2 - Prisoners for War: Convicts, Slaves, and the Culture of Forced Labour in Sixteenth-Century Tuscany

Summary

Abstract

In an attempt to shed light on some of history's unwilling agents of war, this chapter examines the role of criminals in the martial initiatives of Cosimo I de’ Medici, who governed as Florence's Duke from 1537–69 and then as the Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1569–74. The bulk of this study focuses on the crewmembers of Medicean warships. Large numbers of workers were also needed for state-sanctioned fortification and expansion projects. By presenting a more detailed picture of the involuntary personnel that fuelled Medicean military enterprises, this study aims to redefine the notion of ‘soldier’, as well as demonstrate how forced labour was sourced, organized, and deployed in service of the early modern Tuscan state.

Keywords: Galleys, Prisoners, Oarsmen, Medici, Labour, Slaves

In May 1558, court artist Giorgio Vasari (1511–74) informed Duke Cosimo I of Tuscany (1517–74) that the decorations for the Sala di Cosimo I were complete. The room – located on the first floor of the Palazzo Vecchio – featured forty different fresco scenes illustrating the duke's most celebrated accomplishments to date. One of the sala's most prominent frescoes depicts Cosimo overseeing the construction of the fortifications on Elba, an island located in the Tyrrhenian sea approximately twenty kilometres from the Tuscan coast. After claiming the island in 1548, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1500–58) put Cosimo I in charge of the island's defences, awarding him control of the city of Portoferraio (later renamed Cosmopolis in 1557). After repeatedly persuading the emperor, Cosimo was authorized to begin construction there, since ‘that site could be easily occupied and with a small number of people, either from the pope, the French, or others, and it would then be very difficult to recover’. In the fresco, Cosimo I holds an architectural plan and gestures toward the fortifications visible in the background. The works include a wall that was reinforced in 1548, in addition to two forts, Forte Falcone and Forte Stella. The duke is also shown with Portoferraio head architect Giovanni Camerini, fort superintendent Luca Martini, ducal secretary Lorenzo Pagni (who holds the contract issued from Charles V), and the court dwarf Morgante, whose head peeks out from the foreground. Positioned in the fresco's lower right on a seahorse holding a trident is Neptune, the Roman god of fresh water and the sea.