Power and Patronage: The Medici and Public Art
	Perry M. Rogers Columbus School for Girls
Let a prince therefore act to seize and to maintain the state; his methods will always be judged honorable and will be praised by all; for ordinary people are always deceived by appearances and by the outcome of a thing; and in the world there is nothing but ordinary people. —Niccolò Machiavelli
	The world of the Italian Renaissance from about 1350 to 1600 has often been viewed as one of the most creative periods in world history. The many independent city-states of northern Italy such as Milan, Venice, Florence, Genoa, and Siena, competed openly in ever-shifting alliances for commercial and political dominance. Whether led by an oligarchy, a despot, or by elected republican ministers of government, city-states often were balanced precariously on the brink of political chaos. Internal factions, supported by the whim of condottieri (mercenary captains) hired to gain short-term competitive advantage on the field of battle, found it difficult to maintain control over the swirling political landscape. In this unforgiving environment, fortuna or “chance” often ruled the day and pressured the leadership of Italian city-states to recognize the possibilities inherent in political chaos. Niccolò Machiavelli, the Florentine civic humanist and diplomat, envisioned a science of politics contained in The Prince (1512) that was founded on a sophisticated understanding of human nature and risk management. Machiavelli’s “manual for survival” was a distillation of lessons garnered from a study of the ancient Greeks and Romans, as well as the more immediate examples of his contemporary society. In fact, he learned much from the success and failures of the Medici family that ruled Florence from 1434 to 1494. Cosimo de’ Medici, his son Piero, and grandson Lorenzo, were generally successful in navigating treacherous political waters and achieved the kind of stability that protected Florence’s external independence.
This was no mean feat, and success depended on a subtle assertion of authority and measured response of power.  Medici control of Florence was based on a combination of thuggery and nuance, all linked to Florentine traditions that had been established during the previous century’s “Golden Age” of republicanism.  Cosimo approached his consolidation of power in 1434 as a “consensual relationship” between his family and the Florentine state.  Much like the first Roman emperor Augustus in 27 B.C.E., Cosimo devised a political system based on the creation of belief in what was patently unreal. Cosimo and his successors cultivated republican appearances while rigging ballot boxes and hand-picking candidates for office.  Backed by his enormous wealth as banker to the papacy, Cosimo secured Medici sovereignty within the institutional parameters of a republic by conditioning the Florentines to their own greatness and well-being.  The Medici established an omnipresent imagery of the “state” as free and responsible to the populace, but this was actually an abstract edifice fashioned to celebrate “public sovereignty” when in fact political decisions were closely held by the Medici in association or in competition with other elite Florentine families. In their “velvet seizure” of the Florentine state, the Medici certainly practiced what Machiavelli later preached.  Cosimo and Lorenzo understood that “ordinary people are always deceived by appearances.... And in this world, there is nothing but ordinary people.”  The Medici crafted public appearance through a strong patronage network.  They were responsible by some estimates for over half the patronage in Florence.  Their management of public display, a kind of “visual politics,” encouraged stable social and economic relationships in the city.  Political life became intimately connected to imagery in the maintenance of authority.  The Medici needed the brilliance of an artist like Donatello just as much as he needed their financial patronage.  This symbiotic relationship and Cosimo’s sophistication in balancing the many competing interests in the Florentine republic is best noted by the Renaissance biographer Vespasiano: “Cosimo di Giovanni de’ Medici was of most honorable descent, a very prominent citizen and one of great weight in the republic. . . .  Cosimo found that he must be careful to keep the support [of influential citizens] by temporizing and making believe that [they would] enjoy power equal to his own. Meantime he kept concealed the source of his influence in the city as well as he could. . . .   Cosimo acted privately with the greatest discretion in order to safeguard himself, and whenever he sought to attain an object he contrived to let it appear that the matter had been set in motion by some one other than himself and thus he escaped envy and unpopularity. His manner was admirable; he never spoke ill of anyone, and it angered him greatly to hear slander spoken by others. He was kind and patient to all who sought speech with him.  He was more a man of deeds than of words—he always performed what he promised, and when this had been done, he sent to let the petitioner know that his wishes had been granted. His replies were brief and sometimes obscure, so that they might be made to bear a double sense. . . .     So great was his knowledge of all things that he could find some matter of discussion with men of all sorts; he would talk literature with a man of letters and theology with a theologian, being well versed therein through his natural liking, and for the reading of the Holy Scripture. With philosophy it was just the same. . . . He took kindly notice of all musicians and delighted greatly in their art. He had dealings with painters and sculptors and had in his house works of diverse masters. He was especially inclined towards sculpture and showed great favor to all worthy craftsmen, being a good friend to Donatello and all sculptors and painters; and because in his time the sculptors found scanty employment, Cosimo, in order that Donatello’s chisel might not be idle, commissioned him to make the pulpits of bronze in St. Lorenzo and the doors of the sacristy. He ordered the bank to pay every week enough money to Donatello for his work and for that of his four assistants. . . . He had a good knowledge of architecture, as may be seen from the buildings he left, none of which were built without consulting him; moreover, all those who were about to build would go to him for advice.”   Vespasiano’s laudatory description of Cosimo’s character and formidable qualities is essentially benign.  That “all who were about to build would go to him for advice” implies an easy relationship between patron and architect, where artistic vision was the only issue on the table for approval.  But the political waters of a new regime run deep and the demands of state had to be reconciled constantly with artistic vision.  The Medici ranged widely in their cultivation of public image.  They adopted the overt symbols (segni) of the 14th-century Florentine Commune such as the lion, the giglio (heraldic flower of the city), the standard of justice (a red cross on a white background), the image of Hercules, and the Florentine patron Saint John the Baptist.  These civic symbols, placed on the seal of the city and its coins, marked power and stressed continuity, as if nothing had really changed when the Medici came to power in 1434.  The Republic simply had new civic leadership. But since Medici political authority was in fact constitutionally illegitimate, Cosimo sought new ways to link his regime with the people.  The most prominent visual makeover for Medici legitimacy and authority was the family device of the diamond ring.   In 1449, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, wife of Piero de’ Medici, gave birth to Lorenzo, Cosimo’s grandson.  The occasion was heralded by a ring.  Such a commemoration was not in itself unusual, but the design for this ring would develop into an important symbol of Medici power.  The ring was set with a diamond, symbolizing eternity.  Three ostrich feathers surrounded by a banderole with the inscription semper (always) formed the base.  The feathers symbolized the three theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity.  This visual reminder marked Medici patronage and was carved into architectural projects and shrines.  The “Medici ring,” known simply as il diamonte, privatized patronage and not only linked personal affiliation to the progressive development of Florence, but also “married” the Medici to the city.  Florentines became the brides, the sons, and daughters of the family.  Cosimo as pater familias fashioned a new authority over this “extended family” and established his presence as pater patriae.  The ring with its ceremonial purpose and sanctifying overtones of marriage implied the obedience expected of any wife toward her husband and demanded the filial respect due a parent. Such symbols as Republican segni or the Medici diamond ring, might function as daily reminders of who buttered the bread, but more impressive, and ultimately more enduring, was the public placement of great art.  As Vespasiano noted, Cosimo appreciated beauty and understood the full range of opportunity accorded by architecture.  By being a “good friend to Donatello and all sculptors and painters,” Cosimo entered the realm of “stationary theater,” where the drama of glorious deeds and heroic personages could be exploited for civic benefit.  Donatello created a dramatic scene in stone and Cosimo managed this “frozen moment” to high impact. Cosimo’s primary artistic conduit was the sculptor Donatello (1386-1466).  He had demonstrated a talent for patriotic sculpture with such overtly political works as the Marzocco (1419), the “lion of Mars,” one of Florence’s supposed founders, and the marble David (1409).  Donatello’s bronze David was commissioned probably by Cosimo in 1428 to celebrate the family’s role in the defeat of the aggressive Visconti of Milan and the peace treaty of Ferrara.  Although this statue remains a focus of controversy among scholars, it is likely that Donatello finished it about 1430, and it was placed in the new Medici palace on the Via Larga by 1434 when the Medici returned to Florence from their year-long exile.  In order to confirm his new supremacy, Cosimo transferred many official functions from the town hall to his new Palazzo Medici.  It seems surprising that a sculpture like the David, which symbolizes the triumph of sovereignty and moral justice over the brutal and overwhelming strength of Goliath, should be tucked away in the Medici palace about a mile from the town hall.  But the palace was anything but secluded.  The Medici allowed free and open access to a variety of citizens as commercial and political associates and their clients sought access to Medici patronage.  And a more public placement of the David with its dreamy, enigmatic softness and rather ambiguous androgyny, might have confused a public searching for heroic leadership.  The statue formed the centerpiece of the palace courtyard and offered a walk on the creative edge, a visual “shock and awe” that likely paid dividends among the city’s cognoscenti. Still, we do have indication that this unlikely hero proved to have had an appropriate political purpose.  In 1466, Medici hegemony faced a serious challenge from the Pitti-Neroni conspiracy.  But Piero de’ Medici, Cosimo’s son and successor, faced down the threat with steely resolve and a measure of luck.  Seeking to ingratiate himself with Piero, the poet Niccolò Risorboli wrote a canzone celebrating the political triumph of the Medici.  The personification of Florence speaks: On a column is an armed one, Who appears to give grief to your enemies, So that you fear and love That which is done by him to overcome Goliath. This was that unjust and ill-spirited faction That wanted to take from me those who were born with me, Just like the sun pleases the sky So it [the faction] turned in flight and its great iniquity Fell to reason and justice.   The bronze David remained in the Palazzo Medici until the family was overthrown in 1494, but continued to fashion political perspective in a fluctuating environment. Just days after the fall of the Medici and the reinstatement of the Republic, the bronze David and another of Donatello’s sculptures, Judith and Holofernes, were removed from the garden of the Medici palace and relocated to the Piazza della Signoria outside the Palazzo Vecchio.  Produced in the late 1450s, Judith and Holofernes was an extraordinary work of technical, compositional, and psychological skill. This dynamic statue depicted the decapitation of the Assyrian general Holofernes by the virtuous Jewish heroine Judith.  Donatello captures the moment when Judith, after having plied the Assyrian general with wine, lifts his languid head from its drunken stupor and raises her scimitar to inflict justice and protect her people from the brutal incursion of the Assyrians.  This is a moral victory born of courage and divine sanction as the inherently weaker female overcame a powerful force with God’s help.  Judith risked herself for the good of her people. The original inscription placed on the pedestal is known to us only indirectly in a letter of condolence to Piero by Francesco Micheli on the recent death of Cosimo: “Realms fall through luxury, cities rise though their virtues.  You see the proud neck cut by humility’s hand.”  A second inscription, which was still visible while the statue stood in the Medici garden, records the Medici’s dedication of the work to “civic virtue”: “Public Health.  Piero di Cosimo de’ Medici, son of Cosimo, dedicated this statue of a woman to the union of strength and liberty, so that the citizens might be led back via an invincible and constant spirit to the defense of the republic.”  Thus, the inscription suggests a link between Florence’s virtues (courage, constancy, liberty) with the civic-virtues of Judith.  Holofernes represents luxury and sloth, a weak, imprudent arrogance that is overcome by the efficient humility of Judith.     Judith and Holofernes is the first multifigure freestanding statue cast in bronze during the Renaissance.  It testifies to the creative and emotive brilliance of Donatello.  But the new Republican government was more interested in the symbolic destruction of tyranny—a Medici damnatio memoriae.  The inscription was recut in 1495.  Piero’s name was replaced by cives.  The citizens of Florence, not Piero de’ Medici, had dedicated this statue for the public welfare.  Thus the Republic became the embodiment of the people.  The marriage between the Medici and the people of Florence was dissolved, at least temporarily until circumstances would dictate a new panoply of political vision.     Florence would not have to wait long, for the power vacuum of 1494-1495 was soon filled by the despotic theocracy of Girolamo Savonarola, a Dominican friar, well-known and feared for his mesmerizing sermons against papal corruption.  As God’s chosen vessel for redemption, Savonarola launched out in righteous indignation against any who challenged his divine authority.  This approach played well for nearly four years until 1498 when frustrated republicans forced the issue and Savonarola fell from grace.  He was executed and then burned in the Piazza della Signoria in full view of Judith’s gilded sword of justice.   The freely elected ministers of the new Republic (1498-1512) set about producing their own brand of “visual politics” and turned to a young sculptor to define the new artistic horizon.  Michelangelo was granted the commission in 1502 to create a marble statue of David, the protector of Florence.  This colossal statue, the very quintessence of majesty and the embodiment of freedom, was accorded the position of primacy in front of the Palazzo Vecchio.  And why not?  Its physical presence is overwhelming and confirms Machiavelli’s dictum that “men in general judge more by their eyes than their hands; for everyone can see, but few can feel.”  David’s twisting head faced Rome, a hotbed of Medici partisans, as if to defend against, in its glance alone, all comers who would challenge Florentine freedom.  No more despotism, not even the hint of a sham-republic with its mind-games and manipulations. To allow the David to effect its magic, the Republic relegated Judith and Holofernes to the nearby Loggia dei Lanza.  Judith had served her primary purpose for over a decade and the city’s elders were never comfortable with the vision of a woman wielding a sword over the head of a man (“O, puella furax”).  For all its powerful political message, the sexual allegory, a presumption of “woman on top,” was too threatening to the social hierarchy.  In 1512, the Medici returned to Florence in a triumphal procession.  They would maintain power until 1527 when the short-lived Republic once again held forth.  After the Medici were reinstated in 1530, they began their transformation from “first citizens” in a sham-republic, to the new Grand Dukes of Tuscany.  But the “culture wars” continued unabated.  Joining Judith on the other side of the Loggia, in order to dilute the overt empowerment of a woman, the Medici commissioned Benvenuto Cellini in 1545 to carve a statue of Perseus with sword in hand holding the head of Medusa above him as the defiled gorgon spurts blood.  Many scholars have seen this statue as clear  misogyny become official policy:  Judith and Perseus, eternally at war with each other as the state slowly revealed its political and social positions to a public waiting to be served. Decades of patronage, where civic symbols were juxtaposed with public statuary that was at once patriotic and creatively brilliant, cultivated the vision of Florence as the center of the Renaissance, but also as a battlefield of “visual politics.”  In so many ways, the Medici by limiting political freedom and channeling the energies of Florentine artists toward a new standard of artistic brilliance, created a Florentine state that itself became a work of art.
back to top The Historical Intersection     “Nothing New under the Sun”: Rome’s Transition from Republic to Principate   TACITUS   The sham-republic controlled by the Medici in Florence during the 15th century had ample precedent in the ancient world.  Just as artists and civic humanists harkened back to Greece and Rome for literary and artistic models, so too did the Medici employ the most successful political solutions.  The Medici transition from Republican chaos to a stable despotism with overtones of freedom mirrored the establishment of the Roman principate after a bloody civil war in which the young victor Octavian defeated Mark Antony. By 27 B.C.E., Antony was dead and Octavian, by virtue of his military support, controlled the entire Roman Empire. At this point, he went to the senate and proclaimed that he had restored the Republic. Upon request of the senators, he decided to assume the advisory position of princeps or “first citizen” and the honorary title of “Augustus.” The Republic was to function as it had in the past, with voting in the assemblies, election of magistrates, and traditional freedoms. But as long as Augustus controlled the army, his “advice” could not be safely ignored. His system of government, called the principate, lasted in the same basic form until 180 C.E. The following account describes the process of transition in the Roman state. Note especially the cynicism of the historian Tacitus, who saw through the facade of republicanism and decried the loss of liberty.     Augustus won over the soldiers with gifts, the populace with cheap [grain], and all men with the sweets of repose, and so grew greater by degrees, while he concentrated in himself the functions of the Senate, the magistrates, and the laws. He was wholly unopposed, for the boldest spirits had fallen in battle, or in the proscription, while the remaining nobles, the readier they were to be slaves, were raised the higher by wealth and promotion, so that, aggrandized by revolution, they preferred the safety of the present to the dangerous past. . . .  At home all was tranquil, and there were magistrates with the same titles; there was a younger generation, sprung up since the victory of Actium [31  B.C.E.], and even many of the older men had been born during the civil wars. How few were left who had seen the Republic. Thus the State had been revolutionized, and there was not a vestige left of the old sound morality. Stripped of equality, all looked up to the commands of a sovereign without the least apprehension for the present, while Augustus in the vigor of life, could maintain his own position, that of his house, and the general tranquility.   Consider This: What was Augustus’s political solution to the collapse of the Roman Republic? What are Tacitus’s specific criticisms of the Augustan system?  Did Cosimo de’ Medici in 1434 “rescue the liberty” of the Florentines, who had been beaten down by the chaos of competing factions, thus gambling that they would also prefer the safety and stability of his rule to the dangerous past?   The Broader Perspective:   The Augustan system of government and the Medici vision of “controlled freedom” has often been regarded as a “sham,” a deception that made the people feel they had control of their government when in fact they did not. Is freedom most importantly a thing of the mind? If the institutions of government are controlled yet appear to be free, and if you feel that you are free, are you free? How important is it to be truly free? Can you comment on this question using contemporary examples from the world around you?     back to top
Judith Slaying Holofernes   ARTEMISIA GENTILESCHI   One of the most impressive artists of the Barque period was Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1653).  Her father Orazio was a painter of ability and became his daughter’s only teacher. At this time, women were excluded from formal academic training and therefore were at a disadvantage in learning to paint nudes or develop the techniques of perspective.  In fact, Artemisia was one of the first distinctive female artists to whom we can attribute her work with certainty.  Her paintings resound with strong female heroines who are not passive observers, but active participants in the drama of life.  This makes her almost unique among women artists before the 20th century.  Art historians have speculated that her emphasis on the female protagonist perhaps stems from her rape at age 19 by one of her father’s friends.  In the trial of 1612, Artemisia endured torture under oath without backing away from her accusation.  As she remarked, “You will find the spirit of Caesar in this soul of a woman.”  The accused was found guilty, but only spent eight months in  prison. Artemisia Gentileschi’s most famous painting, Judith Slaying Holofernes (1612-1621), displays the realism and passion so characteristic of the Baroque style.  But this is a painting that is certainly over the top emotionally in recounting the biblical story of the slaying of the Assyrian general, Holofernes, who had invaded Judith’s homeland. The physicality of this painting is overwhelming as Judith, together with her maidservant, has entered the general’s tent, enticed and gotten him drunk, and now proceeds to behead the tyrant.  This is no clean decapitation, but a visual nightmare.  Judith has rolled up her sleeves and with the help of her maidservant, immobilizes the horrified general and saws his head off, blood spirting all over the sheets.  We are witnesses to an act of murder and Artemisia makes it clear that justice can be a bloody business.  This is brutal strength overcome by sanctified will as the sword in the form of a crucifix characterizes the deed as divine justice, rather than human revenge. Compare and Contrast: Although Donatello’s Judith and Holofernes (c. 1458) and Gentilleschi’s Judith Slaying Holofernes (1612-1621) are separated by over 160 years and were produced in different media, what themes link the two pieces of art? Why did each piece of art present a threat to the contemporary social hierarchy?  Is art most effective when it shocks and disturbs the political or social status quo?  What was Donatello’s purpose in creating his sculpture, Judith and Holofernes?   The Broader Perspective:  Can art that is commissioned for a political purpose ever be considered “great art?”  Isn’t it always tinged with the defilement of propaganda—with serving a master beyond the purely creative dimensions of the artist?  Or does great art transcend the political or religious boundaries that may have been imposed at its creation to speak to the greater dimensions of the human spirit?  In this regard, how would you evaluate Donatello’s bronze David, his Judith and Holofernes, and Michelangelo’s marble David?  Have the ages purged them of political contamination?   Works Consulted:  Kertzer, D.  Ritual, Politics, and Power (New Haven, 1988).  McHam, Sarah Blake.  Looking at Italian Renaissance Sculpture (Cambridge, 1998).  Randolph, Adrian W. B., Engaging Symbols: Gender, Politics, and Public Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence (New Haven, 2002).  Rubenstein, N.  The Palazzo Vecchio, 1288-1532:   Government, Architecture, and Imagery in the Civic Palace of the Florentine Republic (Oxford, 1995).  Sperling, C.  “Donatello’s Bronze David and the Demands of Medici Politics,” The Burlington Magazine 134 (1992), 218-24.  Starn, R. and Partridge, L.  Arts of Power: Three Halls of State in Italy, 1300-1600 (Berkeley, 1992).  Trexler, P. C.  Public Life in Renaissance Florence (New York, 1980).  “The Rule of Cosimo de’ Medici” is from Vespasiano da Bisticci, Lives of Illustrious Men of the XV Century, translated by W. George and E. Waters (London, 1926), 222-24.  “Rome’s Transition from Republic to Principate” is from Tacitus, Annals, 1.2-4, translated by Alfred Church and William Brodribb (New York, 1891).   back to top
Designed & maintained by Unique Customs WebWorks. Updated 2/12/05. Questions & comments: Webmaster.