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Florence and the Medici
The enduring fascination of the Medici springs from their ability--as individuals and as a family--to control the government of Florence, first as a quasi-democracy and finally through inheritance. Based on the latest research, this perceptive study, by one of the finest Renaissance scholars of the day, reveals the causes and the nature of the Medicis' power of patronage from the early 15th-century through the early 18th. "...probing, sharp-eyed, utterly unsentimental...some of the most revealing insights come...in a chapter about the growth of the Medici legend.."--Roy Foster.
206 pages, Paperback
Published December 31, 2001
About the author
J.R. Hale
28 books9 followersAKA John R. Hale
British historian specializing in the Renaissance, first Professor of History at the University of Warwick.
British historian specializing in the Renaissance, first Professor of History at the University of Warwick.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 9, 2020
First published in 1977, JR Hale's "Florence and the Medici: the Pattern of Control" centers on the dynamics of power between the city and its most famous family. The time frame is early Renaissance, but not much before, all the way into the 18th century. Politics is central to the book - the structure of Florentine government and the role of the Medici in acquiring political power and altering the government to sustain control. JR Hale details the transformation of the city's republican ideals, conception, and structure to the rise of dynastic, hereditary, authoritarianism. The story is how and why Florentines accepted and legitimized those changes. At only 196 pages and covering such a very long time period it seems to just scratch the surface of things. What's here is not bad, but I think it is possible to find something better. I have read two other books by JR Hale on Early Modern Europe both of which I found to be superior to this one - "The Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance" and a short book on Machiavelli. I will have to give this one 3.5 stars.
October 5, 2026
Professor J.R. Hale Studies Three Hundred Years Of Medici Political History, During The Period Ranging From 1434-1737.
Born in Ashford, Kent, England, Sir John Rigby Hale was an English historian and translator who specialized in the Italian Renaissance and lived from 17 September 1923 – 12 August 1999. He was the author of numerous studies, which include Napoleon: The Story of His Life, England and the Italian Renaissance: The Growth of Interest in its History and Art, and The Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance, and was the co-author of The Military Organization of a Renaissance State: Venice c. 1400 to 1617 with M.E. Mallett. Mr. Hale was the recipient of several scholastic honors throughout his academic career, among them the Emeritus Professor of Italian History at University College, London, where he headed its Italian Department from 1970 until his retirement in 1988, and was a Fellow of the British Academy in London, as well as a Fellow and Tutor in Modern History at Jesus College, Oxford from 1949 - 1964. He was an instructor at Cornell University, New York, and the University of California, and also attended John Hopkins University and Harvard University. He was made a Knight Bachelor on 20 August 1984. Many thanks to Wikipedia for the wonderful information on their J.R. Hale page.
This 2004 paperback edition of J.R. Hale's 1977 Florence and The Medici: The Pattern Of Control was published by the Phoenix Press, in Great Britain, and its 196-page main text is divided into six chronological chapters that are subdivided by topic, and features a preface, a 5-page selective bibliography and a 4-page index. There are 8 black-and-white illustrations in the middle of the book. Hale's premise behind Florence and the Medici is to explain the relationship between Florence and the methods utilized by the Medici as they acquired their power. The primary focus remains on the politics of the Florentine state, but there are sections of the study which discuss relations with foreign powers such as Milan, Venice, and later, the Catholic Papacy and France. There are also portions that cover art and architecture in a cursory manner as they relate to the rulers' characters and personalities.
The author cites 1434 as the foundation of Medici power in Florence, and the timeline addresses a roughly three-hundred-year period which progresses to 1737, but he does cover a few pages of the early Medici beginning in 1216. J.R. Hale benefitted from the assistance of Dr. Niolai Rubenstein, author of The Government of Florence under the Medici, 1434–1494, and also worked with Dr. Michael Mallett and Mr. Stanley Baron when composing this monograph. In the Preface, Hale begins by informing his reader that, "This book attempts to explain the relationship between the most provocative of Italian cities and the most famous of Italian families." He continues by stating that during the past decades (the Preface was written in 1977) there has been exciting research on the Medici which has endeavored to answer some of the following questions regarding Medicean power: "How was it acquired? In what way did it function? Why was it accepted?"
Mr. Hale explains that the evolution of Florence from republic to principate was a shift "from a time when personality conditioned the nature of power to one when power simply adhered to personality by hereditary right". Due to the span of time covered in relation to the study's short length, many of the discussions are general overviews towards the beginning and middle portions, but the scope narrows in the later areas as the author is able to focus on the individual rulers of the Medicean principate.
Discussed in Chapter 1, The First Steps to Power, the Florentine government was a complex and multi-faceted political machine which was comprised of a series of councils that worked with one another, voting on various issues while performing necessary checks and balances to prevent one entity from becoming too powerful. It also contained specialized commissions both temporary and permanent which were responsible for administering civic functions or were convened only during certain times to fulfill a certain purpose, and then dissolved.
The Signoria was a 9-man elected body that was comprised of 8 priors, 2 from each of Florence's 4 quarters which in turn were represented by a standard, called a gonfalon, with the 9th position known as the Standardbearer of Justice, or Gonfalonier di Giustizia. The Signoria was the Florentine Republic's principal governing body, and along with its 2 supporting councils that also played vital roles, the 12 good men, who were known as the dodici buonuomini, and the 16 standardbearers, the sedici gonfalonieri. These 3 councils were collectively called the tre maggiori. The Dieci di Balìa was a 10-man war commission which was convened during times of emergency to negotiate military contracts and to facilitate wartime communication between Florence and its mercenary commanders, the condottieri, and the permanent 8-man security commission, the Otto di Guardia, was responsible for responding to internal threats to the state. The offices were determined by lot, and the committee who oversaw the bags with the names of candidates was called the accoppiatori. The Signoria served 2-month terms, the dodici buonuomini for 3 months, and the sedici gonfalonieri for 4 months, and there were 2 legislative bodies, the 300-member Council of the People and the 200-member Council of the Commune, which also served 4-month terms. Finally, there were ad hoc advisory councils called Consulte or Pratiche that worked in a supportive role to assist the other assemblies.
Hale's discussion of how the Medici party came about as a way to protect the bank's financial assets forms a crucial part of the chapter, and he explains that the core of the faction was comprised of the Medici and their numerous branches, and broadened with a series of marriage alliances to the Bardi, Salviati, Cavalcanti, and Tournabuoni, which was expanded still further by the amici, a group of supporters who relied on the wealthier members of the family for financial assistance in return for political backing. The financial aid consisted of loans to individuals who could not serve in political offices because of back taxes that had fallen into arrears, and the political support involved the soliciting of votes to attain administrative positions as much as was permitted by the laws. "The aim was to plait together an increasing number of influential men who would vote on Medici lines when chosen for the leading offices and commissions, of lesser men who would create a pro-Medicean atmosphere within the guilds, and a solid bloc of all classes within the district where most members of the family lived, in the parish of San Lorenzo." Wealthier Medici partisans would also offer business consultations to lower-rank members in exchange for votes, and all Mediceans supported enlarging the roll of names for political offices for the purpose of reducing their political opposition.
Chapter 2, The Medicean Regime outlines the events which followed Cosimo de'Medici's death in 1464, beginning with Piero de'Medici's brief leadership role as the unofficial Florentine head of state until his death in 1469. Attention is devoted to Piero's artistic interests and on his handling of the conspiracy of 1465-6 involving Dietisalvi Neroni and Lucca Pitti. "Affectionate, if stern, with his children, proud of the Medici name and determined to advance its prestige, he carried all the weight contemporaries expected from the head of a wealthy family. He was lucid and persistent with his diplomacy and held firmly to the relationship Cosimo had established with Milan."
The focus soon shifts to Piero's son Lorenzo de'Medici, called the Magnificent, and Hale appraises his overall character and his patronage of the arts in relation to personal interests before summarizing his political career in a lengthy section which focuses on the events of the Pazzi Conspiracy, Lorenzo's role in the Volterran crisis and on his political reforms. Lorenzo ran afoul of Pope Sixtus IV after he refused to provide the pontiff with a loan to facilitate the sale of Imola from Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza of Milan, and Sixtus instead utilized the bank of the Medici's rivals the Pazzi, which sows the seeds of the conspiracy. Years after the conspiracy, within weeks of Lorenzo's return from Naples in 1480 a Florentine Balìa was convened with the chief result being the formation of the Council of Seventy, which represented a further consolidation of power into the Medicean party members. "The Seventy was designed to add its weighty corroboration to bills sent down to the Councils for what was hoped would be automatic enactment, especially those affecting finance, war, foreign policy and the constitution. It was also made responsible for electing the Signoria."
In Chapter 3, Towards the Principate, Hale explains that by 1492, business investments had become unstable and prone to risk, and the ruling Medicean faction had begun to view themselves as a separate ruling caste whom controlled every aspect of the war loan procedure, often exploiting the process for the sake of personal interests and affording them a decisive social advantage as a very small social group with a tremendous degree of influence. "It was they who decided how much money was needed; they or their friends who put up the cash for war loans; they who imposed taxes or security for the sum; they who made sure that repayment of the loans would be given precedence and at what interest. At a time when investment in business was hazardous and when the interest on normal government bonds was dropping, control over the workings of war loans was a distinct advantage for the minority that formed the inner circle, and it hastened a process whereby the gap between the self-protecting rich and the heavily taxed majority was growing."
The author maintains that the Medici popes Leo X and Clement VII assumed vital roles in ensuring that the family remained a viable political force in Florence during the 1510s and 20s, otherwise clans such as the Guicciardini and Strozzi would have found themselves in a position comparable to Cosimo Pater Patriae when he ousted the Albizzi in 1434. Leo hosted elaborate festivals and carnivals in Florence and staged an Etruscan pageant in Rome to honor the Florentines' Tuscan heritage, who had believed that his pontificate represented a Golden Age, and he successfully negotiated crucial marriage alliances with the French Royal House of Valois, between his nephew Lorenzo II de'Medici and Madeleine de la Tour, and with the House of Savoy by betrothing his brother Giuliano to Duke Philip II's daughter Filiberta, making him the Duke of Nemours. "For the first time a Medici was able to indulge in political patronage on a large scale, handing out sinecures in the papal chancery, military commissions and castellanships in the Papal States, with a freedom far beyond the means of Cosimo or Lorenzo."
Chapter 4, The Principate Achieved is concerned with the pontificate of Pope Clement VII, the ducal term of Alessandro de'Medici, and the further consolidation of power which led to the formation of Grand Ducal Tuscany during the reign of Grand Duke Cosimo I de'Medici. Clement's papacy came at a very challenging period in Italian history while the country was being contested by the Valois kings of France and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V Habsburg. He effectively paved the way for Grand Ducal Tuscany by convincing Charles V to put in place the administration of Florence's first duke, Alessandro de'Medici, whereby upon convention of a Parlamento at Florence in 1530 it was first decided to abolish the Great Council, and then on April 27 1532 he persuaded a Florentine Balìa to abolish the Signoria, to be replaced by four councilors whom would be subject to Alessandro's authority as their chairman and as Duke of Florence. Hale reports that Alessandro listened to his people on a fairly regular basis that he was also spontaneously generous at times, and readers can learn more about him in Catherine Fletcher's exceptional biography, The Black Prince of Florence: The Spectacular Life and Treacherous World of Alessandro de' Medici.
Early in his reign Cosimo I de'Medici gained his independence from Charles V by paying large subsidies in exchange for the withdrawal of the Imperial garrisons from the Fortezza da Basso and from the Livorno citadel, as the Emperor had left a military presence in the region which had remained through Alessandro de'Medici's seven-year ducal reign in the years following the Imperial-Spanish siege of Florence in 1529. "One of his earliest actions was to write to the chief magistrates of the subject cities in Tuscany appealing for their support and promising his personal interest. He did more than any of his predecessors had done to make Florence into visibly a 'Medicean' city, but he was very much a prince of the sixteenth century, thinking in terms of a state rather than a city." He also consolidated the legal codes in cities under his jurisdiction to make them more unified and introduced his own bureaucratic staff, which, according to Hale, "diminished the administrative contrasts between one city and another and made more uniform the relationship between each of them and Florence."
Cosimo I can be described as an able administrator whom effectively utilized his predecessor Alessandro's trusted men as guides and teachers and developed his own aspect of government called the Privy Council, or the Pratica Secreta, which was a secret council that planned legislative actions, organized the division of Church and State, and performed other vital administrative functions. The Privy Council was attached to the four councilor-assembly known as the supreme magistracy which had been created with the Balìa of 1532, but was convened only at the duke's behest. "If his flair for diplomacy could not have been foreseen in 1537, neither could his mounting passion for the desk-work of government. He saw politics as an activity to be pursued in the ruler's study, with information flowing in and orders flowing out, and a corps of alert and knowledgeable men available for consultation in a nearby room. That government could not work as simply as this, he knew. But this was his ideal." Cosimo worked closely with the personnel whom comprised his inner councils, also employing three fiscal auditors to collaborate with the four councilors and further refine the duke's financial affairs.
Chapter 5, Grand-Ducal Tuscany discusses the apogee of the Tuscan Grand Dukes, covering the reigns of Cosimo I's two sons Francesco and Ferdinando I de'Medici, and it also studies the lives and achievements of the Medici Queens of France, Catherine and Marie, exploring their respective impacts upon court culture and French society. Grand Duke Ferdinando I de'Medici ruled from 1587-1609, succeeding his brother Francesco whom left no male heirs, and early on he demonstrated an affinity for statecraft, restoring administrative functions to many republican-themed councils whom Cosimo had relieved of their power during his restructuring of the Florentine bureaucracy. "Under Ferdinando, more responsibility for routine administrative affairs was given back to the old republican magistracies that Cosimo had tethered with red tape: the Otto di Pratica, the Conservors of the Laws, the Public Debt Commission, the Twelve Good Men, and the rest. No longer ghosts of the past, hovering apologetically among the bodies directly expressing ducal power, freed from the taint of the autocratic rubber stamp, these offices brought a renewed interest and prestige to the hundreds of men from the patrician class who served on them each year."
Catherine de'Medici was a highly intelligent and extremely motivated ruler whom was also an accomplished rider and huntswoman, but her true talents were in the areas of government and statecraft. Her parents were Lorenzo II de'Medici and Madeleine de la Tour, both of whom passed away shortly after her birth in 1519, and she was fostered by her cousins, the Medici Popes Leo X and Clement VII. She was a skilled stateswoman and negotiator who excelled in the competitive environment of the French royal court, and Hale describes her policies as "invoking a spirit of reasonableness and reconciliation". Catherine was a close friend of her father-in-law King Francis I of France, and she later would sponsor a vibrant Renaissance court with extensive artistic and literary patronage that was renowned across Europe.
Chapter 6, The Decline of a Dynasty and the Growth of a Legend is the final chapter in Hale's chronicle, and it explores the reigns of Cosimo II (1609-21), Ferdinando II (1621-70), Cosimo III (1670-1723) and Gian Gastone (1723-37), afterwards briefly discussing several eighteenth-century historiographical endeavors to rehabilitate the Medici, among them William Roscoe's 1796 Life of Lorenzo de'Medici and Mark Noble's 1797 Memoirs of the Illustrious House of Medici. Hale's coverage of the final four Grand Ducal reigns mainly concerns art and Tuscany's place within the greater European political framework of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The final Medici ruler Gian Gastone was unable to conceive an heir and originally, in 1731 it had been decided by the European powers of England, Spain, Holland, Austria, and Savoy that upon Gian Gastone's death Tuscany would become a territory of Don Carlos of Bourbon, the Duke of Parma, but the War of Polish Succession in 1733 changed the international status quo, and Don Carlos received Naples and the Two Sicilies, with Tuscany going to Duke Francis Stephen, who went on to marry Maria Theresa and become the Holy Roman Emperor.
My overall impressions of Florence and The Medici: The Pattern Of Control were extremely positive. The study's greatest strength lies in its level of comprehensiveness; Mr. Hale accomplishes his goal of exploring the relationship between the Medici and Florence utilizing descriptive, efficient prose which conveys its purpose in a meaningful way while maintaining a streamlined and condensed format that should appeal to both newcomers and specialists alike. Possessing prior knowledge of the covered historical periods is beneficial, although not required, as the author occasionally refers to events in a manner which assumes a degree of familiarity with the content. There are a number of Medici histories currently available on the market, and although this one falls on the erudite side of the spectrum, it nonetheless would make a wonderful choice for someone in search of a politically themed chronicle of how the family was able to remain in power over a protracted period of time. J.R. Hale was considered one of the great historians of the twentieth century and his research was regarded amongst the most influential of his era, and it was truly an honor to review one of his studies. Thank you so very much for reading, I hope that you enjoyed the review!
Born in Ashford, Kent, England, Sir John Rigby Hale was an English historian and translator who specialized in the Italian Renaissance and lived from 17 September 1923 – 12 August 1999. He was the author of numerous studies, which include Napoleon: The Story of His Life, England and the Italian Renaissance: The Growth of Interest in its History and Art, and The Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance, and was the co-author of The Military Organization of a Renaissance State: Venice c. 1400 to 1617 with M.E. Mallett. Mr. Hale was the recipient of several scholastic honors throughout his academic career, among them the Emeritus Professor of Italian History at University College, London, where he headed its Italian Department from 1970 until his retirement in 1988, and was a Fellow of the British Academy in London, as well as a Fellow and Tutor in Modern History at Jesus College, Oxford from 1949 - 1964. He was an instructor at Cornell University, New York, and the University of California, and also attended John Hopkins University and Harvard University. He was made a Knight Bachelor on 20 August 1984. Many thanks to Wikipedia for the wonderful information on their J.R. Hale page.
This 2004 paperback edition of J.R. Hale's 1977 Florence and The Medici: The Pattern Of Control was published by the Phoenix Press, in Great Britain, and its 196-page main text is divided into six chronological chapters that are subdivided by topic, and features a preface, a 5-page selective bibliography and a 4-page index. There are 8 black-and-white illustrations in the middle of the book. Hale's premise behind Florence and the Medici is to explain the relationship between Florence and the methods utilized by the Medici as they acquired their power. The primary focus remains on the politics of the Florentine state, but there are sections of the study which discuss relations with foreign powers such as Milan, Venice, and later, the Catholic Papacy and France. There are also portions that cover art and architecture in a cursory manner as they relate to the rulers' characters and personalities.
The author cites 1434 as the foundation of Medici power in Florence, and the timeline addresses a roughly three-hundred-year period which progresses to 1737, but he does cover a few pages of the early Medici beginning in 1216. J.R. Hale benefitted from the assistance of Dr. Niolai Rubenstein, author of The Government of Florence under the Medici, 1434–1494, and also worked with Dr. Michael Mallett and Mr. Stanley Baron when composing this monograph. In the Preface, Hale begins by informing his reader that, "This book attempts to explain the relationship between the most provocative of Italian cities and the most famous of Italian families." He continues by stating that during the past decades (the Preface was written in 1977) there has been exciting research on the Medici which has endeavored to answer some of the following questions regarding Medicean power: "How was it acquired? In what way did it function? Why was it accepted?"
Mr. Hale explains that the evolution of Florence from republic to principate was a shift "from a time when personality conditioned the nature of power to one when power simply adhered to personality by hereditary right". Due to the span of time covered in relation to the study's short length, many of the discussions are general overviews towards the beginning and middle portions, but the scope narrows in the later areas as the author is able to focus on the individual rulers of the Medicean principate.
Discussed in Chapter 1, The First Steps to Power, the Florentine government was a complex and multi-faceted political machine which was comprised of a series of councils that worked with one another, voting on various issues while performing necessary checks and balances to prevent one entity from becoming too powerful. It also contained specialized commissions both temporary and permanent which were responsible for administering civic functions or were convened only during certain times to fulfill a certain purpose, and then dissolved.
The Signoria was a 9-man elected body that was comprised of 8 priors, 2 from each of Florence's 4 quarters which in turn were represented by a standard, called a gonfalon, with the 9th position known as the Standardbearer of Justice, or Gonfalonier di Giustizia. The Signoria was the Florentine Republic's principal governing body, and along with its 2 supporting councils that also played vital roles, the 12 good men, who were known as the dodici buonuomini, and the 16 standardbearers, the sedici gonfalonieri. These 3 councils were collectively called the tre maggiori. The Dieci di Balìa was a 10-man war commission which was convened during times of emergency to negotiate military contracts and to facilitate wartime communication between Florence and its mercenary commanders, the condottieri, and the permanent 8-man security commission, the Otto di Guardia, was responsible for responding to internal threats to the state. The offices were determined by lot, and the committee who oversaw the bags with the names of candidates was called the accoppiatori. The Signoria served 2-month terms, the dodici buonuomini for 3 months, and the sedici gonfalonieri for 4 months, and there were 2 legislative bodies, the 300-member Council of the People and the 200-member Council of the Commune, which also served 4-month terms. Finally, there were ad hoc advisory councils called Consulte or Pratiche that worked in a supportive role to assist the other assemblies.
Hale's discussion of how the Medici party came about as a way to protect the bank's financial assets forms a crucial part of the chapter, and he explains that the core of the faction was comprised of the Medici and their numerous branches, and broadened with a series of marriage alliances to the Bardi, Salviati, Cavalcanti, and Tournabuoni, which was expanded still further by the amici, a group of supporters who relied on the wealthier members of the family for financial assistance in return for political backing. The financial aid consisted of loans to individuals who could not serve in political offices because of back taxes that had fallen into arrears, and the political support involved the soliciting of votes to attain administrative positions as much as was permitted by the laws. "The aim was to plait together an increasing number of influential men who would vote on Medici lines when chosen for the leading offices and commissions, of lesser men who would create a pro-Medicean atmosphere within the guilds, and a solid bloc of all classes within the district where most members of the family lived, in the parish of San Lorenzo." Wealthier Medici partisans would also offer business consultations to lower-rank members in exchange for votes, and all Mediceans supported enlarging the roll of names for political offices for the purpose of reducing their political opposition.
Chapter 2, The Medicean Regime outlines the events which followed Cosimo de'Medici's death in 1464, beginning with Piero de'Medici's brief leadership role as the unofficial Florentine head of state until his death in 1469. Attention is devoted to Piero's artistic interests and on his handling of the conspiracy of 1465-6 involving Dietisalvi Neroni and Lucca Pitti. "Affectionate, if stern, with his children, proud of the Medici name and determined to advance its prestige, he carried all the weight contemporaries expected from the head of a wealthy family. He was lucid and persistent with his diplomacy and held firmly to the relationship Cosimo had established with Milan."
The focus soon shifts to Piero's son Lorenzo de'Medici, called the Magnificent, and Hale appraises his overall character and his patronage of the arts in relation to personal interests before summarizing his political career in a lengthy section which focuses on the events of the Pazzi Conspiracy, Lorenzo's role in the Volterran crisis and on his political reforms. Lorenzo ran afoul of Pope Sixtus IV after he refused to provide the pontiff with a loan to facilitate the sale of Imola from Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza of Milan, and Sixtus instead utilized the bank of the Medici's rivals the Pazzi, which sows the seeds of the conspiracy. Years after the conspiracy, within weeks of Lorenzo's return from Naples in 1480 a Florentine Balìa was convened with the chief result being the formation of the Council of Seventy, which represented a further consolidation of power into the Medicean party members. "The Seventy was designed to add its weighty corroboration to bills sent down to the Councils for what was hoped would be automatic enactment, especially those affecting finance, war, foreign policy and the constitution. It was also made responsible for electing the Signoria."
In Chapter 3, Towards the Principate, Hale explains that by 1492, business investments had become unstable and prone to risk, and the ruling Medicean faction had begun to view themselves as a separate ruling caste whom controlled every aspect of the war loan procedure, often exploiting the process for the sake of personal interests and affording them a decisive social advantage as a very small social group with a tremendous degree of influence. "It was they who decided how much money was needed; they or their friends who put up the cash for war loans; they who imposed taxes or security for the sum; they who made sure that repayment of the loans would be given precedence and at what interest. At a time when investment in business was hazardous and when the interest on normal government bonds was dropping, control over the workings of war loans was a distinct advantage for the minority that formed the inner circle, and it hastened a process whereby the gap between the self-protecting rich and the heavily taxed majority was growing."
The author maintains that the Medici popes Leo X and Clement VII assumed vital roles in ensuring that the family remained a viable political force in Florence during the 1510s and 20s, otherwise clans such as the Guicciardini and Strozzi would have found themselves in a position comparable to Cosimo Pater Patriae when he ousted the Albizzi in 1434. Leo hosted elaborate festivals and carnivals in Florence and staged an Etruscan pageant in Rome to honor the Florentines' Tuscan heritage, who had believed that his pontificate represented a Golden Age, and he successfully negotiated crucial marriage alliances with the French Royal House of Valois, between his nephew Lorenzo II de'Medici and Madeleine de la Tour, and with the House of Savoy by betrothing his brother Giuliano to Duke Philip II's daughter Filiberta, making him the Duke of Nemours. "For the first time a Medici was able to indulge in political patronage on a large scale, handing out sinecures in the papal chancery, military commissions and castellanships in the Papal States, with a freedom far beyond the means of Cosimo or Lorenzo."
Chapter 4, The Principate Achieved is concerned with the pontificate of Pope Clement VII, the ducal term of Alessandro de'Medici, and the further consolidation of power which led to the formation of Grand Ducal Tuscany during the reign of Grand Duke Cosimo I de'Medici. Clement's papacy came at a very challenging period in Italian history while the country was being contested by the Valois kings of France and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V Habsburg. He effectively paved the way for Grand Ducal Tuscany by convincing Charles V to put in place the administration of Florence's first duke, Alessandro de'Medici, whereby upon convention of a Parlamento at Florence in 1530 it was first decided to abolish the Great Council, and then on April 27 1532 he persuaded a Florentine Balìa to abolish the Signoria, to be replaced by four councilors whom would be subject to Alessandro's authority as their chairman and as Duke of Florence. Hale reports that Alessandro listened to his people on a fairly regular basis that he was also spontaneously generous at times, and readers can learn more about him in Catherine Fletcher's exceptional biography, The Black Prince of Florence: The Spectacular Life and Treacherous World of Alessandro de' Medici.
Early in his reign Cosimo I de'Medici gained his independence from Charles V by paying large subsidies in exchange for the withdrawal of the Imperial garrisons from the Fortezza da Basso and from the Livorno citadel, as the Emperor had left a military presence in the region which had remained through Alessandro de'Medici's seven-year ducal reign in the years following the Imperial-Spanish siege of Florence in 1529. "One of his earliest actions was to write to the chief magistrates of the subject cities in Tuscany appealing for their support and promising his personal interest. He did more than any of his predecessors had done to make Florence into visibly a 'Medicean' city, but he was very much a prince of the sixteenth century, thinking in terms of a state rather than a city." He also consolidated the legal codes in cities under his jurisdiction to make them more unified and introduced his own bureaucratic staff, which, according to Hale, "diminished the administrative contrasts between one city and another and made more uniform the relationship between each of them and Florence."
Cosimo I can be described as an able administrator whom effectively utilized his predecessor Alessandro's trusted men as guides and teachers and developed his own aspect of government called the Privy Council, or the Pratica Secreta, which was a secret council that planned legislative actions, organized the division of Church and State, and performed other vital administrative functions. The Privy Council was attached to the four councilor-assembly known as the supreme magistracy which had been created with the Balìa of 1532, but was convened only at the duke's behest. "If his flair for diplomacy could not have been foreseen in 1537, neither could his mounting passion for the desk-work of government. He saw politics as an activity to be pursued in the ruler's study, with information flowing in and orders flowing out, and a corps of alert and knowledgeable men available for consultation in a nearby room. That government could not work as simply as this, he knew. But this was his ideal." Cosimo worked closely with the personnel whom comprised his inner councils, also employing three fiscal auditors to collaborate with the four councilors and further refine the duke's financial affairs.
Chapter 5, Grand-Ducal Tuscany discusses the apogee of the Tuscan Grand Dukes, covering the reigns of Cosimo I's two sons Francesco and Ferdinando I de'Medici, and it also studies the lives and achievements of the Medici Queens of France, Catherine and Marie, exploring their respective impacts upon court culture and French society. Grand Duke Ferdinando I de'Medici ruled from 1587-1609, succeeding his brother Francesco whom left no male heirs, and early on he demonstrated an affinity for statecraft, restoring administrative functions to many republican-themed councils whom Cosimo had relieved of their power during his restructuring of the Florentine bureaucracy. "Under Ferdinando, more responsibility for routine administrative affairs was given back to the old republican magistracies that Cosimo had tethered with red tape: the Otto di Pratica, the Conservors of the Laws, the Public Debt Commission, the Twelve Good Men, and the rest. No longer ghosts of the past, hovering apologetically among the bodies directly expressing ducal power, freed from the taint of the autocratic rubber stamp, these offices brought a renewed interest and prestige to the hundreds of men from the patrician class who served on them each year."
Catherine de'Medici was a highly intelligent and extremely motivated ruler whom was also an accomplished rider and huntswoman, but her true talents were in the areas of government and statecraft. Her parents were Lorenzo II de'Medici and Madeleine de la Tour, both of whom passed away shortly after her birth in 1519, and she was fostered by her cousins, the Medici Popes Leo X and Clement VII. She was a skilled stateswoman and negotiator who excelled in the competitive environment of the French royal court, and Hale describes her policies as "invoking a spirit of reasonableness and reconciliation". Catherine was a close friend of her father-in-law King Francis I of France, and she later would sponsor a vibrant Renaissance court with extensive artistic and literary patronage that was renowned across Europe.
Chapter 6, The Decline of a Dynasty and the Growth of a Legend is the final chapter in Hale's chronicle, and it explores the reigns of Cosimo II (1609-21), Ferdinando II (1621-70), Cosimo III (1670-1723) and Gian Gastone (1723-37), afterwards briefly discussing several eighteenth-century historiographical endeavors to rehabilitate the Medici, among them William Roscoe's 1796 Life of Lorenzo de'Medici and Mark Noble's 1797 Memoirs of the Illustrious House of Medici. Hale's coverage of the final four Grand Ducal reigns mainly concerns art and Tuscany's place within the greater European political framework of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The final Medici ruler Gian Gastone was unable to conceive an heir and originally, in 1731 it had been decided by the European powers of England, Spain, Holland, Austria, and Savoy that upon Gian Gastone's death Tuscany would become a territory of Don Carlos of Bourbon, the Duke of Parma, but the War of Polish Succession in 1733 changed the international status quo, and Don Carlos received Naples and the Two Sicilies, with Tuscany going to Duke Francis Stephen, who went on to marry Maria Theresa and become the Holy Roman Emperor.
My overall impressions of Florence and The Medici: The Pattern Of Control were extremely positive. The study's greatest strength lies in its level of comprehensiveness; Mr. Hale accomplishes his goal of exploring the relationship between the Medici and Florence utilizing descriptive, efficient prose which conveys its purpose in a meaningful way while maintaining a streamlined and condensed format that should appeal to both newcomers and specialists alike. Possessing prior knowledge of the covered historical periods is beneficial, although not required, as the author occasionally refers to events in a manner which assumes a degree of familiarity with the content. There are a number of Medici histories currently available on the market, and although this one falls on the erudite side of the spectrum, it nonetheless would make a wonderful choice for someone in search of a politically themed chronicle of how the family was able to remain in power over a protracted period of time. J.R. Hale was considered one of the great historians of the twentieth century and his research was regarded amongst the most influential of his era, and it was truly an honor to review one of his studies. Thank you so very much for reading, I hope that you enjoyed the review!
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April 6, 2016A moving portrait of a great family. The power that resided in the Medici family reigned for centuries. Their empire was incredible.
July 30, 2021
Il ritratto della più grande famiglia italiana e del suo potere attraverso i secoli.
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