Tuscany in the age of empire

520 Pages·2021·3.105 MB·English

by  Brian Brege

i tatti studies in
italian renaissance history
Published in collaboration with I Tatti
The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies
Florence, Italy
general editor
Kate Lowe
TUSCANY
in the
AGE EMPIRE
of
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B R I A N B R E G E
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
2021
Copyright © 2021 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
First printing
Jacket image: Map of Italy (detail), 1578, by Stefano Bonsignori/ Wikimedia
Jacket Design: Tim Jones
ISBN 9780674258778 (Epub)
ISBN 9780674258761 (PDF)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Brege, Brian, 1985– author.
Title: Tuscany in the age of empire / Brian Brege.
Other titles: I Tatti studies in Italian Renaissance history.
Description: Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2021. |
Series: I Tatti studies in Italian Renaissance history | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020044805 |
Subjects: LCSH: Tuscany (Italy)—Politics and government—1434–1737. |
Tuscany (Italy)—Economic conditions—1434–1737. | Tuscany
(Italy)—Foreign relations.
Classification: LCC DG737.3 .B74 2021 | DDC 945/.506—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020044805
For M.A.C.

CONTENTS
Introduction 1
I. PARASITISM AND SYMBIOSIS
1 Finance and the Spanish Alliance 31
2 Cooperative Empire 59
3 The Northern European Alternative 88
II. A GLOBAL TUSCANY
4 The Uses of Access 115
5 The Shadow Capital 172
III. THE TAIL WAGS THE DOG
6 The Tuscans in North Africa 211
7 The Plot to Destroy the Ottoman Empire 230
8 Persian Dreams 281
Epilogue 321
ABBREVIATIONS 327
NOTES 329
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 491
INDEX 497

Introduction
I
n the heart of Florence, deep inside Palazzo Vecchio, is a room that
encompasses the world. Cabinets originally designed to hold exotic
wonders line every wall. Encircled by fifty-three maps of the world, the
Guardaroba Medicea is both immersive and expansive, encouraging
careful perusal of distant coasts and cities.1 Sparking the imagination
and challenging the viewer’s knowledge, this fragment of the Late Re-
naissance illustrates Florence’s global outlook as it reinvented itself as a
regional monarchy’s capital. From the 1560s until the early years of
Grand Duke Cosimo II’s reign (r. 1609–1621), Florence sought to carve
out a place for itself, not merely as a curious observer but as an active
participant in the First Global Age.
This study considers the global Florence that emerged in the half
century symbolically bracketed by the lavish funeral for Michelan-
gelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) that marked a Medici claim to Renais-
sance Florence’s artistic glory and Galileo Galilei’s (1564–1642) return
to Florence in 1610 to serve as a glittering star of Cosimo II’s court.2
By the final decade of Cosimo I’s (r.1537–1574) reign, the Medici had
established a firm grip on Tuscany.3 As Spanish imperial dominance
1