Cellini’s Perseus and Medusa: the Public Face of Justice inMedicean Florence Christine Corretti

Like Donatello’s Judith and Holofernes (c.1460, Loggia dei Lanzi,Florence), Benvenuto Cellini’s Perseus and Medusa (1545-1555, Loggia dei Lanzi, fig. 1) forDuke Cosimo I de’ Medici

ofFlorence (r.1537-1574) implies a threat of execution by decapitation.The viewer who stands

beneath theGorgon’s body lying upon Athena’s shield and under the hero’s feetreceives the

impression that the swordPerseus used to decapitate Medusa is about to alight upon his/herhead (fig. 2). The ancient Greek hero appears to watch for the spectator’sreaction to that threat. Cellini’s

actualization ofPerseus’ destruction of Medusa must have been most menacing in lightof the fact

that when Cosimo’s bronze sculpturewas unveiled in 1555 the Loggia dei Lanzi was still used for

show executions, just as it had provided a setting for the beheadingof victims of the Battle of

Montemurlo(1537). Cellini’s sculpture commemorates this glorious event ofutmost importance to

Cosimo’s defeat of therepublicans and therefore to his rise to power.1 The Perseus testifiesto the fact

that ducal manipulation ofFlorence’s judicial system was vital to the formation of Cosimo’sabsolutist

state, for through that system theMedici ruler could impose his will on his constituents in the nameof political and social cohesion. In this context the heterogeneity ofthe Tuscan state required the strictest

1

measures.However, despite the duke’s tremendous effort to controlFlorentines, Cosimo’s authority was

not complete.

While scholars claim Cellini’s statue visualizes a finalizedvictory over political enemies, I

maintainthat the Perseus and Medusa thematizes Cosimo’s inadequate control.2 Thesculpture does sothrough a paradox: in spite of the fact that the hero, a surrogate forthe Medici duke, has slain Medusa, a

version of the Mother Goddess, Perseus relies upon her potency.Therefore, the statue would have

reminded its patron andpossibly other Florentines that maternal figures brought Cosimo topower. In

1537 Maria Salviati, theduke’s mother, convinced the Florentine council to elect her son rulerof Florence. She also advised Cosimo while he was in office to such anextent that rumors of his

dependence upon her,which he found distasteful, abounded in the city. Cosimo’s wifeDuchess

Eleonora di Toledo filled his emptycoffers with her own money, ruled the state when her husband

was away from court, and helped to propagate the Medici dynasty bybearing eleven children during

thetime she was married to the duke. Not surprisingly, artists andwriters characterized Eleonora as a

Mother Goddess.3

It is not unlikely, then, that Cosimo’s need to strengthen his controlover his subjects

became all the more pressingin light of his weaknesses, for which his wife’s and mother’s

accomplishments were blatant foils. Indeed, Cosimo had reason to feel

2

this way, given that Eleonora enjoyed

financial independence, and had power and influence of her own.Further, due to her royal

ancestry she was superior in rank to her husband.

One of the most severe forms of the ducal legal system’scontrol of citizens comes to light in

the Loggia statues representing decapitation. The research of MarcoChiari and Frederick Cummings

suggests that in the sixteenthcentury public executions in Florence averaged six per day; but themoreinteresting statistic is that from 1530 to 1534 the Medici regimecarried out in record fashion more than

ninetypublic executions, twenty of which entailed hanging from the Palazzodella Signoria.4 The

executions performed during CosimoI’s time in office were among the most barbaric recorded, despite

the fact that the Medici duke could display hispower through grazia; that is, in order to showcase his

mastery of the law Cosimo sometimes pardoned criminals awaiting theirdeaths.5

During Cellini’s time decapitation wasan appropriate form of execution for those who

committed crimes against the state. The latter were concomitant withcrimes against the sovereign;

hence theloss of one’s head mimicked the harm intended for the “head” of state.Since Perseus’

decapitation of the Gorgon proved tobe an assault on the “head” of the matriarchal state of ancient

Greece, Medusa’s image on the Piazza della Signoria is both dignified(her face is beautiful) and

denigrated. Thus,

3

Cosimo’s Perseus and Medusa reminds the viewer that decapitation was thehonorable

way to execute a king, queen, or otherpolitical dignitary. Corporeal symbolism at the scene of

punishment tied into messages about the law. Since the law was aninstrument of the state and thus a

partof the sovereign, it naturally stood for the will of the ruler. Theforce of the law was that of the

prince.In Michel Foucault’s words:

In punishment, there must always be a portion that

belongs to the prince, and, even when it iscombined with the redress laid down, it constitutes

the most important element in the liquidation of the crime. Now, this portion

belonging to the prince is not in itself simple: on the one hand, it requires

redress for the injury that has been done tohis kingdom (as anelement of disorder and as an

example given to others, this considerable injury out of all proportion to

that which had been committed upon a private individual).6

The execution of a criminal communicated the absolute power overlife and death which was

the absolutist ruler’sbirthright. It comes as no surprise, then, that the sovereign’sgodliness manifested itself through the ritual of public execution: he/she waspresent in spirit, if not in person,

at the scene of punishment.

When Cellini’s Perseus was unveiled on thePiazza della Signoria in 1555 and its patron looked

down from the Palazzo Vecchio at what transpired, Cosimo I played thepart of the all-seeing lord

responsible for this4

new ritualized display of power and revenge. Cosimo’s “divine” justice

infiltrated Perseus, the solar demi-god, against another divinity. Raised to a great height on itspedestal,

the Perseus provided a bridge between theduke and the political and criminal worlds below him, while

the Loggia arches above framed the statue and thus implied that thespectacle of public execution

participatedin a “whole series of great rituals in which power is eclipsed andrestored.”7 The latter

included the coronation of aking or queen and his or her entry into a conquered city, two eventsthat usually took place beneath triumphal arches. In the preceding contextthe Loggia ritualized Cosimo’s rise

topower after Montemurlo.

Public executions played an important role inearly modern state formation: they were

attempts to define a dominion. Armed punishment, the state’s primaryform of repression,

symbolized theruler’s monopoly of juridical, legal, political and military authoritywithin the state.

The presence of a duke, count, king, orqueen would supposedly daunt the masses watching

the grisly spectacle of execution into obeying the law, therebyimplying the sovereign’s control over all

bodies, criminal and noncriminal, comprising the state.

In my view, the chaos ofexecution scenes mirrored the difficult, often violent process of

stateformation. In the early modern period states developed slowly. Theopen nature of territorial divides

5

was one factorthat contributed to societal discord. Understandably, early modernindividuals wereconstantly concerned about improving highly unstable andgeographically limited monopolies of

authority. Thus,the effects of violent behavior were two-fold: they disrupted

stability where concord existed and were,

in response, deemed necessary to maintain stability. As PeterSpierenberg has stressed,

public executionswere meant to materialize the state’s strength precisely because thispower was not yet consolidated. The preindustrial justice system needed publicitybecause the ruler’s power over wrong

doers had to be made visible: execution of the body and the displayof the corpse contributed to the

propagandisticdisplay of the sovereign’s power.8

Likewise, while Cellini was creating his Perseus,Cosimo I de’ Medici harbored great concern

about his nascent state. The severity of the duke’s suspicious natureshowed when he threw real or

imagined enemies intoVolterra’s dungeons and hired assassins to murder meddlesomedissenters and

rivals. Due to suspicion, Cosimo alwayswore a coat of mail under his jerkin, a dagger, sword and many

stiletti stuck into the lining of his scabbard. He also had a bodyguardpresent at all times. Further, the

Medici duke would notput up with any dissension: that would have been a threat to hispower.

Surveillance at his court was tightest whilehe ruled. For instance, since 1546 he kept a closer eye on

governmental officials nearest him by bringing all of Florence’s

6

judicial and administrative offices as well as the city’s

major guilds into one building near the Palazzo Vecchio.9 It seemsthat Cosimo’s demand

for intense controlwas a symptom of a fear that he would lose power.

Actually, Cosimo’s vision of an absolutist statemet with many challenges of a practical nature

and even clashed with contemporary visions of a homogeneous state.For instance, the republican exiles

from the Battleof Montemurlo tried to revolt several times. Another problemfor Cosimo I might

have been the lingeringpopularity of Francesco Guicciardini’s controversial History of Italy(1530s), which criticized contemporary politics. Guicciardini wanted thosewhom Cosimo I defeated, aristocratic

andbourgeois, to regain their dignity. The Medici ruler’s own desire to

control the law in the strictest of fashions betrayed

his sensitivity to dissent, which was tantamount to rebellion. Thelack of control

over cities such as Lucca and Siena,which Cosimo did not wholly annex until 1557, besetting his early

tenure, he knew, contributed to the vulnerability ofTuscany’s physical boundaries. Indeed, controlling

Italian society was extremely difficult due to such factors as the ruggedness and remoteness of land that

providedcover for lawbreakers and the increased danger of banditry from themid-sixteenth century to the

early decades of the next, aproblem in Florence stemming from the fall of Montalcino and general

resistance against the Emperor and the Medici. The structure ofauthority in Florence did not compare,

moreover,

7

to the fractured police organization in the countryside. Tuscan law-breakers outside of

Florence found it easier to resist Florentinecontrol. In Medicean Florence, the cult of revenge also

generated a great number of criminal acts that contributed to theinstability of state formation. The same

wasthe result of poverty, social discontent, and turmoil from politicalfactions.10

In light of the preceding, I conceiveof Cellini’s Medusa as a terror-inducing epitomization

of the criminal body in disorder, of the partitioning of state(specifically, enemy republican) territories,

and yet also of the threat of disorderly political factions. The bodyof Medusa, separated from its head,

lies in aslump-like heap, a chaotic mass of flesh, much as a mutilated andexecuted body would, and the

Gorgon’s face evinces anaturalistic vacuity through its slightly open eyes and mouth. Theadverse

effects of her gaze (Ovid’s Metamorphoses says sheturned men to stone with her eyes before and after

her decapitation) are the source of Perseus’ power to “petrify” Medicifoes, but those effects,

immortalized by art, wouldhave also symbolized ongoing cycles of violence troubling Cosimo’sstate. Medusa’s blood gave birth to a monster (Chrysoar) and, tellingly,continues to fall on the Piazza. Thus,

Cellini’sstatue employed violence to intimidate inimical forces intosubmission, but it also could have

called forthadversity from foes and critics of the Medici. Foucault’s statementsuits the statue’s

dynamics: “as a result ofarmed law, in which the prince showed himself, indissociably, both as

8

the head of justice and head of war, the public execution had twoaspects: one of victory, the other of

struggle” to overcome the deviance of adversity in the violentchallenge which the ritual of execution

posed to theprince.11

Cellini also seems to have visualized the adversarial natureof the ritual of public execution

through his Greekhero’s physical similarity to the Gorgon (note the comparable visagesand how

Perseus’ hair mimics Medusa’ssnakes and coils of blood), which suggests that the infamy of hisvictim stained the Renaissance executioner.12 Reflecting both Cellini’s andthe Renaissance executioner’s sinful

characters, Perseusmatches the “criminal” in the Gorgon’s image. The executioner’sprofile is similar to

that of Cellini as theAutobiography describes the latter. Here, one reads that the sculptorcommitted murder three times and was sentenced to death by Italian authoritiesat least once. The account of

Gherardo Guasconti’smurder is worth quoting:

With great dexterity, I approached him with a large dagger of the type made in Pistoia and

spun him around with a back- stroke,hoping to cut off his head cleanly, but he turned

quickly and my blow hit him on the edge of his left shoulder and broke the entire bone; he got up,

leaving his sword behind, and confused by theintense pain, he began to run, but I followed

him and caught up with him in four steps. After a I raised my dagger above his head, he lowered it as far as he

could and took the blow at a pointright on the neck bone and halfway downthe nape of the neck, and the whole blade of the dagger

went in so deeply that although I applied tremendous force to extricate it, I could not do so….13

9

Like the Renaissance executioner, Cellini both enjoyed the acceptanceof patrons and friends and

at other times was unfortunate enough to be an outcast.

One may liken Perseus’ weapon to thelarge swords Renaissance executioners used to

decapitate condemned criminals. These arms were heavy, and so theexecutioner had to be a man of

considerable strength to wield them. Those most adept at their taskwere men who could finish their deed

by striking only once, just as Perseus so decapitated Medusa and justas Cellini almost took Guasconti’s

headwith one blow, feebly falling short. As such, the act of punishmentwas for Cellini’s Perseus an

effort to prove Cosimo’s superiority to a body (Medusa’s) sacrificed through the penal ritual.14

The Body Broken and Divine

Although the figure of Cellini’s bronze Medusa has a severedneck, its configuration recalls

anadditional form of sacrificial ritual --- breaking with the wheel(fig. 3). Note how the Gorgon’s

arms and legs are foldedand contorted in ways suggesting broken bones, even the shape of thebody

strung between the spokes of a wheel. In the northern andcentral parts of early modern Europe, after

hanging,breaking with the wheel was the most common aggravated way to bringcriminals to justice.

Although Italy seldomemployed the technique, Italians were familiar with the breaking wheel

through such media as prints, paintings and written accounts of itshorrors.15 The executioner would lay

10

the criminal’s body across a hard surface, such as a ladder, to whichhe would tie the victim’s hands and

feet, then he wouldknock the wheel against the victim’s limbs and/or chest. The latterwas either left to

die on his back orlifted up and strung between the spokes of a wheel on a pike. Asthe pike’s wheel

rotated, more bones broke. Attimes just the revolving wheel on a pike was the condemnedindividual’s

punishment. The breaking wheelepitomized a perpetuation of violence and disorder, as did all formsof public execution. However, breaking with the wheel was an aggravatedperpetuation because of the

acute pain andphysical disfiguration it caused.16

Breaking with the wheel was just one way of sacrificing thecriminal for the sake of social

order. InCellini’s day the trope of the scaffold as an altar derived from awillingness to understand the

condemned person’sdeath as a Christ-like sacrifice to humankind.17 On the Piazza dellaSignoria Medusa’s broken body assumes a sacrificial character when oneconsiders Cellini’s pedestal as an altar.18

It is not a coincidence that Cellini chose to include images ofMercury, Athena, and Jupiter on his

altar-pedestal, for, as Ovid stated, Perseus built altars to thesethree deities after he obtained Medusa’s

head.

The bronze Gorgon’s wheel-shaped body also has arelated cosmic significance. Edgar Wind

11

indicated in his study on the cross’ pre-Christian symbolism that “thevery shape of the wheel and the

cross … point to ideas of a cosmic order and would be senseless butfor a victim sacrificed for a cosmic

purpose.”19 On the Piazza della Signoria that purpose becomes anaffront against the Mother Goddess.

(Similarly, thebreaking wheel was in ancient Greece a sacrifice to the sun godJupiter.)20 The wheel is

an attribute ofthe Mother Goddess in the forms of Nemesis (Vortumna) and Fortuna, thegoddess of fate:

its whorl symbolizes therevolutions of the universe, which the Goddess controls. The spiralform of

Medusa’s bronze body, though it does not move,conjures up the Mother Goddess’ wheel.21

The art ofRenaissance Italy indicates that Italians living in Cellini’s day knewthe wheel’s time

honored symbolism. It has stoodfor solar power; the sun, whose rays are its spokes, turning in thesky; the cycle of life and death; rebirth and renewal; change, Fate, Time;and, Fortuna, the Gothic rose

window having originatedin Romanesque art as a wheel of Fortuna.

The ancient ceremony of rolling the wheel signified

the sun’s rotation through the heavens.

Since the wheel is an attribute of all sun gods, including Zeus andApollo, it symbolizes domination of the

cosmos.22 As awheel-like spiral, the body of Cellini’s Medusa stands for solarpower, an aspect of the

Mother Goddess; as well as theincrease and decrease of the sun, for generation and death havetheir part

in the symbolic system of the

12

spiral’s expanding and contracting configuration.23 The sun is also

symbolically linked to the (circular) Ouroboros, thatis, the serpent biting its own tail, which the Medici

employed in one respect as an emblem of eternity and immortality (thecircle, like the solar cycle, has no

beginning and no end,while the snake’s cyclical act of shedding and regrowing its skin haslong been a

symbol of eternity, rebirth, andimmortality). The Gnostics interpreted the Ouroboros as a symbol ofself-renewal after destruction. The titular god in Giorgio Vasari’s FirstFruits of the Earth offered to Saturn

represents Cosimo I holdingup the Ouroboros as a sign of his cosmic power and of Florence’sreturn to

the Golden Age of Medici rulership (fig. 4).Medusa’s unprecedented bodily configuration beneath

Perseus’ feet resembles the Ouroboros, itself comparable to the wheel,because her left hand holds onto

herankle and thus defines her circular shape. In other words, bothCellini’s Medusa and the

Ouroboros assume acircular configuration by taking hold of the lower part of theirbodies. The Gorgon

would have been, then, a formidable matchfor Duke Cosimo/the solar hero Perseus, her Ouroboric shape

denoting not only cosmic power, but also her ability to self-generateafter her destruction. Her lasting

poweralso comprises the adverse effects of her gaze, upon which Perseusdepends. The preceding

recalls the status of Cosimo’swife and mother as foils for the duke’s political shortcomings, which

necessitated dependence upon these matriarchs.

13

Karl von Amira and Hans vonHentig have written that the breaking wheel was indeed an

archetypical emblem of the sun.24 The solar significance of thebreaking wheel complements the

Ouroboros’ and the wheel’s traditional roles as symbols of the earth,the Ouroboros being circular in

form and theserpent living perpetually upon the ground.25 Not surprising, then, isthe Ouroboros’

ubiquitous appearance with images ofthe Earth Mother. One must consider the Ouroboros’ and the

wheel’s terrestrial symbolism in light of Medusa’s role as thematernal earth goddess. The circular form

of Cellini’sGorgon would have contributed to her status as a match for Cosimo I’sauthority, for in

Cellini’s day the globe itself was a symbol ofpower, borrowed from the ancient world. For instance, the

emblematic orbs of Pompey, Caesar and Augustus stood for earthly andeven cosmic sovereignty/justice

and Hadrian’sofficial coinage bore the inscription, “restorer of the circle of theearth” (“restitutur orbis

terrarum”). Many portraits ofearly modern leaders show the symbolic terrestrial orb as theirancient predecessors did. The Medici family emblems of the palle likewise stoodfor earthly sovereignty.

Comparable images of authority arethe chariot wheels of Bartolomeo Ammanati’s Neptune Fountain,

which made its way onto the Piazza della Signoria several years afterCellini’s Perseus did. The northern

wheel bears thezodiacal signs of spring and summer, while the southern has those ofautumn and winter.

Henk Th. van Veen hasstated that the zodiacal emblems pertain to Earth, as responsible for

14

seasonal rotation.26 Ammanati’s wheels encapsulate the

link among Earth, the cosmos, and the wheel discussed previously,

thereby suggesting that Cellini knew the same. It is notcoincidental that medallions with

thehead of Medusa, the Earth Mother, grace the rims of the fountain’swheels.

Mater Iuri

My consideration of Renaissance executions stresses that incontemporary imaginations earthly

justice was areflection of God’s plan for cosmic order. Sixteenth-century civicbuildings often

included elaboratemurals representing judicial themes from biblical writing, mostfrequently the Last

Judgment. Criminal procedurescommonly took place in the presence of such images. Arches within

judicial buildings framed high magistrates and stood for God’s cosmos,just as the Loggia arches do.

Comparablepersonifications of cosmic/divine justice were sword-bearing femaleswho derive

from the ancient Mother of Justice(Iustitia/Mater Iuri). Donatello’s Judith is one such example and so

is Cellini’s Medusa, who rivals the supreme judge Zeus on the pedestalbeneath her. Just as Medusa

was responsiblefor Perseus’ ability to bring enemies to justice at various points inhis story, the Piazza

della Signoria’sGorgon is the means through which Perseus punishes his foes.

15

Similarly, a sixteenth- century Florentine poem written

in honor of Cellini’s Perseus and Medusa maintains that Cosimo I would

usher in a new Golden Age because the duke descended from thefirmament with Iustitia.27 Note how

Cellini’sPerseus-Cosimo holds Medusa’s head aloft, as if in homage to her tiesto the heavens.

In Cellini’s time Justice wasinseparable from the Almighty and associated with an absolutist

and deified State. The earthly body and the spiritual body of theprince shared in Iustitia’s eternal

nature.Significant in the preceding regard is the fact that Duke Cosimo I

personally embraced the paradoxical notion that the

prince’s two bodies represented the law and, perhaps partly in aspiritual sense, stood above it.28 His belief becomes more meaningful in lightof the preceding poem on

Iustitia: theMedici duke would have assimilated his personae to both the spiritualnature of Iustitia and

her manifestationin earthly laws. The head of Cellini’s Medusa epitomizes both ofIustitia’s guises.

In order to better understand the bronze Gorgon’scharacterization as Iustitia, which relates to

her role as the Mother Goddess, one must travel to the ancient world.The idea of justice as a living

cosmic entityoriginated in pre-Socratic Greece. Here, in her religious-mythicalguise, justice appeared as

a face of the MotherGoddess. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey present the Mother Goddess as a

judgmental entity, for she punishes those who ignore, or challengeher. In addition, Hesiod’s Theogony

16

states that Dike (Justice) is the daughter of Zeus and Themis and thatshe resides at the center of religious

andmoral affairs, embodying divine will. Themis and Dike descend fromthe Mother Goddess. 29

Evidence indicates thatAthenians conceptualized the law as a maternal entity. Shortly beforethe end of the fifth century B.C. the Mother of the Gods received culthonors in the Council House of

Athens, where sheresided, enthroned at the center of the building housing all of theofficial texts of

Athenian laws and all otherdocuments belonging to the government. By the end of the fifthcentury the

Athenian state archives became known,therefore, as the Shrine of the Mother, the Metroon. The edifice

was the veritable embodiment of Athenian democracy.30

The Mother Goddess’ role as the protectressof laws stemmed from her status as the source of

sovereignty, afact that reminds one of Medusa’s role as the origin of Perseus’judicial/political

empowerment. The preceding also recallsCosimo I’s conviction that his mother’s words were his

“precept and law.” The duke’s statement would have characterized himas a type for Perseus and Maria

as atype for the Mother Goddess who brought about and embodied her son’spolitical and judicial

authority.31

The Mother Goddess’ dual role as law and sovereignty dates backto her involvement with King

Midas, who waskeenly adept at administering justice. The king’s mother, thePhrygian Great Goddess,

17

wasresponsible for founding, foreseeing and protecting Midas’ justkingship. Even though Midas’ ability

to turn all hetouched to gold moralizes the evil of greed, his golden touch mightalso have stood for his

ability to imposejustice, for in antiquity, as in the Renaissance, gold could symbolizejustice – a point

that informedCellini’s most illustrious sculpture.32

The Shield Device as a Judicial and Cosmological Emblem

The original gilding on Cellini’s Loggia sculpture would haveenhanced not only Perseus’ and

Medusa’s solarsignificance, but also its judicial power.33 Further, as Cellini andhis contemporaries may

have known, in thefifth and sixth centuries A.D. Roman statutes, decrees, treatisesand edicts were all

written on bronze tablets.Bronze’s durability symbolized the validity of Roman legal documents.

Therefore, the metal’s strength suited lawmakers’ intention for theirdecisions to be long-lived and long-

remembered. It is nowonder, then, that Romans often placed bronze legal tablets onhilltops for all to

see. Further, bronze’s sacredconnotations may have informed what Callie Williamson has argued to be

Rome’s conceptualization of bronze legal tablets as sacrosanct.34

Cellini’s bronze Perseus is a similar

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testament, aresplendently divine, lasting monument to its patron’s judicial will,made visible on the

Piazza dellaSignoria for viewers to admire and to fear. An indication that thepreceding was so is

the pose of Francesco di GiovanniFerrucci del Tadda’s sword-bearing Justice, which is nearly identical

to that of the Perseus. Del Tadda’s female personification of CosimoI’s judicial power holds the Scales

of Justice uphigh with her left hand, while the other hand retains a sword close toher right side. She is

made, tellingly, of porphyry,which ducal Florence valued for its hardness and durability andassociated

with justice.35 Like the bronze legal tabletsof Rome, Justice occupies great heights: she stands on top

of a Roman column on Florence’s Piazza Santa Trinità, where sheproclaims Cosimo’s judicial strength to

those beneath her.

Thegilded weaponry of Cellini’s Perseus has a particular way of definingthe Greek hero

as a judicial figure. Cellini mayhave known the following example from Homer’s Iliad, which endows

bronze weaponry with judicial connotations:

He took his two sturdy, sharp spears, headed with bronze. The bronze of the spears sent up

to heaven a far-reaching gleam; Atheneand Hera shouted in applause, in honor of

the king of Mycenae, rich in gold (Iliad, Book XI, 43ff.)

Here, the sovereign’s bronze spears are a metonym for politicalpower, including the ability to

wage war and toimpose justice. Similarly, in his poem, “On Nature” the Greekphilosopher

Parmenides associates justice with

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gold: justice, he believed, is like the sun. The Romans,

meanwhile, swore by the sun.36 As the seat of justice in ancientmytho-poetic traditions, the sun was

highly appropriateas an apotropaic image on weaponry, such as shields. The reason whyWestern

monarchs placed the image of the sun on theirbreast-plates was their belief that solar power would

protect the wearer’s heart in times of peace and in times of war.37

Perhaps the preceding ideas informed the choice to

render the Gorgon’s head on ancient and early modern breastplates,

including that of Duke Cosimo I’s bust by Cellini. The position of alion as a solar emblem on a

breastplate orshield compares.

Ancient authors and artists consistently employed the circularform of the shield device as an

allusion tothe sun. Hence, the shield of Achilles, as it appears in the Iliad,features the sun. In the

preceding context thesolar shield serves as an emblem of a ruler’s ambition for the justoutcome of battles and/or the conquest of territories.38

In Euripedes’ description of Achilles’shield Perseus and Medusa appear, perhaps as cosmic

bodies, on the aegis’ outer rim (Electra, 455ff). The Iliad proves thatthe Gorgon face on the cosmic

shield of Agamemnonis a sign of cosmic domination.

The early iconography of Eastern and Western kingship

indicates that when a ruler is

represented in the zodiacal ring, or on the cosmic clipeus – the circular

20

shield with a border around its middle disk – he is a

cosmocrator/divine judge. Consider a passage from Corippus De laudibusJustini

which pays homage to the elevation of the just EmperorJustinus Minor:

Now heis present, the greatest benefactor

of the world community, to whom kings bend their necks in submission, before

whose name they tremble, and whose numen they worship.

There he stands on that disk,the most powerful prince, having

the appearance of the Sun. Yet another light shines forth from the city. This day

is truly a marvel, for it allows twosuns to rise together at thesame time.39

The image of the emperor raised on a shield had the same solar significance in the Middle Ages

and beyond. Manuel Holobolos of the thirteenth century, for instance,stated that the act of raising a shield from earth to heaven greets the emperor on the aegis as a “great Sun.”40 As the Sun of Justice,

Christ also appears lifted up to heaven on a clipeus. Berchorius’ Repertorium morale describes Jesus’

image as such:

Further I say of the Sun (the “Sun of righteousness”) that Heshall be enflamed whenexercising supreme power, that is to say, when

He sits in judgment, when He shall be strictand severe … because Heshall be all hot and bloody by dint of justice and strictness.For, as the sun, when in thecenter of his orbit, that is to say, midday point, is hottest, so shall Christ be when He shall appear in the

center of heaven and earth… inJudgment …In the summer, when heis in the Lion, the sun withers the herbs, which have blossomed

in the spring, by hisheat of judgment, appear as a man fierce and lionine.41

In the preceding eras, raising a figure on a shield was a way ofproclaiming the individual as

21

ruler.42

The position of Cellini’s Perseus on Athena’s shield, whichhelped destroy Medusa,

contributes to hisstatus as a solar hero, one who looms between heaven and earth ascosmocrator. The

sculpture testifies that not onlythe ruler’s physical person, but also his/her artistic rendition asstanding

on the shield meant that he/she was thenew sun. The original golden sheen of Cellini’s aegis would have

indicated so. Perseus’ shield is analogous to the body ofCellini’s Gorgon and even brings ancient

descriptions of cosmicshields to bear upon Medusa’s configuration. Consider the Iliad’s (BookXI, 33-

36) depiction of Agamemnon’s shield with acentral circle portraying a Gorgon face. The spiral shape of

the Gorgon’s bronze body is similar to the clipeus’ design. Since theshield of Cellini’s Perseus is an

emblem of Medusa’sand Athena’s power, the fact that the Greek hero steps on the shieldsuggests that he

is the rival of both women.Simultaneously, his powerful form as it rises from the shield andMedusa’s

body implies that his sovereignty owesitself to both mythological goddesses. The preceding

configuration epitomizes the fact that Cosimo I rose to power throughthe agency of two women, whose

role inCosimo’s political life ultimately rivaled his authority and foiledhis weaknesses.

The ancients believed theclipeus to be an image of the revolving cosmos; hence Aischylos and

his contemporaries compared the clipeus to a rotating wheel, whichsimultaneously symbolized the

22

universe, heaven, and Sol (the sun) in his orbit.43 The similarity between the aegis and the wheel

enhances the role ofMedusa’s body as an emblem of the wheel, the cosmos, and the sun. One

exemplification of the similarity between the wheel and the clipeus thatmust have been known to Duke

Cosimo I was theshield of the Medici duke’s idol, Alexander the Great, which bore apicture of the

heavens and whose rim featured thewheel of the Zodiac.44 In the sun, moon and stars were in the middle

of the shield. Alexander’s aegis leads one to believe the legendaryGreek ruler might have thought of

himself as the “greatSun.”

Another way of representing the sun of the clipeus was to presentthe head of the sun god Helios

at thedisk’s center --- Sol in suo clipeo. Several ancient Greek clipei in theMuseum of Fine Arts, Boston

feature the sun god withflaring rays about his head. They are images that are similar tothe decapitated head of Medusa sporting “fiery” tendrils at the center ofshields, canon devices, and other

militaryparaphernalia, all of which point up Medusa’s solar significance (fig.5).

In antiquity Sol, the sun-ruler, evenassumed the role of Sol Iustitiae (just Sun) with his right

hand raised. His gesture entered into Roman imperial ritual as anexpression of the ruler’s power to

judge. Sol, inthe “magic sign of his ingens dextra rules and moves the Cosmos, sends

the spheres spinning in their eternal orbits, thus affecting

everything that happens in our earthly sphere. It is the

23

gesture of the comocrator.”45 The raised hand of Cellini’s Perseuslikewise has connotations of the

solarcosmocrator, for in the early modern world, as in the ancient, thelifted, or outstretched hand

(ubiquitously the right, but inthe Perseus’ case the upheld left derives from the same concept) had a

divine significance distinct from the gesture of benediction.Supernatural powers would, believedly,

emanate from emperors’ outstretched right hands.46 In the case ofCellini’s Perseus the outstretched hand

is the vehicle through which the hero imparts the supernatural effectsof Medusa’s gaze, while the sword-

bearing right handholds the power to destroy or to execute justice. As the Perseusproves, the raised

hand could havethe ability to curse, or to destroy.

The motif of the powerful raised hand also recursthroughout the Bible. For instance, Psalm

89 proclaims, “You have a mighty arm; your hand is powerful; yourright hand is lifted high.

Righteousness and justice are thefoundation of Your throne.” The Lord says, “By My great strength

and outstretched arm, I made the earth.” (Jeremiah, 27:5). The traditionlegis seen in numerous

mosaics, paintings andsarcophagi since Constantine’s late reign comprises the image ofChrist giving

the world the new law, His right handraised in all-powerful command. The judicial power of the raised

hand comes into play in Michelangelo’s famous Sistine Last Judgment,which shows Christ welcoming

souls with an

24

upraised right hand. The sun behind the Lord Christ characterizes Himas Sol Invictus.

Conclusion

As this study has shown, judicial power essentializesCellini’s Perseus as an embodiment

of the Mediceanstate. While the statuesque hero’s prerogative to judge points upPerseus’ power over

foes, the sculpture’siconography negates the Greek hero’s independence and evincesperpetual

dependence upon the maternal. The complexity of thaticonography indicates that Cellini’s choice to

render a maternaldeity was not fortuitous: his decision proved to be an

acknowledgment of the importance of matriarchal

figures to Cosimo’s rise to power and to the construction of a newMedicean

state. The statue’s message, howeversalient, would have been problematic in the patriarchal society in

which Cellini lived. However, even though Cosimo found rumors of hisdependence on his mother

distasteful and did not refutecontemporary criticism of Eleonora di Toledo, the fact that the dukedid not

protest the statue in its final form speaks volumes abouthis awareness that maternal influence was crucial

to his career. Cellini’s Perseus and Medusa likewise communicates thefutility of denying the power of the hero’s female counterpart.47

25

26

1

Figure 1 Benvenuto Cellini, Perseus and Medusa, 1545-1555, Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence, Italy. Photo Credit: Scala/Art Resource, New York

Figure 2 Benvenuto Cellini, Perseus and Medusa, 1545-1555, Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence, Italy. Photo Credit: Scala/Art Resource, New York

Figure 3 Saints Savinus and Cyprian being Tortured on the Wheel, 12th century, St. Savin sur Gartempe, France. Photo Credit: Gianni Dagli Orti/Art Resource, New York

Figure 4 Giorgio Vasari, First Fruits of the Earth offered to Saturn, 1555-1557, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, Italy. Photo Credit: Scala/Art Resource, New York

Figure 5 Head of Medusa, gun carriage, Italian, 1773. Photo Credit: HIP/Art Resource, New York

As a backdrop for the Loggia, the Palazzo Vecchio’s austere façade would have reminded viewers of the Bargello, formerly the city hall, which since the thirteenth century served as the headquarters of the podestà (the chief police magistrate for the city). At the Bargello one found criminal and civil courts, torture chambers, and close cells for those awaiting execution. The “Book of the Executed” is still housed in the Biblioteca Nazionale,Florence, and outlines the different types of executions performed in the city from 1420 to 1744. The account shows that the years of greatest turmoil, including those of the Pazzi conspiracy, the fall of the Medici, and the reign of Duke Alessandro, met with an increase in the number of capital punishments. Since Cellini’s Perseus was conceived and in progress years before its unveiling it shrunk the gap between the Battle of Montemurlo and 1555. Volker Breidecker has discussed Cellini’s Perseus and Medusa as an epitomization of the fate ofMontemurlo’s victims in his book, Florenz, oder ‘Die Rede, die zum Auge Spricht’: Kunst, Fest und Macht im Ambiente der Stadt (Munich, Germany: Fink Press, 1990), 25ff and so has Henk Th. van Veen, Cosimo I de’ Medici and his Self-Representation in Florentine Art and Culture (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 11.

2 Criticism on the Perseus and Medusa as a celebration/reflection of Cosimo I’s political victories includes Kathleen Weil Garris, “On Pedestals: Michelangelo’s David, Bandinelli’s Hercules and Cacus and the Sculpture of the Piazza della Signoria,” Römisches Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte, 20 (1983): 409-411. John Pope-Hennessy, Cellini (New York: Abbeville Press, 1985), 185ff. T. Hirthe, “Die Perseus-und-Medusa Gruppe des Benvenuto Cellini in Florenz,” Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen, 29/30 (1987-1988): 197ff. Yael Even, “The Loggia dei Lanzi: a Showcase of Female Subjugation,” Woman’s Art Journal, 12 (1991): 11. Geraldine A. Johnson, “Idol or Ideal: the Power and Potency of Female Public Sculpture,” in Picturing Women in Renaissance and Baroque Italy, edited by Geraldine A. Johnson and Sarah Matthews Grieco (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 236, 238. Van Veen, 11. Sarah Blake McHam, “Public Sculpture in Renaissance Florence,” in Looking at Italian Renaissance Sculpture,edited by Sarah Blake McHam (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 169-170.

3A selection of contemporary poems in honor of the Perseus as a surrogate for Cosimo I appear in I Trattati dell’Oreficeria e della Scultura di Benvenuto Cellini, edited by C. Milanesi (Florence, Italy: Le Monnier, 1857), 403-414. See Chapters 1 and 2 of my dissertation, Cellini’s Perseus and Medusa: Configurations of the Body of State for a discussion of Medusa as the (Earth) Mother Goddess and as an epitome of the matriarchal power of ancient Greece. These chapters also treat Cellini’s and Cosimo I’s esotericism. The Ephesian goddesses on the Perseus’ pedestal are benign versions of the Earth Mother. Renaissance Florence experienced a revived interest in the Mother Goddess which lasted into Cellini’s time and beyond. Some of the city’s premier scholars who publicized her cult were the Neoplatonist Marsilio Ficino and his followers, whose thinking played an important role at the Medici court. Balas (17) has noted that the Medici Library included ancient and medieval literature concerning the Mother Goddess. Edith Balas, The Mother Goddess in Italian Renaissance Art (Pennsylvania: Carnegie Mellon Press, 2002). By the middle of the sixteenth century, such ancient mythographers as Apollodorus and Hyginus had joined the stage with classical historians. Many of their humanist compilations included illustrations of the Mother Goddess’ ancient faces, including Medusa as she appeared in ancient art. Therefore, early modern artists had ample opportunity to experiment with the Mother Goddess’ image. Essays in The Cultural World of Eleonora di Toledo, Duchess of Florence and Siena, edited by Konrad Eisenbichler (Vermont: Ashgate Press, 2004) delve into the characterization of Cosimo’s wife as a maternal deity.

4 Frederick Cummings and Marco Chiari, eds., The Twilight of the Medici: Late Baroque Art in Florence, 1670-1743 (Centro di Firenze, Italy, 1974), 19.

5 Samuel Edgerton, Pictures and Punishment: Art and Criminal Prosecution during the Florentine Renaissance (New York: Cornell University Press, 1985), 203. See Nicholas Scott Baker, “For Reasons of State: Political Executions, Republicanism, and the Medici in Florence, 1480-1560,” Renaissance Quarterly, 62 (2009): 444-473 for a discussion of the relationship between the increasing number of political executions in the city and Florence’s transformation from republic to duchy. The records of the Compagnia de’ Neri, the confraternity that cared for the condemned criminals prior to execution, states that from 1480 to 1560, sixty-two Florentine men were executed for political reasons. Baker, 447. Over one third of these executions took place during the reign of Cosimo I. Baker, 465. Such findings show that the law became an increasingly important means to defend the state: due to the state’s centralization, absolutists became more and more suspicious about dissenters. In Baker’s view the increase of executions under the Medici duke suggests a “continuation of a significant minority of opposition from within the Florentine elite.” Baker, 467.

6 Michael Foucault, Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison, translated by A. Sheridan (New York: Vintage Press, 1977), 48. Information I have given about what public execution meant in historical terms derives from Foucault’s book.

7 -----, 50.

8 Peter Spierenberg, The Spectacle of Suffering, Execution and the Evolution of Repression: from a Preindustrial Metropolis tothe European Experience (New York: Cornell University Press, 1986), 78-80, 201-202.

9 Christopher Hibbert, The House of Medici: its Rise and Fall (New York: William Morrow Press, 1980), 262-263, 265, 269, 270, 271.

10 -----, 265. Hibbert’s study includes a good profile of Cosimo’s temperament. Julius Ruff, Violence in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1800 (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2001). Cosimo I’s police force grew weaker throughout his time in office, for the Medici ruler allowed the number of policemen to dwindle. Those men who were left worked poorly because they were not adequately, or timely paid. For the cult of revenge see Edward Muir, “The Double Binds of Manly Revenge,” in Gender Rhetorics: Postures of Dominance and Submission in History (New York: MRTS, 1994), 65-82.

11 Foucault, 50.

12 Much of the information about the Renaissance executioner included here derives from Foucault, 53, 255 and Spierenberg, 13-42. The early modern executioner was, especially in pictorial representations, a swashbuckler, or Don Juan, and he could even be the overseer ofa bordello or the seller of necromancy talismans. In this way, he matches Cellini’s profileas a young man given to violence, sex, and necromancy rituals.

13 Cellini, My Life, translated by Julia Conaway Bondanella and Peter Bondanella (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2002), 89-90. Paolo Rossi’s “The Writer and the Man. RealCrimes and Mitigating Circumstances: Il Caso Cellini,” in Crime, Society and the Law in Renaissance Italy, edited by Trevor Dean (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 157-183 is a good study of the Guasconti case and of the criminal justice system in Florence.

14 Foucault, 73-74.

15 Jacopo de Voragine’s The Golden Legend describes saints’, such as Saint Juliana’s, experiences with the breaking wheel.

16 Mitchell Merback, The Thief, the Cross, and the Wheel: Pain and the Spectacle of Punishment in Medieval and Renaissance Europe (London, England: Reaktion Press, 1999).

17 A good study of the sacrificial and spiritual significance of execution in Italy is The Art of Executing Well: Rituals of Execution in Renaissance Italy, edited by Nicholas Terpstra (Missouri: Truman State University Press, 2008).

18 Weil Garris, 409-410 states that the Perseus’ pedestal is an altar to the Olympian gods whosafeguard Perseus/Cosimo I. Therefore, Cellini’s work might have recalled the fact that theringhiera of the Palazzo Vecchio had, in Richard Trexler’s terms, “the effect of an altar,” for relics, Mass offerings and sermons. Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence (New York : Academic Press, 1980), 49.19 Edgar Wind, “’The Criminal-God’ and the ‘Crucifixion of Haman,’” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 1 (1937-1938): 244.

20 Karl von Amira, Die Germanische Todestrafen. Untersuchungen zur Rechts und Religionsgeschichte (Munich, Germany: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1922), 240ff. Hans von Hentig,Punishment: its Origin, Purpose and Psychology (London, England: Hodge Press, 1937), 50-51.21 Robert Graves, The Greek Myths (New York: Penguin Press, 1955), 126.

22 On the wheel’s traditional symbolism see J. C. Cooper, An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Traditional Symbols (London, England: Thames and Hudson, 2005), 191-192. The wagon of Demeter, a face ofthe Earth Goddess, was a symbolic wheel, that is, the circle of the earth rimmed with snakes. 2 Kings 23:11 exemplifies the traditional association of chariot wheels with the sun and fire: “And he took away the houses that the Kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entering in of the house of the Lord, by the chamber of Nathanmelech the chamberlain…andburned the chariots of the sun with fire.”23 For a discussion of links between the wheel and the sun see Lucy Goodison, Death, Women and

the Sun: Symbolism of Regeneration in Early Aegean Religion (England: University of London, 1989), 126ff. De Voragine’s Golden Legend, 336 notes that the wheel spun on John the Baptist’s feast day symbolizes the sun’s cyclical decline. See Cooper, 156 for the spiral’s symbolic significance as the sun’s increase and decrease.

24 Amira, 240ff. Hentig, 50-51. 25 For instance, Book XIV of Isidorus of Seville’s (c. 570-636) Etymologiae explains that the earth is like a wheel, meaning, no doubt, in shape, for the author did not conceive of the world in motion. Even before Columbus’ voyage to the New World in 1492 some Europeans knew the earth to be round. Consider that the ancient Greek belief that the earth has nine circles conforming to its shape survived into the fifteenth century.

26 Van Veen, 109, 112.27 Janet Cox-Rearick, Dynasty and Destiny in Medici Art: Pontormo, Leo X and the two Cosimos (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1984), 135-137, 219-220, 265-266, 269, 286 discusses Cosimo’s courtly personification as and with Justitia-Astraea. For further information on Justitia-Astraea see Claudia Rousseau, Cosimo I de’ Medici and Astrology: the Symbolism of Prophecy, Ph.D. (Columbia, 1983), 346-347 and Suzanne B. Butters, The Triumph of Vulcan: Sculptors’ Tools, Porphyry, and the Prince in Ducal Florence (Florence, Italy: Olschki Press, 1996), 93. Justitia-Astraea was the last deity to leave the earth at the end of the Golden Age and the first to return to the earth to restore that glorious time.28 Ernst Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1957), 92-106, 127-143, 147-148, 473 mention the personification of law and justice as a mother. The notion of the ruler’s two bodies – an earthly one, and one with a divine right to rule --- informs Cosimo’s desire to be seen as a divinely assisted lawgiver. See Cox-Rearick, “Bronzino’s Crossing of the Red Sea,” Art Bulletin, 69, 1 (1987): 47ff. The joint images of Cosimo’s apotheosis and his earthly funeral respond to the preceding notion. See Eve Borsook, “Art and Politics at the Medici Court I: the Funeral of Cosimo I de’ Medici,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 12 (1965): 31-54.

29 In subsequent Orphic traditions Dike was a great goddess who shared Zeus’ throne. She appears on some third and fourth-century B.C. Italian vases with a sword in her right hand, sitting among divine judges. The term “dike” as employed in the Iliad and the Odyssey refers to customs that accord with human laws, and it also means the order of the universe. Since Neith was the Mother Goddess of war, her derivative, Athena, became a maternal goddess of justice. Renaissance Tarot cards show Athena in this guise, indicating that the early modern world was aware of the Mother Goddess’ ancient significance as an embodiment of judicial power.

30 See Balas, 9, 15 for the Metroon. Balas’ discussion suggests that the Metroon was known in the Renaissance.

31 This is a quotation of Cosimo’s letter (dated January, 28, 1530) to his mother found in Cecily Booth’s Cosimo I, Duke of Florence (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1921), 38.

32 The scepter, a symbol of justice, is, not coincidentally, made of gold. On Midas see Mark Henderson Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: a Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 331ff.

33 Cellini’s bronze model of his Perseus and Medusa bears traces of gilding on the Gorgon’s hair, Perseus’ helmet, wings and his grieves. Weil Garris, n 178 also acknowledges the original gilding and so do Cristina Luchinat, et al., The Medici, Michelangelo, and the Art of Late Renaissance Florence (Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2002), 194-195.

34 Callie Williamson, “Monuments of Bronze: Roman Legal Documents on Bronze Tablets,” ClassicalAntiquity, 6, 1 (1987): 160-183.

35 Page 92 of Butters’ study indicates that Cosimo I and his iconographers associated porphyry with justice.

36 For the Roman practice of swearing by the sun see Tim Parker and Arthur Pomeroy, Roman Social History: a Sourcebook (New York: Routledge Press, 2007), 9. In Marsilio Ficino, edited by Angela Voss (California: North Atlantic Books, 2006), 146 Ficino is translated as saying, “Nobody questions but that gold is the color of the Sun …”

37 Philip R. Hardie, Virgil’s Aeneid: Cosmos and Imperium (Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1986).

38 Hardie’s study is important in this regard.

39 Corippus’ De laudibus Justini Aug. Min. 2, 137ff. This is Kantorowicz’s translation, found inhis article “Oriens Augusti – Lever du Roi,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 17 (1963): 152. For another discussion of the elevation of the solar ruler on a clipeus see 88-89, 103-109 of H. P. L’Orange, Studies in the Iconography of Cosmic Kingship in the Ancient World (New York: Caratzas Publishing, 1982).

40 Manuel Holobolos, in J. Fr. Boissonade, Aenecdota Graeca, vol. 5 (Hildesheim, Germany: Olms,1962), 163.

41 Petrus Berchorius, Repertorium morale, first published in Nuremberg, Germany, 1489; quoted on page 262 of Erwin Panofsky’s Meaning in the Visual Arts: Papers in and on Art History (New York: Doubleday, 1955).

42 Moshe Barasch, The Language of Art, Studies in Interpretation (New York University Press, 1997), 289-294 also discusses elevation on a shield, including the act’s cosmic, military, and political significance. Elevation on a shield was a common symbolic image in the visual arts of the pre-modern Western world. Book IV of Tacitus’ Histories contains the earliest literary reference to the act of proclaiming a new ruler by elevating him on a shield.

43 L’Orange, 90.

44 Van Veen, 33.45 L’Orange, 148. Diverse poetic texts from the ancient Mediterranean, such as those of Statius and Martial, praise the emperor’s right hand as the magna manus, the ingens manus, andthe divina manus. Numerous coins, medallions, statues and triumphal arches depict emperors inthe same way. For example, the Arch of Constantine shows both the emperor and Sol with the gesture.

46 -----, 139-140, 143.

47 Some Florentines were afraid that, being Spanish, Eleonora di Toledo would undermine/change their city’s traditions. Others criticized her because she was haughty, disdainful, and she never smiled to those who were not Spanish. For an extended discussion of contemporary criticism of Eleonora see Pamela J. Benson, “Eleonora di Toledo among the Famous Women: Iconographic Innovation after the Conquest of Siena,” in The Cultural World of

Eleonora di Toledo, Duchess of Florence and Siena, edited by Konrad Eisenbichler (Vermont: Ashgate Press, 2004), 153. Consult as well Marucelli, Cronaca fiorentina: 1537-1555, edited by Enrico Coppi (Florence, Italy: Olschki Press, 2000), 25, 128.