserved a place among them. Altoviti clearly did not perceive a seat on the Quarantotto as constitutive of his family’s honor, but rather as reflective of it. The continual refrain that the Altoviti were not inferior

to any of the Florentine lineages currently represented on the senate derived from an understanding of office holding as a product of an individual or family’s status and prestige. Bindo Altoviti saw his family as deserving of a position on the Quarantotto, not as needing a seat in order to reinforce or improve their standing. The persistence and rhetorical urgency of Altoviti’s petitions did reflect, however, a perception that status and honor manifested themselves most obviously and clearly in the holding of public offices. Altoviti’s letter writing ultimately succeeded, although Cosimo named Bindo himself, rather than his cousin, to the Quarantotto in 1546.°°

Further important differences between office holding under the republican tradition and office holding under the monarchical system became manifest around the notion of honor. The officeholders under

Cosimo I understood their position and the fulfillment of their offcial duties not only in terms of their own personal and familial honor, but also in terms of the honor of Cosimo himself. In the complaints

Reimagining F lorence 213 discussed above, Domenico Martelli noted that not only his own honor, but also that of Cosimo would suffer if the commissioner’s abil-

ity to perform his official duties was impinged upon. Regarding the harassment and attempted rape in May 1537, Martelli observed that if justice did not appear to be served, the affair “would not proceed with honor, neither Your Excellency’s nor my own.” In July, he wrote that the bargello’s arrest of Guasparre Tondinelli without notifying Martelli “seems to me to be honorable neither for Your Excellency nor for me.”°°

Girolamo degli Albizzi also associated the honor of the Medici prince with the rule of law and the service of justice in April 1541. Albizzi wrote to Cosimo I regarding the actions of Luigi di Piero Arrighi, who had attacked Francesco di Verdiano, a member of the rural militia, while he slept. Arrighi, being a Florentine citizen, was subject

only to the jurisdiction of the Otto di Guardia and not of the local administrative official; but no prosecution had occurred. Albizzi beseeched Cosimo to see that Arrighi suffered punishment, “for your honor and as an example to your soldiers.” He continued, explaining that “one should not permit that they [members of the militia] should be so vilely offended by removing, moreover by law, the faculty of being able to recover their honor in any way.” To drive the point home,

Albizzi had Francesco di Verdiano himself present the letter to Cosimo.°7

In 1543, Francesco di Bartolo Zati, serving as commissioner for Pisa, confronted an analogous situation in which the interests of individual Florentine citizens clashed with the enforcement of law and, in Zati’s perception, the honor of Cosimo I. Zati wrote that on 14 December a scuffle had occurred at the Porta San Marco of Pisa involving

the customs officers and a servant of Giulio da Ricasoli over goods belonging to his master. Zati wrote that “in order to preserve the honor of Your Excellency... I sent that servant to the Bargello, where he remains.” The commissioner continued, however, that both Niccold Guicciardini, a noted lawyer and son of Luigi, and the vice-rector of

the university had indicated that he should leave the matter alone. However, Zati observed that because the issue “touches the honor of

214 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY Your Excellency” he desired to have clear instructions from Cosimo about how to proceed.°° All these examples present cases in which individual officeholders

demonstrated a concern about interference with their ability to exercise their office freely or a concern that the administration of justice could be perceived as arbitrary or subject to privilege. Most of the cases also address a desire for the rule of law, with the exception of Girolamo degli Albizzi’s letter, in which case the rule of law appeared to infringe

the operation of natural justice. In all the examples, uniformly, the officials present the rule of law or the operation of justice as relative to Cosimo’s honor as well as their own. The capability of these men to exercise their offices and their success (or failure) in doing so reflected

not only their own virtu and standing but also that of the Medici prince.°? This constituted a profound shift in the office-holding class’s imag-

ination of their social world and their understanding of their role in Florence. In the republican imagination, the office-holding class had conceived of themselves as a community of citizens dedicated to public service. They rendered this service to the idea of the common good— that is, to the mutual benefit of the citizenry. Florence existed, in this

imagination, socially and politically as the collectivity of the officeholding class. Members of the city’s elite spoke of possessing a share in the state.7?° While the fifteenth-century Florentine conception of “public” does not accord with modern understandings of a clear

distinction between public and private spheres, it did conceive of Florence as a commonwealth. This public space, such as it existed in Renaissance Florence, occurred at the point of greatest convergence between the various competing personal and corporate interests that existed in the city: the administration and maintenance of Florence and its dominion, in short, in the holding of offices, in the practice of governance. The observations of the sixteenth-century officeholders, therefore, that this administration touched upon the honor of Cosimo I indicates

that a significant repositioning had occurred in the imagination of Florence by the office-holding class. In place of the collectivity of the

Reimagining Florence 215 republican tradition, a sole prince had arisen. What their fifteenthcentury forebears had conceived of as public service to the commonwealth, the officeholders of the 1540s understood as personal service to Cosimo. The republic of Florence, literally the res publica (public things), had evolved into the possession of a prince. In a manner analo-

gous to the recasting of liberty and of the common good during the late 1520s and 1530s, the notion of public service evolved into one of personal service as the imagination of the Florentine office-holding class had shifted from a republican to a monarchical form. This occurred not viaa sharp distinction between the public and the personal, nor from a sudden shift from one to the other, but rather from the indistinct boundaries between the two.” As Cosimo I became more assertive and more independent in his role, as the objective structures of the government became definably monarchical and the ambiguity of Alessandro’s reign disappeared, the conceptual basis of office holding shifted from a public to a personal role. The political collectivity that had previously existed and which the office-holding class had shared became accessible only through Cosimo, whose person and position became the point of greatest convergence between the interests of the various individual and corporate interests of the city’s elite. This new reality received a material confirmation in 1540 when Cosimo moved his place of residence from the

Palazzo de’ Medici on the Via Larga to the Palazzo della Signoria. Previously the seat of the communal government and so the physical manifestation of the collective interests of the office-holding class, the palazzo became the home of the Medici prince as well as the center of his new administration.” The stato as conceived in the republican tradition as the mutual possession of the office-holding class had become subject to and the possession of Cosimo alone.

In this reimagined social world and political order, to possess a share in the state one had to receive it from Cosimo. In the republican tradition the distribution of offices had occurred equally by recom-

mendation and sortition.72 While the endpoint of the electoral process—the actual drawing of names from the borse (purses)—was in effect random, social standing and political connections determined

216 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY the procedure by which the names found their way into the borse in the first place. The accoppiatori, the committee of men charged with determining eligibility for public office and assigning names to the various electoral purses, made their decisions based on both statutory requirements and socio-cultural impulses. As well as residence, age, and taxation status, personal and familial connections, prestige, influence, and general social standing determined an individual’s chance of approval for office holding and also the number of times his name would appear in particular borse.

Writers, when considering the distribution of seats on public magis-

tracies in the republic, viewed the process as one that rewarded the virti, wisdom, and quality of a man. Matteo Palmieri observed that men who displayed prudence, strength, temperance, and fortitude in their personal life and business dealings would eventually become the governors of Florence.”4 Receiving an office through the republican electoral process, therefore, ultimately reflected the communal opinion of the office-holding class, filtered through the lens of the accoppiatori. The Florentine elite shared the government, the stato, among themselves. By the 1540s, however, in the new monarchical system and the reimagined court society of the city, the office-holding class perceived Cosimo as the sole source of offices, of the stato. Luigi Martelli noted in 1§42 that “I was made [one] of the Lords Otto di Guardia by the above said Lord Duke Cosimo.””> In August 1544, Lapo di Bartolomeo del Tovaglia, recently appointed podesta of Prato, referred to his post as “committed to me by Your Excellency.””° Ottaviano de’ Medici, in January of the following year, thanked Cosimo “for having me reaffirmed for a second year as an official of the grascia.””” Antonio Canigiani, in his private diary, recorded in 1549 that “the Most I[lustrious Lord Duke Cosimo appointed me captain of Cortona.””® With the shift from an electoral process based on communal recognition and recommendation to one based on princely dispensation, the possession of a public office became a sign of Cosimo’s grace and favor. The receipt of a magistracy now reflected a man’s standing in the eyes

Reimagining Florence 217 of the Medici prince rather than his measure by the community of the office-holding class. The virtu, as outlined by Palmieri, that made an individual worthy of public office did not necessarily alter. But the opin-

ion that Cosimo had of an individual’s virti and merit mattered after 1537, rather than the communal perception.” In March 1539, Domenico Martelli sent Cosimo I an impassioned plea for recognition. “I told Your Excellency the last time that the Otto di Pratica was selected that I had never been [chosen],” he wrote, “and that I alone remained [thus] of the members of the Quarantotto, and that I desired it greatly; especially as it would be noted that I was not entirely out of favor with you.”®° Ottaviano de’ Medici, in 1545, expressed his appreciation for his princely cousin’s assessment of his merit, noting that he would ensure “with all my abilities [that] my actions correspond in the meantime with the great faith [that] I recognize you have in me.”*' More simply, Bindo Altoviti in his many petitions to Cosimo regarding the representation of the Altoviti on the Quarantotto urged the Medici prince “that you would be pleased to grace our house with one [of the seats on the Quarantotto].”®? Beyond specific requests for office, members of the office-holding class recognized that their future status and continued access to public magistracies depended on their standing in Cosimo’s eyes. Lorenzo d’Antonio Cambi, near the end of 1540, wrote to Lorenzo Pagni, one of Cosimo’s secretaries, expressing his desire that “Your Magnificence will preserve me in the good grace of His Excellency.”®? Filippo de’ Nerli, three years later, observed to Cosimo: “I see that fortune always runs against me, so

that it will be necessary—as long as I live—that the happy hand of Your Excellency oppose it and through your grace alone resist my ill fortune.”*4

These shifts in the office-holding class’s understanding of office holding—as a personal service to a prince who controlled access to the stato and bestowed magistracies in recognition of his own favor and of the holder’s merit—were accompanied by the emergence of a new rhetoric among the Florentine elite: a language of courtliness that replaced the language of clientage of the civic world. Obsequious phrasing did

218 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY not constitute a new phenomenon in Florentine public discourse. In 1472, Piero Capponi had written to Lorenzo il Magnifico: “I pray that you wish to work for me as for your servant [so] that I may be among the number of the eligible.”®> More strikingly, Giovanni Tornabuoni once compared Lorenzo’s influence in Florence with that of the divine in the world: “I have God in heaven and Your Magnificence on earth.”®*®

But as these two examples demonstrate, the discourse of clientage from the republican era followed individual inclinations and phrasing. Moreover, the language could be qualified: Capponi compares himself to a servant of Lorenzo but does not declare himself to be in the service of his patron. By the 1540s, in contrast, the rhetoric of patrician correspondence to Cosimo I had become formulaic, reflecting and helping to constitute and reinforce the new political hierarchy. “Most Illustrious and Most Excellent Duke and Most Respected Patron,” Filippo de’ Nerli

commenced in a letter penned in 1539 (notably before Cosimo had begun signing himself as Duke of Florence). He signed the same letter

“Filippo de’ Nerli, Humble servant of your Most Illustrious Lordship.”®7 In 1544, Lorenzo Cambi addressed the Medici prince: “Most Illustrious and Most Excellent Lord, My Lord.” He too concluded his letter “Lorenzo Cambi, Servant of Your Most Illustrious Lordship.”*® The examples are too numerous to present here. Every letter addressed to Cosimo I from 1537 onward follows the same general formula saluting him as most excellent and most illustrious lord or duke and closing

with an affirmation of personal service. Although the repetition appears limited almost to the point of rhetorical hollowness, the salutations and signatures possessed meaning and purpose. Every stroke of the pen helped to construct and reinforce the new political order of Florence and the reimagined place of the office-holding class. Every repetition strengthened the developing relationship between prince and courtier, reflecting and reproducing the elite’s new social identity as a courtly aristocracy in the personal service of a monarch. The recognition of this new relationship and identity appeared also in another marked difference between the sixteenth-century language

Reimagining Florence 219 of courtliness and the earlier rhetoric of clientage. Even at its most obsequious, in Tornabuoni’s comparison of Lorenzo il Magnifico with God, the patron-client relationship existed as an externalized connection between self (client) and other (patron). The language and practice of such a relationship existed dialogically between two individuals with potentially conflicting needs and desires. The strains produced by this tension between patron and client produced the paranoia that colored the social world of the fifteenth-century elite as well as continually undermining the position of the Medici in Florence prior to 1532. In the 1540s, however, the line between self (courtier/client) and

other (prince/patron) had blurred in the rhetoric of personal correspondence. As Cosimo subsumed the place previously occupied by the imagined community of citizen magistrates as the public sphere of Florence—the point of greatest convergence between the various personal and corporate interests that constituted the office-holding class—members of the city’s elite began to erase the line between their own wants and needs and those of the Medici prince. As Cosimo became the gatekeeper to the stato, to public office with its corresponding financial and social benefits, the Florentine patricians began to identify their own well-being and interests with his. They spoke in a language of obligation, devotion, and service, merging their mutual benefit with the personal good of Cosimo. Girolamo degli Albizzi observed, as early in Cosimo’s reign as July

1537, that “it pertains to one who depends on service to his Lord to represent not only in the particular to which he has been deputized but also in each and every occasion to serve him.”®? Two years later, Do-

menico Martelli in his impassioned plea for a seat on the Otto di Pratica displayed an even greater rhetorical flourish: “I have never hesi-

tated postponing my every need and comfort.... My wish has only ever been to serve, and that intention has always [displayed itself] in my every action. Certainly if I had desired or should desire to serve God as much as Your Excellency I would rank above Saint John the Baptist.”°° Alessandro Malegonnelle, writing in the late summer of 1540, also effaced his own desires and thoughts in favor of Cosimo’s:

220 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY “The intention of Your Excellency, which always loves the truth, is always sufficient for me and I never fail to follow it [in] my every affair.”°' Four years later, Lapo del Tovaglia sought guidance from the Medici prince about the particulars of his newly acquired post as podesta of Prato because, “being your true and faithful servant I have no greater

desire than learning what you prefer and what are your thoughts.” Many other men wrote, less eloquently, of the “debt” that they owed to Cosimo to fulfill his wishes and to serve in particular offices to the best of their capabilities.°? While less fulsome, this was perhaps the most revealing usage of all. A generation earlier, at the end of the fifteenth century, members of the office-holding class had spoken of the debt they owed to the republic or the stato, to the imagined community of the commonwealth.?* The transfer of this debt, of service and obedience, to Cosimo reflected the extent to which he had subsumed and replaced the republican commonwealth, becoming the stato himself. This language of indebtedness and rhetorical self-effacement testified to subtle changes in the nature of the patron-client relationship in princely Florence. The free market of the fifteenth century had disappeared. In its place arose a princely monopoly, in which the client/ courtier remained always dependent and lacked leverage because of the ontological supremacy of the prince.?> The relationship between a fifteenth-century patron, even a member of the Medici family, and his client had always remained interdependent. The apparently servile language that clients deployed concealed the duress and sense of obli-

gation that their petitions placed on the recipient.?° The unspoken threat behind such language was that the client would sever the relationship if expectations were not met and requests remained unfulfilled too often. This tension had undermined and, ultimately, brought down the Medici stato of the fifteenth century. In contrast, a prince could (and often did) acknowledge but not fulfill—at least not immediately or all at once—a courtier’s petition. Domenico Martelli had to

wait six months to receive his desired seat on the Otto di Pratica. Bindo Altoviti devoted six years to seeking representation on the Quarantotto for his family before Cosimo granted his wish. Indeed, in a certain sense, a prince did not have to reciprocate, because as an ab-

Reimagining F lorence 221 solute ruler he already owned everything: the service or gift offered was not the courtier’s to give.°”? The Florentine officeholders of the 1540s merely rendered a service due, because it belonged to Cosimo already.

Like the obsequious, formulaic salutations that opened letters to Cosimo, this rhetorical self-effacement helped to construct a new type of relationship in Florence between prince and patrician. Limits did

exist, however, to the amount of work that rhetoric could achieve. These letters need to be read with care because at the same time as their authors were consciously contributing to the fashioning of Cosimo’s position and to the reimagining of their own social world, they did not suppress or deny their own interests entirely. Over the past two decades scholars have stripped bare the older historiographical picture

of absolute monarchy and the decline of the nobility, to reveal the extent to which governmental centralization, the emergence of the modern state in Europe, and the practice of absolutism depended on collaboration and consensus between monarch and aristocracy.?® The

Medici principate as it developed in Florence during the 1530s and 1540s also relied on a certain extent of mutual obligation between Cosimo and the office-holding class of the city, no matter how much the rhetoric of princely clientage obscured this. While victory at Montemurlo had defused the most immediate and potent threat to the Medici prince’s rule, the memory of the civic republican tradition of Florence did not evaporate. Most dramatically, the survival of civic republican notions of liberty found expression in the promotion or practice of violent resistance to the Medici principality. Sometime around 1540, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, the assassin of Duke Alessandro, penned and began

to circulate a justification for his deed that invoked the values and expectations of the civic world of the fifteenth century and also the classical image of tyrannicide.?? In 1543, a plot to kill Cosimo, by shooting him while he hunted, was discovered, leading to the execution and then dismemberment (at the hands the populace) of Giuliano Buonaccorsi, the would-be assassin.'°° In the 1550s, the struggle between France and Spain for control of Siena took on a civic republican

222 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY mantle with the appointment of Piero di Filippo Strozzi to lead the French defense of the city and the support of Bindo Altoviti, who per-

sonally hired three thousand infantry for the Franco-Sienese cause, outfitting them with banners inscribed Libertas.'°!

Even within Florence itself, where Cosimo’s rule generally found support or at least tolerance, a lingering sense of civic republican rights

continued as a muted undercurrent beneath the courtly rhetoric. Although Cosimo enjoyed a stronger and more objective institutional

position than both his immediate predecessor and his fifteenthcentury forebears, he still relied on the support of the office-holding class for the preservation of his rule. Filippo de’ Nerli, around the end of 1541, gave a frank and clear assessment of the reciprocity required between the Medici prince and the Florentine elite. De’ Nerli observed that the distribution of offices needed careful management to avoid losing the active support of some members of the office-holding class or even rekindling “the desire for the civic life.”'°? In return for their service and devotion, and for sacrificing the political freedoms of the republican system, the elite of Florence expected regular access to public offices, which provided not only financial rewards but, more important, a recognition and a reassertion of their social position in the city. The office-holding class, whatever their rhetoric might express, expected Cosimo to share the stato with them and so to preserve and protect their prestige.’ The office-holding class also continued to maintain their own economic interests behind the rhetoric and practice of courtliness. In no sense did the Florentine patricians become a landed, neo-feudal nobility. Their ties with the world of commerce remained strong.'°* These mercantile interests continued not only among men such as Bindo AItoviti, living outside of Florence in the commercial capitals of Western Europe such as Rome or Lyons, but also among men who consistently held the most prestigious public positions in the principality. Federigo di Roberto de’ Ricci, one of the inaugural members of the Quarantotto and who regularly sat on important magistracies, owned a successful bank under his own name.'® His distant cousin Giuliano de’ Ricci observed that “the bank of Federigo . . . was truly the cash-box of

Reimagining Florence 223 everyone, so much so that one could say that no other bank handled any money except the Ricci.”'°° Of the other forty families represented on the Quarantotto in 1532, thirty-three appear in the records of the Mercanzia (the Merchants’ Tribunal) registering 229 limited-liability business partnerships between 1531 and 1610.'°7 Research into the commercial activities of the Florentine elite in the sixteenth century remains underdeveloped compared with previous centuries, but the quantitative data that exists indicates continuity both in investment practices and profitability. This suggests that not only did Florentine patricians continue to pursue mercantile interests, but they also continued to do so successfully and seriously. Scholars have studied three family firms—the Bartolini, the Corsi, and the Riccardi—in some detail. The banking operations of all three—in Lyons, Florence, and Pisa respectively—had high annual earnings comparable to fifteenthcentury enterprises. Both the Corsi and the Riccardi (who became the wealthiest family in grand-ducal Florence after the Medici themselves) had also invested substantial sums in wool shops by the century’s end. Brandolini profits from the textile trade remained modest, but their investment in and commitment to the industry persisted. Even the trend toward increasing landholdings in the countryside appears to have aimed at the consolidation of previously scattered properties into an estate from which higher commercial profits could be taken, rather than an aspiration toward becoming landed, rentier gentry.'°° The interest that members of the office-holding class showed in maintaining the mercantile economy of Florence extended beyond their own personal investments and pursuits. In 1539, Francesco Rucellai expressed concern to Cosimo I about the potential damage a proposed tax increase would have on local businesses. Rucellai wrote to remind the Medici prince of the crucial role that merchants played in “maintaining the city alive and in flower.”'°? The office-holding class of Florence remained essentially mercantile and commercial in their orientation in the midcentury, as Giovanni della Casa somewhat derisively noted in his dialogue Galateo."'° Indeed, sumptuary legislation from the later sixteenth century that commanded male members of the office-holding class to dress in a lucco acknowledged as much by

224 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY permitting the wearing of more practical garments prior to noon, in order to permit business affairs to continue." Similarly, the 1562 statutes of the Order of Santo Stefano—the maritime military-religious order founded by Cosimo I—while mandating that candidates for membership could not have practiced any trade but must have lived as a gentleman, permitted the waiving of this (and other requirements) in exchange for the endowment of a commenda: an obvious accommodation for the Florentine elite. So much so, that Giuliano de’ Ricci ob-

served that the majority of new recruits obtained their positions through such a purchase rather than via proof of nobility." The world of the office-holding class in the mid-sixteenth century also remained persistently homosocial. Marriage remained a bond between two heterosexual men as much as between husband and wife. Ottaviano de’ Medici, in a letter to Cosimo I in the autumn of 1540, discussed the plans of Luigi de’ Pazzi to find a wife for his son. “His desire is to settle his son with a father-in-law [who is a] merchant,” Ottaviano observed, “so that, leaving him certain assets, he can—with

the advice and direction of his father-in-law—succeed in business affairs.”''3 Relationships between mature men continued to structure the shape of elite practices. As in the fifteenth century, these interactions

occurred simultaneously at several levels—from the representational (the portraits painted by Salviati during the 1540s) to the institutional, from affective relationships between friends to utilitarian ones be-

tween patrons and clients. Despite the increasing centralization of public life around the person of Cosimo I, not all paths to sociopolitical advancement or benefit ran through the Palazzo della Signoria.

Prominent and important men continued to operate within the familiar sottogoverno of influence peddling. In October 1539, Girolamo

Guicciardini beseeched his brother Luigi to aid an unnamed friend, “for love of me and respect for him.”!'* When Prinzivalle della Stufa petitioned Luigi Guicciardini to assist a client in the recovery of a debt,

he observed that “all that will be done for him I will consider it [as done] for myself.”"'> Della Stufa himself, several years later, intervened on behalf of a certain Francesco, sentenced to serve three years in the galleys for rape, who desired permission to purchase a slave to take his

Reimagining Florence 225 place." The office-holding class may have adopted and affected disin-

terest toward the political, but their social world remained one in which the structures and gradations of power determined the contours of daily life.

The altered political landscape did offer new forms of relationship between elite men. Most obviously the person of the Medici prince constituted the central and most important connection for members of the office-holding class. To be in Cosimo’s grace and favor, to protect his honor and serve his interests became the essential conduit to status as well as the more tangible rewards of office holding itself. The relationship with the person of the prince—at the center of court, govern-

ment, and society—represented a novelty: a permanent bond, both affective and institutional. In the 1540s too, the relative youth of the Medici prince constituted a significant reverse in the gerontocratic nature of the Florentine elite, even as the public role of the officeholding class continued as the preserve of mature men. The person of Cosimo’s wife, Eleonora di Toledo, represented an even greater innovation in the gender-power dynamic of Renaissance

Florence.” Bartolomeo Lanfredini, in August 1539, sought license from Cosimo to leave Pistoia, “in order to speak with [Your Excellency] and also in order to kiss the hand of her Most Ilustrious Ladyship the Duchess, your consort and my Lady.”"® In 1544, Alessandro Malegonnelle concluded a letter to the Medici prince, “I humbly kiss

the hand of Your Excellency and that of your most illustrious Lady consort.” Around the same time Domenica Centelli petitioned Eleonora to intercede with Cosimo in order to liberate Domenica’s husband, Giovanni, from prison, where he was held for failing to pay a ten lire fine.'*° Letters such as these testify to a shift in the previously maledominated political institutions of the city. However, the imbalance in

correspondence between Cosimo and Eleonora in his favor—the countless discursive kisses bestowed upon the hands of the Medici prince by the authors of letters and innumerable petitions for reprieve or mercy directed to him—suggests that many members of the officeholding class had not yet fully assimilated the role of the princely consort into their social imaginary at the midcentury. They continued,

226 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY perhaps, to conceive of Eleonora in a sense not far removed from that which earlier generations had of Medici wives, mothers, and sisters: existing and operating within the male homosocial sphere rather than cultivating a parallel female network of relationships.'*’ Eleonora di Toledo certainly played a more active and symbolically important role in the stato of Cosimo | than her forebears. But possibly a degree of resistance toward this new position or perhaps some slippage between the intentions of Eleonora and Cosimo and the reception of her public persona existed.'?? Despite the continuity of commercial interests and activities, the persistently homosocial society, and the key place of the act of holding public office in the social imagination of the Florentine elite, a significant change had occurred by the end of the 1540s in the way the officeholding class perceived and understood their identity and position in Florence. Following the political instability and ambiguity of the previous decade, the objective structures of the Medici principate cohered

in the 1540s in a more secure and clear form. Under Cosimo I the government of the city and its territory demonstrably became a monarchy, increasingly organized and controlled by appointed ministers rather than the civilian magistracies of the republican era. In this new political reality the established social world of the office-holding class no longer provided sufficient meaning, its values and expectations no longer accorded with those necessary for social and political success. As a result the Florentine elite reimagined itself in a definably courtly manner. In did so, however, not by breaking with the inherited traditions of the republican era, but by reconceiving and shaping them to the new

objective reality. As the person and institution of the Medici prince subsumed the previous notion of the common good—becoming the embodiment and point of access to the stato—what in the previous generation had been understood as public service became personal service to Cosimo I. The holding of office came to reflect the honor and status

of the individual magistrate as a member of more defined and restricted sociopolitical elite. It also represented that man’s standing in the eyes of Cosimo I: the holding of public office, which remained a defining role in the elite’s self-conception, no longer represented com-

Reimagining Florence 227 munal recognition of an individual’s virtu and capability, but rather his favor with the prince. The act of office holding had ceased to possess a political function, becoming instead a function of social status, prestige, and proximity to the person of the prince. The community of civilian magistrates, the fraternity of red-robed mature males, which had existed in the fifteenth century, had transformed itself into a society of courtiers.

Conclusion Florence and Renaissance Republicanism

a ON 22 JUNE 1549, the inhabitants of Florence began preliminary celebrations for the feast of Saint John the Baptist, patron protector of the city, with a parade. The floats borne through the streets included one made by the Confraternity of the Archangel Raphael, which depicted the biblical battle between David and Goliath. The company halted at the doors of the Palazzo della Signoria, home to Cosimo I de’ Medici and his family. While the prince listened from a window above,

the company recited in verse the story of the shepherd’s unexpected victory over the Philistine giant. The recitation emphasized Goliath’s pride, fearsome presence, and heathen religion, as well as David’s humility, youth, and piety. In the closing lines of the poem the members of the confraternity explicitly compared Cosimo with David: “Now you, illustrious and honored Prince, / by whose great valor beautiful Florence, / forgetting all the past woes, / rests now happy and content in peace, / you also follow in a like manner.”! The figure of David, victorious over Goliath, had a long history and

powerful resonance in Renaissance Florence as the perfect image of youthful virtua triumphing over impossible adversity. Along with varia-

Conclusion 229 tions on the same theme, such as Hercules or Saint George, the Old Testament hero had embodied and manifested the virta of the Florentine stato, of its civic republican government, of the men of the officeholding class. The same chemistry of social and political necessity that shaped so much of the urban landscape of the city, producing works such as Ghirlandaio’s Sassetti and Tornabuoni chapels, resulted in the multiplication of images of David and Hercules across the city during the fifteenth century as artists and craftsmen brought this imagining into muscular physicality. As a result, in 1549, the youths of the Confraternity of the Archangel Raphael performed their masque in the shadow of Michelangelo’s iconic imagining of David, which since 1504

had guarded the main entrance to the Palazzo della Signoria, and of Baccio Bandinelli’s much-maligned Hercules, which had balanced the earlier sculpture from the other side of the doorway from 15$34.

This image of youthful virti has appeared repeatedly throughout the preceding pages: as Perseus (the classical analogue of Saint George) in Piero di Cosimo’s The Liberation of Andromeda, in the mimicking of Donatello’s marble David and also the hat badge depicting Hercules in Pontormo’s Portrait of Francesco Guardi, and in the background of Bronzino’s Portrait of Ugolino Martelli. Fittingly, it appears again here, at the end as a demonstration of both the continuity and the change that had oc-

curred in Florence between the end of the fifteenth century and middle of the sixteenth century. For while the meaning of the figure had remained unchanged between the 1504 installation of Michelangelo’s marble sculpture and the 1549 performance, Florentines had gradually altered what they understood by this meaning. David had undergone a political transubstantiation. The Confraternity of the Archangel Raphael, on 22 June 1549, built a careful analogy between David and Cosimo I de’ Medici in their song. They did not do so, as might be expected, by celebrating David’s role as king of Israel as an analogue of Medicean monarchy, but rather by focusing their recitation upon the slaying of Goliath, the very act that had the strongest republican associations. The verses described, in graphic terms, the felling and beheading of the Philistine giant. They celebrated the Medici prince as a contemporary David who had defeated

230 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY threats to Florentine freedom. The Old Testament hero, they observed, in slaying Goliath, had demonstrated his “greater strength and valor” and had given Israel “peace and comfort.” The singers then used

analogous language to describe Cosimo I, noting that through his “sreat valor beautiful Florence ...rests now happy and content in peace.”

The Medici had previously appropriated the image of David, during the fifteenth century, as a vehicle to express the family’s service to the republic of Florence. Around 1430, inspired by Donatello’s marble David in the Palazzo della Signoria, Cosimo il Vecchio de’ Medici had commissioned the sculptor to make a bronze of the shepherd boy for the family palace on the Via Larga. This assumption of a communal

icon for familial use represented an unprecedented act and demonstrated the extent to which the Medici consciously associated themselves with the Florentine stato in the mid-fifteenth century. However,

the Medici adopted the image of the Old Testament hero within the established framework of understanding: as the defender of civic republican virti. The inscription on Donatello’s bronze read: “The victor is whoever defends the fatherland. God crushes the wrath of an enor-

mous foe. Behold! A boy overcame a great tyrant. Conquer, O citizens!”? The description of Goliath as a tyrant and the evocation of “citizens” situated the image squarely in the civic imagination of the fifteenth century. The 1549 celebration of Cosimo I as David, however, represented a reinterpretation of the imagery. The Confraternity of the Archangel Raphael depicted David not as exemplar of virti to inspire the citizenry of Florence but as a heroic individual presented for praise and honor. While Donatello’s David urged the citizens of republican Florence to emulate his virti, the David of the confraternity’s imagining simply encouraged the subjects of the principality to admire it.

David was no longer a communal symbol but an avatar for the Medici prince. No mention of tyranny appears in the mid-sixteenthcentury lyrics. The verses depict Goliath instead as a threatening and invasive force: “the proud tall giant / before whom all Israel fled.” The singers emphasized David’s glory and victory, presenting him as the

Conclusion 231 bringer of peace, as a defender of independence. In this way, the confraternity’s float lauded Cosimo I in a manner akin to Filippo de’ Nerli’s praise of the prince: as a man who brought an end to the factional con-

flicts and internal turmoil of the Florentine republic. Under the Medici prince, the verses observed, Florence remained at peace, having forgotten “all the past woes.” The image of David, in 1549, had lost its previous civic republican associations, becoming instead an embodiment of Cosimo I’s political success since 1537 in defending Florentine

sovereignty. This transformation occurred without a shift in the details of the Old Testament hero’s representation, which, like the sculptures by Donatello and Michelangelo, focused on the act of slaying Goliath. The shift had occurred in how the imagery was understood in Florence.

As this book has argued, this shift occurred because the transition from republic to monarchy in sixteenth-century Florence did not result from a revolution or a radical break with the past. The language and images of Florentine government remained largely unaltered. Italian Renaissance republics were not republican by virtue of the absence of a monarch—both Venice and Genoa had elected princes, while the Medici, Bentivoglio, and Petrucci families played princely roles without titles or institutions in fifteenth-century Florence, Bologna, and Siena respectively—but by a commitment to and a promotion of the notion of res publica, the public things or commonwealth.* Such polities did not constitute the institutional and philosophical opposites of principalities. As a result the boundaries between these two forms of government, these two types of stato, were not clearly drawn, but remained fungible and permeable. The fundamental change from one system to the other occurred not in institutions or personnel but in political culture—in values, expectations, and behavior—which, in the Florentine case, endowed the concepts of liberty, the common good, and service with new and very different meanings. In the 1530s, Lorenzo Strozzi and Francesco Guicciardini could speak of defending Florentine liberty, but what they meant by liberty differed fundamentally from the notion of civic republicanism that had predominated in the fifteenth century. Holders of public office in the 1540s were still

232 THE FRUIT OF LIBERTY motivated by a concept of service, but what they understood this service to constitute was very different from the concepts that had existed in the previous century. This is not to say that the course of Florentine history in the first half of the sixteenth century consisted solely in a play of meaning, in the deconstruction and reconstruction of terms and ideas. Blood was shed, fortunes were ruined, and lives destroyed. People fought and died in the struggle over the political culture of the city: from hunger or disease during the siege, in battle before Florence, at Gavinana and Montemurlo, on the executioner’s block, and, in the case of Filippo Strozzi, lonely and embittered, by suicide. The experiences of members of the

office-holding class during the turbulent years of the Italian Wars from 1494 shaped the changes in Florentine political culture. The human and material costs of these years determined the behavior and practice of the Florentine elite. In the end, the cost of maintaining the civic republican tradition of the city proved too high. However, because the civilian magistrate of the republic was far closer to the courtier of the principality than intellectual and social historians have realized, the cost of transformation from one status to the other was a price most members of the office-holding class were prepared to pay. They sacrificed the internal political freedoms of the republic for the external freedom from foreign rule guaranteed by the Medici principality, which would preserve the social and economic predominance of the office-holding class. In a twist of historical irony,

this in turn eventually resulted in the very thing the office-holding class had feared so much in the sixteenth century: the loss of Florentine independence to the Habsburgs. In 1737, when Gian Gastone, the last Medici Grand Duke of Tuscany, died, the state passed to Francis Stephen of Lorraine, husband of Maria Theresa of Austria (the future Holy Roman empress). This failure of Florentine republicanism and particularly the manner of the slippage between republican and princely cultures—preserving the language and concepts of the former—has remained largely unad-

dressed by historians. The two most significant studies of the period, by Anzilotti and Albertini, both presented the change from republic to

Conclusion 233 principate in terms of discontinuity. In their interpretations, a new, different political culture replaced the older, republican one as a necessary correlative of the change in the institutions of government. In Anglophone scholarship the lacuna is even more apparent. The Florentine Renaissance has held a special place in the historical imagination of the English-speaking world, due largely to the perceived connections between the city’s civic republican tradition and Anglo-American plu-

ralist democracy. Confronted by the totalitarian dictatorships of the twentieth century, a generation of scholars after World War II found in fifteenth-century Florence a narrative that resounded with their own experiences The city on the Arno became, in their eyes, the cradle not only of Renaissance art but also of concepts of liberty and civic government, preserving them from classical antiquity and transmit-

ting them to future generations. As a result, an artificial divide has developed in the historiography of Florence. Taking August 1530 as the point of bifurcation, this division has separated the scholarship into two largely disconnected subfields: one examining the fourteenthand fifteenth-century republic, and another studying the Medici grand duchy.®

In this book I have attempted to surpass this divide and, in doing so, to broaden the historical perspective on the legacy of Renaissance Florence. The continuing significance of David as a politico-cultural emblem of the city in 1549 testifies both to the extent of the change that occurred between the end of the fifteenth century and the middle of the sixteenth and to the manner by which it happened. Like the lansuage of civic republicanism—emphasizing liberty, service, and the

common good—the image of youthful virti had maintained its outward form but shifted in its meaning. Similarly, the Florentine elite still defined themselves by their public positions and continued to fulfill their eponymous role as officeholders in the stato, but the signifi-

cance of this behavior had altered. The fraternity of civilian magistrates dedicated to their commonwealth had transformed themselves into a society of courtiers dedicated to the service of a prince, whose virti the Confraternity of the Archangel Raphael manifested on that summer evening in 1$49.

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APPENDIX I

A Partial Reconstruction of the Office- Holding Class of Florence, ca. 1500

ae THE FOLLOWING TABLE lists $55 lineages with at least one seat on

the Consiglio Maggiore, for the period between 1494 and 1512, based on the extant lists of membership compiled in 1496 and 1508. As such

it constitutes a partial reconstruction of the office-holding class of Florence during the first decade of the sixteenth century. It excludes families matriculated in one of the arti minori (minor guilds) who had fewer than four members seated on the Consiglio. Note also (for purposes of simplicity and for lack of any definitive evidence either way) that where the same surname appears among members of both the arti minori and the arti maggiori (major guilds), | have made the (not neces-

sarily correct) assumption that these men belonged to one and the same family. Many Florentine lineages had members dispersed across the socioeconomic strata of the city. The Cambini brothers mentioned

in Chapter I provide a clear example of this. However, these could equally be different families entirely. Lineages marked with a double dagger (4) are those identified as belonging to the patriciate during the first half of the sixteenth century.

236 Appendix 1 As emphasized in the text, all status groups within the office-holding class were fluid, and indeed Renaissance Florence enjoyed a greater degree of social mobility than any other city on the Italian peninsula. As such any attempt to delineate one or another estate within its society is inherently limited and difficult. No claim is made that this list represents a definitive guide either to the office-holding class or to the patriciate of Florence; it represents both as they stood in the first decade of

the sixteenth century only. Their constitution in the early fourteenth and fifteenth centuries would have looked markedly different. The lineages are identified by gonfalone (the district within the city in

which they lived, see the key below) or in a few instances by quarter alone, by the year that a member of the lineage first sat on the Signoria (first prior), and by whether or not the lineage achieved the milestone of having representation on the Signoria on twenty or more occasions between 1282 and 1530 (20+ priors—the figure in parentheses indicates how many times the family had a member sit on the Signoria). For com-

parison, lineages with a member seated on the Quarantotto (48) and Dugento (200) in 1532 are also identified. An asterisk following the family name indicates families identified as magnate lineages, according to the 1293 Ordinances of Justice. Lineages that shared common ances-

try are identified in the 20+ priors column. Lineages for which no information other than gonfalone or quarter is present only had members drawn from the arti minori.

Method I took as my starting point those families that possessed at least one seat on the Consiglio Maggiore (the Great Council). The formation of this institution in 1494 had, for the first time in Florentine political history, partially closed the office-holding class of the city. Records of its membership, therefore, constitute the most complete source for determining which families belonged the office-holding class. Identifying the patriciate within this initial group of $55 lineages, however, was a more complex task. As mentioned in the Introduction, no consensus exists among historians about how to delineate sociopolitical status in

Appendix 1 237 Florence, because of the presence of at least three indicators of status— political, economic, social—and a lack of agreement on how to measure

these. Rather than adding to the debate by proposing yet another series of metrics, I began instead by building upon the valuable studies of Roslyn Pesman Cooper, R. Burr Litchfield, and Anthony Molho. The quantitative works of the first two scholars—on the “ruling group” between 1494 and 1512 and the patriciate during the period of the grand duchy—were particularly important, as they overlapped chronologically with my own research, while Molho’s fine-grained analysis is the most detailed and thorough examination of status of Florence during the Renaissance. The more recent work by John Padgett has complicated and nuanced Molho’s picture with even more precise variables for measuring status, but appeared too late for integration into my own metrics.

I began simply enough by compiling a master list of all the lineages (906 in total) that appeared in the analyses by Cooper, Litchfield, and Molho. From this compilation I highlighted the 253 families listed by

all three studies. These lineages constituted the center of a virtual Venn diagram on which all three authors agreed. As such they represented an ideal starting point for further elaboration. Working with this list, I added an additional layer of metrics specific to political power in the period between 1480 and 1550. I checked the records of the more restricted legislative councils for the period—the Cento and the Settanta (1480-94, I514—27), and the Ottanta (1495-1512) —noting which families had representation on these bodies, not only among the 253 base lineages but also all 906 on the master list. I also added membership of the inaugural Quarantotto in 1532 to the variables. Finally, as a measure of longevity of political influence I noted when each family had first seated a member on the Signoria (an important measure of status for Florentines during the Renaissance) and also which families had achieved the distinction of representation on the Signoria over twenty times during its 25O-year existence.

With these additional metrics I parsed out 159 lineages that appeared to be the most politically active and dominant in the early decades of the sixteenth century and that also possessed a long history

238 Appendix 1 of political prominence and participation. I have identified these families as forming the patriciate of Florence in the period between 1480— 1550. All but one of them appeared on the base list of 253 lineages that Cooper, Litchfield, and Molho agreed upon: the Tosinghi, whom Molho excluded. All but eight of them held a seat on the Signoria, the supreme executive office of Florence, twenty or more times between the creation of this body in 1282 and its abolition in 1532. Note that for this deter-

mination I counted extended lineages only once. The Tornaquinci/ Tornabuoni/Popoleschi/Giachinotti (all descended from the Tornaquinci family) sat on the Signoria fifty-five times between them. Only

twenty-two of these lineages had not sat a member on the Signoria prior to 1382. Ten of these twenty-two were either magnate families or had split from a magnate family. Sixty-one of these lineages seated their first prior between 1282 and 1302, the first twenty years of the Signorias existence.

Key to the quarters (in italics) and gonfaloni of Florence:

10 = Santo Spirito 30=Santa Maria Novella

11=Scala 31= Vipera

12= Nicchio 32= Unicorno

13=Ferza 33= Lion Rosso 14= Drago 34=Lion Bianco 20= Santa Croce 40=San Giovanni

21=Carro 41=Lion d’Oro

22= Bue 42= Drago 23=Lion Nero 43 = Chiavi 24=Ruote 44= Vaio

Appendix 1 239 Lineage Gonfl. First prior 20+ priors 48 200 (Del) Abbaco

Acciaiuoli* 31 1282 Yes (91) Yes (2) Yes (4)

Adimari* 1286 Adriani Berti44,42 23 1394 — Yes (26) Yes

Agli 42 1285 — Yes Alamanneschi* 44 1439 Yes (Adimari) Yes

Alamanni* Il 1354 Yes (22) Yes Alberti 23 1289 Yes ($7) Yes Yes Albertinelli 22 _

(Degli) Albizzi* 43 1282 Yes (141) Yes Yes (2) Ser Albizzo 44 1464 —

Alderotti 13 1364 — Aldobrandini* AI 1320 Yes (34)

Alessandri® 43 1376 Yes (A lbizzi) Yes

Allegri 341282 ?— Altoviti* 31 Yes (118) Yes (2) Amadori* Il 1311 Da Ambra 43Yes—(31) Ambrogi/A mbruogi 32 I440 _

Amidei* 13 — — Dell’Amorotta 33 1298 _

Dell’Ancisa 43 1475 — Anselmi 34 1283 Yes (33) Dell’Antella* 21 1282 Yes (57) Yes Yes Antinori* 14 1351 Yes (26) Yes Yes (2)

Arnoldi 22 1491 — Yes Arnolfi* 21 1318 Yes (21) Ardinghelli* 32 1282 Yes (45)

Arrighi 43 1373 — Arrigucci* 42,44 1375 Yes (27) (Degli) Asini 21, 22 1343

Della Badessa 31 1287 Yes (28)

Bagnesi 23 1346 — Baldi/Baldo 12, 13, AI, 42

Baldovinetti* 31 1287 Yes (37) Yes Baldovini 44 I440 — Balducci 23,42 1477 — Balducci Pegalotti 12,14 1346 Banchi I] 1305 Yes— (23) Bancozzi 23 1434

Bandini Banducci 33 — Yes (Baroncelli) Yes

Barbadori — Yes Da Baberino 22 12 I4901295 —

(continued)

240 Appendix 1 Lineage Gonfl. First prior 20+ priors 48 200

Bardi* Il, 23 1282 Yes (35) Yes Barducci Il, I3 1387 _ (Cherichini)

Barducci Ottavanti 43 1372 — Yes Baroncelli* 21,24 1287 Yes (63) Bartolelli 32,42 1395 —

Bartoli* 32 1345 Yes (55) Yes Bartoli Filippi 24 1361 —

Bartolini 32 1362 Yes (39) Yes Yes (3) (Salimbeni)*

Bartolini Scodellari 42 1299 Yes (32)

Barucci 22 1364 — Beccanugi 34 1284 Yes (46)

Becchi 42 1437 Yes Del Beccuto/Beccuti 42 1283 — Yes Belchari 22 IAS4 Belfredelli 12 1321

Bellacci* 21,13 23 I442 1342 Yes (26) Yes Bellincioni

Benci 42 1407 — Benci* AI, 44 1302 Yes (20) Benazzi

Benci Guernieri 14 1369 —

Bencini 32 1345 — Bencivenni 22, 31

Del Bene* 31 1283 Yes (23)

Del Bene del 32 1420 Benincasa 20 Benini 14, 21, 1321 — Spinello

33

Del Benino (Naldi)* 13, 23 1345 Yes (38) Yes

Benintendi 21, 32 1435 —

Benivieni 44 1382 — Benizzi 12, 13 1301 — Ser Benozzo 32 1365 — Benvenuti 22 1365 — Benvenuti 33 1438 — Benvenuti AI 1384 — Berardi* 33 1363 Yes (31) Berlinghieri* 1365 Bernardi 22,24 22 1385 — Yes (33) Yes

Berti 22 1387 — Berti (della Sala) Il I441 —

Betti 32 I44I —

Appendix 1 241 Lineage Gonfl. First prior 20+ priors 48 200

Bettini 44,2434 1366 _ Del Biada

Del Bianco IAI2 Biffoli 22441356

Biliotti 22 1483 _ Yes Bindi (Giunta) 42,44 1451 — Biliotti* 12, 13 1299 Yes (68)

Bini* II, 22,44 13 1352 Yes (20) Yes (2) Bischeri 1309 Biuzzi 13 — — Bizzeri 22 — — Boccacci 32 1342 — Bonafe/Buonafe 43 1317 — Bonciant* 31 1286 Yes (47)

Boni 42 1442 — Boni (Meo) 24 1384 _

Bonsi* 14, Al, 1364 Yes (37) Yes Bonvanni/ 4I 1435 _ 43

Buonvanni

Bordoni 34 1282 Yes (37)

Borgherini 31 1495/6 _ Yes Borghini (Taddei) 22 1340 — Del Borgo 30 (?) Borgognoni 2433,44 1393 — Borromei Borsi 43 1345 —1471 — Yes Boscoli 24, 43 1484 Boverelli 13 1284 _ Bracciolini 21, 43 1455 — Bramanti 12,40

Brancacci 14 1317 — Brandolini 22 1393 — Brucioli 13 Brunelleschi 42 1468 — Brunetti

Bruni 1375 Bruni 2241 1443 — — Yes Bucelli 22 1284 Yes (43) Bucherelli

Del Bughafta/ 13 1387 — Bugliafto Buglione

Buini 21 — — (continued)

242 Appendix 1 Lineage Gonfl. First prior 20+ priors 48 200

Buonaccorsi/ 13, 21, 1301/02 — Yes Bonaccorsi 42 Buonagrazia

Buonaguisi 21,42 1439 — Buonarroti-Simoni 23 1343 — Di Buonaventura 32 — — Buonavolti 33 1393 — Buondelmonti/ 31 1442 Yes (22) Yes Yes (2) Buondelmonte**

Buongirolami AA 1467 _ Yes Yes Buoninsegni 34 1393 — Del Buono Ricchi 34 I44I —

Busini* 23 1345 Yes (30) Yes Buti AO, 31 Del Caccia* 24 1381 Yes (44)

Caccini (Ricoveri)* 23 1350 Yes (26)

Cafferelli 23 1386 1324 — — Calandri 43

Calderini 30 Yes Calvanesi 13 Cambi (di 12 1439 — Napoleone)

Cambi 42,44 1312 Yes (20) (Figliagambucci)* Cambi (Importuni)* 32 1302 Yes (24) Yes Cambi (Mercatanti) 32 1437 —

Cambini 13 1380 — Cambini Al, 42 1399 Di Cambio 42 1475 — Della Camera 24 1383 Canacci* 31,Il32— 1363 Yes (31) Yes Cancellieri — Canigiani* Il 1282 Cantucci 42 1396Yes — (77) Yes Yes (3) Capitani 44 1308 — Cappelli AI, 42 1326 — (delle Stelle)

Capponi* Il, 12, 1287 Yes (67) Yes (2) Yes (5) 13,14

Carcherelli/Carchelli 22 1346 _

Carducci* 31 1380 Yes (41)

Carletti 33, 43 1351 — Carnacci

Carnesecchi* 42 1297 Yes (60) Yes Yes (3)

Carsidoni 21 _ —

Appendix 1 243 Lineage Gonfl. First prior 20+ priors 48 200 Carucci Della Casa 23, AI, 1393 — A2

Da Casavecchia 13 1384

Cassella AI 1344 — Castellani 21 1326 Yes (38) Yes (2) (di Altafronte)*

Da Castiglionchio 23 1289 — Da Castiglione” 13, 34 I461 — Cattani (Cavalcanti)* AI 1495 —

Cavalcanti** 21, 22, 1450 — Yes 23, 31,

33,42

Cecchi 21, 33 Ceffi (Masini) 24 IA12 _

Ceffini 22 1388 — Cei 22 1469 — Cenni IO, 20 Cennini 21 1426 — (De) Cerchi* 21 1285 —

Cerretani* 42 1282 Yes (40) Di Chiarissimo 44 1300 — Del Chiaro 42, 43

Ciacchi* 21, 24 1386 Yes (21) Yes Ciacciporci Il, 13 1408 —

Ciai* 13, AI, 1389 — Yes 42

Ciampelli 2141 1385 _ Ciari 13 1344 — Da 1475— — CiniCignano 32, 34,441346 Ciofi 42 1348 — CioniAI, 32,34 41, 43

Cischi/Cisti 32 — —

Cittadini 4O Yes (2) Cocchi Donati* 22 1376 Yes (30) Yes (2) Comi 14, 33 1397 — (Del) Cittadino/

Compagni* 32 1289 Yes (21)

Compagni Convenevoli4334——— _

Corbinelli* 12,42 1289 Yes (59) Yes Yes (2) Corsellini* Il, 13 1404 Yes (20)

(continued)

244 Appendix 1 Lineage Gonfl. First prior 20+ priors 48 200

Corsi* 22, 23 1354 Yes (37) Yes Yes Corsini* 13 1290 Yes (64) Yes Yes (3) Cortigian” 44 1385 1285 — — Coverelli 13 (di) Corso

Covoni (Betti)* 24,44 1303 Yes (30) Yes

Cresci 44 13280 — Dati (Squacialupi) 13 1380 — Davanzati* 32 1320 Yes (54) Yes Dazzi/D’Azzo 33 1437 — Dei —Yes (22) Yes Deti*13 Il, 1473 12 1335

Dietifici 13 1381 Dietisalvi Neroni* 4I 1291 Yes (36) Dini* 13, 21, 1370 — Yes Yes (4) Doffi 22 44 1393 — Donati ? — Doni 44 1469 — Da Empoli 33 1389 — Fabbrini 42 14$7 Fagiuoli/Fagioli® 32 1313 Yes (23) Fagni 1295 Falconi 23 Il 1327 Yes— (22) Didino

23,42

Falconi II, 1244I442 — Falconieri 1282 Fantoni 13,14 Fati/Fatii 23 1376 — Del Fede 12 1350 (?) —

Federighi* 33 1346 Yes (44)

Fedini 32 1397 Yes (22) Yes Feodini

Ferrucci® 14 1299 Yes (24)

Da Filicaia* 23, 24, 1284 Yes (77) Yes 43

Della Fioraia 21 1371 —

Fioravanti 43 1344 — Forese 24 1389 — (Del) Forese 32 1296/98 Yes (23) Formiconi 1344 — — Fortini 43131386

Franceschi 31 1380 Yes Franceschi della 33,34 1403 — Mercanzia

Appendix 1 245 Lineage Gonfl. First prior 20+ priors 48 200

Della Frasca 42 I417 — Yes Frescobaldi** 12, 13, 1285 — Gaddi AI, 4232 1437 — Gaetani* ? — Da Gagliano AI 1487 _ 14, 33

Galilei 22 1381 — Del Garbo 21, 22 1358 — Galiglaio/Galilaio

Gazetti 131410 —— Gerini 24,43 — (42) Yes Yes (2) Gherardi* 24 1352 Yes Gherardini* 21 ? Gherardini della 4A 1303 Yes (28) Rosa

Gherucci 43 1343/45 —

Da Ghiacetto/ 23 1294 Yes (35) Diacetto*

Da Ghiachi/Giachi 12 1372 — Ghinetti 4A 1344 _ Giachinotti* 34 1443 Yes (Tornaquinci)

Giacomini 34 1414 — (Tebalducci)

Giandonati* 31 1477 — Gianfigliazzi** 32 1381 Yes (36) Yes Yes (2) Gianni* 12 1313 Yes (25)

Ginori* AI 1344 Yes (3 1) Yes Del Giocondo AI 1375 Giovanni 12,24 1435 — Giovanni AI — — Giraldi* 43 1396 Yes (20) Girolami* 34 1282 Yes (32)

Girolami 21 1296 — Giugni® 24 1432 1291 — Yes (68) Yes (2) Giuntini 32 Gondi 22, 33, 1438 — Yes Yes (2) (Orlandini)

Gori Grassi21 421450 1482 — — 34

Ser Grifi 23 — — Guadagni* 43 1289 Yes (29)

Gualterotti* I 1437 Yes (Bardi) Yes Yes (2)

Del Guanto Il 1488 _

(continued)

246 Appendix 1 Lineage Gonfl. First prior 20+ priors 48 200

Guardi 24 1443 — Guasconi* AI 1314 Yes (47)

Gucci 32 1357 — Guicciardini® 12 1302 Yes (57) Yes (2) Yes (3) Guidacci 21 1470 Guidetti® Il, 12 1346 Yes (32) Yes

Guidi 42 1382 Guidi (da Prato 42 1470/71 — Vecchio)

Guidotti* Yes— (23) Guiducci42231400 1461

Guiducci* 32 1344 Yes (36) Yes Yes Iacopi/Jacopi 23 1373 Yes Infanghati* 43 1518 — Inghirami AI 21 1387 Lamberteschi —— —

Della Lana 33 1453 — Yes (2) Landi 42 Landini 23 Lanfredini*® 14 1334 Yes (24) Yes Yes (2) Lapacini (del Toso) 34 1389 —

Lapi Lapi*43 4A1374 1394— Yes (21) Yes

Lapi Vatai Al 1376 — Larioni/Ilarioni* Il, I3 1460 Yes (Bardi) Lenzi* 32 1386 Yes (26) Leoni/Lioni™ 24 1326 Yes (28) Yes (2)

Libri 22 1531 Ligi 42

Lippi (Neri)* 13 1350 Yes (26) Lorini® 42 1327 Yes (33) Lotti (Guidi)* 12 1301 Yes (28)

Lottieri —— Lottini 24441360 — Lucalberti 34 1345 — Lulli 24 Della Luna 34 1372 — Luca

Machiavelli* 12 1283 Yes (66) Yes Yes (2)

Maciagnini/ Al 1395 _ Maciaghini

Macinghi/Macigni 44 1392

Maffei AO (?)

Magaldi 1305Yes (93) Yes Magalotti 22 22 1283

Appendix 1 247 Lineage Gonfl. First prior 20+ priors 48 200

Da Magnale 22 1302 —

Malefici 12 1371 Malegonnelle* 34 1304 Yes (42) Yes Magretti

Mancini* 22, 23 1284 Yes (Magalotti) Manelli/Manelli II, 12 1343 —

Manetti 14 1337 — Mangioni 34 1289 Yes (27) Mannini 23 1369 — — Yes (2) Mannucci 21 1379 Galilei*

Manovelli IA, 32, 1283 Yes (21)

Marchi 44 1389 — Marignoli/ AI 1287 Yes (28) 42

Marsili Marsuppini12 221307 —— Marignolli*

Martelli* AI, 42 1343 Yes (46) Yes (2) Martellini 14 1473/74 — Martellini 141349 1520 — — Martini 23 Martini AI, 42 1428 — Martini Gucci/ 43 1373 — Di Guccio Marucelli AI

Masi AI, 44 1416 — Masini 14 1394 —

Mattei/Mazzei AA 1405 _

Mazzinghi** 31, 34 1377 Yes (25)

Mazzinghi 32 1523 — De’ Medici* Al, 42, 1291 Yes (96) Yes (2) Yes (7)

Mei 13 — Da Meleto 22— — 44

Mellini* 2313 1380 Da Mezzola 1361Yes (20) Yes

Michelozzi 40 Yes Michi 22, 33 1361 — Migliori/De 42 1394

Milanesi 42 1484 _ Minerbetti* 1283— Yes (46) Yes Yes Mini 43,44331479 Migliore

(continued)

248 Appendix 1 Lineage Gonfl. First prior 20+ priors 48 200

Miniati di Dino 24 1357 Yes (35) Yes (3) Da San Miniato 42 1492 — Da San Miniato 44 1493 —

Monaci 1366 — Monaldi2332 1283

Da Monterinaldi AI — —

Monti 32,34, Morelli* 23 1387 Yes (45) Yes Yes (4) Mori (Ubaldini)* 32, 34 1300 Yes (28) Mormorai 23 1518— — Mozzi II 1326 Naldini 43 1389 Nardi* 21 1350 YesYes (25) (39) Yes Nasi* II 1375 AI

Nelli AI 1348 Neretti 32

De’ Nerli** II, 12 1437 Yes Yes (2) Del Nero* Il 1382 Yes (30)

Nesi 22 42 1372/77 — Niccoli 1342 — Niccolini (Sirigatti)* 24 1356 Yes (56) Yes Yes (3) Niccolini della Scala Il 1347 —

Di Nicolai/Nicola AI 1344

(De’) Nobili® 31 1355 Yes (43) Yes Yes

Nuti 14,42 Orlandi 24 1345 Yes (26) Orlandini* 23 1286 Yes (25)Yes Yes Orlandini 42 1420 Nome

Ottavanti 33, 34 1409 — Del Pace 12, 21 1397 —

Pacholi 22 1475 — Paganelli* Il 1372 Yes (Canigiani) Pagnini 22 1477 — Del Palagio 44 1328/78 Yes (31) Palarcioni 13 1473 — Della Palla 33 1478 — Del Pancia Il42 1354 — Panciatichi 1483

Pandolfini* 43 1381 Yes (40) Yes Da Panzano 22 1312 Yes (22) Da Panzano AI 1440 — Del Papa42 241351 1324 — — Parenti

Appendix 1 249 Lineage Gonfl. First prior 20+ priors 48 200

Parigi II33 1400 — Partincini Pasquini 33,34

(De’) Pazzi** 43,44 1288 Yes (3) Pecori/Peccori® 42 1284 Yes (39) Pedoni 13 Pepi 23 1301 Yes Yes (29) Peri 23 1359 (20)

Perini 33 1474 — Peruzzi* 23 1283 Yes (63) Da Pesciola AI 1402 —

Pescioni 34 1368 — Petrini 1333 1425 — Petrucci Pieri Il 1407 — Maestro Piero 12 — _ Pigli/Pilli* 21 1285 — Pitti (Gaddi)* 12, 13 1283 Yes (68)

Yes (3)

Pollini 34 —

Popoleschi* 33,34 1396 Yes (Tornaquinci)

Portinari* 4A 1282 — Pucci* 4AAI 1396 Yes—(33) Yes Yes (3) Pucci del 1408

Puccini 40 Yes Pulci* 21 1282 — Chiassolino

Del Pugliese 14 1463 _

Quaratesi* Il 1317 42 Yes (41) Da Rabatta 1321

Da Rabatta 24 1409 _ Raffacani 33 1285 Yes (30)

_ Yes

Raugi 24 1304 — Redditi 31 1397 — Redditi 24 1463 _ Della Rena* 43 1305 Yes (21) Yes (Da) Ricasoli** 21, 23, 1468 — Yes Yes

Riccardi 33 IASI _ (De’) Ricci* 14, 24, 1298 Yes (67) Yes Yes 31, 32

44

Riccialbani* 22 1294 Yes (24) Yes Ridolfi (di Borgo)* 12 1290 Yes (50)

Ridolfi (di Piazza)* 13 1321 Yes (73) Yes (2) Yes (7)

Rimabaldesi Il 1311 —

(continued)

250 Appendix 1 Lineage Gonfl. First prior 20+ priors 48 200

Rinieri* AA—1284 Yes Rinucci 13 1367

Rinaldi (Generotti)* AI, 42 1282 Yes (27) Yes

Rinuccini 22, 31 1347 —

Risaliti* Yes— (34) Ristori 22 421302 1357

Romoli 42 1430 — Rondinelli* AI, 44 1296 Yes (48) Yes

Del Rosselino 24 1448 (De’) Rosso Rossi* 12Vaiai 1285 —43 1384 Yes Del Rucellai* 33 1302 Del Ruota Il _Yes — (98) Yes Yes (5)

Rustichi 32 IA7S 1398 — Rustichi 23 —Yes (40) Yes Sacchetti* 22 1335 Del Saggina 34 1299 — Sali AI Salterelli — Salutati21311291 1439

Salvetti —Yes (84) Yes (4) Salviati*22 22,1435/36 24, 1297

Di Sandro 42 — — Sannini 13 1387 — Di Santi 22 1344 — Sapiti 12 1351 — 43

Sassetti 34 1453 Sassolini Il 1302 Yes (25)— Yes (2)

Scali* 31 1374 — Della Scarfa* 33 1363 Yes (21)

Scarlatti 14 1428 (Rondinelli)

Scarlattini 34 1477 — Dalla Scarperia AI IAAI Dello Scelto/Sceltro 14 1353 Schiattesi 22 1347 1379 — Segni* 12 Yes

(34) Yes

Serchelli 13 1457 1436 — — Sermini 22 Sernigi® 32 1390 Yes (28) Yes Serragli® 1325 Yes (27) Yes Serristori®14, 2323 1392 Yes (37) Yes (2)

Sertini Serzelli34 22 1376 1376 — —

Appendix 1 251 Lineage Gonfl. First prior 20+ priors 48 200 Signorini 32221387 Sinibaldi Dei 1487 — —

Soderini* 14 1283 Yes (48) Yes Solari* II, 12 — — Soldani 23 1343 — Del Soldato IA 1388 _

Soldi AIAI1330 Solosmei 1364— —

Da Sommaia* 32, 33, 1350 Yes (22)

Sostegni 42 1333 — Yes Spina Falcone/ 21 1289 — 34

Falconi

Spinelli* 23 1327 Yes (46)

Spini® 21, 32 1284 Yes (46) Yes Squarcialuppi* 31 1494 —

Dello Steccuto 34 1391 Yes Stefani Bettoni 13 1330 — Di Stefano 43 — — Strada/Stradi® I3 1332 Yes (21)

Strinati/Dello 42 1438 _ Strinato Strozziv 33 1283 Yes (110) Yes (2) Yes (3) Della Stufa* 4I 1328 Yes (51) Yes (5) Taddei (Mancini) AI 1424 Yes (24) Yes (2)

Talani 23 — Tanagli/Tanaglia 43 1451/52 —

Tani/Tanini 4I1283 1478Yes (23) Yes Tedaldi* 4A Temperani* 33 1307 Yes (24)

Tempi °— Tieri 13 42 1474 — Tolosini 22 1318 _ Yes Tornabuoni* 34 1445 Yes (Tornaquinci) Yes Yes (2) Da Tignano

Tornaquinci** 34 1284 Yes (55)

Torrigiani 24 1303 Yes (39) Yes Della Tosa** 34,42 1284 Yes (Tosinghi) Tosinghi** 421383 1285 Del Toso da AI — Yes (23) Yes Torsellini

Del Tovaglia 21, 22 Yes (2) Fortuna

Tozzi

(continued)

252 Appendix 1 Lineage Gonfl. First prior 20+ priors 48 200

Tucci II, 12,

Ubaldini Al,1382 43 ?Yes (21) Yes Ubertini* 13 14, 22

Ughi 42131331/1485 Yes(2) Ugolini® 1350 Yes (20) Yes Uguccioni (Lippi) Il, 21 1434 —

Ulivieri 34 1349 — Valori* 43 1322 Yes (Torrigiani) Yes (2) Yes (3)

Vecchieti** 34 1371 Yes (26) Velluti/Vellutti® 12, 13 1283 Yes (33) Yes Veneri 40 Ventura/ Venturi” 34 1382/88 Yes (26) Yes (2)

Vernacci 34 1290 — Da Verrazzano II, 24 1319 Yes (37)

Vespucci" 32 1350 YesYes (28)Yes Yes Vettori 12 1320 Yes (47) (2) Di Vier1 13,14 1349 —

Del Vigna/Vignaia™ 33 1291 Yes (22)

Villani (Stoldi) 42 1300 —

Vinacciesi Del Vivaio 21 14 1470 1388 — — Viviani 31 1393 Yes (20) Viviani (Della 42 1306 — Del Zaccheria 22 I417 Yes (20) Yes (Franceschi)

Robbia)

(Di Jacopo)

Zampalochi 14 1382— — Zati 24 1438 Note: The following names appear on either the Quarantotto or Dugento in 1532 but not on the Consiglio Maggiore. By 1532, then, these families or at least the specific individuals clearly belonged to the office-holding class also.

Angiolini (200) Barbieri (200) Bartolomei (200) Cegia (200) Delle Colombe (200) Nori (48 and 200) Scala (200) Stefani (200) Del Troscia (200)

Appendix 1 253 Sources ASF, Tratte 907: 179r—I8 Iv, 188r, 192r. Cooper, Roslyn Pesman. “The Florentine Ruling Group under the ‘governo popolare,’ 1494-1512,” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 7 (New Series) (1985):

69-I81. Guidi, Guidobaldo. Lotte, pensiero e istituzioni politiche nella Repubblica fiorentina dal 1494 al

1512. 3 vols. Florence: Olschki, 1992.

Herlihy, David, et al. “Florentine Renaissance Resources, Online Tratte of Office Holders, 1282—1532. Machine readable data file.” Florentine Renaissance Resources / STG, Brown University. Litchfield, R. Burr. Emergence of a Bureaucracy: The Florentine Patricians, 1530-1790.

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986. Molho, Anthony. Marriage Alliance in Late Medieval Florence. Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press, 1994. Najemy, John M. Corporatism and Consensus in Florentine Electoral Politics, 1280—1400.

Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982.

APPENDIX 2

Biographical Information

se IN ITS VERY EARLY STAGES, I initially conceived the project that

grew into this book as a prosopographical study of the generation of

Florentine patricians born between 1480 and 1500. To that end I devoted many weeks to identifying individuals and then compiling biographical details. As the project developed it became less prosopographical in its structure and content. Nonetheless, I have preserved some of the information compiled in those early stages in this appendix, as a source of biographical information about the individuals who appear prominently in the text and also as a guide to some of the more quantitative research undertaken, which is largely obscured in the final product. The process of identifying these individuals began with the identification of the most prominent lineages that formed the office-holding class in the early sixteenth century. I have discussed the details of this undertaking in Appendix 1. From the 159 patrician lineages identified

by this process, I isolated 335 individuals, born between 1480 and 1500, who held office or were nominated for office on one of the three highest executives bodies: the Signoria and its two advisory colleges,

Appendix 2 255 the Dodici Buonuomini (Twelve Goodmen) and the Sedici Gonfalonieri (the Sixteen Standard-Bearers), at least once between 1480 and 1532. The decision to pursue individuals born during this twenty-year period proceeded from the gerontocratic nature of the Florentine political system, which restricted access to the highest public offices until the age of thirty. More important offices—significantly that of gonfaloniere di giustizia—had higher age restrictions again. This meant that individuals born between 1480 and 1500 would begin to hold offices in

the years after 1510. Also I wanted to survey the period up to the middle of the sixteenth century, and I estimated that, as a general rule,

the majority of the individuals born between 1480 and 1500 would live until at least the 1540s (an assumption that proved correct).

From this final group of 335 individuals I identified 76 who appeared to be especially prominent in the offices and magistracies of Florence. Once I began my archival research, I added three more names of individuals who were not so prominent but who had left an interesting or abundant paper trail: Antonio di Simone Canigiani, Luigi di Luigi Martelli, and Filippo di Niccolo Valori. I used this list of seventy-nine individuals as a tool to filter the otherwise overwhelming volume of material in the various archives and libraries of Florence:

tracing letters by or directed to these men, searching out account books, diaries, and other records left by them. Inevitably some individuals left nothing but electoral and taxation rolls to document their existence. But overall the process of selecting the individuals was random enough that the seventy-nine men targeted presented a range of experiences of the events of 1480 to 1550. Below, I present brief biographies of those individuals who feature most prominently in the narrative of this book.

A Note on the Decima The decima taxed income derived from real property. An individual’s residence was exempt, being income neutral. As such it provides only an imperfect economic portrait, but the records of the decime levied

in 1498 and 1534 represent the only complete source of financial

256 Appendix 2 information for the period. The figures included here represent the amount of tax paid by each individual (or his representative) for the two decime. The figures appear in florins, soldi, and denari: so a decima of 8.5.5 equals eight florins, five soldi, and five denari. For accounting purposes the Florentines used the currency system standard across

Europe since Carolingian times in which one lira (pound) equaled twenty soldi (shillings), and one soldo equaled twelve denari (pence). In 1498 one florin was worth 135 soldi (or just under 7 lire) in actual currency. By 1534 the value of the florin had increased to 150 soldi (7.5 lire) in actual currency. In 1498, individuals declared their decima in fiorini di sugello (sealed florins), an outdated money of account worth less than the current value of an actual gold florin. In 1534 the decima dec-

larations were not always as specific, but in general they continued to use the florino di sugello. In the biographies below a double asterisk (**) indicates that someone other than the named individual filed the decima declaration (usually a father, mother, or grandfather in 1498, and a widow or heir in 1534). The use of a degree symbol (’) indicates that a joint declaration was filed, usually with brothers, but sometimes also including cousins and other family members (such as the Strozzi declaration of 1498).

On Offices and Office Holding The public offices included in the following biographies represent the most important positions, magistracies, and councils of Florence for the period 1480 to 1550: the gonfaloniere di giustizia (1480—April 1532), the Signoria (1480—April 1532), the Sedici Gonfalonieri (1480-—

April 1532), the Dodici Buonuomini (1480—April 1532), the Otto di Pratica (1480-94, 1514-27, I$32—§0), the Settanta (1480-94, 1514-27),

the Cento (1480-94, 1$14-27), the Dieci di Liberta e Pace (1494IS12, 1527-30), the Ottanta (1494—I512, 1527-30), the Ducal Council (1§32—S0), the accoppiatori (1480~—1550), the Ufficiali del Monte (1480-1550), the Dugento (1§32—5§0), and the Quarantotto (1532—$0). The biographies also include certain special magistracies such as the Medicean balie (1512-27, 1530—32), the pratiche of the regime of 1527-30,

Appendix 2 257 and the special commissions appointed in May 1527 (here labeled balie also). The term of office follows the name of the office. Where the of-

fice had a permanent membership (the Settanta and the Medicean balie), only the year of an individual’s appointment appears. In the case of 1530, when two balie were appointed with an addition of arroti

to the first, the specific month or status of the individual’s appointment is also noted. Note, as all these individuals would have been eligible for the Consiglio Maggiore—all having held or been seen for one of the tre maggiori—I have not included it. Where an individual did not actually hold the office, the reason why appears in parentheses following the term dates. Brief explanations for the various reasons appear below:

Absent: Individual was not in Florence. Already in office: Individual already holding a different office. Until 1$32 individuals could not hold more than one office concurrently. Divieto: Individual excluded because a close family member had held the same office within the previous year or was holding the same office concurrently. In speculo: Individual excluded because he owed money to the commune, usually tax payments. Other: The exact reason for an individual’s exclusion is unclear, but

the individual did not hold the office. Under the Medicean republic of 1§12—27 several clear examples of individuals being held back from one office so they could assume another (appointed a month or two later) could be seen in the database. Under age: Individual did not yet meet the minimum age

requirement for holding the specific office. During the fifteenth century, men tended to have their sons inscribed on the electoral rolls as early as they possibly could, because honor accrued to the family and individual simply for having their name drawn for office, even if they could not hold it. This explains the multiple occurrences of individuals in the database having their names drawn for office when they were under ten years of age. The

258 Appendix 2 institution of the Consiglio Maggiore, with its double process of election and sortition, greatly reduced the incidence of under-age youths being seen for offices that they were years away from actually holding. ANTONFRANCESCO DI LUCA DI ANTONIO DEGLI ALBIZZI

Ir October 1486-20 August 1§37 San Giovanni Married: Maddalena di Giovanbattista Ridolfi Decima 1498: 16.10.5**; decima 1534: $3.1.IO Office Holding: Cento, Jan—Jun 1519; Cento, Jan—Jun 1522 (absent); gonfaloniere di giustizia, Jan—Feb 1527 (divieto); Balia of 120, May—Jun 1527; Ottanta, May—Nov 1527; Dieci di Liberta e Pace, Jul—Dec 1528

A habitué of the Orti Oricellari during the first decade of the sixteenth century, Albizzi also became friendly with the exiled Medici, especially Cardinal Giovanni. On 30 August 1512, Albizzi was one of the principals in the coup d’état that overthrew Piero Soderini, the gonfaloniere di giustizia a vita. In subsequent days Albizzi escorted Gi-

uliano de’ Medici from Prato to Florence and housed him until the Palazzo Medici was available for habitation. After falling out with Pope Leo X over the farming of customs duties for the Papal State, Albizzi distanced himself from both Florence and the Medici, becoming associated—in name at least—with the committed opponents of the family’s hegemony. Albizzi returned to Florence in May 1527 following the expulsion of Cardinal Passerini and the Medici bastards. He again led a violent intervention into the Palazzo della Signoria on 18 May demanding the dismissal of the current Signoria. He served as Florentine ambassador to the Marshal of France, Odet de Foix, Viscount de Lautrec, and as commissioner to Arezzo in 1529, which city

he abandoned to the advancing imperial army. Albizzi himself left Florence before the siege began. Following the return of the Medici in August 1530, he was exiled to Spoleto, and when he traveled to Rome in 1534 (following the death of Pope Clement VII) he was declared a

Appendix 2 259 rebel. Albizzi did not participate in the exiles’ petitioning of Emperor Charles V in Naples, January 1536. But following the assassination of Alessandro de’ Medici the following year, Albizzi became one the most vocal proponents of armed intervention by the fuorusciti. He participated in the desultory military expedition to Montemurlo, where he was captured by Cosimo I’s forces. Albizzi was beheaded in Florence on 20 August 1$37. Additional information taken from A. Merola, “ALBIZZI, Anton Francesco,” Dizionario biografico degli italiani.

GIROLAMO DI LUCA DI MASO ALBIZZI

8 October 1485-24 April 1556 San Giovanni Married: Costanza di Troilo I de’ Rossi, marchese di San Secondo Decima 1498: 20.14.0**; decima I5§34: 8.10.12

Office Holding: Dodici Buonuomini, Oct-Dec 1530; gonfaloniere di giustizia, Sep—Oct 1531 (in speculo); Dugento, 1532; Quarantotto, 132; accoppiatore, May—Jul 1533; Ducal Council, Feb—Apr 1534; accoppiatore, Aug—Oct 1534, May—Jul 1535; Otto di Pratica, Mar—Sep 1536; accoppiatore, Aug—Oct 1536; Ducal Council, Nov 1536—Jan 1537; accoppiatore, Nov 1537—Jan 1538, Nov 1538—Jan 1539, Nov 1539—Jan 1540; Ducal Council, Feb—

Apr IS4I; accoppiatore, Feb—Apr 1541, Nov 1§41—Jan 1542, May~—Jul 1542; Ducal Council, Feb—Apr 1543; Otto di Pratica, Mar-—Sep 1543; accoppiatore, Aug—Oct 1543; Ducal Council— luogotenente (lieutenant), May—Jul 1544; Ducal Council, Nov 1§44—Jan 1$45; accoppiatore, Feb—Apr 1545; Otto di Pratica, Mar-—Sep 1545; accoppiatore, Feb—Apr 1546, Feb—Apr 1547: Otto di Pratica, Mar—Sep 1547; Ducal Council, May—Jul 1547; accoppiatore, Aug—Oct 1547, Feb—Apr 1549; Ducal Council, Nov 1549~—Jan I§s0; accoppiatore, Feb—Apr 1550; Ducal Council—luogotenente, Feb—Apr 1550

There is little notice of Girolamo degli Albizzi’s life until 1512, when he participated in the coup d’état that overthrew Piero Soderini. Both

260 Appendix 2 he and his father, Luca, became prominent supporters of the Medici following their return, and Albizzi received the post of Captain of the Papal Horse from Leo X. Albizzi initially left Florence sometime after the coup of May 1527 but returned to the city when threatened with a sentence of rebellion. He was subsequently imprisoned for the duration of the siege owing to his well-known Medicean sympathies. Liber-

ated following the return of the Medici in 1530, Albizzi repeatedly held prominent and important political offices for the remainder of his life under both Alessandro and Cosimo I, including holding the post of commissioner of the rural militia bands.

BINDO DI ANTONIO DI BINDO ALTOVITI

26 September/ November 1491-22 January 1557 Santa Maria Novella Married: Fiametta di Tommaso di Paolantonio Soderini Decima 1498: ?; decima 1534: $7.3.8 Office Holding: Cento, Jul—Dec 1526 (absent), Jan—Jun 1527; Monte official, Mar 1527—Mar 1528, Mar 1528—term canceled:

Signoria, Mar—Apr 1529 (absent), Sep—Oct 1529 (in speculo); Dugento, 1532; Monte official, Mar 1532—Mar 1533, Jun 1535— end of term unclear, Feb 1541—Mar 1542, Oct 1§42—Apr 1543, Oct 1543—Apr 1544; Quarantotto, 1546; Monte official, Mar-—Sep 1546; accoppiatore, May—Jul 1547; Ducal Council, Aug—Oct I§47; accoppiatore, Aug—Oct 1548; Otto di Pratica, Sep 1548—Mar 1549; accoppiatore, Aug—Oct 1549, Aug— Oct I§50

Altoviti was born in Rome, the son of a Florentine banker and Dianora Cibo, niece of Pope Innocent VIII; his life and wealth centered on the Eternal City rather than Florence. He enlarged upon the fortune and bank left by his father, Antonio, who died when Altoviti was only sixteen. Altoviti developed a complex financial empire, centered on various papal enterprises, and patronized many of the leading artists of the period, including Raphael, Michelangelo, Cellini, and Vasari. He reached the pinnacle of his wealth and influence under Pope

Appendix 2 261 Paul III, whom Altoviti assiduously cultivated. As a result of his close ties to the anti-Medicean Farnese pontiff and also his links to the Florentine exiles in Rome, Altoviti fell under suspicion in Florence, but

Cosimo I still appointed him to the Quarantotto in 1546. In 1548, however, the Medici duke prevented Altoviti’s son Antonio from assuming his post as archbishop of Florence. During the war for Siena, Altoviti financed and armed three thousand infantry, captained by his son Giovanbattista, to fight alongside Piero Strozzi and the Sienese against Cosimo I’s forces. In retaliation, Cosimo confiscated all Altoviti’s Florentine goods, including his wife’s dowry. Altoviti died in Rome on 22 January 1557. Additional information taken from A. Stella, “ALTOVITI, Bindo,” Dizionario biografico degli italiani.

ALESSANDRO DI NICCOLO DI TOMMASO AN TINORI

21 October 1481-1557 Santo Spirito Married: Giovanna di Lorenzo Tornabuoni Decima 1498: 26.5.2**; decima 1534: 80.10.6 Office Holding: Sedici Gonfalonieri, Jan—Apr 1487 (under age): Signoria, Jan—Feb 1491 (under age); Monte official, Mar 1513Feb 1514; Dodici Buonuomini, Apr—Jun 1515; Monte official, Mar 1516—Feb 1517; Signoria, Mar—Apr 1516; Cento, Jan—Jun 1517, Jul-Dec 1520; gonfaloniere di giustizia, Mar—Apr 1§21

(under age); Monte official, Jul 1521-Feb 1524; Cento, Jul-Dec 1§23, Jul—Dec 1524, Jul—Dec 1525, Jul—Dec 1526; Balia of 120,

May—Jun 1527; Monte official, Apr 1528—Mar 1529 (other): Ottanta, Nov 1528—May 1529; Signoria, Jan—Feb 1529 (already in office); Signoria, Jul-Aug 1529; Balia Arroto, 29 Aug 1530; Balia, Nov 1530; Dugento, 1532; Quarantotto, 1532; Monte official, Jun 1532—Dec 1533; accoppiatore, May—Jul 1534; Ducal Council, Aug—Oct 1534; Otto di Pratica, Mar—Sep 1535; Monte official, Jun 1535—Oct 1§36; accoppiatore, Feb—Apr 1536, Feb—Apr 1537; Otto di Pratica, Mar—Sep 1537; Ducal Council,

262 Appendix 2 May—Jul 1537; accoppiatore, Feb—Apr 1538; Monte official, Mar 1538—Feb 1539; accoppiatore, Aug—Oct 1538, accoppiatore—new scrutiny, 1539, May—Jul 1539; Ducal Council, Aug—Oct 1539; Ducal Council—luogotenente, Nov 1539—Jan 1540; Otto di Pratica, Mar—Sep 1540; accoppiatore, May—Jul 1540; Ducal Council, Aug—Oct 1541; Monte official, Oct 1541-Mar 1542; accoppiatore, Feb—Apr 1542; Monte official, Oct 1542—Mar 1§43; accoppiatore, Nov 1542~—Jan 1543; Otto di Pratica, Mar— Sep 1543; Ducal Council, Aug—Oct 1543; accoppiatore, Feb—Apr 1544, Aug—Oct 1544; Ducal Council, May—Jul 1545; accoppiatore, Aug—Oct 1545; Monte official, Nov 1545—Oct 1546; Otto di Pratica, Mar—Sep 1546; Monte official, Mar—Sep 1547; accoppiatore, May—Jul 1547; Ducal Council, Feb—Apr 1548; Otto di Pratica, Mar—Sep 1549; accoppiatore, Aug—Oct 1549; Ducal Council, Feb—Apr 1550; Ducal Council—luogotenente, May—Jul 1550; accoppiatore, Aug—Oct 1550

Like Altoviti, Alessandro Antinori inherited his father’s business interests. Antinori, however, while expanding his commercial activities from

Lyons into Flanders, remained a resident of Florence and became a regular participant in Florentine political life from 1514, although he did spend some time in Lyons around 1521. Antinori remained active in

both commercial and political affairs throughout his life. His three sons pursued divergent paths: Sebastiano inherited his father’s seat on

the Quarantotto; Vincenzo became involved in the so-called Pucci conspiracy of 1§59 against Cosimo I; and Lorenzo continued the family business in Lyons. Additional information taken from G. Miani, “ANTINORI, Alessandro,” Dizionario biografico degli italiani.

BENEDETTO DI M. FILIPPO DI LORENZO BUONDELMONTI

30 May 1481-8 September 1533 Santa Maria Novella

Married: Lucrezia di Luca di Maso degli Albizzi Decima 1498: ?; decima 1§34: I6.17.1

Appendix 2 263 Office Holding: Dodici Buonuomini, Oct—Dec 1511; Cento, Jul—Dec

1522 (in speculo); Signoria, Mar—Apr 1523; Cento, Jul—Dec 1523 (other); Settanta, 1524; Cento, Jan—Jun 1525 (in speculo), Jan—Jun 1526 (absent), Jul—Dec 1526 (absent), Jan—May 1527 (absent); Balia, Nov 1530; Otto di Pratica, Mar—Sep 1531; gonfal-

oniere di giustizia, Jul-Aug 1531; Dugento, 1532; Quarantotto, 1532; accoppiatore, Nov 1532—Jan 1533, Feb—Apr 1534 (dead)

Like Antonfrancesco degli Albizzi, Benedetto Buondelmonti frequented the Orti Oricellari during the 1stos. He also participated in the coup d’état of August 1§12 that overthrew Piero Soderini and was rewarded with political favors by the Medici following their return to Florence. Together with his father, Filippo, Buondelmonti became one of the family’s staunchest supporters and one of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s most trusted and valuable servants. In the 1510s and 1520s, he undertook several delicate diplomatic missions first for Lorenzo and then for

Giulio de’ Medici (as cardinal and later as Pope Clement VII). He represented Lorenzo in the 151s negotiations with Francis I and in 1521

was sent by Giulio to France to communicate the cardinal’s personal good intentions after Leo X broke with the French king. Persuaded to return to Florence by Filippo Strozzi following the 1527 expulsion of the Medici, Buondelmonti became the target of politicized accusations and was sentenced to imprisonment in Volterra for four years by the Quarantia. Liberated by papal-imperial victory in 1530, Buondelmonti became Florentine ambassador to Pope Clement VII and played a leading role in negotiating the creation of the principality. He continued in his role as ambassador in Rome until his death on 8 September 1533.

Additional information taken from G. de Caro, “BUONDELMONT I, Benedetto,” Dizionario biografico degli italiani.

LORENZO DI ANTONIO DI BERNARDO CAMBI Il Mar 1480~—ca. 1§54

Santa Maria Novella Decima 1498: 8.19.3**; decima I§34: I4.12.7

264 Appendix 2 Office Holding; Sedici Gonfalonieri, Jan—Apr 1514; Cento, Jan—Jun

1514 (divieto); Cento, Jul-Dec 1514; Signoria, Jan—Feb 151s; Cento, Jan—Jun 1517 (in speculo); Sedici Gonfalonieri, Sep—Dec IS17; Cento, Jul—Dec 1518 (in speculo); Signoria, May—Jun 1519; Cento, Jul-Dec 1519, Jul-Dec 1521; gonfaloniere di giustizia, Jul-Aug 1523; Balia, 1524; Cento, Jan—Jun 1525 (other); Signoria, Mar—Apr 1525; Cento, Jan—Jun 1526, Jan—May 1527; Dodici Buonuomini, Jan—Mar 1527; Signoria, Sep—Oct 1530; Balia, Nov 1530; Dugento, 1§32; Otto di Pratica, Sep 1537—Mar 1538

Lorenzo Cambi, together with his brother Jacopo, inherited a wealthy commercial enterprise founded by their grandfather, Bernardo, when their own father died in 1498. Their business interests stretched across Europe, including firms in Bruges and London. A close associate of Piero di Lorenzo il Magnifico, Cambi received political offices in Florence and the Papal State following the return of the Medici in 1512 and the election of Leo X in 1513, all the while maintaining his commercial activities. Cambi became one of several Medici partisans imprisoned in Florence for the duration of the siege, but like Buondelmonti he received recognition and favors from the Medici following their return in 1530. He became a close friend of the future Cosimo I in 1536, when the two of them formed part of the entourage accompanying Emperor Charles V across Tuscany. After Cosimo’s accession, Cambi held a series of important administrative and diplomatic posts across the Florentine dominion, including serving as Florentine commissioner with the imperial forces present in Tuscany in 1§37 and escort to Pope Paul III in 1538, during the pontiff’s sojourn in Medici territory. He remained a loyal servant of the family until his death, around 1554. Additional information taken from P. Orvieto, “CAMBI, Lorenzo,” Dizionario biografico degli italiani.

M. FRANCESCO DI PIERO DI JACOPO GUICCIARDINI 6 March 1483-22 May 1540 Santo Spirito

Married: Maria di Alamanno Salviati

Appendix 2 265 Decima 1498: 33.2.11**; decima I§34: 93.10.0° Office Holding: Signoria, May—Jun 1487 (under age); Diciasette Riformatori, 1514; Signoria, Sep—Oct 1515; Cento, Jul-Dec 1518 (absent), Jan—Jun 1519 (absent), Jul-Dec 1520 (absent), Jan—Jun 1521 (absent), Jul-Dec 1522 (absent); Settanta, 1524; Cento,

Jan—Jun 1526 (absent), Jul-Dec 1526 (absent); Otto di Pratica, Sep 1530—Mar 1531; Monte official, Oct 1530—Mar 1531; Balia, Nov 1530; accoppiatore, Mar—Sep 1531, Feb—Apr 1532; Dodici

Riformatori, Apr 1532; Dugento, 1532; Quarantotto, 1532; accoppiatore, Nov 1533—Jan 1534; Ducal Council, Feb—Apr 1535; Otto di Pratica, Mar—Sep 1§35; accoppiatore, Aug—Oct 1535; Ducal Council, May—Jul 1536; Monte official, Oct 1536—Mar 1539 (?); accoppiatore, Nov 1536—Jan 1537, accoppiatore—new scrutiny, 139, Feb—Apr 1539; Ducal Council, May—Jul 1539: accoppiatore, Aug— Oct 1539; Otto di Pratica, Sep 1539—Mar 1540; Ducal Council—luogotenente, May—Jul 1540; accoppia-

tore, Aug—Oct 1540 (dead)

The third-born of the eleven children of Piero Guicciardini and Simona di Bongianni Gianfigliazzi, Guicciardini established a legal practice in Florence in 1505—6. In the later years of this decade he also commenced his lifelong habit of writing about politics, history, and his family. He was absent from Florence during the turmoil of 1512, serving as ambassador to the Spanish court at Burgos. Beginning in I516, Guicciardini pursued an ambitious and glittering career in the service

of the Medici popes, Leo X and Clement VII, becoming, under the former, commissioner at Modena, then governor of Reggio, then (in 1521) commissioner general of the papal army; under the latter, president of Romagna in 1§23, and lieutenant general of the papacy in 1526. This final position saw Guicciardini play a leading role in the ill-fated attempts to halt the advance of Georg von Frundsberg and Charles de Bourbon on Rome. Suspect and subject to punitive taxation in Florence following the 1527 expulsion of the Medici, Guicciardini aban-

doned the city in September 1529 before the siege began. In March 1530, after the Otto di Guardia declared him a rebel, he returned to

266 Appendix 2 papal service. He was prominent in the reorganization of Florence following the end of the siege, before becoming governor of Bologna in 1531. Following the death of Clement VII, Guicciardini returned to Florence. He led the defense of Alessandro’s government against the accusations of the exiles at Naples, in January 1536, and promoted the election of Cosimo I, following the assassination of Alessandro. In his last years, although still holding public offices, Guicciardini became increasingly marginalized from real power and dedicated himself instead to composing his Storia d'Italia, which he left unfinished at his death on 22 May 1540. Additional information taken from P. Jordgone and G. Benzoni, “GUICCIARDINI, Francesco,” Dizionario biografico degli italiani.

JACOPO DI PIERO DI JACOPO GUICCIARDINI 9 July 1480-1552 Santo Spirito Married: Camilla di Agnolo de’ Bardi Decima 1498: 33.2.11**; decima I§34: 93.10.0° Office Holding: Signoria, Jan—Feb 1487 (under age), May—Jun Is11;

Cento, Jul-Dec 1520, Jul—Dec 1523 (in speculo); Signoria, Sep-Oct 1523; Cento, Jul-Dec 1524, Jan—Jun 1526 (other), Jul-Dec 1526 (absent), Jan—May 1527 (absent), May 1527—special election (absent); Balia Arroto, Aug 1530; Monte official, Mar 1531—Mar 1532; Dugento, 1540; Monte official, Apr—Oct 1541; Otto di Pratica, Mar—Sep 1542; Monte official,

Apr-Oct 1§42 One of Francesco’s two elder brothers (the other was Luigi), Jacopo Guicciardini pursued the most active commercial career of his siblings,

although they were often partners in the enterprises. He also participated in the political life of Florence and often substituted for Francesco in the various papal governorships during the latter’s absences. Guicciardini left indications of Savonarolan inclinations, compiling a miscellany of the friar’s letters and other writings. Guicciardini served as an ambassador for Florence to Clement VII during the siege and

Appendix 2 267 defended Francesco in front of the Quarantia. He fell somewhat into disfavor with Clement VII following the Medici restoration in 1530 but began holding offices again after 1540 under Cosimo I. His later years remain obscure. Additional information taken from P. Moreno, “GUICCIARDINI, Iacopo,” Dizionario biografico degli italiani.

BARTOLOMEO DI LANFREDINO DI JACOPO LANFREDINI

30 January 1496—4 November 1544 Santo Spirito Married: Bartolomea (Baccia) di Jacopo di Pandolfo Corbinelli Decima 1498: 1.6.4**; decima I§34: 4.7.2 Office Holding: Signoria, Nov-Dec 1512 (under age); Balia, 1522: Cento, Jan—Jun 1523, Jan—Jun 1524 (absent), Jan—Jun 1525; gonfaloniere di giustizia, Mar—Apr 1525 (under age); Signoria, Jan—Feb 1526; Cento, Jan—Jun 1526 (already in office), Jul-Dec

1526 (other); Sedici Gonfalonieri, Jan—Apr 1527; Cento, Jul-Dec 1527—term canceled (in speculo); Balia, Nov 1530; Dugento, 1532; Quarantotto, 1§32; accoppiatore, May—Jul 1532, Aug—Oct 1533, May—Jul 1534; Ducal Council, Aug—Oct 1535; Otto di Pratica, Sep 1535—Mar 1536; accoppiatore, Feb—Apr 1536, Feb—Apr 1537; Ducal Council, May—Jul 1537; Otto di Pratica, Sep 1537—Mar 1538; accoppiatore, Feb—Apr 1538, Aug—Oct 1538, May—Jul 1539, May—Jul 1540; Ducal Council, May—Jul 1540; Otto di Pratica, Mar—Sep I$41; accoppiatore, Feb—Apr 1542, Nov 1542—Jan 1543, Feb—Apr 1544, Aug—Oct 1544

The son of Lanfredino Lanfredini and Selvaggia di Piero Tornaquinci,

Bartolomeo Lanfredini pursued a fairly typical Florentine career in both politics and commerce, the latter in the family’s bank. By the 1520s, Lanfredini had become a loyal servant of the Medici, and he spent the years of 1527-30 at the side of Clement VII. He served as depositario for the papacy until the death of Clement in 1534. Returning

to Florence, Lanfredini continued to operate the family bank and repeatedly held public offices under both Alessandro and Cosimo I. He

268 Appendix 2 died in Pisa while serving as commissioner of that city, on 4 November 1544. Additional information taken from S. Calonaci, “LANFREDINI, Bartolomeo,” Dizionario biografico degli italiani.

M. ALESSANDRO DI M. ANTONIO DI PIERO MALEGONNELLE

25 February 1492-? Santa Maria Novella Married: Contessina di Lorenzo di Bernardo Cavalcanti Decima 1498: 35.2.10**; decima 1534: 7.1.10 Office Holding: Signoria, Jul-Aug 1522; Balia, 1524; Sedici Gonfalonieri, May—Aug 1524; Cento, Jan—Jun 1526; Signoria, Jan—Feb 1§27; Cento, May 1527—special election; Balia, Nov 1530; gonfaloniere di giustizia, Mar—Apr 1532; Dugento, 1532; Otto di Pratica, Mar—Sep 1535; Quarantotto, 1537; Ducal Council, Nov 1§37—Jan 1538; accoppiatore, Feb—Apr 1538, Aug—Oct 1538, May—Jul 1539; Ducal Council—Iuogotenente, Feb—Apr 1540: accoppiatore, May—Jul 1540, Feb—Apr 1541; Otto di Pratica, Mar-—Sep 1541; Ducal Council, May—Jul 1541; accoppiatore, Nov 1542—Jan 1§43; Ducal Council, Feb—Apr 1543; accoppiatore, Nov 1543—Jan 1544, May—Jul 1544; Ducal Council, Aug—Oct 1544; Otto di Pratica, Sep 1544—Mar 1545; accoppiatore, May—Jul 1545, Nov 1546—Jan 1547; Ducal Council, Aug— Oct 1§47; accoppiatore, Feb—Apr 1548; Otto di Pratica, Mar— Sep 1548; accoppiatore, May—Jul 1548; Ducal Council, Aug— Oct 1547; accoppiatore, May—Jul 1549; Ducal Council, Aug— Oct 1549; Ducal Council—luogotenente, Feb—Apr 1550; accoppiatore, Nov I§50—Jan IS$$1

Alessandro Malegonnelle’s father was one of the three final candidates for election as gonfaloniere a vita in September 1502, supported principally by Medicean partisans and sympathizers. A lawyer by training, Malegonnelle himself began holding public offices in the 1520s and continued to do so throughout his life despite the several changes in regime. Although somewhat suspected of Medicean sympathies during

Appendix 2 269 the stato of 1527-30, Malegonnelle was a regular speaker in the pratiche and personally donated three hundred ducats toward the city’s finances

during the siege. Under Cosimo I, Malegonnelle became a regular holder of prominent political offices, and he also undertook the interrogations of the Florentines captured at Montemurlo. DOMENICO DI BRACCIO DI M. DOMENICO MARTELLI

8 November 1486—6 December 1548 San Giovanni

Married: Elisabetta di Jacopo Corsi Decima 1498: ?; decima I$34: I1.7.9 Office Holding: Signoria, Nov-Dec 1524 (in speculo); Balia, Nov 1530; Dugento, 1532; Quarantotto, 1534; Ducal Council, Nov 1534—Jan 1§35; accoppiatore, Nov 1535—Jan 1536; Ducal Council, May—Jul 1536; accoppiatore, May—Jul 1536, May—Jul 1537,

May—Jul 1538; Otto di Pratica, Sep 1539—Mar 1540; accoppiatore, Feb—Apr 1540; Ducal Council, May—Jul 1540; accoppiatore, Nov 1540—Jan 1541, May—Jul 1541, Feb—Apr 1543; Ducal Council, Feb—Apr 1543; Otto di Pratica, Sep 1543—Mar 1§44; accoppiatore, Nov 1543—Jan 1544, May—Jul 1544, May—Jul 1$45; Ducal Council, Aug—Oct 1545; Otto di Pratica, Sep 1545—Mar 1546; accoppiatore, Nov 1545—Jan 1546; Ducal Council—luogotenente, Feb—Apr 1547; Ducal Council, Nov 1548—Jan 1549

Domenico Martelli’s father, Braccio di Messer Domenico, was one of the twenty accoppiatori appointed to control the city in the immediate aftermath of the expulsion of the Medici in 1494. Martelli himself appears to have been one of the young men who dressed as soldiers or courtiers and who formed Lorenzo de’ Medici’s entourage during the later 1510s. Payment records identify him as a gentleman in Lorenzo’s military company. By the late 1520s, Martelli had become a trusted associate of the Medici. In 1526, the regime sent him to take charge of

fortifying Empoli against the approaching imperial army. Martelli also apparently sheltered Niccold Ridolfi during the coup of May 1527,

270 Appendix 2 when the cardinal feared his role in the Medicean stato might have made him a target of popular anger. However, Martelli seems to have passed the years of 1527-30 relatively unscathed, only suffering a brief detention in August 1530 for his support of Malatesta Baglione during

the Perugian condottiere’s mutiny. Appointed to the Quarantotto in 1534 by Alessandro de’ Medici, Martelli held prominent offices reasonably regularly for the remainder of his life. OTTAVIANO DI LORENZO DI BERNARDO DE’ MEDICI

14 July 1482-28 May 1546 San Giovanni

Married: Francesca di Jacopo di Giovanni Salviati Decima 1498: 33.13.6**; decima 1534: 43.7.9"

Office Holding: Signoria, May—Jun 1489 (under age); Cento, Jan—Jun 1522, Jan—Jun 1524, Jan—Jun 1526, Jan—May 1527; Balia, Aug 1530, Nov 1530; gonfaloniere di giustizia, Sep—Oct 1531; accoppiatore, Feb—Apr 1532; Dugento, 1532; Quarantotto, 1532; accoppiatore, Aug— Oct 1532; Otto di Pratica, Sep 1532—Mar 1533; accoppiatore, May—Jul 1533; Ducal Council, Feb—Apr 1535: Otto di Pratica, Mar—Sep 1535; accoppiatore, May—Jul 1535, Aug—Oct 1536; Otto di Pratica, Sep 1§36—Mar 1537; accoppiatore, Nov 1537—Jan 1538; Monte official, Mar 1538—Mar 1539; Ducal Council, May—Jul 1538; accoppiatore, Nov 1538—Jan 1539, accoppiatore—new scrutiny, 1539; Monte official, Mar 1539—Mar 1540; Otto di Pratica, Mar—Sep 1539; Ducal Council— luogotenente, May—Jul 1539; accoppiatore, Nov 1539—Jan 1540; Ducal Council, Aug—Oct 1§40; accoppiatore, Feb—Apr 1541; Ducal Council—luogotenente, Aug—Oct 1541; accoppiatore, Nov 1$41—Jan 1§42; Otto di Pratica, Mar—Sep 1542; accoppiatore, May—Jul 1542; Ducal Council, May—Jul 154.2; accoppiatore, May—Jul 1543, Nov 1544—Jan 1545; Ducal Council, Feb—Apr 1545: Otto di Pratica, Mar—Sep 1545; accoppiatore, Nov 1545—Jan 1546

A very distant relative of the predominant and later ducal branch of the family, Ottaviano de’ Medici first came to prominence in the

Appendix 2 271 1§20s. Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici appointed him to manage the family’s affairs in Florence early in the decade. Like his grandfather before him, who had served on the Medicean balie of the fifteenth century, Medici became a confirmed supporter of his more powerful relatives. Like many other prominent partisans, he was imprisoned for the dura-

tion of the siege of Florence from October 1529. Liberated by the papal-imperial victory, Medici became a member of the balia elected in the immediate aftermath of the siege to reimpose a Medicean government on the city. In 1533, he reinforced his connections with the ruling branch of the Medici family by marrying Francesca Salviati, a grand-

daughter of Lorenzo il Magnifico. Ottaviano de’ Medici frequently held important and prominent positions under both Alessandro and Cosimo I until his death in 1546.

FILIPPO DI BENEDETTO DI TANAI DE’ NERLI 9 March 1486~—17 January 1556

Santo Spirito Married: Caterina di Jacopo di Giovanni Salviati Decima 1498: 13.2.0**; decima I$34: 25.5.3 Office Holding: Sedici Gonfalonieri, May—Aug 1515; Signoria, Sep—

Oct 1517; Cento, Jul-Dec 1520 (other), Jan—Jun 1521 (absent); Dodici Buonuomini, Jul-Sep 1521; Cento, Jan—Jun 1522; gonfaloniere di giustizia, Jul-Aug 1522 (under age); Signoria, Sep—Oct 1522; Cento, Jan—May 1527 (absent); Sedici Gonfalonieri, Sep—Dec 1530; Balia, Nov 1530; Signoria, Jul—Aug 1531; Otto di Pratica, Mar—Sep 1532; Dugento, 1532; Quarantotto, 1§32: accoppiatore, Aug—Oct 1532, May—Jul 1533; Ducal Council, Aug—Oct 1533; accoppiatore, Aug—Oct 1534; Otto di Pratica, Mar-—Sep 1535; accoppiatore, May—Jul 1535, Aug—Oct 1536; Otto di Pratica, Sep 1537—Mar 1538; accoppiatore, Nov 1§37—Jan 1538; Ducal Council, Feb—Apr 1538; accoppiatore, Nov 15§38—Jan 1539; Ducal Council, Aug—Oct 1539; accoppiatore, Nov 1539—Jan 1540, Feb—Apr 1541; Otto di Pratica, Sep 1541—Mar 1542; Ducal Council, Nov 1541—Jan 1§42; accoppiatore, Nov 1§41—Jan 1542,

272 Appendix 2 May—Jul 1542; Ducal Council—luogotenente, Aug—Oct 1542; Otto di Pratica, Mar—Sep 1543; Ducal Council, May—Jul 1543; accoppiatore, Aug— Oct 1543; Otto di Pratica, Sep 1544—Mar 1§45; accoppiatore, Feb—Apr 1545; Ducal Council, May—Jul 1545; accoppiatore, Feb—Apr 1546; Ducal Council, Feb—Apr 1546; accoppiatore, Feb—Apr 1547, Aug—Oct 1547; Otto di Pratica, Sep 1§47—Mar 1548; Ducal Council, Feb—Apr 1548; accoppiatore, Feb—Apr 1549; Ducal Council, Nov 1549—Jan I5§0; accoppiatore, Feb—Apr 1550; Ducal Council, Nov 1550—Jan 1551

The son of Benedetto de’ Nerli and Cassandra di Francesco Martelli,

Filippo de’ Nerli frequented the Orti Oricellari during the 1510s, becoming close to Niccolo Machiavelli. In the same period he commenced regularly holding important public offices in Florence. He served both Medici popes, becoming governor of Modena after Francesco Guicciardini. Nerli was among the known Medici supporters imprisoned during the siege of Florence. Appointed to the inaugural

Quarantotto, he then regularly held prominent offices under both Alessandro and Cosimo I. Nerli commenced writing his history of Florence, the Commentari dei fatti civili, in 1534 and received encouragement in

this enterprise from Cosimo I. Sent as an ambassador to congratulate Pope Julius III on his election in 1550, he received a knighthood from the pope. FRANCESCO DI PIERO DI FRANCESCO DEL NERO 13 May 1487~—12 July 1563

Santo Spirito Decima 1498: 4.9.7**; decima 1534: 1.10.8

Office Holding: Signoria, Nov-Dec 1516; Dodici Buonuomini, Apr—Jun 1518; Signoria, Mar—Apr 1522; Balia, 1522; Cento, Jan—Jun 1522 (other); Dodici Buonuomini, Oct-Dec 1523: Cento, Jul-Dec 1523 (other); Monte official, Mar 1524—Mar 1526; Cento, Jan—Jun 1525, Jan—Jun 1526, Jan—May 1527 (other); Sedici Gonfalonieri, Jan—Apr 1527; Monte official, Mar 1527— Mar 1528

Appendix 2 273 The son of Piero del Nero and Ginevra di Clemente Guidotti, whose daughter Marietta from an earlier marriage became the wife of Nic colo Machiavelli, Francesco del Nero abandoned his father’s profession as a wool merchant in favor of finance. From 1514, he began investing

money in the banking and commercial affairs of Filippo Strozzi. Del Nero served as vicedepositario for Florence on the recommendation of Strozzi, and the two men collaborated on an intricate series of transactions that enriched themselves and benefited the Medici. With Strozzi holding the office of depositor general of the papacy under Leo X and Clement VII, they transferred money between the two cities as required by the pope. Del Nero inevitably fell under investigation in Florence following the 1527 expulsion of the Medici. However, he suc-

ceeded in destroying almost all the evidence of the true nature of his role and so was convicted only of relatively minor charges. In the wake

of this, Del Nero abandoned Florence for Rome and papal service, becoming treasurer general of the Apostolic Camera. The death of Clement VII left Del Nero financially exposed: he lost fifty thousand florins as one of the guarantors of the dowry for Caterina de’ Medici and received a fine of forty thousand scudi from Pope Paul III for financial irregularities. These difficulties notwithstanding, Del Nero built up a new fortune by banking activities in Naples and Rome and left his brother, Agostino, and his illegitimate son, Francesco, well endowed at this death. Additional information taken from V. Arrighi, “DEL NERO, Francesco,” Dizionario biografico degli italiani.

PIERFRANCESCO DI FOLCO DI AVERARDO PORTINARI

4 June 1484/88—29 September 1531 San Giovanni

Married: Marietta di Luigi di Paolo Soderini Decima 1498: 4.6.2**; decima 1534: 8.1.8** Office Holding: Sedici Gonfalonieri, Sep—Dec 1518; Cento, Jan—Jun

1522, Jul-Dec 1524, Jul-Dec 1525, Jan—May 1527; Ottanta, May—Nov 1527 (other); Sedici Gonfalonieri, Sep—Dec 1527;

274 Appendix 2 Dieci di Liberta e Pace, Jun—Dec 1529; Signoria, Jul-Aug 1529; Dodici Buonuomini, Apr—Jun 1530; Pratica, Jun 1530 Little is known of the life of Pierfrancesco Portinari prior to the coup of May 1527. An erudite litterato, Portinari became increasingly promi-

nent following the expulsion of the Medici, although he was almost certainly not among their avowed enemies and had held offices during their regime of 1512-27. He received several important diplomatic positions, testifying to his eloquence, discretion, and gentlemanly presentation (qualities noted by Varchi). In the first half of 1529 he traveled to England on an unsuccessful mission to obtain financial support for Florence from King Henry VIII. Following his return, the Ottanta elected Portinari to an embassy sent to Clement VII during the early months on the siege, which attempted to negotiate a settlement. Finally, Portinari again represented the stato in August 1530 as one of the

four men appointed to negotiate the city’s surrender with Ferrante Gonzaga. Portinari did not suffer any public reprisal or punishment following the return of the Medici, beyond disappearing from the ranks of the government. He died soon after in 1531.

FILIPPO (GIOVANBATTISTA) DI FILIPPO DI MATTEO STROZZI 3 January 1489~—18 December 1538

Santa Maria Novella Married: Clarice di Piero di Lorenzo de’ Medici Decima 1498: 117.3.3; decima I§34: 81.14.2 Office Holding: Monte official, Mar 1516—Feb 1517, Mar 1518—Feb

1519, Mar 1519—Feb 1520; Cento, Jul-Dec 1525 (absent), Jan— May 1527 (absent), May 1527—special election (absent); Balia, Nov 1530; Otto di Pratica, Sep 1531—Mar 1532; Dugento, 1532; Quarantotto, 1532; accoppiatore, May—Jul 1532; Ducal Council, May—Jul 1532; Monte official, Jun 1532—Dec 1533; accoppiatore, Aug—Oct 1533, Aug—Oct 1534 (absent), Aug—Oct 1536 (absent)

Although baptized Giovanbattista, Filippo Strozzi became known by his father’s name following the latter’s death. In the 1500s, he fre-

Appendix 2 275 quented the Orti Oricellari and, along with his friends Benedetto Buondelmonti and Antonfrancesco degli Albizzi, became drawn into

the circle of young men that associated with the exiled Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici. Strozzi consummated this relationship by marrying Clarice di Piero de’ Medici in 1508, provoking consternation in Florence. But he remained cautious enough in his political affiliations to report Prinzivalle della Stufa’s plot to assassinate Piero Soderini in 1510 rather than joining it. Following the return of the Medici in 1512, Strozzi became one of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s closest associates and supporters. Strozzi had taken the lead role in maintaining his family bank

and commercial activities and used his financial acumen to enrich himself and further the plans of both Leo X and Clement VII. As a result he became one of the wealthiest men in Europe during the first half of the sixteenth century. Strozzi remained, however, nothing if

not opportunistic and equivocal in his political stance. He turned against his patron, Clement VII, in 1526-27, supporting the coup against the family in Florence. Distrusted by the subsequent regime in the city, Strozzi soon returned to Medici service, helping to finance the papal-imperial siege of 1529-30. He was rewarded with prominence in the new principality, becoming one of the members of the inaugural

Quarantotto. But Strozzi turned against Alessandro de’ Medici in 1534, for personal rather than political reasons, and became a leading figure among the Florentine exiles. He financed and participated in

the ill-fated military expedition of 1537. Captured at the battle of Montemurlo, Strozzi remained in imperial custody in the fortress at Florence despite Cosimo I’s repeated attempts to have him transferred into his own hands. In December 1538, while still imprisoned, Strozzi committed suicide, or perhaps was killed.

LORENZO DI FILIPPO DI MATTEO STROZZI

Il August 1482-1549 Santa Maria Novella Married: Lucrezia di Bernardo di Giovanni Rucellai Decima 1498: 117.3.3; decima I§34: $9.3.9

276 Appendix 2 Office Holding: Monte official, Mar 1514—Feb 1515; gonfaloniere di

giustizia, Nov-Dec 1520 (under age); Cento, Jan—Jun 1521: Monte official, Jul 1521-Mar 1523; Signoria, Sep—Oct 1§21; Cento, Jan—Jun 1522; Balia, 1522; Cento, Jan—Jun 1523, Jul-Dec 1524, Jul-Dec 1525, May 1527—special election; Pratica, May 1529; Pratica, Jun 1530; Balia Arroto, Aug 1530; Balia, Nov 1530; Dugento, 1532; Otto di Pratica, Mar—Sep 1539

The elder brother of Filippo, and a partner in the family’s commercial enterprises, Lorenzo Strozzi preferred to pursue literary activities. He was probably the leading creative force behind the famous carro di morte

made for the 1506 Carnival and later wrote a bizarre fantasy about Florence decimated by plague, Una pistola fatta per la peste, as well as his better-known Vita di Filippo Strozzi. Like his brother, Strozzi frequented

the Orti Oricellari, but he never became an active and open partisan of the Medici. Indeed, he initially fled to Lucca upon the family’s return to power in September 1512. He held political offices under the Medicean stato of 1512-27 and the civic republican regime of 1527-30. He was, together with Pierfrancesco Portinari, one of the representatives elected to negotiate Florence’s surrender with Ferrante Gonzaga in August 1530. Strozzi was briefly detained in 1537, owing to his brother’s leading role in the Florentine exiles’ military enterprise against Florence. PRINZIVALLE DI M. LUIGI DI M. AGNOLO DELLA STUFA

9 August 1484-19 May IS6I San Giovanni Decima 1498: 9.12.7**; decima 1534: I1.18.5**

Office Holding: Signoria, Nov-Dec 1485 (under age); Cento, Jan—Jun IS19, Jan—Jun 1520 (other), Jul-Dec 1522; gonfaloniere di giustizia, Jan—Feb 1523 (under age); Cento, Jul—Dec 1523, Jan—Jun 1525 (in speculo); Signoria, Mar—Apr 1526; Cento, Jul-Dec 1526; Balia, Nov 1530; accoppiatore, Nov 1§3I—Jan 1532: Dugento, 1532; Quarantotto, 1532; Ducal Council, May—Jul 1532; Otto di Pratica, Sep 1532—Mar 1533, Sep 1533—Mar 1534; accoppiatore, Feb—Apr 1534; Ducal Council, Aug—Oct 1534; accoppia-

Appendix 2 277 tore, Nov 1534—Jan 1535, Nov 1535—Jan 1536, May—Jul 1536:

Otto di Pratica, Mar—Sep 1§37; accoppiatore, May—Jul 1537; Ducal Council, Aug—Oct 1537; accoppiatore, May—Jul 1538, Feb—Apr 1540; Ducal Council, May—Jul 1540; Otto di Pratica, Sep 1540—Mar I541; accoppiatore, Nov 1540—Jan 1541, May—Jul 1541, Aug—Oct 1543; Ducal Council, Aug—Oct 1543; Otto di Pratica, Sep 1543—Mar 1544; Ducal Council—luogotenente, Nov 1§43—Jan 1§44; accoppiatore, Feb—Apr 1545, Feb—Apr 1546; Ducal Council, Feb—Apr 1546; accoppiatore, Aug— Oct 1547; Otto di Pratica, Sep 1547—Mar 1548; Ducal Council, Nov 1§47—Jan 1548; Ducal Council—luogotenente, May—Jul 1549; Ducal Council, Nov 1549—Jan I§50; accoppiatore, Feb—Apr 1550, Aug—Oct I§50

From youth Prinzivalle della Stufa was friendly with Filippo Strozzi and Antonfrancesco degli Albizzi. With them he became part of the circle of Florentine giovani who supported the exiled Medici during the

first decade of the sixteenth century. Della Stufa, however, transformed his affection for Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici into a scheme to assassinate Piero Soderini, the gonfaloniere a vita, in the winter of ISIo.

The plot was revealed to the Florentine authorities by Strozzi, who al-

lowed Della Stufa sufficient time to escape before doing so. Della Stufa was declared a rebel in absentia, and his father was arrested and imprisoned. Following the return of the Medici in 1512, Della Stufa was also able to reenter Florence, and he became part of the circle of Lorenzo de’ Medici. Unlike many other Medici partisans, Della Stufa opposed the coup of May 1527 and was imprisoned during the siege of

the city. Under the Medici principate, Della Stufa repeatedly held prominent and important political offices. Additional information taken from V. Arrighi, “DELLA STUFA, Prinzivalle,” Dizionario biografico degli italiani.

Blank page

Notes

Abbreviations The following abbreviations appear in the notes:

ASF Archivio di Stato, Firenze BNCEF _ Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Firenze

CP Consulte e Pratiche

CS Carte Strozziane MAP Mediceo avanti il Principato MDP ~ Mediceo del Principato OGBP = Otto di Guardia e Balia del Principato

OGBR Otto di Guardia e Balia della Repubblica

Introduction 1. With the notable exception of the recent, nuanced work on civic republicanism and office holding under the English monarchy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: Mark Goldie, “The Unacknowledged Republic: Officeholding in Early Modern England,” in The Politics of the Excluded, c.

1500-1850, ed. Tim Harris (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2001), 153-194; John F. McDiarmid, ed., The Monarchical Republic of Early Modern England: Essays

in Response to Patrick Collinson (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2007); Phil Withing-

ton, “Citizens, Community, and Political Culture in Restoration England,” in Communities in Early Modern England: Networks, Place, Rhetoric, ed. Alexandra

280 Notes to Pages 3—§ Shepard and Phil Withington (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), 134-155; idem, The Politics of Commonwealth: Citizens and Freemen in Early

Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). The seminal work of this dialogue was Patrick Collinson’s 1987 article “The Monarchical Republic of Queen Elizabeth I,” now reprinted in Patrick Collinson, Elizabethan Essays (London: Hambledon Press, 1994), 31—$7. 2. The phrase “Atlantic republican tradition” comes, of course, from J. G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic

Republican Tradition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975). 3. See principally, but not exclusively, Francesco Guicciardini, Dialogo e discorsi del reggimento di Firenze, ed. Roberto Palmarocchi (Bari: Laterza, 1932); idem, Scritti politici e ricordi, ed. Roberto Palmarocchi (Bari: Laterza, 1933); Niccolo Machiavelli, Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio, ed. Francesco Bausi, 2 vols.

(Rome: Salerno, 2001). A. In his reply to the Florentine exiles, delivered before Emperor Charles V in Naples, on behalf of Alessandro de’ Medici: Francesco Guicciardini, Opere inedite di Francesco Guicciardini illustrate da Giuseppe Canestrini, ed. Piero Guic-

ciardini and Luigi Guicciardini, vol. 9, La prigionia di Clemente VIL, la caduta della Repubblica Fiorentina, e la legazione di Bologna (Florence: Cellini, 1866), 358.

5. Pocock, Machiavellian Moment. See also Mark Jurdjevic, “Virtue, Commerce,

and the Enduring Florentine Republican Moment: Reintegrating Italy into the Atlantic Republican Debate,” Journal of the History of Ideas 62, no. 4 (2001): 721-743; Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought,

vol. 1, The Renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978). Fora succinct survey of the Cambridge School method see Mark Jurdjevic,

“Hedgehogs and Foxes: The Present and Future of Italian Renaissance Intellectual History,” Past and Present, no. 195 (2007): 252-258. 6. This analysis, of course, built upon earlier studies of Renaissance republicanism that had made similar arguments in a different fashion: Hans Baron, The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance: Civic Humanism and Republican

Liberty in an Age of Classicism and Tyranny, 2nd ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press, 1966); William J. Bouwsma, Venice and the Defense of Republican Liberty: Renaissance Values in the Age of the Counter Reformation (Berke-

ley: University of California Press, 1968). The largest claims of the more recent debate were made by Robert Putnam, who argued that the civic republicanism of Renaissance Italy provided a direct precursor to the civic practices of late twentieth-century Italy: Robert D. Putnam, with Robert Leonardi and Raffaella Y. Nanetti, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in

Modern Italy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993). Putnam’s thesis provoked an extended debate, in which three scholars specifically addressed the question in relation to the Renaissance context: Gene A. Brucker, “Civic Traditions in Premodern Italy,” Journal of Interdisciplinary

Notes to Pages §—7 281 History 29, no. 3 (1999): 357-377; Mark Jurdjevic, “Trust in Renaissance Electoral Politics,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 34, no. 4 (2004): 601-614; Edward Muir, “The Sources of Civil Society in Italy,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 29, no. 3 (1999): 379-406. 7. Rudolf von Albertini, Firenze dalla repubblica al principato: Storia e coscienza politica,

trans. Cesare Cristolfini (Turin: Giulio Einaudi, 1970). 8. Felix Gilbert made a similar, although by no means identical, argument on a more limited scale: Felix Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini: Politics and

History in Sixteenth-Century Florence (New York: W. W. Norton, 1984). 9. Antonio Anzilotti, La crisi costituzionale della Repubblica fiorentina (Rome:

Multigrafica, 1969). 10. For what follows, see Nicolai Rubinstein, “Notes on the Word stato in Florence before Machiavelli,” in Florilegium Historiale: Essays Presented to Wallace

K. Ferguson, ed. J. G. Rowe and W. H. Stockdale (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971), 312-326; Alberto Tenenti, Stato: Uw idea, una logica (Bologna: I Mulino, 1987), 15—97. 11. See Samuel K. Cohn, The Laboring Classes in Renaissance Florence (New York: Academic Press, 1980); idem, Women in the Streets: Essays on Sex and Power in

Renaissance Italy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996); idem, Creating the Florentine State: Peasants and Rebellion, 1384-1434 (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1999); David Rosenthal, “The Genealogy of Empires: Ritual Politics and State Building in Early Modern Florence,” I Tatti Studies: Essays in the Renaissance 8 (1999): 197-234; idem, “Big Piero, the

Empire of the Meadow, and the Parish of Santa Lucia: Claiming Neighborhood in the Early Modern City,” Journal of Urban History 32, no. § (2006): 677-692; idem, “The Spaces of Plebian Ritual and the Boundaries of Transgression,” in Renaissance Florence: A Social History, ed. Roger J. Crum and

John T. Paoletti (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 161—181; Natalie Tomas, The Medici Women: Gender and Power in Renaissance Florence

(Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2003); Richard C. Trexler, Dependence in Context in Renaissance Florence (Binghamton, N Y: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, State University of New York at Binghamton, 1994). I also owe a debt here to Ethan Shagan, who several years ago admonished me for referring to a “political class” and so provoked much rethinking of how I conceived Florentine society. For an insight into Shagan’s thought on

the question see Ethan H. Shagan, “Rumours and Popular Politics in the Reign of Henry VIII,” in The Politics of the Excluded, c. 1500-1850, ed. Tim

Harris (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2001), §7—58. 12. For an interpretation of Florentine political history as being driven by internal conflicts within the Florentine office-holding class from the late Middle Ages see John M. Najemy, A History of Florence, 1200-1575 (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006). What Najemy identifies as two distinct classes—

282 Notes to Pages 7—9 the elite and the popolo—I would argue are two broad estates within one office-holding class. 13. On the need for historians to consider the social organization of medieval and early modern Europe in terms of both class and status see Thomas A. Brady, Ruling Class, Regime and Reformation at Strasbourg, 1520—1555 (Leiden: Brill,

1978), 24-31. See also the discussion about class, citizenship, and urban populations in Sergio Bertelli, I/ potere oligarchico nello stato-citta medievale

(Florence: Nuova Italia, 1978), 6—8. It is worth emphasizing that I am not using “class” in the Marxian sense here, as determined by the material conditions of existence and the relationship to the means of production, but rather as a convenient label for demarcating and identifying a definable, coherent sociopolitical collectivity within any given society. 14. Printed in Nicolai Rubinstein, The Government of Florence under the Medici

(1434-1494), 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 363-372. 15. See the illuminating discussion on reggimento and ruling class in Dale Kent, “The Florentine Reggimento in the Fifteenth Century,” Renaissance Quarterly 28, no. 4 (1975): 577-584. 16. Valuable studies have delineated membership of the ruling group at particular moments in Florentine history: see Roslyn Pesman Cooper, “The Florentine Ruling Group under the ‘governo popolare,’ 1494-1512,” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 7 (New Series) (1985): 69-181; Kent, “Florentine Reggimento.”

17. But see Appendix I for a partial, quantitative reconstruction of the office-holding class at the beginning of the sixteenth century and for a discussion of the metrics that lie behind my qualitative analysis. My thinking here is comparable, although not identical, to John F. Padgett, “Open Elite? Social Mobility, Marriage, and Family in Florence, 1282— 1494,” Renaissance Quarterly 63, no. 2 (2010): 357-411, who—on the basis of far more rigorous statistical analysis than any I have attempted—suggests that historians need to reconceive “of the concept of elite, more as a fluidly reproduced ideal than as a stable demographic reality” (360). Quantitative studies are, and will always remain, extremely valuable for conceiving the shape and structure of Florentine social organization. But given the social mobility and political fluidity of the city, as well as the multiple possible status indicators for determining social place (there is no agreement among historians on these, as there was no agreement among Florentines of the Renaissance), it just as beneficial—in a different sense—to conceive of categories of social distinction qualitatively. 18. Kent, “Florentine Reggimento,” 581; Lauro Martines, The Social World of the

Florentine Humanists, 1390-1460 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963), 18-84; Padgett, “Open Elite?” 19. Padgett, “Open Elite?” 403.

Notes to Pages 10-11 283 20. The patrician families in the early sixteenth century are identified in Appendix 1. On the use of patrician and patriciate to describe urban elites in early modern Europe see Marino Berengo, “Patriziato e nobilita: Il caso veronese,” Rivista storica italiana 87, no. 3 (1975). See also the less analytical

but still illustrative use of the terms in James S. Amelang, Honored Citizens of Barcelona: Patrician Culture and Class Relations, 1490-1714 (Princeton, NJ:

Princeton University Press, 1986); Gerald Strauss, Nuremberg in the Sixteenth Century: City Politics and Life between Middle Ages and Modern Times, 2nd ed.

(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976); Charles Zika, “Nuremberg: The City and Its Culture in the Early Sixteenth Century,” in Exorcising Our Demons: Magic, Witchcraft and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe (Leiden:

Brill, 2003), 553-584. Florentines of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries themselves rarely used “patrician,” preferring instead labels such as ottimati (the best men), grandi (the great or the big men), and uwomini da bene (gentlemen). It does occur, however, in contemporary usage; see, for example, ASF, Acquisti e Doni, 68: docs. 27 and 28, and Jacopo Nardi, Istorie della citta di Firenze, ed. Agenore Gelli, 2 vols. (Florence: Felice le Monnier, 1858), 2:15.

21. Ricordi, Series C, no. 109. The translation is taken from Francesco Guicciardini, Maxims and Reflections (Ricordi), trans. Mario Domandi (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992), 69. 22. From the later fifteenth century, the patricians increasingly attempted to institutionalize their position in the form of a senate that could control, in particular, the external representation of the stato by ambassadors and other officials such as commissioners: see William J. Connell, “Il commissario e lo stato territoriale florentino,” Ricerche storiche 18 (1988): 91-617; Riccardo Fubini, Quattrocento fiorentino: Politica diplomazia cultura (Ospedaletto: Pacini,

1996), 11-98. 23. See, for example, the widely differing constitutions offered for the patriciate during this period in Samuel Berner, “The Florentine Patriciate in the Transition from Republic to principato: 1530-1610” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1969); Cooper, “Florentine Ruling Group”; R. Burr Litchfield, Emergence of a Bureaucracy: The Florentine Patricians, 1530-1790

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986); Anthony Molho, Marriage Alliance in Late Medieval Florence (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univer-

sity Press, 1994). My own delineation is, of course, different again, although I attempted to synthesize the findings of Cooper, Litchfield, and Molho to a certain extent. A principal cause of this diversity is that we are all working with distinct ideas of what constituted elite status in Florence and what metrics provide the best measure of this status. No one method is incorrect, on its own terms. All are equally valid, but until a historiographical consensus is reached on how exactly to measure Florentine social status

284 Notes to Pages 11-16 (and as the Renaissance Florentines themselves did not entirely agree, I do not expect such a resolution in short order), such attempts remain valuable in a strictly limited and comparative sense, including my own, naturally; hence, my preference for thinking about social categories qualitatively. 24. On Sassoferrato see Skinner, Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 1:9—12.

On the influence of this political illegitimacy over Florentine social practice and government see Richard C. Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence (Ithaca, N Y: Cornell University Press, 1980), 9—43 esp. 25. See Patricia Fortini Brown, Private Lives in Renaissance Venice: Art, Architecture,

and the Family (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004); Jill Burke, Changing Patrons: Social Identity and the Visual Arts in Renaissance Florence (Univer-

sity Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004); idem, “Visualizing Neighborhood in Renaissance Florence: Santo Spirito and Santa Maria del Carmine,” Journal of Urban History 32, no. § (2006): 693-710; Dale Kent, Cosimo de’ Medici and the Florentine Renaissance: The Patron’s Oeuvre (New Haven,

CT: Yale University Press, 2000); F. W. Kent, Lorenzo de’ Medici and the Art of

Magnificence (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004); Dennis Romano, The Likeness of Venice: A Life of Doge Francesco Foscari, 1373-1457 (New

Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007); Patricia Lee Rubin, Images and Identity in Fifteenth-Century Florence (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,

2007). 26. Giovanni della Casa, Galateo, ed. Giorgio Manganelli and Claudio Milanini, 2nd ed. (Milan: Rizzoli, 1977), 89. 27. See Appendix 2 for a more detailed discussion and brief biographies of the leading protagonists in my narrative. 28. See, however, the perspectives on female and subaltern political agency and experience offered in the works listed above. 1. Imagining Florence 1. My most obvious debt here is to Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 2nd ed. (London: Verso, 1991).

But my thinking about the relationship between the social and the imaginary has also been influenced by Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977); Bronislaw Baczko, Les imaginaires sociaux: Mémoires et espoirs collectifs

(Paris: Payot, 1984); Lynn Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class in the French

Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984); Sarah Maza, The Myth of the French Bourgeoisie: An Essay on the Social Imaginary, 1750-1850 (Cam-

bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003). Specifically on social imagination in Renaissance Italy see Jacques Le Goff, “Limmaginario urbano nell’ Italia medievale (secoli v—xv),” in Storia d’ Italia, Annali s: Il

Notes to Pages 16—17 285 paesaggio, ed. Cesare De Seta (Turin: Giulio Einaudi, 1982), §—43; Stephen J. Milner, “The Florentine Piazza della Signoria as Practiced Place,” in Renaissance Florence: A Social History, ed. Roger J. Crum and John T. Paoletti

(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 83-103; Guido Ruggiero, Machiavelli in Love: Sex, Self, and Society in the Italian Renaissance (Baltimore: Johns

Hopkins University Press, 2007). 2. See for example the robust subaltern community and social life revealed in Samuel K. Cohn, The Laboring Classes in Renaissance Florence (New York:

Academic Press, 1980); David Rosenthal, “The Genealogy of Empires: Ritual Politics and State Building in Early Modern Florence,” I Tatti Studies: Essays in the Renaissance 8 (1999): 197—234; idem, “Big Piero, the Empire of

the Meadow, and the Parish of Santa Lucia: Claiming Neighborhood in the Early Modern City,” Journal of Urban History 32, no. § (2006): 677-692: idem, “The Spaces of Plebian Ritual and the Boundaries of Transgression,” in Crum and Paoletti, Renaissance Florence, 161-181.

3. The principal protagonists in the debate over the formation of the “Renaissance state” in Florence and its accompanying ideology of “civic humanism” remain Hans Baron, The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance: Civic Humanism and Republican Liberty in an Age of Classicism and Tyranny, 2nd ed. (Princeton, NJ:

Princeton University Press, 1966); Marvin Becker, Florence in Transition, vol. 2, Studies in the Rise of the Territorial State (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1968); J. G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975); Gene A. Brucker, “Humanism, Politics and Social Order in Early Renaissance Florence,” in Florence and Venice: Comparisons and Relations,

ed. Sergio Bertelli, Nicolai Rubinstein, and Craig Hugh Smyth (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1979), 3-11. More recently, see the reappraisals of the Baron thesis collected in James Hankins, ed., Renaissance Civic Humanism:

Reappraisals and Reflections (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). For a useful, recent review of the state of the question about civic humanism and republicanism see Mark Jurdjevic, “Hedgehogs and Foxes: The Present and Future of Italian Renaissance Intellectual History,” Past and Present, no. 19§ (2007): 242-268. See also the assessments of civic culture

in England, the Netherlands, Germany, and Poland during the early modern period, which provide a valuable comparison to this Florentinecentric debate, collected in Martin van Gelderen and Quentin Skinner, eds., Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2002), 1:85—-166.

4. See the descriptions of this process in Gene A. Brucker, The Civic World of Early Renaissance Florence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977); John M. Najemy, Corporatism and Consensus in Florentine Electoral Politics,

1280-1400 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982).

286 Notes to Pages 17—19 5. My thinking on civic humanism has been particularly influenced by the thought of John M. Najemy. See Najemy, “Civic Humanism and Florentine Politics,” in Hankins, Renaissance Civic Humanism, 75-104; idem, “Giannozzo and His Elders: Alberti’s Critique of Renaissance Patriarchy,” in Society and Individual in Renaissance Florence, ed. William J. Connell (Berkeley: University

of California Press, 2002), §1—78. See also Mark Jurdjevic, “Civic Humanism and the Rise of the Medici,” Renaissance Quarterly 51, no. 4 (1999): 994-1020. The elusive chemistry of zeitgeist that bound the patrician oligarchs and humanist scholars together receives some acknowledgment in the frescoes executed by Ghirlandaio for the Sassetti and Tornabuoni chapels, in which the second generation of Florentine classicists are prominent. On the relationship between artists such as Ghirlandaio, humanists, and their patrician patrons see, most recently, Patricia Lee Rubin, Images and Identity in Fifteenth-Century Florence (New Haven, CT: Yale

University Press, 2007), 43-50. 6. Marcus Tullius Cicero, De re publica. De legibus, trans. Clinton Walker Keyes (London: William Heinemann, 1959), 1S. 7. Matteo Palmieri, Vita civile, ed. Gino Belloni (Florence: Sansoni, 1982), 53. 8. See the discussion of the distinction between republican and respublican

thought in early modern Europe in Phil Withington, “Citizens, Community, and Political Culture in Restoration England,” in Communities in Early Modern England: Networks, Place, Rhetoric, ed. Alexandra Shepard and Phil

Withington (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), 139-140. 9. See for example Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi’s consideration of the worth of her future son-in-law, Marco Parenti, in which she reflected that his family “hanno un poco di stato”: Alessandra Strozzi, Lettere di una gentildonna fiorentina del secolo XV ai figliuoli esuli, ed. Cesare Guasti (Florence: Sansoni,

1877), 3-4. 10. On Sassetti’s commercial career see Raymond de Roover, The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank, 1397-1494 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963). On his presence on the balie see Nicolai Rubinstein, The Government of Florence under the Medici (1434-1494), 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 1997). On his daughters see Eve Borsook and Johannes Offerhaus, Francesco Sassetti and Ghirlandaio at Santa Trinita, Florence: History and Legend ina

Renaissance Chapel (Doornspijk, Netherlands: Davaco, 1981), 38—41; Jean K. Cadogan, Domenico Ghirlandaio: Artist and Artisan (New Haven, CT: Yale

University Press, 2000), 230-236, Cat. 16. 11. On Tornabuoni’s commercial career see Roover, Rise and Decline of the Medici

Bank. On the office holding of his brother Filippo di Francesco Tornabuoni see Rubinstein, Government of Florence.

Notes to Pages 19—20 287 12. On the influence and importance of Lucrezia and other women in the Medici family see Natalie Tomas, The Medici Women: Gender and Power in

Renaissance Florence (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2003).

13. Patricia Simons, “Patronage in the Tornaquinci Chapel, Santa Maria Novella, Florence,” in Patronage, Art, and Society in Renaissance Italy, ed. F. W.

Kent and Patricia Simons (Canberra/Oxford: Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University / Oxford University Press, 1987), 221-250. 14. Dale Kent, Cosimo de’ Medici and the Florentine Renaissance: The Patron’s Oeuvre

(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), 9-13. 15. Cited in Simons, “Patronage in the Tornaquinci Chapel,” 241. The translation is Simons’s. 16. This is the central point of Kent, Cosimo de’ Medici; Jill Burke, Changing Patrons: Social Identity and the Visual Arts in Renaissance Florence (University Park:

Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004). See also Rubin, Images and Identity. On the relationship between material culture, consumption, and social status see Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Eugene Rochberg- Halton, The Meaning of Things: Domestic Symbols and the Self (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1981); Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the

Judgement of Taste, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), IOO—IO1, 170~175 esp.; Baczko, Les imaginaires sociaux, 36; Helga Dittmar, The Social Psychology of Material Possessions: To Have Is to Be (New York:

St. Martin’s Press, 1992); Norbert Elias, The Court Society, trans. Edmund Jephcott (New York: Pantheon, 1983), 41-65. 17. See Burke, Changing Patrons, 10; F. W. Kent, Lorenzo de’ Medici and the Art of

Magnificence (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), 16. Dale Kent is more nuanced and careful in her assessment of the relationship between politics and art in Quattrocento Florence: see Kent, Cosimo de’ Medici, ix—xi, 384.

18. See F. W. Kent, “Palaces, Politics and Society in Fifteenth-Century Florence,” I Tatti Studies: Essays in the Renaissance 2 (1987): 41-70; Michael

Lingohr, “The Palace and Villa as Spaces of Patrician Self-Definition,” in Crum and Paoletti, Renaissance Florence, 240-272; Brenda Preyer, “Florentine Palaces and Memories of the Past,” in Art, Memory, and Family in Renaissance Florence, ed. Giovanni Ciappelli and Patricia Lee Rubin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 176—194; Burke, Changing Patrons, 9—10, 18; Jill Burke, “Visualizing Neighborhood in Renaissance Florence: Santo Spirito and Santa Maria del Carmine,” Journal of Urban History 32, no. § (2006): 699—700. Ina recent essay Stephen Milner offers a thoughtful critique of overly hegemonic readings of place and space in Renaissance Florence: Milner, “Florentine Piazza.” As David Rosenthal has demonstrated, urban plebeians also inscribed the space of

288 Notes to Pages 21—22 Florence with physical markers and manifestations of social identity: Rosenthal, “Genealogy of Empires,” 207-209. For comparisons with elite behavior in Strasbourg and Venice see, respectively, Thomas A. Brady, Ruling Class, Regime and Reformation at Strasbourg, 1520-1555 (Leiden: Brill,

1978), 233, and Patricia Fortini Brown, Private Lives in Renaissance Venice: Art, Architecture, and the Family (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004),

23-90. 19. See the stimulating discussion of the commodification of clothing in Renaissance England in Ann Rosalind Jones and Peter Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2000), 17-33. More generally see Carlo M. Cipolla, Before the Industrial Revolution: European Society and Economy, 1000-1700, trans. Marcella

Kooy and Alide Kooy, 2nd ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1980); Evelyn Welch, Shopping in the Renaissance: Consumer Cultures in Italy, 1400-1600 (New

Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005), 28-29. On the tendency of Florentine commerce toward fragmentation rather than capital accumulation see Richard A. Goldthwaite, “Organizzazione economica e struttura familiare,” and “The Medici Bank and the World of Florentine Capitalism,” in Bankers, Palaces and Entrepreneurs in Renaissance Florence (Aldershot, UK:

Variorum, 1995). 20. Carole Collier Frick, Dressing Renaissance Florence: Families, Fortunes, and Fine

Clothing (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 110-114. 21. See the recent useful analysis of this concept in Rubin, Images and Identity,

34-42. 22. Benjamin G. Kohl and Ronald G. Witt, eds., The Earthly Republic: Italian Humanists on Government and Society (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978), 258, 260. The translation is by Benjamin B. Kohl and Elizabeth B. Welles. 23. See Burke, Changing Patrons, 36, 61; idem, “ Visualizing Neighborhood,”

693-694. For a comparative impulse in Renaissance Nuremberg, see Charles Zika, “Nuremberg: The City and Its Culture in the Early Sixteenth Century,” in Exorcising Our Demons: Magic, Witchcraft and Visual Culture in Early

Modern Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2003), $60. In addition to the less tangible rewards of civic pride and pleasure, the artisans and laborers of Florence reaped very real economic rewards from patrician expenditure on palacebuilding and other artistic commissions: see, most recently, Richard A. Goldthwaite, The Economy of Renaissance Florence (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins

University Press, 2009), chap. § and conclusion, 601-607 esp. 24. Palmieri, Vita civile, 147, 152-153, 194.

25. Compare with the situation in sixteenth-century Strasbourg: Brady, Ruling Class, 229-233. See also Bourdieu, Outline, 91, 95, 163-164; idem, Distinction, 72, 76-77; Baczko, Les imaginaires sociaux, 33, 36.

Notes to Pages 22—23 289 26. On the Ciompi Revolt see, most recently, Alessandro Stella, La révolte des Ciompi: Les hommes, les lieux, le travail (Paris: Ecole des Hautes Etudes en

Sciences Sociales, 1993), 50—§1. On the violence in April 1498 see Luca Landucci, Diario fiorentino dal 1450 al 1516 continuato da un anonimo al 1542, ed.

Iodoco del Badia (Florence: Sansoni, 1985), 170-171. Compare with actions of the iconoclastic mobs in Strasbourg that targeted the material symbols of aristocratic rule as well as those of the Catholic Church: Brady, Ruling Class, 200-201. 27. See the analysis of the Florentine need to create legitimacy and charisma for its government and the symbiotic relationship between familial and communal honor in Richard C. Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence

(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980), 9-43, 224-240 esp. 28. The best general synthesis of the use and evolution of the term in the Italian context remains Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, vol. 1, The Renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978). See also idem, Liberty before Liberalism (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1998). Specifically on the Florentine context see Baron, Crisis; Pocock, Machiavellian Moment; Mark Jurdjevic, “Virtue, Commerce,

and the Enduring Florentine Republican Moment: Reintegrating Italy into the Atlantic Republican Debate,” Journal of the History of Ideas 62, no. 4

(2001): 721-743; Nicolai Rubinstein, “Florentina Libertas,” Rinascimento Nuova Serie 26 (1986): 3-26. Most recently, on the controversy over Baron’s “crisis” thesis see Jurdjevic, “Civic Humanism”; Hankins, Renaissance Civic Humanism. For other Italian contexts see John Larner, The Lords of Romagna: Romagnol Society and the Origins of the Signorie (London: Macmillan,

1965); William J. Bouwsma, Venice and the Defense of Republican Liberty: Renaissance Values in the Age of the Counter Reformation (Berkeley: University of

California Press, 1968); Ian Robertson, Tyranny under the Mantle of St Peter: Pope Paul II and Bologna (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2002).

29. See the discussion of the tensions between republicanism and imperialism in Sergio Bertelli, Il potere oligarchico nello stato-citta medievale (Florence: Nuova

Italia, 1978), 25-40; Edward Muir, “Was There Republicanism in Renaissance Republics? Venice after Agnadello,” in Venice Reconsidered: The History and Civilization of an Italian City-State, 1297-1797, ed. John Martin and

Dennis Romano (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 137-167. The republic of Lucca, from around the mid-fifteenth century, would appear to be the exception in this case. The Lucchese sought to preserve their civic form of government by avoiding expansion and the conflicts that came with it: M. E. Brachtel, Lucca, 1430-1494: The Reconstruction of an Italian City-Republic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).

30. For the details in the succeeding two paragraphs see Borsook and Offerhaus, Francesco Sassetti, 27-28, 36-41; E. H. Gombrich, “The Sassetti Chapel

290 Notes to Pages 26—32 Revisited: Santa Trinita and Lorenzo de’ Medici,” I Tatti Studies: Essays in the Renaissance 7 (1997): 11-35; Ronald G. Kecks, Domenico Ghirlandaio, trans.

Fiorella Kircheis Signorini, Paolo Santoro, and Nori Zilli (Florence: Franco Cantini, 1998); Eckart Marchand, “The Representation of Citizens in Religious Fresco Cycles in Tuscany,” in With and without the Medici: Studies in Tuscan Art and Patronage, 1434—1530, ed. Eckart Marchand and Alison Wright

(Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1998), 107-127; Cadogan, Domenico Ghirlandaio, 230-236, Catalog no. 16. 31. For the details that follow see Simons, “Patronage in the Tornaquinci Chapel”; Kecks, Domenico Ghirlandaio; Cadogan, Domenico Ghirlandaio.

32. Marchand, “Representation of Citizens,” 223. 33. Aby Warburg, The Renewal of Pagan Antiquity: Contributions to the Cultural History

of the European Renaissance, trans. Caroline Beamish, David Britt, and Carol

Lanham (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1999), 189-190. See, more recently, Cadogan, Domenico Ghirlandaio, 88-90. 34. The relative status of household and lineage in Florence was previously subject to a vigorous debate in the historiography instigated in Richard A. Goldthwaite, Private Wealth in Renaissance Florence: A Study of Four Families

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968); F. W. Kent, Household and Lineage in Renaissance Florence: The Family Life of the Capponi, Ginori, and Rucellai

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977). Consensus now favors the doubled vision of family proposed by Kent. The research of Thomas Kuehn has moved the study of Florentine family beyond kinship structures into the spheres of law and finance. See, most recently, Thomas Kuehn, Heirs, Kin, and Creditors in Renaissance Florence (New York: Cambridge Univer-

sity Press, 2008). 35. Compare with the similar conclusion on the ideological importance of lineage for Florentines presented in John F. Padgett, “Open Elite? Social Mobility, Marriage, and Family in Florence, 1282-1494,” Renaissance Quarterly 63, no. 2 (2010): 402 esp. Compare with Anthony Molho, Marriage Alliance in Late Medieval Florence (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,

1994), which presents the concept of lineage as having a far more solid financial and social reality: see 12-15, 344-347 esp. 36. See Carol Lansing, The Florentine Magnates: Lineage and Faction in a Medieval

Commune (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), 29-40 on the development of the medieval lineage, 46—63 on economic strategies. On co-ownership of property as a transitional phase in familial development see also Kent, Household and Lineage, 123-124. 37. Sergio Tognetti, I! banco Cambini: Affari e mercati di una compagnia mercantile

bancaria nella Firenze del XV secolo (Florence: Olschki, 1999), 20-21, 83 esp.

Notes to Pages 32—35 291 38. Giovanni Ciappelli, “I Castellani di Firenze: Dall’estremismo oligarchico all’assenza politica (secoli XI V—XV),” Archivio storico italiano 149, no. 1

(1991): 33-91. Ciappelli refutes a correlation between financial and sociopolitical success, noting that genealogical accident resulted in a dearth of mature males among the Castellani in the early decades of the fifteenth century. He does however concede that “le difficolta economiche” contributed substantially to the family’s absence from public office by the later 1420s; see 81.

39. Michele Cassandro, “Due famiglie di mercanti fiorentini: I della Casa e i Guadagni,” Economia e Storia 21, no. 3 (1974): 289-329. 40. Rubinstein, Government of Florence, 368.

At. Dale Kent, “The Florentine Reggimento in the Fifteenth Century,” Renaissance Quarterly 28, no. 4 (1975): §75— 638. 42. Rubinstein, Government of Florence, 368. 43. Cassandro, “Due famiglie.” 44. Compare with the discussion of the linkage between a new physical sense of property and the development of lineages, as well as the centrality of longevity and endurance to familial success in the cities of northern Castile, in Teofilo F. Ruiz, From Heaven to Earth: The Reordering of Castilian Society,

1150-1350 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004), 87-99. 45. Compare with Ruggiero, Machiavelli in Love, 85-107; Sharon T. Strocchia, “Theaters of Everyday Life,” in Crum and Paoletti, Renaissance Florence,

55-80. 46. For Niccold’s construction and patronage projects see Tognetti, II banco Cambini.

47. See Preyer, “Florentine Palaces.” 48. Ricordi, Series C, no. 158: Francesco Guicciardini, Opere, ed. Vittorio de Caprariis (Milan: Riccardo Ricciardi, 1953), 130. 49. Anthony Molho, “Names, Memory, Public Identity in Late Medieval Florence,” in Ciappelli and Rubin, Art, Memory, and Family, 239-241, 244-246. Notably, Molho sets the lineages and the “government” in something of a binary opposition, without acknowledging that they were one and the same (with the exception of the politically banned magnate houses). Compare with the political dynamic between familial and communal honor posited in Trexler, Public Life, 19, 224. 50. Palmieri, Vita civile, 161. A consorteria was an association formed to protect common interests, more common to the thirteenth century than the fifteenth. Although members were often related by blood or marriage, it was not exclusively restricted to a single family. 51. John Padgett has recently argued that the spread of the use of surnames throughout Florentine society in the fifteenth century suggests the

292 Notes to Pages 36—39 diffusion of patrician ideals into lower social orders: Padgett, “Open Elite?” In the same way that upwardly mobile families acquired or built palaces, the transformation of a patronym into a cognomen (“di Ser Risotoro” into “Serristori,” for example) represented an aspiration toward or the achievement of higher social status. 52. For the data on the wealthiest households from the 1480 catasto see Molho, Marriage Alliance, 213. On the prominence of certain individuals, without surnames and mostly artisans, in the stato between 1434 and 1494 see Rubinstein, Government of Florence.

53. Frick, Dressing Renaissance Florence, 83. See the analogous observations on clothing and social status in Renaissance Venice in Brown, Private Lives, IO—-I2.

54. Cited in Alison Brown, “Lorenzo de’ Medici’s New Men and Their Mores: The Changing Lifestyle of Quattrocento Florence,” Renaissance Studies 16, no. 2 (2002): 121. The translation is Brown’s. 55. Leon Battista Alberti, Opere Volgari, ed. Cecil Grayson, 3 vols. (Bari: Laterza, 1960), 1:202. See also Giannozzo’s comparison between purchasing one expensive cioppa rather than two cheaper ones, 1:238: “Se io allora non avessi scelto il migliore panno di Firenze, io dipoi n’arei fatte due altre, né pero sarei stato di quelle onorevole come di questa.” 56. Jones and Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing, 34—58; Frick, Dressing Renaissance Florence, 95-114.

57. Niccolé Machiavelli, Istorie fiorentine, ed. Plinio Carli, 2 vols. (Florence: Sansoni, 1927), 2:126. 58. Francesco Guicciardini, Dialogo e discorsi del reggimento di Firenze, ed. Roberto

Palmarocchi (Bari: Laterza, 1932), 29. The San Martino district housed the shops of the Arte della Lana (wool guild) of Florence. For further discussion of the cultural significance of the red Iucco, in a variety of contexts, see Juliana Hill Cotton, “II lucco del Poliziano ed altre allusione al lucco florentino,” Italica 43, no. 4 (1966): 353-368. 59. For the specific details of clothing items see Frick, Dressing Renaissance Florence, 149-152, 160, and also the useful glossary. 6o. Ibid., 152, 218. However, variations of cut and color probably indicated gradations of expense no longer legible to a modern observer. See the similar observation about men within the Venetian patriciate in Brown, Private Lives, 5—7.

61. This translation is from Baron, Crisis, 419. 62. Kohl and Witt, Earthly Republic, 170. The translation is by Benjamin G. Kohl. On the concept of fraternity and the Florentine government see Trexler, Public Life, 19-33. 63. Palmieri, Vita civile, 132.

64. Landucci, Diario fiorentino, 110.

Notes to Pages 39 —40 293 65. Palmieri, Vita civile, 131-132. See also 98—99: “Chi ne’ magistrati siede, inanzi a ogni cosa conosca essere spogliato della propria persona, et ritenere la publica persona di tutto il corpo civile dovere sostenere et difendere la degnita et sommo honore della publica magesta, servare la legge, di buoni

ordini provedere, tutta la citta conservare, et continuamente ricordarsi la multitudine che é governata avere ogni cosa rimesso nella sua fede.” 66. I am using ideology here in the Althusserian sense: Louis Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation),” in Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971), 162—166 esp.

67. See Trexler, Public Life, 9—43, 85-128; Ronald F. Weissman, Ritual Brotherhood in Renaissance Florence (New York: Academic Press, 1982), I-41; idem,

“The Importance of Being Ambiguous: Social Relations, Individualism, and Identity in Renaissance Florence,” in Urban Life in the Renaissance, ed.

Susan Zimmerman and Ronald F. Weissman (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1989), 269-280; F. W. Kent, “‘Un paradiso habitato da diavoli’: Ties of Loyalty and Patronage in the Society of Medicean Florence,” in Le radice cristiane di Firenze, ed. Anna Benvenuti, Franco Cardini, and

Elena Giannarelli (Florence: Alinea, 1994), 183-210. Compare with the nuanced discussion of the potential dangers of friendship and obligation in Renaissance England in Alan Bray, The Friend (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), §9—67. 68. I am grateful to John Paoletti, who emphasized these spatial distinctions in an e-mail to me. 69. The term sottogoverno literally translates as “under-government.” It possesses associations with corruption, favoritism, and political horse-trading. It describes both the institutionalization of these activities and also

(collectively) the people pursuing them. 70. Trexler, Public Life, 249. See also Frick, Dressing Renaissance Florence, 218. 71. See Frick, Dressing Renaissance Florence, 103—104, 115—132. Such expensive

garments often recirculated by being sold to a secondhand dealer or loaned. 72. Gregorio di Stagio Dati, Storia, reprinted in Cesare Guasti, Le feste di San Giovanni Batista in Firenze descritte in prosa e in rima da contemporanei (Florence:

R. Societa di San Giovanni Batista, 1908), §. 73. Unknown fifteenth-century poet, ibid., 14. 74. Molho, Marriage Alliance, 344-451. Molho calculates that among those lineages that he classifies as high status both men and women married their socioeconomic peers at a rate of around 70 percent: see the extended analysis of patrician marriage patterns at 233-297. See now the more fine-grained distinctions about patterns of endogamy across three distinct status indicators (as opposed to the one politico-economic criterion used by Molho) in Padgett, “Open Elite?”

294 Notes to Pages 41—45 75. Strozzi, Lettere di una gentildonna, 5, 446. 76. See for example Kent, Cosimo de’ Medici; Najemy, “Giannozzo and His Elders.”

77. Note that I am not asserting that either Kent or Najemy explicitly pursue or support any of these concepts. Nor am I denying the analytic sophistication of their various studies. The point I am trying to make is one about language and self-consciousness of analytic terms. I do not think patriarchy really describes the interaction of gender and social relations, as these scholars themselves have discussed it, in Renaissance Florence. I am also concerned that the use of this term carries cultural baggage in a twentyfirst-century context that can obscure rather than clarify historical analysis. See Mary Laven’s comments on the inadequacy of patriarchy as an analytic term for scholars of early modern Europe in Diarmaid MacCulloch, Mary Laven, and Eamon Duffy, “Recent Trends in the Study of Christianity in Sixteenth-Century Europe,” Renaissance Quarterly 59, no. 3 (2006): 718-719. 78. Landucci, Diario fiorentino, 254.

79. David Herlihy and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, Tuscans and Their Families: A Study of the Florentine Catasto of 1427, trans. David Herlihy and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985), 210-223,

247, 363-364. Jean Cadogan has hypothesized that the Ghirlandaio portrait represents not Sassetti and his youngest son, Teodoro, but rather an idealized envisioning of Sassetti with the elder Teodoro (who died in 1479) as they would have appeared in the 1460s. See Cadogan, Domenico Ghirland-

aio, Cat. 47, 278-279. Ina sense, then, the portrait reverses the idealization: celebrating the hypothetical and historical relationship between a son, now dead, and his father, still living. 80. On homosocial relations and homosociability in Florence and in early modern Europe more broadly see Patricia Simons, “Homosociality and Erotics in Italian Renaissance Portraiture,” in Portraiture: Facing the Subject, ed. Joanna Woodall (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), 29—51; Adrian W. B. Randolph, Engaging Symbols: Gender, Politics and Public Art

in Fifteenth-Century Florence (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002); Alan Bray, “Homosexuality and the Signs of Male Friendship in Elizabethan England,” in Queering the Renaissance, ed. Jonathan Goldberg (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994), 40-61; Michael Rocke, Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence (New York:

Oxford University Press, 1996), chap. § esp.; Bray, Friend; Ruggiero, Machiavelli in Love, 85-87, 97-98. 81. Trexler, Public Life, 277-278. 82. On the dangerous nature and marginalized position of giovani in Renaissance Florence see ibid., 387-399.

Notes to Pages 46—50 295 83. See, most recently, Ruggiero, Machiavelli in Love, 163-211.

84. On the political significance of virtt see Nicholas Scott Baker, “Power and Passion in Sixteenth-Century Florence: The Sexual and Political Reputations of Alessandro and Cosimo I de’ Medici,” Journal of the History of Sexuality

19, no. 3 (2010): 448-456; Jurdjevic, “Virtue, Commerce”; Pocock, Machiavellian Moment, 37-39; Skinner, Foundations of Modern Political Thought,

23-48, 69-112. 85. Palmieri, Vita civile, 52-53. 86. Giovanni Rucellai, Giovanni Rucellai ed il suo Zibaldone, ed. Alessandro Perosa,

vol. 1, I! Zibaldone quaresimale (London: Warburg Institute, 1960), 118. On

marriage in early modern Europe as heterosexual relationship that united two men see also Bray, “Homosexuality and the Signs,” 49. 87. Tomas, Medici Women, 14-83 esp. 88. Strozzi, Lettere di una gentildonna, 39 6, 386. “Mona Lucrezia” was Lucrezia

Tornabuoni de’ Medici, wife of Piero di Cosimo de’ Medici. Alessandra hoped that Lucrezia would exert her influence to have Filippo’s exile reversed. 89. See, however, Sharon T. Strocchia, Nuns and Nunneries in Renaissance Florence

(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009); Tomas, Medici Women. See also the recent analysis of female networks and homosociability in seventeenth-century Spain in Lisa Vollendorf, The Lives of Women: A New History of Inquisitional Spain (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press,

2005). 90. See Simons, “Patronage in the Tornaquinci Chapel,” 238-239, 241. 91. Palmieri, Vita civile, 9.

2. Great Expectations 1. See Nicolai Rubinstein, The Government of Florence under the Medici (1434-1494),

2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997); Dale Kent, The Rise of the Medici: Faction in Florence, 1426-1434 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978). 2. See for example Lorenzo de’ Medici, Lettere (1481-1482), ed. Michael Mallett (Florence: Giunti-Barbeéra, 1990), 115, 125, 175-176, 194, and 211; idem, Lettere (1487-1488), ed. Melissa Meriam Bullard (Florence: Giunti-Barbéra, 2004), 273 and §27. Lorenzo used the term brigata (gang) consistently, but sparingly, to refer to the ruling group in Florence. See also Melissa Bullard’s iconoclastic reference to Lorenzo as a “committee” in Melissa Meriam Bullard, Lorenzo il Magnifico: Image and Anxiety, Politics and Finance

(Florence: Olschki, 1994), 127. 3. Francesco Guicciardini, Le lettere: Edizione critica (1499-1513), ed. Pierre

Jodogne (Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per Il’ Eta Moderna e Contemporanea, 1986), 331.

2906 Notes to Pages 51—52 4. Francesco Guicciardini, Storie fiorentine dal 1378 al 1509, ed. Aulo Greco

(Novara: Istituto geografico de Agostini, 1970), 113, 116. Compare his later (ca. 1521-24) assertion, in the Dialogo e discorsi del reggimento di Firenze, ed.

Roberto Palmarocchi (Bari: Laterza, 1932), 18 and 25 esp., that governments ought to be judged by results and not by their legitimacy. 5. The translation is from Patricia Lee Rubin, Images and Identity in Fifteenth-

Century Florence (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), 235-236. 6. ASF, CP, 72: 1271: “havendo i Medici nel xii fatto segno di civilita, et poi fatto il peggio che si potessi.” 7. The analysis of various political treatises produced between 1512 and 1527 in Rudolf von Albertini, Firenze dalla repubblica al principato: Storia e coscienza

politica, trans. Cesare Cristolfini (Turin: Giulio Einaudi, 1970), 27-103, demonstrates in a very literal sense how this construction and contestation occurred.

8. Other scholars have already recounted, in great detail, the institutional history of Florence’s government, both with and without the Medici during the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. See Rubinstein, Government of Florence; Arnaldo D’Addario, La formazione dello stato moderno in Toscana da Cosimo

il Vecchio a Cosimo I de’ Medici (Lecce: Adriatica, 1976); Gene A. Brucker, The Civic World of Early Renaissance Florence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977); Kent, Rise of the Medici; J. N. Stephens, The Fall of the Florentine

Republic, 1512-1530 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983); H. C. Butters, Governors and Government in Early Sixteenth-Century Florence, 1502-1519 (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 1985); Roslyn Pesman Cooper, Pier Soderini and the Ruling Class in Renaissance Florence (Goldbach: Keip Verlag, 2002). 9. Luca Landucci, Diario florentino dal 1450 al 1516 continuato da un anonimo al 1542, ed.

Iodoco del Badia (Florence: Sansoni, 1985), 2—3, 6S. 10. Landucci was twenty-eight when Cosimo died, so he had lived at least a decade as an adult (in the modern conception of the term) during this first period of Medicean predominance. He had also already begun to record the political life of Florence prior to 1464. 11. ASF, MAP, 20: 93, Tommaso Soderini, to Piero de’ Medici, § June 1454: “la balia, le borse et ‘| catasto.” A balia was a plenipotentiary short-term council that possessed authority to alter the constitution and institutions of the commune. On the corruption of the electoral process, which predated the Medici predominance, see Anthony Molho, “Politics and the Ruling Class in Early Renaissance Florence,” Nuova rivista storica 52 (1968): Rubinstein, Government of Florence; John M. Najemy, Corporatism and Consensus

in Florentine Electoral Politics, 1280-1400 (Chapel Hill: University of North

Carolina Press, 1982), 263-300. On the Medici use of arbitrary and often punitive taxation see Elio Conti, L’imposta diretta a Firenze nel Quattrocento

(1427-1494) (Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, 1984); Lauro

Notes to Pages 52—53 297 Martines, “Forced Loans: Political and Social Strain in Quattrocento Florence,” Journal of Modern History 60, no. 2 (1988). More generally on the close relationship between political power, communal finance, and personal wealth in Renaissance Florence see L. F. Marks, “The Financial Oligarchy in Florence under Lorenzo,” in Italian Renaissance Studies: A Tribute to the Late

Cecilia M. Ady, ed. E. F. Jacob (London: Faber and Faber, 1960); Marvin Becker, Florence in Transition, vol. 1, The Decline of the Commune (Baltimore:

Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967); Anthony Molho, Florentine Public Finances in the Early Renaissance, 1400-1433 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971); Samuel K. Cohn, Creating the Florentine State: Peasants and

Rebellion, 1384-1434 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Alison Brown, “Lorenzo, the Monte and the Seventeen Reformers: Public and Private Interest,” in The Medici in Florence: The Exercise and Langauge of Power

(Florence/Perth: Olschki / University of Western Australia Press, 1992), ISI—211; Richard A. Goldthwaite, “Lorenzo Morelli, Ufficiale del Monte, 1484-88: Interessi privati e cariche pubbliche nella Firenze laurenziana,” Archivio storico italiano 154, no. 4 (1996): 605-633; Giovanni Ciappelli and Anthony Molho, “Lorenzo de’ Medici and the Monte: A Note on Sources,” Rinascimento, seconda serie 37 (1997): 243-282; Alison Brown, “Lorenzo de’ Medici and the Monte: Another Note,” Rinascimento, seconda serie 38 (1998): §17—§22.

12. Compare with the analogous position of the Bentivoglio family in Bologna and of Pandolfo Petrucci in Siena. See Ian Robertson, Tyranny under the Mantle of St Peter: Pope Paul II and Bologna (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2002), 113-137 esp.; Christine Shaw, Popular Government and Oligarchy in Renaissance

Italy (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 123-142. 13. Giovanni Rucellai, Giovanni Rucellai ed il suo Zibaldone, vol. 1, Il Zibaldone

quaresimale, ed. Alessandro Perosa (London: Warburg Institute, 1960), 121. 14. Lorenzo de’ Medici, Lettere (1484-1485), ed. H. C. Butters (Florence: Giunti-Barbéra, 2001), 163-165. In the same letter, Lorenzo instructed Michelozzi that—in response to requests— Filippo Carducci should sit on the next Signoria and Francesco Gherardi should be veduto (seen, that is have his name drawn for an office he could not hold) for gonfaloniere di giustizia in the same sortition. Both men had their names drawn, as Lorenzo ordered, at the end of the month: see David Herlihy et al., “Florentine Renaissance Resources, Online Tratte of Office Holders, 1282-1532: Machine readable data file” (Brown University: Florentine Renaissance Resources / STG, 2002), www.stg.brown.edu/projects/tratte/ (last accessed 6 July 2006). Paul D. McLean, The Art of the Network: Strategic Interaction and

Patronage in Renaissance Florence (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007),

analyzes the role of letters in creating and maintaining patronage networks in Medicean Florence.

298 Notes to Pages 53-54 15. No decade passed between 1434 and 1494 without a significant challenge to the Medici predominance. The most complete account of these threats remains Rubinstein, Government of Florence. For more detailed analysis of specific moments of opposition see Alison Brown, “Lorenzo and Public Opinion in Florence: The Problem of Opposition,” in Lorenzo il Magnifico e il suo mondo: Covegno internazionale di studi (Firenze, 9—13 giugno 1992), ed. Gian Carlo

Garfagnini (Florence: Olschki, 1994), 61-85; Paula Clarke, The Soderini and the Medici: Power and Patronage in Fifteenth-Century Florence (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 1991), 38-94 esp.; Margery A. Ganz, “Perceived Insults and Their Consequences: Acciaiuoli, Neroni, and Medici Relationships in the 1460s,” in Society and Individual in Renaissance Florence, ed. William J.

Connell (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 155-172; Lauro Martines, April Blood: Florence and the Plot against the Medici (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2003). Again, compare with the similar source of opposition to Pandolfo Petrucci in Siena at the end of the fifteenth century: Shaw, Popular Government, 132-136.

16. Anthony Molho, “Cosimo de’ Medici: Pater patriae or padrino?” Stanford Italian

Review 1 (1979): 29-30. Compare with the analogous place of the Bentivoglio in fifteenth-century Bologna: Robertson, Tyranny under the Mantle, 125. 17. Lorenzo de’ Medici et al., “Lettere e notizie di Lorenzo de’ Medici detto il Magnifico conservate nell’Archivio Palatino di Modena con notizie tratte dai carteggi diplomatici degli oratori estensi a Firenze,” ed. Antonio Cappelli, Attie memorie delle RR. Deputazioni di storia patria per le provincie modenesi

e parmensi 1 (1863): 265. See the nuanced analysis of Lorenzo’s imagemaking both in Florence and abroad and his ability to weld his personal prestige and reputation to that of the city in Bullard, Lorenzo il Magnifico,

28-31, 43-79. 18. See Bullard, Lorenzo il Magnifico, 28-31, 48—49. On the Pazzi War, which stemmed from the unsuccessful conspiracy to assassinate Lorenzo in 1478 (the conspirators did kill his younger brother Giuliano) see Martines, April Blood, 174-196. On the relationship between Lorenzo and Ferrante see H. C. Butters, “Lorenzo and Naples,” in Garfagnini, Lorenzo il Magnifico e il suo mondo, 143-151. On the relationship between Lorenzo and Innocent

VIII, cemented by the marriage of Maddelena di Lorenzo de’ Medici to the pope’s nephew Franceschetto Cibo, see Melissa Meriam Bullard, “In Pursuit of honore et utile: Lorenzo de’ Medici and Rome,” in Garfagnini, Lorenzo de’ Medici e il suo mondo, 123-142.

19. Medici, Lettere (1484-1485), 299.

20. On Charles VIIT’s mission to claim the Kingdom of Naples and its political, military, and cultural impact see Jane Everson and Diego Zancani, eds., Italy in Crisis, 1494 (Oxford: European Humanities Research Centre, 2000); David Abulafia, ed., The French Descent into Renaissance Italy, 1494-1495:

Notes to Page 55 299 Antecedents and Effects (Aldershot, UK: Variorum, 1995). Specifically on the Florentine context see Guidubaldo Guidi, Cid che accadde al tempo della Signoria di novembre dicembre in Firenze anno 1494 (Florence: Arnaud, 1988). On the increasing tensions within the office-holding class and members of the Medici party during the 1480s and 1490s see Melissa Meriam Bullard, “Adumbrations of Power and the Politics of Appearances in Medicean Florence,” Renaissance Studies 12, no. 3 (1998); Alison Brown, “Lorenzo de’ Medici’s New Men and Their Mores: The Changing Lifestyle of Quattrocento Florence,” Renaissance Studies 16, no. 2 (2002): 341-356; Brown, “Lorenzo, the Monte.” On Fra Girolamo Savonarola’s influence over

Florentine politics, culture, and society in the 1490s see Donald Weinstein, Savonarola and Florence: Prophecy and Patriotism in the Renaissance (Princeton, NJ:

Princeton University Press, 1970); Mark Jurdjevic, Guardians of Republicanism: The Valori Family in the Florentine Renaissance (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2008), 19-45. 21. Bartolomeo Cerretani, Storia fiorentina, ed. Giuliana Berti (Florence: Olschki, 1994), 204. 22. Piero di Marco Parenti, Storia florentina Vol. 1 1476—78, 1492—96, ed. Andrea

Matucci (Florence: Olshcki, 1994), 150-151. 23. The twenty men were M. Domenico di Baldassare Bonsi, Tanai di Francesco de’ Nerli, Piero di Gino Capponi, Ridolfo di Pagnozzo Ridolfl, Antonio di Sasso di Antonio, Niccolo di Andreuolo Sachetti, Giuliano di Francesco Salviati, Bartolomeo di Domenico Giugni, Bardo di Bartolomeo Corsi, Jacopo di Bartolomeo del Zaccheria, Francesco di Martino della Scarfa, M. Guidantonio di Giovanni Vespucci, Piero di Niccolo Popoleschi, Bernardo di Giovanni Rucellai, Andrea di Manetto di Andrea, Francesco di Filippo Valori, Braccio di M. Domenico Martelli, Guglielmo di Antonio de’ Pazzi, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, and Francesco d’Andrea Romoli: ASF, Tratte, 905: 175r. Giuliano Salviati was the lone individual with no previous representation on the Medicean balie: see Rubinstein, Government of Florence. The accoppiatori controlled the electoral process under

Florence’s republican constitution—they scrutinized electoral lists and placed the names of eligible men in the various purses (borse) for sortition. The use of the accoppiatori to keep tight control over who had an opportunity to hold key offices was central to the oligarchic system that developed in the late fourteenth century: see note 11 above. 24. On the institutional and intellectual history of the period between 1494 and 1§12 see Antonio Anzilotti, La crisi costituzionale della Repubblica fiorentina

(Rome: Multigrafica, 1969), 39-58; Nicolai Rubinstein, “Politics and Constitution in Florence at the End of the Fifteenth Century,” in Italian Renaissance Studies: A Tribute to the Late Cecilia M. Ady, ed. E. F. Jacob (London:

Faber and Faber, 1960), 148-183; Roslyn Pesman Cooper, “The

300 Notes to Pages 55—56 Prosopography of the ‘prima repubblica, ” in I ceti dirigenti nella Toscana del Quattrocento: Comitato di studi sulla storia dei ceti dirigenti in Toscana. Atti del Ve VI Convegno: Firenze, 10—11 dicembre 1982; 2—3 dicembre 1983, ed. Riccardo Fubini

(Impruneta: Francesco Papafava, 1987), 239-255; idem, Pier Soderini; Sergio Bertelli, “Petrus Soderinus patriae parens,” Bibliotheque d’Humanisme et

Renaissance 31, no. I (1969): 93-114; idem, “Pier Soderini ‘Vexillifer perpetuus reipublicae florentinae’ 1502-1512,” in Renaissance Studies in Honor of Hans Baron, ed. Anthony Molho and John A. Tedeschi (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1971), 333-359; Butters, Governors and Government, 1-165; Guidubaldo Guidi, Lotte, pensiero e istituzioni politiche nella

Repubblica Fiorentina dal 1494 al 1512, 3 vols. (Florence: Olschki, 1992); Giorgio Cadoni, Lotte politiche e riforme istituzionali a Firenze tra il 1494 e il 1502 (Rome:

Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, 1999). 25. On the key shift from a political culture of corporatism to one of consensus, which enabled the formation of the oligarchic reggimenti of the fifteenth century, see Najemy, Corporatism and Consensus.

26. Guidubaldo Guidi has noted that very small percentages of the holders of major offices (from less than 1 percent for the Ufficiali del Monte, the Dieci della Liberta, and Otto di Guardia, to a maximum of 4.05 percent for the Signoria) were not members of the Consiglio Maggiore: Guidi, Lotte, pensiero e istituzioni, GOI—602.

27. Ibid., 4. Guidi estimates the total population of Florence in 1494 at 55,000, of whom he assumes 42,250 were excluded from political eligibility for reasons of sex, age, or legal impediment. Of the 12,750 mature men, then, who formed the potential office-holding class, only 29.35 percent sat on the Consiglio Maggiore (3,742). Note that Guidi mistakenly asserts that this final figure represents 29.35 percent of the total population when it is clearly only 6.8 percent of the population. 28. The provision that created the Consiglio did contain a clause permitting the entry of a limited number of men who did have the beneficiato; but only thirty-nine individuals gained a seat on the council under this measure. See Roslyn Pesman Cooper, “The Florentine Ruling Group under the ‘governo popolare,’ 1494-1512,” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 7 (New Series)

(1985): 73, 78-79. Now reprinted in Cooper, Pier Soderini. The tre maggiori were the Signoria and its two advisory colleges, the Dodici Buonuomini

(Twelve Goodmen) and the Sedici Gonfalonieri delle Compagnie (Sixteen Gonfaloniers of the Companies). Francesca Klein has also observed that the preservation of the powerful office of the Auditori, which could amend legislation and was the only Medicean institution to survive the constitutional changes of 1494, also indicated the possibility for the continuation of closed, hegemonic power despite these innovations: Francesca Klein, “I] mito del governo largo: Riordinamento istituzionale e prassi politica nella

Notes to Pages 56—58 301 Firenze savonaroliana,” in Studi savonaroliani: Verso il V centenario, ed. Gian

Carlo Garfagnini (Florence: Sismel, 1996), 61-66. 29. See for example Guicciardini, Dialogo e discorsi, 43-46. 30. See for example the glowing praise of Bernardo Segni, born ten years after its creation and writing post-1550: Bernardo Segni, Storie fiorentine di Messer Bernardo Segni, gentiluomo fiorentino, dall’anno MDXXVII al MDLV, 3 vols. (Milan:

Societa Tipografica de’ Classici Italiani, 1805), 1:24-25. 31. See Edward Muir, “The Sources of Civil Society in Italy,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 29, no. 3 (1999): 383-392; Hans Conrad Peyer, Citta e santi patroni nell’Italia medievale, trans. Claudia Carduff (Florence: Le Lettere, 1998); Augustine Thompson, Cities of God: The Religion of the Italian Communes,

1125—1325 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005). 32. See the nuanced discussion in Dale Kent, Cosimo de’ Medici and the Florentine Renaissance: The Patron’s Oeuvre (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,

2000), 131-136. 33. See Richard C. Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence (Ithaca, N Y: Cornell

University Press, 1980), I-8, 49—-SO. 34. Weinstein, Savonarola and Florence, 35—S6. 35. Girolamo Savonarola, Prediche sopra Aggeo con il Trattato circa il reggimento e

governo della citta di Firenze, ed. Luigi Firpo (Rome: Angelo Belardetti, 1965), 132, 224.

36. For analysis of Savonarola’s poltical thinking see Gian Carlo Garfagnini, “La predicazione sopra Aggeo e i Salmi,” in Savonarola e la politica, ed. Gian

Carlo Garfagnini (Florence: Sismel, 1997), 3-25; Guidubaldo Guidi, “La politica e lo stato nel Savonarola,” in Garfagnini, Studi savonaroliani, 23-34: Guidi, “Il Savonarola e la participazione alla vita politica,” in Savonarole: Enjeux, débats, questions, ed. Anna Fontes, Jean-Louis Fournel, and Michel Plaisance (Paris: Centre Interuniversitaire de Recherche sur la Renaissance Italienne, 1997), 35-44; Claudio Leonardi, “Savonarola e la politica nelle prediche sopra |’ Esodo e nel Trattato circa el reggimento e governo della citta di

Firenze,” in Garfagnini, Savonarola e la politica, 75-89; Weinstein, Savonarola and Florence.

37. Savonarola, Prediche sopra Aggeo, 232. See also pp. 133, 135, 167-168, 214, 419.

38. Ibid., 476-477. 39. See Albertini, Firenze dalla repubblica, 15-16, 135—139. Savonarola’s push for

moral reform and greater charity also had an enduring legacy in sixteenthcentury Florence, outlasting the final extinction of the Consiglio Maggiore in 1530. See, most recently, Nicholas Terpstra, Lost Girls: Sex and Death in

Renaissance Florence (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), 113-147 esp.; Sharon T. Strocchia, “The Nun Apothecaries of Renaissance Florence: Marketing Medicines in the Convent,” Renaissance Studies 25, no. § (2011): 627-647.

302 Notes to Pages 59—61 40. The best description of these events remains Felix Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini: Politics and History in Sixteenth-Century Florence (New York: W. W.

Norton, 1984), §8—74. See also the interesting discussion on the differences over taxation and the manner in which financial policy became a tool of partisan conflict in Anzilotti, La crisi costituzionale, 1-22. At. Albertini, Firenze dalla repubblica, 19; Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini,

737A: 42. On the political conflicts of the period under Soderini see Butters, Governors and Government, 66—74 esp.; Cooper, Pier Soderini.

43. On Strozzi’s marriage see Melissa Meriam Bullard, Filippo Strozzi and the Medici: Favor and Finance in Sixteenth-Century Florence and Rome (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1980), 45—60. 44. Jacopo Nardi, Istorie della citta di Firenze, ed. Agenore Gelli, 2 vols. (Florence: Felice le Monnier, 1858), 2:9—11. A pieve was a baptismal church. On Albizzi’s association with the Rucellai circle see Rosemary Devonshire Jones, Francesco Vettori: Florentine Citizen and Medici Servant (London: Athlone

Press, 1972), 56—$9. On his friendship with Filippo Strozzi, which resulted in his being investigated for his role in the 1508 marriage, see Bullard, Filippo Strozzi, 4-5, 47, 49 and $3. See also the undated letter from Strozzi to Albizzi, which he clearly wrote between July 1508 and January 1509 (based on internal evidence), in which he discusses the legal difficulties provoked by the marriage: ASF, CS, Serie 3, 134: §1r—v.

45. ASF, CS, Serie I, §: 72, Bernardo da Bibbiena, in Rome, to Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici, 4 March 1512: “quelli Cittadini di drento.” See also the letters from Bibbiena to Cardinal de’ Medici from the previous year, which although still encrypted make clear the role of Medicean sympathizers and agents within Florence: CS, Serie 1, 6: 7r—8r, 27r—28r, 38r—39v, 68r, and 174r. 46. ASF, OGBR, 148: 253v, 256v, 258r, 266v—2.67r, and 272r. 47. Alammano d’Averardo Salviati sat on the Dieci on four occasions. He actually died early in 1510, prior to Guicciardini’s embassy to Spain, but his political legacy arguably influenced his son-in-law’s appointment. 48. Cooper, Pier Soderini, 258. Following Charles VIII's invasion of the Italian peninsula in 1494 Italy had become the principal battleground for the French and Spanish monarchs and the German emperor vying for predominance in Western Europe and for possession of the Kingdom of Naples and the Duchy of Milan. On the course of the Italian wars see the useful analysis in Giuseppe Galasso, Dalla “liberta d'Italia’ alle “preponderanze straniere”

(Naples: Editoriale Scientifica, 1997), 15-59. 49. The Florentine government had also agreed, reluctantly, to host a general council of the church, against the wishes of Julius IT, at Pisa at the behest of

Notes to Pages 62—64 303 the French king. On papal-Florentine relations under Soderini see Butters, Governors and Government, 140-165.

50. ASF, CS, Serie I, 360: 28v, Jacopo Guicciardini, in Florence, to Francesco Guicciardini, 3 September 1512: “sarebbe cosa lagrimosa a narrare la gran crudelta che e vanno facto vituperate le donne et taglieggiatele soddomitati e fanciulli et mandato a bordello tucti e munisteri chi non v’é stato morto ve prigione.” See also Nardi, Istorie, 1:424—425. Cerretani, Storia fiorentina, 440-441. Raffaello da Ricasoli, in a letter dated 3 September 1512, also reported the figure of four thousand killed at Prato: ASF, Archivio Ricasoli, Parte Antica, Filza 51: doc. 32. 51. ASF, CS, Serie I, 360: 38r.

52. ASF, CS, Serie I, 360: 28r, Jacopo Guicciardini, in Florence, to Francesco Guicciardini, 3 September 1512: “qui la cipta qui drento era pieno di confusione et di timore perché el Gonfaloniere govenare le cose all’usato ... molti huomini da

bene ci erono mal contenti.” The text in italics was originally encrypted.

53. Bartolomeo Cerretani, Ricordi, ed. Giuliana Berti (Florence: Olschki, 1993), 276, 279. 54. For details of the coup d’état see ASF, CS, Serie 1, 360: 28r—29v and CS, Serie 3, 178: 67. See also Nardi, Istorie, 1:427—430; Cooper, Pier Soderini,

253-280. 55. On Buondelmonti’s links with Strozzi and Antonfrancesco degli Albizzi see Bullard, Filippo Strozzi, 47, 49. On his father Filippo’s association with Bernardo Rucellai see Jones, Francesco Vettori, 59. Bartolomeo Cerretani identified Filippo Buondelmonti as one of the staunchest partisans of the Medici in September 1512: Cerretani, Ricordi, 282-283. 56. See Luca Gatti, “Displacing Images and Devotion in Renaissance Florence: The Return of the Medici and an Order of 1513 for the Davit and the Judit,” Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa: Classe di lettere ¢ filosofia Serie 3, 23

(1993): 352, n. 9. 57. Consultee pratiche 1505—1512, ed. Denis Fachard (Geneva: Librarie Droz,

1988), 316-365. On the institution of the pratiche see Felix Gilbert, “Florentine Political Assumptions in the Period of Savonarola and Soderini,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 20, no. 3/4 (1957):

187-195. 58. Consultee pratiche 1505—1512, 351, 353, 362.

59. On the general lack of support for the family in Florence in September 1512 see the illustrative description of Cardinal Giovanni’s less-than-triumphant entry to the city on the fourteenth described in Cerretani, Ricordi, 285. 60. ASF, CS, Serie I, 360: 29r, Jacopo Guicciardini, in Florence, to Francesco Guicciardini, 3 September 1512: “Furno tucti huomini populari et squintittati con gran cautela che é non fussino amici de’ medici.” (The text in italics was

304 Notes to Pages 65—66 originally encrypted.) See also CS, Serie 3, 178: 67. Filippo Strozzi, in Florence, to Lorenzo Strozzi, in Lucca, 2 September 1512: “crearono stamani e collegi per el consiglio piagnoni tutti.” Piagnoni (Bewailers) was a pejorative label applied to the supporters of Savonarola. 61. See Butters, Governors and Government, 173-175.

62. Cerretani, Ricordi, 282. Palleschi was the contemporary label for Medici partisans, referring to the six red palle (balls) of the family’s arms. See also Cerretani’s descriptions of the debates within the Mediceans about how to

proceed, at 282-283, 285-286. 63. See Najemy, Corporatism and Consensus, 264-267, 299-300. Importantly, a parlamento did not vote on specific proposals. Instead the Signoria would request the election of a balia empowered to consider and make any changes. 64. ASF, Balie, 43: 2r. The seven men permitted to hold any office, despite their age, were Bartolomeo di Filippo Valori, Giuliano di Lorenzo de’ Medici, Maso di Luca degli Albizzi, Benedetto di Filippo Buondelmonti, Giovanni di Messer Guidantonio Vespucci, Antonfrancesco di Luca degli Albizzi, and Francescantonio di Francesco Nori. Apart from Nori all these men can be identified as participants in the coup of 31 August. Nori’s distinction came from his father, Francesco, who died defending Lorenzo il Magnifico from assassination in 1478. 65. ASF, CS Serie 1, 360: 43r. On the Carnival festivities of this year see Nicholas Scott Baker, “Medicean Metamorphoses: Carnival in Florence, 1513,” Renaissance Studies 25, no. 4 (2011): 491—$10. Some scholars have

objected that because Vasari identifies “Filippo Strozzi vecchio” as the patron of Piero di Cosimo’s panel, the patron was actually Filippo di Matteo Strozzi, father of the Filippo identified here: see for example Mina Bacci, Piero di Cosimo (Milan: Bramante, 1966), 106-107. This argument fails to account for the fact that by the mid-sixteenth century, when Vasari wrote the second version of the Vite, Filippo di Filippo (by then dead himself) could reasonably be identified as “Filippo Strozzi vecchio” to distinguish him from his younger and still living namesakes: Filippo di Matteo and Filippo di Carlo Strozzi. The overt Medicean elements seem more in keeping with the political and personal attachments of the son than with those of the father. 66. Butters, Governors and Government, 207-208. 67. ASF, MAP, 132: 91r—94v. See also Francesco Guicciardini, Le lettere: Edizione

critica (1514-1517), ed. Pierre Jodogne, vol. 2 (Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano

per Eta Moderna e Contemporanea, 1987), 58-59. 68. On the association between The Liberation of Andromeda and Carnival see Luciano Berti, Pontormo e il suo tempo (Ponte alle Grazie: Banca Toscana / Casa Editrice Le Lettere, 1993), 114—115; Anna Forlani Tempesti and Elena

Notes to Pages 67—68 305 Capretti, Piero di Cosimo: Catalogo completo (Florence: Octavo [Franco

Cantini], 1996), 140-141. Compare also the affinities between the panel and three surviving canvases from the 1513 Carnival produced by Andrea del Sarto—Piero di Cosimo’s onetime student and still close associate: Andrea del Sarto 1486—1530: Dipinti e disegni a Firenze (Milan: Gruppo Zelig /

D’Angeli Haesler, 1986), 106—107; John Shearman, “Pontormo and Andrea del Sarto, 1513,” Burlington Magazine 104, no. 716 (1962): 478-483: idem, Andrea del Sarto, 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965), 1:29, 79, 2:213—214. Strozzi and Piero di Cosimo had collaborated on Carnival floats previously: Bullard, Filippo Strozzi, 4-5; Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, trans. Gaston de Vere, 2 vols. (New York:

Alfred A. Knopf, 1996), 1:652—654. 69. On David and Hercules in Florentine iconography see Adrian W. B. Randolph, Engaging Symbols: Gender, Politics and Public Art in Fifteenth-Century

Florence (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002); Patricia Simons, “Separating the Men from the Boys: Masculinities in Early Quattrocento Florence and Donatello’s Saint George,” in Rituals, Images, and Words: Varieties of Cultural Expression in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. F. W. Kent and

Charles Zika (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2005), 147-176; Maria Monica Donato, “Hercules and David in the Early Decoration of the Palazzo Vecchio: Manuscript Evidence,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes

54 (1991): 83—98. On the analogous use of David and also Judith in the civic iconography of Imperial Cities in Germany, see Robert von Friedburg, “Civic Humanism and Republican Citizenship in Early Modern Germany,” in Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage, ed. Martin van Gelderen and

Quentin Skinner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 134-135. 70. See Karla Langedijk, The Portraits of the Medici, 15th—18th Centuries, trans.

Patricia Wardle, 3 vols. (Florence: Studio per edizioni scelte, 1981), 40. 71. Janet Cox-Rearick, Dynasty and Destiny in Medici Art: Pontormo, Leo X, and the Two

Cosimos (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 17-27. 72. Compare with the use of laurel by Andrea del Sarto in the panels he executed for the 1513 Carnival: Shearman, “Pontormo and Andrea del Sarto”: idem, Andrea del Sarto, 2:213—-214.

73. Compare with Cox-Rearick, Dynasty and Destiny, 25. 74. Langedijk, Portraits of the Medici, 27-28, 1168-1169, 1171.

75. ASF, CS Serie 1, 360: 29r, Jacopo Guicciardini, in Florence, to Francesco Guicciardini, 3 September 1512: “venuta che fu qui la novella dete a ciascuno tanto

horrore et spavento che non si potrebbe exprimere per tutto si sentiva pianti et romori

sghomberavonsi tucte le boteghe tucte le case et pienonsi e munisteri di donne et assai s’‘uscirono di firenze ... vedendo el pericolo manifesto et reputandoso

questo disordine solo venire dal Gonfaloniere si comincio pel popolo a dire che

306 Notes to Pages 68—70 per salvare un solo non era da mettere a pericolo un popolo.” Text in italics was originally encrypted. 76. ASF, CS Serie 3, 178: doc. 67, Filippo Strozzi, in Florence, to Lorenzo Strozzi, in Lucca, 2 September 1512: “vedono la citta in evidente pericolo.” Strozzi is referring specifically to the Ottanta. See also Cerretani, Ricordi, 279; idem, Storia fiorentina, 441.

77. ASF, CS, Serie 3, 178: doc. 90, Filippo Strozzi, in Florence, to Lorenzo Strozzi, 18 September 1512: “tutto e loro inimici in palazzo”; “impedito ogni ingiuria contro alla rabbia di molti che gridoranno carne.” 78. On the creation and promotion of the myth of the Laurentian golden age see E. H. Gombrich, “Renaissance and Golden Age,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 24, no. 3/4 (1961): 306-309. 79. Butters, Governors and Government, 225—227.

80. Ibid., 188-189. 81. ASF, Tratte, 906: 81r—82v and 187r. The sixteen men were Lanfredino di Jacopo Lanfredini (6), Jacopo di Giovanni Salviati (9), Filippo di Lorenzo Buondelmonti (5), Roberto di Donato Acciaiuoli (7), Lorenzo di Niccolo Benintendi (5), Antonio d’Averardo Serristori (6), Pandolfo di Bernardo Corbinelli (8), Lorenzo di Matteo Morelli (8), Jacopo di Bongianni Gianfigliazzi (7), Matteo di Lorenzo Strozzi (8), Luigi d’Agnolo della Stufa (9), Luca di Maso degli Albizzi (10), Piero di Niccolo Ridolfi (9), Matteo di Simone Cini (5), Matteo d’Agnolo Niccolini (6), and Gherardo di Bertoldo Corsini (5). On the inner circle of the reggimento see also Butters, Governors and Government, 250—257 and 281-84. On the increased importance and power of the Otto di Pratica after 1512 see Anzilotti, La crisi costituzionale, 101-102; Bullard, Filippo Strozzi, 39-40. 82. Defined as sitting on one of the tre maggiori, the Ottanta, or the Dieci: ASF, Tratte, 717: 167v—189r; 719: 3r—18v; 905: 125r—126v; and 906: 471-47; and Herlihy et al., “Online Tratte of Office Holders.” 83. Anzilotti, La crisi costituzionale, 83-120. 84. Francesco Vettori, “Tre pareri di Francesco Vettori, anno 1531-32,” ed. Gino Capponi, Archivio storico italiano 1 (1842): 434. Vettori was explaining why abolishing the Signoria would succeed. 85. Bartolomeo Cerretani consistently identified three-quarters of the city (by which he meant the office-holding class) as only tolerating and increasingly being disastified with the Medici stato of 1512—27: see Cerretani, Ricordi, 315-316, 377, 380, 393, 398, 417, 433. 86. ASF, CS Serie, 1, 360: 39r, Luigi Guicciardini, in Florence, to Francesco Guicciardini, 23 October 1512: “l’universale veduto la liberalita et humanita de’ Medici si va assicurando et ha optima speranza habbino andare di bene in megl[iJo.”

Notes to Pages 71—73 307 87. On the office holding of the three men see Herlihy et al., “Online Tratte of Office Holders.” On Lorenzo’s role as an operaio see F. W. Kent, Lorenzo de’ Medici and the Art of Magnificence (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,

2004). Both Cosimo and Lorenzo also served as canal officials: see p. 24. 88. ASF, Tratte, 906: Gv, 66v, 8Ir—v; and 719: 2IVv.

89. ASF, Tratte, 719: 27v, 29r, and 35v. Lorenzo was also recorded as being absent on the only other occasions that his name was drawn for the Cento: 25v and 37v. 90. See for example ASF, CS, Serie I, 3: Sv. 91. See Brown, “Lorenzo, the Monte.” 92. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 3: 13r, Lorenzo de’ Medici, in Florence, to Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, 29 October 1513: “altro non penso né altro desidero per cominciare a gustar’ qualche fructo della felicita di N[ostro] S[ignore].” See also 37r: Letter from Lorenzo de’ Medici to Alfonsina Orsini de’ Medici, 28 January 1514: “io mi voglio dare piacere hora che io sono giovane et che io posso per havere un papa.” 93. Guicciardini, Le lettere (1514-1517), 419. As Guicciardini’s name does not actually appear to have been drawn for the position, he was probably most likely responding to a proposal that he be “seen” as gonfaloniere, perhaps misunderstood in its transmission from Florence. Either way the actual outcome does not affect the significance of his open preferment for advancement in papal rather than Florentine offices. For other examples of Florentines seeking preferment in Rome see ASF, CS, Serie 3, 134: 170r; MAP, 108: docs. 147-148. 94. Guicciardini, Dialogo e discorsi, 269. 95. On the relationship between Rome and Florence and on Medici dynastic ambitions between 1513 and 1519 see Jones, Francesco Vettori, 85-142: Stephens, Fall of the Florentine Republic, 95-163; Butters, Governors and Govern-

ment, 187-307. The behavior of the Medici, in relation to the papacy, was not unique: see Peter Partner, Renaissance Rome, 1500-1559: A Portrait of a Society

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 10-11; Christine Shaw, Julius U: The Warrior Pope (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), 9-50; Charles L. Stinger, The Renaissance in Rome, 2nd ed. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), 83—96; Caroline Castiglione, Patrons and Adversaries: Nobles and

Villagers in Italian Politics, 1640-1760 (New York: Oxford University Press,

2005). 96. ASF, CS, Serie I, 156: doc. 70, Francesco del Nero, in Florence, to Cardinal Giovanni Salviati, in Parma, 8 April 1525: “io ho voto questa cipta d’oro... che non é restato ducati né a luoghi pii né a profani. Et ho spogliato fino ad li hebrei et tutto per satisfare ad la santita di nostro S[igno]re.” 97. Cerretani, Ricordi, 320. See also 350, 367.

308 Notes to Pages 73—75 98. Guicciardini, Le lettere (1514-1517), 37.

99. ASF, MAP, 143: doc. 87, Benedetto Buondelmonti, in Rome, to Goro Gheri, in Florence, 29 June 1518: “La nota della nuova signoria se auta e mons|igno|re R[everendi]x[i]mo apruova tutta.” 100. ASF, MAP, 143: doc. 24, Benedetto Buondelmonti to Goro Gheri, in Florence, 1§ January 1519: “ho dua di vostra S[igno]ria de xii e xiii alle quali fard poca risposta perche N[ostro] S[ignore] é in chastello et con S[ua] S[anti]ta monsfigno]r’ R[everendi]x[i]mo et questo giorno é chavalchato alla sua vignia dove fa murar’ in forma non li possuto conferir’ il contenuto di essa vostra ad S[ua] Sligno]ria R[everendi]x[i]ma.” 101. See the examples listed in Stephens, Fall of the Florentine Republic, 127-128.

Leo bestowed cardinal’s hats upon several Florentines and Medici servants, including his cousin Giulio di Giuliano de’ Medici and nephews Giovanni di Jacopo Salviati, Niccolo di Piero Ridolf, and Innocenzo di Franceschetto Cibo: see Nardi, Istorie, 2:28—29 and 36. Francesco Guicciardini became, first, governor of Modena and, then, of Reggio also. Filippo de’ Nerli followed Guicciardini in the administration of Modena. Girolamo degli Albizzi became Captain of the Papal Horse. Filippo Strozzi benefited, perhaps, more than most, becoming Depositor General of the Apostolic Chamber: see Bullard, Filippo Strozzi, 91-118. 102. ASF, MAP, 143: doc. 4, Benedetto Buondelmonti to Lorenzo de’ Medici, 19 September 1518: “disordine et mala contentezza nella chasa de pandolfini.” See also 143: 5.

103. ASF, MAP, 143: docs. 41-43. 104. Barbara McClung Hallman, Italian Cardinals, Reform, and the Church as Property (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), analyzes one significant aspect of the way Italian elites’ fortunes became intertwined with the church’s in the sixteenth century. 105. ASF, CS, Serie 3, 178: §7. 106. See Buondelmonti’s references to Albizzi’s position in ASF, MAP 143: docs. 19 and 21. 107. ASF, MAP, 116: doc. 368. 108. Niccolé Machiavelli, Machiavelli and His Friends: Their Personal Correspondence,

trans. James B. Atkinson and James Sices (DeKalb: Northen Illinois University Press, 1996), 318, 328. 109. On the conspiracy against Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici see “Documenti della congiura fatta contro il Cardinale Giulio de’ Medici nel 1522,” ed. Cesare Guasti, Giornale storico degli archivi toscani 3 (1859): 121-150, 185-232,

239-267. On the place of Albizzi in the conspirators’ plans see specifically 243-245. 110. On Leo X’s politico-military policies and the struggle for supremacy in Italy see most recently R. J. Knecht, Renaissance Warrior and Patron: The Reign

Notes to Pages 76—78 309 of Francis I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 62-104, 165-248; Maurizio Gattoni, Leone X e la geo-politica dello stato pontificio

(1513-21) (Vatican City: Archivio Segreto Vaticano, 2000); James D. Tracy, Emperor Charles V, Impresario of War: Campaign Strategy, International

Finance, and Domestic Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

2002), 39-49. 111. Biblioteca Riccardiana, MS 4133: 20r, Antonfrancesco degli Albizzi, in Modena, to Pierfrancesco Portinari, 21 November 1527: “per satisfar’ alle sue passion particular’ et alla ambition’ di quelli.” See also I5v, 211. 112. Guicciardini, Le lettere (1514-1517), 79.

113. ASF, MAP, 132: doc. 669, Alfonsina Orsini de’ Medici, in Florence, to Lorenzo de’ Medici, 7 September 1515: “gl’usava dire che pregassimo idio che le cose andassino bene et che quando andassino altrimenti che lui saria de primi andare in piaza a gridar’ popolo.” The invocation of popolo e liberta (the people and liberty) was the traditional rallying cry for revolution in Florence. 114. Guicciardini, Le lettere (1514-1517), 105.

115. Stephens, Fall of the Florentine Republic, 103. Melissa Meriam Bullard examines

in detail the financial manipulations that occurred between 1512 and 1527 under the aegis of Strozzi: Bullard, Filippo Strozzi, 40-42, 87-89. Fora broader, if less thorough, examination of the financial benefits reaped by certain individuals during the 1510s see Stephens, Fall of the Florentine Republic, 124-139.

116. On the second Urbino war see Francesco Vettori, Scritti storici e politici, ed. Enrico Niccolini (Bari: Laterza, 1972), 177-182; Francesco Guicciardini, Storia d'Italia, ed. Franco Catalano, 3 vols (n.p.: Mondadori, 1975), 2:619— 625; Butters, Governors and Government, 293-297. 117. Guicciardini, Le lettere (1514-1517), 399-400, 409-410. 118. ASF, CS, Serie I, 130: §6r, Jacopo Guicciardini, in Florence, to Francesco Guicciardini, in Modena, 12 May 1517: “la brighata ci é mal contenta” (see also 74v); ibid., 59r, Jacopo Guicciardini, in Florence, to Francesco Guicciardini, in Modena, 14 May 1517: “Qui si stain gran’ Suspitione et in gran’ timore et ognuno c’é malcontento come meritono le qualita di questi

tempi...in modo che se costoro ci vogliono fare male lo possono fare senza alcuna fatica.” Compare with the similar reports of dissatisfaction in Cerretani, Ricordi, 346; and even of hopes for a French victory that would lead to the expulsion of the Medici recalled by Niccold di Luigi Guicciardini in a discourse written either in late 1518 or early 1519: Albertini, Firenze dalla repubblica, 371.

119. Ibid., 62r, Luigi Guicciardini, in Florence, to Francesco Guicciardini, in Modena, 18 May 1517: “nessuno dubita che noi siamo a discretione de’ nimici”; ibid., 67r, Luigi Guicciardini, in Florence, to Francesco

310 Notes to Pages 78—80 Guicciardini, in Modena, 22 May 1517: “qui non é ducati né cervello né unione: in modo che e da preghar’ iddio che tanto male non segua.” 120. Ibid., 62r—v and 63r. 121. Guicciardini, Le lettere (1514-1517), 40, 44.

122. ASF, MAP, 108: doc. 147. 123. ASF, CS, Serie 3, 134: 136r, Benedetto Buondelmonti, in Rome, to Filippo Strozzi, Gherardo Bartolini, and Francesco [Vettori?], “at the side of the Most Illustrious Lord Duke,” 20 July 1518: “non vorrei aver’ a ogni hora a dubitar’ che ogni ribaldello o schiaghurato mi havessi a nuocer’ perché mi truovo 39 anni et vorrei horamai dar’ nome di me di homo et non di uno putto.” Bartolomeo Cerretani similarly recorded widespread dissatisfaction and dissension within the ranks of the Medici’s supporters: Cerretani, Ricordi, 315—316, 350.

124. ASF, MAP, 108: doc. 147, Benedetto Buondelmonti, in Rome, to Filippo Strozzi, in Florence, 17 May 1515: “pieno d’invidia d’ambition d’avaritia de malignita.” 125. Guicciardini, Le lettere (1514-1517), 59. On the hostility toward Galeotto de’ Medici and Gheri see Benedetto Varchi, Storia frorentina di Benedetto Varchi, ed.

Lelio Arbib, 3 vols. (Florence: Societa Editrice delle Storie del Nardi e del Varchi, 1843-44), 1:77. The position of Medici agents and creatures in positions of influence had provoked discontent during the 1480s and 1490s also. Following the expulsion Lorenzo il Magnifico’s sons the Signoria had several such men arrested, and one (Antonio di Bernardo Miniati) was summarily hanged. See the discussion of the social tensions provoked by these Medici secretaries in Brown, “Lorenzo de’ Medici’s New Men.” 126. ASF, MAP, 108: doc. 147, Benedetto Buondelmonti, in Rome, to Filippo Strozzi, in Florence, 17 May 1515: “la rovina della citta”; “tanta autorita.” Buondelmonti ascribed this opinion to an unnamed woman, possibly Lucrezia Salviati de’ Medici, who had expressed it in conversation with Bartolomeo Valori. Niccolo Guicciardini succinctly captured the attitude of the Florentine office-holding class toward this election and also the shadow cast by Roman history in the formation of this attitude in his 1518-19 discourse: Albertini, Firenze dalla repubblica, 369. 127. Guicciardini, Le lettere (1514-1517), 54—55. See also 58-59: “Lui ordinaria-

mente va in habito militare.” Compare Cerretani, Ricordi, 327. 128. Cerretani, Storia fiorentina, 44.4; Jacopo Pitti, “Storia florentina di Iacopo Pitti illustrata con documenti e note,” ed. Filippo-Luigi Polidori, Archivio storico italiano 1 (1842): 103. See also Lodovico Alamanni’s comments (made in 1516) on appearance, government, and political ideology reprinted in Albertini, Firenze dalla repubblica, 383.

129. Guicciardini, Le lettere (1514-1517), 58-59. The term universale could refer

either to that part of the office-holding class not considered patricians or to

Notes to Pages 80—83 311 the entire office-holding class—in this case it probably carries the former meaning, but it could be either. See also 54—55: “ha facto una brigata di giovani che usono ]a, tra’ quali é Prinzivalle et simili.” Bartolomeo Cerretani named Prinzivalle della Stufa, Leonardo di Lorenzo Tornabuoni, Niccolo di Giovanni Orlandi, Giovanni d’Antonio Rucellai, Mariotto d’Agnolo Benevenuti, Iacopo di Lodovico Morelli, Iacopo di Dionigi Pucci, Alessandro della Casa, Francesco di Lodovico Capponi, Carlo Panciatichi, Antonio di Giovanni Bonaffe, Luigi di Domenico Alamanni, Gennaio “a silk dyer,” and Betto “a papermaker” as the young men who became Lorenzo’s courtiers, “abandoning the cappuccio and donning soldier’s clothing”: Cerretani, Ricordi, 327. 130. See Francesco Guicciardini, Le lettere: Edizione critica (gennaio 1519 —giugno 1520),

ed. Pierre Jodogne (Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per l’Eta Moderna e Contemporanea, 1991), 172. 131. Ibid., 174, 178-179. 132. Albertini, Firenze dalla repubblica, 364.

133. Antonio Anzilotti, Alison Brown, and Roberto Bizzocchi have all argued, with differing emphases, that a courtly mentality had taken hold of the majority of the patriciate by the early decades of the sixteenth century: Anzilotti, La crisi costituzionale, 97-98 esp.; Roberto Bizzocchi, “La crisi del ‘vivere civile’ a Firenze nel primo Cinquecento,” in Forme e tecniche del potere

nella citta (secoli XIV—XVI}), ed. Sergio Bertelli (Perugia: Universita di

Perugia, 1979-80), 87-103; Brown, “Lorenzo de’ Medici’s New Men.” 134. ASF, MAP, 143: doc. 154, Benedetto Buondelmonti, in Viterbo, to Goro Gheri, in Florence, 25 September 1518: “quello consiglio grande et modo di reggimento era pitt amato che questo d’oggi.” On the enduring attachment to the Consiglio Maggiore see for example Bartolomeo Cerratani’s positive description of it: Cerretani, Ricordi, 270. 135. See Albertini, Firenze dalla repubblica, 67-85.

136. Ibid., 33-36, 376-384. Lodovico was the brother of Luigi, who participated in the 1522 conspiracy against Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici. It is difficult to judge to what extent Lodovico’s discourse represented his actual views. 137. I agree with Gilbert on this point: Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini, ix. 138. Albertini, Firenze dalla repubblica, 362. On Gheri’s use of “friends” and “friendship” see K. J. P. Lowe, “Towards an Understanding of Goro Gheri’s Views on amicizia in Early Sixteenth-Century Medicean Florence,” in Florence and Italy: Renaissance Studies in Honour of Nicolai Rubinstein, ed. Peter

Denley and Caroline Elam (London: Committee for Medieval Studies, Westfield College, University of London, 1988), 91-105. 139. Guicciardini, Le lettere (1514-1517), 7—8.

140. ASF, MAP, 116: doc. 630, Filippo de’ Nerli, in Florence, to Lorenzo de’ Medici, in Rome, 27 December 1514: “mi pare quasi necessario mentre mio

312 Notes to Pages 83—89 padre vive che si truova oramai 6§ anni o pit che lui sia honorato di questo segno acciocheé io doppio lui con’! suo mantello possa pit facilmente godere et faire li honori.” 141. ASF, MAP, 116: doc. 20, Lorenzo Cambi, in Florence, to Lorenzo de’ Medici, in Rome, 4 January 1515: “delo onore e degnita datami.” 142. Phil Withington, “Public Discourse, Corporate Citizenship, and State Formation in Early Modern England,” American Historical Review 112, no. 4

(2007): 1017-1018 esp. Arguably, during the period of 1494—1512 and again in 1527-30, the consulte e pratiche gave institutional form to this civic public sphere: on this point see Albertini, Firenze dalla repubblica, 10; Anzilotti, La crisi costituzionale, 90. As the pratiche did not meet during the Medicean regime of 1512—27, correspondence serves as the principal record of this exchange of ideas and opinions, which otherwise occurred only face to face. 143. See other examples from the period: ASF, CS, Serie 1 360: doc. 39; Serie 3: docs. 109, 323; Archivio Ricasoli, Parte Antica, Filza 32: Fascio 1, Fascetto 4, doc. I; Filza 51: Fascio I, Fascetto I, docs. 32, 34. 144. ASF, CS, Serie I, 3: 16v, Lorenzo de’ Medici to Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, 2 November 1513: “per mantener’ le cose in pit reputatione et monstrar’ di volere richerchar’ il consiglio et parere di quelli che sono proposti all Citta delle cose della Citta et volere maturamente examinare tucto...iudicato a

proposito di non dare al presente altra commissione al prefato Messer Goro.” 145. Berti, Pontormo e il suo tempo, 44-47; Philippe Costamagna, Pontormo, trans.

Alberto Curotto (Milan: Electra, 1994), 150-152; Vasari, Lives of the Painters, 2:353. 146. Filippo de’ Nerli, Commentar dei fatti civili occorsi dentro la citta di Firenze dall ‘anno

1215 al 1537, 2 vols. (Trieste: Colombo Coen, 1859), 2:18.

147. The original Virgilian text refers to the golden bough required as an offering to Persephone by any who would enter the underworld: Aeneid, bk. 6: 143-144. 148. See Cox-Rearick, Dynasty and Destiny, 41-59. 149. Guicciardini, Dialogo e discorsi, 33.

150. Only two modern historians have attempted analysis of the period: Stephens, Fall of the Florentine Republic; Jones, Francesco Vettori. See also Melissa

Bullard’s consideration of the financial relationship between Florence and Rome in the early years of Clement VII’s pontificate: Bullard, Filippo Strozzi, 119-150. Stephens, on page 164, referred to the years between 1523 and 1527 as “the hardest to describe in Florentine history of the early sixteenth century, perhaps in all Florentine history since the fourteenth century,” precisely because of the scarcity of archival sources in comparison with earlier periods.

Notes to Pages 89—92 313 IS1. Francesco Guicciardini, Le lettere: Edizione critica (aprile 1522—giugno 1523), ed.

Pierre Jodogne (Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per l’Eta Moderna e Contemporanea, 1999), 91. For additional examples see also ASF, CS, Serie 3, 110: 232v; and Acquisti e Doni, 68: doc. 32. 152. ASF, Tratte, 906: 8Ir—82v and 187r. Certain of the sixteen individuals became more prominent after 1519—Piero Ridolfi, Matteo Niccolini, and Francesco Vettori most notably—and some became less so: Lanfredino Lanfredini, Filippo Buondelmonti, and Antonio Serristori. One of the sixteen, Gherardo Corsini, did not sit on the Otto until after the death of Lorenzo. Bartolomeo Cerretani recorded the enlargement of office holding from 1520, much to the displeasure (he wrote) of the Medici’s most vehement supporters: Cerretani, Ricordi, 365, 369, 377 153. ASF, CS, Serie 3, 108: §8r, Filippo Strozzi, in Rome, to Lorenzo Strozzi, in Florence, 23 December 1523: “essere necessario girare le faccende et dare la riputatione a tutta alla casa et non al palazo onde sarebbe pit inclinato al mandare costi un cortona che al pigliarla per questo altro verso.” Silvio Passerini was bishop of Cortona from November 1521, and contemporaries regularly referred to him by his episcopal title. 154. ASF, CS, Serie 3, 108: 64r, 65r. 155. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 154: 204, Giovanbattista da Verrazzano, in Ferrara, to Cardinal Giovanni Salviati, in Piacenza, 21 February 1525: “che a quella sara facile con una sua littera inpetrarllo dal R[everendi]x[i]mo monsfigno]re di Cortona.” For further examples of Passerini’s influence, see also CS, Serie I, 1§2: 22r and 1S$4r.

156. ASF, CS, Serie 3, 108: 891, Filippo Strozzi, in Rome, to Francesco Vettori, in Florence, 26 August 1526: “Duolmene perché mi pare sia un dishonorare quel segno mettendole in una persona quele né di casa né di qualita é in alchuno consideratione pure approvero sempre quello vedrd determinato dal maestro della bottega se fussi opera di cortona exclamerei.” Miniati did become gonfaloniere di giustizia for September— October 1526: Herlihy et al., “Online Tratte of Office Holders.” Compare this episode with a similar one reported by Bartolomeo Cerretani in August 1521, when Giulio de’ Medici (still only a cardinal) overruled the wishes of the inner circle in order to install Antonio di Guglielmo Pazzi as gonfaloniere: Cerretani, Ricordi, 375. 157. On hostility toward Cardinal Passerini see also Varchi, Storia forentina, 1:77—78.

158. Ibid., 1:74—75. Note that Goro Gheri, in 1519 following the death of Lorenzo, had proposed Ippolito as the family’s resident figurehead in Florence: Albertini, Firenze dalla repubblica, 361. He gave no reasons for this choice, so it would seem most likely that age was the only factor that he considered. 159. ASF, Tratte, 906: 6v and G6v.

314 Notes to Pages 92—95 160. ASF, CS, Serie 3, 108: 87v, Filippo Strozzi, in Rome, to Lorenzo Strozzi, in Florence, 19 May 1526: “el Magnifico sia uno degli huomini deputati che spendendosi el nome della casa.” 161. See for example ASF, CS, Serie I, 3: 171, 42v. 162. No equivalent study of Clement VII's military policy exists for Gattoni’s analysis of the pontificate of Leo X. See, however, the consideration of Clement’s political objectives in the period after 1527 in Barbara McClung Hallman, “The ‘Disastrous’ Pontificate of Clement VII: Disastrous for Giulio de’ Medici?” in The Pontificate of Clement VII: History, Politics, Culture, ed.

Kenneth Gouwens and Sheryl E. Reiss (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2005),

29-40. 163. ASF, CS, Serie 3, 108: 84v, Filippo Strozzi, in Rome, to Niccolo Machiavelli, in Florence, 24 March 1526: “Cosi el nostro é ne’ dadi ma habbiamo cattive volte.” See also 92v, 99r. 164. Guicciardini, Dialogo e discorsi, 26.

165. Ibid., 72—73. On the various political positions of the four interlocutors in the dialogue see Francesco Guicciardini, Dialogue on the Government of Florence,

ed. Alison Brown (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), xi, xiii. 166. On the league see most recently Maurizio Arfaioli, The Black Bands of Giovanni: Infantry and Diplomacy during the Italian Wars (1526-1528) (Pisa: Edizioni

Plus—Pisa University Press, 2005). 167. Stephens, Fall of the Florentine Republic, 181. The provision, from November

1525, appointed Clement VII as syndic and procurator for Florence, empowered to treat with all and any foreign power on behalf of the city. 168. Alonso de Santa Cruz, Crénica del Emperador Carlos V, ed. Francisco de

Laiglesia y Auser, vols. 1-2 (Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 1920), 2:285. Agostino Rossi, Francesco Guicciardini e il governo fiorentino dal 1527 al 1540

(con nuovi documenti), 2 vols. (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1896), 1:8, n. 1.

169. On the details of both the tumulto del venerdi and the coup d’état of May 1527 see Marino Sanuto, I diarii di Marino Sanuto, §8 vols. (Bologna: Forni, 1970), 45:136—-I141, 155-156; Nardi, Istorie, 2:114—-122, 124-126; Varchi, Storia

fiorentina, 1:130—-178. On the May coup see also ASF, CS, Serie 1, 98: 30r—v.

170. Luigi Guicciardini, The Sack of Rome, ed. James H. McGregor (New York: Italica, 1993), 41. 171. Vettori, Scritti storici e politici, 276.

172. ASF, CS, Serie 3, 108: 921, Filippo Strozzi, in Ghinazzano, to Lorenzo Strozzi, in Florence, 27 September 1526: “mi pareva sendo quel servitore a nostro signore sai non potere né dovere in si urgente necessita sua mancargli née di questo né d’altro.”

173. On the links between the Florentine exiles and the imperials in Italy see Sanuto, I diarii, 45:26; Fra Giuliano Ughi, “Cronica di Firenze o compendio storico delle cose di Firenze dall’anno MDI al MDXLVI,” ed. Francesco

Notes to Pages 95—100 315 Frediani, Archivio storico italiano Appendice 7 (1849): 140-141. The earliest

certain reference to Strozzi’s involvement with Della Palla and Buondelmonti is a letter of 22 December 1526 from Strozzi to Giovanni Bandini. However, a letter dated only as “the seventeenth” from Strozzi to the two conspirators also exists. See ASF, Serie 1, 99: 18r—T9r. 174. ASF, Serie 3, 108: 97v, Filippo Strozzi, in Naples, to Francesco Vettori, in Rome, 30 December 1526: “questa barca di san piero ha l’acqua allo orloe tempo di fare getto di qualche parte per salvare el resto.” 175. ASF, CS, Serie I, 99: 20r, 211r—v, Filippo Strozzi, in Naples, to Battista della Palla and Zanobi Buondelmonti, in Gaeta, 30 January 1527: “fara per la citta ogni offitio si aspetta a buon cittadino”; “io sono stato giocato senza rispetto alcuno come se uno schiavo fossi”; “leggo continuamente Livio et la Politica d’Aristotile, che da l'uno mi pare trarre la pratica et dal’altro la theorica da huomo da bene et virile cittadino.” 176. ASF, CS, Serie 3, 108: I1Ir.

3. Defending Liberty 1. Marino Sanuto, I diarii di Marino Sanuto, §8 vols. (Bologna: Forni, 1970), 45:139, 137.

2. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 98: 30v, G. Spina, in Florence, to Bernardo Spina, in Cesena, 17 May 1527: “e medici si sono privati del governo la balia é extinta et il governo é hora ne’ signori et collegi né 70 et balia.” 3. Benedetto Varchi, Storia fiorentina di Benedetto Varchi, ed. Lelio Arbib, 3 vols.

(Florence: Societa Editrice delle Storie del Nardi e del Varchi, 1843-44), 1:237—239; Jacopo Nardi, Istorie della citta di Firenze, ed. Agenore Gelli, 2 vols.

(Florence: Felice le Monnier, 1858), 2:127—128; Sanuto, I diarii, 45:170. 4. The essential contemporary accounts, by men who not only witnessed but participated in the events of 1527-30, are Varchi, Storia fiorentina; and Nardi, Istorie. For a general narrative of the period no modern historian has yet surpassed Cecil Roth, The Last Florentine Republic (London: Methuen, 1925), but Salvatore Lo Re, La crisi della liberta fiorentina: Alle origini della formazione

politica e intellettuale di Benedetto Varchi e Piero Vettori (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e

Letteratura, 2006) provides a detailed complement to Roth. See also the analysis offered in Rudolf von Albertini, Firenze dalla repubblica al principato:

Storia e coscienza politica, trans. Cesare Cristolfini (Turin: Giulio Einaudi, 1970); Rosemary Devonshire Jones, Francesco Vettori: Florentine Citizen and Medici Servant (London: Athlone Press, 1972), 198-255; J. N. Stephens, The Fall of the Florentine Republic, 1512-1530 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), 203-255; Lorenzo Polizzotto, The Elect Nation: The Savonarolan Movement in Florence, 1494-1545 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994),

314-386.

316 Notes to Pages 101—102 5. Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 1:230. See also Albertini, Firenze dalla repubblica, 18,

104, 107. 6. On the election see Vincenzo Chiaroni, I Savonarola e la Repubblica Fiorentina eleggono Gesit Cristo re di Firenze (Florence: AGAF, 1952), 14—15. For the initial suggestion: Girolamo Savonarola, Prediche sopra Aggeo con il Trattato circa il reggimento e governo della citta di Firenze, ed. Luigi Firpo (Rome: Angelo

Belardetti, 1965), 421-423. 7. Alessandro Guarini, in Florence, to Alfonso I d’Este, 8 July 1528, reprinted in Agostino Rossi, Francesco Guicciardini e il governo fiorentino dal 1527 al 1540 (con

nuovi documenti), 2 vols. (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1896), 1:280.

8. ASF, Tratte, 906: 66r, 69v, 82v; ASF, Tratte, 719: 441, 48r, 52r, §8r, 68r, 70r; David Herlihy et al., “Florentine Renaissance Resources, Online Tratte of Office Holders, 1282—1532: Machine readable data file”

(Brown University: Florentine Renaissance Resources / STG, 2002), www.stg.brown.edu/projects/tratte/ (last accessed 6 July 2006). 9. Fra Giuliano Ughi, “Cronica di Firenze o compendio storico delle cose di Firenze dall’anno MDI al MDXLVI,” ed. Francesco Frediani, Archivio storico italiano Appendice 7 (1849): 156.

10. Just over 6O percent of the most prominent and regular members of the most important and restricted offices of the 1527-30 period—the Ottanta, the Dieci di Pace e Liberta, and the pratiche—possessed patrician surnames. Just under half of the members of the tre maggiori in the period were patricians (averaging 45 percent over the period between June 1527 and August 1530), compared with a slightly higher figure of around or just above 50 percent for the years between 1512 and 1527, indicating a small broadening of office-holding among the ranks of non-patricians: Herlihy et al., “Online Tratte of Office Holders.” In 1534, Alfonso Strozzi declared income of 340 florins and 9 denari, and a decima of 28 florins, 6 soldi, and 9 denari: ASF, Decima Granducale, 3616: 38v. Alessandro and Paolantonio, the sons of Tommaso Soderini, declared income of 345 florins, 6 soldi, and 3 denari, and a decima of 28 florins, 15 soldi, and 6 denari: ASF, Decima Granducale, 3578: 1S5tv. The decima was a tax on income derived from real property. As such it represents an incomplete guide to actual wealth, but the decima declarations for 1498 and 1534 constitute the only complete source for comparative analysis of the period. The median decima for (an albeit very limited) sample of seventy-five patrician men of similar age to Strozzi and Soderini declared in 1534 was twelve florins, suggesting that their wealth, although not immense, was above average. 11. On the vicissitudes of the League of Cognac after the sack of Rome and Florence’s increasingly strained relations with it see, most recently, Maurizio Arfaioli, The Black Bands of Giovanni: Infantry and Diplomacy during the

Italian Wars (1526-1528) (Pisa: Edizioni Plus—Pisa University Press, 2005).

Notes to Pages 103-108 317 Agostino Rossi provides a nuanced analysis of Capponi’s foreign policy as pragmatic and flexible: Rossi, Francesco Guicciardini, 1:106—-115.

12. Rossi, Francesco Guicciardini, 113, n. 2, 118, n. 2. In March 1529, Capponi

similarly wrote to Baldassare Carducci, the Florentine ambassador to the French court: “I am neither Spanish nor French; but wish only the health of the city”: 109. 13. ASF, Tratte, 906: 64v, 66r—v, 69v; Herlihy et al., “Online Tratte of Office Holders.” All three were also regularly drawn for the Cento, but they never actually sat on the council. 14. Francesco Guicciardini, Le lettere: Edizione critica (aprile 1522—giugno 1523), ed.

Pierre Jodogne, vol. 7 (Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per l’Eta Moderna e Contemporanea, 1999), 9I. 15. BNCF, Nazionale 2, 3, 433: 160r—IG4v. 16. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 98: 99r, Benedetto Buondelmonti, in Colle, to Giovanni

Vettori, in Volterra, 3 September 1530: “mi maraviglio non havere finito e giorni mia per dolore”; “che se la gratia di dio non mi havessi fortifichato era impossibile havessi tollerato quanto ho patito.” 17. Albertini, Firenze dalla repubblica, 226-227. 18. Francesco Guicciardini, Opere, ed. Vittorio de Caprariis (Milan: Riccardo Ricciardi, 1953), 71. 19. Ibid., 61-62. Compare the justificatory letter that Guicciardini sent the Otto di Guardia in December 1529: Francesco Guicciardini, Opere inedite di Francesco Guicciardini illustrate da Giuseppe Canestrini, ed. Piero Guicciardini and Luigi Guicciardini, vol. 10, Ricordi autobiografici e di famiglia e scritti vari

(Florence: Cellini, 1867), 133. 20. Guicciardini, Opere, 84, 75. 21. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 129: 176r, Francesco Guicciardini, in Florence, to Luigi Guicciardini, at Poppiano, 8 May 1528: “Fecionsi di 80: n’ho inteso pochi: ma mi é stato decto sono tutti ben confiderati allo stato: et sono fra pit spicciolati che di casate: in casa nostro é nessuno: et né in casa e Capponi.” 22. ASF, Tratte, 719: 80r—8 Iv. 23. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 129: 1771, Francesco Guicciardini, at Santa Margherita, to Luigi Guicciardini, 11 May 1528: “stamani andorono a partito in consiglio per haver’ beneficio molti che nella linea loro pretendono haverlo non ne vinse nessuno da 65.” 24. ASF, CS, Serie 3, 108: 1141, Filippo Strozzi, in Florence, to Lorenzo Strozzi, in Prato, 23 November 1527: “che benissimo intendo li miei felici giorni esser passati et che ogni resto di mia vita m’ha essere pitt che morte amaro.” 25. ASF, Tratte, 906: 6v, 69v—70r, 204r—v; Tratte, 907: 180r; Tratte, 719: 49r, $31, $71, 63r, 67r, and 75r; Herlihy et al., “Online Tratte of Office Holders.” 26. ASF, CS, Serie §, 1209: busta entitled “Lettere di diversi a Filippo di Filippo Strozzi dal 1 gennaio al I giugno 1537,” doc. §4, Lorenzo Strozzi, in

318 Notes to Pages 108—109 Florence, to Filippo Strozzi, in Lyon, 23 May 1529: “non ne me sono molto rallegrato perché quantunche io habbi recuperato le forze mie e disagi mi offendono né trovo cosa che pitt mi giovi che l’aria & qui bisogna stare nella citta & assiduo perché non passa mai tre giorni che la pratica per conto della S[igno]ri o de’ dieci non si raguni.... Ingegneromi non manchare del debito verso la patria & spoglieromi come io son’ solito d’ogni passione.” 27. Compare the discussion of political factionalism in the city after 1494 in Nicolai Rubinstein, “Politics and Constitution in Florence at the End of the Fifteenth Century,” in Italian Renaissance Studies: A Tribute to the Late Cecilia

M. Ady, ed. E. F. Jacob (London: Faber and Faber, 1960), 148-183. 28. On the issues of taxation and forced loans see ASF, CS, Serie §, 1209: busta entitled “Lettere di diversi a Filippo di Filippo Strozzi dal 1 gennaio al 1 giugno 1537,” docs. III, 132, 133. On the matter of Filippo’s desire to return to Rome see ASF, CS, Serie §, 1209: busta entitled “Lettere di diversi a Filippo di Filippo Strozzi dal 1 gennaio al 1 giugno 1537,” docs. 203, 255. 29. ASF, CS, Serie §, 1209: busta entitled “Lettere di diversi a Filippo di Filippo Strozzi dal 1 gennaio al I giugno 1537,” doc. 9, Pierfrancesco Portinari, in Florence, to Filippo Strozzi, in Lyon, 6 January 1529: “non ho mancato di fare quanto ho iudicato a benfitio vostro cosi in ogni altra vostra occurentia sono per fare sempre lo offitio dello amico come sono obbligato.” Portinari sat on the Signoria, the Ottanta, the Dodici, the Sedici, and the Dieci between May 1527 and August 1530. He also participated in the pratiche and served as an ambassador to Pope Clement VII in September 1529: ASF, Tratte, 719: 77v; 906: 49r and 204v; Herlihy et al., “Online Tratte of Office Holders”; Nardi, Istorie, 2:167—170; Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 1:158. 30. Jones, Francesco Vettori, 205, n. §2.

31. ASF, CS, Serie §, 105: 121r, Giornale e ricordanze personali di Lorenzo di Filippo Strozzi, 1528—36: “con intentione di salvarle a palla.” Strozzi did note, however, that he expected Rucellai to reimburse him for the expense. 32. Compare with the observations about the endurance of social networks in spite of religious and political turmoil in sixteenth-century England in Alan Bray, The Friend (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 71. 33. On the downfall of Niccold Capponi see Nardi, Istorie, 2:147—151; Bernardo Segni, Storie fiorentine di Messer Bernardo Segni, gentiluomo fiorentino, dall‘anno

MDXXVII al MDLYV, 3 vols. (Milan: Societa Tipografica de’ Classici Italiani, 1805S), 1:127—153, 3:339—-346; Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 1:544—552.

34. On the papal-imperial negotiations see most recently Michael J. Levin, Agents of Empire: Spanish Ambassadors in Sixteenth-Century Italy (Ithaca, NY:

Cornell University Press, 2005), 45—$3. 35. ASF, CP, 71: 46v: “se fussi da pigliare pit uno partito che uno altro per salute della citta o da cercare di salvare bene la liberta in quello modi che si potess 0.”

Notes to Pages 110-114 319 36. Ibid., 49r: “che la citta si armi.” 37. Ibid., 48r: “la obstinatione in che noi ci troviamo mi pare reprehensibile molto ... da farsi incontro ad Ces[a]re per assicurare la citta.” 38. Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 3:98. Varchi rarely had a nice word to say about any of his contemporaries, but this has not prevented his description becoming Albizzi’s epitaph among scholars: see most recently Carl Brandon Strehlke, Pontormo, Bronzino, and the Medici: The Transformation of the Renaissance Portrait in

Florence (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2004), 82. 39. ASF, CP, 71: 5or, SOv, Sir: “non solamente sanza profitto alcuno ma con grande detrimento di quella”; “un thesoro infinito”; “la citta é stata quasi sempre o in potere d’uno tirano o di pochi cittadini potenti”; “bene universale della Patria loro”; “che le Republicche non possino essere ben consigliate dai Cittadini grandi e potenti”; “legitimo populare governo”; “e Magistrati et non e Cittadini particulari.” 40. Matteo Palmieri, Vita civile, ed. Gino Belloni (Florence: Sansoni, 1982), 98. 41. ASF, CP, 71: 5ov: “in questa citta in tutto el tempo della sua vita non fu mai forma di Republica se non dal dua al xii.” 42. Ibid., 52r, 53r, $4r: “Rompere questo ghiaccio”; “se faremo pit obstinati: trovandosi il fuoco pit vicino”; “sieno conpatibili questi dua principi insieme non altrimenti che sia l’acqua et il fuoco”; “[la] venuta dello ex[erci]to Imperiale.” See also §5r—v: “ci siamo opressi da quelli Tyranni da i quali Dio et la occaxione della venuta del suo ex[erci]to ci habb’ liberti.” 43. Ibid., 521, 52v: “la arrivata di Ces[a]re con tanta Reputatione et forze in Italia da potere con uno solo trombetto . . . farci Rebellare le pit parte dello stato nostro”; “quello dolcissimo desiderio della liberta.” 44. See especially the discussion on 13 August 1529: ibid., 65v—69r. 45. See Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 2:38—43; Nardi, Istorie, 2:167—170; Roth, Last Florentine Republic, 147-151.

46. Baglione did not receive the traditional title of captain general because Ercole d’Este, son of Duke Alfonso II of Ferrara, nominally held this position; but his father had refused to allow him to assume the post, fearing to alienate either the emperor or the pope: Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 1:498— 504 and §37—5§40; 2:37—38; and Nardi, Istorie, 2:159—-160. Baglione

belatedly received the title on 26 January 1530. 47. A copy of the accord between Baglione and Orange survives in ASF, CS, Serie I, 14: 3Iv—32v. See also Varchi, Storia florentina, 2:141-146. 48. See ibid., 2:146—-147; Nardi, Istorie, 2:162—163; Roth, Last Florentine Republic,

167-168. See also the discussion of Albizzi’s actions in the pratica on 27 September: ASF, CP, 71: 99v—102v. The almost complete absence of any criticism directed at Albizzi, or even at the surrender of Arezzo in the

320 Notes to Pages 115—117 abstract, lends credence to the notion that his actions conformed to the government’s wishes. 49. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 129: 1791, Francesco Guicciardini, in Casentino, to Luigi and Jacopo Guicciardini, in Florence, 20 September 1529: “mutliplicare el pericolo.” 50. Ibid., 179r—v: “potere col’ stare in firenze fare fructo alcuno alla cipta et alla liberta sua, Dio sa che io ci mecterei la propria vita cosi.” Compare with the letters that Guicciardini wrote to the Otto di Guardia in December 1529 and March 1530, protesting his devotion to Florence but also his fear of persecution: Guicciardini, Opere inedite, 10:133—136, 141-142. 51. Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 2:197—198; Jones, Francesco Vettori, 219-220; Sanuto,

I diarii, §2:137. A second round of detentions occurred later, beginning in early December. On this occasion Giovanni Vettori and Girolamo degli Albizzi were among the victims: Varchi, Storia florentina, 2:325. 52. Melissa Meriam Bullard, Filippo Strozzi and the Medici: Favor and Finance in

Sixteenth-Century Florence and Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1980), 15-157; idem, “Bindo Altoviti, Renaissance Banker and Papal Financier,” in Raphael, Cellini and a Renaissance Banker: The Patronage of Bindo

Altoviti, ed. Alan Chong, Donatella Pegazzano, and Dimitrios Zikos (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 2003), 21-57. By September 1531, Strozzi, in business with Bindo d’Antonio Altoviti, had loaned the pope over 180,000 ducats, in effect underwriting the papal-imperial military expedition against Florence. 53. Guicciardini, Opere inedite, 10:137—138, 142-143.

54. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 129: 180r—v, Francesco Guicciardini, in Bologna, to Luigi Guicciardini, in Pisa, 3 December 1529: “Dio sa se dove n’ho havuto occasione ho facio buono officio per la cipta...in modo che la cita restara libera et ben’ assicurava di mantenere la liberta.” See also 184v, Francesco Guicciardini, in Bologna, to Luigi Guicciardini, in Pisa, 14 December 1529: “jo non sono a servitio del papa.” 55. Rossi, Francesco Guicciardini, 1.292. The Franciscan chronicler Girolamo Ughi recorded this distrust: Ughi, “Cronica di Firenze,” 151. 56. Printed in Rossi, Francesco Guicciardini, 1:289. 57. ASF, CS, Serie I, 129: 186r, Francesco Guicciardini, in Bologna, to Luigi Guicciardini, in Pisa, 19 December 1529: “non veggo scampo alla ruina della cipta.” 58. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 129: 180r, Francesco Guicciardini, in Bologna, to Luigi Guicciardini, in Pisa, 3 December 1529: “ho havuto dispiacere grandissimo per intendere e danni vostre et de altri... che sono cose da fare crepare el cuore a ognuno che é nato in quella cipta.” Varchi reported that Luigi Guicciardini fled Florence soon after the first detentions occurred in October 1529: Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 2:198.

Notes to Pages 117-121 321 59. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 129: 186r, Francesco Guicciardini, in Bologna, to Luigi Guicciardini, in Pisa, 19 December 1529: “la provisione atroce che hanno facta contro a rebelli rompendo fideicommisi et donatione.” 60. See Stephens, Fall of the Florentine Republic, 249-251. On the confiscation of property see ASF, Capitani della Parte Guelfa, Numeri Rossi, 80: 158r— 169r; 84: 149v—I6Sv.

61. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 129: 185r, Francesco Guicciardini, in Bologna, to Luigi Guicciardini, in Pisa, 14 December 1529: “andrei in qualunque luogo loro mi disegnassino” 62. ASF, CS, Serie I, 129: 186r, Francesco Guicciardini, in Bologna, to Luigi Guicciardini, in Pisa, 19 December 1529: “chi mi avitatta in firenze non potessi dire che io non tenessi conto di loro.” In the same letter, however, Guicciardini expressed his fear that his enemies in Florence would accuse him of traveling to Lucca to confide with the recently arrived papal and imperial representatives there. See also 181r. 63. On the details of attack and counterattack, and the many tales of valor and treachery about the siege of Florence, see “Diario d’incerto del 1529 e 1530 per l’assedio di Firenze,” ed. Umberto Dorini, Rivista storica degli archivi Toscani 4 (1932): 30-45, 140-152; Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 2:132—536; Nardi, Istorie, 2:170—218; Roth, Last Florentine Republic, 184-321. 64. Angelo Ventura, ed., Relazioni degli ambasciatori veneti al Senato, 2 vols. (Rome:

Laterza, 1976), 1:104—105. See the description of this process given by Vincenzo Fidele: Sanuto, I diarii, §2:330. 65. Sanuto, I diarii, §1:615. 66. Ibid., §2:175. See also Fidele’s observation on the damage wrought on the besiegers by the weather, at 137 and 216. 67. Ibid., §2:137—138, 215-216, 345-346. This portrait was, for many years, identified as representing Cosimo I de’ Medici, and dated to 1537. In 1997, Elizabeth Cropper convincingly argued that it in fact depicted Francesco Guardi during the siege of Florence: Elizabeth Cropper, Pontormo: Portrait of a Halberdier (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1997). 68. On the meaning of the male elbow see Joaneath Spicer, “The Renaissance Elbow,” in A Cultural History of Gesture, ed. Jan Bremmer and Herman Roodenburg (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992), 84—128. On the visual relationship between Pontormo’s portrait and Donatello’s sculpture, which is especially apparent in the preparatory drawings, see Strehlke, Pontormo, Bronzino, 88—92; Cropper, Pontormo, 88—89.

69. Guardi’s costume closely matches the description given by Benedetto Varchi of the clothes worn by Lodovico Martelli and Dante da Castiglione on 12 March 1530 for the double duel they fought against Giovanni Bandini and Ruberto Aldobrandini, two Florentines serving in the imperial army: Varchi, Storia florentina, 2:331. As one of the grounds for the combat, Martelli

322 Notes to Pages 121—123 and Da Castiglione alleged Bandini and others had insulted and mocked the fighting ability of the Florentine civic militia, and they proposed to prove the falsity of these charges in the duel. It seems probable, therefore, that the clothes worn by Martelli, Da Castiglione, and Guardi were the uniform of the militia. See also the description of the rural militia created, at the instigation of Niccolo Machiavelli, during the administration of Piero Soderini in Luca Landucci, Diario fiorentino dal 1450 al 1516 continuato da un anonimo al 1542, ed. lodoco del Badia (Florence: Sansoni, 1985), 273. 70. See Nicolai Rubinstein, The Palazzo Vecchio, 1298—1532: Government, Architecture,

and Imagery in the Civic Palace of the Florentine Republic (Oxford: Oxford Univer-

sity Press, 1995), 54—SS. 71. Sanuto, I diarii, §2:330.

72. Richard C. Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence (Ithaca, N Y: Cornell

University Press, 1980), 387-399, $22-540. 73. See respectively, Nardi, Istorie, 2:138—139; Sanuto, I diarii, §2:565—566. On

the dual civic and religious nature of civilian militia in medieval Italian communes see Augustine Thompson, Cities of God: The Religion of the Italian

Communes, 1125-1325 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005), 136. On the symbolic significance of city walls and especially their defense see Silvia Mantini, Lo spazio sacro della Firenze medicea: Trasformazioni urbane e cerimoniali pubblici tra Quattrocento e Cinquecento (Florence: Loggia de’

Lanzi, 1995), 25—66; Sharon T. Strocchia, “Theaters of Everyday Life,” in Renaissance Florence: A Social History, ed. Roger J. Crum and John T. Paoletti

(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 76. 74. ASF, CP, 71, 104r: “vogliono pit presto correr’ questa fortuna et defendersi havendo la Justitia dal canto nostro”; “che la liberta si debbe defendere percheé é uno viver’ secondo le legge”; “vogliono pit presto morir’ liberi che vivere in servitu.” Similar sentiments, together with adjurations not to alter the liberty of the city, appear throughout the records of the pratiche for the period: 89v—132r. 75. See Luciano Berti, Pontormo e il suo tempo (Ponte alle Grazie: Banca Toscana / Casa Editrice Le Lettere, 1993), 160—161; Philippe Costamagna, Pontormo,

trans. Alberto Curotto (Milan: Electra, 1994), 204-206; Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, trans. Gaston de Vere, 2 vols. (New

York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996), 2:359-360. The public commissioning of an altarpiece for a conventual church was unusual, but the nuns of Sant’Anna could not have afforded the commission themselves—their community was too poor to support a chaplain—and the church itself had been first built by public order in 1359: Giuseppe Richa, Notizie istoriche delle chiese fiorentine divise

ne’ suoi Quartieri (facsimile ed., 10 vols), vol. 4, Del Quartiere diS.M.* Novella

Parte Seconda (Rome: Multigrafica, 1972), 222; Sharon T. Strocchia,

Notes to Pages 124—128 323 “Taken into Custody: Girls and Convent Guardianship in Renaissance Florence,” Renaissance Studies 17, no. 2 (2003): 198, n. 76.

76. See Roger J. Crum and David G. Wilkins, “In the Defense of Florentine Republicanism: Saint Anne and Florentine Art, 1343-1575,” in Interpreting Cultural Symbols: Saint Anne in Late Medieval Society, ed. Kathleen Ashley and

Pamela Sheingorn (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1990), 131-168; Richa, Notizie istoriche, 4:222; Strocchia, “Theaters of Everyday Life,” 66; Giovanni Villani, Cronica, ed. Ignazio Moutier and Francesco Gherardi Dragomanni, facsimile ed., 4 vols. (Frankfurt am Main: Unveranderter Nachdruk, 1969), 4:37. See also the documents recording offerings made by the Signoria for this occasion in 1417 and 1461 cited in Jack Wasserman, “La Vergine e Cristo con Sant’‘Anna del Pontormo,” in Kunst des Cinquecento in der

Toskana, ed. Monika Cammerer (Munich: Bruckmann, 1992), 10, n. II. 77. See Crum and Wilkins, “In the Defense,” 150; Rubinstein, Palazzo Vecchio, 71-72. Pontormo must have painted the altarpiece prior to September 1529, when the church was demolished in preparation for the siege. Jack Wasserman has proposed instead that Pontormo actually finished the panel in the mid-1520s. His argument, however, is somewhat self-defeating, as Wasserman criticizes proponents of a 1528—29 dating for their reliance on Vasari but then proceeds to use the same source as his principal evidence for an earlier date: Wasserman, “La Vergine e Cristo.” 78. Landucci, Diario fiorentino, 371.

79. See Roth, Last Florentine Republic, 196; Trexler, Public Life, 540. On facial hair

and gender in early modern culture more generally see Will Fisher, “The Renaissance Beard: Masculinity in Early Modern England,” Renaissance Quarterly $4, no. 1 (2001): 155—187. 80. Reprinted in Albertini, Firenze dalla repubblica, 383. 81. ASF, CP, 73: 241, 25r: “insieme pensaranno alla virtt et debito loro”; “si confortino i gioveni detti a volere mostrare la virtt loro”; “si offeriscono prima purgati ogni affetto omettendo ogni passione rivoltarsi con uno sacrificio con l’animo a dio del Corpo alla patria.” See also Francesco Carducci’s analogous sentiment at 2Ir. 82. See for example ibid., Iv, 3r, 4r—Sv, 28r, 29v. 83. Silvestro Aldobrandini et al., “Cartelli di querela e di sfida tra Lodovico

Martelli, Dante da Castiglione e Giovanni Bandini, Rubertino Aldobrandini al tempo dell’assedio di Firenze,” ed. Carlo Milanesi, Archivio storico italiano, nuova serie, 4 (1857): 11-12. See also Ughi, “Cronica di Firenze,” 156-157. On 11 March 1530 Martelli and Da Castiglione entered the imperial camp under safe conduct. The following day they fought Giovanni

Bandini and Ruberto Aldobrandini respectively. As both Martelli and Aldobrandini lost their duels, and each subsequently died from the wounds he received, Orange declared the combat to have neither been won nor lost.

324 Notes to Pages 128—132 84. ASF, CP, 73: 471, 48v; 47v, 62Vv. 85. See for example ibid., 15r, 2or—25r, 26r, 35v, 36v, 39V, 45v, SIt—52V, SSV.

86. “Predica fatta la domenica fra l’ottava dell’ Epifania da fra Zaccheria da Lunigiana in Santa Reparata di Firenze,” ed. Carlo Gargiolli, Il propugnatore 12 (1879): 417-443. 87. Roberto Ridolfi, The Life of Francesco Guicciardini, trans. Cecil Grayson

(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967), 205-206. As Lorenzo Strozzi had done for Palla Rucellai, Jacopo Guicciardini purchased his brother’s library in order to save it. 88. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 129: 188r, Francesco Guicciardini, in Rome, to Luigi Guicciardini, in Lucca, 28 June 1530: “cosi le cose si vanno consumando et riducendo al’ultima ruina.” See also 189r, 19Ir, and 192r. 89. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 129: 179r, Francesco Guicciardini, in the Casentino, to Luigi and Jacopo Guicciardini, in Florence, 20 September 1529: “nostri soldati”; ibid., 189r, Francesco Guicciardini, in Rome, to Luigi Guicciardini, in Lucca, I July 1530: “quelli di drento.” 90. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 129: 1921, Francesco Guicciardini, in Rome, to Luigi Guicciardini, in Lucca, 27 July 1530: “la disgratia nostra ci havendoci a vedere per colpa di pochi tristi tutta ruina.” 91. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 129: 189r, Francesco Guicciardini, in Rome, to Luigi Guicciardini, in Lucca, 1 July 1530: “ogni cosa che da speranza a quelli di drento é causa che perseverino nella obstinatione et riduchino le cose in luogo che non so che cosa possa bastare a salvarci dal saccho et distrugere per sempre quella cipta” (see also 188r, 191r, 193r); ibid., 192r, Francesco Guicciardini, in Rome, to Luigi Guicciardini, in Lucca, 30 July 1530: “la obstinatione non lascia cognoscere agli huomini la necessita.” 92. Francesco Guicciardini, Opere inedite di Francesco Guicciardint illustrate da Giuseppe

Canestrini, ed. Piero Guicciardini and Luigi Guicciardini, vol. 9, La prigionia di Clemente VII, la caduta della Repubblica Fiorentina, e la legazione di Bologna: Carteggio

dal 1527 al 1534, (Florence: Cellini, 1866), 157.

93. Ughi, “Cronica di Firenze,” 156. 94. Segni, Storie fiorentine, 1:233—34.

95. See the debates in ASF, CP, 73: SIv—54r, GOv—64r.

96. On the battle of Gavinana, in which both the Prince of Orange and the Florentine commander, Francesco Ferrucci, perished, see Nardi, Istorie, 2:204-208; Roth, Last Florentine Republic, 310-315; Varchi, Storia florentina,

2:478—492. The Florentines’ compromised communications had doomed Ferrucci’s advance from the start—even Francesco Guicciardini, in Rome, knew of the plan: ASF, CS, Serie 1, 129: 190r. 97. On Baglione’s coup d’état and the final capitulation of the city see Nardi, Istorie, 2:212—214; Roth, Last Florentine Republic, 315-320; Varchi, Storia

Notes to Pages 132—134 325 fiorentina, 2:497—513. A debate has existed, since 1530, on the extent of Baglione’s treachery. Nardi asserted that the Perugian general had promised Orange not to attack the imperial camp while the viceroy led the

expedition to Gavinana: 2:220. Roth offers a nuanced discussion of Baglione’s conflicting loyalties at 299-309. 98. The text of settlement is reproduced in Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 2:514—518. 99. ASF, CS, Serie I, 129: 193r, Francesco Guicciardini, in Rome, to Luigi Guicciardini, in Lucca, § August 1530: “la dispositione di molti.” 100. Segni, Storie fiorentine, 1:285. 101. See for example ASF, CP, 71: 96r, 102r, 1071, 107v, 108r, I1Ir, I14V, 116r. 102. ASF, CP, 73: §8r, 62r. See the similar acknowledgments by other speakers on the same day at 62v, 63v. 103. See P. J. Jones, “Communes and Despots: The City State in Late- Medieval Italy,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, sth Series, 15 (1965): 71-96; Christine Shaw, Popular Government and Oligarchy in Renaissance Italy (Leiden:

Brill, 2006), for similar analyses of the tendency toward oligarchy in all Renaissance Italian city-states, whatever their political structures. Notably, the evidence provided by Edward Muir (who does also acknowledge the inevitability of oligarchy) to argue that it did matter whether one lived in a republic or a principality in Renaissance Italy addresses the aspirations of urban and rural subalterns only: Edward Muir, “Was There Republicanism in Renaissance Republics? Venice after Agnadello,” in Venice Reconsidered: The History and Civilization of an Italian City-State, 1297-1797, ed. John Martin and

Dennis Romano (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 137-167. The evidence from Florence in 1530 would suggest that the closer one was to the actual levers of power, the less it mattered what form the government took. 104. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 14: 35v, Malatesta Baglione and Stefano Colonna to the Signoria, undated: “Sono ormai due mesi che siamo senza carne, un mese senza vino, olio poco o niente.” See also the reports of prices and deprivation recorded in Ughi, “Cronica di Firenze,” 166—167. 105. Francesco Guicciardini, Lettere inedite di Francesco Guicciardini a Bartolomeo Lanfredini dalla fine dell assedio di Firenze al secondo covegno di Clemente VII e di Carlo V,

ed. André Otetea (Aquila: Vecchioni, 1926), 3—4. 106. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 59: doc. 129, Girolamo Guicciardini, in Florence, to Luigi Guicciardini, in Pisa, 18 October 1530: “a pop[pia]no le coxe vanno chome nella maggior parte del contado nostro che vi muore assai contadini e ve di pit: chominciato un pocho del pesto in pit luochi e vi si semina pocho e ve assai poderi sanza lavoratori.” 107. ASF, CS, Serie 1, §9: doc. 140, Jacopo Guicciardini, in Florence, to Luigi Guicciardini, in Pisa, 27 October 1530: “vini sono charissimi la

326 Notes to Pages 134138 carne el simile et di polli et uova carestia grande Ne contadi e contadini stentono et ne muore assai sono quasi tutti ammalati.” See also doc. 37: “noi siamo voti qua d’ogni cosa necessaria p’el vivere”; and ASF, CS, Serie I, 98: 99V. 108. Guicciardini, Lettere inedite, 39.

109. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 59: 198, Jacopo Guicciardini, in Florence, to Luigi Guicciardini, in Pisa, 16 December 1530: “La doana fa poco le porte poco le sale mancho e contratti non nulla.” 110. ASF, CS, Serie I, 98: 127r, Francesco Vettori, in Florence, to Giovanni Vettori, in Volterra, § January 1531: “noi qui attendiamo ad fondarci dalla fame alla quale col credito maxime di filippo strozzi sia reparato in qualche parte ma habbiamo tanti debiti che siamo necessitati fallire.” 11. See for example ASF, Consiglio dei Dugento, 128: 12 Ir. 112. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 98: 87r, Cristofano Sernigi, in Florence, to Francesco Vettori, in Rome, 31 August 1530: “priegovi mi raccomandiate a N[ostro] S[ignore] e a messer Jacopo Salviati.” 113. Guicciardini, Lettere inedite, 5. 114. Albertini, Firenze dalla repubblica, 182, n. 6.

115. ASF, CS, Serie I, 335: 80r, Raffaello Velluti, in Florence, to Lucrezia Salviati, in Rome, 22 August 1530: “Al mag[nifi]co Jacopo al quale ho scripto mi racomandate che a quelle cose che io sono habile et buona nella cipta et fuor’ della cipta si ricordi di me come degli amici sua.” 116. Ibid., 82r, Piero di Leonardo Salviati, in Florence, to Lucrezia Salviati, in Rome, 24 August 1530: “io ho scripto una al mag[nifi]co Jacopo vostro raccomandandomi a Sua S[igno]ria preghandolo e cosi pregho voi lo preghiate che nelli honori e utili della Cipta... non mi dimentichi.” 117. ASF, Miscellanea Repubblicana, busta 8, inserto 239, unfoliated: “non era vinta a una fava o dua disse a messer silvestro fate che della iii si erano tante...messer silvestro ando et riconto le fave et disse forse ella vinta’;

“tutte le mie atione nel magistrato di signori et li otto et dieci si sono fatee tutte le chose di chomune chonsenso.” 118. Ibid.: “Dicho che mai troverete che per mio chonto venissi mai giovane nessuno in palazo ne mai alchuno ne richerchai.” 119. ASF, CP, 71: tr: “per non dare materia di offensione ad chi haveva in quel tempo consigliato.” 120. ASF, OGBR, 209: 3Iv—32v and §2r—53r; and OGBR, 231: 8v and I0v. Concerning Gonzaga’s intervention see ASF, CS, Serie 1, 100: 47Vv, as well as Nardi, Istorie, 2:220—221. On 10 December 1530, the Otto commuted Girolami’s sentence to confinement in the prisons at Pisa. The men executed were Francesco Carducci, Bernardo da Castiglione, Giovanbattista di Galeotto Cei, Jacopo Gherardi, Pieradovardo di Girolamo Giachinotti, and Luigi di Paolo Soderini.

Notes to Pages 138-143 327 121. ASF, OGBR, 231: I2Vv, 13r—I4r, ISv, and 17v. The other men exiled were

Neri di Tommaso del Bene, Girolamo di Francesco Bettini, Guido da Castiglione, Cherubino di Tommaso Fortini, Federigo di Giuliano Gondi, Andreuolo di Otto Niccolini, Piero di Bartolomeo Popoleschi, Giovanni di Simone Rinuccini, Tommaso Soderini, Alfonso Strozzi, and Bartolomeo di Leonardo Tedaldi. The two men imprisoned were Giovanni Ambruogi and Cino di Girolamo di Cino. Piero Popoleschi later received a sentence of death for his role in arson attacks on the Medici villa at Careggi and the Salviati villa in the valley of the Mugnone: see OGBR, 209: 89r—9v. 122. ASF, OGBR, 231: 8r, 11r—I5v, 17V.

123. Francesco Vettori, in a letter of 1531 or 1532 to Nikolaus von Schénberg, specifically identified the giovani of the militia as enemies that the Medicean stato had to neutralize: Francesco Vettori, “Tre pareri di Francesco Vettori, anno 1§3I—32,” ed. Gino Capponi, Archivio storico italiano 1 (1842): 437. 124. Guicciardini, Lettere inedite, 4, 21.

125. ASF, CS, Serie 1, §9: doc. 173, Girolamo Guicciardini, in Florence, to Luigi Guicciardini, in Pisa, 25 November 1530: “chome un medicho prudente che a alle mani uno malato debole e pieno di tanti umori”: “medicina gagliarda’; “riduranno questo malato in termine non sara da dubitare della vita.” 126. Guicciardini, Lettere inedite, 28. See also the similar sentiment articulated in a letter from Francesco Vettori to Lanfredini, on 16 November 1530, printed in Albertini, Firenze dalla repubblica, 441-443: “e impossibile levare della citta tanti inimici quanti ci habbiamo, perché ci rimarebbono pochi huomini.” 127. ASF, CS, Serie I, 98: 92r. 128. Jones, Francesco Vettori, 235, n. 68. The “others” would appear to refer to the other men sitting on the Otto di Pratica, elected on 26 September by the balia: Luigi di Agnolo della Stufa, Giovanni di Bardo Corsi, Palla di Bernardo Rucellai, and Corso di Michele delle Colombe, who died in office

(Bernardo di Francesco del Tovaglia replaced him): ASF, Tratte, 907: 67r. 129. Guicciardini, Lettere inedite, 7, A month before this letter, for example, Valori had written to Luigi Guicciardini, commissioner for Pisa, instructing him not to proceed against Paolantonio di Tommaso Soderini because his father had promptly paid large sums of money to the new regime. Valori stated that he felt obliged, therefore, to provide for the Soderini: ASF, CS, Serie I, 59: 4. Agostino Rossi provides a lengthy analysis of the internal tensions within the Medicean camp: Rossi, Francesco Guicciardini, 1:215—223.

4. Neither Fish nor Flesh 1. I owe the observation that the 1530s was a period when being Florentine was difficult to Elizabeth Cropper, “Prolegomena to a New Interpretation

328 Notes to Pages 144—146 of Bronzino’s Florentine Portraits,” in Renaissance Studies in Honor of Craig

Hugh Smyth, ed. Andrew Morrogh et al. (Florence: Giunti Barbera, 1985), 157.

2. On the events of August 1530 see Benedetto Varchi, Storia fiorentina di Benedetto Varchi, ed. Lelio Arbib, 3 vols. (Florence: Societa Editrice delle Storie del Nardi e del Varchi, 1843-44), 2:513—545; Jacopo Nardi, Istorie della citta di Firenze, ed. Agenore Gelli, 2 vols. (Florence: Felice le Monnier, 1858), 2:222—223. On Valori’s residence at the Palazzo Medici and his position as de facto head of the regime see also Francesco Guicciardini, Lettere inedite di Francesco Guicciardini a Bartolomeo Lanfredini dalla fine dell assedio di

Firenze al secondo covegno di Clemente VII e di Carlo V, ed. André Otetea (Aquila:

Vecchioni, 1926), 6. 3. The twelve men elected were Ormannozzo di Tommaso Deti, Luigi di Agnolo della Stufa, Matteo di Agnolo Niccolini, Bartolomeo di Filippo Valori, Raffaello di Francesco Girolami, Leonardo di Bernardo Ridolfi, Filippo di Alessandro Machiavelli, Antonio di Piero Gualterotti, Andrea di Tommaso Minerbetti, Ottaviano di Lorenzo de’ Medici, Zanobi di Berto Bartolini, and Niccolo di Bartolomeo del Troscia: ASF, Tratte, 907: 179r. 4. ASF, OGBR, 209: Ir; Tratte, 907: §6r and 67r. The first Otto di Guardia of the new stato consisted of Jacopo di Pandolfo Corbinelli, Maso di Bernardo de’ Nerli, Donato d’Antonio Cocchi, Francescantonio di Francesco Nori, Lorenzo di Donato Acciaiuoli, Raffaello di Matteo Fedini, Domenico di Braccio Martelli, and Guido di Jacopo del Cittadino. The Otto di Pratica were Luigi d’Agnolo della Stufa, Francesco di Piero Guicciardini, Bartolomeo di Filippo Valori, Roberto di Donato Acciaiuoli, Giovanni di Bardo Corsi, Francesco di Piero Vettori, Palla di Bernardo Rucellai, and Corso di Michele delle Colombe. 5. ASF, Tratte, 907: 179r—18 OV, 188r. 6. Rudolf von Albertini, Firenze dalla repubblica al principato: Storia e coscienza politica,

trans. Cesare Cristolfini (Turin: Giulio Einaudi, 1970), 440. 7. Guicciardini, Lettere inedite, 6.

8. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 98: 1311, Girolamo Guicciardini, in Florence, to Luigi Guicciardini, in Pisa, 24 January 1531: “non posso altro che dolermi con voi che le coxe non sieno intese da chi a fare chome saria il bixongnio per la sichurta nostra pure penso che alla venuta era dello arciveschovo di chapua...verra con qualche buon resoluzion in modo che si doverra pigliare migliore ordine alle coxe non si fa di presente.” 9. Bernardo Segni, Storie fiorentine di Messer Bernardo Segni, gentiluomo fiorentino,

dall’anno MDXXVII al MDLV, 3 vols. (Milan: Societa Tipografica de’ Classici Italiani, 1805), 1:322—323.

10. Compare with the discussion of the position of Andrea Doria in Genoa after 1528 in Thomas Allison Kirk, Genoa and the Sea: Policy and Power in an

Notes to Pages 146—147 329 Early Modern Maritime Republic, 1559-1684 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins

University Press, 2005), 19-22. ir. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 98: 131r, Girolamo Guicciardini, in Florence, to Luigi Guicciardini, in Pisa, 24 January 1531: “alla venuta della ex[cellen]tia del ducha si doverra fare quello restassi in direto in modo o pure speranza che se non prima allora le coxe si stabiliranno in modo potremo stare.” See the similar sentiment expressed by Francesco Vettori, in April 1531: Albertini, Firenze dalla repubblica, 453. According to some accounts Alessandro was the

son of Clement VII. The actual truth of the Medici prince’s paternity remains impossible for historians to determine. Contemporaries, however (even his many enemies, who never missed an opportunity to denigrate Alessandro) accepted the first Medici prince of Florence as the son of Lorenzo de’ Medici. More indications support this identification than the alternate view that the pope was his father, but then dynastic imperatives made it important for the Medici to promote him as such. If Alessandro was Lorenzo’s son, then he descended in a direct line of eldest-born males from Cosimo il Vecchio. If, however, he was Clement’s son, then Alessandro was the illegitimate son of an illegitimate son of the younger brother of Lorenzo il Magnifico. 12. Guicciardini, Lettere inedite, 83.

13. Ibid., 84. Guicciardini was in Bologna, hence his reference to Florence as “that” city and state. See also ASF, CS, Serie 1, 129: 198r and 202r. 14. Onthe return of Alessandro de’ Medici to Florence in 1531 see Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 2:620—628. The appointment of Alessandro did not pass without some controversy. According to Varchi, Ippolito de’ Medici, to whom the pope had given a cardinal’s hat during the siege of the city, wanted to govern Florence himself. He apparently arrived in the city on 20 April 1531 with the intention of supplanting his still-absent cousin. However, Schonberg and the hastily dispatched Bartolomeo Valori persuaded the young cardinal to return to Rome within a week: ibid., 2:609-—611. See also the letters of Francesco Vettori to Bartolomeo Lanfredini in late April and early May 1531, reprinted in Albertini, Firenze dalla repubblica, 454-456. 15. See Danilo Marrara, Studi giuridici sulla Toscana medicea: Contributo alla storia degli

stati assoluti in Italia (Milan: Giuffre, 1965), 4—6. A copy of the full text of the imperial bull exists in ASF, CS, Serie 1, 12: 215r—220v, and is printed in Lorenzo Cantini, ed., Legislazione Toscana (Florence: Pierto Fantosini e Figlio, 1800), 1:35-37. 16. Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 2:625. See also Filippo de’ Nerli, Commentarj dei fatti civili occorsi dentro la citta di Firenze dall‘anno 1215 al 1537, 2 vols. (Trieste: Colombo

Coen, 1859), 2:192—196; Segni, Storie florentine, 1:328—332. Nerli was a

330 Notes to Pages 148—151 member of the Signoria for July-August 1531. Note that Segni mixes up the chronology of events. 17. Guicciardini, Lettere inedite, 118. See also the analogous expression by Luigi Guicciardini in April 1533: ASF, CS, Serie I, 100: §6r. 18. G.-B. Niccolini, Filippo Strozzi (Florence: Felice le Monnier, 1847), 183. 19. ASF, CS, Serie 3, 108: 130r, Filippo Strozzi, in Rome, to Lorenzo Strozzi, in Florence, 19 November 1531: “Andai hiarsera con si zoppo a palazzo per parlare al papa di pit cose.” Filippo had injured his foot in late October: see 125v and 129r. 20. Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 2:633; Albertini, Firenze dalla repubblica, 193-194; Niccolini, Filippo Strozzi, 183.

21. These are the well-known pareri (opinions) published in the first volume of the Archivio Storico Italiano in 1842 and analyzed in Felix Gilbert, “Alcuni discorsi di uomini politici florentini e la politica di Clemente VII per la retaurazione medicea,” Archivio storico italiano 93, no. 2 (1935): 3-24; Albertini, Firenze dalla repubblica, 187-192; Mark Jurdjevic, “The Guicciardinian

Moment: The Discorsi Palleschi, Humanism, and Aristocratic Republicanism in Sixteenth-Century Florence,” in Humanism and Creativity in the Renaissance:

Essays in Honor of Ronald G. Witt, ed. Christopher S. Celenza and Kenneth

Gouwens (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 113—139. 22. BNCF, Manoscritti Palatini, 454: 19v, Benedetto Buondelmonti, in Rome, to Francescantonio Nori, in Florence, 21 January 1532: “senza mostrare che questa sia voglli]a di N[ostro] S[ignore] né opinione sua perché vorremo che... paressi che S[ua] Bleatan]ta lo consentissi et non ordinassi et tutto si faciessi per sattisfare alle vogl[iJe de’ Cittadini.” 23. On this point see also Albertini, Firenze dalla repubblica, 188-192. 24. Francesco Guicciardini, “Discorso di Francesco Guicciardini a di 30 gennajo 1531-32,” ed. Gino Capponi, Archivio storico italiano 1 (1842): 456. 25. Roberto Acciaiuoli, “Due pareri di Ruberto Acciaiuoli, anno 1531-32,” ed. Gino Capponi, Archivio storico italiano 1 (1842): 448. The comparison with Sparta would suggest that Acciaiuoli saw Alessandro’s role as institutional, as a nominal prince, rather than as possessing actual monarchical power. 26. ASF, Senato dei 48, Provvisioni, I: Iv; Tratte, 907: 19Iv. In fairly typical Florentine fashion, by which the names of various committees and councils rarely reflected with any accuracy the actual makeup of the body, this committee was referred to as the Dodici Riformatori (the Twelve Reformers). 27. Guicciardini, Lettere inedite, 138-140. The final constitution promulgated on 27 April looks very similar to that proposed by Francesco Vettori in his third parere: Francesco Vettori, “Tre pareri di Francesco Vettori, anno 1531-32,” ed. Gino Capponi, Archivio storico italiano 1 (1842): 442-445. 28. Ibid., 146-147.

Notes to Pages 151—154 331 29. See John M. Najemy, Corporatism and Consensus in Florentine Electoral Politics,

1280-1400 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982); Nicolai Rubinstein, The Government of Florence under the Medici (1434-1494), 2nd ed.

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). 30. ASF, Senato dei 48, Provvisioni, I: Iv—4v: “sarebbe molto difficile congregarlo tanto spesso quanto sarebbe necessario per la expeditione delle cose della cipta” (2v). The Dugento’s actual membership exceeded its nominal membership. For the ninety-four additional members see ASF, Tratte, 907: 181r—v. This document is dated 28 April 1532 and differs from the original list of 27 April (recorded in the provvisione of the Senate), which listed only eighty-two names. 31. ASF, Senato dei 48, Provvisioni, 1: 3r—v. See also Furio Diaz, II granducato di Toscana: I Medici (Turin: Unione Tipografico-Editrice Torinese, 1976), 52-53; Giuseppe Pansini, “Le ‘Ordinazioni’ del 27 aprile 1532 e l’assetto politico del principato mediceo,” in Studi in memoria di Giovanni Cassandro, ed.

Francesca Grispo (Rome: Ministero per i Beni e Attivita Culturali, Direzione Generale per gli Archivi, 1991), 760-785. 32. ASF, Senato dei 48, Provvisioni, 1: 3v: “Et per dar capo a decti consiglieri in luogo del gonfaloniere di iustitia ... essere et sia el duca Alessandro de’ Medici, el quale in futuro si habbi a chiamare il Duce della repubblica florentina come si chiama el Duge di Venetia.” Note that Cantini mistakenly transcibed this passage to read: “si habbia a chiamare il Duca della Repubblica Fiorentina”: Cantini, Legislazione, 1:9. The original manuscript provision clearly reads “duce,” easily distinguishable from the “duca” that precedes Alessandro’s name and the “duge” that refers to the Doge of Venice. Giuseppe Pansini published a corrected version in 1991: Pansini, “Le ‘Ordinazioni, ” 772—785. On the legal issues of Alessandro’s new title see Marrara, Studi giuridici, 11-12; Antonio Marongiu, Storia del diritto pubblico: Principi e istituti di governo in Italia dalla meta del IX alla meta del XIX secolo (Milan:

Istituto Editoriale Cisalpino, 1956), 150-162. 33. On the position of the doge in Venice see Robert Finlay, Politics in Renaissance Venice (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1980), 109—162; Edward Muir, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice (Princeton, NJ:

Princeton University Press, 1981), 251-288. On the relationship between objective and subjective structures see Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977).

34. Marrara, Studi giuridici, 11. Compare with the similarly ambiguous position of the Visconti and then the Sforza in Milan: Giancarlo Andenna et al., Comuni e signorie nell’Italia settentrionale: La Lombardia (Turin: Unione

Tipografico-Editrice Torinese, 1998), 710-728; Marongiu, Storia del diritto pubblico, 227-252.

332 Notes to Pages 154—156 35. Compare with the analogous relationships established with Charles V by the republican governments of Genoa and Lucca in the same period discussed, respectively, in Kirk, Genoa and the Sea, 14-22, and Stefano Tabacchi, “Lucca e Carlo V: Tra difesa della ‘libertas’ e adesione al sistema imperiale,” in L’Ttalia di Carlo V: Guerra, religione e politica nel primo Cinquecento.

Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi, Roma, 5—7 aprile 2001, ed. Francesca Cantu

and Maria Antonietta Visceglia (Rome: Viella, 2003), 411-432. 36. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 61: 191r, Francesco Guicciardini, in Florence, to Luigi Guicciardini, in Arezzo, I January 1535: “sarebbe optima et stabilirebbe la pace di Italia.” See also similar sentiments expressed by both Girolamo and Luigi Guicciardini: ASF, CS, Serie 1, 61: 192v; Serie I, 100: 56v. 37. ASF, Consulte e Pratiche, 71: 5or—SiIr.

38. ASF, CS, Serie 1, GI: 16$r, Francesco Guicciardini, in Florence, to Luigi Guicciardini, in Arezzo, 1 January 1535: “S[ua] M[aes]ta si mostra molto inclinata al firenze del duca in modo che qui nessuno non si fare dubio che gli dara la moglie sua” (see also 1911, another letter written on the same day expressing nearly identical sentiment); Serie 1, 129: 20$v, Francesco Guicciardini, in Florence, to Luigi Guicciardini, in Arezzo, 3 June 1535: “Dio voglia che la cosa gli succeda ben che a noi non resta altro fondamento che la grandeza sua.” 39. BNCF, Manoscritti Palatino, 454: 19r, Benedetto Buondelmonti, in Rome, to Francescantonio Nori, in Florence, 21 January 1532: “se Luigi scriverra lo potete assiqurare che le lettere non andrano da Herode a Pilato ma in mano solo di S[ua] S[anti]ta et poi al fuoco.” 40. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 335: 226r, Bartolomea di Giovanni Pandolfini, in Florence, to Lucrezia de’ Medici Salviati, in Rome, 14 July 1531: “Racomandare Giovanni mio marito a Piedi di Nostro Signore pregando sua Beatitudine sia contenta farli gratia che questa volta lui sia veduto gonfalonieri di justitia.” 41. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 14: 206r, Filippo Valori, in Florence, to Bartolomeo Valori, in Rome, 27 September 1531: “M[on]s[igno]re R[everendi]x[i]mo di Capua ne fa intendere che nostro S[igno]re desiderebbe che si creassi 5 uficiali di monte di nuovo.”

42. ASF, CS, Serie I, 100: 47v, Francesco Guicciardini, in Bologna, to Luigi Guicciardini, in Florence, 21 November 1531: “intedo del andate del buondelmonti a Roma nacque del Duca: et che al papa non l’aspetava: ma che haveva disegnato domenicho canigiani.” 43. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 37:14, Cardinal Giovanni Salviati, in Rome, to Filippo de’ Nerli, in Florence, 29 August 1534: “De le bone provisioni fatte costi per la defensione del stato in ogni caso che possa succeder; ne ho sentito et sento grandissimo piacere ma vedendo N[ostro] S[ignore] aiutarsi si bene

Notes to Pages 156—158 333 come fa, io spero che non sara bisogna usarle.” See also similar sentiments expressed by Ottaviano de’ Medici and Francesco Guicciardini during the summer of 1534: CS, Serie I, 61: 123r; and 129: 198r. 44. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 16: 33r, Alessandro de’ Medici, in Florence, to Francesco Guicciardini, in Bologna, 27 July 1534: “per altra via V[ostra] S[igno]ria possa haver’ inteso la indispositione di N[ostro] S[igno]re et in che pericholo si trova tucta”; “mi risponda el juditio suo come io mi devo governar in nel esser’ mio circa questo stato accioché tanto meglio et pit facilmente si mantengha come io et voi altri mia amici desiderano’, ibid., Air, Alessandro de’ Medici, in Florence, to Francesco Guicciardini, in Bologna, 23 August 1534: “lo exito della quale con gran timor si aspetta.” On concerns provoked by the death of Leo X, in December 1521, see ASF, Acquisti e Doni, 139, Insert 1: 36; and 302, Insert I: unfoliated letter from Filippo Ridolfi, in Rome, to Gismondo Ridolfi, in Florence, 14 December 1521.

45. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 14: 214r, Zanobi di Nofri Acciaiuoli, in Florence, to Bartolomeo Valori, in Rome, 27 September 1531: “conoscho dall’opera la gientelezza di V[ost]ra Mag[nificen]tia et l’‘amore mi portate.” For Acciaiuoli’s election, see ASF, Tratte, 907: 67r. 46. ASF, CS, Serie I, 335: 82r, Piero Salviati, in Florence, to Lucrezia de’ Medici Salviati, in Rome, 24 August 1530: “Questa per rallegrarvi con vostra Mag[nificen]tia delle cose successe della vectoria hauta di questa Cipta”; “diro che per tutta la citta non s’atenndo se non a dire Palle Palle e pane.” While probably exagerrated, Salviati’s report does suggest a degree of popular support for the overthrow of the stato of 1527—30 and the return of the Medici. 47. ASF, Serie 1, 335: 226r, Bartolomea Pandolfini, in Florence, to Lucrezia de’ Medici Salviati, in Rome, 14 July 1531: “priego V[ostra] Mag[nificen|tia sia contenta fare tale opera ancora con Messer Jacopo vostro: che tale effetto seghua.”

48. ASF, MAP, 140: 156, 160, 172, Bernardo Lanfredini, in Prato, to Maria Salviati de’ Medici, in Florence, 26 March 1533: “desiderei vostra S[igno]ria ne schrivesi al ma[gnifi]co Jachopo salviati ho si veramente alla ma[gnifi]ca Madonna luchrezia che fusino chontenti per amore a vostra S[igno]ria adoperare in modo che io avesi questo mio atento.” 49. In addition to sitting on the Quarantotto, Strozzi sat on the Otto di Pratica, the Ducal Council, and served as a Monte official—each one time only. He also was elected an accoppiatore on several occassions: ASF, Tratte, 907: §6r, 67r, 186r, 1871, 1924r, 193r, 203r. Valori, as well as his seat on the Senate, served on the Otto di Pratica twice and the Ducal Council three times. He too was elected an accoppiatore on multiple occasions: ASF, Tratte,

334 Notes to Pages 158—160 907: 67r, 68r, 186r—V, 187Vv, 193Vv, 202v, 203v. That Valori was elected to as

accoppiatore in April 1537, when he had openly declared himself against the Medici, testifies to the scant importance of this office after 1532. 50. ASF, OGBR, 211: 7r—v; 231: 30r. The other men involved were Paolantonio

di Bartolomeo Valori, Jacopo d’Antonio Pazzi, and Bernardo di Lorenzo Jacopi: they were banned from the vicarate of Certaldo as a result of the crime. 51. ASF, OGBP, 4: Ilv, 1Sr—16r; 231: 112v. The other men involved were Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, Giuliano di Francesco Salviati (the principal instigators of the affair), Paolantonio di Bartolomeo Valori, Paolantonio di Giovanni Mannelli, Giovantonio di Guglielmo Alessandri, Cosimo d’Alessandro Pazzi, Mutolo di Filippo da Ricasoli, Luigi di Francesco Machiavelli, Maso di Carlo Strozzi, and Cencio di Raffaello Guasconi. 52. See ASF, Manoscritti, 125: 65r; Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 3:19-24. Varchi relates that this was a tradition for Carnival, which begins on Saint Stephen’s Day (26 December) in Florence, as a means of ritually enforcing the closure of shops; but by the sixteenth century, protagonists generally warned merchants by sounding a horn before commencing the game. See also Michel Plaisance, Florence in the Time of the Medici: Public Celebrations, Politics,

and Literature in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (Toronto: Centre for

Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2008), 31. 53. See OGBR, 231: I9 Iv. 54. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 100: §2r—v; OGBP, 6: 75r. See also the letter of Filippo Strozzi to Francesco Vettori, in Florence, 31 October 1534, printed in Niccolini, Filippo Strozzi, 195 esp. Varchi provides a lengthy account of the entire affair beginning with a masked party at the home of Niccold Nasi attended by Luisa Strozzi, Giuliano Salviati, and Duke Alessandro himself: Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 3:65—76. Ina macabre epilogue, Luisa died in December 1534, allegedly poisoned by the wife of Giuliano Salviati: ASF, Manoscritti, 125: 162r—163r. 55. On the marriage of Caterina de’ Medici and the financial damage it brought to Strozzi see ASF, CS, Serie 3, 108: 133r—134r, 137v; Melissa Meriam Bullard, Filippo Strozzi and the Medici: Favor and Finance in Sixteenth-

Century Florence and Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 158-159 and 175; R. J. Knecht, Catherine de’ Medici (London: Longman, 1998), 15-17. On the presence of the younger Strozzi in Rome and their association with the exiles there see ASF, CS, Serie I, 61: 165v. 56. ASF, OGBP, 14: 3Ir—v. 57. Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 2:611. 58. ASF, CS, Serie I, 336: 34v—35r, Filippo Valori, in Certaldo, to Bartolomeo Valori, in Rome, 14 April 1536: “disordine grandissimo di danari e debito.”

Notes to Pages 161—164 335 See also 9r and 66v: letters from Paolantonio Valori dated 12 February and 27 June 1536. On Strozzi’s difficulties see Bullard, Filippo Strozzi, 166-172. 59. ASF, OGBR, 231: 140v—147r; Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 2:579—§82, 3:62—63, 98; Nardi, Istorie, 2:223-—224, 254-257. 60. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 61: 191r. See also Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 3:88—90; Nardi, Istorie, 2:239—-242. On Ippolito de’ Medici see Guido Rebecchini, “Un altro Lorenzo”: Ippolito de’ Medici fra Firenze e Roma (Venice: Marsilio, 2010). 61. Segni, Storie fiorentine, 2:60.

62. Niccolini, Filippo Strozzi, 183.

63. Ibid., 222. 64. On this point see also Albertini, Firenze dalla repubblica, 206, 222-223. 65. Varchi, Storia florentina, 3:105—112, 133-230; Nardi, Istorie, 2:244-248, 258-279. On the debate in Naples see also the account of Galeotto Giugni printed in Nardi, 2:355—391; Francesco Guicciardini, Opere inedite di Francesco Guicciardini illustrate da Giuseppe Canestrini, ed. Piero Guicciardini and Luigi Guicciardini, vol. 9, La prigionia di Clemente VII, la caduta della Repubblica

Fiorentina, e la legazione di Bologna (Florence: Cellini, 1866), 331-395; ASF, CS,

Serie §, 1207, busta titled “Lettere a Filippo Strozzi No. 2”: doc. 40; Lucie de los Santos, “Guicciardini e la questione della liberta: La querela dei fuorusciti florentini davanti a Carlo V (1535—1536),” in Bologna nell’eta di Carlo

Ve Guicciardini, ed. Emilio Pasquini and Paolo Prodi (Bologna: Mulino, 2002), 383-395. Ippolito de’ Medici died at Itri on 10 August 1535, traveling to petition the emperor in person. Both Benedetto Varchi and Jacopo Nardi in their histories, as well as the exiles at the time, accused Alessandro of having his cousin poisoned: Varchi, Storia florentina, 3:113—125; Nardi, Istorie, 2:249—254. 66. See most recently Stefano Dall’Aglio, Lassassino del duca: Esilio e morte di Lorenzino de’ Medici (Florence: Olschki, 2011).

67. ASF, Senato dei 48, Provvisioni, I: 119r. 68. Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 3:289—361;, Nardi, Istorie, 2:285—306.

69. See Nicholas Scott Baker, “For Reasons of State: Political Executions, Republicanism, and the Medici in Florence, 1480-1560,” Renaissance Quarterly 62, no. 2 (2009): 444-478. 70. Randolph Starn, Contrary Commonwealth: The Theme of Exile in Medieval and

Renaissance Italy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982). 71. ASF, CS, Serie §, 1207, busta titled “Lettere trovate fuori del serie nel fasciolo I”: doc. 40, Filippo Strozzi, in Bologna, to Francesco Vettori, in Florence, 20 January 1§37: “se mi sono carne o pesce.” 72. The seminal study of exile in medieval and Renaissance Italy remains Starn, Contrary Commonwealth. More recently, see Christine Shaw, The Politics of Exile in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000);

336 Notes to Pages 165—167 Alison Brown, “Insiders and Outsiders: The Changing Boundaries of Exile,” in Society and Individual in Renaissance Florence, ed. William J. Connell

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 337-383; Stephen J. Milner, “Exile, Rhetoric, and the Limits of Civic Republican Discourse,” in At the Margins: Minority Groups in Premodern Italy, ed. Stephen J. Milner

(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), 162—191; Fabrizio Ricciardelli, The Politics of Exclusion in Early Renaissance Florence (Turnhout,

Belgium: Brepols, 2007). 73. Inferno, Canto 1: 4—7. The translation is from Dante Alighieri, Dante’s Inferno: The Indiana Critical Edition, ed. Mark Musa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 19. The meanings of Dante’s “selva oscura” are, of course, multiple: the physical and mental experience of exile is but one of its referents. 74. ASF, CS, Serie §, 1207, busta titled “Lettere a Filippo Strozzi No. 3”: doc. 72, undated document in the hand of Filippo Strozzi (based on internal evidence written in 1537): “io desiderei essere restituito alla patria... perche il nome di rebelle dannifica grandemente li traffichi et negotii miei mercantili...li oltre vorrei potere finire il palazzo et exigere dalli miei debitori.” The reference to the palazzo is to the Palazzo Strozzi, designed by Benedetto da Maiano for Filippo’s father, Filippo di Matteo. Begun in 1489, the palace was not completed until 1538. 75. ASF, CS, Serie I, 100: 47v, 6I1v, Luigi Guicciardini, in Florence, to Francesco Guicciardini, in Bologna, 10 June 1533: “la Ex[cellenti]ta del Duca dimostra pit Pun giorno che l’altro esse sopra la eta sua patiente intendere et tutto”; “perché altro bene non possiamo havere né in altro consiste la salute di questa cipta: essendo li inimici nostri pit obstinati et pit velenosi che mai.” See also ASF, CS, Serie 1, 100: §6v; MDP, 333: 254r. 76. ASF, CS, Serie I, 129: 202r, Francesco Guicciardini, in Bologna, to Luigi Guicciardini, in Arezzo, 18 November 1534: “ho sempre giudichato che habbino poco fondamento et che precedino da’ pazzi et disperati”; “so non mi posso fidar’ di questi ribaldi né cosa alcuna mai mi potrebbe persuader’ il contrario ché so che m’ hanno in somo odio.” 77. Guicciardini, Opere inedite, 9:354. 78. Niccolini, Filippo Strozzi, 217.

79. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 98: 217r, Girolamo Guicciardini to Bongianni Gianfigliazzi, 6 February 1537: “son per fare ongni opera per quietare le cose di fuora con e fuorusciti 0 altri in modo sara facil cosa non avessimo ghuerra ma chome si sia si pud male giudichare il futuro.” 80. ASF, CS, Serie I, 60: 107r. 81. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 60: 104r, Francesco Guicciardini, in Florence, to Luigi Guicciardini, in Pistoia, 19 June 1537: “qua non si vede altro che buio.” See also 173r and 174r. The correspondence of the Florentine exiles in the same

Notes to Pages 167—172 337 time frame asserts the predominance of fear and confusion within Florence during the early summer of 1537: see ASF, CS, Serie 1, 100: 27Vv, 37r.

82. ASF, Tratte, 907: 180r, 188r. 83. See for example ASF, CS, Serie 3, 108: 1451; Serie §, 1207, busta titled “Lettere a Filippo Strozzi No. 3”: docs. 106, 121. Lorenzo was, in fact, briefly detained for the duration of the exiles’ ill-fated military expedition in the summer of 1537: see CS, Serie I, 100: 37r. 84. ASF, CS, Serie 5, 1209, busta titled “Lettere di diversi al mag.co Filippo di Filippo Strozzi dal primo gennaio al primo giugno 1537, No. 8”: doc. 64, Lorenzo Strozzi, in Florence, to Filippo Strozzi, in Bologna, 4 February 1537: “te ne ritorni a venetia alle tua faccende con quelle scuse che ti occorreranno cosi ti preserverai la benivolentia di tutta questa Citta et il credito che di fuori hai”; 1207, busta titled “Lettere a Filippo Strozzi No. 3”: doc. 105, Lorenzo Strozzi, in Florence, to Filippo Strozzi, in Bologna, 13 February 1537: “ne voglio mancare di raccomandarti la tua patria quantunche io habbi visto et voglia al continuo per l’opere tue l’amore che tu gli porti” (see also doc. 159, Lorenzo Strozzi, in Florence, to Filippo Strozzi, in Bologna, 12 March 1537: “che l’amore della patria tua la qual quanto posso ti raccomando”); 1207, busta titled “Lettere a Filippo Strozzi No. 3”: doc. 106, Lorenzo Strozzi, in Florence, to Filippo Strozzi, in Bologna, 14 February 1537: ‘quando tu operi so si come io mi rendo certo che tu facci pit infinite ragioni a te et a tutti noi altri arredierai quella sicurta et quiete debbe desiderare ogni amorevole et buono cittadino” (see also doc. 121, Lorenzo Strozzi, in Florence, to Filippo Strozzi, in Bologna, 23 February 1537: “quanto prima puoi tornartene a vinetia et levarti dagl’orredii quelle persone che tu giudichi che ti possino dare carico né apestiscono la quiete et ben della patria come tu”); 1207, busta titled “Lettere a Filippo Strozzi No. 3”: doc. 159, Lorenzo Strozzi, in Florence, to Filippo Strozzi, in Bologna, 12 March 1537: “ciascuno ti tene gl’occhi addosso et repeta che il bene et il male possi venire da te”; “parmi che sieno pochi prudenti che gli huomini che mettono a pericolo lo stato loro senza alcuno benefitio”; 1209, busta titled “Lettere di diversi al mag.co Filippo di Filippo Strozzi dal primo gennaio al primo giugno 1537, No. 8”: doc. 242, Lorenzo Strozzi, in Florence, to Filippo Strozzi, in Venice, 26 May 1537: “cosi voi preporrete le cose publiche alle private.” 85. See in the case of Naples, Tommaso Astarita, The Continuity of Feudal Power: The Caracciolo di Brienza in Spanish Naples (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1992). 86. Francesco Guicciardini, Scritti politici e ricordi, ed. Roberto Palmarocchi (Bari: Laterza, 1933), 10. The object of Guicciardini’s ire was book 1, chap. 4: Niccold Machiavelli, Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio, ed. Francesco Bausi, 2 vols. (Rome: Salerno, 2001), 1 :33—36.

338 Notes to Pages 172-175 87. Guicciardini, Scritti politici e ricordi, 14.

88. Francesco Guicciardini, Le Cose Fiorentine, ed. Roberto Ridolfi (Florence: Olschki, 1945), 21-22. 89. Guicciardini, Opere inedite, 9:364. 90. On the theme of consensus see Najemy, Corporatism and Consensus; Mark Jurdjevic, “Civic Humanism and the Rise of the Medici,” Renaissance Quarterly 51, no. 4 (1999): 994-1020; John M. Najemy, “Civic Humanism and Florentine Politics,” in Renaissance Civic Humanism: Reappraisals and

Reflections, ed. James Hankins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

2000), 75-104. 91. ASF, CS, Serie §, 1207, busta titled “Lettere a Filippo Strozzi No. 3”: doc. 106, Lorenzo Strozzi, in Florence, to Filippo Strozzi, in Bologna, 14 February 1537: “quella sicurta et quiete”; Niccolini, Filippo Strozzi, 216; CS, Serie §, 1207, busta titled “Lettere a Filippo Strozzi No. 3”: doc. 121, Lorenzo Strozzi, in Florence, to Filippo Strozzi, in Bologna, 23 February 1537: “scrivendo sempre come sai che é el mio costume a benefitio della citta et di chi regge”; “ne apetiscono la quiete et ben della patria come tu.” See also doc. 169. 92. ASF, CS, Serie 5, 1209, busta titled “Lettere di diversi a Filippo di Filippo Strozzi dal 1 gennaio al I giugno 1537”: doc. §4, Lorenzo Strozzi, in Florence, to Filippo Strozzi, in Lyon, 23 May 1529: “e disagi mi offendono né trovo cosa che pitt mi giovi che l’aria & qui bisogna stare nella citta & assiduo”; “io ho sempre desiderato d’essere in buona gratia con questo stato ma non mi curavo d’essere adoperato si presto in cosa di tanta importantia.” 93. ASF, CS, Serie 5, 1475: 177v, Libro segreto di Luigi di Luigi Martelli: “tutty glufizy dutile et onore che io luigi di luigi d@'ugholino martelli 0 avuti.” In August 1541, Martelli petitioned Cosimo I for tax relief, as he had twelve living children: 176r. 94. The nature of office holding in the Medici principate is discussed further in Chapter §. See also R. Burr Litchfield, Emergence of a Bureaucracy: The Florentine

Patricians, 1530-1790 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986). 95. ASF, CS, Serie 1, §9: 215, Girolamo Guicciardini, in Florence, to Luigi Guicciardini, in Pisa, 22 December 1530: “possiamo consumare quello resto del tenpo ci avanza con pit piacere e ozio non abiamo fatto il paxato.” 96. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 336: 341, Filippo Valori, in Certaldo, to Bartolomeo Valori, in Rome, 14 April 1536: “essere stato in questo luogo di certaldo molto solutario et carestioso di commettere cosa nessuna e meno d’udirne et io ne ho preso piacere assai per getarmi si dell’animo come del corpo.” 97. ASF, CS, Serie 3, 95: 203r—v, Lorenzo Strozzi, at Santuccio, to Filippo Strozzi, in Venice, 9 June 1537: “Ho caro commendi la vita mia dell starmi all Villa e godermi la quiete”; “sto non solo per conto dell’aria ma per non intendere si spesso e si tosto infinite cose che mi dispiacciano.”

Notes to Pages 175-179 339 98. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 60: 268r, Jacopo Guicciardini, at Poppiano, to Luigi Guicciardini, in Pistoia, 12 August 1537: “s’el modo a fuggirlo fussi partirsi dalla cipta et dalla frequentia delli huomini... & venirsene alle ville et tenere vita solitaria come si potrebbe facilmente far’ qui dove sanza dubbio é un paradiso io sopra tucti li altri lo farei.” 99. See Maurice Brock, Bronzino, trans. David Poole Radzinowicz and Christine Schultz-Touge (Paris: Flammarion, 2002); Cropper, “Prolegomena’; Elizabeth Cropper, “Pontormo and Bronzino in Philadelphia: A Double Portrait,” in Pontormo, Bronzino, and the Medici: The Transformation of the Renais-

sance Portrait in Florence, ed. Carl Brandon Strehlke (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2004), I-33; Strehlke, Pontormo, Bronzino, and the Medici. 100. Compare Elizabeth Cropper, Pontormo: Portrait of a Halberdier (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1997), 106.

101. Compare this observation with the thesis proposed in Ingrid D. Rowland, The Scarith of Scornello: A Tale of Renaissance Forgery (Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 2004). Rowland argues that by the seventeenth century the realm of cultural and intellectual production was the only vehicle remaining for the Tuscan elite to assert and justify their status and prestige. See also the analogous shift in material culture in Venice from a vehicle for expressing of moral values to one highlighting aesthetic values and refined taste detected by Patricia Fortini Brown, Private Lives in Renaissance Venice: Art,

Architecture, and the Family (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004),

56-59. Compare with the observations about Dutch portraiture in the seventeenth century in Ann Jensen Adams, “The Three-Quarter Length Life-Sized Portrait in Seventeenth-Century Holland: The Cultural Functions of tranquillitas,” in Looking at Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art: Realism

Reconsidered, ed. Wayne Franits (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), I$8-174. 102. Gabrielle Langdon has recently and unconvincingly argued that this portrait depicts not Francesca but her sister Maria, the mother of Cosimo I, and dates it to 1526: Gabrielle Langdon, Medici Women: Portraits of Power, Love, and Betrayal from the Court of Duke Cosimo I (Toronto: University of Toronto

Press, 2006), 24-32. Apart from the fact that nearly all of the iconographic evidence that Langdon musters to support her identification could equally identify the sitter as Francesca—both being Salviati women married to Medici men—her dating presents a crucial problem. In order for Langdon to be correct (as she acknowledges herself) Bronzino would have to have painted the portrait prior to the death of Maria’s husband, Giovanni de’ Medici, in November 1526, because after this she always appeared dressed as a widow. This is significant because the only evidence that Langdon presents to distinguish the sitter as Maria consists of the ribbons dangling from one of the books in the portrait. Langdon argues that these refer to

340 Notes to Pages 181—185 Giovanni de’ Medici under his nom de guerre— Giovanni delle Bande Nere (of the Black Bands)—and so identify the sitter as his wife. However, “delle Bande Nere” was a posthumous appellation, so no references to black bands would have had any resonance prior to Giovanni’s death, at which point Maria would have appeared as a widow rather than a faithful wife. The ribbons are also green, not black. On the myth of Giovanni delle Bande Nere, “the non-existent hero,” see Maurizio Arfaioli, The Black Bands of Giovanni: Infantry and Diplomacy during the Italian Wars (1526-1528) (Pisa: Edizioni

Plus—Pisa University Press, 2005), xiii—xvii. 103. Brock, Bronzino, 116. Literally florentinita translates (very awkwardly) as Florentinity or Florentineness. 104. See Sarah Blake McHam, “Donatello’s Bronze David and Judith as Metaphors for Medici Rule in Florence,” Art Bulletin 83, no. 1 (2001): 32-47; Adrian W. B. Randolph, Engaging Symbols: Gender, Politics and Public Art in

Fifteenth-Century Florence (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002). Broadly on the mutability of the meanings attached to symbols and places

in Renaissance Florence see Stephen J. Milner, “The Florentine Piazza della Signoria as Practiced Place,” in Renaissance Florence: A Social History, ed.

Roger J. Crum and John T. Paoletti (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 83-103. 105. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 100: §6v, Luigi Guicciardini, in Florence, to Francesco Guicciardini, in Bologna, 6 April 1533: “ha fatto ben’ con la parte ghibellina”; “non so quale possa esse’ maggiore errore che metterla in sospetto et che ragionevolemente possa dubitare della fede.” 106. See for example the juxtaposition and use of liberty and tyranny in the correspondence of Filippo Strozzi: ASF, CS, Serie 3, 95: $v—6r. 107. Guicciardini, Opere inedite, 9:356, 358. 108. Francesco Guicciardini, Opere inedite di Francesco Guicciardini illustrate da Giuseppe

Canestrini, ed. Piero Guicciardini and Luigi Guicciardini, vol. 10, Ricordi autobiografici e di famiglia e scritti vari (Florence: Cellini, 1867), 299.

109. ASF, CS, Serie §, 1207, busta titled “Lettere trovate fuori di serie nel fasciolo I”: doc. 40, Filippo Strozzi, in Bologna, to Francesco Vettori, in Florence, 20 January 1537: “che facilmente la citta nostra cadere in mano di externi”; “circa la election dal capo quanto alli miei privati interessi non potrei pit contentarmene.” 110. ASF, CS, Serie §, 1207, busta titled “Lettere trovate fuori di serie nel fasciolo I”: doc. 137, Filippo Strozzi, in Bologna, to an uncertain French correspondent, 27 February 1537: “il muovere l’armi hora sia grandissimo servitio de ces[are] facendolo patrone con grande justificatione delli lochi importanti di toscana”; “non liberala ma farla molto pit: schiava che non é al presente’; 1207, busta titled “Lettere a Filippo Strozzi No. 3”: doc. 79, undated document in the hand of Filippo Strozzi: “la citta cammina per le poste alla

Notes to Pages 185—187 341 ruina sua et diventera in breve di necessita schiava 0 del vitello o delli spagnoli o de franzesi perche cosimo et il bastardino sono per prestare solo il nome a questa ragione.” See also Serie §, 1209, busta titled “Lettere di diversi al mag.co Filippo di Filippo Strozzi dal primo gennaio al primo giugno 1537 No. 8”: doc. 165. Giulio de’ Medici was the illegitimate son of the late Duke Alessandro. The condottiere Alessandro Vitelli had served

as a colonel in the imperial army that besieged Florence. Ferrante Gonzaga left him in command of a detachment of soldiers in 1530 to control Florence for the Medici and the emperor. Following the assassination of Alessandro de’ Medici, Vitelli siezed control of the fortezza in the name of Charles V. 111. ASF, Miscellanea Medicea, 509, Insert 3: 321: “levare lo stato al S[ign]or Cosimo et metterlo nelle mani di spagnuoli.” 112. ASF, CS, Serie §, 1207, busta titled “Lettere a Filippo Strozzi No. 3”: doc. 169, Lorenzo Strozzi, in Florence, to Filippo Strozzi, in Bologna, 17 March 1537: “chi vuole la liberta et non la serviti la salute et non la ruina di questa nostra patria gli bisogna...camminare per la strada di sua M[aest]a o almanco tirarsi da parte.” Compare with Luigi Guicciardini’s analogous opinion of some four years earlier: ASF, CS, Serie I, 100: S6v. 113. ASF, CS, Serie §, 1207, busta titled “Lettere trovate fuori di serie in fasciolo I”: doc. 40, Filippo Strozzi, in Bologna, to Francesco Vettori, in Florence, 20 January 1537: “se voi mi havete trovato sempre alla patria affectionate non dovereste dubitare hora della mente mia”; Serie 3, 108: 1451, Filippo Strozzi, in Bologna, to Lorenzo Strozzi, in Florence, 17 February 1537: “fard mio debito verso la patria sempre.” 114. Varchi, Storia florentina, 3:360—361; Nardi, Istorie, 2:299—306. On the exiles’ troop numbers see ASF, CS, Serie 1, 100: 37r. On their movements see Serie 1, 60: 183r, 1871, and 195r, which also reveal how compromised the expedition was from the beginning. The imperial troops captured fifty-one Florentines at Montemurlo: see ASF, CS, Serie 1, 95: 141r—-142r and 98: 229r—232r. 115. See ASF, CS, Serie 1, 95: 141r—-142r and 98: 229r—232r.

116. ASF, CS, Serie §, 1207 busta titled “Lettere trovate fuori di serie in fasciolo I”: doc. 118-119, Filippo Strozzi, in Florence, to Cardinal Giovanni Salviati, in Ferrara, 29 November 1537: “l’esito degl’altri fa temere grandamente me e gl’amici miei”; doc. 125, Filippo Strozzi, in Florence, to Roberto Strozzi, at the imperial court, 22 December 1537: “le cose mie sono di qua in pessimo grado ... questo é l’ultimo acto della tragedia.” 117. An account of the discovery of Filippo Strozzi’s corpse and the circumstances of his death, signed by Cosimo I, survives in ASF, Miscellanea Medicea, 54, Insert 34: 12r—1I3r. The death was assumed to be suicide, which Cosimo took as a sign of Strozzi’s “most vile soul.”

342 Notes to Pages 187—191 118. Nardi, Istorie, 2:324—325. See also Segni, Storie fiorentine, 2:212. The letter by

Cosimo I describing the scene in Strozzi’s room when his corpse was discovered testifies to the presence of “a certain writing in his own hand... all bloody.” ASF, Miscellanea Medicea, 54, Insert 34: I2v: “una certa scritta di sua mano... tutta insanguinata.” 119. See Manfredi Piccolomini, The Brutus Revival: Parricide and Tyrannicide during the

Renaissance (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1991), 8-16.

5. Reimagining Florence 1. In strict technical terms the Medici principate did not constitute a monarchy until after Cosimo I’s assumption of the title of grand duke in 1569. Throughout this chapter, however, I use the term “monarchy” to refer to a form of government, in an institutional sense, of rule by an individual, as distinct from the previous communal system of government. 2. The most lucid, if triumphalist, account of the first decade of Cosimo I’s reign remains Giorgio Spini, Cosimo I e la indipendenza del principato mediceo, 2nd

ed. (Florence: Vallechi, 1980). See also Furio Diaz, I granducato di Toscana: I Medici (Turin: Unione Tipografico-Editrice Torinese, 1976), 66-109; Olivier Rouchon, “Linvention du principat médicéen (1512—1609),” in Florence et la Toscane, XIVe—XIXe siécles: Les dynamiques d’un Etat italien, ed. Jean

Boutier, Sandro Landi, and Olivier Rouchon (Rennes Cedex: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2004), 65-90. 3. Iam using the term “court society” in a manner analogous to that delineated and explained by Norbert Elias, in The Civilizing Process, trans. Edmund Jephcott, vol. 2, Power and Civility (New York: Pantheon, 1982); idem, The Court Society, trans. Edmund Jephcott (New York: Pantheon, 1983). Elias’s work remains fundamental for the notion of the court as a sociological and political entity despite (or perhaps because of) the wealth of scholarship that has critiqued, criticized, and complicated his thesis: see for example Ronald G. Asch, Nobilities in Transition, 1550-1700: Courtiers and Rebels in Britain

and Europe (London: Hodder Arnold, 2003); Ronald G. Asch and Adolf M. Birke, eds., Princes, Patronage and the Nobility: The Court at the Beginning of the

Modern Age, c. 1450-1650 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991); William Beik, Absolutism and Society in Seventeenth-Century France: State Power and Provincial

Aristocracy in Languedoc (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Aldo Scaglione, Knights at Court: Courtliness, Chivalry, and Courtesy from Ottonian

Germany to the Italian Renaissance (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991); Jay M. Smith, The Culture of Merit: Nobility, Royal Service, and the Making of

Absolute Monarchy in France, 1600-1789 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996); Hillay Zmora, Monarchy, Aristocracy, and the State in Europe,

1300-1800 (London: Routledge, 2001).

Notes to Pages 192—194 343 4. After 1550, the nature of the elite under the Medici principate began to change. While the old Florentine families still continued to dominate, the second half of the sixteenth century witnessed the creation of a regional, Tuscan elite: see Elena Fasano Guarini, “Principe ed oligarchie nella Toscana del ’500,” in Forme e tecniche del potere nella citta (secoli XIV—XVID), ed.

Sergio Bertelli (Perugia: Universita di Perugia, 1979-80), 105—126; Giovanna Benadusi, A Provincial Elite in Early Modern Tuscany: Family and Power in

the Creation of the State (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996): Franco Angiolini, I cavalieri e il principe: Lordine di Santo Stefano e la Societa toscana

in Eta Moderna (Florence: Edizioni Firenze, 1996). 5. ASF, Senato dei 48, Provvisioni, 1: 119r: “per capo et primario del governo della cipta di Firenze et suo domino et de’ magistrati et offici di quelli.” Another provision the following day noted that Cosimo’s formal title, to

appear in letters and other documents, would be “the Ilustrious Lord Cosimo’: I19v. 6. ASF, Trattati internazionali, r1A—C; Danilo Marrara, Studi giuridici sulla Toscana medicea: Contributo alla storia degli stati assoluti in Italia (Milan: Giuffre,

1965), 20-21. 7. See for example ASF, CS, Serie 1, 16: 30r—45r; 61: 871, 991, 126r, and 172r. 8. See for example ASF, CS, Serie 1, 62: 70-74; MDP, 3: 671, 84r, 91r, 1321; 345: 43V, 44v, 146r.

9. ASF, MDP, 3: 155v, Cosimo I de’ Medici, in Florence, to Pirro Musefilo, in Naples, 8 April 1541: “el Duca di fiorenza.” This letter represents the earliest extant usage of this signature that I have located. In October 1540, Cosimo still signed his letters with his name only: ibid., 147r. 10. Marrara, Studi giuridici, 22. Pope Pius V granted Cosimo the title of Grand Duke of Tuscany on 27 August 1569, over the objections of both Philip I of Spain and Maximilian II]. While Philip, who required Tuscan naval support in the Mediterranean, eventually conceded, Maximilian never conferred imperial imprimatur for the title until his recognition of Francesco.

11. On the reorganization and institutional reform of the Florentine government and administration in the same period, see Diaz, II granducato di Toscana, 85-109; Antonio Anzilotti, La costituzione interna dello Stato Fiorentino sotto il duca Cosimo I de’ Medici (Florence: Francesco Lumachi, 1910).

12. See for example ASF, MDP 335: 590r; 336: 206r; 337: 15Or; 345: 96r, 2641; 346: 14.41; 347: 26r; 349: 3041. Note, however, that many other correspondents continued to address him simply as “Signore” right through the 1540s. 13. See Spini, Cosimo I. 14. ASF, Tratte, 907: 179r—I8 Iv, 192r. 15. ASF, Tratte, 717: 167v—189r; 719: 3r—18v and 77r—89v. Of a possible 3,440

positions, 2,073 men with patrician names were drawn (60.26 percent).

344 Notes to Pages 194-196 16. ASF, Tratte, 906: 66r—v. Of the 225 individuals seated, 196 had patrician surnames (87.11 percent). 17. R. Burr Litchfield, Emergence of a Bureaucracy: The Florentine Patricians, 1530-1790

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986), 24—s1. A glance at the comprehensive tables of patricians under the principality from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries reveals the influx of families with non-Florentine and non-Italian names. Litchfield does note, however, that very few new citizens held offices prior to the 1560s. 18. Francesco Guicciardini, Lettere inedite di Francesco Guicciardini a Bartolomeo Lanfredini dalla fine dell assedio di Firenze al secondo covegno di Clemente VII e di Carlo V,

ed. André Otetea (Aquila: Vecchioni, 1926), 141. See also 139. 19. Francesco di Andrea Buonsignori, Memorie (1530-1565), ed. Sandro Bertelli and Gustavo Bertoli (Florence: Libreria Chiari, 2000), 49. On the important role that clothing played as a marker of social distinction from the mid-sixteenth century see Elizabeth Currie, “Clothing and a Florentine Style, 1550-1620,” Renaissance Studies 23, no. 1 (2009): 33-52. 20. ASF, Tratte, 906: 81r—82v, 1871; 907: 43r—44v, 67r—-69v. For comparison, on the Dieci di Liberta e Pace between 1502 and 1512, 113 men of a possible 200, and between 1527 and 1530 64 of a possible 70 had their names drawn for the office: ASF, Tratte, 905: 125r—126v; 906: 46r, 47r—4 8v. On the inner circle of the regime of 1512-27 see Chapter 2 above. The twenty-one men who sat on the Otto di Pratica five or more times between 1532 and 1550 were Roberto di Donato Acciaiuoli (6), Giovanni di Bardo Corsi (s), Raffaelle di Pandolfo Corbinelli (6), Agostino di Francesco Dini (6), Andrea di Tommaso Minerbetti (5), Jacopo di Bongianni Gianfigliazzi (7), Luigi di Piero Guicciardini (6), Raffaelle di Francesco de’ Medici (6), Filippo di Benedetto de’ Nerli (6), Francescantonio di Francesco Nori (6), Luigi di Piero Ridolfi (5), Ottaviano di Lorenzo de’ Medici (6), Prinzivalle di M. Luigi della Stufa (7), Giovanni di Filippo dell’Antella (5), Ippolito di Giovanbattista Buondelmonti (5), Alessandro di Gherardo Corsini (6), Federigo di Roberto de’ Ricci (6), Taddeo di Francesco Guiducci (5), Alessandro di Niccolo Antinori (6), Giuliano di Piero Capponi (5), and Girolamo di Luca degli Albizzi (s). 21. Phil Withington, “Public Discourse, Corporate Citizenship, and State Formation in Early Modern England,” American Historical Review 112, no. 4 (2007): 1016-1038. See also Antonio Anzilotti, La crisi costituzionale della Repubblica fiorentina (Rome: Multigrafica, 1969), 90; Edward Muir, “Was There Republicanism in Renaissance Republics? Venice after Agnadello,” in Venice Reconsidered: The History and Civilization of an Italian City State, 1297-1797,

ed. John Martin and Dennis Romano (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 137-167; Christine Shaw, “Counsel and Consent in Fifteenth-Century Genoa,” English Historical Review 116, no. 468 (2001):

Notes to Pages 196—201 345 834-862; idem, Popular Government and Oligarchy in Renaissance Italy (Leiden:

Brill, 2006), 171. 22. Niccolo Machiavelli, Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio, ed. Francesco

Bausi, 2 vols. (Rome: Salerno, 2001), 1:33—36; Matteo Palmieri, Vita civile, ed. Gino Belloni (Florence: Sansoni, 1982), 69. 23. On Florentine sociability and the nature of urban life see F. W. Kent, ““Un paradiso habitato da diavoli’: Ties of Loyalty and Patronage in the Society of Medicean Florence,” in Le radice cristiane di Firenze, ed. Anna Benvenuti,

Franco Cardini, and Elena Giannarelli (Florence: Alinea, 1994), 183-210; Guido Ruggiero, Machiavelli in Love: Sex, Self, and Society in the Italian Renaissance

(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), 85-107; Sharon T. Strocchia, “Theaters of Everyday Life,” in Renaissance Florence: A Social History,

ed. Roger J. Crum and John T. Paoletti (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 55-80; Ronald F. Weissman, “The Importance of Being Ambiguous: Social Relations, Individualism, and Identity in Renaissance Florence,” in Urban Life in the Renaissance, ed. Susan Zimmerman and Ronald

F. Weissman (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1989), 269-280. 24. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 62: 15, Francesco Guicciardini, in Florence, to Luigi Guicciardini, in Pisa, 3 October 1539: “Qui si prosede all’usato.” 25. Ibid., 64, Girolamo Guicciardini, in Florence, to Luigi Guicciardini, in Pisa, 4 January 1540: “altro non ci é di nuove.” 26. ASF, CS, Serie I, 63: 97. 27. For examples of letters devoted to foreign news to the exclusion of Florentine events see ASF, CS, Serie 1, 62: 34, 40, and 49. For examples of local news being confined to nonpolitical affairs see ASF, CS, Serie I, 62: 35 and 49. 28. Felix Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini: Politics and History in Sixteenth-Century

Florence (New York: W. W. Norton, 1984), 271-301. 29. Francesco Guicciardini, Storia d'Italia, ed. Franco Catalano, 3 vols. (n.p.: Mondadori, 1975), 1:3. 30. Ibid., 1:150. 31. Filippo de’ Nerli, Commentarj dei fatti civili occorsi dentro la citta di Firenze dallanno

1215 al 1537, 2 vols. (Trieste: Colombo Coen, 1859), 1:37.

32. Ibid., 2:262. See also 2:172. Compare with the similar conclusions about the effect that the political culture of the principality had on history writing in Florence in Anzilotti, La crisi costituzionale, 113-115.

33. Giovanni della Casa, Galateo, ed. Giorgio Manganelli and Claudio Milanini, 2nd ed. (Milan: Rizzoli, 1977), 60. 34. Baldassar Castiglione, I libro del Cortegiano, ed. Amedeo Quondam (Milan: Garzanti, 1981), 129. 35. Wayne A. Rebhorn, Courtly Performances: Masking and Festivity in Castiglione’s

“Book of the Courtier” (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1978), 34-35.

346 Notes to Pages 201—204 Rebhorn notes the etymological relationship between sprezzatura and sprezzare (to scorn or despise).

36. Castiglione, Cortegiano, 46, 75, 82-83. On the trope of hostility toward pedantry in court society see also Mario Biagioli, Galileo, Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

1993), 288. 37. Castiglione, Cortegiano, 85. 38. See Biagioli, Galileo, Courtier, 288; Rebhorn, Courtly Performances, 202. 39. See Peter Burke, The Fortunes of the Courtier: The European Reception of Casti-

glione’s Cortegiano (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996). 40. Compare with the discussion of monopoly formation in Elias, Civilizing Process, 112—113.

41. BNCF, Panciatichiani, 134, Insert 6: 2r, Ricordanze di Filippo di Niccolo di Bartolomeo Valori: “gravassino niccolo mio padre.” Niccolo Valori had been implicated in the 1513 conspiracy, led by Pieropaolo Boscoli and Agostino Capponi, against the Medici family: see Niccolo’s own narrative of the plot and his subsequent imprisonment in BNCF, Panciatichiani, 134, Insert I: I7v—18r.

42. ASF, OGBR, 231: 10v, Ir, I3v, 15r. 43. ASF, CS, Serie 5, 1475: 177v. Two of Jacopo Salviati’s sons-in-law and one of his sons stood as godfathers to three of Martelli’s children: ASF, CS, Serie §, 1471: 1O4v, 113r.

44. ASF, Canigiani, 123: 207v, 219r, and 220r; ASF, Tratte, 907: 8v. 45. Antinori served on the Ufficiali del Monte seven times, the Otto di Pratica six times, the Ducal Council nine times, and as an accoppiatore seventeen times: ASF, Tratte, 907: 43r—44r, §56r—S8r, 68r—G9r, 144v—-1 45, 146v, 147V, 1751, 179r, 188r, 192r, 193r—195v, 2OIv, 202V—203r, 204r—2 OSV, 206V—207r,

238r, 239r, 240r. 46. Malegonnelle served on the Otto di Pratica four times, on the Ducal Council nine times, and as an accoppiatore thirteen times: ASF, Tratte, 907: A3r, 44r, 68r, GOV, 144v—-145r, 146r—147Vv, 18 Or, 194r—-19$v, 204r—205v,

206v, 2071, 238r, 239r—-240r. On Malegonnelle’s position during the interrogations after Montemurlo see ASF, Miscellanea Medicea, 509, Insert 3. 47. ASF, Tratte, 907: 69r, 18 Ov. 48. ASF, MDP 333: 3521, Francesco Valori, in Bologna, to Cosimo I de’ Medici, 20 August 1537: “philippo mio fratello con gli altri nostri di casa.” See also 3711, Domenico Martelli, in Arezzo, to Cosimo I de’ Medici, 20 August 1537, on behalf of Antonio di Domenico Martelli; and MDP 351: 370r, Francesco and Bongianni Capponi, in Florence, to Cosimo I de’ Medici, 24 May 1541, on behalf of Giovanfrancesco di Lodovico Capponi.

Notes to Pages 204—211 347 49. ASF, OGBP, 2215: 27: “confidato nella benignita et cementia di quella humilmente li supplica voglia degnarsi farli gratia di liberatione delle carcere dove é stato et di presente si truova.” See also OGB, 2221: §60 and 2222: 755.

50. ASF, OGBP, 2221: 36: “lumilissimo et misero servo vieri di bernardo da castiglione di ricorrere ali sue clementissimi piedi humilmente suplicandole si voglie degniare per Il’amor di yhs xpo farli gratia di cavarlo delle stinche’; “Non é ancora tempo.” Castiglione had previously won the concession of having his sentence transferred from the fortress of Volterra to the Florentine communal prison, the Stinche. See also OGBP, 2215: unfoliated; 2220: 157; 2222: 806; 2223: 90, 172, 343. 51. ASF, OGBP, 2223: 4. Several other similar petitions from various individuals who had dealings with Florentine exiles—often from men who had taken military service for the French crown under Piero or Fra Leone Strozzi—survive in the records of the Otto di Guardia.

52. Compare Ann Jensen Adams, “The Three- Quarter Length Life-Sized Portrait in Seventeenth-Century Holland: The Cultural Functions of tranquillitas,” in Looking at Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art: Realism Reconsidered, ed.

Wayne Franits (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 158-174. 53. On the influence of Bronzino and other artists on Salviati’s style see Philippe Costamagna, “La potraitiste,” in Francesco Salviati (1510-1563) ou la

Bella Maniera, ed. Catherine Monbeig Goguel (Milan/Paris: Electa / Editions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, 1998), 47-52. 54. Compare with the discussions of court society, presentation, and social relations in Elias, Court Society; Rebhorn, Courtly Performances.

55. Castiglione, Cortegiano, 59-60. 56. ASF, MAP, 28: 393, Piero Capponi, to Lorenzo de’ Medici, 10 August 1492: “perche la vita sanz’onore é un viver’ morto.” 57. ASF, MDP, 331: 239r. 58. ASF, MDP, 333: 79r, Domenico Martelli, in Arezzo, to Cosimo I de’ Medici, 16 July 1537: “se iacopo de’ medici voleva 0 guasparre o altro qualsivoglia huomo di questa citta bastava ne scrivissi un motto.” 59. ASF, MDP, 36S5A: 842r, Bindo Altoviti, in Rome, to Cosimo I de’ Medici, 21 May 1544: “piacemi certamente vegniare in tale ufitio honorevole.” 60. On Altoviti’s life and career see Melissa Meriam Bullard, “Bindo A lItoviti, Renaissance Banker and Papal Financier,” in Raphael, Cellini and a Renaissance Banker: The Patronage of Bindo Altoviti, ed. Alan Chong, Donatella Pegazzano,

and Dimitrios Zikos (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 2003), 21-S7. 61. ASF, Tratte, 719: 73r; 907: 181r. Altoviti was elected as a Monte official seven times prior to 1546: ASF, Tratte, 906: 70v; 907: §6r—57r. Altoviti was drawn for the Signoria twice under the reggimento of 1527-30 but did not sit

348 Notes to Pages 211—214 on the magistracy on either occasion: David Herlihy et al., “Florentine Renaissance Resources, Online Tratte of Office Holders, 1282-1532: Machine readable data file” (Brown University: Florentine Renaissance Resources / STG, 2002), www.stg.brown.edu/projects/tratte/ (last accessed 6 July 2006). 62. Jacopo Nardi’s allegation that Alessandro never replaced dead members of the Quarantotto, in order to centralize the appearance of authority in his own hands, is false: Jacopo Nardi, Istorie della citta di Firenze, ed. Agenore

Gelli, 2 vols. (Florence: Felice le Monnier, 1858), 2:225. Alessandro appointed three men to the Quarantotto on 25 August 1534: Lorenzo di Bernardo Ridolfi, Domenico di Matteo Canigiani, and Domenico di Braccio Martelli: ASF, Tratte, 907: 192r. 63. The first extant letter of Altoviti’s campaign is dated 11 December 1540: ASF, MDP, 348: 38r. The quoted letters can be found at MDP 348: 154r, Bindo Altoviti, in Rome, to Cosimo I de’ Medici, 1 January 1541: “accioche la chasa nostra non resti pitt sanza Tale dignita non sendo quella inferiore a molte altre chase che l’anno né di qualita né di servitt verso vostra Ex[cellen]tia et di sua Ill[ustrissi]ma antecessori”; MDP, 349: 235r, Bindo Altoviti, in Rome, to Cosimo I de’ Medici, 26 March 1541: “reputando ogni honor’ sua come mio”; “per honor’ della casa mia”; MDP 355: 226r, Bindo Altoviti, in Rome, to Cosimo I de’ Medici, 10 October 1541: “vedendola maxime conferita in molte altre et in alcune duplicatamente che né di qualita né di servitio con la Ex[cellen]|tia vostra et antecessori di sua I[l[ustrissi]ma Casa sono alla Casa nostra superiore.” 64. ASF, MDP, 372: 177r. 65. ASF, Tratte, 907: I192Vv.

66. ASF, MDP 331: 239r, Domenico Martelli, in Arezzo, to Cosimo I de’ Medici, 23 May 1537: “non passasi con onor’ né di v[ostra] ex[cellen|tia ne mio”; MDP 333: 79r. Domenico Martelli, in Arezzo, to Cosimo I de’ Medici, 16 July 1537: “a me pare non sia né con honore di V[ostra] Ex[cellen] tia née io.”

67. ASF, MDP, 350: 130r, Girolamo degli Albizzi, in Castel Fiorentino, to Cosimo I de’ Medici, 23 April 1541: “in honore di quella et in esemplo delli sua militi”; “non si debba comportare che sieno offesi tanto vilmente con torgli di pit: con le leggie la faculta di potere recuperare l’honor’ loro in modo alcuno.” Further details about the attack can be found at 13Ir. 68. ASF, MDP, 364: 232r, Francesco Zati, in Pisa, to Cosimo I de’ Medici, 18 December 1543: “per salvar’ ?honore di V[ostra] Ex[cellen]tia... mandai tal servitor’ al bargello dove si truova”; “si tratta del’honore di V[ostra] Ex[cellen]tia.” The word bargello refers both to the title of a police official and to the residence of such an official, which doubled as a jail. 69. See also ASF, MDP 364: 692r; 365: I3r.

Notes to Pages 214—217 349 70. See for example Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi’s consideration of the worth of her future son-in-law, Marco Parenti, in which she reflected that his family “hanno un poco di stato”: Alessandra Strozzi, Lettere di una gentildonna frorentina del secolo XV ai figliuoli esuli, ed. Cesare Guasti (Florence: Sansoni,

1877), 3-4. 71. See Giorgio Chittolini, “The ‘Private, the ‘Public, and the State,” in The Origins of the State in Italy, 1300-1600, ed. Julius Kirshner (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 34-61; Elias, Court Society.

72. See Roger J. Crum, “Lessons from the Past: The Palazzo Medici as Political ‘Mentor’ in Sixteenth-Century Florence,” in The Cultural Politics of Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici, ed. Konrad Eisenbichler (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2001), 48. Compare with John M. Najemy, “Florentine Politics and Urban Spaces,” in Crum and Paoletti, Renaissance Florence, 51-54.

73. The most comprehensive analysis of Florentine electoral procedures remains Nicolai Rubinstein, The Government of Florence under the Medici

(1434-1494), 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). 74. Palmieri, Vita civile, 52. 75. ASF, CS, Serie 5, 1475: 177v, Libro Segreto di Luigi di Luigi Martelli: “Fu fatto de’ S[igno]ri otto di balia dal sopra detto S[ignore] D[uca] Cosimo.” The full title of the Otto di Guardia was the Otto di Guardia e Balia.

Martelli used the same formula for every office that he received from January 1537.

76. ASF, MDP, 368: 259r, Lapo del Tovaglia, in Florence, to Cosimo I de’ Medici, 18 August 1544: “comesomi da V[ost]ra Ex[cellen]ta.” 77. ASF, MDP, 370: 333r, Ottaviano de’ Medici, in Florence, to Cosimo I de’ Medici, 10 January 1545: “del havermi raffermo per il secondo ano in officiale di grascia.” 78. ASF, Canigiani, 123: 207v, Giornale e Ricordanze di Antonio di Simone Canigiani: “lo Ill[ustrissi]mo S[igno]re Duca cosimo mi elesse capitano di cortona.” Canigiani used the same phrase for his later appointments to internal magistracies, on the Otto di Pratica, the Sei di Mercanzia, and the Otto di Guardia: see 219r, 220r. 79. Compare with the discussion of merit and the royal gaze in seventeenthcentury France in Smith, Culture of Merit. 80. ASF, MDP, 335: 612v, Domenico Martelli, in Florence, to Cosimo I de’ Medici, 2 March 1539: “Io dissi a V[ostra] Ex[cellen|tia quando l’altra volta si feciono li otto di pratica che io non ero mai stato et che solo io restavo del numero de quarantotto et lo desideravo assai max[im]e perché fussi noto che io interamente non ero fuori della gratia sua.” Martelli’s fall from grace possibly related to his cousin Antonio di Domenico Martelli’s involvement in the exiles’ military misadventure at Montemurlo: see CS, Serie I, 95: 141v; MDP 333: 3711. Whatever the cause, his pleading did succeed.

350 Notes to Pages 217-219 Although he again missed out on a seat on the Otto di Pratica elected in the Quarantotto in March 1539, he received a seat on the magistracy appointed in September that year: ASF, Tratte, 907: 69r. 81. ASF, MDP, 370: 333r, Ottaviano de’ Medici, in Florence, to Cosimo I de’ Medici, 10 January 1545: “con ogni mio potere le mia actione correspondino in parte alla gran’ fede cognosco haver’ in me.” 82. ASF, MDP, 348: 38r, Bindo Altoviti, in Rome, to Cosimo I de’ Medici, 11 December 1540: “gli piaccia farne gratia di uno alla casa nostra.” See also 1s4r and MDP, 372: 177r. 83. ASF, MDP, 348: 61r, Lorenzo Cambi, in Pietrasanta, to Lorenzo Pagni, 17 December 1540: “che V[ostra] Mag[nificen]tia mi preservi nello buona gratia di sua Ex[cellen|tia.” 84. ASF, MDP, 370: 2411, Filippo de’ Nerli, in Volterra, to Cosimo I de’ Medici, 1 March 1543: “Veggo che la fortuna mi va tutta via traversando de sorte che sara necess[ari|o sempre mentre che io vivo che la felice mano di vostra Ex[cellen]tia sia opponga et per sua sola gratia resista alla mia trista fortuna.” 85. ASF, MAP, 28: 393, Piero Capponi to Lorenzo de’ Medici, 10 August 1472: “vi pregho da vogliate operare per me chome per vostro servitore ch’io sia dela numero deg!’inborsati.” 86. ASF, MAP, 40: 180, Giovanni Tornabuoni to Lorenzo de’ Medici, 29 November 1487: “6 iddio in cielo et Vostra Magnificentia in terra.” On the language of clientage in the fifteenth century see Paul D. McLean, The Art of the Network: Strategic Interaction and Patronage in Renaissance Florence (Durham,

NC: Duke University Press, 2007), 90-120 esp. 87. ASF, MDP, 337: 150r—v, Filippo de’ Nerli, in Pistoia, to Cosimo I de’ Medici, 31 May 1539: “I[l[ustrissi]mo et Ex[cellentissi]|mo Duca et Patron obser[vissi]mo”; “Di vostra S[ignoria] Ill[ustrissi]ma Humill servitore Phi: de’ Nerli.” 88. ASF, MDP, 365: 297r—v, Lorenzo Cambi, in Fivizzano, to Cosimo I de’ Medici, 28 April 1544: “Ul[ustrissi]mo et Ex[cellentissi]mo Sfign]or’ S[ign| or mio”; “Dfi] V[ostra] Ill[ustrissi]ma S[igno]ria Servitore Lorenzo Cambi.” 89. ASF, MDP, 333: 1271, Girolamo degli Albizzi, in Pisa, to Cosimo I de’ Medici, 25 July 1537: “s'apartiene a chi depende nel servitio di suo S[igno]re non solo nel particular’ dove stato deputato ma et in ogni gener’ di caso deposeli rapresenta.” 90. ASF, MDP, 335: 612r, Domenico Martelli, in Florence, to Cosimo I de’ Medici, 2 March 1539: “io non pensai mai postponendo ogni mio utile et comodo... la voluta mia non fu mai se non di servire et tale intentione é

suta sempre in tutte le mie attioni et cierto é che se io avessi desidero o

Notes to Pages 220-221 351 desiderassi servire a dio quanto a V[ostra] Ex[cellen]tia arei la sedia sopra san giovanni batista.” 91. ASF, MDP, 346: 290v, Alessandro Malegonnelle, in Florence, to Cosimo I de’ Medici, 8 September 1540: “mi basta sempre la intentione di V[ostra] E[ccellentia] qual sempr’ ama il vero et io ne mancho seguitar’ quella ogni mio affari.” 92. ASF, MDP, 368: 259r, Lapo del Tovaglia, in Florence, to Cosimo I de’ Medici, 18 August 1544: “sendo il vero fidelle suo servidore non 6 altro magiore disiderio che sapere quel che pit piacca e sia di mente sua.” See also additional examples of analogous sentiments expressed by many various individuals: MDP 333: 79v, 371r; MDP 335: Gor, 592v—593r; MDP 348: 61r: MDP 351: 4478: MDP 362: 415r: MDP 365: 488r: MDP 366: 413r, 527r; MDP 367: 271r; MDP 369: 479r; MDP 370: 233r; MDP 397: 133r. 93. See for example MDP, 362: §45r; MDP 36s: 297r; MDP 365A: 8511, 943r; MDP 368: 214r; MDP 369: 29r, 138r, 17Ir; MDP 394: 386r. 94. See Consulte e pratiche della Repubblica fiorentina, 1495-1497, ed. Denis Fachard

(Geneva: Librarie Droz, 2002). 95. See the excellent analysis of the logic of princely patronage in Biagioli, Galileo, Courtier, 36-54. 96. Melissa Meriam Bullard, Lorenzo il Magnifico: Image and Anxiety, Politics and

Finance (Florence: Olschki, 1994), 109-130; Ronald F. Weissman, “Taking Patronage Seriously: Mediterranean Values and Renaissance Society,” in Patronage, Art, and Society in Renaissance Italy, ed. F. W. Kent and Patricia

Simons (Canberra/Oxford: Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University / Oxford University Press, 1987), 35 esp. 97. Biagioli, Galileo, Courtier, 52-54. 98. See for example Beik, Absolutism and Society; Ronald G. Asch, “Introduction:

Court and Household from the Fifteenth to the Seventeenth Centuries,” in Princes, Patronage and the Nobility: The Court at the Beginning of the Modern Age, c.

1450-1650, ed. Ronald G. Asch and Adolf M. Birke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 1-38; Zmora, Monarchy, Aristocracy, and the State.

Norbert Elias—to a greater extent than some of his critics give him credit for—does continually stress the interdependent nature of court society; but his analysis focuses almost exclusively on the relationship from the perspective of the monarch rather than from the “bottom-up” perspective of the aristocracy: see Elias, Court Society. 99. Lorenzino de’ Medici, Apologia e lettere, ed. Francesco Erspamer (Rome:

Salerno, 1991). On the language of tyrannicide and civic republicanism in the Apologia see Nicholas Scott Baker, “Writing the Wrongs of the Past: Vengeance, Humanism, and the Assassination of Alessandro de’ Medici,” Sixteenth Century Journal 38, no. 2 (2007): 307-327.

352 Notes to Pages 221—223 100. BNCF, Conventi Soppressi, C7, 2614, unfoliated; Cronaca fiorentina, 1537-1555, ed. Enrico Coppi (Florence: Olschki, 2000), 18-19. The degradation of Buonaccorsi’s corpse by a mob following his hanging resembles the treatment of the body of Jacopo de’ Pazzi, executed for his role in the Pazzi conspiracy of 1478: see Angelo Poliziano’s description of the latter reprinted in Benjamin G. Kohl and Ronald G. Witt, eds., The Earthly Republic: Italian Humanists on Government and Society (Philadelphia:

University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978), 321. 101. Paolo Simoncelli, “Florentine Fuorusciti at the Time of Bindo Altoviti,” in Chong, Pegazzano, and Zikos, Raphael, Cellini and a Renaissance Banker,

285-328. 102. ASF, MDP, 355: 285r, Filippo de’ Nerli, in Florence, to Cosimo I de’ Medici, either December 1541 or January 1542: “il desiderio del vivere Popular.” 103. Jean-Claude Waquet has suggested that, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this increasingly frustrated expectation served to promote corruption among Florentine officeholders, as a means for patricians to appropriate a share of the stato and its financial rewards: Jean-Claude Waquet, Corruption: Ethics and Power in Florence, 1600-1770, trans. Linda

McCall (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992), 64-84 esp. 104. On continuing commercial and mercantile character of the Florentine elite from the sixteenth through to the eighteenth century see Richard A. Goldthwaite, The Economy of Renaissance Florence (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009), §68—$70; Litchfield, Emergence of a Bureaucracy,

203-232; Samuel Berner, “The Florentine Patriciate in the Transition from Republic to principato, 1530-1609,” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance

History 9 (1972): 1-15. Berner provides a clear, brief précis of the older thesis of the re-feudalization of Tuscany under the Medici principality at

pages 4-6. 105. Ricci was an accoppiatore seventeen times between 1532 and 1550. In the

same period he sat on the Otto di Pratica seven times, the Ducal Council ten times, and twice he served as a Monte official: ASF, Tratte, 907: 43r—v, AAV, 5714, $8r, 67V, 68v—69r, 145r—V, 146v—147V, 186v—1871, 193r—V,

I94v—195V, 202r, 203r—V, 2041-2 0$v, 206v—207V, 238r, and 239r—v. On the Ricci bank see Goldthwaite, Economy of Renaissance Florence, 477-478. 106. Giuliano de’ Ricci, Cronaca (1532-1606), ed. Giuliana Sapori (Milan: Ricciardi, 1972), 225. See also 141.

107. Berner, “Florentine Patriciate,” 7. 108. Goldthwaite, Economy of Renaissance Florence, 60, 275-276, $43—-544.

109. ASF, MDP, 336: 85r. Francesco Rucellai, in Florence, to Cosimo I de’ Medici, 27 February 1539: “mantenghando la cipta viva et in flore.”

Notes to Pages 223—230 353 110. Della Casa, Galateo, 89. Della Casa observed that, in comparison to the nobility of Naples, the Florentines “per lo pit: sono mercatanti e semplici gentiluomini.” 111. Currie, “Clothing and a Florentine Style,” 44. 112. Angiolini, I cavalieri, 69-70; Ricci, Cronaca, 414. 113. ASF, MDP, 347: 26r, Ottaviano de’ Medici, in Florence, to Cosimo I de’ Medici, 7 October 1540: “il desiderio suo essere di accompagnare il figlio con uno suocero mercante accio che lascandoli qualche mobile possa collo advito & indirizo di epso inviarsi in sulle faccende.” 114. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 62: doc. 31, Girolamo Guicciardini, in Florence, to Luigi Guicciardini, in Pisa, 27 October 1539: “per mio amore e per suo rispetto.” 115. ASF, CS, Serie 1, 62: doc. 108, Prinzivalle della Stufa, in Florence, to Luigi Guicciardini, in Pisa, 29 May 1540: “Tutto quello per lui fara lo reputerd a me proprio.” See also CS, Serie I, 60: 1or, 22r—2.4r, 35r—36r, 731; CS, Serie I, 62: doc. I4. 116. ASF, OGBP, 2221: 305. 117. On the place of Eleonora see Ilaria Hoppe, “The Duchess’ Place at Court: The Quartiere di Eleonora in the Palazzo della Signoria in Florence,” in The Cultural World of Eleonora di Toledo, Duchess of Florence and Siena, ed. Konrad

Eisenbichler (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2004), 98-118. 118. ASF, MDP, 338: 122r, Bartolomeo Lanfredini, in Pistoia, to Cosimo I de’ Medici, 18 August 1539: “per parlar con secho & anche per basciar’ la mano al Il[ustrissi]ma S[ignor]ia D[uchessa] sua consorte & mia S[igno]ra.” 119. ASF, MDP, 368: 214r, Alessandro Malegonnelle, in Florence, to Cosimo I de’ Medici, 15 August 1544: “humilmente basio la mano a S[ua] Ex[cellentia] e della sua ill[ustrissi]ma S[ignora] consorte.” 120. ASF, OGBP, 2218: unfoliated. 121. See Natalie Tomas, The Medici Women: Gender and Power in Renaissance Florence

(Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2003). 122. On Eleonora’s patronage and public persona see Bruce Edelstein, “The Camera Verde: A Public Center for the Duchess of Florence in the Palazzo Vecchio,” Mélanges de l’Ecole francaise de Rome: Italie et Méditerranée 115, no. 1

(2003): 1-87; idem, “La fecundissma Signora Duchessa: The Courtly Persona of Eleonora di Toledo and the Iconography of Abundance,” in Eisenbichler, Cultural World of Eleonora di Toledo, 71-98.

Conclusion 1. Cronaca fiorentina, 1537-1555, ed. Enrico Coppi (Florence: Olschki, 2000),

106-108. 2. Sarah Blake McHam, “Donatello’s Bronze David and Judith as Metaphors for Medici Rule in Florence,” Art Bulletin 83, no. 1 (2001): 32—47; Luca Gatti,

354 Notes to Pages 231-233 “Displacing Images and Devotion in Renaissance Florence: The Return of the Medici and an Order of 1513 for the Davit and the Judit,” Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa: Classe di lettere e filosofia Serie 3, 23 (1993): 349-373;

Christine M. Sperling, “Donatello’s Bronze David and the Demands of Medici Politics,” Burlington Magazine 134, no. 1069 (1992): 218-224. 3. Filippo de’ Nerli, Commentarj dei fatti civili occorsi dentro la citta di Firenze dall‘anno

1215 al 1537, 2 vols. (Trieste: Colombo Coen, 1859), 2:172, 262.

4. Compare Mark Goldie, “The Unacknowledged Republic: Officeholding in Early Modern England,” in The Politics of the Excluded, c. 1500-1850, ed. Tim

Harris (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2001), 153-194; Phil Withington, “Citizens, Community, and Political Culture in Restoration England,” in Communities in Early Modern England: Networks, Place, Rhetoric, ed. Alexandra

Shepard and Phil Withington (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), 139-140 esp. 5. On the period from the 1930s to the 1950s as one that established a still predominant paradigm for Renaissance historiography, and the influence of refugee German scholars, in particular, on the creation of this paradigm, see William J. Connell, “Repubblicanesimo e Rinascimento (nella storiagrafia anglofona del second Novecento),” Archivio storico italiano 161, no.

2 (2003): 343-362; Carl Landauer, “Erwin Panofsky and the Renascence of the Renaissance,” Renaissance Quarterly 47, no. 2 (1994): 255-281; Anthony Molho, “The Italian Renaissance, Made in the USA,” in Imagined Histories: American Historians Interpret the Past, ed. Anthony Molho and Gordon S. Wood

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press: 1998), 263-294; Edward Muir, “The Italian Renaissance in America,” American Historical Review 100, no. 4

(1995S): 1095-1118; Patricia Simons, “Separating the Men from the Boys: Masculinities in Early Quattrocento Florence and Donatello’s Saint George,” in Rituals, Images, and Words: Varieties of Cultural Expression in Late Medieval and

Early Modern Europe, ed. F. W. Kent and Charles Zika (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2005), ISI-I55. 6. See for the most immediate examples Samuel Berner, “The Florentine Patriciate in the Transition from Republic to principato: 1530-1610” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1969); R. Burr Litchfield, Emergence of a Bureaucracy: The Florentine Patricians, 1530-1790 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986); Cecil Roth, The Last Florentine Republic (London: Methuen, 1925); J. N. Stephens, The Fall of the Florentine Republic, 1512-1530

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983). For one notable exception to this trend see Lorenzo Polizzotto, The Elect Nation: The Savonarolan Movement in

Florence, 1494-1545 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994). Intellectual historians have considered the first half of the sixteenth century as a continuum, but their interests have focused on the survival and transmis-

sion of republican ideas rather than on the evolution of the principality:

Note to Page 233 355 Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, vol. 1, The

Renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 139-189: J. G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the

Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975); Mark Jurdjevic, Guardians of Republicanism: The Valori Family in the

Florentine Renaissance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).

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Acknowledgments

Financial support from several institutions over many years has made possible the eventual appearance of this book. A grant and later a Research Fellowship from the Graduate School at Northwestern University funded the initial archival investigations that underpin the text. A Dissertation Fellowship from the same institution supported the writing of the doctoral dissertation that was the book’s first incarnation. A Renaissance Society of America / Istituto Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento grant enabled additional research and fact checking to occur. A generous publication subsidy from the Faculty of Arts at Macquarie University helped to defray the costs associated with acquiring and publishing the images in the book. Ed Muir has provided guidance, encouragement, a critical eye, and innumerable perceptive comments throughout the lengthy process. He remains the very model of a professional and intellectual mentor. Bill Connell generously read the entire manuscript twice and provided invaluable suggestions on each occasion. Nick Eckstein and Liz Mellyn read portions of the text and offered useful advice, while an anonymous reader for Harvard University Press did the same for the whole manuscript. Discussions with other scholars at conferences in Toronto, Miami, Chicago, and Los Angeles, as well at lunch or over post-archival drinks in Florence, always provided the opportunity to sharpen my ideas and clarify my thinking. In particular, John Najemy, John Paoletti, Brenda Preyer, and Sharon Strocchia have provided encouragement and support over several years. My colleagues in Modern History at Macquarie University have provided the very best environment—collegial, scholarly, and never dull—for the writing and revising of the manuscript. I also owe a debt of gratitude to the staff of several institutions across three continents. In particular, the staff at the Archivio di Stato in Florence have facilitated my research and tolerated my Italian for many years now. The Inter-Library Loan departments at both Macquarie and Northwestern universities tirelessly traced obscure

358 Acknowledgments books and articles for me. I am also immensely grateful to the staff and community of Internet Archive (www.archive.org), who make research in the twenty-first century so very convenient. At Harvard University Press, Ian Stevenson has been patient, prompt, and always helpful. I am grateful to Brian Ostrander at Westchester Publishing Services and copy editor Glenn Novak for their assistance in preparing the manuscript for publication. Some readers may experience a slight déja vu as I have had the opportunity to discuss some of the ideas presented here in different contexts, in the following publications: “For Reasons of State: Political Executions, Republicanism, and the Medici, 1480-1560,” Renaissance Quarterly 62, no. 2 (2009): 444-478, © 2009 by the University of Chicago Press; “Medicean Metamorphoses: Carnival in Florence, 1513,” Renaissance Studies 25, no. 4 (2011): 491-510, © 2010 The Society for Renaissance Studies, Blackwell Publishing Limited. Family and friends—although not always perhaps understanding exactly what I was doing or indeed why I was doing it—have provided unfailing support. My parents, Ian and Pam Baker, have encouraged and aided my intellectual journey for as long as I can recall. My sons, Max and Alex—who await the appearance of this book with mystified anticipation—helped me maintain perspective by continually reminding me that however fascinating the past might be, today is always infinitely more exciting. Finally, it is no exaggeration to state that this book would not exist without Camilla, whose love, patience, and continual support provide the foundation for all my endeavors. Needless to say, all these people are responsible only for what is sound in the book. All errors and problems remain mine alone.

Index

Acciaiuoli, Roberto di Donato, 139,140, Antinori, Alessandro di Niccold, 203,

148, 149, 150 204, 261-262

Acciaiuoli, Zanobi di Nofri, 156 Anzilotti, Antonio, 6, 232—233 Accoppiatori, §5, 89, 152, 216 Arezzo, 113, 114-115, 129, 210

Adrian VI (pope), 89, 93, 97 Arrabbiati, 10O—I0I, 103, I10 Alamanni, Lodovico di Piero, 82, 127 Arrighi, Luigi di Piero, 213

Alamanni, Luigi di Piero, 81 Arrigucci, Giovanni, 82 Alberti (family), 33 Alberti, Leon Battista: I libri della famiglia, | Baglione, Malatesta, 114, 118, 121, 131,

37 132, 133, 134, 144

Albertini, Rudolf von, 5—6, 232—233 Balia, balie: in fifteenth-century

Albizzi (family), 8, 172 Medicean republic, 52, $5, 56; of 1512, Albizzi, Antonfrancesco di Luca, 13, 60, 65, 68—69, 71, 92, 100; of 1530, 144,

65, 99, 138, 164, 186, 258-259; and 146, 150, 152, 156 1512 coup d’état, 62—63; hostility to Bandinelli, Baccio: Hercules and Cacus, 229

Medici of, 74-75, 100, 102; on Barcelona, 163; Treaty of, 109, 110, 114,

liberty, 110-115, 140-141 116 Albizzi, Antonio di Luca, 60 Bartolini family bank, 223 Albizzi, Girolamo di Luca, 62, 65, Bologna, IIS, 116, 117, 168, 173, 186, 231

213-214, 219, 259-260 Borgia, Cesare, $9 Albizzi, Maso di Luca, 62 Botticini, Francesco: Assumption of the

Aldobrandini, Salvestro, 136 Virgin, 84 Alexander VI (pope), 58 Bourbon, Charles de, 94, 105 Altoviti, Bardo di Giovanni, I3I, 211 Bracciolini, Poggio: De avaritia, 21 Altoviti, Bindo d’Antonio, 158, 211-212, | Brienne, Walter of (duke of Athens),

217, 220, 222, 260-261 124-125

360 Index Broncone, 49, 88, 190; festive company | Cardona, Ramon de (Spanish viceroy),

of, 49, $0, 65-66; meaning of, 67 61-62, 63 Bronzino, 189; Portait of Ugolino di Luigi Carducci, Baldassare di Baldassare, 103

Martelli, 142-143, 176-178, 190; Carducci, Francesco di Niccolo, 109, 136 portraits by, 175-181, 205, 208, 209, Castellani (family), 32 210; Portrait of a Lady in Red, 179-181 Castiglione, Baldassare: II cortegiano,

Brucioli, Antonio, 81 201-202, 209

Bruni, Leonardo, 169; funeral oration Cato the Younger, Marcus Portius, 187 for Nanni Strozzi, 38—39; Laudatio Centelli, Domenica, 225

florentinae urbis, 39 Cento, council of, 68, 71, 107, 211 Buonaccorsi, Giuliano, 221 Cerretani, Bartolomeo, 55, 65, 73 Buonarroti, Michelangelo: Tomb of Chalon, Philibert de (prince of Orange, Giuliano de’ Medici, 176—178, 181-182, Spanish viceroy), 98, 114, IIS, 116,

205; “kneeling” window, 178, 182: 117-118, 127, 128, 130, 131-132

David, 229, 231 Charles V (emperor): alliance with the Buondelmonti, Andrea, 104 Medici, 2, 109, 110, 113-114, 116; and Buondelmonti, Benedetto di Filippo, 13, the Italian Wars, 78, 92, 93-94, 102: 62, 104, 262—263; role in 1512 Medici role in the creation of Medici regime, 65, 66, 73, 74, 79, 81, 103; role principality, 132, 143, 145, 147-148, in the creation of the principality, 147, 154, 183-184, 192, 193-194; relations

148-149, I55 with Florentine exiles, 161, 163

Buondlemonti, Zanobi di Bartolomeo, Charles VIII (king of France), 54

75,95 Cibo, Innocenzo (cardinal), 187

Buongirolami, Giovanni di Bernardo,194 Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 17, 67, 112

Buonsignori, Francesco d’Andrea, 195 Cini, Matteo, 69 Civic humanism, 16-17, 21, 23, 39, 46,

Caesar, Julius, 79, 131, 187 48, 81, 112, 113 Cambi, Lorenzo d’Antonio, 83, 217,218, | Clement VII (pope). See Medici, Giulio

263-264 di Giuliano (Clement VIT)

Cambini (family), 32 Clientage, 20, 45, 46-47, 217-221, 224 Cambini, Andrea, 22 Clothing, 37, 126, 175, 179, 181, 205; and Cambini, Niccolo di Francesco, 34 social identity, 37-38, 40-41, 195,

Cambrai, Peace of, 109, I13 208-209; and political culture, 38,

Canigiani, Antonio di Simone, 79-80, 126-127

202-203, 204 Cognac, League of, 94—95, 102, 105 Canigiani, Domenico di Matteo, 155 Colonna (family), 95

Capponi (family), 74, 106 Colonna, Stefano, 121, 131, 133 Capponi, Giovanni di Piero, 150 Common good: civic republican Capponi, Niccolo di Piero, 102-103, political idea of, 2, 16, 35, 41, 48, 143:

105, 109 changing meaning of, 168-169, 171,

Capponi, Piero di Gino, 92—93 183-185, 226. See also Commonwealth Capponi, Piero di Giovanni, 210, 218 (res publica); Fraternity

Index 361 Commonwealth (res publica): in civic Della Casa, Giovanni: Galateo, 200—

republican political culture, 17-18, 202, 223 21-22, 38-39, 112, 122, 179, 196; and Della Palla, Battista di Marco, 81, 95

the Medici (1512-27), 71-72: Della Rovere, Francesco Maria (duke of changing nature of, 156, 164, 214—215, Urbino), 76-78, 94 220, 231, 233. See also Common good; Della Stufa, Prinzivalle di Luigi, 60, 65,

Fraternity 66, 80, 116, 224-225, 276-277 Consensus, political idea of, §5, 164, Del Nero, Bernardo di Nero, 93 172-173 Del Nero, Francesco di Piero, 73,

Consiglio Maggiore, 59, 64—65, 81-82, 272-273 121; creation of (1494), 55-58, 172: Del Tovaglia, Lapo di Bartolomeo, 216,

restoration of (1527), 100, IOI, 102 220 Consulte e pratiche, 4, 69, 107-108, 137, De’ Nerli, Benedetto di Tanai, 83

196; political debates in, 63-64, De’ Nerli, Filippo di Benedetto, 13, 81, IO9—II0, I14, 122, 127—129, 132-133 83, 116, 135, 156, 205, 217, 218, 222:

Corsi (family), 223 Commentari dei fatti civili, 199-200,

Corsini (family), 8, 33 202, 231

Corsini, Rinaldo, 108 D’Este, Alfonso I (duke of Ferrara), 103 Coup d'état: of 1494, $455; of 1512, D’Este, Borso (duke of Ferrara), 37 61-64, 70; of 1527, 94, 96, 102-105, D’Este, Ercole I (duke of Ferrara), 53

129, 164 Diamante, festive company of, 49,

Courtier, 80, 127, 158, 196, 200-202, 65—66 208-209, 217-221, 227, 232, 233. See Diciasette, 103

also Court society Dieci di Balia, 54 Court society, 2, 14, 179, 191, 198, 216, Dieci di Liberta e Pace, §8—59, 61, 69,

225-226. See also Courtier; Political 108, 127, 137, 144

culture Dodici Buonuomini, 32, 64 Dodici Riformatori, 150, 195

Da Castiglione, Dante, 128 Donatello: marble David, 118, 229: Da Castiglione, Vieri di Bernardo, 204 bronze David, 230-231

Da Diaceto, Jacopo, 7§ Dovizi, Bernardo, 60 Da Filicaia, Sandrino, 186 Ducal Council (Magistrato Supremo),

Da Ricasoli, Giulio, 213 152, 193, 195, 203 Dati, Gregorio, 40 Dugento, council of, 151-152, 167, 170, D’Avalos, Alfonso, Marquis del Vasto, 195, 203, 211 128

Davanzati, Antonio, 133 Eleonora di Toledo (duchess of David (biblical king): in Florentine Florence), 225-226 iconography, 67, 98, 121, 142-143, Exiles of 1530 (fuorusciti): original 182-183; in Medici iconography, 182, sentences of, 138—139, 140, 203:

228-231, 233 attempts to return in 1$37, 160-169, Della Casa (family), 32 173, 178, 183-186, 187

362 Index Family, 29-31, 40. See also Lineage; Gondi, Bernardo di Carlo, 194

Surnames Gondi, Filippo di Lorenzo, 204

Ferrante (king of Naples), 53 Gondi, Lucrezia, 47 Fidele, Vincenzo, 118, 121 Gonzaga, Ferrante, 128, 132, 138, 154, Florence: historiography of, 5—6, 171 232-233; government of, 52-56, 69, Gonzaga da Bozzolo, Federico, 77 73, 82, 89-92, 150-153, 216-217: Gozzoli, Benozzo: Procession of the Magi,

siege of, 117-118, 128-132 28 Foix, Odet de, viscount de Lautrec, 77 Guadagni (family), 33

Foscari, Marco, 100, 118 Guarini, Alessandro, 102, 103 Francesco di Verdiano, 213 Guicciardini, Braccio di Battista, 204 Francis I (king of France), 76, 78, 92, Guicciardini, Braccio di Niccolo, 204

93-94, 109, 166, 190, 197 Guicciardini, Francesco di Piero, 3—4, Fraternity: civic republican sociopoliti- 13, 34-35, 38, 56, GO—61, 73, 82-83, cal idea of, 16, 18, 38-39, 41, 47-48, 99, 195, 197, 231-232, 264-266; Storie 79, 84, 88, ISI, 173, 202, 233; shifts in fiorentine, 50-51; on the Medici meaning of, 126, 194-195, 208. See (1512-27), 72, 76-78, 79-80; Dialogo also Common good; Commonwealth del reggimento di Firenze, 89, 92—93;

(res publica) position in Florence after 1527 coup, Frescobaldi (family), 74 103, 105-107, I1$—I17; on the stato Frundsberg, Georg von, 94 (1527-30), 129-130, 132; role after Fuorusciti. See Exiles of 1530 (_fuorusciti) siege of Florence, 134-135, 139140, 141; on the Medici (after 1530),

Gavinana, battle of, 131-132 I45—I46, 154; role in the creation of Gender, and political culture, 7, 13-14, the Medici principality, 148-151, 163, AI—45, 126-127, 179-181, 225-226. 183-184; on the Florentine exiles,

See also Masculinity 165-166, 167; on the need for unity in Gherardi, Jacopo di Jacopo, 136-137 Florence, 171-173; Storia d Italia,

Gheri, Goro, 72, 73, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 198-199

88 Guicciardini, Girolamo di Piero, 134,

Ghirlandaio, Domenico: frescoes in 145-146, 167, 174-75, 224 Santa Trinita and Santa Maria Guicciardini, Isabella, 167 Novella, 15—16, 19, 23—28; and civic Guicciardini, Jacopo di Piero, 62, 64, republican political culture, 38—41, 68, 77-78, 80, I1S—I16, 134, 175, 197,

47-48, 126, 151, 194-195; and 266-267 religion, §6—57; comparison to Guicciardini, Luigi di Piero, 115-117, Bronzino potraits, 178-179, 181; 129, 134, 159, 183, 197, 224; on the

comparison to Salviati portraits, Medici (1512-27), 70, 78, 80; on

208-209 Clement VII, 94—95: role in the Giannotti, Donato, 81 creation of the Medici principality, Girolami, Raffaello di Francesco, 79, 148-149, 155; on the Florentine

138, 144 exiles, 165

Index 363 Guicciardini, Niccolo di Luigi, 82, 139, Lineage, political and economic

213 significance of, 30-36, 47-48, ISI,

Guicciardini, Piero di Jacopo, 8, 10, 211-212. See also Family

32-33 Louis XII (king of France), 61, 63,199 Lucca, 107, II§, 117, 129

Henri II (king of France), 159

Henry VII (emperor), 170 Machiavelli, Niccolo, 3—4, 13, 38, 42, 81, Hercules, in Florentine iconography, 67, 92,171,196

98, 121, 142, 229 Macinghi, Alessandra (Strozzi), 41,

Holy League, 61, 63, 68 46-47

Homosociabilty, 44-47, 224, 226 Magistrato Supremo. See Ducal Council Honor, 19-20, 40-41; in political dis- (Magistrato Supremo) course, 63—64, 69; and office-holding, | Magnate, 8, 19, 30, 35

82—83, ISI, 174, 210-214, 225, 226 Magnificence, humanist conception of,

Humanism. See Civic humanism 21-22 Malaspina, Argentina (Soderini), 42

Innocent VIII (pope), 53 Malegonnelle, Alessandro, 122, 127, 130, I4I, 203, 219—220, 225, 268-269

Julius II (pope), 61 Margaret of Austria, 154, 163 Marriage, 46, 224; strategies, 40, 73,

Landucci, Luca, 39, §2, 126 191; and social identity, 41 Lanfredini, Bartolomeo di Lanfredino, Marsili, Bartolomeo, 106 134-135, 139, 140, 145, 146, 148, 225, Martelli, Domenico di Braccio, 66,

267-268 210-211, 213, 217, 219, 220, 269-270 Lanfredini, Bernardo di Giovanni, 157 Martelli, Lodovico, 128

Lang, Matthias (cardinal), 61, 63 Martelli, Luigi di Luigi, 174, 202-204,

Lannoy, Charles de, 94 216

Lenzi, Francesco di Piero, 122 Martelli, Niccold di Lorenzo, 75 Leo X (pope). See Medici, Giovanni di Martelli, Ugolino di Luigi, 142-143

Lorenzo (Leo X) Marzi de’ Medici, Agnolo, bishop of Letters and letter writing, 4, 83, Assisi, 137-138 167-168, 197-198, 218-221, 225 Masculinity, 45—46, 118, 126-127.

Liberty: in civic republican political See also Gender discourse, 2, 17, 38-39, 55,56, 63-64, Maximilian I (emperor), 61, 110 122, 221-222; meanings of, 22—23,53, | Maximilian II (emperor), 192

93,99, 105, IlI—I14, 143, 147, Medici (family), 2, 8, 130-131, 164, 161-163, 231; iconography of, 49-50, 172-173; predominance in fifteenth98, 125, 182; conflicts over meaning century Florence, 16, 33, 49—$5; bank, of, §I, 102, IO9—I10, 127-128, 18—19, 33; palace, 28, 63, 78, 144, 145,

140-14]; in princely political 159, 182, 215; stato of (1512-27), 61-62, discourse, 183-185. See also Republi- 64-65, 70, 88, 96-97, 195-196:

canism; Sovereignty iconography, 65—68, 179-180, 182,

364 Index Medici (continued) Medici, Ippolito di Giuliano, 80, 88, 190, 230; 1527 expulsion of, 98-100; 91-92, 94, 161, 163

return of (1530), 137-141 Medici, Jacopo, 210 Medici, Alessandro di Lorenzo, 89, Medici, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco 9I—92, 94, 137, 163, 166, 189; as ruler (Lorenzino), 158, 163, 189, 221 of Florence, 146-147, 149, 152-156, Medici, Lorenzo di Piero, 49, 60, 65, 67,

172, 183, 192; court of, 158-159 71-72, 76-80, 82-83, 88, 127

Medici, Averardo, 50 Medici, Lorenzo il Magnifico, 19, 69; in Medici, Caterina di Lorenzo (Catherine), Ghirlandaio’s frescoes at Santa

89, 159 Trinita, 24-25, 40, 45, 47; position in

Medici, Clarice di Piero (Strozzi), 59, Florence (1469-92), $0, §2—$4,

94, 187 67—68, 70—7I, 210

Medici, Cosimo I, 88, 138, 202, 204: Medici, Lucrezia di Lorenzo (Salviati),

becomes ruler of Florence, 163, GI, 135, 157 184-187, 190-191; achieves political Medici, Lucrezia (Nannina) di Piero

independence, 192—194; and the (Rucellai), 46 reshaping of political culture, 196, Medici, Ottaviano di Lorenzo, 88, 116,

197-198, 199-200, 210-222, 179, 216, 217, 270-271

223-226, 228-231 Medici, Piero di Cosimo, 19, 70 Medici, Cosimo il Vecchio, 38, 46, 50, Medici, Piero di Lorenzo, 25, 54, 56, $9,

$2, 53,5455, 60, 70, 88, 230 67 Medici, Galeotto, 79 Militia, Florentine, 98, 121-122, Medici, Gian Gastone, 232 126-128, 130, 131-132, 136, 138 Medici, Giovanni di Giovanni Miniati, Antonio di Bernardo (di (Giovanni delle Bande Nere), 157, 163 Miniato), 35 Medici, Giovanni di Lorenzo (Leo X), Miniati, Bernardo d’Antonio, 91 25,50, 59-60, 61, 71, 80, 83, 88-89, Monte commune, 35 145, 155, 193; problems in Florence Montemurlo, battle of, 164, 167, caused by papacy of, 72—78, 90, 92, 97 185-186, 191, 199-200, 203-204, Medici, Giuliano di Lorenzo, 25, 49, 50, 221

GI, 62, 65—66, 71-72, 88 Morelli, Jacopo di Girolamo, 131 Medici, Giulio di Alessandro, 185 Muscettola, Giovanantonio, 147 Medici, Giulio di Giuliano (Clement VII), 60, 65-66, 73, 75, 76, 81, 104, Naples, 1, 53, 94, 95, 170-171; exiles’

135, 136, 139, 161, 162, 183; role in appeal to Charles V at, 160, 163, 166, Florence (1519—21), 80, 89; problems 172, 183 caused in Florence by papacy of, Nardi, Jacopo, 60, 81, 161-163, 186 90-97, 102, 105; and the siege of Nerli, Filippo de’, 13, 81, 83, 116, 135, Florence, 108, 109, 113-114, 116, 117, 156, 217, 218, 222, 271-272; Commen-

129-130; role in the creation of the tari dei fatti civili, 199-200

Medici principality, 145-146, Niccolini, Andrea di Piero, 122

148-149, 154-160, 192 Niccolini, Matteo d’Agnolo, 150

Index 365 Nori, Francescantonio di Francesco, Palaces and palace-building, 12, 16,

104, 149, 155, 158-159, 194 20-22, 33, 34 Nori, Francesco di Antonio, 34 Palmieri, Matteo, 84; Vita civile, 17, 21, 35, 39, 46, 48, 112, 169, 196, 216-217

Office holding, significance of, 38-39, Pandolfini (family), 74 ISI, 174, I9I, 202, 209-217. See also Pandolfini, Bartolomea, 155, 157

Honor; Office-holding class Pandolfini, Niccolo (cardinal), 74 Office-holding class, 2; definition of, Parenti, Marco di Parente, 41 7—12; and civic republican political Parenti, Piero di Marco, $§

culture, 15-18, 31-38, 48, 63-64, Parlamento, 65, 144 80-88; status of, 22;and homosocia- _ Passerini, Silvio (cardinal), 89, 90—91,

bility, 45; changing attitudes and 94,99, 100, 103, 105, 107 expectations of, 5I—52, I40—I4I, Patrician, IO—I2, 20-22, 3I—33, 35,

143-144; political divisions within, 39-40, 48, 133, 194 55-56, 58-60, 82, 99-100, 102-103, _—_‘ Patronage: artistic, 19, 20, 36, 178-179:

132—133; political agnosticism of, political, 156-157, 218-219, 224-225. 69-70, 97, 107-108, 133, 173-174: See also Clientage

under the Medici principality, Paul III (pope), 160, 161, 211 ISI—1$2, 169-171, 178-179, 181-182, Pazzi, Alessandro, 81, 115, 116

194-196, 208-209, 226—227; place Pazzi, Jacopo d’Antonio, 159 of exiles within, 164-166. See also Pazzi, Luigi, 224

Office holding Pazzi Conspiracy and War, $3, 67, 164 Oligarchy, 17, 50, 54-55, 58-59, 65, 99, Piagnoni, IOO—IOI, 103, I10, 129

149-150, ISI, 162-163 Piero di Cosimo: Andromeda Set Free by Orange, prince of. See Chalon, Philibert Perseus, 49, 65—68, 98

de (prince of Orange, Spanish Pocock, John, §

viceroy) Political culture, 2—3, 4, 231-233; civic Orsini, Alfonsina (Medici), 76 republican, 16-18, 22-23, 45-46, Orti Oricellari. See Rucellai gardens 63-64, 81-83, 196-197; courtly, Ottanta, council of, 62, 64—65, 106, 197-198, 201-202, 215-219,

194 225-226

Otto di Guardia, 60, 75, 91, 144, 213, Poliziano, Angelo, 25, 27-28 216; prosecutions by (1527-30), 104, | Pontormo: Joseph in Egypt, 85—86; Portrait 117; prosecutions by, after siege of of Cosimo il Vecchio, 87-88; Portrait of a

Florence, 137, 138-139, 174-175: Halberdier, 98, 118-121, 142, 190, 229; prosecutions of Strozzi family by, Madonna with Child, 122-125

158-160 Portinari, Pierfrancesco di Folco, 108,

Otto di Pratica, 135, 156, 157, 203, 212, 127, 130, 131, I41, 273-274 217, 219, 220; in the Medici stato Prato, 114, 147, 157, 158, 186, 216, 220; (1512-27), 69, 71, 90; in the princi- sack of (1512), 49, 61-62, 68, 96

pality, 144, 152, 193, 195-196 Public sphere, 18, 83, 196-197, 214, 219

Ottomans, 154, 197 Pucci (family), 74

366 Index Pucci, Antonio di Puccio, 24, 47 Rucellai, Francesco, 223

Pucci, Puccio, 21 Rucellai, Giovanni di Bernardo, 65 Pucci, Roberto d’Antonio, 148,150,184 Rucellai, Giovanni di Paolo, 19-20, AG, 52

Quarantia, 104, IIS, 129 Rucellai, Palla di Bernardo, 108, 139, Quarantotto, council of (Senate), 203, ISO 211-212, 217, 220; creation of, Rucellai gardens (Orti Oricellari), 151-152, 158; election of Cosimo I by, 81-82 163, 192; role in government, 193,

194-195, 223 Salutati, Coluccio, 17 Salviati, Alamanno d’Averardo, $9, 61

Religion, and politics, 56—§8, 101, Salviati, Caterina di Giovanni (A lbizzi),

122-125, 129 62

Renaissance: historiography of, 3—6, Salviati, Fra Bernardo di Jacopo,

232-233; meaning of, 12-13 185-186 Republicanism, 16—18, 22—23, 38-39, Salviati, Francesca di Jacopo, 179-181 196-197, 214-216; historiography of, Salviati, Francesco: Portrait of a Florentine 2—6, 232—233; endurance of, in the Nobleman, 189-190, 205-206:

sixteenth century, 81-88, 100, portraits by, 205-209; Portrait of a 109-113, 122-123, 130-131, 133, Man with a Sword, 206-208 161-163, 221-222. See also Liberty; Salviati, Giovanni di Jacopo (cardinal),

Political culture 9O—91, 95, 148, 156, I1GI—162, 163,

Riccardi (family), 223 168, 186

Ricci (family), 8, 33 Salviati, Giuliano di Francesco, 158, 159 Ricci, Federigo di Roberto, 222-223 Salviati, Jacopo di Giovanni, $9, 62, 69,

Ricci, Giuliano, 222, 224 90, 91, 109, 135, 136, 148, 203 Ridolfi, Giovanbattista di Luigi, 65 Salviati, Maria di Jacopo (Medici), 157, Ridolfi, Giovanfrancesco di Ridolfo, 150 163

Ridolfi, Lorenzo, 132 Salviati, Piero di Leonardo, 135, 157 Ridolfi, Niccolo di Piero (cardinal), Sanga, Giovanbattista, 116

148, 161-162, 168 Santo Stefano, military order of, 224 Ridolfi, Piero di Niccolo, 69 Sassetti, Francesco di Tommaso, 18-19, Rome, I, 23-24, 114; and papacy of Leo 23, 24-26, 30, 36, 40, 42, 45-46, X, 72-74, 78; and papacy of Clement 47, 48 VII, 90-91, 95, 108, 116, 129-130, Sauli (family), 74 148, 157-160; sack of (1527), 94, 96, Savonarola, Fra Girolamo, 22, §$4—56; 104; and Florentine exiles, IGI, 164, political ideas of, §7—58, 101;

211; ancient history of, 172, 196 millennial vision of, 129 Rovere, Francesco Maria della (duke of © Schénberg, Nikolaus von (archbishop of

Urbino), 76—78, 94 Capua), 145, 155 Rucellai, Bernardo di Giovanni,59-—60, Sedici Gonfalonieri, 32, 64, 70

62 Segni, Bernardo, 130—131, 132, 162

Index 367 Sernigi, Cristofano di Chimenti, 135 Strozzi, Alfonso di Filippo, 60, 102

Serristori, Antonio, 76 Strozzi, Filippo (Giovanbattista) di Settanta, council of, 19, 60, 68, 71, 80, Filippo, 13, 197, 232, 274-275:

92, 100, 102, 103, 194 relationship with the Medici Sforza, Francesco II (duke of Milan), (1508-26), 49-50, 59-60, 65—66,

94, 184 68, 90—92; role in 1527 coup, 94,

Sforza, Lodovico (duke of Milan), 199 95-96; position in Florence after Signoria: and social status, 8, 10, 18-19, 1527 coup, 99, 103-104, 107; 32, 39-40; piazza of, 33, 76, 144, 181, relationship with the Medici 228-229; palace of, 42, 62, 65, 78, (1529-34), 116, 130, 141, 148, 100, 116, 136—137, 147, 215; election 157-160; as leader of Florentine to, $3, 55, 73, 82-83; during the siege exiles, 160-163, 164-165, 166-169, of Florence, 108, 109-114, 118, 124, 173, 184-187 127-128, 131, 134; and the creation of — Strozzi, Filippo di Matteo, 33, 41

the principality, 150; abolition of, Strozzi, Fra Leone di Filippo, 159

ISI—152, 169, 172 Strozzi, Lorenzo di Filippo, 13, Social identity, 2, 23, 28-29, 143-144, 107-108, IIO, I15, I3I, I41, 203-204, I7I, 178-179, 208-210, 218-219; and 231, 275-276; correspondence with place, 11-12, 20-22, 33-35, 181-182, Filippo Strozzi, 167-169, 173-175,

208 184-185, 197

Social imaginary and imagination, 16, Strozzi, Luisa di Filippo, 159

28-29, 64, 88, 153, 169-170, Strozzi, Maso di Carlo, 159 I9O—I9I, 193, 208, 225-226 Strozzi, Matteo di Lorenzo, 149-150 Social mobility, 8, 1o—11 Strozzi, Piero di Filippo, 159, 164, 186,

Soderini, Argentina di Tommaso 190, 204, 222

(Canigiani), 202 Strozzi, Roberto di Filippo, 158 Soderini, Margarita di Giovanvettorio Strozzi, Vincenzo di Filippo, 158

(Martelli), 202 Surnames, 35—36, 47. See also Family; Soderini, Paolantonio di Tommaso, Lineage 89, 93

Soderini, Piero di Tommaso, §9—62,64, Taxes and taxation, 35, $8, 71-72, I35,

68, 69-70, 96, I12 223; and political rights, 7, 38, 52, $6, Soderini, Tommaso di Lorenzo, §2 103, 216 Soderini, Tommaso di Paolantonio, 102 Tessitore, Cecchino, 186

Sovereignty: significance to office- Tondinelli, Guasparre, 210, 213 holding class, 22—23, 36, $3—$4, 70, Torelli, Lelio, 204 93, 97, 99-100, III—113, 147, 154,171; Tornabuoni, Giovanni di Francesco, Medici principality as defense of, 172, I8—19, 20, 26-27, 30, 36, 48, 218-219 183-184, 193, 231. See also Liberty Tornabuoni, Lucrezia di Francesco

Spini, Scolaio, $1 (Medici), 19, 47

Sprezzatura, 201, 209 Tornaquinci (family), 19, 27, 30 Stato, definitions of, 6—7 Tour d’Auvergne, Madeleine de la, 78

368 Index Ufficiali dei Ribelli, 117 Vespucci, Giovanni, 66

Ughi, Fra Girolamo, 130 Vettori, Francesco di Piero, 62, 70, 95, Unity, in political discourse, 132-133, 108, 134, 139-140, 144; role in the

169, I7I-174, 178 creation of the principality, 148-150; Urbino, 76—78, 161 correspondence with Filippo Strozzi (1537), 166-167, 173, 185

Valori, Bartolomeo (Baccio) di Filippo, Vettori, Giovanni di Piero, 134 62, 65, 150, 156, 1$7—158; as papal Vettori, Paolo di Piero, 62, 65 commissioner at Florence (1529-30), Virgil, 88, 178 132, I40, 144-145; and Florentine Virti, 127-128, 146, 214, 233; definition

exiles, 160, 162, 164, 186 of, 45-46; political significance of, Valori, Filippino di Bartolomeo, 185, 186 46, 126, 216—217; iconography of, Valori, Filippo di Niccolo, 155, 160, 175, 49-50, 67, 98, 121, 142-143,

186, 203, 204 182—183, 228-230

Valori, Francesco di Filippo, 22, 101 Vitelli, Alessandro di Paolo, 118, 185,

Valori, Francesco di Niccolo, 185, 204 186-187 Valori, Paolantonio di Bartolomeo, 160, Volterra, 104, 113, 134, 138, 144, 147 186

Varchi, Benedetto, 92, 110, 159, 160, Wealth, and sociopolitical status, 11,

I6I, 186 21-22, 31-33, 35-36, 37, 40-41

Velluti, Raffaello, 135

Venice, I, 22, 23, 150, 170; doge of, 153, Youths (giovani), 15, 45, 136-138, 179;

231; and Florentine exiles, 161, 168, place in Florence, 13-14, 121, 225 173, 204

Verrazzano, Giovanbattista di Lodovico, | Zaccherino da Lunigiana, Fra, 129

90-91 Zati, Francesco di Bartolo, 213-214