The Medici in Florence: The Exercise and Language of Power.

Alison Brown explores the intersection of the "practical exercise" of power by the Medici and the ways in which politics and political goals can be seen in the "language and ideology" of Florentines (vii). Brown has collected here twelve essays published between 1961 and 1992. The first five examine the Medici and Florence in the fifteenth century. The next four focus on "Changing Languages and Images." The final three are review essays.

Brown is at her best in her careful analyses of politics and ideas. The first and oldest essay (on the humanist portrait of Cosimo de' Medici, 1961) is archetypal. Rejecting deterministic models, she argues that humanist praise of Cosimo the Elder was not mere adulation of a boss and patron by Medici clients and would-be clients but a way for patriotic republicans to restrain the ambition of the Medici by tying them to classical models. Consequently Ficino's remark that" 'I owe much to our Plato, but I confess I owe no less to Cosimo'"(225) is not mere flattery or a way to equate the banker and the philosopher king, but revelatory of a new linkage of the long-praised wise man with the powerful man. Her most recent essay, "Lorenzo, the Monte and the Seventeen Reformers" (1992), shows how consistently she has upheld this approach; she argues that Lorenzo the Magnificent's willingness to meddle in communal procedures transcends "personal influence and patronage" (152). Her essay on Pierfrancesco de' Medici questions the universality of kinship loyalty, for she shows that kinship ties could dissolve in the face of opportunities for gain, as when Cosimo apparently cultivated tension between the two family branches for his own profit.

These essays insist that rhetoric always had real purposes that can only be understood in a political context. Brown is unmatched at examining the subtle realities and dissonances behind the serene classical images of the humanists. Savonarola, who as a foreigner could not sit in his own Great Council, chose Moses, the "tough and all-powerful ruler" (263), to convey his political image. And the jokes attributed to Cosimo de' Medici by Vespasiano da Bisticci and others go beyond the rhetorical purpose of conveying Cosimo's humanity: his humor about his own exile allowed him to transform defeat into victory.

Changes in the Florentine constitution and institutions often reveal transformations of the elite or its values. Brown's masterful essay on the Parte Guelfa shows the paradox in which the Parte existed: its rival, the Ghibellines, had long been defeated, leaving it with no raison d'etre. Its potential as a locus of political action was nonetheless considerable: it held extensive wealth, appointed knights, served as an elite social club, and its nine captains were ex officio members of the Balia, and thus threatening to Medici power (Piero de' Medici's opponents in 1466 had been knighted by the Parte). Following the Pazzi conspiracy the Medici, while acquiescing in its existence, emasculated the Parte. The essay on Lorenzo and the Reformers is a powerful argument that the fifteenth-century Medici furthered their economic position through their political power. Here Lorenzo's manipulation of the Monte Comune is seen as a way of solving communal funding problems and of laying "the basis for the early-modern principate" (183).

Whether scholars will be satisfied with all of Brown's conclusions depends on their own approach to the problems she examines and on careful examination of the premises. It is not clear, for instance, whether Cosimo actually uttered those jokes (many of which Brown traced to previous wits), or whether they were attributed to him by purposeful biographers. Such considerations aside, these essays are models of consistency, precision and careful research in the study of late fifteenth-century Florence.

Carol Bresnahan Menning UNIVERSITY OF TOLEDO