Lorenzo il Magnifico: Image and Anxiety, Politics and Finance by Melissa Meriam Bullard

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS 559 grammatical usage is consistent with convention; otherwise spelling is altered to agree with grammar and the original spelling is presented in a footnote. The visitors record the condition of church property and sometimes the pledges of pastors and parishioners to improve them. Whether those pledges were fulfilled is an interesting question, but of course cannot be answered by the visitation . The preoccupation of the bishop and his visitors with liturgical accoutrements testifies to the importance that worship played as a measure of "Christianitas." Scholars interested in late medieval pastoral care and in the condition of late medieval parishes will find the edition ofWildermann and Pasche most useful. Robert W Shaffern University ofScranton Lorenzo U Magnifico: Image and Anxiety, Politics and Finance. By Melissa Meriam Bullard. [Istituto Nazionale di studi sul Rinascimento: Studi e testi, XXXTV] (Florence: Leo S. Olschki. 1994. Pp. xv, 245. Lire 58,000.) This is a very important collection of eight articles by Melissa Bullard drawn together by a common concern with the fifteenth-century Florentine statesman , Lorenzo de' Medici. The concentration on one man is occasioned by a combination of two circumstances: the fifth centenary of Lorenzo's death in 1992, marked by conferences in the United States and Europe at which Bullard was a key speaker, and her collaborative work of more than a decade on an edition of Lorenzo's letters. This detailed and painstaking work has left Bullard in an enviable position of superiority vis-à-vis understanding the functioning of the Laurentian machine, and has enabled her to formulate new theories about the Magnifico himself, his inner circle, and the construction of his image. The first section of the book contains, among others, two articles which propose convincing revisions to the accepted orthodoxies of Lorenzo's life. One introduces the concept of anxiety, arguing that Lorenzo's dissemination of an image of his own magnificence was initially a response to uncertainty, and that control of his public reputation (and as a byproduct the invention of the myth surrounding him) helped to compensate for his vulnerability. According to this reading, cult of personality deflected attention from personal and political shortfalls. The second article almost heretically suggests that Lorenzo was not a heroic superman who administered Florentine affairs single-handedly but a more prosaic corporate manager who delegated day-to-day tasks to a handpicked team of decision-makers. It is the second part ofthe book, on Lorenzo and Rome,which will be ofmost interest here, and Bullard's expertise in financial matters ensures the reader of fascinating new insights. Concentrating on the 1480's and early 1490's, Bullard isolates two incidents in the relationship between Lorenzo and Pope Innocent 560 BOOK REVIEWS VIII of crucial importance for the history of both Florence and Rome. In December , i486, Innocent established an appalto or tax farm with nine firms of Italian bankers (including the Medici bank) which loaned the pope money in advance on his spiritual revenues, thereby assuring him of a more regular income . Over the eight-year period of the farm's existence, these nine expanded to become a body of forty-six investors, and from the point ofview of the initial bankers, the enterprise was a dismal failure and may, in Lorenzo's case, have helped to lead to the downfall of the Medici bank. Innocent, however, profited, and the idea of a funded debt was taken up later by Clement VII. Bullard also maintains that the arranged marriage between Lorenzo's daughter and InnocentVffl 's son which took place in 1487 bound the two fathers together for the rest of their lives, providing Lorenzo with a much-enlarged arena for patronage and with greater financial opportunities, but in addition sucking him into the black hole of Innocent's debt. This collection makes very exciting and persuasive reading, and is coherent, accessible, and well written. It is a welcome and individual contribution to studies of Laurentian Florence and of the late fifteenth-century papacy. Kate Lowe Goldsmiths'College, University ofLondon Writing Women in Late Medieval and Early Modern Spain. The Mothers of Saint Teresa ofAvila. By Ronald E. Surtz. [Middle Ages Series.] (Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press. 1995. Pp...