The Medicean Succession: Monarchy and Sacral Politics in Duke Cosimo dei Medici's Florence
In 1537, Florentine Duke Alessandro dei Medici was murdered by his cousin and would-be successor, Lorenzino dei Medici. Lorenzino's treachery forced him into exile, however, and the Florentine senate accepted a compromise candidate, seventeen-year-old Cosimo dei Medici. The senate hoped Cosimo would act as figurehead, leaving the senate to manage political affairs. But Cosimo never acted as a puppet. Instead, by the time of his death in 1574, he had stabilized ducal finances, secured his borders while doubling his territory, attracted an array of scholars and artists to his court, academy, and universities, and, most importantly, dissipated the perennially fractious politics of Florentine life.

Gregory Murry argues that these triumphs were far from a foregone conclusion. Drawing on a wide variety of archival and published sources, he examines how Cosimo and his propagandists successfully crafted an image of Cosimo as a legitimate sacral monarch. Murry posits that both the propaganda and practice of sacral monarchy in Cosimo's Florence channeled preexisting local religious assumptions as a way to establish continuities with the city's republican and renaissance past. In The Medicean Succession, Murry elucidates the models of sacral monarchy that Cosimo chose to utilize as he deftly balanced his ambition with the political sensitivities arising from existing religious and secular traditions.

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The Medicean Succession: Monarchy and Sacral Politics in Duke Cosimo dei Medici's Florence
In 1537, Florentine Duke Alessandro dei Medici was murdered by his cousin and would-be successor, Lorenzino dei Medici. Lorenzino's treachery forced him into exile, however, and the Florentine senate accepted a compromise candidate, seventeen-year-old Cosimo dei Medici. The senate hoped Cosimo would act as figurehead, leaving the senate to manage political affairs. But Cosimo never acted as a puppet. Instead, by the time of his death in 1574, he had stabilized ducal finances, secured his borders while doubling his territory, attracted an array of scholars and artists to his court, academy, and universities, and, most importantly, dissipated the perennially fractious politics of Florentine life.

Gregory Murry argues that these triumphs were far from a foregone conclusion. Drawing on a wide variety of archival and published sources, he examines how Cosimo and his propagandists successfully crafted an image of Cosimo as a legitimate sacral monarch. Murry posits that both the propaganda and practice of sacral monarchy in Cosimo's Florence channeled preexisting local religious assumptions as a way to establish continuities with the city's republican and renaissance past. In The Medicean Succession, Murry elucidates the models of sacral monarchy that Cosimo chose to utilize as he deftly balanced his ambition with the political sensitivities arising from existing religious and secular traditions.

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The Medicean Succession: Monarchy and Sacral Politics in Duke Cosimo dei Medici's Florence

The Medicean Succession: Monarchy and Sacral Politics in Duke Cosimo dei Medici's Florence

by Gregory Murry
The Medicean Succession: Monarchy and Sacral Politics in Duke Cosimo dei Medici's Florence

The Medicean Succession: Monarchy and Sacral Politics in Duke Cosimo dei Medici's Florence

by Gregory Murry

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Overview

In 1537, Florentine Duke Alessandro dei Medici was murdered by his cousin and would-be successor, Lorenzino dei Medici. Lorenzino's treachery forced him into exile, however, and the Florentine senate accepted a compromise candidate, seventeen-year-old Cosimo dei Medici. The senate hoped Cosimo would act as figurehead, leaving the senate to manage political affairs. But Cosimo never acted as a puppet. Instead, by the time of his death in 1574, he had stabilized ducal finances, secured his borders while doubling his territory, attracted an array of scholars and artists to his court, academy, and universities, and, most importantly, dissipated the perennially fractious politics of Florentine life.

Gregory Murry argues that these triumphs were far from a foregone conclusion. Drawing on a wide variety of archival and published sources, he examines how Cosimo and his propagandists successfully crafted an image of Cosimo as a legitimate sacral monarch. Murry posits that both the propaganda and practice of sacral monarchy in Cosimo's Florence channeled preexisting local religious assumptions as a way to establish continuities with the city's republican and renaissance past. In The Medicean Succession, Murry elucidates the models of sacral monarchy that Cosimo chose to utilize as he deftly balanced his ambition with the political sensitivities arising from existing religious and secular traditions.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780674725478
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Publication date: 03/10/2014
Series: I Tatti Studies in Italian Renaissance History , #14
Pages: 360
Product dimensions: 6.40(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Gregory Murry is Assistant Professor of History at Mount St. Mary's University.

Table of Contents

List of Figures ix

Prologue: The Scene 1

Introduction 8

1 The Familiarity of Terrestrial Divinity 16

2 Divine Right Rule and the Providential Worldview 50

3 Rescuing Virtue from Machiavelli 104

4 Prince or Patrone? Cosimo as Ecclesiastical Patron 133

5 Cosimo and Savonarolan Reform 163

6 Defense of the Sacred 192

Conclusion 243

Appendix: Glossary of Names 249

Sources and Abbreviations 259

Notes 261

Acknowledgments 343

Index 345

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