Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T23:56:42.977Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Cultural Clientelism and Brokerage Networks in EarlyModern Florence and Rome: New Correspondence between the Barberiniand Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Janie Cole
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study draws on the unpublished correspondence between Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger, a Florentine poet and grandnephew of the artist, and the Barberini family, in an attempt to examine the wider concepts of cultural clientelism and brokerage networks in the early modern process of cultural dissemination (in the areas of literature, music, theater, painting, architecture, and science) in Florence and Rome. Reconsidering the definition and role of a Seicento cultural broker added to the traditional model of patron and client, it analyzes Michelangelo the Younger’s activity as broker, patron-broker, and broker-client in connection with such significant figures as Maffeo Barberini (the future Urban VIII), Galileo, and the painter Lodovico Cigoli, exploring the ways in which these roles supported his personal commitment to promote his family’s social status and revealing the fluidity of roles in the patronage system. By obtaining Barberini patronage for his theatrical works and public recognition of the mythology of his illustrious forebear, Buonarroti’s cultural brokerage supported these dynastic ambitions. Spanning nearly half a century, this archival documentation casts new light on a little-known, but significant, area of Italian social relations and suggests directions for further research on other Seicento cultural brokers and new definitions for a broader concept of cultural brokerage in early modern Italy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 60 , Issue 3 , Fall 2007 , pp. 729 - 788
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 Renaissance Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This article was written during my year as a Fellow at Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence. I am particularly indebted to Tim Carter, Louis Waldman, Marco Gentile, Massimiliano Rossi, and Kathryn Bosi for reading early drafts of this study and for providing valuable comments and suggestions. Moreover, I thankfully acknowledge the constructive criticism of the anonymous readers who reviewed the manuscript for RQ. Joseph Connors, Alison Frazier, Eve Borsook, Sara Galletti, Darrel Rutkin, Cosimo Mazzoni, Monica Azzolini, Giovanni Pagliarulo, Pina Ragionieri, Lorenzo Grassi, and the staff of the Biblioteca and Fototeca Berenson at Villa I Tatti also have my gratitude for their expert assistance and support. The following abbreviations are used: I:Fb=Florence, Casa Buonarroti; AB=Archivio Buonarroti, in I:Fb; I:Fm=Florence, Biblioteca Marucelliana; I:Fn=Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale; I:Fr=Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana e Moreniana; I:Fuf=Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi; I:Rvat=Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana; Barb.Lat.=Fondo Barberini Latini, in I:Rvat; GB:Lbl=London, British Library. All documents presented follow the original text throughout, although I have expanded intelligible abbreviations and contractions tacitly, except for the most common, such as titles of address. I have normalized the letters u/v and i/j according to modern usage, as well as the use of accents and upper and lower case. However, I have adhered to the original punctuation, syntax, and spelling, and have not corrected the innumerable orthographic inconsistencies found in the original manuscripts. Where the text was particularly difficult to read (due to damage or illegibility), I have given an approximate transcription in angled brackets. Totally illegible passages are indicated by ellipses. All dates follow the sources, combining, where necessary, Florentine and stile comune dating in a single formula. The new concept of cultural brokerage as explored in this article, is developed at length in the wider context of traditional patronage studies on music, theater, and literature in my forthcoming monograph.

References

Ackerman, James S. The Architecture of Michelangelo. 2 vols. London, 1961.Google Scholar
Alcune poesie sopra la morte del Principe Don Francesco Medici. Florence, 1615.Google Scholar
Baldinucci, Filippo. Notizie dei professori del disegno da Cimabue in qua. 5 vols. Florence, 1845–47.Google Scholar
Biagioli, Mario. Galileo, Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism. Chicago, 1993.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bizzocchi, Roberto. Genealogie incredibili: scritti di storia nell’Europa moderna. Bologna, 1995.Google Scholar
Boehman, Jessica Marie. “Between Florence and Rome, 1630: Finelli’s Bust of Michelangelo il Giovane ’Dell’Api.’” MA thesis, Pennsylvania State University, 2002.Google Scholar
Boissevain, Jeremy. Friends of Friends: Networks, Manipulators and Coalitions. Oxford, 1974.Google Scholar
Buonarroti, Michelangelo. The Complete Poems of Michelangelo. Trans. Joseph Tusiani. New York, 1960.Google Scholar
Buonarroti, Michelangelo, [the Younger], ed. Rime di Michelagnolo Buonarroti, raccolte da Michelagnolo suo nipote. Florence, 1623.Google Scholar
Burke, Peter. The Italian Renaissance: Culture and Society in Italy. Princeton, 1987.Google Scholar
Cambon, Glauco. Michelangelo’s Poetry: Fury of Form. Princeton, 1985.Google Scholar
Campbell, Malcolm. Pietro da Cortona at the Pitti Palace: A Study of the Planetary Rooms and Related Projects. Princeton, 1977.Google Scholar
Tim, Carter. Music and Patronage in Late “Sixteenth-Century Florence: The Case of Jacopo Corsi (1561–1602). “ I Tatti Studies: Essays in the Renaissance 1 (1985) : 57–104 .Google Scholar
Cigoli, Ludovico Cardi. Trattato pratico di prospettiva di Ludovico Cardi detto il Cigoli. Ed. Rodolfo Profumo. Rome, 1992.Google Scholar
Cole, Janie. “Michelangelo Buonarroti ’il Giovane’ (1568–1647): A Musician’s Poet in Seicento Florence.” PhD diss., University of London, 2000.Google Scholar
Cole, Janie. “Un poco più triviale: Michelangelo Buonarroti il giovane (1568–1647) and Court Theatrical Spectacles in Seicento Florence.” In Theatre, Opera, and Performance in Italy from the Fifteenth Century to the Present: Essays in Honour of Richard Andrews, ed. Brian Richardson, Simon Gilson, and Catherine Keen, 116–40. Leeds, 2004.Google Scholar
Componimenti poetici di vari autori nelle nozze delli eccellentissimi signori D. Taddeo Barberini e D. Anna Colonna. Rome, [1629].Google Scholar
Condivi, Ascanio. Vita di Michelagnolo Buonarroti. 1553. Ed. Giovanni Nencioni. Florence, 1998.Google Scholar
Cools, Hans, Marika Keblusek, and Badeloch Noldus, eds. Your Humble Servant: Agents in Early Modern Europe. Hilversum, 2006.Google Scholar
Stefano, Corsi. “Michelangelo Buonarroti il Giovane a Roma: Nuovi documenti sulla collezione di antichità.” Prospettiva: Rivista di storia dell’arte antica e moderna 110–11 (2003) : 160–65 .Google Scholar
Crescimbeni, Giovanni Mario. Dell’Istoria della volgar poesia. 6 vols. Venice, 1731.Google Scholar
Cummings, Anthony M. The Maecenas and the Madrigalist: Patrons, Patronage, and the Origins of the Italian Madrigal. Philadelphia, 2004.Google Scholar
D’Accone, Frank A. The Civic Muse: Music and Musicians in Siena during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Chicago, 1997.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
C. H, Dayton. “Rethinking Agency, Recovering Voices.” American Historical Review 109 (2004) : 827–43 .Google Scholar
De Maio, Romeo. Michelangelo e la Controriforma. Rome, 1978.Google Scholar
De Santillana, Giorgio. The Crime of Galileo. London, 1968.Google Scholar
De Tolnay, Charles. La Casa Buonarroti: le sculture di Michelangelo e le collezioni di famiglia. Florence, 1970.Google Scholar
D’Onofrio, Cesare. Roma vista da Roma. Rome, 1967.Google Scholar
S. N, Eisenstadt, Roniger, Louis. “Patron-Client Relations as a Model of Structuring Social Exchange.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 22 (1980) : 42–77 .Google Scholar
Ernst, Germana. “Astrology, Religion and Politics in Counter-Reformation Rome.” In Science, Culture and Popular Belief in Renaissance Europe, ed. S. Pumfrey, P. L. Rossi, and M. Slawinski, 249–73. Manchester, 1991.Google Scholar
Fabris, Dinko. Mecenati e musici: documenti sul patronato artistico dei Bentivoglio di Ferrara nell’epoca di Monteverdi (1585–1643). Lucca, 1999.Google Scholar
Vincenzo, Fasolo. “Un pittore architetto: il Cigoli.” Quaderni del’lIstituto di Storia dell’Architettura 1 (1953): 2–7; 2 : 11–15 .Google Scholar
Fosi, Irene. All’ombra dei Barberini: fedeltà e servizio nella Roma barocca. Rome, 1997.Google Scholar
Freedberg, David. The Eye of the Lynx: Galileo, His Friends, and the Beginning of Modern Natural History. Chicago, 2002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fuchs, Thomas, and Sven Trakulhun. Kulturtransfer in Europa 1500–1850. Berlin, 2003.Google Scholar
Galilei, Galileo. Le opere. 20 vols. Florence, 1968.Google Scholar
Gellner, Ernest. “Patrons and Clients.” In Patrons and Clients in Mediterranean Societies, ed. Ernest Gellner and John Waterbury, 1–6. London, 1977.Google Scholar
Goldberg, Edward. Patterns in Late Medici Patronage. Princeton, 1983.Google Scholar
Gotti, Aurelio. Vita di Michelangelo Buonarroti. 2 vols. Florence, 1875.Google Scholar
Guasti, Cesare, ed. Le rime di Michelangelo Buonarroti. Florence, 1863.Google Scholar
Gotti, Aurelio, ed. Le carte strozziane del r. archivio di stato in Firenze. Florence, 1884.Google Scholar
Marziano, Guglielminetti and, Masoero, Mariarosa. “Lettere e prose inedite (o parzialmente edite) di Giovanni Ciampoli.” Studi secenteschi 19 (1978) : 131–257 .Google Scholar
Frederick, Hammond. “Girolamo Frescobaldi and a Decade of Music in Casa Barberini.” Analecta Musicologica 19 (1979) : 94–124 .Google Scholar
Hammond Frederick.“The Artistic Patronage of the Barberini and the Galileo Affair.” In Music and Science in the Age of Galileo, ed. Victor Coelho, 67–89. Dordrecht, 1992.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hammond Frederick.Music and Spectacle in Baroque Rome: Barberini Patronage under Urban VIII. New Haven, 1994.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harness, Kelley. Echoes of Women’s Voices: Music, Art and Female Patronage in Early Modern Florence. Chicago, 2006.Google Scholar
Haskell, Francis. Patrons and Painters: A Study in the Relations between Italian Art and Society in the Age of the Baroque. London, 1963.Google Scholar
Hatfield, Rab. The Wealth of Michelangelo. Rome, 2002.Google Scholar
Hibbard, Howard. Carlo Maderno and Roman Architecture 1580–1630. London, 1971.Google Scholar
Hill, John Walter. Roman Monody, Cantata and Opera from the Circles around Cardinal Montalto. Oxford, 1997.Google Scholar
Ianziti, Gary. “Patronage and the Production of History: The Case of Quattrocento Milan.” In Patronage, Art and Society (1987), 299–311.Google Scholar
Kapsberger, Johann. Poemata et carmina composita a Maffaeo Barberino olim S. R. E. card., nunc autem Vrbano Octavo. Rome, 1624.Google Scholar
Kapsberger, Johann. Missae urbanae. Rome, 1631.Google Scholar
Kent, Francis William. Household and Lineage in Renaissance Florence. Princeton, 1977.Google Scholar
Kettering, Sharon. Patrons, Brokers, and Clients in Seventeenth-Century France. New York, 1986.Google Scholar
Kettering, Sharon. Patronage in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century France. Aldershot, 2002.Google Scholar
Kirkendale, Warren. The Court Musicians in Florence during the Principate of the Medici: With a Reconstruction of the Artistic Establishment. Florence, 1993.Google Scholar
Landi, Stefano. Missa in benedictione nvptiarvm sex vocvm. Rome, 1628.Google Scholar
Lytle, Guy Fitch. “Friendship and Patronage in Renaissance Europe.” In Patronage, Art and Society (1987), 47–61.Google Scholar
Lytle, Guy Fitch, and Stephen Orgel, eds. Patronage in the Renaissance. Princeton, 1981.Google Scholar
Magnuson, Torgil. Rome in the Age of Bernini. 2 vols. Stockholm, 1982.Google Scholar
Masera, Maria Giovanna. Michelangelo Buonarroti il Giovane. Turin, 1941.Google Scholar
Anna, Matteoli. “Cinque lettere di Lodovico Cardi Cigoli a Michelangelo Buonarroti il Giovane.” Bollettino della Accademia degli Euteleti della città di San Miniato 28, no. 37 (1965) : 31–42 .Google Scholar
Matteoli Anna. Immagini del Cigoli e del suo ambiente. San Miniato, 1985.Google Scholar
Mauss, Marcel. The Gift. New York, 1967.Google Scholar
Murata, Margaret Kimiko. Operas for the Papal Court 1631–1668. Ann Arbor, 1981.Google Scholar
Nussdorfer, Laurie. Civic Politics in the Rome of Urban VIII. Princeton, 1992.Google Scholar
Orsi, Aurelio. Aurelii Ursii, Maphei Barbarini, Claudij Contuli, Io: Baptistae Lauri, Vincentij Palettarij, M. Ant. Bonciarij academicorum Insensator, carmina. Perugia, [1606].Google Scholar
Parisi, Susan. Ducal Patronage of Music in Mantua, 1587–1627: An Archival Study. Ann Arbor, 1990.Google Scholar
Pasini-Frassoni, Ferruccio. Essai d’armorial des Papes d’après les manuscrits du Vatican et les monuments publics. Rome, 1906.Google Scholar
Pastor, Ludwig Von. The History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages. Trans. Dom Ernest Graf. 30 vols. London, 1938.Google Scholar
Patronage, Art and Society in Renaissance Italy. Ed. Francis William Kent and Patricia Simons. New York, 1987.Google Scholar
Pecchiai, Pio. I Barberini. Rome, 1959.Google Scholar
Peck, Linda Levy. Consuming Splendor: Society and Culture in Seventeenth-Century England. Cambridge, 2005.Google Scholar
Persico, Panfilo. Del segretario libri quattro. Venice, 1629.Google Scholar
Pizzorusso, Claudio. A Boboli e altrove: sculture e scultori fiorentini del Seicento. Florence, 1989.Google Scholar
Oskar, Pollak. “Italienische Kunstlerbriefe aus der Barockzeit.” Jahrbuch der königlich preussischen Kunstsammlungen 34 (1913) : 1–77 .Google Scholar
Procacci, Ugo. La Casa Buonarroti a Firenze. Milan, 1965.Google Scholar
Danilo, Romei. “Sulle satire di Michelangelo Buonarroti il Giovane: manoscritti e datazioni.” Filologia e critica 15, no.1 (1990) : 3–56 .Google Scholar
H. Darrel, Rutkin. “Galileo Astrologer: Astrology and Mathematical Practice in the Late-Sixteenth and Early-Seventeenth Centuries.” Galilaeana 2 (2005) : 107–43 .Google Scholar
Ryan, Christopher. Michelangelo: The Poems. London, 1996.Google Scholar
Ryan, Christopher. The Poetry of Michelangelo: An Introduction. London, 1998.Google Scholar
Saslow, James M., ed. The Poetry of Michelangelo: An Annotated Translation. New Haven, 1991.Google Scholar
Schmidt, Steffen et al., eds. Friends, Followers and Factions: A Reader in Political Clientelism. Berkeley, 1977.Google Scholar
Scott, John Beldon. Images of Nepotism: The Painted Ceilings of Palazzo Barberini. Princeton, 1991.Google Scholar
Siebenhüner, Herbert. “Umrisse zur Geschichte der Ausstattung von St. Peter in Rom von Paul III bis Paul V (1547–1606).” In Festschrift für Hans Sedlmayr, ed. Karl Oettinger and Mohammed Rassem, 229–320. Munich, 1962.Google Scholar
Symonds, John Addington. The Life of Michelangelo: Based on Studies in the Archives of the Buonarroti Family at Florence. 2 vols. London, 1893–99.Google Scholar
Symonds, John Addington, ed. The Sonnets of Michelangelo. London, 1950.Google Scholar
Trexler, Richard. Public Life in Renaissance Florence. New York, 1980.Google Scholar
Vasari, Giorgio. La vita di Michelangelo nelle redazioni del 1550 e del 1568. Ed. Paola Barocchi. 5 vols. Milan, 1962.Google Scholar
Vliegenthart, Adriaan W. La Galleria Buonarroti: Michelangelo e Michelangelo il Giovane. Trans. Giorgio Faggin. Florence, 1976.Google Scholar
Patricia, Waddy. “Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger, Sprezzatura, and Palazzo Barberini.” Architectura 5, no. 2 (1975) : 101–22 .Google Scholar
Waddy Patricia. Seventeenth-Century Roman Palaces: Use and the Art of the Plan. New York, 1990.Google Scholar
Weissman, Ronald. “Taking Patronage Seriously: Mediterranean Values and Renaissance Society.” In Patronage, Art and Society (1987), 25–45.Google Scholar
Weissman, Ronald. Ritual Brotherhood in Renaissance Florence. New York, 1982.Google Scholar