Price, Haley

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The past is never dead. It's not even pastNOT EVEN PASTSearch the site ...   Like 21 TweetPrimary Source: Patronage andPower in Machiavelli and theElizabethan CourtThis and other articles in Primary Source: History from the Ransom CenterStacks represent an ongoing partnership between Not Even Past and the HarryRansom Center, a world-renowned humanities research library and museum at TheUniversity of Texas at Austin. Visit the Center’s website to learn more about itscollections and get involved.Among the many shelves dedicated to European history in the Harry Ransom Center’sstacks is a  rst edition of the  rst English translation of Machiavelli’s FlorentineHistories. Thomas Beding eld undertook the translation from Italian in the later 1580sand saw its publication in London in 1595.Privacy  - TermsNiccolò Machiavelli, The Florentine Historie, trans. Thomas Beding eld (London:William Ponsonby, 1595), sig. A1r. Harry Ransom Center Book Collection, DG 737 A2M4.The text is fascinating for many reasons. It was an early introduction to one ofMachiavelli’s key works for an English audience. The Center’s copy was acquired by ana uent London merchant, Valentine Mortoft, in 1598, and he surely was one of manyreaders the book eventually had. My own interest in the text comes, however, from itsdedicatory preface. It reveals a fascinating story of patronage sought and apparentlynever fully realized. This in turn echoes the underlying themes of my undergraduatethesis on the Pazzi Conspiracy of 1478.Patronage was a vital part of civic life in both Machiavelli’s Florence and Beding eld’sEngland. As Paul McLean explains in his classic study, “Florentines sought each otherout, face‑to‑face or through letters, to perform a multitude of favors. Such favor seekingwas fraught with anxiety, ambiguity, and dissimulation on the part of both petitionersand patrons.”  But patronage was also fraught with multiple perils.1Niccolò Machiavelli, The Florentine Historie, trans. Thomas Beding eld (London:William Ponsonby, 1595), sig. A2r. Harry Ransom Center Book Collection, DG 737 A2M4.The dedication in the Center’s edition was written by Thomas Bedingfeld on April 8,1588, fully seven years before the volume was actually published.  Already well knownfor his translation skills, Bedingfeld was also already embedded in Queen Elizabeth’scourt by the time he entered the orbit of Sir Christopher Hatton in the 1580s. LordChancellor of England in 1587, Hatton was one of the central  gures in Elizabeth’sgovernment. His in uence was far-ranging, which may be why Bedingfeld thought himthe perfect choice to dedicate his translation of Florentine Histories to. On the otherhand, in another preface to the volume, Beding eld writes that “The translation…wasdiverse years past desired by an honorable personage, not now living.” This suggeststhat Hatton may, in fact, have requested the translation in the  rst place. In thededication, Beding eld suggests that an o cial like Hatton might learn fromMachiavelli’s “judicial discourses and observations” on the “causes of foreign anddomestic discords, the commodities and discommodities of treaties, and the secrethumors of Princes.”Bedingfeld’s dedication is a careful mix of humility and praise designed to appeal toHatton. Although he we do not know all the details, it is hard to see the document asanything less than a bid for patronage; if successful, he would win a powerful ally atcourt and likely advance his career. Unfortunately for Bedingfeld, Hatton died in 1591,ending his hopes of patronage. We don’t know exactly why it took so long for hisFlorentine Histories translation to see print, but Hatton’s death may very well haveeliminated any sense of urgency for Beding eld.The preface reveals a frustrating story of patronage sought but never completelyobtained. It may be a historical footnote for most scholars, but it is precisely whatinterests me. Just as Bedingfeld discovered, patronage is a risky business because itrelies entirely on people. They may prove  ckle; they may change their minds or theymay, as happened with Hatton, die at the wrong time.23Patronage was a key part of Machiavelli’s world, so of course his Histories re ects itsimportance. Of particular interest to me is the fact that the last book of FlorentineHistories centers on a very famous example of patronage networks falling apart: thePazzi Conspiracy. To summarize a complex story, a disgruntled group of top statesmen,bankers, and church o cials who had all been snubbed by Florence’s most powerfulmen, Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici, plotted to murder them as revenge and usurppower in Florence.Table of contents detail of Niccolò Machiavelli, The Florentine Historie, trans.Thomas Beding eld (London: William Ponsonby, 1595), sig. A6v. Harry RansomCenter Book Collection, DG 737 A2 M4.The Pazzi Conspiracy is the focus of my undergraduate thesis. I use the conspiracy as acase study to illustrate the importance of patronage networks in maintaining Medicipower in 1478 Florence. My project shows how a carefully woven network of obligationboth secured Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici at the top of the social order, andsimultaneously created the very enemies that would plot their murder. Giuliano’s deathwas a violent consequence of patronage gone wrong, and Lorenzo’s survival very muchdepended on the clients he was able to keep.Programmingdialog for myvideo gameon the PazziConspiracy inUnity.Rather than writing a traditional research paper as my thesis, I decided to develop aninteractive video game to show patronage in action and allow my audience toexperience the Pazzi Conspiracy in a more immersive way. In my game, students get toparticipate directly in Medici patronage networks by taking on a role as a servant in thePalazzo Medici at the time of the conspiracy. As the servant discovers the plot to killLorenzo and Giuliano over the course of  ve playable levels, they begin to fear for theirown livelihood and that of their masters. If the Medici are killed, the servant will be out ofwork and likely cast out on the streets, or worse, killed in whatever violent political dramamight ensue.Relying on the wrong person could leave a man helpless, but snubbing the wrong onecould get him killed. Lorenzo and Giuliano’s exclusion of powerful men like Francesco de’Pazzi, Girolamo Riario, and Archbishop Francesco Salviati from their patronagenetworks provided the catalyst for a murder plot. If the conspirators couldn’t get whatthey wanted through a relationship of mutual obligation with the Medici, they would justtake it by force.In the end, Lorenzo escaped death and prospered by using patronage networks.Beding eld had fewer resources but he seems to have navigated the death his would-bepatron. Despite the death of Hatton, he was able to  nd a route to publish the work. AfterGiuliano’s murder, the Medici family continued to wield power. The way Machiavelli (andmany historians) tells it, Lorenzo went on to become the sole hero of the ensuing PazziWar.  The war can be spun as a heroic tale with Lorenzo at the center, saving Florencethrough great bravery, intellect, and self-sacri ce, but mostly with his ability to bring new4RECENT POSTSIHS Podcast: Hungry for RevolutionThe McFarland Cuban Plantation RecordsIHS Podcast – Episode 3: “Apache Diaspora in four hundred years of colonialism vs ‘Toltec Antiquities’ Diaspora in EarlyRepublican Mexico”Workshop: “The Mexican Empire and Indigenous Texas, 1821-1823” by Sheena Cox, University of Texas at AustinThis is Democracy: Shadow Docket and AbortionNOT EVEN PAST is produced byThe Department of HistoryTHE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN We are supported by the College of Liberal ArtsAnd our READERSallies into the folds of his patron-client network. Lorenzo charms his enemy, the King ofNaples, into becoming a  erce new ally, and so glues together what’s left of his alliancesin Florence and emerges from the war stronger still.Patronage was everywhere in this period. It permeates every page of the FlorentineHistories, and the early translation preserved in the Ransom Center’s volume offers aperfect example of how fragile such networks could be.Haley Price is a senior at The University of Texas at Austin majoring in History andHonors Humanities. Her research interests include the nexus between games andhistory education as well as the Italian Renaissance. She hopes to combine theseinterests in her senior thesis and go on to pursue further study with a focus on digitalhistory. Paul Douglas McLean, The Art of the Network: Strategic Interaction and Patronage inRenaissance Florence (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007), 4. Machiavelli, Niccolò. Florentine Histories. Translated by Thomas Bedingfeld. London: T.Creede, 1595. This is the date that appears at the end of the dedicatory letter. Ibid. Machiavelli, Niccolò. “Book VIII.” In History of Florence and of the Affairs of Italy: Fromthe Earliest Times to the Death of Lorenzo the Magni cent. Peter Smith, 1974. Both the Pazzi Conspiracy and the Pazzi War are very complex events. I’ve beenstudying them for nearly three years and I still have so much to learn. The way Isummarized them in this article emphasizes the importance of patronage and the roleof Lorenzo as a heroic  gure, but as with anything worth studying, it is all so much morecomplicated than I had space to communicate. For those interested in further reading,the following books are extraordinarily useful:Hibbert, Christopher. The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici. Penguin Books Limited,2001.Martines, Lauro. April Blood: Florence and the Plot against the Medici. Oxford UniversityPress, 2003.Posted March 30, 2021More Features, Monthly Features, Primary Source:512345DONATECONTACTAll content © 2010-present NOT EVEN PAST and the authors, unless otherwise notedSign up to receive the monthly Not Even Past newsletterSUBSCRIBEYour email addressFEATURES BOOKS TEACHING DIGITAL & FILMBLOG IHS TEXAS SPOTLIGHTABOUT

Primary Source: Patronage and Power in Machiavelli and the Elizabethan Court

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Primary Source: Patronage and Power in Machiavelli and the Elizabethan Court

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