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Divine Right The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of the Liberal Arts THE MAKING OF A GOD: CULTURE, RELIGION, AND SACRAL MONARCHY IN DUKE COSIMO DEI MEDICI’S FLORENCE A Dissertation in History by Gregory William Murry © 2009 Gregory William Murry Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2009 ii The dissertation of Gregory W. Murry was reviewed and approved* by the following: Ronnie Po-Chia Hsia Professor of History Dissertation Advisor Chair of Committee Matthew Restall Professor of History Brian Curran Professor of Art History A.G. Roeber Professor of History Head of the History and Religious Studies Department *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School. iii ABSTRACT In 1537, the brutal murder of the heirless Duke Alessandro dei Medici brought the young and relatively inexperienced Cosimo dei Medici to the ducal chair of the most tumultuous city of the age: Renaissance Florence. This study examines how Cosimo used the politics of the sacred to legitimate monarchical rule in a city in which sacral monarchy had no historical precedent and few indigenous traditions. Utilizing a broad sweep of sources including government documents, letters, testaments, sermons, devotional literature, humanist tracts, diaries, art, and monastery records, the dissertation argues that Cosimo and his literati borrowed only the models of sacral monarchy that could be inscribed in local cultural and religious assumptions, the mundane axioms and organizing principles of thought with which Florentines and Tuscans made sense of their daily reality. In a sentence, Cosimo‟s grandiose political claims worked because they were only a special case of more generalized assumptions writ deeply into both the intellectual and quotidian experience of Florentine life. The work also tackles broader intellectual issues such as the relationship between divine right and absolutism, humanism‟s relationship to Christianity, the reception of Machiavellian realpolitik, the construction of patronage networks, and the relationship between religious reform and government. iv Table of Contents ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... iii List of Tables ..................................................................................................................... vi List of Figures ................................................................................................................... vii Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... viii Prologue: The Scene ........................................................................................................... 1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 9 Chapter One: The Familiarity of Terrestrial Divinity ................................................... 22 In Resemblance of the Divine Majesty: Cosimo as a Godlike Prince ...................... 25 Terrestrial Divinity: A Staple of Florentine Christian Humanism ............................ 32 Intellect, Reason, and Wisdom: The Communanza of God and Man ...................... 41 Christomimesis, Sanctity and Virtue ........................................................................ 45 Apotheosis in Sacramental Theology ....................................................................... 51 His hand in His Work: The Divinization of Nature .................................................. 54 Putting the Familiarity of Terrestrial Divinity to Work ............................................ 59 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 66 Chapter Two: Divine Right Rule and the Providential Worldview .............................. 68 God‟s Choice: Cosimo and Divine Right. ................................................................ 71 Providential Governance: A Staple of Christian Humanism .................................... 78 Augustine‟s Providentialism, Christian Resignation and Political Quietism ........... 83 Pagans, Astrologers, and the Old Testament: God in the Signs of Nature ............... 92 A Multicausal World: Providence and Free Will ................................................... 110 The Divine and Republican Prince ......................................................................... 123 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 132 Chapter Three: Rescuing Virtue from Machiavelli .................................................... 133 Virtue: Machiavellian, Humanist, and Christian .................................................... 135 Love the Prince, Fear his Justice: Monarchy, Consent, and Deity Mimesis .......... 140 No Cause for War but Peace: Religion and the Warrior Prince of Peace ............... 158 The Passions and the Interests: Governance of State and Governance of Self ....... 168 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 175 Chapter Four: Prince or Patrone? Cosimo as Ecclesiastical Patron ........................... 177 Patronage and The Heavenly Chain of Intercession ............................................... 180 Florence and the Roman Connection ...................................................................... 183 Winning Friends and Influencing Cardinals: Networks of Ecclesiastical Patronage ................................................................................................................................. 189 The Counter-Reformation Comes to Florence ........................................................ 200 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 213 Chapter Five: Cosimo and Savonarolan Reform; Stealing the Opposition‟s Thunder 215 Cosimo and the Wailers .......................................................................................... 216 v Moral Offense and the Wrath of God. .................................................................... 223 Father of the Poor.................................................................................................... 234 The Reform of the Second Estate ........................................................................... 239 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 248 Chapter Six: Cosimo as the Defender of Sacred Traditions ....................................... 249 Sacred Office: Cosimo and the Benefices .............................................................. 251 Sacred Space ........................................................................................................... 265 Sacred Time and Festival ........................................................................................ 277 Sacred Power: Indulgences and Miracles ............................................................... 284 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 306 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 307 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 311 vi List of Tables Table 1 Provenance of Priests Granted Benefices in Tuscany 1546-1550............260 Table 2 Percentages of Testators Demonstrating Belief in Purgatory.................. 295 Table 3 Percentages of Testators Using Catholic Identifiers................................ 295 Table 4 Comparison of Nobles and Non-Nobles Requesting Masses.................. 295 vii List of Figures Figure 1 The Apotheosis of Cosimo.........................................................................23 Figure 2 Insert of Mater Misericordia, Bigallo Florence....................................... 155 Figure 3 Mater Misericordia, Bigallo Florence...................................................... 156 Figure 4 Cellini‟s Bronze Bust of Cosimo I........................................................... 174 Figure 5 Bronzino‟s Portrait of Cosimo in Armor................................................. 174 Figure 6 Cosimo as Joshua in Santissima Annunziata........................................... 270 viii Acknowledgements Of the many people whose support has been instrumental in the genesis and execution of this project, I would like to give special thanks to my advisor Ronnie Po- Chia Hsia and my committee: A.G. Roeber, Matthew Restall, and Brian Curran. I would also like to thank Edward Goldberg, Lorenzo Polizziotto, Adriano Prosperi, Gilberto Aranci, Tovah Bender, the staff at the Archivio di Stato Firenze, and the members of the Medici Archive Project for their suggestions and support. All mistakes are the author‟s own. This project would not have been possible without grants from the Fulbright Fellowship program, a Pencak grant, support from the Institute for Arts and Humanities at Penn State, and a fellowship from the Penn State College of Liberal Arts. Special thanks are due to my parents Michael and Laurel for kindling and supporting my interests in history. And of course, I owe a tremendous
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