The Culture and Politics of Regime Change in Italy, c.1494-c.1559 (Routledge Research in Early Modern History) [1 ed.] 9781032057552, 9781032057583, 9781003199021, 1032057556

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series Information
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Figures
Contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Regimes and Regime Change in Italy, C.1494–c.1559
Notes
Bibliography
1 Regime Change in the Sabaudian Lands, 1536–1580
The Strategic Political Context
Types of Regime Change
(a) Dynastic
(b) Coerced
(c) Negotiated
(d) Hidden
Experiencing Regime Change
(a) Uncertainty
(b) Symbolic Action
(c) Division
(d) Regional Variation
The Structural Impact of Regime Change
(a) Military-Territorial
(b) Institutional
(c) Political
Notes
Bibliography
2 Memories and Fantasies of Regime Change in Spanish Naples
Between History and Stereotype
The Calabrian Conspiracy and Tommaso Campanella
Conspiracy and Regime Change After 1647–1648
Notes
Bibliography
3 Chutes and Ladders: The Twilight of Two Lombard Families in the Italian Wars
Dal Verme Versus Sanseverino
Serial Regimes and Radicalization
Twists in the Italian Wars
Olgisio and the Fate of Northern Italy
Olgisio at Trial, 1567
Phenomenology of Regime Change
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
4 Regime Change in Papal Rome: Pius IV and the Carafa (1559–1561)
Regime Change in Papal Rome: Theory and Practice
The Carafa and the Conditions for a Post-Facto “Coup”
Executing the “Coup”
After the Executions: Moral Hazard
Notes
Bibliography
5 The Vacant See and Regime Change in Papal Rome, 1503–1559
The Pope’s Death as Regime Change
Protesting the Old Regime
A Cycle of Regimes
Notes
Bibliography
6 The Failed Regime of Pope Adrian VI
Prologue: November 1521–August 1522
Ritual Failure, August 1522–October 1522
Politics and Plague, November 1522–February 1523
Ritual Success, February 1523–April 1523
Epilogue, May 1523–September 1523
Notes
Bibliography
7 The Prince’s Body: Imagining Regime Change in Mid-Sixteenth-Century Florence
Notes
Bibliography
8 The Historiography of Regime Change in Machiavelli’s Discursus Rerum Florentinarum Post Mortem Iunioris Laurentii Medices
The Albizzi Regime
The Medici Regime
The Sources of Divergence
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
9 Alda Pio Gambara and Regime Change in Brescia During the Italian Wars
Introduction: Successful Regime Change (1509)
Mustering and Political Management
Writing, Plotting, and Military Management
Failed Regime Change (1512)
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
10 Success in a Silent Regime Change: Electoral Politics, Family Strategies, and the Cappello Family in Early ...
Introduction
Family, Faction, and the Competition for Offices
Office, Money, and Prestige: the Procurators of San Marco
Embassies and Sociability With Other Italian Elites
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
11 In the Name of the Marquis, By the Hand of the Marchioness: Epistolary Networks and Languages of Resilience and …
The Sources and the Context
The Network
The Language
Notes
Bibliography
12 Trading and Investing During Regime Changes in Genoa
Introduction
Fiscal Reform and Changes of Regime
Case Studies I: Capital Investments and Regime Changes
Case Studies II: Merchants and Regime Changes
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Unpublished Sources
Index

Citation preview

The Culture and Politics of Regime Change in Italy, c.1494–​c.1559

This volume offers the first comprehensive survey of regime change in Italy in the period c.1494–​c.1559. Far from being a purely modern phenomenon, regime change was a common feature of life in Renaissance Italy –​no more so than during the Italian Wars (1494–​1559). During those turbulent years, governments rose and fell with dizzying regularity. Some changes of regime were peaceful; others were more violent. But whenever a new reggimento took power, old social tensions were laid bare and new challenges emerged –​any of which could easily threaten its survival. This provoked a variety of responses, both from newly established regimes and from their opponents. Constitutional reforms were proposed and enacted; civic rituals were developed; works of art were commissioned; literary works were penned; and occasionally, aspects of material culture were pressed into service, as well. Comparative in approach and broad in scope, it offers a provocative new view of the diverse political, culture, and economic factors, which ensured the survival (or demise) of regimes –​not only in “major” polities like Florence, Rome, and Venice, but also in less-​well-​studied regions like Savoy. This book will appeal to researchers and students alike interested in cultural, political, and military history. Alexander Lee is a research fellow at the University of Warwick, UK. He is the author of five acclaimed books, including Machiavelli: His Life and Times (2020) and Humanism and Empire: The Imperial Ideal in Fourteenth-​ Century Italy (2018). Brian Jeffrey Maxson is professor of history at East Tennessee State University, USA. He has co-​edited several projects and is the author of A Short History of Florence and the Florentine Republic (2022) and The Humanist World of Renaissance Florence (2014).

Routledge Research in Early Modern History

The Early Modern State: Drivers, Beneficiaries and Discontents Essays in honour of Prof. Dr. Marjolein ‘t Hart Edited by Pepijn Brandon, Lex Heerma van Voss, and Annemieke Romein The Making of the Modern Corporation The Casa di San Giorgio and its Legacy (1446–1720) Carlo Taviani The Trial of Giordano Bruno Germano Maifreda A Genlis Education and Enlightenment Values Mrs Chinnery (1766–​1840) and her Children Denise Yim Anti-​Jacobitism and the English People, 1714–​1746 Jonathan Oates The Eye of the Crown The Development and Evolution of the Elizabethan Secret Service Kristin M.S. Bezio Parliamentarism in Northern and East-​Central Europe in the Long Eighteenth Century Volume I: Representative Institutions and Political Motivation Edited by István M. Szijártó, Wim Blockmans, and László Kontler The Culture and Politics of Regime Change in Italy, c.1494–​c.1559 Edited by Alexander Lee and Brian Jeffrey Maxson For more information about this series, please visit: https://​www.routle​dge. com/​Routle​dge-​Resea​rch-​in-​Early-​Mod​ern-​Hist​ory/​book-​ser​ies/​RREMH

The Culture and Politics of Regime Change in Italy, c.1494–​c.1559 Edited by Alexander Lee and Brian Jeffrey Maxson

First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Alexander Lee and Brian Jeffrey Maxson; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Alexander Lee and Brian Jeffrey Maxson to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data Names: Lee, Alexander (Historian), editor. | Maxson, Brian, 1978– editor. Title: The culture and politics of regime change in Italy, c. 1494–c.1559 / edited by Alexander Lee and Brian Jeffrey Maxson. Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2023. | Series: Routledge research in early modern history | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2022015299 (print) | LCCN 2022015300 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032057552 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032057583 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003199021 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Italy–History–1492–1559. | Italy–Politics and government–1268–1559. | City-states–Italy–History–16th century. | Regime change–Italy–History–16th century. Classification: LCC DG539 .C85 2023 (print) | LCC DG539 (ebook) | DDC 945/.06–dc23/eng/20220518 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022015299 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022015300 ISBN: 978-​1-​032-​05755-​2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-​1-​032-​05758-​3 (pbk) ISBN: 978-​1-​003-​19902-​1 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/​9781003199021 Typeset in Sabon by Newgen Publishing UK

Contents

List of Figures  List of Contributors  Acknowledgements  Introduction: Regimes and Regime Change in Italy, c.1494–​c.1559 

vii ix x

1

A L E X A N D E R LE E A N D B RIA N JE FFRE Y MA XSON

1 Regime Change in the Sabaudian Lands, 1536–​1580 

9

M ATTH E W V ESTE R

2 Memories and Fantasies of Regime Change in Spanish Naples 

29

S TE P H E N C U MMIN S

3 Chutes and Ladders: The Twilight of Two Lombard Families in the Italian Wars 

50

J O H N G AG N É

4 Regime Change in Papal Rome: Pius IV and the Carafa (1559–​1561) 

75

M I L E S PATTE NDE N

5 The Vacant See and Regime Change in Papal Rome, 1503–​1559 

94

J O H N M . H U NT

6 The Failed Regime of Pope Adrian VI  B R I A N J E F F R EY MAXSO N

115

vi Contents

7 The Prince’s Body: Imagining Regime Change in Mid-​Sixteenth-​Century Florence 

134

N I C H O L A S SCOTT B A KE R

8 The Historiography of Regime Change in Machiavelli’s Discursus rerum florentinarum post mortem iunioris Laurentii Medices 

166

ALEXANDER LEE

9 Alda Pio Gambara and Regime Change in Brescia during the Italian Wars 

190

S TE P H E N D. B OWD

10 Success in a Silent Regime Change: Electoral Politics, Family Strategies, and the Cappello Family in Early Sixteenth-​Century Venice 

209

M O N I QU E O’CO N N E L L

11 In the Name of the Marquis, by the Hand of the Marchioness: Epistolary Networks and Languages of Resilience and Reaction in Mantua during the League of Cambrai (1509–​1510) 

230

I SA B E L L A LA ZZA RIN I

12 Trading and Investing during Regime Changes in Genoa 249 CA R L O TAV IAN I

Index 

264

Figures

7.1 Piazza della Signoria, Florence. Credit: Photo by Zolli /​ Wikimedia Commons /​© Creative Commons CC BY-​SA 3.0  7.2 Donatello, Marzocco (1420), Sandstone, inlaid marble. Florence: Museo del Bargello. Credit: Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi –​courtesy of the Ministero per i beni e le Attività Culturali  7.3 Donatello David (ca. 1416) Marble, Florence: Museo del Bargello. Credit: Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi –​courtesy of the Ministero per i beni e le Attività Culturali  7.4 Lucas Vosterman (after Peter Paul Rubens, after Titian) Portrait of Charles V in Armor (ca. 1620–​30), Engraving, 47.3 x 33 cm, New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. Credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York NY. Gift of Georgiana W. Sargent, in memory of John Osborne Sargent, 1924  7.5 Pedro Berruguete (attr.) Portrait of Federico da Montefeltro and his son Guidobaldo (ca. 1475), oil on wood, 138.5 x 82.5 cm, Urbino: Galleria nazionale delle Marche. Credit: © 2022 Photo Scala, Florence –​courtesy of the Ministero per i beni e le Attività Culturali  7.6 Giorgio Vasari, Portrait of Alessandro de’ Medici in Armor (1534), oil on panel, 157 x 114 cm, Florence: Galleria degli Uffizi. Credit: Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi –​courtesy of the Ministero per i beni e le Attività Culturali  7.7 Domenico di Polo, Portrait Medal of Cosimo I de’ Medici with Capricorn Reverse (ca. 1537), reverse, struck bronze, diameter 3.53 cm, Washington DC: National Gallery of Art. Credit: National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. Samuel H. Kress Collection 

135

137

138

141

142

144

145

viii  List of Figures 7.8

7.9

7.10

7.11

7.12

7.13

Agnolo Bronzino, Portrait of Cosimo I de’ Medici in Armor (ca. 1545) oil on panel, 86 x 66.8 cm. Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales. Credit: Art Gallery of New South Wales Foundation Purchase 1996  Michelangelo Buonarroti, Il bastoniere, detail from the Tomb of Giuliano de’ Medici (1526–​1533), marble, Florence: San Lorenzo, Nuova Sagrestia. Credit: Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi –​courtesy of the Ministero per i beni e le Attività Culturali  Baccio Bandinelli, Portrait Bust of Cosimo I de’ Medici (ca. 1539–​1540), marble, height 80 cm, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York NY  Baccio Bandinelli, Portrait Bust of Cosimo I de’ Medici (ca. 1544) marble, height 91 cm, Florence: Museo del Bargello. Credit: Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi –​courtesy of the Ministero per i beni e le Attività Culturali  Benvenuto Cellini, Portrait Bust of Cosimo I de’ Medici (ca. 1545), bronze, height 95.9 cm, Florence: Museo del Bargello. Credit: Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi –​courtesy of the Ministero per i beni e le Attività Culturali  Giambologna, Equestrian Sculpture of Cosimo I de’ Medici (1594), bronze, Florence: Piazza della Signoria. Credit: © Marie-​Lan Nguyen /​Wikimedia Commons /​CC-​BY 2.5 

147

149

150

151

153 156

Contributors

Nicholas Scott Baker is Senior Lecturer in History at Macquarie University, Australia. Stephen Bowd is Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom. Stephen Cummins is Researcher at the Max Planck Institute, Germany. John Gagné is Lecturer in History at the University of Sydney, Australia. John Hunt is Associate Professor of History at Utah Valley University, USA. Isabella Lazzarini is Professor of History at the University of Molise, Italy. Alexander Lee is Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Warwick, United Kingdom. Brian Jeffrey Maxson is Professor of History at East Tennessee State University, USA. Monique O’Connell is Professor of History at Wake Forest University, USA. Miles Pattenden is Senior Research Fellow at Australian Catholic University, Australia. Carlo Taviani is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. Matthew Vester is Professor of History at West Virgina University, USA.

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Acknowledgements

This book was conceived of and executed during the COVID pandemic that began in the spring of 2020. The editors would like to thank all our contributors for their willingness to take on projects during that time, their resourcefulness to see them to completion, and their patience with us as we finalized the manuscript while the pandemic continued to drag on. We would also like to thank our editor at Routledge, Louis Nicholson-​Pallett, for his patience and help at all stages of the project. Alex Lee would like to thank Brian Maxson for being such a splendid co-​editor. Without his boundless energy, warm heartedness, and keen eye for detail, this volume might never have come to fruition –​and would certainly not have been such a pleasure to work on. Throughout its gestation, my wife Marie and my children, Hannah and David (who was born shortly after the first papers were received), have been a constant source of joy and support. They have kept me smiling even when times seemed toughest and have filled every day with sunshine. There are no words to express how much my work on this book owes to them –​or how deeply I love them. Brian Maxson would like to thank Julie Fox-​Horton, Monique O’Connell, and all the attendees at the 2021 meeting of the Medieval and Renaissance Conference at the University of Virginia-​Wise for their helpful feedback. Thanks also to Alex Lee for his enthusiasm, insights, and good humor from this project’s inception to its publication. My graduate assistant, Alexis Doutrich, provided valuable proofreading assistance. As always, my deepest debts are to my parents, Ron and Cathy, my wife Jennifer, and my daughter Alex.

Introduction Regimes and Regime Change in Italy, c.1494–c.1559 Alexander Lee and Brian Jeffrey Maxson

On June 8, 1522, a great procession wound its way through the streets of Florence. At its head was the miraculous statue of Santa Maria dell’Impruneta; and at every church it passed, earnest prayers were offered up for “those who govern[ed] the city.”1 Just days before, a conspiracy against the Medici had been uncovered, and though it had been easily crushed, the still-​fragile regime had been deeply shaken. As Lodovico Alamanni had noted a few years earlier, “most citizens” were “unhappy with the regime”, and despite the many proposals, which had been put forward, no agreement had yet been reached about how the Medici’s rule might be secured.2 Amidst growing uncertainty, the ritual of the procession offered a way of symbolically counteracting the immediate effects of the conspiracy and rallying the population around the Medici –​in the short term, at least. Though held in response to the specific challenges of Medicean Florence, the procession was emblematic of the political challenges engendered by the Italian Wars in states throughout the peninsula. Between the descent of Charles VIII of France in 1494 and the Peace of Cateâu-​Cambrésis in 1559, changes of regime were a common occurrence. It was, to be sure, not a completely new phenomenon.3 Since the first stirrings of de facto autonomy had been felt in the old regnum Italicum, more than four centuries earlier, regimes of one kind of another had risen and fallen with distressing regularity –​and would continue to do so for centuries to come. As Petrarch’s frequent complaints about “barbarians” alone testifies, the peninsula had always been prey to “foreign” interventions. Indeed, for much of the medieval and early modern periods, all of southern Italy and parts of the north were governed by rulers from elsewhere, with the result that the turbulent politics of a particular locality was often intertwined with that of states far beyond its own borders –​as Dante had found to his cost. Yet the period c.1494–​c.1559 nevertheless constitutes a particularly intense chapter in this story. Even by the standards of the Italian past, it witnessed an unusually high number of regime changes –​and even more cases of instability. No less importantly, contemporaries also displayed a keener awareness of regime change as a facet of political life. Just as the concept of the “state” as DOI: 10.4324/9781003199021-1

2  Alexander Lee and Brian Jeffrey Maxson a discreet entity came into being, so the idea of a “regime” itself became the object of serious consideration for the first time.4 Its meaning was, admittedly, somewhat uncertain at times, and the vocabulary used to describe it was often flexible. While Francesco Guicciardini, for example, generally used the term reggimento, Niccolò Machiavelli preferred to speak of a stato.5 But from the first, it was identified with a dominant group of individuals who were recognized as ruling (reggere) a state at a given moment. Though members of a regime could –​and usually did –​hold public office, it was held that a regime was distinct from the institutions of government, instead working through a range of formal and informal means to impose its will on others and relying on often shifting networks of collaborators and allies for their survival. As contemporaries were aware, changes of regime could take many forms. Some were violent and unexpected, brought on by invasion or the pressures of war; others, governed generally by election or succession, were more orderly.6 But each time a new regime took power, long-​running socio-​economic socio-​political tensions were exposed, and new obligations were created –​any one of which could easily threaten its survival if not properly addressed. Taking its cue from the steady growth of scholarly interest in this field over recent decades, this volume seeks to explore the nature and wider implications of regime change throughout Italy during this period. Although it cannot pretend to offer a complete conspectus, its geographical and chronological scope is deliberately broad. At one level, this serves to emphasize the sheer diversity of the phenomenon. No two instances of regime change were ever the same. The variety of constitutions seen throughout Italy, the contrast between urban political culture and feudal lordships in the countryside, the dizzying range of socio-​economic tensions, coupled with the vagaries of war all conspired to make the experiences of each state unique. Even in the same state or territory, regime change could occur in any number of different ways –​as Matthew Vester illustrates with particular clarity in relation to the Sabaudian lands. There, changes of regime had a range of diverse effects on populations and actors; theory differed from lived experience; and even different regions could have differing experiences of particular “regimes.” At another level, however, the chapters in this volume also reveal that there were geographical and diachronic continuities, too. However distinctive each state may have been, none existed as an island unto itself. Each was bound to others by ties of alliance, interest, enmity, or kinship and faced many of the same challenges. Faced with the turbulence engendered by war, most –​if not all –​grappled with tensions within the ruling group, the financial burdens of the conflict, and the continual uncertainty of the international situation; and “local” problems were increasingly resolved in an Italian, or even European, context. Moreover, each state was tied to its own past in such a way that the change or management of a regime was undertaken in explicit dialogue with those which had gone before. In the Kingdom of Naples, for example, the specter of previous upheavals haunted

Introduction: Regime Change in Italy  3 the political imagination for an unusually long time. As Stephen Cummins shows, Tommaso Campanella’s plot in 1599 and the aristocratic conspiracies of the 1650s, and even stereotypes about Neapolitans themselves were inspired and shaped by memories of earlier instances of regime change. Indeed, so close were the bonds between past and present that, at times, the historiography and practice of regime change were virtually inseparable –​ albeit rarely stable. Such continuities of time and space meant that changes of regime tended to share a number of common characteristics. One of the most striking was the importance attached to law. New regimes –​as well as those who sought to usurp a given order –​were generally anxious to establish that they alone had the legal right to rule. Their reasons were obvious. While possession of a state may have been nine tenths of the law, it was still not the same thing; and a lawful regime could expect a degree of compliance, even security, to which a de facto ruler could only aspire. This could be complex, however. The instability caused by the Italian Wars sometimes made it difficult for “right” to be established, thus requiring would-​be regimes to justify their claims by more creative means. John Gagné’s study of the conflict between the Dal Verme and Sanseverino families is a case in point. Since this dispute overlapped with the wider struggle for mastery over the duchy of Milan, the question of legal title was murky, to say the least. As such, legitimacy had to be revealed through custom; and the witnesses who were summoned made clear their belief that rightful political authority was evidenced through action and behavior. The insistence on legality could also be dangerous. A regime that set out to establish its legal right to rule often found it necessary to delegitimize its predecessor. Doing so could entail a certain risk, however –​especially in elective polities, where regime change was effectively institutionalized. This is especially true of the papacy. In the summer of 1560, Pope Pius IV had several key members of his predecessor’s regime arrested. This was perhaps understandable; yet as Miles Pattenden argues, in taking such harsh action, the pope had to accept the possibility that his successor might very well do the same in return. Over the decades, changes within the papacy itself lessened the risk of these overly violent actions as the nature of regime change and regimes changed during the early modern period. So too, this emphasis on legality made the void between one regime and another hard to manage. No matter how brief this period was, the absence of the previous source of authority created an atmosphere of profound uncertainty. This could provoke outpourings of popular unrest, which could be hard to control –​and which threatened to bequeath serious difficulties to any successor. In Papal Rome, for example, the death of a pope was almost invariably followed by extraordinary outbursts of violence, directed principally against members of his regime. Paradoxically, however, this was not always as grave a problem as we might imagine. As John Hunt suggests, it may even have been turned to positive effect. The impunity of attacks

4  Alexander Lee and Brian Jeffrey Maxson during the vacant see contributed to tempering the worst effects of nepotism and providing a valuable outlet for popular frustrations. As such, it actually strengthened the next pope’s hold over the city of Rome and urged caution in the appointment of candidates to prominent roles. In other polities, however, power vacuums, and the corresponding collapse of legal “right” were not so easily harnessed –​or controlled. Whether or not a regime succeeded in establishing its legal right to rule, it was essential that its authority was recognized by those on whom it most depended, such as local stakeholders, allies, neighbors, and regional powers. One means of achieving this was through ritual. As Brian Maxson emphasizes, different political powers could initiate or withhold rituals to recognize new regimes in order to offer support, deny it, or to delay taking any action at all. In the case of new papacies, the powers of Europe extended their symbolic obedience to a new papal regime. The new pope, in turn, could use that recognition to establish the legitimacy of his rule on the international stage, and thereby prepare the ground for the appointment of allies and family members to key ecclesiastical offices, governorships, and military roles. Success was, however, far from guaranteed. As Maxson shows, the reluctance of Italian states to offer their obedience to Pope Adrian VI in the conventional manner on his journey to Rome fatally hampered the new pontiff’s efforts to build a regime, distinct from that of his predecessor. It was equally possible for regimes to secure –​or at least solicit –​the recognition they craved by other means. Of these, art was perhaps the most potent. Then, as now, power was as much a matter of appearance as of fact; and new regimes frequently found that this necessitated the creation of a new political imagery. This was no more keenly felt than in Florence, during the transition from popular republic to Medici principate. Nicholas Scott Baker shows that, whereas the republic had used symbolic figures like Hercules or David to represent the political virtues of the collective, the Medici princes were obliged to make themselves the focus of public imagery, and to concentrate attention on their own authority, virtù, and majesty. Baker focuses specifically on the changes in political imagery viewed in the central square in Florence, a space where Michelangelo’s David, a proud expression of republican patriotism, became just one more statue among many others that expressed the power and political regime of the Medici dukes. As this suggests, regime change was not something that happened quickly. It was never a singular event, accomplished entirely by conquest or coup. No Renaissance state ever experienced a “year zero.” Regime change was a slow and uncertain process, fraught with difficulties. For precisely this reason, regimes often had to re-​assess how they needed –​or at least wanted –​to operate. Indeed, in many cases, broad functional questions were sometimes subject to continual re-​evaluation, and could be influenced by events far distant in both time and space. In the Discursus rerum florentinarum post mortem iunioris Laurentii Medices (late 1520–​early 1521), for example, Niccolò Machiavelli used a critical survey of Florentine regimes between

Introduction: Regime Change in Italy  5 1393 and 1512 to determine how Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici could shore up his family’s rule in the years to come. Yet, as Alexander Lee shows, not only was Machiavelli’s assessment of earlier regimes radically different from the views he expressed in his other writings, but it was also shaped, in part, by recent political events in both Florence and Lucca –​thus highlighting the instability of his underlying view of what a “regime” should be. Some would say that such pragmatic flexibility is testimony to the vitality of his political thought, and perhaps much the same could also be said of regimes themselves. Even if a regime succeeded in establishing itself securely and building the requisite domestic alliances, it could be difficult to keep the ruling group united. All too often, personal ambitions and rivalries could threaten to undermine it from within. In this, the role of families was paramount. Particularly in times of instability, families associated with a particular ruling group might see more scope for preserving (or even augmenting) their own position by undermining the regime than by offering their support. Where the situation was especially fluid, they could even try to hedge their bets. Stephen Bowd offers the Gambara family as a case in point. A powerful feudal family, they were naturally among those whose support King Louis XII of France sought after capturing the city in 1509. Yet, as Bowd shows, they appear to have pursued a strategy of studied ambivalence, in which women played a starring role. While Alda Pio Gambara expressed open loyalty to France, even before Brescia’s fall, her husband, Gianfrancesco may have been exploring the possibility of defecting to the Venetian side. Together, the spousal partners managed, with only brief exceptions, to maintain their interests in Brescia throughout often chaotic political situations. But this, too, was not always the problem it instinctively seems. A revealing example is provided by Venice. Although its constitution made it difficult for regimes to be formed openly, Monique O’Connell argues that Venice offered ample opportunities for “invisible” regimes to harness a fractured nobility to their yoke. Focusing on the extraordinary political success of the Cappello family, she explores how Venetians could use office-​holding and extended family members to seek out more power within existing institutions and political cultures. As such, O’Connell illustrates how the “covert” regime of Doge Andrea Gritti (r. 1523–​1538) could use the rapid turnover of offices to accommodate –​and even harness –​family ambitions, without sacrificing any of its coherence or stability. The Cappello were particularly successful at embracing changes within the Venetian state to empower themselves. Relationships within families could also grant regimes much-​ needed flexibility in times of danger. Just as wives and mothers could play an equal part in managing family ambitions within a regime –​as in the case of Alda Pio Gambara –​so they could play a vital part in stabilizing a ruling family’s position when husbands were absent on campaign, captured, or killed. This was acutely apparent during the period in which Isabella d’Este ruled Mantua while her husband, Francesco Gonzaga, was in Venetian custody

6  Alexander Lee and Brian Jeffrey Maxson (1509–​ 1510). Though only brief, those turbulent months represented a period of extreme danger for the marquisate; yet, as Isabella Lazzarini demonstrates, Isabella d’Este exploited a wide epistolary network, and used a range of different emotional registers, to shore up recognition of her legitimacy, secure military aid, enforce obedience, or press for a particular course of action. Instability and uncertainty, however, were inescapable. As we have already noted, the fall of regimes was invariably uncontrolled and frequently violent –​sometimes extremely so; but even when it was not, it could be accompanied by outbursts of civil unrest, which could be hard to control. Regime change was, by its very nature, unsettling. For those involved –​as members of regimes struggling for survival, as usurpers seeking to seize power for themselves, or as incidental bit-​players in crowds or mobs –​it must have been nerve-​wracking. For most others, condemned to live through the upheaval, it was probably much worse. But for some, the change of a regime could also be an opportunity. As Carlo Taviani’s contribution argues, the financial and factional structures of early sixteenth-​century Genoa meant that families often invested in political changes. Sometimes such investments followed ostensible political ties. On other occasions, families bet on ancient enemies, if the financial prospects were right. Money could take priority over other considerations as regimes came and went in volatile situations. In particular, Taviani highlights the role of the powerful Casa di San Giorgio in these investments and the wide-​ranging, even global connotations of political money, position, and investment during the Italian Wars. The impression of regime change, which emerges from the contributions in this book is thus of a dangerous political game, played without rules, and sometimes even without defined objectives, but distinguished by clear patterns –​to which there were nevertheless always exceptions. And, as its rounds unfolded, the fitful making and unmaking of authority showed power itself in a different light: Not as a tangible commodity, framed by institutions and norms, but as a fluid, even elusive phenomenon, which existed as much in imagination as in reality. No volume can hope to do full justice to such a vast topic; and despite attempts to be as inclusive as possible, it is necessary to acknowledge that there are some elements that it was not possible to incorporate. Although material culture, for example, does at times appear in the pages that follow, these occasional engagements barely touch upon those rich historiographical discussions. So too, political philosophy –​which provided much of the original impetus for this volume –​has necessarily taken something of a back seat to the practice and culture of regime change. A larger work could have contained more temporal changes for the territories discussed, showing more of the changes wrought by Charles VIII’s descent in 1494 and their impacts beyond 1559. Other geographical areas, methodological approaches, and aspects of regime change could have received more space. Nevertheless, it is hoped that this book can

Introduction: Regime Change in Italy  7 offer some answers while raising new questions; and to help inspire future scholars to continue these conversations.

Notes 1 Giovanni Cambi, Istorie fiorentine, ed. Ildefonso di San Luigi, 4 vols. (Florence: Gaetano Cambiagi, 1785–​1786), vol. 3, 204: “quest’anno [sc. 1522] a’ dì 8 di Giugno ci venissi la tavola della gihura di nostra Donna di S. Maria Inproneta el martedì doppo la Pasqua, e che si predichassi quelle feste per tutte le 4 Chiese dei Quartieri, e preghassi Iddio per quelli ghovernano la Città, e checci guardi per lavenire.” According to Angelo Manfridio, this procession took place on 10 June: Giovambattista Casotti, Memorie Istoriche della Miracolosa Immagine di Maria Vergine dell’Impruneta (Florence: Giuseppe Manni, 1714), 148. It is perhaps relevant to note that, according to Jacopo Pitti, the people rallied around the Medici in the wake of the conspiracy. How much faith should be placed in this claim remains to be seen. Jacopo Pitti, Istoria Fiorentina, ed. Adriana Mauriello (Naples: Liguori Editore, 2007) 134: “Concorsero alla casa de’ Medici, subito scoperto la cosa, con gran prontezza non solamente i primati dello stato ma infiniti altri cittadini, ad offerirsi al cardinale e rallegrarsi della salvezza sua da cotanta imminente sceleraggine: costoro, per l’amore conceputo verso di lui nella speranza della libertà, e coloro, per la credenza che egli dovesse, per così fatti cenni, pensare nell’avenire ad altro.” 2 Lodovico Alamanni, Discorso sopra il fermare lo stato di Firenze nella devozione dei Medici, text in Rudolf von Albertini, Firenze dalla repubblica al principato: storia e coscienza politica, trans. Cesare Cristofolini (Turin: Einaudi, 1970), 376–​384, quoted at John M. Najemy, A History of Florence 1200–​1575 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), 442–​443; John N. Stephens, The Fall of the Florentine Republic 1512–​1530 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1983), 112–​117. 3 On the Italian Wars, their precursors, and their after effects, see, as a start, David Abulafia, ed. The French Descent into Renaissance Italy, 1494–​1495: Antecedents and Effects (London: Routledge, 1995); Michael Mallett and Christine Shaw, The Italian Wars, 1494–​ 1559 (London: Routledge, 2019); David Parrott, “Richelieu, Mazarin and Italy (1635–​ 1659): Statesmanship in Context,” in Secretaries and Statecraft in the Early Modern World, ed. Paul M. Dover, 155–​176 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016). 4 It was not unknown for earlier authors to speak of a reggimento, of course. In the fifteenth century, for example, the Florentine merchant Bonaccorso Pitti (1354–​1432) wrote confidently of “nostro reggimento,” while the diarist Luca Landucci likewise referred to Savonarola’s determination to “tenure fermo questo reggimento e ‘l Consiglio Maggiore”: Bonaccorso Pitti, Ricordi, ed. Veronica Vestri (Florence: Florence University Press, 2015), 51; Luca Landucci, Diario fiorentino, ed. Jodoco del Badia (Florence: Sansoni, 1883), 115. But in these cases, it is clear that “regime” (reggimento) was essentially a synonym for “government” (governo), rather than something distinct. 5 E.g. Francesco Guicciardini, Dialogo del reggimento di Firenze, in Francesco Guicciardini, Dialogo e discorsi del Reggimento di Firenze, ed. Roberto Palmarocchi (Bari: Laterza, 1932), 3–​172. For Machiavelli’s use of the word stato, see the paper by Alexander Lee in this volume.

8  Alexander Lee and Brian Jeffrey Maxson 6 The literature on regimes and regime change for the Italian peninsula during these years is too vast to list here. We point readers to the individual bibliographies of the chapters in this volume as a start for many of the different geographical areas.

Bibliography Published Sources Abulafia, David, ed. The French Descent into Renaissance Italy, 1494–​95: Antecedents and Effects. London: Routledge, 1995. Albertini, Rudolf von. Firenze dalla repubblica al principato: Storia e coscienza politica. Trans. Cesare Cristofolini. Turin: Einaudi, 1970. Cambi, Giovanni. Istorie fiorentine. Ed. Ildefonso di San Luigi. 4 vols. Florence: Gaetano Cambiagi, 1785–​1786. Casotti, Giovambattista. Memorie Istoriche della Miracolosa Immagine di Maria Vergine dell’Impruneta. Florence: Giuseppe Manni, 1714. Guicciardini, Francesco. Dialogo del reggimento di Firenze. In Francesco Guicciardini, Dialogo e discorsi del Reggimento di Firenze, ed. Roberto Palmarocchi, 1–​172. Bari: Laterza, 1932. Landucci, Luca. Diario fiorentino. Ed. Jodoco del Badia. Florence: Sansoni, 1883. Mallett, Michael and Christine Shaw, The Italian Wars, 1494–​ 1559. London: Routledge, 2019. Najemy, John M. A History of Florence 1200–​1575. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. Parrott, David. “Richelieu, Mazarin and Italy (1635–​ 1659): Statesmanship in Context.” In Secretaries and Statecraft in the Early Modern World, ed. Paul M. Dover, 155–​176. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016. Pitti, Bonaccorso. Ricordi. Ed. Veronica Vestri. Florence: Florence University Press, 2015. Pitti, Jacopo. Istoria Fiorentina. Ed. Adriana Mauriello. Naples: Liguori Editore, 2007. Stephens, John N. The Fall of the Florentine Republic 1512–​ 1530. Oxford: Clarendon, 1983.

1 Regime Change in the Sabaudian Lands, 1536–​1580 Matthew Vester

The reigns of Duke Charles III of Savoy and his son Duke Emanuel Filibert were profoundly marked by regime change as they found themselves at the center of the Valois-​Habsburg struggle for control of Italy. When Charles came to the throne in 1504 his states stretched from Bresse and Bugey (bordering the Lyonnais) and most of the rest of what is today French-​ speaking Switzerland, across the Alps into northwest Italy, east to the Sesia river and south to include the county of Nice across the Maritime Alps. This chapter will chronicle some key events affecting the sixteenth-​century Sabaudian lands, outline the kinds of regime change that they experienced between 1536 and the 1570s, describe how these changes were experienced, and then assess their structural impacts.

The Strategic Political Context Charles III was constrained by inherited debt to pursue a policy of peace and neutrality with respect to France, the Swiss, and the Empire.1 In 1515, he offered the armies of his nephew, King Francis I, safe passage through his lands on their way to Italy. Not satisfied, in 1518, the French king demanded the inheritance of his mother (Louise of Savoy, the duke’s half-​ sister), claiming that it included Vercelli and the county of Nice. Swiss intervention persuaded the king to back down, and while the duke’s subsequent marriage to Beatrice of Portugal (sister-​in-​law of Emperor Charles V) seemed to suggest a shift toward a pro-​Imperial policy, Charles III wanted to remain neutral.2 Although Francis I renounced his inheritance claims, a visit by the duke’s eldest son Adrian to Spain in 1533 led the king to conclude that the duke preferred the emperor’s friendship to his own.3 Charles III also faced conflict with Geneva, whose authorities sought to eliminate their limited subjection to ducal authority, appealing to Berne and Fribourg for support. Religious reformers like Guillaume Farel supported Geneva’s bid for independence, which by 1535 was tacitly supported by the French, and more openly by Reformed Berne.4 In early 1536, Francis I demanded that his uncle relinquish not only Vercelli and Nice, but also Bresse, Faucigny, and Asti. In late January, the Bernese invaded the pays de Vaud and other DOI: 10.4324/9781003199021-2

10  Matthew Vester areas around the lake, extending their protection over Geneva itself. This conquest was rapidly followed by a French invasion of Bresse (occupied by mid-​February) and then the rest of the transalpine Sabaudian lands –​the Tarentaise resisted and the Valle d’Aosta was not attacked.5 The French army crossed the Alps in March, and when the city of Turin was taken in early April, the ducal court retreated to Vercelli, bordering the duchy of Milan. Vercelli, Aosta, Nice, and parts of southern Piedmont remained under ducal control until 1559, but all other Sabaudian lands were occupied by French and Swiss forces. Charles III appealed to the emperor for aid, but rather than drive the French out of Piedmont, Charles V invaded Provence. Then he went to Spain, leaving his lieutenants in charge in Piedmont.6 A cease-​fire was followed in June 1538 by a truce, personally agreed to in Nice by the king, the emperor, and Pope Paul III. Over the next 20 years, the dukes of Savoy (Emanuel Filibert succeeded his father in August 1553) persisted in their efforts to reacquire their states, resisting various French proposals for a partial restitution in exchange for subordination to royal power, and leveraging the threat of an arrangement with France for half-​hearted imperial support of their cause. As a young teenager, Emanuel Filibert joined the imperial court, his military successes and political acumen eventually leading Charles V to appoint him Imperial commander in the Low Countries and then governor-​general. The duke’s smashing victory at St Quentin (August 1557) forced the French to accept the Peace of Câteau-​ Cambrésis (April 1559), by which Emanuel Filibert married King Henri II’s sister Margaret, and the king restored the Sabaudian lands to their rightful ruler. Royal troops were permitted to continue occupying five towns in Piedmont but had to negotiate a withdrawal within three years. The Spanish were likewise allowed to garrison two towns in Piedmont, ostensibly as protection for the duchy of Milan. The treaty did not include the Swiss, requiring Emanuel Filibert to negotiate separately for the return of his lands held by Berne, Valais, and Fribourg. The duke ruled for 21 years following his restoration, having laid new foundations for Sabaudian power.

Types of Regime Change If we think about a “regime” as a form of rule, then “regime change” could have a range of meanings in the context of late Renaissance dynastic polities. The Sabaudian case permits the identification of four broad types of regime changes: dynastic, coerced, negotiated, and hidden or camouflaged. (a) Dynastic The most obvious kind of regime change that took place within dynastic states is when a ruler died and was succeeded by an heir. In certain circumstances, the passing of authority from father to son could itself signify a significant shift in governance. When Charles III died in August 1553 and

Regime Change in Sabaudian Lands, 1536–1580  11 was succeeded by Emanuel Filibert, the new duke was absent, serving the emperor as the commander of his armies in the Low Countries.7 The former duke’s lieutenant-​general in the Sabaudian lands, René de Challant (subsequently confirmed in his position by Emanuel Filibert), informed his new master about corruption amongst members of the ducal council in Vercelli. With the duke’s permission, Challant immediately implemented a purge of the leading council members (including Challant’s chief rival, Amedeo Valperga di Masino). Officials were imprisoned and a reform was well under way when French forces briefly captured Vercelli and took Challant prisoner. A subsequent investigation found no evidence of wrongdoing and the accused were rehabilitated. Had Challant not been imprisoned in Turin, the regime change initiated by an absentee succession might have been far more consequential.8 Succession by a cadet branch was another form of dynastic regime change: this is what had happened when Philippe II (Charles III’s father) inherited the throne in 1496. Philippe had previously developed a distinct political strategy –​he had steadily resisted the dynasty’s traditional subservience to the king of France, instead seeking common cause with the duke of Burgundy and the emperor.9 His policy of autonomy for the house of Savoy set a new course for the dynasty throughout the early modern period. Similarly, dynastic marriages could also shift a ruler’s diplomatic regime. Charles III’s union with Beatrice of Portugal recalibrated the dynasty toward the Habsburgs, while their son’s marriage to Margaret of France swung the balance in the other direction. (b) Coerced A second category of regime change involved the use of force. The clearest example of this in the Sabaudian case are the invasions of 1536, followed by the Treaty of Câteau-​Cambrésis in 1559. Military conquest and foreign occupation installed new regimes that in some cases outlasted the restoration, reconfiguring dynastic territories for the long term (the loss of Geneva and the pays de Vaud, along with the county of Romont and parts of Chablais). Emanuel Filibert would bequeath to his son a regime that was territorially different from that inherited by his father. Regional grandees forcibly changed regimes when circumstances permitted it. One example among many is offered by Roger de St-​Lary, lord of Bellegarde, who seized control of the marquisate of Saluzzo (an enclave in the Sabaudian lands) in 1578–​1580. Emanuel Filibert mediated between Bellegarde and the French court, resulting in Bellegarde being named governor of Saluzzo. Days later, he died; his 20-​year-​old son, César, failed in a bid to take command, lacking the confidence of his father’s officers.10 Bellegarde’s seizure of the marquisate of Saluzzo might, in the long term, have resulted in his effective sovereignty over the area. In the short term, his plan seems to have succeeded, although his sudden death (case of poisoning?) shuffled the cards. Other attempts at coercive regime change

12  Matthew Vester were less successful. This could be said of efforts by the French to convince Charles III and Emanuel Filibert (on the basis of the French conquest of Savoy and Piedmont) to relinquish their claims to their ancestral lands in exchange for compensation in France. The dukes resolutely rejected such enticements, and eventually saw their cause vindicated.11 Emanuel Filibert himself underwrote an effort to recover part of his lands through a surprise attack on Bresse launched by Nicolas, baron of Bollwiller, in 1557. On August 15, in the midst of the St Quentin campaign, Bollwiller issued a manifesto inviting the inhabitants of Bresse and Bugey to recognize the duke “as their Prince légitime, and to withdraw from obedience to the king.” He and his Bohemian troops managed to besiege the town of Bourg but were forced to withdraw when the French army (on its way from Italy to defend France after St Quentin) arrived in the region.12 (c) Negotiated The Sabaudian states witnessed two kinds of negotiated regime change: protracted (“slow-​ motion”) change and leadership changes in cities, fortresses, or armies. The invasions of 1536 had an immediate component, but just as significant was the process by which truces and peace agreements in subsequent years confirmed the French conquest by referring to it as a status quo. As time passed and the French continued to reiterate their rightful possession, their presence acquired juridical and imaginative force. One explanation for French military success is that they believed that they were in Piedmont to stay, “which made them tougher and braver,” while the imperials knew that “whatever they conquered they would have to return.”13 Following Câteau-​Cambrésis, another sort of negotiated regime change was the process by which Emanuel Filibert, through his envoys, reached agreement with the French, the Swiss, and the Spanish for withdrawal from territories that they had continued to occupy after 1559. Diplomats began discussions near Lyon in 1561 for French withdrawal from the towns of Turin, Chieri, Chivasso, Pinerolo, and Villanova d’Asti. The 1562 Treaty of Fossano secured withdrawal from Turin, Chieri, and Chivasso, and exchanged Savigliano (between Pinerolo and Saluzzo) for Villanova d’Asti.14 Two years later the Bernese signed the Treaty of Lausanne, by which they retained the pays de Vaud but returned the duchy of Chablais and other bailiwicks near Geneva. In 1569, the Valaisans agreed to vacate the Chablais between Evian and St-​ Gingolph. In 1574, Henri III returned his two Piedmontese presidios to the duke, enabling the latter to press the Spanish to vacate their garrisons from Santhià and Asti.15 Finally, in 1578, the duke ceded to the Fribourgeois his claims over Romont, acquiring in exchange a military alliance with the Swiss Catholic cantons. The status of Geneva was still in doubt: Emanuel Filibert knew that the use of force against the city would not succeed without French and Spanish support, so he left this problem to his heir.16

Regime Change in Sabaudian Lands, 1536–1580  13 While regions, towns, and fortresses sometimes changed governance through coercion, this could also be negotiated. The best example of this kind of regime change is offered by the resistance of the French commanders Brissac and Bourdillon to abandon the Piedmontese towns entrusted to them. Commanders routinely dragged their feet in such cases, since they did not want to be held responsible for having mistakenly, or without proper authorization, abandoned their charge. They thus demanded multiple written orders from a variety of authorities (not only the king, but also his council, supreme courts of law, etc.) and the legitimizing presence of trusted leaders before transferring power. “When it came to restoring states and such important places as those across the Alps, one had to be as slow as molasses,” wrote François Boyvin.17 Bourdillon carried out the Treaty of Fossano only after receiving three direct orders and even then required the presence of Florimond de Robertet d’Alluye (a royal secretary), Cardinal Charles de Lorraine, Jean de Morvilliers (bishop of Orléans), and René de Birago (president of the French parlement of Piedmont).18 While in Flanders, Emanuel Filibert witnessed negotiated regime change as he accompanied Prince Philip of Spain, the new count of Flanders, around the province to gather loyalty oaths from the towns while confirming their privileges.19 Emanuel Filibert’s own appointment as commander of the imperial army in 1553 –​to which he introduced a more disciplined regime –​ was negotiated in that it depended on the goodwill and cooperation of the prince of Orange, the lords of Aremberg and Lalaing, and other regional authorities.20 The same was true of his role as governor-​ general of the Netherlands.21 (d) Hidden Changes in the status or governance of fiefs or enclaves within dynastic territory, changes in modes of governance, and the transfer of princely capitals constitute a fourth category of regime change. Each of these phenomena involved shifts in patterns of rule that could be as significant (albeit less apparent) as those brought about by foreign conquest or diplomatic activity. Efforts by regional grandees to seize for themselves titles or sovereignty over micro-​states were one example of this. Bellegarde’s action in the marquisate of Saluzzo was preceded by similar efforts in the 1540s by Filiberto Ferrero Fieschi in the county of Masserano and by René de Challant in the lordship of Valangin.22 It was to be expected that when Emanuel Filibert returned to his states in 1559 after 15 years of experience at the imperial court, in command of armies, and as governor-​general of the Low Countries, he would implement changes in how his patrimony was governed.23 One move that he made was to convoke regional estates assemblies in Savoy and Piedmont and, then, after extracting approval of certain fiscal measures by means of negotiations with smaller constituent groups, not to reconvoke these assemblies.

14  Matthew Vester Indeed, the only regional estates that ever met again in the Sabaudian lands were those of the Valle d’Aosta.24 In 1561 the Venetian ambassador referred to this decision as a “demonstration of his power, which he wishes to be absolute,” given that it broke with “the ancient conventions of the house of Savoy … observed by each former prince.”25 Emanuel Filibert noted that his subjects had “volontariamente” submitted to his enemies, forcing him to reconquer his state “con la spada in mano.” In such cases, “the law of war provides that the people are left to the free discretion of princes, losing every privilege that they might have previously enjoyed.”26 The duke now had a legitimate juridical basis for his absolute rule. But Emanuel Filibert also ruled in a new style, restructuring his court, introducing a more formal hierarchy there, and adopting a secretive decision-​making process after gathering information from relevant individuals.27 He dropped the heavy-​handed diplomatic style that his father had employed with the Swiss, instead privileging friendly relations with them.28 The Venetian envoy self-​consciously praised this approach in 1566, noting that republics or confederations are more stable allies than princes, who “don’t last forever; one rules today and another might tomorrow, and just as they look different, they might also have different opinions.”29 A final kind of hidden regime change was the establishment of a capital city –​or a shift in the seat of government. In the fifteenth century, the dukes were peripatetic but usually resided west of the Alpine watershed. Charles III’s court alternated between Chambéry and Turin, and during the occupation lived either in Nice or Vercelli.30 Emanuel Filibert’s decision to establish his court in Turin in 1563 was thus a shock to his French-​speaking subjects and perhaps to the Vercellesi as well. Creating a permanent capital entailed further shifts in governing style. Emanuel Filibert reinforced Turin’s new status by building a new citadel there, “to defend this town, the capital of Piedmont, more easily.”31 The city’s religious importance was cemented when he transferred the Holy Shroud from the Sainte Chapelle in Chambéry to the cathedral of Turin in 1578.32

Experiencing Regime Change (a) Uncertainty How was a change in regime experienced by the inhabitants of a given area? The invasions of 1536 generated massive confusion and uncertainty. As the Bernese and French armies approached, the subjects of the duke of Savoy scrambled to consult with each other and seek direction from their superiors while enemy officials confronted them with ultimatums. They did not wish to forsake their “natural prince,” but their property and persons were at risk if they did not comply with enemy demands.33 The confusion was augmented because foreign armies had often passed through the duke’s lands and been provisioned by his subjects –​it was not immediately apparent in 1536 that

Regime Change in Sabaudian Lands, 1536–1580  15 the situation was different. Did Charles III want them to heed the invaders’ instructions, in order to preserve their well-​being, in anticipation of a future negotiated settlement? No one seemed to know. When Hans Franz Näegli’s army of 6000 arrived at the Vaudois community of Cudrefin in January 1536, local authorities were summoned and given 24 hours to submit. Subjects were ordered to turn over all of their valuables, including grain and any fiscal payments previously made to the duke of Savoy.34 Local leaders who hesitated were imprisoned. Then the troops broke open the communal granary and seized the grain.35 A month later, the defenders of Chambéry and nearby areas vainly sought ducal guidance.36 Seeing no way to avoid French demands, the duke’s governor of Bourg-​en-​Bresse (Jean de la Baume, count of Montrevel) wrote to the marshal of Savoie that “we have done that which seemed right and possible, according to our honour and conscience.”37 On February 17, unaware of the invasion that had been launched six days earlier, Charles III instructed his officers in Bugey to receive French troops honorably, and to provision and lodge them.38 A week later, better informed, he wrote again, ordering them to reject any demands intended to sway them from obedience to him. If they encountered overwhelming force they were to “protest, as such cases require” and to “hope in God that he intervenes.”39 When the French army approached Turin in late March, the duke and his court left for Vercelli, causing a “great unhappiness among his good subjects.” But others in Turin “did not wait for my said lord to mount his horse before going out to meet the French to escort them into town.”40 In Guichenon’s telling, city leaders had received instructions from the duke to surrender “to avoid the destruction suffered by a town taken by force.” When they did submit to the French, they declared that they “in no way intended to compromise the duke’s sovereign rights, and only submitted to urgent necessity.”41 Following the only pitched battle of the invasion, the French occupied the town of Ivrea, but withdrew soon thereafter as peace talks between the king and the emperor got under way. French forces then began vacating recently occupied areas; by June their troops remained only in Turin. Thus, the rapid conquest of the transalpine lands and the limited French profile in Piedmont created a situation of uncertainty regarding the dynasty’s territorial position. Ducal subjects on both sides of the Alps might have assumed that the occupation would be short-​lived.42 Not until the resumption of large-​scale hostilities in Piedmont in 1542 would French aims become clear. (b)  Symbolic action A key demand of the French and Swiss leaders in 1536 was that the duke’s subjects swear loyalty oaths to the king or the lords of Berne. In Bresse, the French commander easily forced the count of Montrevel to receive “les serments de fidelité” from towns, clerics, and nobles.43 The loyalty oaths gathered along the way as the French speedily advanced through the

16  Matthew Vester transalpine Sabaudian lands were important juridical instruments for the king. They committed the inhabitants to cooperating with the new regime and raised the cost of resistance: breaking one’s oath was a soul-​threatening action. When Emanuel Filibert finally recovered Chieri and Turin in 1563, he made his entry in the company of the papal nuncio, foreign ambassadors, and many nobles (unlike the French and Swiss years earlier!). Then “the inhabitants swore to him a loyalty oath and had their privileges confirmed.”44 It was just as important for the duke to seal the recommitment of his dynasty’s subjects to him as it had been for the French, but this time it was easier for subjects to swear allegiance to their natural prince; many surely felt like they were finally setting things right again. In addition to gathering loyalty oaths, new rulers sought to solidify their claims through personal visits to the places now subject to them. Francis I and Henri II had done this; Emanuel Filibert also visited Piedmont twice between 1552 and 1557. After he reacquired the Chablais and other places from Berne in 1565, the duke took possession of them in person.45 When the ruler was physically absent, appointees participated in ceremonial transfers of power, as did the count of Challant in 1559. In Chambéry, the president of the parlement sat on a chair of purple velours in the great hall of the castle, where the parlement met, with the count of Challant at his left hand. The count received the keys of the town of Chambéry from the hands of the mayor, and then moved to where the president had been sitting. Next the president of the royal chambre des comptes turned over the patrimonial archive to the new ducal cameral officers. The next day, Challant took possession of the castle of Montmélian.46 Princely entries were also part of the ceremonial structure of regime change. In late 1560, the duke and duchess floated down the Po, past Turin to Vercelli, “where the residents spent lavishly to demonstrate how joyful they were to be returned to the rule of their natural prince.”47 Their entry to Turin in 1563 was prepared “very magnificently, the streets all adorned with tapestries, and [the duchess] passing under four triumphal arcs, walking next to His Highness under a canopy of gold cloth.”48 Through entries rulers and subjects experienced regime change in symbolically significant ways. As Peter Brown has pointed out for late antiquity, the translation of relics was also a kind of triumphal entry.49 The transfer of the Holy Shroud to Turin in 1578 helped establish the new capital. The Shroud, which was increasingly important for the house of Savoy, had been acquired by it in the mid-​ fifteenth century. Duchess Claudine (second wife of Philippe II) kept the Shroud at her residence; after she died many were convinced of her saintliness.50 Duke Philibert II, Claudine’s stepson, had the Shroud installed in a gold reliquary worth 12,000 écus in the Sainte Chapelle of the Chambéry castle. It was venerated by Charles V’s father and aunt. The dukes of Savoy carried it with them on their peregrinations, “as protection against any kind of danger.”51 After the 1534 fire in the Sainte Chapelle, the pope sent a legate to ensure that this event did not weaken “the devotion that all of Savoy had

Regime Change in Sabaudian Lands, 1536–1580  17 for such a precious relic.”52 In 1536 the Shroud was transferred to Vercelli; when the French briefly captured that place in 1553, Brissac declined to seize the relic, despite its great value. He refused to “toucher aux choses sacrées,” considering such plunder a “sacrilège” that would be punished by God.53 This relic exerted authority even over the dynasty’s enemies, indicating the religious dimension of regime change and the role of relics in conferring territorial legitimacy.54 Mindful of the potential danger posed to it by the French religious wars and in response to a request by Carlo Borromeo, Emanuel Filibert moved the Shroud to Turin in 1578.55 The duke exposed it publicly on the castle square in the presence of many dignitaries.56 (c) Division One way in which regime change affected the lives of ducal subjects was by creating division and factionalism. Bifurcated loyalties emerged during the occupation and continued during the restoration. Uncertainty about the future contributed to these divisions. Emanuel Filibert recaptured the town of Bra in 1552 and hanged Piedmontese defenders who had refused to submit to their “Prince naturel” –​one had replied that “he recognized no prince other than the king.”57 On the other hand, Francesco Solaro di Monasterolo lost his life while defending the town of Cardè against the French.58 Conquest and regime change deeply divided Piedmontese society. Most of the duke’s subjects joined “le party François,” others stayed at home, and a small remnant followed the duke for better or for worse.59 When news of the peace treaty arrived in Piedmont in 1559, some “rose up … crying vive Savoye! Savoye!” whereas others demonstrated their love and affection toward the king. Leading townspeople and nobles were “deeply moved” when they heard about the restoration and set off to go see the duke. Brissac concluded that it would be difficult to find workers to help him with the evacuation, indicating the material consequences of the popular response.60 Enthusiasm for the dynasty’s return turned to disappointment as new fiscal pressures mounted and the cash flow from France dried up. The duke’s subjects had welcomed him as “a God, hoping for a happy age.” Instead, they got a salt tax increase and restrictions on where they could sell their grain. Some began “openly to curse this peace and even to wish for war more than ever.”61 Unexpectedly, following the return of their “principe naturale,” many subjects “in loud voices, indiscriminately praised the name of the French.”62 Just as commoners had different responses to the Sabaudian restoration, so did noble families, beginning with the dynasty itself. Leaders of cadet branches such as Jacques de Savoie-​ Nemours, Claude de Savoie-​ Tende, and Filippo di Savoia-​ Racconigi collaborated actively with the French kings against Emanuel Filibert. Others, like Antonio Maria di Savoia-​ Collegno, faithfully served the ruling line. The restoration thus had different implications for these different family members, based on their wartime

18  Matthew Vester activities and affiliations. The same applied to other nobles. One son of Luigi Antonio Costa di Villastellone (Giorgio Maria, count of La Trinità), fought for Charles III and Emanuel Filibert, while the other (Giovanni Luigi, count of Bene), served the French.63 The count of Bene was upset about not having been included in the peace agreement, since he and others like him would now be at the duke’s mercy. Brissac helped broker a deal with Emanuel Filibert, by which he exchanged the county of Bene for other lands in Bresse, near the French border.64 (d)  Regional variation The experience of regime change also varied regionally, between areas that had remained in the duke’s hands during the war, and places that had either been integrated into other polities or subject to widespread and frequent combat. The Valle d’Aosta’s experience of the restoration was different still –​it was officially neutral during the war, while affirming its allegiance to the house of Savoy. The dukes approved its self-​rule under the aegis of the Conseil des Commis (the executive committee of the valley’s estates assembly, assisted by the count of Challant and the bishop). For the Valle d’Aosta, the restoration brought uncertainty as to whether its wartime political autonomy would continue. The French, and especially their governor Brissac, experienced this regime change with deep bitterness. “Errors of state which are made in a day, are regretted for many years,” wrote his secretary concerning Câteau-​ Cambrésis.65 Those towns, nobles, and soldiers, who had “spared neither their blood nor their wealth in the service of prince and country,” felt that their sacrifices had been wasted.66 Brissac was disgusted by “the disregard and shame that this harmful peace brought to the prince and the state.”67 The peace treaty also caused French subjects in Piedmont to grow so arrogant that they began to flout royal commands and refuse to pay taxes.68 As Brissac’s influence in Piedmont waned, his enemies at court accused him of needless violence and corruption.69 Brissac and other French veterans experienced the treaty of Câteau-​Cambrésis as a humiliation, on different levels.

The Structural Impact of Regime Change (a)  Military-​territorial While individuals and groups experienced regime change in various ways, shifts in governance also had structural impacts –​military-​territorial, institutional, and political. Military and territorial aspects of regime change embodied its impact most clearly. The Sabaudian restitution proceeded relatively smoothly on the western side of the Alps, but the French retention of the five presidios created complications for several years. This problem

Regime Change in Sabaudian Lands, 1536–1580  19 illustrates how regime change affected territorial dynamics in practical ways, on location. The peace treaty allowed the French king to determine how much land around the five towns (their finages) was necessary to provision them. The French were permitted to demolish any fortifications that they had constructed. Each side agreed to leave legal decisions rendered by occupation authorities in place and not to take revenge on their former opponents.70 Brissac was especially concerned about the money required to disband soldiers (who would demand their back pay, using the threat of mutiny as leverage) and to pay for the demolition of fortifications (since the duke would discourage his subjects from assisting). Losing contributions from towns returned to the duke would further constrict Brissac’s cash flow.71 Suddenly, the accidental death of Henri II at Emanuel Filibert’s wedding celebrations threw everything into doubt. Brissac wondered if the restitution would proceed, if war would recommence, and who had legitimate decision-​ making authority.72 Brissac then learned that the royal council set the finages of the towns at one mile, which made it impossible for these places to provision the inhabitants and the garrisons –​Emanuel Filibert was squeezing the towns, taxing (or blocking) supplies, setting up competing markets in nearby towns, and assessing residents on property owned outside the finages.73 Sabaudian officials also pressed for the return of property that had been confiscated from ducal subjects during the war.74 Micro-​management from Paris ignored the situation on the ground, threatening local order.75 In February 1560, famished residents of Turin rose up and the garrison mutinied. In April, Brissac was replaced by a new governor (Bourdillon), but friction over the five towns continued.76 Following the Treaty of Fossano, territorial agreements continued to be negotiated with the French, Swiss, and Spanish, as we have seen. To prevent a future invasion (and/​or as a juridical proof of possession), the duke built a series of fortresses throughout his lands (in Bourg-​en-​Bresse, in the Genevois south of Geneva, and in Turin) and set about creating a peasant militia.77 These military preparations were defensive in nature; the Venetian ambassador observed that Emanuel Filibert’s experiences had taught him that “nothing was more dangerous to a prince than war, and nothing safer than peace.”78 (b) Institutional The institutional impact of the Sabaudian restoration was contemplated early on by the French governor, who expressed concern about the future of the French judicial and fiscal officers and their “pauvres familles.”79 Some of these officials continued to serve the French in Pinerolo and Savigliano until 1574.80 The changes wrought by Câteau-​Cambrésis affected both French and Sabaudian institutions. Much more has been written about the institutional refoundation of Emanuel Filibert’s state.81 Among other things, Emanuel Filibert overhauled the judicial system, creating two Senates modeled

20  Matthew Vester after the parlements established by the French in Turin and Chambéry. He appointed regional judges, commissioned fiscal surveys, and founded a university, where he appointed well-​known scholars. He repaired castles and fortifications, placing governors there, and created the office of general of galleys.82 Judicial and administrative positions were filled by many of the same people who had held them under the French, whether out of political calculation or necessity. The fact that particular individuals monopolized procedural knowledge and informational access made it difficult for early modern rulers to engage in wholesale purging of governmental offices, even in the event of regime change.83 Financially, Emanuel Filibert was in a better position than his father, since earmarked revenues to secure the dowries of former duchesses had expired. The dynasty’s principal source of income, the Nice-​Piedmont salt gabelle, had continued to operate throughout the French occupation. Emanuel Filibert took advantage of this institutional legitimacy and significantly increased the salt price. He then created a new fiscal structure, the tasso –​a direct tax imposed on communities –​and transferred the projected revenues from salt sales onto the new tax. Localities, whose representatives met with the duke individually, could choose to fund their tasso payments by maintaining the higher salt price or reducing it and making up the difference through other expedients.84 The financial impact of regime change thus resulted from a combination of new institutions and traditional practices. (c) Political By definition, regime change affected political institutions and networks. Emanuel Filibert was restrained in his conduct toward subjects who had sided with his former enemies. Guichenon praised his policy of promoting those who had supported him during the war while forgiving those who had tried to remain neutral. While he did not treat pro-​French collaborators “as his enemies … he distanced them from his affairs, saying That he had no reason to trust them in his prosperity, since they had abandoned him in his disgrace.”85 Other reports indicate that Emanuel Filibert did in fact accept former collaborators into his service, including two diplomats sent to France to negotiate the restitution of the five towns.86 “Now I have to become French, if I want to get my state back,” he allegedly remarked.87 One might have expected Emanuel Filibert’s court to be heavily populated by Spaniards, given his long service to the Habsburgs, but such was not the case, perhaps because he wanted to showcase his neutrality.88 Little is known about how the restoration affected the de facto Sabaudian capitals during the war years, Vercelli and Nice. Did these towns lament a loss of influence over the duke’s affairs, or were they content to remain relatively free from dynastic control?89 Emanuel Filibert relied on the “primi del Piemonte” (the lords of Savoia-​ Racconigi, Valperga di Masino, Costa d’Arignano, and Costa della Trinità)

Regime Change in Sabaudian Lands, 1536–1580  21 for general support for his restoration, and in particular to convince the country to accept new taxes “because they are like faction bosses … and hold great authority in their districts.”90 The duke used dynastic knightly orders (the Annunciation, created in the fourteenth century, and S.S. Maurice and Lazarus, approved in 1572) to build loyalty to him and his regime.91 Noble factionalism remained a real threat, though: Boldù described the parties supporting Savoia-​ Racconigi and Masino as “guelf” and “ghibelline,” respectively. “Almost all Piedmontese nobles” adhered to one or the other, and they “hate each other greatly.” “The usual war at court” made things worse, as did religious differences (the court of Duchess Margaret included several Huguenots).92 Emanuel Filibert thus had to be extremely careful when soliciting political advice from his nobles, since otherwise thoughtful and intelligent people could be overcome by these “passioni” that distorted their opinions. This was one explanation for the duke’s well-​known penchant for making decisions by himself, after gathering information from a few. In this sense, noble factionalism altered the decision-​making process of the newly restored ruler.93 Regime change itself could have unexpected secondary impacts. Emanuel Filibert’s personal experience of various sorts of regime change in the Low Countries gave him tools to help manage his own restoration in 1559. The death of Henri II and subsequent instability at the French court also had spill-​ over effects on affairs in Piedmont.94 Over the very long term, the Sabaudian restoration of 1559 itself had an unexpected impact on Italy as a whole. For 300 years after Câteau-​Cambrésis, the dynasty continued its territorial and institutional consolidation in northwest Italy, carving out a place for itself within the European state system. One delayed impact of Emanuel Filibert’s reintegration was national-​level regime change on the Italian peninsula. This chapter has traced a brief chronology of regime change in the Sabaudian lands from the late fifteenth century to the second half of the sixteenth century. It has offered a typology of different kinds of regime change and has discussed how different individuals and groups experienced regime change. Finally, it has outlined some of the impacts of regime change in military, institutional, and political terms. Some of these typologies, experiences, and impacts might be useful in analyzing other territorial and historical contexts. A final question raised by this analysis is whether late Renaissance regime change was rooted in a historically specific kind of political culture. Could the forms, experiences, and impact of regime change have been linked to particular habits of thought regarding human persons, communities, and their place in the created order? Might living through regime change itself have begun to habituate people to think about politics (that is, sovereignty, the rights and duties of subjects, taxation, military activity, etc.) differently, perhaps contributing to a more recognizably modern way of conceptualizing political life? In other words, how did the lived reality of regime change described in this chapter influence the early modern political imaginary? This is a story that remains to be told.

22  Matthew Vester

Notes 1 Samuel Guichenon, Histoire généalogique de la Royale Maison de Savoie (Lyon: Guillaume Barbier, 1660), 621. Dedicated to the dowager duchess of Savoy, Christine de France, this generally reliable account will serve as this chapter’s point of reference (along with a few other key sources). An exhaustive analysis of primary and secondary sources pertaining to this topic is impossible given space restrictions. 2 Ibid., 630. 3 Ibid., 630–​631, 635–​636. 4 Ibid., 638; see also Matthew Vester, Transregional Lordship and the Italian Renaissance: René de Challant, 1504–​1565 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020), chap. 2. 5 Guichenon, 642. 6 Ibid., 643–​645. 7 Ercole Ricotti, Storia della monarchia piemontese, vol. 2 (Florence: G. Barbèra, 1861), 23. 8 Vester, Transregional Lordship, chap. 4. 9 Guichenon, 596. 10 Ibid., 695–​696. For other grandees using force to establish their own autonomy see ibid., 654, 685 (on Agostino I Tizzone, count of Crescentino and Desana) and Vester, Transregional Lordship, chap. 3 (on René de Challant). 11 For one example see Pierre Lambert de la Croix, Mémoires de Pierre Lambert, in Monumenta Historiae Patriae edita iussu Regis Caroli Alberti Scriptorum, vol. 1 (Turin: Regio Tipographeo, 1840), 896. 12 Guichenon, 673–​674. On Bollwiller, see J.-​F. Puthod, “Expédition du Baron Nicolas de Bollwiller en Bresse. Siège de Bourg (1557),” Revue d’Alsace (1865): 376–​381 and (1866): 144–​157. 13 Guichenon, 655: “ce qui les rendoit plus hardy, & plus courageux;” “il leur faudroitrendre tout ce qu’ils conquerroient.”; 14 Matthew Vester, “The Piedmontese Restitution: Franco-​Savoyard Diplomacy in 1562,” M.A. thesis (University of Virginia, 1992). 15 Guichenon, 693; see also Domenico Carutti, Storia della diplomazia della corte di Savoia, vol. 1 (Rome: Fratelli Bocca, 1875). 16 Guichenon, 680; see also Robert Oresko, “The Question of the Sovereignty of Geneva after the Treaty of Câteau-​ Cambrésis,” in Republiken und Republikanismus im Europa des Frühen Neuzeit, ed. H.G. Koenigsberger and others (Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1988), 77–​99. 17 François Boyvin du Villars, Mémoires, in Choix de chroniques et mémoires sur l’histoire de France, ed. J.A.C. Buchon (Paris: Librairie Charles Delagrave, 1884), 865: “En matiere de restitutions d’estats et de places si importantes qu’estoient celles de delà les monts, il y faloit marcher avec le pied plombé.” Boyvin was the secretary for the French governor of Piedmont, Charles de Cossé, count of Brissac and marshal of France. 18 Guichenon, 684. 19 Ibid., 664. 20 Ibid., 666. 21 Maurice Van Durme, “Les Granvelle au service des Habsbourg,” in Les Granvelle et les anciens Pays-​ Bas, ed. Krista De Jonge & Gustaaf Janssens (Louvain: Universitaire Pers Leuven, 2000).

Regime Change in Sabaudian Lands, 1536–1580  23 22 Boyvin, 860; Romolo Quazza, La contea di Masserano e Filiberto Ferrero-​Fieschi (Biella: G. Amosso, 1908); Vester, Transregional Lordship. 23 Historians have studied the various ways in which Emanuel Filibert reorganized state institutions and adopted new governing practices since the sixteenth century. The level of institutional and political change that he implemented was significant. For an overview of these transformations, see Pier Paolo Merlin, Emanuele Filiberto: Un principe tra il Piemonte e l’Europa (Turin: SEI, 1995). 24 See H.G. Koenigsberger, “The Parliament of Piedmont During the Renaissance, 1460–​1560,” in id., Estates and Revolutions (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975), 19–​79; but also Matthew Vester, “Regionalism and Fiscal Policy in the Southern Savoyard Lands, 1550–​1580,” Quaderni storici 47, 1 (2012): 191–​220. 25 Andrea Boldù, “Relazione” (1561), in Relazioni di ambasciatori veneti al Senato, ed. Luigi Firpo, vol. 9, “Savoia” (Turin: Bottega d’Erasmo, 1978), 43–​ 44: “dimostrazione di questa sua podestà, che intende che sia assoluta;” “le convenzioni antiche della casa di Savoia … osservate sotto ciascun altro principe passato.” 26 Giovanni Francesco Morosini, “Relazione” (1570), in Relazioni di ambasciatori veneti, 177: “la ragion di guerra voglia che i popoli restino liberamente alla discrezion dei principi, perdendo ogni privilegio che per innanzi avessero ottenuto.” 27 Sigismondo Cavalli, “Relazione” (1564), in Relazioni di ambasciatori veneti, 87, 91–​92, 95–​96; see also Cristina Stango, “La corte di Emanuele Filiberto: Organizzazione e gruppi sociali,” Bollettino storico-​bibliografico subalpino 85 (1987): 445–​502. 28 Cavalli, 101–​102. 29 Giovanni Correr, “Relazione” (1566), in Relazioni di ambasciatori veneti, 141: “non sono perpetui; oggi regna uno e domani potria regnar un altro, e così come sono differenti di faccia, coì anco potriano aver opinioni diverse.” 30 Correr, 128. 31 Guichenon, 686–​687: “pour conserver avec plus de facilité cette place Capitale du Piemont.” 32 Ibid., 694–​95. 33 The phrase “natural prince” appears routinely in the sources, referring to the legitimate dynastic ruler of a territory and a subject’s rightful ruler. It is unclear whether “natural” refers to the ruler’s authority as a birthright, to the fact that a subject was born in the territory subject to his rule, or both. It indicates a political culture in which authority is a given, built into the order of things, and not constructed or malleable. 34 Archivio di Stato di Torino, prima sezione, Negoziazioni cogli Svizzeri, mz. 1 bis, no. 31, “Diverse lettere al Duca Carlo 3o, ed al Maresciallo di Savoja sulli movimenti delle Truppe de Bernesi,” copy of letter from Hans Frans Nägeli to the Castellan and inhabitants of Cudrefin, Morat 22-​I-​36. 35 Ibid., Demolendino [?]‌to Charles III, Estavayer 17-​II-​36 (describing what had happened over three weeks earlier). 36 Ibid., René de Challant to Charles III, Chambéry 24-​II-​36; ibid., Etienne Cavet to Charles III, Chambéry 24-​II-​36. 37 Archives historiques régionales d’Aoste, Fonds Challant 264, mz. 1, Philibert de La Baume to René de Challant, Bourg 28-​ II-​ 36: “avons faictz ce que pour noz honneurs et conscience apres le debvoir de noz offices debvyons & povyons fere.”

24  Matthew Vester 38 Charles III to his officers in Bugey, Turin 17-​II-​36, cited in Armando Tallone, “Ivrea e il Piemonte al tempo della prima dominazione francese (1536–​1559),” in Studi eporediesi (Pinerolo: Tipografia Chiantore-​Mascarelli, 1900): 65–​200, 99 n. 1. 39 Charles III to his officers, Turin 25-​II-​36, cited in ibid., 99 n. 2: “en faire voz protestes en tel cas requises;” “garder espoir en dieu quil y mectra la main.” 40 Ibid.: “merveilleux mescontentement des bons subgects;” “n’actendirent pas que mon dict seigneur fust a cheval, quilz allarent au devant des francoys pour les amener dedans leurville.” 41 Guichenon, 643: “pour eviter les desolations que souffre une Ville prise par force;” “ils n’entendoient point deroger aux droits de Souveraineté du Duc, ne faisants que ceder au temps & à la necessité.” 42 Tallone, 107–​112. 43 Guichenon, 641–​642. 44 Ibid., 685: “les Habitans luy firent le serment de fidelité, & eurent confirmation de leurs Privileges.” 45 Ibid., 686–​687. 46 Ibid., 677. 47 Ibid., 679: “où les habitans firent une dépence extraordinaire, pour témoigner la ioye qu’ils avoient de se voir retournés sous la domination de leur Prince naturel.” 48 Ibid., 685: “avec beaucoup de magnificence, toutes les rues estoient tapissées; [the duchess] passa sous quatre Arcs Triomphaux, & marchoit à costé de S.A. sous un Daix de drap d’or.” See also various articles in Lo stato sabaudo al tempo di Emanuele Filiberto, 3 vols., ed. Carlo Patrucco (Torino: Miglietta, 1928). 49 Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980). 50 Guichenon, 601; John Beldon Scott, Architecture for the Shroud: Relic and Ritual in Turin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003). 51 Guichenon, 611, 613: “comme un preservatif contre toutes sortes d’accidents.” 52 Ibid., 636–​637: “la devotion que toute la Savoye avoit pour une si precieuse Relique.” 53 Boyvin, 634. 54 Brown, chap. 5. 55 Guichenon, 694–​695. 56 Ibid. 57 Ibid., 665: “il ne reconnoissoit point d’autre Prince que le Roy.” 58 Ibid. 59 Ibid., 678–​679. 60 Boyvin, 852: “esmeus.” 61 Boldù, 53–​54: “un Dio, sperando d’aver essi età felice;” “maledire apertamente questa pace ed all’incontro desiderare la guerra più che mai.” 62 Correr, 130–​131: “ad alta voce senza alcun rispetto benedicono il nome de’ Francesi.” 63 Enrico Stumpo, “Giorgio Maria Costa,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 30 (1984). Found online at www.trecc​ani.it/​encic​lope​dia/​gior​gio-​maria-​cos​ ta_​(Diz​iona​rio-​ Biografico)/​(accessed January 26, 2022). 64 Boyvin, 858, 873; see also “Bene Vagienna,” in Schedario storico-​territoriale (Centro Universitario di Storia Territoriale “Goffredo Casalis”). Found online

Regime Change in Sabaudian Lands, 1536–1580  25 at www.arch​ivio​casa​lis.it/​locali​zed-​inst​all/​bib​lio/​cuneo/​bene-​vagie​nna (accessed January 26, 2022). 65 Boyvin, 620: “Les fautes d’estat, qui se font en un jour, sont pleurées par plusieurs années.” 66 Ibid., 854, 849: “espargné leur sang et leurs fortunes au service du prince et de la patrie.” 67 Ibid.: “le mespris et le rabaissement que ceste desavantageuse paix apportoit au prince et à l’estat.” 68 Ibid., 856. 69 Ibid., 859–​860. 70 Treaty text printed in ibid., 920–​922. 71 Ibid., 852–​853, 856, 859, 864–​866, 886. There were 8300 royal infantry and 430 cavalry in Piedmont in April 1559 (ibid., 853–​854). 72 Ibid., 872–​876. 73 Ibid., 853, 864–​865, 869, 871, 877, 879–​882, 884, 886, 895–​898; see also a copy of François II to Brissac, 24-​VII-​59, printed in ibid., 928. 74 Ibid., 874. 75 Specifically, this had to do with money-​ saving proposals to reassign the commanders of citadels within towns, which would lead to corruption, pilfering, and lack of supervision for the prisoners in the citadels; see ibid., 868. 76 Ibid., 900–​903, 905, 907; see also Vester, “Piedmontese Restitution.” 77 Guichenon, 688–​89; see also Walter Barberis, Le armi del Principe: La tradizione militare sabauda (Turin: Einaudi, 1988). 78 Correr, 124–​125: “niuna cosa esser più pericolsa ad un principe che la guerra, niuna più sicura che la pace.” 79 Boyvin, 852; see also ibid., 881. 80 Little is known about French legal and fiscal officers in Piedmont during the occupation; see Marie Houllemare, “Le parlement de Savoie, un outil politique pour le roi de France (1536–​ 1559),” Revue historique 665, no. 1 (2013): 89–​118, and id., “La justice saisie par la guerre: Les institutions françaises en Piémont et Savoie sous François Ier et Henri II (1536–​1559),” in Justice et guerre de l’Antiquité à la Première Guerre mondiale, ed. Marie Houllemare et al. (Amiens: Encrage, 2011), 73–​81. 81 See Lo stato sabaudo; Merlin, Emanuele Filiberto; id., Claudio Rosso and Geoffrey Symcox, Il Piemonte sabaudo. Stato e territori in età moderna (Turin: UTET, 1994); Ricotti, etc. 82 Guichenon, 678. 83 Matthew Vester, Renaissance Dynasticism and Apanage Politics: Jacques de Savoie-​ Nemours, 1531–​1585 (Kirksville MO: Truman State University Press, 2012), chap. 8. 84 Id., “The Political Autonomy of a Tax Farm: The Nice-​Piedmont Gabelle of the Dukes of Savoy, 1535–​1580,” The Journal of Modern History 76 (December 2004): 745–​ 792; also id., “Territorial Politics and Early Modern ‘Fiscal Policy’: Taxation in Savoy, 1559–​1580,” Viator 32 (2001): 279–​302. 85 Guichenon, 678–​679: “comme ses ennemys … il les esloigna de ses affaires, disant Qu’il n’avoit point de raison de se fier en eux en sa prosperité; puis qu’ils l’avoient abandonné dans ses disgraces.” 86 Cavalli, 107–​108.

26  Matthew Vester 87 Boldù, 74–​75: “Ora bene bisognerà ch’io diventi francese, se vorrò avere lo stato mio.” 88 Ibid., 40–​41. 89 The duke continued to spend two or three months in Nice once every two or three years; see Luigi Enrico Pennacchini, “Itinerario del Duca Emanuele Filiberto dal 1558 al 1580,” in Lo stato sabaudo, 1: 1–​152. 90 Boldù, 42: “perchè sono come capi di fazione … e di grande autorità in quei paesi dove abitano.” 91 Guichenon, 689–​690; see also Andrea Merlotti, “Un sistema degli onori europeo per Casa Savoia? I primi anni dell’Ordine dei santi Maurizio e Lazzaro (1573–​ 1604),” Rivista storica italiana 114, 3 (2002): 477–​514. 92 Boldù, 44–​ 45: “Quasi tutti li gentiluomini del Piemonte;” “s’odiano grandemente;” “La guerra ordinaria della corte.” 93 Ibid. On this topic, see La prise de décision en France (1525–​1529). Recherches sur la réalité du pouvoir royal ou princier à la Renaissance, ed. Roseline Claerr and Olivier Poncet (Paris: École nationale des chartes, 2008). 94 Boyvin, 878; Vester, “Piedmontese Restitution.”

Bibliography Unpublished Sources Aoste Archives historiques régionales. Fonds Challant Turin Archivio di Stato. Prima sezione. Negoziazioni cogli Svizzeri

Published Sources Barberis, Walter. Le armi del Principe: La tradizione militare sabauda. Turin: Einaudi, 1988. “Bene Vagienna.” In Schedario storico-​territoriale. Centro Universitario di Storia Territoriale “Goffredo Casalis.” Found online at www.arch​ivio​casa​lis.it/​locali​zed-​ install/​biblio/​cuneo/​bene-​vagienna (accessed January 26, 2022). Boldù, Andrea. “Relazione” (1561). In Firpo, Relazioni di ambasciatori veneti al Senato. Boyvin du Villars, François. Mémoires. In Choix de chroniques et mémoires sur l’histoire de France, edited by J.A.C. Buchon. Paris: Librairie Charles Delagrave, 1884. Brown, Peter. The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980. Carutti, Domenico. Storia della diplomazia della corte di Savoia. Vol. 1. Rome: Fratelli Bocca, 1875. Cavalli, Sigismondo. “Relazione” (1564). In Firpo, Relazioni di ambasciatori veneti al Senato. Claerr, Roseline and Olivier Poncet, eds. La prise de décision en France (1525–​ 1529). Recherches sur la réalité du pouvoir royal ou princier à la Renaissance. Paris: École nationale des chartes, 2008.

Regime Change in Sabaudian Lands, 1536–1580  27 Correr, Giovanni. “Relazione” (1566). In Firpo, Relazioni di ambasciatori veneti al Senato. Firpo, Luigi, ed. Relazioni di ambasciatori veneti al Senato. Vol. 9, Savoia. Turin: Bottega d’Erasmo, 1978. Guichenon, Samuel. Histoire généalogique de la Royale Maison de Savoie. Lyon: Guillaume Barbier, 1660. Houllemare, Marie. “La justice saisie par la guerre: Les institutions françaises en Piémont et Savoie sous François Ier et Henri II (1536–​1559).” In Justice et guerre de l’Antiquité à la Première Guerre mondiale, ed. Marie Houllemare et al., 73–​81. Amiens: Encrage, 2011. Houllemare, Marie. “Le parlement de Savoie, un outil politique pour le roi de France (1536–​1559).” Revue historique 665, no. 1 (2013): 89–​118. Koenigsberger, H.G. “The Parliament of Piedmont During the Renaissance, 1460–​ 1560.” In Estates and Revolutions, ed. H.G. Koenigsberger, 19–​79. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975. Lambert de la Croix, Pierre. Mémoires de Pierre Lambert. In Monumenta Historiae Patriae edita iussu Regis Caroli Alberti Scriptorum.Vol. 1.Turin: Regio Tipographeo, 1840. Merlin, Pier Paolo. Emanuele Filiberto: Un principe tra il Piemonte e l’Europa. Turin: SEI, 1995. Merlin, Pier Paolo, Claudio Rosso and Geoffrey Symcox. Il Piemonte sabaudo. Stato e territori in età moderna. Turin: UTET, 1994. Merlotti, Andrea. “Un sistema degli onori europeo per Casa Savoia? I primi anni dell’Ordine dei santi Maurizio e Lazzaro (1573–​1604).” Rivista storica italiana 114, no. 3 (2002): 477–​514. Morosini, Giovanni Francesco. “Relazione” (1570). In Firpo, Relazioni di ambasciatori veneti al Senato. Oresko, Robert. “The Question of the Sovereignty of Geneva after the Treaty of Câteau-​Cambrésis.” In Republiken und Republikanismus im Europa des Frühen Neuzeit, ed. H.G. Koenigsberger et al., 77–​99. Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1988. Patrucco, Carlo, ed. Lo stato sabaudo al tempo di Emanuele Filiberto. 3 vols. Turin: Miglietta, 1928. Pennacchini, Luigi Enrico. “Itinerario del Duca Emanuele Filiberto dal 1558 al 1580.” In Patrucco, Lo stato sabaudo, vol. 1. Puthod, J.-​F. “Expédition du Baron Nicolas de Bollwiller en Bresse. Siège de Bourg (1557).” Revue d’Alsace (1865): 376–​381 and (1866): 144–​157. Quazza, Romolo. La contea di Masserano e Filiberto Ferrero-​Fieschi. Biella: G. Amosso, 1908. Ricotti, Ercole. Storia della monarchia piemontese. Vol. 2. Florence: G. Barbèra, 1861. Scott, John Beldon. Architecture for the Shroud: Relic and Ritual in Turin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. Stango, Cristina. “La corte di Emanuele Filiberto: Organizzazione e gruppi sociali.” Bollettino storico-​bibliografico subalpino 85 (1987): 445–​502. Stumpo, Enrico. “Giorgio Maria Costa.” In Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 30 (1984). Found online at www.trecc​ani.it/​encic​lope​dia/​gior​gio-​maria-​cos​ta_​(Diz​ iona​rio-​Bio​graf​i co)/​ (accessed January 26, 2022).

28  Matthew Vester Tallone, Armando. “Ivrea e il Piemonte al tempo della prima dominazione francese (1536–​1559).” In Studi eporediesi, 65–​ 200. Pinerolo: Tipografia Chiantore-​ Mascarelli, 1900. Van Durme, Maurice. “Les Granvelle au service des Habsbourg.” In Les Granvelle et les anciens Pays-​ Bas, ed. Krista De Jonge & Gustaaf Janssens, 11–​ 81. Louvain: Universitaire Pers Leuven, 2000. Vester, Matthew. “The Piedmontese Restitution: Franco-​ Savoyard Diplomacy in 1562.” M.A. thesis, University of Virginia, 1992. Vester, Matthew. “The Political Autonomy of a Tax Farm: The Nice-​ Piedmont Gabelle of the Dukes of Savoy, 1535–​1580.” The Journal of Modern History 76 (December 2004): 745–​92 Vester, Matthew. “Regionalism and Fiscal Policy in the Southern Savoyard Lands, 1550–​1580.” Quaderni storici 47, no. 1 (2012): 191–​220. Vester, Matthew. Renaissance Dynasticism and Apanage Politics: Jacques de Savoie-​ Nemours, 1531–​1585. Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2012. Vester, Matthew. “Territorial Politics and Early Modern ‘Fiscal Policy’: Taxation in Savoy, 1559–​1580.” Viator 32 (2001): 279–​302. Vester, Matthew. Transregional Lordship and the Italian Renaissance: René de Challant, 1504–​1565. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020.

2 Memories and Fantasies of Regime Change in Spanish Naples Stephen Cummins

In 1599, the Dominican friar Tommaso Campanella from his home province of Calabria Ultra, led an attempt to throw off Spanish rule from the Kingdom of Naples. While often regarded as a quixotic endeavor, built on a foundation of delusion, there were, at least, historical reasons for supposing that a change –​a mutazione, to use Campanella’s favored term –​may have been due. The years preceding this attempt had seen local suffering and disorder as well as international conflict precipitating anticipation of great changes in the Kingdom, especially the end of Spanish rule. In 1599, the year after Philip II’s death, any early modern student of the history of Naples could see that the marriage of the Regno with its ruling dynasty was not necessarily an eternal match. Despite their subjects’ protestations of fidelity, unlike his father Charles V, neither Philip nor his heir would ever set foot in the Kingdom. Before the Habsburgs, the Kingdom had a variegated history of dynastic rule: Normans, Swabians, Angevins, and Aragonese. The Kingdom was even, technically, a fief of the papacy, donated to its rulers as the yearly Chinea ritual symbolized.1 It was hardly an extravagant counterfactual to imagine that a different ruler could have taken the crown of Naples. Or, even, to suppose that the Kingdom may not have survived as a united polity. Indeed, while resident in Naples the French King Louis XII countenanced a short-​lived carving up of the provinces of the Regno, ceding the southern provinces of Puglia and Calabria to the Spanish.2 Despite the victory of the Habsburgs and the inauguration of the “periodo spagnolo” –​traditionally described as an era marked by moribund acquiescence to foreign rule –​urban and rural society periodically resisted Spanish rule or policy, such as the resistance to viceroy Toledo’s policies in 1547–​1548. The expanding population of the capital city, on one hand, and post-​war disorder in the provinces, on the other, produced instability. The Spanish government appeared weak and unable to impose discipline on more distant provinces, where bandit-​chiefs raised their banners above cities and the infamous bandit Marco Sciarra even assumed the title of king.3 Outside threats contributed to this climate of uncertainty. Naples’ increasingly strategic role in the Spanish Mediterranean theater in this period DOI: 10.4324/9781003199021-3

30  Stephen Cummins coincided with the increasing threat of conquest by the Ottomans or by a Franco-​Ottoman alliance. The notable fortification and militarization of the Kingdom, the building of forts and billeting of Spanish troops across the provinces, was a reaction to these fears over the instability of rule.4 Further into the seventeenth century, after the Ottoman threat to southern Italy diminished, internal unrest and geopolitical rivalries, many stoked by Paris and the French embassy in Rome, still seemed to place the rule of Naples in imminent danger from conspiracies and invasions. While the treaties of the early sixteenth century that culminated in the Peace of Cateau-​Cambrésis settled the question of Habsburg rule of Naples on the official stage, it was by no means the end of the Regno as an object both desired by others and difficult to maintain. While Campanella’s conspiracy failed, the popolo-​led rebellion of 1647–​1648 eventually placed the entire Kingdom in danger of slipping from Spanish control. In the absence of an effective republican movement, the leading candidate –​or rather figurehead –​to wrest away sovereignty was Henri II, duke of Guise, who claimed a right to the Kingdom through his relation to the last French king of Naples, Louis XII. His expedition to Naples was a disaster and his brief spell as “doge” of the short-​lived Reale Repubblica di Napoli (which attempted to square the circle of monarchy and republicanism) was of little account.5 Yet despite this well-​known abortive French attempt on the Kingdom, the passage from revolution to pacification should not be interpreted as an immediate return to security. The 1650s was a febrile decade with aristocratic plots against Spanish rule and even a second, less well-​known, invasion led by Henri, duke of Guise. Projects of both historical scholarship and political action turned to the history of earlier dynastic changes and disruptions in order to prognosticate, plot, and interpret the dynamics of possibility or inevitability in the unwritten future of the Kingdom. Historical scholarship and political action were intertwined in this period. Yet such entanglements were not simple. The ars historica around 1600 was a dense field with great ambitions but one that often buckled under its attempt to meet them, as Anthony Grafton has argued.6 The application of past examples to present circumstances was never straightforward, yet even when we discount predictive power the connections between historical scholarship and politics remained important. Past examples served present purposes. With a focus on two moments of conspiratorial motion, that of Tommaso Campanella in 1599 and aristocratic conspiracies of the 1650s, this chapter traces some of the Neapolitan controversies around regime change and rebellion in which national traits or tendencies interpreted in historical contexts played major roles. The politics of history in the Kingdom of Naples were of major significance. This politics took a number of forms, drawing on both what may be called an anthropological or natural history, and a history of events.

Regime Change in Spanish Naples  31

Between History and Stereotype While the wars that had led to Habsburg rule over the Kingdom of Naples were an essential part of the constitutional history of early-​modern Naples, they were not interpreted as exceptional. Rather, the Italian Wars were often cited as the latest in a series of historical examples that depicted some enduring aspects of the Neapolitan people and events on the southern part of the Italian peninsula. It was a commonplace in early-​modern Europe to regard the Neapolitans as faithless, seditious, and discontented, whether that was due to nature or long-​ingrained habit. These arguments came in a variety of genres, from the historical to the anthropological.7 The historical record provided proof, for some observers, that the inhabitants of the Kingdom were rebellious by nature. Such evaluations did not stay in a free-​floating space of stereotype but were put into practice by inclusion in applied attempts by diplomats and statesmen to gauge the temperature of the Kingdom at particular moments, featuring in the genre of relazioni from diplomats to their home states or documents of instruction prepared for incoming administrators. For instance, a Venetian agent reported that even “between all the varied and marvelous examples of mutazioni of state and of governments, which are variously shown in histories, those of the regular and turbulent revolutions of the Kingdom of Naples seem to me to be without compare, and may be the most conspicuous, the most stupendous that are perhaps available to consider.” This was due to “the restless nature of these peoples, that even in most distant times have shown a hunger to consistently agitate for civil and foreign wars, and has given in large part woeful fermentation to many revolutions [alterazioni] and disorders.”8 This sort of argumentation laid the responsibility for the long series of rulers of Naples at the feet of the troublesome inhabitants of the Kingdom. The “most distant times” were relevant parts of contemporary analysis. Not only were they chronically rebellious and liable to unseat their rulers, but in the late sixteenth century an acute disorder was growing too: “To this ill-​disposed nature is added the pestilent humors that are daily accumulating in this disordered body, the infirmity is of a contagious sort, and if it is not in fact to be despaired of, at the least the ownership [of this Kingdom] has always been judged dangerous; it has, after many other nations, today fallen to the Spanish nation.” For this agent, the character of the inhabitants was such that ownership of the Kingdom was a potential liability. Naples as a “disordered body” –​an unstable body politic –​meant that it was a challenge for the royal “head” to rule it. We can also turn to an earlier report in, 1559, when a Venetian ambassador in Spain noted that “as for the morale of the Neapolitans, I can only repeat what they themselves always say: every government sickens them and every state displeases them.”9 Such comments remind us that, while labeling from outside was significant, Neapolitans themselves could use such concepts

32  Stephen Cummins to make sense of their own dilemmas. Memorials for incoming Spanish viceroys also presented similar warnings about the problem of Neapolitan instability. The conclusion of such humoral accounts of the Neapolitans was often an accusation that they lacked fidelity. Accounts of the populace of the Kingdom found explanatory power in geographical-​physiological explanations. The sources for such arguments were varied, some came from long-​standing stereotypes, others took legitimacy from more contemporary science about the influence of heat or cold upon the body. As Silvana d’Alessi has shown, “anthropological” argumentation was used by some participants in the debates surrounding the 1647–​ 1648 rebellion to explain why the peoples of southern Italy were particularly unsuited to republican rule. They were, as she refers to a pamphlet from the 1647–​1648 rebellions, Lettera di un Napoletano scritta di Roma ad un suo Amico a Napoli, “too hot, and too alive” to be able to rule themselves as a republic. The “semiology of temperatures,” as Ulinka Rublack has noted, was of great significance in early-​modern culture, and it was consequential in political discourse as well as in medicine.10 Heat was a polyvalent concept that could be deployed for a range of interpretative purposes. Foreign visitors, too, turned to the concepts of heat or another related concept, voluptuousness, to understand the Neapolitans. When the English traveler James Howell arrived in Naples in 1621, the “hot” nature of the Neapolitans (as well as their dedication to pleasure) was one of the first things he reported upon. In his summary of his initial impressions of the capital city, he noted the “hot” nature of the inhabitants. It was for this reason that he said the King of Spain spent huge amounts of money on keeping the Kingdom full of both infantry and cavalry. Howell cited both heat and history in explaining why the King did this “to keep this voluptuous people in aw; for the Story musters up seven and twenty famous Rebellions of the Neapolitans in lesse than 300 yeers: But now they pay soundly for it, for one shall hear them groan up and down under the Spanish yoak.”11 These centuries of rebellion were not, then, forgotten events from dusty annals, they provided convincing evidence, for some, of a rebellious people. Howell’s rudimentary statistics of 27 rebellions testified to the uneasy eye cast by both Spaniards and foreigners over the so-​called “Spanish yoke.” Some of the reputed “hottest” of all Neapolitans were the leading aristocracy, especially those aggregated to the seggi, who were at the same time vital partners for Spanish control (and orchestrated funding for Spanish imperial projects) and their most dangerous potential opponents. This aristocracy, under the surface of well-​known, and in the seventeenth century increasingly noisy related protestations of fidelity, had a complicated set of interests many of which could easily be at odds with Habsburg preponderance.12 Periodic swirling eddies of pro-​French sentiment, some produced from traditions of blood-​ties and others by dint of newer ambitions to independence, threatened to gather swiftly into strong currents.13 Critics of Spain noted how the Spanish regime fostered loyal aristocrats. In the early

Regime Change in Spanish Naples  33 eighteenth century, the stringent critic of the Spanish related Doria related argued that the Spanish crown rewarded those who had served them in the Italian Wars by turning a blind eye to crimes and violence these feudal lords inflicted upon their vassals.14 Whether this is an exaggeration or not, the policy of giving a wide berth to the feudal aristocracy was indeed part of Spanish governing practices, as they required the aristocratic parliament to approve the financial transfers known as donativi to fund their wars. Commentators often remarked that it was the pride and weakness to flattery of the Neapolitan aristocracy that led to their support of monarchy in general even amidst the changes of regime. For instance, in Traiano Boccalini’s Ragguagli di Parnaso he remarks that it was a “natural instinct” of the baronage to prefer “any subject how barbarous soever for their King” than to allow the equity between nobles and commoners that would emerge from a different ruling system despite all the “failings of the blood Royal, and by many other interregna,” which offered chances for change.15 In a variety of permutations a hybrid historical-​natural-​anthropological theory of the region was commonplace. In its different instances, it followed a similar logic: the nature of the Neapolitans explained their rebellious history. It was only to be expected that the interaction between climate and humors would produce a people ready to foment war and, for a king, dangerous to try to rule over. Yet many Neapolitans themselves were not happy to accept this account as accurate, whether they felt it bad history or insulting stereotype. Many of those who repudiated the perfidious Naples argument did so through arguing that it was precisely the virtues, merits, and attractions of the Kingdom that explained its tumultuous history. The sixteenth century notary Antonino Castaldo (c.1520–​1590), active in the municipal government of the city, in the manuscript Rumori di Napoli in tempo del governo del vicere Don Pietro di Toledo Premessovi un ragionamento di quanto successe a i baroni proffered this argument. Naples was esteemed, not only in Italy, but across Europe, as the “the most amenable, the most fertile, and the most delightful.”16 It was this splendor that had, across a very longue durée, enticed foreigners who had with “the greatest of affection desired” the Kingdom. This desire provoked many to undertake “long voyages with large armies to invade it.” This included the Greeks, Normans, Swabians, Angevins, and Aragonese. Seduced by the natural beauty, pleasant climes and potential for profit, Naples was exposed as a victim due to its own merits. In this argument, then, dynastic variety was not a sign of defects in the populace but a history of invasion, colonization, and periodic resistance to colonizers. Tommaso Costo (c.1545–​1613) wrote the most well-​known defense of the Neapolitans against charges of turbulence and disloyalty, published only after the death of the famed secretary and historian: La apologia istorica del regno di Napoli contra la falsa opinione di coloro, che biasimarono i Regnicoli d’inconstanza & d’infedeltà. His main antagonist was the humanist historian Pandolfo Collenuccio (c.1444–​-​c.1504), who had compiled the first

34  Stephen Cummins major history of the Kingdom of Naples. Collenuccio’s starting point for his historical work was precisely the loss of the Kingdom’s independence after the French invasions of 1494.17 As John Marino notes, Collenuccio’s life experience encouraged him to see Florence and Ferrara as successful polities and Naples as a cautionary tale.18 Neapolitan scholars could not ignore the achievement of Collenuccio’s Compendio de le istorie del Regno di Napoli, that work of “a foreigner who had never even visited Naples,” but nor did they leave it unamended or uncriticized. Yet, as Giorgio Masi has noted, some of this patriotic reaction overstated Collenuccio’s misrepresentations, making him into a useful caricature of the critical foreigner.19 In 1572, the noble historian Gian Batista Carafa opened his Dell’Historie del Regno di Napoli with a polemic against Collenuccio. He argued that Collenuccio used the concept of traitor and rebel far too loosely against the nobles and barons of the Kingdom. To maintain loyalty to a recently deposed king, was not, in Carafa’s account, rebellion.20 Naples was rather a “target, or arena of the ambitious, the avaricious, exposed to pillage, fires, wars, and calamities, being desired too much due to its fertility … and for many other of its gifts.”21 Tommaso Costo in the Apologia, for his part, argued that Collenuccio displayed a historical “malignity” especially in blaming the people of the Kingdom for encouraging changes of state.22 He concluded the work by arguing that, if the subjects of the Kingdom had participated in any rebellions or plots (he uses the terms novità and movimento), the fault always lay with the rulers or their ministers. Neapolitans had only ever objected to tyrants. Under good and just kings they were always “most obedient, most constant, most faithful, most loving.”23 The victimhood was reversed, no longer was it the rulers who were unseated by unhappy subjects, instead unacceptable cruelties provoked Neapolitans to any rebellions or uprisings they did make, and when they did so, restraint and reasonableness often marked their behavior. Costo also makes the auxiliary point that it is a further error to accuse the history of Naples as having more examples of this than other states in Christendom. Nor was it only Collenuccio who Costo sought to rebut. Other chroniclers of Italy in the wake of the Italian Wars were targeted. For instance, he identified Guicciardini’s claim that the Neapolitans, more than other peoples, desired more than they were due, that they wished to reach beyond their stations, which made them always dissatisfied (in fastidio) with the current state of things and therefore a difficult people to rule. They were “amongst all the peoples of Italy known for instability and lust for new things.”24 Costo rebuts this by arguing that some desire for change is common to all peoples. And, if the Neapolitans are or had been particularly unhappy, it is due to the sufferings and invasions by foreign powers they have endured. The historical record demonstrated, in Costo’s interpretation, that when they were ruled under good, or even mediocre, governments the Neapolitans were model subjects.

Regime Change in Spanish Naples  35 These various controversies on the interpretation of the Kingdom’s history display a typical early-​ modern admixture of political history, proto-​anthropology, and inferences of climactic influences. The panegyric descriptions of Naples, its fertility, attractiveness, and status as the jewel of Europe, was intertwined with ideas about the lust that foreigners had to take it for themselves.25 There was an entanglement of national character, the natural surroundings of terrain and climate, with the influence of past events on current or future happenings. Such, often ill-​defined, accounts of national characters formed crucial parts of early-​modern political theory across Europe.26 Dynastic change, conquest and the establishment of new regimes was in either tradition (or any of its variants) one of the main drivers in southern Italy of discourses of Neapolitan identity and was especially connected to the discourses and descriptions of Naples (and southern Italy’s) natural attributes. In the debates of the sixteenth century, the legacy of the invasions, bloodshed and disruption of the Italian Wars was central to these debates. A generalized anxiety about holding kingdoms, common to the expansive but delicate Spanish empire of Philip II and Philip III, magnified these concerns. Such observations on the history and nature of the Kingdom and its inhabitants, unreliable or contested as they may have been, did not stay comfortably in a scholarly field isolated from policy-​making or other forms of political action.

The Calabrian Conspiracy and Tommaso Campanella If we return to Tommaso Campanella in 1599, the interrelation of history and political action can be demonstrated clearly. Born in 1568 in the village of Stilo, he led an unorthodox life. This started young with his adoption of anti-​ Aristotelianism following the example of his fellow Calabrian Bernardo Telesio. In his youth, Campanella had traveled across Italy and encountered magical and astrological ideas, which marked his intellectual life.27 Eventually his unorthodox philosophy and questionable faith brought him in front of the Venetian Inquisition in Padua, accused of composing blasphemous poetry and dabbling in diabolic magic. The authorities of the Dominican order dispatched him to Calabria after this prosecution. Yet hopes that he would cease to trouble them in this outlying region of the Kingdom of Naples were soon disappointed. Campanella came back to the attention of not only his order but also the central hierarchy of the Church and the Spanish government of Naples due to reports that he had been recruiting his fellow Dominicans and prominent laymen of the region for a conspiracy inspired by his belief that in the year 1600 “gran mutazioni” (great alterations) would occur in human affairs and inaugurate a cataclysmic shift in society, politics, and religion. The importance of “mutazioni” as a category for changes in the ordering of politics, society, and even nature was considerable in early-​modern Italy and denoted overlaps between astrological and political categories.

36  Stephen Cummins The alleged aim of this plot was to create “rebellion in this province and turn it into a republic” but it was far more than a simply political undertaking. Reports of the attempted revolt were infused with accusations of heresy. In short, Campanella and his allies were seeking to cast off Catholicism and institute a comprehensive new order based upon magic and naturalism. It was alleged that the budding rebels mocked every aspect of Christian belief and hierarchy from Christ’s divinity to the moral integrity of the pope and his cardinals. The apparent plan was to use bands of outlaws in the service of Calabrian nobles to capture Spanish garrisons, then to signal to Ottoman corsairs to blockade the ports and then to withdraw to the fortified places in the mountains where the new republic would be declared.28 But before the plot could be launched, it was denounced to the Spanish authorities. Over the next few weeks, hundreds of suspects, including Campanella, were arrested and incarcerated. This was the start of a set of extensive judicial enterprises that would last for years and not end until Campanella’s release finally came in 1626. Despite his indispensable leadership, Campanella was not a lone prophet. Campanella’s father had lamented to the Inquisition in Naples that, upon Campanella’s return to Calabria, he was “of such grandness that he poorly accepted me for a father, and socialized only with Princes, and signori, and in particular with the Prince of Roccella and the Marchese di Arena.”29 In particular, Campanella socialized with two noble clans: the Carnelevari and the Contestabili, perhaps uniting them through a peace-​making ritual he orchestrated. During the negotiations before the ceremony, he likely shared his plans and ideas with members of both families. Particularly important was Giulio Contestabile and Marc’Antonio de Rinaldis (a kinsman of the Carnelevari). From later testimony, it appears they spent time in Campanella’s cell at Santa Maria de Gesú, discussing prophecies and planning rebellion. Angry with Spanish rule and hungry for more power, they were a particularly receptive audience for Campanella’s prophecies of “great changes of state.” Campanella recounted in a statement written just after his arrest, how Giulio Contestabile had proposed the idea of using the client networks of his clan to launch an uprising during an evening spent in Campanella’s cell. Whatever the exact relations, it is clear that Campanella was imbricated with the factional noble politics of the provinces of the Kingdom of Naples, a politics that rarely orientated itself to goals beyond local nodes of power. Campanella’s dubious defense was that he was a bystander to a noble conspiracy over which he had no control. Eventually, he claimed to discover that de Rinaldis had treated with the Ottomans. This, he claimed, displeased him because they were “infidels and enemies” and one could not trust them, for “they always swear falsely” and Campanella claimed that “I lamented his act, done without reason and without religion, and from this hour I determined to abandon his friendship.”30 Such implausible attempts to defend himself, and deny involvement in many aspects, still reveal the deep connection between an interest in how to precipitate mutazioni (one

Regime Change in Spanish Naples  37 definition of which could be regime change, but also embraced much larger transformations) and his actions in 1599. Campanella’s plans, colored by self-​regarding prophetic confidence, have often been criticized as politically naïve at best. But, even if we do not wish to revise such judgements, it is important to note that by his own account he was influenced not only, as is well-​known, by works of prophecy and astrology but also by historical scholarship on the Kingdom of Naples. His actions were related to historical work on the wars and rebellions, including the Italian Wars, that preceded his attempt. This historical work was also married with the predictive science of the early-​ modern period, which Campanella was very attached to, astrology.31 In his Dichiarazione written immediately after his arrest he stated: Consequently when I consulted the old histories concerning the kingdom of Naples, which always had upheavals [revoluzione] with beginning, middle, and end in short under diverse families, it occurred to me that revolution ought to happen soon; furthermore, when I spoke to the people, they seemed to complain of the ministers of the kingdom … Afterwards when reasoning with several astrologers –​especially with the Neapolitan Giulio Cortese, Col’Antonio Stigliola, great mathematician, and Giovan Paolo Vernaleone –​all in Naples three years ago –​ I understood from them that political revolution [mutazione di stato] ought to occur for us. In later defenses, such as the Prima Delineatio Defensionum, he denied such an active role in planning rebellion. While he admitted that he had made prophecies about proximate mutazioni of human affairs, he claimed that any discussions occurred accidentally and never as part of a “preordained meeting.”32 He claimed that, when he was at the house of a certain Giovan Jacopo Sabinis, the discussion merely fell upon “mutazioni of human things” and “no-​one was convened to organize rebellion, which none of them thought of.”33 In a later autobiography, Tommaso Campanella gives an account of Contestabile arriving in his monastic cell and ripping a portrait of King Philip III off the wall, lamenting that, even though Philip II was dead, neither the French nor the Turks had yet come to claim the Kingdom. This anecdote sought to paint Contestabile as the true rebel.34 Nor did these events, murky as they remain, stay outside of the historical controversies of the Kingdom of Naples. Tommaso Costo himself wrote of the conspiracy of Tommaso Campanella in his additions to the Compendio dell’istoria del regno di Napoli. He described the conspiracy as a “strange happening” and he was intensely critical of Campanella who was “unworthy of his habit” and displayed an “insane ambition,” which resulted in the deaths of many executed for following him. Costo argued that Campanella puffed himself up as a “great astrologer” who predicted the following year of 1600 would see “great revolutions in Italy, and the change of dominion

38  Stephen Cummins in the Kingdom of Naples.” Costo’s Campanella was a mad man who lost himself in misinterpreting Saint Paul and Saint Augustine, believing himself able to make new laws and procure rule for himself. Making connections with bandit-​chiefs, he sought to liberate the region and “all the Kingdom from the dominion, which he called tyranny of Spain.” Costo ends his account of the conspiracy and trials by noting that he is remaining silent on many other particulars that he knows about, so as not to be regarded as unduly inimical towards Campanella by the masses whom, he infers, are likely to infer that Campanella’s continued survival meant that he was innocent. Nevertheless, Costo’s animosity towards Campanella and his dissatisfaction that justice had not yet been done (disputes between secular and ecclesiastical jurisdiction protracted the trials and, apparently unknown to Costo, Campanella’s simulated madness allowed him to escape the death penalty) was apparent. For Costo’s project of rejecting the assessment of the peoples of the Kingdom of Naples as especially rebellious it is not surprising that he so harshly rebuked Campanella. Tommaso Costo’s judgment had tangible effects for Campanella. Johann Faber, a German in service to the Vatican, had visited Campanella in 1608 on behalf of the pope. The German historian Marcus Velser wrote to Faber in September 1613, the year of the publication of Tommaso Costo’s Compendio. Velser recounted to Faber how another German supporter of Campanella, Tobias Adami, had passed on a letter to him from Campanella. The letter consisted of a list of titles of Campanella’s manuscripts and a desire to supplicate on his behalf to the Holy Roman Emperor, Archduke Ferdinand, and Maximilian, duke of Bavaria. Velser noted that the letters were more likely to do harm than help Campanella’s cause due especially to the “extravagance” of the titles of the manuscripts. Moreover, he noted that Tommaso Costo’s Compendio had been published that year, “in which the event of Calabria is recounted in a very disadvantageous way to the friar.”35 Whether Tommaso Campanella knew about the precise impact Costo’s work made on his erstwhile supporters is unclear (Velser himself said he felt it would be cruel to remove Campanella’s hope by giving him a full account of the facts in 1613). Yet he of course eventually became aware of Costo’s criticism of him. Never one to avoid response to his critics, Campanella participated in this historical debate and attacked Tommaso Costo in turn. In his short didactic account of historical practice, the Historiographia, Campanella briefly refers to Costo’s judgment arguing that he was “neither a good citizen, nor a good historian.”36

Conspiracy and Regime Change after 1647–​1648 Moving forward 50 years after Campanella’s initial conspiracy, we can investigate another aspect of rebellion in early-​modern Naples. Just as in Campanella’s revolt, this involved the bandit-​provincial nobility nexus that caused periodic trouble for the Spanish monarchy. It also involved French

Regime Change in Spanish Naples  39 machinations over the Kingdom and looked backwards to the period of the Italian Wars for legitimation. The well-​studied rebellions of 1647–​1648, of course, also offer an important case for themes of regime change and analysis of Neapolitan rebelliousness, but the aristocratic conspiracies of the 1650s are both less well-​known and also important examples. Across this period, we see a number of figures seeking sovereignty in Naples, inspired by blood-​ties to old dynasties and the example of the historical record. The Duke of Guise was the leading example of this era. The formation of Spanish and French “parties” in Rome in the seventeenth century meant the city was fertile ground for the formation of plots to destabilize each other’s Italian interests.37 Many conspiratorial movements in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries attempted to or did in fact involve the French.38 One major abortive uprising was that attempted by the Prince of Sanza, who was believed to have made contact with the French in Venice.39 With the involvement of the Barberini and the apparent willingness of the French ambassador in Rome, French troops would have landed at Castellammare near Naples and, supported by the population, were to have overthrown Spanish rule. Sanza would have been made the Prince of Salerno, a defunct but prestigious title in times past, ruling the rich Amalfi coast as an independent monarch, while the French would take Naples and, especially, the wealthy agricultural land of northern Puglia.40 The French intelligence network under Mazarin kept a close eye on developments in Naples before the 1647 revolution. But direct intervention was not counselled by Mazarin and it was semi-​outsiders such as the Duke of Guise who were personally involved rather than the commanding heights of French power.41 The rebellion was the high point of this French involvement and many armed forces were led by Neapolitan outlaws. Guise’s hopes rested upon the arms of outlaws. Despite his defeat and the surrender of the rebels there was not a total return to peace after 1648. The prince of Carignano, Tommaso Francesco di Savoia, was in charge of a fleet of French ships that stayed in the Neapolitan gulf after Guise’s departure and even led a land invasion of the Kingdom in August with the cooperation of bandit-​chiefs, albeit one that was soon routed.42 Aristocratic ties with bandits had increased during 1647–​1648 and had significant political effects in the 1650s, in sharp distinction to the wider Italian trend.43 In the tumultuous 1650s, bandits and barons co-​operated with distinct political aims: they sought to grab power in the strange aftermath of a rebellion that had disrupted local equilibriums. This disruption was exacerbated by the demographic shock of the plague of 1656. These nobles were often supporters of French power and the French embassy in Rome was a nexus for the exchange of information and a site where plots were arranged.44 The immediate aftermath of the failure of the Duke of Guise’s invasion and the fall of the Neapolitan republic in 1648 saw a range of attempted power-​grabs and uprisings. A whole range of different actors lay behind these plots. Pacification was hesitant and partial until the cold

40  Stephen Cummins winter of 1648–​1649 set in and forced the swollen bandit armies to disband for survival. By the end of February 1649, there was no significant open rebellion in the Kingdom. But disaffected nobles, capi popoli and bandit-​ chiefs all remained on the political scene.45 In 1654 the Duke of Guise re-​invaded the Kingdom, again trying to press his claim through his blood-​right. Thousands of French troops and Neapolitan outlaws supported this attempt.46 Yet as Silvana d’Alessi has argued, the general reaction as seen through print culture was of parody. History repeating itself, the second time as farce. The viceroy, the Count of Castrillo, issued a law that noted how plotting various betrayals … seeking by illicit means, and exceeding their natural duty, to disturb the peace and to create unrest in this Kingdom, as is shown and proven by the invasion of the French armada, lured by foolish hopes, and promises made by the said rebels, with great prejudice to the credit and fidelity that they always held and hold as vassals of this Kingdom; being that it has been seen clearly, that with various inventions they have presumed to create many innovations in the Abruzzi, in order to disturb the public, and the universal quiet, not only of this Kingdom, but of all of Italy.47 But this failed attempt at stealing the Kingdom from the Spanish was not the end of conspiratorial movements in the 1650s. In 1657, a plot apparently orchestrated by Carlo Antonio Guevara, duke of Bovino was revealed. The nature of this “conspiracy” underscores the connections between nobles, bandits, and international politics in the uneasy 1650s. It also points to the deeply personal nature of these connections, in which the relations between lords and bandits was modeled after patronage and also tied to certain aristocratic aspirations to dominion. The evidence for the conspiracy comes from the efforts of the giunta degli banditi dedicated to the extirpation of bandits, which in the late 1650s began a concerted effort to counter aristocratic protection of bandits.48 The full records of the giunta no longer survive but a manuscript report provides some information on the activities of the subcommittee.49 This note records that from the arrests and interrogations of four notorious bandit-​chiefs and more than 20 other bandits “the discussions that the aforesaid bandits had for the loss of this Kingdom with the help, that they expected from the armies of France” were proven.50 It continues with an account of Guevara’s plot. The records of the giunta show that Bovino made contact with bandit-​ chiefs who had legitimate military experience. The Neapolitan cavalieri still prided themselves on the warlike spirit of their noble blood.51 For the Duke of Bovino, friendship with one Carlo Petriello was key to the conspiracy. Petriello had traveled widely across the peninsula in his career. He had been a captain of cavalry for the Duke of Modena, fighting against invading Spanish forces. After this period of service, he had assisted in the plot of the

Regime Change in Spanish Naples  41 Marchese di Acaya to take the Kingdom. With encouragement both from Acaya and the French ambassador in Rome, he led armed men into the Kingdom “to embolden the foray,” that is, the planned landing of troops in Puglia.52 In 1657–​1658, the viceroy the Conde de Castrillo published two pragmatics aimed directly at these capobanditi.53 Huge sums were promised for those who presented them alive or dead to the court; 10,000 ducats for both of them or 5,000 a head.54 During interrogations, Bovino was said to have addressed them: “What demon has you? Be happy! Shortly the French armada will come, and you will all be lords.” The Duke was said to have believed that he was prophesied to lead the Kingdom and that he cared nothing for the will of the popolo.55 Fioretti and Petriello then made contact with “various bandit-​chiefs around the Kingdom.”56 They gathered a force nearly 200 men strong on Mount Mautese. In the next months, they met the Duke near Bovino many times, in “secret congresses,” where the Duke gave them food and drink as well as firearms.57 Beyond Guevara, the duke of Maddaloni, the prince of Isernia, the marchese di Cammorota and the Baron of Rocca Gloriosa as well as many others were implicated in protecting bandits.58 In the late 1650s, then, it was clear that a considerable group of powerful barons would have given their support to any invading French forces, and some were actively participating in conspiracy. Their belief in their ability to determine the rule of the Kingdom was heightened by their decisive role in putting down the Neapolitan republic and the associated provincial uprisings.59 The events from 1647 to the 1650s, distant as they were from success, were interpreted in European commentary as various attempts at throwing off the Spanish dominion placed on Naples since the end of the Italian Wars. For instance, in Boccalini’s Raguagli, Naples is personified as a slave in chains, a chain brought to Italy by Gonzalo Córdoba, il Gran Capitano, during the Italian Wars.60 Longer histories of Neapolitan regime change remained active in this period too. Imprisoned by the Spaniards after his failed attempt at invasion, the Duke of Guise asked for some books to read, receiving ironic fulfilment of his requests by his Spanish captors. First, he was given a guide on dying well, which he refused on account of not planning to die. Second, a book on Neapolitan history was brought to him. The Spaniard had turned down a page which featured a “great print” of the beheading of Conradin (Corradino) who had been executed at his attempt to reconquer southern Italy in 1262. This book must have been an edition of Giovanni Antonio Summonte’s Dell’historia della città, e regno di Napoli, which features such an illustration. The prank was not lost on Henri who claimed to have responded with “laughing at all these affectations, told them they had done me the greatest pleasure imaginable, that I had heard his tragical adventure spoken of, but ignorant of its particularities, should be very glad to learn them.”61 In early-​modern Naples, both natural description and historical narration were part of the scene of political action, as the case of Campanella-​Costo

42  Stephen Cummins makes clear. While the twice-​ failed Guise could well be understood as denoting only mistaken ideas about the Kingdom’s political realities, the conspiracies and context that the records of the giunta degli banditi make clear is that beyond thinking in terms of percentages of success or failure, the feudal lords of the Kingdom were not as united in support of the Spanish as the discourses of fidelity would imply. The conquest of the Kingdom at the end of the Italian Wars remained the major reference point for political projects throughout the seventeenth century as Naples increasingly became an example for Europe of Spanish preponderance. The history of the Kingdom, both in the Italian Wars and in the centuries before it, was not an academic curiosity but figures such as the beheaded Conradin could serve as a warning given to the Duke of Guise or the reading of the history of the Kingdom encouraged Campanella’s projects. The stereotypes of Neapolitan character as read through their past never stayed tidily as outside judgments but entered into how the region was ruled and how rebels sought to overthrow rule.

Notes 1 John E. Moore, “Prints, Salami, and Cheese: Savoring the Roman Festival of the Chinea,” The Art Bulletin 77, no. 4 (1995): 584–​608. 2 The division of the Kingdom was proposed with Puglia and Calabria going to Spain; and Terra di Lavoro and the Abbruzzi to France. This status quo was destroyed under the command of Gonzalo de Cordoba in 1503, with Louis fleeing Naples in very early 1504. 3 For the classic account of this building tension see Rosario Villari, The Revolt of Naples, trans. James Newell and John A. Marino (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992) and its recent revision Rosario Villari, Un sogno di libertà (Milan: Mondadori, 2012). See also Paola Benadusi, “Un bandito del ‘500: Marco Sciarra: Per uno studio sul banditismo al tempo di Sisto V,” Studi Romani 27, no. 2 (1979): 176. 4 For the fortification of the Kingdom see Giovanni Muto, “Strategie e Strutture del Controllo Militare del Territorio nel Regno di Napoli nel Cinquecento’ in Guerra y Sociedad en la monarquía hispánica: Política, estrategia y cultura en la Europa moderna (1500–​1700), eds. Enrique García Hernán and Davide Maffi (Madrid: Labertino, CSIC, and Fundación Mapfre, 2006), 153–​170; Achille Mauro, Le fortificazioni nel Regno di Napoli (Naples: Giannini, 1998). 5 See Villari’s analysis in Un sogno di libertà, 509–​520. 6 Anthony Grafton, What was History?: The Art of History in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 229. 7 See Silvana D’Alessio, “Dreaming of the Crown: Political Discourses and Other Sources Relating to the Duke of Guise in Naples (1647–​48 and 1654),” in Aspiration, Representation and Memory. The Guise in Europe, 1506–​1688, eds. Jessica Munns, Penny Richards and Jonathan Spangler (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015), 100. 8 Published in Eugenio Alberì, ed., Le relazioni degli ambasciatori veneti al senato, (Florence: Società editrice fiorentina, 1858), ser. II, vol. V, p. 449: “Tra tutti gli esempi delle varie e maravigliose mutazioni di stati e di governi, che dall’istorie

Regime Change in Spanish Naples  43 ci sono diversamente rappresentati, quelli delle spesse e turbolenti rivoluzioni del regno di Napoli parmi che, senza comparazione alcuna, siano i più cospicui, i più stupendi che si offrano forse a considerare; perciocchè la natura inquieta di questi popoli, che anco ne’ tempi più rimoti ha mostrato di appetir sempre l’agitazione delle guerre civili e forestiere, ha dato in gran parte miserabil fomento a tante alterazioni e a tanti disordini, di quanti la maggior parte di Europa, e in particolare la propria Italia, può con le fresche cicatrici ancora far chiaro e lagrimevole testimonio. A questa mala disposizion di natura aggiunti poi gli umori pestilenti che di giorno in giorno si sono andati vie più accumulando in questo corpo sregolato, l’infermità si è fatta di maniera contagiosa che, se non disperata affatto, almeno pericolosa sempre è stata giudicata la cura sua; la quale, dopo tante altre nazioni, essendo oggidì caduta nella spagnuola, si vede chiaramente che con tutto l’aver estenuato e indebolito mostruosamnete questo corpo, ne vive con gelosia e con sospetto tale, che non assicurandosi di veder ogni membro e ogni spirito suo mortificato ed illanguidito, va tuttavia facendo quanto può perchè non riprenda forza, onde avesse a riescir poi, non che difficile, impossibile ogni medicamento.” 9 Quoted in John A. Marino, Becoming Neapolitan: Citizen Culture in Baroque Naples (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011), 4. 10 Ulinka Rublack, “Fluxes: The Early Modern Body and the Emotions,” History Workshop Journal 53 (2002), 7. 11 James Howell, Epistolae Ho-​Elianae: Familiar Letters Domestic and Forren; Divided into sundry SECTIONS, Partly Historicall, Politicall, Philosophicall upon Emergent Occasions (London: H. Moseley, 1655), vol. 2, 65. 12 Maria Antonietta Visceglia and Judith Revel, “Un groupe social ambigu: Organisation, strategies et représentations de la noblesse napolitaine XVIe-​XVIIIe siècles,” Annales, 48, no. 4 (1993): 819–​851. 13 Rosario Villari, Per il re o per la patria. La fedeltà politica nel seicento (Bari: Laterza, 1994). See also the historiographical debate this intervention sparked with Aurelio Musi, “La fedeltà al re nella prima età moderna (A proposito di un libro di Rosario Villari),” Scienza & Politica 12 (1995): 3–​17. 14 Paolo Mattia Doria, Massime del governo spagnolo a Napoli (Naples: Guida, 1973), 24. 15 Trajano Bocalini, I ragguagli di Parnasso (London, 1656), 211. 16 Pennsylvania University Library, Ms. Codex 48. https://​cole​nda.libr​ary.upenn. edu/​cata​log/​81431-​p3hh6c​578 (accessed January 5, 2022). 17 John A. Marino, “The Foreigner and the Citizen: A Dialogue on Good Government in Spanish Naples,” in Reason and Its Others: Italy, Spain, and the New World, eds. David R. Castillo and Massimo Lollini (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2006), 147; Marino, Becoming Neapolitan, 43. 18 Marino, “Foreigner and the Citizen,” 147 19 Giorgio Masi, Dal Collenuccio a Tommaso Costo: Vicende della storiografia napolitana fra Cinque e Seicento (Naples: Editoriale scientifica, 1999). 20 Gian Batista Carafa, Dell’historie del Regno di Napoli (Naples, 1572). 21 Ibid., 39 22 Tomaso Costo, L’apologia istorica del regno di Napoli (Naples, 1613), p. 84: “Ma non dobbiamo giá passer con silenzio, che in tante perturbazioni e travagli, che sostenne allora il misero Regno per le cause più volte dette, non potè contenersi il maligno Collenuccio, che nel conchiudere il suo quinto libro non mordesse i

44  Stephen Cummins tanto da lui odiati Regnicoli, dicendo, che Alfonso stando in Sicilia non restava di tentare, & instigare la instabilità de’Regnicoli a chiamarlo.” 23 Ibid., 168. 24 Costo, L’apologia istorica, 105: “Ma qui è da rispondere ad una obiezzione del Guicciardini, il quale a questo proposito dice così. “Tal’è la natura de’popoli inclinata a sperare più di quell, che si debbe, e tollerar manco di quel, ch’è necessario, & ad haver sempre in fastidio le cose presenti, e specialmente de gli abitatori del Regno di Napoli, i quali tra tutti i popoli d’Italia sono notati d’instabilità, e di cupidità di cose nove.” He also chastises Guicciardini for ignoring histories of civil strife in Genoa, Florence and Rome. 25 See also the process by which Neapolitan identity even becomes objectified and enters into spheres of collection: Melissa Calaresu, “Collecting Neapolitans: The Representation of Street Life in Late Eighteenth-​ Century Naples,” in New Approaches to Naples, c.1500-​c.1800, eds., Melissa Calaresu and Helen Hills (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), 175–​202. 26 Lotte Jensen, “Introduction,” in The Roots of Nationalism: National Identity Formation in Early Modern Europe, 1600–​1815, ed. Lotte Jensen (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2016), 10. 27 For a comprehensive account of Campanella’s youth in Calabria and travels in Italy see Germana Ernst, Tommaso Campanella: The Book and the Body of Nature (Dordrecht: Springer, 2010). The definitive study of Campanella’s revolt remains Luigi Amabile, Fra Tommaso Campanella: La sua congiura, e i suoi processi (Naples: Antonio Morano, 1882–​1887). See also Luigi Firpo, Il supplizio di Tommaso Campanella: Narrazioni, documenti verbali delle torture (Rome: Salerno, 1985). 28 Especially important for the Ottoman link and its connection to Campanella’s thought is Noel Malcolm, “The Crescent and the City of the Sun: Islam and the Renaissance Utopia of Tommaso Campanella,” Proceedings of the British Academy 125 (2003): 41–​67. 29 Amabile, Fra Tommaso Campanella: La sua Congiura, III, p. 300, doc. 336: “venne tanto grandito che malamente me accettava per patre, et pratticava solamente con Prencipi, et signori, et in particolare col principe dela Roccella, et col Marchese di Arena.” 30 Ibid., 109: “infedeli e nemici;” “sempre giurano il falso;” “mi lamentai di questo atto suo, senza raggione fatto e senza religione, e de quel ora mi determinai lasciare la sua amicizia.” 31 Ernst, Tommaso Campanella, 1–​11. 32 Ibid., 161::né ci fu una riunione preordinata.” 33 Ibid., 161: “mutazioni delle cose umane;” “nessuno era convenuto a ordire la ribellione, cui nessuno di loro pensava.” 34 John M. Headley, Tommaso Campanella and the Transformation of the World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 36–​37. 35 Luigi Amabile, Fra Tommaso Campanella ne’ Castelli di Napoli in Roma ed in Parigi (Naples: Antonio Morano), vol. II, 50. 36 Ernst, Tommaso Campanella, 199. 37 For an account of the French and Spanish ambassadors in Rome, see Maria Antonietta Visceglia, “Factions in the Sacred College in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in Court and Politics in Papal Rome, 1492–​1700, eds. Gianvittorio Signorotto and Maria Antonietta Visceglia (Cambridge: Cambridge

Regime Change in Spanish Naples  45 University Press, 2002), 110–​ 111; Thomas James Dandelet, Spanish Rome, 1500–​1700 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 194–​198. 38 For example, in the 1630s, the Collateral Council recorded that groups of bandits were landing at the Tremiti islands with support connected to Savoy and Venice. They attempted, in vain, to stop Pietro Mancino by asking the Duke of Modena to use his authority. Archivio di Stato di Napoli, Consiglio Collaterale, Notamenti, busta 33, fols. 5v–​6r. 39 For the Prince of Sanza’s abortive uprising, see Scipione Volpicella, “D. Giovanni Orefice, Principe di Sanza decapitato in Napoli nel 1640,” Archivio storico per le province napoletane 3 (1878): 713–​742. The Venetian connection in these plots has been underemphasized in the historiography. 40 Aurora Martina in “Giovan Girolamo II Acquaviva d’Aragona (1604–​c.1665): Signore feudale del Mezzogiorno spagnolo” (PhD thesis, Universidad de Valladolid, 2012), 159–​161. For other aristocratic plots in the lead-​up to 1647 see Villari, La rivolta antispagnola a Napoli (Bari: Editori Laterza, 1967), 197–​203. 41 See Aurelio Musi, La Rivolta di Masaniello nella scena politica barocca (Naples: Guida, 2002), 184. Musi discusses how delicate balances of power within France pushed Mazarin away from plots that could have led to unwanted and unforeseen consequences for France and his legitimacy. 42 Giuseppe Galasso, Napoli spagnola dopo Masaniello (Florence: Sansoni, 1982), vol 1, 9. 43 This claim is based on readings that suggest a general trend away from direct ties in many parts of Italy. For example, Irene Fosi argues that the “[n]‌obles’ blatant and massive participation in banditry vanished, but their violence went on via the use of country thugs to do misdeeds and pursue vendettas against enemy lords, and to afflict the locals in countless ways.” Irene Fosi, Papal Justice. Subjects and Courts in the Papal State, 1500–​1750, trans. Thomas V. Cohen (Washington D.C.: Catholic University Press, 2011), 102–​103. 44 For this history, see Giuseppe Coniglio, Il viceregno di Napoli nel sec. XVII (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1955), 281 and Maria Grazia Maiorini, Il viceregno di Napoli: Introduzione alla raccolta di documenti curata da Giuseppe Coniglio. Con indici (Naples: Giannini, 1992), 30, 52. 45 Niccola Palma, Storia ecclesiastica e civile (Teramo: U. Angeletti, 1832–​1836), vol. 3, 137. 46 Galasso, Napoli spagnola, vol. 1, 8. 47 Biagio Aldimari, Pragmaticae, edicta, decreta, regiaeque sanctiones Regni Neapolitani (Naples, 1682): “De Abolitionibus”, XII, pp. 13–​14: “machinare diversi tradimenti … procurando per mezzi illeciti, e fuora della loro natura obbligazione l’inquiete, e sollevazion di questo Regno, conforme si è esperimentato per l’invasione fatta in esso dall’armata di Francia, sollecitata dalle vane speranze, e promesse di detti Ribelli, con molto pregiudizio al credito, e fedeltà, che sempre hanno tenuto, e tengono come vassalli di esso Regno; essendosi attualmente visto, che con varie invenzioni han preteso far molte novità per le provincie d’Apruzzo, per inquietar la pubblica, ed universal quiete, non solo di questo Regno, ma di tutti l’Italia.” 48 British Library, Add MS 20924, fols. 171r–​174v: “Stato della Giunta de Banditi formata dal Signor Conte di Castrillo sotto il 3 di Dicembre 1657.” The only use of this manuscript by another historian that I have found is in Salvo Mastellone,

46  Stephen Cummins Pensiero politico e vita culturale nel seconda metà del seicento (Messina: Casa Editrice d’Anna, 1965), 18–​19. 49 This also makes understanding its history more complicated. Giovanni Muto has found that traces of its existence exist from as early as 1560. But whether its existence or functions were constant is harder to establish. Giovanni Muto, “Apparati finanziari e gestione della fiscalità nel Regno di Napoli dalla seconda metà del ‘500 alla crisi degli anni ’20 del sec. XVII,” in La Fiscalité et ses implications sociales en Italie et en France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècle. Actes du colloque de Florence (Décembre 5–​6, 1978) (Rome: École Française de Rome, 1980), 126. 50 British Library, Add MS, 20924, fol. 171r: “è anco verificato li trattati havuti con detti Banditi per la perditione di questo Regno con l’aiuto, che si sperava dall’armi di Francia.” 51 This “warlike spirit” is taken from the title of Il Genio Bellicoso di Napoli. Memorie istoriche d’alcuni Capitani Celebri Napolitan, c’han militato per la fede, per lo Rè, per la Patria nel secolo corrente by Raffaele Maria Filamondo (Naples, 1694). 52 British Library, Add MS, 20924, Ibid.: “per dar’calore al sbarco.” 53 “De Abolitionibus Criminum LXXXIV,” in Nuova collezione delle prammatiche del Regno di Napoli (Naples: Nella Stamperia Simoniana, 1803–​1808), vol. 1, 143. 54 Ibid. 55 British Library, Add MS, 20924, fol. 171r: “l’intentione, che haveva esso Duca d’impadronirsi del’Regno, dicendo che cossi l’era stato pronosticato, e oltre poi doveva esser’strascinato à furor di Popolo, del’che non si curava, purche fusse stato padrone del Regno.” 56 Ibid.: “diversi capi di Banditi per il Regno.” 57 British Library, Add MS, 20924, fol. 171v: “congressi secreti.” 58 British Library, Add MS, 20924, fol. 174r. 59 Ibid. 60 Trajano Bocalini, I ragguagli di Parnasso, (London, 1656), 355. 61 Memoires of Henry D. of Guise, relating his passage to Naples, and head there the second revolt of that people (London, 1669), 561–​562.

Bibliography Unpublished Sources London British Library, Add MS Naples Archivio di Stato di Napoli, Consiglio Collaterale Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania Library, Ms. Codex

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Regime Change in Spanish Naples  47 Aldimari, Biagio. Pragmaticae, edicta, decreta, regiaeque sanctiones Regni Neapolitani. Naples, 1682 Amabile, Luigi. Fra Tommaso Campanella ne’ Castelli di Napoli, in Roma ed in Parigi. Naples: Antonio Morano, 1887. Amabile, Luigi. Fra Tommaso Campanella: La sua congiura, e i suoi processi. Naples: Antonio Morano, 1882–​1887. Benadusi, Paola. “Un bandito del ‘500: Marco Sciarra: Per uno studio sul banditismo al tempo di Sisto V.” Studi Romani 27, no. 2 (1979): 176–​188. Bocalini, Trajano. I ragguagli di Parnasso. London, 1656. Calaresu, Melissa. “Collecting Neapolitans: The Representation of Street Life in Late Eighteenth-​Century Naples.” In New Approaches to Naples c. 1500-​c.1800, ed. Melissa Calaresu and Helen Hills, 175–​202. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013. Carafa, Gian Batista. Dell’historie del Regno di Napoli. Naples, 1572. Coniglio, Giuseppe. Il viceregno di Napoli nel sec. XVII. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1955. Costo, Tomaso. L’apologia istorica del regno di Napoli. Naples, 1613. D’Alessio, Silvana. “Dreaming of the Crown: Political Discourses and Other Sources Relating to the Duke of Guise in Naples (1647–​48 and 1654).” In Aspiration, Representation and Memory. The Guise in Europe, 1506–​ 1688, eds. Jessica Munns, Penny Richards and Jonathan Spangler, 99–​ 124. Farnham: Ashgate, 2015. Dandelet, Thomas James. Spanish Rome, 1500–​1700. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. Doria, Paolo Mattia. Massime del governo spagnolo a Napoli. Naples: Guida, 1973. Ernst, Germana. Tommaso Campanella: The Book and the Body of Nature. Dordrecht: Springer, 2010. Filamondo, Raffaele Maria. Il Genio Bellicoso di Napoli. Memorie istoriche d’alcuni Capitani Celebri Napolitan, c’han militato per la fede, per lo Rè, per la Patria nel secolo corrente. Naples, 1694. Firpo, Luigi. Il supplizio di Tommaso Campanella: Narrazioni, documenti verbali delle torture. Rome: Salerno, 1985. Fosi, Irene. Papal Justice. Subjects and Courts in the Papal State, 1500–​1750. Trans. Thomas V. Cohen. Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2011. Galasso, Giuseppe. Napoli spagnola dopo Masaniello. Florence: Sansoni, 1982 Grafton, Anthony. What Was History? The Art of History in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Headley, John M. Tommaso Campanella and the Transformation of the World. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997. Howell, James. Epistolae Ho-​ Elianae: Familiar Letters Domestic and Forren; Divided into sundry SECTIONS, Partly Historicall, Politicall, Philosophicall upon Emergent Occasions. London: H. Moseley, 1655. Jensen, Lotte. “Introduction.” In The Roots of Nationalism: National Identity Formation in Early Modern Europe, 1600–​ 1815, ed. Lotte Jensen, 9–​ 28. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2016. Maiorini, Maria Grazia. Il viceregno di Napoli: Introduzione alla raccolta di documenti curata da Giuseppe Coniglio. Con indici. Naples: Giannini, 1992.

48  Stephen Cummins Malcolm, Noel. “The Crescent and the City of the Sun: Islam and the Renaissance Utopia of Tommaso Campanella.” Proceedings of the British Academy 125 (2003): 41–​67. Marino, John A. Becoming Neapolitan: Citizen Culture in Baroque Naples. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011. Marino, John A. “The Foreigner and the Citizen: A Dialogue on Good Government in Spanish Naples.” In Reason and Its Others: Italy, Spain, and the New World, eds. David R. Castillo and Massimo Lollini, 145–​ 164. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2006. Martina, Aurora. “Giovan Girolamo II Acquaviva d’Aragona (1604–​ c.1665): Signore feudale del Mezzogiorno spagnolo.” PhD thesis, Universidad de Valladolid, 2012. Masi, Giorgio. Dal Collenuccio a Tommaso Costo: Vicende della storiografia napolitana fra Cinque e Seicento. Naples: Editoriale scientifica, 1999. Mastellone, Salvo. Pensiero politico e vita culturale nel seconda metà del seicento. Messina: Casa Editrice d’Anna, 1965. Mauro, Achille. Le fortificazioni nel Regno di Napoli. Naples: Giannini, 1998. Memoires of Henry D. of Guise, Relating his Passage to Naples, And heading there the Second Revolt of that People. London, 1669. Moore, John E. ‘Prints, Salami, and Cheese: Savoring the Roman Festival of the Chinea.’ The Art Bulletin 77, no. 4 (1995): 584–​608. Musi, Aurelio. “La fedeltà al re nella prima età moderna (A proposito di un libro di Rosario Villari).” Scienza & Politica 12 (1995): 3–​17. Musi, Aurelio. La Rivolta di Masaniello nella scena politica barocca. Naples: Guida, 2002. Muto, Giovanni. “Apparati finanziari e gestione della fiscalità nel Regno di Napoli dalla seconda metà del ‘500 alla crisi degli anni ’20 del sec. XVII.” In La Fiscalité et ses implications sociales en Italie et en France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècle. Actes du colloque de Florence (5–​6 Décembre 5–​6, 1978), 125–​150. Rome: École Française de Rome, 1980 Muto, Giovanni. ‘Strategie e Strutture del Controllo Militare del Territorio nel Regno di Napoli nel Cinquecento.’ In Guerra y Sociedad en la monarquía hispánica: Política, estrategia y cultura en la Europa moderna (1500–​1700), eds. Enrique García Hernán and Davide Maffi, 153–​170. Madrid: Labertino, CSIC, and Fundación Mapfre, 2006. Nuova collezione delle prammatiche del Regno di Napoli. 15 Vols. Naples: Nella Stamperia Simoniana, 1803–​1808. Palma, Nicola. Storia ecclesiastica e civile. 5 Vols. Teramo: U. Angeletti, 1832–​1836 Rublack, Ulinka. “Fluxes: The Early Modern Body and the Emotions.” History Workshop Journal 53 (2002): 1–​16. Villari, Rosario. Per il re o per la patria. La fedeltà politica nel seicento. Bari: Laterza, 1994. Villari, Rosario. The Revolt of Naples. Trans. James Newell with John A. Marino. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992. Villari, Rosario. La rivolta antispagnola a Napoli. Bari: Editori Laterza, 1967. Villari, Rosario. Un sogno di libertà. Milan: Mondadori, 2012.

Regime Change in Spanish Naples  49 Visceglia, Maria Antonietta. “Factions in the Sacred College in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.” In Court and Politics in Papal Rome, 1492–​1700, eds. Gianvittorio Signorotto and Maria Antonietta Visceglia, 99–​131. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Visceglia, Maria Antonietta and Judith Revel. “Un groupe social ambigu: Organisation, strategies et représentations de la noblesse napolitaine XVIe-​ XVIIIe siècles.” Annales 48, no. 4 (1993): 819–​851. Volpicella, Scipione. “D. Giovanni Orefice, Principe di Sanza. Decapitato in Napoli nel 1640.” Archivio storico per le province napoletane 3 (1878): 713–​742.

3 Chutes and Ladders The Twilight of Two Lombard Families in the Italian Wars John Gagné

One of Paolo Giovio’s dialogs, dated 1527, concludes with the character of Alfonso d’Avalos, marquis of Pescara, musing on the gloomy fortunes he had inherited from his late cousin, Fernando: “After such great victories, he has left me as heir to labors rather than to riches, as I am enmeshed in an unwieldy war, and also in a great deal of debt.”1 Giovio and his characters belonged to a generation who felt Italy was in inexorable decline. Giovio highlighted in Alfonso’s utterance the evanescent glory of military victories, as interminable wars left subsequent generations carrying more burdens than rewards. That bitterness –​over struggle repaid only with further struggle –​pervaded the Italian Wars. Nothing appeared stable or lasting, and the unlikeliness of a return to the comparable stability of earlier decades colored the pessimistic outlook of Giovio’s age. A core desideratum of the first half of Italy’s sixteenth century was to reinstate that lost time before the foreign invasions. Regaining past glories was unlikely, but still worth fighting for. Such was the reckoning that so many Italians made when the major European powers forcibly reconfigured the political landscape across the peninsula. This chapter traces the itinerary of two rival elite families –​the Dal Verme and the Sanseverino –​in the duchy of Milan from the 1480s to the 1610s as the region pitched between regimes.2 Using a variety of archival sources, it reconstructs the grounds upon which each family built its claims to legitimacy as their world seemed to collapse around them. It focuses on a contested fortress in the valleys south-​west of Piacenza over which the families fought –​using both guns and lawyers –​for decades. It demonstrates how each family’s recourse to higher powers did not calm tensions but only augmented them. (Like Alfonso d’Avalos, these clans were ultimately heirs to labors rather than to riches.) But the chapter’s core contention is a simple one. It reminds us that regime change is –​and was –​an existential state of being. To the people in its midst, it posed a host of experiential challenges, particularly when change was recurrent. Perhaps above all else, verifiable certainty seemed fugitive and familiar politics became clouded. One of the effects of this assault on certainty was a heightened attention to the fundamental makings of legitimacy: not just history, ritual, force, and law (though they were ever-​present), DOI: 10.4324/9781003199021-4

Two Lombard Families in the Italian Wars  51 but also embodied experiences that certified to individuals and communities that their particular beliefs were well-​founded. In times of unsettled sovereignty, perceptions of truth were vastly pluralized. A common point of authority (i.e., the ruler) was often out of reach (who was the ruler, after all?). To recover some sense of those perceptions, the essay concludes by examining how witnesses at a trial recalled the makings of legitimacy in the wake of the Italian Wars.

Dal Verme versus Sanseverino In collaboration with the ruling houses of Milan, our two protagonist families played formative roles in building the duchy. They were both transplants (the Dal Verme from Verona and the Sanseverino from Naples) who built their fortunes in Lombardy as regional magnates by winning lands and privileges from the dukes –​mostly through military contracts –​and in turn relaying their support upward.3 The consolidation of the duchy of Milan, as decades of revisionist scholarship have revealed, was a pluralistic process involving not just rulers and cities but also nobles, regional towns, factions, rural communities, and affiliated territories. Yet the potency of regional aristocratic families particularly characterized the politics of fifteenth-​century Lombardy, in contrast to Tuscany or the Veneto.4 One need only think of Machiavelli’s disgust at these “gentiluomini” whose political stance he described as “pernicious”: they live in extravagant leisure, he complained, and “command castles and have subjects who obey them.”5 They were miniature potentates the Tuscan Machiavelli saw as inimical to civilization. As we shall see, the command of a castle was indeed central to the dispute that erupted between Dal Verme and Sanseverino around 1500. But our two families were perhaps different from the stereotypically indolent gentiluomini Machiavelli had in mind. As transplants to Lombardy, their names do not appear in the register of noble families, or matricula nobilium, drafted in 1377.6 The ambitions of these relative newcomers consequently differed from some of their more august peers in that they were strivers who tied themselves closely to the ruling regime. Looking across the long fifteenth century, we can see the Dal Verme as creatures of the Visconti and the Sanseverino as creatures of the Sforza. The peak of Dal Verme potency in Lombardy arrived in the decades following their territorial infeudation in 1436 by Duke Filippo Maria Visconti; Sanseverino fortunes rose a generation later, under Duke Francesco Sforza. By lending military and political support to the ruling houses and establishing regional nodes of authority, these vassal families collaborated with the dukes to sustain mutual magnificence and political clout. Both vassal clans also ruled territories in the regions of Italy from which they had come. The Dal Verme were urban magnates originally from Verona and they sustained a presence in their ancestral holdings in the Veneto. By the mid-​fifteenth century, they governed a massive domain between Lombardy

52  John Gagné and the Veneto that functioned effectively as a state in its own right.7 In Lombardy, it comprised the area west of Piacenza and south of Pavia, down the old Roman road of the Via Postumia to Voghera, and southward through the mountains to Bobbio. The Lombard branch of the Sanseverino belonged to a massive house in the Kingdom of Naples, but among their most illustrious titles was as Counts of Caiazzo, a stronghold just north of Naples. Their landed holdings were enriched over time by gifts of small estates made to the patriarch of the Lombard-​based branch, the condottiere Roberto Sanseverino (1417–​1487, sometimes called Sanseverino d’Aragona, after the escutcheon bestowed upon him by the Aragonese monarch). Most important among Sanseverino fiefs in Lombardy were the ducal grants of Colorno (near Parma) and Pontecurone (near Voghera) in 1458.8 The fate of these two clans intertwined as a direct result of their alliances with the ruling houses of Milan. The Sanseverino intermarried with the Sforza in the early fifteenth century when the Sforza were still their peers in the ranks of condottieri for hire. During the Sforza principate (1450–​1499), many of the Sforza dukes had Sanseverino relatives. The seeds for Dal Verme–​Sanseverino conflict came to be planted during the reign of Ludovico Sforza, known as ‘il Moro’ (1452–​1508), who ruled effectively as a shadow authority from 1480 and as titular duke from 1495. Especially after the 1487 death of his cousin Roberto Sanseverino, Ludovico –​liberated from his cousin’s presence as a wily and unpredictable competitor9 –​generally favored the Sanseverino to the detriment of the Dal Verme. One key agent in this rapprochement between Sforza and Sanseverino was Bianca Giovanna (1482–​1496), Ludovico’s legitimized daughter with his mistress Bernardina de Corradis. Bianca has been proposed as the sitter of the so-​called Bella Principessa portrait contentiously attributed to Leonardo da Vinci.10 In 1490, when Bianca was eight years old, il Moro celebrated her marriage to Roberto’s courtliest son, Galeazzo Sanseverino (1458–​1525), already captain-​general of Milan’s army. When Bianca died suddenly six years later, Galeazzo absorbed her dotal assets.11 Among them was the city of Voghera, erstwhile seat of the Dal Verme court. The fief of Voghera had recently devolved to the ducal chamber upon the intestate death in 1485 of its previous feudatory, Pietro Dal Verme (1445–​1485), count of Bobbio and Voghera: the same title that his father had gained from the infeudation of 1436.12 Now, by way of Bianca Sforza, those titles belonged to a Sanseverino. To complicate the matter further, Pietro Dal Verme’s second wife was Ludovico’s niece, Chiara Sforza (1467–​ 1531). Pietro met a precipitous death before his fortieth birthday, a suspicious demise contemporary rumors blamed on poison, perhaps –​some gossips whispered –​a lethal dose administered by the hand of his own Sforza consort at her uncle’s request.13 Whether Ludovico was involved or not, his broader strategy regarding the Sanseverino and Dal Verme in the 1480s followed a familiar pattern of deploying women from the ruler’s own lineage to solder regional alliances and to appease powerful vassals while also laying the legal groundwork to profit

Two Lombard Families in the Italian Wars  53 from that affiliation. As it turned out, Ludovico gathered that profit with alacrity. The deaths of Pietro Dal Verme in 1485 and Roberto Sanseverino in 1487 left the ample patrimonies of these gentiluomini in suspension. Each family’s younger generation strove not just to reclaim what they saw as their due, but also to emerge victorious from the brambles of Sforza feudal policy. Instead, the explosion of the Italian Wars after 1494 only prolonged and sharpened the antagonism between the clans and internationalized it into a proxy battle between France the Empire.

Serial Regimes and Radicalization In September 1499, French King Louis XII (1462–​1515) pressed his inherited claim to Milan as the great-​grandson of Duke Giangaleazzo Visconti and invaded the duchy of Milan to eject the “usurper” Sforza dynasty. Ludovico il Moro fled in panic to Austria, only to return to power on a wave of popular support in early 1500 before his definitive capture and exile to France. He died in prison in 1508. So began more than a quarter century of fitful French rule in Lombardy.14 Between 1499 and 1535, Milan effectively experienced nine changes of government, as the state pitched between French dominations (1499–​ 1500, 1500–​ 1512, 1515–​ 1521, 1524–​ 1525) and Sforza restorations (1500, 1512–​1515, 1521–​1524, and intermittently from 1525–​1535) propped up by an array of allies, particularly the Swiss Confederation and –​most importantly –​the Holy Roman Empire, since the duchy of Milan was an imperial fabrication. This constant rotation of lordship over Milan had several effects: each new regime denied the legitimacy of the former; elites took advantage of political chaos to grasp for greater power, often resuscitating feuds and factional violence in the process; partisan bureaucrats vitiated governmental continuities; and fractured governance produced a timescape of anxious impermanence.15 Such frequent and unpredictable reversals reshaped political matrices across the region. Some urban elites suffered demotion and expropriation under hostile regimes but developed an adaptive modus vivendi to protect themselves, seeking refuge in other cities or remaining compliantly quiet.16 Others sought fresh advantage with newcomers or instead they retreated defiantly to ancient alliances. In either case (accommodation or rebellion, and sometimes both depending on the occasion), their political alignments assumed new dimensions in this era of war. They developed layered, outwardly oriented affiliations as they brokered relationships with external authorities whose support they could leverage to resist or transform the realities within the duchy. (As we will see, the Sanseverino sought that succour from the French crown, and the Dal Verme from imperial powers.) Magnates’ activities in the Italian Wars were both effect and cause of ongoing hostilities over the state.17 Crumbling authority threatened their status and generated antagonisms, propelling them into exile and defiance. At the same time, their reaction to these challenges

54  John Gagné often entailed extended campaigns of raids, small-​scale wars, and regional violence that dragged each regime into a morass of further instability. In struggling to protect their own interests through confiscations, banishments, and other reversals, these elites became radicalized in their willingness to ride the waves of war and fight to outlast their opponents.

Twists in the Italian Wars The first two decades of the sixteenth century buffeted both Sanseverino and Dal Verme families, as they contended with unfriendly regimes and each other over the inheritances from the Visconti-​Sforza era. Even though Pietro Dal Verme’s nephews contested Ludovico’s confiscation of the late count’s rich fiefs in 1485, those holdings had landed in the hands of Galeazzo Sanseverino by 1496. But his tenure lasted just a few short years, since he abandoned Milan in the company of Ludovico Sforza in September 1499. When King Louis XII captured the duchy –​and particularly in the wake of the state-​wide pro-​Sforza uprising of early 1500, after which the king wielded lèse-​majesté as a charge to disempower several Lombard elites –​ he confiscated a number of estates and donated them to his own captains and retainers.18 One disgruntled Milanese gentleman later complained that Louis’s redistributions had reduced several of his illustrious peers to poverty after having been “peeled” by the French king.19 The twist that neither Dal Verme nor Sanseverino expected was the introduction of a third feudatory. In 1499, Louis XII bestowed the contested patrimony upon his grand chamberlain, Louis de Luxembourg, count of Ligny (1467–​1503).20 Ligny –​whom Leonardo da Vinci famously planned to join in Rome and accompany to Naples –​assumed lordship of the fief of Voghera, and had its castle decorated by Bramantino with vivid frescoes of the Muses.21 Despite attracting notable artists, Ligny was an uncompromising lord who knew how to “peel” the Vogheresi as the king did gentiluomini. When Ligny recaptured the city after a brief return of the Dal Verme during the pro-​Sforza uprising, he refused a conciliatory gift of silver plate from the townsfolk and distributed it disdainfully to his deputy’s soldiers.22 In the wake of the rebellion, he also demanded a punitive fine nearly ten times larger than the feudal fee he had originally requested; the aggrieved city had to sell off some of its communal woodlands to find the money to placate him.23 Eager to consolidate control over the full extent of his new lands, Ligny’s troops defeated an army of Dal Verme defenders at Bobbio and the fortress of Zavattarello in 1501.24 Had Ligny not died in 1503 without heirs, the conflicts might have triangulated indefinitely. Dal Verme participation in the anti-​ French revolt of 1500 and their conflicts with Ligny put the family in the crosshairs of Louis XII’s new regime. Accordingly, the king’s procurators brought charges of lèse majesté against the family for rebellion in February 1501, and two months later the court recommended a death sentence for the rebels.25 In desperation, the

Two Lombard Families in the Italian Wars  55 family turned for help to an external power: the King of the Romans, later Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian I Habsburg (1459–​1519). Maximilian was technically the ultimate authority over the duchy of Milan, since it was his predecessor Wenceslaus IV who had created the duchy for Giangaleazzo Visconti in 1395. (The French kings staked their own claims to the duchy upon that same Visconti inheritance but also rejected the Empire’s suzerainty over Milan and selectively applied imperial precedent.) Maximilian’s alliance with Ludovico il Moro informed his support for anti-​ French partisans and his wife, Bianca Maria Sforza, was also sheltering scores of Sforza refugees at her court at Innsbruck.26 Maximilian and the Dal Verme clearly saw opportunity in each other. Some 90 years later, the Milanese senate –​reviewing the estate’s ongoing case history –​lambasted the Dal Verme for misrepresenting themselves to Maximilian in 1502: Federico and Marco Antonio Dal Verme claimed that their fiefs were direct dependencies of the Holy Roman Empire (“which is false,” the senate ruled in 1592); that the emperors had previously confirmed Dal Verme privileges (“which is false”); and that the contested estates belonged to them by virtue of hereditary laws of succession (“which is very false”).27 In 1592, by contrast, the senate interpreted the 1436 Dal Verme infeudation as a Visconti gift that expired upon Pietro’s death in 1485 and triggered its devolution to the ducal chamber. The senate judgment stressed that none of the Dal Verme claimants were legitimate heirs to Pietro’s inheritance. But in 1502, Maximilian’s chancery was either not au fait with the details of Milanese feudality, or he was willing to overlook such details in order to gain vigorous military leverage against the French regime. The Dal Verme strategy of direct recourse to the Empire worked: they gained for themselves imperial recognition that surpassed their former privileges and ignored their illegitimacy.28 But it also revealed an unavoidable fact: the 1499 French conquest of Milan had pluralized the sovereigns who claimed authority over the duchy. The ongoing wars between them produced parallel paths –​French, Sforza-​imperial, and later papal –​along which each ruler continued to issue decrees and reward adherents in spite of each other. That tension generated legal chaos, and it drove the perennial and righteous aspirations of Milanese feudatories of both partisanships to reclaim properties that others had supposedly usurped. In the meantime, Galeazzo Sanseverino was not idle. As early as 1500, he asked the French king to restore the feudal and dotal assets Ludovico Sforza had given him even though they had already been scattered as gifts to Ligny and others.29 But the monarch ignored the petition; Galeazzo –​probably because of his integral role in Ludovico’s failed restoration –​remained persona non grata to Louis XII until sometime after 1505. By that point, Louis himself had purchased official investiture of the duchy from Maximilian (April 1505), and many Sforza partisans began to see collaboration with the French as the only viable route to reintegration.30 Such was the case with the Sanseverino, who finally made peace with the French regime after 1505.

56  John Gagné Perhaps to mark the détente, in 1506, Louis raised Galeazzo Sanseverino to the rank of Grand Equerry of France.31 In the same month, while in Blois with the king, Galeazzo officially renounced his claim to the Dal Verme inheritance; but only five years later Louis (re)invested him with the fief of Voghera and the title of count.32 During the second half of Louis XII’s rule in Milan, Galeazzo fulfilled his new honorary charge by fighting in Louis’s armies at Agnadello (1509) and Ravenna (1512), a measure of his refashioned clientage as a Francophile potentate.33 The Sforza restoration that followed (1512–​ 1515) under Ludovico’s eldest son Massimiliano (1493–​1530) inflamed disputes again. With the crumbling of the French regime, the Dal Verme recaptured the city of Bobbio, one of the urban hubs of their former state, and extracted a confirmation of feudal privileges from Duke Massimiliano.34 The young Sforza also exiled French partisans from Milan, accusing them of plotting “to return the French to their former tyranny.”35 Among them were Galeazzo Sanseverino and his younger brother Giulio.36 By this point, Galeazzo had reoriented his life to the royal court in the Loire Valley, but he returned to Milan in 1515 with Louis XII’s successor, King Francis I (1494–​1547), and fought alongside the young monarch at Marignano to recapture the duchy. Impressed with Sanseverino, Francis showered him with rewards including the Dal Verme lands and even richer spoils.37 Most notable among these new endowments was the Park of Pavia, the massive walled hunting compound attached to the Visconti castle, one of the largest of its kind in Europe.38 By 1516, Galeazzo’s titles included Marquis of Bobbio, Count of Voghera, and Grand Equerry of France. With the young Sforza duke banished to France, the Dal Verme once again seemed to be ghosts in their own lands. Facing dispossession and exile, they sought imperial support. Just five months after Francis captured Milan in late 1515, Emperor Maximilian I appointed Federico Dal Verme as “imperial commissioner-​general over the Po,” whose duties included recapturing the cities of Piacenza, Alessandria, and Tortona and other adjacencies “out of the hands of the French.”39 The appointment empowered Dal Verme to subdue and govern this part of the state in the name of the Empire, a plenipotentiary charge that promised to augment Federico’s regional authority and also benefitted Maximilian’s imperial designs as an impediment to the smooth reassertion of French sovereignty. Opportunities to resist Francis I’s lordship occurred to townsfolk in the Dal Verme lands as well. The syndics of Bobbio –​ordered by a French administrator to swear a loyalty oath to the king –​refused the directive, claiming they could not contravene their pact with their Dal Verme lords.40 When required to do so anyway, they remonstrated in a notarized complaint that their ultramontane governor had extracted their oath under duress, probably aware that forced oaths were unlawful and could be dissolved. The interim between the two French regimes had reminded many Lombards, including the Bobbiesi, of alternate futures and the necessity to

Two Lombard Families in the Italian Wars  57 resist slipping backward into unhappy pasts. And yet the circling of regimes uncannily turned the past into the future; the French just kept returning. Across the duchy, changes of regime elicited intense community consultation, a process that pushed citizens and subjects to articulate their political expectations explicitly. Whether rulers chose to listen was another matter, but new lordship always generated dialog within communities about what pressures they could bear and what fortunes they most desired. Ultimately, the citizens of Bobbio relented in 1516 and swore allegiance to France rather than chance punishment. Despite imperial aid and pockets of popular support, the Dal Verme were now caught in a vise. Milan’s senate, again in French hands, adjudicated a case brought against them by plaintiffs in Piacenza whose estate the Dal Verme had despoiled of “silver, tapestries, offensive and defensive weapons, ammunition, a large quantity of artillery of various sorts,” along with linens and victuals.41 They transported most of the loot to their mountain stronghold, the Rocca d’Olgisio, as if to fortify themselves against prospective challengers. They would not have long to wait.

Olgisio and the Fate of Northern Italy Francis I’s recapture of Lombardy in late 1515 revived opposition to French governance inside and outside the duchy. In March 1516, Maximilian I personally led an army to Milan’s gates in the hopes of stimulating a general uprising led by the anti-​French Ghibelline faction but soon withdrew for fear of a Swiss mutiny in his own ranks.42 Over the next year, even as prospects of a Franco-​imperial peace promised to calm hostilities, the Sanseverino–​ Dal Verme feud became a fulcrum in the sovereignty contest between the major powers. Despite promising advances among diplomats (they brokered peace on March 11, 151743), the struggle for real control of Italy played out in a multiplicity of ground-​level disputes that rarely respected such official paperwork. Instead, this landscape of stochastic small-​scale resistance signaled to statesmen the direction in which Fortune’s wheel was turning. The fight for Olgisio was one such event. Immediately after Maximilian’s retreat from Milan, Galeazzo Sanseverino, who had defended the city’s gates, departed in the direction of Piacenza “to ruin the Vermeneschi, who had taken his castles,” as one ambassador reported.44 Galeazzo targeted the key Dal Verme fortress, the Rocca d’Olgisio. Olgisio (sometimes spelled Olzisio, Alcese, Arzes, and other variations) sits atop the crest of a mountain range in the Val Tidone south-​ west of Piacenza. Ringed with layers of defensive walls, it is one of the oldest and best fortified castles in the region: “a stupendous thing,” one official declared it.45 The Dal Verme used it as their redoubt, an impregnable refuge where they kept armaments, treasury, and archive.46 In May 1516, Galeazzo attacked Olgisio with 2000 foot-​soldiers, 100 lances, and an artillery train, devastating much of the valley “as if they were enemies.”47 Challenged by

58  John Gagné heavy rains and by lugging artillery up slippery cliffs, Galeazzo battered the castle until Milan’s governor called him away to besiege Brescia, ending the assault prematurely.48 Undeterred, a second Sanseverino expedition returned in May 1517 under the command of Galeazzo’s younger brother, Giulio, and Thomas de Foix, sieur de Lescun, the younger sibling of Milan’s French governor.49 Despite the peace sealed in March, by May there was news of a league forming against the French, and letters arrived at Olgisio for the Dal Verme defenders, “telling them to hold firm,” and that “the emperor favoured them.”50 The French dismissed stories of a new league to eject them from Italy as mere rumour. Still, Milan’s governor Odet de Foix, sieur de Lautrec, deferred his planned return to France awaiting the fall of Olgisio.51 An imperial commissioner warned Lautrec by letter that the new peace terms obliged the French “not to trouble [Olgisio]: it is with the emperor.”52 In the same days, the papal legate (the Swiss bishop Matthäus Schiner, whose niece Anna had married Federico Dal Verme) wrote to the Dal Verme brothers that “they should hold firm,” because both Maximilian and his grandson Charles V would write to Francis “that he must desist from this expedition.” Lautrec’s response to this invocation of peace pacts was a simple dismissal: “the King has promised nothing.”53 The assault continued. French forces finally subdued the Rocca d’Olgisio and installed a castellan on behalf of Galeazzo Sanseverino. The contest over Olgisio attracted such focused attention from interested parties because it was a proxy battle between France and the Empire, a bellwether of the politico-​military winds. What may strike us now as a vindictive squabble between noble clans instead seemed in 1517 to be a stress-​test of the tenuous peace and a forecast of who would gain the upper hand after the truce broke down. It was also a microcosm of the wider story of regime change in the Italian Wars: a contested fifteenth-​century dispute over inherited lordship generated decades of political conflict, legal wrangling, and violence. In that sense, Italy’s sixteenth century came to be shaped by the hundreds of similar disputes that reckoned with the unsolved issues raised in these wars, especially –​in this case –​for what became in 1545 the duchy of Parma and Piacenza. We will explore the deeper significance of Olgisio’s rendition for the history of regime change in the next section, but let us quickly trace the ensuing history. After Maximilian I’s death in 1519, tensions grew between Francis I and the new emperor, Charles V (1500–​1558). War erupted again in May 1521, and French Milan found itself beset by innumerable exile conspiracies. The Dal Verme were one of several families of banished raiders who laid waste to Milan’s countryside in August.54 Assailed on all fronts, the French abandoned Milan and most of the duchy’s other cities in November and made their failed attempt to regain the capital from imperial forces at Bicocca in April 1522.55 As French rule faltered in Lombardy, imperial agents snapped into action. Francesco II Sforza hovered nearby in Trent to claim the ducal mantle of

Two Lombard Families in the Italian Wars  59 his late father and exiled brother. Sforza bureaucrats recalled exiles; the Dal Verme, who had spent time in Mantua, now hoped for a return. Charles V confirmed their feudal privileges in early 1521, and both the Sforza chancellor and the papal governor of Piacenza demanded the restitution of Olgisio from its Sanseverino castellan.56 In March 1522, the brothers Federico and Marco Antonio laid siege to their own fortress, ejecting the defenders and reclaiming it for themselves. Galeazzo Sanseverino never found the occasion to pursue its recapture. In 1525, he fell in battle at Pavia (fought in the same park gifted to him by the French king), and his brother Giulio died the following year in Paris. The Dal Verme had not just won the battle by retaking Olgisio, they had seemingly won their war against the Sanseverino by simply outliving their enemies.

Olgisio at Trial, 1567 And yet, contest and confusion over Milan’s lordship intensified in the 1520s. Francesco II Sforza assumed his father’s ducal mantle in 1522, only to be ejected by imperial forces under suspicion of treason in 1526. Having made amends, he returned in 1531 and ruled until his death in 1535, at which point the duchy devolved to Emperor Charles V, who installed Spanish governors. The era of Milan’s dukes was over.57 The ascendant fortunes of imperial rule might have heartened the Dal Verme, but there was now a further authority to contend with: the Papal See. After the French withdrawal from Milan in 1512, dispute arose over the lordship of Parma and Piacenza. Massimiliano Sforza considered it part of the Milanese duchy while Pope Leo X wanted it to join the Pontifical States.58 That disagreement escalated until 1545, when Pope Paul III Farnese (1468–​1549) created the duchy of Parma and Piacenza for his son, Pier Luigi Farnese (1503–​1547). The creation ex nihilo of a new state under papal authority threatened everything the Dal Verme clan had invested in since 1502. Political sands were again shifting beneath their feet. Many of the family’s feudal territories now sat in a Farnese duchy even though their political adherence belonged to the imperially-​administered state of Milan. The aggressive Farnese state-​building strategy of expropriating fiefs from the feudatories of Parma and Piacenza in part explains why the second half of the sixteenth century was replete with confiscations and assassinations.59 That tension exploded immediately for the Dal Verme, who refused to pay taxes on their fief of Romagnese to the new Farnese duke. Federico’s son Giovanni Dal Verme argued that his sovereign was the emperor by way of the duchy of Milan, making the fief thereby exempt from impost. Unpersuaded, Pier Luigi invaded Romagnese in 1546.60 Parma and Piacenza’s feudal elites were now players in a new proxy battle, this time between the emperor and the pope. Their lands had become part of a strategic crush-​belt between the two powers. Aggrieved feudatories murdered the Farnese duke the following year in a conspiracy hatched in collaboration with the imperial governor

60  John Gagné of Milan, Ferrante Gonzaga (1507–​1557).61 Despite this unequivocal act of resistance, Pier Luigi’s son and successor, Ottavio Farnese (1524–​1586) followed his father’s efforts to absorb the major holdings of the powerful landed families in the duchy. In 1559 and 1560, he established a “council of justice” in each city to adjudicate ducal policy and bring obstreperous elites to heel.62 Still, an imperial garrison occupying Piacenza’s castle for nearly 20 years reminded the Farnese of the emperor’s watchful eye and his designs on the duchy. It was in this context of revived feudal insecurity that the Sanseverino family moved to regain the Rocca d’Olgisio exactly 50 years after Galeazzo had conquered it. In 1567, Gianfrancesco Sanseverino –​son of Giulio and nephew of the Grand Equerry –​petitioned the court of Piacenza for restitution of the Rocca d’Olgisio and its extensive surroundings. (Ottavio Farnese had agreed in 1556 to leave Gianfrancesco’s fiefs unmolested.63) The case makes clear that Milan’s sovereignty tumults in the first half of the century remained live issues –​no doubt inflamed by the agitations within the Farnese duchy –​and the dispute between Sanseverino and Dal Verme had still not been settled. One of the signal effects of serial changes in Milan’s government over many decades was the perennial recursion of legal disputes that a stable authority might have settled more definitively. Instead conflict was deferred, only to erupt later when agitated by new power structures in the Farnese state: aftershocks rumbling long after the initial earthquake. The 1567 trial’s paperwork is woefully fragmentary; we do not have Gianfrancesco’s complaint, the list of questions put to witnesses, the full testimony of both sides, or even the final ruling. However, the Dal Verme archive in the state collections of Verona does preserve nearly 200 folios containing six witness depositions in support of the Sanseverino suit.64 To establish a clear case for Galeazzo’s licit tenure of Olgisio from 1517–​1522, as these witnesses were called to do, would authenticate the argument for its restitution to a Sanseverino heir. From the witness testimony we can glean that the key assertions driving Gianfrancesco’s case were (a) that Galeazzo’s lordship over Olgisio was legitimate, and (b) that its entitlement passed from Galeazzo to his brother Giulio, and all of Giulio’s rights in turn passed to his son Gianfrancesco. The witnesses –​all men from the generation of the French domination of Milan –​were well-​positioned to report first-​hand about Galeazzo Sanseverino’s lordship over Olgisio. They were as follows: • • • •

Brunoro Martinengo, 63, son of Silvestrino Martinengo, Galeazzo’s castellan. Giovanni Battista Martinengo, 59, Brunoro’s younger brother. Bellino Guazone, 74, archer in Galeazzo Sanseverino’s company. Giovanni Stefano de Borneri, 80, archer in Galeazzo Sanseverino’s company.

Two Lombard Families in the Italian Wars  61 • •

Giovanni Cattaneo, 67, son of Giulio Sanseverino’s personal chancellor. Giuseppe de Fusari, 65, erstwhile page in a Sanseverino palazzo in Milan.

Together these men brought a variety of experiences to bear upon Galeazzo’s tenure of Olgisio from 1517–​1522: the castellan’s sons could vouch for the legitimacy of Sanseverino’s plenipotentiary lieutenant, their father Silvestrino Martinengo.65 The two archers, participants in the French campaigns for Olgisio in the 1510s, could speak with authority on military matters. The chancellor’s son had personally seen letters, charters, and other writings relating to the fortress. And the page could authenticate, from within the Sanseverino household itself, family relations crucial to inheritance. The witness testimonies thus provide us a useful avenue for assessing what mattered in establishing authority during a period of regular regime change: these voices allow us to see, from the vantage of participants themselves, how legitimacy was constructed and experienced at a key military site in an era of tenaciously contested sovereignty.

Phenomenology of Regime Change In essence, the Sanseverino witnesses in 1567 offer us embodied, experiential discourses reflecting on how regimes changed and implanted themselves. They are narratives built in perceptions and observations of their environments, and as such they articulate what Edmund Husserl called the subject’s Lebenswelt (the lived world), or what Maurice Merleau-​Ponty subsequently named the champ phénoménal (phenomenal field).66 If historians can attend to the particular grounds upon which witnesses considered a regime’s authority to exist, then we can begin to apprehend the specific historical conditions that counted as authentic and legally-​binding authority to these people in an era when many hands were grasping for sovereignty. This analytical proposition is perhaps just business-​ as-​ usual for historians: all it asks is that we follow our habitual instincts to hear the words of the dead and listen to them describe their experience. But by framing it as a question of phenomenology we can facilitate its removal from certain positivist tendencies of legal analysis focused upon rendering historical verdicts about feudal conflict (i.e., who ultimately won the rights in this case?) and open it up again to questions of experience (i.e., how did witnesses perceive regimes to exist?). Since the interrogators posed the same key legal questions to all the witnesses, there is an intentional harmony to the six accounts: they corroborate each other in telling of Galeazzo’s forces capturing Olgisio in 1517 and holding it until 1522; they identify the castellan as Silvestrino Martinengo; they ratify that Giulio was Galeazzo’s legitimate sibling and therefore able to inherit his brother’s fiefs and pass them on to Gianfrancesco; and perhaps most importantly from a legal standpoint they affirm the legitimacy of Sanseverino power for those five years. But

62  John Gagné let us focus in this chapter’s last pages on the particularities of their “phenomenal fields,” or the way in which the dialog between interrogators and witnesses framed the construction of authority and can help us understand how both law and individuals viewed new regimes in operation. The witness testimony also offers new detail about the Dal Verme recapture of Olgisio in 1522. The brothers Federico and Marco Antonio Dal Verme mounted a siege against the fortress that lasted about four months. Inside, the Sanseverino soldiers found themselves “naked and shoeless” and without adequate supplies.67 No hope of rescue remained because French forces had withdrawn from Italy, having left only a few garrisons in Cremona and barricaded inside Milan’s castle.68 These were thus the key months of transition between French and Sforza-​imperial lordship of the duchy. Seeking to break the resistance, the Dal Verme brothers scoured Pavia to seize the castellan’s children who were in school there. They captured the 18-​year-​old Brunoro while his younger brother Giovanni Battista fled for a convent disguised in girl’s clothing. The Dal Verme brothers brought Brunoro to Olgisio to show him as a captive and hasten Silvestrino’s surrender.69 Silvestrino refused to cede on those grounds and relented only when his own soldiers submitted a written protest.70 In a separate notarized agreement of the surrender, Federico promised to release Silvestrino’s “children and relatives” upon rendition of the fortress.71 The castellan’s sons, dragged as youths into this fight for Olgisio, outlined in their testimony their own experience of their father’s tenure of the fortress. They witnessed him exert his authority as castellan to command the fortress and the towns around it.72 He had the keys of Olgisio brought to his bedchamber every night and he slept with them nearby.73 The boys, who visited once or twice a year, became familiar with his territorial jurisdiction (not just Olgisio but also Pianello and Val Percorara) in recreation with the garrison’s soldiers across the local hills and fields.74 The younger son recalled their father planting grape vines Galeazzo had sent to Olgisio from France.75 (Such quotidian rituals counted in law as “acts of possession,” which helped to ratify claims of real tenure.76) They vouched for their father’s rightful authority by describing the apparatus of governance (a podestà, auditor, and treasurer: in other words, genuine agents and officials who sustained Galeazzo Sanseverino’s regional fiscal bureaucracy) and they explained how officials and local subjects obeyed Silvestrino and sought him out to resolve problems.77 They also told particularly vivid tales of their father imprisoning, torturing, adjudicating, and executing local felons (attestations of the plenitude of their father’s capacity to administer justice). Shielded from witnessing a hanging, the youngest son could still describe after 50 years the “small old man” his father interrogated before sending him to the gallows.78 While the Martinengo children’s “phenomenal field” attested to experiences of their father’s acts of legitimate lordship, the two soldiers from Galeazzo Sanseverino’s company testified to his legitimate tenure by way of

Two Lombard Families in the Italian Wars  63 the law of conquest.79 They emphasized, as participants in the French army’s campaigns, how Francis I’s victory at Marignano in 1515 authenticated French rule over the duchy of Milan, a necessary precondition for a rightful seizure of Olgisio.80 Both archers insisted explicitly that the Milanese regimes of the French kings were lawful. “The kings of France possessed the state of Milan legitimately,” testified Bellino Guazone.81 (He could not remember the Sforza dukes, but had met Kings Louis XII and Francis I personally.82) His confrère Giovanni Stefano held “that King Francis was master and not occupier of the state of Milan when he sent the army to the Rocca d’Olgisio.”83 Galeazzo’s lordship was therefore undergirded by royal will; Olgisio’s recapture belonged to a larger military plan to reassert the returning regime. The soldiers recalled very few dates of these events, but had sharp memories of personal relationships. Bellino recalled hearing the tale of Sanseverino feudal rights to the region from his fellow soldiers as they occupied Olgisio and Voghera.84 He remembered the local butcher at nearby Pianello who cut good meat for the hungry fighters.85 A decade later, he learned Galeazzo had died when Greek and Albanian soldiers fleeing the chaotic French defeat at Pavia reached his hometown near Mantua.86 And both archer-​ deponents testified about Galeazzo’s rich and lofty tapestries crowned with his personal arms and bequeathed to his brother Giulio in 1525: hangings that still adorned Gianfrancesco’s palace in 1567, strengthening the case for direct inheritance.87 The final two witnesses also asserted emphatically that French governance of Milan had been genuine, “because,” as Giovanni Cattaneo testified, “they did everything that real masters of states do during the time they held and possessed the state of Milan.”88 Cattaneo, son of Giulio Sanseverino’s chancellor, was a man of documents worlds apart from the grizzled fighters. (One of the archers had only a vague idea of his own age, whereas Cattaneo knew his birth date exactly from one of his father’s account books.89) He attested to the robust bureaucracy of what he called “the state of Lord Galeazzo,” by describing accounts, agreements, and payments across the Val Tidone for the period in question.90 He had also seen Sanseverino family wills and recounted the efforts that Ippolita, Giulio’s widow, expended to obtain power of attorney and collect her husband’s affairs in Paris after he died there in 1526.91 Cattaneo’s was a vision of legitimacy built from paper and ink, confident in the authenticity of notarized acts and normative politics (i.e., “everything that real masters of states do”). Finally, Giuseppe de Fusari had lived in the Milanese palace of Galeazzo’s sister-​in-​law, Margherita Sanseverino, and served “as her boy about Milan.”92 He remembered that when the French kings “ruled the state of Milan, they were still called dukes of Milan, and they were taken as such, not as occupiers.”93 As a teenager he spent hours in the palazzo with an elderly retainer so gouty he had to be carried in a litter; he was Franceschino, “who was jokingly called the archive of the affairs of the house of Sanseverino.”94 Thanks to the teachings of old Franceschino, Giuseppe learned ample historical

64  John Gagné details of the Sanseverino–​Dal Verme feud dating back to the 1480s. His testimony reconstructed the twists and turns of feudal investitures more clearly than any other deponent. His memories from within Margherita’s Milanese house also attested to Sanseverino kinship bonds: the “mio fratello carissimo” scribbled on letters from Galeazzo to Giulio that the young Giuseppe ferried across Milan; the mutual regard between the Sanseverino women; and the “great triumphs and parties” Giulio mounted for Gianfrancesco’s birth and baptism in 1519.95 His account narrated a multigenerational panorama of a virtuous and well-​ordered noble clan, internally affectionate and politically aligned with the French regime. In the aggregate, the witness statements confirm the Sanseverino clan’s profound French partisanship in the 1510s and 1520s. The deponents in the 1560s –​all of them erstwhile retainers and servants of the Sanseverino –​ had absorbed and accepted that same political commitment albeit in terms specific to each witness. Following the legal logic of the interrogations, their testimony aimed to uphold the authenticity of Sanseverino inheritance of the Rocca d’Olgisio, but along the way they also revealed how their faith in the French domination of Milan had been established and confirmed. That faith traveled through material and embodied relations (including parents, patrons, companions-​in-​arms, travel, captivity, battle, documents, objects, narrative chains, and personal memories), in other words, through each man’s “phenomenal field,” a subjective matrix that constructed his sense of belonging to a righteous and legitimate history. Political subjects relied upon these very same pathways to build consensus and authenticate political legitimacy in an era when real authority seemed evanescent. Naturally, the Dal Verme family disagreed with Sanseverino readings of the past. We can glean their position from remonstrative letters Giovanni Dal Verme wrote from Milan to Duke Ottavio in 1567 grousing about ducal hatred of his family and rejecting the jurisdiction of Piacenza’s magistrates over him, a Milanese resident.96 Giovanni not only impugned Piacenza’s judges as “highly suspect and distrustful,” he also fretted that subjects in his ancestral territories would be withdrawn from his jurisdiction. He vaunted a “most ancient and solid title” for his fiefs in the diocese of Piacenza confirmed by Milanese dukes, emperors, and popes. Giovanni thought it “absurd, horrendous, and sacrilegious” that the Sanseverino could sidestep such histories with their reclamations only because Piacenza was now under different lordship (sotto altro dominio).97 His clan’s own narratives rejected any notion that France had ever ruled Milan legitimately. The French kings were, as Dal Verme case files explained, “publicly held to be occupiers, usurpers, and tyrants of the state and its cities.”98 The Italian Wars had ended, but the legal disarray they produced lingered on.

Conclusion The sovereignty contests that animated the sixteenth century’s first half haunted the legal battles of its second. The Dal Verme state, by 1600 divided

Two Lombard Families in the Italian Wars  65 between the Veneto, Lombardy, and the new duchy of Parma and Piacenza, found itself a shadow of what it had been a century earlier.99 Ultimately, the family appears to have held on to the Rocca d’Olgisio through the 1567 trial, but Milan’s senate stripped the fief of Voghera from the Dal Verme in 1593.100 The Sanseverino fared even worse. Gianfrancesco’s daughter and heir Barbara (1550–​1612) struggled against the expansionism of the Farnese duke, Ranuccio (1569–​1622), who continued his predecessors’ suppression of feudatories’ power through confiscations.101 Revealed to be a conspirator against the duke, Barbara and her fellow plotters went to the scaffold in May 1612.102 The Farnese duke appropriated the Sanseverino fief of Colorno; the branch of the family that had spent the sixteenth century contending against the Dal Verme had been extinguished. The invading European powers of the Italian Wars conscripted the small lords of the Sforza territorial state into their imperialist campaigns, promising them more land and perpetual rights in exchange for fealty and military service. But the wars themselves dismantled those promises precisely because warring contenders promised the same feudal entitlements to their own partisans. Moreover, as the Italian jurist Alberico Gentili later wrote in his Three Books on the Law of War, King Louis XII and Emperor Charles V later became notorious for flouting pacts and promises.103 In these wars nothing was ever secure, and Lombardy’s gentiluomini –​after decades of exile, combat, and siege –​could attest to that fact. They had all been peeled. Castles like Olgisio mattered to elite families because their impregnable walls and dominant cliffs crowned their regional states, materializing their owners’ self-​image as proud lords. Olgisio’s history is particularly telling because, by the time of the political “settlement” of the Italian Wars in 1559, the fortress was neither under French nor under Spanish-​imperial dominion: it had been absorbed into a new state. Neither of the major monarchies could substantially assuage the conflict between the Sanseverino and Dal Verme because a new duchy had further clouded the issue of jurisdiction, and its rulers were bent on disempowering both clans. These feudal elites offer us a specific lens on the consequences of regime change in sixteenth-​ century Italy: these nobles, when preyed upon or betrayed, became critics of the major European monarchies, insisting in legal documents and on the battlefield that those sovereigns’ claims of lordship over Italy were false, nothing but pretences. Legitimacy lay in the eye of the beholder. At the same time, these nobles were also the victims of the political changes the Italian Wars generated. The traditional role of feudatories as mediators between center and periphery –​in other words, between sovereign rulers and the networks of small rural communities traditionally subject to feudal lordship –​suffered. The combative state-​building of the duchy of Parma and Piacenza exemplifies the designs that rulers had upon those previously robust nodes of regional power. Part of the way elites protected themselves from the predations of larger states was to follow longstanding Lombard tradition of partible male inheritance.104 It permitted families to divide their estates on their own terms before others did it for them: this was

66  John Gagné perhaps why Federico and Marco Antonio Dal Verme split their inheritance in 1530.105 They may have hoped that pluralizing their assets would make them a harder target for princely interference. In the face of the political and juridical puzzles that rotating regimes posed for Italians, personal and communal experience –​the “lived world” of sensation and judgment –​offered war-​buffeted populations a trustworthy tool of authentication. We might say that it expanded to fill the gaps opened by the fracturing of familiar structures. Over decades of destabilized socio-​ legal order, traditional indices of political authority and law ran aground. Personal and partisan ways of seeing the world appeared more truthful insofar as they represented verifiable lived experience, which was often at odds with what rulers and judges declared. The long tail of the Italian Wars lived on for many decades, until the last of the generation who had felt its victories and labors had vanished.

Notes 1 Abbreviations: Archivio di Stato di Milano (ASMi); Archivio di Stato di Parma (ASPr); Archivio di Stato di Verona (ASVr), Fondo Zileri-​ Dal Verme (ZDV); Archives nationales de France (AnF); Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF); Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana, 1960) (DBI). Paolo Giovio, Notable Men and Women of Our Time, ed. and trans. Kenneth Gouwens (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 210–​211. 2 For the broader context of regime change in the early Italian Wars, see Marcello Bonazza and Silvia Seidel Menchi, eds., Dal Leone all’Aquila: Comunità, territori e cambi di regime nell’età di Massimiliano I (Rovereto: Edizioni Osiride, 2012). 3 For the Dal Verme, see Pierre Savy, Seigneurs et condottières: Les Dal Verme –​ Appartenances sociales, constructions étatiques et pratiques politiques dans l’Italie de la Renaissance (Rome: École française de Rome, 2013), 69–​192. 4 Federico Del Tredici, “Nobility in Lombardy between the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age,” in A Companion to Late Medieval and Early Modern Milan: The Distinctive Features of an Italian State, ed. Andrea Gamberini, 477–​ 498 (Leiden: Brill, 2014). 5 Niccolò Machiavelli, Discorsi sopra la prima Deca di Tito Livio, ed. Corrado Vivanti (Turin: Einaudi, 1997), I.55, 136. 6 Leonida Besozzi, “La ‘Matricula’ delle famiglie nobili di Milano e Carlo Borromeo,” Archivio storico lombardo 110 (1984): 273–​330. 7 Pierre Savy, “Costituzione e funzionamento dello ‘Stato vermesco’ (fine del XIV-​metà del XV sec.),” in Poteri signorili e feudali nelle campagne dell’Italia settentrionale fra Tre e Quattrocento: Fondamenti di legittimità e forme di esercizio, eds. Federica Cengarle, Giorgio Chittolini, and Gian Maria Varanini, pp. 73–​87 (Florence: Firenze University Press, 2005). 8 Savy, Seigneurs, 203–​265; Alessio Russo, “Sanseverino d’Aragona, Roberto,” in DBI 90 (2017): 316–​323, at 317. 9 Christine Shaw, The Politics of Exile in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 8–​9.

Two Lombard Families in the Italian Wars  67 10 Martin Kemp, Pascal Cotte, and Paul Biro, La Bella Principessa: The Story of the New Masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci (London: Holder & Stoughton, 2010). 11 Alessandro Giulini, “Bianca Sanseverino Sforza figlia di Lodovico il Moro,” Archivio storico lombardo, ser. 4, vol. 18, fasc. 35 (1912): 233–​252. 12 As a young man in the mid-​1460s, Pietro had been identified as a suitable match for one of Roberto Sanseverino’s daughters, but Dal Verme eventually opted for what seemed an even more advantageous match in Cecilia del Maino, daughter of Duke Galeazzo Maria’s secret counsellor. Had the Sanseverino-​Dal Verme nuptials gone forward in the 1460s, more than a century of later conflict might have been avoided. See Francesca M. Vaglienti, “La detenzione del Conte Pietro Dal Verme e la confisca del suo feudo ad opera di Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duca di Milano,” Nuova rivista storica 74, nos. 3–​4 (1990): 401–​416, at 407. 13 Savy, Seigneurs, 410–​417. 14 Stefano Meschini, La Francia nel Ducato di Milano: La politica di Luigi XII (1499–​1512), 2 vols. (Milan: Franco Angeli, 2006). 15 John Gagné, Milan Undone: Contested Sovereignties in the Italian Wars (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2021). 16 For a pro-​Sforza family, the Arcimboldi, who generally followed this appeasement strategy under the French, see Francesco Somaini, “Le famiglie milanesi tra gli Sforza e i francesi: Il caso degli Arcimboldi,” in Milano e Luigi XII: Ricerche sul primo dominio francese in Lombardia (1499–​1512), ed. Letizia Arcangeli, 167–​220 (Milan: Franco Angeli 2002). 17 For a survey see Christine Shaw, Barons and Castellans: The Military Nobility of Renaissance Italy (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 198–​248. 18 Léon-​Gabriel Pélissier, Documents pour l’histoire de la domination française dans le milanais (1499–​1513) (Toulouse: Édouard Privat, 1891), doc. 15 (July 10, 1500), 34–​39. 19 Pélissier, Documents, doc. 29 (September 19, 1504), 100–​106, at 104. 20 For Ligny’s place in the Luxembourg clan, see Claude Bonnabelle, Étude sur les seigneurs de Ligny, de la maison de Luxembourg, la ville et le comté de Ligny (Bar-​le-​Duc: Contant-​Laguerre, 1880), 35. 21 On Leonardo’s so-​called “Ligny Memorandum,” see Laure Fagnart, Léonard de Vinci en France: Collections et collectionneurs (XVème-​ XVIIème siècles) (Rome: «L’Erma» di Bretschneider, 2009), 18–​19; for the Bramantino commission in Voghera, see Maria Luisa Paganin, “Un’impresa decifrata: Il conte de Ligny committente di Bramantino a Voghera,” Prospettiva 119/​120 (2005): 95–​97. 22 Enrico Roveda, “Un generale francese al governo di un feudo Lombardo: Ligny e Voghera,” in Milano e Luigi XII: Ricerche sul primo dominio francese in Lombardia (1499–​1512), ed. Letizia Arcangeli, 107–​140 (Milan: Franco Angeli 2002), 127–​128. 23 Roveda, “Un generale francese,” 132–​138. 24 Marin Sanudo, I Diarii, ed. Rinaldo Fulin, 58 vols. (Bologna: Forni 1969–​1979 [1879–​1902]), 3:805, 880. 25 For the charge against the family (February 15, 1501), see a printed copy from the later sixteenth century in ASVr, ZDV –​Feudi 25, fasc. 53. 26 Sabine Weiss, Die vergessene Kaiserin: Bianca Maria Sforza, Kaiser Maximilians zweite Gemahlin (Innsbruck-​Vienna: Tyrolia-​Verlag, 2010), 85–​94. 27 ASPr, Carte Feudali 57 (Dal Verme), “Causa Reg. Duc. Fisci Mediolani contra Comites Vermenses” (April 6, 1592), fol. 3v. “De Anno 1502: Isti Federicus et

68  John Gagné Marcus Antonius habuerunt recursum ad Maximilianum Imperatorem sub clipeo expulsionis et condennationis Gallorum, eique plures falsitates exposuerunt, nempe quod ista bona dependunt a sacro Romano imperio, quod est falsum; Item, quod sui Antecessores consueuerunt recipere confirmationes a Romano Imperio, quod est falsum; Item, quod bona ipsa tunc ad eos spectabant iure successionis et hereditarie, quod est falsissimum.” 28 ASVr, ZDV, Diplomi-​Bolle-​Privilegi 6, fasc. 18, Privilegium Car. V. concessum Co. Federico, & M. Antonio Fratribus de Vermæ 1521. 25. Martii. Cum insertione Privilegii Maximiliani Imperatoris concessi ipsis Fratribus anno 1502. 29 BnF, ms. fr. 3087, “Memoriale eorum que pectuntur pro domino Galeazio Sanseuerino,” fol. 103r-​v. 30 Dietmar Heil, ed., Deutsche Reichstagsakten unter Maximilian I. –​Achter Band: Das Reichstag zu Köln 1505, teil 1 (Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag, 2008), outline of treaty of Haguenau (1505), 222–​226. 31 Louis also granted him title to the estate of Cusago outside of Milan, albeit untransferable and uninheritable. See AnF, Trésor des Chartes, J 507, n. 29, 14 December 1506. 32 AnF, Trésor des Chartes, J 499, n. 39, 3 December 1506 (for Galeazzo’s renunciation); and ASPr, Feudi e Comunità 210 (Sanseverino), February 1511 (for the investiture with Voghera by Louis XII). 33 Meschini, La Francia nel Ducato, vol. 2, 576, 983. 34 Giorgio Fiori, “Bobbio e i Dal Verme,” Archivio storico per le province parmensi 38 (1986): 175–​201, at 183; ASMi, Famiglie 198 (Verme) –​confirmation of Dal Verme privileges, 8 March 1513. 35 ASVr, ZDV, Processi 174, fasc. 542. Edict of Massimiliano Sforza against French partisans, 18 March 1513. 36 Meschini, La Francia nel Ducato, vol. 2, 1077. 37 ASPr, Feudi e Comunità 210 (Sanseverino), 2 July 1516. The territories were Zavattarello, Rocca d’Olgisio, Pianello, Romagnese, and others around Piacenza. François even asked Venice to make Galeazzo lord of Citadella, once owned by his father Roberto: Sanudo, Diarii, vol. 21, 346. 38 ASPr, Feudi e Comunità 210 (Sanseverino), July 2, 1516. (A separate charter from the one above.) On the park, see Filippo Prato, Il Parco Vecchio o il campo della battaglia di Pavia (Pavia: Fratelli Fusi, 1897). 39 ASVr, ZDV, Processi 174, fasc. 542. Decree of Maximilian I appointing Federico Dal Verme as Imperial Commissioner over the Po, February 23, 1516. 40 Biblioteca Comunale di Piacenza, MS Com. 474, vol. 2, doc. 150, December, 16 1515. Notarized protest by the citizens of Bobbio against the forced oath of fidelity to France. 41 Giovanni Crescio, “Episodio storico di giustizia punitiva,” Strenna Piacentina 18 (1892): 62–​67. 42 Stefano Meschini, La seconda dominazione francese nel ducato di Milano. La politica e gli uomini di Francesco I (1515–​1521) (Varzi: Guardamagna Editore 2014), 51–​57. 43 Meschini, La seconda dominazione, 63. 44 Sanudo, Diarii vol. 22, 155. 45 Andrea Corna, Castelli e rocche del Piacentino (Piacenza: Unione Tipografica Piacentina, 1913), 81–​88; Savy, Seigneurs, 427. 46 Savy, “Costituzione,” 74.

Two Lombard Families in the Italian Wars  69 47 Cristoforo Poggiali, Memorie storiche della città di Piacenza, vol. 8 (Piacenza: Per Filippo G. Giacopazzi, 1760), 273. Poggiali quotes a continuation of the Guarino chronicle of Piacenza: “Multa mala fecerunt dictus exercitus in Valle Tidoni; ruinaverunt, & sachezaverunt totum, & fecerunt plus mali, quam si fuissent inimici.” 48 Poggiali, Memorie storiche, vol. 8, 273–​74. 49 Poggiali, Memorie storiche, vol. 8, 280, numbers the force at 3,000 men, while a letter from the Venetian ambassador in Milan, Gianiacopo Caroldo, comments that the number bruited was 4,000, while the French treasurer Magret declared it to be closer to about 1,000 men. See Sanudo, Diarii, vol. 24, 213. 50 Sanudo, Diarii, vol. 24, 243, 248. 51 Sanudo, Diarii, vol. 24, 271. 52 Sanudo, Diarii, vol. 24, 306. The commissioner and letter-​writer was Bernardo Cles, Bishop of Trent. 53 Sanudo, Diarii, vol. 24, 306. 54 Sanudo, Diarii, vol. 31, 280. 55 Meschini, La seconda dominazione, 170–​178. 56 ASVr, ZDV, Processi 174, fasc. 542; ASVr, ZDV, Proclami 20, fasc. 45, March 9, 1521. 57 Gagné, Milan Undone, 254–​257; Giacomo Giudici, The Writing of Renaissance Politics: The Chancery of Francesco II Sforza (1522–​1535) (Unpublished PhD diss., Birkbeck College, University of London, 2016), 27–​32. 58 Daniele Andreozzi, “Il dominio francese e pontificio,” in Storia di Piacenza: Dalla Signoria Viscontea al Principato Farnesiano (1313–​ 1545), 167–​194 (Piacenza: Cassa di Risparmio di Piacenza, 1997). 59 Letizia Arcangeli, “Feudatari e duca negli stati farnesiani (1545–​ 1587),” in Il Rinascimento nelle corti padane: Società e cultura, ed. Paolo Rossi, 77–​96 (Bari: De Donato, 1977). 60 Giampiero Brunelli, “Pier Luigi Farnese, duca di Parma,” in DBI 83 (2015): 328–​ 36, at 333; and Anton Francesco da Villa, “Cronaca da 1511 al 1556,” in Chronica Civitatis Placentiae Johannis Agazzari et Antonii Francisci Villa, eds. A. Bonora and G. Bonora, 77–​223 (Parma: Typis Petri Fiaccadori, 1862), 174. Gian Luca Podestà sees the invasion of Romagnese and other key fiefs less as an effort to tame the nobility and more as a ducal strategy to control crucial access points to the new state. See Gian Luca Podestà, “Pier Luigi e Ottavio Farnese (1545–​1586): Gli albori del ducato di Parma e Piacenza,” in Storia di Parma, 4: Il ducato farnesiano, ed. Giuseppe Bertini, 37–​65 (Parma: Monte Università Parma, 2014), 51. 61 Gian Luca Podestà, “Dal delitto politico alla politica del delitto (Parma 1545–​ 1611),” in Complots et conjurations dans l’Europe modern, eds. Yves-​Marie Bercé and Elena Fasano Guarini, 679–​720 (Rome: École française de Rome, 1996), 688–​705. 62 Giampiero Brunelli, “Ottavio Farnese, duca di Parma,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 79 (2013): 819–​825, at 823. 63 Alain Tallon, “Fuoruscitismo et hérésie: le cas des Sanseverino,” in Famiglia e religione in Europa nell’età moderna: Studi in onore di Silvana Seidel Menchi, eds. Giovanni Ciappelli, Serena Luzzi, and Massimo Rospocher, 61–​ 70 (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2011), 63. 64 ASVr, ZDV, Processi 174, fasc. 546, “Exemplum testium dictaque et attestationes…” (1567), ff. 1r-​190v, hereafter Olgisio Testimony.

70  John Gagné 65 Martinengo was an elite surname in Brescia, but if Silvestrino came from this family, he does not appear in genealogical research of Paolo Guerrini, Un celebre famiglia Lombarda: I Conti di Martinengo (Brescia: Fratelli Geroldi, 1930). Instead, he lived in Castelleone Cremonese, and may have belonged to a separate branch. 66 Edmund Husserl, Experience and Judgment, trans. James S. Churchill and Karl Ameriks (Milton Park: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973 [1948]), 41–​51; Maurice Merleau-​Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, trans. David A. Landes (Milton Park: Routledge, 2012 [1945]), 52–​65. 67 Olgisio Testimony, Bellino Guazone, 55v. 68 Olgisio Testimony, Giovanni Cattaneo, 84v. 69 Olgisio Testimony, Brunoro Martinengo, 18r-​19r; Giovanni Battista Martinengo, 149v-​150v. 70 Olgisio Testimony, Giovanni Battista Martinengo, 149r-​v. 71 ASVr, ZDV, Feudi 51, fasc. 171 –​“Capitolazione militare…della Rocca d’Olsesio,” 14 March 1522 (1521 more placentino). 72 Olgisio Testimony, Brunoro Martinengo, 6r; Giovanni Battista Martinengo, 145r-​v. 73 Olgisio Testimony, Brunoro Martinengo, 6r. 74 Olgisio Testimony, Brunoro Martinengo, 4r, 12r; Giovanni Battista Martinengo, 154v. 75 Olgisio Testimony, Giovanni Battista Martinengo, 147v. 76 Osvaldo Raggio, “Costruzione delle fonti e prova: Testimoniali, possesso e giurisdizione,” Quaderni storici 91, no. 1 (1996): 135–​156. 77 Olgisio Testimony, Brunoro Martinengo, 13v; Giovanni Battista Martinengo, 145r-​v. 78 Olgisio Testimony, Brunoro Martinengo, 14r-​15r; Giovanni Battista Martinengo, 145v-​147r. 79 On the legal frameworks of battle victory, see James Q. Whitman, The Verdict of Battle: The Law of Victory and the Making of Modern War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), 1–​24. 80 Olgisio Testimony, Bellino Guazone, 48v-​ 49r; Giovanni Stefano de Borneri, 115v-​116r. 81 Olgisio Testimony, Bellino Guazone, 50v. 82 Olgisio Testimony, Bellino Guazone, 50v. 83 Olgisio Testimony, Giovanni Stefano de Borneri, 124v-​125r. 84 Olgisio Testimony, Bellino Guazone, 43r-​47r. 85 Olgisio Testimony, Bellino Guazone, 49v. 86 Olgisio Testimony, Bellino Guazone, 58v-​59v. 87 Olgisio Testimony, Bellino Guazone, 76r-​ 78r; Giovanni Stefano de Borneri, 128r-​131r. 88 Olgisio Testimony, Giulio Cattaneo, 91v. 89 Olgisio Testimony, Giovanni Stefano de Borneri, 141v-​142r; Giulio Cattaneo, 114r. 90 Olgisio Testimony, Giulio Cattaneo, 86r-​88r. 91 Olgisio Testimony, Giulio Cattaneo, 100v-​109v. 92 Olgisio Testimony, Giuseppe de Fusari, 166r. 93 Olgisio Testimony, Giuseppe de Fusari, 169r. 94 Olgisio Testimony, Giuseppe de Fusari, 164r-​166r.

Two Lombard Families in the Italian Wars  71 95 Olgisio Testimony, Giuseppe de Fusari, 176r; 179v-​180r; 182r-​184r. 96 ASVr, ZDV, Processi 139, fasc. 397, Letter of Giovanni Dal Verme to Ottavio Farnese, 26 April 1566; and ASVr, ZDV, Processi 174, fasc. 542, Letter of Giovanni Dal Verme (?) to Ottavio Farnese (?), undated. 97 ASVr, ZDV, Processi 139, fasc. 397. 98 ASVr, ZDV, Processi 174, fasc. 543, 63 Capitoli on Dal Verme feudal rights, here quoting cap. 38. 99 Here I differ slightly from Shaw, Barons and Castellans, 211, and Jane Black, “Natura feudi haec est: Lawyers and Feudatories in the Duchy of Milan,” English Historical Review 109, no. 434 (1994): 1150–​1173 at 1170–​1171, by seeing the Dal Verme as a significantly diminished force by the early seventeenth century. 100 ASVr, ZDV, Feudi 31 (Reggenza), fasc. 71–​74, Ruling in favour of the Ducal Chamber of Milan, June 11, 1593. See also Filippo Lodi, Sommario della storia di Voghera dale sue origini fino al 1814 (Voghera: Tipografia Successori G. Gatti, 1892), 232–​235. 101 Gigliola Fragnito, “Sanseverino, Barbara,” in DBI 90 (2017): 281–​ 284, at 282–​283. 102 Alberto Cadoppi, La gran congiura. Il processo di Ranuccio I Farnese contro i feudatari parmensi, 1611–​1612 (Parma: MUP, 2012). 103 Alberico Gentili, De iure belli libri tres, trans. John C. Rolfe (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933), 148. 104 Letizia Arcangeli, “Ragioni di stato e ragioni di famiglia: Strategie successorie dell’aristocrazia Milanese tra Quattro e Cinquecento (Visconti, Trivulzio, Borromeo),” Mélanges de l’École française de Rome: Italie et Méditerranée modernes et contemporaines –​special issue: Fidéicommis. Procédés juridiques et pratiques sociales (Italie-​Europe, Bas Moyen Âge-​XVIIIe siècle) 124, no. 2 (2012), uploaded July 8, 2013, found online at URL http://​journ​als/​open​edit​ ion.org/​mef​rim/​775 (accessed December 10, 2017). 105 ASVr, ZDV, Processi 174, fasc. 543, 63 Capitoli on Dal Verme feudal rights, here at cap. 58. Abbreviations: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana –​BAV; Archivio di Stato di Firenze –​ASF; Archivio di Stato di Venezia –​ASVe; Archivio di Stato di Mantova –​ASM; Archivio Segreto Vaticano –​ASV; Dizionario biografico degli Italiani –​DBI; Archivio di Stato di Modena –​ASMo; Archivio di Stato di Roma –​ ASR

Bibliography Unpublished Sources Milan Archivio di Stato, Famiglie Paris Archives nationales de France, Trésor des Chartes Parma Archivio di Stato, Carte Feudali Archivio di Stato, Feudi e Comunità.

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Two Lombard Families in the Italian Wars  73 Fiori, Giorgio. “Bobbio e i Dal Verme.” Archivio storico per le province parmensi 38 (1986): 175–​201. Fragnito, Gigliola. “Sanseverino, Barbara,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 90 (2017): 281–​284. Gagné, John. Milan Undone: Contested Sovereignties in the Italian Wars. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2021. Gentili, Alberico. De iure belli libri tres. Trans. John C. Rolfe. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933. Giovio, Paolo. Notable Men and Women of Our Time. ed. And trans. Kenneth Gouwens. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013. Giudici, Giacomo. The Writing of Renaissance Politics: The Chancery of Francesco II Sforza (1522–​1535). Unpublished PhD diss., Birkbeck College, University of London, 2016. Giulini, Alessandro. “Bianca Sanseverino Sforza figlia di Lodovico il Moro.” Archivio storico lombardo, ser. 4, vol. 18, fasc. 35 (1912): 233–​252. Guerrini, Paolo. Un celebre famiglia Lombarda: I Conti di Martinengo. Brescia: Fratelli Geroldi, 1930. c.Reichstag zu Köln 1505, teil 1. Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag, 2008. Husserl, Edmund. Experience and Judgment. Trans. James S. Churchill and Karl Ameriks. Milton Park: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973 [1948]. Kemp, Martin, Pascal Cotte, and Paul Biro. La Bella Principessa: The Story of the New Masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci. London: Holder & Stoughton, 2010. Lodi, Filippo. Sommario della storia di Voghera dale sue origini fino al 1814. Voghera: Tipografia Successori G. Gatti, 1892. Machiavelli, Niccolò. Discorsi sopra la prima Deca di Tito Livio. Ed. Corrado Vivanti. Turin: Einaudi, 1997. Merleau-​Ponty, Maurice. Phenomenology of Perception. Trans. David A. Landes. Milton Park: Routledge, 2012 [1945]. Meschini, Stefano. La Francia nel Ducato di Milano: La politica di Luigi XII (1499–​ 1512). 2 vols. Milan: Franco Angeli, 2006. Meschini, Stefano. La seconda dominazione francese nel ducato di Milano. La politica e gli uomini di Francesco I (1515–​1521). Varzi: Guardamagna Editore, 2014. Paganin, Maria Luisa. “Un’impresa decifrata: Il conte de Ligny committente di Bramantino a Voghera.” Prospettiva 119/​120 (2005): 95–​97. Pélissier, Léon-​Gabriel. Documents pour l’histoire de la domination française dans le milanais (1499–​1513). Toulouse: Édouard Privat, 1891. Podestà, Gian Luca. “Dal delitto politico alla politica del delitto (Parma 1545–​1611).” In Complots et conjurations dans l’Europe modern, eds. Yves-​Marie Bercé and Elena Fasano Guarini, 679–​720 (Rome: École française de Rome, 1996). Podestà, Gian Luca. “Pier Luigi e Ottavio Farnese (1545–​1586): Gli albori del ducato di Parma e Piacenza.” In Storia di Parma, 4: Il ducato farnesiano, ed. Giuseppe Bertini, 37–​65. Parma: Monte Università Parma, 2014. Poggiali, Cristoforo. Memorie storiche della città di Piacenza. Volume 8. Piacenza: Per Filippo G. Giacopazzi, 1760. Prato, Filippo. Il Parco Vecchio o il campo della battaglia di Pavia. Pavia: Fratelli Fusi, 1897. Raggio, Osvaldo. “Costruzione delle fonti e prova: Testimoniali, possesso e giurisdizione.” Quaderni storici 91, no. 1 (1996): 135–​156.

74  John Gagné Roveda, Enrico. “Un generale francese al governo di un feudo Lombardo: Ligny e Voghera.” In Milano e Luigi XII: Ricerche sul primo dominio francese in Lombardia (1499–​1512), ed. Letizia Arcangeli, 107–​140. Milan: Franco Angeli 2002. Russo, Alessio. “Sanseverino d’Aragona, Roberto.” In Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 90 (2017): 316–​323. Sanudo, Marin. I Diarii. Ed. Rinaldo Fulin. 58 vols. Bologna: Forni 1969–​1979 [1879–​1902]). Savy, Pierre. “Costituzione e funzionamento dello ‘Stato vermesco’ (fine del XIV-​metà del XV sec.).” In Poteri signorili e feudali nelle campagne dell’Italia settentrionale fra Tre e Quattrocento: Fondamenti di legittimità e forme di esercizio, eds. Federica Cengarle, Giorgio Chittolini, and Gian Maria Varanini, 73–​87. Florence: Firenze University Press, 2005. Savy, Pierre. Seigneurs et condottières: Les Dal Verme –​Appartenances sociales, constructions étatiques et pratiques politiques dans l’Italie de la Renaissance. Rome: École française de Rome, 2013. Shaw, Christine. Barons and Castellans: The Military Nobility of Renaissance Italy. Leiden: Brill, 2015. Shaw, Christine. The Politics of Exile in Renaissance Italy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Somaini, Francesco. ‘Le famiglie milanesi tra gli Sforza e i francesi: Il caso degli Arcimboldi.’ In Milano e Luigi XII: Ricerche sul primo dominio francese in Lombardia (1499–​ 1512), ed. Letizia Arcangeli, 167–​ 220. Milan: Franco Angeli 2002. Tallon, Alain. “Fuoruscitismo et hérésie: le cas des Sanseverino.” In Famiglia e religione in Europa nell’età moderna: Studi in onore di Silvana Seidel Menchi, eds. Giovanni Ciappelli, Serena Luzzi, and Massimo Rospocher, 61–​70. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2011. Vaglienti, Francesca M. “La detenzione del Conte Pietro Dal Verme e la confisca del suo feudo ad opera di Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duca di Milano.” Nuova rivista storica 74, nos. 3–​4 (1990): 401–​416. Villa, Anton Francesco da. “Cronaca da 1511 al 1556.” In Chronica Civitatis Placentiae Johannis Agazzari et Antonii Francisci Villa, eds. A. Bonora and G. Bonora, 77–​223. Parma: Typis Petri Fiaccadori, 1862. Weiss, Sabine. Die vergessene Kaiserin: Bianca Maria Sforza, Kaiser Maximilians zweite Gemahlin. Innsbruck-​Vienna: Tyrolia-​Verlag, 2010. Whitman, James Q. The Verdict of Battle: The Law of Victory and the Making of Modern War. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012.

4 Regime Change in Papal Rome Pius IV and the Carafa (1559–​1561) Miles Pattenden

On June 7, 1560, cardinals Carlo (b. 1517/​ 19) and Alfonso Carafa (b. 1540) were arrested in the Vatican Palace. Pope Pius IV instructed that they be placed in prison alongside Carlo’s brother Giovanni, duke of Paliano (b. 1512?) and other members of the late Pope Paul IV’s regime.1 Only the night before, Carlo had been celebrating Giovanni’s return to Rome, following a period of semi-​voluntary exile. Carlo and his nephew-​ in-​the-​purple were no doubt the worse for wear as they awaited what they had been told would be a routine consistory. Only when inside the papal apartments were they informed that the pope wished to speak at first with them alone. Alas, this turned out to be a pretext for separating them from their colleagues and surrounding them with armed guards. Carlo screamed as he was led away and cursed the very ingratitude of the man whose election as pope he believed himself to have engineered. Alfonso, by contrast, was said to have met his fate with stunned silence.2 Carlo Carafa would be dead within a year, strangled on Pius IV’s orders in the Castel Sant’Angelo. Giovanni Carafa too was no more, beheaded on the Tiber bridge outside the fortress, alongside his wife’s kinsmen Ferrante Garlonio and Leonardo de Cardena.3 Alfonso Carafa escaped with his life, although he forfeited his principal office within the papal curia as “Regent of the Chamber,” paying an enormous 100,000-​scudo fine in the process.4 Innocenzo del Monte (1532–​1577) and Scipione Rebiba (1504–​1577), two other cardinals detained in connection with the Carafa case, were also eventually released, but subject to a further range of penalties and bonds.5 Papal justice could be wide-​reaching and severe –​and, in this instance, it was, above all, brutal and shocking. Paul IV had not been a popular pope, but his successor’s audacious strike against Paul’s family and friends –​almost, but not quite, without precedent –​could be neither straightforwardly justified nor explained. Why a pope, on assuming power, should wish not only to sideline the rump of his predecessor’s regime but also to destroy it was a question that vexed contemporaries, as the many, somewhat romanticized, accounts of the Carafa’s fate attest.6 The question ought to vex modern scholars too, but it also provides us an opportunity to reflect on how politics worked in papal Rome and what DOI: 10.4324/9781003199021-5

76  Miles Pattenden “regime change” might mean in the context of this most idiosyncratic of Renaissance Italy’s “city states.”

Regime Change in Papal Rome: Theory and Practice The Carafa’s fall shocked Rome. However, it was, in fact, only the most extreme example of a wider phenomenon in which popes attacked their subordinates in both the secular and ecclesiastical hierarchies. The basis on which popes might do this varied, though in documented cases their actions stemmed from either a desire to assert raw power or from an urge to purge their court of troublesome foes. Julius II’s excommunication of five cardinals involved with the Conciliabulum of Pisa in 1511–​1512 could be seen as a precursor to various more dramatic episodes in the later sixteenth century. Although none of these cardinals had been “in power” in the years before 1511, strictly speaking, all were Julius’ opponents and connected to his predecessors’ regimes.7 Leo X (r. 1513–​1521) executed Alfonso Petrucci in 1517 and very nearly condemned several other cardinals for their anti-​ Medici conspirations.8 Adrian VI (r. 1522–​1523) might well have meted out similarly rough justice to Francesco Soderini in 1523, and Paul III (r. 1534–​ 1549) to Benedetto Accolti in 1535, had secular princes not intervened. Such political purges did not even need to lead to deaths to be effective: Alexander VI (r. 1492–​1503), on his ascent to the papal throne, merely pushed Giuliano della Rovere –​the power behind the throne under Innocent VIII (r. 1484–​ 1492) –​into an extended exile in territories beyond papal clutches. As Julius II, della Rovere then spent his own first regnal years harrying Alexander’s son Cesare Borgia in turn. What went around came around and continuities between papal regimes were rare, even when relations between the new pope and his predecessor’s relatives were far less acrimonious. Seen in terms of continuities of personnel in high office, or in terms of the policies that such personnel pursued, papal Rome could easily be said to have witnessed more regime changes than any of Italy’s other polities. While the doges of Venice and Genoa might have changed just as often, the shared outlook and common objectives of the republics’ patrician classes did not. In Florence, Medici hegemony (or its absence) defined the political weather –​so, again, the passing rotation of magistrates was not consequential in the same way. And papal policy was not merely political: It was also religious. In the fervent atmosphere of Reformation Italy, that aspect to what popes decided was to take on added significance, as the context to the Carafa’s fate underlines. Historians of the papacy have nevertheless been reluctant to label episodes such as those discussed here as “regime change” for perhaps a number of reasons. First, because describing every rupture between pontificates in such terms might get exhausting because the exercise of power in papal Rome was inherently cyclical. Second, we might also feel, as some political scientists do, that “regime change” is best applied only to events that

Regime Change in Papal Rome  77 alter the legitimate order and the rules that regulate access to positions of governmental authority.9 Defined in those terms, papal Rome did not suffer any changes of “regime” at all. Rather both the vehicles through which popes governed and the techniques by which popes managed those vehicles experienced remarkable continuity. Most of the papacy’s political historiography –​and here I genuflect to Paolo Prodi’s Sovrano pontefice, in particular –​has concerned itself with documenting that continuity, analyzing it in terms of a model of organic accretion and conglomeration of structures.10 More recently, Antonio Menniti Ippolito coined the phrase “discontinuous continuity” to capture something of the paradox embedded within how this process worked.11 Wolfgang Reinhard, who has also theorized these cycles in the language of opposing coalitions, has conceived of them slightly differently. For Reinhard, the structure of curial politics was something of a double helix, with the current regime almost always allied with whatever was left of its predecessor but one against the remnants of its immediate predecessor (conversely, the immediate predecessor regime was allied to whatever remained of the regime from three popes ago).12 Only Massimo Firpo, who has argued for the emergence of something of an inquisitorial “deep state,” the structures and personnel of which transcended the vicissitudes of day-​to-​day politics, has thought differently in a substantive way.13 However, even Firpo allows for quite substantial political and policy changes from one pontificate to the next: This was defined, in part, by how close the Holy Office’s key personnel were to the man who sat on the papal throne. Much of this scholarship has greatly advantaged the history of the papacy in providing pathways for integrating it more widely with the historiographies of other European states. But it also constrains historians in our imagination of possibilities deriving from a different vocabulary. My own work has emphasized the importance, both individually and collectively, of the wider body of cardinals rather than popes themselves; it thus could be said to have contributed to efforts to downplay the impact of particular regimes and their ends.14 And yet the point about “regime change” is that its relationship to “legitimacy” is complicated: Very few regimes which interrupt the exercise of power ever present themselves as “illegitimate.” Rather, they redefine criteria for legitimacy, often at the expense of the regime they have displaced. Not only is “legitimacy” contested in such circumstances, but it is also contingent and subjective: The new regime’s criteria for it will certainly be different to those of the old one. Seen in these terms, “regime change” may well be a highly useful descriptor for various episodes in the history of the papacy in which particular popes (or their extended entourages) sought to undermine the actions or legacy of those who had gone before them. And here the phenomenon of sede vacante (the vacant see) gave popes a further powerful ideological tool. Each new pope was necessarily more legitimate than what had come before him because what had come before him was, by definition, a period

78  Miles Pattenden in which a pope’s legitimate authority had been absent. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the College of Cardinals tried to occupy that space –​but with only limited success, for its collective authority could never equal the authority a pope derived from his covenant with God.15 Most new popes used their coronation rites –​and, in particular, the ceremony of the possesso, by which they “took possession” of the city of Rome –​to present their reigns as a return to legitimate rule. Irene Fosi has studied these possessi for the sixteenth century and her work shows the variety of strategies by which popes could do this: What made legitimacy was very different to the militarily-​ minded Julius II and the wily Franciscan Sixtus V.16

The Carafa and the Conditions for a Post-​Facto “Coup” Of course, Pius IV’s move against the Carafa differed substantially from the mere ritual performance of a possesso: It was an actual power play with severe and long-​lasting repercussions for the Roman polity. Very particular circumstances caused the escalation of events it portended, and these are worth setting out in full. The first was opportunity: The Carafa were very unpopular, for reasons largely of their own making. This provided Pius IV with an opening for targeting them. Carlo, made cardinal in 1555, and Giovanni, made duke in 1556, had supported Paul IV in a futile and damaging military conflict against the Habsburgs –​indeed, their enemies were later to say they goaded him into it.17 As a result of that conflict, Paul had been forced to raise taxes but had also confiscated estates from several Roman nobles who held lands both in the Papal States and Naples, and who had thus been forced to pick sides between the two men to whom they owed fealty. This is how Giovanni acquired his dukedom, confiscated from Marcantonio Colonna (1535–​1584; the admiral of the papal fleet at Lepanto). Later, Paul had pursued an aggressive inquisitorial campaign in Rome, which caused the prisons to fill up with priests and other victims.18 Paul dismissed Carlo and Giovanni in January 1559, banishing them from Rome for iniquities of which he claimed hitherto to have been ignorant. However, he also elevated the 18-​year-​old Alfonso, a cardinal since 1557, in their place. And he continued to pursue many of the same policies. Paul’s death triggered one of the city’s most violent riots that century, with protesters taking revenge on Carafa family symbols wherever they found them; his statue, previously erected on the Capitoline, was decapitated and dragged to the Tiber.19 The Carafa themselves barely noticed, for they were preoccupied arranging the honor killings of Giovanni’s wife Violante and his captain of the guard, Marcello Capece, at his castle in Gallese (a small town near Viterbo).20 Needless to say, Violante’s murder also proved a far from popular act and, in the midst of the unrest, Rome’s civic magistrates sent a delegation petitioning the cardinals to let the whole family be stripped of the Roman citizenship they had acquired during Paul’s pontificate.21

Regime Change in Papal Rome  79 Yet the Carafa’s unpopularity was only ever one necessary prerequisite for Pius’ actions. A second prerequisite was always going to be that the pope himself felt inclined to act. The Carafa were unlucky in this respect, for Pius IV was a rather unusual occupant of St Peter’s throne by the standards and personalities of the recent pontiffs who had gone before him. We might see Pius, along with Julius III (r. 1550–​1555), as liminal figures who reigned between an era of aristocratic pontiffs and one of lawyer-​popes drawn from various levels of the northern Italian minor nobilities and bourgeoisies.22 Pius himself was very much a figure from this latter group: Born Gian Angelo de’ Medici in 1499, he was the second son in a minor patrician family from Milan.23 Gian Angelo’s career up to 1559 had not been all that remarkable: Entering the household of Cardinal Farnese in the 1520s, when Farnese became Pope Paul III in 1534, he was passed over in favor of younger and seemingly more talented clients like Marcello Cervini and Giovanni Morone. He had only been made a member of the Sacred College a few months before Paul III’s death in 1549 –​and he first achieved real political prominence in the later 1550s as prefect of the Signature of Grace. Compared to Paul III, Julius II, Marcellus II, or even Paul IV, Pius lacked the curricular experience to feel confident of asserting himself over the rowdy group of cardinals whom he had previously considered peers (and, in many cases, as senior peers). Indeed, Pius’ own election in 1559 came via what was to become a classic form of compromise in such events. The cardinals loyal to Philip II of Spain had held enough votes to prevent anyone outside their number becoming pope but the cardinals not loyal to Philip were only willing to elevate one of Philip’s lesser-​known and apparently less accomplished supporters.24 Even so, the process of fixing upon Pius had taken over three months –​making this conclave the longest since the conclave of 1314–​1316. I now reach the most controversial aspect of my original thesis on the Carafa trial: That Pius may have had specific policy objectives which he hoped the Carafa’s destruction might advance.25 Necessarily, what one says about Pius’ motives will always be speculative. Few “smoking guns” in sixteenth-​century papal paperwork betray true intentions, and stated aims are not automatically authentic in any case. Nevertheless, on the balance of probabilities, it seems unlikely that Pius decided to make an example of the Carafa simply for the sake of it. If the instrumentality of his attack on the Carafa can thus be inferred, we can probably reconstruct something of Pius’ broader objectives from how events actually played out. The great events of Pius’ pontificate happened not long after the Carafa trial: Not only did he eliminate the Carafa but he successfully reconvened the Council of Trent and brought it to its felicitous conclusion (from his own perspective). Catholic historiography, perhaps over-​invested in the ideal of Tridentine renewal, has tended to underplay the surprisingness of this. Fifteenth-​and sixteenth-​ century popes were not generally in favor of Church Councils –​indeed,

80  Miles Pattenden they did what they could to avoid or delay them.26 Councils represented the gravest possible threat to the pope’s own authority within the Church because the pope might lose control of one and find himself subordinate to it. At a time when popes were using that authority to expand the presence of their government, and through the presence of their government, to enrich their families, it ought to seem odd that Pius should be so enthusiastic for re-​establishing a Council—​a policy that expressly reversed that of his predecessors Paul III, Julius III, and Paul IV. And, moreover, Pius definitely was concerned about the risks that reconvening the Council posed to papal authority and to the papal regime that was formed, in part, to limit its significance. Pius’ 1561 bull, which stipulates that the cardinals and not the Council retain the right to choose his successor, is clear evidence of this.27 Maybe Pius just really wanted to solve the problems of the Reformation and reconcile with the Protestants (or, more realistically, shepherd Catholic bishops into a unified position against them). However, nothing in Pius’ previous career would suggest he harbored especially strong convictions about either the central theological questions of the age or about the need for Christian unity for its own sake. Nor does much in Pius’ later career attest to the first of these. Pius was no theologian and nor was he was a paragon of piety. In 1565, the Venetian ambassador Paolo Tiepolo noted caustically that not once, from the time of his arrival at the papal court to the hour of Pius’ death nine months later, had he seen the pope enter the chapel to engage in solitary prayer.28 Pius’ other signature “religious” policies were a decision to clip the Holy Office’s wings and to arrogate decision-​making about doctrine to his own person (the latter in the face of strong opposition from various cardinals).29 Partly thanks to Massimo Firpo, we tend to see religiosity and the repressive, controlling mentality of Counter-​Reformation clerics as two sides to one personality. But they did not always co-​exist in the extreme concentrations found in Paul IV or Pius V. Indeed, in Pius IV, the centralizing impulse to control, not the desire to define orthodoxy, seems to have been unusually prominent –​and that may explain his willingness to use essentially political means to pursue what others have judged as theological ends. What follows can never be established with total certainty; however, it seems probable that Pius viewed meting out justice against the Carafa as a first step in wider efforts to impose himself over the rest of the Sacred College (and, through them, on the Council). Pius was far from unique in adopting such an aggressive stance at the start of his pontificate: Both Sixtus V and Clement VIII later tried variations of it in their own judicial campaigns against clerics and the Roman nobility.30 In a sense, such an approach was probably even necessary, for all popes, leaching authority from the moment they took office, had to make real rather than merely symbolic statements if they were going to be effective in their rule. Carlo Carafa, who had had a major hand in the decision to pick Pius in 1559, seems to have expected to become a power behind the throne as a result, rather as Giuliano della Rovere had been during the pontificate of Innocent VIII. This made it all the

Regime Change in Papal Rome  81 more critical to make him an initial target. Pius would have been a pope in office in name only if Carafa had his way, something Pius seems to have been determined to avoid.

Executing the “Coup” One thing that marks Pius IV’s attack on the Carafa out from other –​particularly the earlier –​papal moves against political rivals is the meticulousness with which Pius would appear to have planned it. Pius turned out to be possessed of a far sharper political brain than the men whom he chose to make his scapegoats. This is not to say that Pius did not make mistakes in the execution of his endeavor, nor that his capacity to plan was necessarily instrumental to its success. However, it is worth focusing on how Pius built his case against the Carafa, not least because the challenges he faced in doing so reflect directly on a core problem of carrying out “regime change.” Pius, in the manner of every ruler who has overturned an existing regime, sought to portray that regime as illegitimate. And yet there was a tension in his case, which kept recurring. The Carafa were illegitimate only if Paul IV was also illegitimate –​but Pius had to tread carefully when questioning Paul’s legitimacy lest he undermine the basis of his own authority as pontiff. In a tense moment during the build-​up to the 1556 war, Philip II of Spain had consulted the Spanish Dominican theologian Melchor Cano (1509–​ 1560) about how to oppose Paul: Philip asked specifically about whether or not he might contest the canonicity of Paul IV’s election and, if so, how. Cano’s reply, which amounted to advice not to ask the question, might as well have been written for Pius: For Cano, it was simply not in a king’s interests to question a grant of divine authority any more than it was a pope’s.31 When Pius constructed his case against the Carafa he faced the same problem, and his solution was to present the accused through the time-​ honored device of the “evil counsellor”: Paul’s nephews had misled their unfortunate and beguiled uncle. Yet this approach too carried its own risks. First, it brought the pope’s unique covenant with God into disrepute, because it implied that others could insert themselves into that covenant and distort it for their own bidding. Secondly, it lacked credibility: Few in Rome truly believed that Paul had been duped on any matter of substance. His record of words and deeds from before his election as pope was simply too long for that. Of course, such dilemmas confronted all who used fictive strategies to oppose the prince all the time.32 Yet Pius’ dilemma was arguably more acute because he was not a third party commenting on royal policy: He used the same powers he was claiming to have been distorted from Paul in order to prosecute those he judged to have done the distorting. This gave the Carafa an easy defense: It was not they who had traduced Paul but rather Pius’ own counsellors who were now traducing him. How far the Carafa’s lawyers might have got with such arguments we will never know, for the events of the judicial process moved steadily –​and

82  Miles Pattenden then decisively –​against the defendants over the course of 1560–​1561. Much of the credit for this surely goes to Girolamo Federici (1516–​1579) and Alessandro Pallantieri (1505–​1571), the judge and prosecutor whom Pius had installed at the onset of investigations. Both had previously clashed with the Carafa: Paul IV had removed Federici as governor of Rome in 1555, stalling his career, and Pallantieri had fallen foul of Carlo Carafa in 1557 and spent the rest of Paul’s pontificate languishing in prison.33 Both men were thus suitably motivated to pursue the case zealously –​and the rather substantial “Liber Jurium” (the primary collection of written evidence collected against the family) attests to just how much incriminating material they managed to dig up.34 However, much credit for the prosecution’s success should also go to Pius himself because he seems to have taken great care in preparing the ground for a judicial procedure in the court of public opinion. In early 1560, he published a pair of bulls, which required all goods received from the Apostolic Chamber during Paul’s pontificate to be registered (and, if removed without proper approval, returned).35 Even the author of the Avviso newssheet saw these bulls as targeted against the Carafa (Alfonso in particular).36 Secondly, Pius went to some lengths to coax Giovanni Carafa into returning to the city, but without ever explicitly promising him immunity from prosecution (such that Giovanni had a legitimate grievance to use in his defense).37 Thirdly, Pius arranged to detain Innocenzo del Monte, Julius III’s wayward and socially isolated “cardinal nephew” as a sort of lower stakes rehearsal for his main move against the Carafa.38 Only when the other cardinals had accepted the legality of what he had done to del Monte –​a feat Pius accomplished by conceding them the right to review any criminal process before he passed judgment –​did Pius set things in motion against his real targets. The blow, when it struck Carlo Carafa, really did seem to come as a shock. Pius’ case against the Carafa was ultimately won and lost in the minds of the other cardinals and the major Catholic princes who considered themselves stakeholders in the papal court. Here the pope’s greater political nous seems to have served him well. Carlo Carafa had already alienated many colleagues through artless intrigues in the 1559 conclave. He seems to have shared a view with his brother that “it is not of the least consequence who will be pope, the only thing that is of importance is that he who is chosen should realize that he owed the dignity to the Carafa” (these are purported to have been Giovanni Carafa’s words).39 In any case, it was a perspective that served neither brother well. Carlo Carafa accepted a commission from the Spanish ambassador Francisco Vargas (1500–​ 1566) during the conclave to prevent Ercole Gonzaga’s election in exchange for 7,000 scudi. The matter was delicate because Gonzaga was cardinal protector of Castile at the time –​but discretion was hardly Carafa’s forte and the whole College soon learned what was going on.40 Vargas later proved the Carafa’s staunchest, perhaps only,

Regime Change in Papal Rome  83 defender in the summer and autumn of 1559, and several letters survive in which he wrote to Philip II denouncing the overtly political nature of the case against them and beseeching him to intervene on their behalf.41 But Pius had Vargas’ measure –​not least because the ambassador never quite managed to reconcile his role representing Philip’s status and dignity with his role as political fixer.42 Eventually, Philip, who was also advised by a second Spanish agent in Rome (the Count of Tendilla, who had been charged with negotiating the Council’s resumption), told Vargas to cease and desist.43 Philip himself adopted a stance of studied neutrality, neither helping Pius by authorizing his agents to cooperate meaningfully with the case nor authorizing them to hinder it. Other key figures in Rome took similar positions. Indeed, many cardinals found themselves also moved by Pius’ promises to honor the Carafa’s debts and redistribute their assets. And yet questions about the legitimacy of Pius’ actions kept returning. The cases against both Carlo and Alfonso Carafa ultimately turned on whether or not Paul IV had known about their actions but, secondarily, they also turned on whether or not actions by his nephews on the pope’s behalf needed a specific mandate or were covered by a general grant of authority. Pius’ efforts to delegitimize the Carafa’s actions rested on asserting the first of these propositions; their defense on the second. In practice, it proved very hard for either side to distinguish between acts authorized specifically and those carried out on the basis of a general delegation of authority. When Pius accused Carlo Carafa of conducting diplomacy behind Paul’s back, Carlo responded by stating that Paul had always known what he was up to but had not necessarily acknowledged it for reasons of state.44 When Pius accused Alfonso Carafa of forging a brief of donation to justify his tenure of items taken from Paul’s death chamber, Alfonso’s advocates retorted that the document was correctly signed and sealed. Was it really the pope’s intention to question the authenticity of such documents? Indeed, could the pope’s government function if his subordinates could not reasonably assume that instructions from his nephews or instructions bearing his seal did not represent his true will?45 Pius had no good answers to such questions –​and, though he did not have to answer them, strictly speaking, they were probably why he added a list of ancillary felonies to the charge sheets against both cardinal defendants. One of these charges, that Alfonso Carafa had lacked the requisite permission to possess books he “inherited” from Paul because Paul had placed them on the Index of Forbidden Books, contained its own sweet irony given the way Paul IV had behaved.46 Moreover, this charge, alongside other charges of blasphemy and fornication against Carlo Carafa, gave Pius a pretext for involving the Holy Office in the case, which had the additional advantage of binding its most prominent inquisitor, Paul IV’s protégé Michele Ghislieri, into the process for establishing the Carafa’s collective guilt.47

84  Miles Pattenden

After the Executions: Moral Hazard The Carafa’s fate was sealed over the course of a few weeks in early 1561. The prosecutor Pallantieri presented his case against them to all the cardinals at a special consistory on January 15. On March 3, Pius announced his verdict: The guilt of all the leading parties had been established. Carlo and Giovanni Carafa, Ferrante Garlonio, and Leonardo de Cardena were sentenced to death. Only one cardinal, Ippolito d’Este spoke out against Pius’ interpretation of the evidence. Other cardinals who came to the Carafa’s defense –​Carpi, Crispi, Farnese, Savelli, and Truchsess –​pleaded only for Pius to show mercy to Carlo Carafa “for the dignity of the College.”48 In fact, Pius may have faced more opposition from within the College than this limited range of objectors implies: His decision to promote 18 new cardinals on February 26 was very likely calculated to shore up support for his position (either by promoting Carafa enemies or “buying off” those who might otherwise have caused trouble).49 Nevertheless, only in the case against Alfonso Carafa did Pius relent. Cardinals Farnese, d’Este, Vitellozzi, Ghislieri, Sforza, and Madruzzo all offered to stand surety for any fine imposed on him; Giovanni de’ Medici also declared that his father Cosimo would now intercede in Alfonso’s favor.50 Pius graciously released Alfonso from custody on April 2, but only after Alfonso had agreed to pay a 100,000-​scudo fine and to resign his key offices.51 Alfonso then appeared before Pius in a delicately staged reconciliation: He thanked the pope for his mercy and Pius expressed his regret at what had occurred.52 In the end, Pius got his men, because defending the Carafa’s conduct was not a hill that many in Rome were willing to die on. Yet a more interesting question than why the Carafa, in the end, lacked defenders is why their condemnation did not create a further moral hazard? After all, if Pius IV could delegitimize Paul IV’s regime and execute two of his nephews what was to stop the same fate befalling his own kin once he himself was gone? And why should that cycle of papal justice and retribution have ended there? In a sense, such a fate did indeed befall parts of Pius IV’s regime. Michele Ghislieri, chosen to succeed Pius, took the latter’s regnal name, but (as Pius V) abandoned most of his other policies. Ghislieri’s reign saw the Holy Office return to favor. Pius IV’s nephews, including the saintly Carlo Borromeo, quietly left Rome (in Borromeo’s case not before Pius V had instructed him to hand back everything he had received from the Carafa’s estate and to resign a lucrative benefice he had taken over from Alfonso Carafa).53 Pius V then reversed the verdicts against the Carafa, pronouncing them innocent of the calumnies of which Pius IV had accused them. Federici was stripped of his episcopal office and pensions in absentia.54 Pallantieri was less fortunate: He was tried and convicted of fabricating evidence against the Carafa. Along with the Beneventan poet Niccolò Franco, whom he was accused of having commissioned to write libels against the family, he was executed in

Regime Change in Papal Rome  85 1570 on the very spot where Giovanni Carafa and his confederates met their fate nine years before.55 Pius V even reopened an older case against Pius IV’s most trusted advisor, Giovanni Cardinal Morone (1509–​1580), whom Paul IV had imprisoned on suspicion of heresy in 1558. All told, this was a stunning reversal. Alas, Alfonso Carafa did not live to see it, for he had died of fever in 1565 at the tender age of 25. Nevertheless, Pius V raised another Carafa cousin Antonio (1538–​1591) to the Sacred College in 1568, thus ensuring that the family still retained a representative at the highest echelon of the papal court. Retributive justice, albeit in a less dramatic form than in 1559, thus clearly did take place again when Pius IV’s regime gave way to that of Pius V in 1566. So why did this not develop into a further cycle? One answer is simple contingency. Pius IV was more astute that Paul IV and may have foreseen the risk of reprisals against his own family. He certainly took greater measures to protect them, including embedding them much more securely in Rome’s clerical elites via marriage ties; just as importantly, he made Carlo Borromeo archbishop of Milan, which gave Borromeo an income beyond Pius V’s reach and a base from which to sit out his pontificate. Gregory XIII (1572–​1585) also did not move against Pius V’s regime when he took over from him in 1572 because Pius V largely ignored his own cardinal nephew, Michele Bonelli (1541–​1598), who never played the sort of active role in politics that had brought Carlo and Giovanni Carafa into such disrepute. Gregory, probably a more emollient figure, and certainly a better politician, than Pius V, may also simply not have deemed Bonelli sufficiently threatening to expend political capital sidelining him.56 It may also have been relevant to his calculations that, unlike his two predecessors, both victors of drawn-​out conclaves, he had won on the first ballot. Gregory XIII certainly proved a more authoritative figure than Pius IV and a less divisive one than Pius V. Yet other explanations can also be constructed. One could involve Wolfgang Reinhard’s thesis that the “institutionalization” of the cardinal nephew in this period rendered further conflicts unlikely because most parties had begun to recognize and expand the unwritten rules about how papal relatives should conduct themselves and expect to be treated.57 Another would be Antonio Menniti Ippolito’s: That the shocking state of the papal finances –​always in a state of semi-​crisis from this time on –​meant that new regimes generally lacked the resources to prioritize starting a fight with their predecessor’s family.58 By the time a pope had shored up his situation and acquired sufficient resources to act against them, his agenda would have had to move on. His new priority would be planning his family’s own post-​papal future rather than clipping his predecessor’s family’s wings. In fact, all these explanations are potentially compatible with an observation that later cardinal nephews never entirely dismissed the idea that the new pope could pose a threat to them: Scipione Borghese (1577–​1633)

86  Miles Pattenden allowed Urban VIII (1623–​1644) to bully him in the 1620s and Urban’s own Barberini nephews fled to Paris in 1645.59 Niccolò Coscia (1681–​ 1755), Benedict XIII’s favorite, though not a cardinal nephew, still suffered a similar sort of fate in 1730 under Clement XII (r. 1730–​1740).60 Yet either way, a marked shift occurred in the two generations after 1650: The alternating coalitions, which Reinhard observed for the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, gave way to a steadier oligarchy, which resembled more closely the modes of governance of the other great patrician republics such as Venice. New popes generally replaced key officials from their predecessor’s regime less often and did not generally reshape policy as violently as mid sixteenth-​century popes had done. By the eighteenth century, and Coscia’s case notwithstanding, “regime change” increasingly meant something different in Rome: An absolute threat to the system of papal governance rather than the alternation of factions within a ruling elite. Arguably, that was to prove a greater challenge to the papacy in the long run.

Notes 1 For more detailed accounts of the Carafa’s fall, see Miles Pattenden, Pius IV and the Fall of the Carafa: Nepotism and Papal Authority in Counter-​Reformation Rome (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); Alberto Aubert, Paolo IV. Politica, Inquisizione e storiografia, 2nd ed. (Rome: Le Lettere, 1999), 45–​107; Romeo De Maio, Alfonso Carafa, cardinale di Napoli (1540–​1565) (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1961), 79–​114; René Ancel, La Disgrace et Le Procès des Carafa d’après documents inèdits, 1559–​1567, (Mardesous: Revue Bénédictine, 1909); Georges Duruy, Le Cardinal Carlo Carafa (1519–​1561). Étude sur le pontificat de Paul IV (Paris: Hachette, 1882); Ludwig Pastor, The History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages: Drawn from the Secret Archives of the Vatican and Other Original Sources, trans. Ralph Francis Kerr, 40 vols. (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1891–​1953), vol. 15, 131–​179. 2 Contemporary accounts of the Carafa’s arrests include Avviso di Roma, June 8, 1560, BAV, Urb. Lat. 1039, 165v–​167r; Giovambattista Ricasoli to Cosimo de’ Medici, June 7, 1560, ASF, Mediceo del principato 3280, 174r–​176v; Marcantonio Da Mula to the Senate, June 7, 1560, ASVe, Archivio Proprio Romano 15, n. 20, 24v–​ 26v; Gian Maria Gonzaga to Guglielmo Gonzaga, June 8, 1560, ASM, Archivio Gonzaga 890, n. 1. 3 Avviso di Roma, March 8, 1561, BAV, Urb. Lat. 1039, 258v–​59v; Marcantonio Da Mula’s to the Senate, March 7, 1561, ASVe, Archivio Proprio Roma 15, n. 125, 213v–​15r; Francisco Vargas to Philip, March 14, 1561, Archivo General de Simancas, Estado 891, n. 24. Several other accounts of the executions are published in Francesco Cristofori, Il Pontificato di Paolo IV ed I Caraffa suoi nipoti (Siena: S. Bernardino, 1888) and in Fabio Gori, “Papa Paolo IV ed i Carafa suoi nepoti giudicati con nuovi documenti,” Archivio Storico, Artistico, Archeologico e Letterario della Città e Provincia di Roma 1 (1875): 23–​30, 193–​256, and 2 (1877): 47–​63, 107–​206, 257–​265, 302–​321, at 2: 302–​308. 4 Claudio Saraceni to Cosimo de’ Medici, March 28, 1561, ASF, Mediceo del principato 3281, 31r–​33r; “Papa Paolo IV ed i Carafa,” 311–​312; Pius’ brief of absolution, BAV, Barb. Lat. 2586, 13–​16.

Regime Change in Papal Rome  87 5 For Del Monte, see the Avvisi di Roma, September 20 and October 11, 1561, BAV, Urb. Lat. 1039, 300r–​v, 302r–​303r. The Bull sentencing him on October 10, 1561 is in ASV, Registri Vaticani 1884, f. 9. For Rebiba, see the Avvisi di Roma, January 31 and March 7, 1562, BAV, Urb. Lat. 1039, 335r–​36r, 343r–​44r. 6 See, for instance, “Dialogo tra il Capitano Gasparino et il Capitano Lattantio nella morte di Caraffeschi,” BAV, Urb. Lat. 1673, 131r –​39v, and various other texts in this manuscript; Robert Jenkins, The Story of the Caraffa from an Original Manuscript from c.1640–​50 (London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1886). 7 Walter Ullmann, “Julius II and the Schismatic Cardinals,” Studies in Church History 9 (1972): 177–​193. 8 On the Petrucci conspiracy, see Helen Hyde, Cardinal Bendinello Sauli and Church Patronage in Sixteenth-​Century Italy (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2009), 131–​72. K.J.P. Lowe, “The Political Crime of Conspiracy in Fifteenth-​ and Sixteenth-​Century Rome,” in Crime, Society and the Law in Renaissance Italy, eds. Trevor Dean and K.J.P. Lowe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 184–​203. 9 On the debates around defining “regime change” in political science, see (for example) Rein Müllerson, Regime Change: From Democratic Peace Theories to Forcible Regime Change (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 4–​5. 10 Paolo Prodi, Il Sovrano Pontefice. Un corpo e due anime: La monarchia papale nella prima età moderna (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1982). English translation: The Papal Prince, One Body and Two Souls: The Papal Monarchy in Early Modern Europe, trans. Susan Haskins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). 11 Antonio Menniti Ippolito, Il governo dei papi nell’età moderna: carriere, gerarchie, organizzazzione curiale (Rome: Viella, 2007), 19. 12 Wolfgang Reinhard, “Papal Power and Family Strategy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in Princes, Patronage and the Nobility: The Court at the Beginning of the Modern Age, eds. Ronald Asch and Adolf Birke (London and Oxford: German Historical Institute and Oxford University Press, 1991), 329–​356. 13 Massimo Firpo, La presa di potere dell’inquisizione romana, 1550–​1553 (Rome: Laterza, 2014). 14 Miles Pattenden, Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy, 1450–​1700 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). 15 On this point see John Hunt, The Vacant See in Early Modern Rome: A Social History of the Papal Interregnum (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 32–​39 and Pattenden, Electing the Pope, 98–​132. 16 Irene Fosi, “Court and city in the ceremony of the possesso,” in Court and Politics in Papal Rome, 1492–​1700, eds. Gianvittorio Signorotto and Maria Antonietta Visceglia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 31–​52; idem, “ ‘Parcere subiectis, debellare superbos’: L’immagine della giustizia nelle cerimonie di possesso a Roma e nelle legaioni dello Stato pontificio nel Cinquecento,” in Cérémonial et rituel à Rome (XVIe-​XIXe siècle), eds. Maria Antonietta Visceglia and Catherine Brice, (Rome: Éçole Française de Rome, 1997), 89–​115. See also, Jennifer DeSilva and Pascale Rihouet, eds., Eternal Ephemera: The Papal Possesso and its Legacies in Early Modern Rome (Toronto: CRRS, 2021). 17 On Carlo and Giovanni Carafa’s earlier lives, see the entries on them in the Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, 85 vols. (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana, 1960–​), hereafter DBI. Adriano Prosperi, “Carafa, Carlo,” DBI 19

88  Miles Pattenden (1976): 497–​ 509 and Raffaele Cammarota, “Carafa, Giovanni,” DBI 19 (1976): 556–​559. 18 Aubert, Paolo IV, 109–​111. 19 Andrés Vela to Philip II, August 12–​22, Simancas, Estado 1210, n.182. Avvisi di Roma, August 19 and 26, 1559, BAV, Urb. Lat. 1039, 71r–​72r, 74v–​75r. Giulio Grandi to Alfonso d’Este, August 19 and 23, 1559, ASMo, Ambasciatori, Agenti e corrispondenti all’estero: Archivio Segreto Estense: Estero Roma 56, f. 283-​ XXXI, nn. 31 and 32. 20 Avviso di Roma, September 9, 1559, BAV, Urb. Lat. 1039, 79r–​v. Pattenden, Pius IV and the Fall of the Carafa, 30–​32. 21 Camillo Capilupi to Guglielmo Gonzaga, September 2, 1559, ASM, Archivio Gonzaga 889, 581v. A copy of the bando against the family is in the Avvisi di Roma, BAV, Urb. Lat. 1039, 75v. On the reaction to Violante Carafa’s murder, see Ottavia Niccoli, Rinascimento anticlericale: Infamia, propaganda e satira in Italia tra Quattro e Cinquecento (Rome-​Bari: Laterza, 2005), 143–​149. 22 On the changing demographics of sixteenth-​ century popes, see Wolfgang Reinhard, “Herkunft und Karriere der Päpste, 1417–​1963. Beiträge zu einer historischen Soziologie der römischen Kurie,” Mededelingen van het Nederlands Institute te Rome 38 (1976): 87–​108. 23 For a full account of Pius’ life, see Flavio Rurale’s entry in the Enciclopedia dei Papi, 3 vols. (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana, 2000), vol. 3, 142–​160. 24 On the politics of the 1559 conclave, see Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 15, 1–​ 65; Mary Hollingsworth, Conclave 1559: The Story of a Papal Election (London: Apollo, 2021). 25 This paragraph summarizes material in Pattenden, Pius IV and the Fall of the Carafa, 35–​46. 26 On the papacy’s struggle with councils, see the relevant chapters of Hubert Jedin, A History of the Council of Trent. Volume 1: The Struggle for the Council, trans. Ernest Graf (Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson, 1957), 5–​31, 62–​75, 220–​244, 268–​287. 27 Pius IV, “Prudentis paterfamilias” (1561), in Bullarium Romanum: Bullarum Diplomatum et Privilegiorum Sancorum Romanorum Pontifcum Taurinensis editio, eds. Luigi Tomassetti et al., 24 vols. (Turin: Franco and Dalmazzo, 1857–​ 72), vol. 7, 143–​144. 28 Eugenio Alberí, Relazioni degli ambasciatori veneti al Senato, 2nd series, 5 vols. (Florence: Società Editrice Fiorentina, 1839–​1863), vol. 4, 171, 181. 29 Elena Bonora, “Pio IV e Morone,” in Il Cardinal Giovanni Morone e la ultima fase del Concilio del Trento, eds. Massimo Firpo and Ottavia Niccoli, (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2010), 30–​42. 30 Irene Fosi, “Justice and Its Image: Political Propaganda and Judicial Reality in the Pontificate of Sixtus V,” Sixteenth Century Journal 24 (1993): 75–​95; Simona Feci, “Violenza nobiliare giustizia nella Roma di Clemente VIII,” in I Cenci: Nobiltà di sangue, ed. Michele Di Sivo (Rome: Colombo, 2002), 321–​337; Maria Teresa Fattori, Clemente VIII e il Sacro Collegio: Meccanismi istituzionali ed accentra-​mento di governo (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 2004). 31 “Philippi II Hispanorum Regis, Consulta que se diò a los theologos,” BAV, Vat. Lat. 8665, 227–​252.

Regime Change in Papal Rome  89 32 For a discussion around this point, see Jacqueline Rose, “Kingship and Counsel in Early Modern England,” The Historical Journal 54 (2011): 47–​71, esp. 56. 33 On Federici’s career, see Antonella Antonucci, “Federici, Girolamo,” DBI 45 (1995), 640. On Pallantieri, see Simona Feci, “Pallantieri, Alessandro,” DBI 80 (2014), 481–​85; and Thomas Cohen, Love and Death in Renaissance Italy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 125–​170. 34 Two copies of the Liber Jurium survive, ASR, Tribunale Criminale del Governatore: Processi 55 and BAV, Vat. Lat. 12086. However, the evidence in them perhaps constitutes only a fraction of what was originally collected: A further busta in ASR (Tribunale Criminale del Governatore: Processi 59) contains further fragmentary selections of materials relating both to the original process and the subsequent revisions to it and other fragments of the process against Giovanni Carafa survive in Processi 60, 637r–​644v. 35 “Pastoralis officii” and “Grave nobis et molestum” (1560), in Tomassetti, Bullarium Romanum, vol. 7, 18–​21, 27–​29. 36 Avviso di Roma, April 27, 1560, BAV, Urb. Lat. 1039, 150v–​51v. 37 See Carlo Carafa’s remarks in his letter to Philip II, June 1, 1560, BAV, Vat. Lat. 12086, 18r. Earlier in the year, Carlo had met Giovanni outside the city specifically to warn him of the dangers of entering, Avviso di Roma, January 6 and 13, 1560, BAV, Urb. Lat. 1039, 114r–​15r, 117r–​v. 38 Avviso di Roma, June 1, 1560, BAV, Urb. Lat. 1039, 162r–​63v. Giovambattista Ricasoli to Cosimo de’ Medici, May 30, 1560, ASF, Mediceo 3280, 135r. On Del Monte, see Francis Burkle-​Young and Michael Doerrer, The life of Cardinal Innocenzo del Monte: A Scandal in Scarlet (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1997). 39 This letter is referred to in one by Bernardino Pia to Cesare Gonzaga, October 14, 1559, Ancel, La Disgrace, 67. 40 Francisco Vargas to Philip II, December 14, 1559, cited in Johann Josef Ignaz von Döllinger, Beiträge zur politischen, kirchlichen, und Cultur-​geschichte der sechs letzten Jahrhunderte, 3 vols. (Regensburg: Manz, 1862–​1882), vol. 1, 314–​ 15. See also the Avvisi di Roma, November 18 and 25, 1559, BAV, Urb. Lat. 1039, 102r–​03r, 104r–​v. 41 Francisco Vargas to Philip II, June 10 and 28, August 8 and 22, 1560, Simancas, Estado 886, nn. 35, 42, 57, 59. 42 On Vargas, see Miles Pattenden, “From Ambassador to Cardinal? Francisco de Vargas at the Papal Court (1559–​63),” in Embajadores culturales. Transferencias y lealtades de la diplomacia española de la edad moderna, ed. Diana Carrió-​ Invernizzi (Madrid: Editorial UNED, 2016), 139–​156, and Xavier Tubau,“Between Ecclesiology and Diplomacy: Francisco de Vargas and the Council of Trent,” Renaissance and Reformation/​Renaissance et Réforme 42 (2019): 105–​139. 43 Philip II to Francisco Vargas, September 12, 1560, Simancas, Estado 887, nn. 160–​161. 44 See, for instance, the arguments of Marcantonio Borghese, ASV, Miscellanea Armarium XI.114, 195r, or Fondo Borghese I.130, 21v, 75v. 45 ASV, Fondo Borghese I.130, 42v, 76v. 46 Giovambattista Ricasoli to Cosimo de’ Medici, July 20, 1560, ASF, Mediceo 3280, 311r. Pius IV, “Cum nuper venerabili fratri,” (July 18, 1560), BAV, Vat. Lat. 12086, 495.

90  Miles Pattenden 7 Avviso di Roma, July 27, 1560, BAV, Urb. Lat. 1039, 184r–​v. 4 48 See the accounts of Saraceni (March 5, 1561), ASF, Mediceo 3281, 4r; Girolamo Casale (March 5, 1561), ASM, Ambasciatori, Agenti e corrispondenti all’estero: Archivio Segreto Estense: Estero Roma 66, f. 320-​II, n. 19; and the Avviso di Roma, March 8, 1561, BAV, Urb. Lat. 1039, 258v–​59v. The sentences against Carlo, Giovanni, Garlonio, and Cardena, are in ASR, Tribunale Criminale del Governatore: Processi 53, 466v–​500r. 49 Konrad Eubel et al., eds., Hierarchia Catholica Medii et Recentoris Aevi, 9 vols. (Regensberg: Sumptibus et typis librariae Regensbergianae, 1898–​), vol. 3, 38–​ 39. Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 15, 162–​163. 50 Avvisi di Roma, March 22 and 29, 1561, BAV, Urb. Lat. 1039, 261v–​62r, 265r–​ v; Girolamo Casale to Alfonso d’Este, April 5, 1561, ASM, Ambasciatori, Agenti e corrispondenti all’estero: Archivio Segreto Estense: Estero Roma 66, n.25; Giovanni de’ Medici to Alfonso Carafa, March 12, 1561, Giovanni Battista Catena (ed.), Lettere del cardinale Gio. de Medici figlio di Cosimo I. gran duca di Toscana non più stampate, Rome: Antonio de’ Rossi, 1752), 351. 51 BAV, Barb. Lat. 2586, 8r–​10v; Saraceni to Cosimo de’ Medici, April 4, 1561, ASF, Mediceo 3281, 35r–​v. 52 Angelo Massarelli, “Diarium” and Gian Francesco Firmano “Diaria caerimonialia,” in Sebastien Merkle, ed., Concilium Tridentinum: diariorum, actorum, epistularum, tractatuum nova collectio, 13 vols. (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1901–​2001), vol. 2, 354, 541. 53 Avviso di Roma, February 24, 1566, BAV, Urb. Lat. 1040, 183v–​85r, 185v. 54 Eubel, Hierarchia Catholica, vol. 3, 254, 306. 55 Avviso di Roma, June 9, 1570, BAV, Urb. Lat. 1042, 71r-​v. Gino Evangelisti, “Il ‘caso’ Pallantieri (1561–​1571): Ovvero le due giustizie,” Il Carrobbio: rivista di studi bolognesi 10 (1984): 109–​119. Niccoli, Rinascimento anticlericale, 164–​73. Niccolò Franco, “Commento sopra la vita et costumi di Giovanni Pietro Caraffa che fu Paulo Quarto chiamato et sopra la qualità de tutti i suoi et di coloro che con lui governaro il pontificato,” BAV, Ottob. Lat. 2684, 346r–​570v. 56 On Bonelli, See Roberto Zapperi’s entry in the DBI 11 (1969), 774–​775. 57 Wolfgang Reinhard, “Nepotismus: Der Funktionswandel einer papstgeschichtlichen Konstanten,” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 86 (1975): 145–​ 185; idem., “Amici e Creature: Politische Mikrogeschichte der römische Kurie im 17. Jahrhundert,” Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 76 (1996): 308–​334. 58 Antonio Menniti Ippolito, Il tramonto della curia nepotistica: Papi, nipoti e burocrazia curiale tra XVI e XVII secolo (Rome: Viella, 1999), 127–​164; idem, Il governo dei papi, 169–​180. 59 On the Barberini’s flight and its context, see Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 30, 54–​6 and Ermete Rossi, “La fuga del cardinale Antonio Barberini,” Archivio della Società Romana di Storia Patria 59 (1936): 303–​327. 60 Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 34, 341–​346. Abbreviations: BAV –​Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana; Barb.Lat. –​Barberiniano Latino; Urb. Lat. –​Urbinate Latino; ASM –​Archivio di Stato, Mantua

Regime Change in Papal Rome  91

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92  Miles Pattenden Duruy, Georges. Le Cardinal Carlo Carafa (1519–​1561). Étude sur le pontificat de Paul IV Paris: Hachette, 1882. Eubel, Konrad et al., eds. Hierarchia Catholica Medii et Recentoris Aevi. 9 vols. Regensberg: sumptibus et typis librariae Regensbergianae, 1898. Evangelisti, Gino. “Il ‘caso’ Pallantieri (1561–​1571): ovvero le due giustizie.” Il Carrobbio: rivista di studi bolognesi 10 (1984): 109–​19. Fattori, Maria Teresa. Clemente VIII e il Sacro Collegio: Meccanismi istituzionali ed accentra-​mento di governo. Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 2004. Feci, Simona. “Violenza nobiliare giustizia nella Roma di Clemente VIII.” In I Cenci: Nobiltà di sangue, ed. Michele Di Sivo, 321–​337. Rome: Colombo, 2002. Feci, Simona. “Pallantieri, Alessandro,” Dizionario biografico degli Italiani 80 (2014), 481–​485. Firpo, Massimo. La presa di potere dell’inquisizione romana, 1550–​1553. Rome: Laterza, 2014. Fosi, Irene. “Justice and Its Image: Political Propaganda and Judicial Reality in the Pontificate of Sixtus V.” Sixteenth Century Journal 24 (1993): 75–​95. Fosi, Irene. “  ‘Parcere subiectis, debellare superbos’: L’immagine della giustizia nelle cerimonie di possesso a Roma e nelle legaioni dello Stato pontificio nel Cinquecento.” In Cérémonial et rituel à Rome (XVIe-​XIXe siècle), eds. Maria Antonietta Visceglia and Catherine Brice, 89–​115. Rome: Éçole Française de Rome, 1997. Fosi, Irene. “Court and City in the Ceremony of the Possesso.” In Court and Politics in Papal Rome, 1492–​1700, eds. Gianvittorio Signorotto and Maria Antonietta Visceglia, 31–​52. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Gori, Fabio. “Papa Paolo IV ed i Carafa suoi nepoti giudicati con nuovi documenti.” Archivio Storico, Artistico, Archeologico e Letterario della Città e Provincia di Roma 1 (1875): 23–​30, 193–​256, and 2 (1877): 47–​63, 107–​206, 257–​265, 302–​321. Hollingsworth, Mary. Conclave 1559: The Story of a Papal Election. London: Apollo, 2021. Hunt, John. The Vacant See in Early Modern Rome: A Social History of the Papal Interregnum. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Hyde, Helen. Cardinal Bendinello Sauli and Church Patronage in Sixteenth-​Century Italy. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2009. Jedin, Hubert. A History of the Council of Trent. Volume 1: The Struggle for the Council. Trans. Ernest Graf. Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson, 1957. Jenkins, Robert. The Story of the Caraffa from an Original Manuscript from c.1640–​ 50. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1886. Lowe, K.J.P. “The Political Crime of Conspiracy in Fifteenth-​and Sixteenth-​Century Rome.” In Crime, Society and the Law in Renaissance Italy, eds. Trevor Dean and K.J.P. Lowe, 184–​203. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Menniti Ippolito, Antonio. Il tramonto della curia nepotistica: Papi, nipoti e burcrazia curiale tra XVI e XVII secolo. Rome: Viella, 1999. Menniti Ippolito, Antonio. Il governo dei papi nell’età moderna: carriere, gerarchie, organizzazzione curiale. Rome: Viella, 2007. Merkle, Sebastien, ed. Concilium Tridentinum: diariorum, actorum, epistularum, tractatuum nova collection. 13 vols. Freiburg im Breisgau, 1901–​2001. Müllerson, Rein. Regime Change: From Democratic Peace Theories to Forcible Regime Change. Leiden: Brill, 2013.

Regime Change in Papal Rome  93 Niccoli, Ottavia. Rinascimento anticlericale: Infamia, propaganda e satira in Italia tra Quattro e Cinquecento. Rome-​Bari: Laterza, 2005. Pastor, Ludwig. The History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages: Drawn from the Secret Archives of the Vatican and Other Original Sources. Trans. Ralph Francis Kerr. 40 vols. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1891–​1953. Pattenden, Miles. Pius IV and the Fall of the Carafa: Nepotism and Papal Authority in Counter-​Reformation Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Pattenden, Miles. “From Ambassador to Cardinal? Francisco de Vargas at the Papal Court (1559–​63).” In Embajadores culturales. Transferencias y lealtades de la diplomacia española de la edad moderna, ed. Diana Carrió-​Invernizzi, 139–​56. Madrid: Editorial UNED, 2016. Pattenden, Miles. Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy, 1450–​1700. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Prodi, Paolo. Il Sovrano Pontefice. Un corpo e due anime: la monarchia papale nella prima età Moderna. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1982. Prodi, Paolo. The Papal Prince, One Body and Two Souls: The Papal Monarchy in Early Modern Europe. Trans. Susan Haskins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Prosperi, Adriano. “Carafa, Carlo.” Dizionario biografico degli Italiani 19 (1976): 497–​509. Reinhard, Wolfgang. “Nepotismus: Der Funktionswandel einer papstgesch-​ichtlichen Konstanten.” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 86 (1975): 145–​185. Reinhard, Wolfgang. “Herkunft und Karriere der Päpste, 1417–​ 1963. Beiträge zu einer historischen Soziologie der römischen Kurie.” Mededelingen van het Nederlands Institute te Rome 38 (1976): 87–​108. Reinhard, Wolfgang. “Papal Power and Family Strategy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.” In Princes, Patronage and the Nobility: The Court at the Beginning of the Modern Age, eds. Ronald Asch and Adolf Birke, 329–​356. London and Oxford: German Historical Institute and Oxford University Press, 1991. 17. Reinhard, Wolfgang. “Amici e Creature: Politische Mikrogeschichte der römische Kurie im Jahrhundert.” Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 76 (1996): 308–​334. Rose, Jacqueline. “Kingship and Counsel in Early Modern England.” The Historical Journal 54 (2011): 47–​71. Rossi, Ermete. “La fuga del cardinale Antonio Barberini.” Archivio della Società Romana di Storia Patria 59 (1936): 303–​327. Rurale, Flavio. “Pio IV.” Enciclopedia dei Papi. 3 vols. Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana, 2000. Vol. 3, 142–​160. Tomassetti, Luigi et al., eds. Bullarium Romanum: Bullarum Diplomatum et Privilegiorum Sancorum Romanorum Pontifcum Taurinensis edition. 24 vols. Turin: Franco and Dalmazzo, 1857–​1872. Tubau, Xavier. “Between Ecclesiology and Diplomacy: Francisco de Vargas and the Council of Trent.” Renaissance and Reformation/​ Renaissance et Réforme 42 (2019): 105–​139. Ullmann, Walter. “Julius II and the Schismatic Cardinals.” Studies in Church History 9 (1972): 177–​193. Zapperi, Roberto. “Michele Bonelli.” Dizionario biografico degli Italiani 11 (1969): 774–​775.

5 The Vacant See and Regime Change in Papal Rome, 1503–​1559 John M. Hunt

In The Prince, Machiavelli held Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI, up as the model ruler who used prudence and skill (virtù) to establish himself over a new principality. Borgia had done everything necessary to maintain his position in the shifting and chaotic political milieu of the Papal States during the Italian Wars. He had scattered the Orsini and other prominent members of the Roman nobility, made himself the uncontested lord of the Romagna, and organized a faction within the College of Cardinals favorable to his cause. All his efforts came undone when his father “died five years after Cesare Borgia had drawn his sword.”1 With only Romagna tenuously in his camp, Borgia suddenly faced a resurgent Roman nobility, an intractable College of Cardinals, and a hostile Spanish army. Machiavelli concluded that Borgia’s plans “were frustrated solely by the brevity of Alexander’s life and his own illness.”2 Even so, Machiavelli could find no fault with Borgia’s schemes and only criticized him for preventing the election of Giuliano della Rovere, a dire enemy of his family, as Julius II, after the brief pontificate of Pius III. Within months, lacking allies and facing the hostility of Julius II, everything Borgia and his family had worked to achieve evaporated into thin air. Perhaps Machiavelli was too generous in assessing Borgia’s ability to manipulate the election and preserve his authority after Alexander VI’s death. Borgia faced unsurmountable odds with the coming of the vacant see (sede vacante), the time between the death of a pope and the election of his successor.3 The vacant see was a time of transition in which the pope’s relatives and allies faced a public backlash for their roles in his overweening nepotism and self-​promotion, then closely followed by the election of a new pope with his own family and agendas that could dramatically change the tone of the papacy. In essence, the vacant see and concomitant election brought on a regime change –​the decline of one family’s dynastic hold on the papacy and the rise of another –​that structurally provided for a regular but haphazard transfer of power. It was regular because it followed established rules, codified by papal constitutions and canon law. It was haphazard because popes often died unexpectedly since many popes were elected in their waning years. This made Rome unique during the Italian Wars, a DOI: 10.4324/9781003199021-6

Vacant See/Regime Change in Papal Rome  95 time when French, Spanish, and imperial armies conquered long-​standing regimes, removed established leaders from power, and installed new regimes in their place. This was the fate of Milan, Naples, and, to a lesser degree, Florence with the re-​introduction of the Medici as dukes in 1530.4 Although it followed a regular cycle of the death and election of popes, the vacant see was marked by a tremendous amount of violence that contrasted sharply with monarchical interregna. This might appear a structural weakness of the vacant see. Indeed, contemporary observers of the vacant see regularly decried the loss of control over the city and the violence that exploded with the pope’s death.5 Yet, this chapter will argue that far from being a weakness, the violence was built into the system of papacy and provided outlets for protest and allowed Romans to express their opinions, dangerous activities in the sede plena. The Roman nobility and civic magistrates inveighed against the papacy’s growing power after the conclusion of the Council of Constance and the popes’ abridgment of their traditional rights. Meanwhile, the people of Rome voiced their opposition to high taxes and dearth by holding the popes accountable for maintaining the city’s food supplies. Furthermore, the vacant see, as a type of regime change, prevented one family from dominating the papacy and Roman politics. The vacant see was a check on “major nepotism” and the ambitions of the pope’s family. Its regular occurrence, due to the generally short reigns of Renaissance popes, also thwarted the efforts of the great Catholic monarchs of Europe from dominating the papacy. Although the vacant see appeared chaotic to outside observers, its very structures and rhythms ensured the independence of the papacy as an institution.

The Pope’s Death as Regime Change The pope’s death was unlike that of any other prince in sixteenth-​century Europe. Established by canon law and ritually announced by church ceremonial, the vacant see emphasized the severance of the pope from his office and the total rupture of his personal rule. Most contemporary monarchies, founded on the dynastic principle, sought to minimize the impact of interregna and ensure governmental continuity by making transfers of power between rules swift and seamless.6 By contrast, tradition, law, and ceremony asserted the disjuncture between the pope’s reign and his eventual successor’s. Much of the government apparatus of the papacy shut down during the vacant see. Offices belonging to the pope’s person, including the Datary, the Inquisition, and the policing authorities of Rome and the Papal States, ceased functioning until the election. Without the popes, new laws, and bulls could not be promulgated. This was symbolized by the destruction of the “ring of the fisherman” and the seals used to authenticate official documents issued by the pope and his government. Only the Apostolic Chamber (the financial arm of the papacy) and the Penitentiary (the office

96  John M. Hunt regulating indulgences and absolutions) continued their activities since they reverted to the Church, led by the College of Cardinals.7 As stipulated by papal bulls that culminated with In Eligendis (1562), the College of Cardinals came to represent the perpetuity of the papacy’s authority during the vacant see.8 These bulls not only charged the cardinals with electing the pope but also tasked them with governing Rome and the Papal States. However, these bulls limited the cardinals’ authority by preventing them from undertaking major decisions or crafting new legislation for the duration of the vacant see. The main responsibility of the cardinals was to provide law and order in Rome and in the Papal States and to ensure the liberty of the election. Even the limited authority of the cardinals was often challenged by the civic government of Rome and the fractious Roman nobility, who were eager to assert their own agendas in the absence of the pope. The rivalry for power among the cardinals, civic officers, and nobles contributed to the chaos and violence that marked the vacant see.9 The College of Cardinals and the Popolo Romano, as the civic officials collectively called themselves, verbally clashed over the ability to police the city while Roman barons asserted traditional rights over their neighborhoods and their territories in the countryside. Into this jurisdictional imbroglio entered the relatives of the dead pope, both lay and ecclesiastical, who lost all claims to the papacy, its offices, and treasury. The cardinal nephew and other relatives of the pope ceded their authority to the College of Cardinals. This was visibly broadcasted by the occupation of the papal apartments of the Vatican Palace by the cardinal chamberlain, head of the Apostolic Chamber and one of the primary leaders of the Sacred College during the vacant see. However, the loss of authority at the pope’s death was not total. The cardinal nephew and other cardinals related to the pope still took part in the conclave and sought to sway the election with a loyal faction. The pope’s lay relatives retained the offices of captain of the Holy See and castellan of Castel Sant’Angelo, the fortress that served as papal treasury and prison. Both positions allowed lay nephews to play a crucial role in the defense of the conclave and the city. Theoretically working with the College of Cardinals, the captain of the Holy See recruited soldiers from Umbria and the Marches and regulated their conduct during the vacant see. As castellans, lay relatives controlled access to the Borgo, the quarter where the Vatican Palace and the conclave were located. Over the course of the sixteenth century, the College of Cardinals increasingly elected lieutenants and vice-​castellans from the ranks of the Roman nobility to see to the day-​to-​day work of providing for the city’s defense. These nobles reported directly to the cardinals, thus ensuring they had a trusted ally to watch over the pope’s lay relatives.10 The cardinals were right in assuming the worst of the pope’s relatives, for at the conclusion of the election, their grasp on the papacy would come to a definitive end. At best, this meant losing their hold on key offices of the papacy with their patronage and income; at worst, papal relatives could face

Vacant See/Regime Change in Papal Rome  97 a backlash from the new pope and his regime, as both the Borgia and the Carafa did after the deaths of Alexander VI in 1503 and Paul IV in 1559.11 With this fate looming before them, many papal relatives sought to enact measures that could buttress their positions after the pope’s death. For example, in 1549, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese ordered the creation of 5000 soldiers under his command and had the city gates closed after the death of his grandfather, Paul III. The College of Cardinals reprimanded Farnese for “acting on his on account” without their consent.12 A far more egregious attempt to seize the initiative during the vacant see occurred at the death of Paul IV in 1559. Fearing reprisals against his nephews, Duke Giovanni Carafa and Cardinal Carlo Carafa, for their misdeeds, Paul IV created a new position, regent of the Holy See, for his grandnephew, Cardinal Alfonso Carafa. The position would have allowed Alfonso to govern Rome during the vacant see and preside over the coming election, a blatant infringement on the prerogatives of Giulio Ascanio Sforza, the cardinal chamberlain. Moreover, Paul IV’s stratagem upended centuries of canon law that severed the papal family’s control over papal institutions after the pope’s death. Once Paul IV died on August 18, 1559, Alfonso bickered with Sforza over his position as regent and occupied the Vatican Palace with a guard of two companies of soldiers and a contingent of horsemen. With the support of the Popolo Romano and many Roman barons, Sforza led a vigorous protest in a consistory before the Sacred College against this “innovation.”13 The cardinals, in defending their institutional power and tradition, resolved to prohibit Carafa from taking up any decision “in matters concerning the vacant see” and to keep Sforza in his position, “as is the ancient custom.”14 Carafa prudently accepted the College’s decision, but the episode demonstrates the lengths that papal relatives undertook to hold onto their fleeting power. The actions of Farnese and Carafa reveal the desperation of papal relatives at the death of the pope and their attempt to sway the imminent election in their favor. The main objective of all papal relatives was to ensure the election of a cardinal from their faction or at least neutral candidate, one less hostile to their family interests. This goal can be seen in the actions of Cesare Borgia at the death of Alexander in 1503. Despite suffering from the same fever that killed his father, Borgia occupied the Vatican Palace and maintained several contingents of soldiers in the Borgo with the aim of defending himself from his enemies among the Roman nobility and forcing the College of Cardinals to elect a pope from the Spanish faction his father had created. Moreover, Borgia had an ally in the vice castellan of Castel Sant’Angelo, who owed his position to Alexander VI. Borgia’s control of both the Vatican Palace and Castel Sant’Angelo made it impossible for the cardinals to gather safely in the Sistine Chapel in order to prepare for the election. The cardinals were so frightened that they had to meet in the monastery of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, on the opposite side of the Tiber, to conduct the first consistories. After several days of tense negotiations, marked by skirmishes between Cesare’s men and the Orsini –​variously

98  John M. Hunt punctuated by cries of Borgia and Chiesa –​the vice-​castellan allowed papal soldiers to take over the fortress. Further discussions between the two parties finally convinced Borgia to relinquish the Vatican Palace so the cardinals could properly and freely enter the conclave. Contemporaries understood Cesare’s endeavors as a bid to influence the election: the Venetian ambassador, Antonio Giustinian, wrote several dispatches to the Venetian Senate expressing concerns that the “ecclesiastical liberty of the church” was stake and Machiavelli remained convinced that the only way for Borgia to maintain his hold on the Romagna was by manipulating the election.15 In the end, Borgia’s gambit failed. The election of Pius III proved a temporary victory, but his death after a brief pontificate of less than three weeks allowed for the election of Julius II, a dire enemy of the Borgias, after only a day of politicking. For Machiavelli, this was the singular event that led to Borgia’s downfall. He could use violence to gain the upper hand over his adversaries and the College of Cardinals, but without the protection and support of the pope all of his efforts came to naught. The pope’s relatives could not escape the fact that their power dissipated with the coming of the vacant see. Even the best-​laid plans of Cesare Borgia –​ praised by Machiavelli for their prudence and skill –​became unraveled with the pope’s death. Although Cesare Borgia’s use of intimidating tactics against the cardinals was unique in the sixteenth century, his fate after Alexander VI’s death reveals an important aspect of the vacant see –​it was a check on the “major nepotism” of papal relatives that had reached its height during the Italian Wars. A development after Martin V’s return to Rome in 1420 and a fixture of the papacy from the time of Sixtus IV and Alexander VI, “major nepotism” was a family strategy of popes and their relatives that sought to perpetuate their power through the acquisition of titles and fiefs in the Papal States and through advantageous marriage alliances with prominent Roman families.16 By the time of the Borgias, the collection of substantial states through war and diplomacy became a primary goal of most papal families. However, they could not hold onto these lands without the support of the popes, as attested by Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini, the latter of whom could write that the subjects of lands seized by a pope’s lay relatives would “recall they received everything from the pope and therefore are not natural rules.”17 Despite their planning for the inevitable vacant see, the pope’s death thwarted their state-​building schemes. When Alexander VI died in 1503, all the lands, with the exception of those in the Romagna, under Borgia’s control revolted and signori returned to retake their cities and fiefs, as was done by the Orsini, the Colonna, the Baglioni, and the Duke of Urbino.18 Although Leo X died in 1521, triumphant after hearing that his Spanish allies had captured Milan, the Medici nevertheless lost their tenuous grasp on Parma and Urbino.19 Only the Della Rovere were able to hold onto the Duchy of Urbino after the death of Julius II, although with incredible difficulty during the tumultuous turns of the Italian Wars. Francesco Maria

Vacant See/Regime Change in Papal Rome  99 I della Rovere, however, had legitimately inherited the throne as the nephew of Guidobaldo I through the intercession of Julius II.20 In another exception to the rule, Ottavio Farnese retained the Duchy of Parma but in opposition to Paul III’s will. In this case, the vacant see may have allowed Farnese to retain Parma, newly seized from Milan, despite the misgivings of both his grandfather and his father-​in-​law, Charles V.21 Checked by the pope’s death, most papal families had to make do with lesser titles and fiefs within the Papal States and, after 1559, the Spanish-​ controlled Kingdom of Naples. Pius V’s bull, Prohibito Alienandi Feudi (1567), forbade the alienation of papal lands by relatives of popes and cardinals, thereby encouraging the practice of lay relatives either buying lands from impoverished Roman nobles or seeking titles from French and Spanish monarchs.22 These fiefs, however, lacked the luster of creating large principalities within the Papal States. As Guicciardini commented in advice given to Giovanni de’ Medici in 1513, “we have the example of the relatives of Callixtus and Pius, for whom it was enough to have plucked from the pontificate some rather convenient but unremarkable holdings, which not only did they enjoy, but which they perpetuated for the descendants to the present day.”23 Yet, with these new credentials, the papal relatives permanently inserted themselves into the ranks of the nobility of Rome. This practice became well-​established after Pius V’s bull with the likes of the Peretti, Aldobrandini, Borghese, and Barberini during the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries becoming established in the city’s hierarchy.24 None of these families could aspire to carve a powerful kingdom out of papal lands. They could not escape fortune guised in the cloak of the vacant see.

Protesting the Old Regime As Cesare Borgia’s attempt to manipulate the election through arms demonstrates, the vacant see and its regime change were a time of violence and disorder. The pope’s death, accompanied by the cessation of much of papal government and the decreased surveillance of its streets by Rome’s principal policing force, the Governor’s Tribunal, was marked by a dramatic upsurge in violent altercations. Romans of all ranks took advantage of the moment to seek revenge and settle old scores against rivals. Although statistical evidence is lacking for the first half of the sixteenth century, the relazioni dei medici e barberi (the reports of the doctors and barbers) provide the staggering figure of 8.2 violent altercations per day for the vacant see of Pius V in 1572.25 Contemporary witnesses of the vacant sees of the first part of the century depict Rome as a warzone in the immediate aftermath of the pope’s death. In 1549, the Venetian ambassador, Matteo Dandolo, present for Paul III’s death, compared Rome to the Friuli, Venice’s fractious province located on the border of Holy Roman Empire that was plagued by endemic feuding and vendetta.26 Ten years later, another Venetian ambassador, Luigi Mocenigo, characterized Rome after Paul IV’s death both as the Forest of

100  John M. Hunt Bacchus, a haunt of bandits and highwaymen near Lake Bracciano, and as battle-​worn Germany during the Schmalkaldic War of 1546–​1547.27 The vacant see was most notorious in the Renaissance for the collective attacks –​usually called tumults by chronicle writers and other contemporary observers –​against the allies and property of the deceased pope. In an influential article, Carlo Ginzburg and his students characterized these tumults as “ritual pillages,” a kind of rite of passage that symbolized the transition between two papal reigns since Romans looted both the possessions of the dead pope and those of the new pope upon the announcement of his election.28 However, those following Ginzburg’s lead often ignore the political context of the crowds’ actions. As Laurie Nussdorfer and I have argued –​in separate works –​the tumults of the vacant see were a protest against the old pope’s regime and his government, especially if they were marked by excessive nepotism and heavy-​handed policies.29 Moreover, studies that depict these tumults as “ritual pillages” tend to minimize the role of the nobility in fostering and leading these protests. A case in point is the vacant see of Sixtus IV in 1484, in which crowds of Romans sacked the granaries and warehouses of Genoese merchants in Trastevere and Ripa and then dismantled Castello Giubileo, the fortress of the pope’s nephew, Girolamo Riario. Noting how the crowds absconded with cheese, wine, and other foodstuffs from Riario’s pantry, Sergio Bertelli and Paravicini-​ Bagliani maintained that they were “ritual pillages.”30 Yet, a closer reading of the accounts of Stefano Infessura and Giacomo Portani, diarists who had witnessed the violence, reveals that members of the Colonna family –​exiled by Sixtus IV for opposing him during his war with Naples –​returned to Rome with their men-​at-​arms to lead the assaults against the Della Rovere, Riario, and the Genoese community. Incensed by Sixtus IV’s high taxes and failure to address a famine the gripped the city that summer, large crowds of commoners gladly joined the Colonna and their men. Both the political and social context explain the populace’s targeting of warehouses, granaries, and the pope’s allies among the Genoese merchant elite. Ritual gave the crowds a language of violence to employ in their protests but did not provoke their actions.31 Reading the violence of the vacant sees of Alexander VI (1503), Clement VII (1534), and Paul IV (1559) further elucidates that the tumults were not “ritual pillages” but protests against the regimes of popes whose family ambitions often necessitated both the control of the recalcitrant nobility and fiscal polies unfavorable to the Roman populace. During each of these vacant sees, mixed crowds of nobles and commoners attacked the property, clients, and even communities associated with the dead pope. During the vacant see of Alexander VI, the Orsini led their men and crowds of Romans in assaults on Spanish warehouses and shops.32 Again, after Clement’s death, Romans attacked the banks and granaries of Filippo Strozzi and other Florentine merchants located in the Banchi, the city’s financial district.33 In the most explosive vacant see ever recorded in the sixteenth century, the Colonna

Vacant See/Regime Change in Papal Rome  101 and Cesarini families –​along with Rome’s civic government –​sanctioned violence directed at allies of the Carafa after Paul IV’s demise. During three days of violence, crowds burnt down the Inquisition Palace on the Via Ripetta, assaulted the Dominican friars and inquisitors at Santa Maria sopra Minerva, and sacked the home of Giovanni Celsi, the pope’s banker and financier.34 In each of these examples, the people were protesting specific policies connected to the nepotism of popes. Alexander VI had supported Cesare Borgia’s bid to create a principality in the Romagna, necessitating the suppression of the Roman nobility. Clement VII had granted a monopoly on grain imports into Rome to his in-​law, Filippo Strozzi, who enriched his family during the intense famine of 1533–​1534.35 Meanwhile, Paul IV seized the Duchy of Paliano and other Colonna fiefs, giving them to his nephew, Giovanni Carafa, and taxed the populace to support his campaign against the Spanish, the so-​ called War of Carafa of 1556–​ 1557.36 The assaults against the associates of the popes were retribution for bad government in which family and private interests were put over the public good. We cannot forget that for many nobles the tumults against dead popes’ regimes were personal and vindicative. Both the Orsini and the Colonna used the opportunity of Alexander VI’s death to reseize lands in Lazio and Umbria confiscated by the Borgias. While the Colonna eventually entered into a pact with Cesare Borgia to ensure the retention of their lands, the Orsini entered Rome with hundreds of soldiers to attack Borgia’s men in the Borgo. Fabio Orsini, brashly voicing his desire to avenge his father’s death at the hands of Cesare Borgia, vowed to bathe his hands in the blood of a Borgia and personally led the assaults on the Spanish community of Rome.37 After Paul IV’s death, the Colonna returned to their fiefs seized by the Carafa and fomented riots against the dead pope and his family. Members of the Savelli and Cesarini likewise returned from exile and even stole livestock that the Carafa had taken from them.38 Similar altercations occurred throughout the Papal States as nobles and signori returned to their ancestral lands and cities to enact vengeance against the dead pope and his associates. The actions of the Roman nobility and their counterparts elsewhere in the Papal States must also be put in the context of the expansion of papal authority throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Papal authority increased upon the papacy’s definitive restoration to Rome after the Council of Constance and Martin V’s return to Rome in 1420. After a century of autonomy, Roman barons and the Popolo Romano resented the popes’ attempts to tighten their control over Rome, its countryside and the Papal States and strongly resisted papal intrusion into their affairs. The return of the papacy and its increasing hold over the city often sparked revolts against the rule of the popes, most notably during the pontificates of Eugenius IV, who after being driven out of Rome, spent much of his pontificate in Florence, and his successor Nicholas V.39 However, none of these revolts stopped the onward march of papal authority and, by the end of the century, popes had

102  John M. Hunt grown more powerful, initiating a campaign to curtail noble independence. Tied to this was the growth of nepotism. Unable to rely on the Roman nobility, the Popolo Romano, or the College of Cardinals, the popes began to lean heavily on their lay and ecclesiastical relatives and allies, building up a faction on which to assert their authority.40 Throughout the later fifteenth century and early sixteenth century, popes regularly exiled members of the Roman nobility who opposed their views and sidelined the Popolo Romano in the governance of the city. Consequently, the Roman nobility and their allies among the civic magistrates, found that the best time to protest both the growth of papal authority and nepotism, was the vacant see. The Capitoline Hill, the location of the Rome’s civic regime and site associated with the city’s ancient past, served as the epicenter of the collective protest of Roman nobles and the city’s civic magistrates against growing papal authority. The civic officials –​composed of the three conservators, 13 caporioni charged with administration of justice, and a general assembly –​ immediately met to provide for law and order after the pope’s death. The Popolo Romano typically invited members of Rome’s powerful houses –​the Orsini, the Colonna, and the Savelli among others –​to attend these meetings where nobles gave rousing speeches against the popes and their government.41 The vacant see was thus one of the few moments in which all the city’s feudal nobility, usually at war with one another, and the Popolo Romano could unite and ally under the banner of liberty against papal authority and excessive nepotism. Generally, the most virulent speeches occurred when the nepotism of popes also impacted the city at large. For example, the young noble, Flaminio Tomarozzi, gave an oration that recalled the golden days of ancient Rome but more importantly criticized Clement VII and his Strozzi allies for forcing Romans “to eat dirt instead of grain” with the monopolies that favored his allies.42 The grievances of Roman nobility and their allies among the Popolo Romano can be seen in the speech of Pompeo Colonna in 1511 when news that Julius II had fallen into a coma, sparked violent preparations for a vacant see. Once rumors spread that Julius II had died, the Roman nobility gathered at the Capitoline, led by Antonio Savelli and Pompeo, a bishop more suited to a military career. In the Palace of the Conservators, Pompeo gave a long discourse before the gathered nobles and civic officials that sought “to inflame them with seditious words to recover their liberty.”43 Denouncing the servitude of the “generous Roman spirit” to the rule of the avaricious and nepotistic popes, Pompeo compared the reign of the popes to that of Mameluke sultans of Egypt: In the entire world there are two similar principalities: the Roman pontiffs and the sultans of Cairo. For neither the dignity of the sultanate nor the highest office of the Mamelukes is hereditary, but passing from person to person, are granted even to foreigners; and nevertheless the servitude of the Romans is even more ignominious than that of the

Vacant See/Regime Change in Papal Rome  103 people of Egypt and Syria; insofar as the ignominy of the latter is to so degree understandable because of the bellicose, ferocious nature of the Mamelukes, men inured to toils and lives without any softness or delicacy. But whom are the Romans serving? Persons who are slothful and indolent; foreigners, and often most ignoble not only by blood but also by their mode of behavior.44 Pompeo’s words –​no doubt embellished by Guicciardini, who included it in his History of Italy –​underscored the anger of the Roman nobility who faced the subjugation of “priestly tyranny,” one that placed men without skill in arms and noble lineage in power, a criticism of both the increasing power of popes and the ambitions of their lay relatives, who, as attested by Guicciardini and Machiavelli, were considered to be unnatural rulers. Furthermore, Pompeo attacked papal nepotism, which brought an influx of foreigners –​Spaniards, Genoese, and Tuscans –​to occupy key positions in the Curia, including the cardinalate, over native Romans. His speech, couching the popes as wicked tyrants, was nothing less than a defense of the independence of the Roman nobility and civic government. The Capitoline continued to serve as the site of protests against the excessive power of deceased popes throughout the early modern era. After Paul IV’s death in 1559, crowds, spurred by the Popolo Romano and the Roman barons, directed the people’s ire against a statue the civic magistrates had accorded the people only a year before his death. The day after the assault on the Inquisition Palace, before a crowd of more than 2000 people, composed of nobles and commoners, the three Conservators of Rome tried the statue, located in the Palace of the Conservators, in a mock trial and then had a stonecutter cut off the head and its right hand, the one that bestows blessings on the people.45 In issuing their decree, the Conservators proclaimed, “Tyrant! This is your reward for your deeds.”46 After “executing” the statue, its head was thrown out of the window of the palace. For the next three days, children kicked and hurled insults at the statue’s head until throwing it in the Tiber River. The Conservators then issued a decree ordering the removal and destruction of the coat-​of-​arms of the “tyrannical house of Carafa, enemy of the people” that were found on any house in the city “so that in every way possible this much hated name can be annihilated and extinguished.”47 The decree threatened those who failed to comply with the sacking and burning of their homes. The people did not need much prodding, as the Emilio Stangheli the ambassador of the Duke of Mantua, wrote that the orders were carried “with a rejoicing and glee so great…by practically everyone that it appears that each was competing for a prize.”48 Crowds responded by knocking down the Carafa coat-​of-​arms from the church doors of Santa Maria sopra Minerva and Santa Maria della Pace. The hated memory of Paul IV and the Carafa had to be canceled for the community to move forward after his death. This event would be recalled decades later by chroniclers, diarists, and church historians and would be

104  John M. Hunt emulated in attempts to destroy the statues of Sixtus V and Urban VIII after their deaths.49 The vacant see was thus a time for the Roman elite to protest the regime of the deceased pope and its policies. Although they did not seek to overturn papal rule, the crowd’s actions carried consequences beyond the immediacy of Paul IV’s vacant see. His successor, Pius IV, issued a bull exculpating the Popolo Romano for its involvement in the violence and, in 1562, he tried Giovanni and Carlo Carafa for corruption and for Giovanni’s role in his wife’s murder.50 The Carafa, too, were also the last family to seek to take land from the Roman nobility until the Barberini’s attempt to extract Castro from the Farnese in 1643. But even here, the goals of the nobles were limited to a defense of traditional rights rather than upturning the system. In a report to the Venetian Senate after the death of Paul IV, the ambassador, Luigi Mocenigo, analyzed the paradox of noble and civic protest in the vacant see: [I]‌t would be an easy thing for the Popolo Romano in these vacancies to seize the city of Rome, but then they would not be able to hold onto it for themselves. Rather they are more content to stay under the Church than under any other prince. One trusts that it must be difficult for them not to rebel against the Holy Church. In particular, they greatly fear, in not carrying themselves affectionately and faithfully, that a pope might have a desire to move the Holy See to some other place or city. It would be the total ruin of Rome because it would rapidly become disinhibited.51 The paradox of the Roman elite’s situation was the following: They needed the papacy to ensure Rome thrived as a city but could not control the growing power of the popes and one of the primary means of supporting it, nepotism. The nobility and the civic regime enjoyed unprecedented independence during the days of the Avignon Papacy and Great Schism, but at the price of the decline in Rome’s prestige and wealth. Although perhaps exaggerated, Rome’s population declined during the fourteenth century, and the city fell into ruin.52 With the papacy, Rome once again became the Caput Mundi, a city of pilgrims, travelers, visiting ambassadors, and papal officials. The popes set on a path of urban renewal starting with Nicholas V and the Curia attracted men from all over Italy and Europe, seeking positions within the papal government. Without the papacy, Rome became a dusty town with visible reminders of its past glories in the form of its ruins. Rome’s greatness came at a price –​submission to the popes. Unable and unwilling to overturn the rule of popes, Rome’s elite could only protest the excesses of papal regimes during the vacant see.

A Cycle of Regimes Amid the violence and disorder that erupted after the pope’s death, Rome and the greater European world looked forward to the election of his

Vacant See/Regime Change in Papal Rome  105 successor, the other part of the Janus-​faced cycle of the vacant see. Romans eagerly anticipated the election’s result, always hoping that the cardinals would select a Roman pontiff, as testified by the boisterous celebrations that greeted the election of Alessandro Farnese as Paul III in 1534.53 Above all, they expected a pope who looked after the needs of the city, keeping it supplied with bread and other staples.54 The city kept abreast of politicking in the conclave through rumors, manuscript newsletters (avvisi), and pasquinades that were affixed to the statue of Pasquino, located near Piazza Navona. Bookmakers regulated betting on the election and spread information of the politicking inside the conclave; another means by which Romans kept up with news of the election.55 The populace’s attention kept Rome on edge and created an atmosphere of misinformation that further added to the confusion of the vacant see. The election also garnered the scrutiny of the great Catholic powers beyond the Alps. Although the papal election had attracted the attention of monarchs and emperors throughout the Middle Ages, their focus had become particularly keen with the papacy’s return to Rome after the Council of Constance. During the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, popes had increasingly become political figures as princes of the Papal States, beholden to the nepotistic strategies of their families.56 Moreover, the Italian Wars inaugurated an era in which the papacy played a key role in the geopolitical struggles of the peninsula.57 As did the coming of the Reformation, which necessitated cordial relations between popes and Catholic monarchs.58 These concerns meant that it became increasingly imperative for French and Spanish kings and the Holy Roman emperor to influence the direction of the election in order to have an ally in the pope who would support their agendas. The primary means that ultramontane monarchs influenced the election was through the factions, a phenomenon that accelerated the first half of the sixteenth century. The core of these factions was the party of the recently deceased pope and that of his predecessor.59 These factions were led by the cardinal-​nephews of each respective pope, but, as the example of Cesare Borgia reveals, a lay nephew often could form a faction around his person. The immediate objective of cardinal-​nephews –​one that was rarely attained –​was to sway the election in favor of a family member or a member of the faction’s party. Barring this goal, most cardinal-​nephews sought to promote the candidate least damaging to their cause. During the Italian Wars, these factions also had to navigate the interests of the French king and Holy Roman emperor, thus causing the development of parties that coalesced around the French or Imperial cause. Resident ambassadors of rulers regularly kept correspondence with conclavists and even the cardinals themselves. They passed notes through the grates of the turning wheels that brought food into the conclave and engaged in secret discussions with the cardinals.60 The ambassadors persistently and blatantly sought to infiltrate the supposedly locked conclave. Throughout the election of 1549–​1550, the French ambassador, Claude d’Urfé, frequently appeared outside the

106  John M. Hunt grates to talk to cardinals of the French factions and to give them letters from Henry II.61 During the conclave of 1559, the Spanish ambassador, Francisco de Vargas, brazenly visited the grates as many as four times a day.62 Despite Pius IV’s bull, In Eligendis (1562), the conclave remained open to the machinations of ambassadors and their servants throughout the early modern era.63 Despite their intimate knowledge of the negotiations inside the conclave, few monarchs during the first half of the sixteenth century succeeded in guaranteeing the election of their preferred candidates (with the notable exception of Henry II’s support of Paul IV in 1555). Even when the election resulted in a candidate amenable to their cause, elected popes tended to frustrate the hopes of monarchs by seeking to maintain their independence. The cycle of vacant sees and elections, based on the brief reigns of the elderly popes, changed papal regimes, on average, every six or seven years. The frequency of vacant sees worked to ensure papal independence from the pressure and influence of Francis I and Charles V. The situation changed little with the Spanish domination of the peninsula at the conclusion of Italian Wars in 1559. Although Philip II regularly sent a list of acceptable candidates to be raised to the papal throne during his reign, his hopes ultimately were thwarted by both the factions within the conclave and by the brevity of pontificates.64 Although the election’s result often disappointed kings and emperors, the immediate reaction of the city was typically one of joy. Much of this rejoicing –​processions, fireworks, bonfires, and cheers –​was standard ritual fare meant to signal the beginning of a new pontificate. Yet, there was an expectation among Romans and Italians further afield that opportunities to receive patronage and posts from the new pontiff would be forthcoming. Unlike hereditary monarchies, much of the pope’s personal household and many key positions within the Curia (notwithstanding the trend toward venial offices) would change. As Guicciardini wrote in his Ricordi, new popes could not trust the officials of the old regime.65 Consequently, he had to rely on his family and friends or create new allies through patronage. By the time of Adrian VI’s election in 1521 nepotism as a key feature of papal government had become an established practice, one that Italians came to expect. Adrian’s election caused some consternation among potential curialists since even Guicciardini, a critic of nepotism, wrote, “those who had chosen him not even being able to give any reason why, amidst so many travails and perils for the Church, they should have elected as pope a foreigner, so far distant from the country, who had not won any favor.”66 Adrian, an outsider unaccustomed to the papal court and its nepotism, disappointed many looking for positions in the Curia. His death was met with “boundless joy of the entire court who were eager to see an Italian … on the papal throne.”67 Herein lies one of the ironies of the papacy. Italians, especially through the anonymity of pasquinades and other satires, could criticize papal governance and nepotism, but they had become accustomed to it by the 1520s

Vacant See/Regime Change in Papal Rome  107 and even eager for positions that came with a new pontificate that offered them opportunities at the papal court and household. The city expected the pope to show liberality, using his patronage, power, and church wealth to promote friends, countrymen, and allies. Adrian did none of these things. As an outsider, he did not understand Rome’s unique social and political milieu. As noted by Wolfgang Reinhold, a moderate form of nepotism had always been accepted within the papacy, and increasingly so after the Avignon Papacy. It was natural for the pope to place his trust in his relatives, employ them in his regime, and bestow the wealth of the papacy on them.68 By the time of the Italian Wars, nepotism had become an inscribed system within the papacy. The election of each pope initiated a new regime that offered opportunities to those seeking positions but, above all, to the pope’s family. The rapid change of papal regimes made the papacy one of the most unique political systems of the Renaissance. Most popes nominated fellow countrymen as cardinals and raised allies to crucial posts within the Curia and papal government. In addition to prelates and office-​seekers, the election of a new pope promoted immigration as servants, soldiers, and artisans from his homeland flocked to Rome to take advantage of the moment. During Alexander VI’s reign, Rome took on a Spanish character.69 Under Leo X and Clement VII, Florentine and Tuscan bankers and merchants flocked to the city to seek the patronage of the Medici.70 These immigrants profoundly shaped the social fabric of Rome, making it, despite its small size, the Caput Mundi.71

Notes 1 Niccolò Machaivelli, The Prince, trans. Peter Bonadella (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 28–​29. 2 Machiavelli, The Prince, 29. In extolling the skills of the perfect prince, Machiavelli played up both Borgia’s position after Alexander VI’s death and his ability to influence the election. Machiavelli’s letters and dispatches to the Florentine republic provide a more realistic view of Borgia’s actions during the vacant see and election of 1503. See Niccolò Machiavelli, Legazioni e commissarie, ed., Sergio Bertelli (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1964), vol. 3, 561–​742. 3 John M. Hunt, The Vacant See in Early Modern Rome: A Social History of the Papal Interregnum (Leiden: Brill, 2016); Laurie Nussdorfer, “The Vacant See: Ritual and Protest in Early Modern Rome,” Sixteenth Century Journal 18 (1987): 173–​ 189; and Maria Antonietta Viceglia, Morte e elezione del papa: Norme, riti e conflitti: L’Éta moderna (Rome: Viella. 2013). 4 On the Italian Wars, Michael Mallet and Christine Shaw, The Italian Wars, 1495–​ 1550: War, State and Society in Early Modern Europe (Milton Park: Routledge, 2014) and Idan Sherer, The Scramble for Italy: Continuity and Change in the Italian Wars, 1494–​1559 (Milton Park: Routledge, 2021). 5 Hunt, The Vacant See, 92–​98. 6 Ernst H. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957), 314–​ 430 and Ralph Giesey, Royal Funeral Ceremony in Renaissance France (Geneva: Droz, 1960).

108  John M. Hunt 7 Agostino Paravicini-​Bagliani, The Pope’s Body, trans. David S. Peterson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 148–​149. 8 Paravicini-​Bagliani, The Pope’s Body, 159–​160; Miles Pattenden, Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy, 1450–​1700 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 107–​119; and John M. Hunt, “Cardinals and the Vacant See,” in A Companion to the Early Modern Cardinal, eds., Mary Hollingsworth, Miles Pattenden and Arnold Witte (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 322–​332. 9 Hunt, The Vacant See, 50–​60. 10 Hunt, The Vacant See, 31–​32. 11 On the Carafa, see Miles Pattenden, Pius IV and the Fall of the Carafa: Nepotism and Papal Authority in Counter-​Reformation Rome (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). 12 Dispatch of Matteo Dandolo, Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts Relating to English Affairs in the Archives and Collections of Venice and Other Libraries of Northern Italy, ed. Rawdon Brown (Nendeln (Kraus Reprint, 1970), vol. 5, 272. 13 BAV, Barb.lat 5243, “Diario di Vincenzo Belli,” f. 612v. See also BAV, Urb.lat 1039, newsletter of August 19, 1559, ff. 71r-​v. 14 BAV, Urb.lat 1039, f. 71v. 15 For an account of Borgia’s actions, see Pasquale Villari, ed., Dispacci di Antonio Giusitinian, ambasciatore Veneto in Roma dal 1502 al 1505 (Florence: Le Monnier, 1876), vol. 2, 127–​133. 16 Wolfgang Reinhard, “Papal Power and Family Strategy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in The Court at the Beginning of the Modern Age, c. 1450–​1630, eds., Ronald G. Asch and Adolf M. Birke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 329–​ 356; Jennifer M. DeSilva, “Articulating Work and Family: Lay Papal Relatives in the Papal States, 1420–​1549,” Renaissance Quarterly 69 (2016), 1–​39; and Marco Pellegrini, Il papato nel Rinascimento (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2010), 85–​87 and 115–​116. 17 Francesco Guicciardini, “How to Ensure the State for the House of the Medici,” in The Defeat of A Renaissance Intellectual, trans. Carlo Cellio (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019), 53. 18 Machiavelli, The Prince, 29. 19 Francesco Guicciardini, The History of Italy, trans. Sidney Alexander (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 327–​328. 20 DeSilva, “Articulating Work,” 15–​17. 21 Jean-​Marc de la Sablière, La saga des Farnèse (Paris: Robert Laffont, 2020), 186–​188. 22 Jean Delumeau, “Political and Administrative Centralization in the Papal State in the Sixteenth Century,” in The Late Italian Renaissance, 1525–​1630, ed. Eric Cochrane (London: Macmillan, 1970), 290–​291. See also Mario Caravale and Alberto Caracciolo, Lo Stato pontificio da Martino V a Pio X (Turin: UTET, 1978), 327–​330. 23 Guicciardini, “How to Ensure the State,” 53–​54. 24 Reinhard, “Papal Power,” 330–​332 and Jean Delumeau, La vie économique et sociale de Rome dans la seconde moitié du XVIe siècle (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1959), vol. 1, 476–​482. 25 Hunt, The Vacant See, 95–​96 and Peter Blastenbrei, Kriminalität in Rom, 1560–​ 1585 (Tübingen: Maz Niemeyer Verlag, 1995), 59–​60.

Vacant See/Regime Change in Papal Rome  109 6 Dispatch of Matteo Dandolo, Calendar of State Papers, vol. 5, 276. 2 27 “Relazione di Luigi Mocengio,” in Le Relazioni degli ambasciatori veneti al Senato durante il decimosesto, ed., Eugenio Albèri, ser. II, vol. 4, 38. 28 Carlo Ginzburg, “Ritual Sacks: A Preface to Research in Progress,” in Microhistory and the Lost Peoples of Europe, eds. Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero, trans. Eren Branch (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), 20–​41. 29 Nussdorfer, “The Vacant See” and Hunt, The Vacant See, 18–​20 and 178–​182. 30 Sergio Bertelli, The King’s Body: Sacred Rituals of Power in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, trans. R. Burr Litchfield (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001) 41–​42 and Paravciini-​Bagliani, The Pope’s Body, 104. 31 Stefano Infessura, Diario della città di Roma, ed. Oreste Tommasini (Rome: Forzani, 1890), 161–​162 and Diomede Toni, ed., Il Diario romano di Gaspare Pontani (Città di Castello: Lapi, 1907), 37–​38. See also Hunt, The Vacant See, 181–​183 and Andreas Rehberg and Anna Modigliani, “Saccheggi rituali nell’ambito curiale-​romana: Una chimera degli antropologi,” Roma nel Rinascimento (2008): 25–​26. 32 Guicciardini, The History of Italy, 167–​168 and Villari, Dispacci, 147–​149. Ferdinand Gregorovius, History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages, vol. 8, 5–​6. 33 Domenico Orano, ed., Il Diario di Marcello Alberini, 1521–​1536 (Rome: Archivio della Società Romana di Storia Patria, 1895), 116–​117. See also Melissa Meriam Bullard, “Grain Supply and Urban Unrest in Renaissance Rome: The Crisis of 1533–​34,” in Rome in the Renaissance: The City and the Myth, ed. P.A. Ramsey (Binghamton, NY: MRTS, 1982), 279–​292. 34 Hunt, The Vacant See, 182–​187. 35 Melissa Meriam Bullard, Filippo Strozzi and the Medici: Favor and Finance in Sixteenth-​Century Florence and Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 159–​169. 36 Thomas James Dandelet, Spanish Rome, 1500–​1700 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 53–​57. 37 Ferdinand Gregorovius, History of the City of Rome in the Middles Ages (New York: Italica Press, 2004), vol. 8, 5. 38 BAV, Barb.Lat 5234, “Diario di Vincenzo Belli,” f. 269v and ASM, Carteggio degli inviati e diversi, filza 889, dispatch of Emilio Stangheli, August 21, 1559, f. 664r. 39 Anna Modigliani, I Porcari: Storia di una familgia romana tra Medioevo e Rinascimento (Rome: Roma nel Rinascimento, 1994) and Anthony F. D’Elia, A Sudden Death: The Plot to Murder the Pope in Renaissance Rome (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 44–​53. 40 Paolo Prodi, The Papal Prince: One Body and Two Souls: The Papal Monarchy in Early Modern Europe, trans. Susan Haskins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). 41 Massimo Miglio, “ ‘Viva la libertà et popolo de Roma’: Oratoria e politica: Stefano Porcaro,” in his Scritture, scrittori e storia (Rome: Vecchiarelli, 1993), 59–​95. 42 Bullard, “Grain Supply and Urban Unrest,” 283–​284. 43 Guicciardini, The History of Italy, 230. 44 Guicciardini, The History of Italy, 230–​231. 45 Hunt, The Vacant See, 186–​189. 46 BAV, Urb.lat 1039, newsletter of August 21, 1559, f. 74r.

110  John M. Hunt 47 BAV, Fondo Capponi 63, “Contro quelli che terranno l’armi di Casa Carafa,” f. 33r. 48 ASM, Carteggi degli inviati e diversi, Roma, filza 889, dispatch of August 21, 1559, f. 663r. 49 On the memory of protests against popes after their deaths, see John M. Hunt, “The Possesso and the Moral Economy of Baroque Rome,” in Eternal Ephemera: The Papal Possesso and Its Legacies in Early Modern Rome, eds., Jennifer M. DeSilva and Pascale Rihouet (Toronto: CRRS, 2020), 253–​285. On the attacks of Sixtus V and Urban VIII’s status, see Hunt, The Vacant See, 190–​193. 50 Archivio apostolico vaticano, Bandi sciolti, ser. I, “Bolla di assoluzione dalle Censure, ed altre pene Ecclesiastiche incorse dal Popolo Romano per gli eccessi commessi in tempo di Sede Vacante per la morte del Pontefice Paolo IV,” vol. 1, 49. For the fate of the Carafa, see Pattenden, Pius IV and the Fall of the Carafa. 51 “Relazione di Luigi Mocenigo,” ser. II, vol. 4, 39–​40. 52 Elizabeth McCahill, Reviving the Eternal City: Rome and the Papal Court, 1420–​1447 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013). 53 Orano, Il Diario di Marcello Alberini, 118–​119. See also Antonella De Michelis, “Possesso as Master Plan? Reading the Processional Route as Paul III’s Urban Manifesto,” in Eternal Ephemera, eds. DeSilva and Rihouet, 81–​121. 54 John M. Hunt, “Ritual Time and Popular Expectations of Papal Rule in Early Modern Rome,” Explorations in Renaissance Culture 45 (2019), 29–​ 49 and Volker Reinhardt, “Annona and Bread Supply in Rome,” in Rome/​ Amsterdam: Two Growing Cities in Seventeenth Century Europe, eds. Peter van Kessel and Elisja Schutte (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1997), 209–​220. 55 Renaud Villard, “Le conclave des parieurs: Opinion publique et continuité du pouvoir pontifical à Rome au XVIe siècle,” Annales: Histoire, sciences sociales 64e (2009), 375–​ 403 and John M. Hunt, “The Market in the Conclave: Gambling on Political Events in Renaissance Italy in The Casino, Card and Betting Game Reader: Communities, Cultures and Play, ed. Mark R. Johnson (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021), forthcoming. 56 Prodi, The Papal Prince. 57 John A.F. Thomson, Popes and Princes, 1417–​1517: Politics and Polity in the Late Medieval Church (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1980), 123–​142 and Mallet and Shaw, The Italian Wars, 297. 58 Dandelet, Spanish Rome, 40–​43. 59 Reinhard, “Papal Power;” Maria Antonietta Visceglia, Morte e elezione del papa, 313–​317; and edem, “Factions in the Sacred College in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in Court and Politics in Papal Rome, 1492–​1700, eds. Gianvittorio Signorotto and Maria Antonietta Visceglia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 99–​131. 60 Hunt, The Vacant See, 214–​224 and Mary Hollingsworth, “The Cardinals in Conclave,” Companion to the Early Modern Cardinal, eds. Hollingsworth and others, 58–​70. 61 Dispatches of Matteo Dandolo, Calendar of State Papers, 5:280–​281. 62 Frederic J. Baumgartner, Behind Locked Doors: A History of the Papal Elections (London: Palgrave, 2003), 118. 63 Hunt, The Vacant See, 224.

Vacant See/Regime Change in Papal Rome  111 64 Michael Levin, Agents of Empire: Spanish Ambassadors in Sixteenth-​Century Italy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005); 43–​66; Pattenden, Electing the Pope, 173–​176; and idem, “Rome as a ‘Spanish Avignon’? The Spanish Faction and the Monarchy of Philip II in The Spanish Presence in Sixteenth-​Century Italy: Images of Iberia, eds. Piers Baker-​ Bates and Miles Pattenden (Milton Park: Routledge, 2015), 66–​84. 65 Francesco Guicciardini, Maxims and Reflections of a Renaissance Statesman (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1965), 41–​42. 66 Guicciardini, History of Italy, 329. 67 Guicciardini, History of Italy, 335. 68 Wolfgang Reinhard, “Nepotismus: Der Funktionswandel einer papstges­ chichtlichen Konstanten,” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschiscte 86 (1975): 145–​185 and Birgit Emich, “The Cardinal Nephew,” in Companion to the Early Modern Cardinal, eds. Hollingsworth and others, 71–​82. 69 Dandelet, Spanish Rome, 7–​9. 70 Peter Partner, Rome, 1500–​1559: A Portrait of a Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 26–​27 and 78–​81. 71 On compatriots of popes coming to Rome, see Delumeau, Vie économique et sociale, vol. 1, 199–​200 and vol. 1, 207–​212. Abbreivations: ASF –​Archivio di Stato, Florence; BAV –​Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana; Vat.Lat. –​Vaticana Latina

Bibliography Unpublished Sources Mantua Archivio di Stato: Carteggio degli inviati e diversi Vatican City Archivio Apostolico Vaticano: Bandi sciolti, ser. I Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana: Barberiniano Latino Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana: Urbinate Latino Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana: Fondo Capponi

Published Sources Albèri, Eugenio, ed. Le relazioni degli ambasciatori veneti al Senato durante il decimosesto. Ser II. Florence: Società editrice Fiorentina, 1846. Baumgartner, Frederic J. Behind Locked Doors: A History of the Papal Elections. London: Palgrave, 2003. Bertelli, Sergio. The King’s Body: Sacred Rituals of Power in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Trans. R. Burr Litchfield. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001. Blastenbrei, Peter. Kriminalität in Rom, 1560–​ 1585. Tübingen: Maz Niemeyer Verlag, 1995. Bullard, Melissa Meriam. Filippo Strozzi and the Medici: Favor and Finance in Sixteenth-​Century Florence and Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. Bullard, Melissa Meriam. “Grain Supply and Urban Unrest in Renaissance Rome: The Crisis of 1533–​34.” In Rome in the Renaissance: The City and the Myth, ed. P.A. Ramsey, 279–​292. Binghamton, NY: MRTS, 1982.

112  John M. Hunt Caravale, Mario and Alberto Caracciolo. Lo stato pontificio da Martino V a Pio X. Turin: UTET, 1978. Dandelet, Thomas James. Spanish Rome, 1500–​1700. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. Dandolo, Matteo. Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts Relating to English Affairs in the Archives and Collections of Venice and Other Libraries of Northern Italy. Ed. Rawdon Brown. Nendeln: Kraus Reprint, 1970. de la Sablière, Jean-​Marc. La saga des Farnèse. Paris: Robert Laffont, 2020. D.Elia, Anthony F. A Sudden Death: The Plot to Murder the Pope in Renaissance Rome. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009. Delumeau, Jean. “Political and Administrative Centralization in the Papal State in the Sixteenth Century.” In The Late Italian Renaissance, 1525–​1630, ed. Eric Cochrane, 287–​304. London: Macmillan, 1970. Delumeau, Jean. La vie économique et sociale de Rome dans la seconde moitié du XVIe siècle. Paris: E. de Boccard, 1959. De Michelis, Antonella. “Possesso as Master Plan? Reading the Processional Route as Paul III’s Urban Manifesto.” In DeSilva and Rihouet, eds., Eternal Ephemera, 81–​121. DeSilva, Jennifer M. “Articulating Work and Family: Lay Papal Relatives in the Papal States, 1420–​1549.” Renaissance Quarterly 69 (2016): 1–​39. DeSilva, Jennifer M. and Pascale Rihouet, eds. Eternal Ephemera: The Papal Possesso and Its Legacies in Early Modern Rome. Toronto: CRRS, 2020. Emich, Birgit. “The Cardinal Nephew.” In Companion to the Early Modern Cardinal, eds. Hollingsworth and others, 71–​82. Giesey, Ralph. Royal Funeral Ceremony in Renaissance France. Geneva: Droz, 1960. Ginzburg, Carlo. “Ritual Sacks: A Preface to Research in Progress.” In Microhistory and the Lost Peoples of Europe, eds. Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero, 20–​41. Trans. Eren Branch. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991. Gregorovius, Ferdinand. History of the City of Rome in the Middles Ages. New York: Italica Press, 2004. Guicciardini, Francesco. The History of Italy. Trans. Sidney Alexander. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984. Guicciardini, Francesco. “How to Ensure the State for the House of the Medici.” In The Defeat of A Renaissance Intellectual. Trans. Carlo Cellio. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019. Guicciardini, Francesco. Maxims and Reflections of a Renaissance Statesman. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1965. Hollingsworth, Mary. “The Cardinals in Conclave.” In Companion to the Early Modern Hollingsworth, Mary, Miles Pattenden and Arnold Witte, eds. A Companion to the Early Modern Cardinal. Leiden: Brill, 2020. Hunt, John M. “Cardinals and the Vacant See.” In A Companion to the Early Modern Cardinal, eds. Hollingsworth and others, 322–​332. Hunt, John M. “The Market in the Conclave: Gambling on Political Events in Renaissance Italy.” In The Casino, Card and Betting Game Reader: Communities, Cultures and Play, ed. Mark R. Johnson. London: Bloomsbury Academic, forthcoming. Hunt, John M. “The Possesso and the Moral Economy of Baroque Rome.” In Eternal Ephemera, eds. DeSilva and Rihouet, 253–​285.

Vacant See/Regime Change in Papal Rome  113 Hunt, John M. “Ritual Time and Popular Expectations of Papal Rule in Early Modern Rome.” Explorations in Renaissance Culture 45 (2019): 29–​49. Hunt, John M. The Vacant See in Early Modern Rome: A Social History of the Papal Interregnum. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Infessura, Stefano. Diario della città di Roma. Ed. Oreste Tommasini. Rome: Forzani, 1890. Kantorowicz, Ernst H. The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957. Levin, Michael. Agents of Empire: Spanish Ambassadors in Sixteenth-​Century Italy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005. Machiavelli, Niccolò. Legazioni e commissarie. Ed. Sergio Bertelli. Milan: Feltrinelli, 1964. Machiavelli, Niccolò. The Prince. Trans. Peter Bonadella. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Mallett, Michael and Christine Shaw. The Italian Wars, 1495–​1550: War, State and Society in Early Modern Europe. Milton Park: Routledge, 2014. McCahill, Elizabeth. Reviving the Eternal City: Rome and the Papal Court, 1420–​ 1447. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013. Miglio, Massimo. “ ‘Viva la libertà et popolo de Roma’: Oratoria e politica: Stefano Porcaro.” In Scritture, scrittori e storia, 59–​95. Rome: Vecchiarelli, 1993. Modigliani, Anna. I Porcari: Storia di una famiglia romana tra Medioevo e Rinascimento. Rome: Roma nel Rinascimento, 1994. Nussdorfer, Laurie. “The Vacant See: Ritual and Protest in Early Modern Rome.” Sixteenth Century Journal 18 (1987): 173–​189. Orano, Domenico, ed. Il Diario di Marcello Alberini, 1521–​1536. Rome: Archivio della Società Romana di Storia Patria, 1895. Paravicini-​Bagliani, Agostino. The Pope’s Body. Trans. David S. Peterson. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Partner, Peter. Rome, 1500–​1559: A Portrait of a Society. Berkeley: University of California Pattenden, Miles. Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy, 1450–​1700. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Pattenden, Miles. Pius IV and the Fall of the Carafa: Nepotism and Papal Authority in Counter-​Reformation Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Pattenden, Miles. “Rome as a ‘Spanish Avignon’? The Spanish Faction and the Monarchy of Philip II.” In The Spanish Presence in Sixteenth-​Century Italy: Images of Iberia, eds. Piers Baker-​Bates and Miles Pattenden, 66–​84. Milton Park: Routledge, 2015. Pellegrini, Marco. Il papato nel Rinascimento. Bologna: Il Mulino, 2010. Prodi, Paolo. The Papal Prince: One Body and Two Souls: The Papal Monarchy in Early Modern Europe. Trans. Susan Haskins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Rehberg, Andreas and Anna Modigliani. “Saccheggi rituali nell’ambito curiale-​ romana: Una chimera degli antropologi.” Roma nel Rinascimento (2008): 25–​36. Reinhard, Wolfgang. “Nepotismus: Der Funktionswandel einer papstgeschichtlichen Konstanten.” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschiscte 86 (1975): 145–​185. Reinhard, Wolfgang. “Papal Power and Family Strategy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.” In The Court at the Beginning of the Modern Age,

114  John M. Hunt c. 1450–​1630, eds. Ronald G. Asch and Adolf M. Birke, 329–​356. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Reinhardt, Volker. “Annona and Bread Supply in Rome.” In Rome/​Amsterdam: Two Growing Cities in Seventeenth Century Europe, ed. Peter van Kessel and Elisja Schutte, 209–​220. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1997. Sherer, Idan, The Scramble for Italy: Continuity and Change in the Italian Wars, 1494–​1559. Milton Park: Routledge, 2021. Thomson, John A.F. Popes and Princes, 1417–​1517: Politics and Polity in the Late Medieval Church. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1980. Toni, Diomede, ed. Il Diario romano di Gaspare Pontani. Città di Castello: Lapi, 1907. Viceglia, Maria Antonietta. “Factions in the Sacred College in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.” In Court and Politics in Papal Rome, 1492–​ 1700, eds. Gianvittorio Signorotto and Maria Antonietta Visceglia, 99–​ 131. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Viceglia, Maria Antonietta. Morte e elezione del papa: Norme, riti e conflitti: L’Éta moderna. Rome: Viella. 2013. Villard, Renaud. “Le conclave des parieurs: Opinion publique et continuité du pouvoir pontifical à Rome au XVIe siècle.” Annales: Histoire, sciences sociales 64e (2009): 375–​403. Villari, Pasquale, ed., Dispacci di Antonio Giustinian, ambasciatore Veneto in Roma dal 1502 al 1505. Florence: Le Monnier, 1876.

6 The Failed Regime of Pope Adrian VI Brian Jeffrey Maxson

The death of Pope Leo X threatened political regimes in Rome, Florence, and Venice in 1522 and 1523. In Rome, the cardinals were divided along the same imperial-​French lines as the rest of Europe. A new pope would inherit the same institutions, but a new man in charge could dramatically change the power structure within and connected to Rome. The situation in Rome tied directly to Medici control over Florence. Throughout Leo’s papacy, Florence had been an appendage to the Medici family’s rule in Rome. With Leo gone, opponents of the Medici saw an opportunity to oust that family once again from power. New people and new governmental forms thus threatened the city on the Arno. The political situation in Venice was far different. Venetians rejoiced at the death of their enemy Pope Leo. Although no immediate threat hung over Venetian power structures and forms, a change in papal politics could change their ability to delay and wait out situations amidst the infinite complexity of the Italian Wars. All warily watched the election of the new Pope Adrian VI. Threats to political regimes swirled around the election of Pope Adrian VI, but ultimately none of these changes came to pass. Regime change in early modern Europe meant the replacement of one group of people in power in a certain area by another group, with or without a change in governmental institutions. It necessitated both practical control of power and, over the long-​term, recognition of that control by others. These changes, then, impacted other areas and other regimes. Pope Adrian was elected in no small part because he was largely removed from the fights over political power in Rome. His election did not directly elevate any cardinal in the city, while his geographical distance from Italy meant the cardinals in Rome could exercise their own agency in a pope-​less city for the foreseeable future. After Adrian finally arrived in Italy, he initially avoided taking political sides while instead seeking austere economic measures and a pan-​European alliance against the Ottoman Turks. None of those policies readily brought him the allies necessary to build the sorts of coalitions on which to base a new political regime. To make matters worse, the plague provided the powers of Italy with a convenient excuse to delay their formal acknowledgement of the new pope. The fall of Rhodes in early 1523 forced changes: Pope Adrian began pursuing a DOI: 10.4324/9781003199021-7

116  Brian Jeffrey Maxson more pragmatic approach to alliance building and began securing friends in Rome, while the powers of Italy began recognizing his rule. But before those efforts could bear fruit Pope Adrian died.1

Prologue: November 1521–​August 1522 Fortune seemed to favor the family and friends of Pope Leo X in November 1521. All of Europe was entangled in the struggle over Milan between the French and the Empire. Pope Leo had thrown his support behind Emperor Charles V. By the end of November, their league was successful, and Milan had fallen to the Empire. The French and their Venetian allies were defeated. But then, unexpectedly on December 1, Pope Leo X died. Would the tenuous alliance between the emperor and the papacy crumble? Could the death of the Medici Pope lead to a reversal of French and Venetian fortunes?2 The Venetians hoped so: They were elated at the death of the hated pope, news which the Venetian diarist Marino Sanudo described as “miracolosa et optima” and celebrated like a “grandissima vitoria.”3 The death of a pope inaugurated a series of rituals and events that transferred the position of Vicar of Christ from one man to another. In theory, the power of the papacy remained unchanged, even as the specific men exercising power from one papacy to the next was different. Since 1417, popes based in Rome had come to power and created political regimes designed to use and expand the power of their families and friends. Papal elections during the fifteenth century involved complex negotiations to build alliances on which to procure enough votes to become pope and on which to base the power of the new regime. After the election was over, a new pope combined his existing local and regional alliances in Rome and beyond with the local and regional resources of the papacy. Simultaneously, after the election, geo-​political units outside Rome made decisions about when and how they should send congratulatory diplomats to offer their obedience. Such missions granted legitimacy to the nascent political regime of the new pope. Some situations called for immediate and elaborate symbolic statements through displays of wealth and prestige. Other situations called for less extravagant displays offered some months later.4 It was the occupation of formal institutions, the consolidation of dominant political power, and ceremonial recognition of those developments that constituted a legitimate regime change. Pope Leo’s death set these processes in motion. In Rome, it was unclear who could be elected as Leo’s successor. Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici was a strong candidate, but there was unease about having two successive popes from the same family. After all, two successive Medici would possess unprecedented time to use the papacy to establish a solid political regime around their family and their allies. By contrast, constantly changing families meant that no political regime could ever establish a permanent footing. Additionally, in 1522, Cardinal Giulio’s fate held even bigger stakes. The

The Failed Regime of Pope Adrian VI  117 city of Florence had been indirectly ruled by the Medici Pope in Rome since 1512. Now, Medici rivals sought to exploit the death of Pope Leo to their advantage. Immediately after Leo X’s death Cardinal Francesco Soderini, enemy of Cardinal Giulio, began denouncing Medici tyranny.5 Within the city itself, Medici partisans feared rebellion.6 The two powerful Florentine cardinals sought allies from two ends of European diplomacy: Soderini favored the French, Medici favored the Empire. The papal election dragged on for weeks before the emergence of a calculated but risky compromise. It was clear that Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici lacked enough votes to secure the election for himself. However, he did possess enough support to prevent or to decide somebody else’s election. Over two weeks, the cardinals attempted 11 different times to elect one of their members. At the same time, the Papal State progressively deteriorated into the anarchy characteristic of the period between popes. Fearful that unrest would soon spread to Florence, Cardinal Giulio (or perhaps someone else) proposed the distant Cardinal Adrian Boeyens as a compromise. As a candidate, Adrian brought long and familiar connections with the emperor, then allied with the papacy. He had been a tutor to Charles in the emperor’s youth, while more recently, he had served as an imperial regent in Spain. Adrian, it seemed, could be expected to be an imperial ally, even as he was so unknown to the cardinals that he lacked the sorts of enmities or affinities that those based in Rome carried for each other.7 Adrian seems to have been a tool for the cardinals to buy time. Adrian was in Spain. Communications and movements with somewhere that far to the west were very slow. For imperialists, Adrian seemed certain to support the emperor, even as he possessed little power in Rome itself. A pope with little power far from Rome could give Emperor Charles time to cement his hold over Milan and the rest of Italy. Then, by the time Adrian arrived –​if he even bothered to travel to Rome at all –​he would be another imperial loyalist among many others. Additionally, he would lack any existing foundation on which to build support for whatever policies and initiatives he chose to follow. It must have been an enticing idea for Cardinal Giulio: While Adrian was in Spain, the financial schemes of Pope Leo could shift to Cardinal Giulio, who could effectively fund and continue Leo’s political efforts in Rome.8 The election of Adrian also offered some hope for supporters of the French. For them, the void left by Leo’s death weakened Medici power in Rome, created the potential for regime change in Florence, and threatened the papal-​led coalition in Lombardy. Certainly, Adrian would probably be an imperial ally, but by the time Adrian arrived in Italy French fortunes could be back on the ascent. It seemed reasonable to assume that, should that occur, the pope might then turn to French allies to begin consolidating power in and beyond Rome. Consequently, the cardinals were in no rush that Adrian should arrive in Rome. Rather, they were content that the political power vacuum remain in place so that they could continue to pursue their own objectives unhindered

118  Brian Jeffrey Maxson by a pope trying to consolidate power. At first their ploy was successful: The cardinals’ antics and the sheer difficulty of moving from Spain to Italy meant that Rome and its cardinals, in practice, had no pope for most of 1522. It took until mid-​February for word to even reach Adrian in Spain about his election. Adrian accepted the news of his election, but delayed a formal announcement until the cardinals could send their official delegation. In March, he was still waiting on them. Thus, on March 8 he took it upon himself to officially declare his own election.9 But moving from Spain to Italy was a complicated and dangerous task. It was not, in fact, until August 5, some eight months after Pope Leo had died, that Pope Adrian set out from eastern Spain. The timing of his departure may have given heart to French loyalists nervous about a former imperial tutor now serving as pope: Adrian’s departure from Spain was almost certainly timed to avoid having to meet Charles V, who was then traveling to the Iberian Peninsula. That avoidance highlighted recent disagreements between Pope Adrian and Emperor Charles.10 It also symbolically revealed a gap between the two powerful men. It was an early sign that the pope dreamed of a political regime with allies from all the powers of Europe, not just the Empire. Back in Italy, by August, opponents of the Medici family and allies of the French –​often but not always the same people –​needed some good news. Supporters of the French, who had bought time through Pope Adrian’s election, initially reaped some promising rewards. By the end of February 1522, the French were threatening to retake important cities in Lombardy as they made progress on an attempted reconquest of Milan. Cardinal Francesco Soderini, meanwhile, with French support, was plotting a new government in Siena, the assassination of Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, and a return to power for his family in Florence. Cardinal de’ Medici was rightly concerned. To try to maintain support in Florence, he proposed changing the Florentine constitution to appease more people. But, by late April 1522, French losses at the Battle of Bicocca spun Fortune’s wheel away from them once again. Soderini’s coordinated actions in Tuscany met with disaster: the army he sent for Siena was rebuffed, while a planned domestic insurrection in Florence itself was uncovered and squashed. Cardinal Soderini’s brother, the former ruler of Florence, Piero, died soon after.11 By the end of May, the fall of Genoa had led to another French retreat.12 Such was the situation into which Pope Adrian arrived in Italy and in which he would attempt, months after his initial election, to begin creating a political regime based in Rome.

Ritual Failure, August 1522–​October 1522 Eight months after the death of Pope Leo X, no Italian state had symbolically offered their obedience to the new pope. Things did not rapidly improve. Rather, a series of ritual failures marked the entrance of the Dutch pope into Italian politics and political culture. Ordinarily, the election of a new pope fitted into an existing Roman and mostly Italian political system. Italian

The Failed Regime of Pope Adrian VI  119 families vied for power within Rome, with the stakes, of course, holding potential for much of Italy and beyond. But Adrian, almost certainly by design, was not a direct part of that system. A series of ritual failures reveals that Adrian initially did not share a common set of politico-​cultural rules with his Italian colleagues. The failures began in August. News reached Florence around August 16 that the pope was approaching Liguria from Spain. Thus, the Florentines elected four diplomats to greet the pope when he would arrive at their port of Livorno.13 On August 17 and 18 news arrived in Rome and in Venice that the pope was drawing closer to Genoa. 14 They too began debating what to do and who to send to the pope.15 All three powers had waited as long as possible –​over eight months –​to meet the pope in person. Now Adrian’s arrival in Italy forced their hand. Moreover, each power could not risk losing honor to the others. The close coincidence of the Florence, Venetian, and cardinal diplomatic elections was a part of broader diplomatic culture that demanded states hold ostentatious celebrations at roughly the same time and to the same degree or risk offending the new pope. For example, on August 20, the Venetians held a procession at San Marco to commemorate the arrival of the pope to Italy. Not coincidently, the timing of that procession immediately followed word reaching them that similar celebrations had already happened in Rome.16 The failure of the ritualized events from Florence, Rome, and Venice reveal that Adrian marked an external introduction into the Italian political system. The Florentines failed first. The Florentine diplomats, delegations from other geo-​political units, as well as five cardinals and the unofficial head of their state, Giulio de’ Medici, met together at Livorno to greet the new pope. The pope arrived on August 24 where he was greeted with great ceremony. He then was a guest at the castello of Cardinal Giulio, who was also the archbishop of Florence at that time. The following morning the pope admonished the cardinals present to live holier lives and cut off their beards.17 At Livorno, Cardinal de’ Medici asked the pope to travel the short distance from Livorno to Florence. The pope, however, declined the offer.18 It was more than a simple refusal: The exchange held deeper meaning. A visit and possibly longer stay in Florence and Tuscany would suggest that Adrian held special affinity and a special relationship with the Medici cardinal and his allies, not the least important of which was Emperor Charles V. But Adrian was trying to avoid that kind of appearance. Throughout the first year of his papacy, Adrian rejected attempts to be drawn too close to either the Empire or France. Instead, he consistently tried to make a peace between the two major powers and turn their efforts against the Ottoman Turks. Adrian’s departure from Spain had almost certainly been timed precisely to avoid appearing tied to the imperial faction. The rejection of Giulio’s offer again allowed Adrian to avoid taking an explicit side in the imperial and French antagonisms and begin his goal of a broader political

120  Brian Jeffrey Maxson coalition not beholden to traditional factions. Yet, within the political culture of the Italian peninsula, the pope was also rejecting an offer of hospitality from a powerful cardinal and potential ally. Cardinal de’ Medici had almost certainly invited the pope, in part, to use his association with the pope’s physical presence in Florence to stabilize his position within Florence itself. Pope Adrian said no. Consequently, Cardinal de’ Medici attended the pope in Rome until mid-​October before returning to Florence.19 His absence effectively withheld his support from Adrian’s efforts to consolidate a foundation for power within Rome. Florence reflected the cardinal’s coldness. The city made few moves to send an official congratulation to mark their symbolic acceptance and obedience to the new pope. Certainly, in September they began identifying possible diplomats for the mission.20 Yet, it is most likely that the Florentines were only responding to the presence of Venetian diplomats in nearby Bologna. Immediately after the election of the diplomats, in fact, the Florentines delayed their mission.21 Thus, they could appear to be making progress, even as, in practice, their diplomats remained in Florence with their spurned cardinal. Next, the Romans failed. The Romans had begun constructing “a beautiful triumphant arch, on which they spent 500 ducats.” However, the pope did not appreciate the gesture: “The pope, understanding this, ordered that the work not continue, saying that these triumphs were things from the gentiles, and not of the Christians; and thus the work remained unfinished.”22 Adrian’s rejection of the gesture lay in his different cultural and religious contexts: The Romans had prepared an honor fitting for the usual sort of new pope drawn from a cardinal with long roots in the Eternal City. Yet, Adrian’s arrival marked a much more dramatic change than normal.23 Rituals continued to break down because of the disconnect. The papal party and the cardinals argued about where Adrian ought to be crowned. The cardinals thought Adrian should be crowned at the San Paolo Fuori le Mura, but the papal party, which won the dispute, wanted the steps of Saint Peter’s. Then, within Saint Peter’s once again things did not go well. There, “The pomp was inferior, although very positive, partly because the pope was by nature foreign from such things, partly because all the courtiers of Pope Leo were out of money and absent.” The pope announced a stronger than usual ban on arms, but there were few people in Rome left to hear it: The plague had broken out and thus his coronation was poorly attended. Most people by then had fled the city.24 It was a terrible foundation on which to build a political regime. Rome was empty. Pope Adrian did not speak Italian and surrounded himself with non-​Italian advisors.25 He lacked existing political alliances on which to build coalitions. More than that, he rejected potential allies in favor of a dream of pan-​European unity. The cardinals did appoint a designee to formally acknowledge the new pope with their words of obedience.26 Yet, one ceremony to grant legitimacy did not make a regime. The cardinals and others shared the sentiments of the Venetian ambassador who confessed

The Failed Regime of Pope Adrian VI  121 that he did not really know what to expect from Adrian, other than that the new pope had a reputation for piety and religious severity; Adrian seemed to wish for more austerity than his profligate predecessor Leo; and that he was supposed to have extremely strong ties with Charles V.27 The subsequent actions by the Roman cardinals suggest that they thought the best course of action was to wait and see how things played out. Their delays dragged out Adrian’s efforts both to consolidate power and to shape local, regional, and transcontinental politics. By November, only one cardinal was left in Rome: The reason was plague, but in practice plague also created the opportunity for further tactical delays.28 In the last failed ritual, the Venetian congratulatory embassy did not reach Rome. Over a ten-​day period, the Venetians worked out the logistics of electing six men to form their congratulatory mission. The entire process was a passive response to external events, with the level of Venetian urgency directly tied to the news of the specific hour. For example, the Venetians received news from their ambassador in Rome. Thus, they first voted on specific patricians to serve as diplomats on August 22. Progress then stalled for several days. On August 27, they heard word of the pope’s imminent arrival near Rome. Consequently, two days later, the Venetians voted to replace their regular diplomat in Rome with a new one who would be a part of the congratulatory mission. Things stalled again. On September 1, their diplomat in Rome informed them that the pope had arrived in Rome and told him that “l’ama questa Signoria.”29 Receipt of the letter, consequently, meant that the Venetians responded by voting to approve the expenses for their congratulatory embassy. This continually passive approach suggests that, despite their celebratory procession and immediate decision to elect ambassadors, they too were in no hurry to actually send diplomats to the newly arrived pope. All through September, the Venetians dragged their feet on their delegation. The money for the diplomats was approved on September 2, yet the diplomats remained in Venice. The Venetian diplomat in Rome told the pope about their forthcoming congratulatory mission. The pope was pleased, but the Venetian diplomats still did not set out. On September 20, the diplomats were still in Venice. Now the diplomats received a warning that they must depart within four days or face a penalty, a threat that was extended until the end of the month. On September 26, word arrived that, once again, the Venetian diplomat in Rome had met with the pope and told him of the forthcoming congratulatory mission. The pope remained well disposed. Finally, on October 1, the Venetian diplomats set out. Sanudo wrote that “God willing they will go quickly to Rome, but I think that they will delay throughout their journey in order to see about the progress of the plague.”30 The timing of the departure was again almost certainly a passive response to the actions of others. On the same day that the diplomats departed, word reached Venice that the vicar of Naples, in the name of the emperor, had arrived in Rome to offer his obedience.31

122  Brian Jeffrey Maxson Sanudo’s appraisal of the mission was prescient. On October 13, the diplomats reported that they were at Bologna and that they had heard about the plague outbreak in Rome. The Venetians told them that they “ought to write to the pope about their arrival at Bologna and ask his Holiness what they should do.”32 They stayed in Bologna for five days before setting out for Florence. They never arrived. On October 27, the Venetians heard from their diplomat in Rome that he had spoken to the pope about the delegation. The pope had said that he loved their republic, but “it seemed like the air of Rome had been corrupted, and made even him think of leaving the city, thus it was better that they not come farther, and at some other time he would see them willingly.”33 He had written to the other diplomats to tell them. The Venetians in turn voted to release those diplomats from their mission and told them that they could return to Venice. By November 3, the diplomats were back in the Lagoon: Their round-​trip journey had taken roughly five weeks: Four weeks to get a bit past Bologna, one week to get back.34 Politics and political culture had thwarted the Florentine and Roman attempts to acknowledge the new pope. Plague and demurral had saved the Venetian the same embarrassment. The collapse of these sorts of rituals points to Adrian’s outsider status in Italian politics and political culture. The cardinals had successfully avoided bestowing more power on one of their own, but at the cost of inviting into their midst a person about whom they clearly knew very little. The outcome of the disconnect between political cultures and the introduction of a new political player into peninsular politics was the failure of opening rituals by the Florentines, the cardinals and Romans, and the Venetians. Failed rituals meant instability in the games of Italian politics and society. Faced with uncertainty, all three powers delayed committing in real or symbolic terms to a new pope. The outbreak of plague in Rome provided a convenient tool to justify the passage of time. As an outsider, Pope Adrian possessed limited means to establish a secure political base in Rome. He lacked money, power, allies, and external recognition of his rule. Thus, regime change dragged on.

Politics and Plague, November 1522–​February 1523 For months the plague provided a real –​but convenient –​excuse for the Venetians, the Florentines, and the cardinals to delay making any major changes to the status quo while Pope Adrian sought ways to consolidate his power.35 At first, it seems likely that real fear over an actual outbreak of plague shaped events. After all, it was no secret that Rome was in the midst of a devastating plague outbreak.36 In early September, the Venetian ambassador had already reported his suspicion that a diplomat from Poland had died from plague. By September 25, there were concerns that the pope had died from it. Around the same time, the embassy from the duke of Ferrara had arrived, even as the Ferrarese did not plan to stay long because of the plague. As early as October 6, word reached Venice that “the plague has

The Failed Regime of Pope Adrian VI  123 almost stopped, and fourteen a day have been dying from it.”37 It was a premature assessment. Repeatedly the Venetian diplomat reported on the pandemic in Rome, in letters dated to October 28, November 5 and 6, and November 13. On November 27, “the plague is more than ever.” December opened with more of the same.38 But then things began to gradually improve. On both December 5 and 8, the Venetian diplomat reported good news about the plague. The pope seems to have agreed that things were turning the corner as he began looking for ways to repair the economic damage caused by the emptying of the city during the plague. His ideas were not popular, and people complained, to which the pope responded, “I know what you want, that I go with the court to Flanders.”39 It was the interjection of a man struggling to establish a powerbase. But, perhaps, given time he might have succeeded. After all, the news kept improving. On both December 15 and 21, the Venetian diplomat reported that the plague was almost at an end. Unfortunately, the curve had not yet turned permanently downwards. Cardinal Petrucci died shortly before Christmas. By mid-​January the plague had returned and continued during the month of January.40 By then, it seems that the powers of Italy were using the plague at least in part to justify their absences from Rome. By November 13 only three cardinals remained in Rome. By November 21, only one cardinal remained and the pope was not granting audiences. As things seemed to improve, the cardinals were slow to come back. Certainly, the realities and fear of plague kept some away. Cardinals were becoming sick from the virus.41 Yet, Adrian himself did not seem to believe that the risk of plague was enough to keep the cardinals from Rome. On December 15, the pope called a consistory, but only six cardinals were in Rome to attend it. By December 21, Adrian had ordered the cardinals to return to the city in time for Christmas. A month later he was still asking. On January 20, 17 cardinals came to a consistory; six days later, the pope asked the cardinals, again, to come to Rome. Now he began exploring ways to combat their recalcitrance.42 Through these months, Pope Adrian was revealing himself to have a single-​minded focus in papering over intra-​European conflicts to fight against the Turks. To those ends, he cozied up to the Venetians, made peace with Ferrara, and looked for ways to make an accord between the French, the Empire, and their allies. He sought for ways to divert money from Rome and the papal court to send it to battle fronts against the Ottomans. He tried to find support for the besieged island of Rhodes. Through it all, he was not popular. Lacking a solidly established political regime, few initiatives materialized as he hoped.43

Ritual Success, February 1523–​April 1523 The fall of Rhodes to the Ottomans began to break the stalemate.44 By January 29, word reached Pope Adrian that Rhodes had fallen. The pope responded by redoubling his efforts to gain allies against the Turks. The

124  Brian Jeffrey Maxson Venetians learned of the news on February 1, which was then followed up on February 3 with a letter from their diplomat in Rome describing the pope’s reaction. In response to the letter, the Venetians voted that their six orators must depart by the first week of Lent to offer obedience to the pope or face a fine of 500 ducats. In Rome, by February 7, all but four cardinals had returned to the city. The Florentines were slower to respond. Despite the new flurry of activity across the Italian peninsula, Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici remained outside of Rome.45 The Florentines did re-​elect their own diplomats on February 13.46 But then delay began again. Obedience missions symbolically expressed the view that a new pope was legitimate as a spiritual and political power. It was the formal recognition of a pope’s ability to establish and/​or maintain a new political regime. Through financial changes, attempts at alliance building, threats to elect new cardinals, and negotiations with existing ones, Adrian had been trying for months to establish a means of exercising his prerogatives as pope. By remaining outside of Rome, the cardinals had been hindered the pope’s ability to build the partnerships necessary to meet his goals. Meanwhile, by delaying their diplomatic missions the Florentines and Venetians avoided committing to an unknown political actor in a highly combustible Europe split between the Empire and the French. Even when the plague was undeniably subsiding and Rhodes had created the perception of a real threat from the Ottoman Turks, after their initial actions both the Venetians and the Florentines began to drag their feet once again. In doing so, they continued to deny Adrian the recognition that he needed to, at the very least, legitimate a new political regime in Rome.47 The reasons for their continued delays differed, but the key political significance of both Florence and Venice meant major problems for the struggling pope. The conflict between Cardinal Francesco Soderini and Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici was at the center of Pope Adrian’s problem with Florence. As long as Adrian kept trying to pursue a universal European league, he also had to find a way to pacify the pro-​imperial Cardinal de’ Medici and the pro-​ French Cardinal Soderini, both of whom also wanted to control Florence. Cardinal Giulio remained outside of Rome throughout the winter of 1522–​ 1523.48 Not coincidently, the Florentines continually delayed the departure of their diplomats to Adrian: on March 5, 13, 16, 20, 31, April 5, and then again on April 8 with an order that the diplomats depart on April 10.49 What had changed on April 10? After the fall of Rhodes, reports about plague in Rome had dramatically decreased. Plague continued to be present in Rome, but it had not been a dominant focus in diplomatic dispatches since early February at the latest. Thus, changes in the pandemic alone cannot explain the new Florentine position. Rather, or perhaps in addition to the lessened pandemic, the political situation was different. Most importantly, the pope was increasingly amenable to an alliance with the emperor, regardless of French participation, to form an anti-​Ottoman alliance. Certainly, as late as March 12, the Venetian diplomat related that Pope Adrian had cried,

The Failed Regime of Pope Adrian VI  125 with regards to Rhodes, “Poor Christianity!”; that he could die happy if he could secure a union of princes.50 But soon after Pope Adrian seems to have increasingly accepted a league with both the French and the Empire was not going to happen.51 By design or by surprise, the fall of Cardinal Soderini opened a new path. The Florentine recognition of Pope Adrian closely tracked the downfall of Cardinal Francesco Soderini and Pope Adrian’s closer ties to Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici. On March 21, the emperor declared Soderini and his allies as rebels.52 On April 1, the Venetian diplomat recorded worsening relations between the French and the papacy. The King had demanded Milan in exchange for French help, a response viewed as “haughty.” Relations between the pope and the French Cardinal of Auch began to deteriorate.53 Then, around April 6, Medici operatives intercepted letters sent by Francesco Soderini to the king of France. In the letters, Soderini wrote about the promise of a French invasion of Italy and the removal of the imperial forces.54 There is no direct evidence, but the timing of the last Florentine delay in their delegation –​April 8 –​seems hardly coincidental. On April 16, the Florentine congratulatory embassy arrived in Rome.55 While the ambassadors were in town, ten days later, on April 26, Soderini was confronted with the intercepted letters. On April 27, Francesco Soderini was arrested. On the same day, shortly after entering Rome “with much ceremony,” Cardinal de’ Medici met with the pope to discuss a general league.56 Also on the same day, the Florentines delivered their obedience speech to the pope.57 By May 2, the Venetian diplomat reported that Giulio enjoyed “great favor with the pope.”58 It was influence that he would enjoy until Adrian’s death four months later in September, and influence that helped Giulio’s election as pope soon after.59 Thus recognition and support for Adrian in Rome came only after Adrian’s own commitment to Giulio de’ Medici and his causes. Given more time, perhaps it could have led to a solid and effective papacy based on a political regime tied to Cardinal de’ Medici, his allies, and the emperor. However, Adrian’s death soon after meant that he was unable to ever build upon that foundation. The Venetians also delayed their recognition and support of Adrian’s struggling papacy until April. Through much of March, Venetian diplomats presented reasons that they could not go on the mission and the government, in turn, delayed their mandated departure date. In mid-​March, the elected men were warned that they had to leave within a week. They finally departed on March 21 and delivered their obedience oration on April 20.60 They had different reasons to delay. Pope Adrian needed a Florentine ally for finances and influence in the College of Cardinals, but he needed Venice because of that city’s power and territories near the Ottomans. In the recent past, Venice had been allied with the French against Pope Leo X and the emperor. After Milan fell to the Empire and after Pope Adrian was elected, the new pope initially pressured Venice to make peace with the emperor and his allies while also maintaining good relations with the French. Venice

126  Brian Jeffrey Maxson delayed. However, as April turned to May, it became increasingly difficult to negotiate with the imperial and English diplomats while putting off the French. Thus, the Venetians began negotiating an alliance between the papacy, the Empire, the English, and themselves. The French pressed them for answers.61 The negotiations continued despite the death of Doge Antonio Grimani and the election of the new Doge Andrea Gritti. On April 13, the Venetian diplomat reported that “the French cardinal of Auch was with the pope, saying there that he had come from France to Rome to see about making some agreement or treaty between the most Christian majesty and Caesar, and not seeing a way to that outcome, he wished to depart, because remaining there to negotiate on behalf of his king, he doubted that the pope would not place in him jail. Then the pope gave license to him that he could depart at his pleasure.”62 Long negotiations had opened up a window for the Venetians to move away from the French and into a new alliance with impunity. They seized the opportunity. Thus, in some ways the Venetians represented a stark contrast to Florence and Papal Rome. In Florence, the death of Leo X had ushered in a series of attempted revolts to try to enact a regime change based upon new families in power, new governmental institutions, and new alliances abroad. In Rome, similarly, the new Pope Adrian attempted to create his own political regime with allies and foci that were different than his predecessor’s had been, even as the actual apparatuses of government would remain unchanged. In Venice, by contrast, in this case broader diplomatic initiatives continued from one doge to the next. Yet, in other ways Venice mirrored both Florence and the cardinals. After all, Venetian recognition and support for Pope Adrian only began when he began pursuing politics that could fit their own interests.

Epilogue, May 1523–​September 1523 Ultimately, Pope Adrian’s efforts to establish a new political regime distinct from his predecessor bore little fruit. The alliance with Venice and many other powers was concluded on August 3, 4, and 5.63 The new emphasis upon an alliance without the French formed ever stronger partnerships with Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici. The canonization of Antonio Pierozzi was one component in their partnerships, as was the imperial alliance, economic continuities from Pope Leo X, and the fall of Soderini.64 The Florentine Filippo Strozzi had been the key financer of Pope Leo’s initiatives. Filippo then continued in that role during the papacy of Adrian, and then under the new Medici Pope Giulio as well. Adrian seems to have relied more broadly on the same bankers as Leo had.65 Those connections augmented Cardinal Giulio’s already considerable influence. After his own election as pope, Giulio, now Clement VII, at least initially, continued the policies that he had helped direct under Pope Adrian, and the power bases begun by his cousin, Pope Leo X. Medici power over Florence was temporarily secured. The many

The Failed Regime of Pope Adrian VI  127 threats of regime change in 1522 and 1523 all fizzled out. Pope Adrian’s early death made him a brief pause between a regime of two separate but similar Medici popes, who formed one united political regime in Rome and Florence across two decades. But it was an interlude revealing of the formal and informal give and take that underlay the establishment of political regimes during the sixteenth century. Diplomatic ritual provided states with the tools to carefully time their formal recognition of a new ruler. In the case of Adrian VI, failed rituals reveal that the pope was an outsider to the political culture of the Italian peninsula. After those failures, the Florentines, Venetians, and cardinals all delayed further formal recognition of the pope, presumably to get a better feel for the new pope and/​or maneuver into stronger positions of influence. Their delays hindered Pope Adrian’s ability to establish a new political regime that he could use to implement policies aimed at fiscal austerity and the creation of a trans-​European alliance headed by the pope. After the fall of Rhodes and Cardinal Francesco Soderini, Adrian switched his tactics to a closer alliance with Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici and the Empire. Pope Adrian’s death soon after leaves open the question of whether that new approach would have created a political regime interchangeable from the Medici before and after him, or something different entirely.

Notes 1 On Pope Adrian, see especially, with further leads, Mario Rosa, “Adriano VI, papa,” Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 1 (1960), accessed August 4, 2021, www.trecc​ ani.it/​encic​lope​dia/​papa-​adri​ano-​vi_​(Diz​iona​rio-​Bio​graf​i co)/​; Sheryl E. Reiss, “Adrian VI, Clement VII, and Art,” in The Pontificate of Clement VII: History, Politics, Culture, eds. Kenneth Gouwens and Sheryl E. Reiss (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 341–​64; Paola De Capua, Eleggere il pontefice: Adriano VI tra politica e retorica (Messina: Centro Internazionale di Studi Umanistici, 2020). See also Michiel Verweij, ed., De paus uit de lage landen Adrianus VI, 1459–​1523 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2009); Wim Decock, “Adrian of Utrecht (1459–​1523) at the Crossroads of Law and Morality: Conscience, Equity, and the Legal Nature of Early Modern Practical Theology,“ The Legal History Review 81, no. 3–​4 (2013): 573–​593, Constantin Ritter von Höfler, Papst Adrian VI. 1522–​ 1523 (Vienna: Wilhelm Braumüller, 1880). 2 On this political situation, see Michael Mallett, and Christine Shaw, The Italian Wars, 1494–​1559, 2nd ed. (Milton Park: Routledge, 2019), 162–​164. 3 Marino Sanudo, I diarii, eds. Federico Stefani, Guglielmo Berchet, and Nicholò Barozzi (Venice: Fratelli Visentini Tipografi, 1890), Vol. 32, pp. 204–​208. 4 On obedience missions, see Brian Maxson, The Humanist World of Renaissance Florence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). On papal elections and the vacant See, see Miles Pattenden, Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy, 1450–​1700 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), John M. Hunt, The Vacant See in Early Modern Rome: A Social History of the Papal Interregnum (Leiden: Brill, 2016).

128  Brian Jeffrey Maxson 5 Ludwig Pastor, The History of the Popes, 2nd ed. (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd, 1899), vol. 9, p. 6. 6 Alexander Lee, Machiavelli: His Life and Times (London: Picador, 2020), 492 and J.N. Stephens, The Fall of the Florentine Republic, 1512–​1530 (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1983), 117. 7 Pastor, vol. 9, pp. 14–​25. See also Pattenden, 148. 8 Melissa Meriam Bullard, Filippo Strozzi and the Medici: Favor & Finance in Sixteenth-​Century Florence & Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 130. 9 Pastor, vol. 9, pp. 44–​49. 10 Pastor, vol. 9, pp. 58–​63. A handful of letters between Adrian and the emperor are published at Karl Lanz, Correspondenz des Kaisers Karl V, vol. 1 (Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus, 1844). For a contrary view that the cardinals were urging the pope to come to Rome as quickly as possible, see Licurgo Cappelletti, “Il pontefice Adriano VI a Livorno e a Piombino,” Miscellanea livornese di storia e di erudizione 1 (1895): 41–​43, here 41. 11 Lee, 492–​498. See also Stephens, 120. On this conspiracy, see Patricia J. Osmond, “The Conspiracy of 1522 against Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici: Machiavelli and ‘gli esempii delli antiqui’,” in The Pontificate of Clement VII: History, Politics, Culture, ed. Kenneth Gouwens and Sheryl E. Reiss (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 55–​72; Sheryl E. Reiss, “Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici as a Patron of Art, 1513–​ 1523” PhD Dissertation (Princeton University, 1992), 542–​543. 12 Lee, 503. 13 ASF Sig.Leg. 27, 26r. See also Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Carteggi delle magistrature dell’età repubblicana: Otto di Pratica, (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1987), 737. That inventory also cites the letters of credentials at ASF Otto di Pratica, Legazioni e Commissarie 15, c. 161rv, as well as letters from the Florentine orators in Pisa and Livorno (not seen). For another account, see Biagio Ortiz, Descrizione del viaggio di Adriano VI pont. mass. dalla Spagna fino a Roma con gli avvenimenti del suo pontificato, trans. Niccoló de Lagua (Rome: Pagliarini, 1790), 58–​59. 14 Sanudo, Vol. 33, p. 415. Sanudo lists the place as Villa Franca. BAV Vat.Lat 12276, 42 records that the news reached the College of Cardinals, via Cardinal de’ Medici, on the 17th. 15 For the Roman debate see that BAV Vat.Lat. 1227, 42–​43. For Venice, see Sanudo, Vol. 33, pp. 415–​416. 16 Sanudo, Vol. 33, p. 416. 17 Cappelletti, 42–​43. 18 Sanudo, Vol. 33, p. 426. 19 Reiss, “Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici as a Patron of Art, 1513–​1523,” 544. BAV Vat.Lat. 12276, 43 records that Adrian and the cardinal entered Civitavecchia together on August 27. For another account of this entrance, see Ortiz, 61. 20 Stephens, 123. 21 ASF Sig.leg. 27, 26v. See also Giuseppe Bianchini da Prato, and Roberto Titi, eds., La coltivazione di Luigi Alamanni e le api di Giovanni Rucellai (Milan: Società Tipografica de’ Classici Italiani, 1804), 75–​76. 22 Sanudo, Vol. 33, p. 428: “un bel arco triumphale, nel quale spendevano ducati 500…Il Pontefice, intendendo questo, comandò non si seguisse l’opera, dicendo che questi triumphi erano cose da gentili, et non da christiani religiosi; et cosi

The Failed Regime of Pope Adrian VI  129 restò l’opera interota.” More details are at pp. 432–​433. Ortiz, 70, also mentions this triumphal arch but is silent about the pope’s negative response to it. 23 This included even differences in artistic taste. See Reiss, “Adrian VI, Clement VII, and Art,” in The Pontificate of Clement VII: History, Politics, Culture, 347. 24 Sanudo, Vol. 33, pp. 428–​429: “La pompa fu mediocre, anzi molto positiva, parte per esser il Pontefice di natura aliena da simel cose, parte per esser tutti questi cortesani di Papa Leone exhausti et falliti.” On the plague, see Anna Esposito, “ ‘Roma pare una abatia spogliata’. La peste ‘romana’ del 1522–​ 1523: Documenti e testimonianze,” Roma nel Rinascimento (2020): 281–​301. See also Ortiz, 66ff, Esposito, 298–​299. 25 Rosa. 26 Sanudo, Vol. 33, p. 431. 27 Sanudo, Vol. 33, pp. 429–​430. See also Ortiz, 77–​78., which describes Adrian’s conflict with the cardinals within days of his coronation ceremony. 28 On this cardinal, see K. J. P. Lowe, “Questions of Income and Expenditure in Renaissance Rome: A Case Study of Cardinal Francesco Armellini,” Studies in Church History 24 (1987): 175–​188. 29 Sanudo, Vol. 33, pp. 419–​426. 30 Sanudo, Vol. 33, p. 471: “Dio voglia vadino presto a Roma, ma tegno che andarano temporizzando per camin, per veder il progresso di la peste.” 31 Sanudo, Vol. 33, pp. 439, 449, 461, 474. 32 Sanudo, Vol. 33, p. 480: “debbano scriver al Papa il zonzer suo a Bologna, et che Sua Santita comanda quello l’habbino a far.” 33 Sanudo, Vol. 33, p. 493: “’l vedeva quasi che l’aiere di Roma era coroto, e feva pensier etiam lui di levarsi, però era meglio non venisseno più avanti, et in altro tempo li vederà volentiera.” 34 Sanudo, Vol. 33, pp. 482–​483, 493, and 496–​497. 35 Compare the comments at Ortiz, 86. 36 Esposito. 37 Sanudo, Vol. 33, pp. 449–​474, here 474: “la peste era alquanto cessata, et ne moriva da 14 al zorno.” 38 Sanudo, Vol. 39, pp. 471–​493 and 505–​531, here at 529: “la peste e più che mai fusse” See also the comments by Francesco Guicciardini on November 20 at Francesco Guicciardini, Le Lettere, ed. Pierre Jodogne, vol. 7 (Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per L’Età Moderna e Contemporanea, 1999), 215. 39 Sanudo, Vol. 33, p. 540: “So quello zerchate, ch’io vadi con la corte in Fiandra.” 40 Sanudo, Vol. 33, pp. 559–​560, 583, and 596–​597. 41 Sanudo, Vol. 33, pp. 470, 511, and 523. The plague of 1522–​1523 was not equally spread across Italy. For example, in Florence, the plague was not particularly severe. Alan S. Morrison, Julius Kirshner, and Anthony Molho, “Epidemics in Renaissance Florence,” American Journal of Public Health 75, no. 5 (1985): 528–​535. 42 Sanudo, Vol. 33, pp. 596–​598. 43 Sanudo, Vol. 33, pp. 440, 443–​446, 448–​449, 470, 480, 482–​483, 492, 531, 583, and 619–​620. The account at Ortiz, 97–​98 is adamant on this point. “Io posso assicurare di aver veduto co’ miei proprj occhi trentadue di queste lettere mandate a tutti i principi cristiani, e a tutti i potentati, magnati e signori, che non riconoscono superiore, altri de’ quali erano partigiani dell’imperatore, altri del re

130  Brian Jeffrey Maxson di Francia.” See also Adrian’s moves against the cardinals described at Pattenden, 206. Also on Adrian’s unpopularity, see Pastor, vol. 9, pp. 98–​100. 44 On the continuation of the plague, see Esposito 295. 45 Sanudo, vol. 33, pp. 605 and 611–​615. 46 ASF Sig.Leg. 27, 28r. 47 For the plague subsiding, see Sanudo, vol. 33, p. 615. 48 Sanudo records his absence on January 31 and February 7. See Sanudo, vol. 33, pp. 612 and 614–​615. 49 ASF, Sig.Leg. 27, 28r-​28v. Sanudo learned about the Florentine election of six men on March 9, although the Venetian diplomat in Rome already knew by March 5. See Sanudo, vol. 34, p. 22. 50 Sanudo, vol. 34, p. 28: “Povera christianità!” 51 See the changing relations between Adrian, the emperor, and the French described at G.A. Bergenroth, ed., Calendar of State Papers, Spain, Volume 2, 1509–​1525 (London: 1866), pp. 531–​550. 52 K. J. P. Lowe, Church and Politics in Renaissance Italy: The Life and Career of Cardinal Francesco Soderini (1453–​1524) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 126. 53 Sanudo, vol. 34, p. 93: “una risposta dil Re assà superba”. 54 Lowe, 132–​133. 55 Vat.Lat. 12276, 54. See also Sanudo, vol. 34, p. 102. 56 Lowe, 133–​ 137. Sanudo, vol. 34, p. 122: “erea intrato in Roma molto pomposamente el cardinal di Medici vien di Fiorenza”. The imperial ambassador in Rome reported that the pope met in secret with Cardinal de’ Medici about Soderini on April 25. See Bergenroth, 544. Pastor records that Cardinal de’ Medici entered Rome on April 23. See Pastor, vol. 9, p. 187. 57 Vat.Lat. 12276, 55. For this speech, see Guido Mazzoni, Le opere di Giovanni Rucellai (Bologna: Nicola Zanichelli, 1887). I am currently preparing an article on this oration. 58 Sanudo, vol. 34, p. 123. The Italian is “gran riputation col Papa.” 59 On Adrian’s death and Medici influence on his later pontificate, see Lowe, pp. 134–​139. See also Giovanni Cambi, Istorie, ed. Fr. Ildefonso di San Luigi (Firenze 1785), pp. 324–​329, Eugenio Albèri, ed., Relazioni degli ambasciatori veneti al senato, vol. 7 (Florence: Società editrice fiorentina, 1846), p. 125. This sort of influence contrasted with the reliance upon family and clients of other early modern popes. See Jennifer Mara Desilva, “Articulating Work and Family: Lay Papal Relatives in the Papal States, 1420–​ 1549,” Renaissance Quarterly 69, no. 1 (2016): 1–​39. 60 Sanudo, vol. 34, pp. 23, 28, 38 and 102. 61 On these complexities, see Sanudo, vol. 33, pp. 617–​618, Vol. 34, pp. 104–​109, 114–​117, and 122. See also Kenneth M. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant (1204–​1571) (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1976–​ 84), 218–​219. 62 Sanudo, vol. 34, p. 149: “il cardinale Aus francese era stato dal Papa, dicendoli che l’era venuto di Franza a Roma per veder di far qualche acordo, overo trieve tra la Christianissima Maestà et Cesare, et non li vedendo il modo, si voleva partir, perchè, stando li convegneria far zente per il Re suo a dubitaria il Papa non lo mettesse in castello. Unde il Papa li ha dato licentia che ‘l si parti al suo piacer.”

The Failed Regime of Pope Adrian VI  131 63 Setton, 218–​219. On the period after May, see Marco Foscari, Dispacci da Roma, 1523–​1525, ed. Giuseppe Gullino (Venice 2012), Giuseppe Gullino, Marco Foscari (1477–​1551): L’attivitá politica e diplomatica tra Venezia, Roma e Firenze (Milan: F. Angeli, 2000). 64 On the canonization of Pierozzi, see Lorenzo Polizzotto, “The Making of a Saint: The Canonization of St. Antonino, 1516–​1523,” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 22, no. 3 (1992): 353–​81. See also Sally J. Cornelison, Art and the Relic Cult of St. Antoninus in Renaissance Florence (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2012), 24. 65 Bullard, 128.

Bibliography Unpublished Sources Florence Archivio di Stato, Signori, Legazioni e Commissarie Vatican City Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vaticana Latina

Published Sources Albèri, Eugenio, ed., Relazioni degli ambasciatori veneti al senato. Vol. 7. Florence: Società editrice fiorentina, 1846. Archivio di Stato di Firenze. Carteggi delle magistrature dell’età repubblicana: Otto di Pratica, Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1987. Bergenroth, G.A., ed., Calendar of State Papers, Spain, Volume 2, 1509–​ 1525. London, 1866. Bullard, Melissa Meriam. Filippo Strozzi and the Medici: Favor & Finance in Sixteenth-​Century Florence & Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. Cambi, Giovanni. Istorie, edited by Fr. Ildefonso di San Luigi. Firenze, 1785. Cappelletti, Licurgo. “Il pontefice Adriano VI a Livorno e a Piombino.” Miscellanea livornese di storia e di erudizione 1 (1895): 41–​43. Capua, Paola De. Eleggere il pontefice: Adriano VI tra politica e retorica. Messina: Centro Internazionale di Studi Umanistici, 2020. Cornelison, Sally J. Art and the Relic Cult of St. Antoninus in Renaissance Florence. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2012. Decock, Wim. “Adrian of Utrecht (1459–​ 1523) at the Crossroads of Law and Morality: Conscience, Equity, and the Legal Nature of Early Modern Practical Theology.” The Legal History Review 81, no. 3–​4 (2013): 573–​593. Desilva, Jennifer Mara. “Articulating Work and Family: Lay Papal Relatives in the Papal States, 1420–​1549.” Renaissance Quarterly 69, no. 1 (2016): 1–​39. Esposito, Anna. “‘Roma pare una abatia spogliata’. La peste ‘romana’ del 1522–​ 1523: Documenti e testimonianze.” Roma nel Rinascimento (2020): 281–​301. Foscari, Marco. Dispacci da Roma, 1523–​ 1525. Edited by Giuseppe Gullino. Venice, 2012.

132  Brian Jeffrey Maxson Guicciardini, Francesco. Le Lettere. Edited by Pierre Jodogne. Vol. 7. Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per L’Età Moderna e Contemporanea, 1999. Gullino, Giuseppe. Marco Foscari (1477–​1551): L’attivitá politica e diplomatica tra Venezia, Roma e Firenze. Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2000. Höfler, Constantin Ritter von. Papst Adrian VI. 1522–​ 1523. Vienna: Wilhelm Braumüller, 1880. Hunt, John M. The Vacant See in Early Modern Rome: A Social History of the Papal Interregnum. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Lanz, Karl. Correspondenz des Kaisers Karl V. Vol. 1. Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus, 1844. Lee, Alexander. Machiavelli: His Life and Times. London: Picador, 2020. Lowe, K J P. Church and Politics in Renaissance Italy: The Life and Career of Cardinal Francesco Soderini (1453–​1524). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Lowe, K.J.P. “Questions of Income and Expenditure in Renaissance Rome: A Case Study of Cardinal Francesco Armellini.” Studies in Church History 24 (1987): 175–​188. Mallett, Michael, and Christine Shaw. The Italian Wars, 1494–​1559. 2nd ed. Milton Park: Routledge, 2019. Maxson, Brian. The Humanist World of Renaissance Florence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Mazzoni, Guido. Le opere di Giovanni Rucellai. Bologna: Nicola Zanichelli, 1887. Morrison, Alan S., Julius Kirshner, and Anthony Molho. “Epidemics in Renaissance Florence.” American Journal of Public Health 75, no. 5 (1985): 528–​535. Ortiz, Biagio. Descrizione del viaggio di Adriano VI pont. mass. dalla Spagna fino a Roma con gli avvenimenti del suo pontificato. Trans. Niccoló de Lagua. Rome: Pagliarini, 1790. Osmond, Patricia J. “The Conspiracy of 1522 against Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici: Machiavelli and ‘gli esempii delli antiquii’.” In The Pontificate of Clement VII: History, Politics, Culture. Ed. Kenneth Gouwens and Sheryl E. Reiss, 55–​72. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005. Pastor, Ludwig. The History of the Popes. Vol. 2. 2nd ed. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd, 1899. Pattenden, Miles. Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy, 1450–​ 1700. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Polizzotto, Lorenzo. “The Making of a Saint: The Canonization of St. Antonino, 1516–​ 1523.” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 22, no. 3 (1992): 353–​381. Prato, Giuseppe Bianchini da, and Roberto Titi, eds. La coltivazione di Luigi Alamanni e le api di Giovanni Rucellai. Milan: Società Tipografica de’ Classici Italiani, 1804. Reiss, Sheryl E. “Adrian VI, Clement VII, and Art.” In The Pontificate of Clement VII: History, Politics, Culture. Ed. Kenneth Gouwens and Sheryl E. Reiss, 341–​ 364. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005. Reiss, Sheryl E. “Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici as a Patron of Art, 1513–​1523.” Phd Dissertation. Princeton University, 1992. Rosa, Mario. “Adriano VI, papa.” Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 1 (1960). Accessed August 4, 2021. www.trecc​ani.it/​encic​lope​dia/​papa-​adri​ano-​vi_​(Diz​ iona​rio-​ Biografico)/​.

The Failed Regime of Pope Adrian VI  133 Sanudo, Marino. I diarii. Eds. Federico Stefani, Guglielmo Berchet, and Nicholò Barozzi. Venice: Fratelli Visentini Tipografi, 1890. Setton, Kenneth M. The Papacy and the Levant (1204–​1571). Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1976–​1984. Stephens, J.N. The Fall of the Florentine Republic, 1512–​1530. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983. Verweij, Michiel, ed., De paus uit de lage landen Adrianus VI, 1459–​ 1523. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2009.

7 The Prince’s Body Imagining Regime Change in Mid-​Sixteenth-​Century Florence Nicholas Scott Baker

The Piazza della Signoria in contemporary Florence provides a study in contrasts between the political imaginary of the civic republic of the fifteenth-​ century city and the grand duchy of the late sixteenth (Figure 7.1). Outside the western entry of the Palazzo Vecchio stands a replica of Michelangelo’s David, adjacent to where the original once stood; its naked form the embodiment of the stato of the Florentine Republic and the virtù of its office-​holding class. North of the palace, roughly equidistant between its rusticated walls and those of the surrounding buildings, in line with the David, stands Giambologna’s bronze equestrian statue of Cosimo I de’ Medici. The mature, bearded, and armored body of the prince stands as the embodiment of the grand-​ducal stato and virtù of its ruler. This chapter examines this shift in political imaginary, which accompanied the change in regime and government that occurred in Florence in the middle decades of the sixteenth century, as the Medici principality supplanted the republican constitution of previous centuries. The backdrop to this transformation was the Italian Wars, the decades-​ long struggle between the monarchs of France and Spain (first the Trastámara and then the Habsburgs) for predominance on the Italian peninsula. As John Gagné has recently observed, this was essentially a conflict over the nature of political power in Italian city-​states: either local, personalized rule anchored in local relationships, or external rule from a distance anchored by force.1 This was particularly true for the duchy of Milan and the kingdom of Naples, the two polities over which the ultramontane monarchies claimed sovereignty, but its impact was also felt across the peninsula. The governors of Italian states, both principalities and republics, had to make decisions about which monarch they aligned with and how close a relationship they could afford and manage without losing their own autonomy. In Florence, the struggle between the French and Iberian crowns had shaped the course of politics from Charles VIII’s initial expedition to claim the regno in 1494, which provoked the collapse of the Medicean regime. The family returned to power in the city in 1512 with the military support of the Spanish viceroy in Naples due in part to the French alliance of the Soderini government. DOI: 10.4324/9781003199021-8

Regime Change in Florence  135

Figure 7.1  Piazza della Signoria, Florence. Credit: Photo by Zolli /​Wikimedia Commons /​© Creative Commons CC BY-​SA 3.0.

Expelled once more in 1527, in the wake of the sack of Rome, the Medici returned for the final time in 1530 again by virtue of Spanish-​imperial arms. Within two years of this restoration, Pope Clement VII (Giulio de’ Medici) effected the dismantling of the republican constitution and the creation instead of a hereditary principality. Alessandro de’ Medici, apparently the natural son of Lorenzo di Piero, duke of Urbino, became the first member of the family to govern Florence as a titled ruler: duke of the Florentine Republic. Following his assassination in January 1537, the Florentine Senate installed a member of the cadet branch of the family, Cosimo di Giovanni, as the new prince. Cosimo I de’ Medici –​as he has become known to posterity –​continued the process of regime change begun in 1532, systematically removing any real authority from the remaining civic magistracies in favor of his own appointed ministers and advisors.2 This process of institutional transformation, and the attendant change in political culture, was accompanied by a transformation in the political imaginary of Florence, in the ways that the stato was embodied, represented, and made manifest. The effects of this transformation remain visible in the Piazza della Signoria today. It occurred through a transition from figures that embodied the complex republican political imaginary and represented the governing councils of the city to the presentation of the actual body of the ruling prince. The republican political imaginary had been synthetic, metaphorical, even abstracted; that of the Medici principality was present and specific. To affect the transition between these two imaginaries, artists and patrons had to develop a new visual lexicon of power and authority in the city. This process began in ephemeral artworks and developed through portraits, both

136  Nicholas Scott Baker painted and sculpted, before culminating in the equestrian statue of Cosimo I in the Piazza della Signoria. The republican political imaginary emphasized unity, idealizing the heterogenous office-​holding class of the city as an egalitarian fraternity. The myths of liberty and equality that girded the republican constitution suggested that all the members of the office-​holding class, from butchers and retail cloth merchants to lawyers and trans-​continental merchant bankers, enjoyed an equal possibility of participating in government.3 Furthermore, this government ostensibly operated as a collective, representing the shared wisdom and will of the men currently holding office. The imagery of the republic reflected and helped to constitute these ideals and myths, eschewing the representation of individuals in favor of metaphorical, historical, or biblical figures that could embody the stato as a unified collective and fraternity. The earliest such figure seems to have been the Hercules that adorned the seal of the Florentine government from at least 1281. No specimens of the seal remain extant, but an eighteenth-​century woodcut accords with descriptions from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It depicts Hercules, muscular and naked facing the viewer but with his head turned in profile to his right. His right hand holds a club that rests on his shoulder, while the skin of the Nemean Lion drapes his left arm. The words FLORENTINORVM. SIGILLVM encircle the image.4 Representing virtù, fortitude, and triumph over all challenges, the Greek demigod symbolized the power of Florence, sending a clear message to friends and enemies alike. In the first decade of the fifteenth century, following the city’s struggle with Giangaleazzo Visconti, the figure acquired specifically republican associations as a victor over the so-​called tyranny of the duke of Milan. Soon after, a now-​lost mural painting of the hero might have been created for the Palazzo Vecchio, while in the latter part of the century, Lorenzo il Magnifico de’ Medici surrounded himself with Herculean imagery.5 Chronologically, the next figure in the political pantheon of the Florentine republic was the Marzocco, originally a gilded stone lion, possibly standing atop a wolf. Now lost, its replacement by Donatello, a lion holding a shield displaying the lily of the Florentine commune, survives (Figure 7.2). Leonine imagery played a role in Florence from the mid-​thirteenth century, but the original Marzocco sculpture was probably installed on the ringheria (the raised platform in front of the Palazzo Vecchio) in the late fourteenth century.6 Along with the obviously martial and signorial associations of the lion (the name Marzocco may have derived from Mars, the Roman god of war), the figure also invoked prophetic, millennial ideals associated with the Lion of Judah: belief in Florence’s civic destiny as a New Jerusalem and a New Rome, the politico-​religious ambitions that sacralized the Florentine government.7 From its installation, the Marzocco stood as a symbol of the stato, embodying its virtù, power, and authority as well as the divine justness of its rule.

Regime Change in Florence  137

Figure 7.2 Donatello, Marzocco (1420), Sandstone, inlaid marble. Florence: Museo del Bargello. Credit: Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi –​ courtesy of the Ministero per i beni e le Attività Culturali.

The biblical David, however, would become the best-​known and most enduring embodiment of Florentine stato in its republican constitution thanks to Michelangelo’s imposing sixteenth-​century sculpture. Dante had associated Hercules with the figure of shepherd who became king of Israel and Judah in De monarchia (ca. 1313), which may have provided the initial source of inspiration for the adoption of the figure.8 In 1416, around a century before the creation of Michelangelo’s giant statue, the Signoria ordered the installation of a smaller marble David by Donatello in the Palazzo Vecchio against a backdrop of specially painted heraldic lilies (Figure 7.3). An inscription accompanied the figure, emphasizing its political meaning: “Pro patria fortiter dimicantibus etiam adversus terribilissimos hostes deus prestat victoriam” (To those striving boldly for the fatherland, God provides victory against even the most terrible enemies).9 Like Hercules, David represented triumph over seemingly impossible odds with the addition of the element of divine favor to his victory. The installation of Donatello’s marble, two years after the death of Ladislaus of Naples curtailed another threat to Florentine independence, vested the figure with messages of civic significance. David

138  Nicholas Scott Baker

Figure 7.3 Donatello David (ca. 1416) Marble, Florence: Museo del Bargello. Credit: Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi –​courtesy of the Ministero per i beni e le Attività Culturali.

stood, like Hercules and the Marzocco, as the embodiment of the virtù and authority of the Florentine stato. The 1495 appropriation by the Signoria of Donatello’s bronze David and his Judith, which bore a similar political message of resistance to tyranny and opposition to external foes, together with Antonio Pollaiuolo’s Hercules panels from the Medici collection reinforced the role these figures played in the city’s political imaginary. The placement of Michelangelo’s David outside the main entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio in 1504, and the 1508 plan for a paired Hercules that was only fulfilled by Baccio Bandinelli’s much-​ maligned Hercules and Cacus in 1534, represented the culmination of a political imaginary formed over two centuries. This tradition used heroic biblical or mythical figures that stood for the Florentine government –​itself imagined as an egalitarian fraternity –​embodying its ambitions, its virtù, its fortitude, the justness of its actions, and the righteousness of its rule.10 The brief rule of Alessandro de’ Medici left little mark on the political culture, institutions, and material fabric of Florence; and what traces he did leave were largely erased following his assassination.11 So it fell to his successor to re-​shape the political imaginary and fabric of the city. Cosimo

Regime Change in Florence  139 I’s reign in Florence depended, initially at least, on the endorsement and military support of Emperor Charles V. Powerful enemies, such as Pope Paul III and King Francis I of France, opposed the continuation of the Medici regime in Florence; the former in preference to his own family’s ambitions, the latter in the hopes of prising the city away from the Habsburg orbit. Over the years of his reign, Cosimo adeptly negotiated his position of weakness –​ the emperor had initially hesitated to bestow his recognition –​into one of relative strength. He made his person and state a key node of the Habsburg axis on the Italian peninsula, which linked the emperor’s directly ruled territories of Milan and Naples with the Medici in Florence, the Gonzaga in Mantua, and the Doria in Genoa.12 In this regard, Cosimo’s public imagery had to thread the needle between local, personal rule and his obligation to the external power of Charles V’s empire without offending either. The transformed political imaginary of Florence managed this, presenting the prince’s body both as belonging to the traditional imagery of the Florentine stato and as part of the new imperial, Habsburg world, which extended far beyond the Mediterranean. The catalyzing moment in the creation of this new image occurred before Cosimo’s ascension to rule in Florence, indeed even before the creation of the Medici principality: the arrival of Emperor Charles V in Genoa on August 12, 1529 and his subsequent passage across northern Italy to his coronation in Bologna in February 1530, followed by his journey via Mantua and Trent to the Brenner Pass, which he reached on May 2. This triumphant procession coincided with the climacteric of the Florentine republic, besieged by an imperial army from October 1529 to August 1530. Indeed, Charles dallied in Mantua on his northward route in the hopes of being able to be present for the city’s surrender.13 The emperor’s presence in Italy transformed both the Habsburg imaginary and that of the peninsula’s ruling princes in a rich mutual exchange. The arrival in Italy of an emperor whose dynastic inheritance had given substance to claims of universal rule and the restoration of imperium in Europe, for the first time in centuries, provoked an alchemical reaction between geo-​political realities and humanistic ideals. At each point along his journey, at each city he entered, ephemeral art invoking the past glory of imperial Rome and the mythology of the Greco-​Roman world welcomed Charles, hailing him as a new Augustus or as Jupiter incarnate. The Italian artists and scholars who created these works and the iconographic programs underlying them influenced a shift in Habsburg imagery, away from the Burgundian and Austrian traditions toward a more classical, Romanized image of imperial power.14 The culture of the imperial court became increasingly Latinate and pan-​ European. This figurative re-​ casting of Charles coincided with the new direction in Habsburg policy, driven by Mercurino di Gattinara who had become the emperor’s chancellor in 1521. Gattinara’s strategies oriented away from the narrow Burgundian-​ centric vision of his predecessor, Guillaume de Croy, and toward a much grander ambition

140  Nicholas Scott Baker for imperial power that made Italy the keystone of Charles’ discontiguous personal patrimony.15 From the late 1520s, both the political imaginary and the policy of the emperor engaged the idea of the renovation and recreation of the Roman imperium. The most significant and influential work created during Charles’ first Italian sojourn, however, was neither ephemeral nor overtly classicizing, although it bore the imprint of ideas about the presentation of Caesarian majesty. In November 1529, the Venetian painter Titian completed at least one, but possibly two, portraits of the emperor in armor, a drawn sword in his hand. A gift from Federico II Gonzaga, marquis (and later duke) of Mantua, it drew upon Charles’s rich familial heritage, containing elements of Burgundian, Austrian, and Castilian royal portraiture, but combining them into something new and powerful.16 The portrait (or portraits) is now lost but known in copies: engravings by Agostino Veneziano and Giovanni Britto, and a painting by Peter Paul Rubens (Figure 7.4). Given his reputation for faithful reproduction, scholars consider the latter to be closest to the original; although plausibly Titian produced both a three-​quarter-​length version –​reproduced by Rubens –​ and a half-​length one, preserved in the two engravings. Dating to 1603, the Rubens portrait presents the emperor standing, contrapposto, slightly off center of the canvas, and angled obliquely toward the left-​hand-​side of the image plane. Dressed in elaborately detailed contemporary armor, his left hand rests on his hip, while his right holds a naked sword around waist height, its point raised but lost beyond the frame. The order of the Golden Fleece hangs around the emperor’s neck. He fixes the viewer with a coolly appraising gaze. At shoulder height behind the emperor, looms a reddish-​brown shape –​probably a cloth draped piece of furniture –​ upon which sits a plumed helmet.17 Although not all’antica, the portrait and Titian’s original drew upon notions of Caesarian majesty, particularly of the public presentation of stern immobility in imperial iconography. These in turn harmonized with more contemporary ideas about decorum, self-​control, and social status.18 The portrait had a powerful and immediate impact on the self-​presentation of Italy’s ruling princes. Over the decade of the 1530s, portraits in armor became a favored means for expressing authority, masculinity, and political legitimacy. The earliest, unsurprisingly, was made by Titian for Federico II Gonzaga, now lost but mentioned in diplomatic correspondence on February 5, 1530. Titian painted analogous portraits for Alfonso I d’Este, duke of Ferrara, sometime after 1530 and for Francesco Maria I della Rovere, duke of Urbino, between 1536 and 1538. In the same period, Bronzino depicted Francesco Maria’s son Guidobaldo in armor in 1531–​1532 and Giorgio Vasari did likewise for Alessandro de’ Medici in 1534. The adoption of this portrait type appears particularly striking and rapid because prior to 1530 portrayals of Italian princes had generally depicted them in courtly dress rather than armed. Pedro Berruguete’s Portrait of Federico da Montefeltro and his son Guildobaldo (Figure 7.5) from 1475

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Figure 7.4  Lucas Vosterman (after Peter Paul Rubens, after Titian) Portrait of Charles V in Armor (ca. 1620–​ 30), Engraving, 47.3  × 33 cm, New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. Credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York NY. Gift of Georgiana W. Sargent, in memory of John Osborne Sargent, 1924.

142  Nicholas Scott Baker

Figure 7.5 Pedro Berruguete (attr.) Portrait of Federico da Montefeltro and his son Guidobaldo (ca. 1475), oil on wood, 138.5 × 82.5 cm, Urbino: Galleria nazionale delle Marche. Credit: © 2022 Photo Scala, Florence –​courtesy of the Ministero per i beni e le Attività Culturali.

Regime Change in Florence  143 is a notable exception, but it is iconographically very different from the sixteenth-​century portraits. In the latter, an armored prince stands alone looking out confidently at the viewer. The standing pose lends a sense of readiness for action to the images. In Berruguete’s contrived scene, however, the duke of Urbino sits, ignoring the viewer, his attention absorbed by the book he is reading. A richly embroidered and lined robe covers his armor, making it less an object of focus than in the sixteenth-​century portraits. Before Titian’s portrait of Charles V, the Italian figures depicted armored and militarily ready were principally condottieri and not rulers.19 Unsurprisingly, given its impact, the Medici princes of Florence chose to adopt Titian’s new imperial portrait type. The context of this choice, however, was markedly different from that of the rulers of Ferrara, Mantua, and Urbino, city-​states with long histories of princely rule. Despite the political dominance of the Medici in the Tuscan city for much of the preceding century, Florence had remained determinedly republican in its political institutions, culture, and imaginary.20 It also had no tradition of individual portraits of governors. While men of the office-​holding class frequently chose to have themselves depicted wearing the red lucco associated with membership of the governing councils of the republic, the very uniformity of their garb manifested the ideal unity and fraternal equality of the city’s political culture and downplayed individuality.21 The wearing of courtly attire, let alone armor, was a provocation to the traditions of the city. When Lorenzo de’ Medici, duke of Urbino, became captain general of the Florentine Republic in the spring of 1515 –​a move that broke with the normal practice of appointing a foreigner –​Francesco Guicciardini recorded with some consternation, that he “removed his lucco and assumed more military garb.” Both Guicciardini and the chronicler Bartolomeo Cerretani also noted that the circle of young men around Lorenzo began dressing like soldiers.22 All of which made the adoption of a new political imaginary suitable to princely rule both more pressing and more fraught. The first attempt, Vasari’s awkward, allegory-​ laden Portrait of Alessandro de’ Medici in Armor (Figure 7.6) was not particularly successful, nor did it adhere to the model established by Titian.23 The entire composition was so convoluted and cluttered that Vasari felt compelled to provide a detailed explication of its manifold symbols to Ottaviano de’ Medici, who had commissioned it. It represented the antithesis of the simple, clean naturalism of Titian’s portraits. It did, however, represent the first Florentine foray into constructing a new visual lexicon of rulership and authority centered on the body of the prince. The abrupt and brutal end to Alessandro’s reign –​assassinated on the night of January 6/​7, 1537 by his cousin Lorenzino –​meant that this first attempt at creating a new, princely political imaginary was also truncated. Alessandro’s successor, Cosimo I, in many ways, could start anew with a clean slate. In art, as in the institutions of rule and the urban structures

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Figure 7.6 Giorgio Vasari, Portrait of Alessandro de’ Medici in Armor (1534), oil on panel, 157 x 114 cm, Florence: Galleria degli Uffizi. Credit: Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi –​courtesy of the Ministero per i beni e le Attività Culturali.

Regime Change in Florence  145 of Florence, Cosimo rather than Alessandro left a defining and enduring mark. Cosimo accomplished the creation of a new political imaginary that drew on Titian’s foundational portrait of Charles V, tying the Medici principality to the Habsburg empire, while also subtly invoking republican symbolism. In its earliest manifestations –​medals struck by Domenico di Polo and in the ephemeral artworks created for his 1539 wedding to Eleonora de Toledo, younger daughter of the Spanish viceroy of Naples –​ Cosimo leaned forcefully on personal ties to the emperor suggesting a bond that went beyond the political into the realms of blood and destiny. The decorations for the wedding celebration presented a history of mutual reliance between the Medici and the Spanish monarchy via a complex of figurative paintings and metaphorical allusions.24 The medals, with Cosimo’s portrait in profile on the obverse, made more direct appeals. One reverse featured an analogous profile portrait of the emperor, indicating the close bond between the two. A second, more allusive, depicted the zodiacal Capricorn together with the constellation known as the crown of Ariadne (Figure 7.7). These astrological signs were shared by Cosimo, Charles, and the Roman Emperor Augustus. The reverse implied that the two rulers were bound together not only by history and political loyalty but by destiny written in the heavens; a message underlined by the accompanying motto: ANIMI.CONSCIENTIA.ET.FIDVICA.FATI (Conscience of mind and faith in fate).25

Figure 7.7 Domenico di Polo, Portrait Medal of Cosimo I de’ Medici with Capricorn Reverse (ca. 1537), reverse, struck bronze, diameter 3.53 cm, Washington DC: National Gallery of Art. Credit: National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. Samuel H. Kress Collection.

146  Nicholas Scott Baker By the mid-​1540s, Cosimo I had grown into his role as ruler of the Florentine city-​state and entered a period of confidence and assertion. In 1543, with the aid of a 150,000 scudi persuasion paid to the emperor, the Medici prince regained control over the fortresses of Florence and Livorno, which had been garrisoned by imperial troops since the death of Alessandro. Around this time, he began to sign himself, “the duke of Florence” on correspondence, despite that fact that the only title he formally possessed remained that of duke of the Florentine Republic. Cosimo also began to strip the remaining civilian magistracies of any real power, centralizing authority instead in a circle of appointed ministers and secretaries.26 In the same period, he presided over the development of a fully formed and enduring political imaginary for the Medici principality. The keystone work in this process was Bronzino’s Portrait of Cosimo I de’ Medici in Armor (Figure 7.8), the most successful work created for the Medici prince and probably the most successful avatar of Titian’s model portrayal of Charles V. Following Vasari’s initial hesitant step toward a new political imaginary, it represented the first confident expression of a new iconography of government undertaken by an artist who had already painted another Italian ruler in armor. It confirmed the prince’s armored body as the defining element of this transformation. The portrait survives in at least 25 extant copies and two versions, of which three are considered autographs by Bronzino: a half-​length version in the Uffizi Tribuna, the three quarter-​length version in Figure 7.8 (now in Sydney), and another half-​length version. The half-​length Uffizi version, dating to around 1543, was probably the original. The two versions are identical, except for the additional details included in the larger version due to its size. The three-​quarter-​length Sydney version was apparently painted for Paolo Giovio in early 1545.27 In it, Cosimo stands at an oblique angle to the right-​hand side of the frame, his head turns to the left, his gaze caught by something beyond the plane of the painting. His right hand rests on his helmet, which in turn rests on a tree stump from which a fresh, green branch emerges –​the Medici broncone device that had asserted dynastic continuity since the late fifteenth century. The tree stump also serves as a label –​for Giovio’s gallery of famous fi ­ gures –​identifying the portrait’s subject: COSMVS.MEDICES.DVX.FLOR. The most eye-​catching and distinctive feature of the portrait is the suit of armor Cosimo wears, its brilliant sheen and every detail carefully captured by Bronzino. Lined with red fabric and studded with brass rivets, the armor was not a product of the artist’s imagination. Ferdinand of Austria, Charles V’s brother, had sent it to the Medici prince as a gift on his ascension.28 Its inclusion in the portrait, therefore, emphasized a double connection with the Habsburgs, in following the visual language of rulership from Titian’s 1529 portrait, and in acknowledging the debt of protection –​literal and legal –​that Cosimo owed to the emperor in the form of the armor gifted by his brother and the imperial bull recognizing the Medici prince’s rule. Domenico di Polo had depicted Cosimo wearing the same suit in his

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Figure 7.8 Agnolo Bronzino, Portrait of Cosimo I de’ Medici in Armor (ca. 1545) oil on panel, 86 x 66.8 cm. Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales. Credit: Art Gallery of New South Wales Foundation Purchase 1996.

148  Nicholas Scott Baker 1537 medals (Figure 7.7), indicating the central significance that it bore in developing a new political imagery of princely rule that relied on demonstrable ties to the imperial cause. In the wake of Bronzino’s portrait, the armored body of the prince became a central, defining element of the Medicean iconography of rule. It clearly had associations with princely or monarchical government, and not only because of the recent fashion in portraiture initiated by Titian’s portrayal of Charles V. Although paintings and portraits of Italian princes in armor were rare before 1530, in their daily lives the rulers of cities such as Milan and Ferrara frequently dressed in elements of armor. In doing so they were not only making a pragmatic risk assessment but also responding to a cultural imperative to appear splendid. Brilliance and luminosity defined the manifestation of authority and status in the fifteenth-​century courts on the peninsula.29 In the case of Bronzino’s portrait, however, the armor also more allusively invoked the republican political imaginary. In place of the allegorical defenders of Florence, Hercules and David, now stood the body of the prince, armored and watchful, ready to act if required. Other local traditions and images influenced Bronzino’s choices. The positioning of Cosimo’s right arm, the angle of the elbow and the articulation of the wrist and hand, recalled Michelangelo’s bastoniere, as had Vasari’s earlier portrait of Alessandro (Figure 7.9). The sculptor had left the sculptures for the Medici tombs in the New Sacristy at San Lorenzo unfinished when he left Florence for the last time in 1534. The two captains, the bastioniere and the pensoroso, who represented rather than portrayed the younger Giuliano, duke of Nemours, and Lorenzo, duke of Urbino, were installed in the wall niches, but the allegorical times of day remained scattered about the space. In this state, the sacristy became a school for artists, who would visit to sketch and copy Michelangelo’s figures from every conceivable angle. These sketches were in turn utilized in numerous portraits and paintings from the mid-​sixteenth century becoming a visual code for fiorentinità. The violence and upheavals of the 1520s and 1530s, and the dramatic regime change from republic to principality had disrupted any sense of civic belonging, of what it meant to be Florentine, and how to communicate this. Michelangelo’s figures provided a visual lexicon of forms to identify and express fiorentinità, to heal figuratively some of the wounds in the Florentine psyche, and to connect the past with the present.30 Bronzino’s portraits from the 1530s and 1540s played a crucial role in developing this new vocabulary. His Portrait of Cosimo I de’ Medici in Armor used this code to acknowledge the new prince’s Florentinity and his belonging to the city, while also demonstrating his alliance with a distant, powerful empire. While Bronzino’s portrait provided the keystone image for the new political imaginary, it was not the only work that contributed to this creation. In the 1540s, the same period that the painter created the image, both Baccio Bandinelli and Benvenuto Cellini made portrait busts of Cosimo I that

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Figure 7.9 Michelangelo Buonarroti, Il bastoniere, detail from the Tomb of Giuliano de’ Medici (1526–​1533), marble, Florence: San Lorenzo, Nuova Sagrestia. Credit: Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi –​courtesy of the Ministero per i beni e le Attività Culturali.

developed the new lexicon centered on the armored body of the prince and imperial ideals.31 Significantly, these were more public works than the painted portrait, which although it clearly circulated widely as a diplomatic gift –​given the large number of copies extant –​was not on view in a manner equivalent to much of the republican imagery. As plastic, sculptural works they also represent a step toward the culmination of the princely political imaginary: the equestrian monuments erected in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Bandinelli’s subdued marble busts predate Cellini’s larger and more dynamic bronze. Two extant versions by Bandinelli exist: one in the Metropolitan Museum in New York City (Figure 7.10), the second in the Bargello in Florence (Figure 7.11). Broadly similar, they both depict the head, shoulders, and chest of the Medici prince, wearing a Roman-​style cuirass. He sports close-​cropped hair and a patchy, youthful beard. The New York version dates to 1539–​1540, making it the earliest all’antica sculpture of Cosimo I. His head turns quite sharply to the right, almost presenting in profile to a viewer standing perpendicular to the sculpture. A cloak is gathered

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Figure 7.10 Baccio Bandinelli, Portrait Bust of Cosimo I de’ Medici (ca. 1539–​ 1540), marble, height 80 cm, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York NY.

at the left shoulder, draping across the chest. In the Bargello version, dating to around 1544, the prince’s head turns instead to the left and both shoulders are constrained, unlike the New York version in which the right is raised as if gesturing. Bandinelli incised the eyes of the version in Florence but not those of the New York bust. The most striking difference between the two,

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Figure 7.11 Baccio Bandinelli, Portrait Bust of Cosimo I de’ Medici (ca. 1544) marble, height 91 cm, Florence: Museo del Bargello. Credit: Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi –​courtesy of the Ministero per i beni e le Attività Culturali.

152  Nicholas Scott Baker however, lies in the cuirass. In the New York version, the armor is plain and unadorned, similar to that worn by a full-​length sculpture of Cosimo as a Roman military commander completed by Bandinelli in the early 1540s. That worn in the Bargello bust is, by contrast, highly decorated. The head of a goat, doubtless intended as the astrological Capricorn, nestles at the neckline between the musculature. Flanking it are two roundels each bearing the head of Medusa. The shoulder straps end in paired lions’ heads, each holding a diamond ring in its mouth. Cellini’s imposing bronze, some 20 centimeters taller and wider than Bandinelli’s marble, also sports an elaborately decorated cuirass (Figure 7.12). The fuller beard, tousled hair, protuberant eyes, distinct frown, and prominent neck muscles give the figure a vigor, verging on ferocity, absent from Bandinelli’s busts. These features also lend the Medici prince a leonine or Herculean air. The sculpted Cosimo turns his head to the right, but at a more oblique angle than in either of the marbles, in a manner that echoes Bronzino’s portrait. A fringed cloak swathes the figure’s shoulders. Covering the left, it has slipped off the right revealing a snarling lion’s head. The fantastically incised and decorated cuirass –​a mix of textures and patterns –​ testifies to Cellini’s virtuosity with metal sculpture. The armor’s shoulder straps end in bearded mascherons and a winged Medusa’s head sits in the middle of the musculature. Beneath this, on a ribbon about the Medici prince’s neck, hangs the Order of the Golden Fleece, conferred on Cosimo by Charles V in July 1545. The original gilding on parts of the bust, now worn away, must only have increased its vivid presence. In 1557, a decade or so after its creation, Cosimo had the bust installed over the main entrance to fortress at Portoferraio (renamed Cosmopolis at the time) on the strategically significant island of Elba.32 These busts effortlessly combined the revived imperial imagery associated with Charles V with local Florentine and Medicean emblems. The choice of Roman-​style, all’antica armor obviously connected Cosimo I with the Latinate culture of the emperor’s court and the ideal of restored imperium conjured during his visits to Italy. It presented the Medici prince as a Roman military commander, even a Caesar. The Capricorn, which adorned the cuirass of Bandinelli’s Bargello bust, cemented this association. Having first appeared on the reverse of one of Domenico di Polo’s medals (Figure 7.7), it would become a central element in Cosimo’s personal iconography, tying him, astrologically, to Charles V and Augustus. This connection would receive its fullest manifestation in Vincenzo Danti’s early 1570s sculpture of Cosimo I as Augustus, complete with shield embellished with the zodiacal goat and the stars of the Ariadne’s Crown. The choice of armor, however, also conjured local associations and the same sense of fiorentinità present in Bronzino’s portrait. Cosimo I was not the first Medici to appear in Roman military garb. Michelangelo’s captains, carved for the tombs of the younger Giuliano and Lorenzo at San Lorenzo,

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Figure 7.12 Benvenuto Cellini, Portrait Bust of Cosimo I de’ Medici (ca. 1545), bronze, height 95.9 cm, Florence: Museo del Bargello. Credit: Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi –​courtesy of the Ministero per i beni e le Attività Culturali.

154  Nicholas Scott Baker both appear all’antica. Given their resonance in Florentine visual culture during the 1530s and 1540s, any analogous sculpture must have evoked these two imposing figures. Bandinelli, in particular, seems to have modeled aspects of his busts upon them. The sharp turn of Cosimo’s head quotes that of Michelangelo’s bastoniere, which also wears highly decorated cuirass similar to the Bargello marble (and Cellini’s later bronze). The more plainly adorned armor of the New York version in turn matches that worn by the pensoroso figure. The lions, an element shared by both artists, recalled the Marzocco and the long association of leonine imagery with Florence. The diamond ring grasped by the lions on Bandinelli’s Bargello marble was an established Medici emblem, dating at least to the first-​half of the fifteenth century. In its circularity and the famed durability of the gemstone it spoke of eternity, both spiritual and political. The head of Medusa, also common to both artists’ busts, evoked the story of Perseus, which appears to have become associated with the Medici in the early 1510s. It appeared first in Piero di Cosimo’s Liberation of Andromeda commissioned by the family’s ally Filippo Strozzi and possibly in the ephemeral art created for the Medicean carnival of 1513. Like Hercules and David, Perseus represented the triumph of virtù over impossible odds. From its first manifestation in Medicean imagery, the figure also made claims about the defense of Florence and of Florentine liberty in particular.33 The inclusion of the gorgon’s head, however, instead of the figure of the son of Danae and Zeus, on the sculpted cuirass presented a more offensive message, implicitly threatening enemies of both the city and the Medici, recalling the way Perseus had turned the deadly gaze against his own opponents. Cellini’s stunning Perseus with the Head of Medusa, on which the artist was working at the same time as the casting of the bust, would emphasize this aspect of myth. Placed in the loggia adjacent to the Palazzo Vecchio it simultaneously balanced and echoed the meaning of Donatello’s Judith (installed in the same location at the time) as a defender of Florentine liberty, threatened Cosimo’s enemies, and neutralized the republican imaginary of Michelangelo’s David, turning it to stone: just one sculpture among many.34 By the 1540s, any connection with Charles V extended beyond classical heritage and the revived ideas of imperium in western Europe, which the armored body of the prince evoked. With the conquests of Tenochtitlan in 1521 and Peru in 1533–​1535, the Habsburg empire had become global; and the emperor became more like a Caesar in actuality, expanding his territories by military force as opposed to the fantasies of Italian artists and humanists.35 In Florence, Charles’ conquered American possessions appeared in the ephemeral decorations created for Cosimo’s wedding to Eleonora de Toledo in 1539. The Porta al Prato through which the bride entered Florence featured a temporary depiction of the emperor crowned with laurel accompanied by personifications of his realms, including both New Spain and Peru, as well as Neptune, who represented Spanish mastery of the Atlantic Ocean.36 In precisely the same years that Bronzino, Bandinelli, and Cellini

Regime Change in Florence  155 constructed the new political imaginary centered on the prince’s body in which the connection to imperial power played a defining part, Cosimo and Eleonora eagerly embraced commodities, products, and objects from the Americas. The flora and fauna of the New World began to feature in Medici imagery, allowing the ducal couple to participate virtually in the conquest and looting of the new Habsburg territories.37 Medici ambitions toward the New World and the Habsburg global empire reached their pinnacle –​and came closest to fruition –​during the reign of Ferdinando I, the second of Cosimo I’s sons to inherit the grand ducal crown. The government of Ferdinando pursued several strategies aimed at expanding Florence’s political and economic reach beyond Tuscany and central Italy. In one his first acts as grand duke, he ordered the expansion of the city of Livorno. In 1591, he issued the so-​called Livornine legislation, which established the city as free port, beginning a process of successful transformation that would make Tuscany an important node in transcontinental trade in the Mediterranean.38 Ferdinando attempted to extend the commercial reach of his prize across the Atlantic, trying unsuccessfully to persuade Philip III of Spain to permit direct shipping between the Americas and the Tuscan coast and to establish a sugar refining mill there. He even sponsored an English sea captain, Robert Thornton, to undertake a reconnaissance voyage to the lower Amazon in 1608 –​at the time largely ignored by the Portuguese –​which proved similarly fruitless in any permanent sense. Ferdinando had more success closer to home. Under his rule, the crusading Order of Santo Stefano, founded by his father, expanded their piratical and slaving enterprises into a systematic strategy of raiding Ottoman territories across the eastern Mediterranean between 1599 and 1611.39 In the same decades as these various activities took place, the political imaginary of monarchical rule, focused on the body of the prince, also reached its apotheosis under Ferdinando’s guidance. This convergence was not coincidental but part of coherent strategy on the part of the third Medici grand duke of Tuscany (and fourth Medici prince) that aimed to present Florence as an imperial power, both military and economic, in the age of encounters.40 Within two months of his accession in late October 1587, Ferdinando commissioned a bronze equestrian statue of his father from Giambologna (Figure 7.13). It was installed seven years later in 1594.41 The first equestrian monument created in Tuscany since Antiquity and the first erected anywhere in Italy for almost a century, the sculpture followed both classical and fifteenth-​century precedents, such the famous second-​century CE statue of Marcus Aurelius in Rome and Andrea del Verrocchio’s monument for the condottiere Bartolomeo Colleoni installed in 1496 in Venice. The gait of the horse mirrors that of the Roman statue, although Cosimo’s mount appears to be tossing its head in a more dynamic fashion. Cosimo sits bareheaded but clad in armor, a cloak crossing his body, holding a baton of command in his right hand. His head turns to the left, gazing south-​west across the piazza. The pedestal features bronze reliefs of Cosimo’s election

156  Nicholas Scott Baker

Figure 7.13 Giambologna, Equestrian Sculpture of Cosimo I de’ Medici (1594), bronze, Florence: Piazza della Signoria. Credit: © Marie-​Lan Nguyen /​ Wikimedia Commons /​CC-​BY 2.5.

Regime Change in Florence  157 by the Quarantotto in 1537, his triumphal entry into Siena following its conquest in 1555, and his coronation as grand duke in 1569. It also includes the by-​now ubiquitous Capricorn, alluding to the first grand duke’s astrological connection with both Augustus and Charles V. Finally, although difficult to see from the perspective of a viewer standing in the piazza, the pauldron on the prince’s right shoulder features an engraving of Hercules battling centaurs, invoking the long association of the demigod with Florence. The placement of the equestrian monument in the Piazza della Signoria –​ or as it increasingly became known at the time, the Piazza Ducale –​claimed this central public space for the political imaginary of princely rule. In doing so it usurped a place that had been central to the iconography of the republican rule, the stage on which the Marzocco and Michelangelo’s David had stood. If Cosimo I had successfully neutralized the political significance of the piazza in the mid-​century –​with the installation of Cellini’s Perseus and the Giambologna’s Neptune fountain –​making it a gallery for public sculpture, Ferdinando reclaimed it as a political place, albeit for princely government. The following decade, in 1608, Ferdinando unveiled his own bronze equestrian monument (executed by Pietro Tacca after Giambologna’s design) in the Piazza Santissima Annunziata. The third grand duke appeared similarly armored and bare-​headed like the monument to his father, a baton of command held between his right hand and thigh. Between the installation of the equestrian monument to his father and his own, Ferdinando had the imagery of the prince’s armored body reproduced beyond Florence in other major cities across Tuscany, commissioning and installing sculptures of himself or his father in armor, standing rather than on horseback, during the 1590s: Cosimo I in the Piazza dei Cavalieri and Ferdinando I on the banks of the Arno in Pisa; Ferdinando I on the steps of the cathedral in Arezzo; and Ferdinando I standing triumphant at the harbor of Livorno. For this last, Cosimo II would, in 1626, commission Pietro Tacca to cast the bronze figures of four chained, enslaved Africans to sit in misery at his father’s feet.42 Where once the Marzocco had symbolized Florentine rule across the city’s dominion, now the armored body of its ruling prince made present and manifest his government. Regime change cannot be accomplished only by the creation of new institutions or the installation of new dynasties. It requires cultural transformation as well. Ferdinando I de’ Medici’s campaign to transform the public space not only of Florence but of Tuscany by installing sculptures of himself and his father represented the triumphant conclusion of a change in political imaginary. The governors of the Renaissance republic had made their rule manifest in biblical and mythological figures: a political pantheon of Hercules, David, and the Marzocco. These sculpted figures embodied the authority of the government, its virtù, its righteousness. They had also, in their allegorical abstraction, represented something about the nature of republican rule itself. They depicted idealized, symbolic figures, not identifiable individuals, just as each individual member of the committees and

158  Nicholas Scott Baker councils that governed the city should, as Matteo Palmieri enjoined in 1449, strip himself “of his person” in order to don “the public persona of the entire civil body.”43 The republic was, ideally, a commonwealth, the res publica, and so imagined and projected itself collectively by symbolic, representational figures. The rule of the Medici princes, by contrast, was personal. In place of the signoria of nine men chosen by lot, the executive government of the grand duchy vested in the person of the prince. The public representation of this rule was, similarly, imagined in the body of the prince, painted or sculpted, making manifest his personal authority, power, and virtù.

Notes 1 John Gagné, Milan Undone: Contested Sovereignties in the Italian Wars (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2021), 259. A rich body of scholarship on the Wars and their various impacts exists, as convenient starting points see: Giuseppe Galasso, Dalla «libertà d’Italia» alle «preponderanze straniere» (Naples: Editoriale Scientifica, 1997); Michael Mallett and Christine Shaw, The Italian Wars, 1494–​1559 (Harlow: Pearson, 2012). 2 See Furio Diaz, Il granducato di Toscana: I Medici (Turin: Unione Tipografico-​ Editrice Torinese, 1976); Antonio Anzilotti, La crisi costituzionale della Repubblica fiorentina (Rome: Multigrafica, 1969); La costituzione interna dello Stato fiorentino sotto il duca Cosimo I de’ Medici (Florence: Francesco Lumachi, 1910); Stefano Dall’Aglio, L’assassino del duca: Esilio e morte di Lorenzino de’ Medici (Florence: Olschki, 2011); Catherine Fletcher, The Black Prince of Florence: The Spectacular Life and Treacherous World of Alessandro de’ Medici (London: The Bodley Head, 2016). 3 See Nicholas Scott Baker, The Fruit of Liberty: Political Culture in the Florentine Renaissance, 1480–​1550 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 15–​48. 4 Leopold D. Ettlinger, “Hercules Florentinus,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 16, no. 2 (1972): 120–​121. 5 See Maria Monica Donato, “Hercules and David in the Early Decoration of the Palazzo Vecchio: Manuscript Evidence,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 54 (1991): 83–​90; Ettlinger, “Hercules Florentinus.” 6 Martha Alice Agnew Fader, “Sculpture in the Piazza della Signoria as Emblem of the Florentine Republic” (PhD dissertation, University of Michigan, 1977), 24–​ 60; Geraldine A. Johnson, “The Lion on the Piazza: Patrician Politics and Public Statuary in Central Florence,” in Secular Sculpture, 1300–​1550, ed. P.G. Lindley and Thomas Frangenberg (Donington: Paul Watkins, 2000). 7 Fader, “Sculpture in the Piazza,” 52–​ 54, 246–​ 247. More broadly, see also Richard C. Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980; repr., 1991), 45–​84; Donald Weinstein, Savonarola and Florence: Prophecy and Patriotism in the Renaissance (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), 35–​36, 42–​56. 8 Ettlinger, “Hercules Florentinus,” 127; Donato, “Hercules and David,” 94. 9 Donato, “Hercules and David,” 90–​91. I have followed Donato’s thesis that this wording represents the original inscription, as recorded by Iacopo Cocchi-​ Donati in the mid-​fifteenth century, which was later either replaced or was

Regime Change in Florence  159 mis-​transcribed in 1592 by Lorenz Schrader as “Pro patria fortiter dimicantibus etiam adversus terribilissimos hostes Dii praestant auxilium.” On the dating of the sculpture, see also Edward J. Olzewski, “Prophecy and Prolepsis in Donatello’s Marble ‘David’,” Artibus et Historiae 18, no. 36 (1997). 10 In addition to the works already cited, see also Virginia L. Bush, “Bandinelli’s Hercules and Cacus and Florentine Traditions,” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 35 (1980), and John Shearman, Only Connect: Art and the Spectator in the Italian Renaissance (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 52–​58. 11 See Tracy E. Robey, “Glory and Infamy: Making the Memory of Duke Alessandro de’ Medici in Renaissance Florence” (PhD dissertation, The City University of New York, 2012), esp. 150–​210. 12 See Nicholas Scott Baker “The Emperor and the Duke: Cosimo I, Charles V, and the Negotiation of Sovereignty,” in A Companion to Cosimo I de’ Medici, eds. Alessio Assonitis and Henk Th. van Veen (Leiden; Brill, 2021) and Giorgio Spini, Cosimo I e la indipendenza del principato mediceo (Florence: Vallechi, 1980). 13 Geoffrey Parker, Emperor: A New Life of Charles V (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019), 193–​194. 14 See William Eisler, “The Impact of the Emperor Charles V upon the Italian Visual Culture, 1529–​1533,” Arte Lombarda Nuova serie, no. 65 (2) (1983); Thomas James Dandelet, The Renaissance of Empire in Early Modern Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 87–​ 98; Marcello Fantoni, “Carlo V e l’immagine dell’imperator,” in Carlo V e l’Italia, ed. Marcello Fantoni (Rome: Bulzoni, 2000); Paul G Matthews, “Masks of Authority: Charles V and State Portraiture at the Habsburg Courts, c. 1500–​1533” (PhD dissertation, University of Cambridge, 2003), M.J. Rodríguez-​Salgado, “Challenging Images: Charles V’s Relationship with Art, Artists, and Festivities,” in Mary of Hungary, Renaissance Patron and Collector: Gender, Art, and Culture, ed. Noelia García Pérez (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020), 26–​27. 15 Manuel Fernández Alvarez, Charles V: Elected Emperor and Hereditary Ruler, trans. J.A. Lalaguna (London: Thames and Hudson, 1975), 45–​ 46; Parker, Emperor, 86, 133–​134, 144–​145. 16 On the dating of the portrait to 1529 see Miguel Falomir, “Carlos V, Tiziano y el retrato en armadura,” in El arte del poder: La Real Amería y el retrato de corte, ed. Álvaro Soler del Campo (Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado, 2010), 41–​43. 17 On the portrait, see ibid.; Matthews, “Masks of Authority,” 191–​98; Joanna Woods-​Marsden, “The Sword in Titian’s Portraits of Emperor Charles V,” Artibus et Historiae 34, no. 67 (2013). On armor in Charles V’s public image and Titian’s contribution to this, see also Rodríguez-​ Salgado “Challenging Images,” 34–​35. 18 Matthews, “Masks of Authority,” 199–​201. 19 Falomir, “Carlos V, Tiziano y el retrato en armadura,” 43. Falomir makes no mention of Berruguete’s famous portrait, nor of the few other princely figures in armor from the fifteenth century, such as the kneeling donor portrait of Francesco II Gonzaga in Andrea Mantegna’s Madonna della Vittoria (1496). The new imperial iconography influenced depictions of rulers in other parts of the sprawling Habsburg territories: Thomas DaCosta Kaufman, “Representation, Replication, Reproduction: The Legacy of Charles V in Sculpted Rulers’ Portraits of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” Austrian History Yearbook

160  Nicholas Scott Baker 43 (2012); Blanka Kubíková, “Adoption of Habsburg Portrait Models for Aristocratic Likenesses in the Czech Lands in the Reign of Ferdinand I,” Historie Otázky Problémy 7, no. 2 (2015). 20 Baker, The Fruit of Liberty. 21 On the association between the lucco, Florentine citizenship, and office holding see, ibid., 37–​40; Juliana Hill Cotton, “Il lucco del Poliziano ed altre allusione al lucco fiorentino,” Italica 43, no. 4 (1966). 22 Bartolomeo Cerretani, Ricordi, ed. Giuliana Berti (Florence: Olschki, 1993), 327; Francesco Guicciardini, Le lettere: Edizione critica (1514–​1517), ed. Pierre Jodogne (Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per l’Età Moderna e Contemporanea, 1987), 54–​55, 58–​59. The quotation is from a letter to Luigi Guicciardini, June 1, 1515, at 54–​55. 23 On the portrait see Carlo Falciani, “Power and Identity in Sixteenth-​Century Florentine Portraiture,” in The Medici: Portraits and Politics, 1512–​ 1570, eds. Keith Christiansen and Carlo Falciani (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2021), 19–​20; Kurt W. Forster, “Metaphors of Rule: Political Ideology and History in the Portraits of Cosimo I de’ Medici,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 15, no. 1 (1971): 69–​70; Jennifer M.L. Wehmeier, “Constructing a Pantheon of Allies: Princely Portraits and all’antica Palace Decorations in Renaissance Italy during the Reign of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V” (PhD dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 2008), 178–​185. 24 See Nicholas Scott Baker, “Creating a Shared Past: The Representation of Medici-​ Habsburg Relations in the Wedding Celebrations for Eleonora de Toledo and Cosimo I de’ Medici,” Renaissance Studies 33, no. 3 (2019). 25 See Baker “The Emperor and the Duke;” Janet Cox-​Rearick, Dynasty and Destiny in Medici Art: Pontormo, Leo X and the Two Cosimos (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 255–​272; Paolo Giovio, Dialogo dell’imprese militari et amorose, ed. Stephen Orgel (New York: Garland, 1979), 57–​59. 26 See Baker, The Fruit of Liberty, 192; Diaz, Il granducato di Toscana, 83–​106; Spini, Cosimo I, 195–​214. 27 See Robert Barry Simon, “Bronzino’s Portraits of Cosimo I de’ Medici” (PhD, Columbia University, 1982); idem, “Bronzino’s Portrait of Cosimo I in Armour,” The Burlington Magazine 125, no. 966 (1983); Keith Christiansen and Carlo Falciani, The Medici: Portraits and Politics, 1512–​ 1570 (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2021), Cat. 20, 132–​134. 28 Simon, “Bronzino’s Portraits,” 135–​138. 29 See Timothy McCall, “Brilliant Bodies: Material Culture and the Adornment of Men in North Italy’s Quattrocento Courts,” I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance 16, no. 1/​2 (2013): esp. 468–​473. 30 On the uses of the sculptures in the New Sacristy see Claudia Lazzaro, “Michelangelo’s Medici Chapel and its Aftermath: Scattered Bodies and Florentine Identies under the Duchy,” California Italian Studies 6, no. 1 (2016). On the difficulties of being and depicting Florentinity in the 1530s, see also Elizabeth Cropper, “Prolegomena to a New Interpretation of Bronzino’s Florentine Portraits,” in Renaissance Studies in Honor of Craig Hugh Smyth, eds. Andrew Morrogh, et al. (Florence: Giunti Barbèra, 1985); Baker, The Fruit of Liberty, 142–​188; Maurice Brock, Bronzino, trans. David Poole Radzinowicz and Christine Schultz-​Touge (Paris: Flammarion, 2002). On the importance of

Regime Change in Florence  161 Michelangelo’s designs and figures for conveying authority more generally, see Elena Calvillo, “Authoritative Copies and Divine Originals: Lucretian Metaphor, Painting on Stone, and the Problem of Originality in Michelangelo’s Rome,” Renaissance Quarterly 66, no. 2 (2013). 31 On these busts see Forster, “Metaphors of Rule,” 76–​79; Irving Lavin, “On Illusion and Allusion in Italian Sixteenth-​Century Portrait Busts,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 119, no. 5 (1975), 359–​360. On the revival of the Roman portrait bust in the sixteenth century more broadly, see also Thomas Martin, “Michelangelo’s Brutus and the Classicizing Portrait Bust in Sixteenth-​Century Italy,” Artibus et Historiae 14, no. 27 (1993), who rejects Lavin’s chronology. 32 Christiansen and Falciani, The Medici, cat. 21, 134–​138. 33 Nicholas Scott Baker, “Medicean Metamorphoses: Carnival in Florence, 1513,” Renaissance Studies 25, no. 4 (2011): 508–​510. 34 Shearman, Only Connect, 52–​53. 35 Dandelet, The Renaissance of Empire, 111–​ 113. Note, however, Carballo’s caution on associating the fall of Tenochtitlan with the conquest of what would become New Spain, as the last independent Mayan kingdom endured against the invading Spanish until 1697: David M. Carballo, Collision of Worlds: A Deep History of the Fall of Aztec Mexico and the Forging of New Spain (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), 226–​228. 36 Pierfrancesco Giambullari et al., Apparato et feste nelle noze dello illvstrissimo Signor Duca di Firenze, et della Duchessa sua Consorte, con le sue Stanze, Madriali, Comedia, et Intermedii, in quelle recitati (Florence: Giunti, 1539), 13–​14. 37 Lia Markey, Imagining the Americas in Medici Florence (University Park PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2016), 16–​45. 38 Benjamin Ravid, “A Tale of Three Cities and Their raison d’etat: Ancona, Venice, Livorno, and the Competition for Jewish Merchants in the Sixteenth Century,” Mediterranean Historical Review 6, no. 2 (1991); Corey Tazzara, The Free Port of Livorno and the Transformation of the Mediterranean World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), esp. 20–​47. 39 See Brian Brege, “Renaissance Florentines in the Tropics: Brazil, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, and the Limits of Empire,” in The New World in Early Modern Italy, eds. Elizabeth Horodowich and Lia Markey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017); idem, “The Advantages of Stability: Medici Tuscany’s Ambitions in the Eastern Mediterranean,” in Florence in the Early Modern World: New Perspectives, eds. Nicholas Scott Baker and Brian Jeffrey Maxson (Milton Park: Routledge, 2020); Katherine Poole-​Jones, “The Medici, Maritime Empire, and the Enduring Legacy of the Cavalieri di Santo Stefano,” in Florence in the Early Modern World: New Perspectives, eds. Nicholas Scott Baker and Brian Jeffrey Maxson (Milton Park: Routledge, 2020) 40 See Marta Caroscio, “Shaping the City and the Landscape: Politics, Public Space, and Innovation under Ferdinando I de’ Medici,” in Florence in the Early Modern World: New Perspectives, eds. Nicholas Scott Baker and Brian Jeffrey Maxson (Milton Park: Routledge, 2020) 41 On this monument and Ferdinando’s sculptural program, see Dietrich Erben, “Die Reiterdenkmäler der Medici in Florenz und ihre politische Bedeutung,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 40, no. 3 (1996); Caroline Falkenberg, “The Medici Equestrian Monuments,” in

162  Nicholas Scott Baker Kunstgeschichtliche Studien zur Florentiner Renaissance: kunsthistorische Beiträge anlässlich einer Dreiländerexkursion, eds. Lars-​Olof Larsson and Götz Pochat (Stockholm: Kunsthistorisches Institut, 1980). 42 Caroscio, “Shaping the City,” 93–​100; Erben, “Die Reiterdenkmäler,” 329–​332. Erben suggests a topographical hierarchy determined the choice to keep the equestrian monuments exclusively for the capital city. 3 Matteo Palmieri, Vita civile ed. Gino Belloni (Florence: Sansoni, 1982), 98–​99. 4

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Regime Change in Florence  163 Christiansen, Keith, and Carlo Falciani. The Medici: Portraits and Politics, 1512–​ 1570. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2021. Cotton, Juliana Hill. “Il lucco del Poliziano ed altre allusione al lucco fiorentino.” Italica 43, no. 4 (1966): 353–​368. Cox-​Rearick, Janet. Dynasty and Destiny in Medici Art: Pontormo, Leo X and the Two Cosimos. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984. Cropper, Elizabeth. “Prolegomena to a New Interpretation of Bronzino’s Florentine Portraits.” In Renaissance Studies in Honor of Craig Hugh Smyth, eds. Andrew Morrogh, Fiorella Superbi Gioffredi, Piero Morselli and Eve Borsook, 149–​162. Florence: Giunti Barbèra, 1985. DaCosta Kaufman, Thomas. “Representation, Replication, Reproduction: The Legacy of Charles V in Sculpted Rulers’ Portraits of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.” Austrian History Yearbook 43 (2012): 1–​18. Dall’Aglio, Stefano. L’assassino del duca: Esilio e morte di Lorenzino de’ Medici. Florence: Olschki, 2011. Dandelet, Thomas James. The Renaissance of Empire in Early Modern Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Diaz, Furio. Il granducato di Toscana: I Medici. Turin: Unione Tipografico-​Editrice Torinese, 1976. Donato, Maria Monica. “Hercules and David in the Early Decoration of the Palazzo Vecchio: Manuscript Evidence.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 54 (1991): 83–​98. Eisler, William. “The Impact of the Emperor Charles V upon the Italian Visual Culture, 1529–​1533.” Arte Lombarda Nuova serie, no. 65 (2) (1983): 93–​110. Erben, Dietrich. “Die Reiterdenkmäler der Medici in Florenz und ihre politische Bedeutung.” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 40, no. 3 (1996): 287–​361. Ettlinger, Leopold D. “Hercules Florentinus.” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 16, no. 2 (1972): 119–​142. Fader, Martha Alice Agnew. “Sculpture in the Piazza della Signoria as Emblem of the Florentine Republic.” Ph.D Dissertation, University of Michigan, 1977. Falciani, Carlo. “Power and Identity in Sixteenth-​Century Florentine Portraiture.” In The Medici: Portraits and Politics, 1512–​1570, eds. Keith Christiansen and Carlo Falciani, 17–​47. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2021. Falkenberg, Caroline. “The Medici Equestrian Monuments.” In Kunstgeschichtliche Studien zur Florentiner Renaissance: Kunsthistorische Beiträge anlässlich einer Dreiländerexkursion, eds. Lars-​ Olof Larsson and Götz Pochat, 348–​ 357. Stockhom: Kunsthistorisches Institut, 1980. Falomir, Miguel. “Carlos V, Tiziano y el retrato en armadura.” In El arte del poder: La Real Amería y el retrato de corte, ed. Álvaro Soler del Campo, 40–​53. Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado, 2010. Fantoni, Marcello. “Carlo V e l’immagine dell’imperator.” In Carlo V e l’Italia, ed. Marcello Fantoni, 101–​118. Rome: Bulzoni, 2000. Fernández Alvarez, Manuel. Charles V: Elected Emperor and Hereditary Ruler. Trans. J.A. Lalaguna. London: Thames and Hudson, 1975. Fletcher, Catherine. The Black Prince of Florence: The Spectacular Life and Treacherous World of Alessandro de’ Medici. London: The Bodley Head, 2016.

164  Nicholas Scott Baker Forster, Kurt W. “Metaphors of Rule: Political Ideology and History in the Portraits of Cosimo I de’ Medici.” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 15, no. 1 (1971): 65–​104. Gagné, John. Milan Undone: Contested Sovereignties in the Italian Wars. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2021. Galasso, Giuseppe. Dalla «libertà d’Italia» alle «preponderanze straniere». Naples: Editoriale Scientifica, 1997. Giambullari, Pierfrancesco, Antonio Landi, Giovanbattista Gelli, and Giovanbattista Strozzi. Apparato et feste nelle noze dello illvstrissimo Signor Duca di Firenze, et della Duchessa sua Consorte, con le sue Stanze, Madriali, Comedia, et Intermedii, in quelle recitati. Florence: Giunti, 1539. Giovio, Paolo. Dialogo dell’imprese militari et amorose, ed. Stephen Orgel. New York: Garland, 1979. Guicciardini, Francesco. Le lettere: Edizione critica (1514–​1517), ed. Pierre Jodogne. Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per l’Età Moderna e Contemporanea, 1987. Johnson, Geraldine A. “The Lion on the Piazza: Patrician Politics and Public Statuary in Central Florence.” In Secular Sculpture, 1300–​1550, eds. P.G. Lindley and Thomas Frangenberg, 54–​71. Donington: Paul Watkins, 2000. Kubíková, Blanka. “Adoption of Habsburg Portrait Models for Aristocratic Likenesses in the Czech Lands in the Reign of Ferdinand I.” Historie Otázky Problémy 7, no. 2 (2015). Lazzaro, Claudia. “Michelangelo’s Medici Chapel and its Aftermath: Scattered Bodies and Florentine Identies under the Duchy.” California Italian Studies 6, no. 1 (2016): 1–​35. Mallett, Michael, and Christine Shaw. The Italian Wars, 1494–​ 1559. Harlow: Pearson, 2012. Markey, Lia. Imagining the Americas in Medici Florence. University Park PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2016. Matthews, Paul G. “Masks of Authority: Charles V and State Portraiture at the Habsburg Courts, c. 1500–​1533.” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Cambridge, 2003. McCall, Timothy. “Brilliant Bodies: Material Culture and the Adornment of Men in North Italy’s Quattrocento Courts.” I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance 16, no. 1/​2 (2013): 445–​490. Olzewski, Edward J. “Prophecy and Prolepsis in Donatello’s Marble ‘David’.” Artibus et Historiae 18, no. 36 (1997): 63–​79. Palmieri, Matteo. Vita civile, ed. Gino Belloni. Florence: Sansoni, 1982. Parker, Geoffrey. Emperor: A New Life of Charles V. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019. Poole-​Jones, Katherine. “The Medici, Maritime Empire, and the Enduring Legacy of the Cavalieri di Santo Stefano.” In Florence in the Early Modern World: New Perspectives, eds. Nicholas Scott Baker and Brian Jeffrey Maxson, 156–​ 186. Milton Park: Routledge, 2020. Ravid, Benjamin. “A Tale of Three Cities and Their raison d’etat: Ancona, Venice, Livorno, and the Competition for Jewish Merchants in the Sixteenth Century.” Mediterranean Historical Review 6, no. 2 (1991): 138–​162. Robey, Tracy E. “Glory and Infamy: Making the Memory of Duke Alessandro de’ Medici in Renaissance Florence.” Ph.D. Dissertation, The City University of New York, 2012.

Regime Change in Florence  165 Rodríguez-​ Salgado, M.J. “Challenging Images: Charles V’s Relationship with Art, Artists, and Festivities.” In Mary of Hungary, Renaissance Patron and Collector: Gender, Art, and Culture, ed. Noelia García Pérez, 23–​40. Turnhout: Brepols, 2020. Shearman, John. Only Connect: Art and the Spectator in the Italian Renaissance. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992. Simon, Robert Barry. “Bronzino’s Portrait of Cosimo I in Armour.” The Burlington Magazine 125, no. 966 (1983): 527–​539. Simon, Robert Barry. “Bronzino’s Portraits of Cosimo I de’ Medici.” Ph.D. Dissertation, Columbia University, 1982. Spini, Giorgio. Cosimo I e la indipendenza del principato mediceo. 2nd. ed. Florence: Vallechi, 1980. Tazzara, Corey. The Free Port of Livorno and the Transformation of the Mediterranean World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Trexler, Richard C. Public Life in Renaissance Florence. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980. Trexler, Richard C. “True Light Shining vs. Obscurantism in the Study of Michelangelo’s New Sacristy.” Artibus et Historiae 21, no. 42 (2000): 101–​117. Wehmeier, Jennifer M.L. “Constructing a Pantheon of Allies: Princely Portraits and all’antica Palace Decorations in Renaissance Italy during the Reign of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 2008. Weinstein, Donald. Savonarola and Florence: Prophecy and Patriotism in the Renaissance. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970. Woods-​Marsden, Joanna. “The Sword in Titian’s Portraits of Emperor Charles V.” Artibus et Historiae 34, no. 67 (2013): 201–​218.

8 The Historiography of Regime Change in Machiavelli’s Discursus rerum florentinarum post mortem iunioris Laurentii Medices Alexander Lee

By 1520, the Medici regime in Florence was beginning to look decidedly unstable. Although eight years had passed since their return, they had so far failed to settle the question of how the city should be governed.1 While some of their supporters favored a broad, oligarchic regime, similar to that which had existed under Lorenzo “il Magnifico” de’ Medici,2 others believed that the time had come for a more “princely” style of government.3 Meanwhile, various groups continued to call for the restoration of “popular” institutions like the Great Council, which had been abolished some years before.4 Uncertainty, however, pleased no-​one. Matters were made worse by the election of Giovanni de’ Medici as Pope Leo X in 1513. Finding themselves yoked to Medici policy in Rome, many Florentines resented having to pay for wars in which they had no voice, and to suffer defeats they had not deserved. When Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici was chosen to oversee the family’s affairs after the death of Lorenzo di Piero in 1519, therefore, it was clear that something had to be done. After appeasing the ottimati with the abolition of a law restricting the size of dowries, he reassured the popolo with a program of popular works and asked his advisers to draw up lists of people to be rehabilitated.5 But the cardinal’s absence that winter put paid to any hopes of further reform –​and his decision to appoint “foreigners” to govern the city in his stead only aroused more animosity.6 There were, as yet, only sporadic outbursts of discontent;7 but by the following year, it was apparent that, unless more fundamental changes were made, more serious unrest would not be slow to follow. Written between November 1520 and February 1521, Niccolò Machiavelli’s Discursus rerum florentinarum post mortem iunioris Laurentii Medices set out to examine how Cardinal Giulio could overcome the challenges his family was then facing and secure their regime in the long term.8 Yet while its focus was on the present –​or rather, the future –​it was framed around a critical assessment of the past.9 As Machiavelli made clear in the opening paragraphs, it was only by exploring why previous regimes had fallen that it would be possible to determine what steps should be taken to save the Medici from a similar fate. DOI: 10.4324/9781003199021-9

The Historiography of Regime Change  167 Between 1393 and 1512, Machiavelli noted, Florence had been governed by three different regimes (stati): that established by Maso degli Albizzi (1393–​1434), that of Cosimo de’ Medici and his heirs (1434–​1494), and the “popular” republic of Savonarola and Piero Soderini (1494–​1512).10 Though some had lasted longer than others, each had collapsed in turn, with devastating consequences both for their leaders and for Florence. Their instability was, in part, attributable to a common fault. Although each had borne a passing resemblance to one of the three “true” constitutions identified by Aristotle, Machiavelli argued, none of them had fully embodied the characteristics of a monarchy, an aristocracy, or a “constitutional” government.11 Rather than being directed towards the common good, they had all been established to serve the interests of a single faction. As such, they had fostered division, instead of unity –​and had thereby sown the seeds of their own demise. Yet this was clearly not the whole story. While the three regimes may have shared the same structural defects, it was ludicrous to pretend that they had fallen for precisely the same reasons. Each had suffered from its own weaknesses –​just as each had also benefitted from different strengths. By evaluating the characteristics of each in turn, Machiavelli was able to derive an empirical model of a “successful” regime, and a clear sense of what reforms might work in the here and now. Though grounded in this reading of the Florentine past, Machiavelli’s proposals are a paradoxical mixture of different elements.12 At their heart is the conviction that, if Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici’s regime was to be stable, each of Florence’s three social classes would have to be appeased. To satisfy the primi, Machiavelli argued, the Signoria, the Otto di pratica, and the Dodici buon’uomini should be replaced with a council of the Medici’s “friends and confidants;” to calm the mezzani, the Councils of the People, the Seventy, and the Hundred should be replaced with a Council of Two Hundred; and to please the rest of the citizen body, the Great Council should be re-​established. At the same time, the Medici’s position should be guaranteed by granting the cardinal as much power as the entire citizen body combined. Perhaps unsurprisingly, these proposals have aroused much debate. Most scholars agree that the constitutional advice he offered the Medici regime underwent some development over time –​and that the Discursus represents an important step in that process. But there is little consensus about how best to characterize his program of reform, or the extent to which it diverges from ideas found in his other political works. While some have read the Discursus as a “pugnacious republican challenge to the prevailing oligarchic wisdom of the Medicean ruling group,”13 others have seen it as an essentially “aristocratic” work, in which only a faint trace of his earlier republicanism can be detected.14 And others still have regarded it as a deliberate compromise between two constitutional extremes, which has parallels with both his earlier and later works.15 A quite different attitude has been taken to Machiavelli’s historical views, however. It has been generally assumed that, while his advice to regimes in

168  Alexander Lee the present may have varied, either in substance or emphasis, his assessment of previous stati did not –​and that the historiographical section of the Discursus is hence reflective of a broadly consistent attitude towards the history of regime change across his later writings. Particular importance has been attached to the supposed parallels between the Discursus and the Istorie fiorentine. Completed some five years later, the Istorie is radically different to the Discursus in both style and length;16 yet it has often been claimed that the two texts were based on broadly the same methodology, and advanced essentially the same interpretation of the Albizzi and Medici regimes.17 Indeed, so close is the similarity thought to have been that some scholars have even characterized the Discursus as a deliberate “dress rehearsal” for the later work.18 For Mark Jurdjevic, for example, the two were complimentary parts of a single historiography of regime change. Notwithstanding certain differences of focus, Jurdjevic has argued, Machiavelli seems to have intended the Istorie fiorentine not merely to repeat, but actually to reinforce “with sustained detail every important argument he had earlier made about Florentine history and politics.”19 This “seamless interpenetration” between the two works, Jurdjevic has claimed, suggests that “they were borne” not of an evolving attitude towards previous regimes, but “of a deeply held and considered vision of Florentine history.”20 And with only rare exceptions, most scholars have been inclined to agree.21 Such a view has much to recommend it. There is no doubt that there is considerable overlap between the Discursus and the Istorie fiorentine, or that a broadly similar historiography of regime change emerges from the two texts. Yet there are nevertheless grounds for scepticism. Precisely because there are so many similarities between the Discursus and the Istorie fiorentine, there has been a tendency for differences to be glossed over, or even ignored. This paper sets out to address this omission. Through a close comparison of the two texts, it will demonstrate that the relationship between the Discursus and the Istorie fiorentine is more subtle and nuanced than previously supposed. In doing so, it will reveal that, far from remaining static, Machiavelli’s attitude towards the history of regime change underwent a transformation in the period c.1520–​c.1525. Turning then to examine the reasons for this shift, it will go on to show that, just as Machiavelli sought to prevent regime change in the future by looking to the Florentine past, so his understanding of earlier stati was shaped, in part, by his experience of regimes (and their opponents) in the present.

The Albizzi Regime As Jurdjevic has rightly noted, Machiavelli devotes more time in the Discursus to discussing the Albizzi regime than any other –​most likely because, after the disappointments of Soderini’s republic, many ottimati now looked back on it with nostalgia.22 Writing a few years earlier, Francesco Guicciardini, for example, had praised its unity, stability, and strength, before going on to hail

The Historiography of Regime Change  169 it as “the wisest, most glorious, and happiest governo that our city had had for some time.”23 In the Discursus, by contrast, Machiavelli was less than impressed. Although he agreed that the regime had indeed been established “in the form of a republic governed by aristocrats,” he pointed out that it had been so defective that it had lasted barely 40 years –​and would probably have collapsed even sooner had the Visconti Wars not kept it united.24 To his mind, it had five major faults. First, lists of those eligible for office were drawn up too far in advance. This created ample opportunities for corruption (fraude). Even if no wrongdoing took place, however, the delay was so great that even if a “good” man happened to be added to the lists, he might very well have turned “bad” by the time he was chosen for office.25 Second, there was no means of striking fear into the hearts of great men. As such, they were free to form factions, “which are the ruin of a regime (stato).”26 Third, the Signoria was burdened with a paradox. On the one hand, it had too little prestige. Since young men were often elected to serve as its members, and the two-​month term of the priors was too short to transact any important political business, it could not command the respect it deserved. On the other hand, it also had too much power. It could “dispose of the lives and property of its citizens without appeal” and summon the people to a parlamento whenever it liked. This meant that, if the priors allowed themselves to be swayed by an influential figure, its authority could easily be perverted for factional purposes.27 Fourth, private citizens took part in discussions about public matters. Although it was, of course, normal practice for Florentine regimes to seek advice from prominent individuals who were not then serving in any office, the Albizzi regime’s reliance on this served further to diminish the “power and prestige” of magistrates –​“something which is opposed to every sort of civic order.”28 Fifth, the people were prevented from having any share in government.29 Machiavelli declined to go into details about this; but later in the Discursus he implied that the dissatisfaction it generated would have weakened the Albizzi regime and left it vulnerable to any opponent willing to take up the popular cause.30 Machiavelli revisited much of this assessment in the Istorie fiorentine. As in the Discursus, he left his readers in no doubt about the regime’s aristocratic nature. In narrating its origins, he pointed out that, after defeating their rivals and seizing control of the government, the Albizzi quickly took steps to consolidate power in ottimati hands. Many craftsmen were admonished and executed; while those nobles who had sided with the people were banished.31 So too, when Machiavelli came to describe moments of danger for the regime, he was careful to have its leaders call for a reassertion of aristocratic prerogatives. Following the institution of the catasto in 1427, for example, Rinaldo degli Albizzi demands that harsh measures be taken to strengthen the grandi’s hold on government –​and to prevent the iniquità of the Ciompi from recurring.32 Likewise, in 1433, Rinaldo tells his allies that the only way to shore up their tottering regime is “to regain the support of the nobles by turning over and conceding all the offices of the city, and

170  Alexander Lee to make themselves strong with that party, since their adversaries had made themselves strong with the lower class.”33 Machiavelli also sustained his belief that the Albizzi regime had been weakened by its failure to prevent great men from forming factions. Although this was nowhere stated as boldly as in the Discursus, it is implicit in his analysis of the difficulties experienced by the Albizzi regime. At the beginning of the fourth book, Machiavelli explained that the ottimati who ruled the city during this period made two mistakes, which ultimately led to their downfall: the one, that as a result of their steady power, they grew haughty; the other, that as the result of their envy for each other and of their long tenure in power, they were not too careful about who had power to injure them as they should have been.34 These failings are evident in Machiavelli’s description of Maso degli Albizzi’s decision to banish Donato Acciaiuoli in 1394.35 Though this temporarily removed a powerful opponent from the political scene, Machiavelli notes that, in failing to deal more decisively with Donato, Maso only stored up more trouble for the future. For just three years later, Donato and his allies attempted a coup from exile.36 As Jurdjevic rightly notes, the same failings are even more evident in Machiavelli’s discussion of the arrogance with which the Albizzi neglected to address the Medici’s rise.37 Most strikingly, Machiavelli also continued to stress that the Albizzi regime had been undermined by the popolo’s exclusion from government. Once again, his treatment was more subtle than in the Discursus. He could not ignore the fact that the popolo had reasserted itself in the late 1420s, for example. But he nevertheless made it clear that the Albizzi regime had been established to deny the popolo power and representation. We have already seen how, in the speech he gives Rinaldo degli Albizzi after the catasto, the defence of the grandi’s prerogatives went hand-​in-​hand with a denial of popular agency. Yet it is equally apparent elsewhere. While Machiavelli gives due attention to the Albizzi’s rivalry with the Alberti, for example, he is careful to subsume this into the broader conflict between grandi and popolani, and sets the regime’s eventual rise to prominence against the backdrop of the anti-​plebeian measures that were introduced in the wake of the Ciompi’s collapse.38 But there the similarities end. Machiavelli’s insistence in the Discursus that the Albizzi regime was weakened by drawing up lists of people eligible for office too far in advance, for example, is absent from the Istorie fiorentine. The only time he discusses the issue of premature scrutinies is in his account of the reforms of 1323 –​70 years before the regime was established.39 And while he did go on to discuss elections as a weakness of the Albizzi regime later in the text, it was for subtly different reasons. When, in the wake of the catasto, Rinaldo degli Albizzi is made to warn that

The Historiography of Regime Change  171 the popolo would “soon…elect the magistrates as it pleased,” the source of the danger is clearly the regime’s poor electoral management, rather than the delay between scrutiny and election.40 The same is true of the election of a Signoria composed entirely of Medici partisans in August 1434.41 There is only one occasion when delay is mentioned as an element of the Albizzi’s strategy –​and even then, it is a delay of a quite different variety. When Bernardo Guadagni was chosen to serve as gonfaloniere di giustizia for September and October 1433, Rinaldo degli Albizzi immediately went to “persuade” him to join the grandi in opposing Cosimo de’ Medici.42 As Machiavelli makes clear, Rinaldo successfully exploited the fact that there were three days between the election of a gonfaloniere and his taking office. But he avoids any suggestion that the delay was too long –​and remains silent about the time that had elapsed since Bernardo was declared eligible. Likewise, there is little trace in the Istorie fiorentine of Machiavelli’s characterization of the Signoria as having too much power, but too little prestige. In fact, he actually seems to contradict both points. Although he granted that the Signoria could summon a parlamento whenever it liked, and occasionally disposed of lives and property harshly and without appeal, his recognition that the reggimento failed to stop its opponents seizing power suggests that, on balance, his view of the Albizzi Signoria was ambivalent, at best.43 So too, in narrating the foundation of the regime, he also highlights the unusual effort that was made to increase both the age of magistrates, and the respect accorded to them. “[S]‌o that the gonfaloniere would have more dignity and reputation,” he explained, the Signoria decreed that “in order to hold that office, it would be necessary to be 45 years of age.”44 No mention is made of priors being unusually young, or of the Signoria being held in contempt –​even in the darkest days of the regime. Nor, indeed, is there any sign of Machiavelli’s claim that the regime was harmed by private citizens taking part in public deliberations.45 To be sure, in his account of the various pratiche, parlamenti, and other debates held in this period, he places great emphasis on the role played by figures like Maso and Rinaldo degli Albizzi, who aspired to dominate the city, despite holding office only infrequently.46 But he avoids giving the impression that this was a source of weakness per se –​or that it sapped the magistrates’ prestige. Perhaps the clearest example is provided by Machiavelli’s discussion of Rinaldo degli Albizzi’s unsuccessful attempt to secure Cosimo de’ Medici’s execution at a meeting packed with his amici in 1433.47 This, of course, proved to be the beginning of the end for the Albizzi regime; but Machiavelli is quite clear that Rinaldo’s rather desperate efforts were the result –​rather than the cause –​of the reggimento’s weakness, and that the Signoria emerged with its authority and independence enhanced, rather than reduced. At times, the involvement of private citizens is even presented in a positive light. After Florence’s defeat at the battle of Zagonara, for example, the city was gripped by unrest. The Signoria therefore “decided to bring together a number of citizens who … could quiet the agitated feelings of the crowd.”48

172  Alexander Lee What form this deliberation took is, admittedly, unclear from Machaivelli’s text; but Maso degli Albizzi’s contribution is nevertheless cast in a flattering light. Echoing many of Machiavelli’s own beliefs about Fortune, his brief, but stirring speech gave the citizens new courage and persuaded them to hire more troops with which to defend themselves –​thereby not only bolstering the position of the Signoria, but also strengthening the regime itself.49

The Medici Regime Machiavelli’s discussion of the Medici regime in the Discursus is briefer, but more balanced. Just as in the Discorsi, he characterized it as having tended “more towards the princedom than towards the republic.”50 If it had lasted longer than the Albizzi reggimento, he argued, this was because it had benefitted from two strengths its predecessor had not: the one was that it had been “established with the people’s aid;” the other that it had been “controlled by the prudence of two such men as Cosimo and Lorenzo his grandson.”51 Yet Machiavelli recognized that it had also suffered from severe weaknesses. Several times, Machiavelli argued, Cosimo had “risked the failure of a plan” as a result of “having to decide (deliberare) through a large number (per assai).”52 As a result, he had been forced to fall back on “frequent parlamenti and frequent exiles” –​measures that left the regime so fragile that, when Charles VIII of France invaded Italy in 1494, it quickly fell. As with the Albizzi reggimento, much of this analysis is repeated in the Istorie fiorentine. Machiavelli was, for example, unambiguous about the bond between the Medici and the popolo. Throughout the early books of his history, he repeatedly stressed their alignment with the popular cause. When they first appear, in his account of the Black takeover in 1302, it is as supporters of the people.53 This sets the tone for what follows. A little over 75 years later, just as the Guelfs are plotting to seize the government, Salvestro de’ Medici is elected gonfaloniere di giustizia. Born into a “very noble family of popular origin,” he “could not endure that the people should be oppressed by a few who were powerful,” and decides to put an end to their “arrogance” with the popolo’s support.54 After the revolt of the Ciompi, Salvestro then emerges as one of the foremost proponents of popular government and as a close ally of its leader, Michele di Lando.55 Later, when the Albizzi are on the brink of taking power, it is to Vieri de’ Medici “who, after the death of Messer Salvestro, had become the head of the family” that the people turn for succour;56 and over the decades which follow, it is as the defenders of the popolo’s interests that Giovanni di Bicci and Cosimo are always presented.57 The same pattern was repeated in Machiavelli’s narrative of the Medici regime itself. As he explained, whenever “Cosimo’s government had need of the people in order to get a new grip on its authority, it found them always inclined to grant its leaders such power and dominion as were asked.” Despite the storms by which Florence was buffeted, Cosimo never had anything to fear “on account of [his] popularity

The Historiography of Regime Change  173 with the people;”58 and at moments of crisis –​such as amidst attempts to get a new balìa in 1458 –​he is shown taking great care to secure the consent of the populace at all times.59 So too, Machiavelli’s assertion that the Medici regime was strengthened by the prudence of Cosimo and Lorenzo “il Magnifico” was also restated and even amplified. In surveying Cosimo’s life, Machiavelli noted that: No other in his time equalled him for his understanding of the conditions of princes and commonwealths. This was the reason why in such great variety of fortune and in a city so variable and among a body of citizens so fickle, he maintained the government for thirty-​one years. Since he was very prudent, he recognised ills at a distance, and therefore he was early enough either not to let them grow or to get ready in such a way that after they had grown, they did not harm him. Hence he not merely overcame the internal ambition of the citizens, but he defeated that of many princes with such skill and prudence that whoever allied himself with him and with his country was either equal to his enemies or superior, and whoever opposed him lost either time and money or his position.60 His praise of Lorenzo was no less lavish. Although Lorenzo may have erred on occasions, Machiavelli was nevertheless convinced that he had been an almost ideal “prince.” Bold in war, he had been equally wise in peace: His way of living and his prudence and good fortune were observed with admiration and highly respected not merely by the princes of Italy, but by those at a distance…His reputation, because of his prudence, daily increased, since in discussing affairs he was eloquent and penetrating, in settling them wise, in carrying them out prompt and courageous.61 However threatening the Pazzi Conspiracy and other challenges may have been, such prudence was unquestionably the principal reason for the regime’s survival. Yet it is harder to find parallels for other aspects of Machiavelli’s assessment in the Istorie fiorentine. His suggestion that Cosimo had often risked the failure of a plan through having to decide per assai is a case in point. Although the wording is admittedly somewhat awkward, Machiavelli’s intention was plainly to criticize the extent to which Cosimo’s regime “depended on the participation of many people to carry out its policies” –​ a tendency that allowed “discontented members of the party…too many opportunities to obstruct Medici designs” in times of crisis.62 As Jurdjevic has argued, perhaps the most obvious point of comparison for this in the Istorie fiorentine is when Machiavelli turns to discuss Cosimo’s perceived rivalry with Neri di Gino Capponi.63 This takes place against the backdrop of a wider meditation on power. As Machiavelli explained, there were two

174  Alexander Lee ways of rising to prominence in a republic.64 The first were public methods –​ military success, diplomatic service, or political nous. Since these arose out of concern for the common good, they generally strengthened a state. The second were private means. In this case, a reputation was won “by doing favors for citizens, defending them from the magistrates, assisting them with money, and aiding them in getting undeserved offices, and by pleasing the masses with games and public gifts.” Being based on self-​interest, rather than the common good, such means nurtured factions and divisions. This invariably harmed the state –​and was also an unstable way of running a party or regime. “Not even a victorious faction ever remained united,” Machiavelli argued, “except so long as the opposing faction was vigorous.” As soon as its enemies were defeated, it crumbled. According to Machiavelli, Neri Capponi had gained his reputation by public means alone, and hence had “many friends, but few partisans” (assai amici e pochi partigiani).65 Yet Cosimo, who had made use of both private and public means, “had friends and partisans in numbers” (amici e partigiani assai). As Jurdjevic has rightly noted, this pointed to the fragility of Cosimo’s rule.66 While Neri Capponi was alive, Cosimo’s partisans were united; but after his death, Machiavelli argued, the regime “found difficulty in grasping its authority again,” for the simple reason that, as soon as Cosimo’s partisans had no opposing faction to fear, they began plotting how “to lessen Cosimo’s power.” Cosimo, of course, managed to overcome these threats, generally through recourse to the people; but they were to cause his heirs great difficulty. Piero de’ Medici repeatedly struggled to “overcome the ambition” of disgruntled partisans, many of whom had been close friends of his father;67 while, in the wake of the Pazzi Conspiracy, Lorenzo “il Magnifico” is made to remark that the Medici’s friends had come, not to their aid, but “armed for [their] destruction.”68 But while this is a damning indictment of the Medici’s regime’s instability, it is subtly different to the criticisms leveled against it in the Discursus. Here, Machiavelli suggests that the weakness of Cosimo’s rule was due to the means by which he gained his followers, rather than to the number of people upon whose co-​operation he depended –​and that the result of this weakness was a lack of party cohesion, instead of the potential “failure of a plan.” Indeed, at no point in the Istorie fiorentine did Machiavelli attribute any of the difficulties encountered by Cosimo and his heirs to a superabundance of partisans per se. Even more difficult to identify is a parallel for Machiavelli’s claim that the Medici were weakened by their frequent recourse to parlamenti and banishment. That the Medici relied on parlamenti, he did not deny, of course. In the prologue to book 7, he noted that Cosimo often used “the people” to consolidate his hold on power, clearly referring to parlamenti.69 But though he often spoke disparagingly of the balìe they were sometimes called upon to establish, there is little in the Istorie fiorentine to suggest that he

The Historiography of Regime Change  175 viewed parlamenti themselves negatively.70 His account of the parlamento of 1434 is brief, to the point of terseness; while that of 1466 is described in similarly factual terms.71 When it came to the parliament of 1458, he was, admittedly, more critical –​and perhaps with good reason. On that occasion, the revival of the popolo’s ambitions caused the ottimati to take the unusual step of calling a parlamento to reassert their hold over the electoral process.72 This was spearheaded by group of the Medici’s most trusted lieutenants, including the gonfaloniere di giustizia, Luca Pitti. A key role was also played by Cosimo himself. To prevent the parlamento from voting the wrong way when it met, he had the piazza surrounded by mercenaries. In Machiavelli’s account, however, Luca Pitti alone is responsible both for convening the parlamento, and for intimidating the people into compliance.73 Cosimo, by contrast, is spared any involvement. Indeed, Machiavelli even suggests that he opposed Luca Pitti, and refused to have anything to do with the gonfaloniere’s strong-​arm tactics. The problem here is hence not the fact that a parlamento was summoned, but how it was handled –​and by whom it was called. And though this parlamento was followed by several years of bad government, Machiavelli carefully notes that it was “not Cosimo but Messer Luca” who “ruled the city.”74 It is much the same story with the Medici’s use of banishment. At times, to be sure, Machiavelli did criticize this. After Cosimo’s return to Florence, he wrote, the Signoria which held office in November and December 1434 extended and altered the exile of some, and banished others for the first time –​for no other reason than factional enmity75. He felt that this was so outrageous that, if it had been accompanied by bloodshed, it would have been exactly like the proscriptions of Octavian and Sulla. But Machiavelli nevertheless avoided any suggestion that such banishments weakened the Medici regime. Indeed, on at least two occasions, he says they actually strengthened it. When, in 1444, the balìa extended many exiles’ periods of banishment and took harsh measures against several of the Medici’s other enemies, Machiavelli claimed, it “restored [the regime’s] authority and influence and deprived enemies and suspects of enthusiasm.”76 Similarly, when Piero de’ Medici’s partisans persuaded the gonfaloniere di giustizia, Bardo Altoviti, to exile a slew of opponents in 1468, Machiavelli thought that “[t]‌his policy added to their power and to the terror of their victims.”77 To be sure, such punishments did not smother opposition altogether. But after 1466, when the Medici’s position had been consolidated, it helped ensure that the discontented were forced either with patience to bear with that kind of government or, if they did attempt to destroy it, to do so with conspiracy and secretly. Such conspiracies, because unlikely to succeed, usually produce ruin for those who form them, but greatness for those against whom they are directed.78

176  Alexander Lee

The Sources of Divergence Machiavelli’s historical assessment of the Albizzi and Medici regimes in the Discursus hence differs from the Istorie fiorentine in several major respects. Taken together, these discrepancies clearly point towards a dynamic, rather than static, attitude towards the history of regime change –​and a fluid understanding of what made regimes weak or strong. But what prompted such a shift in Machiavelli’s historiography? Why did he present the weaknesses and strengths of previous regimes in such different way? To what did he owe his judgements in the Discursus? And what caused him to change his mind just a few years later? No doubt part of the answer is bound up with changes in genre and purpose. Although both the Discursus and the Istorie fiorentine were commissioned by the Medici, they were different kinds of texts, serving different ends and obeying different rhetorical norms. In that the Discursus was intended to articulate a set of proposals for political reform, it did not lend itself to the sort of nuanced historical reflections that were later to be integral to the Istorie fiorentine. And given that Machiavelli had grown much closer to the Medici in the years after the Discursus’ completion, some variation is, perhaps, only to be expected. But while this may explain why Machiavelli was always likely to express different historical views, it does not account for the specific criticisms he made of the Albizzi and Medici regimes. These appear to have been shaped by a combination of factors. Of these, perhaps the most obvious is his shifting relationship with the historical sources on which he depended for his understanding of each regime. At least some of his remarks in the Discursus bear the imprint of accounts he was later to repudiate. The most notable example is Leonardo Bruni’s Historiarum Florentini populi libri XII. This was a work that Machiavelli admired deeply. In the proem to the Istorie fiorentine, he admitted that his initial plan had been to begin his narrative in 1434, since, in his rather naïve opinion, the period before that date had already been covered in sufficient detail by Bruni and Poggio Bracciolini. It would only have been natural for him to have turned to Bruni’s history when writing the Discursus.79 His criticism of private men taking part in public disputations, in particular, bears some similarities with Bruni’s treatment of Donato Acciaiuoli’s exile in 1395.80 According to Bruni, Acciaiuoli was a “knight from a noble and much-​honored family,” who had risen to become “the leading man in the governance of the state.” For whatever reason, however, he suddenly turned on the regime and started agitating for the restoration of those who had been excluded from office. What made him so dangerous was his power. As Bruni notes, he received ambassadors in his home, acted as patron to anyone who had business in the city, and was derisively addressed as “duke” or “lord” by his enemies. Although armed force was always an option, Bruni also suggests that, if had he not

The Historiography of Regime Change  177 been stopped in time, he could easily have attained his end through public deliberations. Taken together, this clearly suggests that that allowing such prominent private citizens to take part in open debates sapped authority from the magistrates and was a source of weakness for the regime –​much as Machiavelli argued in the Discursus. By the time Machiavelli came to write the Istorie fiorentine in earnest, however, he had turned his back on Bruni’s history. As he explained in the proem, he felt that, while it discussed Florence’s foreign wars admirably, it did not give nearly enough attention to the “civil strife and internal hostilities” by which the city had so often been tormented –​and hence decided to re-​write all the events Bruni had covered from scratch, including, it seems, the public deliberations held under the Albizzi regime.81 The reverse also appears to have been true. In the Istorie fiorentine, Machiavelli’s historiography of regime change relied on works that he had not previously read with the same attention. Unfortunately, space does not allow for a comprehensive survey; but a useful example is provided by his claim, in the Discursus, that Cosimo de’ Medici had often risked the failure of a plan through having to decide per assai. Although Machiavelli remained critical of the Medici regime’s fragility in the Istorie fiorentine, his description of the rivalry between Cosimo and Neri Capponi, and his decision to focus on the means by which public standing was gained rather than the number of the Medici’s partisans appears to have been inspired by his reading of Giovanni Cavalcanti’s own Istorie fiorentine –​a work of which he had been aware while writing the Discorsi, but upon which he had since come to depend for his knowledge of the early fifteenth century.82 Not only does Cavalcanti’s account provide the only detailed testimony for the hostility between Neri and Cosimo, but it also suggests that, while Neri owed his prominence to his wisdom, Cosimo derived his from wealth –​a contrast strongly reminiscent of Machiavelli’s own distinction between private and public methods of gaining power.83 In much the same way, Rab Hatfield has demonstrated that Machiavelli’s discussion of Piero de’ Medici’s difficulties in controlling his partisans in the Istorie fiorentine is likely to have been taken from Giovanni di Carlo’s Libri de temporibus suis, a work to which he does not refer in his earlier works.84 Yet an equal –​if not greater –​influence on Machiavelli’s perceptions of stati in the past was his relationship with regimes in the present. Naturally, the Medici regime in Florence had by far the most important effect. In the years between the Discursus and the completion of the Istorie fiorentine, Machiavelli would have seen a marked change in the Medici’s approach to key institutions; and, though he was still only on the fringes of Cardinal Giulio’s stato, he seems to have been prudent enough to read the altered circumstances back onto the past in each of his works. This is particularly evident in his presentation of parlamenti. For as long as Machiavelli could remember, the question of whether they were a legitimate instrument of

178  Alexander Lee government had been hotly debated. Back in 1495, Savonarola had overseen a law prohibiting anyone from calling a parlamento. 85 Mindful of the Medici’s habits in the past, he reasoned that, if their partisans could summon an assembly whenever they liked, they would doubtless use it to bypass the newly-​established Great Council. These fears eventually proved justified. When the Medici returned to Florence in September 1512, they promptly convened a parlamento and used it to abolish both Savonarola’s law and the Great Council itself. By 1520, however, popular demands for the Great Council had revived. Convinced that re-​establishing the Council was the only way of appeasing the popolo, Machiavelli was hence obliged to oppose parlamenti, just as Savonarola had done, and to project this onto his account of the earlier Medici regime in the Discursus. No sooner had he done so, however, than the political landscape changed once again. In early 1522, Machiavelli was again invited to submit proposals for the reform of the Florentine government.86 As before, he called for the restoration of the Great Council; and this time, his proposals were broadly accepted.87 Granted, the draft law, which he was asked to draw up, did not mention parlamenti; but the mere fact that the Medici were re-​establishing the Great Council could be construed as a guarantee that its authority would be respected.88 In the years that followed, the need to resort to parlamenti was, in any case, reduced. After Giulio was elected Pope Clement VII in 1523, the “succession” of Alessandro and Ippolito happened so smoothly that such exceptional constitutional mechanisms were not required –​and there was no reason to believe that would change in the near future.89 As such, Machiavelli may have felt that, since parlamenti were now a less pressing matter, there was no cause to criticize the previous Medici regime for using them in the Istorie fiorentine. In much the same way, Machiavelli’s views of regime change also appear to have been affected by his relationship with opponents of Cardinal Giulio’s regime. At the time Machiavelli wrote the Discursus, he was still a regular visitor to the Orti Oricellari, where the Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio had been conceived; and, though the death of Cosimo Rucellai in 1519 had hit him hard, his intellectual milieu was essentially the same as it had been when he completed the earlier work.90 As was perhaps only natural, his discussion of banishment in the Discursus seems to have been underpinned by similar convictions as the Discorsi. The parallels between the two texts are striking. In keeping with his broader view of law, Machiavelli argued, in the Discorsi, that no republic should ever let a crime go unpunished; but he nevertheless regarded banishment as a poor choice for a prince wishing to stay in power. Much as he had argued in Il principe that a wise ruler turns opponents into friends,91 so he suggested that a good prince should allow a man to have any opinion he liked, without fear of punishment.92 He also went on to note that exiles are inherently untrustworthy and will do anything to return.93

The Historiography of Regime Change  179 By the time Machiavelli completed the Istorie fiorentine, however, his ties to the Orti Oricellari had forced him to revise his attitude. In the summer of 1522, several of his friends from gardens were implicated in a plot against the Medici.94 The leaders, Luigi Alamanni and Jacopo Cattani da Diacceto –​ to whom Machiavelli had dedicated the Vita di Castruccio Castracani –​ were executed, while Zanobi Buondelmonti and the others fled before a price could be put on their heads.95 Machiavelli’s grief is easy to imagine; but the failure of the coup may nevertheless help to explain why his depiction of punishments in the Istorie fiorentine was less critical than before. Whatever his private feelings, he had worked hard to gain entry into the Medici’s circle and recognized the need to draw the “right” lessons from such an episode. He must have known that, had the plot not been discovered, it might very well have succeeded. Its ringleaders were working in concert with his old friend, Cardinal Francesco Soderini, in Rome; and a large body of foreign troops had stood ready to descend on Florence. As such, Machiavelli may have realized that swift action, followed by harsh punishments, had actually saved the Medici regime –​and incorporated that realization into his historiography. But Machiavelli’s views of regime change also appear to have been influenced by his experience of regimes outside Florence. A few months before he began writing the Discursus, he had been sent on a mission to Lucca.96 Although primarily commercial in nature, this had given him the opportunity to study the city’s constitution, and to determine what –​if anything –​Florence could learn from it. On his return, he worked his findings up into a report, now known as the Sommario delle cose della città di Lucca.97 There was much he admired about Lucca’s system of government. Much like the consuls in Rome, and the doge of Venice, for example, the Anziani of Lucca had no power over citizens. This was a marked advantage, Machiavelli felt, because “the highest symbol of a republic is already so esteemed that if you were to add authority bad effects would result very swiftly.”98 But there were also plenty of things that troubled him. Lucca’s electoral system was peculiar. Not only was it extremely complicated, but it also involved choosing candidates for office long before they began their term. Even more worrying was the lack of prestige enjoyed by the Anziani. After serving their term, Machiavelli remarked, members of the Anziani had to wait several years before they were eligible for election again. Since this did not appeal to great men, whose ambitions looked to the long-​term, the Anziani tended to be dominated by the lower classes. One effect of this was to concentrate real power in the hands of the grandi, who, instead of holding offices themselves, used ties of patronage and kinship to control those who did. But it also sucked prestige away from the Anziani themselves, and forced men to seek redress through private, rather than public, means. As a consequence, they often found themselves obliged to call “colloquia of citizens” –​the equivalent of Florentine pratiche –​to resolve major questions,

180  Alexander Lee a device that, Machiavelli archly noted, “a well-​ordered republic would not use.”99 Though not always exact, the parallels with Machiavelli’s treatment of the Albizzi regime in the Discursus are striking. Both the weaknesses of Lucca’s Anziani and the faults it avoided anticipate his claim that, under the Albizzi, the Florentine Signoria had too much power, but too little prestige. So too, in his attack on the Lucchese colloquia, there is a foretaste of his later criticism of the Albizzi’s tendency to allow private citizens to take part in public disputations.100 And there is perhaps also some comparison to be drawn between his treatment of Lucca’s electoral system and his suggestion that, in Florence, lists of people eligible for office were drawn up too far in advance. Lucca’s relevance as a point of comparison was, however, limited. In July 1522, the Poggi family –​whom Machiavelli had identified as dangerous –​ attempted to overthrow the republic and set themselves up as despots.101 Although the coup was foiled, the structure of political society in Lucca was revised. Authority was now consolidated more firmly in the hands of a narrow oligarchy of wealthy merchants. This did little to make the Republic any more stable. Quite the opposite. Further revolts, both popular and aristocratic, took place in 1531 and 1542. But the aftermath may nevertheless have had the dual effect of dampening Machiavelli’s interest in Lucca and making the criticisms he had made in the Sommario seem outdated. If so, this might help to explain why his depiction of the Albizzi regime in the Istorie fiorentine –​written after the Poggi coup –​differed so strikingly from his analysis in the Discursus.

Conclusion As this paper has shown, Machiavelli’s understanding of Florentine regimes past was dynamic, rather than static. Between the historical prologue to the Discursus and the Istorie fiorentine, a noticeable change occurred. In some cases, what was presented as a weakness in the former had become a strength in the latter. In others, the emphasis shifted. And most often, features that had seemed significant at first were simply never mentioned again. Throughout, Machiavelli’s assessment of earlier regimes was shaped, not by fixed historical beliefs, but by an ongoing dialog with “unstable” texts –​and, most crucially, by his relationship with regimes in his own day. This says much about the flexibility, not to mention uncertainty, of Machiavelli’s historiography of regime change; but its implications are also much wider. In that his relationship with the past was both shaped by and directed towards the present, it underscores that his underlying concept of a “regime” was itself circular and unstable –​and gives some indication of the intellectual ferment in which regimes in their fate were weighed during the upheaval of the Italian Wars.

The Historiography of Regime Change  181

Notes 1 John M. Najemy, A History of Florence, 1200–​ 1575 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008), 426. 2 E.g. Goro Gheri, Istruzione per Roma, in Firenze dalla repubblica al principato, by Rudolf von Albertini, trans. Cesare Cristofolini (Turin: Einaudi, 1970), 361–​364. 3 E.g. Lodovico Alamanni, Discorso sopra il fermare lo stato di Firenze nella devozione dei Medici, in von Albertini, Firenze, 376–​384. 4 Such calls came both from the popolo, and from advocates of “mixed” government: e.g. Francesco Guicciardini, Discorso di Logrogno, in Francesco Guicciardini, Opere, ed. Emmanuella Lunani Scarano, 3 vols. (Turin: UTET, 1970–​1981), vol. 1, 249–​296. 5 Lorenzo Polizzotto, The Elect Nation: The Savonarolan Movement in Florence, 1494–​1545 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), 248; John N. Stephens, The Fall of the Florentine Republic, 1512–​1530 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1983), 67–​69, 109; Humfrey Butters, Governors and Government in Early-​ Sixteenth Century Florence, 1502–​1519 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985), 226–​229. 6 Stephens, Fall, 112. 7 Rosemary Devonshire Jones, Francesco Vettori: Florentine Citizen and Medici Servant (London: Athlone Press, 1972), 148–​149. 8 Text in Niccolò Machiavelli, Opere politiche, vol. 3, L’Arte della Guerra. Scritti politici minori, ed. Jean-​Jacques Marchand, Denis Fachard, and Giorgio Masi (Rome: Salerno, 2001), 624–​641 [hereafter “OP”]. English translation in Niccolò Machiavelli, Machiavelli: The Chief Works and Others, trans. Allan H. Gilbert, 3 vols. (Durham NC: Duke University Press, 1989), vol. 1, 101–​115 [hereafter “CW”]. On dating, see Robert Black, Machiavelli (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), 232. See also Alexander Lee, Machiavelli: His Life and Times (London: Picador, 2020), 457–​475. 9 See Gian Mario Anselmi, Ricerche sul Machiavelli Storico (Pisa: Pacini, 1979), 80. 10 OP, 625–​627. 11 OP, 627; cf. Aristotle, Pol. 3.6, 1279a17–​18. 12 For “paradoxical,” see Gennaro Sasso, Niccolò Machiavelli, vol. 2, La storiografia (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1993), 203–​206. Sasso previously cast the Discursus as a more “utopian” work: e.g. Gennaro Sasso, Machiavelli: Storia del suo pensiero politico (Naples: Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Storici, 1958), 450. 13 Mark Jurdjevic, A Great and Wretched City. Promise and Failure in Machiavelli’s Florentine Political Thought (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014), 9; Anselmi, Ricerche, 80; Gian Mario Anselmi, “Il Discursus florentinarum rerum tra progetto politico e prospettiva storiografica,” in Niccolò Machaivelli: Politico, Storico, Letterato, ed. Jean-Jacques Marchand (Rome: Salerno, 1996), 189–​ 208; Raffaele Cavalluzzi, “Machiavelli per ‘rassettare’ le cose fiorentine,” Italianistica: Rivista di letteratura italiana 39, no. 1 (2010): 11–​21. 14 Francesco Bausi, Machiavelli (Rome: Salerno, 2005), 305ff; Humfrey Butters, “Machiavelli and the Medici,” in The Cambridge Companion to Machiavelli, ed. John M. Najemy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 64–​79, here 74; Paul Larivaille, Letture machiavelliane (Rome: Salerno Editrice, 2017), 196. For a critique of Larivaille’s interpretation, see Jérémie Barthas, “Analecta machiavelliana, II. Un Machiavelli per l’Edizione nazionale: dalla critica genetica

182  Alexander Lee alla lettura esoterica, attualità dell’anti-​machiavellismo,” Rivista storica italiana 130 (2018): 659–​681, here 673–​677. 15 Black, Machiavelli, 238; Giorgio Inglese, “Il Discursus florentinarum rerum di Niccolò Machiavelli,” La cultura 23 (1985): 203–​228, here 204; Fabio Raimondi, Constituting Freedom: Machiavelli and Florence, trans. Matthew Armistead (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 76, 112–​124; John P. McCormick, Machiavellian Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 103–​107. 16 Machiavelli presented the Istorie fiorentine [hereafter “IF”] to Clement VII in late May 1525. For the date, see Roberto Ridolfi, Vita di Niccolò Machiavelli, 3rd ed., 2 vols. (Florence: Sansoni, 1969), vol. 1, 330. 17 Typical in this regard is Jean-​ Jacques Marchand, who had argued that the Discursus “può essere collocato…all’incrocio tra riflessione politica teorica e storiografia, e in questo senso preannuncia il grande affresco storico-​politico delle Istorie fiorentine.” Jean-​ Jacques Marchand, “Discursus florentinarum rerum,” Enciclopedia machiavelliana (Rome: Istituto dell’ Enciclopedia italiana, 2014), s.v. 18 See, for example, Sasso, Niccolò Machiavelli, 169, 363–​366, 463–​466; Nicolai Rubinstein, “Machiavelli e le origini di Firenze,” Rivista storica italiana 79 (1967): 952–​959, here 958; Marina Marietti, “Machiavel historiographe des Médicis,” in Les Ecrivains et le pouvoir en Italie à l’époque de la Renaissance, vol. 2, ed. André Rochon (Paris: Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 1979), 81–​ 148, here 109; Gisela Bock, “Civil Discord in Machiavelli’s Istorie Fiorentine,” in Machiavelli and Republicanism, ed. Gisela Bock, Quentin Skinner, and Maurizio Viroli (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 181–​201, here 189–​192. In support of this interpretation, attention has often been drawn to Machiavelli’s comments at IF, 3.1, where he appears to allude to the connection between the two works: “E dove Roma, sendosi quella loro virtù convertita in superbia, si ridusse in termine che sanza avere un principe non si poteva mantenere, Firenze a quel grado è pervenuta che facilmente da uno savio datore di legge potrebbe essere in qualunque forma di governo riordinata.” 19 Jurdjevic, Great, 9. 20 Ibid. 21 One of the most notable exceptions is John Najemy. In an important article, Najemy has noted that, whereas Machiavelli attributed both strengths and weaknesses to the Medici regime of 1434–​1494 in the Discursus, his “view of the whole Medici phenomenon in Florentine history –​their rise to power, the regime, and the interdependent relationship between regime and society –​was decidedly negative.” Najemy’s analysis of the Discursus is, however, necessarily rather brief and he offers no point-​by-​point comparison with the Istorie fiorentine. J.M. Najemy, “Machiavelli and the Medici: The Lessons of Florentine History,” Renaissance Quarterly 35/​4 (1982): 551–​576, here 565. 22 Jurdjevic, Great, 133. 23 Francesco Guicciardini, Storie fiorentine dal 1378 al 1509, ed. Roberto Palmarocchi (Bari: Laterza, 1931), vol. 1, 2–​3: “quello è stato el piú savio, el piú glorioso, el piú felice governo che mai per alcuno tempo abbi avuto la cittá nostra.” 24 OP, 625: “si vedrà come allora le volleno dar forma di republica governata da ottimati; e come in essa fu tanti difetti, che la non passò quaranta anni, e sarebbe

The Historiography of Regime Change  183 durata meno, se le guerre dei Visconti non fussino seguite, le quali la tenevano unita.” For reasons of space, Machiavelli’s (more nuanced) discussion of the Visconti Wars in the Istorie fiorentine is omitted in the following. See the excellent analysis at Jurdjevic, Great, 136–​137. 25 OP, 625: “intra gli altri fare gli squittinii per lungo tempo, dove si poteva fare fraude facilmente e dove la elezione poteva essere non buona: perché, mutandosi gli uomini facilmente e diventando di buoni tristi, e dall’altro canto, dandosi e gradi a’ cittadini per più tempo, poteva facilmente occorrere che la elezione fosse stata buona e la tratta trista.” This passage is awkwardly phrased, but I am not convinced Machiavelli intended to suggest that “bad” people were added to the lists, as Jurdjevic argues (Great, 134). Cf. CW, 1:102 n.2. 26 OP, 625: “Oltre di questo, non vi era constituito un timore agli uomini grandi che non potessero far sètte, le quali sono la rovina di uno stato.” 27 OP, 625–​6: “Aveva ancora la Signoria poca riputazione e troppa autorità, potendo disporre senza appello della vita e della roba dei cittadini, e potendo chiamare il popolo a parlamento. In modo che la veniva ad essere non defensitrice dello stato, ma instrumento di farlo perdere, qualunque volta un cittadino reputato la potessi o comandare o aggirare. Aveva d’altro canto come si è detto, poca reputazione, perché, sendo in quella spesso uomini abietti e giovani e per poco tempo, e non facendo faccende gravi, non poteva avere reputazione.” 28 OP, 626: “gli uomini privati si trovavano nei consigli delle cose publiche: il che manteneva la reputazione agli uomini privati e la levava a’ publici, e veniva a levare autorità e reputazione a’ magistrati: la qual cosa è contro ad ogni ordine civile.” 29 OP, 626: “il popolo non vi aveva dentro la parte sua.” 30 OP, 636: “la universalità dei cittadini: a’ quali non si satisferà mai (e chi crede altrimenti non è savio), se non si rende loro o promette di render la loro autorità.” 31 IF, 3.25; 3.26. 32 IF, 4.9. 33 IF, 4.30: “il remedio era…di riguadagnarsi i grandi, rendendo e concedendo loro tutti gli onori della città e farsi forte con questa parte, poiché i loro avversari si erano fatti forti con la plebe;” CW, 3:1225. 34 IF, 4.2: “Quelli nobili popolani, i quali pacificamenti governavono la città, feciono duoi errori che furono la rovina dello stato di quelli: l’uno, che diventorono per il continuo dominio insolenti, l’altro, che per la invidia che eglino avevono l’uno all’altro, e per la lunga possessione nello stato, quella cura di chi gli potesse offendere che dovevono non tennono.” CW, 3:1188 (adapted). 35 IF, 3.26. Cf. Najemy, History, 193; Gene A. Brucker, The Civic World of Early Renaissance Florence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), 95–​100. 36 IF, 3.27. 37 Jurdjevic, Great, 139–​42; IF, 4.26–​30. 38 IF, 3.21; 3.24; 4.2. For discussion, see Najemy, History, 182–​ 184; John M. Najemy, Corporatism and Consensus in Florentine Electoral Politics, 1280–​ 1400 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982), 263–​300. 39 IF, 2.28. On the “reforms,” see Giovanni Villani, Cronica, ed. Francesco Gherardi Dragomanni, 4 vols. (Florence: S. Coen, 1844–​45), vol. 2, 287–​288; Marchionne di Coppo Stefani, Cronaca fiorentina, 266, in Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, ed. Niccolò Rodolico, ser. 2, vol. 30, part 1 (Città di Castello: S. Lapi, 1903–​1955), 134; Najemy, Corporatism, 93–​97

184  Alexander Lee 40 IF, 4.9. Jurdjevic recognises that Machiavelli is discussing “[t]‌he imprecision with which the Albizzi managed the city’s electoral politics,” but does not mention that this is not the same as what he said in the Discursus. Jurdjevic, Great, 139. Cf. IF 5.4. 41 IF, 4.30. 42 IF, 4.28. 43 Machiavelli discussed paliamenti and balìe convened or planned in 1393 (IF, 3.25), 1400 (3.28), 1426 (4.8), 1433 (4.28–​30), and 1434 (4.33). On each occasion, he was careful to stress the role of the Signoria’s authority. 44 IF, 3.26: “perché il gonfaloniere della giustizia avesse più maestà e reputatzione, providono che fusse, ad esercitare quella degnità, di avere quarantacinque anni necessario;” CW, 3:1181. 45 Although Jurdjevic highlights this in his summary of the Discursus’ contents, he avoids mentioning it when he turns to analyse the Istorie fiorentine. Jurdjevic, Great, 134–​135. 46 IF, 4.7. 47 IF, 4.30. 48 IF, 4.7: “Pertanto parve a’ Signori ragunare assai cittadini, i quali con buone parole gli umori mossi della moltitudine quietassero;” CW, 3:1193 (amended). 49 IF, 4.7–​8; CW, 3:1193–​4. 50 OP, 626: “lo stato di Cosimo, el quale pendé più verso il principato che verso la republica;” cf. Machiavelli, Discorsi, 1:33: “Donde ne nacque che la sua parte… poco dipoi…richiamò [Cosimo de’ Medici] e lo fece principe della republica…” 51 OP, 626: “se durò più tempo che l’altro, ne furono cagione dua cose: l’una, esser fatto con il favor del popolo; l’altra, esser governato dalla prudenza di dua uomini, quali furono Cosimo e Lorenzo suo nipote;” CW, 1:102–​3. 52 OP, 626–​7: “Non di meno gli arrecava tanta debolezza lo aversi a deliberare per assai quello che Cosimo voleva condurre, che portò più volte pericolo di perderlo: donde nacquono gli spessi parlamenti e gli spessi esilii, che durante quello stato si feciono; e infine dipoi, in su l’accidente della passata del re Carlo, si perdé;” CW, 1:103. 53 IF, 2.21. 54 IF, 3.9: “Costui [Salvestro], nato di nobilissima famiglia popolana, che il popolo fussi da pochi potenti oppresso sopportare non poteva; e avendo pensato di porre fine a questa insolenza, vedendosi il popolo favorevole…;” CW, 3:1152. On Salvestro’s proposed reforms, see Diario d’anonimo fiorentino dall’anno 1358 al 1389 in Cronache dei secoli XIII e XIV, ed. Alessandro Gherardi (Florence: Cellini, 1876), 504; Najemy, History, 161; Gene A. Brucker, Florentine Politics and Society, 1343–​1378 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962), 364–​365. 55 IF, 3.17–​18. On Salvestro’s and the Ciompi, see Stefani, Cronaca fiorentina, 796, ed. Rodolico, 326; Najemy, Corporation, 230, 239 56 IF, 3.25; trans. in CW, 3:1179–​80. On Vieri, see Raffaella Zaccaria, “Medici, Vieri de’,” Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 73 (Rome: Istituto dell’ Enciclopedia italiana, 2009), s.v. 57 IF, 4.3, 4.27. 58 IF, 5.31 59 IF, 7.3. On the events of 1458, see Najemy, History, 294–​6; Nicolai Rubinstein, The Government of Florence under the Medici (1434 to 1494) (Oxford: Clarendon,

The Historiography of Regime Change  185 1966), 99–​ 153; Paula C. Clarke, The Soderini and the Medici: Power and Patronage in Fifteenth-​Century Florence (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991), 58–​64. 60 IF, 7.5: “Degli stati de’ principe e civili governi niuno altro per intelligenza al suo tempo lo raggiunse, di qui nacque che in tanta varietà di fortuna e in sì varia città e volubile cittadinanza tenne uno stato trentuno anno: perché sendo prudentissimo cognosceva i mali discosto, e perciò era a tempo o a non li lasciare crescere o a prepararsi in modo che cresciuti non lo offendessero; donde non solamente vinse la domestica e civile ambizione, ma quella di molti principi superò con tanta felicità e prudenza, che qualunque seco e con la sua patria si collegava rimaneva o pari o superiore al nimico, e qualunque se gli opponeva, o e’ perdeva il tempo e’ denari o lo stato;” CW, 3:1343. 61 IF, 8.36: “Questo suo modo di vivere, questa sua prudenza e fortuna, fu dai principi non solo di Italia ma longinqui da quella con ammirazione cognosciuta e stimata…La quale reputazione ciascuno giorno per la prudenzia sua cresceva, perché era nel discorrere le cose eloquente e arguto, nel risolverle savio, nello esequirle presto e animoso;” CW, 3:1434. 62 Jurdjevic, Great, 153. 63 See Michael Mallett, “Capponi, Neri,” Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 19 (Rome: Istituto dell’ Enciclopedia italiana, 1976), s.v.; Brian Jeffrey Maxson, “The Certame Coronario as Performative Ritual,” in Rituals of Politics and Culture in Early Modern Europe: Essays in Honour of Edward Muir, eds. Mark Jurdjevic and Rolf Strøm-​Olsen (Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2016), 137–​163, here 140–​147; Rubinstein, Government, 25, 26, 29, 134–​135. 64 IF, 7.1; CW, 3:1337. 65 IF, 7.2; CW, 3:1338. 66 Jurdjevic, Great, 153. 67 IF, 7.5, 7.11, 7.13, 7.15. 68 IF, 8.10: “Sogliono quelli che dubitano della morte ricorrere agli amici per aiuti, sogliono ricorrere a’ parenti, e noi gli trovavamo armati per la distruzione nostra;” CW, 3:1396. 69 IF, 7.1. 70 For a contrasting approach, see Jurdjevic, Great, 156–​158. 71 IF, 4.33, 7.17. 72 Benedetto Dei, La Cronica dall’anno 1400 all’anno 1500, ed. Roberto Barducci (Florence: Papafava, 1984), 66; Rubinstein, Government, 100–​1, 104–​5; Najemy, History, 294–​296. 73 IF, 7.3. 74 IF, 7.4. 75 IF, 5.4; a list of exiles is given at Domenico Buoninsegni, Storie della città di Firenze dall’anno 1410 al 1460 (Florence: Landini, 1637), 56–​58. On Machiavelli’s use of Buoninsegni in the Istorie fiorentine, see Anselmi, Ricerche, 121–​44. 76 IF, 6.7: “E con questi modi a sé renderono autorità e reputazione, e a’ nimici e sospetti tolsono l’orgoglio;” CW, 3:1293. On the banishments, cf. Buoninsegni, Storia, 79. 77 IF, 7.21: “La qual cosa crebbe a loro potenza e agli altri spavento;” CW, 3:1359. 78 IF, 8.1: “dopo la vittoria del ’66 si ristrinse in modo lo stato tutto a’Medici; i quali tanta autorità presono che quelli che ne erano mal contenti conveniva o con pazienza quel modo del vivere comportassero o, se pure lo volessero

186  Alexander Lee spegnere, per via di congiure e secretamente di farlo tentassero: le quali perché con difficoltà succedono, partoriscono il più delle volte a chi le muove rovina e a colui contro al quale sono mosse grandezza;” CW, 3.1383. 79 IF, proem. 80 Leonardo Bruni, Historiarum Florentini populi liber XII, 11.35–​ 7; trans. idem, History of the Florentine People, ed. and trans. James Hankins, 3 vols. (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2001–7), 3:200–​5. 81 IF, proem; CW, 3:1031. 82 Anselmi, Ricerche, 127–​140. 83 Giovanni Cavalcanti, Istorie fiorentine, ed. Filippo Luigi Polidori, 2 vols. (Florence: Tip. all’insegna di Dante, 1838), 2:159–​160; on Cavalcanti as a source for the rivalry between Neri and Cosimo, see Anselmi, Richerche, 132; Maxson, “The Certame,” 140–​147; Guido Di Pino, “Le Istorie fiorentine di Giovanni Cavalcanti e quelle del Machiavelli,” in Machiavelli attuale Machiavel actuel, ed. Georges Barthouil (Ravenna: Longo Editore, 1982), 35–​49. 84 Rab Hatfield, “A Source for Machiavelli’s Account of the Regime of Piero de’ Medici,” in Studies on Machiavelli, ed. M. P. Gilmore (Florence, 1972), 317–​333. 85 Donald Weinstein, Savonarola: The Rise and Fall of a Renaissance Prophet (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011), 166–​167. 86 Text in OP, 643–​4. See Lee, Machiavelli, 494–​495; Stephens, Fall, 113; Filippo de’ Nerli, Commentari de’ fatti civili Occorsi dentro la Città di Firenze dall’anno MCCXV al MDXXXVII (Augusta, 1728), 137; G. Guidi, “Niccolò Machiavelli e i progetti di riforme constituzionali a Firenze nel 1522,” Il pensiero politico 2 (1969): 580–​596. 87 Guidi, “Niccolò Machiavelli;” Stephens, Fall, 114–​115; Black, Machiavelli, 240; Lee, Machiavelli, 495–​496. 88 The text of the draft is in OP, 646–​654. 89 On the Medici “bastards,” see Lee, Machiavelli, 506; Stephens, Fall, 168–​169. 90 Filippo de’ Nerli, Commentari de’ fatti civili Occorsi dentro la Città di Firenze dall’anno MCCXV al MDXXXVII (Augusta: Mertz and Majer, 1728), 138; Lee, Machiavelli, 449. 91 Machiavelli, Il principe, 20. 92 Machiavelli, Discorsi, 1.10. 93 Machiavelli, Discorsi, 2.31. 94 See Lee, Machiavelli, 492–​ 498; Najemy, History, 440–​ 441; Stephens, Fall, 119–​123. 95 Cesare Guasti, “Documenti della congiura fatto contra il cardinale Giuliano de’ Medici nel 1522,” Giornale storico degli archivi toscani 3 (1859): 121–​150, 185–​232, 239–​267, here 122. 96 Lee, Machiavelli, 458–​459; Sergio Bertelli, “Nota introduttiva,” in Legazioni e commissarie, by Niccolò Machiavelli, ed. Sergio Bertelli, 3 vols. (Milan, 1964), 1511–​1512. 97 Text in OP, 613–​620; trans. in Mark Jurdjevic, Natasha Piano, and John P. McCormick, eds., Florentine Political Writings from Petrarch to Machiavelli (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019), 228–​233. 98 Jurdjevic et al., Florentine, 231. Machiavelli noted that there was another magistracy which did have sweeping powers over citizens: Jurdjevic et al., Florentine, 232. 99 Jurdjevic et al., Florentine, 229, 231.

The Historiography of Regime Change  187 00 Cf. Black, Machiavelli, 236. 1 101 Marino Berengo, Nobili e mercanti nella Lucca del Cinquecento (Turin: Einaudi, 1999), 83–​117; Federico dal Porto, “La Rivolta dei Poggi a Luca nel 1522,” Actum Luce. Studi lucchesi 1 (1972): 143–​158; Renaud Villard, “La fidélité aux factions à l’épreuve de la mobilisation violente: l’exemple du tumulte des Poggi à Lucques (1522),” Mélanges de l’école française de Rome 118, no. 2 (2006): 227–​242; cf. OP, 619.

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The Historiography of Regime Change  189 Maxson, Brian Jeffrey. “The Certame Coronatio as Performative Ritual.” In Rituals of Politics and Culture in Early Modern Europe: Essays in Honour of Edward Muir, eds. Mark Jurdjevic and Rolf Strøm-​Olsen, 137–​163. Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2016. McCormick, John P. Machiavellian Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Najemy, John M. Corporatism and Consensus in Florentine Electoral Politics, 1280–​ 1400. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982. Najemy, John M. “Machiavelli and the Medici: The Lessons of Florentine History.” Renaissance Quarterly 35/​4 (1982): 551–​576. Najemy, John M. A History of Florence, 1200–​1575. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008. Nerli, Filippo de’. Commentari de’ fatti civili Occorsi dentro la Città di Firenze dall’anno MCCXV al MDXXXVII. Augusta: Mertz and Majer, 1728. Pino, Guido Di. “Le Istorie fiorentine di Giovanni Cavalcanti e quelle del Machiavelli.” In Machiavelli attuale Machiavel actuel, ed. Georges Barthouil, 35–​ 49. Ravenna: Longo Editore, 1982. Polizzotto, Lorenzo. The Elect Nation: The Savonarolan Movement in Florence, 1494–​1545. Oxford: Clarendon, 1994. Raimondi, Fabio. Constituting Freedom: Machiavelli and Florence. Trans. Matthew Armistead. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Ridolfi, Roberto. Vita di Niccolò Machiavelli. 3rd ed. 2 vols. Florence: Sansoni, 1969. Rubinstein, Nicolai. The Government of Florence under the Medici (1434 to 1494). Oxford: Clarendon, 1966. Rubinstein, Nicolai. “Machiavelli e le origini di Firenze,” Rivista storica italiana 79 (1967): 952–​959. Sasso, Gennaro. Machiavelli: Storia del suo pensiero politico. Naples: Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Storici, 1958. Sasso, Gennaro. Niccolò Machiavelli. Vol. 2, La storiografia. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1993. Stefani, Marchionne di Coppo. Cronaca fiorentina. In Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, ed. Niccolò Rodolico. Ser. 2. Vol. 30, part 1. Città di Castello: S. Lapi, 1903–​1955. Stephens, John N. The Fall of the Florentine Republic, 1512–​ 1530. Oxford: Clarendon, 1983. Villani, Giovanni. Cronica. Ed. Francesco Gherardi Dragomanni. 4 vols. Florence: S. Coen, 1844–​1845. Villard, Renaud. “La fidélité aux factions à l’épreuve de la mobilisation violente: L’exemple du tumulte des Poggi à Lucques (1522).” Mélanges de l’école française de Rome 118, no. 2 (2006): 227–​242 Weinstein, Donald. Savonarola: The Rise and Fall of a Renaissance Prophet. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011. Zaccaria, Raffaella. “Medici, Vieri de’.” In Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani. Vol. 73, s.v. Rome: Istituto dell’ Enciclopedia italiana, 2009.

9 Alda Pio Gambara and Regime Change in Brescia during the Italian Wars Stephen D. Bowd

Introduction: Successful Regime Change (1509) On May 23, 1509 regime change came to the city of Brescia. On that day, King Louis XII of France made his triumphal entry into the city at the invitation of its councillors, who had voted to turn their backs on their Venetian governors and submit to the French following their military victory over Venice at Agnadello earlier that month. Louis entered under a ceremonial baldachin carried by four local citizens and proceeded along streets covered with white cloth and marked by triumphal arches. As a sign of their victory the Caesarian words “veni, vidi, vici” (“I came, I saw, I conquered”) were inscribed by the French on one of the Brescian gates. Brescians lined the royal route and greeted the huge procession of cavalry, infantry, and nobles dressed in cloth of gold with cries of “France! France!” rather than “Mark! Mark!” as a sign of their new loyalties. Five days of feasting and celebrations followed and the ritual of subjection and possession reached a climax when a Te Deum was sung in the cathedral by the choristers of the royal chapel in the presence of the local bishop, the most distinguished members of the city, and the French court.1 The ambassadors sent to greet Louis included members of the local feudal nobility and most ancient families with Vittore Martinengo da Barco and Niccolò Gambara at the head. As a reward for their actions, some of these men or their relatives were knighted, while others entered the Milanese senate as royal senators. The French king meanwhile confirmed existing Brescian statutes, increased the size of the general civic council to 200, and revoked most of the provisions associated with its “closure” during the past three decades in order to favor his supporters. Indeed, later that year, Charles II Chaumont d’Amboise, the royal governor in Milan, proposed that at least one-​quarter of conciliar members should be nobles of the predominantly pro-​French Ghibelline cittadella quarter and that other offices be reserved for them. After 80 years of exclusion from Venetian halls of government direct royal patronage opened up possibilities of power and its rewards, including the extension of feudal territory, much to the chagrin of rural communities who preferred Venetian justice to enhanced feudal exactions.2 DOI: 10.4324/9781003199021-10

Alda Pio Gambara/Regime Change in Brescia  191 One of the feudal families that benefitted from French rule in this way was the Gambara. As a reward for his show of loyalty on May 23, and on other occasions, the French made Niccolò a member of the prestigious royal Order of St Michael and helped the family seize Quinzano, Manerbio, Gottolengo, and Gambara from Brescian control –​new feudatory lands, which the family battled hard to retain.3 As a further demonstration of family loyalty, Niccolò’s brother Gianfrancesco rapidly transferred his military services from Venice to France.4 Indeed, this was effected so quickly after Agnadello as to arouse suspicions of treachery on the battlefield itself. The family was still trying to refute this accusation half a century later, as eyewitness testimony carefully collected and preserved in the Gambara family archives reveals.5 These archives also reveal how the clan managed the demands for military resources that Venice and then France made of their subjects during the Italian Wars (1494–​1559). Throughout this period Gambara men offered Venice enormous expertise in terms of their long experience as mercenaries (condottiere) and leaders of the mounted men-​at-​arms who formed a significant component of the Renaissance army.6 The Gambara, like many other aristocratic families in the empire, also helped to supply men from their lands as militia troops or as sappers and provided matériel in the form of weaponry and armor.7 In return for this service the Gambara expected Venice and then France to honor their status, respect their local power, and to ensure that local rectors protected them from fiscal demands made by the city council. The maintenance of local noble hegemony in this way was one foundation for Venetian rule in the mainland (terraferma) empire.8 But while relationships between Venetian patricians and condottieri could be close, like other landed aristocratic families the Gambara probably harbored some resentment towards a distant republic of merchants, which had acquired dominion of the region as recently as 1426 and continued to exclude them from formal power.9 After 1494, the tempo of essayed or realized regime change accelerated here, as it did elsewhere on the peninsula, as the forces of the French, imperial, and Spanish crowns destabilized local political arrangements and loyalties, and threw sovereignty into doubt.10 Just as the Gambara sought the favors of the Visconti and then the Sforza dukes of Milan to cement their local position in the fifteenth century so during the Italian Wars the family played a double policy of favoring now Venice and now France, and sometimes both, as it seemed best for family fortunes.11 In 1509, the Gambara were heavily implicated in regime change, and in 1512, they would fight to prevent it. The story of how the Gambara managed regime change is part of a broader narrative of Italian regional state development.12 The construction and control of the Venetian mainland state posed enormous problems for the metropole on the lagoon, but instead of condemning Venice and other Renaissance states as “failed,” many scholars now prefer to emphasize the

192  Stephen D. Bowd “multiple identities” of the Renaissance state –​whether civitas, communal corporations, local factions and “parties,” imperial or papal vicariates –​and have provided more positive appreciations of the Italian maintenance of “divisible states.”13 Studies of the role of rural lordships, fiefs, or “small states” within the regional states of Milan and Venice have shown how noble families wove themselves into the fabric of urban life to promote their interests or negotiated privileges and exemptions for military service. In these ways they were legitimized as feudatories with “tangled webs” of higher allegiances and loyalties shaped by their lands. The grant of fiefs to lords formalized their jurisdiction, but their authority over their subjects also depended on their practical success as mediators at court or in the city on behalf of their communities, especially during unstable political conditions engendered during the Italian Wars.14 These families often strengthened or worked through their identification with local factions, sometimes labeled Guelf or Ghibelline, and certainly in Brescia (as in Bergamo) these “politicized groups” led by noble families like the Gambara, Martinengo, and Avogadro played a key role in local governance and regime change in the years around 1509 and again in 1512.15 What role did women play in such machinations and regime change? There is abundant evidence that, during the Italian Wars, women did more than simply line the streets, as in Brescia, to greet a new overlord. In fact, women took an active role in political movements, processions, resistance, and war, which went far beyond the merely ancillary.16 Female political roles were often linked to the dowry of lands, goods, and dynastic connections, which they brought to their husband on marriage. As Serena Ferente has pointed out in relation to women’s dowries and other property and its control by state legislation: “Since the mechanisms of both political inclusion and political exclusion always applied to family groups, women could become the channel through which men transformed their political status.”17 Moreover, the absence of husbands as a result of death or absence on war service could bring enhanced political responsibilities and women acted as regents or princes, or as leaders of factions and feuds. Such leadership could be undertaken in the immediate wake of regime change, as in the case of Alfonsina Orsini the Medici regent in Florence from 1515 until her death in 1520.18 Alda Pio Gambara, scion of the Pio da Carpi clan, applied this combination of connections and skills in order to assume the de facto role of regent first of all in the absence of her husband Gianfrancesco Gambara on military service and then as his widow from 1511. Alda drew on her regular experience of household and estate management to act as a military manager and to play a vital, but hitherto overlooked, part in the defence of family lands and honor, and in the conduct of war.19 Alda also acted as the leader of the Ghibellines in Brescia and as such played a key part in regime change in 1509, and again in 1512 when the Venetians attempted to seize the city from the French. On the latter occasion, one eye witness described

Alda Pio Gambara/Regime Change in Brescia  193 how Alda had held out in the castle with French troops until Gaston de Foix arrived with reinforcements, and “had made more war on Venice than if she had a thousand cavalry, and yet all she had done was write and plot.”20 Around the same time, the enraged Venetian commissioner described her as a “whore and cow” (puttana et vacca), while two decades later, another local chronicler recalled how during the sack, Alda’s palace rang with the sounds of dancing and banqueting more suitable for a brothel, and described her as “this great, large woman who wore the trousers to such an extent that she was obeyed by the whole Gambara family which attended to all of her commands.”21 On the other hand, one supporter described her as “most prudent” (sapientissima).22 In the remainder of this chapter, Alda’s strategic leadership during regime change is reconstructed on the basis of her own extensive correspondence, rather than from the point of view of political opponents and hostile commentators reaching for negative and hackneyed models of women of power.

Mustering and Political Management The social and political confidence, sprezzatura (studied ease) and virtue that the Brescian nobility wished to project is beautifully captured in many of their portraits, including the magnificent full-​length study, reputedly of a member of the Brescian Avogadro clan, painted in 1526 by Alessandro Bonvicino “detto Il Moretto” and now in the National Gallery in London. To this image may be added a supposed portrait of Alda Pio Gambara attributed to Altobello Melone and now in the Brera Gallery, Milan. In this image, the sitter is depicted wearing a heavy bimetallic neck chain reminiscent of the southern German Hobelspankette (curved links resembling wood-​ shavings) against a view of the castle of Brescia from the cittadella quarter.23 The militant assertiveness, strength, and aristocratic arrogance, which both portraits suggest, strongly marked aristocratic relations with the Venetians, the French, the urban elites, and their supporters, and helped to drive both inter-​and intra-​ clan disputes. The Gambara themselves recognized this and remarked on their somewhat difficult character. As Alda’s son Brunoro wrote to his uncle’s secretary in 1527: “You know how inclined to anger all of us Gambara are.”24 Deep fault lines affected how the Gambara navigated regime change in 1509 and also how they worked against it in 1512. During the fifteenth century, Brescian vicars sent out from the city into the territory of the Gambara were hindered in the prosecution of their business and the Brescian council appealed to the Venetian Senate to intervene on its behalf on a number of occasions.25 Matters came to a head in December 1503, when Alda’s husband Gianfranceso encountered Andrea Loredan, the Venetian podestà, in a Brescian street. Gianfrancesco slapped him and proclaimed in shockingly over-​familiar terms: “Andrea Loredan I am better than you” (Andrea Loredan son da meglio de ti). The outraged podestà naturally complained

194  Stephen D. Bowd to Venice about this insult and mentioned other matters, such as Gambara’s refusal to give up his arms, which had been a source of long-​standing difficulty. Such arms were not simply ceremonial indicators of noble status and necessary accoutrements for a condottiero but also potentially fatal weapons in clan conflict. Consequently, Gianfrancesco was summoned to present himself to the supreme executive body of the Collegio in Venice at the end of the year. The Venetian advocate Luca Tron was also sent to Brescia to investigate the matter while some nobles –​including Vittore Martinengo da Barco and possibly Alvise Avogadro or his son Pietro –​held a meeting in Brescia accusing Gianfrancesco of insulting behavior. These rivals sent three orators to Venice to accuse Gianfrancesco of having dishonored the city and fomented faction.26 Andrea Loredan made his own report to the Collegio in September 1504, and in January 1505, the new rectors hopefully informed Venice that peace had been made between Gambara and one of the Martinengo. However, it was said that Gianfrancesco had refused to hand over his arms “saying that he was a condottiero in the service of our Lordship” (dicendo era condutier di la Signoria nostra [i.e. Venice]), and that as a result all Brescia had taken up sides in the matter until the factions between the great families had been settled.27 The following year members of the Gambara clan attended mass at the church of San Pietro Oliveto. On this occasion, Vittore Martinengo da Barco pushed his way to the front of the crowd and walked ahead of Gianfrancesco’s brother Niccolò who responded to this insolence by pulling on the chain hanging from Martinengo’s jacket.28 Alda’s letters provide a fascinating glimpse of how the dispute developed, of her growing outrage on her husband’s and family’s behalf, and of the divisions in city and countryside.29 In early April 1504, she recounted good news from her husband in Venice and of encouragement from supporters she met in the streets of Brescia. She obtained a copy of a letter written to the podestà by the orators who had gone to Venice to make accusations against Gianfrancesco, and she asserted that Vittore Martinengo da Barco was motivated by a desire to obtain her husband’s military contract with Venice.30 Alda expressed the hope that God would allow them to overcome their difficulties, seize hazards by the throat, wear down adverse fortune, confound and crush (or kill, crepare) their enemies, and ultimately preserve the honor of the house.31 Alda matched belligerent words with deeds, including making a good show at the muster of troops. These musters were vital for the reputation of condottieri and for their relations with Venice, as well as for assuring the Venetians of military readiness. The muster could be a source of conflict since the metropole suspected mercenaries of salting away for their personal use the advances intended for troops. Indeed, in 1489, Gaspare Sanseverino, who had refused to muster troops for inspection by Venice –​ probably because pay had fallen in arrears and he had let his company run down –​was dismissed for refusing orders and breaking his contract. The

Alda Pio Gambara/Regime Change in Brescia  195 muster was also considered important for keeping valuable horses in good condition; indeed, in the muster rolls they could be described as carefully, or with even greater care than the men.32 The muster was therefore both a face-​saving exercise and a projection of power for the Gambara, especially given the association of noble virtue and equine control.33 Alda wrote to ensure that a sufficient number of suitable horses for the muster was supplied by friendly relations such as Galeazzo Pallavicino, the lord of Busseto, whose horsemen she tipped well, or by her brother-​in-​law Niccolò whom she also expected to provide lackeys and appropriate equipment such as a saddle.34 As she explained to her sister-​in-​ law Lucrezia, the Venetian podestà was sending to the muster his treasurer who was not too much a friend of theirs and only did this to find her husband the count unexpectedly in order to land a blow (“per dare la bastonata”) on him and on their house. She asked for the herald (“trombet[t]‌a”) and horses to be readied and hoped that Lucrezia’s husband Niccolò would do this, for nothing was dearer to the honor of their house than appearances and “this dog” was enraged against their whole house and aimed for their ruin.35 Gianfrancesco’s own letters to Niccolò further reveal the significance of the muster and his own care to ensure good relations with Venice and avoid any accusation of a breach of contract.36 In 1504, he certainly concurred with Alda that a muster was needed to confound their enemies, including certain inhabitants of the feudatory of Pralboino where they had a country estate and which had been ceded to the Gambara, along with its civil jurisdiction and certain fiscal exemptions, by a Visconti grant of 1422 confirmed five years later by Venice.37 As Gianfrancesco wrote to Niccolò, the countrypeople of Pralboino had no desire to be subject to the Gambara, and they alleged that the family treated them very badly and usurped their jurisdiction. These people and the ambassadors or representatives from Brescia together had the good will of Pietro Avogadro –​their “mortal enemy.” He therefore wrote that some provision must be made for the muster, and specifically that Niccolò and his brother go to Caravaggio to acquire horses and everything else needed “because for the confusion of our enemies I desire it to be the most beautiful [muster] it can be in my absence; our enemies do not lack any power and art to ruin it if they can but I hope that God will confound them.”38

Writing, Plotting, and Military Management As the Venetian state came under attack from imperial forces from 1507, and then by the armies of the League of Cambrai from the beginning of 1509, the Bresciano found itself on the front line and Alda’s husband in active service on behalf of the Venetians on the northern frontier with German lands around Rovereto whence he sent a stream of letters.39 Alda did not simply relate this news but also sought to lay down the lines of a political strategy for the family in the face of rapidly evolving events. Once again,

196  Stephen D. Bowd she worked closely with her husband, who, in 1510, excused the fact that he had not written to his brother in two months in the following terms: “I have written well to Alda since I know that the letters are common to you [both] and from which you ought to have understood all that has come to pass for us.”40 In April 1508, Alda opened a letter to her brother-​in-​law Niccolò with reference to war news, observing that she had made some “discourses” of her own and considered the proceedings (“andamenti”) of the present times. Accordingly, she noted that the imperial ambassador to Venice had been dismissed and opined that this was a sign that Venice found itself victorious (over the emperor). Observing that the French commander Gian Giacomo Trivulzio wished to “remove the splinters from his eyes” she then suggested that Niccolò send someone to find out how matters progressed with the Gonzaga of Novellara, his relations by marriage who had been supported by the French but were now in the process of moving towards the pope in order to crush a rival, and therefore might be treated as rebels of the king or “splinters” by Trivulzio.41 Similarly, in 1510, Alda informed Niccolò of the movements of French troops towards a key garrison at Peschiera and asked him to send some trusted person to Mantua to find out if the marquis there was raising troops. If the chancellor of their Gonzaga of Novellara relatives is not there and apprised of the discussions (“pratiche”), she wrote, then the guardian of Santa Maria of Pralboino should be sent immediately to speak on her behalf. In this way they would show their vigilance and solicitude towards the French.42 Alda’s concern for broader political or military developments was inextricably connected to her vigilance over local parties or factions and she repeatedly lacerated the local “ribaldi,” “rabiati,” “arabiati,” “ridorj,” “poltroni,” dogs and those who were “viscerato partiale” and threatening to her family’s honor.43 For example, as hostile imperial troops crossed into Venetian territory in the autumn of 1507, and regime change seemed more likely, Alda made references to men-​at-​arms and the keeping of horsemen in order. She noted receipt of a list of goods sold in the Venetian camp and enjoined Niccolò to have provisions in hand to supply the camp so that their loyalty towards the king (of the Romans) were known and in this way matters of state would be monitored. Niccolò, she concluded, would have to work to mitigate the fact that the nature of the countrypeople was angered against them now more than ever and she suggested how the dozy (“insoniato”) podestà of Gottolengo, the “poor pratler” or poor Furlano (“el povero furlano”), the son of Cipriano Lana, the “little madonna” (el madonino) and others might be dealt with.44 Alda worked to preserve the power and reputation of the family in a similar fashion following the establishment of French power, often wielding the tried and tested skills of silence and secrecy in combination with brute force.45 For example, in January 1510, when her husband was at the defense of Verona, Alda wrote to Niccolò about the new feudatory possession of

Alda Pio Gambara/Regime Change in Brescia  197 Manerbio mentioning the role of Andrea Loredan who wished for their ruin, doubtless because of his unfortunate encounter with her husband six years earlier.46 That month the family took steps to rebuff any attempts to wrest the territory away from them and employed a certain Girolamo Zanetto from Milan with hired men, including a French archer, to assault opponents.47 Alda dealt deftly with the hostility of the podestà of Quinzano who suspected that Alda or Niccolò was behind a proclamation that presumably supported their claims in the territory of Quinzano –​saying publicly that it was “news to us” at the same time as asking Niccolò privately if he was really responsible.48 While Alda looked on uneasily as the French governor sent his provost to investigate the matter of Zanetto, her husband was in Milan arguing against the suit made by the men of Manerbio at the behest of the podestà. Alda suggested that money would be needed more than words to sway the senate there.49 In March 1510, matters looked bleak for the Gambara. Niccolò and the men of the territory were penalized by the Milanese senate, and Alda was writing about the need for Zanetto to be spirited over the border into hiding in Novellara or Mantua under the protection of her brother-​in-​law Giovanni Piero Gonzaga, while the archers involved in the affair were to be transferred to Piero de Longhena, the squadron captain for the Gambara. Gianfrancesco promoted their cause with the king while Alda organized Easter gifts for the royal governors in the city, and fomented opposition in the pro-​French cittadella quarter of the city of Brescia against “these plebeian satraps” in the council.50 Word then reached her that the royal officers were instructed not to interfere in their matters, and that the king in France had reserved new territories for the house of Gambara. As she wrote happily, it was possible to conclude: “that we are not so perched on the brink of ruin [as before] and are in a better state.”51 Indeed, following rebellion against the governance of the French podestà in Salò and the Riviera, and in compensation for the losses suffered when the Venetians entered Brescia in 1512, lakeside Salò was later obliged by Gaston de Foix, the new governor in Lombardy, to pay 5000 ducats to Alda.52

Failed Regime Change (1512) The climax of these efforts, and the supreme test of Alda’s military and political management, came early in 1512 when the family’s great enemy Count Alvise Avogadro attempted to oust their patrons the French from Brescia in an unsuccessful uprising on January 18, and then on February 2 with Venetian reinforcements managed to take the city. Alda’s loyalty to France never wavered and her contempt for the Venetians seems to have been sincere and persistent throughout this period, perhaps deepened by the Avogadro association. For example, in October 1510 she was reporting papal moves to come to an accord with the French king at the same time as the Venetians were being courted, but she observed that since the latter were

198  Stephen D. Bowd faithless (“manchatori de fede”) this was good news –​evidently she believed nothing would come of it.53 Moreover, just a few days after Avogadro’s first assault Alda was writing that she hoped that everything would come out well for Louis XII.54 In her letters to her niece Auriga, Alda traced the advance of the Venetians, including Count Alvise, and she offered advice on how to fortify the castle at Verola Alghise and most importantly protect her own grain there, by making sure good guards and men with brains were at the gates so that the enemy could not appear unexpectedly, and by advising that she send a “secret man” to Mantua to understand what was happening on that key front. Above all, she counselled Auriga, she should not show what is done in the matter for fear of their enemies and should be aware that the enemy sent out spies.55 In fact, a certain Francesco Trenta informed Auriga that a spy had been sent to travel up the Val Camonica and return by the Val Trompia in order to report on Count Alvise and his men. This spy had been expected morning to night and as soon as he arrived would be sent over to Auriga. Meanwhile, Trenta had just sent his brother towards the Veronese to inform himself well of what was happening, and from these two, he concluded, they would have “the truth of everything.”56 Auriga eventually fled to Cremona and possibly to the vicinity of the Campofregosa family stronghold at Novi.57 There she fretted about the transport of her goods and other household matters. She also heard gruesome rumors that Count Alvise had been so harshly tortured that on execution he resembled a liver.58 Meanwhile, Alda holed up in the castle at Brescia with her daughter Veronica and the remaining French forces.59 In her final letter before the Venetian assault she wrote to Auriga in Cremona with news that at the third hour of the previous night they had conducted into the castle Tommaso de Ancha who reported that Count Alvise was thought to be in the nearby Val Trompia with 2000 infantry awaiting Andrea Gritti with the artillery. As ever, in the midst of these events, Alda’s thoughts turned towards questions of loyalty and obedience: That the men of their lands of Verola Alghise had made a great, presumably favorable, demonstration was not news to her because they knew that it would not be possible to have a better master (“patrono”) than they have, and for this effect they –​either the family or the French –​ought not to impose any more of a burden on them than they can bear, take matters with love and not with pain, and all would be well (or literally, “they would all have something to eat”).60 In the end, Gaston de Foix made his rapid march to Brescia and he enabled the French garrison to retake the city and exact a just and terrible revenge. The Venetian occupation had lasted a little over two weeks and had failed to effect a regime change, but the episode resulted in a sack and massacre, which shocked Italy and the rest of Europe.61 It also caused considerable damage to Alda and her family –​Andrea Gritti and Count Alvise plundered her urban palace and sold her grain at low prices in the market.62 As ever, the family acted as it knew best: In June 1512, the indefatigable

Alda Pio Gambara/Regime Change in Brescia  199 Alda was reported at the head of 100 horsemen proceeding out of Brescia, while Niccolò was said to be ready to defect to the Venetians.63 In the years that followed, the family rebuilt or confirmed its influence at home in the usual ways as Brescia passed once more into Venetian hands. Alda’s letters show that she continued to defend the privileges granted by the French king to the family. She also monitored news of the forces of the “enemy” Venetians, squabbled with local powers over their share of the expense of providing soldiers, highlighted the trouble the Gambara had gone through to achieve such exemptions and pointed out the harm it would do to their sons to give these up for the sake of pleasing peasants. She surveyed the damage inflicted on their lands and praised those who “for so many years have borne great love to our house” in her own firm hand.64 She probably did not live to see the arrival of Emperor Charles V in Italy and the imperial restoration of their territory thanks to her son Brunoro’s place in the imperial army and his brother Uberto’s role as papal governor of Bologna when Charles was crowned there in 1530. However, Alda would doubtless have welcomed this restoration of honor and heartily agreed with her daughter Veronica, who hosted Charles at her court at Correggio, when she wrote with stirring pugnacity in favor of this new Julius Caesar: Lord, guide with a strong hand toward the right path Your people who charge forward in arms, to bring bitter harm upon Your enemies and, in the name of Your glory, to keep Caesar unvanquished.65

Conclusion War and regime change can test loyalties, tear families apart, and divide wife from husband. This is jokingly suggested by a political allegory about the vagaries of regime change reported by one of Niccolò Gambara’s correspondents in imperial Verona in 1511: Hereabouts there has recently been a marriage, and it happens that the husband was an imperialist and the woman a supporter of the Venetians [who wanted to regain the city]. Being in conversation the wife said: “My husband, you have done well to ask for me; because the Venetians wished to give me to one who promised to give them a way into the territory.” The husband replied: “O, foolish woman, you should wish then that the Venetians would have this land and that my balls were cut off!” To which she said: “I do not wish for a husband without balls.” And thus she wanted the marriage undone [disfatto].66 In the case of Alda Pio Gambara war and regime change confirmed her loyalty to France, reinforced her sense of family honor, and strengthened her partnership with her husband. Gianfrancesco evidently trusted his wife deeply, perhaps with more assurance than he trusted his brothers given the uneasy

200  Stephen D. Bowd and tangled fraternal settlement of family territory. They seem to have made a good team. In August 1510, while Alda was wining and dining the French, there circulated rumors of a Venetian pardon for Gianfrancesco by way of the pope in exchange for betraying the French and letting the Venetians recapture Brescia; certainly, Gianfrancesco’s squadron captain defected to the Venetians a few months later, likely for better pay and conditions.67 Could it be that Alda and Gianfrancesco were playing a calculated double game or “strategy of divided fronts,” as Sarah D. P. Cockram has termed it, of the sort familiar to other powerful aristocratic couples such as Isabella d’Este and Francesco Gonzaga of Mantua, and hedging their bets as to who would hold power in Brescia? Or in promising to give the Venetians “a way into the territory” as imagined by the wife of Verona, might Gianfrancesco have been at risk of losing both his balls and his marriage?68 In any case, the strategies for aristocratic survival, which Alda developed to deal with the clan’s enemies and to ensure the continued prosperity of the Gambara under any regime, show how the fact of “contested sovereignty” or “undone” (disfatto) authority in this especially fractured zone of Lombardy could be faced by women on estates and streets, council halls and castle keeps, inside and outside of palaces.69 Alda’s repertoire of actions on the occasion of actual or threatened regime change probably drew on her early experiences as a member of the internally fractious Pio of Carpi but was also honed over the course of decades both as an estate and household manager in her husband’s absence and in concert with him.70 Of course, the widespread sexual violence against those involved in resisting regime change, especially following sieges and during sacks, would have reminded Alda of her precarious position.71 But women could be absolutely central to struggles for or against regime change and they could act with an authority and with political weapons, including natal or marital family ties, that were hardly “exceptional” for women, the sole preserve of men, or immoral and unnatural as Alda’s detractors liked to suggest.72 Women like Alda were able to move between the spaces of household and city and feudal lands in defence of dynastic power and the preservation of patrimony. They sometimes did this on their own account, as mothers-​in-​ law or, as in Alda’s case, as wives, widows, and mothers. They embodied and articulated a close link between the protection of family and household, the honor and survival of the clan (“casa”) and local power, which helped to circumvent legal restrictions on the female role and challenged assumptions about social or natural hierarchies and the role of patriarchy in the legitimation of power relations.73 In sum, this study has shown how regime change during the Italian Wars must be understood as a gradual process rather than as a sudden event marked by the splendid triumphal entries of a Renaissance prince. By revealing the deep and longstanding fault lines, which helped to govern the nature of regime change, this chapter has also highlighted the weakness of instruments of state or regional power, the “social costs” of war, the

Alda Pio Gambara/Regime Change in Brescia  201 persistence of noble authority, as well as the “composite” rather than “absolute” nature of early modern monarchies. Furthermore, this study has above all served to warn against models of the relationship between politics, war, and the state during the Italian Wars, which overlook the role of women.74

Notes 1 Unless otherwise noted, all archival citations are to Archivio di Stato, Brescia, Archivio Gambara, busta (box), filza (file), and letter number if available; all references are to letters by Alda Pio Gambara in busta 277 in the same place, cited by number and date; and all letters are dated at Brescia. Stephen D. Bowd, Venice’s Most Loyal City: Civic Identity in Renaissance Brescia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 198–​200. 2 Carlo Pasero, Francia, Spagna, Impero a Brescia, 1509–​1516 (Brescia: Fratelli Geroldi, 1958), 9–​75; Pasero, “Il dominio veneto fino all’incendio della loggia (1426–​1575),” in Storia di Brescia, ed. Giovanni Treccani degli Alfieri, vol. 2: La dominazione veneta (1426–​1575) (Brescia: Morcelliana, 1963), 227–​244. 3 Pasero, Francia, 113–​117; busta 54; Fra Clemente Zillioli, “Annali cronologici et istorici dell’archivio di sua eccellenza il n. h. signor conte Carlo Antonio Gambara estratti da tutte le carte, libri, e processi” (1731): busta 1, 125–​139. 4 For records of Gianfrancesco’s service with the Venetians see Marin Sanudo, I diarii di Marino Sanuto, eds. Rinaldo Fulin et al. 58 vols (Venice, 1879–​1903; facs. edn, Bologna: Forni, 1969–​1970), vol. 7, 320, 706; vol. 8, 218; and with the French, see vol. 8, 512, 518, 544; vol. 9, 72, 346, 348, 471, 479; vol. 10, 881; vol. 11, 130, 185, 193 (all references to vol./​col.). 5 On Gianfrancesco’s capture or defection and transfer to France see Sanudo, Diarii, vol. 8, 285, 290, 294. The attestations taken in 1554 regarding Gianfrancesco’s behavior in May 1509 are in busta 16, filza 16a. On a similar accusation against, and refutation by Vittore Martinengo see F. Pagnoni, “ ‘Il trattato che fessemo cum la Illustrissima Signoria.’ Gian Giacomo Martinengo e la congiura antifrancese del 1512 a Brescia,” Civiltà Bresciana, 3–​4 (2009): 97–​136; Vasco Frati, Ida Gianfranceschi, Françoise Bonali Fiquet, Irene Perini Bianchi, Franco Robecchi, and Rosa Zilioli Faden, eds., Il sacco di Brescia: Testimonianze, cronache, diari, atti del processo e memorie storiche della ‘presa memoranda et crudele’ della città nel 1512, 3 vols in 2 (Brescia: Grafo, 1989–​1990), vol. 1, 119–​128. 6 Michael Mallett and J. R. Hale, The Military Organization of a Renaissance State: Venice, c.1400 to 1617 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 65–​74, 314, 473 fig. 2. 7 Mallett and Hale, The Military Organization, 74–​81. 8 Mallett and Hale, The Military Organization, 187–​ 198, 342–​ 344; Michael Knapton, “The Terraferma State,” in A Companion to Venetian History, 1400–​ 1797, ed. Eric R. Durseler (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 85–​124. 9 On close relationships between patricians and condottieri see Mallett and Hale, The Military Organization, 204, 293, 343. 10 John Gagné, Milan Undone: Contested Sovereignties in the Italian Wars (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2021), esp. 1–​24. 11 Gabriele Archetti, “Gambara, Pietro,” in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani (Rome: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 1960-​present), vol. 52, 60–​62; Archetti,

202  Stephen D. Bowd “Una famiglia in ascesa: I Gambara nel Quattrocento,” Civiltà Bresciana 4 (Dec. 1996): 51–​75. 12 Andrea Gamberini, The Clash of Legitimacies: The State-​Building Process in Late-​Medieval Lombardy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). 13 Michael Martoccio, “Renaissance States of Mind,” in State Formations: Global Histories and Cultures of Statehood, ed. John Brooke, Julia Strauss and Greg Anderson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 108–​123, at 109 and 122. 14 Federica Cengarle, “Lordships, Fiefs, and ‘Small States,’  ”, in The Italian Renaissance State, eds. Andrea Gamberini and Isabella Lazzarini (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 284–​303, at 292. 15 Marco Gentile, “Factions and Parties: Problems and Perspectives,” in The Italian Renaissance State, eds. Gamberini and Lazzarini, 304–​322, at 311; Gian Maria Varanini, “La Terraferma di fronte alla sconfitta di Agnadello,” in L’Europa e la Serenissima. La svolta del 1509. Nel V centenario della battaglia di Agnadello, ed. Giuseppe Gullino (Venice: Istituto Veneto di scienze, lettere, ed arti, 2011), 115–​61, at 141–​3. On Brescia see G. Merici, “Luigi Avogadro: Un signore e un feudo nella congiura antifrancese del 1512,” Civiltà Bresciana 3–​4 (2009): 137–​ 181; Pagnoni, “ ‘Il trattato.’ ” 16 Samuel K. Cohn Jr., Popular Protest and Ideals of Democracy in Late Renaissance Italy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), ch. 3; Stephen D. Bowd, Renaissance Mass Murder: Civilians and Soldiers During the Italian Wars (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 99–​111. 17 Serena Ferente, “Women and the State,” in The Italian Renaissance State, eds. Gamberini and Lazzarini, 345–​367, at 351. 18 Cesarina Casanova, “Mogli e vedove di condottieri in area padana fra Quattro e Cinquecento,” in Donne di potere nel Rinascimento, eds. Letizia Arcangeli and Susanna Peyronel (Rome: Viella, 2008), 513–​534; Natalie R. Tomas, The Medici Women: Gender and Power in Renaissance Florence (Milton Park: Routledge, 2017), ch. 6. 19 Stephen Bowd, “Gender, War, and the State: The Military Management of Alda Pio Gambara during the Italian Wars,” in Shadow Agents of Renaissance War: Suffering, Supporting, and Supplying Conflict in Italy and Beyond, eds. Stephen Bowd, Sarah Cockram, and John Gagné (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press: forthcoming in 2022). 20 “Alda ha facto più guera a la Signori ache si havesse auto contra 1000 cavali; mai non feva altro che scriver e far pratiche, etc.” Summary of letter from Marco Negro to Piero and Lorenzo Capello, Brescia, Aug. 9, 1512 in Sanudo, Diarii, 15, 287–​293. 21 Polo Capello quoted in Pasero, Francia, 253 n. 55; Pandolfo Nassino quoted in Frati et al., Sacco, 1/​1: 145 (“Costey era granda et grossa. Costey portava baraga talmente che tutta casa Gambaresca la obidiva et stasevano ad ogni sui comandamenti”). 22 Branchino da Paratico quoted in Frati et al., Sacco, 1/​1: 132. 23 This portrait may in fact represent a member of the Avogadro family, and is likely not by Melone: Mina Gregori, “Altobello Melone,” in I Campi: Cultura artistica cremonese del Cinquecento, ed. Mina Gregori (Milan: Electa, 1985), 85–​ 98, at 98. On chains, see Yvonne Hackenbroch, Renaissance Jewellery (London: Sotheby Parke Bernet, 1979), 113, 124.

Alda Pio Gambara/Regime Change in Brescia  203 24 “[S]‌apeti como tuti noi gambareschi siamo colerizi.” Brunoro Gambara to Pietro Francesco Maggi: busta 269, filza ‘Gambara, Brunoro’, (n.p., Dec. 29, 1527). 25 For example, Archivio Storico Civico, Provvisioni, 506, fol. 65v (Dec. 16, 1479); Archivio Storico Civico, Provvisioni, 507, fols. 83v-​84r (June 28, 1481); Archivio di Stato, Venice, Senato Terra, deliberazione, reg. 7, fol. 157r (pencil foliation, Mar. 17, 1477). See also Archetti, “Una famiglia,” 68–​70. 26 Archivio Storico Civico, Provvisioni, 519, fols. 85r, 18r-​v (Dec. 28, 1503, Dec. 15, 1504); Sanudo, Diarii, vol. 5, 630, 632, 658, 694, 879, 998, 1037–​1038. The rivalry between Gambara and Martinengo was reported in 1499: Sanudo, Diarii, vol. 2, 566. 27 Sanudo, Diarii, vol. 6, 63, 125. On the troops commanded by Gianfrancesco Gambara and Alvise Avogadro in 1503 see Sanudo, Diarii, vol. 4, 833, 834, 846; vol. 5, 62–​63; vol. 7, 282, 390. 28 Pasero, Francia, 20–​21. 29 No. 52 (Jan. 6, 1504). 30 No. 65 (April 6, 1504). 31 No. 64 (April 25, 1504). 32 Mallett and Hale, Military Organization, 117–​121, 137–​140. In 1505 Alda paid fifty gold ducats for a horse: no. 96 (Feb. 13, 1505). 33 In c. 1493, Tommaso Ferrando printed a translation of Giordano Ruffo’s study of equine care “in citadella vechia apresso al conte Piero da Gambara nela cita de Bressa”: Giordano Ruffo, Arte di cognoscere la natura dei cavalli, & quelli regere & governar e le lor infirmitade cognoscere e liberare lo qual vulgarmente se chiama arte de mareschaclchi, trans. Gabriele Bruno (Brescia: Tommaso Ferrando, Aug. [1493?]), colophon. In general, see Juliana Schiesari, “Pedagogy and the Art of Dressage in the Italian Renaissance,” in Animals and Early Modern Identity, ed. Pia Cuneo (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), 375–​389. 34 No. 64 (April 25, 1504); no. 66 (April 28, 1504); no. 73 (May 5, 1504); no. 74 (May 12, 1504). 35 No. 85 (July 28, 1504). On Paolo Pisani’s request to Gianfrancesco to appear at this muster at Montagnana (where the captain of Padua usually mustered troops), see Gianfrancesco Gambara to Niccolò Gambara, busta 270 (April 23, 1506). 36 Gianfranceso Gambara to Niccolò Gambara, busta 270 (April 21, 1503); same to same, busta 270 (April 25, 1503). 37 Archetti, “Famiglia;” Alessandra Rossini, Le campagne bresciane nel Cinquecento: Territorio, fisco, società (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1994); Rossini, “Continuità e trasformazioni nei rapporti tra la città di Brescia e il contado,” Civiltà Bresciana 6, no. 4 (Dec. 1997): 21–​32. 38 “[P]‌erche a confusione de nostri nemici desidero la sia piu bella in absentia mia che se si li fosse: li nostri adversarij non mancheno de ogni potere et arte per ruinarse se potessino ma spero in deo li confundera.” Gianfrancesco Gambara to Niccolò Gambara, busta 270 (Venice, April 29, 1504). Alda echoes these words in her subsequent letter of thanks to Niccolò: no. 74 (May 12, 1504). 39 No. 139 (March 5, 1508); no. 140 (March 7, 1508); no. 147 (April 18, 1508); Sanudo, Diarii, vol. 7, 320, 706; Mallett and Hale, The Military Organization, 175. 40 “[B]‌en scritto a lalda che so le lettere ve sono state comune, et doveri haver inteso tutti i successi nostri.” Gianfrancesco Gambara to Niccolò Gambara,

204  Stephen D. Bowd busta 270 (Blois, Aug. 1, 1510). Note also his comment in a letter of the previous year: “Domane Io me parto con la Compagnia andar ad Pischiera & poy In Veronese dove secondo li partiti pigliaremo il Camino scrivendo drizate le littere a lalda mia consorte alaquale ho Comesso. non manchi in cosa alchuna de quanto scriverete.” Same to same, busta 270 (Oct. 9, 1509). 41 No. 147 (April 18, 1508). 42 No. 196 (Sept. 16, 1510). On another occasion, Alda suggested that her son Brunoro ought to be sent to Mantua to find out why the marquis had made a certain command: no. 220 (Dec. 18, 1511). 43 No. 52 (Jan. 6, 1504); no. 55 (June 14, 1504); no. 64 (April 25, 1504); no. 85 (July 28, 1504); no. 119 (Nov. 7, 1506); no. 123 (Feb. 4, 1507); no. 126 (April 24, 1507); no. 134 (Aug. 21, 1507); no. 181 (March 21, 1510). 44 No. 136 (Sept. 6, 1507); no. 137 (Sept. 13, 1507). Alda’s cramped hand in the postscript to the latter letter hampers comprehension. 45 No. 19 (July 16, 1498); no. 61 (April 13, 1504); no. 207 (Feb. 5, 1511); no. 220 (Dec. 18, 1511); no. 225 (Jan. 19, 1512). 46 No. 169 (Jan. 5, 1510). 47 No. 176 (Jan. 9, 1510); no. 171 (Jan. 13, 1510). 48 No. 170 (Jan. 13, 1510). 49 No. 172 (Jan. 12, 1510); no. 173 (Jan. 23, 1510); no. 174 (Jan. 23, 1510); no. 175 (Feb. 2, 1510); no. 176 (Jan. 9, 1510). 50 No. 177 (March 15, 1510); no. 182 (March 15, 1510) (“questi satrapi plebei”); no. 183 (March 15, 1510); no. 184 (March 16, 1504); no. 179 (March 17, 1510); no. 181 (March 21, 1510); no. 178 (March 25, 1510). 51 “[S]‌iche non siamo cussi improcinto de rovina, como ogniuno se pensimo, et sonno in miliore termine che siamo anchora statte, questa tenente de vuij non le Commmando pero cum ogniuno per bon rispetto, et non fare niuno el sapia.” No. 181 (March 21, 1510). 52 No. 177 (March 15, 1510); no. 182 (March 15, 1510); Sanudo, Diarii, vol. 14, 9; Pasero, Francia, 180–​181. 53 No. 201 (Oct. 24, 1510). 54 No. 227 (Jan. 22, 1512, “hora 19”). 55 No. 220 (Dec. 18, 1511); no. 225 (Jan. 19, 1512); no. 226 (Jan. 22, 1512); no. 227 (Jan. 22, 1512, ‘hora 19’); no. 228 (Jan. 23, 1512). 56 Francesco Trenta to Auriga Gambara, busta 283, no. 75 (Verola Alghise, Jan. 26, 1512). 57 Alda told Auriga that the captain in Brescia had recommended this course: no. 226 (Jan. 22, 1512), and for confirmation that she took it see no. 229 (Jan. 24, 1512). For the suggestion that Auriga was in the lands of Novi see Ippolita Clara to Auriga Gambara, busta 283, no. 64 (n.p., May 20, 1512). Antonia Scotti di Campofregosa, one of Auriga’s relations, wrote to her in Cremona asking for news of events in Brescia and, in case of danger, inviting her to Piacenza, which she judged a more tranquil place: busta 278 (Piacenza, Jan. 29, 1512). 58 Pietro Antonio de Milano to Auriga Gambara in Cremona, busta 283, no. 78 (n.p. [Verola Alghise?], Jan. 30, 1512). 59 Sanudo, Diarii, vol. 13, 438, 445, 469. 60 No. 229 (Jan. 24, 1512).

Alda Pio Gambara/Regime Change in Brescia  205 61 Bowd, Venice’s, 202–​13; Pasero, Francia, 213–​62; Frati et al., Sacco; Bowd, Renaissance Mass Murder. 62 Sanudo, Diarii, vol. 14, 9. 63 Sanudo, Diarii, vol. 14, 288, 488; 15: 190. 64 No. 230 (Asolo, Feb. 13, 1514); no. 231 (Pralboino, Sept. 4, 1514); no. 234 (Carpi, Oct. 4, 1516) (calling on Niccolò to send a representative to Lautrech to speak in favor of their privileges when French forces arrived in the Bresciano); no. 235 (Carpi, Aug. 25, 1517); no. 244 (Pralboino, Dec. 28, 1525) (desiring to let the general of Normandy see a copy of her late husband’s will as a demonstration of his great service to the French crown); nn (Pralboino, Nov. 22, 1526); nn (Pralboino, Feb. 19, 1527) (“za molti anni cognosco lo amore [the vicar of the podestà of Brescia] porta ala casa nostra”). 65 Veronica Gambara, Complete Poems: A Bilingual Edition, eds. and trans. Molly M. Martin and Paola Ugolini, Introduction Molly M. Martin. (Toronto: Iter Inc. and Center for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2014), 100. 66 “Appresso in questa terra si era fatto novamente un maridazo et per caso interviene ch’el marito era imperiale et la donna marchescha. I quali essendo a parlamento, la moglie gli disse marito mio haveste fatto bene a farmi adimandare: perhoche venetiani mi voleano dare ad uno quale gli havea promisso dare una porta della terra alla quale el marito rispose o matta voria che alhora che veneciani haverano questa terra mi fusseno taiati gli coglioni a cui lei disse io gia non voglio marito sanza coglioni. Et cosi ha voluto il matrimonio sia disfatto.” Alberto Serego to Niccolò Gambara, in busta 278 (Verona, Feb. 10, 1511). 67 Sanudo, Diarii, vol. 11, 255, 262, 269, 579. On Gambara machinations in 1510–​ 1511 see Pasero, Francia, 162–​168. 68 Sarah D. P. Cockram, Isabella d’Este and Francesco Gonzaga: Power Sharing at the Italian Renaissance Court (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), 6–​10, 20–​21, 87–​94, 127–​157, 172–​173, 181; Carolyn James, A Renaissance Marriage: The Political and Personal Alliance of Isabella d’Este and Francesco Gonzaga (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020). 69 Gagné, Milan, esp. 17–​20, 94, 195–​198 (on Cremona as a comparable case). 70 Bowd, “Gender.” 71 Bowd, Renaissance Mass Murder, 107–​109. 72 Heather J. Tanner, ed. Medieval Elite Women and the Exercise of Power, 1100–​ 1400: Moving beyond the Exceptionalist Debate (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). 73 Thomas Kuehn, Family and Gender in Renaissance Italy, 1300–​ 1600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), esp. chs 1–​ 2, 7; Katherine A. Lynch, “The Family and the History of Public Life,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 24, no. 4 (Spring 1994): 665–​684. 74 Carolyn James, “The Diplomacy of Clara Gonzaga, Countess of Montpensier-​ Bourbon: Gendered Perspectives on Family Duty, Honour and Female Agency,” Renaissance Studies 35, no. 3 (June 2021): 486–​502. In general, see Hendrik Spruyt, “War and State Formation,” in Does War Make States?: Investigations of Charles Tilly’s Historical Sociology, eds. L. Kaspersen and J. Strandsbjerg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 73–​97.

206  Stephen D. Bowd

Bibliography Unpublished Sources Brescia Archivio di Stato: Archivio Gambara Archivio Storico Civico, Provvisioni, Venice Senato Terra, deliberazione

Published Sources Archetti, Gabriele. “Gambara, Pietro.” In Dizionario biografico degli Italiani (Rome: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 1960-​present). Vol. 52, 60–​62. Archetti, Gabriele. “Una famiglia in ascesa: I Gambara nel Quattrocento.” Civiltà Bresciana 4 (Dec. 1996): 51–​75. Bowd, Stephen D. Venice’s Most Loyal City: Civic Identity in Renaissance Brescia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010). Bowd, Stephen D. Renaissance Mass Murder: Civilians and Soldiers During the Italian Wars (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). Bowd, Stephen D. “Gender, War, and the State: The Military Management of Alda Pio Gambara during the Italian Wars.” In Shadow Agents of Renaissance War: Suffering, Supporting, and Supplying Conflict in Italy and Beyond Europe, eds. Stephen Bowd, Sarah Cockram, and John Gagné. Amsterdam University Press: Amsterdam, forthcoming in 2022. Casanova, Cesarina. “Mogli e vedove di condottieri in area padana fra Quattro e Cinquecento.” In Donne di potere nel Rinascimento, eds. Letizia Arcangeli and Susanna Peyronel, 513–​534. Rome: Viella, 2008. Cengarle, Federica. “Lordships, Fiefs, and ‘Small States.’  ” In The Italian Renaissance State, eds. Andrea Gamberini and Isabella Lazzarini, 284–​ 303. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). Cockram, Sarah D. P. Isabella d’Este and Francesco Gonzaga: Power Sharing at the Italian Renaissance Court. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013. Cohn, Jr., Samuel K. Popular Protest and Ideals of Democracy in Late Renaissance Italy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. Ferente, Serena. “Women and the State.” In The Italian Renaissance State, eds. Andrea Gamberini and Isabella Lazzarini, 345–367. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Frati, Vasco, Ida Gianfranceschi, Françoise Bonali Fiquet, Irene Perini Bianchi, Franco Robecchi, and Rosa Zilioli Faden, eds. Il sacco di Brescia: Testimonianze, cronache, diari, atti del processo e memorie storiche della ‘presa memoranda et crudele’ della città nel 1512. 3 vols. in 2. Brescia: Grafo, 1989–​1990. Gagné, John. Milan Undone: Contested Sovereignties in the Italian Wars. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2021. Gambara, Veronica. Complete Poems: A Bilingual Edition. Ed. and trans. Molly M. Martin and Paola Ugolini. Introduction by Molly M. Martin. Toronto: Iter Inc. and Center for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2014.

Alda Pio Gambara/Regime Change in Brescia  207 Gamberini, Andrea. The Clash of Legitimacies: The State-​Building Process in Late-​ Medieval Lombardy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Gentile, Marco. “Factions and Parties: Problems and Perspectives.” In The Italian Renaissance State, eds. Andrea Gamberini and Isabella Lazzarini, 304–​ 322. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Gregori, Mina. “Altobello Melone.” In I Campi: Cultura artistica cremonese del Cinquecento, ed. Mina Gregori, 85–​98. Milan: Electa, 1985. Hackenbroch, Yvonne. Renaissance Jewellery. London: Sotheby Parke Bernet, 1979. James, Carolyn. A Renaissance Marriage: The Political and Personal Alliance of Isabella d’Este and Francesco Gonzaga. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. James, Carolyn. “The Diplomacy of Clara Gonzaga, countess of Montpensier-​ Bourbon: Gendered Perspectives on Family Duty, Honour and Female Agency.” Renaissance Studies 35, no. 3 (June 2021): 486–​502 Knapton, Michael. “The Terraferma State.” In A Companion to Venetian History, 1400–​1797, ed. Eric R. Durseler, 85–​124. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Kuehn, Thomas. Family and Gender in Renaissance Italy, 1300–​ 1600. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Lynch, Katherine A. “The Family and the History of Public Life.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 24, no. 4 (Spring 1994): 665–​684. Mallett, Michael and J. R. Hale. The Military Organization of a Renaissance State: Venice, c.1400 to 1617. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Martoccio, Michael. “Renaissance States of Mind.” In State Formations: Global Histories and Cultures of Statehood, eds. John Brooke, Julia Strauss and Greg Anderson, 108–​123. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Merici, G. “Luigi Avogadro: Un signore e un feudo nella congiura antifrancese del 1512.” Civiltà Bresciana 3–​4 (2009): 137–​181. Pagnoni, F. “‘Il trattato che fessemo cum la Illustrissima Signoria.’ Gian Giacomo Martinengo e la congiura antifrancese del 1512 a Brescia.” Civiltà Bresciana 3–​4 (2009): 97–​136. Pasero, Carlo. Francia, Spagna, Impero a Brescia, 1509–​ 1516. Brescia: Fratelli Geroldi, 1958. Pasero, Carlo. “Il dominio veneto fino all’incendio della loggia (1426–​1575).” In Storia di Brescia, ed. Giovanni Treccani degli Alfieri, vol. 2: La dominazione veneta (1426–​1575), 227–​244. Brescia: Morcelliana, 1963. Rossini, Alessandra. Le campagne bresciane nel Cinquecento: Territorio, fisco, società. Milan: Franco Angeli, 1994. Rossini, Alessandra. “Continuità e trasformazioni nei rapporti tra la città di Brescia e il contado.” Civiltà Bresciana 6, no. 4 (Dec. 1997): 21–​32. Ruffo, Giordano. Arte di cognoscere la natura dei cavalli, & quelli regere & governar e le lor infirmitade cognoscere e liberare lo qual vulgarmente se chiama arte de mareschaclchi. Trans. Gabriele Bruno. Brescia: Tommaso Ferrando, Aug. [1493?]). Sanudo, Marin. I diarii di Marino Sanuto. Eds. Rinaldo Fulin et al. 58 vols. Venice, 1879–​1903; facs. edn, Bologna: Forni, 1969–​1970. Schiesari, Juliana. “Pedagogy and the Art of Dressage in the Italian Renaissance.” In Animals and Early Modern Identity, ed. Pia Cuneo, 375–​ 389. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014.

208  Stephen D. Bowd Spruyt, Hendrik. “War and State Formation.” In Does War Make States?: Investigations of Charles Tilly’s Historical Sociology, eds. L. Kaspersen and J. Strandsbjerg, 73–​97. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Tanner, Heather J., ed. Medieval Elite Women and the Exercise of Power, 1100–​ 1400: Moving beyond the Exceptionalist Debate. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. Tomas, Natalie R. The Medici Women: Gender and Power in Renaissance Florence. Milton Park: Routledge, 2017. Varanini, Gian Maria. “La Terraferma di fronte alla sconfitta di Agnadello.” In L’Europa e la Serenissima. La svolta del 1509. Nel V centenario della battaglia di Agnadello, ed. Giuseppe Gullino, 115–​161. Venice: Istituto Veneto di scienze, lettere, ed arti, 2011.

10 Success in a Silent Regime Change Electoral Politics, Family Strategies, and the Cappello Family in Early Sixteenth-​Century Venice Monique O’Connell

Introduction In July 1526, Venice celebrated the announcement of the anti-​ imperial League of Cognac with elaborate processions, solemn speeches, and lively festivities.1 Banners, rugs, and tapestries fluttered from columns and balconies all around Piazza San Marco; trumpets, bells, and artillery made the happiness of the day audible. Allegorical performances and displays showed the League’s rulers in conversation with patron saints and representations of Prudence and Victory; a young woman dressed as Venice showered the crowd with coins.2 Venetian patrician officeholders processed in their scarlet silks, crimson and black velvets, and embroidered purple damasks, led by Doge Andrea Gritti dressed in an embroidered cloak of gold and white and wearing the ducal cap signifying peace. The Venetian diarist Marino Sanudo participated in the procession himself, and also recorded in his voluminous Diaries the names, offices, and outfits of the participants. The ducal procession was the living embodiment of the constitutional and social order that underpinned Venetian politics and government, and the patricians participating in the event not only celebrated a diplomatic treaty but also made visible their own role in the hierarchy of state offices. In this rich description of the 1526 procession, Sanudo counted five members of the Cappello family. Paolo di Vettore Cappello and his distant cousin Antonio di Giambattista, both Procurators of San Marco, walked at the front of the procession surrounded by the most powerful men in Venetian politics.3 Further back in the procession were Simone, Domenico di Nicolò and Domenico “il grande.” The Cappello in the 1526 procession represented several branches of the clan; Sanudo lists 33 male Cappello in 1527, placing the family among the medium-​sized Venetian patrician houses.4 The main branch of the Cappello had roots in the parish of Santa Maria Mater Domini, where, according to family lore, their ancestors had helped build the church in 960.5 A second branch was located in nearby San Polo, and a third branch had a palace across the Grand Canal in San Lorenzo.6 While the Cappello might not have stood out visually in the procession, their electoral successes DOI: 10.4324/9781003199021-11

210  Monique O’Connell in the early sixteenth century were so notable that Sanudo, an assiduous observer of political influence, singled them out for comment. The most extraordinary moment came in 1510, when Sanudo wrote in his Diaries that “never before has it happened in this republic that one family should have so many grandi in the College,” detailing the seven Cappello who sat in the governing body at once and saying the feat should be noted “for eternal memory.”7 In the second iteration of his compilation The City of Venice, he pointed to 1506, when 20 members of the Cappello family held office at the same time.8 The family also provided four Procurators of San Marco during and immediately after Gritti’s dogeship –​Paolo and Antonio, who marched in the 1526 Cognac celebration, Andrea di Silvano in 1537, and Vincenzo di Nicolo, elected in 1538. Members of the Cappello represented Venice abroad as ambassadors, forming friendships and alliances with other Italian elites; the procurator Antonio di Giambattista had a key role in public and private artistic and architectural changes through the mid-​sixteenth century. The Cappello family’s collective success in the early sixteenth century raises important questions about the relationship between family and state in Venetian political life. The Venetian state was constituted by the 144 patrician families who made up the Great Council, a type of patrimonial political structure that granted exclusive political rights to a self-​defined corporate group.9 Like the majority of Venetian civic rituals, the 1526 festivities were intended to showcase the harmony and order of the Venetian constitution and the equality of the Venetian patriciate.10 But in fact, there was a longstanding struggle over the countervailing principles of equality and oligarchy within the Venetian patriciate in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. There is no disputing the fact that family was at the heart of Venetian politics, but the Venetian system struggled to restrain or limit the influence of any single family in politics as part of its largely successful attempt to keep the factional politics that divided so many other Italian city-​states out of Venice.11 Dennis Romano has demonstrated the ongoing tension between family solidarity and the ideals of unity and patrician equality in the fifteenth century, highlighting the difficult balance between advancing family interests, achieving individual and family distinction, and preserving equity in access to privileges and status.12 Because the idea of patrician equality was so deeply ingrained in state ideology, a shift toward oligarchy in the city’s ruling councils was hard to acknowledge openly, leading to a kind of invisible regime change. In patrimonial states, elite families serve as anchors of political stability, but their collective actions also contribute to political change.13 This paper looks at the family strategies, political activities, and cultural impact of a single family, the Cappello, in order to trace the complex relationship between changes in patrician family strategies and change in the Venetian state itself, revealing the rise of an oligarchy in Venetian politics but also tensions and resistance to that change. The experience of the Cappello, who thrived during the political and cultural shifts in the Venetian system, offers a point of comparison with family

Success in a Silent Regime Change  211 strategies in other Italian contexts. The Cappello clan were among the 18 new families who rose in political, social, and economic prominence in the late fifteenth century without obtaining the dogeship.14 The Cappello were also linked by kinship to Gritti and his inner circle, and were thus associated with the growing oligarchy within the Venetian patriciate, often called the primi di la terra.15 Recent scholarship on Florence, Milan, and Rome has traced the reactions of single families and elite circles to regime change.16 Unlike the Florentines negotiating a shift from republican to ducal power, the Milanese exiled from the city after foreign conquest, or the Romans adapting to shifts in papal power, the Cappello were operating in the context of an urban merchant elite with a republican government, where success in politics meant electoral victories. In her work on the Pamphilj family in Rome, Borello has questioned the use of the term family strategy to imply the existence of a plan, with a leader and defined outcome; instead, she proposes the idea of family as a framework orienting individual choices and optimizing the use of collective resources.17 In this sense, the Cappello family strategy was oriented toward overall electoral success, but relied on individual skills, actions, and careers. Because of their political successes, the Cappello were an intrinsic part of the complicated nexus of political and social shifts that comprised Venice’s nearly invisible regime change of the 1520s. As Venice’s role on the international stage changed from a leading to a supporting role during the Italian Wars, the Cappello repeatedly held key ambassadorial posts, building generational diplomatic expertise, a network of sociability with other Italian elites, and a political tradition of analysis and commentary through their dispatches and relazioni. During Doge Gritti’s cultural reforms and program of Romanization in art, architecture, and ritual, one of the Cappellos played a decisive role in the renovations that transformed the monumental core of the city.18 In the 1520s, the longstanding struggle between the principles of equality and oligarchy in Venetian government was tipping in favor of oligarchy, a move also spearheaded by Doge Gritti.19 In this contest, the Cappello openly used their wealth to secure their position in the inner circles of power; at the same time, one family member openly challenged the oligarchic consensus and the power of the Ten. In this way, the experience of the Cappello show how a state –​and a family –​could maintain a basic stability while at the same time accommodating competing interests.

Family, Faction, and the Competition for Offices In Venice’s patrician state, membership of the Great Council and service in the state’s many councils and magistracies simultaneously maintained the state itself and secured the family status that came from officeholding. Stanley Chojnacki has demonstrated that, in the fourteenth century, political power came from the conjunction of family size, wealth, and officeholding.20 By the turn of the sixteenth century, the criteria for patrician identity and political

212  Monique O’Connell power had begun to shift from an exclusive emphasis on officeholding to include the importance of lineage and aristocratic cultural display. In what Chojnacki has termed “the third Serrata,” legislation enacted between the 1490s and 1530s redefined patrician identity through the increased importance of marriage, legitimate birth, and social behavior that would transform an officeholding patriciate into an Italian nobility.21 At the same time, Venetian patricians followed the trend toward hierarchy and luxurious display seen among many other Italian elites in the early sixteenth century, articulating elite and noble identities through private and public displays of wealth and ancient lineage.22 Looking at the later sixteenth and early seventieth centuries, Dorit Raines has identified these changes in noble identity as “the invention of an aristocratic myth,” tracking the end-​point of long-​term cultural and social changes in the Venetian patriciate, in which offices were only one piece of what created family honor and prestige. One of the most comprehensive chroniclers of the Venetian patriciate, the genealogist Marc’Antonio Barbaro, used officeholding as a consistent marker of identification and status in his Arbori de patritii veneti.23 A focus on the Cappello highlights the important role of officeholding for patrician identity during the early sixteenth century, suggesting that, despite legal shifts in the definition of nobility, officeholding and service to the state remained an important strategy for families to claim political power and influence.24 While the competition for office could be fierce, the Venetian electoral system was generally successful at restraining the open exercise of factional politics. Scholars have pointed to marital ties, a co-​operative commercial culture, competition for offices, and the ideology expressed in ritual and patrician culture as factors that kept factions under control in Venetian political life.25 Within the electoral system, there were multiple laws intended both to enforce family solidarity in politics and to limit the influence of any single family. In 1458, there was a struggle over how far legal responsibility for one’s kin extended. The Council of Ten first tried to expand the circle of kin who could be excluded from office as punishment for an individual crime, but ended the practice in 1458, in the face of considerable resistance.26 Romano’s analysis of this legislation highlights the danger to Venice’s system of rule if nobles could lose governing privileges because of their natal or marital ties to a convicted criminal: Venice’s political system functioned on large networks of friends and relatives who lent support in elections, meaning large swaths of the governing elite could be disenfranchised by a single case.27 Another electoral law ensured that a single house could not dominate nominations to office: only one member of each house could participate in the Great Council’s nominating committees, and all members of a house had to leave the Great Council hall when one of their cognomen stood for election.28 This is part of why Sanudo marveled at the Cappello having 20 members in office at the same time –​it displayed a complex understanding of these rules on exclusion and how to avoid them via a network of friends, allies, and supporters.

Success in a Silent Regime Change  213 Tension over family and faction in electoral politics flared in 1486, when Doge Marco Barbarigo died after only ten months in office and his brother Agostino emerged as one of two leading candidates in the subsequent election.29 It was unprecedented for one brother to follow another in the ducal seat, and critics worried about the consolidation of power in the hands of a single family. But Agostino’s main rival for the dogeship was the respected statesman and humanist Bernardo Giustinian, which posed a particular factional problem. There was a longstanding, but generally hidden, division in the Venetian patriciate between the old houses (case vecchie, also called long/​lunghi) and the new houses (case nuove, also called short/​ curti).30 Until 1382, the 24 old houses dominated the dogeship; with the election of Antonio Venier in 1382, the new houses took the dogeship and kept it among themselves until 1612. The 16 new families who counted a doge among their ranks were known as the ducali, distinguishing them from the rest of the nuove houses. The Barbarigo were among the case nuove, and Giustinian from one of the case vecchie. While Giustinian’s reputation certainly had something to do with his electoral success in the ducal election, one diarist attributed it to coordinated factional effort, stating “it is known throughout the city that [the vecchie] wished to place many of their own in the [ducal nominating committee of] Forty-​One in order to make Bernardo Giustinian the doge. And they went about with wicked arguments, such that it was time to remove the dogeship from the hands of the curti and give it to the lunghi.”31 According to Sanudo, the news of factional struggle in Venice was widely discussed across Italy; when the Duke of Milan interrogated the ambassador Marc Antonio Morosini about the affair, Morosini’s dispatch alarmed the doge and the Ten enough that Doge Barbarigo gave a long and emotional speech denouncing faction and calling for unity, warning that discord would weaken the state.32 A branch of the Cappello played a role in this controversy, although their political fortunes did not suffer as a result. After Barbarigo’s election, it was revealed that the three sons of the war hero Vettore di Zorzi Cappello –​ Andrea, Alvise, and Paolo –​had been circulating a list of the 24 vecchie houses with an exhortation not to vote for any of their candidates.33 Their actions came to light when Biagio Michiel, from a vecchie house, wrote to the Doge reporting the list and the Cappello’s intent to foment discord among the patriciate. Because it was seen as a partisan act, the Doge and the Ten censured Michiel for reporting the event, but because Andrea Cappello was married to Marco Barbarigo’s daughter Marina and was thus kin to the Doge, he and his brothers were not punished. Nor did it affect the political fortunes of his kin, as Andrea’s paternal uncle Zuanne (Giovanni) di Zorzi was elected as Procurator of San Marco in the fall of 1486, Alvise Cappello was elected to a commission on Cypriot affairs in 1487, Andrea himself was elected as Avogador di Comun in 1491, and Paolo was elected to the Senate in 1493.34 Their long-​term careers were also successful. Andrea was elected as ambassador to Rome in 1492, where he died the following

214  Monique O’Connell year. Alvise, the second son, was first elected to the Senate in 1492 and served several terms there, followed by governorships in the Veneto; by 1509, he had reached the inner circle of Venetian politics, with consecutive terms on the Ten and as a ducal counsellor, but he died a tragic death on the way to take up his position as the duke of Crete in 1512 when his ship went down in a storm.35 This left the third son, Paolo, who built a reputation in the Senate, served in several territorial governorships, and was elected ambassador to Rome in 1498.36 After his brother’s death, Paolo spent the remainder of his political career in almost continuous service in the Senate and on the Ten; he was elected as a Procurator of San Marco in 1524. Although the three Cappello brothers seized an opportunity to act in favor of nuove electoral interests, a look at the broader ties of the Cappello show that, while they did not actively seek out connections with the vecchie houses, they also did not avoid them. Andrea’s mother was a Querini and his two sisters-​in-​law were from the Contarini and Corner clans, all vecchie houses.37 Data on pledging, or standing as a guarantor for office, from 1491–​ 1524 shows that Cappello officeholders received a total of 46 pledges: the majority (40) were from other nuove houses, but a minority (6) were from vecchie houses.38 The Cappello offered 50 pledges, a majority (37) to other nuove houses and a minority (13) to vecchie houses. While more research on pledging is needed, this survey suggests that even in moments when three family members attempted to stir up factional enmity, there were powerful forces in the Venetian electoral system and in marital practices that made factional exclusivity almost impossible. It is important not to overstate the importance of the vecchie/​nuove division, as it is in no way comparable to stable factional identities in other Italian cities.39 For one thing, would-​ be partisans had to circulate lists detailing the composition of the factions, indicating that written reminders were necessary to fix the vecchie/​nuove identities in electors’ minds. While the Cappello were willing to push for electoral advantage through faction when the opportunity arose, their political success did not rest on this approach.

Office, Money, and Prestige: the Procurators of San Marco The Cappello are also an interesting example of the way wealth could intersect with political success in the crisis years of the Italian Wars. Wealth was one fault line fracturing the supposed unity of the patriciate, divided between rich and poor patricians.40 The Cappello were among the wealthy, due in part to their banking activities. Andrea di Vettore started a bank with his brothers and Tommaso Lippomano in 1480.41 That bank failed in 1499, but in a different branch of the family, known as the Cappello “dal banco,” the brothers Antonio, Silvano, and Vettore, sons of Leonardo Cappello, founded a bank with Luca Vendramin in 1507 that Silvano and his sons continued in 1528. The Cappello were also active investors in the state galleys: Judde de Larivière has demonstrated the way that a set of wealthy and politically

Success in a Silent Regime Change  215 powerful families, including the Cappello, dominated the potentially lucrative positions of investors and captains.42 Their wealth opened political doors for the Cappello, but it did not guarantee success.43 In the early days of the War of the League of Cambrai, Venetians could see the smoke of burning mainland towns from the bell towers of the city, which was under a clear military threat. To defend itself and pay the armies that eventually recovered much of the main territories lost in the initial invasion, the Venetian government desperately needed funds. Under these sharp financial pressures, the government started allowing patricians to pledge loans to the state in advance of their election, with the announcement of pledge amounts accompanying the names of candidates to office.44 This was one step short of allowing patricians to actually purchase offices, but it laid bare the controversial conjunction of wealth and politics. Nowhere was this clearer than in wartime elections to the office of Procurators of San Marco. Procuratorships were “entrusted to patrician citizens who have gone through almost all the steps of a public career and who are of manifest probity.”45 This idealized description by Gasparo Contarini points to the important role of procurators in Venetian politics; both Contarini and Sanudo describe the office as second in dignity only to the dogeship, and it was a position that brought great honor not only to the individual officeholder, but increased the reputation of his family as well.46 The office’s original responsibility was maintaining the Basilica di San Marco; over time, testators named the procurators executors of their wills, and the procurators took on the role of administering estates and managing charitable foundations.47 As the office’s fiduciary responsibilities expanded, so did the number of procurators, and from 1443 there were nine: the three procurators de supra managed the basilica, two procurators de citra managed the estates of testators who lived on the San Marco side of the Grand Canal, and two procurators de ultra were responsible for estates on the opposite side. In 1516, the Great Council added seven procurators to the existing nine. These seven supernumerary procurators pledged contributions to the state in return for the position, and in 1516, their contributions together added 75,000 ducats to state coffers.48 The experience of two Cappello procurators who led the 1526 procession celebrating the League of Cognac highlights the differences in experience and status between regular and supernumerary procuratorships and the way money could change the meaning of the office. The first Cappello procurator of the sixteenth century was Antonio di Giambattista, from the San Polo branch of the family. While his father did not have a distinguished political career, his maternal grandfather was Marino Garzoni, who made his reputation in prestigious territorial governorships and was elected as a procurator in 1501.49 Antonio entered politics at age 20 and at 22, he was elected to his first office, captain at Legnano, a town on the River Adige south of Verona. He attained this position thanks to a donation of 200 ducats, as was the case with his following offices, including four years in the Senate.50 In

216  Monique O’Connell January 1523, when there was an election for a supernumerary procurator, Antonio competed and lost to Vettore Grimani, who won with a contribution of 8000 ducats.51 He did win the March 8 election with 8000 ducats, and almost immediately began a campaign to have his position in the Senate transferred to his brother Marin.52 Although the ceremonies for inaugurating a new procurator were increasing in both pomp and ceremony during the early sixteenth century, Sanudo noted a lack of enthusiasm for Antonio’s formal presentation to the College, saying that none of the older procurators attended.53 In the three years after his elevation to the procuratorship, Antonio remained on the margins of political life, but the position of procurator, unlike almost everything else in Venetian politics, was for life. Antonio was only about 30 when he took office, giving him a 35-​year term as procurator, during which he developed real technical expertise in architecture and in fortification. As a procurator de supra, he had responsibility for the monumental core of the city, and the sources indicate that his strong preference for Roman architecture and for Jacopo Sansovino as architect was a decisive factor in the renovation that transformed the Biblioteca di San Marco and the Rialto bridge as well as for substantial renovations to the basilica and the ducal palace.54 His contributions were memorialized in an inscription over the library door as well as in Francesco Sansovino’s 1561 guidebook to Venice, Delle cose notabili che sono in Venetia, where a curious foreign visitor inquires about the library and his Venetian guide informs him that “I have heard tell on several occasions that this loggia was suggested and commissioned by the most noble Messer Antonio Cappello, an illustrious and renowned procurator of the church, who took great pleasure in ornamenting the whole city.”55 He also substantially restructured the family palace on the Grand Canal, adding interior decoration by Paolo Veronese and GiovanBattista Zelotti. Scholars often attribute the Romanization of the Venetian monumental core to the agenda and preferences of Doge Gritti, but Antonio’s later achievements are a telling example of the way a political career intertwined with personal artistic taste, growing technical expertise, and influence over state patronage to advance Gritti’s agenda even after Gritti’s 1538 death. In contrast to Antonio’s supernumerary election, Paolo di Vettore Cappello, from the Santa Maria Mater Domini branch of the family, was elected to a regular procuratorship 18 months later, in October 1524. By that point, Paolo was in his seventies, with a long career in the highest offices of the Venetian state, and with an authoritative reputation; he was even considered as a candidate for the dogeship in 1523.56 His 1498 embassy to Rome culminated in a dramatic relazione to the Senate, which Sanudo recorded in his Diary; Ventura has pointed to the relazione as part of the new ambassadorial culture of observing and reflecting on politics.57 Cappello offered not only a description of the cardinals in Rome and the attitudes of the pope, but gave an astute analysis summarizing the reasons behind the

Success in a Silent Regime Change  217 papal curia’s antipathy to Venice. In short, Paolo Cappello fitted Contarini’s ideal description of a procurator who had gone through the steps of an impressive public career, capped with election to a procuratorship. There were three rounds of elections in October 1524; Paolo was a candidate in all three and won the position of procurator de ultra.58 The following day, as was traditional, Paolo presented himself to the College with all his relatives and with the 15 other serving procurators.59 For Paolo, the ceremonial entry into the position of procurator capped an already prestigious political career and was a moment of individual as well as family honor. Two more Cappello procurators were elected at the end of Gritti’s dogeship. Andrea di Silvano “dal banco” was elected as procurator de ultra with a contribution of 13,000 ducats in June 1537, and Vincenzo da Nicolò Cappello was elected as a procurator de supra in 1538, taking the place of the newly elected Doge Pietro Lando.60 Sanudo, who died in 1536, does not give inside insight into the ceremonies that accompanied this pair of elections, but it is notable that among the 29 procurators elected between 1523 and 1538, no other family managed to have four of its members elected.61 While it is impossible to say for certain without direct evidence, the pattern of procuratorships suggests that the Cappello employed a family strategy to move individual members into procuratorships via contributions to the state as well as political achievement, offices that placed them within reach of the dogeship and gave them a permanent position of power. The opportunity presented by the changing rules of access to the office meant that the Cappello could benefit from their wealth, but money alone did not guarantee access to office. Political reputations earned through service to the state also played a role.

Embassies and Sociability with other Italian elites The Cappello family’s prestige was also elevated through ambassadorships, which built their network of connections with other Italian elites, highlighted humanist and literary reputations, and offered another avenue to serve the state in a very public way. Ambassadors embodied Venetian sovereignty on the Italian and international stage; depending on the post, ambassadors could also carry heavy responsibilities to negotiate on behalf of the state with other rulers, a challenge in such volatile times. The Venetian patriciate was primarily endogamous, so rarely did they participate in the “bedroom diplomacy” of the early sixteenth century that expanded dynastic interest through marital alliances, but they could build networks of friendship and sociability.62 While the Venetian relazione is a cornerstone of diplomatic history, we know less about the composite social profiles of Venetian ambassadors in the era of the Italian Wars.63 A branch of the Cappello family with a reputation for humanist learning developed a particular specialization in ambassadorial service. Francesco di Cristoforo had a humanist education and began his diplomatic career with a 1492 mission

218  Monique O’Connell to France, followed by a 1495 mission to Spain, a 1501 trip to France and then England, a 1504 posting to the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian, punctured by governorships in the border cities of Rimini and Trieste and terms in the Senate and the Ten.64 A fierce patriot and defender of Venetian interests during the difficult years of the League of Cambrai, Francesco was on his way to England for a second diplomatic mission when he was captured and imprisoned by the Emperor Maximilian in 1512, and although he was eventually released, his health had declined and he died soon after his returned to Venice in 1513. Francesco’s sons also held ambassadorial positions; the phenomenon of ambassadorial families in sixteenth-​century Italy is well documented, and the Cappello might be compared with the de’ Grassi or Casali of Bologna, who built intra-​Italian and international networks of diplomatic connections and service that existed in reciprocal relationships with their positions in local politics.65 Three of Francesco’s sons –​Carlo, Cristoforo, and Bernardo –​ played important roles in Venetian politics during the Gritti regime. The eldest, Cristoforo (b. 1483), entered the Senate in 1515 with a loan of 500 ducats, but his multiple attempts at election to an ambassadorial post failed until 1533, when he won the position of ambassador to Milan.66 Both Carlo (b. 1492) and Bernardo (b. 1498) studied with the best humanists of the day and had literary as well as political careers.67 Carlo began his career with a series of judicial offices and magistracies intended for younger patricians. His diplomatic training came when he accompanied the powerful politician and newly elected ambassador Marco Foscari to Rome in 1523.68 Foscari was married to Orsa di Filippo Cappello, granddaughter of the procurator Zuanne Cappello and, on her mother’s side, the famous humanist ambassadors Zaccaria and Ermolao Barbaro.69 While Orsa and Carlo were not closely related, the marriage brought the patrician houses of the Foscari and Cappello into alignment. Carlo had a strong affinity with Florentine humanist circles, and he also had strong relationships with exiled Florentines living in Venice, writing them letters of recommendation and offering them accommodations in his home.70 Orsa Cappello and Marco Foscari were a nexus of sociability for elite Florentines in Venice, and Sanudo mentions the elaborate banquet they gave for some of the Medici and Salviati.71 Orsa became friends with Maria Salviati, daughter of the powerful papal banker Jacopo Salviati and Lucrezia de’ Medici. These social and patronage relationships represent the indirect ties between the Florentine exile community in Venice and the inner circle of the Venetian patriciate. Diplomatic postings brought patricians like Cappello and Foscari into contact with erudite and politically active circles outside Venice itself; the Florentine-​Venetian circle of social connections intersected with a reciprocal interest in one another’s politics. Carlo, elected as Florentine ambassador in spring 1529, observed the defence of the Florentine Republic from besieging imperial armies, the Republic’s eventual fall in August 1530, and the restoration of the Medici regime. His dispatches from Florence are recorded in

Success in a Silent Regime Change  219 Sanudo’s Diaries and offer a running commentary on events together with praise for Florentine efforts to preserve their liberty.72 In the same years, Carlo’s brother Cristoforo was writing dispatches from his position as captain of Brescia, where he analyzed the fault lines of Brescian society under the repeated strains of the Italian Wars.73 Their youngest brother, Bernardo, was among the most vocal members of the Savi agli Ordini, a magistracy that oversaw maritime affairs and which formed part of the College. Sanudo caustically commented that Bernardo spoke first and most loudly; he also recorded the very public scandal that happened when Bernardo left his Senate seat for an assignation with Pietro Memmo’s wife, who discovered the pair and stabbed Bernardo.74 The experiences of the three brothers highlight the tension between family solidarity and individual actions in Venetian politics. Historians looking for evidence of ambassadors’ political commentary on external politics might look to Carlo for an example, while those interested in the internal government of the territorial state might look to Cristoforo. At the time, however, the Venetian political class learned of the individual actions of each brother within a familial context, connecting their political reputations to the status of their clan. Over the next decade, both Carlo and Cristoforo burnished the reputation of the Cappello clan through challenging diplomatic postings. Carlo went as ambassador to England in 1531, where he struggled to secure trading privileges for Venetian merchants and galleys and fended off Henry VIII’s insistence that scholars from Padua defend him in the matter of his divorce from Catherine of Aragon.75 Carlo was also accused of treason by another Venetian patrician in England as a merchant: Maffeo Bernardo accused him of denigrating Venice publicly and of receiving subventions from Florence during his stay there.76 He was cleared of the charges and returned to Venice in June 1535, then quickly sent on a mission to Ferdinand, archduke of Austria, where he remained until 1538. Cristoforo went as ambassador to the duke of Milan in 1533, followed by a posting to France in 1536. In 1540, Carlo was elected to replace his brother Cristoforo in the Venetian delegation to France. The exchange of one brother for another demonstrates the degree to which the Cappello had become one of Venice’s most prominent ambassadorial families. Unfortunately, a crisis sparked by the actions of the youngest brother Bernardo kept Carlo from assuming the prestigious posting to France. After the death of the powerful doge Gritti in December 1538, Venetian politics were in flux. It was in this atmosphere of uncertainty that Bernardo, who had developed a reputation both as a poet and a troublemaker, used his position as the head of the court of the 40 to make an anti-​oligarchic proposal in the Senate and in the Great Council.77 The proposal would have imposed a year of contumacia, or ineligibility for office, between a term as a ducal councillor and a term on the Ten, in order to force some powerful patricians temporarily out of the inner circles of power. Bernardo advocated for the proposal not only in the council halls but in the streets, and it is possible

220  Monique O’Connell he was influenced in his anti-​oligarchic stance by the circle of anti-​Medici Florentine partisans resident in the Cappello home. Convicted of creating scandal and damaging public order, the Ten condemned Bernardo to perpetual exile on the Dalmatian island of Rab; he escaped to Rome, where he led a long career as a poet and courtier. Bernardo’s case demonstrates the sharp limits on family solidarity in the Venetian system. The Ten condemned Bernardo on May 19, 1540; only four days later, the Great Council elected his brother Carlo as duke of Crete, showing that patricians in the council did not hold Carlo responsible for his brother’s actions and registering a protest against the Ten’s harsh condemnation.78 While the Cappello as a family were part of the larger move towards oligarchy, the Venetian electoral system –​and the family –​could accommodate anti-​oligarchic strains without breaking. The lesson that emerges from the Cappello examples point to flexibility as one of the distinct strengths of the Venetian system. Family played an important role in electoral politics, and families like the Cappello could build a record of electoral success through a combination of wealth, networks of supporters, and individual political achievements. But family ties were not so thick that the Venetian political system was willing to hold family members responsible for the actions of their kin. Both in 1486, when the Cappello brothers passed around lists of factional names, and in 1540, when Carlo was elected to a prestigious position immediately after his brother was exiled, there was room for individual action and expression without damaging the family as a whole. This tension between strong family solidarity within electoral politics and a countervailing trend for Venetian laws to limit family responsibility for kin dates back at least to the mid-​fifteenth century; the legal struggle in 1458 suggests that this issue was not unique to a single family but was a basic and ongoing feature of the Venetian system.79 Fletcher and DeSilva, in their analysis of ambassadorial networks and family strategies through the lens of cultural capital, argue that “While any member could invoke their cultural capital, which was built on the family’s accumulated fortunes, likewise any member could destroy it.”80 The Cappello case suggests that the Venetian system was more forgiving of individual failings, offering a possible explanation for the system’s durability.

Conclusion Venice was undergoing a type of regime change in the 1520s, albeit a deliberately invisible one. Three interlocking factors contributed to a shift in Venetian politics and culture: first, and most obviously, was Venice’s changed role on the international stage, from a power player to a neutral observer of the machinations of larger nation-​states.81 Doge Gritti entered office with a set of policy objectives that he laid out in his first speech to the Great Council after his election: the centerpiece was a reform of the judicial system, but he also introduced a Romanizing reform in Venetian

Success in a Silent Regime Change  221 culture.82 Both of these factors contributed to the third piece of Venice’s regime change: The increasingly dominant position of the primi di la terra in politics. Because the Venetian state was constituted by its elite families, changes in relationships between those families, such as the rise of an inner circle of oligarchs within a supposedly egalitarian patriciate, produced a type of regime change. These new strategies of collective self-​fashioning and efforts at constitutional and cultural reform do not compare to the upheaval brought by invasion, conquest, factional struggle, and other forms of violent regime change that roiled neighboring cities during the Italian Wars. While elsewhere armies marched through city gates and elites faced exile, property confiscation, and exile, the Venetian patriciate remained secure in its lagoon stronghold. Mythmakers used Venice’s ability to avoid foreign invasion and internal turmoil as material to develop the image of an immortal and static polity, immune to the turbulence that swept the rest of the Italian peninsula.83 Despite Venetian success at spreading the idea that their constitution and their patriciate were unchanging, there were processes of regime change, renewal, and redefinition that transformed Venetian politics and culture from the inside while leaving the formal institutions and façades intact. The experience of the Cappello shows precisely how family strategies and individual actions could contribute to this silent regime change. The Cappello as a clan were as successful in early sixteenth-​century Venetian politics as it was possible to be without a member winning the ducal seat. By examining multiple branches of the family across decades, this analysis sacrifices some depth and detail on individual careers, but gains a broader perspective on the family’s political position. For the Cappello studied here, the realms of internal politics, external diplomacy, and cultural display were connected elements that reciprocally created individual careers and added to the reputation and social status of the entire family. More research is needed to determine how representative the Cappello are of wider trends among the Venetian elite: Among the 144 clans that comprised the patriciate, there was a distinct tendency to downplay differences and claim allegiance to the ideal of patrician unity.84 But it is equally clear that patrician identity was under significant pressure by the early sixteenth century from differences in wealth, status, and political influence. More attention to the experiences of a wider variety of patrician houses can clarify the structural features and family strategies that contributed to the construction of noble social and political identities in an era of regime change. For the Cappello, is clear that their collective success drew on the family resources as a whole, but also left room for individual achievement and failure –​they benefitted from their outstanding members’ success but did not appear to suffer from the ignominy of less-​favored members. Reactions to Bernardo’s attempt to change the oligarchic nature of politics demonstrate the flexibility of the Venetian system as well as the limits of kinship and family solidarity. Antonio Cappello’s 35 years as procurator de supra

222  Monique O’Connell manifested on a practical level Doge Gritti’s program of renovating the city’s monumental core on the principles of classical Roman architecture. The thread that tied all of these activities together was officeholding. Despite changes in legislation linking nobility to birth, officeholding was the most important piece of the Cappello success story, enabling the rise in social status and the cultural achievements that built the family’s collective reputation. While wealth and individual ability provided opportunities for the family to exploit, it was consistent electoral success that provided the framework for the Cappello to survive and thrive in Venice’s political culture.

Notes 1 Marino Sanudo, I diarii di Marino Sanuto (Reprint Edition, Bologna: Forni Editore, 1969), vol. 42, col. 62; for the League of Cognac see K.M. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant, 1204–​1571 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1976), vol. 3, 241–​242. 2 Sanudo, Diarii, vol. 42, cols. 65, 71–​72. 3 Angelo Ventura, “Cappello, Paolo,” Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (hearafter DBI) 18 (1975), 808–​12; Ugo Tucci, “Cappello, Antonio,” DBI 18 (1975): 743–​748. 4 Sanudo, Diarii, vol. 45, col. 570; Robert Finlay, Politics in Renaissance Venice (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1980), 83; for studies on the family in the early fifteenth century, see John Easton Law, “Age Qualification and the Venetian Constitution: The Case of the Capello Family,” Papers of the British School at Rome 39 (1971): 125–​137 and Monique O’Connell, Men of Empire: Power and Negotiation in Venice’s Maritime State (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009), 67, 166. 5 Patricia Fortini Brown, Private Lives in Renaissance Venice: Art, Architecture, and the Family (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004); 13; Barbaro, Arbori, vol. 2, 241. 6 Fortini Brown, Private Lives, 71–​74. 7 Sanudo, Diarii, vol. 11, col 703. 8 Marino Sanudo, De origine, situ et magistratibus urbis Venetae, ovvero, La città di Venetia (1493–​1530), ed. Angela Caracciolo Aricò (Milan: Cisalpino-​La Goliardica, 1980), 224–​225. 9 For classic studies of the collective patriciate, see Stanley Chojnacki, Women and Men in Renaissance Venice: Twelve Essays on Patrician Society (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000); Dennis Romano, Patricians and Popolani. The Social Foundations of the Venetian Renaissance State (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987); Donald Queller, The Venetian Patriciate: Reality versus Myth (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1986). For the theoretical framework of a familial state, see Julia Adams, “The Familial State: Elite Family Practices and State-​Making in the Early Modern Netherlands,” Theory and Society 23, no. 4 (1994): 506. 10 Edward Muir, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981), 185–​211. 11 Marco Gentile, “Factions and Parties: Problems and Perspectives,” in The Italian Renaissance State, ed. Andrea Gamberini and Isabella Lazzarini (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 304–​322.

Success in a Silent Regime Change  223 12 Dennis Romano, “The Limits of Kinship: Family Politics, Vendetta, and the State in Fifteenth Century Venice,” in Venice and the Veneto during the Renaissance: The Legacy of Benjamin Kohl, eds. Michael Knapton, John E. Law, and Alison Andrews Smith (Florence: Firenze University Press, 2014), 87–​102. 13 Adams, “The Familial State,” 505. 14 Monique O’Connell, “Oligarchy, Faction and Compromise in Fifteenth Century Venice,” in From Florence to the Mediterranean: Studies in Honor of Anthony Molho, eds. Diego Curto, Eric Dursteler, Julius Kirshner, and Francesca Trivellato, (Florence, Leo Olschki Press, 2009), vol. 1, 409–​426. 15 Robert Finlay, “Politics and the family in Renaissance Venice: The Election of Doge Andrea Gritti,” Studi Veneziani n.s. 2 (1978): 113; Finlay, Politics, 26. 16 John Gagné, Milan Undone: Contested Sovereignties in the Italian Wars (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2021), 175–​201; Nicholas Scott Baker, The Fruit of Liberty: Political Culture in the Florentine Renaissance, 1480–​ 1550 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013); Alessandra Camerano, “Le trasformazioni dell’elite capitolina fra XV e XVI secolo,” and Benedetta Borello, “Strategie di insediamento in città: I Pamphilj a Roma nel primo Cinquecento,” both in La nobiltà romana in età moderna: profili istituzionali e pratiche sociali, ed. Maria Antonietta Visceglia (Rome: Carocci, 2001), 1–​29 and 31–​61. 17 Borello, “Insediamento in città,” 33. 18 See the essays collected in Manfredo Tafuri, ed., “Renovatio Urbis”: Venezia nell’eta di Andrea Gritti (1523–​1538) (Rome: Officina Edizioni, 1984). 19 Alfredo Viggiano, “Politics and Constitution,” in A Companion to Venetian History, 1400–​1797, ed. Eric Dursteler, (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 61–​66; Finlay, Politics, 59–​81; Gaetano Cozzi, “Authority and the Law in Renaissance Venice,” in Renaissance Venice, ed. J. R Hale (London: Faber and Faber, 1973), 301. 20 Stanley Chojnacki, “In Search of the Venetian Patriciate: Families and Factions in the Fourteenth Century,” in Renaissance Venice, ed. J. R Hale (London: Faber and Faber, 1973), 47–​90. 21 Stanley Chojnacki, “Identity and Ideology in Renaissance Venice: The Third Serrata,” in Reconsidering Venice, eds. Dennis Romano and John Martin (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 263–​294. 22 Brown, Private Lives; Guido Ruggiero, The Renaissance in Italy: A Social and Cultural History of the Rinascimento (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 531–​574. 23 Angelo Ventura, “Barbaro, Marco,” DBI 6 (1964): 112–​113; for this article I consulted the digital copy of Barbaro’s Arbori de patritii veneti at ASVe’s moreveneto portal: Raccolte e miscellanee, miscellanea codici, storia veneta (Genealogie Barbaro, vol II B-​C), b. 18, p. 241. 24 For a concise articulation of historiographical approaches to family strategy, see Catherine Fletcher and Jennifer Mara DeSilva, “Italian Ambassadorial Networks in Early Modern Europe-​An Introduction,” Journal of Early Modern History 14, no. 6 (November 2010): 505–​512. 25 Finlay, Politics, 81–​96; Romano, Patricians and Popolani, 120–​31; Romano, “Limits of Kinship,” 88. 26 Romano, “Limits of Kinship,” 93–​97. 27 Romano, “Limits of Kinship,” 98. 28 Finlay, Politics, 86–​87. 29 Finlay, Politics, 144–​147; Patricia Labalme, Bernardo Giustiniani: A Venetian of the Quattrocento (Rome, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1969), 225–​231.

224  Monique O’Connell 0 Finlay, Politics, 91–​96. 3 31 Domenico Malipiero (Pietro Dolfin), “Annali veneti dall’anno 1457 al 1500,” eds. Francesco Longo and Agostino Sagredo, Archivio Storico Italiano 7 (1843–​ 1844): 681–​683, discussed in Finlay, Politics, 145. For authorship of the diary see Christiane Neerfeld, Historia per forma di diaria: La cronachistica veneziana contemporanea a cavallo tra il Quattro e il Cinquecento (Venice: Istituto veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti, 2006), 83–​102 although the use of “they” in this passage indicates the author was from the nuove families. Malipiero was a ducali house and the Dolfin were from the vecchie. 32 Marino Sanudo, Le vite dei dogi (1474–​1494), ed. Angela Caracciolo Aricò (Padua: Editrice Antenore, 2001), vol. 2, 536. 33 Sanudo, Vite, vol. 2, 537; discussed Finlay, Politics, 147. 34 Rulers of Venice (ROV) https://​rul​erso​fven​ice.org, nos 31848, 35150, 47008, 33640 (accessed February 2, 2022). 35 ROV search for (Alvise +​Cappello +​Vittore); Giustiniana Migliardi O’Riordan, “Cappello, Alvise,” DBI 18 (1975): 736–​737. 36 ROV search for (Paolo +​Cappello +​Vittore); Ventura, “Cappello, Paolo.” 37 Barbaro, Arborii, II, 261 and 269. 38 ROV search (Capello+​date limit 1491–​ 1524); on the role of pledger see Andrea Mozzato, “Problems and Possibilities of Constructing a Research Database: The Venetian Case,” in Rulers of Venice 1332–​1524, Interpretations, Methods, Database, ed. Monique O’Connell (New York: ACLS Humanities E-​ Book, c2009), para. 119–​124, http://​hdl.han​dle.net/​2027/​heb.90021.0001.001 (accessed February 2, 2022). 39 Dennis Romano, The Likeness of Venice. A Life of Doge Francesco Foscari 1373–​1457 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 44, notes that members of the old houses supported ducal candidates from new families. 40 Romano, “Equality in fifteenth century Venice,” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, 3rd series, 6 (2009): 125–​ 144; Finlay, Politics, 71–​81; Cozzi, “Authority and the Law,” 305–​307. 41 Tucci, “Cappello, Antonio,” 738; Frederic C. Lane, “Venetian Bankers, 1496–​ 1533: A Study in the Early Stages of Deposit Banking,” Journal of Political Economy 45, no. 2 (1937): 187–​206, at 189; Reinhold C. Mueller, The Venetian Money Market: Banks, Panics and the Public Debt 1200–​1500 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), vol. 2, 83 and 220. 42 Claire Judde de Larivière, Naviguer, commercer, gouverne: économie maritime et pouvoirs à Venise (XVe-​XVIe siècles) (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 147–​157. 43 For instance Silvano “dal Banco” tried without success to get elected to the College and the Zonta of the Ten, showing that wealth on its own was not enough. 44 Finlay, Politics, 163–​181; Cozzi, “Authority and the Law,” 313–​316. 45 Gasparo Contarini, The Republic of Venice: De Magistratibus et Republica Venetorum, ed. Filippo Sabetti, trans. Giuseppe Pezzini and Amanda C. Murphy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020), 87; see also Sanudo, De origine, 104; for Francesco Foscari’s campaign for the position in 1454, Romano, Likeness, 20–​26. 46 Barbaro’s genealogies list the procuratorships at the beginning of the entry for each house; the Cappello’s list is at Arborii, II: 243. Barbaro also wrote a

Success in a Silent Regime Change  225 separate work dedicated to the procurators entitled Cronaca dei procuratori di San Marco. 47 D. S Chambers, “Merit and Money: The Procurators of St. Mark and their Commissioni,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 60 (1997): 23–​ 88; Reinhold Mueller, “The Procurators of San Marco in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries: A Study of the Office as a Financial and Trust Institution,” Studi Veneziani 12 (1971), reprinted in Venezia nel tardo medioevo/​ Late Medieval Venice (Rome: Viella, 2021), 21–​104. 48 Mueller, “Procurators,” 35. 49 Francomaria Colasanti, “Cappello, Antonio,” DBI 18 (1975), 748–​751. 50 Colasanti, “Cappello, Antonio,” 748; the Rulers of Venice records for his election to the captain of Legnano shows that he unusually had three pledgers for the office, probably because of his young age (ROV nos 43413, 43414, 43415). 51 Sanudo, Diarii, vol. 33, col 638. 52 Sanudo, Diarii, vol. 34, col 21, 98, 258; for other cases when a brother or brother-​in-​law substituted in office, see Sanudo, Diarii, vol. 33, cols. 101, 420. 53 Iain Fenlon, The Ceremonial City: History, Memory and Myth in Renaissance Venice (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 95–​96; Sanudo, Diarii 54 Eugene J. Johnson, “Portal of Empire and Wealth: Jacopo Sansovino’s Entrance to the Venetian Mint,” The Art Bulletin 86, no. 3 (2004): 430–​458, at 450–​452. 55 Francesco Sansovino, Sansovino’s Venice: A Translation of Francesco Tatti Da Sansovino’s Guidebook to Venice of 1561, eds. and trans. Vaughan Hart and Peter Hicks (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017), 118. 56 Ventura, “Cappello, Paolo,” 812. 57 Sanudo, Diarii, vol. 3, 842–​ 843; Ventura, “Scrittori politici e scritture di governo,” in Storia Della Cultura Veneta, vol 3: Dal primo quattrocento al concilio di Trento (Vicenza: Neri Pozza, 1981), vol. 3, part III: 513–​563, at 554. 58 Sanudo, Diarii, vol. 37, cols 9–​17. 59 Sanudo, Diarii, vol. 37, col 16–​17. 60 Barbaro, Arbori, II: 243 and 250; Chambers, “Merit and Money,” 86; Olivieri, “Cappello, Vicenzo.” 61 Chambers, “Merit and Money,” 86. 62 Ruggiero, Renaissance, 287. 63 Tessa Beverley, “Venetian Ambassadors 1454–​94: An Italian Elite” (PhD Thesis, University of Warwick, 1999), http://​web​cat.warw​ick.ac.uk/​rec​ord=​b1366​ 640~S1 (accessed February 2, 2022) covers the fifteenth century; there are individual biographies and published relazione but no prosopography of sixteenth century Venetian ambassadors. 64 Angelo Ventura, “Cappello, Francesco,” DBI 18 (1975): 775–​778. 65 Jennifer Mara DeSilva, “Official and Unofficial Diplomacy between Rome and Bologna: The de’ Grassi Family under Pope Julius II, 1503–​1513” and Megan K. Williams, “ ‘Dui Fratelli… Con Dui Principi’: Family and Fidelity on a Failed Diplomatic Mission,” both in Journal of Early Modern History 14, no. 6 (November 2010): 535–​557 and 579–​611. 66 Achille Olivieri, “Cappello, Cristoforo,” DBI 18 (1975): 773–​775. 67 Fasulo and Mutini, “Cappello, Bernardo,” DBI 18 (1975): 765–​767; Angelo Ventura, “Cappello, Carlo,” DBI 18 (1975): 767–​772. 68 Sanudo, Diarii, vol. 35, col. 293 (Dec 1523).

226  Monique O’Connell 69 Giuseppe Gullino, Marco Foscari (1477–​1551): L’attività politica e diplomatica tra Venezia, Roma e Firenze (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2000), 93–​95. 70 Stephen D. Bowd, “The Republics of Ideas: Venice, Florence and the Defence of Liberty, 1525–​1530,” History 85, no. 279 (2000): 404–​427; Ventura, “Cappello Carlo,” 768. 71 Sanudo, Diarii, vol. 43, col 616. 72 The dispatches, with further references, are discussed in Bowd, “Republics of Ideas,” 417–​420. 73 Olivieri, “Cappello, Cristoforo,” 774. 74 Fasulo and Mutini, “Cappello, Bernardo,” 765; Sanudo, Diarii, vol. 51, col 206; the account of this incident is directly followed by a dispatch from Carlo in Florence. 75 Ventura, “Cappello, Carlo,” 771. 76 Sanudo, Diarii, vol. 58, cols 69, 247–​248, 489. 77 Fasulo and Mutini, “Cappello, Bernardo,” 765. 78 For the way that the Great Council used elections to register reactions to the Ten see Finlay, Politics, 61–​68. 79 Romano, “Limits of Kinship,” 93–​97. 80 Fletcher and DeSilva, “Italian Ambassadorial Networks,” 510. 81 Elisabeth Gleason, “Confronting New Realities: Venice and the Peace of Bologna, 1530,” in Venice Reconsidered: The History and Civilization of an Italian City State, 1297–​1797, eds. Dennis Romano Martin and John Martin (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 168–​184. 82 Sanudo, Diarii, vol. 34, cols 228–​229; for the broader changes, see the essays in Tafuri, ed., “Renovatio Urbis.” 83 Robert Finlay, “The Immortal Republic: The Myth of Venice during the Italian Wars (1494–​1530),” The Sixteenth Century Journal 30, no. 4 (1999): 931–​944; the most durable articulation of Venice’s constitutional stability is Contarini, The Republic of Venice. 84 James Grubb, “Memory and identity: Why Venetians Didn’t Keep Ricordanze,” Renaissance Studies 8, no. 4 (1994), 375–​387.

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Success in a Silent Regime Change  227 Brown, Patricia Fortina. Private Lives in Renaissance Venice: Art, Architecture, and the Family. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. Camerano, Alessandra. “Le trasformazioni dell’elite capitolina fra XV e XVI secolo.” In La nobiltà romana in età moderna: Profili istituzionali e pratiche sociali, ed. Maria Antonietta Visceglia, 1–​29. Roma: Carocci, 2001. Chambers, D. S. “Merit and Money: The Procurators of St. Mark and their Commissioni.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 60 (1997): 23–​88. Chojnacki, Stanley. “Identity and Ideology in Renaissance Venice: The Third Serrata.” In Reconsidering Venice, eds. Dennis Romano and John Martin, 263–​ 294. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. Chojnacki, Stanley. “In Search of the Venetian Patriciate: Families and Factions in the Fourteenth Century.” In Renaissance Venice, ed. J. R Hale, 47–​90. London: Faber and Faber, 1973. Chojnacki, Stanley. Women and Men in Renaissance Venice: Twelve Essays on Patrician Society. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. Colasanti, Francomaria. “Cappello, Antonio.” Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 18 (1975): 748–​751. Contarini, Gasparo. The Republic of Venice: De Magistratibus et Republica Venetorum. Ed. Filippo Sabetti. Trans. Giuseppe Pezzini and Amanda C. Murphy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020. Cozzi, Gaetano. “Authority and the Law in Renaissance Venice.” In Renaissance Venice, ed. J. R Hale, 293–​345. London: Faber and Faber, 1973. DeSilva, Jennifer Mara. “Official and Unofficial Diplomacy between Rome and Bologna: The de’ Grassi Family under Pope Julius II, 1503–​1513.” Journal of Early Modern History 14, no. 6 (November 2010): 535–​557. Fasulo, F. and C. Mutini, “Cappello, Bernardo.” Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 18 (1975): 765–​767. Fenlon, Iain. The Ceremonial City: History, Memory and Myth in Renaissance Venice. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. Finlay, Robert. “The Immortal Republic: The Myth of Venice during the Italian Wars (1494–​1530).” The Sixteenth Century Journal 30, no. 4 (1999): 931–​944. Finlay, Robert. Politics in Renaissance Venice. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1980. Finlay, Robert. “Politics and the Family in Renaissance Venice: The Election of Doge Andrea Gritti.” Studi Veneziani n.s. 2 (1978): 97–​117. Fletcher, Catherine, and Jennifer Mara DeSilva. “Italian Ambassadorial Networks in Early Modern Europe-​An Introduction.” Journal of Early Modern History 14, no. 6 (November 2010): 505–​512. Gagné, John. Milan Undone: Contested Sovereignties in the Italian Wars. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2021. Gentile, Marco. “Factions and Parties: Problems and Perspectives.” In The Italian Renaissance State, eds. Andrea Gamberini and Isabella Lazzarini, 304–​ 322. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Gleason, Elisabeth. “Confronting New Realities: Venice and the Peace of Bologna, 1530.” In Venice Reconsidered: The History and Civilization of an Italian City State, 1297–​ 1797, eds. Dennis Romano and John Martin, 168–​ 184. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. Grubb, James. “Memory and Identity: Why Venetians Didn’t Keep Ricordanze.” Renaissance Studies 8, no. 4 (1994): 375–​387.

228  Monique O’Connell Gullino, Giuseppe. Marco Foscari (1477–​1551): L’attività politica e diplomatica tra Venezia, Roma e Firenze. Milano: FrancoAngeli, 2000. Johnson, Eugene J. “Portal of Empire and Wealth: Jacopo Sansovino’s Entrance to the Venetian Mint.” The Art Bulletin 86, no. 3 (2004): 430–​458. Kohl, Benjamin, G., Andrea Mozzato, and Monique O’Connell, eds. “The Rulers of Venice, 1332–​1524,” rulersofvenice.org (accessed February 2, 2022). Labalme, Patricia. Bernardo Giustiniani: A Venetian of the Quattrocento. Rome, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1969. Lane, Frederic C. “Venetian Bankers, 1496–​1533: A Study in the Early Stages of Deposit Banking.” Journal of Political Economy 45, no. 2 (1937): 187–​206. Larivière, Claire Judde de. Naviguer, commercer, gouverner économie maritime et pouvoirs à Venise (XVe-​XVIe siècles). Leiden: Brill, 2008. Law, John Easton. “Age Qualification and the Venetian Constitution: The Case of the Capello Family.” Papers of the British School at Rome 39 (1971): 125–​137. Malipiero, Domenico (Pietro Dolfin). “Annali veneti dall’anno 1457 al 1500.” Eds. Francesco Longo and Agostino Sagredo. Archivio Storico Italiano 7 (1843–​ 1844): 5–​720. Migliardi O’Riordan, Giustiniana. “Cappello, Alvise.” Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 18 (1975): 736–​737. Mozzato, Andrea. “Problems and Possibilities of Constructing a Research Database. The Venetian Case.” In Rulers of Venice 1332–​1524, Interpretations, Methods, Database, ed. Monique O’Connell. New York: ACLS Humanities E-​Book, 2009. Mueller, Reinhold C. “The Procurators of San Marco in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries: A Study of the Office as a Financial and Trust Institution,” Studi Veneziani 12 (1971), reprinted in Venezia nel tardo medioevo/​Late Medieval Venice, 21–​104, Rome: Viella, 2021. Mueller, Reinhold C. The Venetian Money Market: Banks, Panics and the Public Debt 1200–​1500. Vol. 2. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. Muir, Edward. Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981. Neerfeld, Christiane. Historia per forma di diaria: La cronachistica veneziana contemporanea a cavallo tra il Quattro e il Cinquecento. Venice: Istituto veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti, 2006. O’Connell, Monique. Men of Empire: Power and Negotiation in Venice’s Maritime State. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009. O’Connell, Monique. “Oligarchy, Faction and Compromise in Fifteenth Century Venice.” In From Florence to the Mediterranean: Studies in Honor of Anthony Molho, eds. Diego Curto, Eric Dursteler, Julius Kirshner, and Francesca Trivellato, vol. 1: 409–​426. Florence, Leo Olschki Press, 2009. Olivieri, Achille. “Cappello, Cristoforo.” Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 18 (1975): 773–​775. Olivieri, Achille. “Cappello, Vincenzo.” Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 18 (1975): 827–​830. Queller, Donald E. The Venetian Patriciate: Reality versus Myth. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1986. Romano, Dennis. “Equality in Fifteenth Century Venice.” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, 3rd series, VI (2009): 125–​144. Romano, Dennis. The Likeness of Venice. A Life of Doge Francesco Foscari 1373–​ 1457. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.

Success in a Silent Regime Change  229 Romano, Dennis. “The Limits of Kinship: Family Politics, Vendetta, and the State in Fifteenth Century Venice.” In Venice and the Veneto during the Renaissance: The Legacy of Benjamin Kohl, eds. Michael Knapton, John E. Law, and Alison Andrews Smith, 87–​102. Reti Medievali E-​Book 21. Florence: Firenze University Press, 2014. Romano, Dennis. Patricians and Popolani. The Social Foundations of the Venetian Renaissance State. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987. Ruggiero, Guido. The Renaissance in Italy: A Social and Cultural History of the Rinascimento. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Sansovino, Francesco. Sansovino’s Venice: A Translation of Francesco Tatti Da Sansovino’s Guidebook to Venice of 1561. Eds. Vaughan Hart and Peter Hicks. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017. Sanudo, Marino. I diarii di Marino Sanuto. Reprint Edition. Bologna: Forni Editore, 1969. Sanudo, Marino. De origine, situ et magistratibus urbis Venetae, ovvero, La città di Venetia (1493–​1530). Ed. Angela Caracciolo Aricò. Milan: Cisalpino-​ La Goliardica, 1980. Sanudo, Marino. Le Vite dei dogi (1474–​1494). Vol 2. Ed. Angela Caracciolo Aricò. Padua: Editrice Antenore, 2001. Setton, Kenneth Meyer. The Papacy and the Levant, 1204–​1571. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1976. Tafuri, Manfredo, ed. “Renovatio Urbis”: Venezia nell’eta di Andrea Gritti (1523–​ 1538)). Rome: Officina Edizioni, 1984. Tucci, Ugo. “Cappello, Andrea.” Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 18 (1975): 738–​740. Tucci, Ugo. “Cappello, Antonio.” Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 18 (1975): 743–​748. Ventura, Angelo. “Barbaro, Marco.” Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 6 (1964): 112–​113. Ventura, Angelo. “Cappello, Carlo.” Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 18 (1975): 767–​772. Ventura, Angelo. “Cappello, Francesco.” Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 18 (1975): 775–​778. Ventura, Angelo. “Cappello, Paolo,” Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 18 (1975): 809–​812. Ventura, Angelo. “Scrittori politici e scritture di governo.” In Storia della cultura Veneta, vol 3: Dal primo quattrocento al concilio di Trento, 513–​563. Vicenza: Neri Pozza, 1981. Viggiano, Alfredo. “Politics and Constitution.” In A Companion to Venetian History, 1400–​1797, Ed. Eric Dursteler, 47–​84. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Williams, Megan K. “  ‘Dui Fratelli… Con Dui Principi’: Family and Fidelity on a Failed Diplomatic Mission.” Journal of Early Modern History 14, no. 6 (November 2010): 579–​611.

11 In the Name of the Marquis, by the Hand of the Marchioness Epistolary Networks and Languages of Resilience and Reaction in Mantua during the League of Cambrai (1509–​1510) Isabella Lazzarini

On August 7, 1509, Francesco Gonzaga, marquis of Mantua and captain-​ general of the papal armies during the war of the League of Cambrai was captured in Isola della Scala by the Venetian captain, the Bolognese aristocrat Lucio Malvezzi. Taken to Venice through the cities of the Venetian Terraferma in a journey that hurt his pride, honor, and dignity, and after a long captivity in Venetian gaols, the marquis was released almost a year later, on July 14, 1510. His imprisonment struck Mantua like lightening and put the small marquisate’s survival at stake. Isabella d’Este, Francesco’s wife, promptly reacted to the event by ensuring the military safety of the marquisate and then committed herself to obtain the marquis’ release.1 Such a reaction took the form of an extraordinary epistolary effort to reach and activate every layer of the many political, dynastic, diplomatic, and personal networks of the Este and the Gonzaga: princes and kings, popes and cardinals, princesses and gentlewomen, military captain and officers, kin and friends, subjects and allies were reminded of –​and more or less warmly displayed –​their ancient or new bonds to Mantua. Nine registers of Copialettere were filled in those few months, and several hundred letters flew back to the Gonzaga chancery. Such a powerful effort is extremely telling. It reveals the many forms of blood, friendship, loyalty, allegiance, and alliance on which the decades, even centuries-​long foundations of Renaissance princely power were built. It also discloses to the scholar the many languages and tones that graduated such a call to arms in an extremely dangerous moment. This chapter will examine this epistolary wealth by focusing at once on the networks and the languages, and by taking into account the fact that it was a princess, Isabella, who took charge of the task of convincing, pleading, and commanding. As she told her brother-​in-​law, Giovanni, on August 8, now was the time to write, pray, and make promises.2 And so she did: she wrote or simply signed by her own hand, and she dictated her DOI: 10.4324/9781003199021-12

Epistolary Networks and Languages  231 letters, in a finely graduated strategy of humility, intimacy, and authority. Isabella’s grasp on power, and her familiarity with all the political languages available to her steered the course of the marquisate. At the end the Gonzaga did survive and Mantua did not see a regime change, but the risk was real, and the reaction telling.

The Sources and the Context Letter-​writing is a crucial tool for exercising power, for building consensus, and for maintaining a firm grip on political authority. The mechanisms, languages, and instruments necessary to open and maintain a communication channel among rulers and ruled, and among powers different in status and size can be both politically delicate and technically complicated.3 The simple meaning of turning to the act of writing to power pledging for help, the complexity of handling growing amounts of letters and the ways and tone displayed by a political correspondence became crucial issues in Renaissance Italy. If all this was true in normal times, political crises revealed even more the solidity –​or the fragility –​of the network and the effectiveness –​or the inadequateness –​of the epistolary language. My aim here is to show how Isabella d’Este –​the marchioness of Mantua –​was able to use letters in all their subtleness in a moment of crisis: In her case, gender adds another layer of complexity to the topics of power, authority, and correspondences. While in the fourteenth century the members of the Gonzaga kinship collegially ruled Mantua –​and occasionally other cities such as Reggio nell’Emilia –​as urban domini and imperial vicars, in the fifteenth century, the Gonzaga transformed themselves into a princely dynasty. The lordship over the city was upgraded to the level of an imperial principality (a marquisate) and it passed from one male prince to the other. In 1530, the marquisate was made into a duchy thanks to the dynastic annexation of the duchy of Monferrato. During the first two centuries of the Gonzaga rule over Mantua (1328–​1530), the city and its territory succeeded in maintaining a precarious autonomy between the more powerful neighbors of Milan and Venice thanks to the Gonzaga’s military specialization, to their talent for diplomatic survival, and finally to both a broad dynastic network of alliances and a solid consensus from the political society of their city. During the fifteenth century, urban offices and princely magistracies grew around the early Renaissance princely court, and the Gonzaga’s chancery became a well-​oiled machine.4 The Mantuan chancellors developed a set of distinctive writing habits and regularly used an increasingly defined range of records. Among them, specific registers were devoted to the transcription of the litterae both patentes (the decrees, graces, exemptions individually granted, etc), and clause (the letters sent by the rulers to Mantuan citizens and comitatini, and abroad) written in the chancery on behalf of the princes. Drafts of the letters sent, together with various materials concerning them, were kept in boxes later referred to as the minute di cancelleria. Finally, the

232  Isabella Lazzarini incoming letters were filed in a roughly chronological order and kept in filze; the letters exchanged between the members of the Gonzaga dynasty were probably kept apart from the beginning.5 In the age of Isabella and Francesco, correspondences started to grow in numbers and complexity: to deal with them, new strategies were put in place. Until the early 1490s, every register of copialettere was generally written in a single sequence. The registers were used by both the prince and the princess, and for a mixture of internal and international correspondence. After 1491, however, register series started to multiply: the main series of them –​afterwards called ordinari or misti –​continued, but a first, new series of so-​called registri domini (afterwards defined as riservati) was devoted by the secretary Jacopo Probo d’Atri to Francesco’s supposedly “secret” correspondence. Quite soon, a second series of personal registers, the registri illustrissime domine nostre, was devoted to Isabella’s correspondence and was kept under the control of Benedetto Capilupi, her secretary.6 For no evident reason, the order and preservation of the incoming letters sent to the marquises were at times disrupted: apparently, between 1504 and 1522 (that is, roughly speaking, from the fall of Cesare Borgia to the end of Isabella’s regency on behalf of Federico), Isabella ordered Mantuan chancellors to select some among the ordinary letters sent to her and to single them out of the regular correspondence from abroad.7 Such separation was probably deepened and complicated by Francesco’s decision in 1508 to move definitely to his newly built Palace of San Sebastiano, at the opposite end of the city from the castle and Corte vecchia, where not only Isabella stayed all her life but also the chancery and its archives were located.8 Isabella, born in Ferrara in 1474 as the first child of Duke Ercole d’Este and Duchess Eleonora, daughter of Ferrante of Aragon, king of Naples, became the marchioness of Mantua by marrying Francesco Gonzaga in 1490 and ruled with him until his death in 1519. Between 1519 and 1522, she became then the regent of the marquisate on behalf of her son Federico, and far from disappearing when he became marquis, and then duke, she cast a powerful shadow over him until her death in 1539. As every scholar of Italian Renaissance knows very well, Isabella represents both a model and a problem. Since the nineteenth century, her persona and personality have been mythicized and de-​mythicized many times, and her life has provided material for endless discussions about patronage, power, gender, personality, and princely networks. Such attention is due not only to her long life, steady health, and strong-​minded personality but also to documentary sources unrivalled both in abundance and continuity. Her preserved correspondence has been estimated to comprise between 12,000 and 16,000 letters written or dictated by her, and around 8,000 letters received. If a strong tradition of older studies has established the myth of Isabella as the first among the grandes dames of the Italian Renaissance,9 recent scholarship has done a lot to revisit her experience and to put it in perspective. Clifford Brown, Sarah Cockram, Deanne Shemek, Carolyn James, Christine Shaw, Matteo

Epistolary Networks and Languages  233 Basora among others have dug deep into her life and deeds,10 while Molly Bourne, by investigating the patronage of Francesco II, Isabella’s husband, has provided us with a much-​needed complementary picture of art and power-​sharing in Gonzaga’s Mantua.11 Moreover, the digital project IDEA, led by Deanne Shemek and Anne McNeil, has provided scholars with an extremely welcome digital reproduction of most of Isabella’s letters, both loose and in registers.12 The age of Isabella and Francesco marks a distinctive moment in the story of the Gonzaga’s political correspondences, and such distinctiveness helps us understand how Isabella’s documentary autonomy enhanced her political role in 1509–​1510. As mentioned above, a few years after Isabella’s arrival in Mantua, the marchioness’ autonomy in communication (not her agency)13 was recognized for the first time: She had her own secretary and her own sequence of copialettere. Moreover, the concrete nature of daily government, Francesco’s (and to some extent Isabella’s) frequent and prolonged absences from Mantua, and the final separation of the two courts imposed a daily flexibility: Whichever of the two princes was on hand bore responsibility both for signing and sending letters, and for dealing with current affairs. At the beginning, such a fluid switching in decision making from one to the other was not total, but it became more natural and definite as time went by, and the familiarity and regularity of Isabella’s government became for her –​and for Francesco –​the new normal. During the years in which –​for different reasons –​Isabella’s power was almost unrivalled (the months of Francesco’s captivity and the years 1519–​1522, when Isabella, together with her brothers-​in-​law, had the regency on behalf of Federico), the boundary between the different groups of registers quite naturally disappeared almost completely. In these periods, Isabella was at the end of the line of authority: Every letter sent –​the ones registered in the ordinary copialettere, and the ones registered on her own –​was dictated, signed, and authorized by her.

The Network The story is well known: Francesco was the captain-​general of the papal army in the powerful League of Cambrai that pitted the Emperor Maximilian of Habsburg, the Pope Julius II, the king of France, Louis XII, and a handful of other princes and powers against Venice. As a member of the League, Mantua was on the same side of Ferrara, where Isabella’s brother Alfonso was duke, and Cardinal Ippolito d’Este was prominent. On May 14, 1509, the League’s army broke the Venetians at Agnadello, dragging the Serenissima into one of the worst crises in its history.14 Although Francesco Gonzaga did not participate in the battle in Agnadello, knocked down by an attack of syphilis, he still was a renowned captain and the prince of a strategically positioned domain. His capture in August that year soon became a crucial political and diplomatic issue for all the powers and polities involved

234  Isabella Lazzarini in the war, and Venice was determined to make the most of it. The marchioness and her brother-​in-​law, Cardinal Sigismondo Gonzaga, were kept in the middle of a very difficult battle for both the liberation of the marquis and the safety and integrity of the state. They were also trying not to send as hostage anywhere (in turn to the emperor, to the king of France, to Venice, to the pope) the nine-​year-​old heir of the couple, Federico, whose life and personal freedom were paramount for the survival of the Gonzaga rule on the city and the marquisate.15 My intention here will be to focus on a fraction of Isabella’s correspondence in the months between August 1509 and July 1510 in order to analyze the extent and nature of the networks on which the Mantuan marchioness could rely in a time of extreme emergency and need, the order and timing of their activation, and the form, language, and tone of the shock waves that she sent through those networks to force those who could or should intervene in her favor to do so as quickly and as effectively as possible. The image of such a network is not a simple one: While the marchioness, at least in the first month after Francesco’s capture, understandably wrote to the tip of the iceberg of her patrons, allies, and friends, many more people wrote to her to show their compassion and support in the “disgraceful case” (disgratiato caso) of Francesco’s capture. Among those supporters, many were women: Sisters, half-​sisters, cousins, sisters-​in-​law, aunts, nephews –​ lay and nuns –​were the inner core of the thick and ancient dynastic web that had kept seigneurial and princely Italy together since the fourteenth century.16 These two different circles and their respective languages, together with the timing of their awakening in favor of the marchioness, are quite telling of the Gonzaga’s status within the Italian and European powers, and of the dense fabric of their political and dynastic life.17 As soon as the news of Francesco’s fate reached Isabella on August 8,18 the two chancery registers then in use (Isabella’s riservato 2995.21 and Francesco’s ordinario 2916.206) were both employed by the Mantuan secretaries (Isabella’s Benedetto Capilupi and Francesco’s Tolomeo Spagnolo) to copy the letters sent by the marchioness. In the first, frenzied days after Francesco’s capture, the letters dictated by Isabella were copied in the two registers in a mixed chronological order and by both chancellors. Afterwards, while Isabella’s copialettere remained the “political” register (and therefore only diplomatic and political exchanges were copied in it), the copialettere ordinario soon became a governmental register (thus filled by internal and administrative letters). Who did Isabella write to in the first few hours and days after the disaster? The timing here is paramount. According to the sequence that the two copialettere reveal to us, the very day on which the news of Francesco’s capture reached her, Isabella wrote to the men who were with her husband, in particular Ludovico della Mirandola; to a few trusted Gonzaga agents (Donato de’ Preti, Giovan Pietro Gonzaga di Novellara, Jacopo d’Atri), who were already with the emperor or the king of France, and to the very core

Epistolary Networks and Languages  235 of her and his dynastic network. Such an inner circle comprised, on the Gonzaga side, Francesco’s brothers, Cardinal Sigismondo and Giovanni, and sister, Elisabetta, dowager duchess of Urbino (and her adoptive son and future husband of Francesco’s and Isabella’s daughter Eleonora, Francesco Maria della Rovere); on the Este side, Isabella’s brothers Duke Alfonso I and Cardinal Ippolito d’Este. The crudely political logic of her first reaction is clearly explained in the letter she wrote to her husband’s younger brother, Giovanni, who was somewhere in the imperial camp near Verona at the time: we immediately wrote to our ambassadors close to the Cesarean Majesty and the very Christian king in order to prompt them to arrange an appropriate defence; we attempted also the ecclesiastical way through our illustrious and most reverend cardinal and the illustrious duchess of Urbino; we did not write to your lordship by the courier that we sent to Count Zohan Petro de Nuvolara and to sir Donato de Preti because we did not know for certain where you were and because it was more important to write to those we knew for certain that were with the Cesarean Majesty.19 Isabella was justifying herself for not writing immediately to Giovanni: the first thing to do was to alert those –​family or agents –​who could help reaching the most important allies on whose shoulders weighed the duty and the burden of defending the marquis, that is Maximilian of Habsburg, Louis XII of France, and Pope Julius II. Those men and women promptly reacted either by looking for audience and help, or by activating their own agents (such as Elisabetta Gonzaga, who immediately sent Cesare Gonzaga to Rome, and wrote to Count Ludovico da Canossa, who was already in Rome). As soon as they received the news, all of them wrote back to her. In particular, her brothers and sisters-​in-​law vehemently expressed their sorrow and anxiety, but most of all reassured the marchioness about the concrete steps that they were to take. The same reaction came from the Este side: Alfonso wrote back to Isabella, while Ippolito did even more. The cardinal was in Mortara with the French troops and sent to his sister two letters on August 9. In the first, written by his chancellor, he told her that he was coming to Mantua with the French captain Tourzel d’Alègre, and brusquely advised Isabella that “it was necessary to tolerate with prudence and in the best possible way what happened, and to make robust provisions.”20 The second letter was written in haste by the cardinal himself. Together with a few spontaneous signs of affection (he opened the letter without any formality, with a simple “dearest sister” (sorella carissima), and closed it with a warm signature “the one to whom one hour seems like a thousand” (quel che un’hora li par mille”), it contains also an interesting nod not only to prudence, but also to an intimate familiarity. Ippolito urged Isabella to write to him by her own hand, and to put in the letter a “signal” (signale) to tell him that he could safely travel to Mantua (“your lordship

236  Isabella Lazzarini should write to me some little thing by her own hand chosen among those we talked about last time we were together and that no one else heard”).21 On the same day, Isabella ordered all the officers in the marquisate to tell the gentlemen and citizens then living in their districts to come back to Mantua. She summoned them in order to seek their consilium et auxilium, and at the end of that summons, she was able to say to the French and the imperial captains alike that she did not need any help because she had her whole country behind her.22 On August 9, Isabella wrote again to all the territorial officers and the military captains in order to mobilize them and at the same time to reassure them and their subjects. The situation was serious, and they were right to be alarmed and sad, but she lost neither her mind nor her strength, and she had already put in place every possible strategy to have Francesco back as soon as possible.23 On the same day, Isabella wrote by her own hand her first direct letter to Pope Julius II.24 From the following day onwards, a flurry of letters were sent to the kings, queens, and princes of Europe: on August 10, to the king of Spain and mutatis mutandis, to all the Iberian network;25 on 11, to the emperor and to the king of France (Capilupi specified that the letter was translated into French);26 on 12, to the queen of France, Anne, and to the crème of the French aristocracy (monsieur d’Angoulème, the duke and duchess of Bourbon, monsieur de la Tremoille and more), the dukes and marquises of the north-​west of Italy (Savoy, Saluzzo, Monferrato), the Tuscan cities (Florence, Lucca, and Siena), and the German princes (Saxony, Bavaria, Brandenburg)27. On that same August 12, credentials were sent to Ludovico Brognoli, ambassador to Rome, in order to allow him not only to talk to the pope, but also to spread the news to various cardinals.28 By August 12, Isabella was also increasingly working with her ambassadors and captains in order to put in place an overall strategy that could take advantage of every possible line of action. As the days went by, pleading letters were gradually replaced by political ones: in the meanwhile, the answers to her cry for help started to arrive.29 The number, provenance, and tone of the incoming letters show the other face of Isabella and Francesco’s networks and their functioning. As soon as the marchioness informed the apex of the Italian and European political society, each of those first interlocutors activated their own networks; as a result, the news was rapidly spreading further, and initiatives and strategies were suggested or put in place in various directions. Close and distant relatives, officers, military captains, minor members of the clergy, old and new courtiers, gentlewomen, and nuns were progressively informed and reacted more or less quickly. Cardinal Federico Sanseverino, who was among the Roman prelates on the list of Ludovico Brognoli, wrote back to Isabella on August 29: he talked on her behalf with the king of France, with François de Rohan, the archbishop of Lyon, and with the pope. Moreover, he suggested that he could contact both the king of Spain and the king of England “of whom we are protectors here in Rome and with whom we have

Epistolary Networks and Languages  237 some bond”: If Isabella thought that it was a good idea, she should simply let him know.30 The Marchioness Margherita Fieschi, widow of Ludovico II, late marquis of Saluzzo, and mother of Michele Antonio, the young heir, to whom a letter was sent on August 12, suggested mobilizing Ladislas II, king of Hungary in order for him to attack the Venetians. Isabella did not judge senseless the idea, and the pratica went on for a while.31 Giovanni Sforza, lord of Pesaro –​to whom no letter was directly sent, but that was informed by the Urbinate dukes –​on August 14 wrote to Isabella telling her that he “had immediately written to Venice, to some friends and relatives of his, urging them with all his affection that they do whatever they could in words and deeds in favour of the marquis.”32 The duke of Andria informed Isabella from Naples that as soon as he received the news of Francesco’s capture, he talked in his favor to the viceroy of King Ferdinand of Spain and with the royal secret council in Naples:33 And on it went from the top to the bottom of the many layers of the political society activated by Isabella. The news spread in many different ways: Apart from receiving a letter from Isabella, many got the news in a more indirect way. Caterina Gonzaga, countess of Novellara (the wife of Giovan Pietro, Mantuan ambassador to the emperor), wrote on August 11 to Isabella telling her that as soon as the news of Francesco’s capture arrived in Mantua, “one of my men was by chance at the chancery, and although no one then knew exactly the truth, he immediately came back to me and told me this case.” She did not write to Isabella because she thought that the marchioness was “in the midst of discouragement, tears and important matters,” but as soon as she received a letter from Isabella, she answered back to her.34 Another gentlewoman, Eleonora Pallavicino, countess of Busseto and spouse of Galeazzo Pallavicino, got to know the news because she opened the letter addressed to her absent husband, and immediately stopped his men-​at-​arms from leaving Busseto, waiting for instructions.35 Someone resented the fact that they were not informed directly by Isabella: Therefore, she had to apologize and to explain how confused, anxious, and worried she was, and how desperate the situation.36 The letters sent to Mantua were therefore much more numerous than the ones sent from Mantua. The shock waves reverberated across many more levels than the first circles of close friends and allies, and surely Isabella and her chancellors and counsellors expected that to happen. Not surprisingly, a whole cluster of reactions came from Ferrara, where Isabella explicitly asked for prayers and thoughts. Bernardino Prosperi, a Ferrarese agent and ambassador and a man of proven loyalty to Isabella, on August 12 wrote to her that the whole city of Ferrara, from the gentlemen to the peasants, was struck by grief and sorrow. According to what the marchioness asked him, he went to every monastery and cloister in the city and in the surroundings, asking for prayers.37 As a result, the Mantuan chancery was flooded by letters written by Ferrarese nuns and abbesses, together with the letters of the ladies-​in-​waiting of Eleonora of Aragon who accompanied Isabella

238  Isabella Lazzarini to Mantua at the time of her wedding, 15 years before, and maintained with her a tender familiarity, such as Beatrice Contrari or Cassandra da Correggio, and the small galaxy of more or less distant relatives on the Este side.38 To this group of Ferrarese ladies must be added the broader group of gentlemen, military captains (Italian, German, and French), cardinals, lords, and princes, offering their services and help.39

The Language All these letters displayed an impressive range of words to express grief, sorrow, outrage, affection, anxiety, friendship, submission, and love, and smoothly played between formulas and feelings. A first, material facet of the language displayed was the way of writing. The copialettere took note of the fact that the first letters sent to the emperor and to the pope were not only dictated, but also entirely handwritten by Isabella. Capilupi and –​less frequently –​Spagnolo registered also the presence, in the original letter, of a handwritten signature by the marchioness. Isabella (like other Este princes), loved to sign with short vernacular formulas such as “the one who loves you more than herself,” and in those troubled days, kings and queens, cardinals and princes were treated by a personalized signature by the hand of the marchioness. In Renaissance Italy, an autograph was always a sign of a special relation, but in this situation, it became a crucial language in itself.40 The vocabulary used by Isabella and her interlocutors in their letters deserves attention as well: On the one hand, the lexis employed by Isabella’s friends and allies displays the nature of their bonds to the Gonzaga family; on the other hand, Isabella’s letters reveal her own state of mind during the first weeks of the emergency. Somehow a narrower range of feelings and bonds corresponded to a varied spectrum of friends, family, subjects, officers, allies, and sovereigns. Blood was the first: Isabella, in encouraging a cousin on the Gonzaga’s side, Ludovico lord of Bozzolo, wrote to him that whatever action he could take, he would do what was convenient to such a strict bond of kinship (“uno vinculo tanto strecto di parentà”).41 The lexis of family love was used also in a metaphorical way: Other princes and lords, such as the marquises of Saluzzo, were bound to Francesco Gonzaga by a father–​son relationship woven from love and affection.42 Those individuals were part of the closest group of loving friends and relatives (“amici et parenti nostri amorevoli”), as Isabella called them all.43 Then, friendship (amicitia): This is a word often used by cities and collegial governments, such as Florence, Lucca, or Siena. In offering their assistance, the Priors and standard bearers of the three Tuscan cities all fondly remembered the “bond of the ancient friendship” with Francesco (“el vinculo de la antica amicitia”), and sometimes combined it with the father–​son lexis (the marquis was the father and benefactor of the city and republic of Lucca).44 Friends and family are a binomial used to include individuals and communities equal to, or of slightly lesser or higher stature than, the Gonzaga. For

Epistolary Networks and Languages  239 lower interlocutors, one of the most common words was servitù (servitude), which echoed the complementary way of addressing the marchioness as patrona (mistress). The bond of being a servant of the house of Gonzaga tied Mantuan officers, minor lords, military captains, and courtiers (even of seigneurial origin, such as Pandolfo Malatesta, who spoke of his grief because of his love for, and servitude towards, the marquis45). The same word was used by women as well (nuns and ladies alike). Beatrice Contrari powerfully spoke of her visceral servitude towards Isabella (“ex viscerata servitudine”), while Giovanna da Correggio declared herself a loyal and devoted servant of the marchioness.46 That asymmetric bond in turn tied the Gonzaga to their superiors, such as kings and queens.47 How did Isabella portray herself in addressing her words to all these people? The marchioness played a complex game.48 She could resort to the whole range of grief, sorrow, agony, and anxiety to tell everyone how the event deeply troubled her. Her “extreme agony” resounded loudly in her letter to Angelo dal Tovaglia, a Florentine old friend and agent of the Gonzaga.49 The more intense the grief, the warmer the hope she placed in the interlocutor: In particular, when writing to kings and queens, to the emperor and to the pope, she skilfully made them think that they were her most precious resource. If it were not for King Louis, she would die desperate;50 if not for Queen Anne, she would have killed herself.51 Such agony, however, was rarely displayed in the letters written to the captains and lieutenants of the French and the imperial armies: Isabella played down her personal distress in order to avoid an excessively warm –​and intrusive –​reaction from dangerous allies such as Gian Giacomo Trivulzio or the French Grand Master Charles Chaumont d’Amboise.52 Personal turmoil and confusion were also played down when she had to face her subjects: Isabella urged the Mantuan officers to reassure the men and women in their districts “because, although we are very saddened and dismayed by this sudden event, we have not lost our courage nor our wisdom to the point of not being able to do what it takes to preserve the integrity of our state.”53 The same attitude surfaced in the letters to her ambassadors and agents, as well as in those to her closest allies such as Giovanni Gonzaga or Ippolito d’Este: she wanted them to know that although anxious and grieved, she was in control. With the Venetians, she used all the tones of a desolate but proud wife, disconsolate and helpless, devoted and loyal to her husband.54 When in doubt, or at fault, she played the card of her personal fatigue and confusion: To her brother, Alfonso, to whom she “forgot” to tell that her daughter Eleonora was finally leaving Mantua to join her fiancé, Duke Francesco Maria della Rovere, she wrote that he should excuse her, because her only thought was about the liberation of her husband, and she was so deeply involved in such a matter that “she rarely had her brain at home” (poche volte ho il cervello a casa”).55 Sometimes such a strategy sounds truer than usual: Eleonora’s wedding was crucial to strengthening the bonds between the Gonzaga and the della

240  Isabella Lazzarini Rovere (Pope Julius’ family), but of course, during an emergency such as the one in which Isabella found herself in the summer 1509, its preparation was at the same time complex and expensive. In this situation, one letter, which sounds more truthful and sincere than most, is the missive that Isabella wrote to her sister-​in-​law, Duchess Elisabetta. Isabella concluded her refusal to send Eleonora to Urbino by writing that Elisabetta and Francesco Maria should pity me, because if you only knew half of my worries you would be no less confused than myself. The Emperor asks me for men-​at-​arms and artillery: whether I have a way to provide them to him or not, your ladyship can judge by herself; to refuse is dangerous, to please him impossible. I have the Great Master [of France] on my borders with his troops: they trespass and sack my domain and I fear the worst, so that a thousand times a day I wish I were dead.56 This careful use of emotional registers and tones is revealed by the drafts of the marchioness’ letters. In a draft of a letter addressed to Ludovico Brognoli in Rome, the most re-​ worked sentence is the one alluding to Isabella’s feelings and fatigue in dealing with all the events that she had to master. It deserves a closer reading: Isabella told her agent in Rome that she trusted the pope as her protector, and then she continued by writing at first that “we have on our shoulders too much stress and too excessive a burden” (“troppo affanno et troppo smisurato peso havemo alle spalle nostre”); a first change was to add “weak” to shoulders; then, the whole expression was cancelled and substituted by “to the dismayed mind and weak shoulders.” Finally, “forces” was preferred to “shoulders.” The final result was “we have too much stress and too excessive a burden weighing on our dismayed mind and weak strength” (“troppo affanno et troppo smisurato peso havemo alla consternata mente et debile forze nostre”):57 The final image was more spiritual than physical, and the picture of Isabella’s resilience more effective. Of course, Isabella’s correspondence in August 1509 represents a relatively limited case-​study: However, it is a telling one. The extreme danger caused to the marquisate by the capture of its lord during the extreme circumstances of the Italian Wars served to reveal the networks on which a Renaissance dynasty grounded its rule. Such a danger pushed a woman, the prince’s spouse, to step in and act by resorting to all the instruments with which her education and her familiarity with the Italian and European political system had provided her since she was a child. The fact that Isabella was a woman, moreover, gave her a broader range of discursive resources than those available to a man. She could act as the disconsolate spouse, the anxious mother, the brainless sister, the clever prince, the authoritative ruler, the cunning diplomat according to circumstances and interlocutors, and she resolutely played every tune. At the end of the day, the network withstood the impact of misfortune, the marquis was released, and the marquisate was saved.

Epistolary Networks and Languages  241

Notes 1 On Francesco’s misadventure, see Vittorio Rossi, Francesco Gonzaga prigioniero dei Veneziani (agosto 1509). Nozze Merkel-​Francia (Venezia: Visentini, 1889); Alessandro Luzio, “La reggenza di Isabella d’Este durante la prigionia del marito (1509–​1510),” Archivio Storico Lombardo 14 (1910): 5–​104; Roberto Cessi, “La cattura del marchese Francesco Gonzaga di Mantova e le prime trattattive per la sua liberazione,” Nuovo Archivio Veneto n. s. 25, no. 1 (1913): 144–​ 176; Giuseppe Coniglio, “Francesco Gonzaga e la Lega di Cambrai,” Archivio Storico Italiano, 120 (1962): 3–​31; on the Italian Wars, see Michael Mallett and Christine Shaw, The Italian Wars: 1494–​1559 (Harlow: Pearson, 2012); Danielle Boillet and Marie-​Françoise Piejus, eds., Les guerres d’Italie. Histoire, pratique, représentations (Paris: Université Paris 3, 2002); Jean-​Louis Fournel and Jean-​ Claude Zancarini, eds., Les guerres d’Italie. Des batailles pour l’Europe (1494–​ 1559) (Paris; Gallimard, 2003); Stefano Meschini, La Francia nel Ducato di Milano. La politica di Luigi XII (1499–​1512), 2 vols. (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2006). 2 ASMn, AG, b. 2916.206, c. 12v (Isabella to Giovanni, Mantua, August 8, 1509). 3 The bibliography on Renaissance correspondences is immense: Among the most acute studies on what matters here see Richard C. Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980), 131–​158; John M. Najemy, Between Friends. Discourses of Power and Desire in the Machiavelli-​ Vettori Letters of 1513–​ 1515 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993); Judith Bryce, “Between Friends? Two Letters of Ippolita Sforza and Lorenzo de’ Medici,” Renaissance Studies, 21 (2007): 340–​365; Paul D. McLean, The Art of the Network. Strategic Interaction and Patronage in Renaissance Florence (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007). 4 Isabella Lazzarini, Fra un principe e altri stati. Relazioni di potere e forme di servizio a Mantova nell’età di Ludovico Gonzaga (Rome: Istituto storico italiano per il Medioevo, 1996). 5 On the archival profile of the Gonzaga correspondence and their tradition and preservation, see Pietro Torelli, L’archivio Gonzaga di Mantova (Ostiglia: A. Mondadori, 1920) and Alessandro Luzio, L’archivio Gonzaga di Mantova. La corrispondenza familiare, amministrativa e diplomatica dei Gonzaga (Verona: A. Mondadori, 1922); more recently, see Isabella Lazzarini, L’ordine delle scritture. Il paesaggio documentario del potere nell’Italia tardomedievale (Rome: Viella, 2021), 123–​150 and 279–​300. 6 ASMn, AG, Copialettere ordinari e misti, bb. 2903–​2938 (1490–​1539: 190); Copialettere riservati, bb. 2961–​2972 (1492–​1539: 58); Copialettere particolari di Isabella d’Este, bb. 2991–​3000 (1491–​1539: 53). 7 Apart from the general correspondence from abroad, 13 buste contain the letters that were set apart at Isabella’s will: ASMn, AG, bb. 1890–​1902 (1504–​1522). 8 Bourne, Francesco II, 183–​223. 9 Alessandro Luzio (sometimes with Rodolfo Venier) published many essays and papers on Isabella between the end of the nineteenth and the early decades of the twentieth century. For references, see Raffaele Tamalio, La memoria dei Gonzaga. Repertorio bibliografico gonzaghesco (1473–​1999) (Florence: Olschki, 1999). Luzio and Renier were however not alone: See Julia M. Cartwright Ady, Isabella d’Este, Marchioness of Mantua, 1474–​1539. A Study of the Renaissance (London: John Murray, 1903). To the general public’s awareness of Isabella’s

242  Isabella Lazzarini exemplarity much was done by Maria Bellonci with her historical novel Rinascimento privato (Milan: Mondadori, 1985). 10 Among the many essays by Clifford M. Brown, see especially “«Lo insaciabile desiderio nostro de cose antique»: New Documents on Isabella d’Este Collection of Antiquities,” in Cultural Aspects of the Italian Renaissance. Essays in Honour of Paul Oskar Kristeller, ed. Cecil Clough (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1976), 324–​353 and “A Ferrarese Lady and a Mantuan Marchesa: The Art and Antiquities Collections of Isabella d’Este Gonzaga (1474–​1539),” in Women and Art in Early Modern Europe: Patrons, Collectors, and Connoisseurs, ed. Cynthia Lawrence (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997), 53–​71. In the last decade a flow of studies has come in. See, for example, Sarah Cockram, Isabella d’Este and Francesco Gonzaga: Power Sharing at the Italian Renaissance Court (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015); Deanna Shemek, “Isabella d’Este and the Properties of Persuasion,” in Form and Persuasion in Early Modern Women’s Letters Across Europe, ed. Ann Crabb and Jane Couchman (Milton Park: Routledge, 2016), 108–​134 and Isabella d’Este, Selected Letters, ed. and trans. Deanna Shemek (Toronto: Iter Press, 2017); Matteo Basora, “I rapporti epistolari tra Isabella d’Este e Baldassarre Castiglione. Un esempio di carteggio diplomatico,” in Donne Gonzaga a corte. Reti istituzionali, pratiche culturali e affari di governo, ed., Chiara Continisio e Raffaele Tamalio (Rome: Bulzoni, 2018), 175–​ 186; Christine Shaw, Isabella d’Este: A Renaissance Princess (Milton Park: Routledge, 2019); Carolyn James, A Renaissance Marriage. The Political and Personal Alliance of Isabella d’Este and Francesco Gonzaga (1490–​1519) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020). Interesting –​because of their “different” focus on Isabella –​are also Sally A. Hickson, Women, Art and Architectural Patronage in Renaissance Mantua. Matrons, Mystics and Monasteries (Milton Park: Routledge, 2012) and the very recent Tamara Herzig, A Convert’s Tale: Art, Crime, and Jewish Apostasy in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019). 11 Molly Bourne, Francesco II Gonzaga. The Soldier-​ Prince as Patron (Rome: Bulzoni, 2008). 12 IDEA. Isabella d’Este Archive –​https://​isabel​lade​ste.web.unc.edu (accessed January 31, 2022). 13 Isabella Lazzarini, “Epistolarità dinastica e autografia femminile: La corrispondenza delle principesse di casa Gonzaga (fine XIV-​primo XVI secolo),” in Donne Gonzaga a corte, eds. Continisio and Tamalio, 49–​62; Ead., “La marchesa e il papa. Rapporti diplomatici tra Barbara di Hohenzollern, Pio II e la curia romana (1459–​1461),” in Isabella Lazzarini, Patricia Rochwert-​Zuili, and José-​ Manuel Nieto Soria, eds., Correspondences des femmes et diplomatie (Espagne, France, Italie, IXe-XVe siècle), E-Spania 2021, https://books.openedition.org/ esb/3992. 14 Giuseppe Gullino, ed., L’Europa e la Serenissima. La svolta del 1509. Nel V centenario della battaglia di Agnadello (Venice: IUSLA 2011). 15 For the events, see Luzio’s reconstruction at Luzio, “La reggenza.” Mantua’s vulnerability is mirrored by the events of young Federico’s early years: as soon as his father was freed, he was sent to Rome, where he remained until Julius’ death in 1513 (Alessandro Luzio, “Federico Gonzaga ostaggio alla corte di Giulio II,” Archivio della R. Società romana di storia patria (1886): 509–​582). The young prince was then sent as a hostage again in 1515, this time to King Francis I of

Epistolary Networks and Languages  243 France (Raffaele Tamalio, Federico Gonzaga alla corte di Francesco I di Francia nel carteggio privato con Mantova (1515–​1517) (Paris: Champion, 1994). 16 Lazzarini, L’ordine delle scritture, 215–​237. 17 The nine copialettere that cover those eleven months are the following: Among the ordinari, the registers 206 (July 31–​October 19, 1509), 209 (October 19, 1509–​January 4, 1510), 210 (January 5–​April 10, 1510) and 211 (April 10–​July 16, 1510) in ASMn, AG, b. 2916; among Isabella’s riservati, the registers 21 (May 25–​September 3, 1509), 22 (September 4–​November 21, 1509), 23 (November 22, 1509–​March 3, 1510), 24 (March 3–​May 23, 1510), 25 (May 24–​July 17, 1510: this register in left unfinished, with many white pages at the end) in ASMn, AG, 2295. As we can see, in both series the chronological sequence is perfect. See also ASMn, AG, bb. 2118–​2119 (Lettere originali dei Gonzaga, 1509; 1510–​ 1512); ASMn, AG. bb. 1892–​1893 (Corrispondenza con la marchesa Isabella d’Este, 1509: 686 letters; 1510: 474); ASMn, AG, b. 1191 (Ferrara. Lettere dei principi, 1508–​1509) and 1242 (Ferrara: lettere degli ambasciatori, 1508–​1510). Among all those letters sent and received, this paper will particularly focus on those written in the first month after Francesco’s capture: ASMn, AG, 2916.206; 2995.21; b. 1892; b. 1191. 18 She was informed of Francesco’s capture by two letters written by Ludovico’s captain, Count Ludovico della Mirandola: ASMn, AG, 1892, l. 296, Ludovico della Mirandola to Isabella, Isola della Scala (della Mirandola was still hoping that the marquis might have escaped the ambush), and 297, same date and place (he admitted that things were much worse than that). 19 ASMn, AG, 2916.206, c. 12v (Isabella to Giovanni Gonzaga, Mantua, August 8, 1509). 20 ASMn, AG, b. 1892, l. 568 (Ippolito d’Este to Isabella, Mortara, August 9, 1509). 21 ASMn, AG, b. 1191 (Ippolito d’Este to Isabella, Mortara, August 9, 1509). Isabella, in her answer, justified herself for not writing by her own hand, but recalled the cosetta between them “as a signal that this letter has been written of my own will, I remember that man with a hat and a false beard that wanted you to give your soul to the devil,” ASMn, AG, 2995.21, c. 42v (Isabella to Ippolito, Mantua, August 10, 1509). 22 ASMn, AG, 2916.206, c. 11v: “havimo ad servirsi del consiglio et opera di cadauno secondo che serano apti al bisogno dil stato nostro.” In writing on the same day to her ambassadors to the king of France, Jacopo d’Atri and Angelo Ghivizzano, Isabella wrote that “all the gentlemen and citizens who were in the towns and villages came to Mantua with the intention of staying with us in the good and the bad times,” ASMn, AG, 2995.21, c. 39r (Isabella to Atri and Ghivizzano, Mantua, August 9, 1509). The presence to her side not only of Cardinal Sigismondo (who arrived in Mantua on August 19th) but of all “those magnificent gentlemen so affectionate and loyal” made Isabella strong enough to refuse to allow any captain or representative of the emperor and the king of France to stay in the marquisate (ASMn, AG, 2995.21, c. 65r, Isabella to Giovanni Gonzaga, Mantua, August 17). 23 ASMn, AG, 2995.21, c. 38v (to the vicar of Governolo et in similia forma omnibus vicarii, potestatibus et commissariis) and c. 39v (omnibus castellanis). On the same day, a letter was specifically addressed to the officers of the vicariates bordering Veronese territory (vicariis confinium veronensium) in order to reassure them: they should not be frightened by the idea of a possible invasion

244  Isabella Lazzarini by the enemies, because they had other matters at stake (ASMn, AG, 2995.21, c. 44r). 24 ASMn, AG, 2995.21, c. 40v. 25 ASMn, AG, 2995.21, c. 52r. 26 ASMn, AG, 2995.21, cc. 47r, 47v-​48r. 27 ASMn, AG. 2995.21, c. 49v. 28 ASMn, AG, 2995.21, c. 50r. 29 To all those letters, answers were written and sent: we can find almost all of them among the letters preserved in ASMn, AG, 1892. 30 ASMn, AG, 1892, l. 638, Federico da Sanseverino to Isabella, Bologna, August 29, 1509. 31 ASMn, AG, 1892, ll. 636 (Margherita to Isabella, Revello, August 28: she wrote then that she was thinking hard about doing something) and 663 (Margherita to Isabella, Revello, December 12, 1509); Isabella herself, in a draft letter dated to the 28 of September, described Margherita’s Hungarian strategy to her ambassador in Rome, Ludovico Brognoli (ASMn, AG, 2192, Isabella to Ludovico Brognoli, Mantua, September 28, 1509). 32 ASMn, AG, 1892, l. 614: Giovanni to Isabella, Pesaro, August 14, 1509. 33 ASMn, AG, 1892, l. 637: Raimondo del Balzo to Isabella, Naples, August 29, 1509. 34 ASMn, AG, 1892, l. 611, Caterina Gonzaga to Isabella, Novellara, August 11, 1509. 35 ASMn, AG, 1892, l. 613, Eleonora Pallavicino to Isabella, Busseto, August 12, 1509. All the region’s lesser lordships were involved: as early as August 9, Giovanna Carafa, spouse of Marquis Alberto della Mirandola, wrote to Isabella that she informed her husband as soon as she received Isabella’s letter (ibidem, l. 605, Giovanna Carafa to Isabella, Novi, August 9, 1509); on the same day, it was the turn of Giulio d’Este (ibidem, l. 607), on 15, of Antonia del Balzo Gonzaga, marchioness of Rodigo (ibidem, l. 617). 36 On August 14, Isabella had to apologize to Alberto Pio de Sabaudia, who apparently complained for being ignored, by telling him that “your lordship has to consider our ruin and misfortune, and should not marvel at the fact that we did not inform you as we should have, because we find ourselves so confused and distressed that we do not know if we are dead or alive” (ASMn, AG, 2995.21, c. 54r). 37 ASMn, AG, 1892, l. 571, Bernardino Prosperi to Isabella, Ferrara, August 14, 1509. 38 ASMn, AG, 1892, ll. 570 (da Correggio), 572 (Contrari); 573–​577, 594, 626, 665 (nuns and abbesses); 579 (Isabella del Balzo); 616 (Albertino Malaspina and Lucrezia d’Este, marquises of Massa). 39 Among others, letters were sent by Sante Capponi, commissar in Porretta (ASMn, AG, 1892, l. 606); Galeazzo Pallavicino in Cremona (ibidem, l. 622); Andrea degli Agli cavaliere, in Cremona (ibidem, l. 623); Galeazzo da Galliavola (ibidem, l. 634) and from the Neapolitan kingdom, by the prince of Melfi (l. 633) and the duke of Andria (l. 637); cardinals and French captains wrote as well, see 1892.

Epistolary Networks and Languages  245 0 Lazzarini, L’ordine delle scritture, 175–​190. 4 41 ASMn, AG, 2916, 206, c. 20v, Isabella to Ludovico, Mantua, August 14, 1509. 42 ASMn, AG, 1892, l. 635, Michele Antonio di Saluzzo to Isabella, Revello, August 28, 1509: the young marquis spoke of his love and affection for Francesco, who was like a father to him (“amore et affectione” “el quale reputo in loco de patre proprio”). A similar form of words was chosen by the Sienese Pandolfo Petrucci, who talked of his obedience to and filial bond with Francesco and the whole house of Gonzaga (“observantia et filiatione mia inverso dello illustrissimo signor suo consorte e di tutta la casa sua”), ASMn, AG, 1892, l. 628, Pandolfo to Isabella, Siena, August 22, 1509. 43 ASMn, AG, 2192, draft of a letter to the Vicar General of the Franciscan Order, Mantua, September 28, 1509. 44 ASMn, AG, 1892, ll.624 (Florence, August 18, 1509) 629 (Siena, August 22); 631 (Lucca, August 22). 45 ASMn, AG, 1892, l. 394, Pandolfo to Isabella, August 11, 1509. 46 ASMn AG, b. 1892, l. 572 (Contrari, August 12, 1509); l. 570 (Correggio, August 11). 47 ASMn, AG, 2995.21, c. 52r, Isabella to Ferdinand of Spain, Mantua, August 10, 1509: Isabella was forced to inform the king by the devotion of the house of Gonzaga and by the particular servitude of Francesco towards him. 48 Recent research is increasingly investigating Renaissance emotions: see Barbara Rosenwein, “Thinking Historically about Medieval Emotions,” History Compass, 8 (2010): 824–​ 842; Damien Bouquet and Piroska Nagy, Sensible Moyen Âge. Une histoire des émotions dans l’Occident médiéval (Paris: Seuil, 2015); Sarah Broomhall ed., Early Modern Emotions: An Introduction (Milton Park: Routledge, 2017); Carolyn James and Jessica O’Leary, “Letter-​Writing and Emotions,” The Routledge History Handbook to Emotions in Europe, 1100–​ 1700, ed. Sarah Broomhall, Andrew Lynch (Milton Park: Routledge, 2019), 256–​268. 49 ASMn, AG, 2995.21, c. 53r, Isabella to Angelo del Tovaglia, Mantua, August 10, 1509. 50 ASMn, AG, 2995.21, cc. 47v-​48r, Isabella to Louis of France, Mantua, August 11, 1509. 51 ASMn, AG, 2995.21, c. 49v, Isabella to Anne of France, Mantua, August 12, 1509. 52 ASMn, AG, 2995.21, c. 42r, Isabella to Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, Mantua, August 10, 1509; c. 53r, Isabella to Charles d’Amboise, Mantua, August 13, 1509. 53 ASMn, AG, 2995.21, c. 38v, Isabella to her officers, Mantua, August 9, 1509: “perché anchora nui, benché per questo improviso caso semo molto consternate et sopra modo aflicte, non siamo perhò cossi perse de animo et consiglio che non deliberamo de far il possibile per conservare integramente questo stato.” 54 ASMn, AG, 2995.21, c. 72r, Isabella to the Domini provisoribus generalibus belli Venetorum, Mantua, August 21, 1509. 55 ASMn, AG, 2995.23, c. 3r, Isabella to Alfonso, Mantua, November 25, 1509. 56 ASMN, AG, 2995.21, c. 76r, Isabella to Elisabetta, Mantua, July 26, 1509. 57 ASMn, AG, 2192, Isabella to Ludovico Brognolo, Mantua, October 18, 1509.

246  Isabella Lazzarini

Bibliography Unpublished Sources Mantua Archivio di Stato, Archivio Gonzaga

Published Sources Basora, Matteo. “I rapporti epistolari tra Isabella d’Este e Baldassarre Castiglione. Un esempio di carteggio diplomatico.” In Donne Gonzaga a corte, ed. Continisio and Tamalio, 175–​186. Bellonci, Maria. Rinascimento privato. Milan: Mondadori, 1985. Boillet, Danielle and Marie-​Françoise Piejus, eds., Les guerres d’Italie. Histoire, pratique, representations, Paris: Université Paris 3, 2002. Boquet, Damien and Piroska Nagy. Sensible Moyen Âge. Une histoire des émotions dans l’Occident medieval, Paris: Seuil, 2015. Bourne, Molly. Francesco II Gonzaga. The Soldier-​ Prince as Patron, Rome: Bulzoni, 2008. Broomhall, Sarah, ed. Early Modern Emotions: An Introduction. Milton Park: Routledge, 2017. Brown, Clifford M. “«Lo insaciabile desiderio nostro de cose antique»: New Documents on Isabella d’Este Collection of Antiquities.” In Cultural Aspects of the Italian Renaissance. Essays in Honour of Paul Oskar Kristeller, ed. Cecil Clough, 324–​353. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1976. Brown, Clifford M. “A Ferrarese Lady and a Mantuan Marchesa: The Art and Antiquities Collections of Isabella d’Este Gonzaga (1474–​1539).” In Women and Art in Early Modern Europe: Patrons, Collectors, and Connoisseurs, ed. Cynthia Lawrence, 53–​71. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997. Bryce, Judith. “Between Friends? Two Letters of Ippolita Sforza and Lorenzo de’ Medici.” Renaissance Studies 21 (2007): 340–​365. Cartwright Ady. Julia M. Isabella d’Este, Marchioness of Mantua, 1474–​ 1539. A Study of the Renaissance. London: John Murray, 1903. Cessi, Roberto. “La cattura del marchese Francesco Gonzaga di Mantova e le prime trattattive per la sua liberazione.” Nuovo Archivio Veneto n. s. 25, no. 1 (1913): 144–​176. Cockram, Sarah. Isabella d’Este and Francesco Gonzaga: Power Sharing at the Italian Renaissance Court. Farnham: Ashgate, 2015. Coniglio, Giuseppe. “Francesco Gonzaga e la Lega di Cambrai.” Archivio Storico Italiano 120 (1962): 3–​31. Continisio, Chiara and Raffaele Tamalio, eds. Donne Gonzaga a corte. Reti istituzionali, pratiche culturali e affari di governo. Rome: Bulzoni, 2018. Este, Isabella d’. Selected Letters. Ed. and trans. Deanna Shemek. Toronto: Iter Press, 2017. Fournel, Jean-​ Louis and Jean-​ Claude Zancarini, eds. Les guerres d’Italie. Des batailles pour l’Europe (1494–​1559). Paris; Gallimard, 2003. Gullino, Giuseppe, ed. L’Europa e la Serenissima. La svolta del 1509. Nel V centenario della battaglia di Agnadello. Venice: IUSLA 2011.

Epistolary Networks and Languages  247 Herzig, Tamara. A Convert’s Tale: Art, Crime, and Jewish Apostasy in Renaissance Italy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019 Hickson, Sally A. Women, Art and Architectural Patronage in Renaissance Mantua. Matrons, Mystics and Monasteries. Milton Park: Routledge, 2012. James, Carolyn. A Renaissance Marriage. The Political and Personal Alliance of Isabella d’Este and Francesco Gonzaga (1490–​1519). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. James, Carolyn and Jessica O’Leary. “Letter-​ Writing and Emotions.” In The Routledge History Handbook to Emotions in Europe, 1100–​1700, eds. Sarah Broomhall and Andrew Lynch, 256–​268. Milton Park: Routledge, 2019. Lazzarini, Isabella. Fra un principe e altri stati. Relazioni di potere e forme di servizio a Mantova nell’età di Ludovico Gonzaga. Rome: Istituto storico italiano per il Medioevo, 1996. Lazzarini, Isabella. “Epistolarità dinastica e autografia femminile: La corrispondenza delle principesse di casa Gonzaga (fine XIV-​ primo XVI secolo).” In Donne Gonzaga a corte, ed. Continisio and Tamalio, 49–​62. Lazzarini, Isabella. L’ordine delle scritture. Il paesaggio documentario del potere nell’Italia tardomedievale. Rome: Viella, 2021. Lazzarini, Isabella. “La marchesa e il papa. Rapporti diplomatici tra Barbara di Hohenzollern, Pio II e la curia romana (1459–​1461).” In Correspondences des femmes et diplomatie (Espagne, France, Italie, IXe-XVe siècle), eds. Isabella Lazzarini, Patricia Rochwert-​Zuili, and José-​Manuel Nieto Soria, E-Spania 2021, https://books.openedition.org/esb/399. Luzio, Alessandro. “Federico Gonzaga ostaggio alla corte di Giulio II.” Archivio della R. Società romana di storia patria (1886): 509–​582. Luzio, Alessandro. “La reggenza di Isabella d’Este durante la prigionia del marito (1509–​1510).” Archivio Storico Lombardo 14 (1910): 5–​104. Luzio, Alessandro. L’archivio Gonzaga di Mantova. La corrispondenza familiare, amministrativa e diplomatica dei Gonzaga. Verona: A. Mondadori, 1922. Mallett, Michael and Christine Shaw. The Italian Wars: 1494–​ 1559. Harlow: Pearson, 2012. McLean, Paul D. The Art of the Network. Strategic Interaction and Patronage in Renaissance Florence. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007. Meschini, Stefano. La Francia nel Ducato di Milano. La politica di Luigi XII (1499–​ 1512). 2 vols. Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2006. Najemy, John M. Between Friends. Discourses of Power and Desire in the Machiavelli-​ Vettori Letters of 1513–​1515. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. Rosenwein, Barbara. “Thinking Historically about Medieval Emotions.” History Compass 8 (2010): 824–​842. Rossi, Vittorio. Francesco Gonzaga prigioniero dei Veneziani (agosto 1509). Nozze Merkel-​ Francia. Venice: Visentini, 1889. Shaw, Christine. Isabella d’Este: A Renaissance Princess. Milton Park: Routledge, 2019. Shemek, Deanna, “Isabella d’Este and the Properties of Persuasion.” In Form and Persuasion in Early Modern Women’s Letters Across Europe, ed. Ann Crabb and Jane Couchman, 108–​113. Milton Park: Routledge, 2016. Tamalio, Raffaele. Federico Gonzaga alla corte di Francesco I di Francia nel carteggio privato con Mantova (1515–​1517). Paris: Champion, 1994.

248  Isabella Lazzarini Tamalio, Raffaele. La memoria dei Gonzaga. Repertorio bibliografico gonzaghesco (1473–​1999). Florence: Olschki, 1999. Torelli, Pietro. L’archivio Gonzaga di Mantova. Ostiglia: A. Mondadori, 1920. Trexler, Richard C. Public Life in Renaissance Florence. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980.

12 Trading and Investing during Regime Changes in Genoa Carlo Taviani

Introduction This chapter seeks to show how finance, trade, and regime changes were intertwined in Genoa during the early years of the Italian Wars.1 Merchants and traders constituted an important part of the population in Renaissance Italy and in some city-​states, such as in Genoa, they played an important political role. During the Italian Wars they intensively traded and invested. Yet, this chapter shows that the interaction between trade and war was not just a passive relationship. Traders and investors did not simply suffer the consequences of war, they actively invested in war and in regime changes. The chapter begins by analyzing these financial dynamics from a macro perspective. This first part focuses on Genoa’s faction-​ridden political system and its public debt –​managed by the Casa di San Giorgio –​during the fifteenth century. The second part then zooms in on three case studies of investors, specifically the Fregoso and Sauli families, and traders, with a focus on the Monleone brothers. Genoa experienced frequent internal factional conflicts and external threats during the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. This period saw around 47 changes of governments, mostly shifting between the governments of the Adorno to the Fregoso (or Campofregoso) family. Quite often –​as in the periods 1421–​1435, 1435–​1458, 1458–​1461, 1461–​1464, 1464–​1477, 1477–​1478, 1478–​1488, 1488–​1499, 1499–​1507, 1507–​1512, 1512–​1513, 1513–​1515, and 1515–​1522 –​the duke of Milan or the king of France took possession of the city. In fact, according to Fabien Levy, French sources trace a legal tradition of dominion over Genoa that stretched across the whole fifteenth century –​even when the Commune was not under French dominion.2 While at the beginning of the sixteenth century governments changed, during the Quattrocento there were moments of almost constant change. Between 1458 and 1464, for example, ten different governors were in power under two external signorie (the French and the Milanese), there were the governments of two doges of the Adorno and the Fregoso, and an exceptional government of Eight Captains of the Artisans.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003199021-13

250  Carlo Taviani If changes of governments in Genoa were so frequent, what were the differences –​one might wonder –​between the Quattrocento and the sixteenth century, in the early period of the Italian Wars? One major change involved the end of the factional straits and power of the two most powerful popular families, the Adorno and the Fregoso. In 1528, a political reform created a whole group of nobles who could vote; popular families were aggregated and absorbed into noble families.3 In the following years, Andrea Doria took power and Genoa ended up in the orbit of the Spanish Empire. Some initial steps of this process –​an attempt to stop the power of the factions –​can, as I will show, be seen earlier, during the Italian Wars and specifically during the governments of Ottaviano Fregoso.

Fiscal Reform and Changes of Regime The transformation of the political system was not the only major change that occurred during the Italian Wars. A second change happened within the fiscal and financial system in 1490, only a few years before the beginning of the wars (1494). During almost the whole Quattrocento, the collection and administration of the direct tax –​the Avaria –​was in the hands of the Commune, though the Officium Monetae (Office of Currency). Yet, during this period the Casa di San Giorgio (from now on San Giorgio) arose. Initially (from 1407) it managed the public debt and performed bank activities as a main bank (from 1408 to 1444) in Liguria.4 It gradually acquired territories from the Commune of Genoa, including the entire island of Corsica, Caffa, and other minor centers in the Black Sea, the city of Famagusta in Cyprus, the Lunigiana (northern Tuscany) and communities near Liguria (Ventimiglia, Pieve di Teco, Levanto). It governed them with the fullest extent of territorial power (the ius gladii and the plena iurisdictio), raising armies, building fortresses, minting coins, establishing plantations, and punishing people.5 San Giorgio also progressively acquired the right to collect taxes such as that on salt. Between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, San Giorgio became an autonomous body and developed and acquired rights and powers that at times made it a competitor of the Commune of Genoa. Even though many families belonging to the Genoese oligarchy held offices both in the Commune and San Giorgio, the two institutions developed their own policies. As Machiavelli pointed out in his Florentine Histories, during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, San Giorgio reached a sort of stability while factions forced many changes of government within the Commune of Genoa. In a very dense section, he sketched the relationships between San Giorgio and the Commune of Genoa: When their government was thus apportioned, new needs occurred to the Commune of the city; so it had recourse to new assistance to San Giorgio, which, being rich and well administered, could be of service to

Trading during Regime Changes in Genoa  251 the Commune. And in the bargain, as the Commune had first granted the customs receipts to San Giorgio, it began as a pledge of the money it had had, to grant San Giorgio some of its towns. And the thing had gone so far, arising from the needs of the Commune and the services of San Giorgio, that the Commune had put under the administration of San Giorgio the greater part of the towns and city subject to the empire of Genoa, which San Giorgio governs and defends and each year by public suffrage sends them its rectors without the Commune’s being involved in it in any degree. From this it arose that the citizens took away their love from the Commune, as something tyrannical, and placed it in San Giorgio, as a party well and equitably administered; and from this arose easy and frequent changes of state and the fact that the Genoese obey sometimes one of their own citizens and sometimes a foreigner, because not San Giorgio but the Commune changes its government.6 While Genoa reformed its fiscal system during the fifteenth century, San Giorgio’s power was growing. As happened in other Italian cities and states during the Middle Ages, Genoa progressively shifted from direct to indirect taxation. The direct tax, the Avaria, was abolished in 1490, and San Giorgio took control of the whole fiscal system, administering all indirect taxes. The gabellotti –​private companies of collectors –​advanced money to San Giorgio at a discount and later collected taxes from citizens, profiting on the difference. In the early sixteenth century, Bartolomeo Senarega (1444–​ 1514), a chancellor of the Commune, wrote the chronicles of Genoa, as was traditional in many other Italian cities. His covered the period between1488 and 1514. Several other Genoese chancellors also wrote chronicles and histories. Some, such as those by Giacomo Bracelli (1390–​1466) and Antonio Galli (1440–​1509), chancellor of San Giorgio, survived; others, including those by Battista Stella, Gotifredo d’Albaro, and Benedetto Tagliacarne (1480–​1536) are lost.7 According to Emilio Pandiani, who made detailed studies of early sixteenth-​century Genoese history, Bartolomeo Senarega’s chronicle shows that his attitude toward the Italian Wars progressively changed. The early sixteenth-​century historian presented earlier events with a cold and detached attitude, growing more emotionally involved as he described later episodes such as the war against Venice in 1509.8 But Senarega was also quite interested in linking the Italian Wars to the recent fiscal empowerment of San Giorgio in Genoa. He explained that several members of the powerful Adorno and Fregoso families, who had previously been expelled from Genoa, were seeking to return to power and had promised money to external powers in exchange for military support. According to Senarega, those families could afford to promise high sums of money because San Giorgio ruled the fiscal system. Within the previous system of direct taxation, the Avaria, a faction that was abroad and seeking to come back to

252  Carlo Taviani power in Genoa would have had to ask the king of France or the duke of Milan –​to give just two ­examples –​for military help. Once in power, the faction would have had to convince Genoese taxpayers to contribute their own money to repay the armies. In that period, increased taxes were directly connected with political consensus and it would have been a very difficult task. Senarega maintained that after the direct taxation was abolished, San Giorgio, because it ruled the indirect system of taxation, could give money to the faction trying to regain its power in Genoa without direct political consensus. San Giorgio could pay what was needed itself. Mentioning the money that the faction had to find once in power, Senarega wrote: If the same amount of money should have been found from the internal resources, maybe so many novelties wouldn’t have happened, because the way to find money through San Giorgio was easier.9 By internal resources, Senarega meant the older system of direct taxation. By novelties he meant the frequent change of governments and the external signorie. He also provided the sums promised in those years: Giano Fregoso offered 12,000 ducats to the Swiss in c.1512–​1513; the Adorno faction offered 90,000 ducats to the king of France, and Ottaviano Fregoso offered and paid 80,000 ducats to the Spanish king.10 The Fregoso faction was in exile during the first decade of the sixteenth century, scattered between Provence, the Montefeltro court of Urbino, and Rome, at the court of Julius II.11 They tried to return to power during the revolt between 1506 and 1507, but it was not until June 1512 that Giano Fregoso conquered the city. Less than a year later, on May 25, 1513, Antoniotto Adorno, a member of the opposite faction, obtained the help of French troops and took control of the city. A few weeks later, on June 17, Ottaviano Fregoso, this time with the help of the Spanish viceroy, took power. Even in a city as politically unstable as Genoa, it was unusual to have so many regime changes in such quick succession. But, by the early sixteenth century more external militaries were involved that had been the case during the Quattrocento. During the fifteenth century, it was mostly the duke of Milan and the king of France who could help a faction regain power or target a faction that was in power. During the Italian Wars, the situation became more complicated, with the Spanish king and the Swiss armies, to mention just a few forces, now involved. It took Ottaviano Fregoso several months to gain control of the whole city. Initially he ruled it in a continuous state of war, with a group of Swiss soldiers still within the city walls. Once he had full control, he put in place a series of reforms. In 1513, he issued a law to prevent other factions in exile from asking for external military help. The law’s introductory paragraph seems in line with Bartolomeo Senarega’s analysis. It started by stating that After the arrival in Italy of external nations it was usual for those who aspired to government or rule to turn to the kings of these nations and

Trading during Regime Changes in Genoa  253 to the chiefs of the armies and with huge promises of money to ask for their help.12 The law then prescribed a series of fines on whoever might pose a threat to the Genoese government, laying out punishments for the enemies of the Republic, such as seizing the resources of their wives and partisans. It also tried to put any investment in the Casa di San Giorgio under government control, but this rule was not ratified.13 A final document was added to the law explaining again that the practice of asking for help from external powers was widespread among factions in Genoa and that San Giorgio should be included in the process aimed at avoiding such dangers.14 Ottaviano Fregoso’s law aimed at weakening this dynamic, asking San Giorgio for its support and trying to seize rebels’ shares in San Giorgio. In the same period, San Giorgio acquired several territories, including Ventimiglia, Levanto, and Pieve di Teco and the process of territorial acquisition shows that Ottaviano Fregoso and his government were quite close to the directors of San Giorgio. With the end of the Avaria and San Giorgio’s acquisition of all taxes, it became even more detached from the Commune. Ottaviano’s politics were not limited to the financial system and avoiding the external threat of factions. He also developed an internal strategy that supported the practices and rituals of reconciliation and peace making against the factions. This might seem surprising, since he was a member of the Fregoso faction, but in the early years of the sixteenth century figures such as Ottaviano, his brother Federico, then archbishop and later cardinal, the chancellor Raffaele Ponsone, and various others involved in charitable associations and confraternities promoted political reforms against the empowerment of factions.15 The political reform already mentioned that put an end to the factions in 1528 had its origins in these movements.

Case Studies I: Capital Investments and Regime Changes People who invested their money in shares of San Giorgio, like modern investors who choose stable banks in foreign countries, could count on San Giorgio to keep their money, even when they were considered enemies of the Republic. In his studies of fifteenth-​century Genoa, Jacques Heers concluded that financial investments rose when the city was controlled by external dominions; in other words, when members of the Adorno and Fregoso factions were the doges, the value of San Giorgio’s shares decreased.16 In 1515, Ottaviano Fregoso could not keep power in Genoa due to political tensions and external threats, and he contracted the cession of the signory with the king of France. This kind of alliance shift –​in 1513, Ottaviano was allied with the king of Spain, switching to France just two years later –​was typical of the Italian Wars. Ottaviano negotiated an estate for his brother Federico and many ducats in exchange for the signory of the city.17 Looking at Ottaviano’s investments in San Giorgio, however, suggests that the negotiation with the French king was not the only way he tried to

254  Carlo Taviani increase his resources. He may have speculated on his San Giorgio shares. When Ottaviano governed Genoa as doge, he had a limited amount of San Giorgio’s shares, but he acquired more of them just before he ceded Genoa to the king of France.18 I hypothesize that he was aware of the mechanism of financial speculation and invested in the shares before ceding the signory of the city to an external power –​the king of France, in order to make a profit. Ottaviano Fregoso was not a merchant-​ banker and even though he could –​possibly –​speculate on San Giorgio, there were traders in Genoa who were more likely to be involved in these kinds of financial dynamics. The Sauli family, for instance, is a perfect example of how finances and the Italian Wars interacted in Genoa. In 1497, the Sauli gave money to the king of France who was entering the Italian peninsula with his army –​like some Florentine merchant-​ bankers who in the same period invested in two different parties. During the early years of the sixteenth century, the Sauli became quite influential in the Roman curia, along with the Sienese merchant-​banker Agostino Chigi. They controlled the apostolic depositary from 1503 to 1515, that of Umbria, and dealt with the salt-​tax.19 They took part in the Genoese revolt of the merchants and artisans of 1506–​1507 against the nobles and the king of France. The pope was in contact particularly with Paolo and Vincenzo Sauli, who moved frequently between Genoa and Rome.20 Giovanni Salvago, a historian of the early sixteenth century, wrote in his chronicle –​the Historie di Genova –​that the Sauli made money by investing in shares of San Giorgio during the revolt in order to speculate on this turmoil.21 We do not have more information on these possible speculative movements because the material is not easy to investigate. But considering Ottaviano Fregoso’s actions just a few years later, the accusation seems plausible.

Case Studies II: Merchants and Regime Changes The period of the Italian Wars preceded what Fernand Braudel has called the golden century of the Genoese (1550–​1630), when the Genoese became the bankers for the Spanish Empire. In this earlier period, Genoese traders were already very active in the Iberian Peninsula, but the structure of their business was different; instead of as bankers, they can be defined as merchant-​bankers, because they still traded in both goods and money.22 A final example shows how not only rich merchant-​bankers but those merchants who were less rich and powerful –​and traded mostly in goods –​managed the Italian Wars in Genoa, keeping their business active, while facing regime changes. Battista and Agostino Monleone were brothers and traders, who in the first two decades of the sixteenth century, operated between the court of Mantua and Santo Domingo, in the Caribbean. They were one of the earliest examples of long-​distance traders who did business between the Italian peninsula and the New World, businesses that the Genoese were early participants in and that included the transatlantic slave trade. The Genoese

Trading during Regime Changes in Genoa  255 were among the first to use their resources and knowledge to transplant to the Atlantic what they had set up in the Black Sea: an emporium for the enslavement of people.23 In the early years of the sixteenth century, Genoese traders who had developed strong ties with the Maghreb during the Quattrocento started trading with West Africa and the New World from their hubs in the Iberian Peninsula, bringing precious and luxury goods to Genoa, including civet cat, corals, gold, ostrich feathers, grana (grain) etc. Such goods were mainly the result of trade with West Africa; goods from the New World only arrived later. The Monleone brothers were part of a network that provided these goods and invested in the New World. Agostino was based in Seville and from there traded with the New World, while Battista remained in Genoa and provided luxury goods for the Marquis of Mantua. He was loyal to the Fregoso household, particularly Ottaviano Fregoso. When Ottaviano was fighting to conquer Genoa in 1512, Battista assisted one of Ottaviano’s brothers, Simonetto, who was located in Savona, west of Genoa. In 1513, once the Fregosi controlled the city, Battista Monleone sat among the Anziani of Genoa –​the major office below the doge –​very likely put there by the same Ottaviano. When Agostino died in 1515, Battista inherited all his resources and continued trading with the court of Mantua until the 1520s. The biographical trajectory of a merchant who was trading with Africa and possibly the New World was connected to the Italian Wars. In 1522, Genoa experienced one of its most dramatic changes of government. The city, ruled by Ottaviano Fregoso as the governor of the French king, was sacked for days by Spanish troops guided by Francesco d’Avalos who brought the Adorno to power. Several people died, and Ottaviano Fregoso was brought to Ischia in prison. In the subsequent weeks, luxury goods started to flow again from Africa via the Iberian Peninsula and reached Genoa. This kind of trade and the attempts to restore it quickly are attested to in a letter that Paolo Giovio, the famous historian and physician, wrote to the Marquis of Mantua, Federico Gonzaga, while weapons used during the sack were still in the city.24 Giovio was writing to inform Gonzaga about the parrots he was teaching to speak and that he would soon send to the Gonzaga. Meanwhile, the less famous Battista Monleone remained in Genoa and continued trading with the court of Mantua even when the Adorno –​the traditional enemies of his lord Ottaviano –​came back to power. Information on how people like Battista, a middle-​man and agent, was treated by the faction in power is not easy to find in the archives, but, as a man of the Fregoso, his position probably was not easy. Genoese factions usually punished not only the members of the opposite faction, but also their partisans and those loyal to them. Battista could well have suffered due to his ties with the Fregoso. However, he managed to survive in Genoa under the Adorno and continued to trade with the Gonzaga who in the past were close to the Fregoso family.

256  Carlo Taviani In the long series of the business letters Battista wrote to the Gonzaga, one reveals his attitude toward his lord, Ottaviano Fregoso. Battista tried to free Ottaviano, still imprisoned at Ischia, and asked for help from the Marquis of Mantua.25 His action did not reach its aim and Ottaviano died on Ischia. Battista’s political involvement, his role as trader in Genoa, his deep ties with the Fregoso, and connections with the court of Mantua can be seen through the lens of Genoa’s frequent regime changes. Once the Adorno came to power, his activities were restrained, but he was able to maintain his trade network and acquire and sell goods. His political activity as a member of the Fregoso household in Genoa ended, however. He could only continue to use his links with the court of Mantua to try to help his lord. The Italian Wars have been usually studied from the Italian or European perspective, not a global one. The contemporary trade in goods from Africa and the Atlantic in connection with the role of Genoese traders and agents suggests that we need to widen what we consider the context of the Italian Wars. With the opening of the Atlantic trade, Genoese merchants were more and more connected with the Iberian Peninsula. Since Genoa was often under French dominion –​in 1499–​1506, 1507–​1512, and 1515–​1522 –​Genoese traders could not conduct business with Catalan and Aragonese traders and thus could not navigate easily from the Iberian Peninsula to Genoa. Genoese merchants sent multiple petitions to Genoese authorities between 1502 and the 1520s asking that the French signory over Genoa not cause problems in the trade with the Iberian Peninsula.26 Merchants like Battista da Monleone and his brother were loyal to the Fregoso household –​a family with close connections with the French dominion –​but managed to build a strong trading network in the Iberian Peninsula. Regime changes in Genoa affected their activities, but they survived, because rich and influential members of the Italian oligarchy such as the Marquis of Mantua had a strong desire for luxury goods. Trade flowed constantly and the Genoese traders moved within a fluid economic context.

Conclusion Scholarship on the Italian Wars has not extensively considered economic perspectives. This chapter has focused on wide institutional changes and on the role of merchant-​bankers in early sixteenth-​century Genoa. A fiscal change in the late fifteenth century –​the abolition of direct taxation and its replacement by indirect taxation –​shaped the dynamics of regime change in the subsequent period. Genoese factions that aimed to conquer the dogeship sought help from external powers and exploited the new fiscal system and the Bank of San Giorgio. The second part of the chapter has been connected to this more general part by a doge and two merchant families, the powerful Sauli and the almost unknown Monleone. Examining them reveals that, in the Genoa of the early sixteenth century, finance and investments were

Trading during Regime Changes in Genoa  257 inextricably linked to political activities, with the people who ruled the city and those who traded there both involved in regime changes. The chapter has aimed to show how institutional economic history is enriched by microhistory, so that one can move between the history of public debt to specific biographies of those who played a role, however small, in that history. One of the major players analyzed in this chapter, the Sauli family, had an elastic attitude to whom it allied with. It switched from one party to its enemy –​from the French king in 1497 to Julius II in the years 1506–​1507. Sergio Tognetti has pointed out that this willingness to invest in different parties –​even ones that were opposed to each other –​was a way for Italian merchants to spread the risk.27 The macro analysis here, however, shows that dynamics of regime changes are directly connected to the financial and fiscal system. I suggest that we expand Tognetti’s idea by considering that traders invested in opposite parties not just to spread the risk, but because such investments could lead to financial gains. The tense dynamics of regime changes in early sixteenth-​century Genoa were connected to the attitudes of traders. Political instability and financial investment were intermingled; political instability existed not only because of the invasions of external parties (the king of France, or the Spanish armies), but also because traders aimed to speculate on it. In addition, this chapter has shown that these financial affairs during the Italian Wars were entangled with aspects of globalization, including the opening of the Atlantic market to West Africa and the New World. On this topic, however, much work remains to be done: Much remains unknown and/​or overlooked.28

Notes 1 Christine Shaw presented a paper at I Tatti in the fall 2009 on the Italian Wars and the economic perspective that has remained unpublished. I thank her for the stimulating suggestions. 2 Fabien Levy, “ ‘L’universelle araigne’: Louis XI, Gênes, Milan et la Savoie dans la crise de 1474–​1476, ” Études Savoisiennes 13–​14 (2004–​2005): 69–​92; Fabien Levy, “Gênes, ville de France? Aspects juridiques de la domination française à Gênes,” Atti della società ligure di storia patria 47, no. 1 (2007): 329–​356; Fabien Levy, La monarchie et la commune: Les relations entre Gênes et la France, 1396–​ 1512 (Rome: École française de Rome, 2014). 3 Arturo Pacini, I presupposti politici del secolo dei genovesi: la riforma del 1528 (Genova: Società Ligure di Storia Patria, 1990). 4 Alfonso Assini, “L’importanza della contabilità nell’inventariazione di registri bancari medioevali. Il Banco di San Giorgio nel ‘400,” Gli archivi degli istituti e delle aziende di credito e le fonti d’archivio per la storia delle banche tutela, gestione, valorizzazione (Roma: Pubblicazioni degli Archivi di Stato, 1995), 263–​283. 5 On the territories of San Giorgio, still useful is Heinrich Sieveking, Genueser Finanzwesen mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Casa Di S. Georgio, 2 vols.

258  Carlo Taviani (Freiburg: Verlag von J.C.B. Mohr, 1898); Giuseppe Felloni’s website on San Giorgio contains important information, including an inventory of the Casa di San Giorgio archives: www.lac​asad​isan​gior​gio.eu/​ (accessed January 28, 2022). On San Giorgio in Corsica, see Antoine-​Marie Graziani, “Des preside à la ville ouverte,” in Corsica Genovese. La Corse à l’époque de la République de Genes, XVe–​ XVIIIe siècles (Bastia: Museé de la Ville de Bastia, 2017); Vannina Marchi Van Cauwelaert, La Corse génoise, Saint Georges, vainqueur des “tyrans” (milieu XVe–​début XVIe siècle) (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2011), and Rosario Russo, “La politica agraria dell’Officio di San Giorgio in Corsica (1490–​1553),” Rivista Storica Italiana 4 (1934): 422–​468. On San Giorgio at Famagusta, in Cyprus, see Valeria Polonio, “Famagosta genovese a metà del ‘400: assemblee, armamenti, gride,” in Miscellanea di storia ligure in memoria di Giorgio Falco (Genoa: Università di Genova, Istituto di Paleografia e Storia Medievale, 1966), 221–​237 and Louis Mas Latrie, Histoire de l’île de Chypre sous le règne des princes de la maison de Lusignan, 3 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie impériale, 1852). On San Giorgio in the Black Sea, see Michel Balard, Il Banco di San Giorgio e le colonie d’Oltremare, in Giuseppe Felloni, ed., La Casa di San Giorgio: Il potere del credito. Atti del convegno, Genova, 11 e 12 novembre 2004 (Genova: Società Ligure di Storia Patria, 2006), 63–​73 and Amedeo Vigna, “Codice diplomatico delle colonie tauro-​liguri durante la signoria dell’Ufficio di San Giorgio (MCCCCLIII–​MCCCCLXXV),” Atti della Società Ligure di Storia Patria 6–​7 (1869–​1881): 567–​680. An interesting and almost unknown work is that of Gian Giacomo Musso, Il Banco di San Giorgio: Fonti e cimeli. Mostra a cura del Banco di Roma. Genova, Palazzo S. Giorgio, 16–​28 maggio 1970. Catalogo (Genova: Banco di Roma, 1970). 6 Niccolò Machiavelli, Florentine Histories, ed. Laura F. Banfield and Harvey C. Mansfield (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988): 351–​ 352. The passage of Machiavelli has been initially studied by Carlo Dionisotti, Machiavellerie (Turin: Einaudi, 1980). I have tried to study the Genoese context of the passage providing an interpretation. See, Carlo Taviani “Alle radici della finanza moderna? Machiavelli e il modello del Banco di San Giorgio di Genova,” Niccolò Machiavelli, ed. Gabriele Pedullà, L’Illuminista, 49 (2018), 391–​424 and Carlo Taviani, “Hanno levato l’amore dal comune e postolo a San Giorgio, L’immagine del comune e della Casa di San Giorgio di Genova (XV-​XVI sec.),” in Libertà e dominio. Il sistema politico genovese (secoli XVXVIII), ed. Matthias Schnettger and Carlo Taviani (Rome: Viella, 2011), 281–​304. 7 Eric Cochrane, Florence in the Forgotten Centuries, 1527–​1800: A History of Florence and the Florentines in the Age of the Grand Dukes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973). 8 Emilio Pandiani, “Considerazioni sugli Annali di Bartolomeo Senarega,” Giornale storico e letterario della Liguria 3, no. 3 (1927): 242–​251, 249. 9 “Quod si tanta pecuniae summa, quae impensa est citra aliquot tempus, ex propria arca depromi debuisset, forsitan tantae novitates sequutae non essent, quibus inveniendae pecuniae facilitas a Comperis [cioè la Casa di San Giorgio] materiam praebuit.” My translation. Bartolomeo Senarega, “De Rebus Genuensibus Commentaria ab anno 1488 usque ad annum 1514,” in Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, ed. Emilio Pandiani (Bologna, Zanichelli: 1929), vol. 24, part 8, 1, 165. 10 Ibidem.

Trading during Regime Changes in Genoa  259 11 Carlo Taviani, “L’esilio dei Fregoso di Genova tra Quattrocento e Cinquecento,” in Escludere per governare. L’esilio politico fra Medioevo e Risorgimento, ed. Fabio Di Giannatale (Milan: Le Monnier: 2011), 63–​78. 12 “Post adventum in Ittaliam externarum nationum inductum more fuisse […] ut qui ducatui gubernacionum seu regiminem aspirant ad principes nationum et duces exercitum recurrunt et promissis ingentibus peccuniarum curant ab eis impetrare.” My translation. ASG, AS, 1649, Politicorum, f. 68r. 13 Ibidem. 14 Ibidem: “Segnoi, voi sei steti domande’ qui a instancia de questi spettabili doze citadini, a li quali per uno simile grande conseglio, como bona parte de voi se debbe ricordare, è stato dato amplissima balia e quella ha el commune de Genoa a excogitare e mettere remedio a questa introductione di pratiche che si fano fori cum extere natione e altri, cum promissione de pagare denari a damno grande et vergogna de la nostra republica per soi particulari commodi. E per parte de dicti dodece vi se fa intendere che in execucione del carrico e cura per el detto grande conseglio a loro delegata hanno havuto sopra questo articulo tanto importante grande pensamento, e sopra a quello per loro s’è facto diverse consulte, e poi che per loro s’è formato in predictis decreto a tal materia accommodato, sopra quello li hano havuto el conseglio de quatro singulari doctori, e s’è ridducto a la forma che appresso voi sarà legiuta; sopra la quale è parso havere el vostro savio consegio, e per(j) [qu]elle parte chi tocherano al magnifico officio [d]‌e Sancto Georgio se haverà recorso al grande conseglio de’ participi de le compere, e se cercherà de metere a fine tuta questa laudabile opera, perché ve piaxerà consegliare e deliberare in predictis quel che meglio a voi e più utile de la republica parrà.” 15 Rodolfo Savelli, “«Capitula», «regulae» e pratiche del diritto a Genova tra XIV e XV secolo,” in Statuti, città, territori in Italia e Germania tra Medioevo ed Età moderna, eds. Giorgio Chittolini and Dietmar Willoweit (Bologna, Il Mulino: 1991): 447–​ 502. Edoardo Grendi, “Le societates juvenum e il cerimoniale,” in In altri termini. Etnografia e storia di una società di antico regime (Milan: Feltrinelli, 2004): 111–​132. Idem, “Le società dei giovani a Genova fra il 1460 e la Riforma del 1528,” Quaderni storici 27 (1992): 509–​528. Idem, “Un esempio di arcaismo politico: Le conventicole nobiliari a Genova e la riforma del 1528,” Rivista storica italiana 88 (1966): 948–​968. Idem, “Le compagnie del SS. Sacramento a Genova,” Annali della Facoltà di Giurisprudenza 4 (1965): 453–​480; Idem, “Morfologia e dinamica della vita associativa urbana. Le confraternite a Genova fra i secoli XVI e XVIII,” Atti della Società Ligure di Storia Patria 15 (1965): 241–​311. Carlo Taviani, “Confratelli, cives, uomini di parte: Genova a inizio Cinquecento,” in Brotherhood and Boundaries. Fraternità e barriere, ed. Stefania Pastore, Adriano Prosperi, and Nicholas Terpstra (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2011): 493–​509. 16 Jacques Heers, “Gênes au XV siècle. Activité èconomique et problèmes sociaux,” Business History Review 35, no. 4 (1961): 599–​601. 17 Carlo Taviani, L’esilio dei Fregoso di Genova tra Quattrocento e Cinquecento, in Escludere per governare. L’esilio politico fra Medioevo e Risorgimento, ed. Fabio Di Giannatale (Milan: Le Monnier, 2011), 63–​78. 18 In 1514, Ottaviano owned 60 luoghi, in 1515; with the French signory, 600. In subsequent years, 968. ASG, Banco di San Giorgio, 590, 598, 610, 617, 625, 634.

260  Carlo Taviani 19 Andrea Fara, “Banca, Credito e cittadinanza: I Sauli di Genova tra Roma e Perugia nella prima metà del Cinquecento,” Mélanges de l’Ecole française de Rome. Moyen Âge 125, no. 2 (2013): 421–​430; Helen Hyde, Cardinal Bendinello Sauli and Church Patronage in Sixteenth century Italy (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2009). 20 Taviani, Superba discordia, 136. 21 Historie di Genova, Archivio Doria, Facoltà di economia e commercio di Genova, box 417, 1912. 22 Fernand Braudel, Civiltà ed imperi del Mediterraneo nell’età di Filippo II (Turin: Einaudi, 1976), 363. 23 The information on the Monleone’s business are a result of a research project that I coordinated, titled Genoese Merchant Networks in Africa And Across the Atlantic Ocean (ca. 1450–​1530), funded within the main project of the Max Weber Stiftung titled Wissen entgrenzen (2019–​2022). My research work is currently continuing within the project ‘Atlantic Italies’ of the University of Zurich. I will provide here only part of the sources. See Carlo Taviani, “In the Shadow of Other Empires: Genoese Merchant Networks and Their Conflicts across the Atlantic Ocean, ca. 1450–​1530,” in Conflict Management in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, 1000–​1800, ed. Louis Sicking and Alain Wijffels (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 217–​236. 24 Price Zimmerman translated the sentence “pratticare un eruditissimo pappagallo” (to practice an erudite parrot, my translation) as “an erudite fllirtation”, Price Zimmermann, The Historian and the Crisis of Sixteenth-​Century Italy (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1995), 47. He came to this conclusion because “parrot” (pappagallo) could also be intended as “flirtation” in ancient vernacular Italian. Looking at the quantity of luxury goods exchanged between the court of Mantua and Genoa in those years, I think that it makes more sense to read the sentence according to its literate sense, “to teach a parrot.” 25 My work is aiming to identify a complicated series of connected documents, mainly preserved in the notarial archive of Genoa (without index). In order not to provide extremely complicated information on this archival topic, I refer here mainly to Archivio di Stato di Mantova, Gonzaga, 758. 26 This topic remains unexplored. Andrés Mesa is conducting a dissertation on the Genoese in the Iberian Peninsula and the Atlantic in the early sixteenth century. Some parts of his work use quantitative analysis and archival research on this topic. 27 Sergio Tognetti, I Gondi di Lione. Una banca d’affari fiorentina nella Francia del primo Cinquecento (Florence: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 2013), 73. 28 Marta Albalá Pelegrín is currently working on a book that tackles how the Spanish Monarchs used the Italian Wars as a way to promote their image as prime defenders of Christendom in conjunction with the phenomena of early globalization. She is also working on how Portuguese and Spanish monarchs during the Italian Wars built their concepts of sovereignty through their interactions with West Africa and Asia.

Trading during Regime Changes in Genoa  261

Bibliography Unpublished Sources Genoa Archivio di Stato, Archivio segreto Archivio di Stato, Banco di San Giorgio Archivio Doria, Facoltà di economia e commercio di Genova, Historie di Genova Mantua Archivio di Stato, Archivio Gonzaga

Published Sources Assini, Alfonso. “L’importanza della contabilità nell’inventariazione di registri bancari medioevali. Il Banco di San Giorgio nel ‘400.” In Gli archivi degli istituti e delle aziende di credito e le fonti d’archivio per la storia delle banche tutela, gestione, valorizzazione, 263–​283. Rome: Pubblicazioni degli Archivi di Stato, 1995. Balard, Michel. “Il Banco di San Giorgio e le colonie d’Oltremare.” In La Casa di San Giorgio: Il potere del credito. Atti del convegno, Genova, 11 e 12 novembre 2004, ed. Giuseppe Felloni, 63–​73. Genova: Società Ligure di Storia Patria, 2006. Braudel, Fernand. Civiltà ed imperi del Mediterraneo nell’età di Filippo II. Turin: Einaudi, 1976. Cochrane, Eric. Florence in the Forgotten Centuries, 1527–​ 1800: A History of Florence and the Florentines in the Age of the Grand Dukes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973. Dionisotti, Carlo. Machiavellerie. Turin: Einaudi, 1980. Fara, Andrea. “Banca, credito e cittadinanza: I Sauli di Genova tra Roma e Perugia nella prima metà del Cinquecento.” Mélanges de l’Ecole française de Rome. Moyen Âge 125, no. 2 (2013): 421–​430. Graziani, Antoine-​Marie. “Des preside à la ville ouverte.” In Corsica Genovese. La Corse à l’époque de la République de Genes, XVe–​XVIIIe siècles. Bastia: Museé de la Ville de Bastia, 2017: 120–26. Grendi, Edoardo. “Le compagnie del SS. Sacramento a Genova.” Annali della Facoltà di Giurisprudenza 4 (1965): 453–​480. Grendi, Edoardo. “Le società dei giovani a Genova fra il 1460 e la Riforma del 1528.” Quaderni storici 27 (1992): 509–​528. Grendi, Edoardo.“Le societates juvenum e il cerimoniale.” In In altri termini. Etnografia e storia di una società di antico regime, 111–​132. Milan: Feltrinelli, 2004. Grendi, Edoardo. “Morfologia e dinamica della vita associativa urbana. Le confraternite a Genova fra i secoli XVI e XVIII.” Atti della Società Ligure di Storia Patria 15 (1965): 241–​311. Grendi, Edoardo. “Un esempio di arcaismo politico: le conventicole nobiliari a Genova e la riforma del 1528.” Rivista storica italiana 88 (1966): 948–​968. Heers, Jacques. “Gênes au XV siècle. Activité èconomique et problèmes sociaux.” Business History Review 35, no. 4 (1961): 599–​601.

262  Carlo Taviani Hyde, Helen. Cardinal Bendinello Sauli and Church Patronage in Sixteenth-​Century Italy. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2009. Latrie, Louis Mas. Histoire de l’île de Chypre sous le règne des princes de la maison de Lusignan. 3 vols. Paris: Imprimerie impériale, 1852. Levy, Fabien. “Gênes, ville de France? Aspects juridiques de la domination française à Gênes.” Atti della società ligure di storia patria 47, no. 1 (2007): 329–​356 Levy, Fabien. La monarchie et la commune: Les relations entre Gênes et la France, 1396–​1512. Rome: École française de Rome, 2014. Levy, Fabien. “ ‘L’universelle araigne’: Louis XI, Gênes, Milan et la Savoie dans la crise de 1474–​1476.” Études Savoisiennes 13–​14 (2004–​2005): 69–​92. Machiavelli, Niccolò. Florentine Histories. Eds. Laura F. Banfield and Harvey C. Mansfield. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988. Marchi Van Cauwelaert, Vannina. La Corse génoise, Saint Georges, vainqueur des “tyrans” (milieu XVe–​début XVIe siècle). Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2011. Musso, Gian Giacomo. Il Banco di San Giorgio: Fonti e cimeli. Mostra a cura del Banco di Roma. Genova, Palazzo S. Giorgio, 16–​28 maggio 1970. Catalogo. Genoa: Banco di Roma, 1970. Pacini, Arturo. I presupposti politici del secolo dei genovesi: la riforma del 1528. Genova: Società Ligure di Storia Patria, 1990. Pandiani, Emilio. “Considerazioni sugli Annali di Bartolomeo Senarega.” Giornale storico e letterario della Liguria 3, no. 3 (1927): 242–​251. Polonio, Valeria. “Famagosta genovese a metà del ‘400: Assemblee, armamenti, gride.” In Miscellanea di storia ligure in memoria di Giorgio Falco, 211–​237. Genoa: Università di Genova, Istituto di Paleografia e Storia Medievale, 1966. Russo, Rosario. “La politica agraria dell’Officio di San Giorgio in Corsica (1490–​ 1553).” Rivista Storica Italiana 4 (1934): 422–​468. Savelli, Rodolfo. “«Capitula», «regulae» e pratiche del diritto a Genova tra XIV e XV secolo.” In Statuti, città, territori in Italia e Germania tra Medioevo ed Età moderna, eds. Giorgio Chittolini and Dietmar Willoweit, 447–​502. Bologna, Il Mulino: 1991. Senarega, Bartolomeo. “De Rebus Genuensibus Commentaria ab anno 1488 usque ad annum 1514.” In Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, ed. Emilio Pandiani, vol. 24, part 8. Bologna, Zanichelli: 1929. Sieveking, Heinrich. Genueser Finanzwesen mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Casa Di S. Georgio. 2 Vols. Freiburg: Verlag von J.C.B. Mohr, 1898. Taviani, Carlo. “Alle radici della finanza moderna? Machiavelli e il modello del Banco di San Giorgio di Genova.” In Niccolò Machiavelli, ed. Gabriele Pedullà, 391–​424. L’Illuminista, 49 (2018). Taviani, Carlo. “Confratelli, cives, uomini di parte: Genova a inizio Cinquecento.” In Brotherhood and Boundaries. Fraternità e barriere, ed. Stefania Pastore, Adriano Prosperi, and Nicholas Terpstra, 493–​509. Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2011. Taviani, Carlo. “ ‘Hanno levato l’amore dal comune e postolo a San Giorgio.’ L’immagine del comune e della Casa di San Giorgio di Genova (XV-​XVI sec.).” In Libertà e dominio. Il sistema politico genovese (secoli XVXVIII), ed. Matthias Schnettger and Carlo Taviani, 281–​304. Rome: Viella, 2011. Taviani, Carlo. “In the Shadow of Other Empires: Genoese Merchant Networks and Their Conflicts across the Atlantic Ocean, ca. 1450–​ 1530.” In Conflict Management in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, 1000–​ 1800, ed. Louis Sicking and Alain Wijffels, 217–​236. Leiden: Brill, 2020.

Trading during Regime Changes in Genoa  263 Taviani, Carlo. “L’esilio dei Fregoso di Genova tra Quattrocento e Cinquecento.” In Escludere per governare. L’esilio politico fra Medioevo e Risorgimento, ed. Fabio Di Giannatale, 63–​78. Milan: Le Monnier, 2011. Vigna, Amedeo. “Codice diplomatico delle colonie tauro-​liguri durante la signoria dell’Ufficio di San Giorgio (MCCCCLIII–​MCCCCLXXV).” Atti della Società Ligure di Storia Patria 6–​7 (1869–​1881): 567–​680. Zimmermann, Price. The Historian and the Crisis of Sixteenth-​ Century Italy. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1995.

Index

Acciaiuoli, Donato 170, 176 Accolti, Benedetto, Cardinal 76 Adami, Tobias 38 Adige, River 215 Adorno (family and faction) 249–​53, 255–​6 Adorno, Antoniotto 252 Adrian, Prince of Piedmont 9 Adrian VI, Pope (Adrian Florensz Boeyens) 4, 76, 115–​6, 117, 119, 122–​3, 126–​33; Consistory 117–​8; Coronation 120, 129; Florentine obedience mission 124–​5; at Livorno 119–​20; relationship with Emperor Charles V 117–​9; in Rome 106–​7, 120–​1, 123–​4; Venetian obedience mission 121–​2, 125–​6 Africa, Africans 157, 255–​7, 260 Agnadello, battle of 56, 190–​1, 233 Alamanni, Lodovico 1, 181 Alamanni, Luigi 179 Albizzi (family and regime) 168–​72, 176–​7, 180, 184 Albizzi, Maso degli 167, 170, 172 Albizzi, Rinaldo degli 169, 170–​1 Aldobrandini (family) 99 Alègre, Tourzel d’ 235 Alessandria 56 Alexander VI, Pope (Rodrigo Borgia) 76, 94, 97–​8, 100–​1, 107 Alighieri, Dante 1, 137 Altoviti, Bardo 175 Amalfi coast 39 Amazon 155 Amboise, Charles II d’, sieur de Chaumont 190, 239, 245 Americas 154–​5, 161–​2, 164 Anne of Brittany, Queen of France 236, 239

Annunciation, Order of the 21 Apostolic Chamber 82, 95–​6 Apostolic Depository 254 Arcimboldi (family) 67 Aremberg, lords of 13 Arezzo 157 Ariadne’s Crown 145, 152 Aristotle 167, 181 armor 134, 140–​1, 143–​4, 146–​9, 152, 154–​5, 157, 159–​60, 191 Arno, River 115, 157 Asti 9, 12 Atlantic Ocean 154–​5, 254–​7, 260 Augustine, Saint 38 Augustus 139, 145, 152, 157, 175 Austria, Austrian 53, 139–​40 Avalos, Alfonso d’, Marchese di Pescara 50 Avalos, Francesco d’, Marchese di Pescara 255 Avaria (Genoese tax) 250–​1, 253 Avellaneda y Haro, Garcia de, Count of Castrillo, Viceroy of Naples 41 Avignon Papacy 104, 107 Avogadro (family) 192–​3, 197, 202 Avogadro, Alvise, Count 194, 197–​8, 203 Avogadro, Pietro 195 Baglioni (family) 98 Bandinelli, Baccio 138, 148–​52, 154 Barbarigo (family) 213 Barbarigo, Agostino, Doge 213 Barbarigo, Marco, Doge 213 Barbarigo, Marina 213 Barbaro, Ermolao 218 Barbaro, Marc’ Antonio 212, 224–​5 Barbaro, Zaccaria 218 Barberini (family) 39, 86, 90, 99, 104

Index  265 Barberini, Maffeo Vincenzo see Urban VIII, Pope Basora, Matteo 232–​3 Bavaria 236 Beatrice of Portugal 9, 11 Bene, county of 18 Benedict XIII, Pope (Pietro Francesco Orsini) 86 Bergamo 192 Bernardo, Maffeo 219 Berne, Bernese 9–​10, 12, 14–​16 Berruguete, Pedro 140–​3 Bertelli, Sergio 100 Bicocca, battle of 58, 118 Birago, René de, cardinal, president of the French parlement of Piedmont 13 Black Sea 250, 255 Bobbio 52, 54, 56–​7 Boccalini, Traiano 33, 41 Boeyens, Adrian see Adrian VI, Pope Boldù, Andrea 14, 17, 20, 21 Bollwiller, Nicolas de, baron 12 Bologna 120, 122, 139, 199, 218 Bonelli, Michele, Cardinal 85 Bonvicino, Alessandro (‘il Moretto’) 193 Borello, Benedetta 211 Borghese (family) 99 Borghese, Scipione, Cardinal 85 Borgia (family) 97–​8, 101 Borgia, Alfonso de see Callixtus III, Pope Borgia, Cesare 76, 94, 97–​9, 101, 105, 107, 232 Borneri, Giovanni Stefano de 60 Borromeo, Carlo, Cardinal St. 17, 84–​5 Bourdillon, Imbert de La Platière, lord of 13, 19 Bourg 12 Bourg-​en-​Bresse 15, 19 Bourne, Molly 233 Boyvin, François 13, 18 Bra 17 Bracciano, Lake 100 Bracciolini, Poggio 176 Bracelli, Giacomo 251 Bramantino (Bartolomeo Suardi) 54 Brandenburg 236 Braudel, Fernand 254 Brenner Pass 139 Brescia, Brescians 5, 58, 70, 190–​5, 197–​200, 219; San Pietro Oliveto 194

Bresse 9–​10, 12, 15, 18 Brissac, Charles de Cossé, count of 13, 17–​9, 22, 25 Britto, Giovanni 140 Brognoli, Ludovico 236, 240, 244 Bronzino 140, 146–​8, 152, 154; Portrait of Cosimo I de’ Medici in Armor 146–​8, 152 Brown, Clifford 232 Brown, Peter 16 Bruni, Leonardo 176–​7 Bugey 9, 12, 15 Buonarroti, Michelangelo 152; David 4, 134, 137–​8, 154, 157; Il bastoniere, 148–​9, 153–​4 Buondelmonti, Zanobi 179 Burgundy, duchy of 11 Busseto 195, 237 Caesar, Julius 199 Caffa250 Cairo 102 Calabria 29, 35–​6, 38, 42, 44 Callixtus III, Pope (Alfonso de Borgia) 99 Cambrai, League of 195, 215, 218, 230, 233 Campanella, Tommaso 3, 29–​30, 35–​8, 41–​2; Dichiarazione 37; Historiographia 38; Prima Delineatio Defensionum 37 Campofregosa (family) 198 Campofregoso (family) see Fregoso (family) Cano, Melchor 81 Canossa, Ludovico da, Count 235 Capece, Marcello 78 Capilupi, Benedetto 232, 234, 236, 238 Cappello (family) 5, 209–​29 Cappello, Alvise di Vettore 213 Cappello, Andrea di Silvano ‘dal banco’ 210, 217 Cappello, Andrea di Vettore 213–​4 Cappello, Antonio di Giambattista 209–​10, 215–​6 Cappello, Antonio di Leonardo 214 Cappello, Bernardo di Francesco 218–​20 Cappello, Carlo di Francesco 218–​9 Cappello, Cristoforo di Francesco 218–​9 Cappello, Domenico di Nicolò 209 Cappello, Domenico “il grande” 209

266 Index Cappello, Francesco di Cristoforo 217–​8 Cappello, Leonardo 214 Cappello, Marin di Giambattista 216 Cappello, Orsa di Filippo 218 Cappello, Paolo di Vettore 209–​10, 213–​4, 216–​7 Cappello, Silvano di Leonardo 214 Cappello, Simon 209 Cappello, Vettore di Leonardo 214 Cappello, Vettore di Zorzi 213 Cappello, Vincenzo di Nicolò 210, 217 Cappello, Zuanne (Giovanni) di Zorzi 218 Capponi, Neri di Gino 173–​4, 177 Capricorn 145, 152, 157 Carafa (family) 75–​6, 78–​86, 97, 101, 103–​4 Carafa, Alfonso, Cardinal, 75, 82–​6, 97 Carafa, Antonio, Cardinal 85 Carafa, Carlo, Cardinal 25, 75, 80–​1, 82–​6, 89, 97, 104 Carafa, Gian Batista 34 Carafa Gian Pietro see Paul IV, Pope Carafa, Giovanna 244 Carafa, Giovanni, Duke of Paliano 75, 82, 84–​5, 97, 104 Carafa, Violante 78 Carafa, War of 101 Caravaggio 195 Cardè 17 Cardena, Leonardo de 75, 84 Carnelevari (family) 36 Caroldo, Gianiacopo 69 Casa di San Giorgio 249–​54, 256 Casali (family) 218 Castaldo, Antonio 33 Castellammare 39 Castelleone Cremonese 70 Castelnau de Clermont-​Lodève, François de, Cardinal, Archbishop of Auch 125–​6 Castro 104 Catasto 169–​70 Cateau-​Cambrésis, Treaty of 1, 11–​2, 18–​9, 21, 30 Catherine of Aragon 219 Cattaneo, Giovanni 61, 63 Cattani da Diacceto, Jacopo 179 Cavalcanti, Giovanni 177 Cellini, Benvenuto 154–​5; Portrait Bust of Cosimo I de’ Medici 148–​9,

152–​4; Perseus with the Head of Medusa 154, 157 Celsi, Giovanni 101 Cerretani, Bartolomeo 143 Cervini, Marcello see Marcellus II, Pope Cesarini (family) 101 Chablais, duchy of 11–​2, 16 Challant, René de 11, 13, 16, 18, 23, 28 Chambéry 14–​16, 20; Sainte Chapelle 14, 16 Charles III, Duke of Savoy 9–​12, 14–​5, 18 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor 9–​ 10, 16, 29, 58–​9, 65, 99, 106, 116, 139, 199; imagery of 139–​55, 157; relationship with Pope Adrian VI (Adrian Florensz Boeyens) 117–​20, 121 Charles VIII, King of France 1, 6, 134, 172 Chieri 12, 16 Chigi, Agostino 254 Chinea ritual 29 Chivasso 12 Chojnacki, Stanley 211–​2 Ciompi 169–​70, 172 Citadella 68 Claudine, Duchess of Savoy 16 Clement VII, Pope (Giulio de’ Medici) 5, 100–​2, 107, 116–​9, 124–​7, 135, 166–​7, 177–​8, 182 Clement VIII, Pope (Ippolito Aldobrandini) 80 Clement XII, Pope (Lorenzo Corsini) 86 Cles, Bernardo, Bishop of Trent 69 Cockram, Sarah D. P. 200, 232 Cognac, League of 209–​10, 215 Colonna (family), 98, 100–​2 Colonna, Marcantonio 78 Colonna, Oddone see Martin V, Pope Colonna, Pompeo, Cardinal 102 College of Cardinals 78–​80, 82, 84–​5, 94, 96–​8, 102, 125 Collenuccio, Pandolfo 33–​4 Colleoni, Bartolomeo 155 Colorno 52–​65 conclaves: 1314–​16 79; 1549–​1550 105–​6; 1559 79, 82, 106 Conradin 41–​2 Conseil des Commis 18 Constance, Council of 95, 101, 105 Contarini (family) 214 Contarini, Gasparo 215, 217, 226

Index  267 Contestabili (family) 36 Contestabile, Giulio 36–​7 “contested sovereignty” 61, 200–​1 Contrari, Beatrice 238–​9 Corner (family) 214 Correggio 199 Correggio, Cassandra da 238 Correggio, Giovanna da 239 Corruption 11, 18, 25, 104, 169 Corsica 250 Corsini, Lorenzo see Clement XII, Pope Coscia, Niccolò, Cardinal 86 Costa d’Arignano, lords of 20 Costa della Trinità, lords of 20 Costa di Villastellone, Luigi Antonio 18 Costa di Villastellone, Giorgio Maria, Count of La Trinità 18 Costa di Villastellone, Giovanni Luigi, Count of Bene 18 Costo, Tommaso 33–​4, 37–​8, 41 Cremona 62, 198, 204–​5, 244 Crispi, Tiberio, Cardinal 84 Croy, Guillaume de 139 Cudrefin 15, 23 Curia 75, 77, 103, 104, 106–​7, 217, 254 Cusago 68 d’Albaro, Gotifredo 251 d’Alessio, Silvana 32, 40 dal Tovaglia, Angelo 239 Dal Verme (family) 3, 50–​60, 62, 64–​6, 71 Dal Verme, Federico 55–​6, 58, 62, 66 Dal Verme, Giovanni 59, 64 Dal Verme, Marco Antonio 55, 62, 66 Dal Verme, Pietro, Count of Bobbio and Voghera 52–​4 Dandolo, Matteo 99, 108, 110 Datary 95 David (see also Donatello, Buonarroti, Michelangelo) 4, 137–​8, 148, 154, 157–​8 de Corradis, Bernardina 52 de’ Grassi (family) 218 de’ Preti, Donato 234–​5 de Rinaldis, Marc’ Antonio 36 Del Monte, Giovanni Maria Ciocchi see Julius III, pope Del Monte, Innocenzo, Cardinal 75, 82 del Vasto, Ludovico II, Marquis of Saluzzo 237

del Vasto, Michele Antonio, Marquis of Saluzzo 245 della Rovere (family) 98, 100 della Rovere, Francesco Maria I, Duke of Urbino 98–​9, 140, 235, 239–​40 della Rovere, Giuliano see Julius II, Pope della Rovere, Guidobaldo II, Duke of Urbino 99, 140, 142 del Maino, Cecilia 67 DeSilva, Jennifer Mara 220 Domenico di Polo 145–​6, 152 Dominican Order 29, 35, 81, 101 Donatello: David (marble) 137–​8; David (bronze) 138; Judith 154; Marzocco 136 Donative 33 Doria (family) 33, 139 Doria, Andrea, Doge 250 Egypt 102–​3 Eleonora of Aragon, Duchess of Ferrara 232, 235, 237, 239, 240 Emanuel Filibert, Duke of Savoy 9–​14, 16–​21 Empire, Holy Roman (see also specific Holy Roman Emperors) 53, 55, 99, 105 England 218–​9, 236 Este, d’ (family) 230, 238 Este, Alfonso I d’, Duke of Ferrara 88, 90, 140, 233, 235, 239 Este, Ercole d’, Duke of Ferrara 232 Este, Ippolito d’, Cardinal 84, 233, 235, 239 Este, Isabella d’, Marchioness of Mantua 5–​6, 200, 205–​7, 230–​48 Eugenius IV, Pope (Gabriele Condulmer) 101 Evian 12 Exiles 53, 56, 58–​9, 65–​6, 75–​6, 100–​2, 170, 172, 175–​6, 178, 211, 218, 220–​1, 252 Faber, Johann 38 Famagusta 250 famine 100–​1 Farel, Guillaume 9 Farnese (family) 59–​60, 97, 104 Farnese, Alessandro, see Paul III, Pope Farnese, Alessandro ‘il Giovane’, Cardinal 84, 97 Farnese, Ottavio, Duke of Parma and Piacenza 60, 69, 99

268 Index Farnese, Pier Luigi, Duke of Parma and Piacenza 59, 69 Farnese, Ranuccio, Duke of Parma and Piacenza 65 Faucigny 9 Federici, Girolamo, Bishop 82, 84 Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor, Archduke of Austria 146, 219 Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor, Archduke of Austria 38 Ferdinand II, King of Aragon 237, 245 Ferente, Serena 192 Fernández de Córdoba, Gonzalo (il Gran Capitano), Duke of Andria, Viceroy of Naples 41–​2 Ferrante of Aragon, King of Naples 232 Ferrara, Ferrarese 34, 122–​3, 140, 143, 148, 232–​3, 237 Ferente, Serena 192 Ferrero Fieschi, Filiberto 13 Fieschi, Margherita, Marchioness of Saluzzo 237 Fioretti, Paolo 41 Firpo, Massimo 77, 80 Fletcher, Catherine 220 Florence, Florentines 1, 4–​5, 34, 76, 95, 100–​1, 107, 115, 117–​20, 122, 124–​7, 129, 134–​9, 143, 145–​50, 152, 154–​62, 166–​89, 192, 211, 218–​20, 226, 236, 238–​9, 254; Bargello 149–​50, 152, 154; Council of the Hundred 167; Council of the People 167; Council of Seventy 167; Council of Two Hundred 167; Dodici buon’uomini 167; Great Council 166–​7, 178; as New Jerusalem, New Rome 136; obedience mission to Pope Adrian VI see Adrian VI, Pope; Orti Oricellari 178–​9; Otto di pratica 167; Palazzo Vecchio 134, 136, 138, 154; Parlamento 169, 171, 175, 178; Piazza dei Cavalieri 157; Piazza della Signoria 134–​6, 156–​7; Piazza Santissima Annunziata 157; plague in 129; Porta al Prato 154; Pratiche 171, 179; Quarantotto 157; Ringhiera 136; San Lorenzo 148–​9, 152; Signoria 137–​8, 158, 167, 169, 171–​2, 175, 180; social and political classes 134, 136, 143, 166–​7, 169–​72, 175, 178–​80 Foix, Gaston de 193, 197–​8 Foix, Odet de, sieur de Lautrec 58

Foix, Thomas de, sieur de Lescun 58 Fortune 57, 99, 116, 118, 172, 194 Foscari (family) 218 Foscari, Marco 131, 218 Fosi, Irene 45, 78 Fossano, Treaty of 12–​3, 19 Francis I, King of France 9, 56–​7, 63, 106, 139, 242–​3 France, French 1, 5, 9–​21, 29–​30, 32, 34, 37–​42, 45, 53–​60, 62–​6, 95, 99, 105–​7, 115–​9, 123–​6, 134, 139, 190–​3, 196–​9, 200–​1, 218–​9, 233–​6, 238–​40, 245, 249, 252–​7, 259 Franco, Niccolò 84 Fregoso (family and faction) 249–​53, 255–​6 Fregoso, Federico, Cardinal Archbishop 253 Fregoso, Giano 252 Fregoso, Ottaviano, Doge 250, 252–​6 Fregoso, Simonetto 255 Fribourg, Fribourgeois 9–​10, 12 Friuli 99 Fusari, Giuseppe de 61, 63 Gagné, John 3, 134 Galli, Antonio 251 Gambara (family) 5, 191–​5, 197, 199 Gambara (town) 191 Gambara, Alda Pio 5, 190, 192–​201 Gambara, Auriga 198 Gambara, Brunoro 193, 199 Gambara, Gianfrancesco 191–​7, 199–​201 Gambara, Lucrezia 195 Gambara, Niccolò 190–​1, 194–​7, 199 Gambara, Uberto 199 Gambara, Veronica 198–​9 Garlonio, Ferrante 75, 84 Garzoni, Marino 215 Gattinara, Mercurino di 139 Geneva 9–​12, 19 Genoa, Genoese 6, 44, 100, 103, 118–​9, 249–​60; Anziani 179–​80, 255; doge (office) 76, 139; gabellotti 251; government of Eight Captains of the Artisans 249; Officium Monetae (Office of Currency) 250; salt tax 250, 254 Gentili, Alberico 65 Ghibellines 21, 57, 190, 192 Ghislieri, Antonio see Pius V, Pope Giambologna 134, 155–​7

Index  269 Ginzburg, Carlo 100 Giovanni di Carlo 177 Giovio, Paolo 50, 146, 255 Giustinian (family) 213 Giustinian, Antonio 98 Giustinian, Bernardo 213 Golden Fleece, Order of the 140, 152 Gonzaga (family) 139, 230–​5, 238–​9, 241, 245, 255–​6 Gonzaga, Cesare 89, 235 Gonzaga, Eleonora, Duchess of Urbino 235 Gonzaga, Elisabetta, Duchess of Urbino 235, 240 Gonzaga, Ercole, Cardinal 82 Gonzaga, Federico II, Duke of Mantua 140, 242–​3, 255 Gonzaga, Francesco II, Marquis of Mantua 5, 159, 200, 230, 232–​6, 238 Gonzaga, Ferrante 60 Gonzaga, Giovanni 235, 239 Gonzaga, Sigismondo, Cardinal 234–​5 Gonzaga di Novellara (family) 196 Gonzaga di Novellara, Caterina 237 Gonzaga di Novellara, Giovan Pietro 197, 234, 237 Gottolengo 191, 196 Grafton, Anthony 30 Gregory XIII, Pope (Ugo Boncompagni) 85 Grimani, Antonio, Doge 126 Grimani, Vettore 216 Gritti, Andrea, Doge 5, 126, 198, 209–​11, 216–​20, 222 Guadagni, Bernardo 171 Guazone, Bellino 60, 63 Guevara, Carlo Antonio, Duke of Bovino 40–​1 Guicciardini, Francesco 2, 7, 34, 98–​9, 103, 106, 129, 143, 168, 181; Ricordi 106; Storia d’Italia (History of Italy) 103 Guichenon, Samuel 15, 20 Guelfs 21, 172, 192 Guise, Charles de, Cardinal “of Lorraine” 13 Habsburg (family) 9, 11, 20, 29–​32, 78, 134, 139, 145–​6, 154–​5 Hatfield, Rab 177 Henri II, Duke of Guise 30 Henri II, King of France 10, 12, 16, 19, 21

Henry VIII, King of England 219 Hercules 4, 136–​8, 148, 154, 157 Holy Office 77, 80, 83–​4 Howell, James 32 Husserl, Edmund 61 In Eligendis 96, 106 Infessura, Stefano 100 Index of Forbidden Books (Index Librorum Prohibitorum) 83 Innocent VIII, Pope (Giovanni Battista Cibo) 76, 80 Innsbruck 55 Inquisition: Neapolitan 36; Roman 95, 101, 103; Venetian 35 Ischia 255–​6 Isola della Scala 230, 244 Judde de Larivière, Claire 214 Julius II, Pope (Giuliano della Rovere) 76, 78, 98–​9, 102, 233, 235–​6, 240, 242, 252, 257 Julius III, Pope (Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte) 79–​80, 82 Jurdjevic, Mark 168, 170, 173–​4, 183, 184 La Baume, Jean de, count of Montrevel 15 Ladislaus, King of Naples 137 Ladislaus II, King of Hungary 237 Lalaing, lords of 13 Lando, Pietro, Doge 217 Lausanne, Treaty of 12 Lazio 101 Legnano 215 Leo X, Pope (Giovanni di Lorenzo de’ Medici) 76, 98–​9, 107, 115–​8, 120–​1, 125–​6, 166 Leonardo da Vinci 52, 54 Lettera di un Napoletano scritta di Roma ad un suo Amico a Napoli 32 Levanto 250 Levy, Fabien 249 Ligny, Louis de Luxembourg, Count of see Luxembourg, Louis de, Count of Ligny Liguria 119, 250 Lippomano, Tommaso 214 Livorno 119, 128, 146, 155, 157 Loire Valley 56 Lombardy (see also Milan, duchy of) 51–​3, 57–​8, 65–​6, 117–​8, 197, 200

270 Index Loredan, Andrea 193–​4, 197 Lorraine, Cardinal of see Guise, Charles de, Cardinal “of Lorraine” Louis XII, King of France 5, 29–​30, 53–​6, 63, 65, 190, 198, 233, 235, 239, 245, 257 Louise of Savoy 9 Lucca 5, 179–​80, 236, 238 Lucco 143 Lunigiana 250 Luxembourg, Louis de, Count of Ligny 54–​5 Lyonnais 9 Machiavelli, Niccolò 2, 4–​5, 7, 51, 98, 103, 107, 166–​89, 250; Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio 66, 73, 172, 177–​8, 184, 186; Discursus rerum florentinarum post mortem iunioris Laurentii Medices 4, 166–​72, 174, 176–​180, 184; Istorie fiorentine (Florentine Histories) 168–​89, 250; Il Principe (The Prince) 94, 98, 107, 178; Sommario delle cose della città di Lucca 179–​80; Vita di Castruccio Castracani 179 Madruzzo, Cristoforo, Cardinal 84 Maghreb 255 Malatesta, Pandolfo 239 Malvezzi, Lucio 230 Mameluke sultans 102–​3 Manerbio 191, 197 Mantegna, Andrea 159 Mantua 5, 59, 63, 139–​40, 143, 196–​8, 200, 204, 230–​47, 254–​6, 260; Chancery 230–​2, 234, 237; Corte vecchia 232; Duchy 103, 140; marquistate 6, 140, 196, 204, 230–​2, 234–​7, 239–​40, 255–​6; Palace of San Sebastiano 232 Marcellus II, Pope (Marcello Cervini) 79 Marches, the 96 Marcus Aurelius (statue of) 155 Margaret of France, Duchess of Savoy 10, 11, 21 Marignano, battle of 56, 63 Marino, John 34 Martin V, Pope (Oddone Colonna) 98, 101 Martinengo (family) 70 Martinengo, Brunoro 60, 62–​3 Martinengo, Giovanni Battista 60, 62–​3

Martinengo, Silvestrino 60–​1 Martinengo da Barco, Vittore 190, 194, 201, 203 Marzocco (see also Donatello) 136, 138, 154, 157 Masi, Giorgio 34 Masserano 13 Maurice and Lazarus, Sts., Order of 21 Maximilian I, Duke of Bavaria 38 Maximilian I of Habsburg, Holy Roman Emperor 55–​8, 218, 233, 235 Mazarin, Jules, Cardinal 39 McNeil, Anne 233 Medici (family and regime) 1, 4, 76, 95, 98, 107, 115, 117–​8, 125–​8, 130, 134–​5, 138–​9, 143, 145–​6, 148–​9, 152, 154, 158, 166–​8, 170–​9, 18, 192, 218, 220 Medici, Alessandro de’, Duke of Florence 135, 138, 140, 143–​4 Medici, Cosimo I de’, Duke of Florence, Grand Duke of Tuscany 86, 89, 134–​5, 138–​9, 143, 155–​8; portraits of 145–​8, 150–​3, 158; marriage 154–​5 Medici, Cosimo di Giovanni de 167, 171–​5, 177 Medici, Ferdinando I de’, Grand Duke of Tuscany 155, 157 Medici, Gian Angelo de’ see Pius IV, Pope Medici, Giovanni di Bicci 172 Medici, Giovanni di Cosimo de’, Cardinal 84 Medici, Giovanni di Lorenzo de’ see Leo X, Pope Medici, Giuliano de’, Duke of Nemours Medici, Giulio de’ see Clement VII, Pope Medici, Ippolito de’ 178 Medici, Lorenzino de’ 143 Medici, Lorenzo di Piero di Cosimo de’ (‘il Magnifico’) 136, 166, 173 Medici, Lorenzo di Piero de’, Duke of Urbino, 143 Medici, Lucrezia de’ 218 Medici, Ottaviano de’ 143 Medici, Piero di Cosimo de’ 174–​5, 177 Medici, Salvestro de’ 172 Medici, Vieri de’ 172 Mediterranean Sea 29, 139, 155 Medusa (see also Cellini, Benvenuto) 152, 154

Index  271 Melone, Altobello 193, 202 Memmo, Pietro 219 Menniti Ippolito, Antonio 77, 85 Merleau-​Ponty, Maurice 61 Michael, Order of St. 191 Michele di Lando 172 Michiel, Biagio 213 Milan, Milanese 3, 10, 50–​74, 79, 85, 95, 98–​9, 116–​8, 125, 134, 136, 139, 148, 190–​3, 197, 211, 213, 218–​9, 231, 249, 252; dukes of see names of specific dukes); senate of 55, 57, 65, 190, 197 Mocenigo, Luigi 99, 104 Monferrato 231, 236 Monleone (family) 249, 260 Monleone, Agostino 254–​6 Monleone, Battista 254–​6 Montefeltro, Guidobaldo da, Duke of Urbino 99 Montmélian, castle of 16 Montrevel, count of 15 Morone, Giovanni, Cardinal 79, 85 Morosini, Marc Antonio 213 Mortara 235 Morvilliers, Jean de, bishop of Orléans 13 Nägeli, Hans Franz 15, 23 Naples, Neapolitans 2, 29–​48, 51–​2, 54, 78, 95, 99–​100, 121, 134, 139, 145, 232, 237; bandits 38–​42, 45; conspiracies 3, 30, 35–​42; plague in 39; Reale Repubblica di Napoli 30; rebellions of 1647–​8 30, 32, 39–​41; rebelliousness of 31–​4, 38–​9; seggi 32 Nemean Lion 136 Nepotism 4, 94–​5, 98, 100–​7 Neptune 154 Nice 9–​10, 14, 26 Nicholas V, Pope (Tomaso Parentucelli) 101, 104 Novellara 196–​7 Nussdorfer, Laurie 100 Octavian see Augustus Olgisio, Rocca d’ 57–​65, 68 Orefice, Giovanni, Prince of Sanza 39 Orsini (family) 94, 97–​8, 101–​2 Orsini, Alfonsina 192 Orsini, Fabio 101 Ottoman Empire, Ottomans 30, 36, 44, 115, 119, 123–​5, 155; Corsairs 36

Padua 35 Paliano, Duchy of 75, 101 Pallantieri, Alessandro 82, 84 Pallavicino, Eleonora 237 Pallavicino, Galeazzo 195, 237 Pallavicino, Ippolita 63 Palmieri, Matteo 158 Pamphilj (family) 211 Pandiani, Emilio 251 papacy (see also names of specific popes) 3, 29, 76–​7, 86, 88, 94–​6, 101, 104–​7, 115–​7, 119, 125–​6 Papal States 45, 47, 78, 94, 95, 96, 98–​9, 101, 105, 117 Paravicini-​Bagliani, Agostino 100 Paris 19, 30, 59, 63, 86 Parma 52, 98–​9 Parma and Piacenza, duchy of 58–​9, 65, 73 Pasquino 105 Paul, Saint 38 Paul III, Pope (Alessandro Farnese) 10, 59, 76, 79, 80, 97, 99, 105, 139 Paul IV, Pope (Gian Pietro Carafa) 75, 78–​86, 97, 99–​101, 103–​4, 106 Pavia 52, 62; battle of 59, 63; Park of 56 Pazzi Conspiracy 173–​4 Penitentiary 95 Peretti (family) 99 Perseus 154, 157 Peru 154 Peschiera 196 Petrarca, Francesco (Petrarch) 1 Petriello, Carlo 40–​1 Petrucci, Alfonso, Cardinal 76 Petrucci, Raffaele, Cardinal 123 Philip II, king of Spain, king of Naples, count of Flanders, etc. 29, 35, 37, 79, 81, 83, 86, 88–​9, 106 Philip III, king of Spain, king of Naples etc. 35, 37, 155 Philippe II, Duke of Savoy 11, 16 Piacenza (see also Parma and Piacenza, duchy of) 50, 52, 56–​7, 59–​60, 64, 68, 204 Piccolomini, Aeneas Sylvius see Pius II, Pope Piccolomini, Francesco Todeschini see Pius III, Pope Pianello 62–​3, 68 Piedmont 10, 12–​8, 20–​1, 22, 25 Piero di Cosimo 154

272 Index Pierozzi, Antonio, St., Archbishop of Florence 126 Pieve di Teco 250, 253 Pillage, ritual 100 Pinerolo 12, 19 Pio da Carpi (family) 192 Pio da Carpi, Rodolfo, Cardinal 84 Pisa 128, 157; Conciliabulum of 76 Pius II, Pope (Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini) 99 Pius III, Pope (Francesco Todeschini Piccolomini) 94, 98 Pius IV, Pope (Gian Angelo de’ Medici) 3, 75–​93, 104, 106 Pius V, Pope (Antonio Ghislieri) 84–​5, 99 Plague see Florence, Naples, Rome Poggi (family) 180 poison, poisoning 11, 52 Poland 122 Ponsone, Raffaele 253 Pontecurone 52 Popolo Romano see Rome, Popolo Romano (civic officials) Portani, Giacomo 100 Portugal, Portuguese 155, 260 possesso (ceremony) 78 Pralboino 195–​6, 205 Probo d’Atri, Jacopo 232 Prodi, Paolo 77 Prohibito Alienandi Feudi 99 Prosperi, Bernardino 237 Protestants 80 Provence 10, 252 Puglia 29, 39, 41–​2

ritual pillages see pillage, ritual Robertet d’Alluye, Florimond de 13 Rohan, François, Archbishop of Lyon 236 Romagnese 59, 68–​9 Romano, Dennis 210, 212 Rome, Romans 3–​4, 30, 32, 39, 41–​2, 44–​5, 52, 54–​5, 75–​8, 80–​133, 135–​6, 139–​40, 145, 149, 152, 155, 161, 166, 179, 211, 213–​4, 216, 218, 220, 222, 235–​6, 240, 242, 244, 252, 254; Banchi (financial district) 100; Borgo 96–​7, 101; Capitoline Hill 78, 102–​3; Caporioni 102; Castello Giubileo 100; Castel Sant’ Angelo 75, 96–​7; Conservators 102–​3; general assembly 102; Governor’s Tribunal 99; Inquisition Palace 101, 103; Palace of the Conservators 102–​3; Piazza Navona 105; plague in 120–​4, 129–​30; Popolo Romano (civic officials) 96, 101–​4; riots in 78, 101; Ripa 100; Sack of 135; Santa Maria della Pace 103; Santa Maria sopra Minerva 103; San Paolo Fuori le Mura 120; Sistine Chapel 97; St. Peter’s Basilica 120; Trastevere 100; Vatican Palace 75, 96–​8; Via Ripetta 101 Romont, county of 11–​2 Rovereto 195 Rubens, Peter Paul 140–​1 Rublack, Ulinka 32 Rucellai, Cosimo 178

Querini (family) 214 Quinzano 191, 197

Sabinis, Giovan Jacopo 37 Salerno 39 Salò 197 Saluzzo 11–​3, 236, 238 Salvago, Giovanni 254 Salviati (family) 218 Salviati, Jacopo 218 Salviati, Maria 218 Sanseverino (family) 3, 50–​74 Sanseverino, Barbara 65 Sanseverino, Federico, Cardinal 236–​7 Sanseverino, Galeazzo, Marquis of Bobbio, Count of Voghera, Grand Equerry of France 52, 54–​5, 57–​63 Sanseverino, Gaspare 194 Sanseverino, Gianfrancesco 60–​1, 63–​5 Sanseverino, Giulio 56, 58–​61, 63–​4 Sanseverino, Margherita 63

Raines, Dorit 212 Ravenna, battle of 56 Rebiba, Scipino, Cardinal 75 Reformation 76, 80, 105 Reggio nell’Emilia 231 Reinhard, Wolfgang 77, 85–​6 relazioni (Venice) 31, 211 relazioni dei medici e barberi (Rome) 99 Rhodes 115, 123–​5, 127 Riario (family) 100 Riario, Girolamo 100 Rimini 218 ritual 1, 4, 29, 36, 50, 62, 78, 95, 100, 106, 116, 118–​24, 127, 190, 210–​2, 253

Index  273 Sanseverino, Roberto (Sanservino d’Aragona) 52–​3, 67 Sansovino, Francesco 216 Sansovino, Jacopo 216 Santhià 12 Santo Domingo 254 Santo Stefano, Order of 155 Sanudo, Marino 116, 121–​2, 209–​210, 212–​3, 215–​9 Sauli (family) 249, 254, 256–​7 Sauli, Paolo 254 Sauli, Vincenzo 254 Savelli (family) 101–​2 Savelli, Antonio 102 Savelli, Giacomo, Cardinal 84 Savigliano 12, 19 Savoia, Tommaso Francesco di, Prince of Carignano 39 Savoia-​Collegno, Antonio Maria di 17 Savoia-​Racconigi, Filippo di 17 Savoia-​Racconigi, lords of 20, 21 Savoie-​Nemours, Jacques de 17 Savoie-​Tende, Claude de 17 Savona 255 Savonarola, Fra Girolamo 7, 167, 178 Savoy 9–​28, 45, 236; dukes of see specific names; parlement of 16, 20; salt tax, gabelle 17, 20 Saxony 236 Schiner, Matthäus, Cardinal, Bishop of Sion 58 Schiner, Anna 58 Schism, Great Western 104 Schmalkaldic War 100 sede vacante (Vacant See) 4, 77, 92, 94–​114, 127 Senarega, Bartolomeo 251–​2 Seville 255 Sforza (family) 51–​6, 59, 62–​3, 65, 67, 191 Sforza, Bianca Giovanna Sanseverino 52 Sforza, Bianca Maria, Holy Roman Empress 55 Sforza, Chiara 52 Sforza, Francesco, Duke of Milan 51 Sforza, Francesco II, Duke of Milan 58–​9 Sforza, Giovanni, Lord of Pesaro, 237 Sforza, Giulio Ascanio, Cardinal 84, 97 Sforza, Ludovico ‘il Moro’, Duke of Milan 52–​5

Sforza, Massimiliano, Duke of Milan 56, 59 Shaw, Christine 232, 257 Shemek, Deanne 232–​3 Shroud of Turin, Holy 14, 16–​7 Siena, Sienese 118, 157, 236, 238, 254 Sixtus IV, Pope (Francesco della Rovere) 98, 100 Sixtus V, Pope (Felice Piergentile) 78, 80, 104 Slavery 41, 157, 254–​5 Soderini, Francesco, Cardinal 76, 117–​8, 124–​7, 179 Soderini, Piero 134, 167–​8 Solaro di Monasterolo, Francesco 17 Spagnolo, Tolomeo 234 Spain, Spanish 9–​10, 12, 19, 29–​33, 35–​6, 38–​42, 59, 65, 81–​3, 94–​5, 97–​101, 105–​7, 117–​9, 135, 145, 154, 161, 191, 218, 236, 250, 252–​5, 257, 260 St. Gingolph 12 St-​Lary, César de, lord of Bellegarde 11 St-​Lary, Roger de, lord of Bellegarde 11 St. Quentin 10, 12 Stangheli, Emilio 103, 109 Stella, Battista 251 Strozzi (family) 102 Strozzi, Filippo 100–​1, 126, 154 Sulla 175 Summonte, Giovanni Antonio 41 Switzerland, Swiss Confederation, Swiss (see also mercenaries, Swiss) 9, 10, 12, 14–​6, 19, 53, 57, 252 Syria 103 Tacca, Pietro 157 Tagliacarne, Benedetto 251 tasso (direct tax on communities) 20 taxation (see also avaria, tasso) 17–​21, 59, 78, 95, 100–​1, 250–​4, 256 Telesio, Bernardo 35 Tenochtitlan 154, 161 Thornton, Robert 155 Tiber, River 75, 78, 97, 103 Tiepolo, Paolo 80 Titian (Tiziano Vecelli) 140–​1, 143, 145–​6, 148 Tognetti, Sergio 257 Toledo, Eleonor de 145, 154–​5 Toledo, Pedro Álvarez de, Viceroy of Naples 29, 33 Tomarozzi, Flaminio 102

274 Index Tortona 56 Trastámara (family) 134 Trent 58, 139 Trent, Council of 79 Trenta, Francesco 198 Trieste 218 Trivulzio, Gian Giacomo 196, 239 Tron, Luca 194 Truchsess von Waldburg, Otto, Cardinal 84 Turin 10–​2, 14–​7, 19–​20 Tuscany, Tuscans 51, 103, 107, 118–​9, 143, 155, 157, 236, 238 Umbria 96, 101, 254 Urfé, Claude d’ 105 Urban VIII, Pope (Maffeo Vincenzo Barberini) 86, 104 Urbino: duchy of 98; dukes and duchesses of 98, 135, 140, 143, 148, 235, 252 Vacant see see sede vacante Valais, Valaisans 10, 12 Valangin, lordship of 13 Val Camonica 198 Valperga di Masino, Amedeo 11 Valperga di Masino, lords of 20 Valle d’Aosta 10, 14, 18 Val Percorara 62 Val Trompia 198 Vargas, Francisco de 82–​3, 86, 106 Vasari, Giorgio: Portrait of Alessandro de’ Medici in Armor 140, 143–​4, 146, 148 Vaud, pays de 9, 11–​2 Velser, Marcus 38 Vendramin, Luca 214 Veneziano, Agostino 140 Venice, Venetians 5, 14, 19, 31, 39, 45, 68, 80, 86, 98–​9, 115–​6, 119–​27, 130, 140, 155, 190–​200, 209–​29, 230, 231, 233–​4, 237, 239, 251; Biblioteca di San Marco 216; case nuove (curti) and case vecchie (lunghi) 213; Collegio 194;

Committee of Forty–​One 213; Council of Ten 212; doge, dogeship (office) 76, 126, 179, 211, 213, 215–​7; Grand Canal 209, 215–​6; Great Council 210–​2, 215, 219–​20, 226; obedience mission to Pope Adrian VI see Adrian VI, Pope; Piazza San Marco 10, 119, 209; primi de la terra 211, 221; processions 119, 121, 209, 215; procurators of San Marco 209–​10, 213–​5; Rialto bridge 216; San Lorenzo (parish) 209; San Marco 215; Santa Maria Mater Domini (parish) 209, 216; San Polo (sestiere) 209, 215; Savi agli Ordini 219; Senate 98, 104, 193, 213–​6, 218–​9; Terraferma 191, 201–​2, 207–​8, 230; third Serrata 212 Veneto 51–​2, 65, 214 Venier, Antonio, Doge 213 Ventimiglia 250, 253 Vercelli 9–​11, 14–​7, 20 Verola Alghise 198 Verona, Veronese 51, 60, 196, 198–​200, 215, 235, 243 Veronese, Paolo 216 Verrocchio, Andrea del 155 Villanova d’Asti 12 Visconti (family) 51, 54–​56, 169, 183, 191, 195 Visconti, Filippo Maria, Duke of Milan 51 Visconti, Giangaleazzo, Duke of Milan 53, 55, 136 Vitelli, Vitellozzo, Cardinal 84 Voghera 56 Wenceslaus IV, King of the Romans 55 Women as political actors (see also specific women) 5, 52, 192–​3, 199–​201, 209, 237, 240 Zagonara, battle of 171 Zanetto, Girolamo 197 Zavattarello, fortress of 54 Zelotti, Giovanbattista 216