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Hidden in Plain Sight: Covert Criticism of the Medici in Renaissance Florence !"Though the city was not free under him, it would have been impossible to find a better or more pleasing tyrant. From his natural goodness and inclination came infinite advan-tages, but through the necessity of tyranny some evils although they were restrained and limited as much as necessity permitted. . ." !

PREFACE ! It is surprising how durable the "golden myth" of the Medici has proven, a myth in which the family is seen as just and benevolent rulers, enlightened patrons of learning and the arts, and the principal enablers of the great flowering of artistic and literary cre-ativity known as the Italian Renaissance. As recent scholarship has shown, this myth is largely a creation of the Medici family itself, part of the family's astute and far-sighted strategy of self-promotion in the face of competition for political and cultural influence in sixteenth century Italy. That this myth survives, unchallenged, even today among scholars of the period, is attested to by the introduction to a recent collection of essays on the cul-tural politics of Duke Cosimo I de' Medici, in which the editor comments: "Although much maligned, especially in Italian and English liberal/republican scholarship, Duke Cosimo I was, in fact, an incredibly astute, successful, and even benevolent ruler who, on being raised unexpectedly to power at the young age of seventeen. . .managed to revive a dying state, double its territory, and establish a dynasty that ruled unchallenged and beloved by its subjects for two hundred years.”  The irony of this statement lies in the 1

fact that a close reading of the essays collected in the volume reveals a ruler whose close supervision and control over dissenting voices in his realm brings to mind more the mod-ern police state than a well-ordered and beneficent commonwealth. ! In this volume, we will present evidence which points to another view of the Medici in Florence, in which their often ruthless pursuit of power and their determination to use any means necessary to maintain this power led to a climate fundamentally inimi-cal to the free expression of critical sentiments. Against the background of this political

! Konrad Eisenblichler, ed., The Cultural Politics of Duke Cosimo I de' Medici (Burling1 -ton, VT: Ashgate, 2001), xi.

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and cultural climate, we will explore how three famous figures of the Italian Renaissance--Machiavelli, Michelangelo and Vasari--employed a technique, well-known to classical rhetoricians, in which critical sentiments are expressed in a veiled and indirect manner. These writers and artists used this technique--called emphasis in classical rhetorical theo-ry--to express sentiments critical of Medici rule while maintaining a margin of safety (not to say economic viability) for themselves and their families, and also to assert their inher-ent self-worth in relation to patrons upon whom they depended for their livelihood. ! We will suggest that this mode of discourse was actually more common in Renais-sance Europe than scholars perhaps have realized, and that it became especially important as the century progressed, and the powers of Church and state became increasingly intent upon controlling and limiting all forms of critical discourse. The Index of the Counter-Reformation is only the most well-known of these attempts. This mode of deliberately obscure discourse has been well studied in the religious writings of the era (where it is called "nicodemismo"), but it has received relatively little attention in secular works of art and literature from the period. It is hoped that this study will foster further investiga-tion of this important phenomenon in Renaissance Europe. ! We will first briefly sketch the political and cultural climate in Florence during the first decades of the 16th century which made the adoption of this mode of discourse an important prerequisite for dealing with powerful political figures, and will then proceed to an examination of its use by Machiavelli, Michelangelo, Vasari and others to encode criticism of the Medici rulers in works of art directed to these same rulers. ! In Chapter 1, we use classical rhetorical theory to show that Machiavelli's Prince was not intended either as political science, or as advice for a prince, but rather as a very subtle, but nevertheless forceful, condemnation of the Italian princes of his day, the Medici in particular. After a close reading of Machiavelli's text against this rhetorical background, we will consider several possible answers to the question of why Machiavel-li should choose to write such a text. Our analysis will demonstrate that Machiavelli's Prince, far from being a puzzling exception to the republican sentiments expressed in his other writings, an anomaly which has long troubled scholars, is instead thoroughly con-sistent with them, differing from them only in the covert means by which the author

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achieves his hidden critical message. From this examination of the text against the back-ground of rhetorical theory, one of the perennially vexing questions in the interpretation of Machiavelli's political thought--how to reconcile the apparently "princely" counsels of the Prince with the republican sentiments expressed in Machiavelli's other writings--can finally be resolved. ! In Chapter 2, we continue the discussion of the practice of covert criticism in the Italian Renaissance through an examination of Michelangelo's Medici Chapel in Flo-rence, and show that, far from being an encomiastic celebration of his Medici patrons, as often assumed, Michelangelo intended the Chapel as a covert criticism of Medici rule. We achieve this through a close examination of the visual details of the monument itself, seen against the background of Michelangelo's own writings and the contemporary Flo-rentine practice of appending critical texts to works of public sculpture as a way of eluci-dating their political meaning. ! Chapter 3 broadens the study of covert critique from specific artists and writers to include an entire compagnia in Renaissance Florence, the Compagnia della Cazzuola. We will show how the bizarre entertainments enacted by the members of this association, de-scribed at length by Vasari, while on the surface presenting the appearance of harmless, if strange, dinner celebrations, in accord with the essentially carnivalesque nature of the company, actually conveyed, in a highly allusive and recondite way, criticism of the Medici regime, newly reestablished in the city after eighteen years of republican rule. To do this, we examine the political meanings of the classical myths reenacted by its mem-bers, thus demonstrating that drama, as well as didactic prose and works of public sculp-ture, as in the cases of Machiavelli and Michelangelo, was also a means well-suited for the indirect communication of sentiments critical of the domination by the Medici family of these individuals' native city, traditionally a free commune or city-state, whose myth of origins reached proudly back to ancient republican Rome. ! Chapter 4 continues our discussion of festive associations in Renaissance Italy, this time focusing on a pair of fictitious organizations, the Compagnie della Lesina and Antilesina, the latter of which, just as the Compagnia della Cazzuola, made use of the theme of festive banqueting to express their discontent with the rule of Cosimo de’

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Medici and his Imperial patrons in Florence and Tuscany in the fifth and sixth decades of the 16th century. We will show that the extreme and fanatical miserliness of the Compag-nia della Lesina, symbolized by their impresa, the lesina, or awl, served for these individ-uals as a symbol of the nature of Medici rule in Florence, characterized as it was by an obsessive concentration on the accumulation of personal power and prestige at the ex-pense of concern for the welfare of the commune as a whole. The impresa of the counter-part and rival of the Compagnia della Lesina, the Compagnia della Antilesina, a golden cornucopia, served in its turn as symbol of this group's essential nature, characterized by a festive and generous munificentia, presented in pointed contrast to the fanatical and de-bilitating miserliness of the Compagnia della Lesina. ! We trace the origins of this latter group of buontemponi to the Rome of the Far-nese family and its Pope, Paul III, and show how their policy of festive generosity and public-spiritedness, expressed in their frequent use of the iconography of fertility and abundance, was intended as an allusive, but pointed rebuke of the deleterious effects of Medici and Imperial rule over Florence and her dominions just described, which found its symbolic expression in the miserly possessiveness of the spilorci of the Compagnia della Lesina. To such a civic ethos, the enlightened rule of the Farnese in Rome, for whom food (unlike the fanatical self-deprivation of the misers of the Compagnia della Lesina) was a good to be consumed and shared in a spirit of mutual enjoyment and celebration, presents a striking contrast, and finds its own symbolic expression in the image of the golden cornucopia, pouring out its riches on the city of Rome. Where the sharpened awls of the Compagnia della Lesina bore deeper and deeper into the midollo of the state, con-suming everything, the horns of plenty of their rivals and counterparts in the Compagnia della Antilesina provide a healing and nurturing balm to the city whose welfare is entrust-ed to their care. ! In the final chapter, we show how the spirit and practices of these mock-academies continued well beyond the 16th century in several other festive organizations which took as their raison d’etre the same festive consumption of food which characterized their Flo-rentine antecedents, thus demonstrating the longue durée of the use of the theme of the giving and withholding of food as a symbol by which individuals marginalized or ex-cluded from the centers of power could express, in a relatively safe way, their dissatisfac-

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tion with the prevailing social and political norms of Italy in the centuries following the consolidation of relatively centralized rule in the hands of Church and State which char-acterized 16th century Italy. Our investigation of these festive companies will thus serve to demonstrate, once again, as in the cases of Machiavelli, Michelangelo and Vasari, the power of highly symbolic and allusive means as a vehicle for the expression of popular discontent with the social and political status quo of Renaissance Italy.

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INTRODUCTION Writing to his brother Buonarroto in a letter of September 18, 1512, Michelangelo makes the following observation: "I believe that the danger has passed, that is, of the Spanish, and I don’t believe that it is any longer necessary to leave; nevertheless, be quiet and don’t make friends of the associates of anyone, except for those of God; and don’t speak of anyone, neither for good nor for ill, because one never knows how things will turn out; attend only to your own affairs.”  2

Written immediately after the return to power of the Medici, the letter describes the climate of intimidation and fear, especially for the republican enemies of the Medici, which prevailed at that time in Florence. Michelangelo was a staunch and life-long ad-herent of the republican cause, a fact sometimes overlooked by scholars in describing his dealings with his powerful patrons.  The historian Giorgio Spini, in his study of 3

Michelangelo’s political views, remarks that Michelangelo maintained this attitude of proud independence from his courtly patrons to the end of his life, noting Michelangelo's “lasting refusal to accommodate himself to the absolute principate.”  4

It was a commonplace among Florentine republican writers of the late 15th and early 16th centuries to refer to the Medici as tyrants who had usurped the ancient liberty of the Florentine people. Writing at the end of the 1400s, Girolamo Savonarola eloquent-ly describes the atmosphere of fear and paranoia surrounding Lorenzo il Magnifico in chapter two of the second treatise of his Constitution and Government of Florence: “He [the tyrant] lives beset with fantasies of grandeur and with melancholy and with fears that

! Michelangelo Buonarroti, Il Carteggio di Michelangelo, ed. Paola Barocchi and Renzo 2

Ristori (Florence: Sansoni, 1965), I, 136. Cited in Giorgio Spini, “Politicità di Michelan-gelo,” Rivista Storica Italiana 76, 1964, reprinted in Michelangelo politico e altri studi sul Rinascimento fiorentino (Milan: Unicopli, 1999), 33. Unless otherwise noted, all translations from the Italian in this chapter are mine.

! One scholar even goes so far as to describe Michelangelo as a kind of court artist, eager 3

to serve his princely patrons, seeing him in this as typical of his times. For this citation, and a discussion of Michelangelo as an adherent of the republican cause, see Chapter 2. Such a view of Michelangelo, to one who studies his biography carefully, and the histori-cal context in which his works were created, is, in our opinion, impossible to maintain.

! Spini 52.4

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always gnaw at his heart; therefore, he is always looking for pleasures as medicine for his condition.”  One might cite also Alamanno Rinuccini's De libertate, written a year after 5

the Pazzi conspiracy of 1478, in which the author refers obliquely to Lorenzo in the fol-lowing terms: ! Dear friends, I cannot think about this subject without tears. It makes me ashamed, for I too was born in this city, and I too belong to our time. And I see the people who once commanded most of Tuscany and even some of the neighboring peo ples, bullied today by the whims of one young man. Many noble minds and men of eminent seniority and wisdom wear today the yoke of servitude and hardly rec ognize their own condition. Nor, when they do see it, do they dare avenge them selves.  6

The brutal reprisals following the plot to assassinate Lorenzo and his brother Giu-liano in 1478, commemorated in a medal of Bertoldo di Giovanni (FIG. 2), are further

! In Humanism and Liberty: Writings on Freedom from Fifteenth-Century Florence, trans. 5

and ed. Renee Neu Watkins (Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1978), 242.

! Ibid. 204.6

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testimony of the determination of this powerful family to maintain a hold on power by any means necessary.  7

This traditional republican view of the Medici as arrogant and violent tyrants, de-stroyers of Florence's republican liberty, was shared by other citizens and writers in the first decades of the 16th century. After the restoration of the Medici to power in Florence following the Sack of Prato in 1512 (an event Machiavelli called "an appalling spectacle of horrors"), the arrogant and authoritarian Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino and Pope Leo's nephew, ruled the city as if it were his private fief, surrounded by bodyguards and young dandies "as subservient as courtiers."  He rejected the advice of more experienced citi8 -zens, and held councils, not in the Palazzo Vecchio, but rather in the Medici palace. The more affable and less ambitious Giuliano (the Pope's brother) was recalled to Rome and

! These reprisals included, in Angelo Poliziano’s vivid account of the assassination, the 7

mutilation of the corpses by the pro-Medicean crowd and the hanging of the bodies of the conspirators from the windows of the Palazzo della Signoria. (Angelo Poliziano, "The Pazzi Conspiracy," in Humanism and Liberty: Writings of Freedom from Fifteenth-Centu-ry Florence, ed. and trans. Renée Neu Watkins (Columbia, SC: University of South Car-olina Press, 1978) 171-183.Hibbert 220). Francesco Guicciardini notes that the sack of Prato procured lasting enmity for the Medici family among the citizens of Florence: "[Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici], considering that now especially not even this [the return of the Medici to Florence as private citizens] would prove to be long-lasting, because to-gether with his name, they would be deeply hated by everyone, the other citizens being always goaded by the suspicion that the house of Medici would lay ambush against their freedom, and much more because of the hatred felt against the Medici who had led the Spanish army against their country and been the cause of the most cruel sack of Prato, and because the city out of terror of arms had been forced to accept such base and iniqui-tous terms" (Guicciardini, The History of Italy, trans. Sidney Alexander (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 265).

! Christopher Hibbert, The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall (New York: Morrow, 8

1980), 220.

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made Captain General of the Church.  Pope Leo's primary ambition, besides driving for9 -eign forces from Italian soil and the recovery of Parma and Piacenza for the Church, was the restoration of Florence to Medici rule. After the fall of the last Florentine republic, and Alessandro de' Medici's accession to power in the fall of 1530, Medici rule over the city was seen as particularly hateful, due to the relentless persecution of the Florentine exiles, the disarming of the Florentine citizens, the melting down of the great bell of the campanile of the Palazzo Vecchio, the Vacca, symbol of Florence's freedom, to make medals for Pope Leo, and the general harshness of Alessandro's rule, as the historian Benedetto Varchi makes clear: ! In Florence at that time people lived in universal discontent, both because of the newness of that government, never before seen in that city, and also because of its violence, seeing that often, for the slightest offense, harm came to now this, now that, citizen; and also because of the evil behavior of the family of the Duke, and of those soldiers who stood guard, who were truly criminal; to which one might add that Duke Alessandro behaved most dishonorably toward women, and did not forebear, so that he might vent his lust, from sacred virgins, nor from any other woman, whatever her circumstances or social status. (2.14.4)  10

! The reference here to the newness of Medici rule in the city is intended to recall to the reader the classical tradition of the figure of the tyrant, whose rule is characterized by violence against ordinary citizens, the dishonoring of defenseless women, and by con-stant fear on the part of the tyrant himself, who must live surrounded by bodyguards to

! A. Giorgetti, “Lorenzo de’ Medici Capitano Generale della Repubblica fiorentina,” ASI, 9

ser. IV, 11-12 (1883): 194-215 (211), cited in Najemy 430. This article is especially fasci-nating in that the subtle conflict between Lorenzo di Piero and Giuliano, and Leo’s clever and gradual marginalization of Giuliano in favor of the more aggressive (but also more rash) Lorenzo is never stated explicitly, but must be inferred by the reader through a close reading of the letters exchanged by the parties in question.

! I have used the Salani edition of the Storia Fiorentina (Salani: Florence, 1963). In the 10

citations, the first number indicates the first or second volume of the Salani edition, the second, the number of the book, and the third, the number of the chapter. Unless other-wise noted, all translations from the Italian are my own.

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defend himself against his own citizens. In the classical tradition, this constant fearfulness of the tyrant prevents him from enjoying the love and esteem of the citizens which is granted to just and beneficent rulers. It is precisely this classical image of the tyrant which Machiavelli intends to evoke in his vivid description of Cesare Borgia, traditional-ly assumed to represent his ideal of princely behavior; the fearsome and violent figure of Borgia is in turn intended to recall the tyrant of Machiavelli’s own day, Lorenzo de’ Piero, an allusion not lost on Machiavelli’s contemporaries, as we demonstrate below. Varchi describes the jubilation which greeted news of the assassination of Alessandro on the night of January 6, 1537 by Lorenzo di Pier Francesco de' Medici ("Lorenzino"): ! And so I say that one could scarcely believe neither how fast the news spread throughout all of Italy (Duke Alessandro having been wounded and killed the night of Epiphany in his room by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici), nor how many different things were said about it; indeed, most men, and especially the Flo rentines, and among these the exiles, exalted him [Lorenzino] to the skies with the highest praise, not merely considering him equal to, but placing him before Bru tus; and on this account many, and among these Benedetto Varchi [the author], more than anyone else, composed, both in Italian and in Latin, many poems both in celebration of the tyrannicide and of the new Tuscan Brutus (by which names

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Lorenzo was immediately called), and also in condemnation and vituperation of Duke Alessandro, and even of signor Cosimo: . . . (2.15.23)  11

! Varchi also reports that Francesco Maria Molza, although he had originally com-posed an oration condemning him, eventually wrote an epigram praising Lorenzino: ! Invisum ferro Laurens dum percutit hostem, Quod premeret patriae libera colla suae;

! It is passages such as this, where the words "tyrannicide" and "Tuscan Brutus" are printed in 11

large type (to catch the eye of a reader skimming through the book?) and reference is made to the poems condemning Cosimo, which are even quoted verbatim, which may account for the fact that Varchi's Storia fiorentina was not published until 1721, and then in Germany under a ficti-tious imprint (“Colonia: P. Martello”: the work was actually printed at Augsburg by Paolo Kuhzio and edited by Francesco Settimanni, the same individual who edited Giannotti's Della repubblica fiorentina mentioned above). Here we observe at work a form of veiled critique, or covert allusion, by which the author is hinting at more than he can state explicitly. In this context, the fact that Varchi's Storia, ostensibly written to glorify Florence under the benevolent rule of its Duke ends with a saying of the Lutherans ("this [the sexual assault by Pier Luigi Farnese on the bishop of Fano] is a new way to martyr the saints"), a reference to Boccaccio, and a mention that the Farnese Pope, Paul III, was a bastard, all may be seen as further examples of this type of covert critique, since these salacious or heretical details tend to undermine (being the last thing a reader encounters in the book), in a very clever and subtle way, the entire raison d’etre of the text. This hypothesis is confirmed by the final words of the book, in which the Roman historian Tacitus (a master of the technique of covert allusion, whom we discuss at length in Chapter 1) is cited: "And although I know that these, and other similar things said openly by me, could one day be the reason, because of the greatness of those they refer to, that the reading of these Histo-ries will be prohibited under the harshest censure, I also know, besides that which Cornelius Tac-itus writes in two places, that the duty of an historian is, without any regard to any person what-soever, to place the truth before everything else, even should it bring him either harm or shame" (2.16.16) This passage is a loose translation of a similar passage in Tacitus, in which the Roman historian, making a case for the usefulness of his work to future generations, remarks: Varchi’s citation of Tacitus, as with similar citations of Boccaccio and Petrarch (of the patriotic poem Italia mia) by numerous other writers of the cinquecento, is, then, we would suggest, a kind of code word or signal to the reader that a hidden anti-authoritarian meaning or intention is present. We discuss in Chapter 1 the similar use of code words by Machiavelli in the Prince. We also note below a particularly masterful use of this technique of covert critique by Varchi in his discussion of Cosimo's extensive use of spies to monitor signs of possible discontent in his state. Once again, as in the reference to Tacitus just cited, mention is made to the truth which, with the assistance of time, overcomes all attempts to silence her.

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Te ne hinc nunc, inquit, patiar, qui ferre tyrannos Vix olim Romae marmoreos potui? ! While Lorenzo was striking the hated enemy with his sword, Because he was oppressing the free neck of his country, He said: "Do you think I can suffer you now any longer, I who was once scarcely able to endure the marble tyrants of Rome?"  12

(2.15.23) ! Here Molza is referring to Lorenzino's decapitation of the statues on the bas-reliefs of the Arch of Constantine and on the portico of the Basilica of San Paolo in 1530 in Rome, an event for which he became notorious in his time, provoking the oration of Molza mentioned above.  The reference here to the necks of the Florentines is also a 13

pointed reference to contemporary Medici propaganda in which they depicted themselves as just rulers of city, who managed to bridle the traditionally restless and faction-ridden spirit of the Florentines in the name of peace and public order. The personal device of Cardinal Giuliano de' Medici (later Leo X) was an ox-yoke under which appeared the motto Jugum enim meum soave est ("My yoke is light"), a deliberate evocation of the Biblical verse "take my yoke upon you, for my burden is easy, and my yoke is light." (FIG. 4) When he became Pope, Giuliano continued to use this device as his per-sonal emblem, as the careful studies of Cox-Rearick have pointed out.  Republican op14 -ponents of the Medici, and the popolo minuto, that large class of small workers and arti-sans who had supported the reforms of Savonarola and who were virtually excluded from

! For a vivid account of the assassination, besides Lorenzino's own Apologia, see Varchi 12

2.15. The Apologia is now in an English translation, with poems of Molza and a transla-tion of the apologia of Francesco Bibboni, the assassin who, under the direction of Cosi-mo, murdered Lorenzino in Venice on February 26, 1548. (Apology for a Murder, trans. Andrew Brown and J. G. Nichols (London: Hesperus, 2004).

! Lorenzino de' Medici, Apology for a Murder, xiv.13

! Cited in Hibbert, The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall (New York, 1980), 216. For a 14

thorough discussion of the device of the yoke in Medici political imagery, see Janet Cox-Rearick, Dynasty and Destiny in Medici Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 36ff.

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political participation under the Medici and the oligarchic rule of the upper classes, would have certainly had reason to question the lightness of this yoke.  15

In reference to the image of the Medici yoke, Varchi comments: ! At that time Pope Clement was tormented by those passions of the soul [the fear of losing what he had gained] because, having ardently desired, not only to return the house of Medici to Florence, but to make Alessandro her absolute prince, and hav ing to his eternal discredit obtained both of these desires, he never ceased to search for a way to guarantee the State to duke Alessandro; the which seemed to him, as indeed it was, very difficult to do, not only because that government, which he had set up in Florence, was completely new and violent towards the city, but also be cause of the nature of the citizens, who are naturally seditious and desirous of new governments; knowing this very well, he had no doubt that at the first opportunity which presented itself, they would use every means and every force to remove that yoke from themselves, which he with so much trouble and expense and blame to himself had placed on their necks. (2.14.1) ! Here we see reference to the historical commonplace of the seditiousness and rest-lessness of the Florentines (most famously expressed by Dante in Book VI of the Inferno in the image of a feverish woman, tossing and turning on her bed) which must be bridled and brought under control by strong government.  As Cox-Rearick points out, the fact 16

that Medici rule, despite the often severe means used to achieve and maintain it, could nevertheless offer a measure of public quiet and order to the traditionally faction-ridden city of Florence constituted an important part of the family’s political propaganda. It was

! The most serious popular uprising in Florence’s history, the Tumulto de’ Ciompi of 15

June 1378, left a profound fear and distrust of the working classes among members of Florence’s mercantile middle and upper classes, leading to fundamental changes in the structure and functioning of her political institutions. For the uprising, see Il tumulto de' Ciompi: un momento di storia fiorentina ed europea (Florence: Olschki, 1981).

! "How many times, as far as you remember/Laws, money, offices and customs/Have 16

you changed, and changed again your members?/And if thou remembrest true and seest the light/You'll see how like you are to that sick woman/Who cannot find rest upon her pillow/But by turning seeks to shield herself from pain" (Inferno VI.145-151).

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up to writers such as Varchi and Machiavelli, and artists such as Michelangelo, to raise the question at what cost such public order had been achieved. To celebrate the assassination of Alesssandro, a coin was minted in Florence de-picting on one side the image of Lorenzino (copied from Roman coins depicting Brutus) and on the other, the Phrygian hat of freedom flanked by the two daggers of the liberator. (FIGS. 5 and 6) One could cite numerous other references to the Medici as tyrants from the first decades of the 16th century, but perhaps the most eloquent is that of the Gonfaloniere Piero Soderini's dramatic and fateful speech before the Florentine citizens who had gath-ered in the Piazza della Signoria in 1512, immediately before the Sack of Prato, to dis-cuss whether to come to terms with the Viceroy of the Holy League, whose army stood at Barberino, fifteen miles from Florence, and was offering apparently reasonable terms by which the Medici would be allowed to return to the city as private citizens, the only con-dition being the removal of Soderini from office. In his speech (as reported by Guicciar-dini), Soderini urges that the Medici not be allowed to return to Florence, since they would surely set themselves up as tyrants: ! Nor should anyone delude himself that government by the Medici would be the same as it was before they were exiled, because the form and basis of things have changed: . . .But now, having dwelt so many years outside of Florence, brought up in foreign ways, and for this reason out of touch with civic matters, remembering their exile and the harsh manner in which they had been treated, very reduced in means and distrusted by so many families; aware that most, indeed, almost the en tire city abhors tyranny, they would not share their counsels with any citizen; and forced by poverty and suspicion, they would arrogate everything to themselves, depending not on good will and love but force and arms, with the result that in a very short time this city would become like Bologna at the time of the Ben tivoglio, or like Siena or Perugia. [City states traditionally considered tyrannies.] I wanted to say this to those who preach about the time and rule of Lorenzo the Magnificent. For, although conditions were hard then and there was a tyranny (al

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though milder than many others), by comparison with this, Lorenzo's rule would be an age of gold.  17

! One wonders what would have happened had the Florentines accepted the terms of the League; certainly, the horrors of Prato would have been avoided; as Guicciardini notes, all the leading citizens of Florence wanted an agreement, "accustomed by the ex-ample of their forefathers to often defend their liberty against iron with gold." The princi-pal question is whether the Medici would have been content with their reduced status, es-pecially given the support of Pope Julius in Rome. In any event, Soderini's delay in send-ing the Florentine ambassadors to the Spanish troops outside Prato led to the taking of that city and then to the Medici return to power in Florence. In the 1530s, under the rule of Cosimo, references to the Medici as tyrants contin-ued unabated. Guicciardini and his fellow ottimati had hoped to be able to control the young Medici prince and direct his power to their own ends, the return to an oligarchical form of government in Florence; in this, they were severely disappointed: the young Duke ended up controlling not only them, but Florence and the Tuscan state as well, as the famous lines from Cellini's Vita attest: "They have mounted a young man on a splen-did horse—then told him you must not ride beyond certain boundaries. Now tell me who is going to restrain him when he wants to ride beyond them? You can't impose laws on a man who is your master.”  18

Cellini's sentiment is echoed in a letter of Jan. 30, 1537 from the historian Francesco Vettori to Cardinal Niccolo' Ridolfi, after Ridolfi had objected to Cosimo's election as Duke of Florence: "Indeed, it is necessary to do this shameful deed [the con-firmation of Cosimo in power in Florence] and set up a tyrant, since in these times it is not possible to find a less evil path.”  19

!! Francesco Guicciardini, The History of Italy, trans. and ed. Sidney Alexander (Prince17 -ton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 260.

! Cellini Vita (1996), 323, trans. Hibbert. Cited in Hibbert 258.18

! Bernardo Segni, Storie fiorentine (Milan, 1805) vol. 2, 155-166. Cited in the essay in 19

the Eisenbichler volume by Marcello Simonetta "Francesco Vettori, Francesco Guicciar-dini and Cosimo I," 4.

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Such a climate prevailing in Medicean Florence, in which the Medici were seen, often with good reason, as tyrants, affected not only artists and writers of republican sympathies, but the general public as well. The military historian John Hale, discussing the construction of the Fortezza da Basso (the cornerstone of which was laid on July 15, 1534), notes that for Florentines imbued with the traditions of republicanism (a tradition which survived, according to Hale, well into the 16th century) the building of fortresses was a clear sign of the repression of a free people by a tyrant: ! [the Fortezza da Basso] became a symbol of despotism as powerful in the eyes of sixteenth-century Florentines as was the Bastille to eighteenth-century Frenchmen. . . .Florence. . .was not the place for a political leader to try to fortify him self. . . .The outcry that went up when this bridle was slipped in place owes some thing to the tradition: citadels for tyrants, walls for a free people; but it owes some thing, too, to the peculiar nature of Florentine republicanism.  20

! Hale cites several contemporary reactions to this event, including the following comment from Jacopo Nardi, the historian, one of the Florentine exiles who sent emis-saries to Naples in April of 1535 to plead the cause of the exiles before the Emperor Charles V: "a great fortress was being built with the blood of that unhappy people, as a

! J. R.Hale, "The End of Florentine Liberty: The Fortezza da Basso" in Florentine Stud20 -ies: Politics and Society in Renaissance Florence, ed. Nicolai Rubinstein (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1968), 501-502.

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prison and slaughter-house for the distressed citizens."  At the same meeting, Cardinal 21

Ippolito de' Medici, a supporter of the exiles, told Charles that Alessandro "was at the moment building a fortress at great expense as the sole guarantee of his safety." And Lorenzino de' Medici, the assassin of Duke Alessandro, whom we mentioned above, not-ed in his Apologia (in which he discusses the reasons for his deed and attempts to justify himself for the eventual failure of his act to provoke a popular uprising against the Medici in the city) that the building of fortresses is associated with the evils of tyranny.  22

Not only was a fortress constructed to secure the Medici hold on power, but the citizens were also deprived of the means of overturning Medici rule through a popular uprising. Vettori's eloquent description of the disarming of the Florentine citizens at the behest of Pope Clement VII is worth quoting at length for the light it sheds on the deter-mination of the Medici to secure themselves against any form of armed opposition on the part of the ordinary citizens of Florence: !! Varchi, cited in Hale 503. Hale also cites Donato Giannotti on Cosimo's installation of 21

a garrison in Florence as evidence that Florence was being changed into a tyranny (Opere politiche e letterarie, ed. Filippo Polidori (Florence: Le Monnier, 1850), vol. 1, 66). Machiavelli himself makes the connection between fortified garrisons and tyrants in his Discorsi II.24: "It must be borne in mind then, that fortresses are constructed as a defense either against enemies or against subjects. In the first case they are unnecessary, and in the second case harmful. . . .I maintain that when a prince or a republic is afraid of its subjects and fears they may rebel, the root cause of this fear must lie in the hatred which such subjects have for their rulers: a hatred which is due to their misbehaviour . . .For when mismanagement gives rise to hatred it is mainly due to a prince or a republic having fortresses; and, when this is the case, fortresses are far more harmful than useful" (trans. Leslie J. Walker, revised by Brian Richardson in The Discourses (New York: Penguin Books, 1983, 353, cited in Hale 502.) For more on Machiavelli's insistence on the love of the citizens as being the best defense of the ruler of a state, see Chapter 1.

! Cited in Hale 504. Hale also cites the republican historian Bernardo Segni to the effect 22

that the fortress was built "to place on the necks of the Florentines a yoke of a kind never experienced before: a citadel, whereby the citizens lost all hope of ever living in freedom again" (Storie fiorentine (Leghorn: G. Masi, 1830), vol. II, 400, cited in Hale 504). The significance of the image of the yoke, symbolizing either Medici tyranny or the firm but benevolent rule of the family over Florence, depending upon one's political orientation, had very powerful resonances for contemporary Florentines, as we noted above.

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Among the first things which Pope Clement, having reacquired Florence, judged necessary was to strip the city of all arms, both defensive and offensive; and so the Otto published a severe ban to the effect that every person, not excepting anyone for any reason, should bring to the Palace within a certain period of time all arms of any kind, both defensive and offensive, both with the handle and without, tak ing swords, daggers, bucklers, arquebuses, small and large shields, under penalty of one hundred large gold fiorini, and the confiscation of the house of anyone who acted otherwise. The number of arms which were brought in one way or the other was incredible; but partly because it was thought, and partly because it was report ed by the spies (who were without number, some secret and some open) that many had hidden in the most secret places their best suits of armor and their best coats of mail, severe bans were imposed, with severe punishments, even execution, with the declaration that every house be searched, without any respect to persons, and that those who were found to have violated the ban and to be guilty, would be pun ished with the appropriate punishment. For fear of this ban, for the space of sever al days, every night arms were thrown into the Arno, and every morning they were found scattered here and there on the piazzas and the walls; and so great was the terror, which had come upon the groups of citizens, that no one dared, not only to look at them, but even to touch them and carry them away; on the contrary, upon leaving their houses early in the morning, when they saw them, they turned aside, and watched their footsteps, so as not to be seen by the officials of the Eight, who went around collecting them very early in the morning. (2.12.49) ! Varchi goes on to describe the ransacking of houses, especially those of the Pi-agnoni (followers of Savonarola, suspected of being enemies of the Medicean party and of the State), by groups of workers of the Eight, whom he describes as "the scum of all riffraff." (We shall say more about the Eight below). Here we observe something which comes close to state-sanctioned terror against the civilian populace, perpetrated by the officials of the Otto di Guardia in support of Medici power in Florence, at the behest of the Pope. This terror is further evoked by the description which follows of Ser Maurizio of Milan, whom Varchi notes was in name the Chancellor of the Eight, but was in actuali-ty their overseer and master, a cruel man whom Varchi says engineered false accusations against citizens by having men throw arms into their houses at night, and then arresting

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them for this in the morning. The fear among the civilians was so great that, according to Varchi, "men did not dare to keep in their houses, not only chisels, or double pikes, or daggers, or other similar iron objects, but even sticks, or sharpened clubs, for fear that they would be taken for pikes; and they took care even as far as buckets for the well, that they be not of an unusual shape, lest they be taken for helmets." (2.12.50) While it might seem that Varchi is exaggerating here for dramatic (and darkly comic) effect, he avers that this is not the case: "And lest anyone think that I am exagger-ating things in the manner of an orator, . . .I am not writing of things so long ago, that there are not thousands of people in Florence, not only men but also women, who do not remember these things very clearly as having happened to them.” In addition to the fortress and the disarming of the civilian populace, the use of spies to monitor the sentiments of the people towards the Medici regime was common-place in Renaissance Florence, as the historian John Brackett makes clear: "The forces of order also relied on information provided by informers, on whose eyes and ears the sys-tem of surveillance greatly depended. Some of these were professional spies whose iden-tities were never revealed, even in the budget entries that testify to the regular payment of the stipends they collected by sneaking into the courtyard of the Bargello.”  23

Not only were agents of the Otto di Guardia busy monitoring the sentiments of the people, but in some cases, neighbors even spied on each other, as Brackett points out. An anecdote regarding Cosimo's desire to know the people's reactions to Cellini's Perseus when it was first set up in the Piazza della Signoria supports this view of a close scrutiny of critical sentiments in Medicean Florence: "When the Perseus was displayed for the first time in the Piazza della Signoria, Cosimo stood, according to Cellini, 'at one of the lower windows of the Palazzo, which was above the door, and, in this manner, inside the window, half-hidden, heard everything that was said about the statue.' Cosimo then ven-tured his judgment only after he had heard the praise of the people.”  24

The desire of Florence's Medici rulers to know and exert control over all aspects of the life of the civilian populace reaches a kind of nightmarish extreme in an anecdote from Alessandro Ceccheregli's Delle attioni et sentenze del Signore Alessandro de'

! John K. Brackett, Criminal Justice and Crime in Late Renaissance Florence (New 23

York: Columbia University Press, 1992), 31.

! Brackett 36-37.24

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Medici, in which the ruler is depicted as everywhere and all-knowing, traveling incognito deep into the countryside, staying at a peasant's house, and, seeing that the peasant was unaware of the identity of his noble guest, Cosimo's asking him what he honestly felt about the rule of the Duke of Florence. Fortunately for the peasant, he had the good sense to treat his unknown guest with courtesy. Ceccheregli's work is full of stories of Cosimo's personal intervention in the lives of his subjects, though, owing to the encomiastic nature of the work, all these interventions result in justice being done and Alessandro emerging as a fair and compassionate ruler. While the extent of this surveillance of the civilian population by the Medici regime is perhaps here exaggerated, the historical evidence makes clear the extent to which the monitoring of critical sentiments was essential to the Medici hold on power. Once again, Varchi provides us with an eloquent summing up of Cosimo's use of spies to monitor the citizens of his state, in this case the Florentine exiles: ! But before I proceed any further, it is necessary to note that Duke Cosimo had been advised a few days earlier by various persons in various places, both by em bassy and by letter, of everything that the exiles were planning; . . .And this hap pened to Duke Cosimo because he (imitating the practice of his valorous father in investigating not only the doings, but even the thoughts, of his adversaries, on the basis of reports from both important men, diligent out of friendship, and also from spies, either open or secret, diligent for the sake of money), continually used in credible diligence, and spent an incalculable amount of money, to the extent that I would dare say that, except for his ambassadors, legates and officials, there was not, I won't say, one city, or fortified place in all of Italy, but not even hamlet, or country house, or even tavern, about which Duke Cosimo was not advised daily. (2.15.47) ! Not only were spies a common form of political and social control in Medicean Florence, but the criminal justice system was also used as a means of suppressing dissent. Varchi notes the use of the Otto di Guardia, mentioned above, as a means of persecution of the Florentine exiles: !

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In the year 1530, . . .there were confined in various parts of Italy, and even outside of Italy, a great number of citizens for three consecutive years, with this condition, that they could not return from these places of exile to Florence without permis sion from the Otto di Guardia e Balia by a decision of all the black beans. There fore, at the end of the three years, authority was given to the magistrate of the above-mentioned to review all those confined, and, for those living, to confirm or change or even to free them; and so the Eight (knowing the hatred which Pope Clement and Duke Alessandro bore toward those citizens, and that their intention was to persecute them to the extent that little by little they would all die, if that were possible) freed none of them from their confinement, to only a few con firmed the same confinement they had had before, and for many changed [the place of exile], and confined them a second time, for the most part in places much more harsh and miserable than those in which they had been confined the first time; . . .they were confined a second time by the Otto in such places where not only did they have no chance of starting a new life, but where they could not in any way achieve this, and where in consequence they were almost compelled to die of hunger and privation: . . . (2.14.9) ! The requirement noted here by Varchi that the return of the exiles could only be assured by a vote of all the black beans is clearly an expedient to assure that this would not happen, the Florentine equivalent of the modern stuffing of the ballot box. Brackett describes at length the use of the judicial system by the Medici to maintain their power and secure themselves against their enemies. According to Brackett, the condemnation of the reformer Savonarola to death by the Otto di Guardia in 1498 ! represented an action engineered by the conservative faction of the oligarchy that brought an end to a particularly tumultuous period in the city's history. The Eight continued to successfully fulfill the role of political police in the sixteenth century, identifying and punishing the enemies of the recently ennobled Medici family. The report of the Venetian ambassador to Florence in 1561, Vincenzo Fideli, under lined the importance to Cosimo I of the Eight's routine surveillance over the activi ties of Florentine aristocrats: First thing in the morning, the Secretary delivered his daily reports in person to Cosimo. The Medici grand duke was no doubt reacting

! � 22

with this sense of urgency to the Pucci conspiracy of the previous year. Condem nations and executions of the conspirators and their supporters by the Eight con cluded this last attempt by aristocrats to topple the Medici regime. But it was not only the comportment of the powerful that the prince was anxious to control; he wished to put under surveillance the entire urban and rural populace of the grand duchy.  25

! Here we see again the determination of the Medici to monitor all potential sources of opposition within the Florentine state. As Brackett astutely points out: "Coercion can be accomplished not only through the exercise of force, but by regulation through en-forced observance of bureaucratic procedures and by the power to punish with incarcera-tion those caught in the complex web of criminal laws."  26

Summing up his discussion of the Medici exercise of power in Renaissance Flo-rence, Brackett observes: "It should come as no surprise that the Medici sometimes pun-ished their enemies directly, without the mediation of the criminal justice system, when great discretion was needed. Such had been the case when, for example, the rebel, Filippo Strozzi, banker and erstwhile supporter of the Medici, was captured in 1537. . . it was widely believed that he had been ordered strangled by Cosimo, who did not want to risk the disturbances a public execution might have caused.” The assassin of Alessandro de' Medici, Lorenzino, was finally hunted down and killed in Venice in 1548 on the orders of Duke Cosimo, as was the son of the leader of the

! John Brackett, Criminal Justice and Crime in Late Renaissance Florence: 1537-1609 25

(New York, Columbia University Press, 1992), 30. Brackett also cites the Italian historian Giovanni Antonelli to the effect that "[The Otto di Guardia] is the first stable organ creat-ed in Florence with functions that, to use a modern word, we would call those of a politi-cal police. One must recall the juridical-political situation of the era to understand how much the modern concept of the police as an organ of public safety should be used with great caution. Here we find ourselves confronted with an organ of the State whose official task is to defend public order, which in effect may be identified with the interests of the governing class whose hold on power this organ was supposed to guarantee against direct attacks in the piazza and against the covert actions of the exiles" (Giovanni Antonelli, "La magistratura degli Otto di Guardia a Firenze," Archivio Storico Italiano 1 (1954), 3-39, cited in Brackett 30).

! Brackett 31.26

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last conspiracy against the Duke, Pandolfo Pucci. Lorenzino’s assassin has left us a vivid account of his killing of the tyrant-slayer in Venice in his Apologia, where he notes Cosimo’s great satisfaction upon hearing of the deed.  27

The use of paid assassins was thus another means by which the Medici maintained their hold on power. Because they were so close to those in power, and often by nature of an indepen-dent spirit, artists and writers came in for particular scrutiny. We cited the case of Michelangelo above; the artist Benvenuto Cellini, as we note below, was another example of an artist who fell afoul of Cosimo's insistence on obedience on the part of those at his court. For Cellini, the general intransigence and belligerence of his personality, and for Michelangelo, his proud and independent spirit and strong republican sympathies made these artists particularly vulnerable to Medici reprisals. We discuss Michelangelo’s aver-sion to Medici rule, and his response, in Chapter 2 below. Not only did Michelangelo, unlike Cellini, leave Florence, never to return, upon Alessandro's accession to power in 1534, but such an exodus of literary and artistic talent was not uncommon at the time. Cosimo tried to lure many of these artists and writers back to Florence after his accession to power, often with success, one notable exception being Michelangelo himself, as an anecdote cited by Spini regarding Michelangelo's re-ply to a request made to him by Cosimo in 1552, relayed to him through Cellini, that he return to Florence, makes clear: ! After his [Cellini's] exposition of flattering offers on the part of the Duke, Michelangelo "suddenly looked at me closely and, sighing, said: 'And you, how content are you with him?'" Of course, if one takes Cellini's word for it, Michelan gelo wasn't alluding to anything else than certain temporary fallings out between Cellini and Cosimo, soon to dissipate with a return of ducal favor. But this sneer of Michelangelo's reminds one too irresistibly of the irony with which the artist replied so often in his correspondence to the compliments of Vasari. And it should alone be enough to dissipate the courtly veil in which scholars have attempted to wrap the last period of Michelangelo's life.  28

! 27

! 28

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! To cite another prominent example of the exodus of talented writers and artists from Medicean Florence after 1530, the political theorist Donato Giannotti, friend of both Michelangelo and Machiavelli, joined Varchi in exile, living in Venice, Bologna and Rome.  29

Rome thus for Michelangelo, as for other republican exiles from Florence, repre-sented (together with Venice or a foreign country such as France) a kind of relatively safe haven from the very real danger of Medici reprisals. As an essay from a recent volume of essays on Cosimo’s Florence makes clear, the arrest, conviction and subsequent pardon of the artist Benvenuto Cellini by Cosimo was occasioned by the particularly independent and anti-authoritarian spirit of this artist. As Margaret Gallucci notes, Cellini's "scathing attack on Medicean politics" led to his trial for sodomy in February of 1557, his conviction, imprisonment and finally liberation at the behest of Cosimo.  Gallucci cites a letter of March 3, 1557 in the Florentine State 30

Archives in which Cellini supplicates Cosimo for his liberation. Cosimo, demonstrating both his clemency and his control over the judicial apparatus of the Florentine state, commuted Cellini's sentence on March 26. As Gallucci makes clear, this incident marked the effective end of Cellini's artistic career. A letter of Annibal Caro of 1539 to Luca Mar-tini notes the true cause for the persecution of Cellini: "[Cellini's] peculiar manner of speaking brazenly to authorities made the pope fear him more for 'what he can do or say in the future than what he has done or said in the past.'" Vasari expresses these same sen-timents: according to him, Cellini was "a person who has been only too well able to speak for himself with princes.”  31

! On the Florentine exiles, see Tiziana Agostini Nordio and Valerio Vianello, eds. La 29

strazzosa, canzone di Maffio Venier, and Fuoruscitismo politico fiorentino e produzione letteraria nel Cinquecento: contributi rinascimentali Venezia e Firenze (Padova, Abano Terme: Francisci, 1982), Paolo Simoncelli, Fuoriuscitismo repubblicano fiorentino, 1530-54 (Milan: F. Angeli, 2006) and Randolph Starn, Contrary commonwealth: the Theme of Exile in Medieval and Renaissance Italy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982).

! Eisenbichler, 30

! Gallucci 43, cited below in footnote 45. The quotation is from Cellini's Vita, ed. Loren31 -zo Bellotto (Parma: Bembo/Guanda, 1996), 710.

! � 25

The trial of Cellini was thus a way for Cosimo to control critical discourse in his realm while simultaneously presenting an image of himself as a just and magnanimous ruler. Here again we see the legal system used as an instrument of social control. As Eisenbichler notes: "Cosimo used not only his subjects, but also the Florentine legal sys-tem to his advantage. In particular, he enacted strict legislation, but then mitigated it with his clemency, thus presenting himself as the champion of law and order, while at the same time creating an image of himself as the compassionate ruler to whom his subjects could appeal for clemency." We noted above the use of the magistracy of the Otto di Guardia as a means of enforcing the Duke's will. We see a similar use of the legal system to control independent voices in the case of the poet Tullia d'Aragona. After moving to Florence to escape political turmoil in Siena, d'Aragona fell afoul of Florentine sumptuary laws regarding the required dress for prostitutes. After consulting, among other people, Benedetto Varchi, she wrote a letter to Duchess Eleonora imploring her to intercede with her husband on her behalf. Cosimo made a special exemption in her case, ordering that she be granted leniency as a poet. As Basile makes clear, because she owed her freedom and reputation to Cosimo's interven-tion in this affair, d'Aragona was obliged to him to return the favor by writing works in the Florentine vernacular, one of Cosimo's pet projects.  32

Another interesting example, if it is true, of Cosimo's willingness to exert pressure to secure the compliance of writers and artists, concerns the historian Varchi himself. Varchi, for unknown reasons, left Florence in 1544, "rejecting Cosimo's patronage and his role in the Academy,” and entered the service of the Archbishop of Bari. While paying a visit to his hometown near Florence the following summer, Varchi was arrested and im-prisoned on a charge of having raped a nine year old girl. Freed after Cosimo paid his fine (to be applied to the dowry of the girl), Varchi soon entered into the service of the Duke and began writing his Florentine History. One scholar suggests that these two events may have not been accidentally linked, and that either his enemies in Florence, or

! 32

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Cosimo himself may have engineered the entire affair to gain Varchi's obedience.  From 33

the evidence given above of Cosimo's ruthlessness and cleverness in using the judicial system to ensure compliance with his wishes on the part of both artists and ordinary citi-zens, such a hypothesis seems to us far from unlikely.  34

Finally, one might cite the recent study of Domenico Zanré, in which this scholar discusses the case of the Accademia del Piano, a private gathering of academicians close-ly surveilled for its potentially anti-Medicean activities. The dramatist Antonfrancesco Grazzini ("il Lasca"), whom Zanré describes as "hovering on the margins of non-con-formity," was a member of this group, and, more importantly, all the main actors in a con-spiracy against Cosimo in 1559 were drawn from this Academy. In addition, the group contained several members of the Pazzi family, long-time opponents of the Medici. Al-fredo Pazzi, one of the more distinguished Piangiani, composed a sonnet "Isprezzon l'accademia i piangiani," in which he alludes to the hostility of the Accademia del Piano toward the Accademia Fiorentina, the official organ of Cosimo's cultural politics. Zanré notes that Cosimo was convinced that this academy was not a threat to his rule, but was nevertheless grateful to have a description of its meetings and a list of its members. At

! Simonetta, cited above. Simonetta goes on to describe Vettori's political marginaliza33 -tion at the hands of Cosimo, and the disillusion and resignation in which he died: "{Vet-tori] buried himself alive in his house, consumed by bitterness, while all the wise citizens of Florence died in the next few years out of pain and discontent,” 7. Simonetta notes that "Cosimo gradually removed the old guard, replaced it with a new administration of homines novi, and rejected the pretensions of the Florentine aristocracy. Vettori, who was not an aristocrat, but had always acted like one of the ottimati, was thus sidelined."

! As a further example of Cosimo's close surveillance of possible troublemakers, one 34

might cite the following letter of March 27, 1553 from Cosimo to his agent Averardo Ser-ristori regarding Cellini's nephew Libradoro Libradori: "We know that that Libradoro, nephew of Benvenuto the sculptor, is a troublesome person, as you wrote us in your letter of the 24th, but nevertheless, it is prudent to be aware of every little cause for concern, especially in these times. However, try to see if there is anything to be done there, and if not, it would be well that you arrange to make him come to Florence under some pretext." The letter does not state exactly the nature of Libradoro's troubling behavior, nor what Cosimo intended to do with him when he came to Florence. From this letter, it seems clear that the compulsion to cause trouble for those in authority was a trait which ran in Cellini's family. An abstract and excerpt from this letter is to be found on the web-site of the Medici Archive Project, www.medici.org.

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this point in his regime, Cosimo was sufficiently secure in his power to be able to tolerate the occasional outburst of independent spirit, especially since, in any case, such an out-burst was being carefully monitored by a trusted advisor.  35

From the above evidence, we see how the Medici’s determination to maintain ab-solute control over Florentine political life created a climate of profound intimidation and fear for all who dared oppose them, in which the overt expression of critical sentiments was especially unwise. One of the most eloquent expressions of the dangers of indepen-dent expression in Medicean Florence comes from Machiavelli himself. Writing to in , the former Florentine Secretary remarks:   36

Critics of Medici rule in Florence have been reduced to little better than those mimes one sees in the dumb shows of traveling circuses, who must communicate their true intentions and feelings by means of a series of mute gestures. Given this climate, for men of independent mind and spirit, for whom the options of either cowed silence or worse, sycophancy (the cardinal vice of courts) were not to be tolerated, means would have to be found to express critical sentiments, but in such a way as to guarantee at least a reasonable margin of safety for their expression. It is to such a mode of expression, called by the classical rhetoricians by many names, innuendo being the most familiar to modern readers, that we now turn. We will see how Machiavelli, Michelangelo, Vasari, and others, each in their different way, were able to encode senti-ments critical of their princely patrons in works addressed to these same patrons. Such means allowed these artists and writers to maintain some measure of freedom of expres-sion while at the same time avoiding reprisals from those in power, reprisals which, as we have seen, could be severe. !

! For the Medici's masterful manipulation of the institutions of the Florentine state to 35

assure themselves power while simultaneously maintaining the outward show of republi-cation institutions, see J. R. Hale, Florence and the Medici: The Pattern of Control (Lon-don, Thames and Hudson, 1977), John Najemy, and Nicolai Rubinstein, "Politics and Constitution in Florence at the End of the Fifteenth Century," in Italian Renaissance Studies, ed. E. F. Jacobs (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1960).

! 36

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Reading Machiavelli Rhetorically: The Prince as Covert Criticism of the Renaissance Prince !

Flattery is ugly, but censure is dangerous; that manner is best which lies between the two, namely innuendo. Demetrius of Phaleron Criticare i principi è pericoloso, lodarli è bugia. Italian proverb !! Since its first appearance, there have been readers who have read Machiavelli’s Prince not as advice for the Renaissance prince, nor as an objective presentation of polit-ical affairs in the Italy of Machiavelli’s day, but rather as precisely the opposite, namely a veiled but nevertheless trenchant critique of the Renaissance prince, presented in a form which seems to offer him advice.  Perhaps the best-known of these interpretations of 37

Machiavelli’s treatise as a crypto-republican work, in which, under the guise of seeming to instruct the prince, advice is given to the people on the ways of tyrants and the means of resisting them, is that of Rousseau. In his Du contrat social, he comments: “[Machi-avelli], pretending to give lessons to kings, gave great lessons to the people. The Prince

! In his discussion of Machiavelli’s debt to classical rhetoric, Viroli comments: “The in37 -terpretation of Machiavelli as a founder of the science of politics is wrong, no matter what meaning we attribute to the word ‘scientific’.... He [Machiavelli] wrote to persuade, to delight, to move, to impel to act—hardly the goals of the scientist, but surely the goals that an orator intends to achieve. He pursues truth, but this truth is always a partisan truth; always a truth colored, amplified, ornate, and interested; and at times not truth at all—a liberty which a scientist can never allow himself, but which an orator is surely permitted to take” (1998, 1, 3). Viroli is usually associated with the so-called “Cambridge School” of political historians. The work of Quentin Skinner, the leading exponent of this school, is especially important in its insistence—in opposition to the banishment of the concept of intentionality in several schools of twentieth century critical thought—on the impor-tance of a consideration of the author’s intent, as far as this can be determined, in estab-lishing the meaning of a given text. But this is simply to insist upon a rhetorical reading of early-modern texts, since rhetorical theory presupposes a speaker, a speech, and an in-tended audience, the expectations and mental predispositions of which play a large role in determining the content, style, structure and tone of a work of oral or written discourse.

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of Machiavelli is the book of republicans.” In the 1782 edition Rousseau himself inserted the following note: ! The choice alone of his execrable hero [Cesare Borgia] makes clear his secret intention; and the contrasting of the maxims of The Prince with those of his Discourses on Titus Livy and his History of Florence, makes clear that this deep political thinker has up until now had only superficial or corrupt readers. The court of Rome severely prohibited his book; I well believe it; it is that court which it depicts most clearly (1972, 3, 6. 169).  38

! While enlightenment readings that see the Prince as containing a concealed repub-lican message are most familiar to modern scholars, there is evidence that even well be-fore its first publication in 1532, there were readers who discerned a hidden anti-princely agenda present in the text. An anecdote recounted by the English Cardinal Reginald Pole (one of the first writers to promote the myth of Machiavelli as a messenger of Satan), provides clear evidence of just such an early reading of the text in chiave antimedicea. Upon asking certain Florentines he encountered in the street during the winter of 1538-39 how they could justify Machiavelli’s writing such an “infamous” work, Pole claimed to have heard in response of Machiavelli’s secret intention in writing the Prince, that since he [Machiavelli] knew him [Lorenzo] to be of a tyrannical nature, he inserted things that could not but most greatly please such a nature. Nevertheless, [Machiavelli] judged,

! Diderot is of the same opinion: “Machiavelli was a man of profound genius and wide 38

erudition.... Some claim that he taught Cesare Borgia how to rule. What is certain, is that the despotic power of the house of Medici was hateful to him, and that this hatred, which was well within his power to hide, exposed him to long and cruel persecution.... How can one explain that one of the most ardent defenders of monarchy suddenly became an infa-mous apologist for tyranny? In the following manner. . . .When Machiavelli wrote his treatise on the Prince, it is as if he said to his fellow citizens: ‘Read this work well. If you ever accept a master, he will be such as I paint him for you: here is the fierce animal to whom you will abandon yourselves.’ And so it was the fault of his contemporaries if they misunderstood his purpose: they took a satire as a eulogy. Chancellor Bacon made no mistake, when he said: ‘This man teaches nothing to tyrants; they know only too well what they must do; but he instructs the people on what they should fear. That is the rea-son why we should give thanks to Machiavelli and this type of writer, who openly and frankly show what men are accustomed to doing, not what they ought to do” (1999).

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as have all of the other writers who have written concerning how to make a man into a king or a prince, and as experience teaches, that if the prince did put these things into ef-fect, his rule would be brief. This he greatly hoped for, since inwardly he burned with ha-tred toward that prince for whom he wrote. Nor did he expect from that book anything other than, by writing for the tyrant the things that please a tyrant, to give him, if he could, a ruinous downfall by his own action (2002, 35, 1, 136).  39

! In this regard, it is worth noting that Machiavelli’s discussion of civil principalities 39

parallels Cicero’s discussion in the De Re Publica of the way class conflict between no-bles and people eventually leads to the creation of a dictator, and that the dedicatory letter is based on Tacitus’ observations on the usefulness of writing the history of the events of one’s own times, since mixed constitutions are rare and short-lived, and states alternate between rule by the nobles and the rule of the people, and it is thus useful for nobles to know the ways of the people in order to control them, and for the people to understand the nobles that they might be wise. Hence Machiavelli, with typical wit and cleverness, while appearing to engage in the traditional self-abasement of the captatio benevolentiae before a powerful patron, in his reference to his low station, by implicitly comparing himself to Tacitus, is actually hinting here that his treatise will be useful for an under-standing of, and perhaps even an elimination of, Medici tyranny (Tacitus, Annals, 4.33 [1975]). For early readers of the Prince, besides Sasso (1988), see Raab (1965), Richard-son (1995), Donaldson (1988) and Anglo (2005). For a concise discussion of early inter-pretations of the Prince, with a generous sampling of primary texts, see Burd’s edition of the text. Burd is one of those critics who reject out of hand any interpretation of Machi-avelli’s work as containing a secret, anti-tyrannical or anti- Medicean message, although he gives no cogent reasons for this rejection.

! � 31

Gennaro Sasso notes that the text aroused early hostility as it circulated in man-uscript well before its first publication in 1532.  The text’s first Florentine editor 40

Bernardo di Giunta’s dedicatory letter also notes strong aversion to the text, and asserts

! For example, Sasso cites Biagio Buonaccorsi’s dedicatory letter of his transcription of 40

the Prince, addressed to his friend and protector Pandolfo Bellacci: “Ricevilo [the Prince] adunque con quella prompteza che si ricerca, e preparati acerrimo defensore con-tro a tutti quelli che per malignità o invidia lo volessino, secondo l’uso di questi tempi, mordere e lacerare” (Accept it [the Prince], then, with that readiness it requires, and pre-pare yourself to be its fierce defender against all those who, through ill will or envy, wish, in the spirit of these times, to tear and lacerate it). Unless otherwise noted, translations from the Italian and the Latin in this article are mine. Sasso notes that manuscripts of the Prince were in circulation as early as 1515 or 1516, and cites as evidence of this early manuscript tradition, among other examples, Guicciardini’s borrowing of Machiavelli’s passage on the difficulty of holding a new state in his Del modo di assicurare lo stato ai Medici of 1515 or 1516 (1988, 202).

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that the work contains strong medicine that will allow its readers to defend themselves against tyranny (cited in Machiavelli 1891, 35-36).  41

Giunta adds that the text will need strong defenders to protect it from those who have taken offense at its message. Taken together with his reference to the text as medi-cine against tyranny, this suggests the possibility that certain of its early readers may have been offended not only by the provocative material regarding the necessity for the suc-cessful prince to imitate the fox as well as the lion, to cultivate fear as well as the love of his subjects, and so on, but also by what they may have discerned as a veiled anti-Medicean message present in the text, analogous to that described by Cardinal Pole in the anecdote cited above. The dedicatee of Giunta’s prefatory letter was none other than Gio-vanni Gaddi, the brother of the powerful anti-Medicean Cardinal Niccolò Gaddi. 

42

! Giunta requests of Gaddi that “V.S.R. la quale...lo piglierà non dimeno volentieri; et 41

con quello animo, ch’io glielo porgo; et lo difenderà da quegli, che per il soggetto suo lo vanno tutto il giorno lacerando sì aspramente: non sapendo, che quegli, che l’herbe et le medicine insegnano; insegnano parimente anchora i veleni; solo accioché da quegli ci possiamo conoscendogli guardare: ne s’accorgono anco, che egli non è arte, ne scientia alcuna; la quale non si possa da quegli, che cattivi sono, usare malamente; et chi dirà mai, che il ferro fusse trovato più tosto per ammazzare gli huomini, che per difendersi da gli animali? Certo, che io creda, niuno” (take it, nevertheless, willingly, and in the spirit with which I give it to you; and defend it from those who, because of its subject, go about every day lacerating it so harshly, not knowing that those who teach us about herbs and medicines, also teach us about poisons, for the sole reason that, knowing them, we may defend ourselves from them; nor do they realize, that there is no art, nor science which cannot be ill used by those who are evil; and who would ever say that iron was discov-ered for the purpose of killing men, rather than to defend ourselves against animals? Surely, as far as I know, no one”). The mention of the use of iron to defend oneself against animals may also be a reference to tyrants, since it was a commonplace in classi-cal and Renaissance political thought to refer to tyrants as beasts, and not men. For ex-ample, Cicero remarks in Book II of the De Re Publica: “who, although he [the tyrant] has the shape of a man, nevertheless in the savagery of his conduct surpasses the fiercest animals.” Donato Giannotti uses the same metaphor in his Dialogi where the discussion of tyrants is a veiled critique of the Cosimo de’ Medici of his day (Giannotti 1939). Com-pare Machiavelli on the only remedy for tyrants: “nè vi è altro rimedio che il ferro” (Dis-corsi I.58).

! For a discussion of the literary/political ambiente which saw the first publication of the 42

Prince, see below.

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The Neapolitan humanist Agostino Nifo produced a Latin version of the Prince entitled De Regnandi Peritia, issued in Naples in 1523, which describes Machiavelli’s work in terms similar to those later used by Giunta: “For you will find in these pages both the deeds of kings and of tyrants briefly described, as in the books of doctors both poi-sons and antidotes: that you might avoid the former, and seek out the latter” (Nifo 2008, Dedication to Charles V). While usually dismissed as mere plagiarism or an inept rewriting of Machiavelli’s text, Nifo’s additions to and reordering of Machiavelli’s text are intended to censure the rule of tyrants and describe the nature of just kingly rule. In this respect, his work antici-pates Innocent Gentillet’s better-known and more systematic “refutation” of the Prince, the Commentariorum, published more than fifty years later.  43

Specifically, Nifo seems to read Machiavelli’s chapter “De Principatu Civili” as a description of Florence’s political situation under Medici rule. After a close translation of Machiavelli’s discussion of the way a civil prince comes to power he adds “In this way the Florentines made Cosimo and Lorenzo de’ Medici civil rulers...the Sienese Pandolfo Petrucci, the Bolognese first Annibale, then Giovanni Bentivoglio.... In truth, it should not be overlooked that this type of princely rule is tyrannical, or tends toward tyranny, since it comes about neither through legitimate election, nor hereditary right.” (III.10) In Chapter 10 of Book I he had already described the Medici as exercising a kind of “iucundam tyrannidem” over Florence, words which echo Guicciardini’s famous eval-uation in Book 11 of his Storia d’Italia of Lorenzo’s rule over Florence years later, just as Nifo’s words classing the Medici as tyrants together with the Bentivogli of Bologna or Pandolfo Petrucci of Siena anticipate Soderini’s speech warning of Medici tyranny to the Grand Council. While it is impossible to know to what extent Nifo’s reading of Machi-avelli’s text as a condemnation of the rule of tyrants is based simply upon his own ideas,

! In light of the hidden anti-tyrannical message present in Machiavelli’s text, it is ironic 43

that Gentillet’s Commentariorum (1576), the first systematic refutation of Machiavelli’s supposed “perfidies,” was intended by the author to inspire Francis, Duke of Alençon, to liberate France from the “barbarous tyranny” of the “peregrinos homines,” that is, Cather-ine de’ Medici and her Italian advisors (“ad eam [Francia] vindicandam à perigrinorum cruenta et barbara tyrannide”), the latter phrase clearly an echo of Machiavelli’s “Exhor-tatio ad Capessandam Italiam in Libertatemque a Barbaris Vindicandam.”

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it seems at least plausible that Nifo should be included in the group of early readers of the Prince who saw an anti-tyrannical message present in the text.  44

A few modern scholars have argued that Machiavelli’s text needs to be read as po-litical satire at the expense of Italy’s Renaissance princes. Garrett Mattingly famously questioned the common characterization of the Prince as “political science” with a satiri-cal touch of his own: ! I suppose it is possible to imagine that a man who has seen his country enslaved, his life’s work wrecked and his own career with it, and has, for good measure, been tortured within an inch of his life should thereupon go home and write a book intended to teach his enemies the proper way to maintain themselves, writing all the time, remember, with the passionless objectivity of a scientist in a laboratory. It must be possible to imagine such behavior, because Machiavelli scholars do imagine it and accept it without a visible tremor. But it is a little difficult for the ordinary mind to compass (1958, 482-491).  45

! This view has its more recent adherents but it has not prevailed.  46

! For Nifo’s connections with Neapolitan humanist circles, see Valeri (2007). For Nifo 44

and Machiavelli, see Anglo (2005), ch. 2, and Procacci (1965), pt. 1, ch. 1.

! Hans Baron is of a similar opinion: “Garrett Mattingly has recently said, not without 45

good reasons, that instead of closing our eyes to the profound differences between such [republican] convictions [in the Discorsi] and the counsels for a despotic ruler in the Prince, it would be better to return to the eighteenth- century suspicion that some of the prescriptions in the Prince were not meant seriously, but were intended to satirize the life of princes” (1961, 223-224).

! Dietz (1986) contends that Machiavelli’s Prince was intended as a kind of elaborate 46

trap for the Medici, to lure them into action (such as taking up residence in the city) which would be disastrous to them, thus ensuring their demise. This interpretation recalls the anecdote of Cardinal Pole cited above. Dietz’ 1987 article is especially recommended for its very incisive and convincing refutation of John Langton’s critique of her 1986 arti-cle, its clear presentation of the current status of the debate over the interpretation of the Prince, and its insistence on the importance of historical context in determining the meaning of the text. See also Fallon (1992), as well as Scott and Sullivan (1994).

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While the reasons the Enlightenment readers cited above give for interpreting the text in this light are suggestive—why would Machiavelli choose as his example of ideal princely behavior one of the most hated men of his time? Why would a man descended from a family with a long tradition of service to the republic betray this family history? Why, when in all his other writings Machiavelli is clearly an advocate for the republican cause, would he compromise his principles in this one case for the sake of personal gain?--they rely for the most part on evidence external to the text. In this chapter, we will suggest a way of reading the Prince that draws on classical rhetorical theory and evidence internal to the text, and shows the work to be neither polit-ical science nor advice for a prince, but rather a very clever and forceful condemnation of the Renaissance prince, and by extension the miserable state of affairs in Italy in the early 1500s. We shall argue that Machiavelli’s use of the rhetorical technique of innuendo al-lowed him to write a treatise that criticizes the prince while ostensibly offering him ad-vice.  47

Such a strategy was well suited to the political climate in Florence in the second decade of the sixteenth century, when the Medici return to power and the regime’s suspi-cion of intellectuals, especially those associated with the Orti Oricellari, made it danger-ous to speak too freely of one’s republican beliefs.  Using such a strategy, Machiavelli 48

could avoid Medici reprisals while at the same time reaching those of his fellow republi-

! We list below the many synonyms for these so-called “figured problems,” in which a 47

meaning different from the apparent one is hinted at.

! Francesco Guicciardini eloquently describes this political climate and the means necessary to 48

deal with it: “Fa el tiranno ogni possible diligenza per scoprire el segreto del cuore tuo, con farti carezze, con ragionare teco lungamente, col farti osservare da altri che per ordine suo si intrinsi-cano teco, dalle quali rete tutte è difficile guardarsi: e però, se tu vuoi che non ti intenda pènsavi diligentemente e guardati con somma industria da tutte le cose che ti possono scoprire, usando tanta diligenza a non ti lasciare intendere quanta usa lui a intenderti” (1983, 103; A tyrant will do everything possible to discover your secret thoughts. He will be affectionate, and talk to you at great length, will have you observed by men he has ordered to become intimate with you. It is difficult to guard yourself against all these snares. If you do not want him to know, think careful-ly, and guard yourself with consummate industry against anything that might give you away, us-ing as much diligence to hide your secret thoughts as he uses to discover them [1965, 78 translat-ed]). Compare Aristotle: “It is part [of the nature of tyranny] to strive to see that all the affairs of the tyrant are secret, but that nothing is kept hidden of what any subject says or does, rather everywhere he will be spied upon” [plus ça change....] (Politics bk. 5, ch. 11 [1984, 2085].

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cans who were sufficiently sophisticated to apprehend the real meaning hidden beneath the surface of his text.  The use of this sophisticated rhetorical technique kept him from 49

being totally silenced, while maintaining a margin of safety; it also gave him the “last laugh” on the family that had exiled and tortured him and had dashed any hopes of a leading role for him in a republican Florence. If the power of the Medici lion could not be broken or confronted directly, at least the fox-like intelligence of its opponents could maintain some measure of covert resistance, and thus personal dignity. !

Classical Theory of Innuendo !

Quintilian, in his Institutiones Oratoriae, describes a form of covert critique, which he calls sermo figuratus: ! But in the figurative form of irony the speaker disguises his entire meaning, the disguise being apparent rather than confessed.... This class of figure may be employed under three conditions: first, if it is unsafe to speak openly; secondly, if it is unseemly to speak openly; and thirdly, when it is employed solely with a view to the elegance of what we say, and gives greater pleasure by reason of the novelty and variety thus introduced than if our meaning had been expressed in straightforward language.... For we may speak against the tyrants in question as openly as we please without loss of effect, provided always that what we say is susceptible of a different interpretation, since it is only danger to ourselves, and not offence to them, that we have to avoid. And if the danger can be avoided by any ambiguity of expression, the speaker’s cunning will meet with universal approbation (1986, 9. 2. 66-68; emphasis added). !

! For the important and insufficiently studied topic of opposition to the Medici, see 49

Brown (1994). Important also for an understanding of the unpopularity of Medici rule in Florence during the pontificates of Leo and Clement, due in large part to the arrogance of Lorenzo di Piero and the appointing of outsiders such as Goro Gheri and Silvio Passerini to run the city in their absence, is Stephens (1983, especially 81- 123). See also the sources cited in Dietz (1987, 1284).

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Here Quintilian is describing the so-called “figured problems” of classical rhetoric, and notes that, besides providing a margin of safety for the speaker, this mode of discourse also provides pleasure to the audience. He also makes the rather surprising statement that it is indeed possible to criticize a tyrant, provided one is cautious regarding the means by which this is done. In his discussion of equivocal discourse or innuendo, Demetrius of Phaleron also mentions the usefulness of this kind of discourse when addressing a tyrant: ! Frequently, however, when we are speaking to a dictator or some other violent individual and we want to censure him, we are of necessity driven to do so by innuendo.... Men often speak equivocally. If one wishes to speak like that, and also one’s censure not to sound like censure, then what Aeschines said about Telauges is a model to follow. Almost his whole account of the man leaves one puzzled as to whether he is expressing admiration for him or satirizing him.... I mention these things to draw attention to the proper way to speak to princes, and that it very much requires the circumspect manner of speech which is called innuendo.... Flattery is ugly, but censure is dangerous; that manner is best which lies between the two, namely innuendo (1961, 125-127, par. 289-294; emphasis added.)  50

! Martianus Capella cites Cicero’s First Philippic as a model of veiled speech: "The First Philippic shows the subtle argument to be used, where the leadership of Anthony is covertly [latenter] censured with wondrous subtlety, and while saying all, he seems to say nothing harshly." And Quintilian notes Cicero's "magnificent use of irony" in the Pro Ligario.

! Unfortunately, the speech of Aeschines on Telauges is no longer extant. Wright cites 50

Julian’s Second Oration to Constantius as an example of the technique of covert critique, and close analysis of the text bears out this observation.

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There were many names for this type of discourse in classical rhetorical theory— irony and innuendo being the most familiar to modern readers.  In his study of covert 51

criticism in classical rhetorical theory and practice, Frederick Ahl notes that an under-standing of innuendo (the term we shall use in this chapter) is fundamental to a proper understanding and interpretation of much of the Latin poetry written in imperial Rome, and that this rhetorical device was also part of the stock-in-trade of writers in Eastern Eu-rope living under Communism.  52

While the Roman rhetorical theorists do not go into great detail about how the technique of covert critique worked in actual practice (one stratagem, the use of meaning-ful pauses and a careful manipulation of tone of voice, is obviously unavailable to writers employing the technique), Quintilian does makes it clear that rhetorical ambiguity does not depend on "words of doubtful or double meaning," i.e. it is not lexical ambiguity, but is more subtle. He then makes the rather surprising statement that to achieve this difficult effect "the facts themselves must be allowed to excite the suspicions of the judge, and we

! In the Loeb edition of Philostratus’ Lives of the Sophists, Wilmer C. Wright defines hy51 -pothesis eschematismena or veiled argument (whose synonyms include schema, empha-sis, sermo coloratus, innuendo, suspicio, ductus contrarius, ductus obliquus, ambiguitas and silentium) in the following terms: “In such a speech the true intent should show or ‘shimmer’ through. The device may be used throughout a speech or only in certain pas-sages: for safety, when one aims at tyrants; for piquancy, or as a test, e.g. Agamemnon’s exhortation to flight in the Iliad.... It is skating on thin ice...and is distinct from eironeia and offers more of a riddle to the audience. A great orator like Demosthenes employed it as a matter of course” (1952, 570). For more on this type of argument, with citations of classical examples, see “Emphasis,” in Lausberg (1988, paragraph 906), as well as “figu-ra causae” in Shipley (1966, 239) and Montefusco (2003). For a listing of these and other rhetorical devices, with examples, see Burton (n.d.).

! Ahl also cites Leo Strauss on the use of covert means of expression by writers living 52

under totalitarian regimes: “Persecution, then, gives rise to a peculiar technique of writ-ing, and therewith to a peculiar type of literature, in which the truth about all crucial things is presented exclusively between the lines.... It has all the advantages of private communication without having its greatest disadvantage: that it reaches only the writer’s acquaintances. It has all the advantages of public communication without having its greatest disadvantage: capital punishment for the author.... Therefore an author who wishes to address only thoughtful men has but to write in such a way that only a very careful reader can detect the meaning of his book” (Strauss 1973, 25-26).

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must clear away all other points, leaving nothing save what will suggest the truth" so that "the judge will be led to seek out the secret which he would not perhaps believe if he heard it openly stated, and to believe in that which he thinks he has found out for him-self" (1986, 9.2.71; emphasis added). This is actually quite a surprising statement, since it asserts unequivocally that it is indeed possible to criticize tyrants in public, provided one is careful about how one goes about this. Offense may be given, but this is not necessarily the same as incurring the danger of the tyrant's personal retaliation. And once again, in the passage just cited, we see the pleasure of the audience as well as the safety of the speaker as one of the primary motivations for the use of this type of discourse. As Ahl points out, the practitioners of covert criticism found an especially appreciative audience in imperial Rome, where there were constraints on free speaking. When extended to the discourse as a whole, the classical rhetoricians had a very elaborate and well-detailed theory of covert argument, in which the apparent surface meaning of the speech conceals a hidden meaning running counter to what the orator ap-pears to be advocating. They called this form of argumentation—which, because of the difficulty of achieving the effect, was considered the supreme test of the orator's skill--color or ductus.  53

As we shall see, Machiavelli achieves a covert critique of the princes of his day, the Medici in particular, through precisely the techniques described by the classical rhetoricians, bringing pleasure to those of his readers aware of his subtle game. This was a game worthy of the creator of the most clever and malicious beffe in his comic master-piece, La Mandragola, and whose letters to his friends after 1512 reveal that for him, a kind of bitter and self-deprecating humor was a way to blunt the humiliations and forced inactivity of his own exile at the hands of the Medici princes. For Machiavelli, as for his classical predecessors, we see that an indirect manner of speech is called for when criticizing princes, and—this is significant for our interpreta-tion of the Prince as a form of covert critique— that this type of argument may be very difficult to detect. The reader or listener may experience a nagging sense that there is something “not quite right” with the argument being presented, that something else may be at work in the text than what the author appears to be saying. By its very subtlety, this form of argumentation creates from the outset two audiences—those “in the know,”

! For an admirably clear discussion of this type of argument, see Montefusco.53

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aware of the hidden message, or at least suspicious of its presence, and another audience which blithely continues its reading or listening, unaware of the latent argument at work beneath the surface. As we shall see, it is precisely this method of judicious arrangement of pertinent facts that Machiavelli employs in the Prince to allow a hidden critical meaning to “shimmer through” (to use the phrase of the Greek rhetoricians [Philostratus and Eu-napius 1952, 570]) the seemingly straightforward surface of his text. Quintilian also notes that the technique is psychologically powerful, since by discerning the hidden meaning themselves the listeners will tend to feel that this message is more “theirs,” since they have invested the effort in finding it out. Referring specifically to speech critical of tyrants, Quintilian writes: ! For we may speak against the tyrants in question as openly as we please without loss of effect, provided always that what we say is susceptible of a different interpretation, since it is only danger to ourselves, and not offence to them, that we have to avoid. And if the danger can be avoided by any ambiguity of expression, the speaker’s cunning will meet with universal approbation (1986, 9.2.67-68).  54

!Machiavelli’s Knowledge of Innuendo

! If one compares the instances where Machiavelli or his friends discuss the use of literary technique in his political writings with the passages in the classical rhetorical texts quoted above, it seems clear that Machiavelli had explicit knowledge of the classical rhetorical techniques of textual obfuscation. To cite only one example, Donato Giannotti notes Machiavelli’s comment that, in his Florentine Histories !

! The translation is Ahl’s (193). Discussing the prevalence of this technique in classical 54

times, Ahl remarks “Ancient rhetoricians...devoted much time and energy to what they called ‘figured problems’: how to express oneself safely, tactfully, and effectively in al-most every imaginable situation.... It is my contention that there is a long tradition of ‘figuring’ language in the interests of both tact and safety, and that this tradition reaches back beyond the documented beginnings of Greek and Roman rhetoric and forward into the Roman Empire and beyond” (1984, 174).

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Io non posso scrivere questa historia da che Cosimo prese lo Stato per insino alla morte di Lorenzo come io la scriverei se io fossi libero da tutti i rispetti; le azioni saranno vere, et non pretermetterò cosa alchuna, solamente lascierò indrieto il discorrere le cause universali delle cose; verbi gratia, io dirò gli eventi et gli casi che successero quando Cosimo prese lo stato; lascierò stare indrieto il discorrere in che modo, et con che mezzi et astutie uno pervenga a tanta altezza, et chi vorrà ancor intendere questo, noti molto bene quello ch’io farò dire ai suoi adversarii, perché quello che non vorrò dire io come da me, lo farò dire ai suo adversarii (Giannotti 1974, II, 35). ! (I cannot write this history from the time when Cosimo took over the government up to the death of Lorenzo just as I would write it if I were free from all reasons for caution. The actions will be true, and I shall not omit anything; merely I shall l leave out discussing the universal causes of the events. For instance, I shall relate the events and the circumstances that came about when Cosimo took over the government; I shall leave untouched any discussion of the way and of the means and tricks with which one attains such power; and if anyone nevertheless wants to understand Cosimo, let him observe well what I shall have his opponents say, because what I am not willing to say as coming from myself, I shall have his opponents say) (Machiavelli 1965, III, 1028). ! Gilbert remarks on Machiavelli’s “frequent orations in the Thucydidean manner,” in which criticism of a powerful individual is achieved by placing the critique in the mouth of a character other than the author, adding that such a technique “allowed Machi-

! � 42

avelli to deal with the problem of the Medici.”  Consider the passages in which 55

Demetrius describes one technique of covert criticism and Machiavelli’s remarks on Cae-sar in the Discorsi. Demetrius writes: ! Frequently, however, when we are speaking to a dictator or some other violent individual and we want to censure him, we are of necessity driven to do so by innuendo...men and women in positions of power dislike any reference to their faults...therefore, we shall not speak frankly. We should either blame others who have acted in a similar way, we may, for example, condemn the despotic severity of Phalaris when talking to Dionysius; or again we shall praise others, be it Gelon or Hiero, who have acted in the opposite way and say they were like fathers or teachers to their Sicilian subjects. As he hears these things, Dionysius is being admonished, but he is not being censured; moreover he will envy the praise bestowed on Gelon, and he will want to deserve such praise himself (1961, 125-127, par. 289-295). ! In a similar way Machiavelli pointedly observes of writers who praise Caesar: ! Né sia alcuno che s’inganni per la gloria di Cesare, sentendolo massime celebrare dagli scrittori; perché quegli che lo laudano sono corrotti dalla fortuna sua e

! One observes Machiavelli’s use of this technique in Niccolò da Uzzano’s speech in bk. 55

4, ch. 27 of the Istorie fiorentine (Gilbert 1965, III, 1027; Machiavelli 1967, 610-12). Sasso points out that this form of disguised expression of personal sentiments was also common in the diplomatic correspondence of Machiavelli’s time (1988, 196). Discussing Cicero’s De re publica, one scholar comments: “It is written in the format of a Socratic dialogue in which Scipio Africanus Minor. . .takes the role of a wise old man—a typical feature of the genre. Cicero's treatise was politically controversial: by choosing the for-mat of a philosophical dialogue he avoided naming his political adversaries directly. By employing various speakers to raise differing opinions, Cicero not only remained true to his favored skeptical method of setting opposing arguments against one another (see, e.g., Carneades), but also made it more difficult for his adversaries to take him to task on what he had written” (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_re_publica). In many cases, the format of the Renaissance dialogue served, by its apparently neutral inclusion of argu-ments from several points of view, the same purpose of concealing potentially controver-sial ideas under an apparently benign surface.

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spauriti dalla lunghezza dello imperio, il quale, reggendosi sotto quel nome, non permetteva che gli scrittori parlassono liberamente di lui. Ma chi vuole conoscere quello che gli scrittori liberi ne direbbono, vegga quello che dicono di Catilina. E tanto è piú biasimevole Cesare, quanto è piú da biasimare quello che ha fatto, che quello che ha voluto fare un male. Vegga ancora con quanta laude ei celebrano Bruto, talché, non potendo biasimare quello per la sua potenza, ei celebravano il nimico suo (Discorsi, I.10).  56

! (Let no one be fooled by the glory of Caesar, hearing him highly praised by the writers; because those who praise him were corrupted by his success and intimidated by the duration of the empire, which, legitimizing itself under his name, did not allow writers to speak freely of him. But whoever wants to know what those writers would have said about him, observe what they say about Catiline. And Caesar is just as more to be blamed as he is blameworthy who actually does, rather than wants to do, evil. And again, observe with how much praise they celebrate Brutus, seeing that, not being able to blame him because of his power, they celebrate his enemy).

! Here and throughout citations from the Discorsi are to Machiavelli (2001); translations 56

are my own.

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The similarities between these two passages suggest an explicit familiarity on the part of Machiavelli with the classical techniques of covert critique.  Both passages de57 -scribe a rhetorical strategy in which covert criticism is achieved by censuring the actions of one similar to the one we wish to covertly criticize, a method employed in Machiavel-li’s vivid evocation of the crimes of Agathocles and Oliverotto da Fermo as an oblique means of condemning the character and actions of Cesare Borgia.  Both passages also 58

note that one can achieve the same effect by bestowing praise on someone other than the person one wishes to covertly censure. We shall see that Machiavelli uses precisely this technique in Chapter VI of the Prince to blacken by implication the character of Cesare Borgia by bestowing lavish praise on those state founder heroes Theseus, Moses, and Romulus, who differ from him in every respect. Machiavelli’s remark about the corrup-tion and intimidation of those who praised Caesar could just as well be a description of the risks he later faced in writing the Florentine Histories for Pope Clement, and may

! Machiavelli might have known Demetrius’ text in the Greek edition published by Al57 -dus in Venice in 1508 as part of his series of Greek Rhetores, where the section describ-ing the figured problems is called De Interpretatione. While the question of Machiavelli’s knowledge of ancient Greek is still undecided, he might have had the help of one his friends or acquaintances in deciphering the Greek text. That Demetrius’ text was known in the circle of republican exiles in Rome is demonstrated by the fact that Piero Vettori prepared a Latin translation of the work under the title De Elocutione, on the basis of a manuscript (Parisinus graecus 1741) borrowed from the personal library of Cardinal Nic-colò Ridolfi, a staunch opponent of the Medici, and saw to its publication in 1542. A re-cent paper elucidates the close connections among exiled republican Florentine scholars in Rome, among them Vettori himself (who returned to Florence in 1537), the Gaddi brothers, Donato Giannotti, the Cardinals Niccolò Ridolfi and Giovanni Salviati, Benedetto Varchi, Bartolomeo (Baccio) Cavalcanti and Niccolò Ardinghelli. The group also included the writers Pietro Aretino and Francesco Maria Molza, both known for their anti-authoritarian attitudes (Molza composed an epigram on the assassination of Alessan-dro de’ Medici in 1537, as did Varchi), as well as Annibal Caro (the personal secretary of Giovanni Gaddi). (This information is from Mouren, 2008). Machiavelli could not have known Vettori’s translation at the time of the composition of the Prince, since Vettori was born in 1499.

! Tacitus also mentions this technique in describing the offense taken at his work by the 58

descendants of Tiberius: “You will still find those who, from a likeness of character, read the ill deeds of others as an innuendo against themselves. Even glory and virtue create their enemies: they arraign their opposites by too close a contrast” (1975: 4.33).

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also be a veiled gibe at those contemporaries of his who outdid themselves in their flat-tery of the Medici princes. At the end of the dedication of his Istorie, Machiavelli writes: “perché io giudico che sia impossibile, sanza offendere molti, descrivere le cose de’ tempi suoi” (1967, 462; I judge that it is impossible, without offending many, to describe the events of one’s own times). These would be the times from the death of Lorenzo up to and including the present times under Pope Clement—a strategic omission on Machiavelli’s part. The im-plication is that to speak openly of Florence and her loss of liberty under the Medici would risk incurring the Pope’s displeasure. When speaking to princes, some things are better left unsaid, or, if they are to be expressed, then they should be expressed through that indirect mode of discourse called innuendo.  59

!Innuendo in the Prince: The Borgia

! Here we may recall several points which are relevant to this interpretation of the Prince as covert critique of Medici rule. First, covert critique is used when addressing a tyrant, who may, because of his inherently violent nature, react negatively to any form of

! Hörnqvist notes Machiavelli’s use of Ciceronian insinuatio in his exordium, remarking 59

that the classical rhetoricians recommended two modes of discourse for insinuating one-self and one’s speech into the minds of the listeners: principium, which was open and di-rect, and insinuatio, to be employed only under special circumstances, when the speaker suspects that he is dealing with an audience hostile to his case. Hörnqvist notes that, while most evident in the dedicatory letter, use of this figure continues throughout the work. He adds that Machiavelli’s use of the figure “suggests that the feelings Machiavelli addresses towards the intended readers of the treatise, the Medici, should not be taken at face value, but instead be seen as belonging to a rhetorical strategy firmly rooted in clas-sical rhetorical theory” (2004, 30). For Machiavelli’s debt to the classical rhetorical tradi-tion, besides Viroli (1988) see Colish (1978), Cox (1997), Garver 1980, Kahn (1994), McCanles (1983), Siegel (1968), Tinkler (1988) and Hörnqvist (2004). The latter (4-13) discusses many of these recent rhetorical interpretations of the Prince.

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criticism.  Second, this may be accomplished in three ways: either by blaming the faults 60

of someone similar to the tyrant whom we wish to criticize, by praising the qualities of someone who is different from the tyrant in question, and lastly, by praising the tyrant himself for qualities he does not possess. This censure of a prince not directly, but through attributing his faults to someone else, or by praising those unlike him, is central to an understanding of Machiavelli’s description of Cesare Borgia. As we shall see, Machiavelli censures Cesare Borgia by describing the crimes of individuals similar to him, and by praising individuals unlike him, and thus uses the first two techniques de-scribed by Demetrius. Machiavelli, in his discussion of religious states, also uses the third of these devices, covert censure of a powerful individual by means of bestowing praise on that individual for precisely the virtues they lack. Building on but going beyond classical precedents, Machiavelli, in the famous seventh chapter on Cesare Borgia, also uses a technique which might be called “exem-plum inaptum,” a technique which one scholar discerns at work in Erasmus’ Panegyricus to Philip of Burgundy, the father of Charles V, celebrating his return from Spain to the

! On the homicidal touchiness of tyrants when confronted with criticism, Demetrius 60

notes: “Philip, for example, had only one good eye, and any reference to a Cyclops an-gered him, indeed any reference to eyes. Hermias, ruler of Atarneus, though in other ways gentle, found it difficult to endure any reference to knives or surgical operations, because he was a eunuch” (1961, par. 293).

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Low Countries in 1504.  This technique, while not specifically mentioned by the ancient 61

rhetoricians, allows the writer to hint at another meaning through a choice of examples which, instead of supporting his thesis, tend to subtly undermine it. In his discussion of Cesare Borgia, Machiavelli also uses another means well suit-ed to a latent critical meaning, namely the juxtaposition of morally questionable behavior (attributed to his “hero”) with the examples of true heroes, whose moral integrity is be-yond reproach. Machiavelli’s points of comparison with the present are the heroic paragons of the distant past. The contrast between Chapters VI and VII is central to Machiavelli’s characterization of Borgia. The chapter titles alone suggest that Machiavelli intends his reader to question Borgia’s morality and his fitness to rule. The title of Chap-ter VI (“De Principatibus Novis Qui Armis Propriis et Virtute Acquiruntur”) is in coun-terpoint to the title of Chapter VII (“De Principatibus Novis Qui Alienis Armis et Fortuna Acquiruntur”). “Propriis” is an inversion of “alienis;” “Virtute” contrasts with “Fortuna.”

! In this essay, Rundle argues that Erasmus’ Panegyricus is not so much praise as “subtle 61

criticism” (1998, 167). Coluccio Salutati provides a Renaissance formulation of this rhetorical device: “If praise has been devised untruthfully [de falsis], as is the case when-ever it is dressed up in panegyrics, it warns its subject that he has not been praised as much as told what he should do; it spurs on those who are praised into trying to become like the people they see themselves being praised as, even in error” (Salutati 1951, 68, cited in Rundle 1998, 155). Important to note here is the Renaissance assumption that panegyric could easily imply its opposite. Compare Susenbrotus: “Hyperbole is used when the words or ideas exceed what is believable, for the sake of amplifying or dimin-ishing...in particular, Hyperbole lies, not however because it wishes to deceive through falsehood, but that in this way we may arrive at the truth.... In short, Hyperbole asserts more than is true, and yet what is true is understood from what it false” (1621, 17). Two examples of ironic hyperbole in the Prince which might be cited here are Machiavelli’s addresses to Leo which conclude Chapters XI and XXVI, in which the exaggeratedly ele-vated tone (which is in pointed contrast to the usual concise, pointed and rapid style of the author) serves as a signal to the reader not to take the praise at face value, but to un-derstand it ironically. A delightful example of Machiavelli’s use of ironic hyperbole to mock Lorenzo il Magnifico is his Capitolo pastorale (2005, v. 3, 4-7), in which the ironi-cally-inflated tone is even more obvious than in the Prince. Although, as inevitably with Machiavelli, this work has been interpreted in an entirely opposite manner, that is, as flat-tery of Lorenzo di Piero (not il Magnifico), in an attempt on the part of Machiavelli to ingratiate himself with the newly-restored Medici regime following the restoration of 1512 (Bausi 1987).

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In these formulations Cesare Borgia’s status already seems problematic as the new prince who acquires his influence in the Romagna through the arms of another (his father) and morally repugnant means. The title of Chapter VIII (“De His Qui Per Scelera ad Principa-tum Pervenere”), in turn, continues the negative theme of the title of Chapter VII, and the title of Chapter IX (“De Principatu Civili”) then returns to the positive tone of the title of Chapter VI. As we shall see in some detail below, these chapters form a unit in which the meaning of one chapter is created in part by “strategic juxtaposition” with the chapters which come before and which follow it. Machiavelli’s creation of a kind of “cognitive dissonance” between Chapters VI and VII hinges on “great examples” of “great men” that he adduces in Chapter VI. First, the heroes of Chapter VI, who include Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, and Theseus are provided with opportunities by fortune, but it is their own abilities that allow them to achieve great things; fortune as a force in human affairs clearly takes second place. Second, these men belong to a very select group of founders of new kingdoms; in the rhetorical tradition such men were second only to men of God as worthy subjects of praise.  Third, while 62

they may use force to maintain their innovations, the text makes it clear that such force is used for the good of the people as a whole—these leaders come to be venerated by their people. In Machiavelli’s words the heroic founders of states are “truly great examples” (grandissimi esempi) who exhibit great ability (“virtù”); they are “eccellentis-simi” (most excellent) and serve as models for state-building. They are “mirabili” (truly wondrous), “felici” (blessed by fortune), and have “eccellente virtù” (great ability) that ennobles and supremely blesses the states they found. It seems clear that these founders of states are to be considered “virtuous” in both the moral and the effective senses of the word. They have seized the opportunity (occasione) that fortune provides to men of abili-ty. Machiavelli’s men of great ability and authority are almost godlike heroes who, significantly, are all liberators of their peoples: the “el populo d’Isdraele...stiavo e oppres-so. dagli Egizii” (the people of Israel, enslaved and oppressed by the Egyptians), the “e’ Persi malcontenti dello imperio de’ Medi” (the Persians discontented with the rule of the Medes), the “Ateniensi disperse” (Athenians dispersed). Clearly for Machiavelli only states founded by great men, who derive their power either from God or the desire for

! For a study of the rhetorical tradition of praise in the Italian Renaissance, see Hardison 62

(1962), Murphy (1983) and O’Malley (1979).

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freedom from oppression, can be called truly fortunate. This view squares with what we know of Machiavelli’s political convictions expressed in his other works, and it is in ac-cord with the long tradition of classical and Renaissance republican thought, which makes a clear contrast between tyrannies founded by violence for the satisfaction of the personal ambitions of the ruler over the wishes of their subjects, and free republics founded by law with the consent of the governed. The classic expression of this distinc-tion can be found in Aristotle: ! The best of these [forms of government] is monarchy, the worst timocracy. The deviation from monarchy is tyranny; for both are forms of one-man rule, but there is the greatest difference between them; the tyrant looks to his own advantage, the king to that of his subjects.... Now tyranny is the very contrary of this; the tyrant pursues his own good (Nicomachean Ethics, bk. 8, ch. 10 [Aristotle 1984, 1834; emphasis added). ! For the same reason, their [foreign kings’] guards are such as a king and not such as a tyrant would employ, that is to say, they are composed of citizens, whereas the guards of tyrants are mercenaries. For kings rule according to law over voluntary subjects, but tyrants over involuntary; and the one are guarded by their fellow- citizens, the others are guarded against them (Politics, bk. 3, ch. 13 [ibid., 2039; emphasis added]).

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The actions of Cesare Borgia as described in Chapter 7 are clearly those of a tyrant in the classical, medieval and Renaissance tradition of thought on the just ruler.  63

Moreover, it was commonplace among Florentine republican writers to refer to the Medici as tyrants who had usurped the ancient freedom of the Florentine citizens.  64

The title of Chapter VII “De Principatibus Novis Qui Alienis Armis et Fortuna Ac-quiruntur” points up the contrast with the founder-heroes of Chapter VI. The men de-scribed at the beginning of Chapter VII “solamente per fortuna diventano di private prin-cipi” (become princes from private citizens solely through fortune) and “con poca fatica

! As Mattingly eloquently puts it: “Machiavelli deliberately addressed himself primarily 63

to princes who have newly acquired their principalities and do not owe them either to in-heritance or to the free choice of their countrymen. The short and ugly word for this kind of prince is ‘tyrant.’ Machiavelli never quite uses the word except in illustrations from classical antiquity, but he seems to delight in dancing all around it until even the dullest of his readers could not mistake his meaning” (1958, 486). There is evidence that Renais-sance readers were aware of Machiavelli’s implied comparison of the Medici rulers to both Cesare Borgia and to the classical tyrants. Bausi notes that Machiavelli’s Capitolo pastorale (mentioned above in n. 25) explicitly compares Lorenzo di Piero “not only to the Roman tyrant [Caesar]...but also to a ‘Cesar duca’ closer to his times—Cesare Borgia, to whom his contemporaries where already accustomed to compare the Duke of Urbino” (1987, 201-202). Ludovico Alamanni, in his Discorso...sopra il fermare lo stato di Firenze nella devozione de’ Medici of 1516 feels it necessary to remark “potendo ...[Lorenzo]...rendersi pare ad qualunche delli antichi et de’ moderni, vorrà più presto gios-trare con Cesare et Camillo che con lo impio Agathocle, col crudelissimi Sylla et con lo scelerato Liverocto da Fermo,” words which suggest that he may have been aware of Machiavelli’s allusive denigration of Lorenzo in his implied comparison of the Duke to the classical and contemporary tyrants, and that this view of the Medici ruler was well-enough known to need refutation (cited in Cummings 90, 212 n. 14). For a concise dis-cussion of classical, medieval and Renaissance thought on the tyrant, see Hörnqvist (2004, 198-204).

! For example, Donato Giannotti (1974; cited in text above); Alamanno Rinuccini, De 64

libertate; and Girolamo Savonarola, Trattato sul governo di Firenze (the former translat-ed in its entirety in Watkins 1978, the latter in part). Benedetto Varchi’s account in his Storia fiorentina of Alessandro de’ Medici’s 1535 “trial” before Charles V in Naples (1963, v.2, 444-455), in which Varchi has Jacopo Nardi compare Alessandro to the worst of the classical tyrants, could also be read as an oblique critique of the Medici ruler of his day, Cosimo, which might explain in part why his history was not published until 1740, and then in Germany under a fictitious imprint.

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diventano, ma con assai si mantengano” (become [princes] with ease but maintain them-selves with difficulty). The reference to the two routes of ascent, one easy and one diffi-cult, recalls classical and Christian conventions regarding the easy road to vice, from which one is eventually cast down, and the hard road to virtue, which leads to lasting happiness. Even on the level of language, Machiavelli makes this contrast clear: the lofty eulogistic tone of Chapter VI gives way in Chapter VII to “coloro”–not “great men,” but merely “those” (a deliberate echo of the pejorative Latin isti/tales) who fall into an anonymous group of those to whom “è concesso uno stato...o per danari o per grazia di chi lo concede” (a state is conceded either for money or out of the generosity of the one who concedes it). The specific names of great men are replaced by those anonymous individuals who do not earn their states through individual effort and talent, but rather purchase them or passively rely on the generosity of others: “come intervenne a molti in Grecia, nelle città di Ionio e di Ellesponto, dove furono fatti principi da Dario” (as happened to many in Greece, in the cities of Ionia and the Hellespont, where they were made princes by Darius). Once again, the words “as happened to many” serve to underline the common-place anonymity of these petty princelings. Here, it Machiavelli may be alluding to the warring princes of 16th century Italy, whose narrow focus on their own prestige and power (aided and abetted by the involvement of foreign powers in the regional conflicts within Italy), at the expense of any concern for the good of their states as a whole, had profoundly negative consequences for the quality of civic life in Italy during the first decades of the 16th century. And to ensure that his readers do not miss the point, he adds one more detail to the detriment of this class of rulers, referring to: “quelli imperatori che, di privati, per cor-ruzione de’ soldati, pervenivano allo imperio” (those emperors who from private station, through the corruption of the soldiers, came to supreme power).  65

In the short space of less than a paragraph, Machiavelli has impugned the subjects of this chapter for corruption, and for a reliance on the favor of others rather than on their own merit. All this would seem perfectly appropriate if Machiavelli were making the ar-gument that those who gain their kingdoms through fortune or the arms of others are infe-rior to those who win power through merit and divine favor, but this is the chapter that introduces Cesare Borgia as the supposed paragon of the new prince. It is hard to escape

! This latter is surely an oblique reference to Cesare Borgia.65

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the conclusion, even at this early point in the chapter, that Machiavelli must have some-thing else in mind than praise, or even approval, of Cesare Borgia and his father Alexan-der VI. Moving on to his discussion of Cesare Borgia, Machiavelli makes it clear that of the two ways of becoming a prince, through ability or fortune, Francesco Sforza repre-sents the former and Cesare Borgia the latter: ! Francesco, per li debiti mezzi e con una gran virtú, di privato diventò duca di Milano.... Dall’altra parte Cesare Borgia, chiamato dal vulgo duca Valentino, acquistò lo stato con la fortuna del padre, e con quella lo perdé. ! (Francesco, by the appropriate means and with great ability, from private station became Duke of Milan.... On the other hand, Cesare Borgia, called by the common people Valentino, acquired the state through the fortune of his father, and through that he lost it). ! Sforza’s great virtue, the difficulty with which he acquires his state and the ease with which he holds it recall the state-founder heroes of the preceding chapter. Borgia ac-quires his state by fortune, not ability, and it is not even his own fortune, but that of his father, and then he loses it. Second, Machiavelli remarks that this is what “the crowd” calls him. That the common people refer to him without a title seems a subtly diminishing touch. Even when Machiavelli goes on to commend Borgia’s ability in “laying founda-tions for future power” (aveva il duca gittati assai buoni fondamenti alla potenzia sua) it is clear that the founding of the state itself did not come through his own ability, but rather through the efforts of his father. Having thus begun this chapter with an accumulation of small but significantly negative details concerning new princes who acquire their states through the arms of oth-ers, Machiavelli expands on this depreciating opening. In the next paragraph he writes: “Alessandro sesto, nel voler fare grande el duca suo figliuolo, . . .” (Alexander VI, wanti-ng to make his son the duke great), words which suggest that we should see Cesare Bor-gia, not as a talented leader, but as one who does not owe the favor he enjoys to his own abilities, but rather relies on the favor of others. The following paragraphs make clear that

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unlike the rulers of the previous chapter who found and hold states for the benefit of the citizens, Cesare Borgia uses ruthless means to advance his own interests. Keeping in mind Machiavelli’s use of “strategic juxtaposition” and curiously inap-propriate examples to signal to the reader the presence of a hidden message in the text, let us now consider how he uses suggestive language to achieve a similar effect.  66

In the section of Chapter VII where the deeds of Alexander VI are introduced, this technique does not immediately strike the reader. Instead Machiavelli relies on a gradual accumulation of words whose tone or coloring begins to seem strangely at odds with the surface meaning of the text. According to Machiavelli, the Pope arranges it so that “si turbassino quelli ordini” (the status quo was disrupted) and makes it possible to “disor-dinare” (throw into chaos) their states so that he may make himself ruler (“insignorire”) of their possessions. Continuing to catalogue the Pope’s actions, Machiavelli notes that he was respon-sible for facilitating the invasion of Italy by the French (“passò adunque il re in Italia con lo aiuto de’ Viniziani e consenso di Alessandro”). It is in this way that Valentino acquires the Romagna: not only with the arms of another, but with an occupying army of foreign-ers. Once again, Machiavelli relies on a careful choice of words to make his point: the Duke oversees the “expugnazione di Faenza” (the conquest of Faenza) and “assaltò” (as-saulted) Tuscany. The following section describes Cesare Borgia’s “snuffing out” (spense) of the Orsini, before passing from military aggression to Borgia’s use of fraud and a passing reference to the slaughter of his opponents at Sinigallia, an event famous in Machiavelli’s own time for its cruelty and treacherousness. And then we arrive at the famous passage on the slaughter of Borgia’s minister, Ramiro de Lorqua. Machiavelli introduces it with the marvelously bland phrase, “e, per-ché questa parte è degna di notizia, e da essere imitata da altri, non la voglio lasciare in-dietro” (and, because this part is worthy of notice, and to be imitated by others, I do not wish to leave it out). The matter-of-factness of this phrase recalls similar passages in Tac-

! While we have not been able to find these two techniques, “exemplum inaptum” and 66

“strategic juxtaposition” explicitly mentioned in the classical rhetorical treatises, their use is evident in Julian’s Second Oration to Constantius, a masterful demonstration of the in-credible subtlety and complexity of this technique when extended to the discourse as a whole and raised to the level of an art form in itself.

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itus in which a passage describing a horrific deed is introduced by a seemingly innocuous statement of fact. Readers familiar with Tacitus would have anticipated, with a mixture of dread and anticipation, the conclusion of this passage with the graphic description of some horrible deed. And indeed, after continuing with the same tone of ironic under-statement and bland objectivity: ! Costui [de Lorqua] in poco tempo la ridusse pacifica et unita, con grandissima reputazione. Di poi iudicò el duca non essere necessario sí eccessiva autorità, perché dubitava non divenissi odiosa.... E, perché conosceva le rigorosità passate averli generato qualche odio. . . . ! (in a short time he made it peaceful and unified, to great acclaim. And then the duke judged such excessive authority not to be necessary, because he feared it might become hateful...and, because he knew that the past rigors had generated a certain amount of hatred towards him) !suddenly, we are presented with the the bloody conclusion: “E, presa sopra questo occa-sione, lo fece mettere una mattina, a Cesena, in dua pezzi in sulla piazza, con uno pezzo di legno et uno coltello sanguinoso a canto” (and, seizing his chance, he had him placed one morning in Cesena in two pieces in the piazza, with a piece of wood and a bloody knife alongside him). Machiavelli’s description of the “purgation” of the souls of the people by this crime is a brilliant euphemism, reminiscent of similar phrases in Tacitus, in which horrendous deeds are described in an almost off-hand and casual manner. Perhaps the most celebrated of all these tacitismi is the famous phrase with which Tacitus intro-duces his account of the reign of Tiberius: primum facinus novi principatus (“the first crime of the new principate”). If we admit that Borgia’s deed may indeed be a sterling example of the exercise of a certain kind of power, is it really necessary or even possible to suspend our moral qualms in the wake of Machiavelli’s Tacitean operation? Or is the very brutality of Bor-

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gia’s actions precisely the point?  Machiavelli ostensibly presents the murder of Borgia’s 67

minister as an exemplum of his efficacy in “laying excellent foundations for his power,” knowing as well as his readers that the foundations failed. He describes Borgia’s acquisi-tions in central Italy as “winnings”: the words “acquisto” or “acquistare” recur very fre-quently in this chapter, as does the word “spegnere.” Violent words are used to describe the means by which Borgia acquires his power: “spegnere” (to snuff out), “disperse” (scattered), “spogliare” (to despoil), “ammazzare” (slaughter), words better used to describe a mercenary adventurer than the founder of a state. For his part, the Bor-gia pope “disrupts the status quo” and’ “throws into chaos” the states of Italy; based on cunning and personal ambition, his actions resemble those of Dante’s “seminatori di dis-cordia” who dishonored the Christian faithful (Inferno 27). Besides this careful use of language, in the section which follows Machiavelli’s strategic juxtaposition contrasts the founders of states of the preceding chapter, who seize the opportunities offered them by a benevolent fortune, with Cesare Borgia , who finds himself on the defensive against fortune’s blows: ! Ma Alessandro morí dopo cinque anni che elli [Cesare] aveva cominciato a trarre fuora la spade...E lui mi disse, ne’ dí che fu creato Iulio secondo, che aveva pensato a ciò che potessi nascere morendo el padre, et a tutto aveva trovato rimedio, eccetto che non pensò mai, in su la sua morte, di stare ancora lui per morire ! (But Alexander died five years after he had begun to draw the sword...and he said to me, on the day Julius II was made Pope, that he had thought of everything which might happen upon the death of his father, and had found a remedy for

! See for example Paolo Giovio: “[Cesare Borgia] mise le mani sanguinose a Baroni del67 -la fattione, et famiglia Orsina. Et prima fece crudelmente morire Vitellozzo, da lui odiato per il suo grande animo et valore” ([Cesare Borgia] laid bloody hands on the barons of the Orsini faction and family. And first he had Vitellozzo cruelly put to death, whom he hated for his great spirit and valor” (cited in Machiavelli 1981, 35). For a full description of the crime, see Machiavelli’s Descrizione del modo tenuto dal Duca Valentino nello ammazzare Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, il Signore Pagolo, e il Duca di Grav-ina Orsini, (Machiavelli 1967, 785-91).

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everything, except that he never thought that at his death, he himself might be on the point of death). ! Not only are the means by which Cesare Borgia achieves power morally repug-nant, but for all his efforts, he still fails in the end. In a kind of negative symmetry with the preceding chapter, Borgia receives power from a mortal man, instead of benign for-tune, and must worry about it being taken from him, rather than trusting in the favor of his people. But the fact that tyrannies, in contrast to states founded upon just principles, ultimately perish is simply a corollary of the old classical idea that the best defense of a ruler is the love of his subjects, iustitia fundamentum regni. The contrast with the proceeding chapter is also made clear in the means by which Borgia must hold onto his power: instead of through the favor of God, his own ability and the esteem of his people, he must “slaughter the lords he had despoiled” (de’ signori spogliati ne ammazzò quanti ne possa aggiungere), win over the Roman nobles” (e’ gen-tili uomini romani si aveva guadagnati) and “secure for himself the College as much as he could” (e nel Collegio aveva grandissima parte), presumably through bribery.  This 68

final note of corruption and nepotism would have registered particularly forcefully with those Italians who had been subject to the brutalities of the occupying Spaniards, the mil-itary adventurism of Cesare Borgia, and the political ambitions of Pope Alexander; the

! This was also similar to Pope Leo’s method of packing the College of Cardinals with 68

men favorable to Medici interests, and demanding cash contributions from some of those he favored in this way (Hibbert 1980, 235).

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fact that Alexander was Spanish would only have increased this effect.  Instead of the 69

just rule based on the esteem of the citizens of Chapter VI, we have in this chapter a des-

! Compare Mattingly on contemporary reactions to the character and actions of Cesare 69

Borgia: “A Medici [Giuliano] was being advised to emulate a foreigner, a Spaniard, a bastard, convicted, in the court of public opinion anyway, of fratricide, incest and a long role of abominable crimes, a man specially hated in Tuscany for treachery and extortion and for the gross misconduct of his troops on neutral Florentine soil, and a man, to boot, who as a prince had been a notorious and spectacular failure” (1958, 487). One of the great virtues of Mattingly’s article is his taking into account contemporary reactions to the actions of the personages described by Machiavelli. Regarding the Borgias’ notoriety in late 1400 and early 1500s Italy, one might add that Julius II issued a bull in January of 1506, which, according to one scholar, “although it was not retrospective, Julius II’s bull concerning simony in papal elections was motivated in large part by the unabashed use of bribes by Julius' archrival and predecessor, the Borgia Pope Alexander VI, in the con-clave of 1492. On the last leaf it is ordered that this bull be posted on the doors of Old St. Peter's Basilica, the Vatican chancery, and Campo de Fiori.” Here we might emphasize once again that, in our view, modern interpreters of Machiavelli have tended to overlook contemporary historical evidence (that is, how the events and personages described by Machiavelli were actually experienced by individuals of the time) in constructing their interpretations of the text.

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perate grabbing of power by violent or corrupt means for selfish ends, which in any case ends in failure.  70

The Medici Connection !

We see this use of meaningful juxtaposition in Chapter VIII as well. Here Machi-avelli further darkens his portrait of Cesare Borgia through an implied comparison of his behavior with the unequivocally evil actions of not one, but two tyrants, one ancient and

! An important and often-overlooked source for contemporary accounts of the reactions 70

of contemporaries to the deeds of Borgia and his father are the so-called fogli volanti or chapbooks, sold by traveling vendors, who often doubled as entertainers, in the cities and small towns of Italy. These vendors were important in conveying to the less-wealthy classes important news of the day and contemporary events, such as the goings on at the Papal court, the war against the Turks, Martin Luther’s attacks on the Catholic church, and the miraculous prodigies of nature found in the New World, and also included among their wares popular stories, farmer’s almanacs, religious poetry, and adaptations of the “high literature” of the day, such as Ariosto’s Orlando furioso or Boiardo’s Orlando in-namorato. Clough was perhaps the first to draw attention to these effemeral productions as an important source to a fuller understanding of the history of the period, across all so-cial classes. Garnett has also drawn attention to the importance of these opuscoli, and cites an example with direct relevance to Cesare Borgia, Pastor’s discussion of the hatred ordinary people felt for the Duke, expressed in anonymous poems and pasquinate (Robert Garnett, "Contemporary Poems on Caesar Borgia", EHR 1 (1886), 138-41). Pas-tor cites an anonymous pamphlet in the form of a letter to Silvio Savelli, a baron exiled from Rome living at the court of Maximilian I, dated November 15, 1501, ostensibly from the Spanish camp at Tarento, which excoriates the Duke and his father in no uncer-tain terms, calling the former “this beast…a new Mahomet…[who] far surpasses the old one in the havoc he causes in what remains of faith and religion by his filthy crimes.” The letter also characterizes Borgia’s father, the Pope, as “an abyss of vice, a subverter of all justice, human or divine” (Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. VI, 113-4, citing Johann Burchard, Diarium III, 182-7, which prints the letter in its entirety). The citation of Clough is “Pamphlets and Propaganda in the Italian Wars, 1494-1512,” Renaissance and Reformation, vol. 3.3. (1987), 12-16, available online at http://jps.library.utoronto.ca/in-dex.php/renref/issue/view/1065jps. For the Italian fogli volanti, see Giovanni Cinelli Calvoli, Biblioteca volante di Gio: Cinelli Calvoli, continuata dal dottor Dionigi Andrea Sancassani (Venice: G. Albrizzi, 1734-47), available online at http://cata-log.hathitrust.org/Record/001169774 and Raymund Wilhelm, Italienische Flugschriften des Cinquecento (1500-1550) : Gattungsgeschichte und Sprachgeschichte (Tübingen : M. Niemeyer, 1996).

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one contemporary: Agathocles, tyrant of Syracuse and Oliverotto da Fermo, tyrant of Fermo. The association of the crimes of Oliverotto with the actions of Cesare Borgia comes with a reference to the liberty and servitude of a city: “ma, parendoli cosa servile lo stare con altri, pensò, con lo aiuto di alcuni cittadini di Fermo, a’ quali era piú cara la servitú che la libertá della loro patria, e con il favore vitellesco, di occupare Fermo” (but, seeming to him to be a servile thing to live with others, he thought, with the help of some citizens of Fermo, to whom the slavery of their city was more dear than its liberty, and with the help of Vitelli, to occupy Fermo; emphasis added). This latter reference to the betrayal of a city by its citizens, leading to its forceful occupation, closely recalls historical descriptions of the coup d’etat which returned the Medici to power in the fall of 1512, in which, according to some historians, they received the clandestine support of Medici supporters within the city. These would be the citizens of Florence to whom, like those of Fermo, the “slavery of their city was more dear than its liberty” (a’ quali era piú cara la servitù che la libertà della loro patria). In addition, the description of a powerful pope promoting the territorial ambitions of a relative with the assistance of foreign troops would be an appropriate analogue to the similar behaviour of the Medici in their strategy of a gradual acquisition of a territorial state in central Italy, with Florence as its base. Specifically, Pope Leo X and Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici’s triumph over the Florentine republic in 1512 came on the heels of the brutal sack of Prato, an event which made a profound impression on the minds of Machi-avelli’s contemporaries.  71

Machiavelli’s mention of Oliverotto’s besieging of the magistracy in the palace, and the fear it caused (“montò Oliverotto a cavallo, e corse la terra, et assediò nel palazzo el supremo magistrato; tanto che per paura furono constretti obbedirlo e fermare uno governo, del quale si fece principe”), might also be a reference to the besieging of Piero Soderini in the Palazzo della Signoria, his surrender and flight during the Medici seizure of the state following the sack of Prato in 1512. The shortness of Oliverotto’s rule (“in

! For the sack of Prato, see Guicciardini (1969, Book 11, 262-3). Michelangelo, in a let71 -ter to his father of October of November 1512 comments: “Del chaso de’ Medici, io non ó mai parlato contra di loro chosa nessuna, se non in quel modo che s’è parlato general-mente per ogn’uomo, come fu del caso di Prato; che se le pietre avessin saputo parlare, n’arebbono parlato” (1965, vol. 1, 139; Regarding the Medici, I have never spoken any-thing against them, except generally as everyone has spoken, as in the case of Prato; which, if the stones had heard about it, they would have spoken).

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spazio d’uno anno che tenne el principato”) also recalls the shortness of Borgia’s (“la Romagna l’aspettò più d’uno mese” [ch. VII]), a very short period of time, especially considering the tremendous effort which went into constructing his state. We may go farther to suppose that Machiavelli’s discussion of Cesare Borgia’s taking of the Romagna with the aid of Pope Alexander may also be an allusion to the Medici, in this case Leo’s determination to acquire territory for his family in northern Italy. As Najemy notes: “Leo’s real objective was the acquisition of a territorial state, and Florence and its finances and institutions were merely a base from which to pursue more grandiose ends” (2008, 429). According to Hibbert, Leo intended to “form central Italy into a single strong state by uniting the duchies of Ferrara and Urbino, and by joining to them the cities of Parma, Modena and Piacenza” (1980, 219). In early 1515, Najemy con-tinues, “it was rumored that Leo planned to give these territories [Modena, Reggio, Par-ma, and Piacenza] to Lorenzo and, if the French expelled Spain from southern Italy, to install Giuliano on the Neapolitan throne” (ibid., 430). Such ambitions led to Leo’s even-tual acquisition of Reggio and Modena from the Emperor and to the short but arduous war against Urbino, culminating with the expulsion of the city’s lord, Duke Francesco Maria della Rovere, and Lorenzo’s triumphal entry into the city in May of 1515. In this regard, it also seems possible that Machiavelli’s reference to the “slight ha-tred” (qualche odio) felt by the people of the Romagna for the Borgia might be a veiled allusion to the ill-will, among large sectors of the Florentine populace, provoked by Lorenzo’s conquest of Urbino in the spring of 1515. The Pope’s plans to attack Urbino were opposed by Giuliano, who was grateful to the Duke for his hospitality to him during his exile in that city. The expulsion of the Duke from Urbino cost the Florentines a great deal of money, aroused lasting resentment, and may have even contributed to the death of Lorenzo himself, who had been wounded in battle during the campaign. Less than a year later, the city was recovered by della Rovere with the assistance of Spanish troops.  72

! For the unpopularity in Florence of Lorenzo di Piero’s conquest of Urbino, we might 72

cite the anecdote reported by Butters to the effect that, unable to bear the sight of the tri-umphal celebration of the event in the streets and public squares of Florence, a spectacle which also signalled, in a very public way, their own exclusion from any meaningful par-ticipation in Florentine political life, many of the ottimati withdrew in mute protest to their villas in the hills.

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Similarly, just as Cesare Borgia’s acquisition of Valence came about through the marriage dispensation of the Pope, so Leo was rumored to be plotting the acquisition of cities for members of his family. As Najemy, cited above, has pointed out, at precisely this time, it was widely rumored that Leo was contemplating installing Giuliano on the Neapolitan throne and Lorenzo as Governor of the Romagna. Borgia’s aggressive mili-tarism in central Italy may thus allude to similar conduct on the part of his implied ana-logue, Lorenzo, a man also relying on the power of a close relative, and also thoroughly consumed with dreams of territorial domination and conquest in the service of personal ambition.  73

In point of fact, the period during which Machiavelli wrote the Prince—1513-1514 with some additions perhaps as late as 1515—corresponds exactly to the time of the machinations of Pope Leo and his nephew Lorenzo di Piero. If one accepts that Machi-avelli intended the reader to draw these parallels, then much of what he says about Borgia may be applied as well to Lorenzo. While Francesco Sforza acquires Milan through great ability and with great difficulty (“per li debiti mezzi e con una gran virtú. . .con mille af-fanni”) and holds his state with ease, Valentino/Lorenzo acquire their states not only with

! The sack of Prato would have immediately called to mind of Machiavelli’s contempo73 -raries the equally brutal sack of the Tuscan city of Volterra by in 1472, occasioned by the recent discovery of alum mines in the vicinity of the city and the resistance of the res-idents to Lorenzo de’ Medici’s demands that they deed them over to him. In the assault, which occurred after the residents of the city had agreed to terms of surrender, dozens of unarmed citizens were killed. For contemporary reactions to the sack, expressed in po-ems, letters, elegies and laments by supporters of the Medici and their opponents, see the study, with original documents, of Lodovico Frati, Il sacco di Volterra nel 1472: Poesie storiche contemporanee e commento inedito di Biagio Lisci volterrano tratto dal codice vaticano-urbinate 1202 (Bologna: Frati, 1886). Those opposed to the sack (Lorenzo ig-nored the advice of Soderini that he exercise restraint in dealing with the situation) con-sidered it an egregious example of the violent intrusion of the Medici into the internal af-fairs of the city, motivated solely by the desire for personal gain. Given that the sack of Volterra occurred not long before the composition of the Prince and the Medici reoccupa-tion of Florence, it seems likely that, just as with his allusion to Lorenzo’s intervention in the affairs of Forlì and Faenza, discussed below, here also, in his vivid description of the murder of Oliverotto da Fermo and his opponents, Machiavelli may be making a similar use of recent Florentine history as a referent external to the text against which the text is intended to be understood.

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the assistance of their relations (rather than through the exercise of their own virtù), but also through their relations’ fortuna: a doubly weak foundation for power, as noted above. Going further back into Medici family history, it also seems possible that, in his vivid description of the slaughter of Oliverotto da Fermo and Remirro de Lorqua, Machi-avelli was alluding to the double homicide in 1488 of the lords of Forlì and Faenza, Giro-lamo Riario and Galeotto Manfredi.  These events allowed Lorenzo il Magnifico to re74 -assert Florentine influence over northern Italy. Riario had been one of the instigators of the Pazzi Conspiracy. The cold-blooded and treacherous murder of Manfredi occurred in the private space of his bedroom, and was instigated and carried out by one close to him (his wife). These details are very reminiscent of Machiavelli’s presentation of Oliverotto da Fermo’s murder of his enemies (among them his uncle), as well as his description of Cesare Borgia’s slaughter of de Lorqua. If this is the case, it would be another example of Machiavelli’s use of recent historical events as referents against which events within the text are to be understood, just as his vivid portrait of the classical tyrant Agathocles is in-tended, within the text, as a referent against which the character and actions of Borgia himself are to be understood. The description of the murders of the republican leaders of Fermo is perhaps, in its vividness and brevity, the single most memorable passage in the entire Prince, and, in its unforgettable evocation of a truly appalling treacherousness and cold-bloodedness in very few words, is worthy of any such passage in the works of Tacitus. As a final touch, Machiavelli has Oliverotto, as he is preparing to murder his uncle and the citizens of Fermo, lull them into a false sense of security by discoursing on the "greatness" of Pope Alexander and his son, Cesare Borgia, and their marvelous deeds ("parlando della grandezza di papa Alessandro e di Cesare suo figliuolo, e delle imprese loro"). This last phrase is clearly one of those subtle hints to the reader, discussed above, which imply that once again, in case the reader has missed it up to this point, the real understood object of the critique of Oliverotto is actually Cesare Borgia and his father; the treacherousness and murderous cunning of Oliverotto is thus also that of Cesare, that supposed "paragon" of the princely leader, worthy of imitation by the Renaissance prince.

! For an account of the assassinations, see Pellegrini (1999) and Eisenbichler (2001). 74

Machiavelli’s account of the incident is to be found in Bk. 8, Ch. 35 of the Istorie fioren-tine.

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And indeed, in perhaps an even greater stroke of genius, Machiavelli makes this implied comparison between Oliverotto and Borgia even more apparent by noting dryly: "And his elimination would have been as difficult as that of Agathocles, had he not let himself be fooled by Cesare Borgia, when at Sinigallia, as remarked above, he took the Orsini and the Vitelli; where, captured himself, one year after the parricide, he was to-gether with Vitellozzo, his master in ability and evil deeds, strangled." Oliverotto, a mas-ter in crime and treachery, a slayer of his own people, whose classical analogue is the vi-cious tyrant of Syracuse, also a murderer of his people, is himself mastered by the crimes of one greater than he. Machiavelli, who was at Sinigallia at the time of the murders as Florentine legate, described the event in his Il modo che tenne il duca Valentino per am-

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mazzare Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, il. Signore Paolo, e il duca di Gravina as "in tutto rara e memorabile."  75

This last is a wonderful example, typical of Machiavelli, of the darkly dry presen-tation of a horrendous deed, another example of which we noted above in reference to Machiavelli's description of Borgia's murder of his minister Ramiro de Lorqua, an act blandly described there by Machiavelli as "worthy of notice" ("degna di notizia"). These wonderfully ironic touches are the exact equivalent of the manipulation of tone of voice

! Remarking on Tacitus’s use of innuendo to convey a message at variance with what his 75

text appears to be saying, Irving Kristol remarks: “It is rare that he made a statement of fact about Tiberius without also making a more or less gross insinuation. Thus, we read: ‘About the same time a serious illness of Julia Augustus made it necessary for the Em-peror [Tiberius] to hasten his return to the capital, the harmony between mother and son being still genuine, or their hatred concealed.’ Usually he was more subtle than this and there are many occasions when we have to read him very closely indeed to perceive that he has in fact denied what one thought he had said. But it is not at all difficult for a dili-gent scholar, by snipping off the ‘facts’ from the ‘value judgments,’ to compose a new mosaic which is very different from the Tacitean original. To be sure, there remain the corpses, the murdered and mutilated and self-destroyed. These the scholar may dispose of, first, by counting them to demonstrate that their sum was less than astronomical, then by allowing for exaggeration, and finally by turning his attention to the Pax Romana, the efficient imperial administration, and all those other glorious things that make up History.” This comment recalls our discussion above of the necessity of careful “reading between the lines” in attempting to discern Machiavelli’s message in the Prince, and also, in our view, applies equally well to what we consider the tendency of modern interpreters of Machiavelli to remove his text from its historical context—in particular, the reactions of his contemporaries to the personages and events he describes—in constructing their interpretations of the text, a tendency also noted by Mattingly, cited above. This decon-textualization has led in turn to various preconceptions about the nature of the work, e.g., the work seen as a work of “political science” in the modern, “objective” sense of the term, a reading which tends to preclude any possibility of an insertion of Machiavelli’s personal political preoccupations into the text, whether in a direct or a veiled way, or the equally influential misconception of the work as presenting an essentially “value-neutral,” view of political action, effectively excluding moral issues from serious consid-eration in any discussion of political affairs, a view of the text which has been cited by may autocrats over the years as justification for their actions. As we note below, this is perhaps the most damaging misconception of the text, and one to which Mattingly, cited above, strenuously objected.

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recommended by the classical rhetoricians as a means of hinting at a hidden critical mes-sage, as noted above. Such overweening familial ambitions, described above in reference to Leo's plans for Lorenzo, put a severe strain on the city's treasury (as did the equally unpopular poli-cies of Clement in the 1520s) and were widely unpopular in contemporary Florence, since they placed the city's finances at the service of one individual's personal ambitions. Nothing could have made Medici rule in the city more odious to the Florentine popolo minuto and popolo grasso, for whom the mercantile traditions of thrift, individual initia-tive taken for the good of the city as a whole, and respect for the laws and institutions of civil government, were still very much a part of their recent historical memory. This plundering of the city's treasury for the ruler's personal use is exactly the kind of behavior Machiavelli advised the new prince to avoid when he counseled him, in his famous lines, not to touch his subjects' property: "The prince ought nevertheless make himself feared in such a way that, if he doesn't obtain love, he avoids hatred. . .which he will always do, if he abstains from the possessions of his citizens and his subjects and their women. . .but, above all, abstains from their possessions, because men forget more quickly the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony" (Ch. XVII). It is worth noting here that the mention of "taking the goods and women of one's subjects" is, in the classical tradition, the locus classicus of the behavior of a tyrant, and that the word "pat-rimony" may be a deliberate echo of the word "patria," with all its republican associa-tions. This is the historical background, we suggest, against which Machiavelli's portrait of Cesare Borgia was intended to be read. The period of the writing of the Prince—from 1513 to perhaps as late as 1515—corresponds exactly with the actions of Pope Leo and Lorenzo di Piero discussed above. Hence, in our view, not only is Cesare Borgia covertly censured in Machiavelli's work, but the Medici as well, since their continuation of a poli-cy of personal ambition, abetted by the use of bribery and, when necessary, violence, in the service of familial aggrandizement (for which the Borgia had been notorious), had

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serious consequences for both the political and the financial health of Machiavelli's Flo-rence.  76

This indirect means of commenting on a present-day situation through description of a similar, though different one, if it is indeed present here, is very similar to one of the techniques of innuendo as described by the classical rhetoricians noted above, in which the faults of a ruler are censured indirectly by means of criticism of the similar faults of another figure. It is also one of the classical techniques, used by both ancient and Renais-sance historians, by which authors could achieve criticism of current events by describing similar, but safely distant, historical circumstances, a technique employed by Machiavelli himself in his Florentine Histories, as noted above. If a similar rhetorical figure is present here, all the deeds attributed to Alexander and Cesare Borgia—personal self-aggrandize-ment achieved by means of horrific violence, cunning and bribery—may be taken as im-plied criticism of the Medici princes. The Prince is, then, doubly allusive, since Machiavelli's description of Cesare Borgia is intended to refer not just to those classical tyrants depicted by the author, but also, by extension, to the Medici family itself, the Medici Pope, and their Spanish sup-porters. From the foregoing analysis, the inescapable conclusion is that Machiavelli cannot have intended Cesare Borgia to illustrate the viability of princely rule, but rather exactly the opposite; by making his "exhibit A" not only morally bankrupt but also, by the terms of the Prince itself, weak and defenseless against fortune (being dependent upon others and not having the love of the citizens), he seems to be inviting the reader to question the viability of princely rule itself (at least as practiced in Italy in the first decades of the six-teenth century). Even if one does not accept our thesis that Machiavelli intended to raise

! John Najemy has also pointed out the inappropriateness of Machiavelli’s choice of Ce76 -sare Borgia as a supposed model for the new prince, relying, unlike this essay, on histori-cal details of the Duke’s career which are at variance with the ostensible argument Machiavelli seems to be making (“Machiavelli and Cesare Borgia: A Reconsideration of Chapter 7 of the Prince,” The Review of Politics 75, 4 (2013), 539-556. For a recent “ironic” reading of the Prince which makes an argument congruent to the one presented here, see Erica Benner, Machiavelli’s Prince: A New Reading (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). Many of the rhetorical techniques Benner lists on pages which she claims Machiavelli used to create a covert, ironic message in his treatise are ones which we have noted in the course of this essay: Benner also adds

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such questions, the accumulation of anomalies, both historical and textual, in this chapter, of small details which don’t quite fit, together with the undeniable contrast of the actions and character of Cesare Borgia with the state founder heroes of Chapter VI (and the simi-larities with the villains of Chapter VIII), must, in our view, at least raise the possibility of a reading of Cesare Borgia’s, and, by extension, Alexander VI’s actions and policies, as anything but examples worthy of imitation by the Renaissance prince. If one grants that in the subtle ways described above Machiavelli intends to cast doubt on the character of Cesare Borgia, and the validity of his conduct as a model of ideal princely behavior, to be imitated by the Renaissance prince, then one must ask to what end he does this. We would suggest that, by undermining his "case study" of prince-ly behavior, Machiavelli intends the reader to draw the opposite conclusion from that to which the text ostensibly seems to be pointing; that, far from being worthy of imitation, Cesare Borgia’s actions are both morally questionable and doomed in any event to fail-ure. Unlike the laudable actions of the state founder heroes of chapter VI, the use of vio-lent and deceptive means for personal self-aggrandizement in the end accomplishes noth-ing, except perhaps a legacy of suffering for those subjected to these actions. In terms of history, not only are these victories short-lived, but their legacy is one of infamy; here, one is reminded of Machiavelli’s call to virtue on the part of Italy’s lead-ers in Chapter 10 of Book 1 of the Discorsi: ! Among all the men who are praised, the most highly praised are those who have been heads and founders of religions. Then next, those who founded either republics or kingdoms. After these, those are famous who, placed at the head of armies, have enlarged either their kingdom or that of their fatherland. . . .On the other hand, infamous and detestable are the destroyers of religions, wasters of kingdoms and republics, enemies of virtue, letters and every other art which brings utility and honor to the human race, such as are the impious, the violent, the ignorant, the unambitious, the idle, those of no account. . . .And yet almost all men, deluded by a false good and false glory, let themselves fall into the ranks of those who merit more blame than praise; and, able to their everlasting honor to create a republic or a kingdom, turn themselves to tyranny, nor do they realize, by so doing, how much fame, how much glory, how much honor, security and quiet

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with satisfaction of the soul they lose, and into what infamy, vituperation, blame, danger and anxiety they run. ! Here we might remark that the phrase "infamous and detestable are the destroyers of religions, wasters of kingdoms and republics, enemies of virtue, letters and every other art which brings utility and honor to the human race, such as are the impious, the violent" is an exact description of the deeds of Cesare Borgia and Pope Alexander as portrayed by Machiavelli in Chapter VII of the Prince, in which violence is used against the states of Italy to assure the tyrannical Borgia in their power. The phrase "wasters of kingdoms and republics" ("dissipatori de' regni e delle republiche") even echoes the phrase "it was nec-essary to throw into disorder those forms of rule, and create chaos in their states" ("era necessario si turbassino quelli ordini, e disordinare li stati di coloro") with which Machi-avelli summed up the actions of Alexander in establishing Cesare Borgia in his rule over the Romagna. Seen in this light, far from being an amoral investigation of the workings of power, the Prince is a profoundly moral work which decries the political state of the Italy of Machiavelli’s time, characterized as it is by secular leaders of the stamp of Cesare Borgia, ecclesiastical ones, as the Popes, or regal ones, as the kings of France and Spain, men all motivated, at least as far as Italy is concerned, by a lust for personal gain rather than the good of their subjects. This leads us back to Nifo's rewriting of the Prince cited at the be-ginning of this chapter, since, for Nifo, the word "prince" in a Renaissance context is real-ly a code word for "tyrant," since those princes he cites avail themselves of methods and have ends which form a clear contrast to the legitimate rule of hereditary or elected kings, or of popular republics. If Machiavelli’s political critique by innuendo, juxtaposition, and allusion is indi-rect and subtle, his representation of Hiero of Syracuse at the end of Chapter VI as a model leader is unambiguous. The acquisition of his state is extremely difficult, but, once acquired, it is easy to maintain. While Hiero receives his opportunity from Fortune, it is his own ability to make use of it that distinguishes him as a just and capable ruler. In this respect, he resembles the state-founder heroes described at the beginning of the chapter (Moses, Theseus, Cyrus and Romulus), all liberators of their peoples who took all appro-priate measures to maintain the forms of government they had introduced. Hiero also finds his people oppressed, which justifies any strong measures he may take. His rule,

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unlike that of Borgia and his Florentine analogue, also comes about from a free and un-forced election by his people. This gives it durable authority, since, in Renaissance political thought, the only justification for absolute rule is that it come about either through inheritance, or through the free election of the people. Any other form of absolute rule is tyrannical or borders on tyranny. Equally important, Hiero relies on his own soldiers, rather than on foreign mer-cenaries, a tenet central to Machiavelli’s concept of a free and viable republican state.  77

And finally, Hiero and leaders like him come to be held in veneration by their people, and they remain powerful, secure, honored, and blessed (“potenti, securi, onorati, felici”). If the views expressed here can be taken to reflect Machiavelli’s political beliefs, they are an example of the numerous places in the text where he subtly and skillfully manages to incorporate republican sentiments from his other writings, particularly the Discorsi, into the pages of the Prince. Reversing Machiavelli’s observations about Hiero, one arrives a description of the tyranny of Cesare Borgia and of the Medici as well: they obtain their states with ease (Borgia from his father, and Lorenzo from his uncle), but (or so Machiavelli might hope), have great difficulty holding them; they find their people not oppressed, but free, and then proceed to try to oppress them; their rule is established not through an election, but by violence and deceit; they rely not on troops drawn from a broad section of the Floren-tine populace, and thus highly motivated to defend her freedom courageously, rather em-ploy foreign mercenaries to intimidate the native population.  78

! We noted above that the Medici reoccupation of Florence could never have been 77

achieved without the assistance of Spanish troops, and the brutal sack of Prato, intended to send a message to the terrified Florentines within the city that any resistance to the will of the Pope and his Spanish allies was useless.

! For an eloquent (and darkly comic) discussion of the odiousness of Medici rule in Flo78 -rence under Clement, and the disarming of the Florentine citizens, see Varchi (1963, vol. 2, bk. 12, ch. 49-50 and bk. 14, ch. 1). On the tyrant’s need to defend himself against his own citizens, Aristotle remarks: “Both [the oligarch and the tyrant] mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms” (Politics, bk. 5 [1984, 2081]). See also Najemy (2008, 429-30, 435) for Lorenzo’s unprecedented creation of his own private army in Flo-rence in January 1515, and ibid. 426-34 for a concise account of the consolidation of Medici power in Florence in the hands of Lorenzo.

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And, in what may be yet another pointed jab against the Medici, Hiero—although powerful—does not actually have or require a kingdom. To make this point, Machiavelli cites the famous paradox with which Justinian had described Hiero’s rule: “ut nihil ei regium deesse, praeter regnum videretur” (so that he seemed to lack nothing of kingship but a kingdom), given even more concise expression in Tacitus’ famous motto at the ex-pense of Galba: “capax imperii, nisi imperasset” (capable of ruling, had he not ruled). Machiavelli’s ironic use of this phrase here to make a veiled allusion to Medici rule once again reflects Tacitus’ similar procedure in the latter’s critique of the absolute rulers of his day, although Machiavelli’s irony is much more deeply buried than that of his Roman predecessor, since it relies on the reader to catch allusions which are not apparent in the text.  79

In alluding to a powerful individual who could have had absolute power but chose to give it up for the good of the state, Machiavelli may be referring to an individual from contemporary Florentine history. In his The Natures of Florentine Men, Machiavelli writes of Antonio Giacomini: ! Era Antonio...severo nel servare la maestà pubblica, e quello che è mirabile e raro, liberalissimo del suo ed astinentissimo da quel d’altri. Ne quando era al governo di un esercito o di una provincia, voleva dai suoi subbietti altro che la ubbidienza, nè de’ disubbidienti aveva alcuna pietà. Privato, era senza parte e senza ambizione alcuna; quando pubblico, era solo desideroso della gloria della città e laude sua (1843, 231). ! (Antonio was...strict in keeping the dignity of the government and— something that is admirable and unusual—he was very liberal with his own property and altogether refrained from that of others. Not even when he was in control of an army or a province did he ask his subjects other than obedience, yet on the

! Machiavelli makes a similar comment regarding Hiero in comparing his rule to that of 79

Persius of Macedon in the dedication of the Discorsi to his friend Zanobi Buondelmonti, adding the following pointed allusion to Medici rule in Florence: “Perché gl’uomini, volendo giudicare dirittamente, hanno a stimare quelli che sono, non quelli che possono essere liberali; e così quelli che sanno, non quelli che sanza sapere possono governare uno regno” (1967, 125-6). I thank Professor Albert Ascoli for this reference.

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disobedient he had no mercy. He was, in private life, without partisan feeling and without any ambition; when in public life, he was eager only for the glory of the city and for his own reputation) (trans. in Gilbert 1965, 3, 1436-8). ! Machiavelli’s description resembles a similar austere discipline of moral rectitude and self-sacrifice in service of the state which characterizes Cicero’s portrait of the ideal republican leader and finds its most vivid expression in the person of Cato the Elder. Once again, we may note the allusive nature of Machiavelli’s text and his reliance on his readers’ familiarity with not just the Roman model he is imitating, but also with the views expressed in his other writings, particularly the Discorsi, as well as classical, medieval and Renaissance discussions of the just, as opposed to the tyrannical, ruler.  The implica80 -tions of this for the newly reestablished Medici rulers in Florence is left for his readers to discern. Here again, as in his description of the character and deeds of Cesare Borgia, the Medici, like the Borgia before them, are covertly censured for their continuation of a pol-icy of personal ambition, abetted by the use of bribery, and, when necessary, violence in

! In yet another irony, Hiero was himself a tyrant, notorious in classical antiquity for the 80

efficacious, but brutal, means employed by him to secure himself in power, perhaps the best-known example of which was his destruction of troops he feared might become dis-loyal to him by directing them into an ambush, where they were summarily slaughtered by the enemy. In view of the extremely subtle manipulations of irony on the part of Machiavelli we have been discussing, it seems possible that his choice of Hiero as exem-plum might represent yet another example of his use of an historical referent external to the text against which the full meaning of this particular passage is created, in a way sim-ilar to his allusive use of Agathocles, Cesare Borgia, and Oliverotto da Fermo as histori-cal referents which allude to the character and actions of their Florentine equivalents. If this is the case, here we observe Machiavelli the ironist at his most playful: while using the exemplum of Hiero as a means to allusively indict, because of the close similarities between them, the character and behaviour of Cesare Borgia and, by extension, his con-temporary analogue, Lorenzo di Piero, by according Hiero any praise at all, he seems to be implying at the same time that the behaviour of Hiero’s Italian analogues is even worse than that of their classical predecessor. If this is the case, a similar irony is to be found in Machiavelli’s citation of Francesco Sforza, similarly notorious as a tyrant in Re-naissance Italy, as a supposed model of virtù is his discussion of Cesare Borgia in Chap-ter 7. If this northern Italian tyrant is “virtuous” in comparison with his Spanish equiva-lent, what does this say about the latter?

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the service of familial aggrandizement.  In Machiavelli’s use of the techniques of innu81 -endo taken from the classical rhetorical tradition, the Prince is doubly allusive in its cun-ning association of the Borgia and the Medici with one another and with censuring exem-pla of the ancients.

!The Virtuous Prince

! A reading of Machiavelli’s text as a veiled critique of Medici rule, achieved in part by an allusive use of classical sources, can be extended to the rest of the text. In closing, we will briefly consider two examples: one intertextual and one the famously controver-sial closing chapter of the treatise. One of the ironies of Machiavelli’s discussion of the ethical behavior of the new prince is that it derives in large part from Cicero’s treatment in the De Officiis of allow-able deviation from ethical norms on the part of the leader of a free state, as Colish has pointed out: ! The principal dimension that is present in the De Officiis and which Machiavelli deliberately omits from the Prince is the dimension of civic virtue.... His omission of the topos of civic virtue from the Prince therefore can be seen as an ironic comment on princes in general and the Medici in particular. It is certainly an omission which contemporary readers, steeped as they were in Cicero’s De Officiis, were bound to notice (1978, 92). ! According to Colish, while obsessed with the theme of civic virtue in the Discorsi and the Florentine Histories, “Machiavelli [unlike Cicero] has difficulty envisioning such an organic moral relation between the ruler and the ruled in a principality. More precisely, he has difficulty envisioning it in the case of the Medici ruler for whom the Prince was

! As an additional example of Leo’s use of bribery to achieve personal ends, we might 81

cite the suggestion of his secretary, Bernardo Dovizi, to Cardinal Francesco Soderini of the possibility of a marriage between Lorenzo and one of Soderini’s relatives. This helped secure Soderini’s support in the conclave of March 1513 which elected Leo Pope (Hib-bert, 1980, 217). See also Leo’s packing of the College of Cardinals with men sympathet-ic to the Medici cause, discussed above.

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intended” (ibid.). Cicero’s (already pointed) subordination of the Stoic honestum to the utile, in which the good of the state as a whole is the only justification for a deviation from conventional moral norms, is reduced even further by Machiavelli to an elevation of the utile as an end unto itself, whose only purpose is the preservation of the personal power of the ruler. So Machiavelli’s “counsel” in these chapters involves a wholesale abandonment of the ethical norms traditionally associated with the preservation of a free state. Machiavelli’s discussion here is also derived from those chapters in Aristotle’s Poli-tics where the philosopher describes the means by which a tyrant can secure himself in power (Bk. 5, Chs. 10-12 [1984, 2080-2090]). A comparison of parallel passages from the two works makes this abundantly clear.  82

In addition, Machiavelli’s discussion in these chapters of the use of force by the new prince is also derived from an important classical discussion of the circumstances under which force may be adopted. The classical sources make a clear distinction be-tween violence rightly used in the defense of a free state, and the inappropriate use of vi-olence on the part of the tyrant. In his description of Romulus in Book II of his De republica, Cicero provides a description of the “legitimate” use of forceful means by the leader of a free state, since it was Romulus’ physical boldness and strength of spirit which allowed him to undertake the war against King Amulius of Alba Longa which led to the founding of Rome: ! What State’s origin is so famous or well known to all men as the foundation of this city by Romulus? He was the son of Mars, . . .and after his birth they say that Amulius, the Alban king, fearing the overthrow of his own royal power, ordered

! For Machiavelli’s use of Aristotle’s advice to the tyrant in the Prince, see Hörnqvist (2004, 82

205-08) and 204 n. 31 (where he cites Walker’s list of citations from Aristotle in the Discorsi [Machiavelli 1950]) and, especially, Procacci 1965, pt. 1, ch. 3, who cites numerous readers of the 1500s who discerned the close affinities between Aristotle’s discussion of the tyrant and the Prince. It is worth noting that Savonarola’s veiled critique of Lorenzo il Magnifico in his Tratta-to sul governo di Firenze (II, 2 [1999: 53-61]) is derived almost entirely from the same chapters in Aristotle, in particular, the philosopher’s discussion of the “wise tyrant,” who eschews the more brutal tactics of his more familiar cousin to secure the people’s favor. An example of Savonarola’s borrowings from the Politics is his presentation of Lorenzo as keeping the citizens of Florence busy with the building of elaborate churches, an echo of Aristotle’s discussion of the building of the pyramids of Egypt in the Politics, Bk. 5, ch. 11 (1984, 2085). For an English translation of a selection from the treatise, see Watkins (1978, 231-260).

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him, with his brother Remus, to be exposed on the banks of the Tiber. There he was suckled by a wild beast from the forest, and was rescued by shepherds, who brought him up to the life and labours of the countryside. And when he grew up, we are told, he was so far superior to his companions in bodily strength and boldness of spirit that all who then lived in the rural district where our city now stands were willing and glad to be ruled by him (II.2.4). ! Cicero also makes it clear (although he cautions about its potential for abuse) that the rule of one individual can be of benefit to the state, provided that there are institution-al checks on this individual’s power, and he is of upstanding moral character: ! And since Numa Pompilius had the reputation of being pre-eminent in these qualities, the people themselves, by the advice of the Fathers, passed over their own citizens and chose a foreigner as their king, inviting this man a Sabine of Cures, to come to Rome and rule over them. . . .Thus [by his encouragement of the productive use of the land] he implanted in them a love for peace and tranquillity, which enable justice and good faith to flourish most easily, and under whose protection the cultivation of the land and the enjoyment of its products are most secure. . .and by the introduction of religious ceremonial, through laws which still remain on our records, he quenched the people’s ardour for the warlike life to which they had been accustomed (II.xiv.26-7). !

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Cicero’s discussion here of the “interregnum, ” by which outsiders to the city are invited to rule temporarily until a permanent ruler has been elected, is clearly the classical precedent for the later medieval Italian practice of the podestà.  83

Once again, as in the case of Moses, Theseus, and Cyrus’ use of force to maintain their civic institutions in Chapter VI, we see the crucial importance of specifying by whom and to what ends such means are employed. In the hands of a founder or a defend-er of a free state they are legitimate; in the hands of a tyrant, such as Borgia or his Medici analogs, illegitimate. In Machiavelli’s political thought, a leader committed to the health and survival of a free republic must be willing, on occasion, to resort to force if absolute-ly necessary to defend something as precious and hard-won as civic liberty and the laws and institutions of a free state. To understand Machiavelli’s meaning here, it is, in our view, crucial to recognize this distinction between “legitimate” use of force and the ruth-less and self-serving use of force by the tyrant, epitomized by Agathocles, Borgia, Oliv-

! While many scholars have investigated the classical origins of Machiavelli’s political 83

thought, insufficient attention, in our view, has been given to the potential role played by Cicero’s De re publica in the formation and articulation of Machiavelli’s political theory. There is virtually no aspect of Machiavelli’s political thought which cannot be found, clearly and concisely expressed, in the pages of Cicero. While Cicero’s work, in its en-tirety, was unknown in 15th and 16th century Italy (the “complete,” though fragmentary, text was discovered in manuscript in the Vatican Library by Cardinal Angelo Mai in 1819, the only substantial portion known before that date being the famous Somnium Sci-pionis, an excerpt from the final Book 6 of the text, well known in the Middle Ages through Macrobius’s commentary), excerpts from other portions of the work were to be found from the late classical period onward in authors such as Augustine and Nonius Marcellus. While controversial, we would hazard to speculate that Machiavelli may have been familiar with Cicero’s text in some form (perhaps an epitome, supplemented by the fragments mentioned above) in formulating his own discussion of the benefits and weak-nesses of absolute rulers and republican forms of government. If this is so, then Cicero’s discussion would have provided Machiavelli with the idea of writing a pair of treatises, one on republics (the Discorsi), and the other on forms of absolute rule (the Prince).

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erotto da Fermo, the Duke of Athens, Castruccio Castracani, and, finally, Lorenzo him-self, the implied analog of Cesare Borgia, as noted above.  84

Those who wish to maintain themselves in a state of freedom must, at times, be willing to avail themselves of means ordinarily used by tyrants to defend their states, something which, in Machiavelli’s view, was tragically lacking in the regime of Soderini, characterized by the kind of naiveté regarding the intentions of others which he also cen-sures in his description of the ingenuousness of the Orsini and Vitelli in his Il modo che tenne. This lack of an ability to take full account of the lengths to which others were will-ing to go in using force and fraud to secure their designs led to the tragic restoration of the Medici to power in 1512 following the brutal sack of Prato. Machiavelli’s unsenti-mental insistence of the necessity of the use of force to secure the hard-won freedoms of a free state finds its best-known expression in his characterization of Savonarola as an “unarmed prophet,” just as Soderini’s tragic irresoluteness in this regard finds its most humorous expression in Machiavelli’s famous epithet at the Chancellor’s expense, to the effect that, arriving at Hell’s gate, the Chancellor is summarily relegated by the infernal judge to Limbo to live with the babies.

! One might object that Machiavelli’s Dispatches present a neutral, or even positive, 84

view of Cesare Borgia, but a close examination of the text reveals that they also present a negative portrait of the Duke’s abilities and steadily declining fortunes, in which an inex-plicable failure of those very qualities which make him such a fearsome and formidable figure in the pages of the Prince—his diabolical cunning and propensity to violence—be-comes a serious liability after his loss of Imola, leading to his eventual ruin. The great irony of the Dispatches is that it is Valentino, renowned for his duplicity and cunning, who is deceived by the false promises of both Pope Julius and the Florentine Signoria it-self, making him, just as in the Prince, doubly dependent on the good will and dispensa-tions of another, and thus extremely vulnerable to the vagaries of Fortune. He fails to ap-preciate the one essential fact which might have led him to be wary of the false promises of his enemies: they both hate him, and thus cannot be trusted to deal with him in good faith. He forgets perhaps the most important maxim from the Prince, which forms the conclusion to the very chapter which purports to hold him up as an example for imitation: one should never trust men of great spirit whom one has injured: “E chi crede che ne’ personaggi grandi i benefici nuovi facciano dimenticare le iugiurie vecchie, s’inganna” (Il principe Ch. 7). Hence the fox-like cunning which characterizes the Duke in the pages of the Prince thus fails him in the Dispatches at the most crucial moment.

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Machiavelli’s famous dictum regarding “force rightly used” is, then, rather than a shocking violation of moral norms, simply an implied allusion to this important classical discussion regarding its legitimate use in defense of a free republic, as opposed to its morally unjustifiable use on the part of the tyrant, as described by the classical historians. Seen in this light, a reading of the Prince as the “first work of political science,” in the sense of laying out the necessary if unpleasant rules by which Machiavelli’s world actually worked, may actually be reconciled with a reading of the text which interprets it as a covert criticism of Medici power. In a world beset by tyrants, it is sometimes, regret-tably, necessary to play by their rules, if one is to defend the civic freedoms one holds dear. It was precisely this realism regarding the way the Renaissance world worked which endeared Machiavelli’s text to those of its Renaissance readers able to decipher its hidden republican message. We cited just such an appreciation for Machiavelli’s clear-eyed view of the world, unobscured by the self-glorifying justifications and obfuscations of contemporary rulers, in the case of Chancellor Bacon cited by Diderot above, for whom Machiavelli’s text served the lovers of freedom in understanding the ways of tyrants and the means necessary to defend themselves against them. This was also the purpose of the text according to its first Florentine editor, as we have noted. Agostino Nifo, in his description of just kingly rule, also seems to have read Machiavelli’s text in this light, as discussed above, well before its first publication in 1532. This means that a reading of Machiavelli’s text as describing, or advocating, the use of brutal but necessary means in the world of politics as applicable to the political world in general, and thus as presenting an “amoral” view of power, is a fundamental misunderstanding of the text, based on an inability to perceive the author’s allusions to those texts just discussed which make a crucial distinction between legitimate or illegiti-mate use of force. Those who are forced to resort to such means to defend their freedom are not to be censured, nor are they immoral; it is the tyrant, who uses such means for his own personal aggrandizement at the expense of the governed, who deserves censure. But this simply leads back to Cicero’s De officiis cited at the beginning of this essay in his discussion of allowable deviation from ethical norms in the governance of a state. We would also suggest that the final chapter of the treatise is also meant to be tak-en ironically. Machiavelli hints at this by reintroducing at the beginning of the chapter the examples of truly just leaders from Chapter VI, whose behavior was described there in

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order to form a contrast with the behaviour of the classical and Renaissance tyrants in the following chapters. The very means which Machiavelli goes on to recommend that Leo adopt—nuovi ordini and arme proprie—are those that appear in his other writings as essential to the maintenance of a free republican Florence. Colish has argued that Machiavelli’s discus-sion of an Italian army is an allusion to his project for a civilian militia (1998). Moreover, the very foreigners against whom Machiavelli urges Leo to take up arms are the same ones who form Leo’s main source of support in maintaining Medici rule over Florence: the Spanish. While in the chapters on the ethics of the new prince, then, Machiavelli is discreetly urging the Medici to behave as tyrants, here, in a delicious twist, he is urging them to adopt republican means to remove the basis for this tyranny, an action which can only lead to their demise. The tone of the final exhortation to Leo is also a signal to the reader not to take its meaning at face value. In its exaggeratedly elevated tone (standing in pointed contrast to the rapid and concise expository tone of the passage on the Italian army), it is an excel-lent example of the familiar Renaissance technique of ironic hyperbole.  As Mattingly 85

pointed out years ago, the final citation of Petrarch’s poem would then indeed be a coded call for the Florentines to resume their ancient liberty. As Mattingly reminded us, “The antique valor Petrarch appealed to was, after all, that of republican Rome” (491). !

Conclusion !

From this study it has hopefully become apparent that the art of equivocation was a highly developed skill in Renaissance Europe, useful to writers critical of those in pow-er, yet mindful of the consequences of too-free speech, and that it was especially impor-tant at a time in European history when those in power were seeking to control the means of expression as a way of stifling dissent and consolidating their power. The Index of the Counter-Reformation is only the most notorious of these examples. Writers imbued with the traditions of republicanism, or by nature of independent mind and spirit, would not be silenced, yet they were also well-aware of the consequences of a too-frank expression of

! Many critics have noted the elevated tone of the final “Exhortatio,” although many 85

might not agree that this tone is meant ironically. For a very perceptive discussion of the “Exhortatio” and Machiavelli as rhetorician, see Jaeckel (1996).

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their beliefs. Outspokenness could, and often did, mean exile or death. For these individ-uals, a mode of discourse, sanctioned by classical rhetorical theory and practice, and dis-cussed in contemporary manuals of rhetoric, which allowed a writer to communicate crit-ical sentiments without speaking directly, provided a natural solution to the problem of self-expression in an age of absolutism. In his discussion of the position in which Donato Giannotti, the former secretary of the Ten, whose career—as gifted political theorist, man of letters, and exile--closely parallels that of Machiavelli--found himself, constrained to curry favor with powerful prelates and patrons after his exile from Florence following the second Medici restoration of 1530, Randolph Starn has given us an eloquent account of the situation in which many Renaissance intellectuals of independent mind and spirit found themselves in an increas-ingly absolutist political culture, intolerant of dissent, as the 16th century in Italy pro-gressed. Starn cites a letter of 1541 of Giannotti to Piero Vettori, in which the former Sec-retary writes: ! “Go on then, rejoice and triumph, and turn your thoughts now and then to us other poor wretches, here in Rome amidst these priests, sponging our daily bread and pathetic handouts (“confetti”), keeping our noggins (“zucca”) uncovered and making bows and similar other pleasant things.” !Yet what choice, Starn asks, did Giannotti and his other fellow republicans have? "Horsù e' ci bisogna bere con questo fiasco”: “So be it, then: we must drink our cup of gall.” ! Starn concludes: “There is something of the protest and final resignation of a generation of Florentines in exile in these lines. Wanting nothing more than to return to a republican Florence, the fuorusciti were cast instead into the courts of Italy and beyond the Alps. A few were fortunate to find refuge in Venice, but for the exile whose chief resource was the pen, the only real alternative was whether his patron would be a prince or a prelate. He might hold out for a time; he could dream of Florence, scheme, and lament his lost liberty. But personal necessity and the drift of Italian culture, ever more courtly and clerical, combined to render the acceptance of a patron inescapable. . . .But when the Florentine citizen and former

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secretary of the Florentine republic was reduced to living off the liberality of his cardinal, it marked the passing of an age.”  86

! Just as Giannotti, Machiavelli, found himself constrained to curry favor with the Medici rulers of Florence soon after their restoration to power in 1512. Unwilling to choose the safer, but perhaps less honorable, route of silence and self-censorship (a phe-nomenon known among scholars of religious discourse of the period as “nicodemismo”), his displacement from the centers of power in Florence found its outlet and its most pow-erful expression in the coded message against the Medici lords who had displaced him in the pages of the work often—ironically—considered his most “objective” or unbiased, or as a celebration of Medici power. But the fact that many readers over the ages have missed this message is perhaps testimony to his skill in practicing this difficult art. It is also possible that Machivelli’s family history might have played a role in his writing such a text. Catharine Atkinson, in her study of the diary of Machiavelli's father Bernardo, notes that Machiavelli's family (Guelphs descended from the popolani grassi, as opposed to the noble magnati), had a long history of opposition to the Medici, includ-ing a certain Girolamo d'Angelo Machiavelli (1415-1460), a second cousin of Bernardo, Machiavelli's father, and a teacher of law at the University of Florence. Girolamo, a prominent political figure in the 1450's, and an outspoken critic of Cosimo de' Medici's politics, was arrested in 1458, tortured and exiled to Avignon, arrested again in 1460, tak-en prisoner and thrown into prison in Florence, after plans for a conspiracy initiated by him had become known. He died in prison shortly thereafter.  Atkinson claims that it 87

was in part the memory of Girolamo's experience which led Bernardo Machiavelli ("no sympathiser of the Medici-based regime") to choose not to practice his profession of law, fearing that it might put him on a collision course with the Medici regime. On his mother's side, Machiavelli's mother (née Bartolomea Nelli) had married into the Benizi (or Benizzi) family, who were involved in the anti-Medici revolts of 1434 and 1458, and two of whose members were declared rebels in 1460 and, along with an-

! Donato Giannotti and his Epistolae: Biblioteca Universitaria Alessandrina, Rome, Ms. 86

107, ed. Randolph Starn (Geneva: Droz, 1968).

! Catherine Atkinson, Debts, Dowries, Donkeys: The Diary of Niccolò Machiavelli's Fa87 -ther, Messer Bernardo, in Quattrocento Florence (New York: Peter Lang, 2002),

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other Benizi, exiled to Avignon. Other members of the family had already been exiled in 1434, with the return of the Medici to Florence. Seen in this light, Machiavelli's encoding a message critical of princes in a work dedicated to princes may have been a way to salvage in some measure his family honor, to not leave entirely unsaid what his father had been unable, or unwilling, to say. For dis-cerning readers, at least, the unspoken reason behind his own, his father's and his fellow

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citizens' travails would be decipherable, namely the tyrannical nature of Medici rule over his native city.  88

!!! What is especially fascinating in reference to the notion of Machiavelli as the secret 88

enemy of princes is that the famous portrait of the author by Santi di Tito also contains a message of precisely this sort: his left hand clutches a glove which appears to be two daggers, a reference to the two daggers used by the conspirators against Caesar; he is garbed in red and white, the traditional symbol of resistance to absolute rule, later adopt-ed for this purpose by anarchist groups (see, for example, Stendahl’s Le rouge et le noir); his right hand rests upon a book, presumably the Prince, as if to say “Here is my weapon” (here we might recall the famous anecdote that Machiavelli, being turned away from the Medici palace after having attempted to give his work to the Medici princes as if he were a servant, muttered to himself, “And yet, my work will avenge me,” an anecdote considered by some scholars (cited by Connell) to represent historical reality). The latter interpretation of the hidden meaning of Machiavelli’s placing his right hand on his book is confirmed by a similar pose, perhaps modeled on Tito’s portrait, which served as the frontispiece of books printed by the Venetian printer Comin da Trino (a native of the small town of Montferrat (Monsferratus) in the region of Piedmont (interesting enough, the place of publication of an extremely rare late cinquecento translation of Machiavelli’s Prince into Latin) and responsible in the mid-cinquecento for the publication of several other controversial works, including Luigi Alamanni’s Girone Il Cortese, dedicated by the author, one of the conspirators against Giulio de’ Medici in the Boscoli plot of 1522, to Louis II of France), where Brutus places his right hand on a book in precisely the same manner as in Tito’s portrait, and looks off to his right in a determined manner, as if to swear upon this book an oath of vengeance. In da Trino’s frontispiece, the figure of Bru-tus is surrounded by the motto “Invidiam placare paras, virtute relicta,” a reference to Ho-race’s ode to those engaged in useless leisure, as if to say “Enough of this useless inactiv-ity, now prepare yourselves to act, having left virtue (i.e. your moral scruples regarding tyrannicide) behind.” And indeed, only three years after the publication of this book, Siena rose in revolt against Medici rule. In the frontispiece just mentioned, the figure of Brutus looks off to the right, perhaps a reference to the impending location of the conflict between France and the Empire, west of Venice. According to the webpage of one book-seller, Comin da Trino “fu tipografo originario di Trino del quale non si conosce il cog-nome. Fu uno dei tipografi più attivi di Venezia alla metà del XVI s. e stampò per un gran numero di editori; nel primo periodo della sua attività ebbe problemi con la giutizia per la stampa di testi eterodossi; morì in Venezia senza lasciare eredi.” (For the Boscoli plot, see Najemy 440-1).

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Bruto lettore ! And finally, the classical rhetorical theorists emphasize that, in addition to provid-ing for the speaker's safety and for reasons of decorum, there is a third reason for employ-ing the technique of covert criticism: that of pleasing and delighting the audience. A read-ing of the Prince which sees it as covert criticism of the Renaissance prince squares com-pletely with our understanding of Machiavelli as a master "beffatore," familiar to us from the pages of the Mandragola and in his private letters. The inclusion of a message critical of princes in a work addressed to a prince would have brought a smile to the face of him-self and his republican friends as the ultimate inganno. In the face of the overwhelming power of the Medici family, the last laugh would be that of their republican opponents, the thieves of Florentine liberty being themselves deprived of their legitimacy, "stripped

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bare" (in the words of the Italian jurist Alberico Gentili) and exposed to the gaze of the suffering nations, "l'ingannatore ingannato.”  89

We noted at the beginning of this essay the wide circulation of manuscripts of the Prince well before its first publication in 1532, a fact which tends to suggest that it was eagerly read by those Florentines caught up in the turbulent internal politics of the city

! Gentili writes: "He [Machiavelli] was a eulogist of democracy, and its most spirited 89

champion. Born, educated and attaining to honors under a democratic form of govern-ment, he was the supreme foe of tyranny[. . .]It was not his purpose to instruct the tyrant, but by revealing his secret counsels [arcanis eius palam factis], to strip him bare, and ex-pose him to the suffering nations[. . .]This is the reason why princes of that type object to the survival and publication of his works. The purpose of this shrewdest of men was to instruct the nations under pretext of instructing the prince, and he adopted this pretext that there might be some hope that he would be tolerated as an educator and teacher by those who held the tiller of government" (De legationibus libri tres, London, 1585, Book 3, Ch. 9). The translation is that of Gordon L. Laing, vol. 2 of the Oxford University Press edition cited below, 156, cited in Donaldson, 89. Donaldson, in Chapter 3 of the same book gives other examples of early readers of the Prince who saw a hidden anti-tyrannical message in the text. Gentili (1552-1608) was professor of law at Oxford, born on January 14, 1552 in the small town of Castello di San Ginesio in the Marches near Ancona, whose father Matteo had studied with a student of Pietro Pompanazzi, Simone Porta, at Pisa, and whose family had been forced to flee Italy after Alberico and his father were condemned by the Inquisition in 1579. (Introduction by Ernest Nys to the reprint of the 1594 edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1924), vol. 1, 13a-15a). Connell notes that the title page of a first edition of the Prince, bound together with the Discours-es, and said to have belonged to Queen Elizabeth I of England, now in the Princeton Uni-versity Library, bears, in Latin, the note "This author was the enemy of tyrants" (Connell 25-26).

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immediately following the Medici restoration of 1512.  It seems to us possible that at 90

least some of these early readers of the text, with direct and recent experience of the re-turn of the Medici to power, and the extinction of the republican regime, may have under-stood the hidden critique of Medici power which, we have argued, is present in the text. The anecdote recounted by Cardinal Pole cited above would tend to suggest that this au-dience may have been larger than scholars have up until now been aware. Certainly the political circumstances in Europe as a whole during this period were such as to create an environment in which such modes of discourse--which allowed for the expression of critical ideas while maintaining a margin of safety--would have been

! For a study of early manuscripts of the Prince, see Richardson (2007, 164-7). Richard90 -son notes the wide circulation of the work in manuscript among the elites in Florence, in-cluding the Guicciardini family, immediately after its completion, who were eager to read the work in the political context of the recent restoration of the Medici to power, a fact which suggests that these readers, in a way similar to those Florentines on the street men-tioned by Cardinal Pole may have read the work as containing a veiled political commen-tary on contemporary events. Richardson also notes the wide circulation of the text in manuscript outside of Florence soon after its completion, including a manuscript now in Germany prepared by a team of Venetian scribes as a working copy for an early edition of the text which was never published, an edition, which, had it been published, would have predated the first edition of 1532 by almost fifteen years.

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very appealing.  There remains to be written a history of ambiguous expression in Re91 -naissance Europe’s secular writings to accompany the already excellent discussions of strategic obfuscation in the religious discourse of the period.  But before such a history 92

can be written, modern readers will have to adjust their "horizon of expectations" to allow for the presence of such texts, which currently fall outside our inherited reading habits, which, in general, assume that what a writer says is generally what he means. Deliberate ambiguity in Renaissance Europe was not only a device to insure the writer’s safety--by guaranteeing what we would call today "plausible deniability"--it was also considered a high art, worthy of praise and imitation for its own sake, because of the intrinsic difficul-ty of achieving the effect.  93

A reading of the Prince which sees it as a covert criticism of Renaissance princes also accords with the widespread use of various forms of encoded or equivocal expres-

! Schellhase, in his book on Tacitus in Renaissance political thought, mentions the need 91

participants in the discussions of the Orti Oricellari felt for careful discretion in dis-cussing political matters in Medicean Florence: “A similar strict attention to the event it-self and to the avoidance of politically relevant personal comment is characteristic of the whole History of Florence.... Perhaps, too, he [Machiavelli] did not proceed beyond this date [1492] because he would not have had free rein to speak his mind on contemporary and immediate politics. Even his views on historical political situations had to be hidden.... Machiavelli was considered [by the Medici regime] meddlesome if not actually dangerous...it was believed by the government that his republican writings had incited the plotters, many of them former members of the Rucellai circle” (1976, 81-82; emphasis added). Here we might also cite Felix Gilbert on Machiavelli in the Orti: “The political conclusions which the group around Machiavelli drew from Roman history and especial-ly from Livy were exactly opposite to the views cherished by Bernardo Rucellai and his circle.... Machiavelli and his friends used classical history as a justification of broad de-mocratic government and their enthusiasm for the republican virtues of Rome was sharply pointed against the Medici” (1949, 125).

! See for example Cantimori (1992), Firpo (1993), Ginzburg (1970), and Zagorin (1990).92

! On “plausible deniability” see Colie (1966, 38). Aristotle says that we fear “not those 93

among our victims, enemies, or adversaries who say everything forthrightly, but those who are gentle, ironic, up to everything. Since you cannot see when they are close, you can never see when they are far away” (Rhetoric 1382b, cited in Ahl 1984, 175).

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sion during this period, in many fields of cultural expression.  Indeed, one can see the 94

enormous popularity of emblems in Renaissance Europe as a specific case of the fond-ness for covert expression in general. In addition, the widespread popularity in Renais-sance Europe of the literary genre of the paradoxical encomium attests to the predisposi-tion of Renaissance readers to discern covert meanings in works of literary art apparently offering praise.  Such a predisposition would have formed part of their "cognitive 95

equipment" (to use the apt phrase of the art historian Michael Baxandall). The fact that modern readers do not share this mental predisposition may account for the relative paucity of modern readings of the Prince which allow for the possibility that it may have been intended as covert criticism of the Medici rulers of Florence.

! In regard to covert criticism in the visual arts, there are Renaissance portraits by highly skilled artists in which 94

one is genuinely uncertain whether the artist intended to flatter or to mock the sitter. To cite only one example, we might note the recent article in the New York Times, in which Goya’s portrayal of an important Spanish banker and supporter of the Crown is striking because of the dwarf-like proportions of the sitter, whose shoulder barely reaches the edge of the table next to which he is seated. The fact that this banker was in actual fact short of stature does not negate the intended allusive mockery of the portrait, but, on the contrary, merely provides the artist cover, since he can always claim that he was just attempting to get an accurate likeness. A similar portrait, more familiar to students of the Italian Renaissance, is Raphael’s famous likeness of Pope Leo X, in which, holding onto the the Papal throne as if for dear life, is a man of almost dwarf-like proportions, whom some scholars have identified as Cardinal Passerini, a figure much-hated among the ottimati of Florence as representative of a distant and detached Medici rule of the city, in which the daily administration of the city was turned over to men the ottimati considered, as out-siders to the city and provincials, as their social inferiors. As we note in Chapter 2 below, one contemporary com-mentator refers to these Medici clients dismissively as “those dwarves.” This portrait is also interesting for the fact that it also expresses a subtle mockery of the Pope himself: Leo (and once again, the artist can just claim that he was producing an accurate likeness) is depicted as grossly fat, as he indeed was, and holds in his left hand a magnifying glass, an allusive reference to his severe myopia, an example of which much-cited by contemporaries was his use of a telescope to see the decorations displayed on his triumphal procession through Florence in the spring of 1513. As Hibbert notes, he was also forced to use a telescope on his hunting expeditions, a fact also reported by contempo-raries, and which presents us with the extremely humorous image of an immensely fat Pope swaying back and forth on his galloping horse, barely able to stay in the saddle, his telescope firmly fixed to his eye. Hibbert also reports that the Pope’s extreme obesity also made it necessary for him to have a groom standing near to help him down from his horse. All these facts would have been familiar to contemporaries of Raphael, and would have played an impor-tant role in how they perceived and responded to Raphael’s portrait, what art historian Michael Baxandall would call their “cognitive equipment,” art historians their “period eye” and anthropologists such as Clifford Geertz their “local knowledge.” Another very subtle but, once perceived, quite humorous detail in this portrait is that, if one looks very closely, one can perceive a brown spot beginning to form in the center of the lens which Leo (presumably to be able to read the Holy Scriptures open in front of him) holds in his left hand. In our view, this is a humorous reference to the fact that, with the sun shining through it from the right, it is about to set, unbeknownst to the sitter and his two attendants, the Holy Book on fire. Here we may observe an ironic reference to the Pope’s personal motto: “Candor illaesus,” that is, “unblemished clarity.” In regard to what has just been said, we have always wondered if such a delightfully derisive portrait of the Medici Pope might have influenced Rabelais in his creation of the giant Gargan-tua of his mock-epic, also a gigantically-huge and comical figure who uses a church steeple as his bedpost

! For the paradoxical encomium in classical times and in the Renaissance, see Miller 95

(1956).

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We conclude with a reminder from a scholar of Tacitus about the difficulty of ever being sure that one has interpreted him correctly: ! The prudentia of Tacitus lies as much in what he does not reveal as in what he does display in his narrative. The reader is challenged to reach his own conclusions, and when he has done this he still cannot know for certain if he has correctly understood the mind of Tacitus. Thus the interpreter of Tacitus faces a dilemma. He must engage with the wise and subtle intellect of a genius who seldom stands at the center of his stage, yet, in interpreting to his audience the doctrines of the historian, he runs the risk of using the words of Tacitus in ways not intended by the author (Morford 1993, 150-51)  96

! One should approach an interpretation of Machiavelli’s Prince with the same cau-tion. But we may at least entertain the possibility that Machiavelli’s use of language was so subtle, so “fox-like,” that the work’s true meaning—a veiled, yet nevertheless (for those readers able to discern it) forceful condemnation of Renaissance princes in general and the Medici in particular—has eluded many of even its best readers down to the present day.

! Compare Irving Kristol: “What marks the true greatness of a writer is, first, the 96

peremptory and sovereign way he imposes himself on successive generations of readers; and second, the mystery that attends his ultimate ‘meaning,’ his inexhaustibility before the commentator. One is almost tempted to say that his mystery is his meaning: his words impress us as fragments torn from a greater silence, where the whole truth is to be found, though not by us. There are not many such writers altogether. Most of them are poets and dramatists. Some are novelists and philosophers. Very few are historians. Thucydides perhaps belongs among them; Tacitus certainly.” Kristol notes the many affinities be-tween the works of Tacitus and Machiavelli, and, in his description of the difficulty of ever being sure of his meaning, remarks:

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!!!!!

Florentia capta: Michelangelo’s Sagrestia Nuova as Covert Critique of Medici Rule ! In this chapter, we continue our discussion of covert criticism of the Medici in Re-naissance Florence by turning to another major figure of the period who, in ways not dis-similar to the Florentine Secretary discussed in the previous chapter, has also been sub-ject, over the centuries, to a good deal of critical misinterpretation. As in the case of Machiavelli, this misinterpretation may be traced to two major causes: an underappreciation of the importance of the artist’s personal biography and the specific historical context within which he was working to a proper understanding of his works, and, second, a lack of attention to small, but significant, details present in these works which were intended by the artist to alert the attentive viewer to the presence of a message curiously at odds with the message the work appears, at first glance, to be com-municating. In the previous chapter, we saw how a thorough knowledge of classical rhetoric, specifically, the important techniques for communicating messages critical of those in power in a highly allusive and indirect, yet nevertheless powerful, manner was essential to being able, first to discern, and then to interpret correctly, the amazingly var-ied and subtle clues left by Machiavelli to the presence of a message which, as a kind of subterranean river, runs counter to the message his text appears to be advocating, provid-ing a kind of mute counterpoint to the text’s apparently either encomiastic or disinterested surface, seen either as a work of counsel for princes, or as a dispassionate analysis of the often brutal ways power came to be acquired and exercised in the Italy of his day. In the case of Michelangelo, as also in the case of Machiavelli, this misinterpreta-tion has been compounded further by another factor: the overwhelming power of these artists’ posthumous reputations to induce, in the case of Michelangelo, a kind of hagio-graphic reluctance to assign to the artist any role other than the traditional, and politically safe, one as a more-or-less compliant encomiast of his Medici patrons, as if making a tac-it assumption that to admit the artist’s passionate commitment to the republican cause, and its direct influence on his work, should be somehow at odds with his towering genius

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as an artist, in a kind of unspoken conviction that to contextualize works of such great-ness is somehow to diminish them. In the case of Machiavelli, precisely the opposite has occurred: his afterlife as a man whose scurrilous support of a kind of scandalous amorali-ty in the realm of politics has blinded even his best readers to the improbability that a man of his family history and political convictions could have written a book which ei-ther dispassionately analyzes the myriad ways the liberty of his beloved city had come gradually to be extinguished, or, even more improbably, could have been so driven by calculations of personal advantage as to have offered, in all apparent sincerity, useful ad-vice to those very agents of its destruction. In both their cases, the glow (or in the case of Machivelli, shadow) of their posthumous reputations has shed such a strong light as to completely obscure the more subtle, but vitally important, currents at work beneath the surface of the works for which they are best known. Benjamin’s “aura” has turned to a glaring spotlight, obscuring by its very intensity the more subtle sfumature which give their best-known works their unique form of greatness. In this chapter, we suggest a new iconographic source for the figures of Day and the Night on the Medici tomb in Michelangelo’s Sagrestia Nuova at San Lorenzo in Flo-rence. The possibility that Michelangelo's sculptures in the Medici Chapel may have been intended by the artist to express a subtle, but nevertheless (for those able to discern it) powerful critique of Medici power, dates from the cinquecento itself, and has recently been reproposed by Trexler and Lewis.  While many viewers and critics of former eras, 97

and a few modern scholars, agree in attributing a political meaning to the monument, for the most part, modern critics have tended, when they focus on political aspects of the

! Richard Trexler and Mary Lewis, “Two Captains and Three Kings: New Light on the Medici 97

Chapel,” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 4 (1981): 91-177, reprinted in William Wallace, ed., Michelangelo: Selected Scholarship in English (New York: Garland, 1995), III.

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monument at all, to view the work as an encomiastic celebration of Medici power.  Per98 -haps the clearest expression of this view of the Chapel is that of Creighton Gilbert, who, remarking on what he calls the "courtliness" of the Chapel, describes Michelangelo as quite willing to engage in extravagant flattery of his Medici masters, and notes that in this, he was merely acting as a man of his times.  99

While modern scholars are well aware that Michelangelo held deeply-felt and life-long republican sentiments, in general, the "republican" Michelangelo is for the most part relegated to the David, the Brutus, his Victory, and perhaps his Slaves. With the exception of the article of Trexler and Lewis cited above, there has been as yet no attempt to apply this knowledge of Michelangelo's political views to a consideration of his work in the Sagrestia Nuova, and to ask whether these political views might have found expression there also. As we hope to show, Michelangelo's intention in creating the chapel was exactly the opposite: to provide a very subtle, and yet, for those viewers able to discern it, devas-tating, critique of Medici power and its effects on his native city. To achieve this, he re-lies, as we shall see, on viewers' familiarity with the classical iconographical tradition of captive figures, well known to Renaissance artists, and also on their familiarity with a parallel literary tradition, in which suffering female figures are used to symbolize the

! Barocchi cites many examples of responses to the chapel by earlier viewers who saw it as an 98

expression of Michelangelo's republican and anti-Medicean sentiments, although she generally dismisses these responses as "interpretazioni ideologiche" (Vasari, La Vita di Michelangelo nelle redazioni del 1550 e del 1568, ed. Paola Barocchi (Milan: Ricciardi, 1962), “Commento”). Hartt rejects out of hand a political interpretation of the monument in an anti-Medicean light: “By means of this passage [Michelangelo's sketch for a poem on the vendetta of the figure of Giu-liano against the figures of Evening and Dawn] Anton Springer was enabled to lay to rest the wild but surprisingly recurrent notion that the images of the Medici tombs were in reality attacks on the Medici tyranny” (Frederick Hartt, “The Meaning of Michelangelo’s Medici Chapel,” in Essays in Honor of Georg Swarzenski (Chicago: Regnery, 1951), 145-155, fn. 6, reprinted in Wallace 57-67). In general, it seems that many scholars of the Chapel have assumed that spiritual or aesthetic analyses cannot coexist with a political reading of the work. There is no evidence that for Renaissance viewers a variety of responses could not coexist or be equally valid depend-ing on the orientation of the individual viewer. For a concise summary of modern interpretations of the chapel, see Edith Balas, Michelangelo's Medici Chapel: a New Interpretation (Phil-adelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1995), 14-24.

! Creighton Gilbert, “Texts and Contexts of the Medici Chapel," Art Quarterly, 34 (1971): 391-99

409 (reprinted in Wallace 103-121), 405-6.

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domination of a city or state by a superior political force. These traditions formed the cul-tural knowledge, or "cognitive equipment" (to use Baxandall's apt phrase) which would have allowed certain viewers to discern a political message at work in the sculptures of the Medici chapel. Hence, the intuitions of those viewers of previous eras who claimed to discern an anti-Medicean message in the chapel, far from being simply reflections of their own political preoccupations, were actually well-founded. We will base our argument on Michelangelo’s own words and the facts of his life, as well as on a close examination of iconographic details of the monument in the context of artistic and political life in the first half of the 1500s in Florence and Rome. In particu-lar, we will consider the Florentine tradition of political sculpture, in which public works of art took on overt or covert political meanings, meanings which could be critical of those in power. Fundamental to our argument is an understanding of Michelangelo’s sen-timents towards the princes of his day, and the Medici princes in particular. His feelings, and the necessity of expressing them in a covert way, were both determined by the politi-cal climate in which the work was planned and executed. Because of its relevance to an interpretation of the Medici chapel as covert critique of Medici rule, we will first examine briefly Michelangelo’s views on court life in gener-al, and his sentiments toward the Medici in particular, before turning to an examination of the iconography of the monument itself. !

Michelangelo's Views of Life at Court ! In a letter of December 1515 from Florence to Michelangelo in Rome, Michelan-gelo’s brother Buonarroto writes: “Dearest, etc. To give you news of things here, and es-pecially of the arrival of Our Lord, that is, the Pope. And although I am certain that to you knowing these things differs little from not knowing them [emphasis added]. never-theless, occasionally, since I have the time, I will write a few lines.”  The letter then 100

goes on to describe the ceremonial entry of Pope Leo into Florence, which was, accord-ing to the account given by Buonarroto, a grand spectacle, including a procession through

! Michelangelo Buonarroti, Il Carteggio di Michelangelo, ed. Paola Barocchi and Renzo Ris100 -tori (Florence: Sansoni, 1965), I, 184-5. Unless otherwise noted, all translations from the Italian in this article are mine.

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triumphal arches, stops at churches and music of all kinds. But to Michelangelo, such ceremonies were, according to his brother, a matter of total indifference.  101

Michelangelo’s contempt for displays of aristocratic magnificence, and for prince-ly power in general, is further demonstrated by a wonderfully ironic letter of early De-cember 1525 to his agent Francesco Fattucci in Rome describing his plan for a proposed colossus at the corner of the loggia of the Medici garden of the Medici palace. The pas-sage is worth quoting at length: ! Regarding the 40 foot colossus which you write me is to go in the corner of the loggia of the Medici garden. . . I have given it no little thought. It doesn’t seem to me that it is well suited for that place, because it would take up too much of the street, but would in my opinion be much better situated on the other corner, where there is the barbershop, because the piazza is in front and it wouldn’t block the street. And because no one would perhaps tolerate taking away the entrance to the barbershop, I thought that the figure could be made to sit, and that the seat could be so high, that making the work hollow inside (as is appropriate and could be ac complished by making him in pieces), the barbershop could stay underneath, and would not lose any income. And so that said shop would have someplace to eject the smoke, I plan to place an empty horn of plenty in its hand, which will serve as a chimney. And further, since the head of the figure will be empty, as everything else, I think good use could be made of this also, because there is in the piazza a close friend of mine, a vegetable-seller, who has told me in secret that he would put a nice dovecote there. And there occurs to me something else, which would be much better, but one would need to make the figure much larger (and one could, because this is to be a tower in pieces); and this is, that its head could serve as the belltower of San Lorenzo, which really has need of one, and placing the bells there, and the sound issuing from its mouth, it would seem that the said colossus were crying out for mercy, and especially on holidays, when the bells sound more often and with larger bells.  102

! For a full description of the entrata, with eyewitness accounts, see Anthony Cummings, The 101

Politicized Muse: Music for Medici Festivals, 1512-1537 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), Ch. 5.

! Michelangelo, Carteggio III, 190-1. 102

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! These “plans” are so comically outlandish as to give us a glimpse of Michelange-lo’s true feelings about his Medici patrons, the overstated hugeness of the proposed colossus brought down to earth by the plebian touch of humor of the barbershop and the grocer’s dovecote in the head of the statue, which recalls the English phrase “bats in the belfry.” We may note also the frequency with which Michelangelo uses the word “empty” to describe the statue (including the horn of plenty, traditionally full of the fruits of peace), as if, in an indirect and allusive way, he were drawing attention to the true vanity of Medici power, despite its apparent greatness. One may also note the reference to the bells, which were, as Waldman points out, a potent contemporary symbol of Florentine liberty. In this letter, then, Michelangelo presents us with a vivid clash of symbols, and he also lets us know where his sympathies lie: the grocer is a close personal friend, while the empty colossus cries out in agony at the ringing of the bells.  103

As several scholars have pointed out, Michelangelo was extremely proud of his family’s supposed noble origins.  We suggest that this fact may also have played a sig104 -nificant part in his attitudes towards his Medici patrons. From the point of view of the old landed feudal aristocracy, the Medici would have been seen as upstarts in the city, par-venus, unworthy to command a man of such distinguished ancestry. Michelangelo's fa-

! Louis Waldman, "'Miracol' Novo et Raro': Two Unpublished Contemporary Satires on 103

Bandinelli’s Hercules,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Museum in Florenz 38 (1994): 423. For an excellent discussion of the humorous aspects of the proposed statue, see Paul Barolsky, Infinite Jest: Wit and Humor in Italian Renaissance Art (Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press, 1978), Chapter 3 “Michelangelo’s Sense of Humor.” Barolsky notes: “Michelan-gelo’s delightful travesty of the proposed gigantic colossus, which is worthy of Rabelais, did not, however, amuse the papal functionary, who replied to his letter: 'About the statue to be made, his Holiness would have you to understand it is the truth and not a joke, and he wishes it to be made'" (68-69). A Florentine account of the time even attributed to Michelangelo a plan to raze the Medici palace, although Varchi makes clear that he has been unable to definitively establish the truth of this story. Nevertheless, Varchi states that Michelangelo said that it would be appro-priate to him. According to Varchi, Michelangelo proposed calling the piazza which would result the "Piazza dei Muli" (Piazza of the Mules). (Benedetto Varchi, Storia fiorentina 6.XXV (Salani ed. I, 365-366). Once again, we see at work Michelangelo’s sardonic humor at the expense of the Medici family.

! William Wallace, "Michel Angelus Bonarotus patritius Florentinus" in Innovation and Tradi104 -tion: Essays on Renaissance Art and Culture, ed. Dag T. Andersson and Roy Ericksen (Rome: Kappa, 2000), 60-74, 162-3.

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vorite author, Dante, expressed this attitude eloquently when he decried the subiti guadagni of the vulgar upwardly-striving merchant class who began to supplant the old feudal aristocracy of Florence in the 14th century. An acquaintance of Michelangelo's remarked that the artist "voleva fare da se, non essere commandato.”  105

We see this attitude of Michelangelo's also in his well-known tardiness in comply-ing with his patrons’ requests, a phenomenon which modern psychologists would term “passive-aggressive.” When the artist was treated with respect, and considered the patron worthy, he had no trouble producing work in a timely manner, as, for example, the cre-ation of his Leda for Duke Alfonso of Ferrara just before the siege of Florence, or his of-fer to the king of France to create an equestrian statue at the artist's own expense, to be erected in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, should the king succeed in reestablishing the city as a free republican state. (Although, as Wallace, discussed below, has pointed out, once there was no chance that his work for the former ruler would deliver Ferrarese assistance to Florence during the siege of 1529-30, the artist quickly abandoned the work, leading to the famous anecdote of his dismissal of Alfonso's agent for his ignorance). When he was treated with disrespect, no matter who the patron, the artist showed no compunction in aggressively defending his personal honor, as the anecdote just cited makes clear.  Michelangelo’ close association with the anti-Medicean grandi in Rome 106

after 1534, discussed below, also tends to support this hypothesis. !! Symonds cites several letters of Michelangelo in which the artist's pride in his family's sup105 -posedly noble origins from the Counts of Canossa is vividly expressed. For example, in a letter of 1548 to his nephew Lionardo, the artist writes: "Tell the priest not to write me again as Michelangelo the sculptor. For I am not known here except as M. Buonaroti. Say, too, that if a citizen of Florence wants to have an altar-piece painted, he must find some painter; for I was never either sculptor or painter in the way of one who keeps a shop. I have always avoided that, for the honour of my father and my brothers. True, I have served three Popes; but that was a mat-ter of necessity" (John Addington Symonds, The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti, Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002, 1.306-7).

! Condivi also remarks on Michelanglo’s intense assertiveness when it came to defending his 106

personal honor: "As is the case of most people who devote themselves to a leisurely and contem-plative life, he has been rather timid, except in righteous anger when some injury or breach of duty is done to him or others, in which case he plucks up more courage than those who are con-sidered courageous" (Ascanio Condivi, Vita di Michelagnolo Buonarroti, tr. Alice Sedgwick Wohl, ed. Helmutt Wohl (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1976), 107.

! � 96

Michelangelo and the Medici ! As regards the Medici in particular, we note that Michelangelo was a close friend of a number of the republican exiles from Florence, Donato Giannotti (the republican po-litical theorist and close friend of Machiavelli) being perhaps the most well-known.  107

As another example of Michelangelo's antipathy towards Medici rule in Florence, his Brutus of 1537 (now in the bargello) was reportedly commissioned by Giannotti and Cardinal Ridolfi to celebrate the assassination of Alessandro de’ Medici in 1537. Some scholars consider the bust to be a portrait of Giannotti himself.  108

Michelangelo had ample reason to hate and fear the Medici tyrant of his day, the violent and arrogant Alessandro, for reasons both of his personal safety and the well-be-ing of his family. The historian Giorgio Spini notes: "[there was] a dangerous tension with Alessandro de' Medici, Clement the VII’s illegitimate nephew, who was trying to create an absolute principate in Florence, on the ruins of the last republic. According to Condivi, there was already an 'old feud' between the artist and the 'fierce and vindictive' duke when Michelangelo’s refusal to collaborate on the building of a fortress, planned by Alessandro to keep seditious Florence in check, brought things to a head.”  109

Spini notes further that Alessandro had not forgotten Michelangelo’s plans for the fortifications of 1529, and that these plans represented for Michelangelo a political choice, not a mere technical exercise carried out for anyone who might commission them. According to Condivi, Michelangelo actually stood in danger of being assassinated on orders of the duke: “there is no doubt that, had it not been for respect for the Pope, he [Alessandro] would have had him eliminated.” Therefore Michelangelo, by now “in great

! James Saslow, The Poetry of Michelangelo: An Annotated Translation (New Haven: Yale 107

University Press, 1991), 419.

! On the Brutus, see D. J. Gordon, “Giannotti, Michelangelo and the Cult of Brutus” in Fritz 108

Saxl, 1890-1948; A Volume of Memorial Essays from His Friends in England, ed. D. J. Gordon (New York: T. Nelson, 1957), 281-296.

! Giorgio Spini, Michelangelo politico e altri studi sul Rinascimento fiorentino (Milan: Uni109 -copli, 1999): 49. On the widespread aversion of the Florentine citizens to this symbol of their subjugation, see J. R. Hale, “The End of Florentine Liberty: The Fortezza da Basso” in Floren-tine Studies: Politics and Society in Renaissance Florence, ed. Nicolai Rubinstein (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1968): 501-532.

! � 97

fear,” stayed from then on more in Rome than in Florence, and “was certainly aided by the good Lord that at the death of Clement he was not in Florence.”  110

Well before the time of Alessandro, we see further evidence of Michelangelo’s cautiousness in regard to speaking openly about his feelings toward the Medici in a letter of October-November 1512 from the artist in Rome to his father in Florence: ! Dearest father, I gather from your latest letter. . .that it has been said that I have spoken against the Medici. . . .Regarding the Medici, I have never spoken anything against them, except generally as everyone has spoken, as in the case of Prato; which, if the stones had heard about it, they would have spoken. And further, many other things are said here, which, having heard, I have said “If it is true that they do thus, they do wrong”: not that I believed them, and God will it that it be not so.  111

! Michelangelo is referring here to the infamous sack of Prato by the Spanish forces at the behest of Giovanni de' Medici which restored the Medici as rulers of the city, the brutality of which left a profound mark on the contemporary imagination.  112

Michelangelo had good reason to be circumspect regarding how he spoke about the Medici, given their lack of tolerance for any direct opposition to their rule. Following the restoration in 1512, for example, a list was produced purporting to identify known opponents of Medici rule; many of those on the list were imprisoned and tortured, the most prominent of whom was Machiavelli. Butters recounts a story which reveals the extreme vindictiveness of the Medici when they felt the authority or reputation of the family was in danger. In the first months of 1519, a dinner party was given by Jacopo Cavalcanti, in a room hung with pictures and other decorations in praise of the Medici. After dinner, the lights were extinguished.

! Condivi, Vita, Ch. XXXIX, cited in Spini 50. Michelangelo’s friend Giovan Francesco Fat110 -tucci writes in a letter of November 22, 1524 to Michelangelo in Florence: “I say again to you that if there is someone in Florence who takes it ill that you are alive, be patient, because I have hope in God that someday, in whatever way, he will be destroyed” (Carteggio, III, 116).

! Spini 33-4.111

! For accounts of the sack of Prato, see Francesco Guicciardini, History of Italy, Book 11, 262-112

3. Machiavelli called it "an appalling spectacle of horrors.”

! � 98

When they came back on, the room was hung in black with representations of Pope Leo, and there were female figures with plaques turned upside down, bearing the motto "Lib-erty ground under foot." The arms of the city were represented upside down. Cavalcanti was arrested, tortured, and consigned to the galleys.  113

Not only did Michelangelo fear the Medici rulers in Florence for his own personal safety, but he was concerned for the safety of his family as well, as we read in a letter of September 18, 1512, written to Buonarroto after the Medici return to power in Florence: ! I believe that the danger has passed, that is, of the Spanish, and I don’t believe that it is any longer necessary to leave; nevertheless, be quiet and don’t make friends of the associates of anyone, except for those of God; and don’t speak of anyone, nei ther for good nor for ill, because one never knows how things will turn out; attend only to your own affairs.  114

! Once again, we note a climate of fear of Medici reprisals which dictated extreme caution in discussing topics inimical to the family's interests, not to mention criticism of the family itself.  115

The extensive use of spies, both paid and unpaid, in and out of Florence, by the family to secure their power is by now well-known to scholars.  To cite an example 116

with direct reference to Michelangelo, we may cite a letter to his father Lodovico, in which Michelangelo says: "About a month ago, someone who makes a show of friend-ship for me spoke very evilly about their [the Medici's] deeds. I rebuked him, told him that it was not well to talk so, and begged him not to do so again to me. However, I should like Buonarroto quietly to find out how the rumor arose of my having calumniated

! Humphrey Butters, Governors and Government in Early Sixteenth-Century Florence (Ox113 -ford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 305-6.

! Michelangelo, Carteggio, I, 136. Cited in Spini 33.114

! Humphrey Butters, Governors and Government in Early Sixteenth-Century Florence (Ox115 -ford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 305-6.

! John K. Brackett, Criminal Justice and Crime in Late Renaissance Florence (New York: Co116 -lumbia University Press, 1992), 31 and Giovanni Antonelli, "La magistratura degli Otto di Guardia a Firenze," Archivio Storico Italiano 1 (1954): 3-39, cited in Brackett 30.

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the Medici; for if it is some one who pretends to be my friend, I ought to be upon my guard.”  117

Here Michelangelo is clearly implying the presence of Medici spies who would feign aversion to their rule to try to draw similar sentiments from others as a means of detecting who the family's real enemies were.  118

Michelangelo even had to fear assassination at the hands of the Pope for refusing to carry out his directives. Symonds, discussing Michelangelo's angry refusal of a pen-sion and a house from Cardinal Giulio, intended to facilitate the artist's setting to work on the Medici tombs, cites a letter of March 24, 1524 from his nephew Leonardo in Rome to Michelangelo in Florence, urging the artist to accept his pension, saying that it was "madness" to abandon it, adding that he had many enemies, and that he would dishonor both himself and the Pope by refusing. Leonardo then remarks "Take care you do not come short in the Pope's work. Die first. [emphasis added] And take the pension, given with a willing heart.” In our view, it seems clear that the phrase "die first" is intended as a hint from Leonardo to Michelangelo that he may indeed die if he refuses the Pope's largess. Evi-dence that the artist took the hint comes from a letter of August 29 to Giovanni Spina, in which a clearly frightened Michelangelo remarks: "I have changed my mind, and whereas I hitherto refused, I now demand it [the salary], considering it far wiser, and for more rea-sons than I care to write; . . ." [emphasis added]  119

Michelangelo's suddenly-discovered willingness to comply would be almost comi-cal if it did not involve a very real threat of death against the artist. Michelangelo’s cautiousness toward the Medici should not lead us to question his aversion to their rule, however. As the above evidence makes clear, the artist felt strongly about their usurpation of Florentine liberty, but was cautious about how these sentiments were expressed.

! The translation of this and the following two letters are by Symonds.117

! Trexler and Lewis (149-50; Wallace 255-6) note that a similar strategy was used at the open118 -ing of the Sagrestia Nuova to the public in 1537 during the "celebration" on March 15 of funeral exequies for the recently murdered Alessandro. According to Trexler and Lewis, the Medici rulers, attended by a large retinue of imperial troops, watched the ceremonies carefully to see who was and who was not in attendance, thus being able to discern who their enemies were.

! Symonds 1.378-9.119

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References to the Medici as tyrannical usurpers of Florence's ancient liberty were common among republican writers of the time. Such aversion to Medici rule would have been especially strong among Michelangelo and his republican friends, not to mention those members of the working and middle classes for whom the mercantile traditions of thrift, individual initiative taken for the good of the city as a whole, and respect for the laws and institutions of civil government, were still very much a part of their recent his-torical memory.  120

As regards Lorenzo specifically, the Venetian ambassador reports that in 1515, af-ter Lorenzo had obtained in May of that year the reluctant consent of the Council of the Seven to his appointment as Captain General of the Florentine forces: "This Lorenzo has been made captain of the Florentines against their own laws. He has become the ruler of Florence: he orders and is obeyed. They used to cast lots; no longer; what Lorenzo com-mands is done. . . .So that the majority of Florentines have no taste for the power of the house of Medici.”  121

Writing in a letter of January 28, 1515 to Galeotto, Lorenzo makes the following observation: "perchè ha [Florence], come vedete, ad essere il fondamento et stato mio, et a dire meglio, la poppa mia."  122

Nothing could summarize better the ambition of the Medici to subject the tradi-tions and institutions of the city to their personal use.

! For the political situation in Florence in the first three decades of the sixteenth century, see H. 120

N. Butters, Governors and Government in Early Sixteenth-Century Florence (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), J. R. Hale, Florence and the Medici: the Pattern of Control (London: Thames and Hudson, 1977), John Najemy, A History of Florence 1200-1575 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008), Cecil Roth, The Last Florentine Republic (New York: Russell & Russell, 1968) and J. N. Stephens, The Fall of the Florentine Republic 1512-1530 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983).

! Hale 99. For the important and insufficiently-studied topic of opposition to the Medici, see 121

the article of Alison Brown, "Lorenzo and Public Opinion in Florence: The Problem of Opposi-tion," in Lorenzo il magnifico e il suo mondo, ed. Gian Carlo Garfagnini (Florence: Olschki, 1994), 61-85. Important also for an understanding of the unpopularity of Medici rule in Florence during the pontificates of Leo and Clement, due especially to the arrogance of Lorenzo di Piero and the appointing of outsiders such as Goro Gheri and Silvio Passerini to rule the city in their absence, is J. N. Stephens, The Fall of the Florentine Republic 1512-1530 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), especially pp. 81-123.

! Hale 429.122

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Later, in the fourth decade of the century, Alessandro was considered, if this were possible, an even worse tyrant than Lorenzo had been. The historian Benedetto Varchi provides us with a vivid description of the oppressive quality of Alessandro’s rule in Flo-rence, and his hatred of the Florentine republicans in particular, where Alessandro is compared, to his disadvantage, to the worst tyrants of classical antiquity.  123

Another factor, besides the personal character and actions of the Medici princes themselves, which rendered Medici rule odious to many Florentines during the pontifi-cates of Leo and Clement was the practice of entrusting governance of the city to out-siders such as Goro Gheri and Silvio Passerini, for whom the Florentine elites felt intense hatred and contempt, due to their ignorance of Florentine customs, their lack of deference to their status, and the simple fact that they were outsiders. One Florentine of the time refers to them dismissively as "those dwarves.”  124

In our view, the facts just cited are relevant to Michelangelo's work in the Medici Chapel, and provide the historical context in which his work there should be viewed. While some artists may have been able to sublimate their personal feelings in their work for their patrons, everything we know about Michelangelo's character and personality in-dicates that for him, this was not a possibility. If he could not express his antipathy for Medici rule in Florence directly, he was nonetheless able to express these sentiments in a highly coded and allusive way in his work in the Medici Chapel.  125

As we shall see, this image of Lorenzo di Piero and Alessandro de' Medici as clas-sic tyrants is directly relevant to our interpretation of the Medici tomb as expressing a covert critique of Medici rule. !

Michelangelo's Art and the Struggle for Florentine Freedom !! Storia di Firenze, XV. For a concise discussion of the consolidation of Medici power in Flo123 -rence in the hands of Lorenzo, see John Najemy, A History of Florence 1200-1575 (West Sussex: Blackwell, 2008), 426-34.

! For Gheri and Passerini, see Stephens 103ff., 167ff.124

! Several recent studies have argued that Michelangelo managed to incorporate subtle jokes at 125

the Church's and Pope's expense into the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, a hypothesis which, giv-en the artist's personality and his sentiments regarding the Church of his day, we find entirely plausible.

! � 102

Regarding specifically the political and psychological climate in which Michelangelo planned and completed his work in the Chapel, it is precisely this climate of fear of open expression of sentiments hostile to Medici rule in Florence which dictated Michelangelo's recourse to allusive means to encode a message critical of the family in his work in the Medici Chapel. Symonds makes clear that at the time of the initial planning of the monument, around 1521, Michelangelo was extremely angry at the Medici, specifically the Pope, for a variety of reasons. Leo, in diverting the artist's energies from the Julius tomb to the façade of San Lorenzo (a plan, as Michelangelo makes clear late in life in a letter to Con-divi, he thought the Pope was never serious about completing, but was only a ruse to keep him from finishing the Julius tomb), had cost the artist three years of intense labor, an immense amount of money, and his personal honor: "I do not reckon the enormous insult put on me by being brought here to do the work, and then seeing it taken away from me, and for reasons I have not yet learned . . .”  126

As far as making a connection between the republican Michelangelo and his art created at the time of the struggle for Florentine liberty, William Wallace has pointed out that the Leda was very possibly intended as a diplomatic gift to try to curry favor with Duke Alfonso of Ferrara at a particularly crucial time in Florence's struggle to survive as a republican state against the combined forces of the Papacy and the Empire.  Specifi127 -cally, according to Wallace, the painting was intended to encourage Alfonso to lend mili-tary assistance to Florence, and in particular his artillery, at the time, the most advanced in Italy, and crucial to Florentine ability to withstand an assault on her defenses. While Wallace connects the subject of the painting to Michelangelo's desire to ri-val the nude images in Titian's painting The Bacchanal of the Andrians already displayed in the Duke's camerino in the ducal palace, and to a desire to flatter the Duke through al-lusion to the Este claim of descent from the ancient Trojans, it seems to us entirely possi-ble, given the political circumstances under which it was created, that the Leda—the lo-cus classicus of the domination of a female figure by a superior male force—may have also been intended to symbolize and dramatize to the Duke—in a coded and allusive

! Symonds 1.378. Symonds gives a lively translation of this letter, in which the full outrage of 126

an irate Michelangelo finds eloquent expression.

! William Wallace, "Michelangelo's Leda: The Diplomatic Context," Renaissance Studies 15 127

Dec. 2001): 473-499.

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manner--the desperate situation of Florence under threat of assault by the combined forces of Charles V and the Pope.  As Wallace points out, Ferrara was Florence's only 128

ally at this crucial time in her struggle to maintain herself as a free republic. As we note below in reference to Michelangelo's Night, Renaissance viewers were accustomed to in-terpreting images of female subjugation to a superior male force as symbols of the domi-nation of one state by another. Giorgio Spini also makes a connection between Michelangelo's art and the politi-cal circumstances at the time it was created. While often interpreted in a spiritual sense, Michelangelo's Prisoners may also be seen to have a political meaning, if, as with the Leda, we look to the recipient and to the political circumstances prevailing at the time of its creation. Spini, while noting that "it has already been said that it is probable that, in the Prisoners and the Victories for the tomb of Julius II, Michelangelo wanted to symbolize the torment of humanity prisoner of the flesh and the victory of the spirit over the prison-house of matter," also notes that Michelangelo made a gift of the statues to the Strozzi family, long-time opponents of Medici hegemony over Florence, as thanks for their hos-pitality to the artist during his time of sickness in their palace in Rome in 1544-46, and speculates that these works may have also contained a political meaning: "One may also speculate that he [Michelangelo] wanted to send a sort of final message, from the edge of the tomb, to men capable of receiving and interpreting it, such as were the Strozzi, tena-cious supporters of the liberation of Florence from her own imprisonment, and connected closely to France, to which Michelangelo still looked with his ancient hope, aroused in him from the now-distant times of Savonarola and Soderini.” Images of struggle in Michelangelo's art may thus have, in addition to a spiritual meaning, a political one as well. This will be seen to be relevant to our discussion of the Day of the Medici tomb below. Spini notes that in Rome, from 1532 onwards, "as far as his [Michelangelo's] fi-delity to his political past, it is worth noting especially that Michelangelo, after the siege

! For a fascinating study, based on archival documents, of the "artistic diplomacy" carried out 128

by Michelangelo's friend Battista della Palla in an attempt to persuade Francis I to support the Florentine republicans in their desperate struggles to save the republic before the siege of 1530 by procuring works of art for the French king, see Caroline Elam, "Art in the Service of Liberty: Battista della Palla, Art Agent for Francis I" in I Tatti Studies: Essays in the Renaissance 5 (1993), 33-109.

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of Florence, returned essentially to the positions of the Savonarolan period. . . .But in Rome, from 1532 onwards, his closest friendships were not so much with the exiles of the popular party, as with the exiled grandi, such as the Strozzi, Cardinal Niccolò Ridolfi and his brother Lorenzo, or with people associated with them, such as Donato Giannotti and Luigi del Riccio. The conflict between Michelangelo and Duke Alessandro itself and the final move of the artist from Florence to Rome form indeed a parallel to the fate of these grandi.”  129

We noted above Michelangelo's creation of the bust of Brutus for Cardinal Ridolfi. Spini goes on to point out that it was with these anti-Medicean grandi, based for the most part in Rome, that Michelangelo associated himself during the final period of his life, and that his obsession with his family's noble heritage may be due in part to his connection with this circle. Spini also notes that this group represented "the most consistent force of opposition to Medici rule."  130

And these grandi had every reason to hate Duke Alessandro: "Alessandro's abso-lutism had quickly disgusted many of the leading families of Florence, that is, individuals connected by blood or common interests with the Medici, precisely those who had op-posed the republic of 1527-30, such as cardinals Salviati, Ridolfi and Gaddi, the rich banker Filippo Strozzi and his sons, Piero and Roberto Strozzi, Baccio Valori, formerly Clement's agent at the siege of Florence, and even branches of the Medici family, for ex-ample, Cardinal Ippolito and, later, Lorenzino de' Medici. . . .Out of hatred for Alessan-dro, these individuals had ended up in exile and had formed common cause with the au-thentic republican exiles. However, their political ideal could be summed up in a motto coined by a humanist of their circle, Ciriaco Strozzi: "Libertas aut potius aristocratia.”  131

Spini gives another example of the connection between Michelangelo's sculpture and his political convictions: when war between Charles V and Francis I in 1542-45 of-

! Wohl divides the list of Michelangelo's friends given by Condivi into three groups, all of 129

them staunch enemies of the Medici: the Florentine exiles (which included Cardinal Niccolò Ri-dolfi, his brother Lorenzo, and Donato Giannotti), the circle of Vittoria Colonna (including Car-dinal Pole and Claudio Tolomei) and the Farnese circle (which included Cardinal Farnese him-self, Bernardino Mattei, Tolomei, Annibale Caro, and the Cardinal of San Cirillo). (Condivi, ed. Wohl, )

! Spini130

! Spini 50.131

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fered new hope to the Florentine fuorusciti, once again, as he did with Duke Alfonso, Michelangelo used the prestige of his art to encourage Francis to intervene on Florence's behalf. While noting that Michelangelo was concerned for the safety of his family in Flo-rence, and wanted to avoid reprisals against them on the part of Duke Cosimo, and thus, in his letters, diminishes the extent of his contact with the republican exiles, Spini argues that Michelangelo's true feelings emerge from a letter of July 21, 1544 from Luigi del Riccio to Roberto Strozzi in France. Michelangelo, gravely ill, greets Strozzi affection-ately and "begs you [Strozzi] to send him some news, reminding the king how he had told him through Scipione and then through the courier Deo, that if he restored Florence to its liberty, he would make him a bronze equestrian statue in the Piazza della Signoria at his expense.”  132

As in the case of the Leda and the Prisoners, we see once again Michelangelo us-ing his art, not just as a form of political expression, but as a means of direct political ac-tion  . 133

As a very literal example of this transmutation of political sentiments into art, and then into weapons of war, we might note that Michelangelo's colossal bronze statue of Pope Julius which graced the square in front of the basilica of San Petronio was thrown to the ground upon the return of the Bentivogli to Bologna, and then sent to Duke Alfonso in Ferrara to be melted down and made into a cannon. We noted above Michelangelo's "artistic diplomacy" in his sending of a secret message in the form of his Leda to this same ruler. Wallace makes the interesting suggestion that Michelangelo's praise of Tit-ian's portrait of the Duke, shown with his right hand resting on the cannon, may have also been a subtle hint to this ruler of the importance of this weapon to Florentine hopes of surviving the siege of 1529-30 as a free state.  134

As a final demonstration that Michelangelo's republican views lasted essentially unchanged to the end of his life, we may again cite Spini, describing Michelangelo's re-

! Spini 52.132

! Against the political background just described, it may not be a coincidence that many of 133

Michelangelo's republican works (the Slaves, his youthful Hercules and the Leda itself, in the interpretation just proposed) ended up in the possession of the King of France, the traditional de-fender of Florentine freedom from imperial and Medicean domination.

! Wallace 491.134

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sponse to Duke Cosimo's "skillful politics of reconciliation" with the exiled Florentine artists and intellectuals, the goal of which was to add prestige to his rule, and the most prominent example of which was the return of the historian Benedetto Varchi to Florence. ! Among the others who came to Michelangelo to urge his return on behalf of the Duke, with the usual promise of a position on the Council of the Forty Eight, ar rived Cellini one day in 1552. We have only Cellini's version of the conversation in his Life, larded with fawning compliments of Cosimo, who knows how sincere. But not even the exaggerations of Cellini are able to conceal that after his exposi tion of the Duke's flattering offers, Michelangelo "suddenly looked at me closely and sneered: 'And you, how content are you with him?'" This sneer of Michelange lo recalls all too well the irony which the artist opposes so often to the compli ments of Vasari in his correspondence with the latter. And it alone should be suffi cient to dissipate the courtly veil which some scholars have tried to spread over the last period of Michelangelo's life.  135

! This "Michelangelesque sneer" described by Spini recalls the artist's refusal to ac-cept the trite and conventional compliments of the young academician Giovanni di Carlo Strozzi on the Night expressed in the artist's famous epigram on the statue, discussed be-low. While unwilling to challenge the Medici directly, Michelangelo clearly maintained a proud and unyielding form of personal resistance to the family's domination of his native city to the end of his life. Spini notes again that Michelangelo's caution in not overtly refusing the Duke's offers should not be taken as approval of his regime; Michelangelo was very concerned for the well-being of his family in Florence, especially his nephew Leonardo, at this point the only hope for the survival of the family. Spini also notes Cosimo's "relentless efforts against his enemies," and cites Leonardo's report in a letter of 1549 to Michelangelo of the promulgation of the terrible "Legge Polverina," which mandated harsh reprisals against anyone who associated with the Florentine exiles. Hence, according to Spini, Michelangelo's "lettere tranquillizanti," asserting his distance from the exiles in Rome, examples of which (his letters to his father and to Buonarotto) we cited above. Even his supposed severing of ties to the Strozzi was, as Spini points out, merely a fiction.

! Spini 54.135

! � 107

Against this background, it would be almost be surprising if the sculptures of the Medici Chapel didn't have a political significance for Michelangelo and for his contem-poraries. As we have seen, in every other case of his art produced during republican Flo-rence's political crisis, the works in question have an undeniable political meaning. Even on the project for the Julius tomb, the Prisoners, never installed there, made allusion to the classical iconographic tradition of captive figures described below, and these figures were then detached from this context and given an even more unambiguous political meaning, presented to the Strozzi (according to Spini) as symbols of Florence's lost liber-ty. Once again, we see the importance of taking into consideration the political con-text when considering the possible meaning of Michelangelo's sculpture in the Medici Chapel. Generic spiritualizing interpretations, in which the "spirit struggles against the flesh," do not do justice to the full meaning of these works; images of struggle or submis-sion in Michelangelo's works may have had a political significance in addition to their neo-platonizing spiritual one, if, indeed, such philosophical meanings exist at all.  136

We shall observe these same images of struggle with the same implied political meanings in Michelangelo's use of the classical iconography of captive figures on the Medici tomb. The above evidence of Michelangelo’s attitude toward Medici rule in Florence makes clear both his republican sympathies and the great fear and aversion he had to their rule in his native city, for both personal and familial reasons, and forms, we suggest, the background against which the possibility of his incorporation of a hidden, anti-Medicean message into his Sagrestia Nuova should be viewed. No friend of the Medici, and a pas-sionate supporter of the republican cause, Michelangelo was nevertheless cautious by na-ture, and had no great desire to offer himself up as a martyr for the republican cause, as did many of his contemporaries. He was also, as the evidence cited above demonstrates, a realist about the often brutal means used by the Medici family to maintain themselves in power and suppress criticism of their regime. And yet, despite this innate cautiousness, he was a proud man, and had no desire to engage in the obsequious flattery of the Medici princes which marked so many of his contemporaries. A way would have to be found to express resistance to Medici rule while reducing the possibility of retaliation on their part.

! Hartt (citing Popp) expresses extreme skepticism regarding neo-Platonizing interpretations of 136

the Chapel, not considering them founded on historical evidence. Gilbert shares the same view.

! � 108

Just such a means was found by Michelangelo in his allusive use of classical iconography on the Medici tomb.  137

Such considerations as these—Michelangelo's own political views, and his expres-sion of them in his art at the time of Florence's republican crisis--make it less implausi-ble, in our view, that Michelangelo might have undertaken to encode sentiments critical of the Medici princes in the Sagrestia Nuova. The period of the creation of the work--from the early 1520s to about 1534--corresponds exactly with the time of Florence's trou-bles described above, the final denouement of which was her final subjugation to Medici power. The larger context for the creation of such a work, in which sentiments critical of princely power are encoded in works addressed to these same princes, is the widespread use in Renaissance Europe of covert means, in both the visual and the literary arts, to crit-icize those in power, a subject which, while important and insufficiently studied, is be-yond the scope of this paper.  138

Such expectations on the part of Renaissance audiences regarding works which to modern viewers or readers appear to represent unambiguous celebrations of the patron's power and prestige, form one aspect (together with a more general fondness during the period for hidden or covert messages, exemplified in the widespread popularity of em-blems) of their interpretive predispositions—very different from our own--which makes

! For more on Michelangelo’s republicanism, see Trexler and Lewis 156ff. (Wallace 262ff.), 137

where the authors connect the issue of the identification of the figures of the Medici capitani with their claim that “the Medici Chapel makes a political statement about tyranny and assassina-tion” and the fact that, in the 1540s, the Florentines “were associating the statues in the Medici Chapel with tyrannicide." As we note below, while we accept their general contention that the Medici Chapel makes a political statement, some aspects of their argument are not supported by the evidence they adduce.

! To cite only one example of the encoding of sentiments critical of those in power in a work of 138

Renaissance art, we might mention Pontormo's Martyrdom of the Eleven Thousand, which, ac-cording to Strehlke, “contains a veiled political reference about the brutal reprisals and execu-tions that followed the siege [of Florence in 1529],” the Roman emperor ordering the execution of the Christian martyrs resembling the newly created Duke Alessandro (Carl Strehlke, “Pontor-mo, Alessandro de’ Medici, and the Palazzo Pazzi,” Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin 81 (1985): 12, citing Berti (L’opera completa del Pontormo, 104, n. 111). The phenomenon also ap-pears in Renaissance literature, in which ingenious means were used by writers to encode mes-sages critical of powerful patrons in works of literary art addressed to these same patrons. On this subject, see the recent studies of Robin, D'Elia and Rundle.

! � 109

our hypothesis of a hidden critical message in the Sagrestia Nuova, when considered to-gether with Michelangelo's political views and the political circumstances around the time of its creation, in our view, less implausible. To confirm our hypothesis that Michelangelo encoded a message critical of Medici power in the Sagrestia Nuova, we will now turn to an examination of the visual evidence of the Tomb itself. !

Classical Images of Captives and the Night ! An examination of the pose of Michelangelo’s Night and Day, placed on either side of the central figure of Lorenzo, reveals striking similarities with Roman sesterces coined under Titus and Domitian to celebrate the capture and subjugation of the city of Jerusalem, the famous Judaea capta series.  (FIGS. 1 and 2) 139

!!!!!!!!!

! On both the Medici tomb and the Roman coins, we observe the figure of a seated or reclining female figure, eyes downcast, together with a bound male figure on either side of a central axis, on the coins, a palm tree, in the Medici Chapel, the figure of Loren-zo. The only difference between the coins commemorating the capture of Jerusalem and the tomb sculptures is that on the coins the male figure is standing, not seated, and the

! We agree with Trexler and Lewis’ view that the figure above the Day and the Night is Loren139 -zo, and that the figure above Evening and Dawn is Giuliano. For a discussion of the history of confusion surrounding the identity of the two figures, see Trexler and Lewis, Appendix. Langedijk also accepts this identification (The Portraits of the Medici: 15th-18th Centuries (Flo-rence: Studio per Edizioni Scelte, 1981-7).

! � 110

central axis is different in the two cases.  In addition, on the Medici tomb, we do not 140

observe actual chains binding the figure, but, in our view, this does not detract from an overall impression of a figure struggling against its bonds. We discuss this aspect of the Day at greater length below. Despite these differences, the similarity of the two represen-tations is compelling. A marvelously eloquent, if crude, Roman relief from the Landesmuseum in Mainz (the so-called Mainz pedestals), called “Germania capta” or “barbara prigioniera,” dis-plays the same posture: (FIG. 3) !!!!!!!! !!!! As Antonio Giuliano has shown, the figure of a woman with downcast eyes, in the attitude of mourning, symbolizing a captured province, was widespread in classical an-tiquity.  Giuliano has shown that this image was well known in Renaissance Italy as 141

well. He notes the presence of the figure of a grieving woman in the border of a tapestry by Raphael (the handing over of the keys to Peter) in the Vatican. The tapestry was exe-

! Michelangelo’s favorite preacher, Savonarola, frequently referred to Florence as a new 140

Jerusalem, her subjugation to Medici rule representing a second Babylonian captivity.

! Antonio Giuliano, “Germania capta,” Xenia 16 (1988): 101. Dorothy Shorr notes that me141 -dieval representations of the mater dolorosa, head bowed in grief at the foot of the Cross, togeth-er with another figure opposite, hands often crossed at the wrists, derives from this same classi-cal iconographic tradition ("The Mourning Virgin and Saint John," Art Bulletin 22 (June 1940): 61-69).

! � 111

cuted in 1514-1515, and represents the sack of Florence of November 9, 1494 and the flight of cardinal Giovanni (later Leo X) and his brothers Giuliano and Piero. This figure is identified by Giuliano as   “Florentia capta,” this identification made certain by the 142placement of the Marzocco by her left knee. (FIG. 4)

! Giuliano notes that Raphael found his inspiration for the figure in the statue of a “Dacia capta” (perhaps originally the capitol of a triumphal arch in the forum of Trajan) on display in the Cesi gardens in Rome (FIG. 5).

! For a thorough discussion of the tapestry, see John White and John Shearman, "Raphael's 142Tapestries and Their Cartoons," Art Bulletin 40 (Sept. 1958): 218-219.

! � 112

Giuliano then identifies Michelangelo’s Mother of Asa and his Jesse from the Sis-tine Chapel (executed in 1511-1512) as belonging to this iconographic tradition, and sug-gests that Michelangelo also found his inspiration in the Cesi figure. The fact that Michelangelo had access to the Cesi garden is demonstrated by the fact that he called a figure of a Juno present there "the most beautiful object in Rome.” In the Cesi garden, the Dacia was placed under a statue of conquering Rome, flanked by two captives, an arrangement which might have suggested to the artist the overall structure of the Medici monument, the figure of Lorenzo above replacing the Rome, with the Cesi Dacia now placed on the left as the Night, and the bound Roman captives being replaced by Day. (FIG. 6) As we shall see, the Night actually represents the combination of two statues, the Dacia from the Cesi garden, and another figure, that of a sleeping nymph, present both in the Cesi garden and the Belvedere sculpture court. So, according to Giuliano, this image of a woman with downcast gaze, hand sup-porting her head, has a very long history, dating back to classical antiquity, and was very well known to Italian Renaissance artists. He also makes it clear that this image invari-ably had a political significance.  143

A Greek vase from the Medici collection (the famous "Medici vase") represents Helen in this same pose of abject grief and despair.  (FIG. 7) 144

!!! Giuliano 104. For a full listing of the use of the figure of a grieving woman in the Renais143 -sance, often with a political meaning, see Giuliano 112-114. We have not been able to determine exactly where and when the weeping Dacia was first placed on view, whether in the Cesi fami-ly’s sculpture garden or in some other place. Haskell and Penny (193) imply that the figure could not have been displayed before 1536, but the quotation of the figure by Michelangelo and Raphael in the second decade of the century clearly indicates that it was known to Renaissance artists before this time. For the placement of the sculpture in the Capitoline Museum, with bibli-ography, see H. Stuart Jones, ed., A Catalogue of Ancient Sculptures Preserved in the Municipal Collections of Rome (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1926), 17-18. For a discussion of the use of the sculpture in later art, see Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500-1900 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), 193-4. Giuliano 104. Giuliano notes that this suggestion dates back to Steinmann’s study of 1905.

! For a history of the vase, present in the Medici garden from the 1570s, see Haskell and Penny 144

316.

! � 113

!! Not only was the figure of a seated woman without downcast eyes well-known in classical and Renaissance iconography, but the pairing of this image with one represent-ing a bound male figure is also found in the art of both periods. We cited above the Ro-man serterces; we also see two male captives chained together on the Mainz pedestals mentioned above (FIG. 8):

! � 114

In post-classical times the motif appears in the work of Peter Paul Rubens, in his oil sketch of the Triumphal Chariot of the Victory of Calloo. (FIG. 9). !

! As Held points out, Rubens' source for these figures was either Roman coins, gems or the Dacia herself, the same sources we indicated above as possible sources for Michelangelo's Day and Night in the Medici Chapel.  Held also notes that Rubens had 145

access to the Cesi garden, and had made drawings of the Rome, the Dacia, and the pris-oners there; he also made a drawing of Michelangelo's Night.  146

We also see this pairing of a male prisoner with a female figure with her head in her hands on the Gemma Augustea. (FIG. 10). The pairing also occurs frequently on Ro-man sarcophagi, as we shall see. !!!!

! These are all reproduced in Held v. 2, cited below.145

! Held 1.364.146

! � 115

Hence to us it seems very likely that the Day and the Night of the Medici tomb, placed in a reclining position on either side of a central axis, under the image of a con-queror, were intended by Michelangelo as a reference to the classical iconographic tradi-tion just described, and that the artist intended to bring to the mind of the viewer familiar with this tradition, looking at his figures in the Chapel, not only the visual similarities be-tween his figures and their classical antecedents, but also the political significance of the figures which formed part of their meaning from the beginning. The exact nature of this political meaning will be described below. To support our hypothesis, we will now exam-ine another source for Michelangelo's figure of Night in the Sagrestia Nuova. !

The Belvedere Cleopatra and the Literary Tradition ! The scholar of Renaissance gardens Elizabeth MacDougall has observed the simi-larity of the pose of the Night to that of a classical statue of a sleeping nymph, acquired early in 1512 from the Mattei family of Parione by Pope Julius II and placed in the Belvedere as the centerpiece of a fountain, where the sculpture was identified as a dying Cleopatra.  Relevant to our argument that the Night was intended to evoke classical 147

captive figures, Bober and Rubinstein discern in the pose of the Belvedere Cleopatra or "Ariadne" (as she was also identified in the Renaissance, the identification generally ac-cepted by scholars today) a possible "allusion to conventional ancient gestures of mourn-ing.”  These scholars refer to her "second life" as a sleeping nymph in the Renaissance, 148

and note the wide influence she had on Renaissance artists. The sculpture is indeed quite beautiful.  (FIG. 11) 149

!! Elisabeth MacDougall, "The Sleeping Nymph: Origins of a Humanist Fountain Type," Art 147

Bulletin 57 (Sept. 1975): 357-365. See also Phyllis Pray Bober, "Sleeping Nymph and Angelo Colocci," JWCI 40 (1977): 723-39. For a thorough discussion of the statue, its history and view-ers' responses to it, see Haskell and Penny 184-187.

! Bober and Rubinstein 114.148

! Haskell and Penny note that the Richardsons found the figure deeply moving, citing the pas149 -sage from the Book of Lamentations on the sufferings of Jerusalem in her Babylonian captivity: "She who was once great among nations has become as a widow. . . .she ceases not to weep night and day, and tears stain her cheeks" (Haskell and Penny 194).

! � 116

! Michelangelo could have seen this statue during his visits to the Belvedere gardens during the pontificates of Julius, Leo or Clement. That Michelangelo was at this time oc-cupied with works of Roman sculpture in the Belvedere is shown by that fact that he was present soon after the discovery of the Laocoon on January 14, 1506 in the vineyard of Felice de' Freddi, a Roman citizen, as noted in a letter of Giuliano da San Gallo's son Francesco.  Brummer notes that Michelangelo may have been in charge of the restora150 -

! Brummer 75.150

! � 117

tion of the right arm of the statue.  Brummer, citing Vasari, also notes that Michelangelo 151

was in charge of the restoration of a statue of Tigris, also in the Belvedere court, possibly before 1532.  According to Brummer, the installation of the Belvedere Cleopatra foun152 -tain was not subject to any major changes from 1512, when the figure was transferred from the Palazzo Mattei to the Belvedere court, and 1538/9, when Francesco de Hollanda depicted it in his sketchbook.  (FIG. 12) 153

! Brummer 107.151

! Brummer 186-187.152

! Brummer 161.153

! � 118

! Brummer notes that a similar figure was present in the Cesi garden, where, as we have already noted, Michelangelo might also have seen the "Dacia capta" discussed above. He also notes that the sleeping Cleopatra figure was also present in the gardens of the Cardi-nal Rodolfo Pio da Carpi, a friend of Michelangelo, on the Quirinal hill. It was also present in the gardens of Angelo Colocci, an important patron of the arts and friend of Italian humanists.  154

We will now discuss the Cleopatra in detail. In August 1512, Giovanni Francesco Pico della Mirandola reports that the figure of a reclining Cleopatra formed part of a fountain installation in the Belvedere cortile of the Vatican.  Placed under the recum155 -bent figure was a sarcophagus which served as a basin to catch the waters from the foun-tain above.  156

The Belvedere Cleopatra bears a striking resemblance to the pose of Michelange-lo's Night, as may be seen from a comparison of the two figures. (FIG. 13) !!!!!!! On Colocci, see Ingrid Rowland, The Culture of the High Renaissance: Ancients and Mod154 -erns in Sixteenth-Century Rome (New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), with bibliography.

! For the distribution of the statues in the courtyard, see Brummer 22, Plate 1.155

! If we look closely at another sarcophagus in the Vatican, also from the Palazzo Mattei, we 156

observe that the figure leans for support on an urn, whose flowing waters suggest the flowing beard of the grotesque mask upon which Michelangelo's Night leans for support (FIG. 16). It seems not impossible that, in addition to the Belvedere Cleopatra, the artist might have seen this sarcophagus also and, perhaps subconsciously, been inspired by its flowing waters in his creation of the grotesque mask of the Medici Chapel. The open mouth and flowing beard of his mask may thus be related to the theme of tempus vorans, all-devouring time, discussed below, as well as to the waters of Lethe, symbol of eternal oblivion. The Belvedere Tigris, on which Michelangelo may have worked, also presents the image of a bearded male figure and an urn (Brummer 186).

! � 119

! Both lean backwards for support on and support their downturned head on their hands. Both appear to be sleeping. Both have small, round breasts. A salient difference between the two figures is that Michelangelo's figure is naked, while the Belvedere Cleopatra is draped in the classical chiton which serves to accentuate the curves of the figure beneath. Also, on Michelangelo's figure, the legs are drawn up, while on the Cleopatra, they are gracefully crossed at the ankles. On the sarcophagus beneath the figure there are a pair of twisting male figures which bear a very close resemblance to the pose of the Day. (FIG. 14)

! � 120

We may also note the presence on the sarcophagus of a conquering figure above, together with images of captive prisoners beseeching the conqueror for clemency. We saw the same ensemble of captive figures together with a conqueror on the Roman coins described above. Under the sarcophagus, we observe a pair of dolphins and a large shell, which might have suggested to Michelangelo the shell between the tombs in sketches for the Medici monument, as well as the water element at the base of the tombs, which, in Michelangelo's version of the ensemble, was to have been represented by two river gods. (FIG. 15) ! So, we suggest, not only does Michelangelo's Night recall the statue in the Belvedere courtyard, but his Day recalls the images of captives from the sarcophagus which was placed under the figure of Cleopatra. And as we shall see, the Belvedere Cleopatra had an explicitly political meaning for Michelangelo's contemporaries. Another sarcophagus, also from the Palazzo Mattei, displays the same combina-tion of elements: reclining female figure, muscular twisting male figure below, conquer-ing figure above. (FIG. 17) !

!!!!

! � 121

!

! � 122

Perhaps even more striking is the similarity of an inscription placed near the sleep-ing nymph figure in the Colocci gardens to Michelangelo's well-known epigram on the Night, in which the sleeping figure addresses the viewer, and requests their silence, as a comparison of the two poems will make clear: ! Dear to me is Sleep, and more to be of stone, While shame and suffering endure; Not to see, not to hear, is to me great good fortune; And so, do not wake me, pray, speak softly.  157

! Nymph of this place, Guardian of the sacred fountain, I sleep, while I listen to the murmur of the sweet water; Pray do not disturb my sleep, whoever touches the hollow basin; Whether you drink or bathe, be silent.  158

! The latter inscription, believed in the Renaissance to be ancient, was very popular in Rome of the early cinquecento, and versions of it were present in places known to have been frequented by Michelangelo, for example, the Cesi garden and the garden of the Cardinal of San Clemente.  Noteworthy is that both "inscriptions" describe the figure as 159

sleeping, and beg the viewer not to wake her. This suggests that Michelangelo's poem on the Night was intended as a kind of interpretive key to its significance, just as the inscrip-tion placed near the figure in the Cesi and Colocci gardens was intended to explain to the viewer the meaning of the figure, the only difference being that, in the case of Michelan-gelo, this interpretive clue is disassociated from the physical monument, hence making the interpretation of the figure more enigmatic.

! Michelangelo, The Poetry of Michelangelo, ed. James M. Saslow (New Haven, CT: Yale 157

University Press, 1991), 419.

! For a history of the inscription, see Otto Kurz, "Huius Nympha Loci: A Pseudo-Classical In158 -scription and a Drawing by Durer," JWCI (1953): 171-7.

! Brummer notes that in the Colocci garden in Rome, there was also an image of a fountain 159

nymph, with the following inscription:

! � 123

Michelangelo's epigram should be read in conjunction with another poem of his of 1545-46, in which he draws a clear connection between a suffering Florence, represented as a lovely young woman, and the tyrannical quality of Medici power: ! --For many, lady, or rather for a thousand lovers You were created, and of angelic shape; But now it seems that Heaven is sleeping, Since one appropriates to himself what is given to many. Give back to our tears the light of your eyes, Since it seems that you deprive Those who are born in misery without your gift. --I pray you, don’t disturb your holy desires, Since he who seems to despoil and deprive you of me With great fear does not enjoy his great sin; Since that state of lovers is less happy In which great plenty satisfies great desire Than a misery full of hope.  160

! Here Michelangelo refers to Florence as a beautiful woman, intended for the en-joyment of many (“ch'è dato a tanti”) but usurped by the power of “one,” whom Saslow identifies as Cosimo de’ Medici. Michelangelo uses here the classical commonplace of the tyrant so beset by fears that he cannot enjoy what he possesses. Saslow notes that this "appropriation to himself what is given to many" is the locus classicus of the behavior of a tyrant as described by the classical historians and philosophers.  Masi notes that a 161

! Saslow 423.160

! Aristotle, for example, describes the tyrant in these words: "The best of these [forms of gov161 -ernment] is monarchy, the worst timocracy. The deviation from monarchy is tyranny; for both are forms of one-man rule, but there is the greatest difference between them; the tyrant looks to his own advantage, the king to that of his subjects [emphasis added]. . . .Now tyranny is the very contrary of this; the tyrant pursues his own good" (Nichomachean Ethics Bk. 8, 1160a32-1160b22), in The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton: Prince-ton University Press: 1984), 1834.

! � 124

contemporary of Michelangelo remarks on this poem that “By the young woman, Michelangelo is signifying Florence.” In our view, both of these poems of Michelangelo's may serve as glosses on the political meaning of the Night. The reference in the second poem to sleep, tears, sadness and suffering recalls not only Michelangelo's epigram on the statue, but also to poems written on the reclining nymph figure in the Belvedere, which we discuss below.  An 162

important difference is that in Michelangelo's epigram, unlike the inscription on the Cesi/Colocci nymph, the figure desires sleep not for its own sake, but for the respite from suf-fering it will bring. In both of Michelangelo's poems, then, we are presented with the image of a beau-tiful young woman, whose subjugation to a superior male force causes suffering, either for the figure itself, or for those who hold her dear. A set of contemporary poems on the Belvedere Cleopatra reveals further affinities between Michelangelo's poem on the Night and contemporary literary treatments of the sleeping nymph/Cleopatra figure. These poems were written by the Roman nobleman Evangelista Maddaleni Fausto di Capodiferro, a member of the Colocci circle, and de-scribe the Belvedere Cleopatra as a suffering captive of Pope Julius.  163

In the first poem, Cleopatra abjures the viewer to be silent and not to wake her: ! Tired by the sleep-bearing murmur of the fountain, I enjoy it, clear, sweet and frigid as it is. Approach silently, silently bathe and drink. And silently, lest sleep desert me, leave.

! As Rowland points out, there were also poems written on the Colocci nymph which give an 162

explicitly political interpretation to the figure. Among them was an eclogue ("ecloga felix") by the Neopolitan poet Girolamo Borgia, in which the fountain in the Colocci garden, as Julius' daughter Felice, is imagined as singing the praises of Julius, and lamenting his death in the midst of his great enterprises.

! Capodiferro also wrote a poem on Michelangelo. For a listing of poems written on Michelan163 -gelo by his contemporaries, see Arduino Colasanti, "Gli artisti nella poesia del Rinascimento: Fonti poetiche per la storia dell'arte italiana," Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft 27, 3 (1904), 210-11. For Capodiferro in the cultural life of Renaissance Rome, see H. Janitschek, "Ein Hof-poet Leo's X. über Künstler und Kunstwerke," Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft 7 (1880): 52-60 and Rowland.

! � 125

As much as Caesar, arbiter of the world, thirsted after me alive, Another Caesar loves me made of marble.  164

!In the second poem, the cause of her suffering is made clear: she is carried captive in tri-umph by a victorious Caesar, whom Capodiferro identifies as Julius: ! I who ruled the Nile, am made the guardian of a little fountain And teach how little faith is in great things. Who, conquered, refused in death to follow the triumphs of Augustus, Now, made of stone, I guard, Julius, your waters.  165

! In the third and fourth poems, Capodiferro repeats the theme of conquering Julius, and the statue's request to the visitor to be silent. The fifth poem makes both the political reference and Cleopatra's sufferings clear: ! Cleopatra, you languish because of sleep or sleep-bearing poison; The murmur of the water mixes dreams with cares. O would these were the waters of fateful Lethe, That I not witness my kingdom perish with me. It would be better today to have died quickly and blessedly, Than to be seized after three thousand years by miserable death.  166

! Taken together, we observe in these poems every theme expressed in a much more compressed form in Michelangelo's epigram on the Night: the figure is sleeping; she re-quests the visitor's silence; sleep is a way to avoid a memory of her suffering; this suffer-ing causes shame. Both Michelangelo's epigram and the poems of Capodiferro play on the conceit of living victim/stone image; all the poems abjure the viewer to pity the suf-ferings of the helpless victim. While Capodiferro's poems make explicit the cause of this

! Brummer 221.164

! Brummer 221.165

! Brummer 222.166

! � 126

suffering, Pope Julius, Michelangelo only alludes to it by calling it a "danno" (hurt, crime, injury) which endures. As Brummer points out, these poems of Capodiferro had an explicitly political meaning for Michelangelo's contemporaries, as celebrations of Julius' power as the founder of a "new Rome" across the Tiber from the old city. In our view, however, the reference here may be even more specific: the conquest by Julius of the city of Bologna in 1505, with the concomitant expulsion of her Bentivogli lords. In the third of the poems by Capodiferro cited by Brummer, the poet explicitly refers to the fountain figure as borne away in triumph: “A second Julius, having led me away, set me up next to the wa-ter," and Brummer also notes in this context that the Apollo Belvedere, placed in an angle of the courtyard opposite the Cleopatra, was also given a political interpretation by con-temporaries, as was the Laocoon, which was intended by Julius as an exemplum doloris, warning Italy's princes of the dangers of trying to defy the Pope's authority, as is made clear from a contemporary poem on the statue, also by Capodiferro: ! May similar kings be feared for their divine power, and loved! Lest you offend the divine authority, my sufferings warn you. If the example of our suffering is not enough for you, The headlong ruin of the house of Bentivoglio teaches.  167

! Further support for the hypothesis that the Belvedere Cleopatra carried the specif-ic meaning for contemporary viewers of a captured Bologna is given by the fact that at around the time of the placing of the Cleopatra in the Belvedere statue court in 1512, there were celebrated at Rome two triumphal processions all'antica, one to commemorate Julius' triumphal return to Rome in March 1507 following the capture of the city by Julius' forces and the expulsion of Giovanni Bentivoglio in November 1506, the other in February 1513.  168

As the above evidence suggests, the use of a reclining female figure to symbolize cities was apparently a visual commonplace for Renaissance viewers. The image also ap-peared on the series of tapestries by Raphael described above in reference to the Dacia

! Brummer 226.167

! Brummer 222-3.168

! � 127

which commemorated the events following the expulsion of the Medici from Florence in 1494. In this case, the figure of Giovanni de' Medici is seen approaching the reclining nymph figure, symbolic of the city of Mantua, where he was held hostage following the defeat of the Holy League at the siege of Ravenna in 1512 and his capture by French forces.  (FIG. 18) In the case of Raphael's tapestry, the figure represents, not a captured 169

city, but the city seen as place of refuge, alma quies.  170

Seen in this context, it seems clear that the Belvedere Cleopatra was intended to carry for contemporary viewers an allusion to the classical iconographic tradition of mourning female figures symbolic of captured cities or provinces, the meaning given to this particular figure on the Roman coins and monuments, as noted above. Just as the Apollo of the Belvedere cortile represented Julius as a conquering hero, and the Laocoon the terrible fate which awaited his enemies, so also, then, did the Belvedere Cleopatra represent the city of Bologna herself, carried off in triumph and subject to Julius' superior might, placed in the Belvedere courtyard as an example of his power over the Italian states for all to see. Several poems contemporary with the statue tend to support this hypothesis. Baldessare Castiglione refers to this same image of a suffering Cleopatra borne in tri-umph by a conquering Caesar, whom Castiglione identifies as Julius, in a vain spectacle ("spectacio inani") to sate the cruel eyes ("crudelia lumina") of the spectators.  171

From this evidence, we can see that there was a tradition in Renaissance Rome of writing poems on the reclining nymph/Cleopatra figure, in which she was presented as lamenting her capture by a conquering hero, and that these poems referred to actual his-torical circumstances, specifically the capture of the city of Bologna by Pope Julius. It is

! The entire tapestry is reproduced in Pietro Santi Bartoli, Leonis X admirandae virtutis imag169 -ines (Rome: I. I. de Rubeis, n.d.).

! Two poems by Baldessare Castiglione also makes reference to this same image of a suffering 170

Cleopatra borne in triumph by a conquering Caesar, whom Castiglione identifies as Julius, in a vain spectacle ("spectacio inani") to sate the cruel eyes ("crudelia lumina") of the spectators. One of the poems was placed on a pilaster to the right of the Cleopatra after she was moved from the courtyard to the Stanza di Cleopatra at Vasari's suggestion in the early 1550s. For the history of the various locations of the statue, and critical reactions to it, see Haskell and Penny 184-7.

! Brummer 220-1.171

! � 128

against this background, we suggest, that Michelangelo's Night, along with the poems which explicate its meaning, should be seen. Not only, then, does Michelangelo's Night derive, in part, her pose and expression from the Belvedere Cleopatra, but Michelangelo's epigram on the figure, which makes her suffering clear, also derives from the contemporary tradition of poems which at-tributed an explicitly political meaning to the figure, the captured Cleopatra/Bologna of the Belvedere fountain replaced on Michelangelo's monument by a captured Florence, both seen as symbols of captive cities, the implied allusion on the Belvedere installation to a conquering Julius made visible on the Medici tomb in the figure of Lorenzo placed over the two reclining figures of the Day and Night, which, as we have seen, already al-lude to the classical iconographic tradition of captured cities or provinces. In both cases, the poems on the figures serve to illuminate their political meaning, although Michelan-gelo's quatrain is much more allusive than the poems of Capodiferro. Seen in this light, both Michelangelo's poem on the Night, contemporary poems on the figure (such as Strozzi's cited above), and his figures in the Chapel themselves, find their proper historical context. Once this is understood, a political interpretation of the Medici Chapel as making an anti-Medicean statement becomes more plausible. To sum up what has been said so far: Michelangelo's Night should be associated with a contemporary visual tradition, widely diffused around the city of Rome, and in places frequented by the artist, in which what at first sight appear to be merely sleeping female figures, on closer inspection, turn out to be representations of the domination of cities by powerful conquerors. And as we have just seen, there was a parallel literary tradition, to which Michelangelo's epigram on his Night belongs, which assigned an explicitly politi-cal interpretation to the sleeping figure, in the case of the poems by Capodiferro and Cas-tiglione, as a Cleopatra/Bologna lamenting her conquest by the conquering Pope, where the statue, together with the poems which explicated its meaning, was meant to be seen by contemporaries as an exemplum to other Italian cities who might try to resist his de-termination to unite northern Italy under Papal control and expel the foreigners from Italy's shores. As final confirmation that Michelangelo's Night was intended to recall the Belvedere Cleopatra, we may note that the braid of hair over Night's right shoulder is analogous to the braid of hair in the artist's drawing of Cleopatra in (FIGS. 19 and 20):

! � 129

! Hence, we would suggest, just as Michelangelo's epigram on the Night derives its basic theme ("I'm sleeping; don’t disturb my sleep") from the inscription placed near the reclining nymph/Cleopatra figure, so also does it derive its more complex elaboration of this idea—that the need for sleep is due to some suffering which causes shame--from the poems of Capodiferro. What Capodiferro chooses to make explicit, namely, that this suf-fering is due to the figure of a conquering Julius, Michelangelo only alludes to in his poem by noting that the "crime" still endures. However, given what we have !!!

! � 130

said about Michelangelo's political views and the circumstances under which the monu-ment was created, this "danno" can only be Medicean domination of Florence. We would also suggest that, just as the inscription under the Belvedere Cleopatra, together with the poems by Capodiferro, provide the context for an understanding of the political allusions in Michelangelo's epigram on the Night, so also do the poems of Capodiferro just cited provide the context in which the numerous poems mentioned by contemporaries written in celebration of Michelangelo's work in the Sagrestia Nuova should be viewed. All belong to a Renaissance tradition of "talking statues," in which lit-erary works were written to explicate the meaning of works of visual art, the work often addressing the viewer and explaining her situation. But while Michelangelo, for the rea-sons mentioned above, chooses to be highly allusive regarding the political situation to which his poem refers, other poems, such as those of Capodiferro just cited, are more ex-plicit in giving an overtly political interpretation to the work of art. We shall say more about the Renaissance tradition of talking statues in our discussion of the Evening and Dawn below. This raises the interesting possibility that there may exist poems on Michelangelo's Night which, in addition to the trite and customary formulae of praise which character-ized many of the contemporary responses to his work in the Sagrestia Nuova (and which Michelangelo so wittily rejects in his epigram on the Night cited above), may also ex-press a political response to the monument, parallel to that expressed by Capodiferro and Castiglione in their poems on the Belvedere Cleopatra. After all, Cellini, in his Vita, states explicitly that "when our Michelangelo un-veiled his Sagrestia, where one can see so many beautiful figures, that wondrous and vir-tuous school, lovers of the true and the good, wrote him more than one hundred sonnets, competing amongst themselves for who could say the best things.”  It seems to us not 172

impossible that some of these poems might contain references, albeit allusive and indi-rect, to a political interpretation of the work. In a later section of this essay, we see that there were indeed contemporary responses to the Chapel which saw it in an explicitly po-litical light.

! Vasari, ed. Barocchi, III, 954, cited in Louis Waldman, "'Miracol' Novo et Raro': Two Unpub172 -lished Contemporary Satires on Bandinelli’s Hercules'," Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Mu-seum in Florenz 38 (1994), 423.

! � 131

To sum up what has been said regarding Michelangelo's Night and the Belvedere Cleopatra: the pose of the Night derives in part from that of the Vatican Cleopatra, as does Michelangelo's epigram on the statue, and both epigram and statue should be placed in the context of Renaissance poems lamenting the fate of a captive female figure, in which the figure was given an explicitly political interpretation. The pose of the Night is in fact a combination of two classical sources, both well-known to Renaissance artists and intellectuals, for whom they carried an explicitly politi-cal meaning, and also prominently displayed in places frequented by Michelangelo: the Dacia capta (in the downturned head, supported by a hand and the drawn-up legs) of the Cesi/Colocci gardens, and the Belvedere Cleopatra (in the reclining pose, the down-turned head, and the head supported by her hand). Michelangelo's own poetry—both his epigram on the Night and his sonnet in which the political fate of Florence is embodied in the image of a young and beautiful woman subject to the depredations of a tyrannical captor—provides us with an interpreta-tive clue to his figure in the Sagrestia Nuova. While some of the Renaissance poetry cited makes the political reference explicit, Michelangelo prefers to leave his allusions unexpressed, because of his inherently cau-tious nature, and because the character and actions of the Medici rulers during the time of the creation of the monument made caution advisable. !

The Day as Symbol of Resistance to Medici Rule ! We noted above that the figures of Day and Night are derived from the classical iconographic tradition of reclining captive figures. Just as the Night may be seen in dy-namic relation to the figure of Lorenzo above as representing a beautiful Florence suffer-ing the baneful effects of Medici domination, so also may the figure of Day, with which it is paired, be said to suffer the effects of Lorenzo's overweening rule. And yet while the pose of Night, through its evocation of the classical tradition of captive figures just de-scribed, represents abjection and despair, the pose of Day, with its vivid twisting and bulging muscles, is intended to recall the figure of a captive prisoner struggling against its bonds, present also in the classical iconography to which the figure refers, as we have noted. The figures should, then, be viewed in dynamic relation to the figure of Lorenzo

! � 132

above them, and not in isolation, as has been the tendency in most analyses of the Chapel up until now. Many critics have noted this sense of violent torsion present in the figure; the fierce scowl on his face only increases this effect.  (FIG. 21) 173

!

!!!!!!!!!! Just as the Night represents a mourning Florence, passively suffering the effects of her domination by her Medici lords, so the Day represents, we would suggest, the rageful helplessness of the opponents of the Medici (whether the fuorusciti, who chose the path of military resistance from without, or opponents of the Medici who chose opposition from within) to do anything about the family's continuing dominance of the city.

! On the rage of Day see, for example, De Tolnay: “The torsion [of the figure of Day] is so vio173 -lent that it seems to jerk the left leg forcibly upward. Above the mighty shoulder the head turns toward the spectator, full of rage and contempt” (Cited in Barocchi 990).

! � 133

Some support for this interpretation of the figure of the Day as intended to repre-sent a rageful but impotent resistance to Medici rule is given by Michelangelo's bust of Brutus, which some critics have proposed is a portrait of Giannotti himself, as noted above. In the Brutus, we are confronted with a work of art which demonstrates a stern re-solve and firmness of character in the visual features of the face, its powerful jaw and fur-rowed brow resembling the fierce scowl present on the face of the Day, as well as the fur-rowed brow of the David, a recognized symbol of resistance to Medici rule. (FIG. 22) Hence we suggest that this particular combination of facial features had for Michelangelo a political significance. Further support for our hypothesis that the Day represents fierce and angry resis-tance to Medici rule comes from an external source: Rubens' oil sketches The Victims of War and Two Captive Soldiers. If we pair these two works, the resemblance to Michelan-gelo's Night and Day is striking: in the first sketch, we observe a mourning female figure, turned to the left, head in hand, and, in the second, an older, muscular male captive, struggling against his bonds, turned to the right. (FIGS. 23 and 24):

! � 134

The face of this figure is contorted in a fierce scowl which bears a very close re-semblance to that of Michelangelo's Day, as does his muscular and twisting pose. Held notes that Rubens may have derived his captives from ancient coins, gems, or the Dacia capta, the same sources discussed above as possible sources for Michelan-gelo's figures in the Sagrestia Nuova, but it also seems possible that the artist may have derived his figures directly from the Medici Chapel itself, since, as noted above, the artist also made a sketch of Michelangelo's Night.  This evidence clearly suggests that, for 174

Rubens at least, the figures of Night and Day on the Medici monument were interpreted as captive figures. Another source for the figure points again to Michelangelo's presence in the Belvedere gardens and also to a political meaning for the figure. Bober and Rubinstein note that the back of the Day is derived from a torso displayed in the Belvedere gardens (the famous "Torso Belvedere"), and that this statue was considered in the Renaissance to represent Hercules. (FIG. 25) What connects Day as a reference to Hercules with Michelangelo's political views of Medici rule is that both the Day and the conquered fig-ure under the victor of the Victory in the Bargello are self-portraits of the artist, as a com-parison of the poses and the faces of the figures makes clear: both display bulging, twist-ing muscles; both have a fierce expression and stare directly at the viewer; both are bearded, older figures.  (FIG. 26) 175

!!!!!!!! Held remarks that "'sitting on the ground' had long become a pictorial and literary topos for 174

the expression of melancholy and grief."

! Balas also sees the crouching figure of the Victory as a self-portrait of the artist. She also 175

notes that a sculptural grouping for the tomb of depicts the artist as the unwilling captive of a su-perior figure, and that Vincenzo de' Rossi's Hercules and Cacus, a companion-piece to the Victo-ry, also presents the vanquished figure as a portrait of Michelangelo (Edith Balas, "Michelange-lo's Victory: Its Role and Significance," Gazette des Beaux-Arts 113 (1989): 67-80).

! � 135

!!!!!!!!!!!!

! � 136

A comparison of these two figures to the Bearded Slave reveals that this latter fig-ure is also a self-portrait of the artist. (FIG. 27) This latter representation actually shows the bonds holding the figure, which, as we have seen, are only implied on the Day. All three figures, then, represent Michelangelo as the unwilling victim of a conqueror. The fierceness of his resistance to this domination is reflected in the contorted muscles and rageful expression of the victims, a feature present in the classical iconographic tradition from the beginning, as we have seen. The figure of Hercules was long associated with the city of Florence herself, as her protector, as may be observed in the 1508 commission to Michelangelo for a colossal Hercules as a pendant to his David, and also his youthful creation of a figure of the Greek hero. Tolnay notes that the Hercules was meant to symbolize Florence's domination of her internal enemies, just as the David symbolized her victory over external ones.  176

Balas remarks on the artist's long obsession with the figure. Hence the Day's reference to Michelangelo as a captive Hercules, suggested by its quotation of the Belvedere torso, is further confirmation that the artist intended in the figure to send, in a very allusive way, a message regarding Medici domination, not only of his city, but of the artist himself.  177

The Day, then, seen as a self-portrait of the artist as a captive Hercules, struggling in vain against Medici oppression, represents a kind of tragic inversion of the heroism of the David, the slingshot of the victorious conqueror of the Victory now replacing that of the conquering David in the Piazza della Signoria, the gigante of the Day now subject to Medici control, not triumphing over it.  178

The intensity of this struggle, and Michelangelo's passionate identification with it, are represented in the twisting pose of the figure, and in its fierce expression, which seems to stare out at the viewer as a warning, and also, perhaps, a challenge.

! For the almost comical tug-of-war over the consigning of the block of marble for the figure, 176

see Tolnay III, 98-100.

! ref. to Ganymede?177

! The Medici presentation of themselves as conquering Hercules is well-known to scholars. See 178

in this regard Leopold Ettlinger, "Hercules Florentinus," Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen In-stitutes in Florenz 16, 2 (1972), 119-142 and Kurt Foster, "Metaphors of Rule: Politics, Ideology and History in the Portraits of Cosimo I de' Medici," Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Insti-tutes in Florenz 15, 1 (1971), 65-104.

! � 137

Hence, for Michelangelo, the representation of himself as an older, bearded figure, struggling in vain against his captivity, far from being a representation of the "spirit struggling against the flesh," as neo-Platonic interpretations of the Chapel would have it, is, rather, simply an expression of the artist's impotent rage against Medici domination of his native city, a rage he shared with the other republican exiles.  179

!Evening and Dawn as Captive Figures

! Not only do the Night and Day derive from the classical iconographic tradition of captive figures, as we have seen, but the Evening and Dawn also derive from this same tradition; in this case, reclining river gods, as a comparison of their poses to figures of river gods on the Arch of Septimius Severus and a Roman sarcophagus makes clear. (FIGS. 28 and 29) More specifically, a comparison of the Tigris of the Belvedere statue court and the Evening of the Medici Chapel makes clear that the former was the direct source for Michelangelo's figure in the Chapel: both show reclining, bearded, older male figures; both display a slightly melancholy, pensive expression; the position of both the left and the right arms and hands is the same on both figures, as is the musculature of the chest and abdomen; both are nude or semi-nude; both have the right leg crossed over the left. (FIGS. 30 and 31)

! On a somewhat more jocular note, Sebastiano del Piombo's suggestion to Michelangelo that 179

he have a figure of a Ganymede depicted on the cupola of the Chapel might be interpreted in the same light, namely, that Michelangelo is captive to Medici demands that he finish the Chapel, despite his desires to the contrary. If this interpretation of Del Piombo's suggestion is correct, then this self-representation by Michelangelo as a captive Ganymede would form a parallel with his representation of himself in the Sistine Chapel, where his Saint Bartholomew makes a simi-larly humorous comment on the artist's unwilling subjugation to his patron's demands.

! � 138

As noted above, Michelangelo was possibly in charge of the restoration of the Tigris in the statue court.  180

As Brummer has pointed out, the Tigris was intended as a companion-piece to the Cleopatra, and was placed in the corner opposite the latter figure, to the left of the Anti-noos in the Belvedere cortile, the Cleopatra being to the right. The fact that the two were intended as companion-pieces is made clear from the fact that both show reclining fig-ures, one male, one female; both were displayed resting on sarcophagi; under the sar-cophagi were elements associated with water: on the Cleopatra, dolphins and a shell; on the Tigris, tortoises and, again, a shell. (FIG. 32)

! Given what has been said about the importance of the Cleopatra as a source for the Night, it seems to us possible that this pairing of reclining male and female figures, placed above sarcophagi, with bases consisting of water elements, may have suggested to the artist the pairing of the Evening and Dawn on the Medici tomb, where, once again, we observe paired reclining figures, one male and one female, resting on sarcophagi, and, as the sketch cited above makes clear, originally intended to be supported on a base display-ing a water element in the form of two reclining river gods.

! We also observe this same figure of a reclining male river god in Pierino da Vinci's Death of 180

Count Ugolino, now in the Bargello (Tolnay , pl.).

! � 139

Brummer also points out that, in the Renaissance, the Tigris was identified as the Arno, the restored urn upon which the right hand of the god rests being embellished with the Medici diamond ring and the Florentine lion, and that, after 1513, the statues in the Belvedere cortile were given explicitly Medicean interpretations.  These factors might 181

also have contributed to Michelangelo's appropriation of the figure of the Tigris as a source for his Evening in the Medici Chapel. If the latter suggestion of the pairing of the Tigris and the Cleopatra as a source for the similar pairing of Evening and Dawn of the Medici monument is accepted, we see once again the importance of the Belvedere statue court as a source of inspiration to the artist in his creation of the Medici tomb. The Evening, in particular, is another self-portrait of the artist, as comparison of the melancholy, bearded visage to known portraits of the artist makes clear, hence contin-uing the theme of a conquered Michelangelo/Hercules of the Day opposite. (FIG. 33) !!!!!!!!!!! As noted above, river gods, along with images of captive cities or provinces, were presented together on Roman coins, funerary monuments, and triumphal arches as sym-bols of their domination by a conquering hero. That their state of subjugation is a painful one for Michelangelo's Evening and Dawn is reflected in the expressions on the faces of the two figures: Evening displays an

! Brummer 234ff. He cites Ulisse Aldrovandi (Delle statue antiche, che per tutta Roma . . .si 181

veggono, Venice, 1556, 115ff.) as one of the sources which makes this identification: "si vede il simulacro del fiume Arno giacente. . ." (268).

! � 140

expression of lassitude and extreme fatigue and defeat, and Dawn shock mixed with pre-occupation, in her slightly furrowed brow. (FIG. 34)

! What seem less certain, however, are the specific political circumstances to which Michelangelo's Evening/Dawn/river gods allude. It seems possible that the artist may have intended here a reference to the Capitoline Investiture ceremony of 1512, in which Lorenzo (in absentia) and Giuliano were given Roman citizenship, and in which the two capitani were celebrated as furthering the wedding of the two cities, Rome and Florence, symbolized by floats of the two rivers, the Tiber and the Arno. During the ceremony a carro, pulled by the Pope's four white horses, carried a gilded figure of Clarice Orsini, Giuliano's mother, as Rome, seated on a gilded chair un-der a laurel tree, symbolizing the union of the two cities under Medici rule. What is sig-nificant for our interpretation of the Evening and Dawn as captive figures is that, on the float, there were two river gods reclining on each side of the chair, symbolizing the Tiber and the Arno ("Da man dritta li giaceva apresso il patre Tiberino. Da man manca Arno, ambo con barba bianca et capelli canuti"). At one point in the festivities, the float stopped in front of Giuliano, the figures of the river gods addressed Clarice, and the nymphs of the Tiber and the Arno sang a hymn celebrating the rule of Leo and Giuliano. Varchi cites a poem by Gandolfo Porrini in which humorous reference is made to the delay in Michelangelo's completion of the Medici Chapel because of his long conver-sations with Vittoria Colonna: "And the great-spirited kings of the Tiber and Arno will

! � 141

await the great sepulchers in vain.”  Here again we observe the association of Giuliano 182

and Lorenzo with the two rivers.  183

!Evening and Dawn in the Renaissance Tradition of Trionfi

! The individual responsible for the triumphal procession featuring Clarice Orsini as Roma and the two river gods just described was none other than Evangelista Capodiferro, the same person who wrote the poems celebrating the capture of Bologna (symbolized by the Belvedere Cleopatra) discussed above, as well as the poem on the Laocoon which celebrated Pope Julius' capture of the same city. This suggests yet again a connection be-tween the Cleopatra, Michelangelo's Evening and Dawn, seen as captive river gods, and contemporary celebrations which depicted a conquering figure above or alongside repre-sentations of captive figures. Michelangelo's Evening and Dawn recline under the figure of Giuliano, just as in the Capitoline Investiture ceremony, the Tiber and the Arno were shown reclining on each side of Giuliano's mother. During the ceremony on the Capitoline, the figures of the river gods addressed each other ("O padre Tibre, manifesta a questi popoli le suoe speranze. . . .Arno, perchè noi nascemo inseme di fraterne acque.” In his poetic sketch for a poem on the Evening and Dawn, Michelangelo explicitly presents the two figures as talking to each other: “Day and Night speak and say: ‘With our swift course we have brought Duke Giuliano to death. . . .” In a preliminary sketch for the Chapel, Michelangelo also presents the two reclining male figures under the sar-cophagus as talking to each other. (FIG. 35) Just as Michelangelo's figures in the Sagrestia Nuova, the river gods of the Investi-ture ceremony were nude ("nudi tutti, senonchè un certo manto copriva a ciascuno di essi alcune parti del corpo"). On the carro, the seated figure of Clarice wore a dragon's helmet ("la diva Clarice, . . .vestita d'oro, con la spoglia della testa di uno dracone in capo"). On the Medici monument, we observe that Giuliano wears a helmet which bears a close re-semblance to that of a dragon. (FIG. 36)

! Cited in Hartt 153; 65, n. 44.182

! Panofsky interprets the poem as making a reference to Lorenzo and Giuliano as river gods, 183

but the Italian is ambiguous, and could just as well mean that the two capitani rule over the two rivers.

! � 142

! We would suggest, then, that, just as Michelangelo's Night reclines under the figure of Lorenzo, and is intended to recall, not only generic captive figures familiar from the classical iconographic tradition, but specifically the Cleopatra of the Belvedere fountain, as subject to the might of a conquering figure, so also were the Evening and Dawn intended to recall, not only the classical tradition of captive river gods in general, but also specifically the Tiber and the Arno of the Capitoline Investiture ceremony, in which the two gods were presented discussing the rule of Pope Leo and Giuliano over Rome and Florence. The fact that the Evening may be a self-portrait of the artist in the guise of the riv-er Arno raises the interesting possibility that the Dawn might also be a portrait of a spe-cific individual. A close examination of plates 108 (“Cleopatra”), 111 (“la Marchesa di Pescara”), 112 (“Sibylline woman”) and 113 (“Zenobia”) in Tolnay v. 5 reveal that the facial features of the Night and the Dawn display strong similarities to known images by Michelangelo of Colonna: all share a long, straight, "Greek" nose, a small mouth in an expression of a slight pout (in French, a moue), large, heavy-lidded, rather deep-set eyes. In each case, the figure wears some form of a headdress, which (in the case of the draw-ings of Colonna) conceals very long, braided hair. (We noted above the braid which falls

! � 143

over Night's right shoulder; the veil worn by Dawn could also conceal long hair.) In each case, the figure wears a rather solemn, almost melancholy, expression.  (FIGS. 37 and 184

38)

!!! Further support for this identification of the Dawn with Vittoria Colonna comes from a sketch by Michelangelo from the Casa Buonarotti In this sketch, we observe three elements from the Medici tomb: a sea-shell (present on Michelangelo’s sketch for the tomb cited above and on the ends of the sarcophagi in the actual Chapel), a helmeted fig-ure (which finds its expression in the figure of Giuliano), and a female figure in an elabo-rate headdress who bears a very close resemblance to those female figures just cited who, as we have suggested, are all representations of Vittoria Colonna. (FIG. 39) !!! If the Dawn is indeed a portrait of Vittoria Colonna, this would be another example of the 184

phenomenal skill of the artist is being able to veil or idealize the resemblance to the actual person just enough to make identification difficult, but leaving just enough visual evidence to make the identification possible, though only after very close observation.

! � 144

!! As just noted, the Dawn of the Medici Chapel also wears a headdress and, in her facial features, bears a close resemblance to Michelangelo’s known portraits of Vittoria Colonna.  185

According to Panofsky. the sketch dates from the early 1520s. This sketch might, then, tend to provide support for our hypothesis that the Dawn of the Medici tomb is a portrait of Vittoria Colonna, perhaps a symbol of the river Tiber, intended to be seen as a pair with Michelangelo’s portrait of himself opposite in the guise of the river Arno. We noted above that it was a Renaissance commonplace to represent cities in the form of re-clining female figures representing the rivers associated with them in a kind of visual

! While the traditional date of Michelangelo’s first meeting with Vittoria Colonna is around 185

1535-36, Shrimplin-Evangelidis notes that D. J. McAuliffe puts the meeting around 1517-21 at the court of Leo (Valerie Shrimplin-Evangelidis, “Michelangelo and Nicodemism: The Floren-tine Pietà.” The Art Bulletin 71 (March, 1989), 58-66, n. 1.

! � 145

metonymy, as in Rubens’ Vatican tapestry, in which the city of Mantua is represented as the nymph of the river Mincio which flows by that city, as noted above. If this interpretation is correct, the pairing of the Dawn and the Evening would parallel both the classical statues in the Belvedere statue court from which they derive, the Tigris and the Cleopatra, and also the pairing of the two river gods, the Tiber and the Arno, symbolic of Rome and Florence, in the Capitoline Investiture ceremony, to which Michelangelo’s figures may also refer, as noted above. In the classical tradition, as we have noted, reclining figures, one male and one female, often represented river gods sub-ject to a conquering figure symbolic of Rome’s domination of her subject provinces. Further support for this hypothesis of Dawn as representing the Tiber in the person of Vittoria Colonna comes (as in the case of Michelangelo’s quotation of the Belvedere Cleopatra in his Night, the Belvedere torso in his Day, and the Belvedere Tigris in his Evening) from a visual source: the lid of the sarcophagus upon which the Belvedere Cleopatra reposed. (FIG. 40) On this lid, we observe a pair of reclining female figures, one naked, in the familiar pose of river nymphs just discussed, and the other an older, veiled figure. If we combine these two figures, we arrive at a figure very similar to that of Dawn: a younger, reclining, naked female figure, who also wears a veil. On Roman sar-cophagi, veiled figures represented mourning.  186

This would be entirely appropriate to a funerary chapel, just as Michelangelo’s representation of a grieving Night would also be perfectly suited to this context. But, as in the case of the Night, we suggest that Michelangelo may have had another meaning in mind here as well: a visual expression of the effects of Medici power on those subject to their rule, in which Dawn’s downturned head and troubled expression are meant to evoke her distress at her captive state. Unfortunately, unlike the case of the Night, we have no literary evidence to sup-port this hypothesis, so such an interpretation of Dawn’s expression must remain purely speculative. Nevertheless, if her pose is derived in part from the Belvedere Cleopatra (which we consider quite likely, given her pairing on Michelangelo’s monument with the Evening, whose derivation from the Belvedere Tigris, which served as a companion-fig-ure to the Cleopatra in the statue court, seems to us, from the visual evidence, beyond

! For the motif of the covering of the head to represent grief in classical art, see Elisabeth Mc186 -Grath, “The Painted Decoration of Rubens’ House,” JWCI XLI (1978): 245-77, cited in Bober and Rubinstein 136.

! � 146

question), then her expression of distress (visible in both her facial expression and also, as in the Night, in the downturned position of her head) might also be the result of her subjugation to her Medici lord. In the classical antecedents of Michelangelo’s figures pre-sented above, whether coins or sculptural reliefs, we often encounter the captives in a similar pose, in which both their facial expressions and the overall position of their bod-ies are expressive of the suffering engendered by their captive state.  187

!Images of Rape in Renaissance Art

! The fact that Michelangelo’s Night is associated with his Leda only serves to strengthen our argument that the figure represents a young female figure suffering the ef-fects of male violence, specifically, Florence suffering the effects of Medici rule, since Leda, as we noted above, was the classical exemplar par excellence of the subjugation of a woman by the violence of a superior male force. Yael Even has pointed out that in Renaissance Italy, the figure of a woman subject to a superior male force had the political significance of the capture of an enemy city or state.  Some Renaissance viewers would, then, have immediately associated the image 188

of a young female figure, eyes downcast, hand supporting her head, with the subject of rape and political domination.

! To cite another example of the simultaneous concealment and expression of his repub187 -lican sympathies, we might mention Michelangelo’s Florentine Pietà, where, appropriate-ly enough, the artist portrays himself as Nicodemus, a secret follower of Christ who came to him by night, lacking the courage to openly express his devotion. While scholars have rightly pointed out that this self-portrayal is a reference to the artist’s close ties with re-formist religious circles in Rome, what has escaped notice is that this sculpture is also modeled on one Michelangelo would have encountered in the gardens of Cardinal Pio da Carpi, that is, the figure of a seated captive, who wears the distinctive Phrygian cap, uni-versally understood in the Renaissance as a symbol of freedom. A close comparison of the two figures bears out this observation. In Cardinal Carpi’s garden, the original identi-ty of the figure as a captive is obscured by the inscription which accompanies it:

! Yael Even, “The Loggia dei Lanzi: A Showcase of Female Subjugation,” Woman’s Art Jour188 -nal, 12, 1. See also Margaret Carroll, “The Erotics of Absolutism: Rubens and the Mystification of Sexual Violence,” Representations, 5, 3-30.

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In addition, if, as Balas suggests, the Night is associated with Proserpina, we are confronted with yet another image of a female subject to the violence of a superior male figure. If she is associated with Ceres, as Balas also suggests, and as seems probable (given Vasari's identification of a reclining female figure on the Julius tomb with this goddess, and the presence of a crown on her head), our hypothesis that the Night was in-tended to evoke the image of a defeated Florence is strengthened even further, since the name "Florentia" was associated by contemporary Florentines with the image of a fertile female figure. In classical mythology, Proserpina was also associated with images of fer-tility and abundance, her return to the upper world in spring symbolizing rebirth and re-juvenation. The sufferings of Proserpina, and her lament for her life in the upper world, from which she had been forcibly taken by an angry Pluto, would have been well-known to educated Renaissance visitors to the Chapel through the popular De raptu Proserpinae of Claudian, or Renaissance laments of famous female figures, which formed a prominent part of the rhetorical curriculum in the schools. Seen in this light, Michelangelo's possible presentation of the Night as a reference to the classical Proserpina/Ceres might be viewed, perhaps, as a pointed commentary on contemporary Medici propaganda of Florence flourishing under the beneficent rule of the Medici princes, seen, for example, in the series of medals from the late 1400s depicting Florence as "Florentia," sitting under a laurel tree, holding an olive branch and a palla. (FIG. 41) Michelangelo's Proserpina/Night suffers and mourns, head downturned, and does not rejoice, under Medici rule, as she does so often in the contemporary images of the pe-riod just cited. Seen as Ariadne (as noted above, one of the Renaissance identifications of the sleeping nymph figure of the Belvedere cortile), the figure also mourns her seduction and abandonment at the hands of a powerful male figure, Ariadne, perhaps even more

! � 148

than Cleopatra, being the locus classicus of the desolation experienced by a female figure at the hands of an untrustworthy hero.  189

Whatever the mythological associations evoked in viewers' minds, for those Re-naissance visitors of the Chapel with a knowledge of the classical iconographic tradition of captive figures described above, it would have been almost impossible to stand in front of one of these images of a mourning female figure--whether in the Belvedere court, the Cesi garden, the Medici Chapel, or elsewhere--and see them as merely a lovely female form in a lovely pose. Such ahistorical, apolitical, aestheticizing responses belong to a later period, that of the professional connoisseur of art, the aesthete, or the foreign tourist on the grand tour, for whom the political significance of the figure would have been dis-tant from their own experience. For Michelangelo and his contemporaries, deeply caught up in the travails of the inexorable and painful conversion of Florence from a republican to a seigneurial form of government, the situation would have been entirely different. Not only their literary and artistic preparation, but also their historical circumstances would have prepared them to see a political meaning in the sculptures of the Medici Chapel. In the case of the Night in the Medici Chapel, her pose--derived, as we have seen, from classical images of female subjugation, and familiar to Renaissance artists and writ-ers as representing an act of political domination--would have immediately brought to mind the spectacle of the (often violent) subjugation of a female to a superior male force, with all its tragic consequences known from the classical tradition. And, as we have seen, Michelangelo's own poetry makes a moderately allusive (in the case of the poem of 1545-6 cited above), or (in the case of the quatrain on the Night), a rather more veiled reference to the negative effects of Medici power on a suffering female figure. That this suffering

! Even one of the crude sketches on the wall underneath the Chapel has been viewed as an ex189 -pression of anti-Medicean sentiment. Dal Poggetto describes a “caricatura di re coronato” found on the wall in a hidden space beneath the Chapel: “While remaining puzzled and undecided in the face of this strange image, I ask myself if there couldn’t be behind it the flexible politics after the defeat of the republican forces and the reentry into Florence of the Medici, and in particular the hated Duke Alessandro and his supporters who made an attempt on the life of the artist" (P. Dal Poggetto, “I disegni murali di Michelangelo scoperti sotto la Sagrestia Nuova,” Prospettiva, 5, April 1976, 11-46, also in his I disegni murali di Michelangelo e della sua scuola nella Sagrestia Nuova di San Lorenzo (Florence:

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female figure is to be identified with Florence is suggested by Michelangelo's poetry cit-ed above. !

External Evidence for a Political Interpretation of the Medici Tomb: Vasari's Portrait of Alessandro de' Medici

! We shall now briefly discuss an external source which provides indirect confirma-tion of our contention that the Medici Chapel contains an encoded critique of Medici rule, before we turn to an examination of the Florentine tradition of public political sculpture. This is Vasari's portrait of Alessandro de' Medici. (FIG. 42) In Vasari's portrait, we observe a conquering figure, the Duke, clad in armor, hold-ing a bastone, sitting on a stool on which are displayed the bound figures of captives. It is well-known that this portrait is modeled after Michelangelo's figure of Lorenzo in the Medici Chapel. This fact alone tends to indicate that Vasari was aware that the Chapel contained a political message: the domination of his Alessandro parallels the domination of the figure of Lorenzo on the Medici monument. What may not have been pointed out, however, is that Vasari's bound captives re-semble Michelangelo's herms originally intended for the tomb of Julius II (or, according to Balas, the façade of San Lorenzo), figures intimately associated by Michelangelo with his captive Slaves, since the Slaves were meant to stand in front of the herm figures, as an examination of Michelangelo's sketches for the Julius tomb makes clear. ( FIG. 43) This suggests that Vasari was aware, not only that the figure of Lorenzo on the Medici monu-ment represents Medicean domination of Florence, but also that the figure under him, that is, the Day, also had a political signification. Vasari himself says as much in his allegorical interpretation of his portrait, in which he refers to the armless figures on the stool as "his [Alessandro's] people who, be-having themselves according to the will of the one who rules over them, have neither arms nor legs.”  Vasari is here referring to the traditional contentiousness of the Floren190 -tine populace, which the firm (tyrannical?) rule of Alessandro has suppressed. These figures of Vasari's display the same state of impotent rage we observed in Michelangelo's Day, as well as in the classical bound male captive prisoners from which

! Letter of August 18-December 9, 1534 to Ottaviano de' Medici (Frey, Il carteggio di Giorgio 190

Vasari (Munich: Georg Müller, 1923).

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they derive. So, then, one might say that, just as Vasari's Alessandro portrays the domina-tion of the rebellious Florentines, so also does Michelangelo's Lorenzo/Day represent the same theme, except that in Michelangelo's case, the subjugation of the Florentine spirit is represented in a much more allusive manner. As we have seen, a viewer must be familiar with the classical iconographic tradition of captive prisoners to detect Michelangelo's po-litical reference; no actual bonds are visible on Michelangelo's Day, nor does Michelan-gelo give us an explicit explanation of the meaning of his figures, as does Vasari. In this regard, we are unaware if it has been noted that Michelangelo's Lorenzo is a (rather idealized) portrait of Alessandro de Medici, Florence's notorious tyrant at precise-ly the time of the execution of the figures in the Medici Chapel, and a man whom Michelangelo (along with the other republicans) both hated and feared. This identifica-tion may be confirmed if one rotates Bronzino's portrait of Alessandro on its vertical axis, and then compares it with both Vasari's portrait of the prince and Michelangelo's figure of Lorenzo. (FIGS. 44, 45 and 46) In all three images, we observe the same facial features: a rather small, oval-shaped head, set on a long neck, a small mouth with pursed lips, a cleft chin, brow tensed in a slight frown, curly hair.  In Michelangelo's version of Alessan191 -dro, the nose has been regularized, and is smaller and straighter than in Bronzino's por-trait. The fact that Michelangelo has regularized and idealized Alessandro's features (which led his contemporaries to complain that they couldn't identify the figures with the actual Medici princes) accords perfectly with the necessity that any political references in the Chapel be carefully hidden.  192

It might also be remarked that the figure looming over the defeated figure in the Victory in the Palazzo Vecchio is also a portrait of Alessandro, as comparison of the face with the aforementioned portraits makes clear. (FIG. 47) And the defeated figure on which the victor presses his knee is a self-portrait of the artist, as has already been noted,

! This curly hair ("cappelli ricciuti") is mentioned by Borghini in his discussion of the Chapel 191

in the Riposo, and, together with the fact that Alessandro was half-black (his mother was an African slave by the name of Simonetta da Collavechio) is what led us to make this identifica-tion. One can clearly see his African parentage in the curly hair and yellowish skin of Vasari's portrait, the latter being, of course, impossible to depict in marble.

! While the captains were begun around 1526, the statues were not finished until around 1534, 192

when Alessandro would have been 24 years old, exactly the apparent age of the figure of Loren-zo on the Medici tomb.

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as is also the grotesque mask which rests under Night's left elbow in the Medici Chapel, its spoglia-like appearance recalling the St. Bartholomew of the Last Judgment, a recog-nized portrait of the artist. Balas has argued that the Victory represents a highly personal expression of Michelangelo’s feelings, and dates the sculpture to the early 1530s.  193

This signifies that Michelangelo, along with his beloved city, in a kind of tragic inversion of the heroism of the David, is the victim of Medici oppression, the implied slingshot of the victorious Alessandro of the Victory now replacing that of the David in the Piazza della Signoria, the Day struggling against the figure of "Lorenzo" (actually Alessandro) above. As we noted above in reference to Spini's discussion of the political aspects of Michelangelo's work, this is entirely in accord with the historical record.  194

!!

Renaissance Viewing Habits ! In regard to the political meaning we claim to be present in the sculptures of the Medici Chapel, created by means of allusions to the iconographic and literary tradition of captive figures, it seems important to remark that it is not necessary, in our view, to choose one referent to which the figures in the Chapel were intended to allude; rather, we would suggest that the figures were intended to evoke a flood of images or associations in the viewer's mind, depending on the particular cultural preparation of the individual viewer. The art historian Maria Ruvoldt has remarked in reference to Michelangelo's drawing of the dreamer: "[Michelangelo's] mastery of another kind of variety, the ability

! The fact that the victim of the Victory is a self-portrait of the artist is also given indirect con193 -firmation by the fact that several other sculptural groups of the mid-1500s show the same image of Michelangelo dominated by a superior figure, whose knee rests on his back: Ammannati's Vic-tory for the tomb of Mario Neri (Tolnay v. 3, pl. 268), Giamblogna's Victory of Virtue over Vice (Tolnay v. 3, pl. 269) and Vincenzo Danti's Victory of Honor over Deceit (Tolnay v. 3, pl. 270). It thus seems very likely that, by the middle of the 16th century, the image of a Michelangelo doma-to had became a kind of visual commonplace for the final defeat of a once-republican Florence by the Medici, the figure of the artist having by then become a recognized symbol of republican Florence.

! Close examination of the figure reveals that Alessandro is actually clutching the end of a bag 194

of stones. From the front, however, he appears to be holding a slingshot.

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to engage a viewer's imagination with a single image that calls forth multiple interpreta-tive possibilities."  195

As a later example of this tendency of Renaissance art to evoke a wide variety of responses on the part of the viewer, we may cite Francesco Baldinucci's description in his Notizie dei professori del disegno da Cimabue in qua of the reactions of the public gath-ered around the statue of Giambologna's Rape of the Sabine in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence after its unveiling on 14 January, 1583. Regarding Baldinucci's treatise, Del Bravo remarks: ! As Baldinucci tells us, the Florentines will gather around the Ratto with the desire "to satisfy their eyes with the sight of something so beautiful and new." Each of them—the naturalist and sophist was well aware—would have had in their eyes and mind a different response: the Platonist would have lifted his gaze beyond earthly beauty; one person would have concentrated on personal interpretations; others would have sated themselves with an overall contemplation, while still oth ers would have considered it merely the precursor to the pleasures of the touch. In the midst of this mass of divergences, while comprehensible according to nature, a connection with a few [connoisseurs] would have been even more precious: Bernardo Vecchietti, for example, "very highly regarded" by Francesco [de' Medici] or Rodolfo Sirigatti, protagonists of the Riposo of Raffaello Borghini.  196

! To those responses cited by Del Bravo, one might also add the political ones dis-cussed below in the section on Florentine political sculpture.

! Maria Ruvoldt, "Michelangelo's Dream," Art Bulletin 85 (March 2003): 86-113.195

! Carlo del Bravo, "Francesco a Pratolino," Artibus et Historiae 8, 15 (1987): 37-46. Moffitt 196

also describes this interpretive habit as typical of Renaissance responses to works of art: "Viewed as a once-standard mode of thought (a 'period mentalité'), the emblem books indicate to us in de-tail what educated people once knew about history and mythology, the physical world and, espe-cially, the slipperiness and fallibility of human nature. Emblematic interpretation required con-trolled associative thinking. . . Since, however, a single emblematic motif usually allows of a va-riety of interpretations, the potential meanings would expand according to the individual reader’s store of accumulated cultural knowledge” (Andrea Alciati. A Book of Emblems: The Emblema-tum Liber in Latin and English, trans. and ed. by John F. Moffitt (Jefferson, N. C.: McFarland and Co., 2004), 2, 3, 8, 10).

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This principle of varietas or "generative fecundity," in which Michelangelo's im-ages have the power to evoke multiple associations in a variety of viewers, might also be extended to modern interpretations of the Medici Chapel; there is, in our view, no need to privilege a political over a religious or a neo-platonic meaning; the monument has the ca-pacity to evoke a variety of responses in a variety of viewers, depending on the individual cultural, spiritual, aesthetic, or political preoccupations of the individual viewer. Its ca-pacity to generate such a variety of responses is typical of great art in general; to insist on any one "stable meaning" is to impoverish our understanding of the work itself. In our view, it is important to keep these interpretive habits of Renaissance view-ers in mind when attempting to give an interpretation of the figures on the Medici tomb. Not all viewers, certainly, can be expected to have understood Michelangelo's references to captive figures, or to have been familiar with the associated literary tradition described above; indeed, as for modern viewers, perhaps the primary response of the majority of Renaissance visitors to the Chapel would have been a religious or an aesthetic one. Nev-ertheless, it seems to us more than likely that at least some viewers would have perceived and appreciated these veiled allusions to images of captive figures. While there is no contemporary written record of which we are aware which con-clusively demonstrates a political response to the figures in the Medici Chapel, similar to the poems on the Belvedere Cleopatra just discussed, it seems to us entirely possible that evidence of such a response could be found, either in poems contemporary with the un-veiling of the Chapel, private diaries, personal correspondence, or some other source. And in the next section we present several contemporary literary accounts roughly con-temporary with the opening of the Chapel to the public which tend to confirm our inter-pretation of the Medici Chapel as a veiled but potent critique of Medici power. !

The Florentine Tradition of Political Sculpture and the Medici Chapel ! We shall now briefly discuss the cultural context for the hidden anti-Medicean message we claim to be present in the Medici Chapel, namely the Florentine tradition of political sculpture. Today, scholars are well-aware of the important role public sculpture played in the political life of Renaissance Florence. In some cases, as in the David, the message was allowed to speak for itself, relying on the viewer to supply the political con-text, based on their knowledge of the Biblical story of David and Goliath as symbolizing

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Florence's struggle against the politically superior power of the Medici family allied with the Papacy based in Rome. However, in some cases, poems or epigrams were written on the statues to make the political meaning clear. The discussion of the reception of Bandinelli’s Hercules and Cacus is worth citing at some length for the light it sheds on this contemporary practice of appending (and in some cases—as in the case of the Pasquino in Rome--physically attaching) poetry to pub-lic works of sculpture to elucidate their political meaning. A recent study examining two unpublished contemporary satires of Bandinelli’s Hercules notes that criticism of the sculpture, unveiled in May 1534, was a covert way of criticizing Medici rule, recently restored to Florence after the republican interlude of 1527-30: ! The widespread public criticism of the statue’s supposed demerits was a safely oblique means of condemning the regime which now ruled the city from Via Larga. But if mocking the Medici’s monuments could be a veil for attacks on their government, in the end the device proved rather too transparent; Alessandro was finally forced to send some of the poets who lampooned the statue to prison—as though openly admitting that artistic criticism was not really the issue. “The wound of a dagger,” as Francesco Sforza used to say, “is less to be feared than that of a satiric poem.”  197

! Waldman notes that Bandinelli “fled the vituperative storm” to Rome, and later lamented in Cellini’s Vita: ‘Signore [Duke Cosimo], when I unveiled my Hercules and Cacus, more than one hundred vicious sonnets were written about me, in which the worst things one can imagine were said by this ungrateful rabble.” Cellini continues: “I replied and said: ‘Signore, when our Michelangelo unveiled his Sagrestia, where one can see so many beautiful figures, that wondrous and virtuous school, lovers of the true and the good, wrote him more than one hundred sonnets, competing amongst themselves for who could say the best things.’”  198

Here we see clear evidence that Michelangelo’s Sagrestia Nuova had a political resonance for contemporary viewers, Bandinelli implicitly being the artist of the hated

! Waldman 419.197

! Vasari, ed. Barocchi, III, 954.198

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Medici tyrant, scorned by the “ungrateful rabble” (that is, opponents of the Medici), who are, according to Cellini "lovers of the true and the good," while Michelangelo, on the contrary, represents the artist of a free republican Florence. The “school” mentioned by Cellini must refer to young artists and academicians, most likely some of them of strong republican sympathies, who studied Michelangelo’s sculptures in the chapel. Although he worked for Duke Cosimo, Cellini’s anti-authoritarian tendencies are well-known, and, as a scholar of Cellini has recently pointed out, his trial for sodomy was undertaken as retal-iation for his outspokenness.  199

One other example of a political reading of the monument which may be cited here is an anti-Medicean and anti-Bandinellian anecdote recounted by Anton Francesco Doni in his Marmi of 1552. This anecdote shows again that, at least by the mid-1500s, there were viewers who saw Michelangelo's work in the Sagrestia Nuova in a clearly po-litical context. And once again, the opposition Michelangelo-Bandinelli is made to stand implicitly for a republican Florence free of Medici tyranny as opposed to the signoria of this powerful family. The anecdote, for its relevance to our argument, and for its intrinsic interest, is worth quoting here in full: ! I was in Carrara for a few days to attend to that matter. The cavaliere [Bandinelli] was seeing to the excavation of marble; and, after many things had been said, I asked him what had been the most beautiful marble ever excavated at Carrara. He, who had a subtle intellect, did not mention the whiteness or the beauty of the mar ble, but said instead something else: “I believe the most beautiful marble ever ex cavated at Carrara is that which Michelangelo sculpted miraculously in the Sac risty of San Lorenzo, and especially the two captains above the Tombs.” Cavaliere Bandinelli, having said this, did not go on to any other words except the praise of Michelangelo; and he said that, since he was a man of such divine genius, he had made two statues without equal and without blemish. I, who know how to seize the opportunity, walked on with my head held higher and said “It’s fine for you to speak this way, since the house of Medici has rewarded you and paid you; but Democritus of Milesia would take it ill.” When he heard me make this response,

! See Margaret Gallucci, "Cellini's Trial for Sodomy: Power and Patronage at the Court of 199

Cosimo I," in The Cultural Politics of Duke Cosimo I de' Medici, ed. Konrad Eisenbichler (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001), 37-46.

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he was silent for a moment and, not understanding, said: “Say more clearly what you mean.” I said to him that, when in the presence of Dionysius someone asked what was the most precious metal used by the Athenians, Democritus made this reply: “That which is melted for the statues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton [the tyrant slayers].” “To what end were those statues made?” the Cavaliere then asked me. I explained to him how they had killed the tyrants.  200

! Here we see further evidence of a contemporary reading of the chapel in a political light, Bandinelli’s praise of Michelangelo becoming immediately politicized and leading Doni to recount the anecdote about Harmodius and Aristogeiton, the famous tyrant-slay-ers of antiquity. This obsequious praise on the part of Bandinelli and Doni's tart rejoinder recalls Michelangelo's pointed rejection of Strozzi's conventional niceties of flattery in his lapidary epigram on the Night cited above. Here Doni rejects “il Cavaliere’s” trite and conventional exaltation of Michelangelo’s genius with his short account of the story of the tyrant-slayers.  201

It seems clear that, for Renaissance viewers of republican sympathies, Bandinelli represented the sculptor of the hated Medici tyrant, while Michelangelo represented the sculptor of a free republican Florence, the most potent symbol of which was the statue of the David in the Piazza della Signoria.  What this anecdote shows us is that the Medici 202

Chapel was caught up in the political discussion of the day. What is not clear from the

! Barocchi III, 994.200

! Trexler and Lewis go so far as to use this anecdote as evidence of Michelangelo’s intention 201

that the sculpture of Giuliano was intended to been seen as a portrait of the Lorenzo di Pier-francesco de’ Medici (“Lorenzino”) who assassinated Duke Alessandro in 1537. Although we agree with their general contention that the Chapel be interpreted in a political light, in our view, they are going too far in making such a claim, and the evidence they adduce in favor of their ar-gument does not support it.

! That Machiavelli vs. Bandinelli was fraught for Florentines with political significance is fur202 -ther attested to by the giving the commission for a colossal Hercules, meant to stand outside the Palazzo della Signoria as a companion-piece to the David, to Bandinelli instead of to Michelan-gelo. As Hibbert notes: "The original commission for a Hercules had been given to Michelange-lo; but evidently supposing that Michelangelo might use this opportunity to hint at the virtues of the crushed Republic, Pope Leo X ordered that the marble block should be given instead to Bandinelli" wow (Hibbert 327).

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anecdote, however, is whether Michelangelo's sculptures there were assigned any specific political meaning by these discussants. Given what has been said about the Florentine tradition of political sculpture, it seems to us possible that they were, and that someday, documents demonstrating such a response may come to light. Bandindelli's vagueness here as to what exactly he is praising, his reliance on con-temporary commonplaces (Michelangelo's "divine genius") recalls Barocchi's comment that, for many Renaissance viewers, discussion of purely aesthetic aspects of the chapel served as a means of avoiding discussion of politically sensitive matters.  203

Hence it is possible that the very clichéd triteness of much of the Renaissance dis-cussion of Michelangelo's art actually represents, not a lack of imagination on the part of the critics, but rather a studied attempt to avoid discussion of politically sensitive matters. Doni, however, refuses to let Bandinelli off the hook, immediately bringing the political subtext to the fore in his mention of Bandinelli's service to the Medici, although he himself then goes on to use allusive means to make his point. From the above, we can see that there existed in Florence in the mid 16th century a tradition of writings which attributed political meaning to works of public sculpture, and that Michelangelo’s sculptures in the Sagrestia Nuova were very much part of this tradition. As Waldman has noted, this discussion of public works of sculpture was an oblique means for the expression of opinions on contemporary political affairs. While it might be argued that the Sagrestia Nuova was not a public work of sculpture in the usual sense, since it was the private chapel of the Medici family, we have already noted that the Chapel was opened to outside visitors on particular occasions, and that it was popular as a school for young artists (Vasari refers to it as "la scuola delle nostre arti"). Such uses of the Chapel, which continued throughout the 1500s, allow us, in our view, to insert it into

! Barocchi notes that “Vasari devotes himself to the analysis of the visual details, almost as if to 203

compensate for the lack of any reference to the historic figures of the two Medici princes” (993-994).In the same light, Franceschini remarks: “It is unfortunate that Vasari, con-fronted with a statue of such interest to art, breaks off his discussion in this way. . . .Servant, just as much to Alessandro as he was to Cosimo (a duke conceivably much worse than the former), Vasari did not want to touch on the philosophical aspect of the image of the Duke of Urbino, be-cause every word he would have been able to write about Lorenzo would have sounded like a condemnation of Alessandro and Cosimo, a condemnation even more shameful for himself” (Pietro Franceschini, Il Nuovo Osservatore, Florence, 1885-86, 294, cited in Barocchi 994).

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the tradition of public discussion—often politically motivated and highly polemical in nature--of works of public sculpture we have just described. This also seems valid when we consider that, for all the temporal limitations on its availability to the public, those who did have access to the Chapel would undoubtedly have been eager to discuss it with those outsiders who did not, whose curiosity about the work would have been intense. Thus, when we view Michelangelo's figures in the Medici Chapel against this con-temporary tradition of political sculpture, we are able to place Michelangelo’s sculptures, along with the poems which elucidate their meaning, into the proper historical context. !

The Capitani: Melancholy and Oblivion ! Our political reading of the Chapel may be extended along similar lines to include the figure of Giuliano opposite. Just as the figure of Lorenzo expresses the active, martial spirit of this leader, the effects of whose dominance over a suffering Florence and the Florentine exiles we have already seen, so also is the figure of the other capitano intend-ed to recall classical and medieval representations of Saturn and the melancholic tem-perament. As Panofsky notes, a seated figure of a god, head slightly bowed and supported in his hand, represents the second of two types of Saturn in classical art, the first being an erect, hieratic, terrifying figure. The other features of the figure of Giuliano—the coinbox with the bat's head under his left elbow, and the object in his left hand—also correspond to traditional attributes of Saturn and the melancholic type. The coinbox is a reference to Saturn's avariciousness and greed, the bat's head to the noctural, secret aspect of the god, and the object in Giuliano's left hand to the cloth-covered rock traditionally given to the god as a substitute for the children he is about to eat.  204

Panofsky notes that one of the most important classical representations of Saturn in the traditional pose of the melancholic, head cradled on his hand, was a tomb relief of Cornutus, now in the Vatican. A comparison of this relief to Michelangelo’s Giuliano from the Medici tomb reveals that the left elbow of the arm supporting the head rests in

! For the rock as a substitute for Saturn’s children, see Panofsky 174. This object might also be 204

an allusive reference to Giuliano’s tuberculosis, a malady which finally caused his death on March 17, 1519, and which would have been well-known to his contemporaries.

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both cases on a box-like object, in the Roman relief, the edge of the throne upon which Saturn sits, on the Medici tomb, the coin-box just mentioned. (FIGS. 48 and 49) !

It will be noted that all the attributes just mentioned are thoroughly consistent with the political interpretation of the Chapel we have been proposing. We noted above the possible reference of the coinbox to the draining of Florence's treasury by the Medici princes to support their expansionistic and dynastic ambitions centered in Rome, which would have been facilitated by Giuliano's presence there. In the same way, the panno, seen as an object to be eaten, substituting for Saturn's children, might also be seen as a reference to the consumption of Florence's vital substance in the name of Medicean fami-ly ambitions. In both medieval and Renaissance literary and visual imagery it was a common-place to represent the tyrant as a devourer of his own children, an association of visual

! � 160

topos and political reference given vivid expression by Dante in his Inferno in the person of the tyrant Ugolino of Pisa, who, driven by hunger, is forced to eat his own children, “brancolando tre giorni sopra le loro corpi,” and also in the figure of Satan himself in the last canto of the poem, where he appears as a terrifying, seated figure (recalling the clas-sical image of Saturn just discussed), frozen in ice, where he is eternally condemned to devour the sinners, at the furthest possible remove from the life-giving and sustaining warmth of the love of God. In a specifically Florentine context, Savonarola makes a con-nection between the trait of melancholy and Lorenzo de’ Medici: “He [the tyrant] lives beset with fantasies of grandeur and with melancholy and with fears that always gnaw at his heart; therefore, he is always looking for pleasures as medicine for his condition.”  205

Panofsky notes that Plato also makes an explicit connection between the trait of melancholy and the tyrant: "'Then a man becomes tyrannical in the full sense of the word, my friend,' I said, 'when either by nature or by habits or by both he has become even as the drunken, the erotic, the maniacal [melancholicos]'" (Phaedrus 573c Loeb ed., 1946, 343, 345).  206

Panofsky also points out that Medieval thinkers such as Berchorius were accus-tomed to making an association between the trait of melancholy and the tyrant.  207

We also speculate that Michelangelo’s original intention of placing the capitani and the figures which lie beneath them on a base formed by four river gods may have been intended to suggest that the entire apparatus of Medici power is floating on the four classical rivers of forgetfulness, and thus destined to oblivion. This interpretation is sup-ported by Michelangelo’s famous comment, in response to criticism that the faces of the capitani bore no resemblance to their actual appearance that “a thousand years from now

! Humanism and Liberty: Writings on Freedom from Fifteenth-Century Florence, trans. and ed. 205

Renée Neu Watkins (Columbia, S. C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1978), 242. Even Michelangelo’s seemingly encomiastic interpretation of the figure of Giuliano contains a hint of menace. In his sketch for a poem on the figure of Giuliano, Michelangelo says: “Day and Night speak and say: ‘With our swift course we have brought Duke Giuliano to death; it is only just that he take his revenge for this as he does. And his revenge is this: that, we having killed him, he, thus dead, has taken the light from us and with his closed eyes has closed ours, which no longer shine on the earth. What then would he have done to us while he lived!'" (Barocchi 971).

! Panofsky 17.206

! Panofsky 177.207

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no one would know that they were any different” (“di qui a mille anni nessuno non ne potea dar cognizione che fossero altrimenti”).  This comment of Michelangelo’s reiter208 -ates the theme of tempus vorans which is one the principal unifying concepts of the Chapel, present as open-mouthed figures on the cuirass of Lorenzo, the box under the left elbow of Giuliano, the decorative frieze which borders the Chapel, the candelabra, their bases and the column capitals of the altar. (FIGS. 50 and 51)

Seen in this light, the devouring mouths carved directly on the cuirass of Lorenzo might have been intended by the artist to symbolize the fact that, for all their self-glorifi-cation, the Medici rulers are destined, as all mortal flesh, to be swallowed up forever by the forgetfulness of oblivion. It is here that a political and a religious interpretation of the Chapel come together seamlessly. Support for this interpretation is given by the helmet worn by Giuliano, which, in the right light, and viewed from the side, seems to swallow up his head entirely. (FIG. This monstrous image is to be compared with the helmeted figure being devoured by a

! Although once again, Michelangelo’s fondness for a cryptic mode of expression leads Nic208 -colò Martelli, in a letter of July 28, 1544 to Rugasso, to give an opposite interpretation of these words of Michelangelo: “Michelangelo. . .did not model Duke Lorenzo and Signor Giuliano as nature had depicted and composed them, but gave them a grandeur, a proportion, an appropriate-ness, a grace, a splendor, such as seemed to him would bring them more praise, saying that in a thousand years no one would know they had been any different, so that people, gazing at them, would be amazed” (Barocchi 993).

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wolf's head in a sketch by the artist identified by Panofsky as a representation of Etruscan Hades. (FIG. 52) A drawing by Michelangelo now in the British Museum (Tolnay v. 5, plate 110, “the Count of Canossa”) also depicts a figure wearing a helmet in the form of a dragon. (FIG. 53) Hence, in this interpretation, the Medici ruler is being literally de-voured by Hell-mouth.

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Certainly the interpretation of the four river gods as evoking the idea of oblivion would accord with this theme also, in this case intended by Michelangelo as a pointed re-sponse to contemporary propaganda of eternal Medici florescence.  In general, the 209

themes of Time and Eternity, as opposed to--and ultimately triumphing over--earthly power, form a subtext and recurring leitmotif to all aspects of the Chapel.  210

The pose of Giuliano is, then, intended to evoke the classical trait of melancholia, almost without exception a negative characteristic in classical, medieval and Renaissance thought. Starting in the Middle Ages, it was often called acedia, or tristitia, and was one of the seven cardinal sins, a spiritual state characterized by a kind of paralyzing lassitude and lack of interest in things spiritual or (in its secular form), the things of this world.  211

This state of brooding inwardness often, in classical and medieval thought, verged on madness or depression. Although recent scholarship has noted that in the Renaissance the trait could, at times, take on more positive connotations of genius or the power of inward concentration of the scholar or artist, one scholar argues that the extent of this rehabilita-

! For the iconography of Medici political propaganda, see especially, see Janet Cox-Rearick, 209

Dynasty and Destiny in Medici Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), with bibliogra-phy. It may not be going too far to see the very bareness and lack of ornamentation of the Chapel as an implicit rebuke on Michelangelo’s part of the lavish displays of princely power characteris-tic of Medici political propaganda. Symonds notes that Cosimo, through Vasari, never ceased to importune the artist to return to Florence, or at least to send some drawings, so that the Chapel might be completed in all its richness, a request Michelangelo never failed to evade, pleading old age.

! This theme would have been familiar to visitors to the Chapel from Petrarch’s Trionfi. Vasari 210

comments: “In the ‘Fedone’ the four rivers of Hades symbolize eternal fluctuation, eternal be-coming; Michelangelo wanted to do the same in his original project” (Barocchi 951). Michelan-gelo’s original intention of carving a mouse, perhaps on the figure of Day would have represent-ed, had it been executed as planned, a further elaboration of this theme. Why Michelangelo de-cided not to include this element is unknown. On the mouse, Condivi comments: “And to signify Time he wanted to make a mouse, having left on the work a bit of marble--which, being imped-ed, he did not do--because that animal gnaws and consumes continuously, not unlike time which devours everything” (Barocchi 971).

! The most famous visual depiction of this abandonment of productive activity is, of course, 211

Durer’s etching Melancholia, where, however, as frequently in the Renaissance, one could argue that the intense inward contemplation of the figure is the sign of great genius bordering on mad-ness. For a good survey of Medieval conceptions of acedia, see Siegfried Wenzel,

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tion has been exaggerated, and that during the period it for the most part retained its neg-ative valence. This lack of attentiveness to the things of this world characteristic of melancholia would be especially deleterious in a ruler, whose duty was to remain vigilant to possible danger for the sake of his subjects. The melancholic, in his intense concentration on his present experience, is by nature unable to engage in the far-sightedness essential to the leader of a state, a quality eloquently expressed by Cicero in his description of Romulus in his De republica. The melancholic's vision is by definition narrowly-focused and partial, as those souls in Dante's Inferno who have no knowledge of the future or the past, but live trapped in a kind of eternal present. Hence, the melancholic, absorbed in his present experience, suffers from a kind of spiritual blindness. We noted above the bat's head on the coinbox under Giuliano's left elbow, bats being, of course, blind during the daylight hours. One scholar has noted the lack of pupils on the eyes of the figures in the chapel, and Michelangelo himself refers to the theme of blindness in his well-known sketch for a poem on the Medici capitano tradi-tionally referred to as the penseroso, discussed above. Another attribute traditionally associated with Saturn was sterility, since having castrated his own children, he was himself castrated by Kronos. Panofsky has noted the common Medieval identification of Saturn with Father Time holding his scythe, who harvests all human life, kings as well as peasants. Hence we would suggest that, just as the image of a suffering Night/Florence may have been intended by Michelangelo as a subtle but pointed rebuke of Medici propaganda of the city flourishing happily under their beneficent rule, so also might the figure of Giu-liano, seen as one born under the sign of Saturn, have been intended by the artist as an implicit rebuke of the same Medici iconography of a return to a joyous Golden Age under their rule. As with the theme of melancholy itself, the image of Saturn in the Renaissance had a double valence, making it eminently suitable for either praise or blame of the

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Medici princes.  In Michelangelo's use of the figure in his Chapel, silence, death, suf212 -fering, and sterility become an almost palpable presence in a space some scholars have seen as an encomiastic celebration of Medici power. If one pairs the figures of Giuliano and Lorenzo opposite, Giuliano, then, repre-sents melancholia and Lorenzo--head held high on an absurdly long neck--would repre-sent superbia, the cardinal sin of princes.  The only two figures which escape the gen213 -eral atmosphere of lassitude or melancholy pervading the chapel, which show any sign of animation, are the Day and the figure of Lorenzo. And yet these forms of animation are negative forms, as we have suggested: the Day represents impotent rage, struggling against its bonds, and the figure of Lorenzo--in its tense alertness and proud military

! A good example of this double valence of melancholy in the Italian Renaissance is Vicenzo 212

Cartari’s description of Saturn in his Le imagini de i dei de gli antichi: I could say, since the Pla-tonists by Saturn symbolized the pure mind, which almost unceasingly contemplates divine things, from which arises occasion to say that the Age of Gold was in her times, and quiet and simple living; this being exactly the life of anyone who seeks to put down the weight of earthly cares, and to raise themselves as much as possible to the contemplation of the things of Heaven” (Cartari, 1615 ed., 31) and, also Cartari: “And because from this planet come for the most part ill effects, they depicted him as old, sad, filthy, with head covered, lazy and slow, be-cause his nature is cold, dry and completely melancholy, as can be seen in the books of those who write about these things” (Cartari, Venice, 1571, 43, reprinted as Le imagini de i dei de gli antichi, ed. Stephen Orgel (New York: Garland, 1976).

! To make a connection between the monument and medieval discussions of the vices and their 213

effects, one might note that Lorenzo's high position on the monument, his facial expression and tense pose recall the French Dominican William Peraldus' description of the prideful man in his Summa de vitiis (before 1250):"'Every prideful man is insufferable, over-dressed, pompous in his manner of walking; he has an erect neck, a fierce face, ferocious eyes. He vies for a higher place, and strives to place himself before those better than him; he does not show reverence in his obe-dience.' The prideful man does not only cause temporal evil for his neighbor, but also spiritual, for he corrupts him by his bad example. And thus it is said that he sits too high 'on the throne of pestilence;' and pride is called a pestilence in reference to the first Psalm, where the gloss says 'Pestilence is a widespread disease, infesting all or almost all men,' and adds 'It is a love of domi-nation, which almost no one escapes.'"

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bearing--represents the sin of pride.  Just as we suggested that the figures of Day and 214

Night be viewed in dynamic relation to the figure above them as suffering from the ef-fects of Lorenzo’s overweening pride, so may the figures of Evening and Dawn which lie beneath Giuliano be seen as representing, perhaps, lassitudo and acedia, the effects of Giuliano’s temperament upon them. Princely superbia, then, represented by Lorenzo, creates active suffering and anger among those subject to its deleterious effects, just as princely melancholia, represented by the figure of Giuliano, creates a state of lassitude and torpor among those subject to its sway. The monument then takes on a spiritual meaning in addition to its political one, this meaning being also a negative commentary on Medici power.

! Parenthetically, this identification of Lorenzo with superbia and Giuliano with acedia pro214 -vides indirect evidence that Trexler and Lewis' identification of the two capitani is indeed the correct one, since the biographies of the two men indicate clearly that Lorenzo was known in the Renaissance for his arrogance, while Giuliano was of a more melancholic, taciturn disposition, a writer of love sonnets and victim of tuberculosis. Balas, following Panofsky, agrees in identify-ing the figure of Giuliano with Saturn, but sees the figure of Lorenzo as a representation of Jupiter. Given the fact that the biographies of the two men indicate clearly that, of the two, Lorenzo was the more aggressive, martial one, we find it more plausible to view the figure of Lorenzo as representing, not Jupiter, but rather Mars. Trexler and Lewis note that Michelangelo’s Lorenzo was inspired by the Ludovisi Mars, whose breastplate closely resembles that of the Medici capitano. A medal issued in Florence to commemorate Alessandro’s rule also displays, in the space under the bust of Alessandro, an arrow. This could either be a reference to the bent ar-rows one sometimes encounters on Roman coins as an allusion to the military defeat of enemies, or the astrological sign of Mars, or perhaps both. In the former interpretation, the bent arrow would symbolize the Medici ruler’s complete domination of the city.

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!The Compagnia della Cazzuola as Locus of Opposition to Medici Rule

! In his life of Jacopo Rustici, Vasari gives us a poignant, though veiled, description of his position vis-à-vis the Medici rulers of Florence by whom he was employed, con-strained, for reasons of family obligations, to play the role of courtier/painter at the court of Cosimo deí Medici, to the detriment of his own artistic ambitions: ! Giovan Francesco, besides being of a noble family, had the means to live hon ourably, and therefore practiced art more for his own delight and from desire of glory than for gain. And, to tell the truth of the matter, those craftsmen who have as their ultimate and principal end gain and profit, and not honour and glory, rarely become very excellent, even although they may have good and beautiful genius; besides which, labouring for a livelihood, as very many do who are weighed down by poverty and their families, and working not by inclination, when the mind and the will are drawn to it, but by necessity from morning till night, is a life not for men who have honour and glory as their aim, but for hacks, as they are called, and manual labourers, for the reason that good works do not get done without first having been well considered for a long time.  215

! He has become, in service to his Medici masters, a mere coverer of walls, a deco-rator. ! Later on in his life of Rustici, Vasari gives us another poignant description, this time that of the return of Lorenzo Naldini ("Guazzetto"), Rustici's disciple, absent in France at the court of King Francis for many years, to his native city, from which he had been exiled by the Medici regime: ! That Lorenzo possessed some houses beyond the Porta a San Gallo, in the suburbs that were destroyed on account of the siege of Florence, which houses were thrown to the ground together with the rest by the people. That circumstance so

! Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, trans. by 215

Gaston de Vere (London: Macmillan, 1912-1915), vol. 8, 109-129.

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grieved him, that, returning in the year 1540 to revisit his country, when he was within a quarter of a mile of Florence he put the hood of his cloak over his head, covering his eyes, in order that, in entering by that gate, he might not see the sub urb and his own houses all pulled down. Wherefore the guards at the gate, seeing him thus muffled up, asked him what that meant, and, having heard from him why he had so covered his face, they laughed at him. Lorenzo, after being a few months in Florence, returned to France, taking his mother with him; and there he still lives and labours. ! Why does Vasari end his life of Rustici, in a work intended to celebrate the glori-ous return of the past grandeur of the Italian arts under the far-sighted and benevolent pa-tronage of the Medici with a story of the return from exile of one of their opponents, his grief over his lost home, and his mocking and humiliation at the hands of the Medici guards? The answer, we suggest, lies in another story told by Vasari. Near the end of the Life of Rustici, he recounts a strange, and, at first sight, inconsequential, anecdote de-scribing the lost lucco of the artist: ! For Jacopo Salviati the elder, of whom he was much the friend, he made a most beautiful medallion of marble, containing a Madonna, for the chapel in his palace above the Ponte alla Badia, and, round the courtyard, many medallions filled with figures of terra-cotta, together with many other very beautiful ornaments, which were for the most part, nay, almost all, destroyed by the soldiers in the year of the siege, when the palace was set on fire by the party hostile to the Medici. And since Giovan Francesco had a great affection for that place, he would set out at times from Florence to go there just as he was, in his lucco; and once out of the city he would throw it over his shoulder and slowly wander all by himself, lost in con templation, until he was there. One day among others, being on that road, and the day being hot, he hid the lucco in a thicket of thorn-bushes, and, having reached the palace, had been there two days before he remembered it. In the end, sending his man to look for it, when he saw that he had found it he said: "The world is too good to last long.” !

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Vasari seems to be hinting here that another meaning lies hidden beneath this ap-parently trivial anecdote, and discretely urging the reader to seek it out. What is this truth? The answer lies, we suggest, in the symbolic meaning of the lost lucco. The lucco was, for Florentines of the late 15th century, a symbol of the voluntary simplicity and self-abnegation in service of the state characteristic of the Florentine republic, which, as historians have noted, was adopted by the Medici as a sign of their allegiance to this tra-ditional set of values as they consolidated their hold over Florentine political life. Rustici's loss and recovery of it on his way out of the city to his villa in the hills can only, in our view, be a symbol of the loss and recovery of Florence's past as a repub-lic free of Medici rule. Vasari had already described Rustici at the beginning of the Life, where he re-counts his artistic training under Leonardo, as being, while no lover of the republican regime which replaced Medici rule after 1494, also "no friend of the Medici regime," choosing to live quietly in his house on a modest income sufficient for his needs, produc-ing the occasional work of art as it suited him. Taken together with Vasari's own veiled portrait of himself as a mere painter of walls for the Medici and the hints he leaves for the reader in the stories of Naldini's return home and the lost lucco, the conclusion seems inescapable that the entire Life of Rustici is an encoded expression of Vasari's own discontent with the Medici regime, and his wish for the return of an earlier, and freer, form of life to the city. Vasari had already pointedly remarked that the festivities he is about to describe no longer exist in the Florence of his day, but, for this very reason, are worthy of remem-brance. Describing the foundation-moment of the Compagnia della Cazzuola, Vasari re-marks: ! The Company of the Cazzuola, which was similar to the other [the Compagnia del Paiuolo], and to which Giovan Francesco belonged, had its origin in the following manner. One evening in the year 1512 there were at supper in the garden that Feo d’Agnelo the hunchback, a fife-player and a very merry fellow, had in the Cam paccio, with Feo himself, Ser Bastiano Sagginati, Ser Raffaello del Beccaio, Ser Cecchino dei Profumi, Girolamo del Giocondo, and Il Baia, and, while they were eating their ricotta, the eyes of Baia fell on a heap of lime with the trowel sticking in it, just as the mason had left it the day before, by the side of the table in a corner

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of the garden. Whereupon, taking some of the lime with that trowel, or rather, ma son's trowel, he dropped it all into the mouth of Feo, who was waiting with gaping jaws for a great mouthful of ricotta from another of the company. Which seeing, they all began to shout: "A Trowel, a Trowel!” ! Once again, Vasari seems to be hinting at another meaning hidden beneath the sur-face of his text. In this paper, we will take Vasari's hint and attempt to decipher the strange festivities of this association. !

Tyrants Punished, the Just Rewarded !

As Tromly has noted, the plays of Seneca were extremely popular in the Renais-sance, and exerted a powerful influence on Renaissance drama.  Tromly focuses his 216

discussion on the myth of Tantalus, tracing its influence particularly in the dramas of Marlowe, where the myth is used to symbolize the fraught relations between the Eliza-bethan court and its courtier/intellectuals, even expressing the frustrations of Marlowe himself and his friends, highly educated and ambitious, but eternally frustrated by their inability to find employment at court. Tromly cites Levin's important work, in which this entire phenomenon is called "over-reaching." He notes the profound influence this latter work has had on Marlowe studies, making readers aware of the great importance of clas-sical myths, and the Tantalus myth in particular, to Renaissance dramatists desiring to convey moral truths in a symbolic manner. The myth was also very popular in the visual arts of the Renaissance, where Tanta-lus' expulsion from Heaven was taken as a symbol of the arrogance and pride of the rich and powerful, from which they will be eventually cast down. For Renaissance mythogra-phers, he was the symbol of greed: !!!!!! Fred Tromly, Playing with Desire: Christopher Marlowe and the Art of Tantalization 216

(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998).

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We will examine another meaning of the Tantalus myth, one hinted at in the works of the mythographers, but not directly expressed. This is Tantalus seen, not as a symbol of greed in a general sense, but more particularly, the greed and unbridled appetites of the tyrant. This myth will be seen to be of fundamental importance to understanding the poli-tical meaning inherent in the feste of the Cazzuola, where the tyrant punished, symboli-zed by Tantalus, stands at the center of their feastings, and is made to reenact, over and over again, in a ritualistic manner, the sufferings vented on the tyrant for his tyrannical behaviour, opposed in stark contrast to the food given to the participants as reward for their politically righteous behaviour. To understand this latter, political, meaning of the myth of Tantalus, we must turn to Seneca's masterpiece, the Thyestes. We will focus on two specific aspects of the play which underlie the festivities of the Cazzuola: the infernal, satanic quality of their per-formances, and the contrast between the punishment of the tyrant, symbolized by the withholding of food, and the food given to the righteous as reward for their politically ethical behaviour. This is the fundamental dyad which underlies the festivities of the Caz-zuola, where the food of the gods is given to the just in Heaven, and food is withheld from the tyrant in Hell. Both the infernal, hellish quality of their performances, centered around the giving and withholding of food, and its political meaning, all derive, then, from the Thyestes of Seneca.

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The Hellish quality appears near the beginning of the play, where Seneca gives a masterful description of the haunted glade which lies behind the royal palace.  217

Important to note here is the location of this place: directly behind the royal palace. So, from the beginning of the play, we are made aware of its political meaning: the royal palace is an infernal place, where horrible deeds are committed and ancient ha-treds avenged. This political meaning is reinforced by the philosophical intermezzi which punctu-ate the action of the play, and which express commonplaces from Stoic philosophy re-garding the proper ethical behaviour of kings, where he is abjured to forswear the pride which comes from his position, and adopt the humility and just behaviour of the simple man. Finally, the figure of Atreus himself is perhaps the most vivid image in all of clas-sical literature of the horrific and terrifying figure of the tyrant, consumed by hatred, and bent on revenge: ! When to this place maddened Atreus came, dragging his brother's sons, the altars were decked--but who could worthily describe the deed? Behind their backs he fetters the youths' princely hands and their sad brows he binds with purple fillets. Nothing is lacking, neither incense, nor sacrificial wine, the knife, the salted meal to sprinkle on the victims[. . .]Himself is priest; himself with baleful prayer chants the death-song with boisterous utterance; himself stands by the altar; himself han dles those doomed to death, sets them in order and lays hand on the knife; himself attends to all--no part of the sacred rite is left undone[. . .]As in the jungle by the Ganges river a hungry tigress wavers between two bulls, eager for each prey, but doubtful where first to set her fangs[. . .]so does cruel Atreus eye the victims doomed by his impious wrath.  218

! The reason for this is that he is haunted by the original sin of his distant forebear, Tantalus, guilty of the sin of carving up his son Pelops and serving his dismembered body

! Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Seneca: Oedipus, Agamemnon, Thyestes, ed. and trans. John 217

Fitch (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 287-289.

! Ibid., Seneca’s Tragedies, trans. Frank Justus Miller (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni218 -versity Press, 1961), 149.

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to the gods at their feast as a stew. Tantalus' cannibalism is the reason he is thrown out of Heaven and denied the food of the gods, and, driven by the Furies, is compelled to repeat this sin over and over again, Tantalus having eaten his son Pelops, Pelops' progeny com-pelled to devour their own, their offspring compelled in turn to consume their children, in an unending cycle of violence and sacrilege destined to continue down the ages. What is important to note is that, although the mythographers hardly mention it, this original sin of cannibalism is actually, in the classical tradition, a symbol for the tyrant's devouring his own, that is, the citizens of the state. Perhaps the mythographers make scarce mention of this fact because this was the unmentionable sin of their civilization, beset as it was by tyrants of many kinds.  219

! Here it seems important to note that all four of the classical damned were, in fact, tyrants: In a patri219 -archal and authoritarian culture, what these myths are communicating is that it is dangerous to strive too much (Icarus), to know too much (Prometheus), to want too much (Midas/Thyestes), or to try to see too far into the future (Phineas/Cassandra). The Hebrew equivalent is, of course, the story of Adam and Eve, who, as Prometheus, try to know too much, and, as Midas/Thyestes, to have too much. For this, the pun-ishing, patriarchal God banishes them from his presence. Perhaps this is the reason why myths which convey the punishment of the tyrant have to be veiled, as we have seen in our investigation of the classi-cal myth of Pelops and Thyestes, or the reason that even many modern scholars seem to be unaware of the anti-tyrannical subtext of the myths we have been discussing; they are, by their nature, subversive in that they challenge the right of absolute rulers to this absolute authority. Hence this challenge must be con-veyed in a highly oblique and encoded manner, whether in the authoritarian, patriarchal culture of Renais-sance Italy, especially in places like Florence, where one-man rule had usurped a more broad-based form of government, or the similarly authoritarian cultures of the classical Mediterranean world. To cite only one example of this extremely oblique encoding of challenges to authority in classical mythology, the hidden meaning of the myth of Jason’s stealing of the golden fleece is that it is a symbolic representation of the overthrow by a tyrant of a democratic form of government, as a reference in Seneca’s Thyestes makes clear, when the playwright describes the deepest and darkest part of the hidden grove, located im-mediately behind the royal palace described above, where the fleece was hung as a trophy of the con-quests of the House of Pelops, together with Pelops’ Phrygian hat, the latter being a common symbol of freedom in both classical times and the Renaissance (Thyestes, ed. Fitch, Act 2). The passage is worth quoting in full: “Behind these public rooms, where whole peoples pay court, the wealthy house goes back a great distance. At the farthest and lowest remove there lies a secret area that confines an age-old wood-land in a deep vale—the inner sanctum of the realm. There are no trees here such as stretch out healthy branches and are tended with the knife, but yews and cypresses and a darkly stirring thicket of black ilex, above which a towering oak looks down from its height and masters the grove. Tantalid kings regularly inaugurate their reigns here, and seek help here in disasters and dilemmas. Here votive gifts are fastened: hanging up are bruiting trumpets and wrecked chariots, spoils from the Myrtoan Sea, wheels defeated be-cause of rigged axles, and all the exploits of the clan” (Thyestes, ed. Fitch, Act 4). In regard to hidden meanings in works of classical literature, we might also cite Apuleius’ address to the reader at the begin-ning of his Golden Ass: “Lector intende; laetarberis,” which can be roughly translated as: “Reader, pay close attention: you’re going to enjoy this,” the textual equivalent of a wink and a nod, where the author seems to be saying: “there is something here which is delightful, but dangerous, and so I have to encode it in very oblique terms; to understand this delightful but dangerous message, you will have to pay very close attention.” Compare Strauss’ brilliant discussion of the recourse to highly cryptic modes of commu-nication on the part of writers in authoritarian societies cited above in Chapter 1.

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This image of cannibalism as symbol of tyrannical behaviour is also encountered in classical art and literature in the figure of Saturn, devourer of his own children, as Panofsky has pointed out.  It also appears in Dante's Inferno, where the tyrant Ugolino, 220

driven by hunger, is forced to eat his own children, "brancolando tre giorni sopra le loro corpi," and reaches its final, most horrifying visualization in the figure of Satan, placed under the traitors, frozen in Hell, bereft of the life-giving warmth of the most important of the Christian virtues, love, and eternally compelled to devour his own progeny, the tyrants, in a perverted inversion of the life-giving and generative power of Christian love. Once understood as the symbol of the tyrant, the hidden meaning of the festivities of the Cazzuola may be understood: they reenact, over and over, this deriving of food, the punishment of the tyrant for his cannibalistic devouring of his own children, as opposed to the rewarding of Heavenly food to the just for their faithful adherence to the political virtue of the republican cause. All the other festivities described by Vasari center also around the theme of the tyrant punished for his sins: Jupiter, who reveals the sinful embrace of Mars and Venus for all to see; the lustful and angry Pluto who carries off the chaste Prosperina (whose ab-duction was also tied to the Tantalus myth, since, distracted by grief over her missing daughter, Ceres ate the shoulder of Pelops, which was then replaced by an ivory prosthe-sis). Even the Harpies, God's avengers (whose name derives from the Greek word "to snatch" and who torment King Phineas for his sin of blinding his children) appear in the Renaissance dramas associated with the Cazzuola, where they have an explicitly political meaning. Given this fact, it seems very likely that we may imagine a scene of Phineas tormented by the Harpies, who snatch his food, followed by an enactment of the Tantalus story by the members of the Cazzuola, and after this scene, a heavenly feast given to the members as a reward for their politically virtuous behaviour. Vasari hints at this when he remarks that Francesco and Domenico Rucellai, in their turn as masters of the company, performed a play called “le Arpie di Fineo,” and that Giovanni Gaddi, with the help of Jacopo Sansovino, Andrea del Sarto and Rustici himself, presented a performance of a “Tantalus in Hell,” at which all the members of the company, attired in the dress of the gods, were given a lavish feast. He pointedly concludes his account of this festa by re-

! Raymond Klibansky, Erwin Panofsky and Fritz Saxl, Saturn and Melancholy: Studies 220

in the History of Natural Philosophy, Religion, and Art (London: Nelson, 1964).

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marking "with all the rest of the fable, to recount which would make our story too long," hinting, just as he did earlier in the life of Rustici, that the reader should consider very carefully what has been left out. What has been left out, as we know from classical mythology, is the punishment of Tantalus for his sins.  221

We see just this scenario of punishment followed by reward in another of the feste described by Vasari, where, after being forced to eat the horrific food of Pluto (the classi-cal symbol of the tyrant, as noted above) and listen to the screams of the damned, the ta-bles are removed, beautiful music is heard, there is a short pause (one may imagine here Orpheus strumming his lyre, which had the power to soothe the sufferings of the damned), a play is performed, and the members are led to an upstairs room to enjoy a de-licious feast. Once again, as in the enactment of the Tantalus myth, we observe the contrast of infernal feasting with heavenly banqueting. In the feste of the Cazzuola, this heavenly feasting of the just is accompanied, sig-nificantly, with pageants associated with the religious traditions of republican Florence, which Vasari calls "nuvole" and describes in detail in his life of Aristotile da San Gallo. Many of the members of the Cazzuola were from the working or middle classes, a group whose exclusion from any participation in the political life of the new regime was an ex-plicit feature of Medici policy, whose roots date back to the Revolt of the Ciompi in 1378, which left a profound fear and distrust of these classes in the minds of the ottimati, leading to profound changes in the structure and functioning of the Florentine republic, and beginning its gradual conversion into an oligarchy run by a few powerful families, and, later, the Medici with their system of clientage and patronage, "friends" and favors. Under the new regime these members would have enjoyed this return of Savonarolan and republican pageantry, now forbidden in the Medici-controlled world above, where, as Shearman has pointed out, they replaced the ceremonial carri of the guilds with chariots designed to celebrate Medicean hegemony over Tuscany; Leo burned the carri dei mercatanti upon his election to the Papacy on 24 April, 1513, replacing them

! One classical source which provides a vivid depiction of the punishment of the tyrant 221

for his sins which would have been well-known to educated Florentines of the early 1500s is Lucian’s , which went through many editions, starting with the first in

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with new ones; significantly, these Medicean chariots were themselves burned upon the brief restoration of the republic in 1527.  222

This conversion of the carts of the guilds into chariots celebrating Medici power parallels the gradual infiltration, neutralization, and conversion of the academies de-scribed above into organs of the Medicean state.  223

Vasari alludes to these popular Florentine religious traditions in several veiled al-lusions to earlier celebrations of Florentine religious life, particularly those festivals asso-ciated with the followers of Savonarola. He notes that, following the festa of , the cele-bration was brought to a sudden close by a shower of rain. We noted above the presence of spectacles called nuvole in Vasari’s Life of Aristotle di San Gallo. The shower of rain which brings to a sudden conclusion the described by Vasari might also be, we would suggest, a reference to this same tradition, here also intended to symbolize divine inter-vention. Brucker reproduces an image of this spectacle in his book on Florentine public life, where, as we see in FIG. X, an azure cloth which was along the to symbolize Heaven has pointed out. Cummings, in his book on Medici festivals, also mentions this feature of Florentine popular religious festivities. What makes these specifically Savonarolan references is that the trial by fire of , intended to settle the question of Savonarola’s authority over Florentine religious life, was interrupted, as noted by a contemporary chronicler, by a sudden shower of rain. This was interpreted by contemporary Florentines as a sign of divine intervention, as Gareffi has pointed out, for the followers of Savonarola, a propitious one, for his opponents, an example of a canny use of religion to evade a public spectacle which would have been damaging to the reputation of the Friar. Hence we would suggest Vasari might have in-cluded this detail as a clue, analogous to his passing reference to the Gates of Paradise and the Threshing Floor mentioned below, to the essentially Savonarolan nature of this

! John Shearman, Andrea del Sarto (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), vol. 2, pp. 222

316-317.

! For a fascinating account of the conversion of the non-conforming Accademia degli 223

Umidi into the Accademia Fiorentina, see Inge Werner, “The Heritage of the Umidi: Per-formative Poetry in the Early Accademia Fiorentina,” in The Reach of the Republic of Letters: Literary and Learned Societies in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. Arjan van Dixhoorn, Susie Speakman Sutch, (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 257-284.

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festa, in which, as we suggested above, the punishment of Pluto for his rape of Proserpina is meant to allude to the Christian equivalent, the punishment of the tyrant in Hell. In a remarkable passage describing one of the feste of the Compagnia del Paiuolo (a more restricted version of the Compagnia della Cazzuola, with which it shared several members, founded, as noted above, along with the Cazzuola in the fall of 1512), Vasari describes the ceremonial presentation of a replica of San Giovanni, made entirely of ma-terials to be eaten: ! Andrea del Sarto presented an octagonal temple similar to that of S. Giovanni, but raised upon columns. The pavement was a vast plate of jelly, with a pattern of mo saic in various colours; the columns, which had the appearance of porphyry, were sausages, long and thick; the socles and capitals were of Parmesan cheese; the cornices of sugar, and the tribune was made of sections of marchpane. In the cen ter was a choir-desk made of cold veal, with a book of lasagne that had the letters and notes of the music made of pepper- corns; and the singers at the desk were cooked thrushes standing with their beaks open and with certain little shirts after the manner of surplices, made of fine cauls of pigs, and behind them, for the bass es, were two fat young pigeons, with six ortolans that sang the soprano. ! This raising of the old San Giovanni—cherished symbol of communal Florence, dating to the eleventh century—on columns of porphyry would seem to be a symbol of its refoundation, or re-elevation by the members of the company, who recall and cherish its sacred character as a symbol of a free Florentine republic. In this interpretation, the con-sumption of this holy edifice by the members of the company would take on the quality of an almost sacred rite. Later in the Life of Rustici, Vasari notes that the first meeting of the Cazzuola took place at Santa Maria Nuova at a place called the Aia, “where the gates of S. Giovanni were cast in bronze,” Aia meaning threshing-floor, the place of God’s final judgment, where the good are separated from the damned forever, the ones destined for Heaven, the others for Hell. In our view, these details, just as the columns which support del Sarto’s San Giovanni, are not merely gratuitous, but represent another of those hints to the reader to look beneath the surface of the text for its hidden religious and political meaning.

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Another of the spectacles enacted by members of the Compagnia del Paiuolo also dealt with this same theme of renewal, this time, taken not from the Christian, but rather the classical tradition. For his contribution to one of their feste, Rustici presented a caul-dron in the form of a pie, in which Ulysses was dipping his father to make him young again, the figures being fashioned of boiled capons, with various other good things to eat. In this creation, we note again the presence of a cauldron, this time a place of rebirth and renewal, in stark contrast to the infernal cauldron in which Tantalus boiled his son Pelops and served his body to the gods as a test of their omniscience, a sin for which he was thrown out of Heaven. Just as in the feste of the Cazzuola, in those of the Paiuolo, we observe the same combination of religious themes and celebratory feasting; the only element missing from Vasari’s description of the feste of the Paiuolo present at the feasts of the Cazzuola being the infernal, nocturnal aspect of suffering and punishment. However, in the last section of this chapter, we will see that there is a hint of this subject also in the feasts of this compa-ny. The prehistory of the strange celebrations of the Cazzuola would be those popular associations associated with specific neighborhoods and trades described by Villani, in which religious and purely festive activities were combined, particularly active at the Feast of San Giovanni, and which Gori, in his study of Florentine popular feste, says were called potenze. Another feature of these early associations which finds a later expression in the ceremonies of the Cazzuola was the free mixing of popular and upper- classes in their celebrations.  224

It is also interesting to note that many of Machiavelli's canti carnascialeschi may have served as the texts to the music which accompanied the feste of the Cazzuola, and that the founding "charter" of the Compagnia may have been Machiavelli's Capitoli per una compagnia di piacere, in which all the rigid rules and elaborate hierarchies of the Medicean academies are completely overturned, and a kind of happy chaos rules, where women dominate men, members hurl scabrous insults at each other, and a kind of bacchic

! Pietro Gori, Chapter XXII, “Le potenze, o signorie, festeggianti,” in Le feste fiorentine 224

attraverso i secoli: Le Feste per San Giovanni (Florence: Bemporad, 1926), 287-323. In his edition of the Thyestes, Fitch notes several other plays performed on the same theme in imperial Rome, each intended as an oblique critique of imperial power, for which sev-eral of their authors met either exile or death.

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and Rabelesian chaos rules. Machiavelli's Canzone degli amanti disperati may have been the text for the music of the infernal feast of Pluto just described, where the screams of the damned, suffering the torments of illicit love, are heard, together with his canto of Pluto and Proserpina; his canto on Marte e Venere possibly the text accompanying the unveiling and punishment of Mars described by Vasari; and his Canzone dei romiti recit-ed or sung at the last meeting of the Cazzuola before the reduction of their activities into an annual event, where, according to Vasari's account, Saint Andrew himself appears and rebukes the members for their profligacy, warning them that they were going to end up in the hospital if they continued in this manner, which, taken together with its warning that the citizens of Florence flee the coming conflagration by fleeing into the hills, would seem to be an encoded warning to the members that their activities had been found out, and that they had better get out of town if they didn't want to wind up in the hospital, that is, subject to Medici reprisals.  225

Hence, in all the various of their festivities, the members would have been treated to an image of the tyrant punished and the just (themselves) rewarded for their virtuous behaviour, which, because it is in contrast to that of the tyrant, can only be political in na-

! An interesting side-note to Machiavelli’s Canzone dei romiti is that it was very likely 225

intended as a response to the use on the part of the Medici of news of impending disas-ters, whether natural or man-made (in this case, an upcoming flood due to a particular as-trological conjunction in the sign of Pisces) by the religious and secular authorities of Renaissance Italy to provoke fear in the common people, and thus make them more likely to rely on the security of established institutions, and to forgo any potentially destabiliz-ing challenges to authority in uncertain times. Niccoli gives several fascinating examples of this process, and also describes the resistance to this fear-mongering on the part of op-ponents of the Medici and the Empire in the middle decades of the cinquecento. She also notes that the Medici Popes Leo and Clement in particular employed astrologers in this way, and recounts a hilarious anecdote in which the governor of Modena, Luigi Guicciar-dini and its podestà X (a foreigner and ), accosted on the street by two masked “as-trologers,” are forced to observe the “astrologization” of the posterior of one of these in-dividuals by the other, an example, as Niccoli notes, of popular and local resistance to perceived Medici meddling in the city’s internal affairs. These prognostici of doom were spread among the common people by means of small, inexpensive pamphlets called fogli volanti, an important documentary source often overlooked by historians, and described in detail below. A recent article, cited below, also discusses Ariosto’s use of the character of an astrologer in his Negromante, intended as an oblique reference to Leo and his ma-nipulation of gullible citizens to achieve his ends.

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ture. This is the meaning encoded in what at first sight appear to be the merely bizarre and eccentric festivities of the Compagnia, whose description by Vasari is, we suggest, deliberately obscure, intended to conceal but also simultaneously to hint at the artist's own sympathies with the activities of this group as a locus of secret opposition to Medici rule, constrained as he was by family obligations to play the part of faithful servant to his Medici masters, all the while harbouring a secret, but profound, sympathy and nostalgia for the values and institutions of the vanished Florentine republic.  226

The bizarre, highly symbolic, anti-medicean feste of the Cazzuola should be placed in the context of other similar entertainments in Renaissance Florence. Mozzati cites a feast given by the Soderini family at the end of the quattrocento, in which banners with the word "Libertas" were prominently displayed, and birds (perhaps also symbolic of Florentine freedom) flew out of a cake.  Domenico Zanré, in his study of the non- 227

conformist Accademia del Piano describes a bizarre nighttime ritual in the house of the Panciatichi family in which the pro-medicean archbishop of Pisa received a kind of posthumus exorcism and a bat flew out of his head.  Butters describes a nighttime feast 228

given by one of the families of anti-medicean ottimati in early 1519 in which the room was draped in black, the arms of the city were displayed upside-down, and weeping women were painted above the motto "Liberty ground under foot." The organizer of this festa was arrested, tortured, and consigned to the galleys.  229

! Further support for our hypothesis that the Compagnia della Cazzuola represented a 226

locus of covert opposition to Medici rule comes from another source. If we examine the list of members given by Vasari, a striking pattern emerges: the vast majority of the ones which can be identified represent individuals opposed, in one way or another, to the Medici regime:

! Tommaso Mozzati, Gianfrancesco Rustici: le compagnie del Paiuolo e della Cazzuola; arte, 227

letteratura, festa nell’età della maniera (Florence: Olschki, 2008). Mozzati offers an entirely dif-ferent interpretation of the activities of the Cazzuola, where the compagnia is seen as furthering the consolidation of the newly-restored Medici regime in Florence.

! Domenico Zanré, “Ritual and Parody in Mid-Cinquecento Florence: Cosimo de’ Medici and 228

the Accademia del Piano,” in The Cultural Politics of Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici, ed. by Konrad Eisenbichler (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001), pp. 189-204 (pp. 193-194).

! Humphrey Butters, Governors and Government in Early Sixteenth-Century Florence 229

(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 305-6.

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Phyllis Pray Bober has traced these strange festivities, in which the guests are treated to an infernal meal, and which she terms “black banquets,” to a banquet given by the Emperor Domitian in 89 AD as part of the public celebrations at the conclusion of the Dacian war, at which the senators in attendance were greeted, in a darkened room, draped in black, with skulls and skeletons prominently displayed on the walls, by the sight, at each place setting, of silver tombstones with their names inscribed on them.  230

Here we might note a very close resemblance to the infernal banquet of Pluto as described by Vasari, in which, we may recall, the room was also draped in black, and the guests “enjoyed” a meal of scorpions and spiders, served by Devils with pitchforks in their hands, and drank wine out of beakers in the shape of cauldrons, before being led up-stairs to a splendid room to enjoy a splendid feast, and to witness a light-hearted comedy derived from the classical tradition. Another close resemblance between Domitian’s banquet and the Cazzuola’s Feast of Pluto is the marked sadistic element. One can only imagine the thoughts which went through the minds of the senators as they were served a feast which was, in effect, their own funeral supper. Their terror would have only been increased by their awareness of Domitian’s intent to first terrorize, and then gradually eliminate, their entire political class. In the case of Rustici’s feast, the purpose of this sadistic element is less clear. If we take Vasari at his word, some of the guests present at this feast were genuinely terrified at the sudden appearance of Il Baia, the bombardiere, in the middle of a darkened room, his face lit by the light of a single candle. It does seem possible, however, that these individ-uals might have represented outsiders invited to the feast, whereas the original members of the company, familiar with its rituals and customs, might have found the discomfit of the invited guests genuinely amusing. Support for this hypothesis comes from yet another “black banquet” given by Lorenzo di Filippo Strozzi in Rome in March of 1519 and described in detail by Gareffi

! Jane Levi, “Melancholy and Mourning: Black Banquets and Funerary Feasts,” in Gastrono230 -mia 12 (Winter 2012), 96-103, citing Bober, “The Black or Hell Banquet,” in Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery: Feasting and Fasting, ed. Harlan Walker (London: Prospect Books, 1991.

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in his book on the influence of popular feste on Italian Renaissance theatre.  At this 231

feast, the guests enter the banqueting hall through a black door, only to see the hall itself draped in black, lit by a single candle, by the light of which they can see, suspended on the walls, an array of skulls and bones. They are seated at a table draped also in black, where they see a wooden bowl also containing skulls and bones; inside the skulls are cooked beans, and inside the bones are sausages. Their host bids them to eat this “co-lazione,” and then to follow him into another room to enjoy their “cena.” Just as they are about to enjoy their meal, they are deafened by a huge clap of thunder, and the stars which decorate the walls of this room begin to spin around. Then the plates upon which their salad is served begin to fly off the table, and the goblets of wine, upset by a rumbling from beneath the floor, jump off the table. Understandably enough, having already partaken of wine and food, the cardinals and the other guests at the banquet begin to vomit, and, according to the chronicler’s account, rush from the room in terror, invituperati, with the exception of the three prostitutes and two buffoni seated with them at the table, who take advantage of their sudden departure to gorge themselves on the remaining food. In this humorous and vivid account, which Gareffi derives from the diaries of the Venetian observer of Florentine life, Marin Sanudo, in his turn citing a letter of X, we are immediately struck by the close resemblance of Strozzi’s feast to the Feast of Pluto as de-scribed by Vasari: the darkened room, the skulls and bones, the fiero pasto concealed within the bones on the table, the mixing of social classes, the change of rooms, the sud-den termination of the feast by a burst of thunder. Perhaps most important, we also ob-serve a dramatic contrast between an infernal feast and a celestial one, although the latter is interrupted by celestial events beyond the guests’ control. And here yet again we encounter the same sadistic element we observed in the banquets of Domitian and Rustici: after having consumed abundant servings of wine and food, and seen the celestial spheres rotating around the table, the cardinals present, ac-cording to the account of the Venetian envoy present at the feast, became very ill and rushed from the table, in the words of the chronicler, invituperati. The latter word pre-sumably refers not only to their physical state of discomfort, but also to the feelings of

! Andrea Gareffi, “La festa macabra di Lorenzo di Filippo Strozzi,” in La scrittura e la 231

festa: teatro, festa e letteratura nella Firenze del Rinascimento (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1990),

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humiliation and stizza engendered in them by the spectacle to which they had just been treated. Given the abundance of homosexuals at the papal court, a familiar topos in Re-naissance Italy, their close proximity to members of Rome’s demimonde seated next to them at the table would presumably have increased the discomfit of these men of God considerably. We suggested above that the infernal feasts described by Vasari in his Life of Gio-vanfrancesco Rustici were intended to encode a covert critique of Medici rule in Florence after the restoration of the family to power in the fall of 1512, in which the nature of this rule, and its deserved reward, are conveyed by a highly sophisticated and symbolic use of classical myths in which the punishment of the tyrant, taking the form of a withholding or a debasement of food and the act of feasting, is vividly portrayed. And as with the feasts of Domitian, Soderini and Rustici just described, it seems very possible that there was a political subtext to Strozzi’s feast as well: Strozzi was a member of a family known as staunch opponents of the Medici regime, and those cardi-nals present (Cybo, Rossi, Salviati and Ridolfi) were all closely associated with Pope Leo. As Gareffi also notes, all four of these cardinals were also cousins of the Medici Pope. Hence it seems entirely possible that, just as in the feste of the Cazzuola, a mes-sage was being sent to those in power: there still remained places in the cultural, if not the political, space of Renaissance Italy where these individuals did not dictate to others, but were themselves subject to the whims of others, and were forced to witness a spectacle which, to the most perceptive of them, would have represented, in a highly symbolic and recondite way, the just punishment meted out to those who would tyrannize others. We also noted above the possibility that the shower of rain which terminated the Feast of Pluto described by Vasari might be an allusive reference to the shower of rain which brought to a sudden halt the trial by fire of Savonarola, as well as to those Floren-tine popular religious feste described by Brucker and Cummings, in which a sudden shower of rain (together with the nuvole and the cielo consisting of blue cloth, symbols of Heaven) also played a prominent role, presumably as a symbol of Divine Judgment. What is significant, then, about all these banquets, in which (with the exception of Domitian’s), themes of heaven and Hell are mixed together with classical and (in the case of the Compagnia della Cazzuola) medieval religious elements, is that they all contain a political subtext, more or less clearly expressed. In the case of Domitian’s banquet, this

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message, directed at the terrified senators in attendance, is that the Emperor is in total control of their fates, and can have them killed at any moment, part, according to Bober, of his systematic campaign of intimidation, and then final elimination, of the senatorial class. In the case of Soderini’s banquet, as well, we suggest, as those of the Compagnia della Cazzuola, this message is that the Medici rulers of Florence are, in effect, tyrants, who share the same rapaciousness as their classical forerunners, and will share the same fate. When we consider the strange feste of the Cazzuola described by Vasari against the background of these other anti-medicean celebrations, with which they share many common elements, our interpretation of the feste of the Cazzuola as expressing, albeit in a

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highly coded and oblique way, opposition to Medici rule in Florence, becomes more plausible.  232

We have been discussing how the elaborate celebrations of the Compagnia della Cazzuola described—albeit in a fragmentary and allusive way—by Vasari would seem to

! As testimony to the fondness of members of the Compagnia della Cazzuola for highly encod232 -ed and oblique forms of expression, the scholar of Italian emblems Sonia Maffei gives a partial transcription of a manuscript now in Florence (Antonfrancesco Doni’s Una Nuova Opinione), in which this tendency is clearly expressed: “Bernardino di Giordano fu un bel ingegno a Firenze, il quale oltre al bellissimo casamento che egli fabricò et giardino che ei fece raro, e’ levò una com-pagnia che Academia hoggi se gli direbbe, et nel farvi recitare le commedie fu unico intelletto [. . .] Costui adunati molti belli ingegni pose nome loro per sopranomi di quei che i Lombardi mura-tori si ritrovano per la maggiore parte, Zannin, Tognetto, mastro Luchin, e tali sì fatti, et si chia-mava la Compagnia della Cazzuola, portando per insegna della loro Accademia un trofeo di martellina, archipenzolo, squadra et cazzuola da murare, strumenti tutti che sempre smurano et murano e tanto son buoni all’una come all’altra manifattura, et un breve che gli legava diceva in quel modo medesimo apunto che quello del Marchese Del Vasto Fiuniunt [sic] pariter renovan-tuque [sic] labores [. . .]Tutti gli huomini fanno qualche dimostratione dell’animo loro o in fatti o in parole, per parabola, per figura, in enigma, in cifra, con saviezza o con pazzia, ma uno meglio dell’altro la registra, per che bisogna aiutarsi come la va par pari, et veder di vincerla o alman-co inpattarla che ‘l perderla è sempre in ordine [italics added],” In this passage we also note the presence of a garden (presumably behind) Bernardino di Giordano’s casamento, which would make the gatherings of the Cazzuola those of a real Academy proper, rather than the occasional and informal festive association we glean from Vasari’s account, similar in this respect to the gatherings in the gardens of Cosimo Rucellai, where serious discussion of political matters was combined with lighthearted and jocund repartee. We may also note the agonistic quality of the gatherings of the Cazzuola as they are described by Doni, the members competing with each oth-er to see who could be most obscure. In this respect, they would then be very similar to the meet-ings of the other Italian academies, such as that which met in the gardens of Angelo Colocci, lo-cated near the spot of today’s Fontana di Trevi, where discussion of serious political matters was leavened by light-hearted and teasing banter, the members reciting (often scurrilous) composi-tions directed at each other, an example of which Rowlands gives in one of the members’ mock invectives directed at Erasmus, in which the Dutch scholar is described as too timid to confront the fearsome and terrifying “genius loci,” Colocci’s pet cat Selurus. (The transcription of Doni is from Sonia Maffei, “Giovio’s Dialogo delle imprese militari e amorose and the Museum,” in The Italian Emblem: A Collection of Essays, ed. Donato Mansueto, in collaboration with Elena Calogero (Glagow: Glasgow Emblem Studies, 2007), 33-63. Maffei reproduces a drawing of the impresa of the Compagnia della Cazzuola from the same manuscript on p. 47. The reference to Colocci’s garden is from Ingrid Rowland, The Culture of the High Renaissance: An-cients and Moderns in Sixteenth-Century Rome (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

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allude to contemporary Florentine religious festivities in which the themes of the pun-ishment of the powerful, including the kings of this world, and the rewards given to the righteous play a prominent role. But there is one spectacle well-known to the Medieval tradition which allows us to consolidate and incorporate all the scattered details provided by Vasari into one coherent picture. This is the “guided tour through Heaven and Hell” provided by a trusted guide to a soul caught up in the things of this world, and intended to remind him of the risks he runs by his insufficient attention to his spiritual state. We en-counter this theme, which clearly forms the inspiration for Dante’s Divine Comedy, and which one critic has proposed finds its ultimate derivation from the Arabic tradition, in many works of Medieval art and literature. One example which might be cited here which forms an especially close parallel with the strange festivities described by Vasari in his life of Rustici is the popular mid-12th-century The Vision of Tundale, where a knight, having suffered a seizure at supper, is led through the three realms, where he encounters, at an infernal banquet, “furnaces crammed with the bodies of sinners and demons, cook-ing, breaking down and reconstituting.”  233

Here we observe the same combination of punishment and the theme of cannibal-istic devouring we observed in the feste of the Compagnia della Cazzuola and its classical and Medieval antecedents we have been discussing. Significant for our interpretation of the elaborate festivities of the Compagnia della Cazzuola as a covert critique of Medici rule is the fact that it is a knight, an individual high on the Medieval hierarchy, who is led on this journey intended to rebuke him for his sins and encourage him to lead a better life. Perhaps one of the forestieri, that is, guests not members of the Company present at the festivities of the Compagnia della Cazzuola—where, as we have been suggesting, their elaborate stagings of classical myths conveyed, in a highly allusive manner, a criticism of the tyrannical nature of Medici rule in Florence, presented in stark contrast to themes of Christian, and specifically Savonarolan, renewal—would have recalled the tradition just discussed and emerged from the lower rooms of the Compagnia into the squares of Flo-rence bearing in mind not only the specific features of the spectacles to which he had just been treated, but also their medieval precursors, the vivid images of punishment followed by heavenly reward embodied, as we have seen, in these Medieval images and later in-

! Aleks Pluskowski, Apocalyptic Monsters: Animal Inspirations for the Iconography of 233

Medieval North European Devourers in The Monstrous Middle Ages, ed. Bettina Bild-hauer and Robert Mills (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003), 155-176.

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corporated into the elaborate public spectacles of the Florentine popular religious tradi-tion. But perhaps the most convincing evidence that the Compagnia della Cazzuola rep-resented a clandestine locus of opposition to Medici rule in Florence, where, in a festive, carnivalesque atmosphere, the members enacted, in a highly encoded and symbolic way, their opposition to Medici rule, and where long-suppressed Savonarolan and popular el-ements were allowed, in the safety of the hidden rooms of its members, to re-emerge, comes from the historical record itself. Trexler cites what would seem to represent the original inspiration for the bizarre banquet of Pluto described above, where, as we may recall, the members of the Cazzuola “enjoyed” an infernal feast, amid the screams of the damned and the lamentations of Proserpina, captive to the angry and lustful Pluto, symbol of the tyrant, before being led upstairs to enjoy their true feast and enjoy a performance of Correr’s Philogenia, a hu-manist comedy from the early 1400s and, as noted above, the original inspiration for Machiavelli’s Mandragola. Trexler cites a description by Antonio Pucci of an elaborate spectacle which took place on the Arno on May Day, 1304: ! Ed in sull’Arno aveva piatte, e navi, Con palchi d’assi; or udirai bel giuoco, E come que’, che ‘l facieno eran savii. Dall’una parte avea caldaie a fuoco, Dall’altra avea graticole, e schedoni, Ed un gran Diavol quivi era per cuoco. Nella sentina avea molti Dimonii, I qua’ recavan l’anime a’ tormenti, Ch’ordinati eran, di molte ragioni. Qual si ponia sopra carbon cocenti, E qual nella caldaia, che bolliva, E di sentina uscivano i lamenti. La gente, che d’intorno il pianto udiva, E poi vedea a sì fatto governo Co’ rassi, e con gli uncin gente cattiva,

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Che parean tutti Diavoli d’inferno Ispaventevoli a chi li vedea, Immaginando que’ del luogo eterno. Sette tormenti v’eran per ragione,

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Punendo i sette peccati mortali, E sovra ognuno scritto in un pennone: In questo luogo son puniti i tali. Alcuna volta v’avresti veduti Serpenti, e draghi feroci con ali, E contraffatti Diavoli cornuti, Che forcon da letame avieno in mano, Di più ragione, tutti neri, e sannuti.  234

! Here we encounter, in an earlier version, all the elements of the infernal feast of Pluto described by Vasari: a Devil as cook (in Vasari’s account, Pluto as host), boiling cauldrons, the screams of the damned, demons, serpents (in Vasari’s account, the scorpi-ons and spiders which serve as “dessert”), devils with pitchforks in hand (in Vasari’s ac-count, a shovel with which he loads the food onto the guests’ plates). Trexler notes that this festival was the first popular festival on record, an expres-sion of the public exuberance of the various artisan festive groups who, in the 1330s and 1340s, elected a “signore,” and, on May Day, “marched through the streets in festive gai-ety.”  Hence, we would suggest, in their adaptation of this festa, or others similar to it, 235

in their own celebrations, the members of the Cazzuola were making a deliberate, if allu-sive, reference to these earlier displays, manifestations of the popular power and festive spirit of the neighborhoods and trades of a Florence of an earlier time, now, in the Flo-rence of their time, subject, as we have noted, to Medici censorship and repression.  236

Illustrations in the margins of Medieval manuscripts also make clear how, in the Medieval tradition, the punishment of sinners and the theme of cannibalistic eating were

! Antonio Pucci, Centiloquio, in Delizie degli eruditi toscani, ed. Idelfonso di San Luigi. 234

(Florence: Cambiagi, 1770-1789), IV, 195ff.

! Richard Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University 235

Press, 1991), 220.

! For the rise of popular confraternities, which played a prominent role in the festivities 236

of San Giovanni under the Medici in the quattrocento, see Trexler 252-58. For the coopta-tion of these groups by the Medici in support of their rule in the late 1400s, see, in addi-tion to Najemy, Trexler 512-3.

! � 190

inextricably linked. Sinners were routinely devoured by the demons in Hell, and were

routinely roasted on spits, flayed alive, and even boiled in cauldrons:  237

! Among these sinners were kings and the prideful of the earth, while the just were admitted into Heaven, in this manuscript represented, appropriately enough, by a cloister:

We also noted the presence of a cauldron in both the Thyestes of Seneca discussed above, and, as we shall see, a cauldron plays a prominent part in the one of the feste of the Compagnia of the Paiuolo.

! These reproductions are taken from Alixe Bovey, Monsters and Grotesques in Me237 -dieval Manuscripts (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002).

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And the entrance to Hell is commonly represented by a huge devouring mouth, as in the following illustration:

In the Feast of Pluto described by Vasari, we encountered the classical equivalent of this powerful image in the jaws of Cerberus through which the guests descended to the Underworld. Hence, we would suggest, the elaborate productions of the Compagnia della Caz-zuola draw upon both classical and Medieval traditions in which the themes of eating, especially the cannibalistic devouring of one individual by another, and the punishment

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of the wicked, prominent among whom are the kings and powerful of the world, are inex-tricably linked. In one striking illustration, the demons are even seen devouring themselves: !

! We noted at the beginning of this chapter the self-consuming nature of tyranny, in which the tyrant’s rule is characterized by the consumption of the most vital asset of the state, its citizens, thus leading to his final demise, an image we also encountered in the Inferno of Dante, where both the tyrant Ugolino and Satan himself, the ultimate tyrant (since he rules the souls of the sinful, having usurped God’s place there as its intended ruler) are seen in the act of cannibalistic consumption. Just as Ugolino consumes his own sons (as did also the Thyestes of Seneca’s play), so also is he to be consumed in turn by

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the Mouth of Hell, where he will be consumed by the demons, until, in an infernal ver-sion of the Last Judgment, both the demons and the sinners inside them will themselves be devoured by Satan, who then will presumably devour himself, finally bringing to an end the cycles of violence and tyranny which have characterized human history. Once again, we may note the mixing of classical and Medieval imagery around the theme of the consumption of food in the elaborate performances of the Compagnia della Cazzuola, which reflect and recreate not only the highly theatrical and rhetorical aspects of Senecan drama, but also its Medieval successors in the elaborate festivities and cele-brations of the Medieval Christian tradition, the sacre rappresentazioni and the proces-sions in which the same themes played a prominent role. In addition, the cry which in Vasari’s account greeted the “spontaneous” birth of the Cazzuola (“Cazzuola, Cazzuola”) may itself be a deliberate evocation of the popular cry of the early woolworkers or Ciompi. Citing Stefani, Trexler describes a drinking bout among artisans and workers and Walter of Brienne’s men at arms: ! The latter [the artisans] had italianized the French word ‘compar’ (‘co-father’ or ‘ally’) as ciompo, Stefani tells us, so that when the French said to them, ‘Compar, let’s go drinking,’ the Florentine artisans responded, ‘ciompo, let’s go drink. And thus they said: “Ciompo, Ciompo” as if everyone was a ciompo, that is, a compar.’  238

! In our view, these two pieces of evidence—while somewhat obscure and tangen-tial— might perhaps provide further support for our hypothesis that the Compagnia della Cazzuola represented a locus of covert opposition to Medici rule, and that Vasari, in giv-ing such a full, but, in our view, deliberately evasive description of their activities, in-tended to allude to these earlier groups which, just as the Cazzuola, expressed their resis-tance to the hegemony of the popolo grasso, that is, the prosperous merchant class who stood above them on the social scale, through elaborate, symbolic celebrations in which (as was the norm in such late medieval feste), the rulers of the earth and the rich and powerful were among the primary recipients of divine wrath. In this regard, it is worth remembering that contemporary Florentines would have had a very different experience of their past than that of modern historians, where the past is leveled out and to some de-

! Trexler 221.238

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gree homogenized; events or individuals which to modern historians seems trivial or in-cidental might have loomed very large in their imaginations, and, on the other side, events which modern historians consider pivotal might have been received very different-ly than what one might today assume. Trexler also notes that these earlier festivities, which took place during May Day, Carnival, and the Feast of San Giovanni, were associated with particular religious confra-ternities, often tied to a neighborhood church.  He cites the 1451/2 capitoli of the Com239 -pagnia of San Andrea de’ Purgatori, which met in Borgo La Croce. Could the Compagnia della Cazzuola, where, as we have seen, the members were immersed in a Hellish envi-ronment before being transported to an upper region, where they enjoyed their celestial banquet, have taken inspiration for the name of their patron Saint, and perhaps even its place of meeting, from this earlier company? In this regard, Trexler also mentions a hospital by the name of “societas hospitalis S. Johannis Baptiste de via S. Gallo de Florentia.”  Vasari describes an elaborate feast 240

set in an imitation hospital “outside the Porta di San Gallo,” where the members are warned to curb their expenses, lest they wind up in the hospital. Might this “feast” also have been inspired by this earlier organization? As noted above, the theme of the latter banquet was poverty, since the guests were dressed as paupers, which, besides the obvi-ous humorous reference to the impending state of impoverishment of the members if they continue in their profligate ways, would also accord with one of the functions of such small confraternal organizations, namely, to assist their needier members with basic ex-penses. As we note in the following chapter, the theme of a voluntary and also comically-exaggerated form of poverty, placed in stark opposition to a heedless wasting of re-sources, formed the fundamental dyad which underlay the feasts of another festive com-pany of later in the century, where this theme was also used as a symbol of the miserli-ness and mean-spiritedness, or the conspicuous wasting of civic resources, which charac-terized the Medici regime in Florence under Duke Cosimo. Michel Plaisance has noted the presence of several informal companies in the mid-1550s which bear a very close resemblance—in the festive informality of their meetings,

! Trexler 404.239

! Trexler 405.240

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in the semi-secret nature of their gatherings, in their locations far from the centers of power in Florence and in their staging of elaborate spectacles which included music and elaborate sets—to the Compagnia della Cazzuola.  241

The fact that these companies arose at precisely the time that Cosimo was trying to assert his control over the Florentine Academy, itself the result of the infiltration and conversion of the more informal and anti-authoritarian Academia degli Umidi into the former academy, tends to suggest that the activities of these informal compagnie di pi-acere described by Plaisance may also have represented loci of opposition to Medici rule in the city, where, as we noted above, Cosimo’s assertion of control over all productions of culture resulted in the highly hierarchical, programmatic and formal organization of the Florentine Academy, with strict rules and regulations as to its mode of operation and members tasked with the duty of reporting all its activities to the Duke.  242

This hypothesis would also tend to be support the possibility that these latter fes-tive organizations represented a continuation of sorts of the Compagnia della Cazzuola, both in the nature of their meetings, their membership, and the activities in which they engaged. While up to this point, we have been able to find only one individual who be-longed to both companies, it seems possible that others might emerge, their identities in one or the other of the groups concealed under a pseudonym. One of the names given by Vasari in his account of the Compagnia della Cazzuola is clearly a pseudonym: Barbagrigia. The editors of Annibal Caro’s Gli straccioni, dis-cussed below, identify this latter individual as the Roman printer Antonio Blado, printer to the popes and also the printer of the first edition of Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories. We noted above the presence of Machiavelli himself as one of the primary participants in the festivities of the Compagnia della Cazzuola; such a connection between the author and the printer of his most controversial work as members of the same company suggest that others, perhaps hinted at or disguised by Vasari by various means, might have be-longed not only to the Cazzuola, but to one or more of these later festive organizations which shared both its ethos and format. As we note below, one of the members of the Compagnia della Cazzuola—Barlacchi, himself, along with Giovan Battista Ottonaio,

! Plaisance, cited below, 148-57.241

! On this aspect of the Florentine Academy, see below. On the infiltration and conver242 -sion of the Academia degli Umidi into the Florentine Academy, see Werner, cited above.

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discussed below, herald of the Florentine Signoria, close friend of Machiavelli and the author, apparently, of a work sometimes attributed to the latter—was an active participant in the performance of C Bibbiena’s Calandria at the court of Francis I of France in Lyon in 1548.  243

These details suggest the possibility of an important connection between the Com-pagnia della Cazzuola and later organizations which managed to express opposition to Medici rule in Florence by indirect means, in particular, by a highly astute and clever use of the stock plots and characters of Renaissance drama (particularly Plautine comedy) as a means of expressing their reservations and discontent with the nature of Medici rule in Florence. This seems to be a highly promising area of future investigation. We discuss the connections between the Compagnia della Cazzuola and Renaissance drama below. The above considerations also tend to suggest that our hypothesis that the Com-pagnia della Cazzuola, which bore a close resemblance to these later compagnia di pi-acere—in their informality, frequent changes of meeting place, mixing of social classes and presentation of elaborate spectacles which may have served as veiled commentary on

! We discuss this performance below.243

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the political circumstances of their times—may have also represented a locus of opposi-tion to Medici rule in the city is actually well-founded.  244

!The Functions of the Cazzuola: Memorialization, Incitement, Warning

! Anthony Cummings has noted the importance of the memorialization of the mem-ories of Florence’s republican past among supporters of the republic in the first days of the Medici restoration. In this volume, he also discusses the Canzone della Cazzuola, which is notoriously difficult to interpret and deliberately ambiguous: Cummings sees this song as an expression of a nostalgic fondness for a pre-republican Florence, and an

! In a very interesting essay, X has also remarked on the carnivalesque nature of the festivities 244

of the Compagnia della Cazzuola, with particular attention to a mock-heroic poem which the artist Andrea del Sarto, one of the most active members of the company, may have recited there in the X of 1519. X argues that it was precisely this aspect of their celebrations, seen as a sur-vival of bourgeois culture into the age of the nascent Medicean court, which so displeased Vasari, seen as one of the prime advocates for a new, courtly culture based on strict social and artistic norms. We would suggest, however, as we did at the beginning of this chapter, that Vasari in-cludes such detailed descriptions of this lost cultural world, not as a means of censuring it, but rather, using this apparent censure as a cover or veil, as a way of keeping a record of its activities alive for future generations. Although this is purely speculative, it is interesting to note that, in criticizing del Sarto for choosing to remain in Florence, while, according to Vasari, his genius would have been better served either in France or in Rome, Vasari would seem to be arguing against his own championing of Medicean Florence as a center of artistic excellence. The impli-cation would seem to be that, while Florence has produced great geniuses in the visual arts, they find better soil for the flourishing of their talent elsewhere. We might also remark that the poem supposedly recited by del Sarto takes a familiar subject (the battle of the mice and the frogs), well-known from the fables of Aesop and the pseudo-Homeric Batro machia, but that this sub-ject is very possibly an allegory, familiar from other such compositions, of the competition for cultural supremacy between the academies supported by the Medici and those non-conforming ones which opposed them cited above: As we have already noted, both Zanré and Plaisance have also remarked on the strong possibility of an allegorical meaning present in the numerous mock-epic poems written during this period, although neither of these scholars sees them as anti-Medicean, but rather as allegories of the defeat by the heroic Medici of their ottimati opponents. Plaisance has also remarked on the function these non-conforming academies served as a place where bourgeois values and culture could survive, if only in a semi-clandestine and marginalized form, in an increasingly autocratic political culture.

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exhortation to the youth of the new Medici regime to remember this age and its values fondly and to seek to restore them.  245

While, according to Cummings, the song looks back nostalgically to the former days of il Magnifico and exhorts Florence’s youth to remember and restore them, in our view, the song can be interpreted in an entirely opposite manner: as a call to Florence’s republican youth to remember the pre-restoration days of Savonarolan Florence, and to exert themselves strenuously to recover them, the “gran memoria dell’età passata. . .che perpetuarsi ognun vorrebbe” referring, not to the Florence of il Magnifico, but rather to the glorious days of the recently-extinguished republican regime; the “parvoletti, in cui non iace anchor, sicome in noi, esperienza” representing, not the youth of the recently-restored Medici regime, but rather those born too late to remember clearly the days of the pre-1512 republican regime; the “costeiî”whom the “alma Cipta” is abjured to honor, be-ing her “salute,” once again, a reference, not to the present-day regime of the Medici, but rather to the golden age of a republican Florence. The canzone ends with the final plea: “pensa hora quel che tu sei e quel che fusti sanza sua virtute,” in other words, with a plea to the young men and women in attendance at the singing of the canzone in the streets of Florence during Carnival to recall her for-mer greatness under the Savonarolan regime, and to work strenuously to ensure that such an age may return once again. The highly cryptic nature of the song, then, would be due to its function as the public expression of the Cazzuola’s self-presentation, its “public face,” sung during the celebrations during Carnival when the carri of the guilds processed before their patron saint in the piazza of San Giovanni, seeking his blessing on their en-deavours in the year to come. As such, it would need to carefully conceal its status as an exhortation to Florence’s republican youth, now out of power, and under strong suspicion and persecution by the new Medici regime, to restore the republican regime in highly en-coded language. Its “private face” would be the song sung at the banquets of the Cazzuola, repro-duced in Mozzati, which was itself highly encoded, using highly encrypted language to express dissatisfaction with the Medici regime. We discuss this song in detail below.

! For Cummings’s discussion of the carnival song of the Cazzuola, see his The Maece245 -nas and the Madrigalist: Patrons, Patronage, and the Origins of the Italian Madrigal (Philadelphia, PA: American Philosophical Society, 2004).

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The reason for this, presumably, is the possible presence of Medici spies at the feste of the Cazzuola, the use of spies, both within the city and without, to monitor the activities of those who might pose a threat to the regime being a common feature of the Medici regime, as historians have pointed out, even well before the time of Cosimo. Domenico Zanré, in his study of the Accademia del Piano, notes the gradual infiltration, neuralization and conversion of the latter academy into an organ of the Medicean state. Another scholar has recently described the same practice in reference to the gradual con-version of the Accademia degli Umidi (originally characterized by a marked non-con-formist ethos) into the Florentine Academy, as part of Cosimo’s strategy to bring all forms of cultural expression, especially those that might present a threat to his regime, under his direct control. If, then, the Compagnia della Cazzuola functioned as a kind of locus of hidden op-position to Medici rule, then even its private activities would have to be highly encoded and difficult to interpret. We observed just such a process in our study of the Cazzuola above, where meetings were held in semi-secrecy, secret signs (such as the painting of an image on the outside of the meeting-place) were used to lead the participants to the right place, members employed pseudonyms, and the places of their meetings changed con-stantly. We also noted the fondness of the members, in the performance of their “party games,” for a highly encoded and cryptic form of communication. All these features point to a fundamentally clandestine ethos of the meetings and activities of the Compagnia del-la Cazzuola. And, of course, as we have been suggesting, this same clandestine ethos may have also been present in both their public and their private Carnival songs, as well as those strange performances described by Vasari which form the main subject of this chap-ter. This might also explain the timing of its foundation: founded in the fall of 1512, immediately after the Medici restoration, it might have functioned as a way to quickly mobilize Florentine youth in support of the former republican regime before the Medici could consolidate their power over Florence. As Cummings notes, the Medici, following their restoration, immediately created the companies of the Broncone and the Diamente, the former of which, as a supporter of the Medici himself admits, was a deliberate at-tempt on the part of Lorenzo di Piero to harness the energies of the youth of Florence in service of the new regime.

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It thus seems possible that the founding by the Medici of these companies so soon after their restoration to power might have been a response on their part to a fear that their anti-medicean opponents might organize the young supporters of the former repub-lic, or those undecided as to their allegiances in a highly charged and unstable situation, into a potent counter-force to their newly-created rule if they did not act quickly to fore-stall this possibility. As history has shown us, times of regime change are particularly flu-id and subject to sudden changes and shifting alliances. In this interpretation, the founda-tion of their two companies (there is much doubt among historians as to the exact se-quence of the founding of the three companies) might have represented just such a re-sponse to the threat posed by the foundation of such an anti-medicean organization as the Compagnia della Cazzuola within the walls of the city. If this hypothesis is true, it would explain the need for an extremely oblique and encoded form of expression, in all their varied activities, on the part of the members of the Cazzuola as we have been describing. At any rate, it seems fair to assert the possibility that the public canzone sung by members of the Cazzuola during Carnival celebrations, reproduced by Cummings, repre-sents, rather than a nostalgic celebration of the Florence of il Magnifico, as Cummings maintains, but rather an exhortation, as we have been suggesting, to Florence’s republican youth to recall the past days of a Savonarolan Florence, and to work strenuously for their restoration. Many historians have noted the obsession, during precisely this period, on the part of partisans of all sides, with the theme of restoration and return.  If the cycles of 246

history can bring about the restoration of the Medici, they can also bring about the restoration of the former republic; the “myth of eternal return” could be the return of a Savonarolan Florence, rather than the pre-Savonarolan, Lorenzan, one.

! Perhaps the most eloquent and cogent presentation of this theme is to be found in the 246

works of Machiavelli, where this theme recurs constantly, and forms one of the important “sub-themes” of his Mandragola, in which, as suggested above, the scheming young Cal-limacho (intended, as we argued, as a symbol of the young Lorenzo di Piero, newly re-turned from France) finally gets the better of an older man, symbol, as we suggested, of both the older generation of Florentine patriots, now outmoded and essentially useless in the new Medicean order, as well as representing a humorous self-reference on the part of Machiavelli himself to his own now essentially useless status as a representative of the former regime.

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And after all, the canzone was sung AFTER the restoration of the Medici: what need would there be to exhort Florence’s youth to restore something which had already been restored? This theme of strenuous exertion also appears in the Canzone dei Muratori, which Tommaso Mozzati has identified as one of the songs sung at the feste of the Cazzuola. In this song, we observe reference to an old decrepit “Casa” in need of restoration, and full of “pecchie e calabroni,” a reference to the Biblical “my habitation has become the nest of scorpions and spiders” of the Book of Revelations. If we interpret the song as an en-coded expression of anti-Medicean sentiments, it seems entirely reasonable to hypothe-size that the capitalization of the word “Casa” might have been intended to draw attention to the fact that it is a particular casa to which the song refers, namely, the house of Medici, full of all the vices inherent in a tyrannical regime, to be destroyed at the Day of Judgment, and frequently decried by Savonarola in just these terms in his sermons. The song continues with the assertion of the impossibility of the reconciliation of this old decrepit house with a new, splendid one: the first house must be destroyed entire-ly before the foundations for a new one can be laid; old bricks cannot be put next to new stone. Once again, it seems reasonable to hypothesize that this “new foundation” is a ref-erence to the new temple of Jerusalem, founded on the ruins of the old one, to which Savonarola, again alluding to the current corrupt government of Florence, in urgent need of reformation, also frequently refers in his sermons. This might explain the bringing in of the column which concluded the ceremony of which this song was a part: it might be a symbol of the column which originally stood outside the Baptistry, itself a cherished symbol of the early Florentine republic. The members watching this ceremony would have been treated to the sight of the destruction of the old edifice made of bricks (a veiled reference to the Palazzo Medici?) of the old regime, and its replacement with a glorious new edifice constructed, not of brick, but of something more lasting, fine marble crowned with a glorious column. The members of the Campagnia della Cazzuola, as faithful mura-tori mindful of Florence’s past greatness, will, then, in this interpretation, finally com-plete Savonarola’s vision of a righteous republican Florence, free of Medici tyranny, as a new Jerusalem on earth. This is precisely the sequence of the ceremony as reconstructed by Mozzati: first the bringing in of an old edifice, its removal and destruction (perhaps another veiled ref-erence to the evils of the pre-Savonarolan regime), its consumption by the members of

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the Cazzuola, and then, as the conclusion of the ceremony, the ceremonial presentation of a new course consisting of the column, made, unlike the ugly bricks of the former Casa, of shining new marble. This column was then also eaten. In the context of the interpreta-tion we have been suggesting, this destruction and eating of a bad old thing, and the con-sumption of a new and splendid one, would seem to take on the quality of an almost sacramental act. The song concludes with an exhortation to the spectators to make use of the “valenti muratori,” who are perfectly capable of replacing their elders in this task of re-construction: once again, we would propose, this, in addition to its sexual reference to the sexual potency of the youth, as opposed to the failing energies of older members of the company, is, in our interpretation, a reference to the new generation of Florentine patri-ots, perfectly capable of exerting themselves strenuously in the construction of a new re-publican order.  247

There is, of course, no way to know for certain whether this interpretation is cor-rect; however, given what has been said above about the possibility of the presence of highly encoded anti-Medicean messages in the feste of the Cazzuola, the singing of this song in the same place, and the possibility of a similar anti-Medicean message in the Carnival song of the company discussed above, such an interpretation, in our view, does not seem entirely implausible. !

Carnival 1513: A Political Interpretation of Two Florentine Carnival Parades !

We noted above the use of popular festivities, particularly during times of Carnival, by the Medici after their reassertion of control over Florence in the fall of 1512 as a means of consolidating their rule over the city by providing vivid public displays which testified to their wealth and power, and also proclaimed the benefits which would accrue to her citizens as a result of this rule.

! This political interpretation of the theme of youth versus old age has implications for 247

an interpretation of Machiavelli’s Mandragola, which we discuss below.

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Maria-Luisa Minio-Paluello has given us a fascinating account of carnival festivities in the year 1513, less than a year after the restoration of the Medici to power in the city, a record of which we have from no less than three contemporary chroniclers:  248

!!

!

! Maria-Luisa Minio-Paluello, Jesters and Devils: A Midsummer Voyage, Florence 1514 248

(s.n., 2008).

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Perhaps even more fascinating than this invenzione are the events which followed it. According to Minio-Paluello, on the same day as the parade mentioned above, a strange procession made its way through the streets of Florence: ! While from another direction a really ghostly cavalcade, earnest and alto gether real, arrives in Florence these days, black clad and darkly menacing, clattering with their cavalry on the cobbled streets for the days of the festi val. Certainly more threatening than the ephemeral ship of fools drawn on a cart by placid oxen for a short, if lively, evening. ! Citing Cambi, Masi and Sanudo, Minio-Paluello gives an account of this second procession: ! Giuliano de’ Medici came here from Rome to see the festival with six cardi nals, and there was the Pope’s nephew Giulio, the Siennese cardinal, a Venetian one, our Da Bibbiena, and they all walked about not in their car dinals’ habits, but all dressed in black in the Spanish fashion, with swords at their sides, and their faces covered [turati], the same as Giuliano, so that they were giving us a good example and in this way one reforms the Church. May God forgive them, and may he make them repent of their er rors, like all of us Christians. ! While Minio-Paluello speculates that this procession might represent a kind of re-sponse to the first, and astutely remarks that such a procession, in which the participants carried swords and masked their faces, was expressly forbidden by the statutes of the city as far back as the Middle Ages as a means of preventing either internal discord or exter-nal interference in the affairs of the city at a time when many citizens, many of them no doubt inebriated, would have thronged the streets. We would, however, interpret it in rela-tion to the procession which went before. Minio-Paluello speculates that the former procession might have represented a typical “Ship of Fools,” a type of spectacle well-known since the Middle Ages, in which mankind’s follies are humorously exposed. While in our view, this is essentially correct, we would propose that it carried a second, more allusive meaning, namely as a symbolic

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representation on the part of the new rulers of the city of their disdain for, and also their total control over, potentially subversive remnants of an active mercantile culture, once, despite the dominance of the upper classes, powerful in the city, and with values and as-pirations radically different from those of the Medici family. As noted above, Trexler, Najemy and Plaisance have all remarked upon the progressive marginalization of this middle-class mercantile culture as an explicit feature of Medici rule in the city, a process beginning with their restoration in 1512, and continuing into the coming decades. We would hence suggest that the first procession described by Minio-Paluello expresses in symbolic, yet highly dramatic, form precisely this disempowerment of the working class-es of the city: the primary fool on this ship, as noted by the chronicler, is Maestro Antonio di Pierrozzo da Vespignano, a member of the working class; he was a maker of hoods, surely a Savonarolan reference; this individual had been “abducted” the day before and placed in the Palazzo della Podestà, as symbolic “King” of Florence; then made a specta-cle on the cart, where he is dressed in rags and tormented by devils. We would thus suggest that Minio-Paluello’s Ship of Fools presents, in addition to its traditional meaning as a reference to the inevitable follies of human life, a more spe-cific subtext expressed in a symbolic use of the details we have just mentioned; that it, the ritual and public humiliation of the working and mercantile middle classes in face of the newly ascendent power of the Medici family. And following on the “kidnapping” of Maestro Antonio, the chronicler records a second abduction, that of Giovanni Tancredi, “citizen and craftsman.” This individual, significantly, “wore the wool,” a reference to the principle trade of late medieval Flo-rence, the working of wool, and, as the chronicler notes, never even thought to change his trade. For this loyalty to Florence’s mercantile traditions, this individual is also tormented by devils. If this interpretation of the Carnival procession as a symbolic humiliation of Flo-rence’s working and middle classes is accepted, we would also suggest that the second procession described by Minio-Paluello, which, in the description of the contemporary chroniclers, seems highly strange and also slightly sinister, is, also, in a symbolic way, connected to the first: that, should the Florentines choose to ignore the message of the first procession, that is, the absolute control of the Medici family over the city and its mercantile traditions, then the family and its Roman allies were ready, willing and able to use force (in the form of armed and veiled figures of authority) to ensure their dominance over Florentine political life.

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As such, the second procession would have served as a kind of “commentary” or gloss on the first, as a kind of veiled warning as to Medici designs on the city under the new dispensation. The fact that Florentine audiences for these kinds of spectacles pos-sessed highly sophisticated skills in the decipherment of their political subtexts is made clear from a third anecdote, this one also connected to Carnival, to which we now turn. An extremely rare pamphlet printed on the occasion of the 1513 Carnival repro-duces the carnival songs of the three companies discussed in this chapter, the compagnie del Broncone, del Diamante, and Cazzuola, as well as a carnival song, perhaps by Anto-nio Alamann, a member of an old and distinguished Florentine family, the Canzona della Morte, sung (although there is some debate about this) the year before the other three songs reproduced in the pamphlet. !

!! While Cummings and Mozzati, cited above, would argue that the songs repro-duced in this pamphlet all represent a common theme, namely, the Medici use of public spectacles to publicize the advantages of their rule, we would argue that only the second

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and the third of the Carnival songs reproduced, those of the Diamante and Broncone, may be said to serve this function.  249

And, as one scholar has noted, while the second song, that of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s compagnia del Broncone, presents an unequivocally positive image of the glorious return of a Golden Age under Medici rulership (“Torna il secol felice,/E come la fenice,/Ri-nasce dal Broncone del vecchio Alloro/Così nasce dal ferro/Un secol d’oro”), the third song, that of Giuliano’s compagnia del Diamante, is conspicuously lacking in this tri-umphalist element, rather displaying a more melancholic take on the passing of the ages: ! Volan gli anni, i mesi, e le ore. . . E pero chi ‘l tempo perde, Nell’età giovane, e verde. Poco dura, e presto muore. ! The trionfo which accompanied Lorenzo’s song displayed, in vivid visual form, with carri trionnfali surrounded by performers and animals garbed in various forms (in-cluding one in the costume of an elephant as a reference to Hannibal) the heroic deeds of the Medici, which paralleled, if not surpassed, those great heroes of the Roman past. That of Giuliano’s was much more modest, displaying only the three ages of man. It will be noted that the latter theme is not at all incompatible with a penitential, Savonarolan mes-sage, man’s ages ending in decline and old age, only the ages of God leading to a final rebirth and restoration.  250

We discussed above a possible anti-medicean message concealed in the imagery of the Carnival song of the Cazzuola, carefully hidden beneath the extremely obscure and allusive language of the song. We would suggest that the first song of the pamphlet, the Canzona della Morte of Francesco Alamanni, might also have encoded just such a mes-sage. This song (recently attributed by another scholar to Castellano Castellani) was not performed during Carnival of 1513, as the other three, but rather had been performed (al-

! William F. Prizer, “Reading Carnival: The Creation of a Florentine Carnival Song,” 249

Early Music History, Vol. 23 (2004), 185-252

! John Shearman, “Pontormo and Andrea Del Sarto, 1513,” The Burlington Magazine, 250

Vol. 104, No. 716 (Nov., 1962), 450 + 478-483

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though there is some debate about this) the previous year. This song presents a strong contrast with the other three in its Savonarolanesque warnings to the Florentines of the evanescence of earthly pleasures and the need for repentance: What is especially interesting about this song (and such inclusions of sober re-minders of man’s mortality were not uncommon in medieval and Renaissance carnival celebrations) is that, according to one contemporary, it caused great consternation upon the occasion of its performance, and was explicitly interpreted in political terms by the spectators. Vasari, in his life of Piero di Cosimo, remarks that the song caused a sensation and frightened many spectators, and that some of them interpreted it as a prediction of the return of the Medici to Florence, and, even, perhaps, as a veiled threat of possible retalia-tion directed to the republican opponents of their restoration. The chronicler seems also to imply that the reception of this Carnival song was mixed, many, but not all, of the spectators in attendance viewing it as a celebration of the return of Medici rule, but not all. If it is true that there was some ambiguity in the reception of Alamanni’s Canzona della Morte, we would suggest that, just as we remarked above that the Canzone della Cazzuola could be equally plausibly interpreted as a celebration of the Golden Age of Medici rule, or as an appeal for a return to the Golden Age of a Savonarolan Florence, so also might the Canzona della Morte be interpreted either as a celebration of the return of the Medici, or (as the chronicler himself seems to suggest) in an entirely contrary fashion: that is, as an evocation of the old, and very familiar, Savonarolan theme of the vanity of earthly power (including that of the Medici) and the need for repentance on the part of Florence’s citizens to avoid God’s judgment for her sins, a motif prominently displayed in many popular tracts published during and just after the time of Savonarola: And certainly the content of this song leaves no doubt as to its Savonarolan prove-nance, a fact which makes an interpretation of it in a pro-medicean key even harder to sustain. These examples strongly suggest that most, if not all, the public festivities which celebrated Carnival and the Feast of St. John in Renaissance Florence (of which we have a rather full record, both in eyewitness accounts and in the later studies of scholars) had a political subtext involving political power and the control of the public sphere. As the an-thropologist and political scientist John Scott has pointed out, control of the public sphere:

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And so it may not be going too far to assert that most, if not all, Florentine popular celebrations, at least after the return of the Medici to power in 1512, had, more or less clearly expressed, a political subtext, whether as vehicles for the promotion of pro-medicean positions, or, as we have been suggesting, for the expression, in some cases, of sentiments opposed to the family’s domination of the city and their imposition of values incompatible with its mercantile and republican traditions. The same might be said for Florentine Renaissance drama, to which we now turn.

!The Compagnia della Cazzuola and Renaissance Drama

The same themes we have been discussing--the violence and unbridled lusts of the tyrant, and the sufferings of those subject to them--also appear in Renaissance dramas staged or written by members of the Cazzuola or by individuals associated with them. In the heroine of the Rosmunda of Giovanni Rucellai (one of whose relatives, Francesco, was, according to Vasari, one of the founding members of the Cazzuola) we encounter a sympathetic female figure, once the queen of a great kingdom, now subject to the violence of a powerful male figure, who seeks to humiliate her and subject her to his will, forcing her to drink wine from the skull of her father, whom the tyrant, Albuino, has slain in battle. The tyrant receives his final comuppance at the end of the play, when allies of Rosmunda slay and decapitate him in his tent. In Rucellai's play, just as in the feste of the Cazzuola analyzed above, we see the theme of cannibalism closely associated with the figure of the tyrant. We also see the tyrant receiving his final just recompense for his arrogant and violent behaviour. And just as in Seneca's Thyestes, the main action of Rucellai's play is interspersed with lyrical in-termezzi expressing commonplaces from Stoic philosophy regarding the power of For-tune over all mortals, kings not excluded, and abjuring these kings to rule justly, since they are subject to the whims of Fortune just as much as the common man, and can suffer sudden reversals of fortune which can at any time make them subject to those they once ruled. Important to note in this regard is that the image of a suffering female figure, sub-ject to the depredations of a powerful male figure, was, for Renaissance audiences, com-monly understood as a symbol of the political domination of one city or state by another,

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as the art historians Yael Even and Margaret Carroll have pointed out.  As noted by the 251

art historians, the figure was employed as such in many works of literature and visual art of the period. In our discussion of the feste of the Cazzuola above, we noted the appear-ance of the figure of Proserpina, the unwilling captive of Pluto, carried off by him to the underworld to satisfy his lusts and be his captive queen, another example of this common Renaissance topos. Given this interpretive predisposition, many, if not most, of those in attendance at Rucellai's play would have immediately recognized his Rosmunda as a symbol of Florence, or Tuscany, subject to the forceful domination of the Medici. As the editor notes in the 1728 edition of the play (Padova: G. Comino), Rucellai modeled his play on the Hecuba of Euripides, whose subject is the loss of a kingdom by a captive queen who suffers outrage at the hands of her Greek captors, among them Agamemnon, son of Atreus, who, as noted above, provided one the most potent symbols in all of classical literature of the fierce and vindictive figure of the tyrant. The first performance of the Rosmunda took place in Rucellai's gardens for Leo and his retinue of cardinals on the occasion of the Pope's triumphal visit to the city in November 1515, immediately before his humiliating colloquy with King Francis in Bologna, where the King insisted on the surrender of the cities of Parma and Piacenza and that the Pope hand back Reggio and Modena, which he had recently acquired from the Emperor, to France’s ally Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara. It thus seems possible that the final exhortation of the play—a warning to rulers that the only way to secure their states in safety is to rule with humanity and humility--is directed not at kings in general, but to the new prince of Rome and de facto ruler of Florence not to abuse his power, but to rule his native city with moderation and justice. As such, this admonition would be analogous

! Yael Even, “The Loggia dei Lanzi: A Showcase of Female Subjugation,” Woman’s Art Jour251 -nal, 12 (1991), pp. 10-14 and Margaret Carroll, “The Erotics of Absolutism: Rubens and the Mystification of Sexual Violence,” Representations, 25 (1989), 3-30.

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to the orations directed to new officials upon their taking office, for example the podestà, urging them to rule justly, one of the important genres of Renaissance rhetoric.  252

Rucellai's close friend and artistic competitor Gian-Giorgio Trissino's Sofonisba presents us with yet another image of a highly sympathetic female character, subject to unjust domination by a superior male force, in this case, surprisingly, the Romans, who have just conquered her native city, Carthage, which, as the former queen pointedly re-marks at the beginning of the play, was once used to living in liberty, before the onset of her civic misfortunes upon the betrayal and death of Dido at the hands of Aeneas, and her forging of diplomatic alliances which proved ruinous to her and resulted in her final sub-jugation.

! As another example of a well-known Renaissance drama which, according to one 252

scholar, makes a veiled critique of Leo is Ariosto’s Il negromante, composed at the Pope’s request one year after the performance at the papal court of the author’s hugely successful Suppositi in X of 1519 Attempting to answer the question of why this play was never performed in Rome, this scholar demonstrates conclusively that it was because the play represents an allusive and highly negative portrait of the Pope himself, in the person of the Iago-like character Iachelino, who obtains what he wants from the other, weaker, characters by means of deceit and the ability to assume many identities. Accord-ing to this scholar, the reason why this play was never performed at Leo’s court was not its scabrous and obscene language and its references to sodomy, intended to satirize the papal court, and present in even greater measure in his other plays, but rather the frequent references to Iachelino’s greed and his astrological manipulation of “magiche sciochezze” to extort money and favors from those he needs; in the words of this scholar, Iachelino “pontificates over the world of Il negromante. . . .dispensing artificial services for real cash.” As a veiled allusion to the sale of indulgences and Leo’s manipulation of religion in the service of personal self-aggrandizement, the machination of this character would have struck a particularly sensitive cord, just three years after the posting of Luther’s the-ses, which taxed the Roman court for just such improprieties. In reference to our claim that the names of the characters of both Machiavelli’s Mandragola and Caro’s Gli strac-cioni are important clues to the anti-medicean subtext of these plays, Porter observes Ar-iosto’s similar use of proper names to hint at the actual personage who lies behind his fic-tive Iachelino. In reference to our claim that Raphael’s famous portrait of the Medici Pope contains a humorous allusion to his extreme myopia, we might note that Porter also observes a similar use of this detail in Il negromante to further direct the audience’s atten-tion to the political subtext of the play (I. A. Porter, “A Non-performance of Il Negro-mante,” Italica 59.4 (1982). 316-329).

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Just as Rucellai's Rosmunda, Trissino's Sofonisba is a heroic figure who prefers death to the dishonor of servitude to the conquering Romans, and emerges from the play as a stronger and more determined figure than her male counterparts. And just as the Rosmunda, the play draws inspiration from the plays of Seneca, which take as their pri-mary theme the highly melodramatic theme of the injustice of tyrants, resisted, if not al-ways conquered, by the heroic efforts of the truly just individual, interspersed with choral interludes which celebrate the power of Fortune and the gods (and, in some cases, as in Machiavelli's Mandragola, Love) as final arbiter in all human affairs, to whom kings, no less than the ordinary individual, are ultimately subject. The topical reference of Trissino's play is a bit more difficult than that of Rucellai's to determine, but it does seem possible, that, given the Spanish King’s determination, well-known to contemporaries, to bring all of Europe, including France, Italy, the Low Countries as well as north Africa, under the sway of the Spanish crown (a feature of his reign which included the expulsion of the Moors from Spain in 1492, an event which Machiavelli referred to as a kind of "clever cruelty"), that the Carthaginians of Trissino's play, subject to Roman conquest and enslavement, may have been intended by the author as an implied allusion, or "stand-in" for just such a policy of imperial conquest, with all its tyrannical, unjust and painful features to which the conquered are inevitably subject.  253

If this interpretation of the play as implied critique on contemporary rulers is ac-cepted, it would represent another example of a Renaissance inversion of the traditional heroic role assigned to the Romans, another example of which is to be found in Rem-brandt’s painting The Oath of the Sarmathians, painted for the town hall of Amsterdam, where the leader of the latter tribe makes a heroic gesture of resistance to Roman rule, raising his sword and swearing an oath of vengeance together with his companions. The painting was intended by the artist as an implied rebuke of Spanish power and a celebra-tion of those who steadfastly oppose it. Interestingly enough, the Borgia Pope’s ascension to the Papacy on 11 August, 1492, just weeks before the conquest of Granada and the expulsion of the Moors, was the occasion of the presentation of Marcellino Verardi’s Fernandus Servatus (Ferdinand Pre-served), a play (written probably in early 1493) which also, in a way somewhat analogous to Milton's Lucifer, manages to present its "villain," Ruffus, the would-be assassin of the

! Here we might note that Trissino—cf. Plaisance.253

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King, as a far more sympathetic and courageous figure than his intended victim.  On the 254

same occasion of the Pope’s election, the Romans were treated to a mock battle between the Spanish troops and the Moors in the Piazza Navona, and the spectacle of a tauro-machia in the streets of Rome, a barbarous and blood-thirsty spectacle completely alien to Roman humanist and curial culture, a Florentine version of which, sponsored by the Medici for the festa of San Giovanni on 25 June, 1514, occasioned one outraged Floren-tine to remark on the diabolic barbarity of the spectacle.  255

Trissino’s Sofonisba, just as the other plays we have been discussing, also derives, in its highly rhetorical and melodramatic presentation of the violence associated with im-perial courts, from the dramas of Seneca. Another play we will cite here is Lodovico Domenichi's Progne (a translation of Gregorio Correr’s humanist tragedy Procne, composed around 1427) a myth, as we ob-served above, closely associated with that of Tantalus in the classical tradition (Atreus even refers to it obliquely in the Thyestes as a crime he aspires to outdo), where, just as the myth of Tantalus, it symbolized the cannibalistic consumption by the tyrant of his own offspring. The cutting out of Philomela's tongue by the tyrant of Domenichi's play is intended to keep her silent regarding her rape at his hands, a deed eventually avenged by the slaying of his sons and the feeding of them to him in a stew. The heroic figure of Procne, who avenges her sister's rape, thus forms an exact parallel to the slaying and be-heading of the tyrant by the allies of Rucellai's Rosmunda, an act of vengeance on the part of a suffering female figure which, in Rucellai's play, represents one of the those "implied gestures" described by Tromly, intended to recall to mind the heroic Judith of

! Humanist Tragedies, tr. by Gary Grund (Cambridge, MA: The I Tatti Renaissance Li254 -brary, Harvard University Press, 2011), pp. xxxv-xxxvii.

! Gori, Chapter XVI, “Le feste diaboliche del 1513, 1514, ed altre,” pp. 204-207.255

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the Piazza della Signoria who slays the Medici tyrant and holds his head aloft for all to see, restoring freedom to her city.  256

And just as the Rosmunda and the Sofonisba, the play shows the strong influence of Seneca in its highly melodramatic, rhetorical dramatization of the iniquities and final punishment of the tyrant. While not associated with members of the Cazzuola (Domenichi worked later in the century as an editor and translator for the Venetian publisher Giolito and the Floren-tine printer Torrentino), Domenichi includes in his 1559 edition of poems by renowned Italian women (the first collection of exclusively female poets ever published) as the very first poem in the volume Aurelia Petrucci’s poem lamenting the internal divisions within the city of Siena, the cause of her eventual conquest by Florence. Fully a quarter of the poems in the volume are by Siennese women (a number of whom took an active role in the defense of the city during the siege of 1554), and many of the poems in the volume lament the sorry state of war-torn Italy and make urgent calls for peace.  Coming only 257

five years after the defeat of Siena by Florentine forces, and Cosimo’s subsequent tri-umphal declaration of a Tuscany now under Florentine control, it seems hard to escape the conclusion that the entire volume represents an implied critique of Medicean territori-al policy of conquest and domination. In a sonnet of Tullia d’Aragona, the courtesan describes, in highly cryptic and al-lusive terms, her escape from the tyrant Tereus’s prison, as a modern-day Philomela, re-covering her voice and briefly flying free, only to become subject to another captivity in

! “Like many Renaissance writers, including Chapman in his tribute, Marlowe frequent256 -ly evokes classical myths without actually naming them, and in many cases his most sig-nificant myths are only implicit in patterns of images. In the plays especially, there is no need for Tantalus to be named, for we see versions of him in the stage-pictures Marlowe creates through props and the postures of the actors” (Tromly, 11). On the Judith, see Sarah McHam, “Donatello’s Bronze ‘David’ and “Judith’ as Metaphors of Medici Rule in Florence,” The Art Bulletin, 83 (2001), pp. 32-47.

! Lodovico Domenichi, Rime diverse d’alcune nobilissime e virtuosissime donne (Lucca: Bus257 -drago, 1559). The article which discusses this volume is by Marie-Françoise Piejus, “La pre-mière anthologie de poèmes féminins: L’écriture filtrée et orientée,” in Le pouvoir et la plume: incitation, contrôle et répression dans l’Italie du XVIe siècle (Paris: Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 1982), 193-213.

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the prison of the addressee’s power.  As one scholar has pointed out, Cosimo's freeing 258

of the poet from prison, where she had been imprisoned for breaking Florence’s sumptu-ary laws, as a special favor granted to her as a poetess ("fasseli gratia per poetessa") en-sured her loyalty to him and her subservience to the Medici regime.  So it seems entire259 -ly possible that Domenichi's choice of the classical Procne, the liberator and avenger of her abused sister, as subject of his play might represent yet another veiled reference (as

! Ann Rosalind Jones, “New Song for the Swallow: Ovid’s Philomela in Tullia 258

d’Aragona and Gaspara Stampa,” in Refiguring Woman: Perspectives on Gender and the Italian Renaissance, ed. by Marilyn Migiel and Juliana Schiesari (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1991) 263-277.

! Deana Basile, “”Fasseli gratia per poetessa’: Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici’s Role in the 259

Florentine Literary Circle of Tullia d’Aragona,” in Eisenbichler, 135-39.

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we saw in the case of Rucellai's Rosmunda) to a contemporary female figure subject yet again to a contemporary tyrant.  260

! Vasari also notes that the Compagnia della Purificazione, a confraternity consisting for the 260

most part of boys devoted to the religious life, and closely associated with Savonarola (its sede was in the Cloister of San Marco) performed in the year for Alessandro and his sister a play by a certain Giovan Maria Primerani on the theme of Tamar, one of David’s concubines, a young woman assaulted by Ammon, which led to her taking vengeance upon him at a feast, where she . Here again, as in Rucellai’s Rosmunda, Trissino’s Sofonisba and Domenichi’s Procne, we are confronted by the spectacle of a young woman, victim of the unwanted advances of a powerful male figure, who is eventually punished for his actions while enjoying a feast. Along with the better-known examples of Judith and Susanna (spied upon in her bath by the elders), Tamar was considered a paragon of the courageous female hero, who dares to assert herself against the ag-gression of a more powerful, but unjust, male figure. Interestingly enough, Vasari also records that, subsequent to the performance of this play, the author found himself in prison, from which he was liberated after writing another play “of his own choosing” for the Duke. Significantly, this play took as its theme Joseph unjustly accused of violating his mistress, where X (perhaps a stand-in for the author himself) is freed from prison after correctly interpreting the king’s dream. In light of our discussion of possible topical references in Florentine Renaissance plays (even directed, in some cases, at the powerful individuals for whom they were performed), it does not seem to us impossible that Primerani may have intended his first play as an implied rebuke of the prepotenza and violence which characterized the rule of Alessandro in Florence, a rebuke which, when Alessandro perceived it, led him to punish the author by confining him to prison. The con-dition of his release, then, was to write a play which, in effect, counteracted the message of the first play by presenting an image of a just ruler falsely accused of a violent act]. While there is no way to determine whether this hypothesis is correct, if it is, it accords well with similar uses of the threat of prison on the part of the Medici rulers to discourage literary productions which pre-sented them in an unfavourable light, examples of which were Cosimo’s possible coercion of Benedetto Varchi’s loyalty by means of a trumped-up charge of rape, and Cellini’s compliance through his actual imprisonment, discussed in the Introduction, as well as his use of similar means to silence Lodovico Domenichi, discussed below. We also cite another example of the theme of a heroic female who takes her just revenge upon a predatory ruler in a late Renaissance play, Federico della Valle’s Iudit, discussed below. Primerani’s play, just as Della Valle’s, had a long afterlife in both Europe and in Italy; for example For the Compagnia della Purificazione, see Konrad Eisenbichler, The Boys of the Archangel Raphael: A Youth Confraternity in Florence, 1411-1785 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), Christopher Black, Italian Confraterni-ties in the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989) and Lorenzo Poliz-zotto, Children of the Promise: The Confraternity of the Purification and the Socialization of Youths in Florence, 1427-1785 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).

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In the 1561 Giuntine edition of the play, the Progne is bound together with Rucel-lai's Rosmunda, which might also indicate that contemporaries associated the themes, and perhaps even the contemporary references, of the two plays with each other.

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In his dedication to Giannotto Castiglione, Domenichi asserts the value of tragedy in teaching proper ethical behaviour to rulers, making an explicit connection between the fictions of the dramatic genre and contemporary events.  261

! That Renaissance farces could often have a didactic intent directed at the rulers to whom they 261

were presented is made clear by a farce of Jacopo del Bientina, a member, along with Giovan Battista Ottonaio, of the Compagnia della Cazzuola, recited “agli excelsi Signori di Firenze in 1512,” which Bientina, in the Prologue, claims apologetically: [non è] una ordinata comedia, distinta a punto in cinque acti, togata o palliata, racolto in un sol dì del tutto el sunto,” but rather a “storia inmaginata partita in tempi, più di cinque in punto.” As with the other Renaissance plays we have been discussing, but in a different register, Bientina’s play represents yet another rebuke, similar to the plays of Rucellai and Trissino discussed above, of Florence’s current lead-ers, immediately after their restoration as lords of the city, and an attempt to teach them the prop-er way to behave with their subjects. Although Bientina never refers directly to Florence, it is clear that his play was intended to function as an implied critique of the current social and politi-cal climate, since he rebukes, in a Savonarolan, medievalizing way, the self-centeredness of the lover, the merchant, and the lord, which explains his use of the words “storia inmaginata” to de-scribe his play, i.e. consisting of relatively simple dialogue between a few carefully-delineated characters, accompanied by the appropriate visual supports. Here we might also cite Giovanni Battista Ottonaio’s L’ingratitudine, a Savonarolan-flavored play in which a rich man is reproved for his ungratefulness toward his friend, possibly an allusive reference to Ottonaio’s treatment at the hands of the Medici, by whom he was dismissed from his position as Herald of the Signoria in for reasons which remain unclear. What is clear is that the play is most likely also an allusive censure of the vices of the Medicean court, since, just as in Machiavelli’s Mandragola, the pro-logue refers to the avaricious man’s having just returned to his homeland from abroad, thirsty for honor and riches and all the prestige the court can bring. The play was clearly intended to serve, in a manner similar to Savonarola’s sermons, as a reproof of courtly vices and a call to repen-tance. Among the vices of the court which comes in for special censure is that of avarice, which sets one man against another and destroys the bonds of friendship, thus voiding the social con-tract and introducing into society all the vices associated with this. In this regard, it may be sig-nificant that, while Ottonaio died in 1527, the play did not see its first edition until 1549, by the Giuntine press, although Poggiali suggests that earlier editions may have existed, possibly dating to the time of the first performance of Machiavelli’s Clizia and Mandragola, perhaps indicating an active effort on the part of the Medici to suppress the play. As noted above, the first perfor-mance of La Clizia was intended to celebrate the release from prison of one of the members of the Cazzuola, who had been arrested for some unknown transgression against the Medici regime. In our view, it is significant that both Bientina and Ottonaio were members of the Cazzuola and followers of Savonarola; this tends to suggest that our hypothesis of a hidden Savonarolan and anti-Medicean agenda present in the activities of the company is indeed well-founded. The Can-zone della Chazuola, discussed above and at length by Cummings, has also been attributed to Ottonaio, for which see also Cummings 103, 107-12 et passim.

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Finally, in the Tullia of Lodovico Martelli, we encounter the inversion of the themes we have been discussing, a play in which a ruthless queen plots with Tarquin to usurp the Roman throne by killing her father and husband. In Livy’s account, she forms a vivid exemplum negativum in pointed contrast to the virtuous Lucretia and her ferocity and depravity lead to the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of the Roman republic. Significantly, at the end of the play, the Furies descend on the city of Florence but are turned back by divine intervention and civil discord is averted. Given what has been said about the symbolic function of the Furies in classical literature as the inciters of the tyrant to violence, it seems possible that the Furies of Martelli's play were meant to symbolize the civic strife fomented in the city of Florence by the tyrannical regime of the Medici, which can only be forestalled by the propitious intervention of those Savonarolan lovers of her freedom.  Given the contemporary political subtext of plays--in both the 262

classical era and in the Renaissance--which take as their subject the deeds of the tyrant, it seems possible that the Furies of Martelli's play might have been intended to suggest an even more specific reference, that is, the storming of the Palazzo Vecchio in the Piazza della Signoria by Medici partisans during the coup d'etat which restored the Medici to power in September 1512, in which cries of "palle" echoed through the streets, intended

! In one of the carnival songs included in Lasca’s mid-cinquecento anthology, Rucellai 262

makes an explicit connection between the Furies and the present sorry state of Florentine political life, to which another author, in a humorous rejoinder, remarks that, rather than referring to Florentine political life in general, they represent the travails of ordinary Flo-rentines, hounded by the constant harassment of the city’s ever-present fiscal authorities

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by partisans of the Medici as a tactic of intimidation, one which, in this case, succeeded, leading as it did to Soderini's abdication and flight to Ragusa.  263

So it appears that Seneca's Thyestes served as the foundational text for a whole se-ries of Renaissance dramas which censured the evils of tyranny in an indirect way.  264

Given what has been said about the circumstances of their performances, and the compo-sition of the groups which performed them, it seems fair to say that there is only one set

! Martelli was a close friend of Giovanni Gaddi, the brother of the powerful anti-263

medicean Cardinal Niccolò Gaddi, who dedicates his edition of Martelli’s work as a post-humous tribute to the memory of his departed friend, and who was the center of a clan-destine group of opponents of the Medici based in Rome, of which Michelangelo himself was a member, together with such staunch opponents of the Medici as Donato Giannotti, the Cardinals Niccolò Ridolfi and Giovanni Salviati, Benedetto Varchi, Bartolomeo (Bac-cio) Cavalcanti and Niccolò Ardinghelli. The group also included such free spirits as Pietro Aretino and Francesco Maria Molza, both known for their anti-authoritarian atti-tudes (Molza composed an epigram on the assassination of Alessandro de' Medici in 1537, as did Varchi), as well as Annibal Caro (the personal secretary of Giovanni Gaddi). This information is from Raphaële Mouren, “The Role of Florentine Families in the Edi-tions of Piero Vettori” (paper delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, Chicago, April 3, 2008, available online at http://raphaele-mouren.enssib.fr/ Chicago2008#15).

! For the rediscovery of Seneca’s tragedies, and their influence on tre- and quattrocento 264

Italian drama, see Grund, vii-xx. In this regard, it is interesting to note that every play printed in Grund's edition of humanist tragedies has a contemporary political subtext, more or less overtly expressed, regarding the nature of tyranny and the necessity of com-bating it (Humanist Tragedies, ed. Gary Grund (Cambridge, MA; London, England: Har-vard University Press, 2011).

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of individuals to whom these plays can reasonably be said to allude, that is the newly-re-stored Medici and their Spanish supporters.  265

The plays for which the Cazzuola was particularly famous in its role as a kind of traveling theatre-company—the Cassaria and Suppositi of Ariosto, and the Calandria of Bibbiena--also had a political subtext, according to several scholars.  Solerti describes a 266

performance of the Calandria in Lyon in September of 1548 before King Henry of France and his court in which the intermezzi consisted of a procession of scenes which dramatized the return of the Age of Gold, to replace “quella, ch’hora /(Benché dispiaccia

! The fact that dramatic performances could represent a potent challenge to the authority 265

of the Medici regime in Renaissance Florence is attested to by an edict published on 21 May, 1581 by Sebastiano de’ Medici, canon of the Florentine cathedral, at the behest of Alessandro de’ Medici, Archbishop of Florence, noting that since it had come to his [Alessandro’s] attention the presence of “alcuni disordini per i quali si potrebbe destrug-gere tanta utilità spirituale,” he has determined and ordered that “non si recitino in modo alcuno Commedie, Tragedie, Farse, Tragicommedie o altri spettacoli né di cose sacre né di profane” in the oratories of sacred companies, nor anywhere else without the express consent of the Archbishop of his Vicario Generale (cited by Michel Plaisance, “Littéra-ture et Censure à Florence à la Fin du XVIe siècle: le Retour du Censuré,” in Le Pouvoir et la Plume, 249-250). If “disordini” threatening to Medici authority in the city could be a problem in the theatrical performances of the sacred companies, and had to be tightly regulated, one can only imagine the possibilities for the proliferation of dramatic perfor-mances with subversive intent in the multitude of non-religious organizations of the city. This paper has attempted to document only one of what were very likely many other such uses of drama to express discontent with the Medici regime, and to keep alive, if only un-derground and only on stage for an evening’s performance, the memories and traditions of the vanished Florentine republic.

! Anna Fontes-Baratto, “Les fêtes a Urbin en 1513 et la Calandria de Bernardo Dovizi 266

da Bibbiena,” in Les écrivains et le pouvoir en Italie a l’époque de la Renaissance, ed. André Rochon (Paris: Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 1974), pp. 45-79 and Do-minique Clouet, “Empirisme ou égotisme: la politique dans la Cassaria et les Suppositi de l’Arioste,” in Rochon 7-44. On the Calandria, see also Ronald Martinez, “Etruria tri-umphans: Fables of Medici Hegemony in Bibbiena’s Calandra” (paper delivered at the conference “Italy in the Drama of Europe,” University of California, Berkeley, 24-25 April, 2009, now available as Renaissance Drama 36/37 Italy in the Drama of Europe, ed. William West and Albert Ascoli (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2010).

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a voi) qua giù dimora,” that is, the Age of Iron, as Apollo sings at the beginning of the play.  267

With Apollo appear onstage the four ages of man, and as the Age of Iron, the one now ascendant, comes forward, Apollo sings that it is characterized “D’ogni bruttura, e ‘l vizio cole a ama/Quel sol pregiando che ‘l suo troppo schiva,/Sí ch’altrui morte e altrui danno brama” and, being so hated by the King, is to be sent back underground by his val-or. At the end of the play, the Age of Gold descends from the stage to present a golden lily to the Queen as a gift from the nazione fiorentina of Lyon.    268269

Here it seems an almost inevitable conclusion that, in this performance for repub-lican Florence’s traditional ally, at a time of Cosimo’s ascendance, by a company of play-ers including members of the Cazzuola, in a city which was home to a large number of Florentine exiles, we are confronted once again with a play which manages, under the guise of being merely a diverting comedy in the Plautine tradition, to cleverly conceal its

! Angelo Solerti, “La rappresentazione della Calandria a Lione nel 1548,” Raccolti di 267

studi critici dedicata ad Alessandro D’Ancona (Florence: Barbèra, 1901), 693-99.

! I would like to thank Professor Richard Andrews for informing me of the later history 268

of the Cazzuola represented by its performances in Lyon. Whether the compagnia re-mained active in Florence into the 1540s is a question which we cannot answer at this point. Given that one of the meanings of “Cazzuola” is “tadpole”, a creature in a constant state of transformation, placed together with the worker’s trowel by the members of the company on their impresa, it does not seem impossible that the company may have “mu-tated” into another clandestine organization, perhaps keeping some of the same members, and changing its name, impresa, and places of meeting.

! For a discussion of covert critique of contemporary rulers in the Italian Renaissance 269

romances, see Ascoli, Quint, Cannon. For mock-epics which make veiled allusion to con-temporary events, see Plaisance and Zanré. The latter two authors note the likely presence of veiled political allusions in several mock-epics produced in the fourth and fifth decades of the 16th century by Florentine academicians, but they do not go into great de-tail about these allusions, and consider these pejorative references allusions to the otti-mati who opposed Medicean hegemony over Florence. Given our preceding discussion of veiled critique of Medici rule in Florence during these years, we consider it equally pos-sible that these pejorative allusions, in which giants are reduced to the size of pygmies, might rather represent an implied satirical diminishing of Medicean pretensions to great-ness, similar to Michelangelo’s parodic deflation of Medici pretensions discussed in Chapter 2.

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political meaning. In this performance, it is the intermezzi, not the main body of the play, which manage to convey, in an oblique and highly symbolic way, its true meaning.  270

Four years later, after the revolt of Siena in July 1552, an invasion led by Piero Strozzi, the Florentine exiles, and French forces appeared imminent, a final attempt to dislodge Cosimo from his hold on Tuscany. But the Golden Age so earnestly solicited from the King by the players of the Cazzuola never dawned; the defeat of the exiles at Marciano in August 1554, and the subsequent public humiliation and execution of exiles

! As another example of political commentary donning the guise of Plautine comedy, 270

see Faccioli’s discussion of Lorenzino de’ Medici’s L’Aridosio, which the editor claims alludes to present-day circumstances in Medicean Florence, specifically, the harshness of Alessandro’s rule. As an interesting side note, we might remark that, according to Vasari, the play was intended by its author, the future assassin of Alessandro de’ Medici, to phys-ically kill the Medici audience in attendance at its first performance by means of a clever-ly-concealed device which was to cause the proscenium to collapse on top of the specta-tors in the front row, a calamity prevented only by the timely and diplomatic intervention of the artist himself (Lorenzino de' Medici, L’Aridosia, ed. Emilio Faccioli (Turin: Ein-audi, 1974). The title of the play (given in some editions as “L’Aridosia”) would seem to be a veiled reference to Cardinal Francesco Alidosi, a supporter of Leo in his attempts to unseat from his position as ruler of Urbino. Alidosi was a known catamite, that is, the homosexual lover of the previous Pope, Julius II. Hence Lorenzino’s reference in his title to this individual using its feminine form would seem to be a joking reference to this fact, and an indication of the author’s opposition to Leo’s policies of territorial expansion at the expense of one of Florence’s traditional allies against Medici rule, known especially as the last hope of the Florentine republicans beseiged by the combined forces of the Pa-pacy and the Empire during the siege of Florence in 1527. This would in turn tend to suggest that the main character of the play, X, who treats his son harshly and seeks to impose stern discipline on him, is indeed a veiled reference to the harshness of Medici rule in Florence.

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from the leading families assured that Cosimo’s Reign of Iron would endure for the rest of the century (Najemy 483-484)    271272

!The Compagnia del Paiuolo as Locus of Opposition to Medici Rule

! We might also cite Federico Della Valle’s Iudit, an overlooked masterpiece of late Renais271 -sance drama (Della Valle is better-known for his La Reina di Scozia), in which we encounter, once again, the same theme of the tyrant punished for his abuse of a young woman. This play (which also appeared under the title “Betulia liberata,” “Betulia” being Hebrew for “young woman’) presents striking parallels to the plays we have been discussing, especially Seneca’s Thyestes and Rucellai’s Rosmunda: the tyrant is encouraged by Judith to immerse himself in drink, and, once he is too drunk to defend himself, he, along with his drunken companions, are slaughtered and decapitated by the heroic Judith and her Israelite companions. The scene in which he and his fellow-banqueters stagger about the stage, making half-hearted attempts to at-tack the Jews ensconced behind the walls of Jerusalem, is truly a masterpiece of Renaissance drama, and deserves to be better known. As part of this comic (but also highly dramatic, given what is about to happen to the King and his companions) interlude, we are also treated to a hilar-ious “encomium” to the virtues of wine, as opposed to the harshness of Mars, in a tour-de-force of comic writing which recalls the philosophical interludes of the Thyestes, where, as noted above, we encounter Stoic commonplaces which warn of the pitfalls which attend the arrogance of kings and celebrate the simple virtues of the common man. Given our suggestion of possible topical references in the Renaissance plays we have been discussing, where the tyrants represent-ed are possibly intended to refer to contemporary historical circumstances, Della Valle’s play might have also been intended to censure a similar abuse of power on the part of a powerful ruler of his day, namely the

! Another literary genre which may have seen a very fertile life in Renaissance Italy as a 272

means for the expression of covert criticism of Medici and Imperial rule are the numerous bucolic poems produced during the period, which, under the seemingly innocent guise of a pleasant pastoral, used metaphors of ordinary country life to express opposition to Medici and Imperial domination of the peninsula. Examples which might be cited here are Luigi Alamanni’s Coltivazione, dedicated to the King of France, and Giovanni Rucel-lai’s Le Api, which concludes with a very curious passage on the death and resurrection of a swarm of bees, a curious detail which seems to point to a hidden meaning concealed by this striking image. In this regard, it is worth noting that Piero Vettori, his hopes of ser-vice to the Medici dashed by Cosimo’s policy of the promotion of men drawn from the provinces as administrators of Florence, retired to his villa in X and wrote a bucolic poem, the X. An Italian scholar, currently a rare book dealer in London, has also noted this use of pastoral as mask for political commentary in X’s X, ; according to this schol-ar, by this time, such a use of bucolic poems to convey political lessons was so well-known as to be immediately obvious to the reader.

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! Interestingly enough, the Compagnia del Paiuolo, founded together with the Com-pagnia della Cazzuola sometime in the fall of 1512, but limited, unlike the Cazzuola, to only to a select group of artists, may have also functioned as locus of covert opposition to Medici rule. Vasari hints at this by giving us a tantalizingly brief description of its activi-ties, but, if we look closely at the festa Vasari does describe, we see that it is a reenact-ment of the same myth of Tantalus, symbol of the punishment of the tyrant, followed by the same celebratory feast we encountered in the feste of the Cazzuola. The ceremony takes place in a giant cauldron, with a view of the half moon above. Around a table, the members of the compagnia are eating a splendid feast, served from the branches of a tree above. But what is significant is that Vasari mentions that one of the members is charged with making sure that no water escapes from the cauldron. What this implies is that, prior to their feast, the members may have witnessed the spectacle of a Tantalus tantalized by fruits hanging from the very same tree, with water up to his chin, a common representation of the myth in the Renaissance mythographers. The water would then have been drained out, the Tantalus tree would have descended be-low, lovely music would have been heard, and then the tree would have reappeared laden with all the fruits of Paradise as a celebratory feast for the lovers of freedom gathered around the table. If this is the case, it would form an exact parallel with the feasts of the Cazzuola we have been describing, in which the tyrant is punished, and the just rewarded. Once again, Vasari seems to be hinting at an important message encoded in his text, and dis-cretely urging the reader to look closer. Tromly makes mention of a "Tantalus tree" and a cauldron in which an evil-doer is punished in Marlowe's Jew of Malta, so it would seem that both the Tantalus tree and perhaps the entire ceremony formed one of the common-places of Renaissance theatre throughout Europe, a detachable element with symbolic meaning, an example of what the scholar of Italian Renaissance theater Louise Clubb has called a "theatregram." An interesting question would be whether Marlowe also, in addi-tion to serving as an expression of the fraught relations between his fellow courtier/intel-lectuals and the Elizabethan court, might have also intended his play to be seen as an en-coded rebuke of tyrants and a celebration of the just.

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An Academy of Misers: the Compagnie della Lesina and Antilesina as Loci of Opposition to Medici and Imperial Rule in mid-Cinquecento Italy

! In the previous chapter, we examined Vasari’s vivid and detailed description of a festive organization, the Compagnia della Cazzuola, founded in Florence together with two other festive companies--the Compagnie of the Broncone and Diamante—in the fall of 1512. As we noted in that chapter, unlike the latter two organizations, which were in-tended to consolidate Medici rule in the city after eighteen years of republican rule, the Compagnia della Cazzuola served a rather different function. We described in detail how the nighttime activities of this festive organization, while presenting on the surface the appearance of merely bizarre and eccentric divertissements, actually managed to convey, in a highly symbolic and recondite way, criticism of the Medici regime, newly re-estab-lished in the city. In this chapter, we will examine the equally strange activities of two other festive organizations in Renaissance Florence, the compagnie della Lesina and Antilesina, where, as with the Compagnia della Cazzuola, their members managed to convey, in a highly al-lusive manner, criticism of another Medici of later in the century, Cosimo, together with his imperial patrons. Just as in the strange festivities of the Cazzuola, this criticism was conveyed through a skillful manipulation of the theme of festive banqueting, intended to represent the reward given to the just for their politically righteous behaviour, in a kind of feast of the gods, displayed in stark contrast to the deprivations visited on the tyrant, symbolized, in the festivities of the Cazzuola, by an elaborate reenactment of the myth of Tantalus, the withholding of food from whom is meant---in a kind of contrappasso--as punishment for his tyrannical devouring of the goods of his city, the ben commune.  273

While the theme of festive banqueting is present in the activities of the compagnie della Lesina and Antilesina, serving once again as a symbol of politically virtuous be-haviour, its counterpart this time is expressed not by the myth of Tantalus, as in the feste of the Cazzuola, but rather by the image of the lesina, or awl, which served as the impre-

! On the importance of the myth of Tantalus to the development of English drama, with 273

particular attention to the work of Christopher Marlowe, see Fred Tromly, Playing with Desire: Christopher Marlowe and the Art of Tantalization (Toronto: University of Toron-to Press, 1998).

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sa of the Compagnia della Lesina, together with an extensive and outlandish enactment of the supposed virtues of spilorceria, or miserliness. An Italian critic has described the Compagnia della Lesina in the following man-ner: “La Compagnia si prefiggeva di canzonare lo spirito ‘sparagnino’ e di consigliare grettissime economie, nonché di raccontare burlesche avventure di noti ed ignoti arpago-ni.” And indeed, in a comic inversion of the seriousness of the “official” Florentine academies (for example, the Medici-sponsored Accademia Fiorentina), we encounter, in the statutes of the Compagnia della Lesina, requirements such as ! Che nel calzare, e vestire non si debbano fare sfoggi, ma andar moderatamente secondo ‘l grado delle persone: e quando per lo troppo uso, ò per altro, i panni si stracciano, ò vi si fa qualche finestrino, ritrovato lo scatolin che direm con li suoi ordigni, si debbano risarcire, e racconciar meglio, che si può, etiam usque ad top pas inclusive, ne correr così alla prima a gettargli via, o mettergli tra gli stracci, e tra’ ferri vecchi, ma riserbargli a’ bisogni, che posson giornalmente accadere: iuxta illud: Quid ni iterum. (Captolo Quattordicesimo) ! In choice of shoes and clothing, members should not show off, but dress them selves modestly according to their station: and when, because of excessive wear, or for any other reason, their clothing becomes torn, or some little rent appears, having provided themselves with the little case which we shall describe, along with its accessories, they should mend and repair them as best they can, even up to and including the , and not be in a hurry to throw them away, or place them in

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the trash, but save them for everyday needs, as is written: iuxta illud: Quid ni iterum.  274

!or ! Quando anche le scarpe si sdrucissero, ò si rompessero, ritrovata la Lesina con le sue carabattole si debbano o ricucire, e racconciare, usq; ad taccones semel, et pluries; ac toties quoties opus fuerit, dico applicative, purche le tomaia tengano il punto: e chi fa, e può far da se, ritiratosi in un cantone, purche non sia visto la fac cia, iuxta illud, Non maculat manus, qui sua facta facit. (Capitolo Quattordicesi mo) ! When their shoes become worn or torn, having provided themselves with the awl and its accessories, they should sew them up, or repair them, so that the uppers hold together; and whatever he does, he can do for himself, withdrawing into a corner that his face may not be seen, as is written: Non maculat manus, qui sua facta facit. ! The new inductees are admonished to observe the strictest moderation in their eat-ing habits: !! On the formality and hierarchical nature of the Florentine Accademia Fiorentina, 274

where an emphasis on decorum and the strict observation of rules and procedures came to predominate after the conversion of its forerunner, the Accademia degli Umidi, into an organ of the Medicean state, see Inge Werner, “The Heritage of the Umidi: Performative Poetry in the Early Accademia Fiorentina,” in The Reach of the Republic of Letters: Lit-erary and Learned Societies in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. Arjan van Dixhoorn, Susie Speakman Sutch, 2vv. (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 257-284. While Werner fo-cuses on the accommodations members of the Umidi were willing to make to ingratiate themselves with the Medici regime, Plaisance and Zanré, cited below, while recognizing that this did indeed occur in many cases, also point out the tendency of many members of the Fiorentina to continue to express their discontent with this state of affairs through var-ious means. The statutes of the Compagnia del Broncone have been published by Giuseppe Palagi, I Capitoli del Broncone (Florence: Le Monnier, 1872) and are also available online at: http://catalog,hathitrust.org/Record/012391839.

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Concedesi à ciascuno della nostra Compagnia, e massimamente à quegli che non hanno famiglia, libera facoltà di mangiar solamente una volta il giorno: e però potrà la mattina, fatte prima le sue faccende, ritirarsi in qualche piccola osteria fuor del cerchio, e farsi dar qualche cosetta per desinare, come dire una presa di trippa, la quale può servire, unico contentu, per carne, e ministra, e una mezzetta di vino de la montagna di Lecore, ò di Quaracchi, e un boccal d’acqua fresca per temperarlo, un panetto duro, che non sia ne ducal, ne tondo, perche la troppa bianchezza del pane, come Ippocrate afferma ne gli Aforismi è nociva alla santità: e muoia per l’avarizia: e se della cose predette avanzaste nulla, pigliare un poco di carta, e rinvolgerlo, e metterselo nella tasca, per un po di colezion per la sera: iuxta illud, Sobrius esto. (Capitolo Decimo) ! It is granted to anyone of our Company, and especially those who are bachelors, free choice to eat only once a day; and the first thing in the morning, having fin ished his chores, to withdraw to some little osteria away from the center of the city and order some little meal for breakfast, for example, a little slice of tripe, which may serve him as meat, and some soup, and a half-litre of wine from the mountain of Lecore, or Quaracchi, and a carafe of fresh water to mix with it, a hard roll that is not over-refined, nor round, since excessive whiteness in bread, as Hippocrates affirms in his Aphorisms, is harmful to one’s health, e muoia per l’avarizia; and if from the aforesaid things something remains, he should take a little bit of paper and wrap it up and place it in his pocket, for a bit of supper in the evening: as is written: Sobrius esto. !and are expressly forbidden certain foods, such as “starne, fagiani, capponi, galline, pic-cioni, e pollastre, tortole, beccafichi, vitella di latte, animelle, e altre carnacce” since they induce gout and a thousand other infirmities, while they are encouraged to eat ! una buona manza, che abbia figliato due, o tre volte, un bel pezzo di bue grasso, che è un mangiar più che dilicato, e fa miracolose lasagne, un poco di porco, e per qualche solennità, ma solamente una volta l’anno, si concede una gallina, e non più: iuxta illud, Semel in anno risit Apollo. !

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Some good meat from a cow which has given birth two or three times, a nice piece of fat beef, which is stupendous to eat, and makes a wonderful lasagna, a little bit of pork, and, on special occasions, but once a year only, and no more, is conceded a chicken, as it written: Semel in anno risit Apollo. ! In one of the most humorous anecdotes recounted by the Maestro de’ Novizi in his address to his new charges, the extensive use by the members of the company of garlic leads to a triumph for the contrarian spirit of the Lesina, in a legal case where one of the lesinanti appears before a judge, and, after offending him by the odor of his breath, caus-ing the judge to ask him to distance himself from the tribunal, ends up in effect winning his case by indicting the judge for the same offense with which the judge had just indict-ed him. Group solidarity would certainly have been enhanced by the requirement that the lesinanti cut each other’s hair: ! Che quando alcuno della Compagnia avrà bisogno di esser tosato, per non dar fas tidio al barbiere, potrà ricercare qualch’un altro, pure della Compagnia, che abbia bisogno anch’egli d’esser tosato, e l’un l’altro si tosino à luna scema, iuxta illud, Instar mulorum. ! When anyone of the Company finds himself in need of a haircut, so as not to be a nuisance to the barber, he may seek out another individual, provided he be of the Company, who finds himself in need of the same, and let each one cut the other’s hair at the waning moon, as is written: Instar mulorum. ! Pets are prohibited, and, to avoid theft, scandals and inconveniences, servants should be ugly and unmarried: ! Che non si tengano in casa cani, cagnuoli, bertucce, pappagalli, ne altri uccelli, ò animali, che non si guadagnin le spese, e apportin danno; ne si tengano colatoi, non dico di quei da ranno, ma di quei che votan la casa: iuxta illud: Ab uncinatis manibus libera nos Domine. (Capitolo Tredicesimo) .

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There are not to be kept in the house dogs, puppies, monkeys, parrots, nor any other bird, or animal, which do not pay for themselves, and can cause harm; and one is not to keep colatoi, not the ones for lye, but those which empty out the house, as is written: Ab uncinatis manibus libera nos Domine. ! Occorendo pigliar servidore, ò serva, abbiasi l’occhio à pigliargli se egli è possi ble, che non bean vino, e che’l servidore non abbia moglie, e dieno sempre, per non errar, buona sicurtà. La serva brutta, e senza marito, acciò che la casa provve duta per un’anno non si voti in una settimana, e aprasi bene gli occhi, perche poi, oltre al danno è vergogna: iuxta illud, Dicere non putarem. ! It being necessary to hire a servant, male or female, take care to hire, if at all pos sible, one who does not drink wine and who is unmarried, and, for good measure, let him provide good collateral. The female servant should be ugly, and without husband, so that a house well-supplied for a year is not emptied out in a week, and keep one’s eyes open, because otherwise, in addition to trouble there is also scan dal, as is written: Dicere non putarem. ! And as a soldier is provided with his sword, the merchant with his account book, and the priest with his missal, each of the members of the Compagnia della Lesina is in-structed to furnish himself with the tools of his trade: ! Che per poter mettere ad effetto quello, che comandano i due precedenti Capitoli [that is, the repair of one’s shoes and clothing] debba ciascun de’ fratelli star pro visto d’uno scatolino, dentrovi un’anello da cucire, con quattro, ò sei agora, un poco di rese bianco, e un po di nero, un paio di forbicine, e qualche ritaglio, una buona Lesina fine dommaschina, due quadrelli, un po di cera, e un po di spago, per poterne a’ tuoi bisogni, e senza avere andare alle mercé di questo, e di quello, servirtene: iuxta illud: Istud est sapere. ! So that the two preceding statutes may be placed in effect [the repair of one’s shoes and clothing], each of the brothers should provide himself with a little case, thimble, five or six needles, a bit of white rosin and a bit of black, a pair of small

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scissors, some remnants, a fine Damascine awl, two large needles, a bit of wax, and some thread, so as to be able to provide for his own needs, without having to go purchase this or that. ! Not only are the statutes of this imaginary company absurd, but their “myth of ori-gin,” in a clever parody of Cosimo’s tracing of the foundations of Florence back to the ancient Etruscans as a means of enhancing the legitimacy of his rule, traces the founda-tion of the company back to these same Etruscans, who, as the writer points out, were true lesinanti par excellence: ! Nostra Archiconfraternità non è miga una baia, ò una fanfaluca di farsene beffe, ma è tale che rispetto all’antiquità sua è nobil appunto tanto quanto la Toscana tut ta, perche, si bene si leggono le Storie, quando la Toscana cominciò à popolarsi (che cominciò prima che parte alcuna non pure della Europa, ma della Maremma ancora) cominciò per questa via à crescere, iuxta illud, Sic fortis Hetruria crevit, e se si abbarbicò bene per tutto, come cosa naturale, meglio assai, che in nessuno altro luogo in questa Città mandò le barbe finentro al cento della terra, e le frondi fino alla sfera del fuoco, et passaria (per quel che io mi creda) più su, se il troppo caldo non le cominciava ad abbrustir le foglie; imperciocche tale e tanta fu la par simonia, astinenza, e modestia de gli Antichi nostri, che (come intenderete) niente si poteva imaginare non che dire più parco, più astinente, e più modesto. ! Our Archconfraternity is by no means a funhouse, or a playpen for silly jokes, but is such that, in respect to its antiquity, it is as venerable as all of Tuscany, for, if one reads the records of history carefully, when Tuscany began to be inhabited (which began before, not only any other part of Europe, but even of the Maremma itself), it began in this way to grow, as is written, Sic fortis Hetruria crevit, and if it put down its roots everywhere, as a living thing, in no other part of the city did it send down its roots better to the center of the earth, and its leaves to the sphere of fire; and it would (as I believe) have grown even higher had not the excessive heat begun to singe its leaves; with the result that, so great was the parsimony, temper ance, and modesty of our Forefathers, that nothing (as you shall see) can be imag ined, much less described more thrifty, more abstemious, and more modest.

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! Here the humour, besides the comical juxtaposition of learned Latin with a lower, even vulgar, register of language (“baia,” “fanfaluca”), a feature present throughout the text, derives from the comical exaggeration of the traditional myth of the founding of Florence, symbolized here by a tree (possibly an allusion to the laurel under which Flo-rence, personified as a young woman, sits on Medici medals of the late 1400s), which would have raised its branches even to Heaven, had not the heat there begun to singe its foliage.  275

Indeed, we are informed, without the presence of the lesinanti, Rome would never have achieved her greatness, nor would Florence find herself in her present state of pre-eminence: ! Diceva adunque, che non pur gl’huomini dottrinalissimi, e gl’huomini richissimi, erano venuti tali per havere studiato molto nella nostre Constituzioni, ma aggiungo ancora, che per haver fatto simile studio alcuni di quel nuon tempo furono poten tissimi nel maneggio di cose grandi, non miga di picche, ò di Balle di lana, ma di Republiche, e Stati; guardiamo guardiamo un poco per la nostra Città quanti de’ Priori, e quanti Gonfalonieri ci hebbero, che in Palagio salivano con il concorso di tutto il popolo, essendo ancora tutti bioccolosi, per non dire unti, ò tutti tinti di qualche colore, e finalmente con qualche segno di arte, e esercizio più o men no bile, secondo la qualità delle persone, e la condizione de’ tempi, non tralignando punto de’ que’ loro antichi progenitori Romani, de’ quali (se ben me ne ricordo) uno fu detto Luccio Scilinguato, che l’andarono il Senato e popolo Romano à salutare Dittatore, trovandolo nel Campo tutto polvoroso à lavorar co’ buoi, lo stu dio adunque de’ nostri prelibati Capitoli causava queste grandezze in que’ popoli. !

! For Medici appropriation of the myth of the Etruscan origins of Florence as a means 275

of legitimizing their rule, see Ronald Martinez, “Etruria Triumphant in Rome: Fables of Medici Rule and Bibbiena's Calandra,” in Renaissance Drama, New Series, Vol. 36/37, Italy in the Drama of Europe (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2010), 69-98 and Giovanni Cipriani, Il mito etrusco nel Rinascimento fiorentino (Florence: Olschki, 1980).

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And so not only did the most learned and the richest men become such for having read carefully in our Statutes, but I will even add that, owing to such study, several men of that time were most adept in the management of great undertakings, and not of spades, or bales of wool, mind you, but of Republics, and of States; look, look at our own City, how many Priors there were, how many Gonfalonieri, who entered into the Palazzo with the acclaim of the people still bedecked (not to say greasy) with flocks of wool, or colored with various tints, and, to put it briefly, bearing some sign of their trade and profession more or less noble, according to his own station and the temper of the times, not forsaking for a moment the paths trodden by their ancient forefathers, the Romans, of whom one (if I am remember ing correctly) bore the name Lucius the Stutterer, whom, when the Senate and the Roman people came to hail him Dictator, they found in the Campo covered with dust from working with the oxen; and so the study of our splendid statutes was the cause of such greatness in those peoples.  276

! Here again we observe the use of a parody of the familiar humanist topos of the ancient origins of the city of Florence, in which the former greatness of republican Rome and of Florence herself are attributed to men who are trained to subsist on a diet of tripe and garlic, and to repair their own shoes. To call the gonfalonieri, the highest elected offi-cials of Florence, whose authority consisted as much in how they carried themselves in public as on the fulfillment of their official duties, “bioccolosi per non dire unti” is anoth-er instance of this parodic deflation, reminiscent of the Italian “scrittori irregolari” (Folengo, Berni, Lasca, Aretino, among many others), of the political norms and institutions of mid-cinquecento Florence by the compiler of the statutes of the Com-pagnia della Lesina.  277

There is a serious side to this satire of contemporary Florentine academies and in-stitutions, however. We would suggest that these misers, whose behaviour is so extreme, are an allusive reference to the nature and effects of the rule of Cosimo de’ Medici in Flo-

! In a later edition of the capitoli of the company, the case in which the lesinas of the 276

company are kept is carefully described as having on its cover and sides all the prominent heroes of Republican Rome.

! A very useful introduction to these writers is Nino Borsellino, ed., Gli anticlassicisti 277

del Cinquecento (Rome-Bari: Laterza, 1982).

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rence. As Najemy has pointed out, at precisely the time of the publication of the “capi-toli” of the Compagnia della Lesina, Florence was suffering the effects of great privation, which could be attributed directly to the political decisions and economic provisions of the Duke.  278

The Maestro de’ Discepoli, making use of the old classical metaphor of the state as a kind of family writ large, makes an important distinction between a responsible and frugal parsimony, typical of the buon massai of the Compagnia, in their role as faithful stewards of the goods of the state, and a kind of selfish and thoughtless profligacy which wastes and depletes these same goods, and must resort to a greedy accumulation of re-sources to further its own ends, typical of the sect of “avari e luponi” who have infiltrated the company:  279

! Primieramente adunque, per procedere con ordine trateremo dell’ origine, cagione, fondamento, e vero titolo, come di cose principalissime, di poi sussequentemente dell’altre, secondo, che habbiamo trovato. Onde, per Introduzione della material è da notare, che tutte le buone Compagnie sono stato ordinate, per ovviare alli difetti mondani, e di quel rittar le persone col correggere i vizii, e introdur buon costumi, e lodevoli discipline. . . .E di qui ebbe origine, e principio la Compagnia nostra, aquale fu fondata in su la S. masserizia. E però anticamente in tutte le Repub. e Communità, erano ordinati, per un certo numero alcuni huomini masseriziosi, e risparmievoli, a’ quali era data l’autorità di correggere tali errori, e si chiamavan regolatori, perche non attendevano ad altro, che à regolare simili disordini, acciò le cose regolate, e ordinato avessero a permanere, e perseverare. Era ancora ordinato un Magistrato, il quale si domandava un magistrato de’ Massai, e questo era il vero titolo della Compagnia, cioè la Compagnia de’ Massai. ! First of all, therefore, so as to proceed in order, we will discuss the origin, reason for being, foundation, and true name [of the Compagnia della Lesina], as the most

! John Najemy, A History of Florence, 1200-1575 (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006), 278

473-8.

! For the metaphor of the state as a kind of family, see Xenophon, Oeconomicus: A So279 -cial and Historical Commentary, With a New English Translation by Sarah Pomeroy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).

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important things, and then the others, according to what we have discovered. And so, as an introduction to the subject, it should be noted that all good companies have been founded to compensate for worldly defects, and to guide people on the right path by correcting vices, and by introducing good customs, and praiseworthy discipline. . . .And from this our Company took its origin, and was founded upon Holy Husbandry. And for this reason, in ancient times, in all republics and states, there were designated a certain number of parsimonious and thrifty men, to whom was given the authority to correct such errors, and they were called regulators, since they had no other responsibility than to regulate similar disorders, so as to ensure that the things regulated and so appointed would endure and last for a long time. In addition, there was appointed a Magistrate called the magistrate of the Massai, and this was the true name of the Company, that is, the Compagnia de’ Massai. ! However, into this realm of the well-ordered state certain other elements have in-sinuated themselves: ! Novizii: O Maestro, questa ci par veramente cosa miracolosa, e degna di suprema lode, e molto ce ne gode l’animo, per esser sì ben fondata: ma e’ ci nasce un dub bio, il quale vorremo ci dichiaraste, avanti procediate più oltre, e questo è: che nel la Compagnia nostra ci sono alcuni chiamati miseri, avari, e simili nomi. Vorrem mo adunque sapere, per essere informati del tutto, se questi tali ci son dentro canonicamente, ò nò, e come voi la’ntendete. ! Novitiates: O Master, this seems to us truly a miraculous thing, and worthy of the highest praise, and it gladdens our heart for being so well-grounded: but a question arises among us, which we would wish for you to answer for us before proceeding any further, and that is: that there are in our Company certain ones called misers, greedy, and similar names. We would like to know, therefore, so as to be informed of everything, if these ones are here legitimately, or not, and how you understand this question. !

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Maestro: Assai certamente mi piace il vostro dubitare, perche in ciò mostrate sot tilità d’ingegno. Dico adunque, che tutta la Compagnia si divide in due membri principali, imperochè alcuni son veri Massai, e buon fratelli, e degni d’ogni laude, conciosiache della loro masserizia appai sempre buon frutto, e son quelli, per un breve esempio, e discorso, che hanno fatti, e fanno tanti spedali, monasteri, e altri luoghi pii, e quelli sufficientemente dotati hanno fabricate tante bellissime ragioni, anzi Chiese, fondate tante Cappelle, con bellissimi ornamenti, e ricche dotazioni, monacate, e maritate tante povere figliuole, fatti tanti lasci ad pias causas, e tante altre opere pie, che sarebbe impossibile il raccontarle. . . Ma e’ c’è bene un’altra razzina, ed è il secondo membro principale della sorte che voi nel quisito nomi naste, che faria bene, che se ne spegnesse il seme, etiam che facciano professione della Compagnia nostra, perche la maggior parte, anzi la masserizia, ò per dire meglio la miserizia loro non è di alcuna utiilità, ne à loro, ne ad altrui, anzi è dan nosa, e reca biasimo grandissimo alla Compagnia, come intenderete. . . .Ultima mente, per non essere in ciò troppo prolisso, è quella pessima sorte di tutti gli altri, dico di quegli Avaroni, Luponi, e miseracci, che scannerebbono il Padre, e la Madre, e sto per dir peggio, se potessero solo per accumulare per fas, et nefas, con ogni cattivo contratto: e sono tanto crudeli, e strani, che quello, che hanno non lo godono ne eglino, ne altri: anzi stentan, come cagnacci, che essi sono: Et quod plus est, perche non possono portare nell’altro Mondo i loro danari, e’ gli sotterra no, murano, ò gli nascondono in luogo, che’l Diavol non gli ritroverrebbe. Non si curando perder l’anima, e’l corpo, ne d’andare all’Inferno tra quelle botte, e altri animalacci, con tanti stenti, e con tanti guai, che malagevolmente può dirsi. Che dite adesso? Siete voi ancora chiari di questo dubbio? ! Maestro: Your question pleases me very much, because by asking it, you demon strate subtlety of intellect. I say, therefore, that the entire Compagnia is divided into two principal groups, in so far as some are true Massai, and good brothers, and worthy of every praise, seeing that out of their good stewardship good fruit always comes; and such are, to give a brief example, those who have founded, and continue to found, so many hospitals, monasteries, and other pious places, and those sufficiently endowed who have built so many beautiful tribunes, or rather churches, funded so many chapels, with the most beautiful ornaments and rich en

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dowments, and convents, helped to marry so many poor young girls, left so many bequests to pious causes, and so many other pious works, that it would be impos sible to enumerate them all. . . . But there is another sect, and this is the second principle group of the kind you mentioned in your question, that it would be a good thing if their seed were extinguished, even though they profess to belong to our Company, since, the major, or rather miserable, part of their stinginess is of no use either to them, or to anyone else; indeed, it is harmful, and brings great oppro brium onto the entire Company, as you shall see. . . .And finally, not to belabour the point, there is a kind worse than all the others, that is, those Misers, Wolves and miserable souls who would skin their father and mother alive, and even worse, if they could, only to heap up money by fair means or foul, by every foul contract, and are so savage and inhuman that they do not enjoy the things they have, nor do others; rather they labor like the dogs they are. And what is even more, since they cannot bring their money with them to the other world, they bury it, wall it up, or hide it in a place where the Devil himself could not find it. Neither do they worry about losing their souls along with their body, nor ending up in Hell among those toads and other evil creatures, with punishments and sufferings the like of

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which it would be difficult to describe. What say you now? Are you now clear as to your question?  280

! This distinction between the buon lesinanti or massai and their natural enemies, the avari and wastrels of the Compagnia della Lesina, corresponds to the distinction in English between “frugality” or “parsimony” on the one hand, and avariciousness on the other, the former associated with the English word “steward” or “overseer,” derived from classical and medieval concepts of estate management, or economia, a practice essential to the conservation of the state, based on the prudent management of resources, avari-ciousness, on the other hand, being characterized by the obsessive acquisition of goods, not for the use of the commune as a whole, but rather to the end of hoarding them either for their own sake, or in the service of purely personal pursuits. And this distinction between the buon massai of the company, whose wise and frugal parsimony serves to maintain and sustain the commune, and those miseri avari who have infiltrated it, mingling incognito with the other members, is, as we will now demonstrate, an allusive, but pointed, indictment of the regime of the Medici in Florence.

! The Maestro de’ Discepoli even goes so far as to parody contemporary methods of 280

discursive reasoning, protesting that he will not (and indeed, cannot) adopt such means to persuade his listeners: “Parmi di vedere, fratelli, che i vostri ceffi à queste gran parole, tutti mirabili si siano in me rivolti, quasi che io habbia detto un gran Passerotto, e parmi udire bisbigliare, chi dal canto dei Platonici, chi dalla banda dei Peripatetici, chi di sopra da gli Stoici, chi di sotto da gl’Epicurei intorno alla felicità: mà haime? che io non sono ne Filosofo, nè Profeta, se bene io hò la parte mia del naturale, e però non hò quel gran pezzo di conoscimento, che basti à toccare il fondo della felicità, che non habbiamo in questa Compagnia, nè anche hò tanta Logica, che scoccandovi adosso una copia d’enti-memi, io vi cacci carote, e basti à farvi vedere il bianco per il nero, et anco farvi credere, che l’Asino sia una Bestia, ò per meglio dire, l’Huomo un Asino, e però se io vi dico che l’operare secondo li nostri buonissimi Capitoli è la vera regola della perfetta Felicità” (Ragionamento del Maestro Buona Limosina a Suoi Discepoli nell’Introdurre gli Infrascritti nella Compagnia della Lesina). Plaisance notes that the huge audience in attendance for the first formal lecture of the Accademia Fiorentina was completely unable to penetrate the highly philosophical and abstract language in which the oration was couched (Michel Plaisance, L’Accademia e il suo principe: cultura e politica a Firenze al tempo di Cosimo I e di Francesco de' Medici (Vecchiarelli, 2004).

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Continuing his discussion of the supposed historical antecedents of the Compagnia della Lesina, the Maestro dei Discepoli proceeds to describe the origins of the Compagnia del Mantellaccio, a confraternal organization founded by Lorenzo de’ Medici near the end of the quattrocento whose festive identity was based on their assumption of the appear-ance of poverty: “dico, che furono due Compagnie quasi simili, questa nostra della LESINA, già situata tra ferravecchi e tra Rigattieri, infra suos confines, e la venerabile Compagnia del MANTELLACCIO, situata presso alle stinche, ò se altri haveva più veri, e certi confini.” We would suggest that the Maestro de’ Novizi’s careful locating of the meeting places of these two companies is significant: the Compagnia della Lesina, as one would expect, met in a poor part of the city, while the Compagnia del Mantellaccio is “situata presso alle stinche,” that is, near the prison, a location appropriate to the sinister, coercive and destructive aspect of the company which the writer then goes on to describe, empha-sizing that, while the soci of the Compagnia della Lesina are drawn to the company out of a natural affinity between their good character and the character of the company, the members of the Compagnia del Mantellaccio joined their company under threat of coer-cion: ! ma [la Compagnia del Mantellaccio] non ha che fare cosa del Mondo con la LESINA nostra di antica mano Nobilissima, Eccellentissima, & Osservandissima, perchè quantunque in parte osservassino li nostri Capitoli, lo facevano sforzata mente anzi che nò, et si et inquantum non potevano far altro, havendo fatto il deb ito loro nella Compagnia di SANGODENZO, per la quale l’huomo trapassava al MANTELLACCIO, etiam che non volesse havendo per parapetto da l’un de lati le Stinche, dall’altro il Palagio del Bargello, . . .ma noi LESINANTI non isforzata mente, ma della buona voglia abbracciamo la virtù insegnataci da Capitoli nostri. ! Taking together the author’s pointed reference to the location of the meeting place of the Compagnia del Mantellaccio as being near the prison and the Bargello, that is, the seat of government in the Palazzo dei Signori, with his mention of the coercive aspects of the company under the sponsorship of Lorenzo, where members join out of fear rather than genuine desire, the inescapable conclusion is that those miseri avari of the Compag-nia della Lesina described above must be a reference to the Medici rulers of Florence,

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characterized by the same pursuit of resources in the service of personal self-aggrandize-ment which characterized their miserable counterparts in the Compagnia della Lesina, the Avaroni and Luponi who would sell their own souls for gain. With them the good stew-ards of the state’s resources, the buon lesinanti, who recall the overseers of ancient repub-lican Rome, the buon massai, form a pointed contrast. The frontispiece of a pamphlet published in Florence in the late quattrocento gives vivid visual expression to the nature of Lorenzo’s sponsorship of fraternal organizations in the city: with a harsh expression of his face, his body expressing disdain and impa-tience, hand on hip, his money purse prominently displayed, he glares at the three timid souls who dutifully enact for their patron the journey of the Magi and gesture to the female supporters of the company in the windows above:  281

! This pamphlet is reproduced in La Compagnia del Mantellaccio: componimento del 281

secolo XV citato dagli accademici della Crusca: riproduzione a facsimile della prima stampa con il catologo dell'edizioni conosciute (Florence: A. Cecchi, 1861). The progres-sion from the Compagnia della Lesina to its opponent and counterpart, the Compagnia della Antilesina, finds an exact parallel (significantly, in reverse) in the progression from Lorenzo’s Compagnia del San Godenzo, distinguished by an ostentatious and self-con-scious display of conviviality, to the Compagnia del Mantellaccio, characterized by an equally ostentatious and comical display of poverty. With this progression from festivity to penitence, the companies of the Lesina and Antilesina form a marked contrast in mov-ing from the comically severe strictures of the lesinanti (symbols, as we have been sug-gesting, of Medici avariciousness) to the open-hearted generosity and joyous celebrations of their sworn enemies, the antilesinanti of the Farnese court. A glimpse of life inside the Compagnia del San Godenzo is provided by Lorenzo de’ Medici’s.

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And indeed, modern historians such as John Najemy and Richard Trexler have de-scribed in detail how Medici sponsorship of festive associations, which began in earnest under Lorenzo il Magnifico, had everything to do with control of elements potentially disruptive of their rule, and the promotion of the family’s self-image, and very little to do with actual pleasure.  282

One anecdote which nicely summarizes this state of affairs is one cited by Butters: upon the occasion of Lorenzo di Piero's celebration of his "triumph" over the city of Urbino (an undertaking both opposed by his uncle Giuliano, a possible cause of Loren-zo’s death a year later, and, as noted by Butters, broadly unpopular in Florence) in May of 1516 (?) the ottimati, already feeling the inexorable drift of their exclusion from any meaningful role in Florentine political life, unable to bear the sight of this public flaunt-ing of their marginalized state, withdrew in mute protest to their villas in the hills. The Maestro de’ Discepoli also refers to another company, the Compagnia dei Ma-cinati, that is, ! DELLI SCAPIGLIATI, perche questa insaziabile Setta, non può patire di vedere uno che badi ai fatti suoi, sempre studiando in qualche trovato per fatti uscire, ma se pure in essi per avventura alcuna volta c’intoppiamo, ne sfuggirli per verso al cuno possiamo. . .mentre che con essi staremo, imaginiamoci pure d’essere con i nemici più capitali della nostra Borsa. ! The Company of the Macinati, or Scapigliati, because this insatiable sect cannot bear to see someone minding his own business, and are always trying to draw you out, but if by chance you run into them, you cannot get away from them by any

! Najemy, cited above and Richard Trexler, Public life in Renaissance Florence (Ithaca, 282

NY: Cornell University Press, 1991).

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means. . .while we are with them, let us imagine ourselves to be with the chiefest enemies of our pocketbook.  283

! Elsewhere in the text, the author makes several references to the intrusiveness of this “sect,” who intrude upon one’s private affairs, incessantly demanding attention, and try to lead the unwary members of the company to waste their money in idle pursuits. Here it may not be going too far to hypothesize a veiled reference to the ubiqui-tous presence of Medici agents both within the city and without, who mingled with the civilian populace, and used various ruses, by now well-known to historians, to elicit their true feelings regarding the nature of Medici rule in Florence, thus serving as the “eyes and ears” of the ruling regime in their role as a kind of secret police.  284

There is another small, but, in our view, significant, piece of evidence which points to an anti-Medicean subtext present in the statutes of the Compagnia della Lesina. On the title page of the first edition of the text, published around 1546, we find the nota-tion: Per ordine degli otto Operai di detta Compagnia:

! These macinati, who meddle in others' business, and, in their extravagant devotion to 283

a conspicuous wasting of money in idle pursuits, represent a deliberate affront to Floren-tine traditions of mercantile thrift and cautiousness, are very likely, in our view, an allu-sion to the various companies of compagnacci, composed primarily of young men devot-ed to a conspicuous pursuit of pleasure, which appeared in Florence in the late quattro-cento. Some of these brigate were affiliated with the Medici and used by the family to counteract the influence of Savonarola, using a combination of public ridicule and, when necessary, violence in an effort to rally popular discontent with the strict policies of the Friar. For more on the compagnacci, see Trexler and Alison Brown, The Return of Lu-cretius to Renaissance Florence (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 91, 101-03.

! Trexler and Lewis cite an interesting example of this practice in their description of 284

the funeral exequies for Alessandro de’ Medici, in which Medici agents, surrounded by Imperial troops, stood amidst the populace to observe who expressed feelings of grief, and who did not (Richard Trexler and Emily Lewis, “Two Captains and Three Kings: New Light on the Medici Chapel,” in William E. Wallace, Michelangelo, Selected Schol-arship in English (Hamden, CT: Garland, 1995), v. 3, 149-50. Michelangelo himself, as a known sympathizer with the republican cause, suffered from the “attentions” of this group of individuals, which he vividly describes in various letters from Rome to his friends and family in Florence. We cite several of these letters in Chapter 2.

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Given what has been said above regarding the references to the menacing and co-ercive nature of Lorenzo’s Compagnia del Mantellaccio, and his use, well-known to his-torians, of the Otto di Guardia as a kind of secret police, it seems plausible to maintain that the “Otto” of the title page is also a reference to this aspect of Medici rule in Flo-rence. If this is the case, it would tie the statutes of the Compagnia della Lesina even more closely to the Medici regime. We shall say more about the presence of the Otto di Guardia in the statutes of the Compagnia della Lesina below.  285

In this regard, we might point out that many of the pseudonyms of the members of the Compagnia della Lesina, as well as the title pages themselves, evoke instruments of torture: Uncinato de gli Uncinati, Pitocco Rastrelli, Coticone de’ Coticoni, Strasci-

! On the Otto di Guardia as a kind of secret police, intended to monitor the activities of 285

Florentine citizens and report any activities suggestive of discontent with Medici rule, see John Brackett, Criminal Justice and Crime in late Renaissance Florence, 1537-1609 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). Michelangelo, in a letter to his father of October-November 1512, vividly describes the “chilling effect” this had on the free ex-change of ideas in the Florence of the restored Medici regime: ”Regarding the Medici, I have never spoken anything against them, except generally as everyone has spoken, as in the case of Prato; which, if the stones had heard about it, they would have spoken" (Barocchi, 1965, vol. 1: 139).

! � 245

na, Tiradenti, or what an individual subject to their effects might plausibly exclaim: Avvertisci alli fatti tuoi, Dio te n’aiuti, Dio te ne scampi.

!!!!!

! � 246

These names also recall the names of the devils of Dante’s Inferno: Truffaldino da Graffignano, Tiraquello Rasponi, and so on: !! In the capitoli of the Compagnia della Lesina cited above, explicit reference is also made to the “uncinati mani” of the servants members of the company are expressly in-structed to avoid.

! � 247

Given the family’s frequent use of torture to punish its enemies and intimidate its opponents, such a reading of the names of the members of the Compagnia della Lesina does not seem entirely out of place.  286

And indeed, given the political circumstances prevailing at the time of the compo-sition of the statutes of the Compagnia della Lesina, characterized, as we have seen, by a determination on the part of the Medici and their Imperial patrons to dominate all of Flo-rence and her environs, and a willingness to use any means to achieve this end, the two final capitoli of the company offer some sound advice: Che in tutte le nostre azzioni, e in tutti i nostri maneggi dobbiamo esser prudenti, e cauti, e guardar molto bene, e pensare al fine: e sopratutto ingegnarci d’aver da noi, per non avere ad andare alle mercè d’altri, e ingegnarci d’imparar sempre alle spese altrui, iuxta illud, Foelix quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum. ! That in all our actions, and in all our affairs, we should be prudent, and cautious, and keep our eyes open, and consider the end; and, above all else, manage always to have sufficient provisions, so as not to have to rely on others, and to manage always to learn at the expense of others, as is written: Foelix quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum.  287

! In the passages we have just examined, we observe a clear distinction between the responsible husbanding of the state’s resources on the part of the buon lesinanti, who are associated with the virtues of republican Rome, and the wasteful and self-aggrandizing spending of money on the part of the wastrels and spendthrifts of the Compagnia della Lesina, or a false appearance of poverty, meant to conceal an underlying avariciousness, which characterizes the companies of Lorenzo il Magnifico, the Compagnie del San Go-

! For Medici use of torture, see Christopher Hibbert, The House of Medici: its Rise and 286

Fall (New York: Morrow, 1975), Ingrid Rowland, The Culture of the High Renaissance: Ancients and Moderns in Sixteenth-century Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

! The statutes of the Compagnia della Lesina are available online at the Warburg’s digi287 -tal collection of works on early modern academies: http://warburg.sas.ac.uk/research/projects/academies/.

! � 248

denzo and Mantellaccio respectively. We will encounter this same image of greed dis-guising itself in the rags of poverty, also explicitly associated with the Florence of the Medici, in Annibal Caro’s comedy Gli straccioni, discussed below.  288

With the strange economies of the Compagnia della Lesina, based, as we have seen, either upon a ridiculous and extreme form of self-denial, or its equally pathological opposite, a profligate and thoughtless wasting of vital resources, the precepts of those of its rival and counterpart, the Compagnia della Antilesina, make a striking contrast. While the members of the Compagnia della Lesina are enjoined to eat very frugal-ly, the members of the Compagnia della Antilesina are urged to do just the opposite: ! Quante hore sono, tante volte si deve mangiare, perche regnando ogn’ hora un nuovo pianeta, come à forestiero bisogna sempre fargli carezze, e farli trovar sem pre la mensa apparecchiata: Iuxta illud: Sempre oportet esse paratum. ! As many hours as there are in a day, so many times should one eat, because, since every hour a new planet is in the ascendent, one should make him feel welcome as one would a stranger, and have a table all set for him, as is written: Sempre oportet esse paratum. ! An entire page, in a “speech act” intended to evoke the Monte di Cuccagna and a kind of Rabelesian excess, reminiscent of the feasts of the Compagnia della Cazzuola, is devoted to a list of the foods the members of the company are urged to enjoy: !

! It is amusing to note the confusion on the part of modern bibliographers over just how 288

to classify the capitoli of the Compagnia della Lesina, some viewing them as a typical production of Renaissance Italian humour à la Bernesque, others as a work of social his-tory, useful as a gastronomic compendium of the eating habits of Renaissance Floren-tines. As one bibliographer notes: ”The work is placed in the class of gastronomic books as there are several chapters pertaining to food and drink e. g. how to whet the appetite, sorts of meat, of not holding banquets, not putting water into the wine, about soup and its virtues etc.” Another lists the book under the category of “History: island of Hvar, Lesina, Croatia, Kitchen Cooking Satire,” Lesina being a city on the Croatian island of Hvar.

! � 249

! Where the members of the Compagnia della Lesina are enjoined to wear the same clothing for months on end, and to repair their own shoes, the members of the Compagnia della Antilesina are enjoined to wear new clothing every day: ! Biasima [la Compagnia della Lesina) lo sfogio di vestiti, e loda il rippezzar delle scarpe per non farli nuovi negatur: Iuxta illud: Omnia nuova placent. ! [The Compagnia della Lesina] condemns conspicuous display in the choice of clothing, and praises the repair of one’s own shoes so as not to have to purchase new ones: this is denied, since it is written: Omnia nuova placent. ! Where the members of the Compagnia della Lesina are enjoined to “turn the other cheek” at insults and improprieties, the members of the Compagnia della Antilesina are enjoined to meet force with force:

! � 250

! Insegna, che si faccia passaggio dell’ingiurie, e degli urtoni, mentitur: Iuxta illud: Vim vi repellere licet. ! They [the Compagnia della Lesina] teach that one should let insults and injuries go: in this they lie, as is written: Vim vi repellere licet. ! Where the members of the Compagnia della Lesina are enjoined never to lend money to anyone, and to require security even from their household servants, the mem-bers of the Compagnia della Antilesina are urged to lend generously to those in need, with no thought as to repayment: ! S’ordina, che ciascuno sia pronto à far servigio, e securtà à tutte le persone, etiam sine spe restitutionis, Quia melius est dare, quam recipere. ! It is ordered that every member of our company be ready to be of use and to serve as guarantor to everyone, even without any expectation of repayment, since melius est dare, quam recipere. ! Where the statutes of the Compagnia della Lesina dictate that one limit the number of servants, the statutes of the Compagnia della Antilesina counter by observing that the former company ! Loda lo star senza servitori, e andar a piedi a chi può andare a cavallo, a seculo non auditum: Iuxta illud: Utendum est donis fortunae. ! They [the Compagnia della Lesina] praise doing without servants, and going on foot even when one could go on horseback, a thing unheard of in our age, as is written: Utendum est donis fortunae. ! While members of the Compagnia della Lesina are urged, should one of them fall sick, not to call the doctor, but to wait to see if the illness resolves itself, the soci of the Compagnia della Antilesina are urged to do just the opposite:

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! Dice [the Compagnia della Lesina] che l’ammalato si trattenga sei giorni à chia mar il medico, per veder dove riesce l’infermità, e per sparagnar la spesa de’ medicamenti, questa setta dev’esser punita pena homicidii, perche fa contra la legge medicinale: Iuxta illud: Principiis obsta, sero medicina paratur. ! The Compagnia della Lesina asserts that an invalid should wait six days before calling a doctor to see if the illness resolves itself, and to save on the cost of medi cines; for this, this sect should be punished for the crime of homicide, since it is against the law of medicine, as is written: Principiis obsta, sero medicina paratur. ! Where the keeping of domestic animals is strictly forbidden members of the Com-pagnia della Lesina, members of the Compagnia della Antilesina are enjoined to do the opposite: ! Biasima il tener pappagallo, simie, ed altri animali di diletto, negatur: Iuxta illud: Omne delectibile est appetibile. ! They condemn keeping parrots, monkeys, and similar such animals as pets; this is denied, as is written: “Everything lovable is also edible.” ! As one can see from these few examples, every admonition of the Maestro de’ Discepoli of the Compagnia della Lesina is met by its opposite, in a polemical assertion of the values of festive abundance and joyfulness, together with a spirit of generosity and concern for the well-being of others, as opposed to the self-absorbed hoarding of re-sources in the service of one’s personal interests which characterized the miseri avari of the Compagnia della Lesina.  289

Hence, the statutes of the sister-company to the Compagnia della Antilesina, taken as a whole, in their celebration of a spirit of generous abundance, present a stark contrast to the miserly and and miserable rule of the Medici in Florence, symbolized, as we have seen, by the extreme and fanatical miserliness of the miseri of the Compagnia della

! Interestingly, the statutes of both the Compagnia della Lesina and the Compagnia della 289

Antilesina would seem to have their origin in the X of X;

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Lesina, whose end is not the good of the city as a whole, as the buon massai who repre-sented the true lesinanti, but rather, as a malicious sect concealed within the bosom of the company, the furtherance of their own personal wealth and status at the expense of others. The allusive critique of Medici and imperial rule, implicit in the statutes of the com-panies we have been describing, can be placed in the larger political and historical con-text of Renaissance Italy. As Najemy has pointed out, the years of the 1540s were particularly difficult ones for the citizens of Florence, the winter of 1548-9 especially, where there was a grand carestia of food and fuel. The contadini in the countryside around Florence suffered par-ticularly under this state of affairs.  290

The Marucelli chronicle gives us a vivid picture of the great sufferings of the poor in the Florentine countryside, and even in Florence itself, and makes it clear that the re-sponsibility for these sufferings lay directly with Cosimo:  291

!

! Najemy 478.290

! Najemy 477-78, noting the increasing poverty in mid-sixteenth-century Tuscany as a 291

result of Cosimo’s economic policies, intended to support his regime at the expense of the economic development of the region as a whole. Najemy cites in particular Cosimo's ex-ploitation of the Foundling Hospital (the Innocenti) through its conversion into a bank accepting interest-bearing deposits, which had to be repaid before it could feed the chil-dren (John Najemy, A History of Renaissance Florence 1200-1575 (West Sussex: John Wiley and Sons, 2008), Anonymous, Cronaca fiorentina 1537-1555 (Florence: Olschki, 2000). It is hard to reconcile the admiration expressed for Cosimo by some modern histo-rians (where he is sometimes praised for his institution of an efficient proto-modern bu-reaucracy and the creation of a secure regional state in Tuscany) with the means used to create this state as described in the Marucelli cronicle. Besides the strettezze already de-scribed, one can cite numerous examples of more severe measures taken by Cosimo to intimidate the opposition both within and without the city. The Marucelli chronicler cites, for example, a particularly gruesome instance of this policy of intimidation where the heads of executed opponents of Cosimo were placed on pikes in the prominent squares of the city. Unless the events recounted by the author of the Chronicle are entirely fictitious, or one sincerely believes that the nature of the means taken to secure a given political end are entirely irrelevant in judging the ultimate value of this end, it is hard, at least for this writer, to see how such admiration can be sustained.

! � 253

Addì primo d’aprile valse il grano lo staio del grano lire 7.13.4, cosa veramente grande che i poveri ne morivano a Santa Maria Nuova per tutto il mese di marzo, che così a tanti d’aprile 604 corpi et sparatone, trovorno molti che piene le budella seccovi dentro l’erba che havevano mangiato et venendo un tanto esterminio alli orecchi di sua Eccellentia, face quor di sasso et non fece opera per questa nessuna di carità, anzi si scoperse il primo d’aprile 1555 un grandissimo accatto a tutta la città de’ grandi che mai fussi stato udito et non solo questo levò tutti e salari de’ magistrati et così agli spedali pose accatto, talché tutta la città era sottosopra et disperata et non si sentiva altro che bestemmiare Dio et maladire. Et quello, già conosciuto la sua buona fortuna, non curava né strepiti né romori alcuno, et fu in detto mese grandissimi venti et pioggia quasi che ogn’uno pensava essere la fine del mondo.  292

! The author of the chronicle never describes any action taken by Cosimo for the good of the city as a whole, but makes it clear that the Duke’s sole priority is securing his control over Tuscany, primarily by reducing the city of Siena to the status of a colony: ! Appresso a questo dì, era una grandissima penuria et fame, et moriva di molti poveri di fame. Niente di meno Cosimo non attendeva salvo che all’impresa di Siena, anzi usava rispondere lui et la donna sua, quando sentiva questi clamori e morti di fame che, chi non poteva mangiar due volte il giorno, mangiassi una et chi non poteva mangiare un pane ne mangiassi un mezzo, talché non si parlava per la sua rigidità, basta che valse lo staio del grano lire 6.10, lo staio delle vecce lo staio lire 4, lo staio delle cecerchie lire 5, le fave lire 4.15, il vino lire 7 il barile, l’olio lire 14 il barile; carne non si trovava per denari, un huovo un soldo l’uno et tutto nasceva per la maleditione di detta guerra et questo fu fino addì 13 gennaio 1554.  293

! Here again we are confronted with the same theme of miserliness with respect to food encountered in the statutes of the Compagnia della Lesina described above. Here,

! Cronaca fiorentina, ed. Enrico Coppi (Florence: Olschki, 2000), 177-78.292

! Ibid. 172.293

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unfortunately, this state of semi-starvation on the part of the citizens of Florence is no mere symbol, but refers to actual historical circumstances. In this regard, the title page a later edition of the statutes of the Compagnia della Lesina presents some very dark humor: !

Here we observe a reference to the privations mentioned above, which fell espe-cially severely on the peasants in the countryside around Florence, whose sufferings, as the Marucelli chronicler makes clear, were greatly aggravated by the indifference of Cosimo and his advisors to their plight, preferring to preoccupy themselves with their plans for the siege of Siena, rather than attend to the dire straights in which their own cit-izens found themselves. In addition, if we read these harrowing accounts of the Marucelli chronicler against the background of the descriptions of avarice on the part of a ruler in the political treatises of Pontano, Savonarola and Poggio discussed below, it becomes clear that, in his obsessive preoccupation with securing his own personal power, to the neglect of the wel-fare of the state as a whole, Cosimo approaches the description of the classic tyrant as provided by both the classical writers on just government and their Renaissance follow-

! � 255

ers.  In his preoccupation with his own personal power, and the acquisition of the re294 -sources necessary to sustain it, the tyrant ends up impoverishing his state and thus ulti-mately secures his own ruin; as Savonarola eloquently puts it, he is trying to hold togeth-er by force something which naturally breaks, and, thus, in the long run, is destined to fail.  As we noted in Chapter 3, he ends up, in effect, consuming himself by consuming 295

the state’s most precious resource, its human capital. In this regard, we may recall that it was Aristotle, in his important discussion of the “wise tyrant,” who eschews, whenever possible, overtly violent or oppressive means (and who thus forms a more successful counterpart to his more brutal cousin, tyrants of the stamp of Dionysius of Syracuse or the Pisistratids of Athens) who pointed out that the deliberate impoverishment of the citi-

! That Aristotelian discussions of tyranny, as opposed to just government, continued 294

into the Middle Ages, see Julius Kirshner’s review of Denis Fachard’s Biagio Buonaccor-si: Sa vie, son temps, son oeuvre, in The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 53, No. 1 (March, 1981), 129-131, and Maurizio Viroli. “Can Italy Put Berlusconi Behind It?”, New York Times, op-ed, page A35 (Nov. 11, 2011), especially interesting for Viroli’s discussion of “veiled tyranny,” an expression dating from the Middle Ages indicating a form of con-trol of the state by a single individual through indirect means, such as manipulation of the political and judicial apparatus of the state. For a concise summary of classical, medieval and Renaissance thought on tyranny, see Hörnqvist 2004, 198-204.

! Here one might object that Cosimo did not, in fact, fail, citing the consolidation of 295

one-man rule during his regime, and the long continuance of the Medici as at least titular rulers of the Florentine state. In our view, this is simply confirmation of what Poggio and the classical writers on tyranny have always asserted: that, to preserve such a state, it is necessary to use extraordinary means, examples of several of which we have mentioned in this chapter. And Cosimo, as the historical record clearly indicates, was not only capa-ble of, but also more than willing to use such means.

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zens of the state, and the keeping them engaged in endless warfare, was one of the chief means by which such a tyrant can maintain himself in power.  296

Given this historical connection between the miserable state of Florence and its environs under the rule of Cosimo and the explicit connection the Marucelli chronicler makes between these two so vividly expressed by the numerous instances of suffering he recounts, it seems entirely possible that the compiler of the statutes of the Company of the Lesina may have had these circumstances in mind when he began to write his veiled critique of Cosimo’s rule as we have discussed above. And, as noted above, the title page of the statutes themselves makes veiled allusion to this set of circumstances, both in the oppressive nature of Cosimo’s rule as enforced by his personal internal police, the Otto, as well as the use of torture, symbolically expressed in the names of the members of the company, the miserable self-deprivation of the misers of the company, reminiscent of the location of another company of Lorenzo, located next to the prison, and, finally, in a later edition of the text (Vicenza, 1602), the suffering of the poor in the countryside surround-ing Florence:  297

! To scholars who might object to our calling the Medici rulers of Florence “tyrants” as either 296

anachronistic or exaggerated, we can only reply that many intellectuals and historians of the pe-riod with which we are concerned used precisely this term to characterize their rule, and used it in a way which corresponds very closely to both our modern understanding of its meaning and the classical one as well. We would also reply that they used it, for the most part, not merely as a rhetorical exaggeration designed to express their personal distaste for aspects of Medici rule (al-though, because of the inherently negative connotations of the term, such a use was inevitable, just as it is today), but to refer to actual historical circumstances prevailing at the time of their writing, which, in our view, when examined objectively, correspond precisely to both the classi-cal and more modern uses of the term to denote an oppressive form of rule, characterized by the use of violence and other forms of coercion to maintain an individual or small group of individu-als in power, without consideration of the good of the state as a whole, or the consent of the gov-erned to the form and institutions of the ruling regime. In short, both history and usage fully jus-tify our use of the term to describe the nature and effects of Medici rule in Florence, from the “veiled tyranny” of Cosimo il Vecchio, where his control over state institutions was veiled by an apparent deference to the norms and traditions of Florence’s oligarchic past, to the more overtly repressive form of this type of rule which characterized the regimes of Lorenzo il Magnifico, Lorenzo di Piero, Alessandro and Cosimo. For a very interesting discussion of “veiled tyranny,” from the Middle ages to Italy today, see the article of Viroli cited above.

! We discuss below the dating of the statutes of the Compagnia della Lesina.297

! � 257

! Here once again, we may observe the possible allusion to Cardinal Pio da Carpi (“S. Lupardo Ramazzino da Carpinetto”), the reduction of the population of Florence to the bare necessities (“Vitto, Vestito, e Pecunia”) due to the great famine there, mentioned above, reflected in the absurd self-deprivations to which the members subject themselves, and, finally, another possible reference to the situation in Florence in the name of the compiler of the statutes, a certain “M. Giuntino Fulignati,” very possibly a reference to the Florentine printer Giunti.  298

The chronicler also records numerous instances of an appallingly cold-hearted re-action on the part of the Duke upon being informed of the suffering of ordinary citizens as a result of his hegemonistic policy of expansion of Florentine control over all of Tus-cany: !Not only can the statutes of the companies we have been examining be placed within a specific historical context, but they can also be located in the classical, medieval and Re-naissance tradition of political thought on the nature and effects of the just, as opposed to the tyrannical, state. As the humanist treatises of advice for princes make clear, for political thinkers of the quattrocento, generosity and its counterpart, avarice, were not merely personal virtues or vices, but were public qualities, the former essential to the functioning of a well or-

! In Caro’s Gli straccioni, discussed below, the editors identify a character named 298

“Barbagrigia” as a reference to the Roman printer Blado.

! � 258

dered state, the latter profoundly destructive of it, and so were called by the writers of these treatises virtù sociali.  299

The Neapolitan humanist Giovanni Pontano has given us an eloquent description of the quality of generosity in the beneficent ruler, bringing him renown, and prosperity and happiness over the realm he rules: !

Sopratutto poi è necessario impegnarvi di esser da quelli spezialmente amato, a’ quali avrete il pensiero affidato del corpo, e delle cose vostre domestiche. Il che facendo, viverete più sicuro, e sì fatto amore, quando farassi bene tra vostri do mestici stabilito, andando poi a dilatarsi maggiormente, non solo tra i popoli a voi soggetti, ma tra i forestieri benanche si spargerà. (Ch. 16)

Here, Pontano is making an interesting argument: he appeals to rulers to adopt the virtue of clemency (as, indeed, all the virtues discussed in his treatise) not only because they are in themselves desirable (although, as he makes clear, he believes this also), but for purely pragmatic reasons: they lead others to love him, and thus ensure the long con-tinuance of his state. This is interesting because it is precisely the opposite of what Machiavelli says, where, as he argues in his discussion of the moral responsibilities of the prince, such virtues are to be avoided at all costs by the new prince as a sign of weakness.

! On the Renaissance genre of the speculum principis, see the classic study of Felix 299

Gilbert, “The Humanist Concept of the Prince and the Prince of Machiavelli,” The Jour-nal of Modern History, Vol. 11, No. 4 (Dec., 1939), pp. 449-483. For a very interesting discussion of advice for princes intended to convey, under the appearance of disinterested counsel, subtle criticism of their rule, see David Rundle, "'Not so much praise as precept': Erasmus, panegyric, and the Renaissance art of teaching princes,” in Pedagogy and Pow-er: Rhetorics of Classical Learning, ed. Yun Lee Too and Niall Livingstone (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 148-69, Anthony D'Elia, "Heroic Insubordination in the Army of Sigismondo Malatesta: Petrus Parleo's Pro Milite, Machiavelli, and the Uses of Cicero and Livy,” in Humanism and Creativity in the Renaissance, ed. Christopher S. Celenza and Kenneth Gouwens (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 31-60, and Diana Robin, Filelfo in Milan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991). For an important study of the devel-opment of the idea of the social contract, from its roots in classical antiquity to medieval and Renaissance Italy, with particular attention to Mario Salamoni’s De principatu, see Mario D’Addio, L’idea del contratto sociale dai sofisti alla riforma e il "De principatu" di Mario Salamoni (Milan: Giuffrè, 1954).

! � 259

This has often been taken to mean that the great originality of Machiavelli lies in the fact that he discards entirely the notion of the traditional princely virtues, substituting for them a kind of clear-eyed (or cynical) realism, and that, therefore, such virtues, as dis-cussed by the humanistic writers of the quattrocento, are themselves overly idealistic, and not suited to the real world of 16th century Italy, where a kind of law of the jungle pre-vails, and force and fraud are the only ways to survive. Pontano’s argument is bold precisely because it rejects this facile duality: to his mind, to be kind or magnanimous is not to be weak, but rather to be wise, precisely be-cause, even if they rule vast realms, rulers, not to mention their subjects, are still human beings, and can both express and be moved by such expressions of generosity and mag-nificence. Far from being idealistic or naive, Pontano would argue that the adoption of such virtues on the part of a ruler of a state is actually a pragmatic calculation based on his assessment of human nature, combined with (not in contradiction to) an understand-ing of the actual political realities with which he is confronted. In this, Pontano is simply elaborating on a topos well-known to the classical writ-ers on politics, and familiar to their Renaissance followers: the state of a just ruler is more secure than the one of the ruler who rules by force. This opinion finds its most concise expression in the old formula iustitia fundamentum regni, and, interestingly enough, also finds its expression in that work of Machiavelli’s considered his most “diabolical,” in the sense of giving useful precepts to tyrants, that is, the Prince. As we argue in Chapter 1, this insertion on the part of Machiavelli of sentiments which accord more with a republi-can, rather than an absolutistic, view of the state into the pages of his treatise was deliber-ate on his part, part of his creation of a text intended as a veiled critique of the tyrants of his day, Cesare Borgia and the Medici rulers themselves. This advocation on the part of Pontano of humanity on the part of the ruler (which, as he makes clear, in no way conflicts with the requirement that he rule his state with a firm, but just, hand) also evokes the old Greek saying, attributed to X, “karis karin pherei,” that is, a good deed begets in another the desire to reciprocate in kind. For Pon-tano, there is no contradiction between a prince’s exercise of generosity and his hold on power: as long as he is strong in other ways, and just, his rule has a better chance of sur-viving than that of a tyrant, who rules by force and fraud, since the latter only engenders lasting hatred among his subjects, and will, eventually, lead to his demise. In this again, Pontano is in accord with classical thinking.

! � 260

The reason for this is that, from a purely practical point of view, it actually takes more energy to rule a tyrannical regime than it does to rule one based on fairness and the rule of law, since, to maintain the former against the certain enmity of its citizens, it is necessary to divert enormous resources into maintaining it, such as an elaborate network of informers, a huge and cumbersome judicial system, and forces of law and order to maintain this regime against its inevitable enemies. This latter turn of events describes exactly the rule of the Medici over Tuscany and Florence in the third and fourth decades of the 16th century, where, had it not been for the support of the Emperor and the military forces of the Empire (directed, it should be noted, against citizens of what was once a free commune), together with enormous expenditures of capital on an elaborate network of spies, whose reach went far beyond Italy, Cosimo’s state would have collapsed entirely.  The proof of this is that conspiracies against his regime, for all his severity in 300

punishing such actions, kept occurring throughout the entire cinquecento.  301

Pontano elaborates on this basic idea that, ultimately, justice and fair treatment on the part of the ruler are more conducive to a lasting state than a resort to oppression, re-marking that:

Incatenerà poi i diloro animi, e li renderà molto fedeli la liberalità non digiunta dalla gratitudine, . . .Ciro, dopo che s’impadronì del Regno di Assiria, non lasciò di esercitare con loro qualunque sorta di liberalità: stimando, che non già il da-naro, ma gli amici, cui avesse egli più di ricchezze conserito, fossero i suoi tesori. (Ch. 16)

Once again, we observe the power of generosity to “enchain men’s souls,” as Pon-tano puts it, and, in the long run, increase the ruler’s power and the stability of his gov-

! We discuss below the extensive use of spies and informers, both within Florence and 300

without, by Cosimo to assure the maintenance of his rule.

! Here one might cite what Najemy considers may have been the “last” conspiracy 301

against Cosimo, the Pucci plot of 1579, although Najemy suggests that this “conspiracy” may have been an invention of Cosimo, designed to give him an excuse to execute his last remaining enemies in Florence. If this hypothesis is true, this would represent another example of the same tactic described by Rowland, in which she notes that Leo himself may have invented a conspiracy in Rome in the spring of 1517 to secure the assets of The latter scheme involved the torture Alfonso Petrucci, his public parading through the streets of Rome, and his final execution in the Piazza dei .

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ernment. We observed the same appeal to generosity in the statutes of the Compagnie del-la Lesina and Antilesina discussed above. The alternative is to live, as Cambyses did, suspended from a trunk in the chamber of his bedroom, or, as Dionysius of Syracuse, to have to fear to have his own daughters cut his hair, a motif which finds perhaps its most powerful later dramatic expression in Shakespeare’s King Lear.  These are particularly striking examples of the classical 302

topos of the constant fear and insecurity in which the tyrant finds himself, due to his cre-ation of lasting enemies through his tyrannical behaviour. We saw a Renaissance example of this theme in Savonarola’s veiled critique of Lorenzo de’ Medici cited in Chapter 1. Indeed, as Pontano also pointedly remarks, the vice of avarice, especially in one of high station, is not only counterproductive from a pragmatic point of view, but is in and of itself unseemly: !

For there is nothing so characteristic of narrowness and smallness of soul as the love of riches, and there is nothing more honorable and noble than to be indiffer-ent to money if one does not possess it, and to devote it to beneficence and gen-erosity if one does possess it.

As we shall see, this entire tenzone between the virtue of generosity, in vivid con-trast to its opposing feature, avarice, forms the fundamental dyad which underlies the treatises we have been examining, and later came to play an important part in popular re-sponses to power in the latter half of the cinquecento, and even well into the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries and beyond. The destructive effect of generosity’s counterpart, avarice, especially in one to whom is entrusted the care of a state, is also vividly described by a humanist of the quat-trocento, Poggio Bracciolini: ! For I firmly believe that avarice and lust are, as it were, the seat and foundation of all evils, and I hold that the following saying of M. Porcius Cato is very true: “The cities are suffering from avarice and luxury, which have been the destruction of every great empire.” Even though it seems that one of these vices has its origins in our natures, still reason can curb it and, indeed, control can be exerted so that it

! For the classical topos of the fundamental insecurity of tyrants, see302

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does not grow but is contained within certain limits. But the other vice is the ene my of nature; it cannot be ruled by reason, nor is this kind of evil controllable. It must be uprooted. And although wise men have said that lust is the cause of many evils, still it can be, in a sense, a kind of pleasant evil that is involved in the pro creation of children. It is harmful to itself alone and not to others, and it is related to the continuance of the human race. But avarice is a despicable crime, harming everyone, and aimed at the subjugation of all mortals. It is harmful to all, injurious to everyone, and hostile to everyone. It is joined to nothing that is praiseworthy or honorable. It is a horrible, dreadful monster born to ruin people, to destroy fellow ship among men. ! Not only is avarice, in its narrow focus on the good of the single individual, pro-foundly destructive of the social contract, which binds men together in a common regard for one another’s well-being, but, as Poggio goes on to point out, it is especially destruc-tive when found in one charged with the administration of the state. Quoting Cicero, Poggio notes: ! The avarice and vices of princes corrupt the entire city, for the sins of princes are not only evils themselves, but because they also serve as examples to the many imitators of princes. Therefore, princes are harmful not just because they are cor rupt but also because they corrupt others, and they do more by their bad example than by their own sins. Hence, that fine saying of Plato’s: “As the princes are in the state, so are the citizens bound to be.” ! In this regard, it is important to note that in this passage, Poggio is referring here to the classic definition of the tyrant, who, according to Aristotle, making an important distinction between the tyrant and the good king, ! looks to his own advantage, the king to that of his subjects…. Now tyranny is the very contrary of this; the tyrant pursues his own good…. For the same reason, their [foreign kings’] guards are such as a king and not such as a tyrant would em ploy, that is to say, they are composed of citizens, whereas the guards of tyrants are mercenaries. For kings rule according to law over voluntary subjects, but

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tyrants over involuntary; and the one are guarded by their fellow-citizens, the oth ers are guarded against them.”  303

Compare Poggio: ! Therefore, he [the avaricious man] will be a slave to his own private interests and mold himself to them in thought, word, and deed, attentive only to his own affairs, unmindful of public duties. For this reason it happens that this vice is repugnant and contrary to nature, whose law tells us to put the common welfare before our own, so that we may bring help to as many people as possible. ! With this vice of avarice, characteristic of the tyrant, Poggio, following Aristotle, makes a clear contrast to the generosity of the good king, whose chief concern is not his personal power, but rather the well-being of the state as a whole: ! King Robert [of Sicily] (if I am speaking of the same king you mentioned) was not a king but a tyrant: or if he were worthy of the title of king, then he was not a miser. It is impossible for a king to be a miser, for we call a king someone who provides diligently and well for the public good, who has the well-being of his subjects at heart, who performs every duty in order to enhance the comfort of the subjects over whom he rules. ! Once again, as in Pontano’s treatise, we observe that this vice, at least in a ruler, is not a purely private matter, but has a profound effect on the well-being and long duration of any city or state subject to the rule of one suffering its effects. Poggio even alludes to a specific individual (whom he does not name) beset by this failing: ! You may think that a possible exception [to the rule that misers cannot exhibit magnificence and magnanimity] is the man (whose name I won’t mention) who seems to you to have acted with lofty motives for the benefit of his children. This man had, by his avarice, accumulated vast riches, and his adolescent children used

! Nicomachean Ethics, bk. 8, 1160a32-1160b22 [Aristotle 1984, 1834]; Politics, bk. 3, 303

1285a18-1285a28, [ibid., 2039].

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to dine very sumptuously at home to the accompaniment of music and song. But the father, a man who rarely satisfied his hunger except at a poor table, was once so exasperated by the noisy supper guests that after he had kept silent with great difficulty for a long time, he finally burst forth from his little chamber very upset just like a man who had been let out of prison. And with his beak-nosed and men acing face, scarcely able to bear the light and looking at the merrymakers all around, he called his steward in a loud voice and said, wailing,”Since my children continue to consume my fortune that I have accumulated by my sweat in feasting and revelry, I also want to indulge myself and enjoy some pleasures. So now it’s my turn. The children can look after themselves, and they will lose everything as they seem to wish. Meanwhile, I shall provide for myself.” Then he took a small bronze coin from his filthy pocket and said: “Take this and ruin me while you still have time. Go and buy some lettuces so that I may eat too.” ! Poggio concludes: ! Believe me, he spoke these words with a show of a lofty and high mind, for except for fear of the bad opinion of the crowd, he would not have consented even to such a poor allotment for household expenses. And I really think that he was looking f or praise for his moderation when, in fact, he was never moderate; his outlook, at titude, and appetites all stemmed from immoderation. Temperance observes the mean, while avarice is an extreme. ! As we noted in Chapter 2, this description of Lorenzo, with downcast gaze and sallow complexion (in Poggio’s words, a “beak-nosed and menacing face”) prey to tor-menting, secret thoughts, and given to Sybilline utterances intended to conceal his true intentions from those around him, is an explicit reference to the classical description of the Saturnine, or melancholic, temperament, explicitly associated with the figure of the tyrant in classical, medieval and Renaissance political thought:  304

! The classic study of the Saturnine or melancholic type is Raymond Klibansky, Erwin 304

Panofsky and Fritz Saxl, Saturn and Melancholy: Studies in the History of Natural Phi-losophy, Religion and Art (London: Nelson, 1964). For melancholy in Renaissance Flo-rence, see

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! Not only does the individual in this anecdote bear a physical resemblance to Lorenzo, but his ostentatious display of a lack of ostentatiousness, intended to mask his vast accumulation of wealth, recalls Lorenzo’s similar assumption of a public persona of simplicity and modesty, an example of which was his donning of the simple lucco, men-tioned above. There are other indications in the text that Poggio, in his discussion of avarice and the harm it can bring to a state when it afflicts its ruler, is not making a merely abstract argument, but is alluding to the rule of Lorenzo over Florence. If we compare those passages in Poggio’s treatise where he seems to be referring to a specific individual with the passages in Savonarola’s Constitution and Government of

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Florence where the Friar makes a veiled allusion to the Medici tyrant of his day, Lorenzo, some striking similarities begin to emerge: ! Savonarola: The mind of a greedy man, likewise, is never quiet, never rests, but always yearns for wealth and is always concocting some plan for obtaining it. . . .Also, he is tormented by hunger for food and drink that he rarely satisfies, except with cheap and plain fare. . .He lives in insatiable longing, piling up money without respite, and, once gotten, he guards it with extreme anxiety. He is miserly in his spending, starving, neurotic, and turns everything to his own advantage. . . in the Rome of antiquity and in states [i.e. Florence] centuries later, how many kinds of taxes were imposed upon the subjects, how many unusual burdens forced on a conquered people, how many well-devised schemes were made to exact mon ey in order to fill an empty treasury. . . !Compare Antonio’s defense of avarice: ! Not only do they [avaricious men] support us with money but also with advice, wisdom, protection, and authority. We have seen many who were considered avaricious consulted on state policy and elevated to powerful positions of authori ty on account of their counsel. . . .I might add that they have often brought great ornament and embellishment to their cities. Not counting antiquity, how many magnificent houses, distinguished villas, churches, colonnades, and hospitals have been constructed in our own time with the money of the avaricious? Without these ornaments our cities would be deprived of their largest and most beautiful monu ments. . .I have also known many avaricious noblemen—splendid, decorous, lib eral, humane, and witty—whose homes are filled with guests and friends. . . . ! And Andrea’s rejoinder: ! Under an avaricious prince no laws, no rights, no justice are preserved. Crimes go unpunished if the rulers are paid off with gold. The innocent will be punished; the guilty will escape punishment. No crime will be so outrageous that the splendor of cash will not overshadow it. Robbers, thieves, and murderers will be free if they

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have the money to buy off the ruler. . . .For the right price he will refrain from in flicting a penalty. Thus he is remiss in bestowing reward and he is corrupt in met ing out punishment. He will reward the guilty while he will punish the innocent. . . He will even urge an unjust war, and one that is dangerous to his homeland, if he thinks that he can derive some personal advantage from it. He will argue for a ru inous and dishonorable peace when his house will be enriched by it. . . ! with Savonarola’s description of the quality of Lorenzo’s rule in Florence: ! As we noted in Chapter 3, these veiled allusions to the rule of Lorenzo in Florence all refer to actual features of his rule, well-known to historians: his building of churches and temples as a means of enhancing his image as benevolent pater patriae, having the best interests of the city at heart; his creation of a circle of learned men around himself, also to enhance his public image as the equal of any sovereign in Europe; his vindictive-ness toward his enemies, and his use of fiscal means, such as the imposition of ad hoc taxes as a means of bankrupting them; his manipulation of the political institutions of Florentine government and his use of its judicial institutions to favor friends and harass his enemies; his involvement of foreigners in the domestic affairs of Florence, including the fomentation of foreign wars (such as that of Volterra) to enhance his own status at home; his imposition of burdensome taxes (gabelle) on those least able to pay them; and his adoption of an appearance of simplicity, embodied in his donning of the simple lucco to create the impression of his status as merely that of an ordinary citizen. All three of the accounts we have been discussing—that of Poggio, Savonarola and the avari of the Compagnia della Lesina—so similar in their indictment of the tyran-nical ruler and the specific aspects of his regime, seem to be referring to the same indi-

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vidual, who, in our view, can be no other than the Medici lords of Florence, Lorenzo, or, in the case of the Compagnia della Lesina, a Medici of later in the century, Cosimo.  305

Vasari, in his life of Giovanfrancesco Rustici, also makes reference to contempo-rary Florence when he gives an admiring description of Rustici’s generosity toward the poor, pointedly remarking that this is very unusual for a man of his social station. And Machiavelli, making a fine Tuscan distinction between the adjectives avaro and misero (the former, greediness, that is, the desire to acquire, the latter reluctance to spend) urges, we would suggest ironically, his new prince to employ the latter, rejecting the conventional notion that magnanimity is of any use to a ruler in furthering the exer-cise of his power. In all these writings, then, we see that the virtue of generosity, presented in vivid contrast to its opposing vice, avarice, was very much a part of Renaissance discussions of the best form of government and the constitution of the well-ordered state. As we have seen, these twin themes of avarice as a sordid vice, which brings dis-repute to those afflicted by it, and its counterpart, a public munificence and generosity, which brings glory to the just ruler and enhances his power and that of the realm over which he rules, find a vivid, and also very humorous, embodiment in the statutes of the two companies which form the subject of this chapter. And, just as we suggested that Poggio’s treatment of the theme was intended, not as an abstract or theoretical discussion, but rather as a veiled allusion to the rule of Lorenzo in Florence, we will see that, con-cealed under the veil of a merely frivolous and entertaining divertissement, the capitoli of the two former organizations also manage to convey, in a subtle but unmistakeable way, criticism of the Medici ruler of their time, Cosimo.

! On the need to veil sentiments critical of the Medici in Renaissance Florence, see 305

Machiavelli on his treatment of the family in his Florentine Histories: “I cannot write this history from the time when Cosimo took over the government up to the death of Lorenzo just as I would write it if I were free from all reasons for caution. The actions will be true, and I shall not omit anything; merely I shall leave out discussing the univer-sal causes of the events. For instance, I shall relate the events and the circumstances that came about when Cosimo took over the government; I shall leave untouched any discus-sion of the way and of the means and tricks with which one attains such power; and if anyone nevertheless wants to understand Cosimo, let him observe well what I shall have his opponents say, because what I am not willing to say as coming from myself, I shall have his opponents say (Machiavelli 1965, vol. 3, 1028).

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Against this background, we are better equipped to interpret the strange “festivi-ties” of the companies we have been describing. The preoccupation of the members of the Compagnia della Lesina with a fanatical and extreme kind of stinginess is not, entertain-ing as it might be, merely a literary diversion, but rather makes allusive reference to the entire tradition of thought on the tyrannical, as opposed to the just, ruler just described, as well as specifically to the actual nature and effects of the rule of Cosimo de’ Medici in Florence. And the festive generosity and munificentia which characterize the festivities of its counterpart and rival, the Compagnia della Antilesina, can also be traced to a specific his-torical source, as we shall now demonstrate. The only name in the list of members of the compagnia della Lesina printed at the beginning of their capitoli or in the list of new initiates to the Company which appears not to be a pseudonym is one which, we suggest, is a disguised version of the name of Rodolfo Pio da Carpi, an individual very closely associated with the Farnese court, as diplomat and Papal nuncio to the court of Francis I. This disguised pseudonym is repeat-ed four times, in different variations: Taccagnino da Carpi, Quomodocunque Carpisci, Gremingna Carponi, Testasecca Capponi. Carpi played in important role in the cultur-al activities and diplomatic undertakings of the Farnese court. Another element which tends to support our hypothesis of a connection between the statutes of the Compagnia della Antilesina and the Farnese court in Rome is that, on the title page itself, the entire company is described as being under the protection of a certain “pastor monopolitano,” who serves as its guiding spirit and patron. This, in our view, and in consideration of what has just been said, can only be a reference to the Pas-tor of the city of Rome, that is Paul III, who did indeed, in his commitment to ensuring the rule of law and his concern for the poor, act in ways which might be considered those of a generous and benevolent protector:

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This hypothesis is supported by yet another small, but in our view, significant, de-tail. Also on the title page, just under the title, we learn that the company’s activities take place under the aegis of the “Pignato grasso,” that is, the Giant Pine Cone. This, combined with what has just been said regarding the individual who serves as patron and protector of the group, can, in our view, only be a reference to the famous Cortile della Pigna in the Vatican gardens, which does indeed display just such a giant pine-cone: ! ! !!!!! ! As Bober and Rubinstein have pointed out, the giant pine cone of the Belvedere gardens, in classical times, represented fertility and long life, explicitly associated with imperial power:  306

This would have been an ideal location for the activities described in the statutes of the Compagnia della Antilesina, characterized, as we have noted, by a lavish display of generosity and festive abundance, particularly as regards the presentation and enjoyment of food, together with a fraternal, other-oriented spirit which, as remarked above, stood in marked contrast to the miserly hoarding of resources which characterized the misers of the Compagnia della Lesina.

! Renaissance Artists and Antique Sculpture: a Handbook of Sources, Phyllis Pray 306

Bober and Ruth Rubenstein (London: Harvey Miller; New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).

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It is possible, however, that the gathering place which provided the historical in-spiration for the comic exaggerations of the statutes of the Compagnia della Antilesina may have been elsewhere. The gardens of the same Cardinal Pio da Carpi mentioned above, famous in the Renaissance as a kind of earthly paradise, according to the descrip-tion of Aldovrandi (and whose entrance, perhaps coincidentally, presented the visitor, upon entering, with the sight of four of the most familiar icons of Farnese rule—a Medusa’s head, a Sphinx, a statue of Hercules and a giant pine tree—may have served as the gathering place for the actual meetings of a festive organization whose lavish ban-quets—in a comically exaggerated form—provided the inspiration for the capitoli of the Compagnia della Antilesina.  307

A final possibility is that such convivial gatherings could have occurred in the Palazzo Farnesina, the construction of which was completed by the Siennese architect Baldassar Peruzzi, in 1509, and which served as the unofficial residence of the Farnese family, directly across the Tiber river from their official residence, today the site of the French academy, and where, even today, a visitor entering from the via Lungara is greeted by the sight of an enormous pine tree:

! Ulisse Aldrovandi, Delle Statue antiche che per tutta Roma si veggono (Venice: Zilet307 -ti, 1556). For da Carpi as patrons of the arts, see

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Alessandro Farnese purchased this villa from Alessandro Chigi, the enormously rich Roman banker, famous for just the kind of lavish entertainments described in the statutes of the Compagnia della Antilesina, and whose ceiling frescoes presented an equally lavish display of just the kind of festive abundance which characterized the statutes of the latter company.  308

Another small, but in our view significant, detail also tends to support our hypoth-esis of a hidden, anti-Medicean and anti-Imperial message concealed under the apparent-ly merely frivolous description of the activities of the Compagnia della Antilesina. At the conclusion of the section on , we encounter the following inscription, set off by itself in a separate line of type:

! As the author of the article on the Farnesina on the website of the Accademia dei Lin308 -cei notes: “The Sienese banker, Agostino Chigi, named ‘magnifico’ by his contempo-raries, acquired the villa, which had been completed in 1509 by Baldassarre Peruzzi, a Sienese architect of great renown. The villa, a wonderful example of Renaissance art, was decorated by such famous painters as Raffaello, Sebastiano del Piombo, Giovanni Anto-nio Bazzi (called Sodoma), Giulio Romano and Peruzzi himself, and it was furnished with such magnificence that it aroused general admiration.” One contemporary notes that after one feast, held in a building adjacent to the villa on the banks of the Tiber, one of the guests, on remarking on the magnificence of the location, was amazed to see, the host proudly letting fall the curtains with which the room was festooned, that he was actually sitting in the palace’s stables. Another contemporary account reports that a regular feature of the festive gatherings of the Roman banker was the throwing of the golden cups and saucers into the Tiber, where they were cleverly retrieved from nets spread under the wa-ter for the purpose. The author of the Wikipedia article continues “In the rooms of the Villa high prelates, noblemen, poets, men of letters and artists used to meet; comedies were performed there and sumptuous banquets were held. The most famous of these were the banquet of 30 April 1518 and the one in honour of St. Augustine's day in 1519. The first banquet, with a magnificent decor of tapestries and carpets was laid out in the sta-bles, which at that time were placed near the Tiber and were later demolished when a high Tiber wall was built. The second banquet, on the occasion of the wedding of Agosti-no and Francesca Ordeasca, which was blessed by Pope Leo X, was held in a setting of pomp and splendour, in the great hall of the villa, and in the presence of the Pope himself, twelve Cardinals and many guests. After Agostino Chigi's death, the villa was bought by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (from whom the Villa takes its name). It passed to the Bour-bon family in 1714” (http://www.lincei.it).

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Given the status of the Compagnia della Antilesina as a response to its rival, the Com-pagnia della Lesina, which, as we suggested above, represented a veiled indictment of Medici rule in Florence, the mention here, in such negative terms, of the Ghibellines —a party traditionally associated with imperial rule of Italy, as opposed to its Guelf fac-tion, traditionally associated with the Church—at the very end of a text which is itself, as we have suggested, a veiled allusion to the beneficent rule of the Farnese court, can only, in our view, be a reference to Imperial and Medicean domination of present-day Florence, firmly opposed by the just and beneficent rule of the Farnese family in Rome, their tradi-tional rivals, which finds its veiled expression in the statutes of the former company. In any event, the presence of two such powerful images, the golden cornucopia and the pine cone, both well-known classical symbols of fertility and abundance, and as-sociated with the benign qualities of imperial rule, in both the statutes of a Company known for just the kind of festive celebrations which characterized the Farnese court it-self, as well as in the images of festive abundance which adorned the ceilings of the pri-vate palace of the family, would seem to suggest the possibility that these statutes provide us with a vividly-detailed, yet also allusive picture of the private life of the Farnese court, characterized by the same spirit of conviviality and generosity which characterized the public image of the family.  309

And indeed, prominently displayed on the right shoulder of Guglielmo della Por-ta’s portrait bust of the Pope, we the image of a cornucopia, an explicit symbol, together with the image of Peace succouring a wounded warrior on the left shoulder, of the life-giving and restorative spirit of his rule: !!

! Historians have noted that the rule of the Farnese in Rome was characterized by just 309

this sort of public-spiritedness and generosity, evidenced in their draining and construc-tion of new roads and splendid palaces (for example, the formal palace of the family mentioned above, and the palace near the Campo dei Fiori known today as the Cancelle-ria, the unofficial residence of the Pope’s grandson, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, and, especially, a concern for the plight of the poor and disenfranchised of the city, together with a reform of the laws of the city intended to curb the arrogance and prepotenza of the upper classes of Rome. For more on this aspect of their rule, see the editors’ introduction to their translation of Caro’s Gli straccioni, cited below.

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!!!!!!!!!! In this regard, it is interesting to note that on Cellini’s famous portrait bust of Duke Cosimo, we encounter the exact opposite of this image of outpouring generosity: promi-nently displayed, again on the right shoulder of the classical cuirass which covers his chest, we observe, not an image of generosity and abundance, as in della Porta’s bust of Paul III, but rather the exact opposite: a grotesque mask which devours what appears to be an ingot of metal, together with some coins:

!!

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! While this could represent a humorous self-reference on the part of the artist to his hard labours and the cost of materials which went into creating the bust, the project itself becoming a kind of “monster” of consumption, it also seems possible that this could be a clever and extremely allusive reference to the all-devouring nature of Medici rule in Flo-rence, whose consumption of the state’s resources in support of their rule we have already described. Support for this hypothesis is given by the fact that the grotesque head devouring the coins on Cellini’s bust is the head of a goat, Capricorn being the astrological sign of the Medici family.  310

Another small but interesting detail which points to the same theme of miserliness on the part of the Medici ruler is that the nipples on the cuirass appear to be being bitten by the beaks of two birds, and then seem to extrude a fluid: !!!!! For an excellent study of the iconography of the Medici family, see Janet Cox-310

Rearick, Dynasty and Destiny in Medici Art : Pontormo, Leo X, and the Two Cosimos (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984).

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!! How can we account for this strange detail? One scholar has drawn attention to the fact that, strange as it is for modern audiences to countenance, in the Renaissance, a male ruler could be depicted with breasts as an indication of his life-giving and nurturing quali-ties as ruler of his state.  If such a topos is being alluded to here, the fact that the “milk 311

of human kindness” has to be literally extorted from Cosimo’s body by the two eagles fits precisely the theme we have been discussing: his extreme reluctance, caught up as he is in issues of personal power and prestige, to take any action out of a spontaneous love or concern for his state. Even the few drops which reluctantly flow from his breasts have to be forcibly squeezed out of him by an external force. Could the birds who perform this action be eagles, an allusion to Imperial rule? Perhaps this is a detail which is better left uninterpreted. Against this reading of Cellini’s bust as a Cosimo lactans, Titian’s portrait of the Duke in armor takes on an entirely different coloring: !!!!!! Raymond Waddington, “The Bisexual Portrait of Francisco I: Fontainebleau, Cas311 -tiglione, and the Tone of Courtly Mythology,” in Playing with Gender: a Renaissance Pursuit. ed. Jean Brink, Maryanne Horowitz, Allison Coudert (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1991), 99-132.

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!! Not only are his breasts stingy in providing the nurturing milk of just rule to his state, but, even worse, they are pointed—weapons where there should be life-giving sus-tenance, martial values where there should be civic ones. A portrait of Margaretta of Austria, daughter of the Emperor, also shows the Em-peror wearing the same kind of armor:

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! In reference to the concealed anti-Medicean messages we have been discussing, it is interesting to note the the chair upon which Margaretta sits displays a bound captive figure beneath the head of a lion, possibly a reference to the captive state of the Floren-tine populace under the rule of Cosimo (the interpretation given to this figure by Vasari, in his own interpretation of the allegorical meaning of his portrait of Alessandro de’ Medici, discussed in Chapter 2). If this is so, this detail is also reflected in the limp figure of the lamb which dangles around the neck of the Emperor, the lamb being, of course, closely associated with Florence as its most prominent consumer good, serving as symbol of the Arte della Lana, and also, as noted in Chapter 3, a symbol, as the Golden Fleece, of the subjugation of a free city by a tyrant. To add insult to injury, Cellini adds another small but, in our view, significant de-tail to his bust of Cosimo: the strap which secures the cuirass over his right shoulder is embossed with a series of crescents: The impresa of the Strozzi family, perennial opponents of the Medici, was, in fact, a series of three crescent-moons: ! If one accepts the possibility of carefully disguised anti-Medicean symbols on Cellini’s bust, such a detail would represent yet another example of the clever incorpora-tion of an anti-Medicean message in a work of art commissioned by the same Medici, and would provide yet another instance of this type of subtle critique to complement our dis-cussion of Michelangelo and Vasari in Chapter 2. Recently, several scholars have devoted studies to the presence of such powerful, yet subtle visual messages in many works of Italian Renaissance art.  In Chapter 2, we remarked that several scholars have recently 312

claimed to have discerned messages directed against the religious establishment of the day in the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel itself.  313

While some scholars might consider the foregoing interpretation of Cellini’s bust fanciful, if not outlandish, for a reader who has come this far in the book, and seen the

! Richard Stemp, The Secret Language of the Renaissance: Decoding the Hidden Sym312 -bolism of Italian Art (London: Duncan Baird, 2006).

! Benjamin Blech and Roy Doliner, The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo’s Forbidden 313

Messages in the Heart of the Vatican (New York: HarperOne, 2008).

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strikingly varied and subtle ways by which artists, writers, and intellectuals of the Italian cinquecento managed to express their disaffection with the rule of the Medici in Florence, such an interpretation will, it is hoped, not seem entirely beyond the realm of possibility. A further feature which might have drawn Cosimo’s ire regarding the bust, assum-ing that the old story of its “banishment” to Portoferrato contains some truth, is that the bust bears a striking resemblance to the famous classical bust of Caracalla, one of the most violent tyrants of Imperial Rome: ! !!!!!!!!!!! If one looks closely, the similarities between Cellini’s bust and the classical por-trait of Caracalla are striking: the tunic swept to the left (on Cellini’s bust much smaller than on the bust of Caracalla: only a small portion of fabric, gathered in a knot on his chest), the stern (on the bust of Caracalla, even fierce) expression, the curly hair and the short beard, the securing of the tunic on the right shoulder (on the bust of Caracalla, by a bulla; on the bust of Cosimo, the grotesque head we have just described). Even the bases of the two portraits are very similar in shape and form. In our view, there are simply too many similarities between the two portraits to be a mere coincidence.  314

! The bust of Caracalla was very popular and widely-known in the Renaissance, appear314 -ing in many of the most prestigious private collections. For its history in the Renaissance, see Haskell and Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500-1900 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006) 172-73.

! � 280

Cellini’s frequent contempt for his princely patrons has been extensively docu-mented by scholars (one story, oft-repeated in the Renaissance, had it that even the Pope was afraid of what he might say), and a recent essay notes that Cosimo was indeed noto-rious for withholding payment due to the artists with whom he worked.  Seen in this 315

light, the famous “banishment” of the bust to Elba, had the Duke been able to discern the hidden allusions we have been suggesting, might be more than an amusing fable, as one scholar has recently suggested.  316

Interestingly enough, this feature of Cellini’s bust finds its analog in the grotesque mask upon which the figure of Night in the Medici Chapel leans for support, a self-por-trait, as several scholars have suggested, of Michelangelo himself.  317

Here again we encounter the same motif of coins, together with the devouring mouths we have just observed on Cellini’s bust of Cosimo. In Chapter 2, we argued that Michelangelo, in his use of these symbols, intended to convey the same message as we have just suggested for Cellini: that the Medici rulers of Florence are bent on consuming her vital substance in pursuit of their dynastic ambi-tions, something which can only leave her as enervated and lifeless as the figures which recline beneath the Medici captains in the Chapel. And in Vasari’s well-known portrait of Lorenzo de’ Medici, we also observe that the figure of Lorenzo, who, as we argued in Chapter 2, was intended by the artist to

! Raphael, Cellini, and a Renaissance Banker: the Patronage of Bindo Altoviti, ed. Alan 315

Chong, Donatella Pegazzano, Dimitrios Zikos (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Muse-um, 2003).

! Margaret Gallucci, “Cellini’s Trial for Sodomy,” in The Cultural Politics of Duke 316

Cosimo I de’ Medici, ed. Konrad Eisenblchler (Burlington, VT: Ashgate: 2001). Gallucci remarks that Cellini’s trial for sodomy may have been merely a pretext to frighten him into an obedient silence. Given the use by the Medici of the judicial system to harass and intimidate its opponents, such an hypothesis seems to us entirely plausible. As historians have noted, this partisan use of the judicial system on the part of the Medici dates back to at least the middle of the 15th century. The classic work which describes in detail Medici manipulation of the political, judicial and financial apparatus of quattrocento Florence to their own ends is Nicolai Rubinstein, The Government of Florence under the Medici (1434 to 1494) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).

! John Paleotti, “Michelangelo’s Masks,” The Art Bulletin, Vol. 74, No. 3 (Sep., 1992), 317

423-440.

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evoke the image of the melancholic or saturnine temperament, often associated in classi-cal and medieval thought with tyrants, and one of whose main attributes was his posses-siveness and greed, appears to be clutching his money-purse, perhaps another allusive reference to the theme of Medici greed:

! Another attribute of the classical figure of Saturn was his sterility, for, having cas-trated Kronos, he was himself castrated by Zeus. He was also an exile. This latter at-tribute accounts for the fact that, in medieval and Renaissance prints, he is often depicted as a wandering beggar:

! � 282

Given what has just been said regarding the use of very subtle and allusive mes-sages by certain Renaissance artists to communicate a veiled critique of Medici rule, and the weaving together in their dominance of Florentine political life of political and per-sonal power and potency, it might not be going too far to propose another highly allusive message regarding Medici power in Vasari’s portrait of the ruler: his right hand appears to be making a curious gesture toward his genitals, or the coin-purse (borsa) which dangles from his belt:

We observed the same prominent display of the money-purse in the frontispiece of the late quattrocento text depicting Lorenzo’s oversight of the Company of the Magi above. We would propose that, following the line of interpretation we have been suggest-ing, this strange gesture (which we have personally never encountered in any other work of Renaissance art, with the exception of the portrait of Bindo Altoviti discussed below) might have a triple meaning in Vasari’s portrait of the Medici ruler: drawing attention to the money-purse itself, sign of Medici financial power, to the personal palle, in a physical sense, of the ruler; and finally, to the borse in which votes were stored in elections to Flo-rentine political office pictured below, once again, a sign of Medici potency in their con-trol over the political offices of the Florentine state. If one admits the possibility that Vasari may have intended to encode such a message in his portrait of the Medici ruler, here Lorenzo is triply potent, sexually, politically, and financially. In Italy today, the ges-ture of clutching one’s genitals is almost always intended as an insult and a challenge to the one who is the recipient of the gesture.

! � 283

Kindness extorted; money consumed; Tantalus thirsting for the waters reserved only to the righteous: these three themes come together if we compare the works just dis-cussed, and add another: Francesco Salviati’s portrait of Bindo Altoviti, the banker who financed the Florentine exiles:  318

! In this portrait, we see the same gesture as we observed on Vasari’s portrait of Lorenzo de’ Medici. Here, however, his hand is empty: symbol perhaps, of both the enormous loss of money incurred by the Florentine exiles in their attempt to unseat Cosimo as ruler of Florence, and also (if one accepts the interpretation proposed above regarding the connection between the electoral borse and the Medici palle) perhaps also a symbol of the failure of the anti-Mediceans, supported by rich bankers such as the Strozzi

! For Altoviti’s crucial financial support of the anti-Medicean republican exiles, see 318

Chong, 237-63, Najemy, 483.

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and the Altoviti, and whose public face was, as we have seen, the Farnese family in Rome, to produce an heir to equal the heirs the Medici were able to produce in continuing their dominance over not only Florentine political life, but, through their astute deploy-ment of marriage alliances with the Hapsburgs and the kings of France, over central and northern Italy as well. Altoviti is empty-handed, in several senses of the word: he lacks both the palle/borse of Medicean political power, which the Lorenzo of Vasari’s portrait so avidly (or anxiously) clutches in his hand, and, having bankrupted himself in his support of the re-publican cause, he lacks the true capital (in both the sexual and the financial senses of the word) to mount a sustained challenge to the combined power of the Medici in Florence and their Imperial patrons over Italy as a whole. If we look closely again at Michelangelo’s Medici tomb, we also observe that the figure of Day (whom, we suggested in Chapter 2, represented the Florentine exiles, rage-ful yet powerless to do anything about the continuing dominance by the Medici of Flo-rentine political life) seems to make the same gesture with his left hand as does the Medici captain directly above, with one important difference: his hand is empty, while the hand of the Medici captain above him seems to hold several coins. We would also interpret this detail to mean that, while the exiles have bankrupted themselves in their efforts to unseat the Medici from Florentine control, the Medici have themselves been enriched; in effect, a drastic transfer of capital has occurred, from the hands of the opponents of Medici rule to the Medici themselves, who then use this capital to further enhance their hold over Florentine political life. As we noted in Chapter 2, this is in fact what happened at this time in Florence: the Medici aggressively used the finances of the Florentine republic in the furtherance of their own personal agenda, to the detriment of the political and financial health of the city as a whole. As we noted in that chapter, this included outright diversion of funds intended for the city to the Strozzi bank in Rome, where it was used to further Medicean dynastic ambitions, leading Lorenzo di Piero, referring to his use of Florence as his base of power, to boast to a friend “Perché ha [Florence] da essere el fondamento del mio stato, e, a così dire, la poppa mia.”  And we noted above this same diversion of public funds on the 319

part of Cosimo to further his ambitious plans to bring first Siena and then all of Tuscany under his control. As we noted there, this caused enormous suffering on the part of ordi-

! Hale,319

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nary Florentine citizens, not to mention those peasants living in the countryside around the city.  320

! An important literary genre in Renaissance Italy were the laments of cities, usually entitled 320

“Lamento di,” followed by the name of the city. These laments were often published in the form of small pamphlets, inexpensively printed, and distributed by traveling peddlars in the larger cities and the surrounding countryside. Called chapbooks in English and fogli volanti in Italian, they attest to the great interest among the working and middle classes of Renaissance Italy in contemporary historical events. As examples from the cinquecento, we might cite the lamenti of Florence, Siena, Volterra, and others (FIGS. 30, 31, 32). This genre also included laments of fa-mous individuals, such as Alessandro and Giuliano de’ Medici (FIGS. 33 and 34). In Chapter 1, we discussed the role these small pamphlets played in disseminating the popular view of Cesare Borgia as a monster and a tyrant, thus calling into question the traditional view of Machiavelli’s use of the Duke as an exemplum worthy of imitation by the Renaissance prince. Such pamphlets have sometimes been overlooked by historians as a valuable source of information on the views of the non-elites of Renaissance Italy, and, especially those which presented the Medici or the Emperor in a negative light, would have played an important role in legitimizing opposition to their policies among the popular classes during the period. In particular, besides the Capitoli of the two companies we have been discussing here, which, as we have suggested, managed to con-vey the authors’ dissatisfaction with Medici rule in the form of an allusive satire, we might cite the numerous mock-epics which also circulated in this format, which also, in some cases, may have been intended as a veiled critique of the grandiose dynastic ambitions of the Medici family and their Imperial patrons. Domenico Zanré cites as an example of this genre Girolamo (“il Gob-bo”) Amelonghi’s La gigantea (Domenico Zanré, Cultural Nonconformity in Early Modern Flo-rence (Aldershot, Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004). Zanré argues that this work is not only an al-lusive critique of Amelonghi’s enemies in the Accademia Fiorentina (the “Aramei”), but that it also contains veiled allusions to the political circumstances of his time, although he does not specify in great detail what these references might be. Such a consideration might shed light on the poem which concludes the capitoli of the Compagnia della Lesina, the “Rabbia di Macone,” usually attributed to Piero Strozzi, Grand Marshal of France and the primary military opponent of Medici and Imperial rule in central and northern Italy. This poem is extremely obscure, and its connection with the treatise it follows is not at all clear. Strozzi himself wrote an autobiographi-cal “Lamento di Piero Strozzi,” (pictured above), in which he mourns his failure to free Italy from Medicean and Imperial domination, published in pamphlet As an examination of surviving copies of the fogli volanti attests, there were examples of more direct criticism of Medici rule which also found expression in this format, an example of which might be the pamphlets against Cesare Borgia and his father cited above. We discuss these pamphlets further below. For the laments of cities, see Lamenti storici dei secoli XIV, XV e XVI, raccolti e ordinati a cura di Anto-nio Medin e Ludovico Frati (Bologna: Romagnoli-Dall’Acqua, 1887-4, available online at http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007969296.

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And indeed, Cosimo boasted of just such a transfer of capital and the power it brings, denouncing the “madness” of Altoviti and his fellow exiles in throwing away so much of their money on a losing cause.  321

If this interpretation of these portraits is accepted, it demonstrates once again the power and the long duration of the use of the theme of money, its acquisition and hoard-ing in the service of a narrow personal agenda, or its acquisition and generous spending in service to the commune as a whole, as symbol of the realities of political life in Flo-rence and Rome in the middle decades of the 16th century. Such an interpretation might also account for the woebegone and bereft expression on the face of the Roman banker: this expression, which also contains a trace of sadness, finds an exact parallel in the woebegone expression on the face of the Dawn of Michelangelo’s Medici Chapel, and the expression of fatigue and resignation on the face of Evening, symbols, as we suggested in Chapter 2, of the enervated and suffering state of the city of Florence herself following the Medici return to power in the fall of 1512 and the long, arduous, and ultimately unsuccessful struggle on the part of her republican sup-porters to unseat the family from power and restore the city to her former status as a free commune. Vasari’s portrait is also interesting for the fact that, in a kind of diabolic inversion of the life-giving images of the cornucopia, which, we have suggested, served as one of the most important symbols of the generosity and public-spiritedness of the Farnese fami-ly, pouring out its riches on the city of Rome, we observe, in the upper left of the paint-ing, a satanic image of a large tazza in the form of a grotesque figure whose open mouth appears to hold a poker, which, along with the overall tone of Hellishness which perme-ates the portrait as a whole, brings to mind an instrument of torture.  As such, it would 322

represent the diabolic inversion of the Tazza Farnese seen as symbol of Farnese joyous-ness and festivity. Hence--in the “tenzone” we have been describing between the miserly awls of the Medici, symbol of the pathological and debilitating miserliness of their rule in Florence, and the restorative abundance of the golden cornucopias of the Farnese family in Rome--

! Najemy 483.321

! It is strange that so few scholars have drawn attention to this aspect of the portrait. In 322

our view, it is the key to the proper interpretation of the work.

! � 287

we are confronted with what might be called a “battle of the images,” in which these im-ages take on a contemporary political meaning. In Caro’s play Gli straccioni this rivalry is expressed through the veiled references to the Tazza Farnese, formerly a symbol of Medici power and prestige, now held captive by the Farnese in Rome, who convert it into a symbol of their own public munificence, now held by them as a kind of tutelary symbol of their own enlightened rule over the city, where stands for the spirit of public generosity which characterized the family’s dealings with the city. Where the awls of the Compagnia della Lesina bore deeper and deeper into the vital substance of the state, consuming everything, the golden conrnucopias of the Farnese family pour forth a stream of vital nourishment on a citizenry long oppressed by the arrogance and use of arbitrary force by the nobles of the city, and which in contemporary Florence characterized, as we have seen, the rule of the Medici. The movement of the former is sharp, painful and inward, the other restorative and outward. And as we noted above, this contrast between a life-giving and beneficent gen-erosity, and an enervating and debilitating miserliness was characteristic of classical and Renaissance political thought on the character and actions of the just ruler, on the one hand, and the tyrant on the other. Another piece of evidence points to a contemporary Florentine reference in the Maestro de' Novizi's instructions to his charges. In Caro’s comedy Gli straccioni, we encounter two strange characters, Giovanni and Battista, whom the author describes in the following terms: As the editors of the play remark, this false appearance of poverty is only a dis-guise; their real mission is to recover some jewels Here, we are confronted with the same theme of avarice masquerading under the rags of poverty we observed in the Maestro de’ Novizi’s description of the Compagnia del Mantellaccio. Given their names, their status as outsiders in Rome, and their mission, the signifi-cance of which we will now discuss, these two characters can only, in our view, be a ref-erence to the Florence of the Medici. We might also remark that these two misers—whom Caro describes as- bear a very close resemblance to those hired assassins who roamed the cities of Italy in pursuit of the enemies of the Medici, an example of which was the assassination by a paid killer

! � 288

in the service of Cosimo de’ Medici of Lorenzino de’ Medici, in Venice in February of 1548, mentioned above. The mission on which these two individuals are engaged—the recovery of their jewels—is also, we would suggest, an allusion to the Florence of the Medici. The testa-ment of Margaretta of Austria refers to her prolonged struggle to maintain possession of her most treasured possession, the famous Tazza Farnese, against the incessant claims of the Medici on the object, one of the prizes of the Medici collection, symbol of Medici wealth and power:  323

!!!!!!!!!! As historians have pointed out, the Medici were highly astute maintainers and ma-nipulators of their public image, which formed an essential part of their "artistic diploma-cy" in Renaissance Europe, where precious objects of art were used, not only as symbols of the family's power, but also as gifts to powerful individuals as a means of cultivating their good will.  324

Hence, we suggest, the obsession of these two strange characters with the return of this precious object to Medici ownership was intended by the author as a symbol of the Medici family's equally obsessive preoccupation with this object, and their determination to secure its restoration to what they viewed as its rightful location in Florence.

! Renato Lefevre, “Il testamento di Margarita d’Austria, duchessa di Parma e Piacenza,” 323

Palatino 12 (1968) 240-50, 246, Ibid., “Madama Margarita d’Austria” (1522-1586): Vita di una grande dama del Cinquecento (Rome: Newton Compton, 1986), 103-6, cited in Marina Belozerskaya, Medusa’s Gaze: The Extraordinary Journey of the Tazza Far-nese (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 163.

! Bullard in Brown324

! � 289

Support for this hypothesis is given by the fact that, according to Mirandola’s de-scription of the objects whose reacquisition is the real reason for these individual’s pres-ence in Rome, this hoard of jewels contains, along with, This is a precise description of the provenance and appearance of the Tazza Far-nese: its original provenance, still something of a mystery to scholars, was somewhere in the Near East; according to some scholars, the object was at one time possessed by Tamerlane himself.  325

And the outside of the cup displays precisely the image described by Mirandola: the head of a Medusa, whose eyes The Tazza, as we discuss below, was one of the most treasured possessions of the Medici family, acquired by Lorenzo il Magnifico from in   326

In his edition of the play, the editors note that the rags with which the two misers disguise themselves actually represent, not their true status, but actually a hypocritical means to an end, the return of their jewels, the motivation for which is not poverty, but its opposite, greed. In other words, these "misers," under their rags, conceal their true identity as agents of Medici greed, determined to restore a precious object, itself a symbol of the family's lust for acquisition, to its "owner," and willing to employ any means, fair or foul, to achieve this end. Further support for this hypothesis comes from the fact that the bank which is handling the transaction is identified by one of the characters as belonging to the “Gri-

! Belozerskaya, and N. Dacos, A. Giuliano, U. Pannuti, Il Tesoro di Lorenzo il Mag325 -nifico (Florence: Sansoni, 1973-74; v. 1. Le gemme, ed. N. Dacos, A. Giuliano, U. Pannu-ti—v. 2. I vasi, ed. D. Heikamp; Saggi e documenti sulle vicende del tesoro nel Quattro-cento, ed. A. Grote),

! 326

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mani”; the Grimaldi bank of Genova was one of the primary banks employed by the Medici in their ambitions for the territorial expansion of the Tuscan state.  327

Caro's play ends with the resolution, by the just judge (symbol, according to its editors, of the commitment of the Farnese family to the rule of law, and the end of the kind of arbitrary violence which characterized the rich magnati of Rome) of the schemes of the two mysterious and shady straccioni, symbols, as we have suggested, of Medicean Florence and the greed and self-promotion which characterized the family’s acquisition and display of precious objects.  As the editors of the play remark, one of the elements 328

which justifies the play's being regarded as one of the notable works of Renaissance dra-ma is the extreme skill of the author in being able to weave together and resolve, in a manner unprecedented in Italian Renaissance drama, three separate plot strands, derived from three separate literary sources. According to them, the final resolution of the suit of the two straccioni represents the resolution of one of these strands of the plot.  329

! Najemy notes that Cosimo’s use of foreign banks to finance his territorial ambitions 327

served as a means to avoid potential conflict with those ottimati who still harbored sym-pathies for Florence’s traditional alliance with France, and that such loans allowed him to bypass Florence’s traditional checks and balances on princely adventurism: “These were private loans contracted by Cosimo, sometimes jointly with his wife Eleonora, and the combination of their private status and foreign origin left Cosimo free to use the funds as he wished (subject if course to the approval of the kings of Spain) without having to con-sult Florentine councils or creditors. Yet at least a third of this indebtedness was repaid from direct and indirect taxes collected from the Florentine treasury. Most Florentines may have been unaware of the siphoning off of public funds to pay for their duke’s terri-torial ambitions, his court, and even his private investments.” Najemy goes on to describe what today we would call a massive diversion of public funds amounting to embezzle-ment on a colossal scale in support of the personal finances of the Medici family: “In-deed, he ran something of a family business from the ducal palace, regularly diverting public funds to personal investments in an artful blurring of the boundary between state finances and private and family interests.” Najemy concludes by noting that most of the increase in Cosimo’s personal wealth occurred during the Siennese war, his personal for-tune being built upon the sufferings inflicted there (Najemy 474-5).

! 328

! Annibal Caro, The Scruffy Scoundrels (Gli Straccioni), tr. Massimo Ciavolella and 329

Donald Beecher (Waterloo, Ontario, Canada: Wilfrid Laurier University Press,1980), xv-xix.

! � 291

Hence, In addition to his resolution of the lawsuit brought by the two straccioni to reac-quire their master’s jewels, symbol, as we have suggested, of the Medici family's relent-less efforts to reacquire the Tazza Farnese, a second plot complication resolved by the judge at the end of the play are the equally relentless efforts on the part of another charac-ter, il Cavaliere Jordano, to prevent the marriage of Tindaro, a young man newly returned from the East, to Giulietta, daughter of one of the straccioni, who has been abducted by pirates in the East and sold into slavery. In our discussion of Machiavelli’s s Mandragola above, we remarked that, in Re-naissance drama, the marriage of two young lovers which concludes many Italian come-dies of Plautine inspiration actually served, for Renaissance audiences, in many cases, as a symbol of the happy resolution of the attempted possession of a state by a tyrannical usurper, the resolution of which situation is symbolized by the final happy marriage of the two young lovers, whose bliss has been postponed by the machinations of an older male figure, symbol of an attempted possession of a state by a tyrannical usurper.  330

In a way analogous to the symbolic function of the Tazza Farnese just described, we would suggest that this latter plot element of the felicitous resolution of efforts to thwart a happy marriage also serves as a potent symbol of contemporary affairs: in this case, the happy resolution of Margaretta’s state of internal exile in Florence after the as-sassination of her husband Alessandro in 1537 through her betrothal to Ottavio Farnese, grandson of the Farnese Pope, in expectation of her expected role in the happy continua-tion of the Farnese dynasty. Just as the Tazza Farnese finds its proper place in Renaissance Rome, where, re-moved from its location in a city where it only served as symbol of the ruler's personal wealth and power, it can take its true place as a powerful symbol of their generous use of personal wealth and status for the good of the community as a whole, so also, we would suggest, does Margaretta herself, also seen as a kind of trophy, find her proper place in a city where she can, through her role in the continuation of the ruling dynasty, fulfill her true destiny as herself a physical embodiment of the generative and nurturing power of the spirit of the Farnese family, which finds, as we have seen, symbolic expression in the statutes of the Compagnia della Antilesina described above. Support for this hypothesis comes from another small, but in our view, significant detail: the name of the individual

! One critic notes that330

! � 292

who attempts to thwart the marriage is Cavaliere Jordano, aided and abetted by his wife, Madama Argentina and her steward Marabeo. In our view, it is no coincidence that these characters, whose function in the play is both to thwart a happy marriage and the restoral of some jewels to their rightful owner, have Spanish names. In our view, this is a reference to Spanish support for the Medici in their ambitions for control of mid and central Italy, one of which means was precisely the establishment of a dynastic relationship with the Hapsburg rulers of Germany. It was the frustration of such ambitions after the death of Alessandro which brought about a change in the Emperor’s mind and the arrival of Margaretta in Rome as bride of Ottavio Farnese. In this regard, it is also significant, in our view, that the author describes these lat-ter two characters in terms which recall those used to describe tyrants in the Renaissance dramas discussed above: they resort to violence and devious means (a servant of Madama Argentina, Marabeo, captures the chaste Giulietta and keeps her in a prison, where Jor-dano, consumed by lust, abuses her) to inflict suffering on a sympathetic female figure, who is finally rescued from their clutches by the propitious intervention of an external force at the end of the play. In our discussion of the connections between the spectacles of the Compagnia della Cazzuola and Renaissance drama above, we noted that such a theme was, in many cases, understood by Renaissance audiences as representing the usurpation of a free state by a tyrant. Cavalier Jordano himself admits that his behaviour towards Giulietta resembles that of a tyrant: ! Pilucca [servant of Madonna Argentina]: Have you tried wooing her [Giulietta]? ! Jordano: In a thousand ways. I’ve tried flattery and beggary, promises and gifts. I’ve wept, shown my anger and threatened. What haven’t I done? I even went to her—dagger in hand—like Tarquinius. But to no avail. She’d rather die than con sent. Not only does Jordano display the behaviour of the classic tyrant Tarquinius Su-perbus, ravisher of the Roman Lucretia (herself, as noted above, a popular figure in Ital-ian Renaissance drama, and, as suggested above, symbol of Florence herself subject to the designs on her freedom of Lorenzo di Piero di Medici) in his attempts on the virtue of

! � 293

the chaste Giulietta, but he resembles the classic tyrant in another way: he is prone to anger, and given to using violence to get his way. This is demonstrated in his frequent at-tempts on the life of Gisippo, the Florentine name of Tindaro, lover of Giulietta. Another feature of the classic tyrant, besides his assaults on innocent women and his propensity toward violence, is that he is consumed by lusts, having given himself over totally to his baser instincts. We encountered this feature of the tyrant in Seneca’s Thyestes, discussed above, where Atreus is completely consumed by the lust for revenge. In Ruccelai’s Rosmunda and Trissino’s Sofonisba, the tyrants are consumed by sexual desires for young women whom they cannot persuade by other means to return their ad-vances. And in Gigli’s Don Pilone, discussed below, we encounter yet another reiteration of this theme, where an older man tries to foist himself off on a younger woman. In Chapter 3, we suggested that both the Callimacho of Machiavelli’s Mandragola and Ce-sare Borgia of Machiavelli’s Prince make allusive reference to this same tradition. Hence, in all the dramas we have been discussing, we can see that for Renaissance audiences, this often-repeated theme almost inevitably, in its evocation of the true subject which lay behind the action and characters of the play, namely the ferocious and fear-some figure of the tyrant, prone to violence, the ravishment of innocent victims, and the relentless pursuit of his own ends at the expense of others, had a political subtext, and that, as we have suggested, in almost all cases this political subtext served as an allusive commentary of actual political circumstances prevailing at the time of the writing and performance of these plays. Not only does Jordano display all the markings of the classic tyrant, in which, in his proneness to violence and a stubborn conviction in the rightness of his cause, he re-sembles the Atreus of Seneca’s Thyestes described above, but he also, in his loud and threatening behaviour by which he attempts to intimidate others, his sense of aggriev-ance, and his obsession with the maintenance of his personal honor, approaches the stock

! � 294

figure of Italian Renaissance drama, the braggart soldier, most often portrayed as Span-ish.  331

! Perhaps one of the most famous examples of this is the braggart soldier of Aretino’s 331

Marescalco, who speaks a strange mixture of Spanish and Italian. In a fascinating article, an Ital-ian scholar notes that in Siena also, where the faction opposed to the Medici had come to power over the faction in favor of the Medici and Imperial rule, the techniques of covert criticism were also well-known. This scholar describes what could have been an extremely humorous (or per-haps embarrassing) situation in which the Emperor, arriving in the palazzo della podestà upon the occasion of his triumphal entry into the city in X of 1536, was greeted by the sight of murals which, albeit in a highly allusive way (since they relied on rather obscure references to classical history), made it very clear that the city, while nominally under the control of the Emperor as , still adhered to the traditions of its republican and communal past. As the author notes, Alessan-dro Piccolomini, wrote two plays which, also in an allusive way, manage to express his personal displeasure with this state of affairs: the first, L’amor costante, presented on the occasion of , be-gins in medias res with an extremely humorous contesa between a Spanish visitor to the city and his interlocutor, the , who reminds the Spaniard, subtly but in no uncertain terms, that this is in-deed an Italian city, where the language of Italian is spoken, that it would be advisable for him to recognize this fact, and, incidentally, would he please get off the stage so that the play can begin. This extremely humorous scene recalls both the Straccioni of Caro and the Nozze dell’Antilesina discussed above, where we also observe an array of Spanish characters who cling stubbornly to their sense of entitlement, and whose first response to any situation is an immediate resort to vio-lence, but who end up making fools of themselves in their absurdly-inflated sense of self-impor-tance and, in their obstinate persistence in speaking their own language in a foreign country, paradoxically end up isolating themselves completely from what is going on around them, and, being completely unable to understand what is happening around them, end up, for all their bra-gadoccio, looking like fools. The use of Pisa (another conquered city, one might note) as a stand-in for Siena, in its state of de facto subjugation to the forces of the Empire and its Medici vassals also recalls the use of the German tribes in Rucellai’s Rosmunda or Carthage in Trissino’s Sofon-isba, discussed above, as stand-ins for Italy in those plays, suggesting that this familiar Plautine device, in which the narrator explains the location of the action to the spectators or to another character, served, in many Renaissance comedies not as a mere stage device, but rather as a clue to the contemporary political references of the play. We might also note, once again, the theme of the attempted thwarting and final happy resolution of the marriage of two young lovers, a theme endlessly repeated in countless Renaissance comedies of Plautine inspiration, and which device, as we suggested in reference to Machiavelli’s Mandragola and Caro’s Straccioni, represents an allusion to the classically-derived theme of they tyrant’s attempted usurpation of a free city from its citizens, and the final frustration of these schemes and the return of the city, represented by a young woman, to her rightful possessor, the young and viral suitor, symbol of a reinvigorated and enterprising citizenry, undaunted by the tyrant’s attempts on her freedom.

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As we have noted, he receives his comuppance at the end of the play, when the judge reveals that he (and indeed, almost every character in the play) and Gisippo are re-lated, and severely rebukes him for his churlish behaviour, noting that his authority comes directly from the Pope: ! Why would you dare such insolence? Can’t you see that I represent the Pope? Cavalier, if you behave so lightly and irresponsibly during the reign of this Pope, whatever head you have left will be chopped off. Your boldness has been exces sive; you have created a private prison in the city of Rome, treated women brutal ly, attempted murder. your behaviour shows nothing but contempt for so lofty a prince (V.iv-v.). ! Just as the young lovers, whose union is celebrated at the end of the play, repre-sent, we suggest, Margaretta of Austria and Ottavio Farnese, so also, we would suggest, does Cavaliere Jordano and his wife Madama Argentina represent the Spanish King and Queen, who are united in support, not only of their dynastic designs on a chaste young woman (symbol, as suggested above, of Margaretta), but also of the claims of the two straccioni, Giovanni and Battista, in their attempts to repossess their jewels, symbols, as suggested above, of the Medici determination to reacquire that symbol of their influence and power, the Tazza Farnese. Assuming this interpretation of the symbolic function of the characters of the play is accepted, the former scheme (to secure Margaretta for them-selves) also corresponds, as in the case of the Tazza Farnese, to actual historical circum-stances prevailing at the time of the writing of the play, namely Cosimo’s desperate and relentless efforts to secure a marriage alliance with the Hapsburgs, ultimately frustrated by the Emperor’s decision to award his daughter’s hand to Ottavio Farnese instead.  332

Hence, we would suggest, not only does the play serve as a symbolic reenactment of the lust to acquire physical objects in the form of the Tazza Farnese, but also personal ones as well: the schemes of Cavaliere Jordano and Madama Argentina, symbols, we suggest, of Medicean dynastic ambitions also centered on a marriage, parallel those simi-lar schemes of those Renaissance dramas discussed above (in particular, Giovanni Rucel-lai’s Rosmunda and Ludovico Domenichi’s Procne), in which powerful male figures are determined to use any means necessary to secure the favours of a chaste young woman,

!332

! � 296

and which are also frustrated in those plays by the final intervention of a just judge (in Rucellai’s Rosmunda, Rosmunda’s lover ; in Domenichi’s Procne, Procne’s sister Philomela) who secures the liberation of the young woman and her betrothal to a young man who is truly worthy of her. In Caro’s play, this figure is represented, we suggest, by Tindaro, newly returned from the East (Chios, in Greece, a colony of Genova, traditional-ly a republic, free of Medicean domination), who, we also suggest, is meant to symbolize Ottavio Farnese, the young man destined to become Margaretta’s spouse.  Seen in this 333

light, the entire play may be seen as a “commedia-à-clef” for actual historical circum-stances prevailing at the time of its writing, a feature of the play explicitly mentioned by the author himself: The fact that all the characters in the play are related would also seem to allude to the close connections between the Medici of Florence and the Haps-burgs of Spain, to whose domination of Italian political life the Farnese of Rome were determined to provide an effective counterweight.  334

Hence, we would suggest, both the Tazza Farnese and Margaretta herself, seen as prized possessions of the Farnese family, become, in Caro's play, in the world of Farnese iconography, and in the real world of contemporary Rome, symbols of the removal of precious objects, one physical and the other human, from a place where they are used only as symbols of the personal power of the ruler and his concern with his dynastic am-bitions, to a place, that is, Farnese Rome, where they can find their best setting and serve the functions for which they are best suited, the Tazza as a potent symbol celebrating the family's commitment to an ethos of festive generosity, and Margaretta, as the spouse of Ottavio Farnese the means by which the just and magnanimous rule of the family can be continued into future generations.

! One of the ironies of this interpretation, assuming it is correct, is that Margaretta was333

! As another example of the use of the motif of Spain as a veiled allusion to its domina334 -tion of Italian political life in the cinquecento, we might also cite the play which con-cludes the capitoli of the Compagnia della Antilesina, The play takes as its theme the marriage of X to X, the former of whose dowery includes . Significantly, one of the characters who opposes the marriage and tries to secure X for himself, X, is Spanish, and, just as the other braggart soldiers of Italian Renaissance drama, speaks Spanish to X, a cook who is preparing the lavish banquet planned to celebrate the nuptials. The exchange between these two characters takes the form of a highly comic duel of verbal one-upman-ship, in which each boasts of his superior prowess in his chosen profession, and which threatens to erupt at any moment into a true “battle of the swords and saucepans”:

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Interestingly enough, the Tazza Farnese even appears, it would seem, in the elabo-rate frescoes commissioned by Chigi to decorate the ceiling of his villa on the via Lun-gara, mentioned above as a possible location for the elaborate celebrations which charac-terized the Papal court of Paul III and which may have been the historical which provid-ed the inspiration for the comic descriptions of festive banqueting recorded in the statutes of the Compagnia della Antilesina: In these frescoes, we also observe a scene of a lavish marriage, celebrated in the form of a feast of the gods, where Jupiter receives the newly-betrothed lovers Cupid and Psyche, and a lavish banquet accompanies the occasion where all the denizens of Heaven are present: !

It would be tempting to assign the creation of this fresco to precisely the time of the writing of Caro’s play and to see it as further evidence of the validity of our hypothe-sis of the play’s hidden meaning as a political allegory of the triumph of Farnese benevo-lence and generosity over Medici greed, but, unfortunately, the general agreement among art historians is that the frescos were actually painted by in . However, given the pur-chase of the palace by the Farnese family from its former occupants, the enormously rich Chigi family, bankers to the Papacy, to serve as center of their private festivities across the Tiber from their official residence, and hence the appropriateness of its ceiling deco-

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rations to the themes we have been discussing, we may perhaps be allowed to cite in this regard the old Italian proverb “se non è vero, è ben trovato.” To return to the theme of avarice, what connects both themes we have been dis-cussing, the contested and finally happy marriage of Tindaro to Giulietta, and the restoral of the Tazza Farnese to its rightful location in a court motivated by the same spirit of gen-erosity and public-mindedness which the cup itself depicts, is, of course, this same theme of avarice, seen, that is, not in the narrow sense of the acquisition of money, but rather as an overweening and obsessive need to possess at the expense of others, whether it be hu-man or artistic capital, a theme, as we note below, which formed, we suggest, through the association of the title of Caro's play with the revolt of the poor workers of Lucca, the po-litical subtext of the play. With this avariciousness the generosity and festive munificence of the Farnese family forms, both in Caro's play and in the actual world of Farnese iconography, a distinct and pointed contrast. From these citations, then, one can deduce that the play was intended as a kind of veiled allusion to the struggles of the Farnese family, in their self-appointed role as re-storers of a culture of decency and the rule of law to the city of Rome, with the regressive forces which stood in the way of such efforts. While the reference to the arrogant rich of Rome as one of the targets of these reforms is clear from the text itself, as the editor re-marks, historically, the family was equally deeply engaged in beating back the increasing-ly assertive claims of the Medici family to hegemony over Florence and its surrounding territory, as historians have noted. One example would be the Salt War of 1542, instigated by the Pope himself, in which papal forces defeated the combined forces of Ascanio Colonna and Rudolfo Baglioni, a captain in the service of Cosimo de’ Medici. This al-lowed the Pope to reassert papal control of the region for the Papal States.  335

Hence it would be surprising, in our view, if references to this struggle were not also present in a play which the author himself describes as being very much a product of its place and time, and which places such great emphasis on dramatizing the efforts of the family in resisting what it saw as the forces of tyranny and injustice in central and north-ern Italy. The play’s editors also note that the rags of the two straccioni are also an allusion to the revolt of the poor workers of Lucca in 1531, and are intended, just as the allusion to the Florence of the Medici encoded in the choice of their names, as a rebuke of the ar-

! Gli Straccioni x, xxvi.335

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rogance and prepotenza of the rich classes of Rome, who hypocritically complain of their newly-reduced status as the result of the policies of the Pope, where the reassertion of the rule of law, and the enforcement of a strict accountability for acts of arbitrary violence against the poor citizens of Rome formed an important part of Farnese domestic policy. If this interpretation of these two strange characters is accepted, we observe, once again, the use of highly symbolic means to express the true nature of Medici rule in Flo-rence. Their overweening avarice and their obsession with the family's own rights and prerogatives, against those of their dominion as a whole, lead to an attempted reposses-sion of the object most treasured by them as symbol of their absolute rule by individuals intended to recall to the mind of the astute reader the unscrupulous means the family was in actual fact all too willing to employ in the furtherance of their power in Renaissance Italy. With this greed in the service of personal self-aggrandizement, so vividly, yet allu-sively, portrayed in Caro’s play and in the statutes of the Compagnia della Lesina are con-trasted the beneficence and public-spiritedness of their great rivals, the Farnese family in Rome, the generosity and benevolence of whose rule also finds its expression in a potent pair of symbols, as we have seen. As the editors of Caro’s play have pointed out, in their devotion to creating a soci-ety dedicated to the rule of law and the rights of all citizens, even the less fortunate, the family was influenced by the writings of Giovanni Guidiccioni, in particular, his Orazione ai nobili di Lucca, intended as a defense of the poor workers in the city, who, protesting their treatment by the ottimati rulers of the city, had revolted in 1531, provok-ing severe reprisals on the part of the city’s governing elite. Making use of both classical and Biblical precedents, Guidiccioni appeals to these leaders' "better self," abjuring them to foreswear a vindictive severity against the poor, and reminding them, in an echo of classical political thought, as well as Machiavelli, that states are most secure with include all classes in their governance (most succinctly ex-pressed in the famous adage, often repeated in the Renaissance, iustitia fundamentum regni) since, again to paraphrase Machiavelli, all that the people ask is that they not be oppressed; if they are treated well, by a ruler who has their best interests at heart, they are quite willing to entrust themselves to his care, as long as he is guided by the principles of justice and reason. If the people are not treated fairly, they will seek a Dictator to support their cause, which, in the case of Lucca, as Guidiccioni pointedly remarks, could very

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well be Alessandro de' Medici, who had already made overtures to city leaders, and, ac-cording to Guidiccioni, if allowed an entrée into the city, would spare no efforts to reduce both the ottimati and the popolo to his tyrannical rule. Guidiccioni also makes clear that, while he uses the old topos of the plebs as a ravening beast, subject to its passions and easily mislead by a crafty leader who makes use of their grievances to further his own personal power, nevertheless, the grievances of the poor of Lucca have real merit, expressed in the "scrittarini e lettere" which they leave on the city's walls: ! Non avete voi diligentemente essaminato quel che importino quegli scrittarini e quelle lettere, che alcuna volta s'attaccano e si leggono per le mure? Niente altro significano, se non che il popolo con voce muta grida contra quei che governano. Laonde se voi sarete di quella prudenzia che debbono esser quelli, gli quali seg gono ne' publici luoghi, non cercherete di rimoverli dal governo né di inasprirli, anzi, se essi cercassero di alienarsi, come verisimilmente per lo mancamento de' guadagni far doveranno, dovete con ogni umano officio cercare di ritenerli.  336

! Such an appeal to reason in the treatment of the poor, and especially Guidiccioni's insistence that, for all their purported unsophistication, these masses have legitimate grievances and a legitimate right to representation in the governance of their city, is al-most unique in the writings of Italian political thinkers of the first half of the cinquecento. To return to the subject of the Farnese family and its commitment to a policy of generosity, the rule of law, and concern for the poor, and their indebtedness to the writ-ings of Guidiccioni, it is significant, in our view, that Guidiccioni ends his oration with a rebuke of the elders of his city for neglecting those who pursue "scienzie," that is, wis-dom, and dare to forsake the acquisition of money for the sake of service to the com-mune, although, by so doing, they risk condemnation and ridicule from their fellow-citi-zens. Guidiccioni even goes so far as to trace this abandonment of a commitment to public service on the part of those who should know better, and thus the present sorry state of the Luccan republic, directly to the sin of Avarice:

! Giovanni Guidiccioni, Orazione ai nobili di Lucca, ed. Carlo Dionisotti (Rome: Edi336 -zioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1945), 111.

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! Ma chi ha resa nella nostra republica poco prezzata questa generazione d'uomini literati? L'avarizia. Chi la renderà ogni dí meno? la medesima. Chi sgomenterà e rivocherà gli altri dalla via delli studi? L'avarizia. Chi manderà finalmente in exilio l'uso delle discipline? L'avarizia. Niuno meglio di voi conosce esser quasi notato d'infamia quel nobile, il quale, per seguitar gli studi, non vuole applicarsi alla mer catanzia. I ricchi solamente sono in eccellenza d'onore, e l'onore è nutrimento delle arti; ma, come dalla diligenzia e dalla fortuna nascono le ricchezze, cosí dalle ric chezze nasce la falsa felicità e la superbia, la quale è tanto odiosa a Dio, che non solamente è punita, come gli altri vizii, dalla divina pena, ma dalla indignazione. ! Guidiccioni ends his oration with an appeal to both classical and Christian sources to persuade his listeners to foreswear their evil ways, and reclaim their true status as benevolent and enlightened leaders: ! Ricevete nel vostro seno quelle due virtuose sorelle, Giustizia e Temperanzia, le quali per la loro convenienza in governare, in essequire e ubidire, furono dagli an tichi nominate Armonia. E usate finalmente le vostre ricchezze e i vostri consigli in onore d'Iddio, acchioché se pur sete invilupatti in qualche umano errore, siate almeno sciolti e liberi dalla impietà, sicuri di questo che, quanto tempo i mortali domineranno con poco rispetto della relligione, tanto meneranno vita faticosa e misera, e che è apparecchiata morte e rovina a quella città, la quale si governa e si regge senza la custodia e la guida d'Iddio. ! This "disprezzo della avarizia" on the part of Guidiccioni, in its insistence on the corrosive effects of this sin on the body politic, recalls the classical discussions of the vice, as well as those of Pontano and Rinuccini, cited above. Once again, we see that such a vice is not merely private, but has profound effects on the health of the body politic as a whole. Another piece of evidence, this one extra-textual, also points toward an interpreta-tion of the statutes of the Compagnia della Antilesina as a veiled celebration of the gen-

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erosity of the Farnese family, in pointed contrast to the self-aggrandizing and destructive greediness of their great rivals, the Medici in Florence. Hence--in the "tenzone" we have been describing between the miserly awls of the Medici, symbol of the pathological and debilitating miserliness of their rule in Florence, and the life-giving and restorative abundance of the golden cornucopias of the Farnese family in Rome--we have what could be called a "battle of the images," in which the Taz-za Farnese, symbol of Medici power and prestige, is held captive by the family's rivals in Rome, who convert this potent image into a symbol of their own public munificence, now held by them, as a kind of tutelary symbol of their own enlightened rule over Rome, where it is meant to stand for the spirit of public munificentia which characterized the family's self-presentation, placed in pointed contrast to the extreme miserliness of the Medici family, destructive of the welfare of their state, and bent only upon the further-ance of its own personal power, symbolized in its turn by the awls of the Compagnia del-la Lesina, which bore deeper and deeper into the midollo of the state, becoming, as we have seen, sharper with every use. As noted above, such a contrast between a life-giving and beneficent generosity and an enervating and debilitating miserliness was characteristic of Renaissance political thought on the character and actions of the just ruler, as opposed to the oppressive and destructive rule of the tyrant. If one accepts this interpretation of the strange festivities of the companies of the Lesina and Antilesina as expressed in their statutes, it leads to an interesting question: who could have formed the audience for these books? For whom was the allusive mes-sage critical of Medici rule intended? One piece of evidence is suggestive. Existing copies of the original edition of the statutes of the Compagnia della Lesina (Capitoli da osservarsi inviolabilmente della ven-erabile Compagnia della Lesina) are extremely rare. A search of the catalogue of world libraries turns up only 9 copies, and some bibliographers even seem unaware of the exis-tence of this edition. This suggests that the Medici censors were extremely active in con-fiscating copies of the book, which in turn suggests that, not only was the family aware of the latent subtext directed against the family expressed in the bizarre descriptions of the festivities of this company, but were also concerned that others, perhaps even outside of Florence, might also detect and find pleasure in the hidden critique of the family we have

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described.  We know that another book critical of Medici rule, which also encoded its 337

critique of the Medici in a highly allusive way, was also confiscated, even though it was published in Lyon, a center of anti-Medicean activities, and that the author was severely persecuted by the authorities.  338

This suggests a very active system of surveillance on the part of Medici censors even in centers very far from Italy. This in turn suggests that the public for such anti-Medicean and anti-Imperial works must have been quite wide-spread, and that the author-ities were well aware of this fact and determined to suppress such expressions of dissent, even if they took a highly symbolic form. This further implies that the public for such works must have been not only larger than what one might at first assume, but that they were also quite sophisticated in discern-ing and interpreting such messages. In Chapters 1 and 2, we noted the highly allusive messages directed against Medici rule in the works of several of the most famous artists and writers of the time; if such men, in full public view, were capable of creating such messages (which assumes that at least some members of their audience were capable of receiving and interpreting them), then it seems reasonable to assume that others, perhaps less famous, such as the members of the Compagnie della Lesina and Antilesina, might have been capable of creating such messages as well, relying on the abilities of the public to whom they addressed themselves to be capable of discerning and interpreting them correctly (although, as noted above, several of the possible members of the Compagnia della Antilesina were extremely highly placed, and the “academy” may have met in the gardens of the Pope himself). That the public for these strange works was indeed wide-spread is attested to by the fact that, while the first edition of the work was very possibly

! For Medici censorship, see Paul Grendler, Culture and Censorship in Late Renais337 -sance Italy and France (London: Variorum Reprints, 1981), Nicolò Franco, Dialogo del venditore di libri: 1539-1593, ed. Mario Infelise (Venice: Marsilio, 2005), Ugo Rozzi, La letteratura italiana negli ʻIndici' del Cinquecento (Udine: Forum, 2005).

! The text in question is Florentinae historiae libri octo priores, by a certain “Gian 338

Michele Bruto,” published in Lyon in 1562. Of this work, Moreni notes: “L’opera, pub-blicata in risposta alle "Istorie" di Paolo Giovio, narra più di un secolo di storia fiorentina (dal 1380 al 1492) e si arresta alla morte di Lorenzo il Magnifico. Permeata di spirito re-pubblicano, reca una impronta decisamente antimedicea. Cosimo I ne ostacolò la circo-lazione e perseguitò l’autore” (Moreni, I, 180).

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!!!immediately detected and suppressed by the Medici censors, subsequent editions kept appearing, even well into the 17th century:

!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!

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These even included a Dutch edition of the Capitoli della Antilesina, published in Holland in 1697 (see last illustration above). We also noted above several French editions of the work, attesting to its popularity beyond the borders of Italy. The places of publication of these later Italian editions of the Capitoli della Lesina are also suggestive: Vicenza, Ferrara, Orvieto, Bologna, Venice: all in northern Italy, in places somewhat removed (with the exception of Venice) from the large urban centers. What this suggests is that, while Medici and imperial censorship of these works critical of Medici and Imperial rule was effective in central Italy, as evidenced by the ex-treme rarity of the first Florentine edition, there was greater latitude to publish and dis-tribute these anti-Medicean texts in northern Italy and in France, a hypothesis which con-forms to what is already known about the survival of opposition to imperial rule in the latter part of the cinquecento and the first half of the seicento.  339

Finally, several editions of the capitoli of the Compagnia della Lesina are very small, and printed on cheap paper, without name of publisher, place of publication, or year: In English, these small pamphlets are called chapbooks, and were sold by itinerant peddlers in all the European countries from the sixteenth century on. It was common practice to print the contents of these popular texts on one large page (called in English broadsheets and in Italian fogli volanti), once again with no indi-cation of either printer or place of publication, intended for public display, either in the bookseller’s shop or in some other locationThis would also have facilitated the wide dis-tribution of their contents while guaranteeing anonymity for their author and, as with the

! There were several French editions of both the capitoli of the Lesina and the An339 -tilesina: La Fameuse Compagnie de la Lésine, ou Alesne; c’est à dire, la manière d'espa-rgner, acquérir et conserver. Ouvrage non moins utile pour le public que delectable pour la variété des rencontres, pleins de doctrine admirable, et de moralité autant qu'il est pos-sible. (Paris: Boutonne, 1618), La Contre-Lésine, ou plustot Discours, constitutions et louanges de la libéralité, remplis de moralité, de doctrine, et beaux traicts admirables. Augmentez d'une comédie intitulées Les Nopces d'Antiséline. Ouvrage du pasteur Mon-apolitain. Suivi de: Les Nopces d'Antiseline. Comédie nouvelle, extraicte des discours de la Contre-lésine. Par le pasteur Monapolitain. Et traduicte nouvellement de l'italien par le Pasteur Philandre (Paris: Saugrain, 1604). Note the humorous addition of the words “au-tant qu’il est possible” to the title of the Boutonne edition.

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chapbooks, also indicates a surprisingly high level of literacy among members of the working and lower classes.  340

! In this charming picture of English country life, we see that the chapbooks play, alongside plough irons and London gloves, an important role in the everyday life of those who live and work in the English countryside. To draw attention to his wares, the chap-man will sing verses taken from the small books he is selling, which milkmaids will then take home with them to ease the drudgery and monotony of their daily lives on the farm. If there were a clandestine anti-Medicean message present in the capitoli of the compa-nies of the Lesina and Antilesina, as we have been suggesting, the format of these small books would have been ideal for its wide distribution and easy concealment: the book

! For the Italian fogli volanti, see the excellent summary in the Dizionario storico della 340

Svizzera under the entry “Fogli volanti,” available online at http://www.hls-dhs-dss.ch/textes/i/I10465.php, Ugo Rozzo, La strage ignorata: i fogli volanti a stampa nell'Italia dei secoli XV e XVI (Udine: Forum, 2008) and Raymund Wilhelm, Italienische Flugschriften des Cinquecento (1500-1550): Gattungsgeschichte und Sprachgeschichte (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1996) and Not Dead Things: The Dissemination of Popular Print in England and Wales, Italy, and the Low Countries, 1500-1820, ed. Roeland Harms, Joad Raymond, Jeroen Salman (Leiden: Brill, 2013).

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could be hidden in some article of clothing, or even inside another volume, should its possessor receive notice of the presence of Medici or Imperial agents seeking to confis-cate copies of the book and punish the owner with a fine, and, in such an event, the pam-phlet could also be easily and quickly disposed of.  341

We have already noted the wide variety of genres available in chapbook form in Renaissance Italy: avvisi, or news of the day, prognostici, or calendars listing important dates, such as saint’s days and movable feasts, and auspicious times to plant or harvest, epics or mock-epics derived from the oral tradition, saint’s lives, reports of mostri, or prodigies of nature and natural disasters, first-hand accounts of wars, the defeat of the Turks, Christians sold into slavery, the sacking or liberation of cities, tender love-ballads. Such small, inexpensive pamphlets, both entertaining in themselves, and also containing (in the case of the opuscoli describing the activities of the companies of the Lesina and Antilesina) a hidden critique of contemporary affairs and the actions of two of the biggest contemporary players on the Italian stage, Cosimo de’ Medici and Charles V, would have found an enthusiastic and appreciative audience, even well outside the large urban cen-ters, for these ephemeral productions which found a place among the wares of the Italian equivalents of the English chapmen, the venditori ambulanti.  342

James Scott, whose work we cited above, has remarked on the importance of such marginal individuals as the travelling merchant and the bard in the diffusion of ideas fall-ing outside the accepted norms, and thus the furtherance and elaboration of alternative

! For an excellent discussion of the distribution of chapbooks and their role in the dis341 -semination of knowledge in Renaissance and later Europe, see Small Books for the Com-mon Man: a Descriptive Bibliography, ed. John Meriton, with Carlo Dumontet (London: British Library; New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press, 2010) and Margaret Spufford, Small Books and Pleasant Histories: Popular Fiction and its Readership in Seventeenth Centu-ry England (Athens, Ga: University of Georgia Press, 1982).

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narratives, or “hidden transcripts,” as direct challenges to the stories rulers tell themselves and their subjects as a means of justifying and legitimizing their rule: ! The elaboration of hidden transcripts depends not only on the creation of relatively unmonitored physical locations and free time but also on active human agents who create and disseminate them. The carriers are likely to be as socially marginal as the places where they gather. Since what counts as socially marginal depends so heavily on cultural definitions, the carriers will vary greatly by culture and over time. In early modern Europe, for example, it seems that the carriers of folk culture played a key role in developing the subversive themes of the carnivalesque. Ac tors, acrobats, bards, jugglers, diviners, itinerant entertainers of all kinds might be said to have made their living in this fashion. Other itinerants—journeymen, craftsmen on tour, tinkers, col porteurs, shoemakers, petty traders, vagrants, healers, “tooth artists”—while perhaps less active in elaborating a dissident subculture, might be important vectors of its propagation. . . .Finally, a good many of these groups depend directly on the patronage of a lower-class public to make their living. The clergyman who must rely on popular charity or the bard who expects his audience to feed him and give small contributions is likely to convey a cultural message that is not at odds with that of his public. . . .the bard who sings for an audience of subordinates will have a repertoire more in keeping with the hidden transcript than a bard who is retained exclu sively to sing praise-songs to the prince.  343

! We have already noted the carnivalesque quality of many of the celebrations of the Compagnia della Cazzuola and the possible presence of a veiled anti-medicean message in their carnival song. The fact that without exception, the many editions of the statutes of the company which appeared throughout Europe from around the middle of the 16th cen-tury to the middle of the following century appeared in chapbook format, and were thus to a large extent to be found not in bookshops (where they could be more easily detected and confiscated by the authorities) but rather among the varied wares of the traveling merchants and book sellers described above is another indication that these works repre-sent examples of the “hidden transcript” so aptly described by Scott. If such is the case, it

! For a fascinating recent account of popular artistic productions used to critique an oppressive regime, 342

and the care which the producers and consumers of these took to avoid detection, see Jacqueline Adams, Art against Dictatorship: Making and Exporting Arpilleras Under Pinochet (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2013). For a study of the means by which marginalized or powerless groups were able to express dissent in ways difficult to detect in modern-day Indonesia, see James Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985). Several scholars have assured me that other cultures not only engage in such practices, but even have elaborate theoretical dis-cussions of them, akin to those of the Greek rhetoricians discussed in Chapter 1. The cultures in question are Iran and China.

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would imply that the allusive anti-medicean and anti-imperial message we claim to be present in these works was both understood and appreciated by a wide public consisting not only of members of the upper educated classes (here we may recall the highly erudite references to the Pythagoreans and the Etruscans on the part of the maestro dei discepoli described above), but also of middle and lower-class readers, the latter two of which groups suffered the negative effects of Cosimo’s rule particularly severely, as we saw in the vivid accounts of the Marucelli chronicle cited above.  Whether these works pro344 -voked any form of direct resistance to the political or religious status quo during these years is a question we cannot answer at this point. But if we allow for the validity of Scott’s hypothesis of the dynamic role and function of the hidden transcript in effecting, sooner or later, political change, it seems entirely possible that they did.  345

The theme of a fanatical and destructive avariciousness, which, according to the compilers of the statutes of the two companies we have been examining, characterized Medici and Imperial rule in the Italy of the mid-cinquecento, and was placed by them in polemical opposition to a benevolent and public-spirited generosity, finds expression in

! James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven and 343

London: Yale University Press, 1990). For the role of popular entertainers and booksellers in the diffusion of controversial ideas in Renaissance Italy, and excellent discussions of the struggle to control the public sphere (both physically in the piazza and metaphorically, in the struggle for supremacy of competing discourses), see . We noted above X’s discussion of Cosimo’s sending a funambulist into the piazza in front of Santa Maria Novella to disrupt public lectures in the newly re-established Accademia fiorentina as a means of demonstrating his absolute control of public discourse in Renaissance Florence.

! Poorer residents of the city and the countryside would not have been able to avail 344

themselves of the protective measures against plague and famine recommended by the author of the enigmatic poem which concludes the statutes of the company.

! carbonari? That the statutes of the Lesina reached as far as England is attested to by 345

the fact that the earliest, and rarest, quarto edition of the work was to be found in the li-brary of one of the foremost bibliophiles and collectors of the 17th century, William. However, ..(collected, not read?) The statutes were very popular in France, as demon-strated by the author of the privilège of the 1604 French edition of the work, published by Abraham Saugrin in Paris: “Nostre bien amé A. Saugrin. . .nous a faict dire et remonstrer que depuis plusieurs annés en ça il se seroit estudié å rechercher à grands frais les hommes plus doctes qu’il auroit peu recouvrer en la cognoissance des langues Françoise et Italienne, pour traduire un livre intitulé Famosissima Compagnia della Lesina, ensem-ble la Contralesina con le nozze d’Antilesina, imprimée par plusieurs et diverses fois en Italie, et auroit employé beaucoup de temps, et grande somme d’argent pour advancer ladite traduction, laquelle il desireroit volontiers faire continuer” (Raymond Lebègue, “Tableau de la Comédie Française de la Renaissance,” Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Re-naissance 8 (1946), 278-344). Note the writer’s reference to the many Italian editions of the work, a testament to its enduring popularity in the late Renaissance and the early years of the seicento.

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many other cultural productions of Renaissance Italy. We will briefly examine several of them here. The canti carnascialeschi of Giambattista Ottonaio (a member of the Compagnia della Cazzuola, as noted in Chapter 3), taken together, present a vivid picture of the tenor of social life in Florence prevailing in the second and third decades of the 16th century. As noted above, a carnivalesque, anti-authoritarian element was a prominent feature of the celebrations of the festivities of the Compagnia della Cazzuola, also expressed in the carnival song of the company, where a festive, joking element provided a kind of "cover" for the expression of the anti-Medicean sentiments, since Carnival-time was the time tra-ditionally allowed for the expression of sentiments critical of the ruling regime. Otton-aio’s Canzone gives vivid expression to the corrosive effects of greed on the social and political life of Florence in the second decade of the 16th century, soon after the Medici return to power in the fall of 1512: In Chapter 3, we noted the survival into the late 1540s of several organizations which—in their meeting places, far from the watchful eyes of Medici censorship, their membership, which consisted for the most part of members of the working and middle classes, together with some ottimati, and their activities, which featured elaborate ban-quets accompanied by theatrical productions satirizing the political and religious status quo of their times—bore a very close resemblance to the Compagnia della Cazzuola. In a similar way, the ethos of the Compagnia della Lesina managed to survive long after any trace of its existence—if indeed, it existed at all—disappears from the historical record. In a fascinating and little-known document, Giovanni Cosimo Villifranchi gives us a description of another compagnia, this one with the name Compagnia dell'Arsura, which made its appearance in late 17th century Florence. ! Just as with the Compagnia della Cazzuola, which, as we noted in Chapter 3, was accustomed to changing its meeting places, which were often known only to the members through special signs, so also was the "Academy" of the Arsura difficult to locate, down a narrow alley off the via della Pellicceria and into a small piazza, the Piazzetta dei Pilli, whose entry way, once found, was even more difficult of access: È (come io vi dissi) questo luogo, dove gl'Arsi fanno i loro ritrovati, in un angolo della piccola piazza de' Pilli rincontro alla Loggia della medesima famiglia, nella

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qual piazza s'entra per l'angustezza d'un strettissimo chiassuolo. La porta che serve per entrare a salire in detta stanza mostra d'esser più tosto una tana di gufi, che in gresso d'abitazione umana, perchè oltre all'essere alta dal terreno più di tre braccia, essendo fabbricata parte di mattoni rosi dal tempo e parte di pietre vive, si può chiamare più giustamente straccio di muraglia, che artificiosa apertura; . . .Ma fi nalmente ella è quella porta che senz'alcuna cortesia di risposo vi caccia in una sala, per dove si sale alla detta stanza: la qual' scala mi credo che sia simile a quel la per dove uno si conduce all'abitazione dello spavento; perchè è fatta di scalini così malconci, che è necessario non aver sonno per salire; sì che si puol dire col Poeta: Ov'avria rotto il collo ogni destr’orso. ! In somma questa scala, o per meglio dire, fragmento di scala, è peggiore di quella dell'Inferno, perchè in questa, secondo Virgilio, facilis descensus, e solamente re vocare gradum, hoc opus, hic labor est; ma in quella è quasi impossibile la salita e più pericolosa la scesa; ma pure quella ha qualche amorevolezza, che non ha la porta, perchè in fine ha un piccolo pianetto a mano manca per riposo necessario; perchè quivi si devono saltare non dico salire, perchè salir qui è assolutamente im possibile, tre altri scaglioni che pure si conosce che vi erono per salire alla prefata stanza, nella quale fanno gli Arsi le loro adunanze.  346

Once the visitor had survived this grueling ordeal, and had finally made it to the penetralia of this organization, he was greeted by a scene of abject squalor, in which even the furniture mirrored the founding principle of this Academy, a devotion, just as we ob-served in the Compagnia della Lesina, to an extreme and comical form of poverty, reflec-tive of the status of this academy as a meeting-place for young artists: ! In questa stanza non si nota coltura alcuna: le mura arsiccie e mal incrostate, il pavimento ineguale, le travi assicurate da rozzi puntelli, piene di scalcinati e di rotture; e pare che la natura o l'accidente abbi avuto compassione alla tanta infir mità di questa stanza, e però gli abia fatto in un canto un cauterio, che continua

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mente getta material salsa e putrida. Ha poi un cammino in una cantonata che par fabbricato con quelle pietre che avanzarono all'incendio di Troia.  347

! Aiutano la naturalezza del luogo le masserizie che vi sono, consistenti in alcune panchette, che già furono da letto, e per star male in piedi, è convenuto mutar mestiero per farsi sostener da coloro che vi seggono. Alcuni tavolini poi così scon quassati guasti che più difficile è il servirsi di quelli, che non sarebbe stato il voler servirsi della tavola rotonda del Re Artù qual'è senza un piede, e si fa gruccia di un cantone d'una finestra, quale per essere sconfitta pare la calcola d'un tessitore, o i pedali d'un organo, e che si ficca i piedi in capo, in maniera che posandovisi sopra qualche peso ancora che leggeri, se ne scende regolatamente in terra, e vi forma un bel fondo di calesso con la sua colonnetta. Maggior fortuna si trova in alcune seg giole di Pistoja, perchè l'esser quasi tutte senza l'intero fondo, o sedere, fa che pos sano anco servire per predella, o seggetta per l'uso necessario. ! And, in a delightful parody of the formal seriousness of the academic oration, the members of the Compagnia dell'Arsura delivered their orations while standing in a fire-place, amid the cinders left over from the conviti of its members: ! In faccia [dalla finestra], rincontro alla finestra, era la lor comune impresa, che è un cammino, in cui è un monte di cenere spenta, e nel frontale è scritto Arsi, e nel l'architrave quella dell'Impresa, in un verso, che dice: Sotto cenere fredda il fuoco ascondo. Questo cammino era fabbricato di regoli che portavano la gola sino al palco, et erano coperti di tela dipinta. In mezzo a detta gola era uno straccio tanto grande che pareva una finestrella, alla quale doveva star quello che doveva recitare l'Orazione, e di esso servirsi per cattedra, entrandovi per disotto.  348

!

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Indeed, as the author of this account makes clear, this fireplace was the impresa of the Compagnia itself, where, written on the front was the word Arsi, and on the architrave their motto, "Sotto cenere fredda il fuoco ascondo.” And, just as with the Compagnia della Lesina, the names of the members and their imprese, displayed on the rough walls of their artists’ den, reflected the state of "volun-tary" poverty "enjoyed" by its members: the Worn Out One, the Impoverished One, the Entangled One, the Derelict, the Burnt Out One, the Dried Up One.  349

As with the Compagnia della Cazzuola, the Compagnia dell'Arsura was made up primarily of artists and musicians, and spent its time in festive banqueting, musical and theatrical performances, and games: ! E perchè all'esser Arso ripugna totalmente il giuco, et ancora perchè non hanno alcun di loro questo vizio, per trattenersi nelle veglie con allegria, essendo fra di loro molti versati nella musica; condotto nella stanza uno strumento di tasti, Basso di Viola, Violini e Viole, principiarono a farvi ogni sera trattenimenti geniali di sin fonie e di musica: cose che allettando le genti, fece essere numerosa cotesta Adunanza. L'avanzo poi di quelle ore che non si spendevano nella musica, si con sumavano in fare il sibillone, il mazzolino, i mestieri, e simili trattenimenti ridicoli e piacevoli senza vizio alcuno, e quelli che a tali giuochi erravano, erano condan nati in piccole somme di denari, con i quali si compravano robe comestibili per sovvallo dei loro mangiari.  350

! As also with the Compagnia della Cazzuola, the Compagnia dell'Arsura had its beginning in an apparently random event: ! Giunto il passato mese di novembre 1682, quando per Ognissanti si cominciano le veglie, ritrovandosi la medesima conversazione in detto luogo [their meeting place in the Piazza dei Pilli], e passando il tempo fino all'ora di cena in onesti e piacevoli discorsi, fu da alcuni di loro proposto il fare in quel luogo un Accademia col nome

! � 314

d'Arsura. . . . Piacque il pensiero, e datisi scherzando a fare i lor ordini o capitoli, cominciarono a passare le veglie motteggiando sopra questa cosa, e proponendo or l'una, or l'altra nova e ridicolosa sottigliezza per ben reggere e governare detta Ac cademia, nella forma che già facevano in Firenze quie della Compagnia del Man tellaccio, come si cava da quello che ne lasciò scritto il Mag.o Lorenzo de' Medici; e portando sempre qualche dogma della più raffinata lesina.  351

! E perchè, come dice il comune proverbio, scogli i cani e lor s'appaiano, sono per lo più tutti amici dell'allegria, e per dirla con la frase paesana, buon compagnoni: quindi nasce, che dilettandosi spesso di essere a tavola insieme, segue per lo più che al finire del mese non vi è di loro chi facci grandi avanzi, e però il più delle volte son più tosto scarsi che abbondanti di denaro, onde scherzando qualcheduno di loro, che si trova senza soldi, suol dire, io sono arso; così a poco a poco è di venuta questa frase un loro dettame.  352

! It is interesting that the founding of these compagnie di piacere, as presented in their statutes, seems to happen almost by chance, and out of the daily life and ongoing activities of their members, and usually in a festive setting: even before the founding of the Compagnia della Cazzuola, its precursor, the festive association of the Ciompi, as noted in Chapter 3, arose in a similar manner, when its members, far gone in a state of happy inebriation, began to shout "Ciompo, Ciompo." And the Compagnia della Cazzuo-

! Palagi 24-25.346

! Palagi 25. Citations from this text are from Giuseppe Palagi, L’Origine e le Feste del347 -l’Academia dell’Arsura in Firenze (Florence: Le Monnier, 1874), available in the War-burg’s digital collection of works on the early Italian academies, cited above.

! Palagi 27.348

! Palagi gives a nice summary of the academic names of the members and their personal 349

imprese.

! Palagi 12-13.350

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la also began in a similar manner, we may recall, when a mason's trowel was used to ladle a portion of quicklime into the unsuspecting mouth of the host.  353

In the accounts of the founding of these societies, then, it thus seems almost as if their very spontaneity and almost random choice of name were intended, in marked con-trast to the formalities, rules and regulations, and hierarchical organization of the more formal Medicean academies, as an assertion of their organic nature vis-à-vis the societies from which they arose, issuing spontaneously out of its working-class soil, in marked contrast to the highly programmatic and often coercive nature of those organizations sponsored by the Medici rulers of the city, perhaps the best expression of which was the formation of the Compagnia del Mantellaccio described above, where, unlike the "spon-taneous" embrace of poverty on the part of the members of the Accademia della Lesina, the society was deliberately formed, in the view of the compiler of its statutes, as a means of projecting a carefully-cultivated image of rectitude on the part of its members. This organic quality also found a symbol in the tree reaching to the center of the earth from the heart of the gonfalone of the lesinanti, as noted above. As we observed in our discussion of the Accademia della Lesina, for the Arsuri, the exercise of temperance in their eating habits was fundamental to their ethos of pru-dence and self-restraint: ! Comandarono che nella spesa di lor mangiari s'avesse ogni risparmio; che s'anda sse a provedere e portare la roba da sè; che quelle robe che andavano rinvolte in fogli, si facessero involtar bene con più fogli, non tanto per buscarne maggior ! Palagi 10.351

! Palagi 9.352

! It seems entirely possible that the obsession with the repair of their shoes which char353 -acterizes the members of the Compagnia della Lesina, and which, according to the com-piler of its statutes, played a prominent role in the founding of the company, might also be a reference to the Ciompi, since, while all the Italian dictionaries express ignorance as to the etymology of the word (some speculate that it derives from the French “compare,” a reference to their rather improbable association with the knights of Walter of Brienne), a more likely derivation, in our view, would have been from the German root of the word “clomp,” an allusion to the wooden shoes worn by the Ciompi in the course of their daily work. A source at Wikipedia notes that a flag depicting a regular leather shoe of a type worn by peasants in the 16th century was carried by the peasants in the German peasants war of 1524-1525, a proto-anarchist rebellion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anar-chist_symbolism).

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quantità e poterli rivendere, quanto perchè dovendo per lo più servir loro per piat to, potessero meglio resistere; come ancora l'insalata per la medesima ragione si facesse infilare in più giunchi.  354

! Here, as with the Compagnia della Lesina, we encounter once again the theme of food, and its sober and temperate enjoyment, as symbol of the upstanding moral character of its members, in pointed contrast to the wanton wasting of resources characteristic of the miseri avari of the Compagnia della Lesina, symbols, as we have seen, of the nature of Medici rule in Florence. A nice classical touch is provided by the preference of mem-bers of the company for salads, lettuce being a well-known symbol of Pythagorian re-straint, emblematic of the company's self-identity as a fellowship of like-minded artists and musicians, bent on passing their time in "trattenimenti onesti" and the pursuit of their craft. Even at their most splendid feast, the Arsuri exercised an admirable restraint: ! La cena fu di vivande assai delicate e benissimo condizionate e con ordine tanto bello, che non pareva che alcuna cosa si potesse desiderare; e niente vi fu di super fluo: e fu osservata una sottigliezza arsuresca, che il salsiciotto e il parmigiano fu messo in tavola sopra quei medesimi fogli raddoppiati, dentro ai quali era stato messo dal pizzicagnolo, e che questi furono tutti diligentemente radunati dal loro puntualissimo provveditore Rifinito; il quale terminata la cena, e licenziati i com mensali forestieri, adunò gli avanzi e messe in un caldano tutta la cenere che si trovò in diversi scaldavivande serviti per la tavola, et in alcuni raveggi stati portati pieni da diversi per scaldarsi le mani, e poi lasciati a benefizio del luogo.  355

! Here we may observe the same combination of temperate enjoyment and concern for others which characterized the conviti of the Compagnia della Lesina described above. The author of this description of the Compagnia dell’Arsura even goes so far as to note that, just as the surroundings of their normal meeting place, in their state of dilapida-

! Palagi 11.354

! Palagi 23.355

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tion and decrepitude, reflected their ethos of poverty, so also, on this their special day, do the furnishings of their banquet hall reflect their commitment to prudence and self-re-straint even in the midst of festive abundance: “La tavola era apparecchiata con una bian-chissima tovaglia, ma artificiosamente accomodata in maniera, che nè per la testa nè per le bande non avanzava un dito di superfluo.”  356

Just as the members of the Compagnia della Cazzuola added the image of the tad-pole (Cazzuola) to their impresa of the working-man's trowel, so also did the members of the Academia dell'Arsura embellish their feasts with a prominent display of radishes and turnips, a kind of poor man's answer to the grandiose lilies of the Medici family which adorned every available public space in Florence, and the title-pages of innumerable texts published with their support. As in the other compagnie we have been examining, we observe, once again, in this late 17th century version of the Compagnia della Lesina, the themes of poverty and voluntary simplicity, as opposed to avariciousness and the sanctimonious display of wealth, used to make an implicit, but nevertheless forceful, indictment of the cultural and political life of early modern Florence. And just as the impresa of the Compagnia della Cazzuola reflected the largely working-class origins of its members, so also does the emblem of the Compagnia dell'Ar-sura--the pile of ashes described above--reflect both the poverty of its members and also (if one accepts that it might have another, more recondite, meaning) its potential to func-tion as a place of covert resistance and potential challenge to the social and political sta-tus quo of late 17th century Florence, since, like a volcano, under its apparently tranquil surface, it conceals the seeds of fire, which could be fanned into flames at any time. For contemporary educated Florentines, the pile of ashes would have also immediately re-

! Palagi 21.356

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called the myth of the Phoenix, who is consumed by fire, but then rises up to live again.  357

And finally, the Carnival song of this artist's den makes clear that it functioned not only as a semi-secret meeting place, out of sight of the eyes of the ruling regime of the city (Villifranchi even notes that the evening drawing classes offered to the young artists had to be suspended because all the other young and talented artists of the city, having heard of their existence, promptly abandoned their classes at the Academy of Design, to

! Another example of the widespread use of the theme of poverty, presented in comic or 357

tragi-comic guise, as a form of social critique in late Renaissance Italy is the enormous popularity of Giulio Cesare Croce’s Le Piacevoli e Ridicolose Semplicità Di Bertoldino Figliuolo Dell'Astuto ed Accorto Bertoldo Con Le Sottili, ed Argute Risposte Della Mar-golfa Sua Madre, Moglie di Esso Bertoldo, first published c. 1608. This work appeared in many editions, including many in chapbook form, almost all of them, as the statutes of the companies of the Lesina and Antilesina, printed in northern Italy. Croce’s work even served as the inspiration for several comic operas of the 1700s and for a play by Goldoni. The work remained extremely popular in Italy well into the 20th century, and at least ten separate editions appeared during the Fascist era, once again attesting to the power and longue durée of this type of critique, in which the self-mocking and humorous misery of the protagonist serves as a cover for serious social criticism. In the Fascist-era editions of the work, not only does the “hero’s” semi-comic state of impoverishment serve as veiled critique of social and political conditions in Fascist Italy, but the colorful covers of these editions also present the peasant as a kind of clown. This latter representation of Bertol-do, who leaves his farm to serve the king of the Lombards Alboino (interesting enough, the same king who served as a symbol of the Emperor Charles V in Rucellai’s Rosmunda, discussed above) might have represented, it seems reasonable to speculate, a veiled satire of Il Duce himself, a man of relatively humble origins in the northern Italian province of Emilia, best known for its agricultural products. As we note below, the use of the theme of a kind of semi-humorous poverty as veiled political and social critique by the compa-nies of the Lesina and Antilesina continued to be popular from its origins in the mid-cinquecento through the early and late seicento to the early ottocento and even down to the present day. Regarding the use of Bertoldo to indict Mussolini’s regime, an Italian bookseller has remarked regarding an important periodical of the period, the first issue of which appeared on July 14 1936: “Il Bertoldo fu una rivista settimanale (inizialmente bisettimanale) di umorismo e satira pubblicata a Milano dal 14 luglio 1936 al 10 settem-bre 1943 dalla Rizzoli. Il giornale si affermò subito per il suo stile innovativo, del tutto nuovo per la vignettistica italiana: le vedovone di Guareschi, gli omini un po' folli di Mosca, la celebre rubrica Bertoldo erano esempi di anticonformismo e di leggerezza che si opponevano allo stile ‘paludato’ dei giornali dell’epoca.”

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the obvious embarrassment of the latter’s sponsors), but that it also performed another important social function. Just as the Compagnia della Cazzuola, the Compagnia dell'A-sura was especially active during times of Carnival, and, just as the Cazzuola, took an ac-tive part in those celebrations in their preparation of a procession, complete with music and visual displays, and a special carnival song which proudly boasted of the excellence and importance of the Company, and which also, as we describe below, presented, in a more overt way than the Carnival song of the Compagnia della Cazzuola, a critique of the contemporary state of civic life in Florence, to which their company provided a superior alternative:

!Images of Bertoldo 1700s-1930s:

!

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Here again, as with the Compagnie della Cazzuola, Lesina and Antilesina, beneath this apparently joking and unserious description lies a serious political message: not only does the Arsuran insistence on a prudent and parsimonious temperance in the conduct of their daily life serve as an implied rebuke of the then-current state of civic life in Flo-rence, where an ethos of greed, self-interest and self-display (vividly expressed in the canzoni of Ottonaio discussed above) prevailed, but, perhaps more important, the civic message contained in the feasts of these artists and musicians (characterized, as we have seen, by a combination of frugal banqueting and festive celebration) was one of fellow-

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ship and solidarity in the face of social fragmentation and a civic culture marked by an every-man-for-himself mentality and the incessant pursuit of personal gain.  358

! Here we might cite Mattio Venier’s La strazzosa, an extremely humorous mock-pe358 -trarchan poem of the latter half of the cinquecento, in which the poet claims that he prefers his lover to be dressed in the rags (stracci) of a peasant than adorned with pre-cious gems and clothing, and to live among the pigs and chickens of their humble country house than to frequent the courts of the rich and mighty. The first several stanzas of the poem are worth quoting for the extremely clever and humorous “ekphrasis” they provide of life among the poor but happy of cinquecento Italy: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!The editor of this poem notes that it was extremely popular in Italy in the late 1500s, cir-culating in many forms (some anonymous and some in dialect) particularly among the republican exiles from Florence, where the return of the Medici to power in 1530 and the domination of Italian political life by Charles V and the Spanish rendered many of them not only poor, but completely marginal to Italian political life. The editor notes that this poem was enormously popular in cinquecento Italy, circulating widely in many forms, many of them anonymous, and was especially appreciated among the exiles in Florence,

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That this appeal to the values which characterized (at least in the minds of her re-publican supporters) a Florence of a former day was broadly appealing to citizens outside the company is made clear by the frequent mention in Villifranchi’s text of supporters and sympathizers among the general population of the city, the most prominent of whom was Filippo Corsini, a friend and associate of Cosimo III, who, in his capacity of "Cacciatore maggiore and Gran Cavallerizzo," supplied the company with a deer for their feast.  359

As in the other companies we have been examining, we observe, once again, in this late 17th century version of the Compagnia della Lesina, the themes of poverty and voluntary simplicity, as opposed to avariciousness and the sanctimonious display of

! Palagi 20. See also Mara Visonà, Carlo Marcellini, Accademico “Spiantato” nella 359

cultura fiorentina tardo-barocca (Pisa: Pacini, 1990), cited above.

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wealth, used to make an implicit, but nevertheless forceful, indictment of the cultural and political life of early modern Florence.  360

Hence, in our study of the Companies of the Cazzuola, Lesina, Antilesina, and Ar-sura, it becomes apparent that the theme of food and festive banqueting, whether with-held (as punishment of the tyrant for his political sins, as with the Compagnia della Caz-zuola), consumed with temperance and self-restraint (as with the Companies of the Lesina and Arsura), or consumed lavishly in a festive display of public munificentia and generosity (as with the Company of the Antilesina), took on, in the second through the fifth decades of the 16th century, and even beyond, a very wide range of symbolic mean-ings, all of these meanings being political in nature. And, as we have seen, this symbolic, political use of the twin themes of generosity and miserliness (or their culinary equiva-

! There is even a nineteenth-century version of the capitoli of the Lesina, published in Florence in 1813 360

in which the editor alludes in his Avviso al lettore to the clandestine nature of the group: "Ser meo Spilor-cioni Fù il Fondatore di questa adunanza detta della Lesina, i Lesinanti Fratelli s'appellavano sotto il titolo di Massaio, e la loro costituzione era quella di ricercare i mezzi della più stretta economia, ricoperta da un velo della più soprafina politica. Le loro adunanze non avevano luogo prefisso, ma ora in un lato ora in un altro, ma sempre di Notte, e allo scuro, e si attendeva il momento dei loro ritrovati quando Fosse il tempo di lume di luna" (La Lesina ossia il lunario dell'economia. Sortito per la prima volta alla Luce per l'anno 1813 (Firenze: Nella Stamperìa d'Antonio Brazzini, 1813). The title page of this work also contains, be-neath a description of its contents, the motto which appeared in the original edition of the work, published around 1546, "Assottigliarla più sempre più fora," that is, in effect, "the more you use it, the sharper it becomes," a reference to the self-perpetuating nature of avarice. Below this motto is a reproduction of the original Lesina of the Compagnia. In the description of this editor, the secret meetings of the Compagnia, by night, in obscure places which changed with every meeting, by the full light of the moon, would seem to resemble the secret assemblies of Freemasons, or even witches' covens. In giving his reasons for his publication of this obscure work, the editor also alludes to a possible clandestine intent: "Sopra questi basi principali ho scritto il mio nuovo Lunario, non pensando inculcare massime con simili facezie contrarie alla Religione, ne ai buoni costumi, ma siccome ancora dal più vile fango della terra vi si nasconde il prezioso metallo dell'Oro, così credo che qualche piccolo vantaggio apportar possa i misantropi pensieri dei lesinanti" [italics added]. If there is a hidden political motivation in the editor's decision to publish this work, at precisely a time when Italy was struggling for its own independence from Hapsburg control, it is cleverly concealed under the guise of a simple lunario or "farmer's almanac," a genre popular with middle and working-class individuals from the Renaissance on. The same publisher printed, the following year, another lunario, which we have not seen, La Contro lesina, o sia lo specchio della verita: lunario nuovo per l'anno 18. . .which takes its inspiration from the capitoli of the Compagnia della Antilesina. On the subject of what she calls "prophylactic appendices," intended to "sanitize" controversial works and thus allow their publication, see Brown 101. Interestingly, the “guardian” of the statutes of the Compagnia del-la Lesina himself published a lunario: Lunario e pronostico per l'anno 1595 ... calculato ... per ... Bran-cazio Spilorcioni ... guardiano della Lesina ... a discepoli della Compagnia della Lesina (Florence: Ap-presso all’Arcivescovado, 1595). This latter printer was the successor to the Florentine printer Bartolomeo Castelli, printer of the works of Iacopo da Bientina, Giovanni Battista Ottonaio and ser Bastiano, all members of the Compagnia della Cazzuola, as noted in Chapter 3. Castelli was also associated in the first half of the cinquecento with the Sessa of Venice, printers responsible for many texts of dubious orthodoxy, among them writings of Melanchthon, Luigi Alamanni (Florentine exile at the Court of France), Lodovico Martelli, and, in 1534, the Discor-si of Machiavelli. In view of such considerations, it may be significant that l’Arcivescovado also printed Lorenzo Ghibellini of Prato’s Lamento di Lorenzino de’ Medici, issued in 1557.

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lents, self-deprivation and festive banqueting) continued in Florence even into the 18th century and beyond.  361

! Here we might mention the Miserabile Compagnia degli Spiantati (“the Evicted Ones”), pur361 -portedly founded in nomine incredibilis Necessitatis by a certain “Stracciamondo Imperatore, Re de’ Rovinati, Duca senza ducati, Principe de’ falliti, Barone de’ Birbanti, Commendatore de’ Debiti” in the year 1754, in which, in an extremely humorous recollection of the strictures of the Compagnie della Lesina and Arsura, members are enjoined never to repay a debt, never to appear in a court of law, and, if faced with eviction, to make sure to take with them when they leave anything of value, even down to the mattress and the bars on the windows. This book, according to the editor of the Lucca edition, saw many reprintings and was very popular all over Europe. As is the case with most of the companies we have been describing, every edition of this amus-ing work, as far as we can tell, appeared in chapbook form, thus ensuring its wide distribution and consumption. In the course of our research, we have encountered several other mock-acad-emies by the names of the La Compagnia Nobilissima de’ Tagliacantoni (Venice: Andrea Viani, 1602), and the Compagnia Nobilissima della Bastina (Ferrara: Baldini, 1597). The latter compa-ny has as its impresa a large saddle, with a motto beneath it which reads “Quanto viè più s’ingr-ossa/Altrui meglio s’addossa,” that is, “The larger it is, the better it fits on someone else,” a ref-erence both to the nature of the company as presenting a satire of contemporary mores (“bastina” referring to the whip used on horses), and also a reminiscence of the motto of the Compagnia della Lesina, “L’assottigliarla più meglio anche fora.” Here we might note that the functions of both the Spiantati and the Bastina as vehicles for social satire survived well into the 18th century, Gli spiantati denoting an intermezzo performed by a troupe of Italian actors, the Dilettanti, at the Teatro San Michele in Murano in 1726, which took as its theme the hollowness at the heart of life at court, in which the elaborate feasts and receptions are a sad reminder of the former status of a noble class now ruined and corrupt, the Compagnia della Bastina of 1597 rejecting “ceri-monie, sberretate, inchini e parole profumate,” a reference to the anti-courtly nature of its activi-ties. What is especially striking is that all the organizations we have been discussing in this chap-ter are linked: the capitoli of the Lesina, as we have seen, refer back to similar companies insti-tuted in Florence by Lorenzo de’ Medici in the late 1400s; the statutes of the Compagnia della Bastina are dedicated to Brancazio Spilorcioni, Guardiano of the Compagnia della Lesina, the capitoli of the Accademia dell’Arsura refer back to the Company of the Lesina, the statutes of the Compagnia degli Spiantati are modeled in their turn on those of the Lesina, and the Compag-nia dell’Arsura is linked to a later company which made its appearance in 19th century Italy, the “Club dei Brutti,” discussed in the footnote below, since, as Palagi notes in his account of the Ar-sura, at the same Carnival at which the Arsuri presented their mascherata of February 24, 1682, another invenzione presented a Trionfo de’ Brutti. Visonà, cited above, also discusses this same Carnival, citing Giovanni Battista Fagiuoli’s In Occasione d’Accademia fatta in lode de’ Brutti, which, making the case that ugliness is very useful, since it leads to virtue, includes the follow-ing amusing lines: “Un po’ più verginità/Non si rara l’onestà/Più frequente il celibato/Manco

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The theme of an extreme and debilitating stinginess, as opposed to a generous and magnanimous generosity, was embodied, then, in the capitoli of the two companies, the Compagnie della Lesina and Antilesina we have been discussing, the plays and academic orations which derived from them, and also in the real world to which the festivities of these companies alluded, that is, the cities of Florence and Rome respectively, the former, together with the surrounding countryside, suffering the baneful effects of the miserable rule of Cosimo, whose primary concern was not the well-being of his realm as a whole, but rather the preservation and extension of his own personal power at the expense of those less fortunate. With this miserable and miserly rule was contrasted the Rome of the Farnese, this latter being characterized, as we have seen, by an abundance of generosity and public-spiritedness, symbolized by their frequent use of the iconography of festive banqueting and generous abundance. We have seen how this theme, important for its long afterlife in Renaissance Europe, was symbolized in the imprese of these two companies, the lesinas of the misers of the Compagnia della Lesina, and the golden cornucopias of the Compagnia della Antilesina, the latter of which, in its pointed juxtaposition of the twin themes of festive banqueting and miserly withholding, represents a continuation of the tradition of the similar festivities of the earlier Compagnia della Cazzuola, where, as we have seen, these same themes of festive banqueting, presented in pointed contrast to the food withheld from the tyrant, also served to encode a critique of the nature and char-acter of Medici rule in Florence.  And finally, we have seen how these works managed 362

to keep alive, albeit in a highly allusive and encoded way, Savonarolan themes of Christ-ian love and social justice, long opposed and suppressed (at least in the eyes of her repu-

! In Chapter 3, we remarked that the trowel of the Compagnia della Cazzuola might, in 362

addition to drawing attention to the partly working-class composition of its membership, with the associated Savonarolan associations, also have been intended to refer to the building of a new, more just, society upon the ruins of the hated Medici regime.

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ublican supporters) by the Medici regime, long after the actual political institutions which sustained these values had disappeared from the European stage.  363

!!!! The spirit of the companies we have described in this chapter, which combine an ethos 363

of satire and self-parody with serious (or semi-serious) commentary on their own soci-eties, continues in Italy even today in the Il Club dei brutti, which has been described in the following terms: “Il Club dei brutti, è un'organizzazione internazionale fondata nel 1879, ad oggi conta 25 sedi sparse nel mondo e circa 30.000 iscritti. La sua sede si trova a Piobbico. La nascita del club era motivata dall'esigenza di maritare le zitelle del paese, poi con il passare degli anni, e l'evoluzione della società l'associazione ha accolto una vi-sione più ampia del problema. Lo scopo dell'associazione negli anni più recenti è stato quello di sminuire il culto della bellezza e dell'apparenza, ormai dominante sulla società moderna per ristabilire un giusto equilibrio di valori sociali. Negli ultimi 50 anni, il club si è prodigato a diffondere la sua idea mediante campagne mediatiche, e innumerevoli sono le sue apparizioni in giornali, trasmissioni televisive ecc.” (source: wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_dei_brutti). Their impresa recalls those we have been discussing in this chap-ter, combining an image symbolic of the club’s mission with a motto in which this mis-sion is concisely expressed: “La bruttezza è na’ virtù, La bellezza è schiavitù” (Ugliness is a virtue, Beauty is Slavery). In the United States, we might cite the “voluntary simplici-ty” movement which came to prominence in the 1980s in reaction to the financial excess-es of that decade, and, again for Italy, the “slow food” movement, which presents itself in polemical opposition to the superficial and unsatisfying aspects of modern consumer cul-ture.

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No less interesting in this regard is a description of an equally strange, and, on first in-spection, trivial event which occurred on the occasion of the first formal lecture of the newly-refounded Academia Fiorentina. According to the scholar in her account of the conversion of the non-conforming Academia degli Umidi into the more formal Accade-mia Fiorentina, whose function was to serve as the official cultural organ of Cosimo’s Florence, as a place for the elaboration and expression of his cultural programme, which included among its most important initiatives the promotion of the Florentine vernacular, but served in addition as an effective way for the Duke and his advisers to monitor the activities of Florentine intellectuals, X notes that !Here again, as in the Carnival festivities described by Minio-Paluello, we are reminded of power which lies behind all cultural activities in Cosimo’s Florence: !That this message was not lost on contemporary Florentines is suggested by a letter of of X to X, in which X comments: !The Marucelli chronicler, to whose highly critical account of the state of Florentine polit-ical life under Cosimo we will return below, records that !We also noted above the destruction of the carri dei mercatanti upon the elevation of Giovanni de’ Medici to the papacy in the spring of 1513, where these ceremonial carts, intended to , and bearing, were replaced by triumphal chariots representing the Tus-can cities under Florence’s sway, !!!!!!!