NOTES

INTRODUCTION: BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: The best introduction to Pico’s life remains Garin, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola.

“I have read in the records”: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man, trans. E. Livermore Forbes, in Cassirer, Kristeller, and Randall, Renaissance Philosophy of Man, 223.

“the nature of all other beings is limited”: Ibid., 225.

“You shall have the power”: Ibid.

1. MICHELANGELO’S NOSE

he was busy copying: Vasari, Lives, 1:332.

“surpassed and vanquished the ancients”: Ibid., 1:418.

“the work not of a young man”: Ibid., 1:331; Wallace, Michelangelo, 53n4.

the envy of his schoolfellows: Vasari, Lives, 1:332.

spoken derisively of Pietro’s sketches: Cellini, Autobiography, 18.

“Jealous [at] seeing him more honoured”: Vasari, Lives, 1:332.

“almost tore off the cartilage”: Condivi, Michelangelo, 72–73.

his nose “broken and crushed”: Vasari, Lives, 1:332.

lying “as if dead”: Condivi, Michelangelo, 72.

The son of a comparatively modest bureaucrat: Michelangelo’s family claimed to be able to trace an “ancient and noble lineage,” but this seems to have been little more than wishful thinking. Wallace, Michelangelo, 36; cf. Michelangelo, Carteggio, 4:249–50.

Although some early Renaissance artists: Siena provides a number of especially interesting examples of artists who served in communal government. Duccio di Buoninsegna (1255/60–1318/19) appears to have been a member of the Sienese Council of the People in 1289, and his name is listed in connection with two other civic bodies in 1292 and 1295. By the same token, Simone and Donato Martini were named procurators to the papal Curia on February 8, 1340. The same city also provides examples of unusually highborn individuals becoming artists. Bartolommeo Bulgarini (d. 1378), for instance, is listed as being of noble birth in the records of the Painters’ Guild, and his family had previously been banned from office holding on the grounds of their elevated status. Maginnis, World of the Early Sienese Painter, 76–82.

Giotto di Bondone, for example, was rumored: Schwartz and Theis, “Giotto’s Father.”

Three of Duccio di Buoninsegna’s sons: Maginnis, World of the Early Sienese Painter, 46–47.

autonomous creative agents endowed: See especially Martindale, Rise of the Artist in the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance.

When Giotto was made capomaestro: Rubin, Giorgio Vasari, 292–93; Larner, Culture and Society in Italy, 305; Maginnis, World of the Early Sienese Painter, 80–81.

Similarly, writing in his De origine civitatis Florentiae: Larner, Culture and Society, 279–80; Maginnis, World of the Early Sienese Painter, 80.

Although still reliant on the favor of patrons: For an excellent discussion of contractual relationships between artists and patrons, see Welch, Art and Society in Italy, 103–30.

“not be subjected to the law”: Cellini, Autobiography, 130.

As his biographer Paolo Giovio recorded: Barocchi, Scritti d’arte del cinquecento, 1:10.

He was a man of undoubted piety: Vasari, Lives, 1:423.

“Here in your lovely face”: Michelangelo, verse 83, lines 1–4, in Poems and Letters, 23.

A devotee of illicit magic: On the accusation of sodomy made against Leonardo, see Crompton, Homosexuality and Civilization, 265; Creighton and Marisi da Caravaggio, Caravaggio and His Two Cardinals, 303n96; Wittkower and Wittkower, Born Under Saturn, 170–71.

Benvenuto Cellini was convicted of the same offense twice: For a detailed discussion of Cellini’s sexual life, see Rossi, “Writer and the Man.” It is also worth noting that Cellini was also accused of sodomizing a certain Caterina in 1543: Cellini, Autobiography, 281–83.

he killed at least two men: Cellini, Autobiography, 91, 128–29.

accused of stealing the papal jewels: Ibid., 184–89.

the music of the aristocratic composer Carlo Gesualdo: See Grey and Heseltine, Carlo Gesualdo, Musician and Murderer.

While the Middle Ages could be thought of as a period: Burckhardt, Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, 87, 90–91.

the social contexts of artistic production: Burckhardt’s view of the “discovery of the individual” has been subject to considerable question. For some of the more important arguments against it, see Baron, “Burckhardt’s Civilization of the Renaissance a Century After Its Publication”; Maginnis, World of the Early Sienese Painter, 83–113; Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy; Cole, Renaissance Artist at Work from Pisano to Titian; Thomas, Painter’s Practice in Renaissance Tuscany; Becker, “Essay on the Quest for Identity in the Early Italian Renaissance”; Sheard and Paoletti, Collaboration in Italian Renaissance Art; Bullard, “Heroes and Their Workshops”; Guidotti, “Pubblico e privato, committenza e clientele.”

Stephen Greenblatt has recast: Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning.

the elaboration of a complete theoretical understanding: Edgerton, Renaissance Rediscovery of Linear Perspective; Panofsky, “Die Perspektive als symbolische Form.” For further on Panofsky’s view of linear perspective in the Renaissance, see Landauer, “Erwin Panofsky and the Renascence of the Renaissance,” esp. 265–66; Moxey, “Perspective, Panofsky, and the Philosophy of History.”

This explosion of enthusiasm for visual exuberance: Wohl, Aesthetics of Italian Renaissance Art; see also the review by Mack, Renaissance Quarterly.

a close—and even incestuous—relationship: On this connection, see Gombrich, “From the Revival of Letters to the Reform of the Arts”; Weiss, Renaissance Discovery of Classical Antiquity; Rowland, Classical Tradition in Western Art.

As a number of eminent scholars have observed: Panofsky, Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art, 9; Baxandall, Giotto and the Orators; Gilbert, Poets Seeing Artists’ Work.

While Dante Alighieri celebrated the renown: Dante, Purg. 11.91–96.

the language of “darkness” and “light”: R. W. Lee, “Ut Pictura Poesis,” 199–200; Haight, “Horace on Art”; Trimpi, “Meaning of Horace’s Ut Pictura Poesis”; Ferguson, “Humanist Views of the Renaissance”; McLaughlin, “Humanist Concepts of Renaissance and Middle Ages in the Tre- and Quattrocento.”

Petrarch is often thought to have inaugurated: Petrarch, Africa, 9.451–57. The classic interpretation of this passage remains Mommsen, “Petrarch’s Conception of the ‘Dark Ages.’ ” There is, however, some doubt as to how fully Mommsen’s reading should be accepted: see A. Lee, “Petrarch, Rome, and the ‘Dark Ages,’ ” esp. 14–17.

he was celebrated alongside Giotto: Boccaccio, Lettere edite ed inedite, 187; Decameron, 6.5.

“Our Plato in The Republic”: Ficino, Opera omnia, 974, trans. in A. Brown, Renaissance, 101.

“the first person with a talent”: Leonardo Bruni, Le vite di Dante e di Petrarca, in Baron, Humanistisch-philosophische Schriften, 66, trans. in Thompson and Nagel, Three Crowns of Florence, 77; on Bruni’s view of Petrarch and Dante, see Ianziti, Writing History in Renaissance Italy, 177–78.

“before Giotto, painting was dead”: Palmieri, Vita civile, ed. Belloni, 43–44, trans. in A. Brown, Renaissance, 102.

2. IN PETER’S SHADOW

Francesco Granacci: Michelangelo had known Francesco Granacci (1469–1543) from childhood. They studied together in the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio and were sent to Bertoldo di Giovanni’s school at the same time. See Vasari, Lives, 1:330. Francesco subsequently completed several works for San Marco at the behest of Lorenzo de’ Medici, and later traveled to Rome to assist Michelangelo with the painting of the Sistine Chapel.

Because he was already ailing from an unknown illness: Beyond a few scattered examples of his work (principally as a medalist), little has survived of the life of Bertoldo di Giovanni (ca. 1440–1491). Although ambiguous, a comment by Vasari suggests that he had already fallen sick some years before 1491, and that he was unable to continue his own work by the time of Michelangelo’s arrival. That he accompanied Lorenzo de’ Medici—who suffered from gout—to take the waters in a place referred to as Bagni di Morba in 1485 is beyond question: it is tempting to see this as more than an indication of the bond between the two men. There is, indeed, every indication that he was ailing for some months before he died at the age of around fifty-one on December 28, 1491, at Lorenzo’s villa at Poggio a Caiano, and—this being so—Acts 5:12–16, which Masaccio depicted in Saint Peter Healing the Sick with His Shadow, would have had a particular resonance.

After emerging as independent states: For a survey of the origins of the northern Italian city-states, see Waley, Italian City-Republics; Jones, “Communes and Despots”; Jones, Italian City-State; Hyde, Society and Politics in Medieval Italy; Martines, Power and Imagination.

Public officials like the Florentines: There are two classic—if contrasting—explorations of this trend: Baron, Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance; Skinner, Foundations of Modern Political Thought. Although eminently readable, they should be read with care. Each has been controversial in its own way, and scholarly debate continues apace.

Great public buildings: A useful and accessible introduction to this topic can be found in Norman, Siena, Florence, and Padua, esp. 2:7–55.

As early as 1338, as the chronicler: Brucker, Renaissance Florence, 51.

In the same year, eighty banks: Ibid., 52.

Although there were intermittent crises: Franceschi, “Economy,” 129. There has, of course, been some fairly intensive scholarly debate as to the long-term strength of the Florentine economy, especially in the aftermath of the crises of the mid-fourteenth century, but the balance of evidence appears to suggest that there was no significant or lasting decline in business activity before the mid-sixteenth century. For an interesting and rather intimate view of Florentine economic history, see Goldthwaite, Private Wealth in Renaissance Florence.

In the catasto of 1427: Black, “Education and the Emergence of a Literate Soci- ety,” 18.

“What city,” he asked: Translation quoted in Brucker, Renaissance Florence, 29.

Despite having some doubts: Leonardo Bruni, Panegyric to the City of Florence, in Kohl and Witt, Earthly Republic, 135.

“What in the whole world”: Ibid., 139.

The private houses that lined the streets: Ibid., 140.

“every traveler arriving”: Ugolino Verino, De illustratione urbis Florentiae, in Baldassarri and Saiber, Images of Quattrocento Florence, 210.

“many people believe that our age”: Rucellai, Zibaldone, 1:60, in Baldassarri and Saiber, Images of Quattrocento Florence, 73.

“Golden Age is inferior”: Ugolino Verino, “Ad Andream Alamannum de laudibus poetarum et de felicitate sui saeculi,” in Baldassarri and Saiber, Images of Quattrocento Florence, 94.

Girolamo Savonarola, whose attacks on the rich: Martines, Scourge and Fire, 103.

As mercantile fortunes rose: The inadequacy of surviving evidence has made a fully comparative survey of prices and wages between the fourteenth and the sixteenth centuries virtually impossible. There is, however, sufficient information to see a general downward trend in the real wages of unskilled workers throughout this period with some clarity. See Goldthwaite, Economy of Renaissance Florence, 570–74; La Roncière, “Poveri e povertà a Firenze nel XIV secolo”; Tognetti, “Prezzi e salari nella Firenze tardomedievale.”

Poverty was always around the corner: Brucker, Society of Renaissance Florence, 214–18, docs. 102–4.

After receiving the massive sum: Vasari, Lives, 2:42. According to Vespasiano da Bisticci, Cosimo had donated such a large amount of money because he was eager to atone for the nefarious means by which he had accumulated his fortune. Brucker, Renaissance Florence, 108. In the opinion of Domenico di Giovanni da Corella, however, Cosimo’s munificence had exceeded even that of kings. Domenico di Giovanni da Corella, Theotocon, in Baldassarri and Saiber, Images of Quattrocento Florence, 250.

“so many thousands of volumes”: Verino, De illustratione urbis Florentiae, in Baldassarri and Saiber, Images of Quattrocento Florence, 210.

“where the Muses dwell”: Ibid.

centerpiece of the city’s annual Epiphany celebrations: Corella, Theotocon, in Baldassarri and Saiber, Images of Quattrocento Florence, 250.

“paradise was in these friaries”: Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence, 190.

Savonarola was elected prior: For excellent surveys of Savonarola’s life and career, see Martines, Scourge and Fire; and, more recently, Weinstein, Savonarola.

briefly gave up painting: Vasari, Lives, 1:227.

the sound of Savonarola’s powerful voice: Condivi, Vita di Michelangelo Buonarroti, 62; Hirst, Achievement of Fame, 25–26.

an angry mob laid siege: For a wonderfully vivid account of the siege of San Marco, see Martines, Scourge and Fire, 231–43.

“Around my door, I find huge piles”: Michelangelo, verse 267, lines 7–9, in Poems and Letters, 56.

the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore: Vasari, Lives, 1:160.

“worthy of heaven”: Ibid., 1:123.

“Pandolfo lost eighteen florins”: Baldassarri and Saiber, Images of Quattrocento Florence, 63.

Michelangelo would tell Miniato Pitti: Hirst, Achievement of Fame, 7.

“Every morning the street is jammed”: Brucker, Renaissance Florence, 40–41.

the story of Antonio Rinaldeschi: Here, I follow Connell and Constable, “Sacrilege and Redemption in Renaissance Florence.”

the guileless Tommaso never saw: Brucker, Society of Renaissance Florence, 156–57.

“six little shops”: The report itself appears in translation in ibid., 190, doc. 89.

“Here is the congenial whorehouse”: Beccadelli, Hermaphrodite, II, xxxvii (lines 9–18, 21–32), 108–11. Even though some of the more striking lines have been left out, this is one of Beccadelli’s tamest and most restrained verses.

It was planned by the priors: The document authorizing the foundation of this brothel is given in translation at Brucker, Society of Renaissance Florence, 190, doc. 88.

“this life seems the hardened ground”: Petrarch, Sen. 11.11, in Petrarch, Letters of Old Age, 2:414–15.

the city magistrates fined three men: Brucker, Renaissance Florence, 29–30.

Indeed, in advising Francesco “il Vecchio” da Carrara: Petrarch, Sen. 14.1, in Kohl and Witt, Earthly Republic, 52.

families renting a few cramped rooms: The Florentine catasto indicates that the average annual rent in the quarter of San Frediano, in Oltr’Arno, was somewhere between 1 and 2 florins per year. Brucker, Renaissance Florence, 25.

3. WHAT DAVID SAW

“He was not only hated by his enemies”: Guicciardini, Storie fiorentine, 94, trans. in A. Brown, “Early Years of Piero di Lorenzo,” 209.

Sensing the danger, Michelangelo fled Florence: On Michelangelo’s flight, see Hirst, Achievement of Fame, 21–22.

“Buonarroto tells me that you live”: Michelangelo, Carteggio, 1:9.

There, his fortunes might improve: Ibid., 1:8.

When the committee granted: Hirst, Achievement of Fame, 44.

The best weavers in Florence: Goldthwaite, Economy of Renaissance Florence, 576.

to discuss … transferring the completed work: On the deliberazione of the operai in January 1504, see Hirst, Achievement of Fame, 45–46.

“lived more like a prince”: Vasari, Lives, 1:322.

Luca della Robbia became rich: Ibid., 2:32.

Correggio was forced to become: Ibid., 1:282.

Andrea del Sarto had to content himself: Ibid., 2:167.

Piero Lorentino d’Angelo: Ibid., 1:197.

Within decades, super-companies had been formed: For an excellent overview, see Goldthwaite, Economy of Renaissance Florence, 204–62.

Although the Salviati family’s interests: Ibid., 74–75.

In the period 1346–50, the company founded: Ibid., 308–9.

Giovanni Rucellai estimated that the city: Rucellai, Zibaldone, 1:62, in Baldassarri and Saiber, Images of Quattrocento Florence, 75.

about $270.5 million: Finding a modern equivalent for the price of the florin is a difficult business. Not only did Florence use a variety of different coins (in silver and gold), the relative value of which fluctuated over time, but the purchasing power of the florin itself also underwent considerable variation over the centuries. Goldthwaite, Economy of Renaissance Florence, 609–14. That said, some (very rough) approximations are possible. A gold florin contained an average of 3.536 grams of gold. At the current price of $51 per gram, this made the coin itself worth the equivalent of around $180. The purchasing power of the florin was, however, much higher, and while a variety of different points of comparison could be used, the average daily wage of an unskilled construction worker (see table at Goldthwaite, Economy of Renaissance Florence, 613, and Goldthwaite, The Building of Renaissance Florence, 436–37) is a convenient—if not completely satisfactory—benchmark. Given a going rate of 10 soldi per day—that is, about 0.12 florin per day in 1450—and comparing this against a minimum wage of about $58 per day today, it is reasonable to postulate that the purchasing power of the florin in the mid-fifteenth-century labor market was the equivalent of around $493.

in 1514, Michelangelo provided 1,000 florins: Hirst, Achievement of Fame, 132–33.

Most people listed in the commune’s tax records: Franceschi, “Economy,” 141.

accounted for the employment of 21 percent: Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber, Les Toscans et leurs familles, 295.

Individual artisans, such as weavers: On the working conditions of the lower socioeconomic strata of Florentine society, see Cohn, Laboring Classes in Renaissance Florence.

Niccolò Strozzi and Giovanni di Credi: Brucker, Renaissance Florence, 61–62.

women, who accounted for a growing percentage: See Brown and Goodman, “Women and Industry in Florence.”

“the condition of the artisans”: Brucker, Renaissance Florence, 26.

wages consistently failed to keep pace: Goldthwaite, Economy of Renaissance Florence, 362–63.

the laborers known as “Stumpy” and “Knobby”: Wallace, Michelangelo, 140–41.

“Together with many others who were seduced”: Brucker, Society of Renaissance Florence, 235.

“outrages … [against] those citizens”: Ibid.

“combers, carders, trimmers”: Ibid., 236.

“a wool-comber … who sold provisions”: Ibid., 237–38.

an even more dramatic reorganization: Ibid., 239.

Michelangelo was every bit in thrall: Artists like Michelangelo occupied a somewhat ambiguous place in this schema. Although some of those who worked with him on his sculpting projects between 1501 and 1505 either had a natural home in the guild structure or naturally sat outside it entirely, Michelangelo himself was in a curious position. As yet, there was no artists’ guild in Florence. The nearest thing that existed, the Compagnia di San Luca—of which Piero di Cosimo was a member—was principally a lay fraternity and was separate from the guilds. It was not until the foundation of the Accademia del Disegno much later in the sixteenth century that artists were brought together under the same organizational roof. Perhaps because of the confusion surrounding his status, Michelangelo was not a member of any guild. Jack, “Accademia del Disegno in Late Renaissance Florence.” For the foundation of the Accademia, see Barzman, Florentine Academy and the Early Modern State, 23–59.

Soderini was the head of the Florentine state: On Soderini’s life and career, see Cooper, “Pier Soderini.” Perhaps the clearest overview of Florentine politics in this general period remains Butters, Governors and Government in Early Sixteenth-Century Florence.

Soderini saw that commissions such as the David: Although Vasari notes that Soderini had a key role in reviving the project, Hirst has rightly cast doubt on the veracity of this suggestion. Vasari, Lives, 1:337; Hirst, Achievement of Fame, 43.

Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Allegory of Good and Bad Government: The political import of Lorenzetti’s frescoes has attracted considerable scholarly interest, and has been the subject of intense debate. Two of the most important interpretations are Rubinstein, “Political Ideas in Sienese Art”; Skinner, “Ambrogio Lorenzetti.”

“unlimited power and authority”: Dati, Istoria di Firenze dall’anno MCCCLXXX all’anno MCCCCV, ix, in Baldassarri and Saiber, Images of Quattrocento Florence, 48.

a rising young man by the name of Niccolò Machiavelli: Machiavelli had been appointed second chancellor on June 19, 1489. On Machiavelli’s role in Florentine government in this period, see Bertelli, “Machiavelli and Soderini”; Rubinstein, “Beginning of Niccolò Machiavelli’s Career in the Florentine Chancery.”

Consisting of a staggering three thousand members: Brucker, Renaissance Florence, 268.

a high turnover of personnel: On this point, see Najemy, Corporatism and Consensus, 301–18, esp. 305–6; see also D. Kent, “Florentine Reggimento in the Fifteenth Century,” 612.

“Equal liberty exists for all”: Baron, Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance, 419.

In 1361, eight people were convicted: Najemy, Corporatism and Consensus, 180–81; Brucker, Florentine Politics and Society, 213.

“Citizens of simple mind”: Najemy, Corporatism and Consensus, 203.

Dante’s exile at the hands of his factional rivals: Dante took great pleasure in condemning his arch-nemesis, Filippo Argenti, to the filthy waters of the river Styx in the Inferno. Dante, Inf. 8.32–63.

the Medici family came to overshadow Florentine politics: The classic survey of the Medici reggimento remains Rubinstein, Government of Florence Under the Medici; note also Hale, Florence and the Medici.

“not so much a citizen”: Pius II, Secret Memoirs of a Renaissance Pope, II, 101.

“Political councils,” Piccolomini noted: Ibid.

the bloody but abortive Pazzi Conspiracy: The most recent, and perhaps most readable, account of the Pazzi Conspiracy is Martines, April Blood.

“a sort of servitude”: Baldassarri and Saiber, Images of Quattrocento Florence, 70.

Alamanno Rinuccini launched a vitriolic attack: The most relevant extracts are translated in ibid., 103–14.

Outlining his views in the Trattato: Savonarola, Trattato circa il reggimento e governo della città di Firenze; for a general introduction to Savonarola’s political views, see Martines, Scourge and Fire, 106–10; Garfagnini, Savonarola e la politica; Fletcher and Shaw,World of Savonarola.

introduction of “new” families: Najemy, Corporatism and Consensus, 323.

dissent was treated with uncompromising severity: Although no political “traitors” were executed in the period 1498–1512, it is striking that there is a marked rise in the frequency with which “treason” was punished with death (as opposed to fines/exile) in the wake of the Pazzi Conspiracy (three executions in 1481), at the height of Savonarola’s ascendancy (six executions in 1497), and after the restoration of the Medici after Soderini’s fall. For an excellent study of this topic, see Baker, “For Reasons of State.”

the competition over the adornment of Orsanmichele: See Brucker, Society of Renaissance Florence, 93–94, doc. 45.

Saint Zenobius was the source of enormous urban pride: Verino, De illustratione urbis Florentiae, II, in Baldassarri and Saiber, Images of Quattrocento Florence, 241–42.

On reaching maturity: Vasari, Lives, 1:214, 216.

Although monks and friars are sometimes presented: For example, Boccaccio, Decameron, 3.3.

a Tuscan abbot conceives a passionate love: Ibid., 3.8.

a Benedictine monk is caught having an affair: Ibid., 1.4.

Poggio Bracciolini and Leonardo Bruni: Brucker, Renaissance Florence, 180–81.

“a cloth factory in the Via Maggio”: Ibid., 176.

The Umiliati friars, for example, owned and ran: Goldthwaite, Economy of Renaissance Florence, 370.

Francesco di Marco Datini’s wife once wrote: Ibid., 368.

no fewer than 263 dioceses: Hay, Church in Italy in the Fifteenth Century, 10.

“all the miseries of the world”: Debby, “Political Views in the Preaching of Giovanni Dominici in Renaissance Florence,” 36–37.

“there is no justice but deception”: Ibid., 40.

Savonarola struck out at the rich: Martines, Scourge and Fire, 103.

4. THE WORKSHOP OF THE WORLD

“a partition of planks and trestles”: Vasari, Lives, 1:338, amended.

“accompanied by great sweat”: Kemp, Leonardo on Painting, 39.

“always having to contend”: Vasari, Lives, 1:173.

“he would rather die of hunger”: Ibid., 1:186–87.

“a comprehensive array of human needs”: Cohen and Cohen, Daily Life in Renaissance Italy, 54.

the average size of the domestic sphere: Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber, Tuscans and Their Families.

households comprising an average of five people: Kirshner, “Family and Marriage,” 90.

the letter he sent to Michelangelo in late 1500: Michelangelo, Carteggio, 1:9.

“I must love myself first”: Ibid., 1:7–8, trans. in Wallace, Michelangelo, 25.

“for the sake of his family”: Vasari, Lives, 1:278.

Only on rare occasions: Michelangelo, Carteggio, 1:140–41.

Lodovico himself had served: Hatfield, Wealth of Michelangelo, 207.

Although he felt that it was beneath his status: Brucker, “Florentine Voices from the Catasto,” 11–13, 31.

Happy as he was to accept: From the summer of 1497 onward, Lodovico frequently accepted financial assistance from his successful second son: Hirst, Achievement of Fame, 32, 95, 101, 108–9, 128–33, 180–83. Yet it is evident not merely that Lodovico had little comprehension of Michelangelo’s work but also that the latter felt aggrieved by the former’s offhandedness. In late 1512, for example, Michelangelo complained bitterly that despite laboring on his family’s behalf for fifteen solid years, he had received not a single word of gratitude, and it is clear from the context of the letter that Lodovico was the primary target of his ire: ibid., 109. By 1521–22, relations between the two men had deteriorated so much that they seem to have come to blows over money: ibid., 180–81.

“that bitch”: Michelangelo, Carteggio, 1:88.

“much rarer and more precious”: Petrarch, Fam. 7.11.4.

he was “another self”: On Petrarch’s view of friendship, see A. Lee, Petrarch and St. Augustine, 229–75.

The ideal friend was chosen: On Renaissance friendship in general, see Hyatte, Arts of Friendship.

Boccaccio was even able to imagine: Boccaccio, Decameron, 10.8.

As the lively correspondence: Origo, Merchant of Prato; Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence, 131–58.

offered Datini extensive advice: Mazzei, Lettere di un notaro a un mercante del secolo XIV, con alter lettere e documenti, 1:62, 67, 163, 169, 248, 393.

In return, Datini sent Mazzei: Ibid., 1:7, 29, 148, 184.

Petrarch recommended his friend Laelius: Petrarch, Fam. 19.4. The nickname “Laelius” was a testimony to the closeness of the bond between Petrarch and Lello di Pietro Stefano Tosetti. The historical friendship between Scipio Africanus (236–183 b.c.) and Gaius Laelius during the Second Punic War had long been held up as the paradigmatic example of the ideal, and had been celebrated most extensively in Cicero’s De amicitia (sometimes known as the Laelius). Petrarch made much of the relationship between the two in his verse epic, the Africa.

Fra Bartolomeo of San Marco taught Raphael: Vasari, Lives, 1:290.

“entertaining his many friends”: Ibid., 1:276.

“deformed and dwarf-like”: Boccaccio, Decameron, 6.5, trans. McWilliam, 457.

Although in later life he was to befriend: Vasari, Lives, 1:421.

Patrons not only habitually demanded sketches: See Welch, Art and Society in Italy, 103–30.

chimney decorations or wickerwork chests: Vasari, Lives, 1:185.

bronze knife that Piero Aldobrandini was later to commission: Wallace, “Manoeuvering for Patronage.” Michelangelo and Aldobrandini ultimately fell out over the knife.

In his autobiography, Cellini was scathing: Cellini, Autobiography, 377.

Donatello smashed a bronze bust: Vasari, Lives, 1:180.

Francesco Filelfo was even forced to beg his friend: It is worth quoting the passage in full: “Sweet hope nourished me: the hope that you, Cicco, always, bring me with kind words feeds my heart. For the aediles and the quaestor have tricked me so often that I cough up bile. You come at a good time, since now my anger has reached a boil and my mind stirred up by evil begins to rage. I can’t very well put up with what justice and piety forbid me from enduring. Starvation is not a thing to be tolerated. Why should I speak of the contagion of the deadly disease that a man without money can’t avoid? The prince issues worthy orders which the men he has placed in charge of his treasury refuse to carry out. ‘Go and come back again,’ they say. ‘Your money will be paid and a supplement worthy of your services will be paid you.’ And so I go away and again I return. And again, like a fool, I return again, three or four times a day.” Filelfo, Odes, IV.2, lines 1–16, pp. 229–31.

While painting some scenes from the lives: Vasari, Lives, 1:97–98.

“Now look at it”: Ibid., 1:339.

he employed a minimum of twelve people: Wallace, Michelangelo, 91.

“I should be glad if you would see”: Michelangelo, Carteggio, 1:145, in Michelangelo, Letters of Michelangelo, 1:82.

“a stuck-up little turd”: Wallace, Michelangelo, 46.

Michelangelo had to turn people away: Michelangelo, Carteggio, 1:153; q.v. Wallace, Michelangelo, 46.

On one occasion, he and one of his apprentices: Vasari, Lives, 1:228.

Botticelli, for example, was enraged: Ibid., 1:229.

as was the case with Raphael: Ibid., 1:320.

“If we grant that men deserve praise”: Boccaccio, Famous Women, pref., 9.

“Book learning” remained a man’s preserve: In Venice in the period 1587–88, for example, four thousand six hundred boys and only thirty girls—mostly of high status—attended the city’s schools. Wiesner, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, 122–23.

“had some knowledge of drawing”: Vasari, Lives, 1:104.

Giovanni d’Amerigo Del Bene complained: See Brucker, Society of Renaissance Florence, 32–33.

Although the poor girl’s mother was unhappy: Ibid., 34–35.

“love for her husband”: Francesco Barbaro, On Wifely Duties, in Kohl and Witt, Earthly Republic, 192.

women, being “by nature weak”: Ibid., 215.

A noblewoman like Ginevra: Ibid., 215–20.

“wear and esteem all those fine garments”: Ibid., 208.

“he very often attired her”: Vasari, Lives, 2:100.

“behavior, speech, dress, eating”: Barbaro, On Wifely Duties, in Kohl and Witt, Earthly Republic, 202.

even the faintest hint of infidelity: Palmieri, Vita civile, ed. Battaglia, 133.

“love her husband with such great delight”: Barbaro, On Wifely Duties, in Kohl and Witt, Earthly Republic, 196.

“take great care that they do not entertain suspicion”: Ibid., 194.

Boccaccio went to great lengths: Boccaccio, Decameron, 10.10.

“good women and bad women”: Sacchetti, Il trecentonovelle, 233.

the theory didn’t quite match the reality: Perhaps the classic introduction to this subject remains Rocke, “Gender and Sexual Culture in Renaissance Italy.”

Although subject to legal restrictions: For useful overviews of this topic—which has been the subject of no small degree of academic debate—see Cohn, “Women and Work in Renaissance Italy”; J. C. Brown, “Woman’s Place Was in the Home.”

he warmly encouraged Sofonisba Anguissola: Michelangelo, Carteggio, 5:92–93.

“A wife … wears out her husband’s ears”: Filelfo, Odes, III.3, pp. 175–77.

“to restrain the barbarous”: Brucker, Society of Renaissance Florence, 180–81.

Savonarola inveighed forcefully against female luxury: See the account of Luca Landucci given in Baldassarri and Saiber, Images of Quattrocento Florence, 276–83, esp. 277.

“Me, congealed already by cold age”: Pontano, Baiae, I.4, lines 3–10, p. 13.

“utterly non-productive as investments”: Goldthwaite, “Florentine Palace as Domestic Architecture,” 995.

as Leon Battista Alberti explained: Leon Battista Alberti, De re aedificatoria, 9.1.

the Palazzo Strozzi, covers an area: Goldthwaite, “Florentine Palace as Domestic Architecture,” 1005, fig. 8.

“the luxurious inflation of private space”: Ibid., 1004–5.

Pagolo di Baccuccio Vettori found that the structure: ASF Carte Riccardi, no. 521, fol. 26r; Goldthwaite, “Florentine Palace as Domestic Architecture,” 983n13.

Although there was certainly a disparity of scale: The following is indebted to D. Kent, “ ‘Lodging House of All Memories.’ ”

“viewing the material worlds”: See Cavallo, “Artisan’s Casa.”

He was also to purchase three examples: Hatfield, Wealth of Michelangelo, 65ff.

Above street level, Michele the accountant’s house: D. Kent, “ ‘Lodging House of All Memories,’ ” 451.

It was only by the time Michele purchased: See Albala, Eating Right in the Renaissance.

It is an illustration of the brutality: D. Kent, “ ‘Lodging House of All Memories,’ ” 453; Granato, “Location of the Armoury in the Italian Renaissance Palace.”

“a poor little house”: Vasari, Lives, 1:187.

Piero di Cosimo was living and working: Fermor, Piero di Cosimo, 14. It is interesting to note that in early 1504, Piero sat on the committee that met to determine a suitable location for Michelangelo’s David.

It was also shortly after completing the David: Hirst, “Michelangelo in 1505,” 762.

When he ultimately left Florence: Michelangelo, Carteggio, 1:19.

“Live carefully and wisely”: Ibid., 1:9, trans. in Wallace, Michelangelo, 26.

As a child he was somewhat sickly: Vasari, Lives, 1:430.

While painting the Sistine Chapel: Michelangelo, verse 5, lines 1–4, in Poems and Letters, 3:

I’ve got a goitre from this job I’m in—

bad water does it up in Lombardy

to peasants, there or in some other country—

because my belly’s shoved up against my chin.

by 1516 was lamenting that sickness: Michelangelo, Carteggio, 2:7–8.

“a sack for gristle”: Michelangelo, verse 267, lines 34–45, in Poems and Letters, 57.

“Urine! How well I know it”: Michelangelo, verse, 267, lines 10–12, trans. in Wallace, Michelangelo, 175.

friends began to fear for his life: Hirst, Achievement of Fame, 252–53.

“went blind through an attack of catarrh”: Vasari, Lives, 1:197.

Similarly, dropsy (edema), caused by malnutrition: Ibid., 2:271.

It hardly needs saying that tooth decay: Cellini, Autobiography, 217.

As Alessandra Strozzi recorded in her correspondence: Brucker, Society of Renaissance Florence, 47–49.

One of its more prominent sufferers: Cellini, Autobiography, 16–17.

Subsequent attacks left him “raving”: Ibid., 71–72.

Finding himself unable to work: Ibid., 147–54, 347–48.

“In the majority of cases, small ulcers”: Arrizabalaga, Henderson, and French, Great Pox, 205–6.

Historians estimate that 30 percent: For a useful survey of the impact of the plague—and other diseases—on the lives of the lowest socioeconomic groups of the period, see Carmichael, Plague and the Poor in Renaissance Florence.

the outbreak of 1400: Cohn, “Black Death,” 725.

Giorgione fell victim to the pestilence: Vasari, Lives, 1:276.

After sleeping with the adolescent maid: Cellini, Autobiography, 45–46.

Never one to contemplate marriage, Raphael: Vasari, Lives, 1:320.

“so lustful that he would give anything”: Ibid., 1:216.

“His lust was so violent”: Ibid.

So rampant was the sexual experimentation: Rocke, “Gender and Sexual Culture in Renaissance Italy,” 157; Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe, 492.

“over one-third of the forty-nine documented victims”: Rocke, “Gender and Sexual Culture in Renaissance Italy,” 163.

advocated celibacy even within wedlock: Mario Filelfo, Epithalamion pro domino Francisco Ferrario et Constantia Cimisella, MS Vat. Apost., Chig. I VII 241, fols. 140v–143r, here fol. 141v, trans. in D’Elia, “Marriage, Sexual Pleasure, and Learned Brides,” 411.

“Wife, your elderly husband’s delight”: Pontano, Baiae, I.13, lines 1–10, p. 39.

Oral sex was definitely taboo: Rocke, “Gender and Sexual Culture in Renaissance Italy,” 161; Rocke, Forbidden Friendships, 118–20.

Not only was he a cautious enthusiast: Beccadelli, Hermaphrodite, 1.5, esp. lines 1–2, p. 11: “When my Ursa wants to be fucked, she climbs on top of my Priapus. / I play her role, she plays mine.” Unfortunately, Beccadelli feared that his penis was not up to the strain of Ursa’s apparently insatiable sexual appetite in this position.

“Why,” the character Lepidinus asked: Ibid., 1.14, lines 1–2, p. 21.

Even a devoted husband like Pontano: See especially Pontano, Baiae, II.29, pp. 166–67.

“a man can use a young woman”: Wallace, Michelangelo, 110.

“powerful yearning for semen”: Rocke, “Gender and Sexual Culture in Renaissance Italy,” 151.

“It is much easier to defend”: Domenico Sabino, De uxorum commodis et incommodis, MS Vat. Apost., Chis. H IV 111, fols. 108v–117v, here, fol. 110v, trans. in D’Elia, “Marriage, Sexual Pleasure, and Learned Brides,” 407.

“Is it any wonder, Marco”: Cristoforo Landino, Xandra, II.13, in Poems, 105.

“a lamb entrusted to a wolf”: Landino, Xandra, II.24, line 2, in Poems, 125.

In one tale loosely derived: Boccaccio, Decameron, 7.2.

“in the manner of a hot-blooded stallion”: Ibid., trans. McWilliam, 494.

In another tale, one Madonna Filippa: Boccaccio, Decameron, 6.7.

“If he has always taken”: Ibid., trans. McWilliam, 464.

Boccaccio’s Decameron includes at least two stories: Boccaccio, Decameron, 2.5, 9.5; the character of Madonna Jancofiore in 8.10 is similar to a prostitute but is more of a sexual deceiver.

Prostitutes were expelled from Venice: Davidsohn, Storia di Firenze, 7:616–17; Brackett, “Florentine Onestà and the Control of Prostitution,” 277.

By 1384, the priors had acknowledged: Rezasco, “Segno delle meretrici,” 165.

Though prosecutions were not irregular: See Brucker, Society of Renaissance Florence, 191–98.

On April 30, 1403, the city established a magistracy: For an excellent overview of the history of this magistracy, see Brackett “Florentine Onestà and the Control of Prostitution.”

Barely thirty years later, seventy-six women: Trexler, “La prostitution florentine au XV^e siècle,” 985–88.

By 1566, the acceptance of prostitution: Brackett, “Florentine Onestà and the Control of Prostitution,” 287n64.

Prosecutions for “unofficial” prostitution: For example, in 1416, Bartolomeo di Lorenzo was convicted of attempting to sell his wife, Stella, to a brothel owner named Checco; see Brucker, Society of Renaissance Florence, 199–201.

Michelangelo’s own sexual orientation: See Liebert, Michelangelo; Saslow, “ ‘Veil of Ice Between My Heart and the Fire’ ”; Francese, “On Homoerotic Tension in Michelangelo’s Poetry.”

Normally grouped together with masturbation and bestiality: D’Elia, “Marriage, Sexual Pleasure, and Learned Brides,” 409.

In a series of Lenten sermons: Hughes, “Bodies, Disease, and Society,” 113.

“To the fire!”: Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence, 381.

Having established a special magistracy: The provision authorizing the establishment of the Office of the Night can be found at Brucker, Society of Renaissance Florence, 203–4, doc. 95.

Jacopo di Cristofano was found guilty: The court record for this case is given at ibid., 204–5, doc. 96.

“carried out the most extensive”: Rocke, Forbidden Friendships, 4.

“men are not satisfied with servant girls”: Sabino, De uxorum commodis et incommodis, fol. 115r, trans. in D’Elia, “Marriage, Sexual Pleasure, and Learned Brides,” 408.

As a reflection of the moral distinction: Brackett, Criminal Justice and Crime in Late Renaissance Florence, 131.

the Platonic Academy: On historiographical debates surrounding the Platonic Academy, see the penetrating essay by Hankins, “Myth of the Platonic Academy of Florence.”

Ficino suggested that homoerotic attraction: On this topic, see Maggi, “On Kissing and Sighing.”

There is some evidence that same-sex unions: Rocke, Forbidden Friendships, 171.

5. MICHELANGELO IN LOVE

Pier Antonio Cecchini: For Cecchini, see Frommel, Michelangelo und Tommaso dei Cavalieri, 14–15; Michelangelo, Carteggio, 3:419–20.

In a break with habit: Although it is not absolutely certain that Cecchini effected the meeting between Michelangelo and Tommaso de’ Cavalieri, the surviving evidence suggests that it was likely. Michelangelo and Tommaso can, after all, only have met within a relatively brief window of time. While the date of their first encounter is unclear, it can only have happened in the autumn, between Michelangelo’s arrival in Rome (at some point between mid-August, when his house at Macel de’ Corvi was made ready, and mid-September 1532, when a letter was addressed to him in the Eternal City) and January 1, 1533, by which point the relationship had already gathered steam. As Wallace has noted, this fact recommends the suggestion that they were introduced by a mutual friend (Wallace, Michelangelo, 177). Of those who could have brought them together, Cecchini is certainly the most likely. Cecchini was undoubtedly one of Michelangelo’s closest friends in Rome during this period (see the familiarity of Michelangelo,Carteggio, 4:69) and knew Cavalieri prior to his meeting the artist (the acquaintance between Cecchini and Cavalieri may have been made through Cardinal Niccolò Ridolfi, to whose household Cecchini belonged). Most tellingly, however, Cecchini is referred to as a mutual friend and acted as a go-between for the two men on a number of occasions, both of which seem to lend weight to the supposition that he facilitated their friendship in a meaningful enough manner to have enjoyed the trust of both men as a matter of course (Michelangelo,Carteggio, 3:443–44; 4:3). That Cecchini introduced Cavalieri to Michelangelo is a suggestion that has recently been endorsed by Hirst, Achievement of Fame, 261.

the Cavalieri were noted collectors: On the Cavalieri family’s collection, see Hirst, Achievement of Fame, 261; Steinmann and Pogatscher, “Dokumente und Forschungen zu Michelangelo, IV, Cavalieri-Dokumente,” 502–4.

Having received the thorough humanistic education: This is evident from the tenor of Michelangelo’s later poetry but is, in any case, entirely consistent with the educational program followed by Roman nobles in this period. On the latter, see Grendler, Schooling in Renaissance Italy; Grafton and Jardine, From Humanism to the Humanities; Kallendorf, Humanist Educational Treatises; note also the rather brief comments at Castiglione, Book of the Courtier, IV, 291, 306.

he remarked upon Tommaso’s “fear”: Michelangelo, Poems and Letters, letter 30.

“would provoke a poetic outpouring”: Hirst, Achievement of Fame, 260.

“brought back dead poetry”: Guido da Pisa, Expositiones et glose super Comediam Dantis, 4: “Ipse enim mortuam poesiam de tenebris reduxit ad lucem.”

Having studied the Commedia: Wallace, Michelangelo, 41.

Cristoforo Landino’s highly influential commentary: On Landino’s Comento … sopra la Comedia di Danthe Alighieri poeta fiorentino (1481), see Gilson, Dante and Renaissance Florence, 163–230.

In later years, he would deepen his knowledge: Hirst, Achievement of Fame, 23.

“radiant star” whose “splendour burned”: Michelangelo, Poems and Letters, nos. 248 and 250.

Indeed, for Michelangelo, as for Boccaccio: On Dante’s reception, see Gilson, Dante and Renaissance Florence, esp. chaps. 1–2.

Running around playing at a May Day party: The date of this event is known only through Boccaccio’s biography of Dante but has since become “traditional.” That the party was held at the house of Folco dei Portinari is similarly inferred from other evidence: Dante never mentioned Beatrice’s family name, and Boccaccio indicates only that the celebration was held at her father’s house.

“the vital spirit, which dwells”: Dante, La Vita Nuova, II, 3.

“From then on,” Dante confessed: Ibid., II, 4.

“dressed in purest white”: Ibid., III, 5.

“Joyful Love seemed to me”: Ibid., III, sonnet 1, 6.

“I was so overwhelmed with grief”: Ibid., XII, 14.

At a wedding, his rather affected swooning: Ibid., XIV, 18–20.

After he endured this humiliating episode: Ibid., XVIII, 24–25.

“expositor, … Beatrice is a superior intelligence”: Pope-Hennessy, Paradiso, 35.

As Bartolomeo Angiolini observed: Michelangelo, Carteggio, 3:53–54.

Although he claimed to esteem: Cavalieri’s comments are at ibid., 3:445–46.

Tommaso even teased him: See, for example, Michelangelo’s response to Tommaso’s teasing after his return to Florence: ibid., 4:26.

In Michelangelo’s gift drawing: Although Ovid remains the most obvious point of reference for Michelangelo to have used, the sources for the myth of Tityus are many and varied: Ovid, Met. 4.457–58; Virgil, Aen. 6.595–600; Lucretius, De rerum nat. 3.984–94; Homer, Od. 11.576–81. Curiously, however, the reference to Tityus’s crime—the attempted rape of Leto—appears only in Homer. In order for the gift portraits to make coherent sense as a pair, it seems essential that Tityus’s offense is known. Consequently, it appears reasonable to postulate that Michelangelo had direct or indirect knowledge of Homer.

It was in Avignon on April 6, 1327: The date is known from an inscription that Petrarch wrote on the flyleaf of his manuscript copy of Virgil (the so-called Ambrosian Virgil) and from a later verse. It is worth noting that although Petrarch was subsequently to associate April 6, 1327, with Good Friday, the ascription is mistaken (albeit deliberately so): it was, in fact, Easter Sunday. Petrarch, Canzoniere, poems 3, 211, in Petrarch’s Lyric Poems, 38–39, 364–65.

As he later reminisced: Petrarch, Fam. 10.3; Wilkins, Life of Petrarch, 8.

But even though he was well placed: Petrarch, Posteritati (Sen. 18.1); text in Prose, 8–10.

Petrarch gives us little clue: That Petrarch’s Laura is to be identified with Laura de Noves (1310–48) was first suggested by Maurice Scève in 1533 (Mann, Petrarch, 58). But while the association is widely accepted—and even more widely cited—there has never been any conclusive proof.

“such lovely eyes”: Petrarch, Canzoniere, poem 30, lines 19–21, in Petrarch’s Lyric Poems, 86–87.

From that moment, he was in love: Q.v. Petrarch, Canzoniere, poem 3, lines 4, 9–11, in Petrarch’s Lyric Poems, 38–39.

But despite his bucolic solitude: See Petrarch, Canzoniere, poem 35, in Petrarch’s Lyric Poems, 94–95.

he even compares himself to Actaeon: Petrarch, Canzoniere, poem 52, in Petrarch’s Lyric Poems, 122–23.

“through fields and across hills,” and “from mountain to mountain”: Petrarch, Canzoniere¸ poems 125, line 9; 129, line 1, in Petrarch’s Lyric Poems, 238–39, 264–65.

His thoughts were no longer his own: Note Petrarch, Canzoniere, poem 29, line 36, in Petrarch’s Lyric Poems, 84–85: “Da me son fatti i miei pensier diveri” (My thoughts have become alien to me).

“in the clear water”: Petrarch, Canzoniere, poem 129, lines 40–47, in Petrarch’s Lyric Poems, 266–67.

“want, grief, ignominy”: Petrarch, Secretum, I, in Prose, 30.

Equipped with a proper understanding: Summarizing this same sentiment in the De otio religioso (On Religious Leisure), Petrarch explained that “no thought is more useful than the thought of one’s own death, nor has it been said without purpose ‘Be mindful of your end, and you will not sin for eternity.’ ” Petrarch, De otio religioso, II, 3, lines 12–14, p. 78, in On Religious Leisure, 110, quoting Ecclesiasticus 7:40.

Marchionne di Coppo Stefani estimated: Stefani, Cronaca fiorentina, 230, r. 635.

on hearing of the death of his kinsman: Petrarch, Fam. 7.10.

“My lady is dead”: Petrarch, Canzoniere, poem 268, line 4.

“Life flees and does not stop”: Petrarch, Canzoniere, poem 272, in Petrarch’s Lyric Poems, 450 (adapted).

From beyond the grave, Laura pointed: Petrarch, Canzoniere, poem 142.

“the kinds of beauty”: Castiglione, Book of the Courtier, IV, 340–42.

“Your soul,” he claimed in a poem: Michelangelo, Poems and Letters, no. 72, lines 5–7.

Distraught, Michelangelo felt obliged: Ibid., no. 58.

“my sweet and longed-for lord”: Ibid., no. 72, lines 12–14.

“If only blest when caught”: Ibid., no. 98, lines 12–14.

“was to drink heavily”: Boccaccio, Decameron, prologue, trans. McWilliam, 7.

“the rules of obedience”: Ibid., 15.

Although many of his early works: Muscetta, Giovanni Boccaccio, 147; Wilkins, History of Italian Literature, 106.

“a frivolous and scatterbrained young woman”: Boccaccio, Decameron, 4.2, trans. McWilliam, 304.

But while the storyteller (Pampinea) observes: Ibid., 312.

“putting the devil back into Hell”: Boccaccio, Decameron, 3.10, trans. McWilliam, 276.

“what is that thing I see sticking out”: Ibid., 276–77.

“learn to put the devil back in Hell”: Ibid., 279.

Performed on a positively funereal carriage: For a discussion of this canto, see Prizer, “Reading Carnival.” The text—with translation—is given at ibid., 185–87.

“How beautiful is youth”: Medici, Poesie, 261:

Quant’è bella giovinezza

Che si fugge tuttavia!

Chi vuol esser lieto, sia;

Di doman non c’è certezza.

“forgetful of their excellence”: Bartolomeo Facio, De hominis excellentia, trans. in Trinkaus, In Our Image and Likeness, 1:227.

Opposing the tough and uncompromising morality: There is some evidence to suggest that Manetti composed at least some of the De dignitate et excellentia hominis as early as 1449, but it is generally accepted that the work—in its final form—was prompted by a discussion that Manetti had with King Alfonso of Naples during the former’s embassy in 1452. Although Alfonso had read Bartolomeo Facio’s De hominis excellentia, it seems he had become rather disaffected with the author and asked Manetti to write a response. Happy to oblige, Manetti finished his demolition of Facio’s argument in late 1452 or early 1453. For a general survey of Manetti’s life and career, see Martines, Social World of the Florentine Humanists, 131–38.

“the most beautiful, the most ingenious”: Giannozzo Manetti, De dignitate et excellentia hominis, trans. in Trinkaus, In Our Image and Likeness, 1:245.

Aurelio Lippo Brandolini: On Brandolini, see Mayer, Un umanista italiano della corte di Mattia Corvino, Aurelio Brandolino Lippo. The Dialogus de humanae vitae conditione et toleranda corporis aegritudine was composed while Brandolini was living in Budapest and was dedicated to the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus. It proved to be rather popular and was printed several times from 1498 on.

“Since a certain pleasure”: Aurelio Lippo Brandolini, Dialogus de humanae vitae conditione et toleranda corporis aegritudine, trans. in Trinkaus, In Our Image and Likeness, 1:302–3 (amended).

“It will be difficult”: Manetti, De dignitate et excellentia hominis, trans. in Trinkaus, In Our Image and Likeness, 1:254–55 (amended).

“Those [pleasures] which are generally”: Ibid.

Truculent, irascible, and powerfully argumentative: Valla had a rather frustrating habit of continually revising and updating his works, and seems almost never to have settled on a final text for any of his treatises. The De voluptate is no exception. Although it was first written in 1431, he subsequently reworked the text in its entirety, issuing it under the title De vero falsoque bono some years later. In what follows, I shall refer only to the original De voluptate. The text can be found (with facing German translation) in Valla,Von der Lust. The classic survey of Valla’s life and thought remains Camporeale, Lorenzo Valla.

Conceived as a dialogue between three friends: An accessible and thorough discussion of the place of Valla’s treatise in the context of the vita activa/vita contemplativa debate can be found in Panizza, “Active and Contemplative in Lorenzo Valla.”

Valla began by observing that Aristotle: Valla, De voluptate, 2.28.2; Valla, Von der Lust, 210; cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1097b1–4.

Since happiness had to be an absolute state: Valla, De voluptate, 2.28.3; Valla, Von der Lust, 210.

Even if one could speak of a contemplative life: Valla, De voluptate, 2.28.5; Valla, Von der Lust, 212.

“Here in your lovely face”: Michelangelo, Poems and Letters, no. 83.

But far from showing any surprise, Ganymede: Michelangelo’s source for the story is Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which he probably knew best in the Italian translation of 1497. Ovid, Met. 10.143–66. On Michelangelo’s knowledge of Ovid, see Wallace,Michelangelo, 41; Hirst, Achievement of Fame, 17.

As a young man in the household: For a lively and general introduction to Michelangelo’s relationship with the Florentine Neoplatonists, see Panofsky, “The Neoplatonic Movement and Michelangelo,” in Studies in Iconology, 171–230.

“Neo-Neoplatonists”: Mackenney, Renaissances, 146–49.

Although there has been some doubt: See Hankins, “Myth of the Platonic Academy of Florence.”

“a divine influence emanating”: Marsilio Ficino, Theologia Platonica, 10.7; the remainder of this book repays close study; see Ficino, Platonic Theology, 3:106–96.

“Everything which is in the totality”: Pico della Mirandola, Heptaplus, 188, trans. in Gombrich, “Icones Symbolicae,” 168.

This was all a matter of contemplation: See Ficino, Theologia Platonica, 2.2; Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man.

“the soul withdraws from the body”: Kristeller, Renaissance Thought and the Arts, 94.

6. THE ART OF POWER

On the afternoon of April 17, 1459: This description of Galeazzo Maria Sforza is derived from Pius II, Commentaries, II.26, 1:311.

an important diplomatic mission: Galeazzo Maria Sforza had officially been sent to escort Pope Pius II on his journey from Florence to Mantua, where the pontiff had convened a diet to proclaim a crusade against the Ottoman Turks. Pius arrived in Florence eight days later, on April 25, 1459. An account of Galeazzo Maria Sforza’s arrival in Florence can be found in Francesco Filarete’s Libro cerimoniale; a translation of the relevant section is given at Baldassarri and Saiber, Images of Quattrocento Florence, 77–82.

“fairy world of gaiety”: Gombrich, Story of Art, 256.

Absolutely no expense had been spared: On the decoration of the Magi Chapel, see Hatfield, “Cosimo de’ Medici and the Chapel of His Palace.”

Although there was a deliberate echo: Since at least 1390, the Compagnia de’ Magi had staged spectacular processions through the city each Epiphany, and the pageantry of the event had provided a focal point for the affirmation of political and social unity. From the mid-1420s onward, the Medici had forcibly assumed a central role in these events. Muir, “Representations of Power,” 228; Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence, 298, 401–3, 423–25; Hatfield, “Compagnia de’ Magi.”

“participants in, or witnesses to”: Najemy, History of Florence, 330. Florence was, indeed, full of examples. Masaccio, for instance, depicted two donors leaning on either side of Saint John and the Virgin Mary in the Trinity (ca. 1425–27). The identity of these two figures is, however, not known with any certainty. It has, however, been suggested that they might be members of either the Lenzi or the Berti family. For a recent discussion of their identities, see Comanducci, “ ‘L’Altare Nostro de la Trinità.’ ”

“never before had an entire family”: Najemy, History of Florence, 330.

“When giving an audience”: Hibbert, Rise and Fall of the House of Medici, 97–98.

“Ah, how much discretion”: Landino, Xandra, III.1, lines 23–24, in Poems, 141.

Petrarch advised Francesco “il Vecchio” da Carrara: Petrarch, Sen. 14.1, in Kohl and Witt, Earthly Republic, 74–76.

Machiavelli viewed the true prince: Machiavelli, Prince, chap. 21, pp. 70–73.

“I should like our courtier”: Castiglione, Book of the Courtier, I, p. 90.

For Castiglione, it behooved the courtier: Ibid., 96–97.

“large and very beautiful model”: Vasari, Lives, 1:164–65.

“legitimate [the Medici’s] domination”: Muir, “Representations of Power,” 228.

“Cosimo was refused nothing”: Pius II, Commentaries, II.28, 1:317.

By surrounding themselves with portraits: See Muir, “Representations of Power.”

“presented themselves as worthy companions”: Ibid., 228.

The collapse of imperial authority: The classic accounts of this process remain Jones, “Communes and Despots”; Jones, Italian City-State; Waley, Italian City-Republics; Hyde, Society and Politics in Medieval Italy; Martines, Power and Imagination. Despite the serious questions that have been raised about the interpretation contained therein, much profit can be derived from the early chapters of Skinner, Foundations of Modern Political Thought.

“sophisticated and, in some cases, highly professional”: Muir, “Representations of Power,” 227.

The town halls of Florence: For a useful introduction to the conception and design of civic palazzi, see Cunningham, “For the Honour and Beauty of the City.”

the Council of Nine called in Ambrogio Lorenzetti: Lorenzetti’s frescoes have been the subject of intense and ongoing debate. The classic readings remain Rubinstein, “Political Ideas in Sienese Art”; Rubinstein, “Le allegorie di Ambrogio Lorenzetti nella Sala della Pace e il pensiero politico del suo tempo”; Skinner, “Ambrogio Lorenzetti”; Skinner, “Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Buon Governo Frescoes.”

But even though he tried to do some good: Marco Parenti, Memorie; the relevant section is translated in Baldassarri and Saiber, Images of Quattrocento Florence, 69–71, here 70.

“illegitimate lord”: Pius II, Commentaries, II.28, 1:319.

“He was most magnificent”: Lubkin, Renaissance Court, 87.

Galeazzo Maria took it into his head: Ibid., 102. On the Sforza family’s patronage of the arts more generally, see Welch, Art and Authority in Renaissance Milan.

Filled always with the sound: Lubkin, Renaissance Court, 102–21; Merkley and Merkley, Music and Patronage in the Sforza Court.

Suspecting him (not without reason): Machiavelli, Florentine Histories, 7.33, p. 313: “Galeazzo was lecherous and cruel; frequent examples of these two things made him very much hated, because not only was it not enough for him to corrupt noble women, but he also took pleasure in making this public. Neither was he content to put men to death unless he killed them in some cruel mode. Nor did he escape the infamy of having killed his mother, because it did not appear to him that he was prince so long as she was there. He behaved toward her in such a mode that she came to want to retire to her own dower residence in Cremona, on the journey to which she was suddenly taken ill and died—whereupon many judged that her son had had her killed.”

Even nuns were not safe: For a pleasant overview of Galeazzo Maria Sforza’s foibles, see Simonetta, Montefeltro Conspiracy, 9–16.

7. THE MEN WITH THE MIDAS TOUCH

“anxious to remain in the background”: Gutkind, Cosimo de’ Medici, 124.

Galeazzo Maria would have heard rumors: See Hale, Florence and the Medici, 23–24, 31–32.

“indecipherable sphinx”: Padgett and Ansell, “Robust Action and the Rise of the Medici,” 1262.

Cosimo de’ Medici personally made a profit: Najemy, History of Florence, 265; see also de Roover, Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank, 35–70.

If Giovanni Rucellai’s estimate is to be believed: Rucellai, Zibaldone, 1:62, in Baldassarri and Saiber, Images of Quattrocento Florence, 75.

they had begun as humble pawnbrokers: This is given credence by the Medici’s coat of arms. Although the seven red palle (balls) that appear against a golden field could symbolize pills, it is more plausible to suppose that they represent coins, the traditional emblem of pawnbrokers.

Although Pegolotti’s Pratica della mercatura included: Pegolotti, La pratica della mercatura, 287–92.

Two Medici, Ugo and Galgano, set up shop: Brucker, “Medici in the Fourteenth Century,” 3.

It was this profession that offered: See Hunt and Murray, History of Business in Medieval Europe, 63–67; Spufford, “Trade in Fourteenth-Century Europe,” 178.

This all made trade a good deal easier: What follows is a highly simplified account of the extremely complex changes of the period. For fuller details of the general European context of these developments, see de Roover, L’évolution de la lettre de change; Spufford,Money and Its Use in Medieval Europe. For the specifically Florentine dimension, see Goldthwaite, Economy of Renaissance Florence, 408–83.

Saint Francis of Assisi’s celebration of poverty: One of the best—and most eminently readable—introductions to Saint Francis’s views on this subject remains Lambert, Franciscan Poverty.

Florence provided an ideal setting for the reception: See Baron, “Franciscan Poverty and Civic Wealth as Factors in the Rise of Humanistic Thought.”

Bracciolini devoted an entire treatise: Poggio Bracciolini, De avaritia, in Kohl and Witt, Earthly Republic, 241–89.

Landino penned a savage verse: Landino, Xandra, 2.3, in Poems, 72–73.

This practice of “usury”: Hunt and Murray, History of Business in Medieval Europe, 70–71; for a brief and broad survey of the concept, see Taeusch, “Concept of ‘Usury.’ ”

“To take interest for money”: Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica II-II, q.78, a.1, in On Law, Morality, and Politics, 199.

This, indeed, was precisely the line: See de Roover, “Scholastics, Usury, and Foreign Exchange.”

In the De avaritia: Bracciolini, De avaritia, in Kohl and Witt, Earthly Republic, 247.

In the Inferno, Dante described the fate: Dante, Inf. 17.1–78.

Only a little before the explosion: Note especially Le Goff, Birth of Purgatory.

In the Decameron, Boccaccio gleefully tells: Boccaccio, Decameron, 1.1.

This practice was later condemned: See Fraser Jenkins, “Cosimo de’ Medici’s Patronage of Architecture and the Theory of Magnificence,” 162–63.

“I bequeath 100 florins”: Brucker, Society of Renaissance Florence, 55.

Thus, Niccolò Acciaiuoli: Leoncini, La certosa di Firenze nei suoi rapporti con l’architettura certosina, 213; Welch, Art and Society in Italy, 191.

“If I spend 2,000 florins”: F. W. Kent, “Individuals and Families as Patrons of Culture in Quattrocento Florence,” 183; Welch, Art and Society in Italy, 193.

At least from the beginning of the fourteenth century: See Kempers, Painting, Power, and Patronage, 74–77, 182–92.

In the years after the Black Death: Najemy, History of Florence, 325.

“Peruzzi, Baroncelli, Cavalcanti”: Ibid.

The Strozzi Chapel in Santa Maria Novella: See Giles, “Strozzi Chapel in Santa Maria Novella.”

A towering jewel of early Renaissance art: For useful discussions of the circumstances of the Arena Chapel’s construction, see Stubblebine, Giotto, esp. 72–74; Harrison, “Arena Chapel,” 88–93.

And to ensure that the devout: Translations of the papal bull and the complaints of the monks at the Eremitani Church are given at Stubblebine, Giotto, 105–7.

limited involvement in artistic patronage: On which see Gombrich, “Early Medici as Patrons of Art.”

Although a respected member of communal society: Brucker, “Medici in the Fourteenth Century,” 1.

“a large proportion of the Medici”: Ibid., 6.

The Peruzzi, for example, agreed to lend: See Hunt, Medieval Super-Companies.

the grain trade with southern Italy: Abulafia, “Southern Italy and the Florentine Economy.”

124,000 lire a fiorino in 1300–1308: A lira a fiorino was worth approximately 0.69 florin. Najemy, History of Florence, 113–15; in general, Hunt, Medieval Super-Companies.

In 1427, Antonio di Salvestro di ser Ristoro: For the Serristori, see Najemy, History of Florence, 312–13; Tognetti, Da Figline a Firenze.

It was, however, in Rome that Giovanni: Najemy, History of Florence, 263.

Giovanni’s strategy revealed not only his astuteness: For what follows, see Holmes, “How the Medici Became the Pope’s Bankers.”

Taking over the family’s business interests: The classic study of the Medici bank, particularly under Cosimo, remains de Roover, Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank.

Reestablishing the bank on a new footing: Najemy, History of Florence, 264–65.

“probably not only the richest Florentine”: Rucellai, Zibaldone, 1:61, in Baldassarri and Saiber, Images of Quattrocento Florence, 74.

Although contemporaries such as Palla Strozzi: On these figures, see Gregory, “Palla Strozzi’s Patronage and Pre-Medicean Florence”; Saalman, “Tommaso Spinelli, Michelozzo, Manetti, and Rosselino”; for a discussion of the construction of the Pazzi Chapel in Santa Croce, see Sanpaolesi, Brunelleschi, 82ff.

In 1419, Giovanni agreed to pay: For Brunelleschi’s involvement with San Lorenzo, and his apparent success in persuading Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici to finance the project, see Vasari, Lives, 1:161–62.

after 1440, Cosimo assumed responsibility: See Elam, “Cosimo de’ Medici and San Lorenzo.”

a gigantic shrine to the Medici family: The association between San Lorenzo and the Medici was widely acknowledged by fifteenth-century Florentines. See, for example, Francesco Albertini’s description of the church in his Memoriale di molte statue et picture sono nella inclyta ciptà di Florentia (1510), the text of which is given in Baldassarri and Saiber, Images of Quattrocento Florence, 218–19.

Cosimo had paid for the remodeling of San Marco: See Ullman and Stadter, Public Library of Florence.

The competition between merchant bankers: On the Badia Fiorentina, see Leader, Badia of Florence.

comparatively unremarkable house in the via Larga: See Saalman and Mattox, “First Medici Palace.”

the average merchant banker’s palazzo: Figures from Goldthwaite, “Florentine Palace as Domestic Architecture,” 993.

“I think I have given myself”: Rucellai, Zibaldone, 1:118, trans. in Goldthwaite, “Florentine Palace as Domestic Architecture,” 990–91.

“it has comfortably accommodated kings”: Vasari, Lives, 2:35–36. Indeed, it was no surprise that when King Charles VIII of France entered Florence after Piero di Lorenzo de’ Medici’s flight in 1494, he instinctively took up residence in the abandoned Palazzo Medici Riccardi, on the grounds that it was the only private home with sufficient majesty to house a monarch.

“restored the palace of Careggi”: Vasari, Lives, 2:43.

In the De seculo et religione: For a useful introduction to this work, see Witt, Hercules at the Crossroads, 195–208.

“riches bring no satiety”: Bartolomeo Facio, De vitae felicitate, trans. in Trinkaus, In Our Image and Likeness, 1:201.

preachers such as Fra Giovanni Dominici: Fraser Jenkins, “Cosimo de’ Medici’s Patronage of Architecture and the Theory of Magnificence,” 162–63.

In his commentary on the pseudo-Aristotelian Economics: Ibid., 162. The following paragraphs are indebted to Fraser Jenkins’s work.

For Leon Battista Alberti: Alberti, I libri della famiglia; Cena familiaris; Villa, 210.

the efforts to justify the lavishness: See Green, “Galvano Fiamma, Azzone Visconti, and the Revival of the Classical Theory of Magnificence.”

complete “theory of magnificence”: The current consensus among scholars is that a full-fledged theory of magnificence emerged in Florence during the 1450s—that is, by the time of Galeazzo Maria Sforza’s visit. See Fraser Jenkins, “Cosimo de’ Medici’s Patronage of Architecture and the Theory of Magnificence”; Gombrich, “Early Medici as Patrons of Art”; D. Kent, Cosimo de’ Medici and the Florentine Renaissance; Lindow, Renaissance Palace in Florence, esp. 1–76. Recently, however, some suggestion has been made that the first signs of the theory can be detected some decades earlier in the preaching of Antonino Pierozzi: see P. Howard, “Preaching Magnificence in Renaissance Florence.”

“All these things deserve extraordinary praise”: Timoteo Maffei, In magnificentiae Cosmi Medicei Florentini detractores, trans. in Fraser Jenkins, “Cosimo de’ Medici’s Patronage of Architecture and the Theory of Magnificence,” 166.

Splendor was thus thought: See Lindow, Renaissance Palace in Florence.

“The magnificent man”: Pontano, I tratti delle virtue sociali, 234–42, trans. in Welch, Art and Society in Italy, 221–23.

“it governed for the benefit”: Brucker, Renaissance Florence, 137.

Conscious that the Florentine constitution: The following paragraph is a highly attenuated account of a rather complex series of developments. For further details, see Molho, “Politics and the Ruling Class in Early Renaissance Florence”; Witt, “Florentine Politics and the Ruling Class”; Najemy, Corporatism and Consensus, 263–300; Najemy, History of Florence, 182–87.

By stacking the government: As an anonymous Florentine chronicler observed, those whom “the powerful” selected for inclusion in the borsellini “were very loyal to their regime,” where “regime” refers to the rule of the dominant patricians rather than to the Signoria as an abstract concept. Cronica volgare di anonimo fiorentino, 35, trans. in Najemy, History of Florence, 183.

“Many were elected to the offices”: Cavalcanti, Istorie fiorentine, 1:30.

After a destructive civil war: See Epstein, Genoa and the Genoese, 194–211, 221–27, 242–53.

The first member of the family to be elected: Najemy, Corporatism and Consensus, 323.

Salvestro de’ Medici: Najemy, History of Florence, 161, 173–74, 184; Najemy, Corporatism and Consensus, 272.

Cavalcanti’s tale of how the patrician Niccolò da Uzzano: Cavalcanti, Istorie fiorentine, 1:28–29.

“in Florence, it has always happened”: Bruni, Panegyric, in Kohl and Witt, Earthly Republic, 158.

“Do not appear to give advice”: Hibbert, Rise and Fall of the House of Medici, 40–41.

Only a few years later, in 1400: Anonymous, Alle bocche della piazza, 218–21.

For much of the war, Florence faced bills: Najemy, History of Florence, 255–56.

As the surviving records show: For sample declarations, see Brucker, Society of Renaissance Florence, 6–13 (which contains the returns for Conte di Giovanni Compagni, Francesco di Messer Giovanni Milanese, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Agnolo di Jacopo, weaver, and Biagio di Niccolò, wool carder). For a study of the 1427 catasto as a whole, see Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber, Les Toscans et leurs familles.

Whereas some owed no more than a few soldi: Najemy, History of Florence, 259; Martines, Social World of the Florentine Humanists, 365–78.

Between 1428 and 1433, it has been calculated: Molho, Florentine Public Finances in the Early Renaissance, 157–60.

“entire patrimonies were being consumed”: Najemy, History of Florence, 261.

Cosimo de’ Medici and his business associates: D. Kent, Rise of the Medici, 352–57.

nothing more than a very wealthy padrino: This description is derived from Molho, “Cosimo de’ Medici.”

“even the monks’ privies”: Hibbert, Rise and Fall of the House of Medici, 48.

After commissioning Sandro Botticelli: On the Adoration of the Magi and the figures depicted, see Hatfield, Botticelli’s Uffizi “Adoration,” 68–110; Lightbown, Sandro Botticelli, 2:35–37.

“the most convincing and natural”: Vasari, Lives, 1:226.

8. MERCENARIES AND MADMEN

“in both mind and body”: Pius II, Commentaries, II.32, 1:327.

“the evil side of his character”: Ibid., 1:329.

“the worst of all men”: Ibid.

“no tolerance for peace”: Ibid.

From around 1300, “professional mercenaries”: Mallett, Mercenaries and Their Masters, 15–16.

The earliest known companies: See ibid., 25ff.

the deliciously named Diego de Rat: Diego de Rat (or della Ratta) features in one of Boccaccio’s stories, peddling forged currency. Boccaccio, Decameron, 6.3.

Hermann Vesternich: Caferro, “Continuity, Long-Term Service, and Permanent Forces,” 230, table 1.

“A beautiful work of extraordinary grandeur”: Vasari, Lives, 1:101.

although moved on a number of occasions: On the movement of the fresco, see Meiss, “Original Position of Uccello’s John Hawkwood.”

Although the Duomo was the epicenter: In contrast to Santa Croce—rightly reputed as the pantheon of dead Italian greats—Santa Maria del Fiore contains almost no monuments to lay figures. Aside from Domenico di Michelino’s fresco Dante Before the City of Florence, only Filippo Brunelleschi (the dome’s architect), Giotto di Bondone (the architect of the campanile), and Marsilio Ficino were commemorated with memorials. The remaining funerary monuments are those of saints or senior ecclesiastical figures (such as Pope Nicholas II and Pope Stephen IX). By the early fifteenth century, there was even a growing feeling that the laity should never be commemorated in churches: Leon Battista Alberti’s discussion of this topic is, of course, the most prominent example of such sentiments. On Alberti’s remarks, see Wegener, “That the Practice of Arms Is Most Excellent Declare the Statues of Valiant Men,” 136.

As the inscription: It is worth noting that Hawkwood was known to Italians as “Giovanni Acuto” and was commemorated by the Latinized name “Ioannes Actus.” The terms of the inscription have deliberately classical echoes, on which see Hudson, “Politics of War,” 25.

Born somewhere in southeast England: For a thorough treatment of Hawkwood’s career, see Caferro, John Hawkwood.

It was while campaigning with the White Company: His campaign against the papacy and his bravery are both noted by Froissart. Froissart, Chronicles, 282–83.

it was in 1377 that he found his métier: On Hawkwood’s hiring by Florence in 1377, see Caferro, “Continuity, Long-Term Service, and Permanent Forces,” 224–25.

“most effective captain”: Ibid., 224.

To avoid such a devastating eventuality: See Najemy, History of Florence, 151–52.

Yet by leading a band of marauders: This is described by Marchionne di Coppo Stefani, Cronaca fiorentina, 345. See Caferro, “Continuity, Long-Term Service, and Permanent Forces,” 226.

“behaved more unforgivingly”: Leonardo Bruni, Historiarum florentini populi libri XII, II.72, in History of the Florentine People, 1:183. See Ianziti, Writing History in Renaissance Italy, 132–33.

In 1377, Hawkwood was responsible: Mallett, Mercenaries and Their Masters, 40–41.

Lamenting the use of German mercenaries: Petrarch, Canzoniere, poem 128, lines 17–38, in Petrarch’s Lyric Poems, 257–59. On the context of “Italia mia,” see Mommsen, “Date of Petrarch’s Canzone Italia Mia.”

Indeed, it was no coincidence: Mallett rightly notes that “in Florence the caricatures painted on the walls of the Palazzo della Signoria of condottieri hanging upside down in chains were not uncommon sights. Niccolò Piccinino was the object of such a painting in 1428 … In Venice, it was not the Doge’s Palace which was chosen for such gestures, but the walls of the public brothel at the Rialto.” Mallett, Mercenaries and Their Masters, 94–95.

Malatesta da Verucchio: Dante, Inf. 27.44–46.

On discovering that his wife, Francesca da Polenta: Ibid., 5.73–142. On this episode, see Barolini, “Dante and Francesca da Rimini.”

Pedro Berruguete’s Portrait of Duke Federico: The portrait is sometimes attributed to Justus of Ghent.

In depicting his patron in such a manner: For Federico’s life, see Tommasoli, La vita di Federico da Montefeltro; La Sizeranne, Federico di Montefeltro.

Campaigns had become more brutal: As Mallett has rightly observed, “The major factor in the decline of the influence of the companies was the growth of a more organised political structure in late fourteenth-century Italy.” Mallett, Mercenaries and Their Masters, 51. The remainder of this paragraph is indebted to Mallett’s insights.

Quite apart from the vast sums: The kingdom of Naples appears to have pioneered this technique—King Ladislaus made Francesco Sforza (son of Muzio Attendolo) marquis of Tricarico, in Basilicata, in 1412—but it was certainly not uncommon in the North. The papacy regularly granted vicariates to those who had rendered outstanding service, or who were most liable to turn tail, and the Malatesta of Rimini were among the more prominent examples of those who received such ecclesiastical grants. So, too, the Visconi—and later the Sforza—of Milan habitually gave titles and estates to their commanders. On the especially interesting example of the Malatesta, see Jones, “Vicariate of the Malatesta of Rimini.”

So towering a figure: Clough, “Federigo da Montefeltro’s Patronage of the Arts,” 130.

As early as 1464, Gianmario Filelfo: Zannoni, “I due libri della Martiados di Giovan Mario Filelfo,” esp. 657–59. On the younger Filelfo’s relationship with Federico da Montefeltro, see, for example, Clough, “Federigo da Montefeltro’s Patronage of the Arts,” 133–34.

Paltroni’s laudatory biography: Paltroni, Commentari della vita e gesti dell’illustris- simo Federico Duca d’Urbino.

“worth comparing to the best captains”: Simonetta, Montefeltro Conspiracy, 51.

“to his prudence, humanity”: Castiglione, Book of the Courtier, I, p. 41.

Apocryphal though the tale may be: For a good survey of the chapel’s broader function, see Knox, “Colleoni Chapel in Bergamo and the Politics of Urban Space.” See also Schofield and Burnett, “Decoration of the Colleoni Chapel”; Piel, La Cappella Colleoni e il Luogo della Pietà in Bergamo; Bernstein, “Patronage, Autobiography, and Iconography.”

a double-sided portrait of the duke and his wife: On these panels, see Kempers, Power, Painting, and Patronage, 235–37.

He was a true bibliophile: On the studioli, see Remington, “Private Study of Federigo da Montefeltro”; Fabiański, “Federigo da Montefeltro’s ‘Studiolo’ in Gubbio Reconsidered.”

According to Vespasiano da Bisticci: Kempers, Painting, Power, and Patronage, 360n7; Clough, “Federigo da Montefeltro’s Patronage of the Arts,” 138.

An acquaintance of Cristoforo Landino: Clough, “Federigo da Montefeltro’s Patronage of the Arts,” 131–37.

Perhaps as a result of a youth: On Federico’s fondness for architecture, see Heydenreich, “Federico da Montefeltro as a Building Patron.”

In 1464, he commissioned the Dalmatian architect: On the palazzo itself, see Rotondi, Ducal Palace of Urbino.

So fabulous was Federico’s court: See Weil-Garris and d’Amico, “Renaissance Cardinal’s Ideal Palace,” 87.

excoriated by the Florentine chancellor, Leonardo Bruni: On the De militia, see Bayley, War and Society in Renaissance Florence; Viti, “ ‘Bonus miles et fortis ac civium suorum amator.’ ”

“Mercenaries are disunited”: Machiavelli, Prince, chap. 12, pp. 38–39. Similar statements about mercenary generals can be found in Machiavelli, The Art of War, 1; Discourses, 2.20.

“These condottieri have now reached”: Mallett, Mercenaries and Their Masters, 105.

“Oliverotto prepared a formal banquet”: Machiavelli, Prince, chap. 8, pp. 28–29.

“blasphemous and cruel”: Pius II, Commentaries, II.12, 1:253.

“raped [the] wives and daughters”: Ibid.

Even worse was Braccio da Montone: Mallett, Mercenaries and Their Masters, 66.

“pleasant and charming”: Pius II, Commentaries, II.18, 1:273.

Corresponding with his network: See Simonetta, Montefeltro Conspiracy.

Fighting was in Sigismondo’s blood: For a survey of the Malatesta family in general, see Jones, Malatesta of Rimini and the Papal State.

after Sigismondo had begun an affair: Sigismondo was to marry Isotta in 1456. The couple had four known children, one of whom (Antonia) was subsequently beheaded by her husband for adultery. Isotta was not, however, Sigismondo’s only mistress. He is reputed to have bedded dozens of women in his time, but only Vannetta dei Toschi is known.

Over the next fourteen years, the two condottieri: For an engaging, if flawed, treatment of the rivalry between the two men, see Pernis and Adams, Federico da Montefeltro and Sigismondo Malatesta.

“He broke faith”: Pius II, Commentaries, II.32, 1:329.

“was a slave to avarice”: Ibid., 1:327–29.

Tempio Malatestiano: The classic study of the church remains Ricci, Il Tempio Malatestiano.

“one of the foremost churches”: Vasari, Lives, 1:210.

“erected at … magnanimous expense”: The full Greek inscription reads: “Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, son of Pandolfo, Bringer of Victory, having survived many and most grave dangers during the Italic War, in recognition of his deeds accomplished so felicitously and with such courage, for he obtained what he had prayed for in such a critical juncture, has erected at his magnanimous expense this temple to the Immortal God and to the City, and left a memorial worthy of fame and full of piety.” Trans. in Lavin, “Piero della Francesca’s Fresco of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta Before St. Sigismund,” 345.

the fresco he commissioned from Piero della Francesca: For an interesting and recent reevaluation of this work, see ibid.

“There is no doubt that Sigismondo’s perfidy”: Pius II, Commentaries, II.32, 1:331.

9. THE UNHOLY CITY

Aeneus Silvius Piccolomini: For biographical treatments of Aeneas, see Mitchell, Laurels and the Tiara, and Paparelli, Enea Silvio Piccolomini.

Far from being an upright, saintly figure: For what follows, see Francesco Filarete and Angelo Manfidi, “Libro Cerimoniale” of the Florentine Republic, 76–77; Baldassarri and Saiber, Images of Quattrocento Florence, 79–80.

“See how we lords of cities have sunk!”: Pius II, Commentaries, II.26, 1:311.

Although Cosimo de’ Medici would have been hoping: See Holmes, “Cosimo and the Popes.”

At the key meeting, he shouted everyone down: Pius II, Commentaries, II.32, 1:327–35.

He delighted in a joust: Ibid., II.31, 1:327.

Even though some 14,000 florins: Ibid.; Filarete and Manfidi, “Libro Cerimoniale” of the Florentine Republic, 78.

Since 1309, the popes had resided not at Rome: For what follows, see Mollat, Popes at Avignon; Renouard, Avignon Papacy.

“The city of Rome was in agony”: Anonimo Romano, Life of Cola di Rienzo, 40.

Urban had split the Church in two: For further details on the beginnings of the schism, see Ullmann, Short History of the Papacy in the Middle Ages, 279–305; Ullmann, Origins of the Great Schism.

Petrarch, for example, spent the greater part of his life: On Petrarch’s periods of residence in or near Avignon, see Wilkins, Life of Petrarch, 1–5, 8–24, 32–39, 53–81, 106–27; on his benefices and other sources of ecclesiastical income, see Wilkins, “Petrarch’s Ecclesiastical Career.”

Leonardo Bruni served as a papal secretary: On Bruni’s career at the Roman Curia, see Bruni, Humanism of Leonardo Bruni, 25–35; Gualdo, “Leonardo Bruni segretario papale.”

Simone Martini was an important presence: The standard work on Martini’s life and career remains Martindale, Simone Martini.

artists such as Matteo Giovanetti: Enaud, “Les fresques du Palais des Papes d’Avignon”; Laclotte and Thiébaut, L’école d’Avignon.

Landino pictured the ghost: Landino, Xandra, II.30, in Poems, 136–39.

Vespasiano da Bisticci was horrified: Bisticci, Vite di uomini illustri del secolo XV, 20.

Far from seeing the city as a rival: Infessura, Diario della città di Roma.

Before even taking holy orders: Aeneas even wrote a history of the Council of Basel as a means of setting out his passionate attachment to the conciliar movement’s ideals. Piccolomini, De gestis Concilii Basiliensis commentariorum libri II. This edition also contains a helpful and lucid introduction to Aeneas’s contribution to conciliar thought.

“his learning and intellectual gifts”: Pius II, Commentaries, I.28, 1:139.

“Only the learned who have studied”: Partner, Renaissance Rome, 16.

In 1427, Gentile da Fabriano and Pisanello: Welch, Art and Society in Renaissance Milan, 242–43.

Cardinal Giordano Orsini: See Simpson, “Cardinal Giordano Orsini (+1438) as a Prince of the Church and a Patron of the Arts”; Mode, “Masolino, Uccello, and the Orsini Uomini Famosi.”

Fra Angelico—widely renowned: On Fra Angelico’s dual reputation, see Vasari, Lives, 1:198. For his frescoes, see ibid., 1:203. It is worth noting that Fra Angelico’s services had initially been sought out by Nicholas’s predecessor, Eugenius IV. The chapel is today known as the Niccoline Chapel. For further details on the artist’s works in Rome during this period, see Gilbert, “Fra Angelico’s Fresco Cycles in Rome.”

The basis of the Vatican Library: See Grafton, Rome Reborn, 3–46.

Although Aeneas noted that he began more projects: Pius II, Commentaries, I.28, 1:139.

“turning the city upside down”: Vasari, Lives, 1:209.

So, too, the Borgo, running adjacent to the Vatican: See Magnuson, “Project of Nicholas V for Rebuilding the Borgo Leonino in Rome.”

As princes of the Church: As one historian has recently put it, “The magnificence that was required of cardinals must … be seen as part of a coherent, long-term program for bringing the image of Rome into line with its new function as the capital of the Papal State as well as the capital of Christendom … The creation of a constellation of satellite courts was thus meant to contribute to the splendor of the papal court, whose real and symbolic dimensions had been notably increased.” Fragnito, “Cardinals’ Courts in Sixteenth-Century Rome,” 37–38.

Sixtus IV sponsored the construction: On Sixtus IV’s legendarily lavish contributions to the remodeling of Renaissance Rome, see Benzi, Sisto IV renovator urbis; Benzi, Sisto IV: Le arti a Roma nel primo rinascimento; Blondin, “Power Made Visible”; Miglio et al., Un Pontificato ed una città; Egmont, Sixtus IV and Men of Letters.

His successor, Innocent VIII, commissioned Antonio Pollaiuolo: Vasari, Lives, 2:76.

“ ‘Well, what about this chapel?’ ”: Vasari, Lives, 1:361.

“probably the most splendid”: Partner, Renaissance Rome, 118.

Shortly after the death of Callixtus III: Ibid.

By the same token, no self-respecting cardinal: Fragnito, “Cardinals’ Courts in Sixteenth-Century Rome,” 40.

“The dwelling of a cardinal”: From Supernae dispositionis arbitrio (1514), in Alberigo et al., Conciliorum oecumenicorum decreta, 618–19, trans. in Fragnito, “Cardinals’ Courts in Sixteenth-Century Rome,” 33.

But at the lower end of the scale: On curial hospitality, see Byatt, “Concept of Hospitality in a Cardinal’s Household in Renaissance Rome.”

The Belvedere Courtyard: Partner, Renaissance Rome, 119.

Cardinal Pietro Riario held a vast banquet: Dickie, Delizia!, 65.

it has been estimated that the incomes: Partner, Renaissance Rome, 137.

Francesco Priscianese estimated: Ibid., 138.

Cardinal Ferdinando Gonzaga reckoned: Fragnito, “Cardinals’ Courts in Sixteenth-Century Rome,” 42n51.

perpetually short of cash: See Chambers, “Economic Predicament of Renaissance Cardinals.”

“There [are] some who are very poor”: Fragnito, “Cardinals’ Courts in Sixteenth-Century Rome,” 41n50.

“an expert seeker of worldly preferment”: Pius II, Commentaries, I.34, 1:173.

Aeneas went on to describe: Ibid., II.8, 1:239.

“faith in Christ flourishes no longer”: Fonte, Letters to Friends, II.4.7, p. 81.

“whirlpool of vice”: Ibid., II.5.5–6, p. 87.

“Nowadays rulers are so corrupted”: Castiglione, Book of the Courtier, IV, 288.

Gluttony was, as Bartolomeo della Fonte observed: Fonte, Letters to Friends, II.5.5–6, p. 87.

“wished to seem devout”: Pius II, Secret Memoirs of a Renaissance Pope, VII, XII, 218, 356–57.

“It was his custom”: Cellini, Autobiography, 228.

“through your chambers young girls”: Petrarch, Canzoniere, poem 136, lines 1–11, in Petrarch’s Lyric Poems, 280.

one of Aeneas’s most well-read works: Morrall, “Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini (Pius II), Historia de Duobus Amantibus.”

“He was fond of women”: Pius II, Secret Memoirs of a Renaissance Pope, XII, 357.

So endemic was sodomy: Partner, Renaissance Rome, 203.

“At the beginning of his pontificate”: Aldrich and Wotherspoon, Who’s Who in Gay and Lesbian History, 264.

Sixtus IV was reputed to have given: See Jordan, Silence of Sodom, 118.

“Why, Pasquino, you’re armed”: Cesareo, Pasquino e Pasquinate nella Roma di Leone X, 168–69, trans. in Partner, Renaissance Rome, 204. This pasquinade was probably composed in around 1512.

Although now lost, one scene showed: On the decoration of the bathroom, see Jones and Penny, Raphael, 192–93.

Among the fruit and foliage: Ibid., 184–85.

Aeneas himself seems to have regarded the whole affair: Pius II, Commentaries, I.36, 1:179: “It was common talk that Aeneas of Siena would be pope. No one was held in higher esteem.”

“the richer and more influential members”: Ibid.

“Cardinal Prospero Colonna decided to seize”: Ibid., 1:197.

the simony practiced in 1492 by Rodrigo Borgia: Guicciardini’s account of the 1492 conclave gives a sense of the scale of Borgia’s simony: “In [Innocent VIII’s] place was elected Rodrigo Borgia of Valencia, the nephew of Pope Callixtus, who rose to this eminence with the favour of Signor Lodovico [Sforza] and Monsignor Ascanio [Sforza], who as a reward was made Vice-Chancellor. But his principal means to this end was simony, because with money, offices, benefices, promises, and all his powers and resources he suborned and bought the votes of the cardinals and the college: a hideous and abominable thing, and a most apt beginning to his future deplorable proceedings and behaviour.” Guicciardini, Storie fiorentine, X, in History of Italy and History of Florence, 13.

Although popes had made a habit: The earliest cardinal-nephews seem to have been created during the pontificate of Benedict VIII (1012–24). Until the papacy’s return to Rome, the most nepotistic pope was undoubtedly Clement VI (1342–52), who raised no fewer than eleven of his relatives to the cardinalate, including six on a single day.

Callixtus III had followed suit: Pius II, Commentaries, II.7, 1:235.

“a man of very base and vile condition”: Machiavelli, Florentine Histories, 7.23, p. 301.

the della Rovere family owed its prominence: See Verstegen, ed., Patronage and Dynasty.

So extreme did this become that even Machiavelli: Machiavelli, Florentine Histories, 7.23, p. 301: “He had in his household Piero and Girolamo, who, according to what everyone believed, were his sons … to Girolamo he gave the city of Forlì and took it away from Antonio Ordelaffi, whose ancestors had for a long time been the princes of that city. This ambitious mode of proceeding made him more esteemed by the princes of Italy, and each tried to make him his friend; and this was why the duke of Milan gave Caterina, his natural daughter, to Girolamo and, for her dowry, the city of Imola, which he had taken in spoil from Taddeo degli Alidosi.”

“neither sincerity nor shame”: Francesco Guicciardini, Storia d’Italia, I.2, in History of Italy and History of Florence, 90.

After elevating Siena: It is worth noting that after Pius’s election the Piccolomini family supplied every one of Siena’s archbishops for the next 139 years (1458–1597). A further two members of the clan occupied the see between 1628 and 1671.

he made his cousin Gregorio Lolli: Indeed, Pius became so mistrustful of various members of the papal household that he refused to grant access to anyone but Gregorio Lolli and Jacopo Ammannati Piccolomini. See Pius II, Commentaries, II.6, 1:233.

when Cardinal Raffaele Riario built a new palace: On the Palazzo della Cancelleria, see M. D. Davis, “ ‘Opus Isodomum’ at the Palazzo della Cancelleria.”

the new Saint Peter’s Basilica was completed: The inscription beneath the lantern reads, “S. Petri gloriae Sixtus P.P. V. A. M. D. XC. Pontif. V” (To the glory of Saint Peter, Pope Sixtus V, in the year 1590, in the fifth year of his pontifical reign). The facade inscription reads, “In honorem principis apost. Paulus V Burghesius Romanus Pont. Max. an. MDCXII Pont. VII” (In honor of the prince of the apostles, Paul V Borghese, in the year 1612, in the seventh year of his pontificate).

The Borgia Apartments, which were decorated: Vasari, Lives, 2:82–83.

As part of his broader scheme: See Adams, “Acquisition of Pienza”; Adams, “Construction of Pienza (1459–1464) and the Consequences of Renovatio.” On Pius’s decision, see Pius II, Commentaries, II.20, 281–82.

commissioned Pinturicchio to paint: See Vasari, Lives, 2:81: “And in a very large picture over the door of the library … Pinturicchio painted the coronation of Pius III with many portraits from life, and with these words written below: ‘Pius III Senensis, Pii II nepos, MDIII Septembris XXI apertis electus suffragiis, octavo Otobris coronatus est’ [Pius III of Siena, nephew of Pius II, after being duly elected on September 21, 1503, was crowned on October 8].”

Callixtus, of course, refused point-blank: Guicciardini, Storia d’Italia, I.3, in History of Italy and History of Florence, 94; Machiavelli, Florentine Histories, 6.36, pp. 272–73.

While Alfonso’s son, Ferrante, wanted the pope to consent: Pius II, Commentaries, II.3, 5, 1:218–23, 226–29.

In a lightning campaign, he had captured: Ibid., II.4, 1:222–29.

Valla had used his philological expertise: Valla, De falso credita et ementita Constantini donatione; Valla, Treatise of Lorenzo Valla on the Donation of Constantine.

the so-called Sala di Costantino: See Jones and Penny, Raphael, 239–45. The frescoes in this room were only completed after Raphael’s death and during the reign of Julius II’s successor, Leo X.

The message was pointedly emphasized: For a helpful introduction to the decorative scheme in the Stanza d’Eliodoro, see ibid., 113–32.

“the futility of the force”: Ibid., 118.

Perhaps motivated by a vestigial sense: Machiavelli, Florentine Histories, 6.14, 32, pp. 244, 267; Pius II, Commentaries, I.18–20, 1:78–99.

as when Callixtus III sent Giovanni Ventimiglia: Machiavelli, Florentine Histories, 6.34, p. 269.

Pius II sent his own nephew, Cardinal Niccolò Forteguerri: Pius II, Secret Memoirs of a Renaissance Pope, XII, 353.

Sixtus IV ordered the rebellious: Machiavelli, Florentine Histories, 7.31, pp. 309–10.

“a poison such that”: Pius II, Secret Memoirs of a Renaissance Pope, XI, 305–6.

Acting as a lightning rod: For the liveliest account of the Pazzi conspiracy, see Martines, April Blood. On the secret deal with Federico da Montefeltro, see Simonetta, Montefeltro Conspiracy.

Kicking off more than sixty years of warfare: Guicciardini opines that Alexander VI was, in fact, “full of violent hatred for the name of France.” Guicciardini, Storia d’Italia, I.17; in History of Italy and History of Florence, 181.

“never did anything”: Machiavelli, Prince, chap. 18, p. 55.

Machiavelli observed that Alexander: Machiavelli, Florentine Histories, 1.30, p. 42.

Sixtus IV—who seems to have shown: See Weiss, Medals of Pope Sixtus IV.

“When [Julius] saw the right hand”: Vasari, Lives, 1:349.

Julius commissioned Giancristoforo Romano: Weiss, “Medals of Pope Julius II.”

10. FILIPPO AND THE PIRATES

Although he took his vows: For biographical treatments of the artist, see Marchini, Filippo Lippi; Oertel, Fra Filippo Lippi.

“he never spent any time”: Vasari, Lives, 1:214.

“In response to the praises”: Ibid., 1:215.

Filippo’s wanderlust: What follows is based on Vasari, Lives, 1:215.

Carried across the Mediterranean: Particularly toward the end of the Renaissance, this was certainly not an unusual phenomenon. See R. C. Davis, Christian Slaves, Muslim Martyrs.

“Since neither drawing nor painting”: Vasari, Lives, 1:215.

“tails full a palm in length”: Polo, Travels, 256, 272–73, 258.

The legend of Prester John: See Slessarev, Prester John.

Idrisi, a twelfth-century geographer: Abulafia, Discovery of Mankind, 24.

Sir John Mandeville: Ibid., 25; Mandeville, Travels of John Mandeville.

the rediscovery of classical literature exposed Italians: In the early fourteenth century, for example, Petrarch made a valiant—if doomed—effort to learn Greek under the tutelage of Leontius Pilatus, and his endeavors were later followed—equally unsuccessfully—by Coluccio Salutati. Thanks to closer links with the ailing Byzantine Empire and, later, to an exodus of scholars from the East, however, matters suddenly became rather easier. The arrival of such eminent personages as John Argyropoulos, Manuel Chrysoloras, Teodoro Gaza, and Cardinal Bessarion made it possible for Salutati’s intellectual heirs—particularly Leonardo Bruni, Marsilio Ficino, and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola—to study Greek literature for the first time at first hand. Pertusi, Leonzio Pilato tra Petrarca e Boccaccio; Ullman, Humanism of Coluccio Salutati, 118–24; Witt, Hercules at the Crossroads, esp. 252–53, 302–9; Monfasani, Byzantine Scholars in Renaissance Italy; Harris, Greek Émigrés in the West.

After the settlement of the Canary Islands: For a useful introduction to this subject, see Fernández-Armesto, Before Columbus.

Girolamo Tiraboschi identified: Tiraboschi, Storia della letteratura italiana, vols. 5 and 6; see Burke, European Renaissance, 18.

the great Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt: Burckhardt, Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, 183–231.

Today, when the advance of cross-cultural studies has eroded: Burke, European Renaissance, 209–20.

In the first book, for example, a Jew named Abraham: Boccaccio, Decameron, 1.2–3.

Thus, the reader is introduced to the sultan: Ibid., 2.7, 2.9, 4.4, 10.3.

So, too, the deliciously lusty tale of Alibech and Rustico: Ibid., 3.10, 4.3.

Depictions of the Cappadocian saint George: The importance of Jacobus de Voragine’s Legenda aurea in establishing the central features of Saint George’s story cannot be overstated in this regard: Voragine, Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, 1:238–42. For an introductory discussion of the tale’s role in Renaissance art, see Jardine and Brotton, Global Interests, 16–20.

11. SALOMONE’S CRIME

Salomone di Bonaventura was a prosperous: What follows is drawn from Gow and Griffiths, “Pope Eugenius IV and Jewish Money-Lending in Florence.”

Perhaps conscious of the fact: Ibid., 308.

But Salomone could not have been more wrong: There have been a variety of different interpretations of Salomone’s prosecution. Here, I follow ibid., but see also Panella, “Una sentenza di Niccolò Porcinari, potestà di Firenze”; Cassuto, Gli ebrei a Firenze nell’età del Rinascimento.

The chancellor, Leonardo Bruni, had been kept informed: Gow and Griffiths, “Pope Eugenius IV and Jewish Money-Lending in Florence,” 311.

By the mid-fifteenth century, it has been estimated: Milano, Storia degli ebrei in Italia, 109–46.

At the time Salomone was embarking: Shulvass, Jews in the World of the Renaissance, 22, 27.

“By the middle of the fifteenth century”: Hughes, “Distinguishing Signs,” 16.

This was, of course, no more true: As Renata Segre has observed, “The elite elements of Jewish society—bankers, doctors, and so on—were most thoroughly integrated into the surrounding world.” Segre, “Banchi ebraici e monti di pietà,” quoted in Vivanti, “History of the Jews in Italy and the History of Italy,” 340.

Taking advantage of the city’s commercial prowess: Shulvass, Jews in the World of the Renaissance, 139.

“should not encounter any prejudice”: Hughes, “Distinguishing Signs,” 294.

accord them the status of Roman citizens: Simonsohn, Apostolic See and the Jews: History, 403; Hughes, “Distinguishing Signs,” 291.

“should not be molested”: Simonsohn, Apostolic See and the Jews: History, 69; Simonsohn, Apostolic See and the Jews: Documents, doc. 596; Hughes, “Distinguishing Signs,” 295. On Martin V’s attitude toward the Jews more generally, see Vernet, “Le pape Martin V et les Juifs.”

“by the standards of the age”: Brucker, Society of Renaissance Florence, 240.

“the Jews felt protected”: Colorni, Judaica minora, 503; quoted in Gow and Griffiths, “Pope Eugenius IV and Jewish Money-Lending in Florence,” 285.

For the enthusiastically effusive Yohanan Alemanno: Shulvass, Jews in the World of the Renaissance, 334–35.

the Nofet zufim, or The Book of the Honeycomb’s Flow: Leon, Book of the Honeycomb’s Flow. A useful starting point for further reading on Jewish approaches to Renaissance rhetoric can be found in Rabinowitz, “Pre-modern Jewish Study of Rhetoric.”

“gathered a school of Jewish scholars”: Hughes, “Bodies, Disease, and Society,” 116.

“maintained that the writings”: Kristeller, Renaissance Thought and the Arts, 64.

When it came to depicting Moses: Hughes, “Bodies, Disease, and Society,” 112; Palmieri, Liber de temporibus, 172–73.

In the eyes of Christians: Voragine, Golden Legend, trans. Ryan and Ripperbar, 1:150.

Rarely worn by contemporary Christians: For a fuller discussion of this altarpiece and its hidden layers of meaning, see Hughes, “Distinguishing Signs,” esp. 3–12.

the rabidly anti-Semitic San Bernardino of Siena: For a survey of San Bernardino’s anti-Semitism, see Mormando, Preacher’s Demons, chap. 4.

Even if their influence on finance: Hughes, “Bodies, Disease, and Society,” 110–17.

Giannozzo Manetti penned the Contra iudeos et gentes: For an introduction to Manetti’s Contra iudeos et gentes, see Trinkaus, In Our Image and Likeness, 2:726–34.

Since Jews had such strict dietary regulations: Dean, Crime and Justice in Late Medieval Italy, 149.

And though prosecutions for this sort of “offense”: Ibid., 146–49.

enshrined in Paolo Uccello’s Miracle of the Profaned Host: For a detailed discussion of Uccello’s work, see Katz, “Contours of Tolerance”; Katz, Jew in the Art of the Italian Renaissance, chap. 1.

“I hear that there are many Jews”: Bernardino of Siena, Opera omnia, 3:362, trans. in Hughes, “Distinguishing Signs,” 19.

Since the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215: See Grayzel, Church and the Jews in the XIIIth Century, 60–70, 308–9.

San Bernardino’s itinerant preaching: Hughes, “Distinguishing Signs,” 20; Pacetti, “La predicazione di S. Bernardino in Toscano.”

In 1439—the same year Salomone made his fateful agreement: The Florentine provisions of 1463 give an indication of just how seriously this was taken: “[The priors] have considered that a large number of Jews have come to settle in Florence, and scarcely any of them wear a sign, so that there is considerable confusion, and it is difficult to distinguish between Jews and Christians … They are determined to remedy this unsatisfactory situation … [and therefore e]very Jew, male or female above the age of twelve, whether or not named in the Florentine agreement, and whether or not a resident of the city of Florence, shall be required to wear a sign of O in the city of Florence. This yellow O shall be worn on the left breast, over the clothing in a visible place; it shall be at least one foot in circumference and as wide as the thickness of a finger. A penalty of 25 lire shall be levied on every occasion that this sign is not worn, with two witnesses required.” Brucker, Society of Renaissance Florence, 241–42, doc. 118.

Michelangelo’s depiction of Aminadab: On which, see Wisch, “Vested Interests.”

Money lending and usury were the greatest worry: One thinks particularly of The Merchant of Venice, 1.3.123–26: “Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last; / You spurn’d me such a day; another time / You call’d me dog; and for these courte- sies / I’ll lend you thus much moneys?”

In one particularly vitriolic sermon: Hughes, “Bodies, Disease, and Society,” 119.

the Signoria promulgated a decree: Brucker, Society of Renaissance Florence, 240–41, doc. 117.

Almost as soon as the decrees had been passed: Jews were, for example, not allowed to own property above the value of 500 (later 1,000) gold florins and were permitted to lend money only on the basis of a pledge pawned. Salter, “Jews in Fifteenth-Century Florence and Savonarola’s Establishment of a Mons Pietatis,” 197.

In March 1488, a vitriolic attack on usury: Landucci, Diario fiorentino dal 1450 al 1516, 54.

the monte di pietà was established: Najemy, History of Florence, 396–97; Salter, “Jews in Fifteenth-Century Florence.”

Its goal was to undercut the city’s Jews: See Polizzotto, Elect Nation, 35–37.

Jews had been integral: Clementi, Il carnevale romano nelle cronache contemporanee dale origini al secolo XVII; Boiteux, “Les Juifs dans le Carneval de la Rome moderne.”

“runne starke naked”: Wisch, “Vested Interests,” 153.

Shortly before Easter in 1475: For what follows, see Hsia, Trent 1475.

In the midst of the War of the League of Cambrai: For the background to the Venetian ghetto, see Finlay, “Foundation of the Ghetto.”

12. THE RISING CRESCENT

“Barbaric” Muslims were even accused: Munro, “Western Attitude Towards Islam During the Period of the Crusades.” More generally, see Southern, Western Views of Islam in the Middle Ages; Daniel, Islam and the West.

Indeed, by 1489, three-quarters of all the cloth: Franceschi, “Economy,” 130.

Slaves, too, were a major source of commercial interest: For an interesting perspective on the growth of the slave trade and its character, see Origo, “Domestic Enemy.”

While the growing profitability of trade: See Goldthwaite, Economy of Renaissance Florence, 180–84.

With the Mamluk capture: Hunt and Murray, History of Business in Medieval Europe, 180.

Having invested 5,000 florins: Goldthwaite, Economy of Renaissance Florence, 183; Babinger, “Lorenzo de’ Medici e la corte ottomana.”

Pegolotti stressed the value of a good: Pegolotti, La pratica della mercatura, esp. 14–19, 21–23.

“not uncommon for men of learning”: Borstook, “Travels of Bernardo Michelozzi and Bonsignore Bonsignori in the Levant,” 145.

Conti subsequently related his experiences: Bracciolini, De l’Inde. On Fra Mauro’s cartography, see Falchetta, Fra Mauro’s World Map.

Cyriac of Ancona: Cyriac of Ancona, Later Travels.

figures including Guarino Veronese, Giovanni Aurispa: Borstook, “Travels of Bernardo Michelozzi and Bonsignore Bonsignori in the Levant,” 145.

Costanzo completed a series: On Costanzo da Ferrara’s works in Constantinople, see Jardine and Brotton, Global Interests, 32, 40–41. Some care, however, should be taken with some of the statements made in this account. No justification is provided for the rather bold assertion that the portrait medal of Mehmed II “is a resolutely Ottoman artefact, yet in a strenuously Western European artistic tradition”: what defines “resolutely Ottoman” is, for instance, never explained.

After an unsuccessful attempt: Freely, Jem Sultan.

a Latin translation of the Koran: Trivellato, “Renaissance Italy and the Muslim Mediterranean in Recent Historical Work,” 146–48; N. Z. Davis, Trickster Travels.

The reignition of the slave trade in Italy: The most accessible introduction to this topic is Origo, “Domestic Enemy.”

Particularly due to its commercial links: See D. Howard, Venice and the East; Burnett and Contadini, Islam and the Italian Renaissance.

In a refreshingly daring and original study: Jardine and Brotton, Global Interests, 132–85.

the appearance of oriental carpets: See King and Sylvester, Eastern Carpet in the Western World from the 15th to the 17th Century. More generally, see R. E. Mack, Bazaar to Piazza.

“Renaissance thinkers adopted an attitude”: Bisaha, Creating East and West, 19.

In the De vita solitaria: Petrarch, De vita solitaria, Z II, iv, 6; P II, ix; Prose, 496; trans. Zeitlin, 247–48. Latin text for the De vita solitaria, ed. G. Martellotti, Prose, 286–593; English translation, Life of Solitude, trans. Zeitlin. In what follows, references to theDe vita solitaria will indicate the relevant portion of text according to Jacob Zeitlin’s translation (Z), according to the division of the work by Martellotti in Prose (P), according to the page number in the Prose edition (Prose), and—where appropriate—according to the page number of the relevant passage in Zeitlin’s translation (trans. Zeitlin). For a reasonably enlightening introduction to this theme in Petrarch’s writings, see Bisaha, “Petrarch’s Vision of the Muslim and Byzantine East.”

“Muhammad [was] an Arab”: Pius II, Commentaries, II.1, 1:211.

“took little interest”: Meserve, Empires of Islam in Renaissance Historical Thought, 239.

Niccolò Sagundino: Ibid., 107.

“protection of the faithful”: Tyerman, “Marino Sanudo Torsello and the Lost Crusade,” 57.

Petrarch was among the most enthusiastic: Petrarch hated traveling by sea, and hence rejected the idea of so long a journey out of hand. This did not, however, stop him from writing a guidebook to the Holy Land. Petrarca, Itinerario in Terra Santa.

Berating kings and potentates: Petrarch, De vita solitaria, Z II, iv, 4; P II, ix; Prose, 492–94; trans. Zeitlin, 245.

Unless something were done: Ullman, Humanism of Coluccio Salutati, 79.

“to persuade princes and peoples”: Machiavelli, Florentine Histories, 6.33, p. 269. On the sermons delivered by itinerant preachers, see Hankins, “Renaissance Crusaders,” 111–24.

Although this ultimately came to nothing: The best study of Pius’s attitudes toward the Turks is unquestionably Helmrath, “Pius II und die Türken.”

“to rule all of Europe”: Pius II, Commentaries, II.1, 1:211.

“once the Hungarians were conquered”: Pius II, Secret Memoirs of a Renaissance Pope, III, 113.

Apollonio di Giovanni and Marco del Buono: On this cassone front, see Callmann, Apollonio di Giovanni, 48–51, 63–64. For a general overview of themes in the art of cassone fronts, see Campbell, Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence.

13. OF HUMAN BONDAGE

Alberto da Sarteano: Biccellari, “Un francescano umanista”; Biccellari, “Missioni del b. Alberto in Oriente per l’Unione della Chiesa Greca e il ristabilimento dell’Osservanza nell’Ordine francescano.”

“full of unusual faces and costumes”: Trexler, Journey of the Magi, 129.

“dry and awkward in their bearing”: Ibid.

Pope Eugenius was thrilled: See Cerulli, “L’Etiopia del sec. XV in nuovi documenti storici”; Cerulli, “Eugenio IV e gli Etiopi al Concilio di Firenze nel 1441”; Tedeschi, “Etiopi e copti al concilio di Firenze”; Gill, Council of Florence, 310, 318, 321, 326, 346.

the pope commissioned Filarete: For a broader contextual view of Filarete’s commemorative reliefs, see Lowe, “ ‘Representing’ Africa.”

From Greek texts such as Herodotus’s Histories: Herodotus, Histories, 4.42–43.

while from Roman accounts they derived: See Yamauchi, Africa and Africans in Antiquity; Thompson and Ferguson, Africa in Classical Antiquity.

Along with Moors and Berbers, a few black African slave girls: Klapisch-Zuber, “Women Servants in Florence,” 69.

Even as late as the 1430s, such fantasies: For example, Slessarev, Prester John.

works such as Ca’da Mosto’s Navigazioni: For an English translation, see Ca’da Mosto, Voyages of Cadamosto.

“the … trade in black slaves”: Abulafia, Discovery of Mankind, 91.

In July 1461, for example, Giovanni Guidetti: For the following, see Tognetti, “Trade in Black African Slaves in Fifteenth-Century Florence,” 217–18.

“for a black head they received from us”: Ibid., 218.

authentic children of Ham: Abulafia, Discovery of Mankind, 95; Schorsch, Jews and Blacks in the Early Modern World, 17–49.

While Caspar and Melchior were often linked: For what follows, see the excellent study by Kaplan, Rise of the Black Magus in Western Art.

Isabella d’Este’s growing interest: See Kaplan, “Isabella d’Este and Black African Women.”

one more proof that the Golden Age had arrived: O’Malley, “Fulfilment of the Christian Golden Age Under Pope Julius II,” 323–25.

Pope Leo X was petitioned by King Manuel: See Filesi, “Enrico, figlio del re del Congo, primo vescovo dell’Africa nero (1518)”; de Witte, “Henri de Congo, évêque titulaire d’Utique (+ c. 1531), d’après les documents romains”; Bontinck, “Ndoadidiki Ne-Kinu a Mumemba, premier évêque du Kongo.”

Particularly from the early fifteenth century onward: For a useful introduction to this subject, see Minnich, “Catholic Church and the Pastoral Care of Black Africans in Renaissance Italy.”

Children were baptized: Ibid., 296.

San Benedetto il Moro: See Mariani, San Benedetto da Palermo, il moro Etiope, nato a S. Fratello; Fiume and Modica, San Benedetto il moro.

In addition to finding places as wrestlers: Lowe, “Stereotyping of Black Africans in Renaissance Europe,” 34.

the Medici employed a certain Grazzico “il Moretto”: Ibid., 33.

black Africans were widely thought: See Castiglione, Book of the Courtier, I, p. 96.

Created duke of Florence in 1532: For a discussion of Alessandro’s parentage, see Brackett, “Race and Rulership.”

In his account of his journey: Abulafia, Discovery of Mankind, 94.

Alvise Ca’da Mosto was repulsed: Ibid.

In his 1480 tax return: Rubiés, “Giovanni di Buonagrazia’s Letter to His Father,” 107, trans. in Lowe, “Stereotyping of Black Africans,” 28.

Drawing on Ca’da Mosto’s contention: Ca’da Mosto, Voyages of Cadamosto, 89.

Africans’ supposed musicality: Lowe, “Stereotyping of Black Africans,” 35.

14. BRAVE NEW WORLDS

Marco Polo had authoritatively stated: Polo, Travels, 243–44; see also Abulafia, Discovery of Mankind, 24–27.

whenever medieval writers spoke of islands: Fuson, Legendary Islands of the Ocean Sea, 118–19.

As early as 1291, two Venetian brothers: Moore, “La spedizione dei fratelli Vivaldi e nuovi documenti d’archivio.”

The discovery of Lanzarote: Verlinden, “Lanzarotto Malocello et la découverte portugaise des Canaries”; Abulafia, Discovery of Mankind, esp. 33–39.

While hopes for a new passage: For a fuller survey of the topics covered in the following paragraphs, see Fernández-Armesto, Before Columbus.

João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira: For an overview, see Parry, Age of Reconnaissance, 146–48.

“Yet ever and again”: Burckhardt, Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, 184.

Even before the discovery: Burke, European Renaissance, 210.

Drawing on the tales of a maritime adventurer: Pastore Stocchi, “Il De Canaria boccaccesco e un ‘locus deperditus’ nel De insulis di Domenico Silvestri”; for further discussion of this text, see Abulafia, Discovery of Mankind, 36–41; Abulafia, “Neolithic Meets Medieval.”

“man of noble stock”: Petrarch, De vita solitaria, Z II, vi, 3; P II, xi; Prose, 522–24.

the two canon lawyers appointed: See Williams, American Indian in Western Legal Thought, 71–72.

“discoveries of new lands, new seas”: Burke, European Renaissance, 210.

Columbus’s account of his travels: The accounts of all three men are found in Firpo, Prime relazioni di navigatori italiani.

Thrilled by these discoveries, cartographers: On Toscanelli, see Edgerton, “Florentine Interest in Ptolemaic Cartography as Background for Renaissance Painting, Architecture, and the Discovery of America.” The Contarini-Rosselli map—the sole surviving copy of which is held by the British Library—is the first known cartographical work to show the Americas.

Giulio Cesare Stella: On the Columbeis, see Hofmann, “La scoperta del nuovo mondo nella poesia neolatina”; Hofmann, “Aeneas in Amerika.”

Hence, in some of the earliest printings: For an intriguing introduction to this subject, see Turner, “Forgotten Treasure from the Indies.”

Even though a smattering of exotic artifacts: Burke, European Renaissance, 212; Olmi, L’inventario del mondo, 211–52.

The Genoese, for example, enthusiastically supported: Hunt and Murray, History of Business in Medieval Europe, 181, 221.

Giovanni da Empoli: Goldthwaite, Economy of Renaissance Florence, 159.

Although the coastal territories of West Africa: Ibid., 146.

Luca Giraldi: Ibid., 159–60; V. Rau, “Um grande mercador-banqueiro italiano em Portugal: Lucas Giraldi,” in Estudos de história, 75–129.

“as a very small edifice”: S. Greenblatt, foreword to Mapping the Renaissance World, by Lestringant, xi.

“evidence of social anthropology”: Abulafia, Discovery of Mankind, 14–18.

Although Boccaccio seems to have been: Ibid., 36–41.

“are without refinement”: Petrarch, De vita solitaria, Z II, vi, 3; P II, xi; Prose, 524; trans. Zeitlin, 267.

If their complete ignorance: Muldoon, Popes, Lawyers, and Infidels, 121; quotation at Abulafia, Discovery of Mankind, 86–87.

“They observe most barbarous customs”: Original text in Firpo, Prime relazioni di navigatori italiani, 88, trans. in A. Brown, Renaissance, 122.

“No one of this race”: Ibid.

EPILOGUE: THE WINDOW AND THE MIRROR

“open window” (finestra aperta): Alberti, De pictura, 1.19, p. 55.