Lucrezia Tournabuoni de Medici, Pious Politician
The Power of Women's Patronage in Renaissance Florence, Italy
Oct 22, 2009
Still a teenager, Tornabuoni, whose family name was altered from the aristocratic Tornaquinci, married Piero I “The Gouty” (1416 - 1469) de Medici, heir to the banking family’s empire. Bringing blue blood into the Medici merchant-banking line, their marriage supported the Medici’s political ambitions.
The Republic of Florence
The city-state of Florence claimed a republican structure. Although voting rights were held by a limited number of qualified male citizens, Florentines were ruled primarily by their First Citizen with family factions vying for their place of power. As renowned Renaissance historians Christopher Hibbert and J.R. Hale have noted, the Medici maintained a delicate balance of relative peace, but maintained power through inheritance and exchange of influence.
Florence’s complex power balance provided no approved public positions for females, but a few women created their own indispensible roles. Despite severe legal limitations on women’s financial actions, Lucrezia wielded funds towards projects to the benefit of her family, keeping its citizens in a state of awe and gratitude.
Catholic Women’s Patronage in the Early Renaissance
According to Natalie Tomas, Lucrezia played the patronage game to such a degree that she acted as a co-ruler with her bed-ridden husband and subsequent Florence’s “First Citizen,” her son, Lorenzo “The Magnificent” (1449 - 1492).
As a woman during the height of Catholicism in Europe, her public acts required a strong base in Christian cultural parameters. Supporting the health and souls of her region, she founded the Bagno a Morbo thermal baths and hospitals in Florence, Pistoia, Pisa and San Paolo. Her charitable activities influenced the local and the broader politic bases of the day.
Power without Position
As a person of great faith and charity, she was viewed as a sympathetic and fair arbiter. In the over one hundred and twenty letters still extant in her own hand, she wielded authority over building projects, dowries of poor unwed women, positions within the clergy, political positions, marital arrangements, political alliances, artistic endeavors, and a myriad of other issues.
Letters of request to Lucrezia frequently used Marian terminology, appealing to her as “Your Magnificence.” Referencing her status as both a benevolent person of mercy and the mother of the most powerful man in their region, melded her reputation and her role as an appropriate intercessor to their cause.
She managed her patronage while balancing several households, some with working farms, an ill husband, four children plus her husband’s illegitimate child, large entertainment events, and a mother-in-law who almost outlived them all. Of course, this doesn’t include the devotional poetry, prose and songs she is still known for.
Wisdom of Widowhood
Widowed at age forty-two, her husband bequeathed the unusual role of managing charitable patronage from the profits of specific landholdings to her. This strengthened her ability to support projects of her choosing for the poor, women, children and the church.
Her eldest son, Lorenzo, stepped into his father’s place of power at age twenty with his mother firmly by his side. The wife Lucrezia chose for him, Clarice Orsini (1453 - 1487), whose aristocratic Roman family conveniently maintained a standing army.
State of Grace
With Clarice busy bearing and raising seven children, two of which became Popes, Lucrezia gifted the Cathedral, churches, abbeys, monasteries and hospitals within Florence’s territory with items ranging from bread to great art and architecture. Lucrezia endowed church building projects, altars, and art in most of the territories held by Florence.
These activities provided jobs and support for the institutions of an area in addition to building a strong sense of good will amongst the community. The public members, mostly male, of the family reaped the benefits of this activity with both business arrangements as well as political appointments.
Within weeks of her death at age fifty-five, a canon from their parish church of San Lorenzo wrote to her son, Lorenzo:
[S]ometimes her actions … were more prudent than your. Because you only attend to the great things and forget the lesser …. She advised the most important people as well as the magistrates concerning matters of grave importance. And the most humble people were admitted to her presence and all of them left happy and content. But you know all this better than I, as you did nothing without consulting her, as she did nothing without asking your opinion. (Francesco da Castiglione 1482)
Lucrezia was a devoted Catholic whose sincere piety was revered in Florence. After her death, an attempt was made to canonize her. A poet anonymously expressed her or his appreciation for her in hopes of canonization:
Font of charity, compassionate woman,
kind, knowledgeable, honorable, and gracious …
for her good works beatify her”
Sources
Brucker, Gene, ed. The Society of Renaissance Florence: a Documentary Study. 1st ed. Toronto: University of Toronto P, 1998.
Hale, J. R. Florence and the Medici: the Pattern of Control. 2nd ed. London: Thames and Hudson, 1977.
King, Catherine E. Renaissance Women Patrons: Wives and Widows in Italy, c. 1300-1550. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998.
Parks, Tim. Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics, and Art in Fifteenth Century Florence. New York: Atlas Books, 2005.
Rubin, Patricia. Rev. of Renaissance Women Patrons: Wives and Widows in Italy, c. 1300-1550, au. Catherine King. The English Historical Review, Vol. 115, No. 463. (2000): 955.
Tomas, Natalie R. The Medici Women: Gender and Power in Renaissance Florence. Ist ed. Hampshire, England: Ashgate publishing, 2003.
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