An Ambassador as a Diversion? Giuliano Soderini and His Florentine Mission in France (1527–29)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12775/LEGATIO.2019.01Keywords
Franco-Italian relations, Florentine nation in France, Florentine republic (1527–30)Abstract
In 1527, after the Sack of Rome by Imperial Troops, the Medici are chased from Florence. The oligarchic government of the Dieci is reinstated. The Dieci need a new ambassador. In particular, they need a man of trust in France, where the king ought still to be convinced to defend Florence and Tuscany against imperial troops. They choose pro-republic Bishop Giuliano Soderini of Saintes. The embassy and life of Giuliano Soderini have been strangely and almost systematically omitted in the existing literature on the subject. His letters were completely excluded from previous editions of Florentine letters of this period. This paper aims to restore them to their rightful place. It presents Giuliano Soderini’s personal and political background before and after his French mission. His diplomatic functions, needs and difficulties are detailed thanks to an extended and thorough reading of his correspondence in and out of France, preserved in France and Italy. This archival work led to the writing of an updated catalogue of his diplomatic correspondence from July 1527 to February 1529.
References
Archival Sources
Florence, Archivio di Stato, Otto di Pratica
OdP, Resp., f. 50, f. 127; Sanudo, Marino, Diarii, v. XLVI; DdB, Leg. e com., f. 42–46
Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale
Gino Capponi 321
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France
MS fr 3021,
Published Sources
Alberì, Eugenio, L’assedio di Firenze illustrato con inediti documenti (Firenze: Clio, 1840)
Catalogue des actes de François Ier (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1892)
Catalogo cronologico de’ canonici della Chiesa metropolitana Fiorentina (Florence: 1782)
Correspondance des nonces en France. Capodiferro, Dandino et Giudiccione (1541–1546)
(Rome, Paris: Presses de l’Université Grégorienne, E. de Boccard, 1963)
Négociations diplomatiques de la France avec la Toscane, ed. by Giuseppe Canestrini et Abel Desjardins (Paris: Imprimerie Impériale, 1859–86)
Pallandri, Ernesto, Les négociations politiques et religieuses entre la Toscane et la France à l’époque de Cosme Ier et de Catherine de Médicis (1544–1580) (Paris: A. Picard, 1908)
Storia dei Vescovi Vicentini (Vicenza: 1786)
Secondary Works
Alfani, Guido, Calamities and the Economy in Renaissance Italy. The Grand Tour of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse (New York: MacMillan, 2013)
Bély, Lucien, ‘Histoire de la diplomatie et des relations internationales des Temps modernes: un état de la recherche en France’, in Sulla diplomazia, pp. 19–34
Busquets, Anna, ‘Three Manila-Fujian Diplomatic Encounters: Different Aims and Different Embassies in the Seventeenth Century’, Journal of Early Modern History, 23 (2019), 442–57
Cecchi, Alessandro, In difesa della dolce libertà. L’assedio di Firenze (1529–1530) (Florence: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 2018)
Contini, Alessandra, ‘Correre la fortuna di Cesare. Instabilità, diplomazia ed informazione politica nel principato di Cosimo I’, in L’Italia di Carlo V: guerra, religione e politica nel primo Cinquecento, ed. by Francesca Cantù, Elena Fasano Guarini, and Maria Antonietta Visceglia (Rome: Viella, 2003)
Contini, Alessandra, ‘Dinastia, patriziato e politica estera: ambasciatori e segretari medicei nel Cinquecento’, Cheiron, 30 (1998), 57–131
Cutinelli-Rendina, Emanuele, and Fachard, Denis, ‘Introduzione’, in Luca d’Antonio degli Albizzi and Francesco Soderini, Legazione alla corte di Francia. 31 agosto 1501 – 10 luglio 1502 (Turin: Nino Aragno, 2015), pp. vii–xxxvii
Dall’Aglio, Stefano, The Duke’s Assassin: Exile and Death of Lorenzino de’ Medici (New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 2015)
D’Amico, Juan-Carlos, ‘François Ier et les révoltes siciliennes’, in François Ier et l’espace politique italien. États, domaines et territoires, ed. by Juan-Carlos d’Amico et JeanLouis Fournel (Rome: Publications de l’École française de Rome, 2018), pp. 263–88
Descendre, Romain, Fournel, Jean-Louis, and Zancarini, Jean-Claude, ‘Après les Guerres d’Italie: Florence, Venise, Rome (1530–1605)’, Astérion, 15 (2016), online, DOI: 10.4000/asterion.2802
Diplomatie et ‘relations internationales’ au Moyen Âge (IXe–XVe siècle), ed. by Jean-Marie Moeglin, Stéphane Péquignot (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2017)
Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vols 1–86 (Rome: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 1960–)
Double Agents: Cultural and Political Brokerage in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Marika Keblusek, Badeloch Noldus (Leiden: Brill, 2011)
Elam, Caroline, ‘Art in the service of liberty: Battista della Palla, Art Agent for Francis I’, I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance, 5 (1993), 33–109
Favreau, Robert, et al., La cathédrale Saint-Pierre de Saintes (Paris: Picard, 2012)
Febvre, Lucien, ‘Contre l’histoire diplomatique en soi. Histoire ou politique? Deux médiations: 1930, 1945’, in Combats pour l’histoire (Paris: A. Colin, 1953)
Fedele, Dante, Naissance de la diplomatie moderne (XIIIe–XVIIe siècles): l’ambassadeur au croisement du droit, de l’éthique et de la politique (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2017)
Figliolo, Bruno, ‘Pratiche e norme di comportamento nella diplomazia italiana’, in De l’ambassadeur, pp. 113–161
Flessia, Magali, ‘Le langage diplomatique: dire et écrire, convaincre et agir. Les lettres de Piero Soderini et Cosimo dei Pazzi en France (1498–1499) Édition critique et commentée’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Aix-Marseille, 2013)
Fournel, Jean-Louis, ‘Machiavel, Guicciardini et François Ier’, in François Ier et l’espace politique italien, pp. 155–76
Frigo, Daniela, ‘Politica e diplomazia. I sentieri della storiografia italiana’, in Sulla diplomazia, pp. 35–59
Frigo, Daniela, ‘Prudenza politica e conoscenza del mondo. Un secolo di riflessione sulla figura dell’ambasciatore (1541–1643)’, in De l’ambassadeur : Les écrits relatifs à l’ambassadeur et à l’art de négocier du Moyen Âge au début du XIXe siècle, ed. by Stefano Andretta, Stéphane Péquignot, and Jean-Claude Waquet (Rome: Publications de l’École française de Rome, 2016), pp. 227–68
Gellard, Matthieu, ‘La circulation des correspondances d’État en Europe durant le second XVIe siècle. L’exemple de la France’, in La Poste, servante et actrice des relations internationales (XVIe–XIXe siècle), ed. by Alexandre Tessier (Bruxelles: P.I.E. Peter Lang, 2016), pp. 23–34
Girault, Pierre-Gilles, ‘Séjours et résidences de Louise de Savoie en Val de Loire (1498–1518)’, in Louise de Savoie (1476–1531), ed. by Pascal Brioist, Laure Fagnart, and Cédric Michon (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2015), pp. 47–60
Grasilier, Theodore, ‘Notice biographique sur les évêques de Saintes’, in Recueil des Actes, Archives et Mémoires de la Commission des Arts et monuments historiques de la Charente-Inférieure et Société d’Archéologie de Saintes (Saintes, Imprimerie HUS, 1877), III, 222–23
Guasti, Cesare, ‘Documenti della congiura fatta contro il cardinale Giulio de’ Medici’, Giornale storico degli archivi toscani, 3–4 (1859), pp. 121–50 and 239–67
Guicciardini, Francesco, Storia d’Italia (Bari: G. Laterza, 1967)
Guinand, Julien, Nevejans, Pierre, ‘Introduction’, in La fortune de l’entre-deux. Capitaines, ambassadeurs et prélats italiens entre Valois et Habsbourg, des Alpes à Venise (1519–1559), workshop organised in Lyon (France), 22 October 2019, forthcoming
Halsband, Robert, ‘Editing the Letters of Letter-Writers’, Studies in Bibliography, 11 (1958), 25–37
Henderson, John, Florence under Siege: Surviving Plague in an Early Modern City (Yale: Yale University Press, 2019)
Lazzarini, Isabella, ‘À propos de diplomatie médiévale: pratiques, modèles et langages de la négociation en Italie (XIVe–XVe siècles)’, Médiévales, 74 (2018), 133–54
Lazzarini, Isabella, ‘Italian Diplomacy: an Open Social Field (1350–1520 ca.)’, in Social Mobility in Medieval Italy, ed. by Isabella Lazzarini and Sandro Carocci (Rome: Viella, 2018), pp. 185–198
Lazzarini, Isabella, Communication & Conflict. Italian Diplomacy in the Early Renaissance, 1350–1520 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015)
Le Fur, Didier, François Ier (Paris: Perrin, 2015)
Le Gall, Jean-Marie, ‘Les princes italiens et François Ier (1515–1530)’, in François Ier et l’Italie/Francesco I e l’Italia, ed. by Jean-Marie Le Gall and Chiara Lastraioli (Turnhout: Brepols, 2018), pp. 107–129
Lemaître, Nicole, ‘Les évêques italiens de François Ier’, in François Ier et l’Italie/ Francesco I e l’Italia, ed. by Jean-Marie Le Gall and Chiara Lastraioli (Turnhout: Brepols, 2018)
Litta, Pompeo, Famiglie celebri d’Italia. Soderini di Firenze (Rome: 1861)
Malanima, Paolo, ‘Carducci, Baldassare’, DBI, XX (1977), 2–6
Mattingly, Garrett, Renaissance Diplomacy (New York: Cosimo, 2008)
Michon, Cédric, ‘Odet de Foix, vicomte de Lautrec (v. 1483–1528)’, in Les conseillers de François Ier, ed. by Cédric Michon (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2011)
Monti, Alessandro, L’assedio di Firenze (1529–1530). Politica, diplomazia e conflitto durante le guerre d’Italia (Pisa: Pisa University Press, 2015)
Nevejans, Pierre, ‘Le secrétaire d’ambassade, acteur indispensable de l’exercice diplomatique: le cas de Jacopo Guidi à la cour de France (1544–1545)’, Laboratoire Italien, 23 (2019), online, DOI: 10.4000/laboratoireitalien.3678
Pellegrini, Marco, Le guerre d’Italia, 1494–1559 (Bologna: il Mulino, 2017)
Politics and Diplomacy in Early modern Italy. The Structure of Diplomatic Practice, 1450–1800, ed. by Daniela Frigo (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)
Polizzotto, Lorenzo, Elam, Caroline, ‘La unione de’ gigli con gigli. Two documents on Florence, France and the Savonarolan Millenarian Tradition’, Rinascimento, 31 (1991), 239–59
Polizzotto, Lorenzo, The Elect Nation: the Savonarolan movement in Florence (1494– 1545) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994)
Roth, Cecil, ‘England and the Last Florentine Republic (1527–1530)’, The English Historical Review, 158 (1925), 174–95
Rouchon, Olivier, ‘L’invenzione del Principato (1512–1609)’, in Firenze e la Toscana. Genesi e trasformazioni di uno stato (XIV–XIX secolo), ed. by Jean Boutier, Sandro Landi, and Olivier Rouchon (Florence: Mandragora, 2010), pp. 55–75
Scott-Baker, Nicholas, The Fruit of Liberty. Political Culture in the Florentine Renaissance, 1480–1550 (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2013)
Senatore, Francesco, ‘Filologia e buon senso nelle edizioni di corrispondenze diplomatiche italiane quattrocentesche’, Bulletino dell’Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medioevo, 110 (2008), 61–95
Simoncelli, Paolo, Fuoruscitismo repubblicano fiorentino, 1530–54, vol. 1: 1530–1537 (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2006)
Simoncelli, Paolo, La Repubblica fiorentina in esilio. Una storia segreta, vol. 1: La speranza della restaurazione della Repubblica (Rome: Nuova Cultura, 2018)
Simonetta, Marcello, Volpi e leoni: I misteri dei Medici (Rome: Rizzoli, 2017)
Spini, Giorgio, Cosimo I e l’indipendenza del principato mediceo (Florence: Vallechi, 1980)
Sulla diplomazia in età moderna: politica, economia, religione, ed. by Renzo Sabbatini, Paola Volpini (Milan, Franco Angeli, 2011)
Tremml-Werner, Birgit, and Goetze, Dorothée, ‘A Multitude of Actors in Early Modern Diplomacy’, Journal of Early Modern History, 23 (2019), 407–22.
Volpini, Paola, Los Medici y España. Príncipes, embajadores y agentes en la edad moderna (Madrid: Silex, 2017)
Watkins, John, ‘Toward a New Diplomatic History of Medieval and Early Modern Europe’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 38 (2008), 1–14
Woodcock, Philippa, ‘Living like a king? The entourage of Odet de Foix, vicomte de Lautrec, governor of Milan’, Royal Studies Journal, 2 (2015), 1–24
Your Humble Servant. Agents in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Hans Cools, Marika Keblusek, Badeloch Noldus (Hilversum: Uitgeverii Berloren, 2006)
Zancarini, Jean-Claude, ‘Une philologie politique’, Laboratoire italien, 7 (2007), 61–74
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
Stats
Number of views and downloads: 633
Number of citations: 0
