Princely Citizen

Lorenzo de’ Medici (1449-92) was in his own time one of the most renowned of Renaissance figures. His myth has continued to fascinate both scholars and the many tourists who are drawn by it to explore what remains of the Medicean presence in Florence. Lorenzo’s first English biographer, William Roscoe, described him as the most remarkable man who had ever lived in ancient or modern times. This collection of essays explores Lorenzo’s apprenticeship as the de facto ruler of Florence and the means by which he exerted control over friends and clients to ensure the ascendancy of the Medici dynasty. The essays place the religious and artistic patronage of Lorenzo in the context of his political career and explore other important aspects of his emergence as the princely citizen of a still proud republic.

Francis W. Kent (1942-2010) established his reputation as a cultural and social historian of Renaissance Florence with his first monograph, Household and Lineage in Renaissance Florence. He turned his attention to Lorenzo de’ Medici in the late 1980s, producing a steady stream of essays, collected here for the first time, and a major study of Lorenzo’s art patronage, Lorenzo de’ Medici and the Art of Magnificence. After the death of Nicolai Rubinstein in 2002, the first general editor of the multi-volume critical edition of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s letters, Kent took charge of the ongoing project and oversaw the publication of several more volumes. His forthcoming biographical study of Lorenzo’s early career will be published by Harvard University Press.