Guardians of Republicanism The Valori Family in the Florentine Renaissance

by Jurdjevic, Mark

• ISBN13: 9780199204489
• ISBN10: 0199204489
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-05-11
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Guardians of Republicanism analyses the political and intellectual history of Renaissance Florence-republican and princely-by focusing on five generations of the Valori family, each of which played a dynamic role in the city's political and cultural life. The Valori were early and influentialsupporters of the Medici family, but were also crucial participants in the city's periodic republican revivals throughout the Renaissance. Mark Jurdjevic examines their political struggles and conflicts against the larger backdrop of their patronage and support of the Neoplatonic philosopherMarsilio Ficino, the radical Dominican prophet Girolamo Savonarola, and Niccolo Machiavelli, the premier political philosopher of the Italian Renaissance. Each of these three quintessential Renaissance reformers and philosophers relied heavily on the patronage of the Valori, who evolved aninnovative republicanism based on a hybrid fusion of the classical and Christian languages of Florentine communal politics. Jurdjevic's study thus illuminates how intellectual forces-humanist, republican, and Machiavellian-intersected and directed the politics and culture of the FlorentineRenaissance.

Author Biography

Mark Jurdjevic was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. He earned a BA from the University of Toronto in 1996 and a PhD in early modern European history from Northwestern University in 2002. Between 2002-2004, he taught at Yale University's Whitney Humanities Center. He is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa, where he teaches early modern European history. He has published articles in Renaissance Quarterly, Past and Present, English Historical Review, Journal of the History of Ideas, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, and is currently writing a study of Machiavelli's later political thought.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

The Valori Family Tree

Scipione Ammirato's Valori Family Tree

Introduction: The Valori Family in the Florentine Renaissance

Francesco Valori and the Savonarolan Republic

Marsilio Ficino and the Valori Family

The Valori Family and Machiavelli's Portraits of Francesco 'il vecchio'

The Valori Family and Luca Della Robbia's Vita di Bartolomeo

The Valori Self-Portrait Under the Medici Grand Dukes

The Last Portraits of the Valori Family

Conclusion: The Valori Family in Florentine Historiography

Bibliography

Index

Index of Manuscripts

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