Book contents
- Piero di Lorenzo de’ Medici and the Crisis of Renaissance Italy
- Piero di Lorenzo de’ Medici and the Crisis of Renaissance Italy
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I The Early Years
- 1 Piero’s Childhood
- 2 Family Backgrounds
- 3 Education under Poliziano’s Tutelage
- 4 Political Tyro at Home and Abroad, 1484–1486
- 5 Marrying into the Roman Aristocracy, 1487–1488
- 6 The Choice of Hercules
- 7 Piero as Lorenzo’s Deputy in 1490
- Part II Between Republicanism and Princely Rule
- Part III Piero in Power
- Part IV Piero in Exile
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
1 - Piero’s Childhood
from Part I - The Early Years
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 December 2019
- Piero di Lorenzo de’ Medici and the Crisis of Renaissance Italy
- Piero di Lorenzo de’ Medici and the Crisis of Renaissance Italy
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I The Early Years
- 1 Piero’s Childhood
- 2 Family Backgrounds
- 3 Education under Poliziano’s Tutelage
- 4 Political Tyro at Home and Abroad, 1484–1486
- 5 Marrying into the Roman Aristocracy, 1487–1488
- 6 The Choice of Hercules
- 7 Piero as Lorenzo’s Deputy in 1490
- Part II Between Republicanism and Princely Rule
- Part III Piero in Power
- Part IV Piero in Exile
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Lorenzo de’ Medici’s marriage to Clarice Orsini in June 1469 had created a precedent, for it was the first time that the Florentine mercantile and banking family had married out of Tuscany and into a family of long-established Roman aristocrats. The Milanese ambassador predicted at the time that it would give ‘the populace, as well as some of the leading citizens, plenty to talk about’, and so, too, did the lengthy wedding ceremonies.1 Only six months later, Lorenzo’s father Piero died, plunging the twenty-year-old Lorenzo into a political crisis, as he ‘hoisted his sails’ to secure his primacy in Florence, and all too soon – before the end of his first decade in power – he was at war with the pope and the king of Naples following his brother’s murder in 1478.2
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020