Medicean and Savonarolan Florence

This volume examines Florentine society at crucial moments of change that are often treated separately in historical narratives: the later years of Medici government under the aegis of Lorenzo the Magnificent, the four tumultuous years of Savonarola’s religious regime from 1494 to 1498, and the unsettled early decades of the sixteenth century. Drawing upon original research conducted during the past decade, it provides important insights into the politics and conflicting ideologies in the city as experienced by different levels of society, not only by the politicians, preachers, and intellectuals whose voices are more familiar to us, but also by women and lower-class citizens. Since no single paradigm is adequate to describe these years of flux, this volume attempts to reassess the period by uncovering the debate underlying nearly all the topics it discusses. In this way, it offers a new and multifocused approach to the study of this important and influential period in Florentine history.

Alison Brown is Emerita Professor of Italian Renaissance History at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her books on Florentine politics and political thought include Bartolomeo Scala, 1430-1497, Chancellor of Florence: The Humanist as Bureaucrat (1979); The Medici in Florence: The Exercise and Language of Power (1992); The Renaissance (1999); and The Return of Lucretius to Renaissance Florence (2010).

List of Tables

Acknowledgements

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

Part I. Life and Politics in Late Laurentian Florence

Chapter 1: Lorenzo de’ Medici’s New Men and Their Mores

Chapter 2: Women, Children, and Politics in the Letters of Ser Pace di Bambello

Chapter 3: The Early Years of Piero di Lorenzo: Between Florentine Citizen and Medici Prince

Chapter 4: Lorenzo and Public Opinion in Florence: The Problem of Opposition

Part II. Revolution and the Crisis of Republicanism

Chapter 5: The Revolution of 1494 in Florence and its Aftermath

Chapter 6: Offices of Honour and Profit: The Crisis of Republicanism in Florence

Chapter 7: Insiders and Outsiders: The Changing Boundaries of Exile

Chapter 8: Ideology and Faction in Savonarolan Florence

Part III. Politics, Humanism, and Religion

Chapter 9: Demasking Renaissance Republicanism

Chapter 10:. The Language of Empire

Chapter 11: New Light on the Papal Condemnation of Pico’s Theses

Chapter 12: Intellectual and Religious Currents in the Post-Savonarola Years

Bibliography

Index