Church and Politics in Renaissance Italy

A detailed look at the public and private worlds of a leading Italian Renaissance cardinal.

This book is an extended study of a leading Italian Renaissance cardinal, offering a new vision of his lifestyle and activities. It challenges received opinion about the nature of political and ecclesiastical patronage and clientele systems, and offers new insights into the rivalry between the Medici and Soderini.This book examines the life of Cardinal Francesco Soderini (1453–1524) from a variety of perspectives and using a range of techniques. It analyses the relationship between Machiavelli, Piero and Francesco Soderini, and reinstates the crucial role played by Rome and contacts with Rome in late fifteenth-century and early sixteenth-century Florentine politics. Soderini's position as one of the chief powerbrokers of papal Rome, in opposition to the Medici, enables a reappraisal of political and ecclesiastical patronage and clientele systems. The cardinal also encouraged cultural, intellectual and building activities. Overall, through the book's collation of archival sources in and outside Italy, a new vision emerges of the lifestyle and activities of a learned and politically astute Italian cardinal.