Florentines alternated between feelings of pride and resentment at the opulent lifestyle of their leading family. The treasures of the palace were celebrated in verse and song, one anonymous poet declaring “nothing in the world [is] more an earthly paradise than this.” But it could also be a tempting target for those who believed the government had been hijacked by private interest; during one politically tense moment, the family awoke to find the threshold of the palace smeared with blood.
For the most part, however, the public understood that the honor of the city was tied to the honor paid to its leading family. Florentines were painfully aware of their lack of pedigree and took every opportunity to demonstrate that, despite the absence of hereditary nobility, they were men of refinement. The pageantry of Florentine life was in large part an expression of cultural insecurity, and the Medici palace was a key element in this self-promotion. It is a notable trend in Florentine history—one that helps explain Medici success in subverting the city’s republican institutions—that men who otherwise jealously guarded their prerogatives accorded the Medici an almost princely standing if only in order to seem more worthy in the eyes of foreigners.
The one room that still hints at the palazzo ’s former splendor is the small private chapel on the second floor. In 1459, Benozzo Gozzoli began work on the frescoes that have since made this one of the most beautiful rooms in Florence or, indeed, in all of Europe. Under the close supervision of Piero, Gozzoli depicted the Adoration of the Magi, a theme he had already tackled for the family when, as an assistant to Fra Angelico, he had painted a modest version on the walls of Cosimo’s private cell in San Marco. No expense was spared to create a jewel-like effect, including an intricately inlaid floor (designed by Andrea del Verrocchio) and elaborately coffered and gilded ceilings. As for the frescoes themselves, Piero insisted on the finest materials, generous amounts of lapis lazuli (for the deep blues of the sky) and sheets of silver and gold leaf that would cast an otherworldly gleam in the light of flickering candles.
Piero took a strong interest in the painting’s day-to-day progress. A series of letters between Piero and the artist suggests that this was a commission particularly close to his heart. “This morning I had a letter from Your Magnificence,” wrote Gozzoli to Piero, “and I learnt that it seems to you the seraphs I have done are out of place. On one side I did one among some clouds, and of this you hardly see anything except the tips of the wings…. Nevertheless I will do as you command, two little clouds will take them away.” This supervision—even micromanagement—of an artist’s work was not unusual. Renaissance patrons were often intimately involved in the smallest details of the works they commissioned. In their own eyes they were the true agents of the work of art, and they regarded the craftsmen they employed as, at best, collaborators, and at worst skilled servants whose role was simply to carry out the vision of their employers.
One should not dismiss such attitudes as mere snobbery. Art in Renaissance Florence was the serious business of serious men, inextricably bound up with politics and religion. Later in his career Lorenzo employed the greatest geniuses of the Florentine Renaissance—Botticelli, Michelangelo, and Leonardo—as his own personal emissaries, sending them the length and breadth of Italy in hopes of cementing alliances and maintaining his city’s prestige abroad. If Florence was not the most powerful state on the peninsula, it abounded in artists and craftsmen coveted by foreign courts. By exporting Florentine culture, Lorenzo and his predecessors tried to achieve through the dazzle of art what they could not hope to win through strength of arms.
Nor was the role of art connoisseur the effete pursuit of the idle rich.
For the most part, however, the public understood that the honor of the city was tied to the honor paid to its leading family. Florentines were painfully aware of their lack of pedigree and took every opportunity to demonstrate that, despite the absence of hereditary nobility, they were men of refinement. The pageantry of Florentine life was in large part an expression of cultural insecurity, and the Medici palace was a key element in this self-promotion. It is a notable trend in Florentine history—one that helps explain Medici success in subverting the city’s republican institutions—that men who otherwise jealously guarded their prerogatives accorded the Medici an almost princely standing if only in order to seem more worthy in the eyes of foreigners.
The one room that still hints at the palazzo ’s former splendor is the small private chapel on the second floor. In 1459, Benozzo Gozzoli began work on the frescoes that have since made this one of the most beautiful rooms in Florence or, indeed, in all of Europe. Under the close supervision of Piero, Gozzoli depicted the Adoration of the Magi, a theme he had already tackled for the family when, as an assistant to Fra Angelico, he had painted a modest version on the walls of Cosimo’s private cell in San Marco. No expense was spared to create a jewel-like effect, including an intricately inlaid floor (designed by Andrea del Verrocchio) and elaborately coffered and gilded ceilings. As for the frescoes themselves, Piero insisted on the finest materials, generous amounts of lapis lazuli (for the deep blues of the sky) and sheets of silver and gold leaf that would cast an otherworldly gleam in the light of flickering candles.
Piero took a strong interest in the painting’s day-to-day progress. A series of letters between Piero and the artist suggests that this was a commission particularly close to his heart. “This morning I had a letter from Your Magnificence,” wrote Gozzoli to Piero, “and I learnt that it seems to you the seraphs I have done are out of place. On one side I did one among some clouds, and of this you hardly see anything except the tips of the wings…. Nevertheless I will do as you command, two little clouds will take them away.” This supervision—even micromanagement—of an artist’s work was not unusual. Renaissance patrons were often intimately involved in the smallest details of the works they commissioned. In their own eyes they were the true agents of the work of art, and they regarded the craftsmen they employed as, at best, collaborators, and at worst skilled servants whose role was simply to carry out the vision of their employers.
One should not dismiss such attitudes as mere snobbery. Art in Renaissance Florence was the serious business of serious men, inextricably bound up with politics and religion. Later in his career Lorenzo employed the greatest geniuses of the Florentine Renaissance—Botticelli, Michelangelo, and Leonardo—as his own personal emissaries, sending them the length and breadth of Italy in hopes of cementing alliances and maintaining his city’s prestige abroad. If Florence was not the most powerful state on the peninsula, it abounded in artists and craftsmen coveted by foreign courts. By exporting Florentine culture, Lorenzo and his predecessors tried to achieve through the dazzle of art what they could not hope to win through strength of arms.
Nor was the role of art connoisseur the effete pursuit of the idle rich.
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