Cosimo il Vecchio de' Medici (Renaissance and Reformation)

Introduction

The reputation of Cosimo de’ Medici (b. 1389–d. 1464) is that of the head of a successful business empire, banker to successive popes, director of Florence’s foreign policy, the first member of his family to subvert Florence’s republican constitution, and a cultural patron of such generosity that he could single-handedly change the appearance of his city. While there is truth in each of these assessments and Cosimo has become a key figure in even the most popular histories of the Renaissance, his reputation has not been matched by the quantity of publications that it has generated. Nor are there obvious fault lines in Cosimo’s biography: the business interests, relations with popes and princes, political activity and cultural patronage were all so interrelated that it is difficult to separate them. The categories in this article have therefore been kept to a minimum, and many of the individual books and articles could reasonably appear under a number of headings. After Reference Works and Primary Sources, the section devoted to Histories and Biographies is subdivided into works written and/or published between the 16th and 19th centuries and those published in the 20th and 21st centuries. Collections of Papers deals with more detailed topics than the wider-ranging histories and biographies. Cosimo’s wealth and influence came from his direction of the Medici Bank and associated businesses, determining its place in the article. As the bank had branches beyond Florence, it in turn determined the nature of his Relations with Other States. As far as foreign princes were concerned, he was the face of republican Florence and a man with whom they could deal quite comfortably. That contributed to his status within Florence, but the employment created by his businesses counted for more, and his wealth mattered most of all. Wealth bought influence in the world of Florentine Politics, and the works in that section explore the detail behind that familiar generalization. Political patronage and cultural patronage operated along the same principles of mutual back-scratching, but the means by which Cosimo emerged as a significant cultural patron take us back to the world of commerce and Cosimo’s guilt at the means by which he amassed his fortune. Of his Religion there is perhaps relatively little to say, except that his conventional faith was manifested in his patronage of various religious communities. Such communities required buildings and were natural repositories of learning. This determines the order in which the bibliography addresses his Cultural Patronage: after General Surveys that range across the visual arts and literary works, there are subsections on Architecture, Libraries, Humanists and their texts.

Reference Works

While Cosimo de’ Medici and his contemporaries feature in a host of reference works of the single-volume variety—particularly those devoted to the Renaissance as a period or as a cultural phenomenon—two of works selected here are of a completely different magnitude. Dizionario biografico degli Italiani is the first port of call for researching many figures in Italian history, but it remains incomplete and the volume containing the Medici is among the more recent additions to this mammoth enterprise. By way of contrast, Turner 1996 is an encyclopedic resource for all aspects of the visual arts. Grendler 1999 is on a more modest scale and is focused on the Renaissance as a whole. The focus of Camerani 1964 is on the Medici family itself. Grassellini and Fracassini 1982 partly fills the bibliographical gap and also accounts for far many more members of the family than does Dizionario 1960–, albeit in a cursory fashion.

Camerani, Sergio. Bibliografia medicea. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1964.
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The thematic part of this bibliography includes sections on archives and libraries, palaces and villas, relations with men of letters, cultural patronage, and tombs, before dividing the material by individual family members, arranged chronologically. The latter includes Cosimo, Contessina de’ Bardi, Cosimo’s legitimate sons Piero and Giovanni and illegitimate son Carlo. The bibliography is an excellent guide to works published up to 1964.
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Dizionario biografico degli Italiani. 77 vols. Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1960–.
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Volume 73 (2009) contains Dale Kent’s entry on Cosimo, together with those for other members of the Medici family, each of which is supplemented by a bibliography. The entry on Cosimo (pp. 36–43), which benefits from Kent’s lifelong study of early 15th-century Florence, is the most recent biographical account and is also available online.
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Grassellini, Emilio, and Arnaldo Fracassini. Profili medicei: Origine, sviluppo, decadenza, della famiglia Medici attraverso i suoi component. Florence: Libreria SP44, 1982.
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Hundreds of members of the Medici family, across twenty-one generations, appear first in a chronological list—some meriting a paragraph of biographical coverage, most merely a sentence—and then in an alphabetical list, with the relevant sources of information. Cosimo and each of his kinsmen, whether close or otherwise, receive entries. Two bibliographies deal with the Medici and contextual reading.
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Grendler, Paul F. Encyclopedia of the Renaissance. 6 vols. New York: Scribner, for the Renaissance Society of America, 1999.
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A standard reference work for the Renaissance, whether it is interpreted as a period of time or a cultural phenomenon. Contains biographical and thematic entries, with Cosimo and other members of the Medici family featured in Volume 4.
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Turner, Jane, ed. The Dictionary of Art. 34 vols. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1996.
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In addition to the entry on the cultural significance of Cosimo de’ Medici, which can be found in Volume 21 of this substantial work, there are also individual entries on each of the principal architects, artists, and sculptors who received Cosimo’s patronage. See Oxford Art Online.
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Primary Sources

Cosimo’s political and cultural reputation meant that his relatively meager writings were keenly snapped up by authors and editors. Fabroni 1788–1789 and Roscoe 1851 (cited under Histories and Biographies: 16th–19th Centuries), both contain relevant primary sources, including Cosimo’s own account of his exile from Florence in 1433–1434. Whereas Roscoe relied on a friend to supply him with transcripts of archival material, Janet Ross settled in Florence in 1869 and became a significant figure in the Anglophone community. Ross 1910, an edition of letters to and from the more prominent of the 15th-century Medici, is the result of the author’s research while resident there. Volpi 1907 dates from the same period of eager burrowing in the archives and is part of the Rerum Italicarum Scriptores series. In comparison with many of the chronicles edited in that series, it is a slight work, but that alone tells us something of the nature of the published primary sources relating to Cosimo de’ Medici: they are far less extensive than those associated with his grandson Lorenzo. One of Volpi’s texts is a poem in praise of Cosimo and his sons. That theme can be picked up in Scala 2008, Bartolomeo Scala’s introduction to his collection of texts in which Cosimo’s name appears, generally as a patron of humanistic authors. Pope Pius II was as distinguished a humanistic author as could be found in mid-15th-century Italy. Cosimo features in Pius II 2003–2007, the pope’s perhaps unintentionally entertaining autobiography. Another snapshot of Cosimo’s life is provided in Spallanzani 1996, an edition of household inventories of the Medici household from the time of Giovanni di Bicci to that of Lorenzo il Magnifico. A work on a much more ambitious scale is Mediceo Avanti il Principato, which includes Florentine sources from the lifetime of Cosimo de’ Medici. One source has been more influential than all the others combined: Vespasiano da Bisticci (b. 1421–d. 1498) was a considerably younger contemporary of Cosimo. In old age, Vespasiano looked back at his manuscript-selling career and compiled memoirs of his illustrious clients. Vespasiano 1997 contains the most influential pen-portrait of Cosimo ever written.

Mediceo Avanti il Principato.
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Provides access to digitized images of archives in the Florentine Archivio di Stato that date from the 14th century to c. 1537. Most of its contents are political and diplomatic in nature, but a small portion of the collection consists of more private correspondence and records relating to the Medici bank.
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Pius II. Commentaries. Edited by Margaret Meserve and Marcello Simonetta. 2 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003–2007.
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This is the most recent scholarly edition of the humanist pontiff’s waspish memoirs. Cosimo is not a major player, but Pius is a good source of quotable comments on his banker’s phenomenal wealth, canny investments, and surprising level of culture. Traditional rivalry between the Florentine and Sienese republics can be detected in Pius’s criticism of Cosimo’s “tyranny” and his diplomatic illness when Pius visited Florence in 1458.
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Ross, Janet, ed. Lives of the Early Medici: As Told in Their Correspondence. London: Chatto and Windus, 1910.
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By the “early Medici” Ross means Cosimo il Vecchio, Piero il Gottoso, and Lorenzo il Magnifico. The sections on Cosimo and Piero contain forty-six and thirty-nine items respectively. The former includes correspondence to and from both Cosimo and his wife Contessina. The ongoing publication of the Lorenzo’s letters has rendered the majority of Ross’s volume obsolete.
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Scala, Bartolomeo. Essays and Dialogues. Translated by Renée Neu Watkins. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008.
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One of the six texts presented in the original Latin with a facing English translation is the preface to Scala’s “Cosimo de’ Medici Collection” (pp. 143–157). It is addressed to Cosimo’s grandson Lorenzo and explains that the ensuing collection brings together all the writings in which Cosimo’s name appears. Among his achievements, the libraries at S. Marco and Fiesole are singled out.
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Spallanzani, Marco, ed. Inventari Medicei, 1417–1465: Giovanni di Bicci, Cosimo e Lorenzo di Giovanni, Piero di Cosimo. Florence: Associazione “Amici del Bargello,” 1996.
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The inventories in question are those listing the goods—generally furniture, bedding, and clothes—of Giovanni di Bicci, Cosimo, Piero, and Lorenzo de’ Medici. Cosimo’s appears on pp. 75–84 but can only be dated roughly to the 1420s and that thanks to references to family members, his wife Contessina, sons Piero and Giovanni, and brother Lorenzo and sister-in-law Ginevra.
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Vespasiano, da Bisticci. The Vespasiano Memoirs: Lives of Illustrious Men of the XVth Century. Translated by William George and Emily Waters. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997.
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An accessible edition of the work first published in 1892–1893 as Vite di uomini illustri del secolo xv. Among the popes and rulers, cardinals, archbishops, and bishops, statesmen, and writers recalled by the Florentine bookseller, Cosimo is featured first among the statesmen. Vespasiano emphasizes his education, the “prickings of conscience” that induced him to spend his wealth and the author’s part in the formation of Cosimo’s library. The life is also available online.
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Volpi, Guglielmo, ed. Ricordi di Firenze dell’anno 1459 di autore anonimo. Rerum Italicarum Scriptores 27. Città di Castello, Italy: Tipi della casa editrice S. Lapi, 1907.
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This slim volume contains two poems that relate the highlights of the overlapping visits to Florence by Pius II and Galeazzo Maria Sforza in 1459. The main text is an account of what happened between 15 April and 5 May; the appendix contains an extract from an anonymous “poemetto” in praise of Cosimo and his sons.
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Histories and Biographies

Cosimo de’ Medici has featured prominently in histories of Florence from the Renaissance era itself through to the present day, but his appeal as the subject of biographies has not been quite as enduring. Here the two genres are combined in order to trace their varying fortunes.

16th–19th Centuries

Machiavelli 1988 is one of many editions (including translations) of his Istorie fiorentine, written in the early 1520s, by which time the election of two Medici popes had repeatedly thwarted the hopes of those Florentines who favored a broader form of government. Machiavelli (b. 1469–d. 1527) did not live to see the establishment of the Medici principate in Florence, but when it came about, writers and artists benefitted from the emergence of a court and court culture. The painter and architect Giorgio Vasari (b. 1511–d. 1574) gained more employment than most and expressed his gratitude by extolling many members of the Medici family, past and present, as important patrons of the visual arts. This he did in Vasari 1997, one of numerous editions of his Lives of the most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects. It was under Grand Duke Francesco I that the Camaldolese monk Silvano Razzi (b. 1527–d. 1611) wrote his life of Cosimo (Razzi 1580), combining it with the lives of four other significant figures in Florentine history. These were among the works available to Angelo Fabroni (b. 1732–d. 1803) when he wrote his three Medicean biographies: lives of Lorenzo il Magnifico (1784), Cosimo il Vecchio (1788–1789), and Leo X (1797). Fabroni 1788–1789 is the earliest full-scale biography of Cosimo and the only one to be fully documented. William Roscoe (b. 1753–d. 1851) followed Fabroni’s example by writing lives of Lorenzo and Leo, but his coverage of Cosimo is limited to the opening chapter of Roscoe 1851, one of the numerous posthumously published editions of his extremely influential work. That influence endured throughout most of the 19th century, but easier access to archives and the systematic publication of primary sources meant that Roscoe’s tendency to hero-worship steadily gave way to a more scientific approach to the subject. The next English-language biography was Ewart 1899.

Ewart, K. Dorothea. Cosimo de’ Medici. London and New York: Macmillan, 1899.
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An efficient, readable biography, the priorities of which can be seen in the two chapters devoted to foreign policy after Cosimo’s return from exile, compared to one chapter each on Florence’s internal politics and Cosimo’s cultural patronage. Ewart’s 19th-century authorities include Burckhardt, Gino Capponi, Crowe and Cavalcasalle, Rio, Symonds, Voigt, and the Archivio storico italiano, illustrating developments in the appreciation of Italian Renaissance history since Fabroni 1788–1789.
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Fabroni, Angelo. Magni Cosmi Medicei vita. 2 vols. Pisa, Italy: Alessandro Landi, 1788–1789.
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The two volumes are, respectively, a narrative text of relatively modest length, with no chapter divisions but an eminently clear index, and a more substantial collection of documents, which was published first, in 1788. If the narrative is bound in front of the documents it can lead to the impression that everything was published in 1789.
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Machiavelli, Niccolò. Florentine Histories. Translated by Laura F. Banfield and Harvey C. Mansfield Jr. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988.
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However much Machiavelli sought to overcome his aversion to the Medici by shifting the emphasis onto foreign relations in his Istorie fiorentine, Cosimo is introduced in Book 4, chapter 6, and features intermittently through to his death in Book 7, chapter 1. There are also numerous of electronic versions of the text, including those available in Italian and in English.
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Razzi, Silvano. Vite di cinque huomini illustri. Florence: Giunti, 1580.
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Razzi’s five illustrious men are the 13th-century warrior Farinata degli Uberti, the 14th-century ruler of Florence Walter of Brienne, Duke of Athens, Salvestro de’ Medici (b. 1331–d. 1388), Cosimo de’ Medici and Francesco Valori (b. 1438–d. 1498). Razzi’s model was provided in Vasari 1997. The result is less ambitious, but no less patriotically Florentine.
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Roscoe, William. The Life of Lorenzo de’ Medici, Called the Magnificent. 10th ed. London: H. G. Bohn, 1851.
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Cosimo provides the subject matter for the first of Roscoe’s ten chapters. His family’s influence and his own exile are passed over quite briskly, so that the focus is firmly on his encouragement to men of learning, his role in the revival of Platonic philosophy, and his contribution to the foundation of libraries. The chapter concludes with his death and an assessment of his character.
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Vasari, Giorgio. Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori: Nelle redazioni del 1550e 1568. Edited by Paola Barocchi and Giovanna Gaeta Bertelà. Florence: Studio per Edizioni Scelte, 1997.
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Vasari’s lives of painters, sculptors, and architects are available in numerous editions, printed and online, of which this one happens to be both recent and scholarly. Cosimo and other Medici are mentioned in various individual lives, including those of Lorenzo di Bicci, Dello Delli, Luca della Robbia, Paolo Uccello, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Filippo Brunelleschi, Donatello, and Michelozzo Michelozzi.
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20th–21st Centuries

This section contains two general histories of Florence: Brucker 1983, which has been highly regarded since its first publication in 1969, and Najemy 2006, which benefits from the glut of publications that have followed in the wake of Brucker and other authors of his generation. Both studies are wide-ranging, but if a more specialist introduction to Cosimo’s cultural world is required, then Holmes 1992 is similarly authoritative. In the 20th century the Medici family inspired a number of systematic generation-by-generation, individual-by-individual studies in which Cosimo features as a matter of course. Pieraccini 1986, first published in the 1920s, represents this genre. Langedijk 1981–1987 is similar, but exclusively devoted to portraits of the family in various media. Their formats suggest that both Pieraccini 1986 and Langedijk 1981–1987 could be treated as works of reference. The same could not be said for Hale 1977, which tells two stories at once, that of Florence and that of the Medici, weaving them together with the utmost skill. If a single work is required, in preference to multiple angles on the subject of Cosimo and his world, then Hale 1977 could not be more highly recommended. Brucker 1957 sets the scene for Cosimo’s life and career by exploring those of his 14th-century ancestors and members of other branches of the dynasty, but it has little to say about Cosimo himself. Remarkably, as far as a straightforward biography is concerned, Gutkind 1938 is still the most substantial work of its kind, though somewhat outdated.

Brucker, Gene A. “The Medici in the Fourteenth Century.” Speculum 32 (1957): 1–26.
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Cosimo was only a child in the 14th century and, as Brucker explains, records for that stage of his father’s career are scarce. Consequently, neither of them loom large in this exploration of their family’s fortunes, which counters the mythical version concocted during the era of the grand dukes. Cosimo’s place in the dynasty is clearly illustrated in the genealogical tables.
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Brucker, Gene A. Renaissance Florence. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.
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With its focus on the period 1380–1450, this is a good survey with which to begin a study of the life and times of Cosimo de’ Medici. Brucker divides his subject matter topographically, economically, socially, politically, religiously, and culturally, which means that Cosimo features in each of the themed chapters. This edition contains “Notes on Florentine Scholarship” (pp. 301–304) and a “Bibliographical Supplement” (pp. 305–311).
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Gutkind, C. S. Cosimo de’ Medici, Pater Patriae, 1389–1464. Oxford: Clarendon, 1938.
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Gutkind’s political priorities are apparent in the structure of his biography, the chapters of which are devoted to the Florentine commonwealth c. 1400, the struggle for power in Florence 1400–1434, Cosimo as primus inter pares, Florentine domestic politics 1434–1464, foreign affairs in the same period, Cosimo’s business interests, including the various bank branches, and his private life. Appendices on Florentine political and commercial life complement the text.
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Hale, J. R. Florence and the Medici: The Pattern of Control. London: Thames and Hudson, 1977.
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Written with Hale’s characteristic elegance, this volume surveys the history of the Medici family from their earliest appearances in Florentine sources, c. 1300, through to death of Grand Duke Gian Gastone in 1737. Cosimo is the main protagonist in the first chapter. The bibliography confirms Hale’s reliance on the glut of works on Renaissance Florence published in the 1960s, together with the early research of Dale Kent.
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Holmes, George. The Florentine Enlightenment 1400–1450. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
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An examination of the literary and visual arts in Florence and, to a lesser extent, in Rome, during the period when Cosimo emerged as an exceptionally generous cultural patron. The main protagonists include Leon Battista Alberti, Poggio Bracciolini, Filippo Brunelleschi, Leonardo Bruni, Manuel Chrysoloras, Donatello, Antonio Loschi, Niccolò Niccoli, Coluccio Salutati, and Ambrogio Traversari. First published in 1969.
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Langedijk, Karla. The Portraits of the Medici, 15th–18th Centuries. 3 vols. Florence: Studio per Edizioni Scelte, 1981–1987.
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Volume 1 opens with a narrative history of the Medici family throughout the period of its dominance, as told in their portraits. The remainder of Volume 1 is a catalogue of portraits in various media, arranged alphabetically. Depictions of Cosimo include twelve portraits, all of them posthumous, four manuscript illuminations, ten sculptures and five medals. The catalogue continues in Volume 2. Volume 3 contains supplementary material.
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Najemy, John M. A History of Florence 1200–1575. Malden, MA, and Oxford: Blackwell, 2006.
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The most recent English-language history of Florence, this survey benefits from the extensive research conducted in Florentine archives throughout the second half of the 20th century. The birth of Cosimo falls at the center of its chronological span. His mercantile career is covered in chapter 9, his political influence in Florence and links with other states in chapter 10, and his cultural patronage in chapter 11.
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Pieraccini, Gaetano. La stirpe de’ Medici di Cafaggiolo: Saggio di ricerche sulla trasmissione ereditaria dei caratteri biologici. 3 vols. Florence: Nardini, 1986.
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Originally published in 1924–1925, the eugenical emphasis of this work is characteristic of that era. Volume 1 traces the family from its origins to the early 16th century. Each individual, including Cosimo, is provided with a biography, followed by an analysis of his or her character and health. Volume 2 does likewise for later generations of the family. Volume 3 is more thematic, with chapters on Florentine demography, inherited diseases and related topics.
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Collections of Papers

As the only collection of papers devoted to the career and patronage of Cosimo de’ Medici, Ames-Lewis 1992 might be in danger of standing in splendid isolation in this section. Its significance should therefore be obvious. In the present selection, Brown 1992 is the only volume of essays by a single author, one of the foremost authorities on 15th-century Florence. Brown’s publications are generally inspired by the works of authors who can be placed in the humanist tradition. Any assumption that the classical revival of the Renaissance was essentially antagonistic to Christianity is countered in Verdon and Henderson 1990, a collection which emphasizes close connections between the two traditions, particularly in the visual arts. Cherubini and Fanelli 1990 is a generously illustrated volume devoted to a single building, the Palazzo Medici, the architectural project most intimately associated with Cosimo de’ Medici. Ames-Lewis 1995 expands on this subject matter and includes essays on Cosimo’s patronage across a range of media. Viti 1994 is possibly a less obvious source of material on Cosimo, but his role as financial backer of the ecumenical Council of Florence in 1439 should not be underestimated, even if some have argued that the Council’s cultural influence on Cosimo has been overemphasized.

Ames-Lewis, Francis, ed. Cosimo “il Vecchio” de’ Medici, 1389–1464: Essays in Commemoration of the 600th Anniversary of Cosimo de’ Medici’s Birth. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
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Papers by Nicolai Rubinstein, George Holmes, Robert Black, Dale Kent, James Hankins, Alison Brown, A.C. de la Mare, Caroline Elam, Crispin Robinson, John Paoletti, Rab Hatfield, and Susan McKillop, supplemented by a thirty-item bibliography of works on Cosimo published since Gutkind 1938 (see Histories and Biographies). Each paper is featured elsewhere in this bibliography.
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Ames-Lewis, Francis, ed. The Early Medici and Their Artists. London: Birkbeck College, University of London, Department of History of Art, 1995.
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Among the lectures published in this volume, the most relevant are those by John T. Paoletti on strategies in Medici artistic patronage, Patricia Rubin on magnificence, Crispin Robinson on Cosimo and architecture, Charles Avery on Donatello, Francis Ames-Lewis on Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi, Cristina Acidini Luchinat on Benozzo Gozzoli’s Chapel of the Medici, and Andrew Butterfield on Cosimo’s funerary monument.
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Brown, Alison. The Medici in Florence: The Exercise and Language of Power. Florence: Leo S. Olschki and Perth: University of Western Australia Press, 1992.
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A collection of twelve essays divided into three parts, the first of which includes “The Humanist Portrait of Cosimo de’ Medici, Pater Patriae” (Brown 1961, cited under Humanists and Humanism) and “Cosimo de’ Medici’s Wit and Wisdom” (Brown 1992), both previously published elsewhere.
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Cherubini, Giovanni and Giovanni Fanelli, eds. Il Palazzo Medici Riccardi di Firenze. Florence: Giunti, 1990.
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The most relevant contributions to this generously illustrated volume are those of Sergio Raveggi, “Il committente: i Medici nel Quattrocento” (pp. 10–15); Doris Carl, “La casa vecchia dei Medici e il suo gardino” (pp. 38–43); Caroline Elam, “Il palazzo nel contesto della città: strategie urbanistiche dei Medici nel gonfalone del Leon d’Oro, 1415–1430” (pp. 44–57); Brenda Prayer, “L’architettura del palazzo mediceo” (pp. 58–75); and Cristina Acidini Luchinat, “La cappella medicea attraverso cinque secoli” (pp. 82–97).
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Verdon, Timothy and John Henderson, eds. Christianity and the Renaissance: Image and Religious Imagination in the Quattrocento. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990.
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A collection of twenty-three papers in which Cosimo appears as a recurring feature, most obviously in Nicolai Rubinstein’s essay on lay patronage and Observant reform in 15th-century Florence, and as Marsilio Ficino’s patron in Melissa Meriam Bullard’s paper on Ficino and the Medici, which takes the story beyond Cosimo’s death.
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Viti, Paolo, ed. Firenze e il concilio del 1439. 2 vols. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1994.
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Cosimo features strongly in the papers by Riccardo Fubini on Florentine politics, Anthony Molho on Florentine public finances, Paolo Viti on Leonardo Bruni, Antonio Manfredi on Tommaso Parentucelli, and Sebastiano Gentile on Gemistos Pletho.
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Medici Bank

As Florence’s most successful entrepreneur, Cosimo de’ Medici was naturally of interest to the two scholars whose names have become most intimately associated with the economic history of Renaissance Florence: Raymond de Roover and Richard Goldthwaite. De Roover 1963 is the culmination of the author’s extensive research into the history of the Medici bank. The Italian translation of De Roover 1963 was not published until 1970. De Roover 1965 therefore provided a sample of what readers could expect. Holmes 1968 deals with the earlier history of the bank and provides background material for any study of Cosimo’s leadership. Since the 1960s Goldthwaite has published extensively on the Florentine economy—not least the Medici bank—and its contexts; but Goldthwaite 1987 is the publication that deals most directly with what the author perceived as a rare lacuna in De Roover’s work. The most recent work in this section, Parks 2005, is suitable for the informed general reader.

De Roover, Raymond. The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank, 1397–1494. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963.
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The classic account of how Giovanni di Bicci built up the Medici business empire, of how Cosimo presided over it for thirty-five years, and of how its steady decline set in once Cosimo’s hand was removed. De Roover examines the bank’s central administration in Florence and its various branches in the context of 15th-century banking practices. Appendices include lists of the general and branch managers.
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De Roover, Raymond. “Cosimo de’ Medici come banchiere e mercante.” Archivio storico Italiano 123 (1965): 467–479.
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In effect, an Italian summary of the relevant section of De Roover 1963, including a brief look at the contributions of the branch managers. For comments on Cosimo himself, De Roover relies on earlier editions of Vespasiano 1997 (cited under Primary Sources).
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Goldthwaite, Richard A. “The Medici Bank and the World of Florentine Capitalism.” Past and Present 114 (1987): 3–31.
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Identifying the relationship between the business and political interests of the Medici as the only obvious lacuna in De Roover 1963, Goldthwaite looks at the ways in which the Medici and their bank were typical or otherwise of commercial life in 15th-century Florence.
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Holmes, George. “How the Medici became the Pope’s Bankers.” In Florentine Studies: Politics and Society in Renaissance Florence. Edited by Nicolai Rubinstein, 367–380. London: Faber, 1968.
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The focus here is on Giovanni di Bicci, rather than on Cosimo, as it explains how the Medici went from being one of four significant Florentine banking families at the papal curia in the 1390s and 1400s to the predominant papal bankers in the 1410s, due to the personal relationship between Giovanni and Baldassare Cossa (“John XXIII”).
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Parks, Tim. Banking, Metaphysics, and Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence. New York: W. W. Norton, 2005.
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At 60,000 words, this is a relatively compact history of the Medici bank, covering territory already made familiar by De Roover, but doing so with an acclaimed novelist’s skill for maximizing the dramatic potential of the story.
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Relations with Other States

As Cosimo’s dealings with states other than Florence were largely determined by his business interests, De Roover 1963 (cited under Medici Bank) should be the first study consulted. What the two items featured in this section serve to illustrate is Cosimo’s impact on Florentine foreign policy, inspiring the shift from an alliance with Venice to one with Milan. Although, as Kent 1974 relates, Cosimo was welcomed enthusiastically in Venice during his exile (1433–1434), this was the period in which the Republic of St. Mark was consolidating its hold on Brescia and Bergamo, acquisitions that upset the balance of power in northern Italy and gave the impression that the Milan of Filippo Maria Visconti would be the next target of Venetian expansionism. After Milan’s flirtation with republican government, Filippo Maria’s son-in-law Francesco Sforza became its duke in 1450; a branch of the Medici bank opened in Milan in 1452. Ilardi 1989 charts the strategic interests that brought Florence and Milan together, as a counterweight to Venice and in relation to the ongoing war for possession of the kingdom of Naples, as well as the personal relationship between Cosimo and Sforza. Together with Cosimo’s friendship with Nicholas V, this underpinned the peace of Lodi (1454) and ensuing lega d’Italia.

Ilardi, V. “The Banker-Statesman and the Condottiere-Prince: Cosimo de’ Medici and Francesco Sforza (1450–1464).” In Vol. 2, Florence and Milan: Comparisons and Relations. Edited by C. H. Smyth and G. Garfagnini, 217–242. Florence: La Nuova Italia Editrice, 1989.
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A study of the unusually cordial relationship between two powerful individuals from different states, traced in their own correspondence and that of Nicodemo Tranchedini da Pontremoli, the Milanese resident ambassador in Florence. Sforza addressed Cosimo as “father” and Cosimo regarded Sforza as “his God on earth,” but even a deity managed to overspend and stretch the resources of the Milanese branch of the Medici bank.
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Kent, D. V. “I Medici in esilio: una vittoria di famiglia e una disfatta personale.” Archivio storico italiano 132 (1974): 3–63.
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The most fully developed version of Kent’s research is the monograph Kent 1978 (cited under Florentine Politics), but this is the piece in which she concentrates on the period 1433–1434, when Cosimo spent his period of exile in Padua and Venice, was received like an ambassador and continued his business interests in an exceptionally favorable commercial center.
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Florentine Politics

Vernon 1900 is by the same author as Ewart 1899 (cited under Histories and Biographies) and has been included here in part to provide continuity with the earlier works on Cosimo de’ Medici and in part to give an idea of scholarly appreciation of Florentine republican government before the study of it became intimately associated with the name of Nicolai Rubinstein. It is interesting to note that Ewart 1899 (cited under Histories and Biographies) was effectively out of date within months of publication, prompting its author to provide a postscript the following year. Rubinstein 1997 was first published in 1966 and has influenced all subsequent work on Florentine government in the 15th century. Rubinstein 1968 builds on a revival of interest in the texts of early 15th-century humanist Leonardo Bruni, an interest prompted by Hans Baron’s controversial Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance (1955). Whereas Rubinstein published on the Florentine republic throughout the period of Medicean dominance, Dale Kent focused on the 1420s and 1430s, the period in which Cosimo established his position as the leader of a party and consolidated that party’s power in Florence. After a series of articles, some of which are included elsewhere in this bibliography, Kent 1978 is the culmination of that early phase of her work. In comparison, Kent 1987 is a more broad-brush survey of Cosimo’s three decades of power and prominence. Quite what his role was and what terminology was used to describe it is the theme of Rubinstein 1992. It might be tempting to go no further then Kent and Rubinstein on the subject of Cosimo and Florentine politics, but that in itself makes the contribution of other commentators all the more valuable, Molho 1979 being a case in point. By the later 15th century the Medici family made more of an effort to reproduce in the subject towns what they had achieved politically in the city of Florence, but in Cosimo’s time they paid less attention to those towns and surrounding territories. Black 1992 is a study of Cosimo’s dealings with Arezzo, based on Aretine archival material. While Kent’s work demonstrates how Cosimo assembled his support base, Ganz 2002 does the opposite, examining the deterioration of the relationship between Cosimo and two influential patricians who felt insulted or humiliated by him.

Black, Robert. “Cosimo de’ Medici and Arezzo.” In Cosimo “il Vecchio” de’ Medici, 1389–1464: Essays in Commemoration of the 600th Anniversary of Cosimo de’ Medici’s Birth. Edited by Francis Ames-Lewis, 33–47. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
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After an overview of the relationship between Florence and its subject town of Arezzo, including the role of Florence’s three Aretine chancellors Leonardo Bruni, Carlo Marsuppini, and Benedetto Accolti, Black uses Aretine sources to analyze the patronage of Cosimo and other Medici in Arezzo. Also published in Robert Black, Studies in Renaissance Humanism and Politics: Florence and Arezzo (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2011).
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Ganz Margery A. “Perceived insults and their Consequences: Acciaiuoli, Neroni, and Medici Relationships in the 1460s.” In Society and Individual in Renaissance Florence. Edited by William J. Connell, 155–172. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.
DOI: 10.1525/california/9780520232549.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Ganz traces the breakdown of relations between Agnolo Acciaiuoli and Dietisalvi Neroni, on the one hand, and the leaders of the Medici family on the other. This was a breakdown that resulted in the attempted coup of 1466. Points of contention included Cosimo’s belief that Acciaiuoli was a bad influence on his son-in-law Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, and competition for the bishopric of Arezzo.
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Kent, D. V. The Rise of the Medici: Faction in Florence 1426–1434. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.
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Part 1 examines the composition of the Medici party, including the Medici family itself, ties of marriage between families, of mutual interests among neighbors, and of broader “amizicia.” Part 2 analyzes the beginnings of the factional conflict between the Medici and their opponents (1426–1429), the impact of war with Lucca (1429–1433) and the two sets of exiles, Medicean and anti-Medicean (1433–1434). Appendices list apparent Medici friends and partisans, and those exiled or punished in 1434.
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Kent, Dale. “The Dynamics of Power in Cosimo de’ Medici’s Florence.” In Patronage, Art and Society in Renaissance Italy. Edited by F. Kent and P. Simons, 63–77. Oxford: Clarendon, 1987.
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A relatively brief survey that investigates the constantly changing relationship between three groups in Florentine society: the traditional ruling class, the reggimento or current regime, and the Medici party. Power was achieved and maintained through “networks of personal relationships, obligations, and loyalties.” Notes that the Medici also operated by means of extra-Florentine connections and employed cultural patronage.
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Molho, Anthony. “Cosimo de’ Medici, Pater Patriae or Padrino?” Stanford Italian Review 1 (1979): 5–33.
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A wide-ranging essay prompted by the work of Rubinstein, Brucker, and Kent that stresses “class, political fragmentation, and patronage.” Molho rejects Rubinstein’s emphasis on the manipulation of political processes and identifies Cosimo as a facilitator, a boss, a patron of clients in a world of mutual back-scratching. Reprinted in Anthony Molho. Firenze nel Quattrocento. Politica e Fascalità. (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2006), 43–70.
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Rubinstein, Nicolai. “Florentine Constitutionalism and Medici Ascendancy in the Fifteenth Century.” In Florentine Studies: Politics and Society in Renaissance Florence. Edited by Nicolai Rubinstein, 442–462. London: Faber, 1968.
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Examines the writings of Leonardo Bruni on the Florentine constitution, tracing their evolution from the Laudatio of 1401 to the treatise On the Florentine Polity, written in Greek around the time of the ecumenical Council of Florence in 1439. Prior to the Medicean ascendancy Bruni emphasized equality between citizens. After Cosimo’s return from exile he described a mixed constitution in the Aristotelian tradition.
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Rubinstein, Nicolai. “Cosimo optimus cives.” In Cosimo “il Vecchio” de’ Medici, 1389–1464: Essays in Commemoration of the 600th Anniversary of Cosimo de’ Medici’s Birth. Edited by Francis Ames-Lewis, 5–20. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
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Rubinstein’s analysis of Cosimo’s position in the Florentine republic centers on Platina’s dialogue De optimo cive (1474), which is set at the Medici villa at Careggi and has Cosimo as the principal speaker. It was adapted from an advice book for Federico Gonzaga of Mantua but had to avoid the term “princeps” in a republican context. It was dedicated to Cosimo’s grandson, the more overtly princely Lorenzo.
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Rubinstein, Nicolai. The Government of Florence under the Medici (1434 to 1494). 2d ed. Oxford: Clarendon, 1997.
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The most extensive of Rubinstein’s studies of the political class in 15th-century Florence, this work demonstrates in detail how Cosimo and his heirs manipulated the organs of republican government and limited the numbers of men who were eligible to hold office. Appendices list the accoppiatori who supervised ballots and the members of the Balìe of 1434, 1438, 1444, 1452, 1458 and later years. First published in 1966.
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Vernon, K. Dorothea. “The Constitutional Position of Cosimo de’ Medici.” English Historical Review 58 (1900): 319–323.
DOI: 10.1093/ehr/XV.LVIII.319Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A summary of Professor F. C. Pellegrini’s paper in Archivio storico italiano (1899), which makes significant amendments to the received opinions about Cosimo’s constitutional position, opinions traced back to Machiavelli. Pellegrini found that, for much of Cosimo’s period of dominance, “normal constitutional methods” applied and that Neri Capponi was not such an oppositional figure to Cosimo as he had generally been portrayed.
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Religion

Cosimo’s Christianity was utterly conventional; he was exceptional in that he operated on a rarefied level, giving hospitality to the deposed pope Baldassare Cossa (“John XXIII”), bankrolling the ecumenical Council of Florence, counting successive pontiffs as both friends and clients, and being so generous a patron to Prior Antonino Pierozzi and the community of Dominican Observants at the Florentine convent of S. Marco that he famously had his own cell in the building. As the motivation behind his generosity was said, by Vespasiano da Bisticci (Vespasiano 1997, cited under Primary Sources), to be guilt at his usurious practices, it seems appropriate to include in this section Nelson 1947, an examination of ecclesiastical attitudes toward businessmen such as Cosimo. In 1434 Pope Eugenius IV fled from Rome to Florence, settling at the Dominican house of S. Maria Novella, and Cosimo returned from exile to his house in the via Larga. The stage was effectively set for the Council of Florence and the (temporary) reunification of the Eastern and Western churches, designed to defend Constantinople from the Ottomans, though the story might have been very different had the original venue, Ferrara, proved to be more congenial. Gill 2011 is a recent edition of a classic history of the council. Holmes 1992 builds on an earlier essay by the same author, which explains how the Medici became the pope’s bankers and follows the story from the 1430s to the 1460s, by which time the curia had long returned to Rome. The other works in this selection keep the focus on Cosimo’s Florence. Robinson 1992 is an exploration of Cosimo’s patronage of Bosco ai Frati, a small Franciscan house in the Mugello, the area from which the Medici had migrated into Florence and where they retained interests. In addition to their devotion to the doctor-saints Cosmas and Damian, the Medici developed a strong interest in the Magi, one aspect of which is featured in Hatfield 1970. Cosimo’s religious devotion is all too often thought of in terms of its expression in the visual arts, but Kent 1992 provides something of a corrective to that by examining his charitable giving for the relief of the poor. Visual evidence is examined in McKillop 1992, which looks at how Cosimo understood the afterlife and hoped to ease his passage into it.

Gill, Joseph. The Council of Florence. New York: New York University Press, 2011.
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Cosimo does not loom large in this volume, but it was because of his role as papal banker that Eugenius IV settled in Florence; because the curia was based there in 1439 it became the venue, after Ferrara, for the ecumenical council that sought to reunite the Eastern and Western churches.
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Hatfield, Rab. “The Compagnia de’ Magi.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 33 (1970): 108–161.
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Part 4 of this article focuses on Medicean patronage of the lay confraternity of the Magi. The confraternity was based at the Dominican house of S. Marco, of which Cosimo became chief benefactor in 1436. As Hatfield explains, only then did he and his family acquire a particular devotion to the cult of the Magi. The essay is supplemented by a substantial appendix of documents.
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Holmes, George. “Cosimo and the Popes.” In Cosimo “il Vecchio” de’ Medici, 1389–1464. Essays in Commemoration of the 600th Anniversary of Cosimo de’ Medici’s Birth. Edited by Francis Ames-Lewis, 21–31. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
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This essay could reasonably be regarded as financial, religious, or intellectual in its scope, but Holmes takes for granted the financial dimension of the relationship between Cosimo and the popes from Eugenius IV to Pius II, not least because of De Roover 1963 (cited under Medici Bank), and focuses on the Council of Florence and Pius II’s crusading initiative, both of which interested Cosimo on account of the connections between Eastern and Western Christendom.
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Kent, Dale. “The Buonomini di San Martino. Charity for ‘the glory of God, the honour of the city, and the commemoration of myself.’” In Cosimo “il Vecchio” de’ Medici, 1389–1464. Essays in Commemoration of the 600th Anniversary of Cosimo de’ Medici’s Birth. Edited by Francis Ames-Lewis, 49–67. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
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In 15th-century Florence only one institution, the Buonomini di S. Martino, was exclusively devoted to the provision of public assistance to the poor. Kent examines the careers of individual Buonomini, explains that half of all donations made to them between 1442 and 1469 were by Cosimo, makes general comments about his charitable giving, and explores the connections and contradictions in the three motives quoted in her title.
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McKillop, Susan, “Dante and Lumen Christi: A Proposal for the Meaning of the Tomb of Cosimo de’ Medici.” In Cosimo “il Vecchio” de’ Medici, 1389–1464: Essays in Commemoration of the 600th Anniversary of Cosimo de’ Medici’s Birth. Edited by Francis Ames-Lewis, 245–301. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
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Cosimo’s tomb marker is set in floor of the Old Sacristy in S. Lorenzo, between his parents’ tomb and the altar. It consists of a geometrical design and two short inscriptions. McKillop’s interpretation of these features centers on Cosimo’s knowledge of Dante and argues that he chose the spot in order to place himself both in Purgatory and in a prime position for the Last Judgement.
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Nelson, Benjamin N. “The Usurer and the Merchant Prince: Italian Businessmen and the Ecclesiastical Law of Restitution, 1100–1550.” Journal of Economic History 7 (1947): 4–22.
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Cosimo appears only as Vespasiano da Bisticci’s contrite usurer (Vespasiano 1997, cited under Primary Sources), anxious about his ill-gotten gains and advised by Pope Eugenius to put his money into the Dominican house of S. Marco. Nelson imagines that Cosimo was unusually scrupulous for a 15th-century banker. The article places his anxiety and its consequences in the history of late medieval ecclesiastical attitudes toward usury.
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Robinson, Crispin. “Cosimo de’ Medici and the Franciscan Observants at Bosco ai Frati.” In Cosimo “il Vecchio” de’ Medici, 1389–1464. Essays in Commemoration of the 600th Anniversary of Cosimo de’ Medici’s Birth. Edited by Francis Ames-Lewis, 181–194. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
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Although the Franciscan house of Bosco ai Frati in the Mugello is not far from the Medici villas at Cafaggiolo and Trebbio, Robinson’s research reveals that it was via Giovanni di Francesco da Gagliano, manager of the Venetian branch of their bank, that the Medici first became involved with it. They acquired patronal rights c. 1420 and funded a substantial rebuilding program in the following decades.
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Cultural Patronage

In the sphere of Cosimo de’ Medici’s cultural patronage, perhaps the clearest distinction that can be made is between his architectural projects and his dealings with men of letters. However, even these could be said to come together in the libraries he caused to be built at the Florentine Dominican convent of S. Marco and for the Augustinian canons of the Badia Fiesolana. This section of the article introduces Surveys, some of which set Cosimo’s patronage in context, while others seek to unite his activities in the literary and visual realms before moving on to Architecture, which addresses his most conspicuous legacy in and around Florence. With Libraries, attention is focused inside those buildings. Delving deeper, Humanists and Humanism looks inside the texts of his contemporaries or near-contemporaries, men who appreciated Cosimo’s book collecting as an aid to scholarship. It can be sobering to reflect that, by drawing on a combination of Italian sources and German art historical scholarship, Gombrich 1960 effectively opened up a new field in the English language: the study of cultural patronage by members of the Medici family in the 15th century. Ames-Lewis 1979 is a natural successor because it retains the broader chronology provided the “early” Medici (Cosimo il Vecchio, Piero il Gottoso and Lorenzo il Magnifico) while investigating one aspect of their patronage: the choice of imprese with which they stamped their personal mark on works of art. Paoletti 1992 moves a little beyond that well-established interest in heads of the senior branch of the family in order to reconstruct the reality of a considerable proportion of Cosimo’s patronage, which was undertaken jointly with his brother Lorenzo (b. c. 1395–d. 1440). Only with Kent 2000 has Cosimo’s patronage finally become the subject of a substantial monograph. Indeed, Kent 2000 is easily the largest work ever devoted to any aspect of his life. Fulton 2006 returns to the familiar triad of Cosimo, Piero, and Lorenzo, and also to familiar works of art, but with the material presented as three generations of collecting. Crum 2012 has been included in this selection not because it provides a general survey of Cosimo’s cultural patronage, but because it is a general survey of Florentine architecture in the period of his dominance, thereby placing his contribution in a wider context.

Ames-Lewis, Francis. “Early Medicean Devices.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 42 (1979): 122–143.
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Sixteenth-century writers attributed various devices—emblems and mottos—to members of the Medici family in the 15th century. Ames-Lewis compares these attributions with the reality found in architecture, painting, and other media and explores the meaning of those devices which were employed by Cosimo and his sons.
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Crum, Roger J. “The Florence of Cosimo ‘Il Vecchio’ de’ Medici: Within and Beyond the Walls.” In Florence. Edited by Francis Ames-Lewis, 167–207. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
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A survey that oscillates between Florence and its contado as well as between the patronage of Cosimo and that of his contemporaries.
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Fulton, Christopher B. An Earthly Paradise: The Medici, Their Collections and the Foundations of Modern Art. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2006.
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Covers familiar territory from Cosimo il Vecchio to Lorenzo il Magnifico with an emphasis on collecting works of art. Chapter 1 includes Cosimo and the “humanist impulse” (pp. 1–67); chapter 2 examines household goods, exchange of gifts, agents and intermediaries, and artists who worked for the Medici (pp. 69–117); chapter 3 concentrates on the Palazzo Medici, interior and exterior (pp. 119–45); chapter 4 includes Donatello’s David and Judith (pp. 147–202).
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Gombrich, E. H. “The Early Medici as Patrons of Art.” In Italian Renaissance Studies. Edited by E. F. Jacob, 279–311. London: Faber, 1960.
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The “early” Medici were the four generations from Giovanni di Bicci to Lorenzo il Magnifico, though Cosimo is the dominant figure in this effortlessly authoritative survey. Gombrich relies heavily on the memoirs of Vaspasiano da Bisticci (Vespasiano 1997, cited under Primary Sources). Other sources include Timoteo Maffei’s dialogue “Against the Detractors of Cosimo de Medici’s Magnificence,” later analyzed in Fraser-Jenkins 1970. Reprinted in E. H. Gombrich’s Norm and Form (London: Phaidon, 1966), 35–57.
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Kent, Dale. Cosimo de’ Medici and the Florentine Renaissance: The Patron’s Oeuvre. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 2000.
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A generously proportioned, richly illustrated, heavily annotated analysis of Cosimo’s cultural patronage, the scale of which reflects his reputation as previous works have not, though the author denies it is “definitive.” The literary and visual creations with which Cosimo is associated are thoroughly explored and done so in terms of elite, popular, religious, and domestic culture. Also published as Il committente e le arti: Cosimo de’ Medici ed il Rinascimento fiorentino (Milan: Electa, 2005).
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Paoletti, John. “Fraternal Piety and Family Power: The Artistic Patronage of Cosimo and Lorenzo de’ Medici.” In Cosimo “il Vecchio” de’ Medici, 1389–1464: Essays in Commemoration of the 600th Anniversary of Cosimo de’ Medici’s Birth. Edited by Francis Ames-Lewis, 195–219. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
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As Paoletti explains with reference to a series of commissions, Cosimo and his brother Lorenzo were joint patrons of works in various media, identified where appropriate by the inclusion of their patron saints. Posterity has overlooked Lorenzo, in part because he predeceased Cosimo but also in order to focus attention on the senior branch of the family.
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Architecture

It was with Cosimo that the patronage of architecture in and around Florence went from being a corporate activity associated with the commune, trade guilds, confraternities and groups of parishioners, to something undertaken by individual patrons. Fraser-Jenkins 1970 explores the theoretical dimension of that transition. The most recent of the works in this selection (Vitiello 2004) is also the one that should be read first if a clear overview of Cosimo’s surviving architectural projects is required. According to Vespaniano da Bisticci (Vespasiano 1997, cited under Primary Sources), the two motives behind Cosimo’s remarkably generous patronage of architecture were guilt at the means by which he acquired his wealth and the impulse to create an enduring memorial to his family, thereby accounting for the ecclesiastical and secular projects respectively. Among the former, only Cosimo’s parish church of S. Lorenzo is the subject of a detailed study (Elam 1992), although his earliest patronage of a religious community, S. Francesco at Bosco ai Frati, had a strong architectural dimension, as is related in Robinson 1992 (cited under Religion). In the secular sphere, this section contains five works about Cosimo’s residence in Florence’s via Larga (now via Cavour). Michelozzo’s fortress-like Palazzo Medici served as Cosimo’s dwelling for no more than the last four or five years of his life, so Saalman and Mattox 1985 is particularly valuable for providing a reconstruction of the building it replaced. Hatfield 1970 analyzes accounts of the new palace written in 1459, in the process linking architecture to Cosimo’s contribution to Florentine foreign policy in the form of relations with the Sforza of Milan. Although McHam 2001 offers an interpretation of two statues, Donatello’s David and Judith, their presence here is determined by their location in the cortile of the Palazzo Medici during and after Cosimo’s lifetime. With Hatfield 1992 the focus moves inside the building to identify Cosimo’s presence in one particular room, the chapel decorated by Benozzo Gozzoli. Acidini Luchinat 1994 is a book-length study of the same room. The most recent contribution to this selection, Palazzo Medici Riccardi, is the best place to start for anyone wanting to research this subject from scratch.

Acidini Luchinat, Cristina, ed. The Chapel of the Magi: Benozzo Gozzoli’s Frescoes in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi Florence. London and New York: Thames and Hudson, 1994.
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A feast for the eye. The photographs are accompanied by a text in which various aspects of the work are examined, including identification of members of the Medici family and their associates. First published as Benozzo Gozzoli: La cappella dei magi (Milan: Electa, 1993).
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Elam, Caroline. “Cosimo de’ Medici and San Lorenzo.” In Cosimo “il Vecchio” de’ Medici, 1389–1464: Essays in Commemoration of the 600th Anniversary of Cosimo de’ Medici’s Birth. Edited by Francis Ames-Lewis, ed. 157–180. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
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As Elam explains, the chronology of the building work at S. Lorenzo is not altogether clear. When Cosimo returned from exile he gave priority to S. Marco, rather than his parish church, but when the rebuilding of S. Lorenzo floundered, he told other families to “get on or get out.” The result was unique: no other individual patron in 15th-century Florence assumed responsibility for the building of a parish church.
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Fraser-Jenkins, A. D. “Cosimo de’ Medici’s Patronage of Architecture and the Theory of Magnificence.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 33 (1970): 162–170.
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In contrast to the Franciscan ideal of poverty lauded in the 14th century and the collective patronage of architecture practiced in that era, by the end of the 15th century men of wealth and standing were expected to spend their money on private building projects. Fraser-Jenkins identifies Cosimo’s architectural patronage and Dominican theories of magnificence as the twin turning points in this development.
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Hatfield, Rab. “Some Unknown Descriptions of the Medici Palace in 1459.” Art Bulletin 53 (1970): 232–249.
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Many Florentine sources refer to the visit of Galeazzo Maria Sforza to Florence in 1459, during which he stayed for two weeks in Cosimo’s recently completed palace on the via Larga. The three descriptions analyzed by Hatfield are: Galeazzo Maria’s letter to his parents; a letter of Niccolò de’ Carissimi da Parma, also to Francesco Sforza; and one of two anonymous poems in which the episode features (see Volpi 1907, cited under Primary Sources).
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Hatfield, Rab. “Cosimo de’ Medici and the Chapel of his Palace.” In Cosimo “il Vecchio” de’ Medici, 1389–1464: Essays in Commemoration of the 600th Anniversary of Cosimo de’ Medici’s Birth. Edited by Francis Ames-Lewis, 221–244. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
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The chapel of the Palazzo Medici was decorated under the supervision of Piero de’ Medici, so Hatfield deliberately emphasizes Cosimo’s use of and continued presence in that space. Among the portraits in Benozzo Gozzoli’s “Journey of the Magi,” he identifies Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Cosimo, Giovanni and Carlo de’ Medici, with Cosimo being the old man on a brown mule.
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McHam, Sarah Blake. “Donatello’s Bronze David and Judith as Metaphors of Medici Rule in Florence.” Art Bulletin 83 (2001): 32–47.
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The statues of David and Judith and Holofernes are well known as independent works, but McHam reminds us that both were originally displayed at the Palazzo Medici and argues that they can be considered as part of a coordinated iconographical scheme, the purpose of which was to present the Medici as defenders of Florentine liberty “akin to that of venerable Old Testament tyrant slayers” (p. 32).
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Palazzo Medici Riccardi.
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The official website of the Palazzo Medici Riccardi, which is available in Italian and English versions, includes a short history of the building, a guide to those rooms that are now open to the public, and a succinct bibliography of relevant scholarly works.
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Saalman, Howard and Philip Mattox. “The First Medici Palace.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 44.4 (1985): 329–345.
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The authors use archival records to locate the house in which Cosimo lived prior to completion of the Palazzo Medici and make a tentative reconstruction of its internal arrangement on the basis of the 1418 inventory. Appendices include lists of the rooms in 1418 and of those in Pierfrancesco de’ Medici’s house on the same site in 1516.
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Vitiello, Maria. La committenza medicea nel Rinascimento: Opere, architetti, orientamenti linguistici. Rome: Gangemi, 2004.
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A small but highly instructive volume covering the architectural patronage of the Medici from Giovanni di Bicci to Leo X. Each of Cosimo’s projects is featured separately and in roughly chronological order: S. Francesco at Bosco ai Frati in Mugello, Trebbio, Careggi, S. Marco, Cafaggiolo, S. Lorenzo, Palazzo Medici, S. Croce. For a volume that is introductory in nature it is very thoroughly referenced.
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Libraries

This topic is punctuated by a small number of key episodes. First, an inventory of the household goods of Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici undertaken in 1418 lists the books found in his son Cosimo’s room, and thereby provides a snapshot of the latter’s intellectual life by his late twenties. Three years after Cosimo’s return from exile, the death of the bibliophile Niccolò Niccoli (b. 1364–d. 1437) provided him with the books with which to endow the library built by Michelozzi at the Dominicans’ newly acquired convent of S. Marco. In the 1450s Cosimo sought to replicate this pattern at the Badia Fiesolana, but did not live to realize the scheme. The literature therefore relates either to Cosimo’s own books or to his role as a middle man between Niccoli and the Dominicans. Pintor 1960 consists of two previously printed articles about Cosimo and his books: vignettes, rather than exhaustive studies. Consequently, De la Mare 1992 is to be preferred as the most thorough guide to the subject. For the library of S. Marco, Ullman and Stadter 1972 is the relevant authority.

De la Mare, A. C. “Cosimo de’ Medici and his Books.” In Cosimo “il Vecchio” de’ Medici, 1389–1464: Essays in Commemoration of the 600th Anniversary of Cosimo de’ Medici’s Birth. Edited by Francis Ames-Lewis, 115–156. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
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Reflecting that there had been no recent study of Cosimo and his books, De la Mare lists those manuscripts inventoried “nello scriptoio di Cosimo” in March 1418. Each of his scribes is identified. Appendices approach the collection from different angles, listing manuscripts that have Cosimo’s ex-libris, those specifically copied for him, and those inherited by Cosimo’s son Piero.
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Pintor, F. “Per la storia della Libreria Medicea nel Rinascimento.” Italia medioevale e umanistica 3 (1960): 189–210.
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Reproduces two works by Pintor: “La libreria di Cosimo de’ Medici nel 1418” (Rome, 1902), based on the inventory made in that year and showing in stark contrast between Giovanni di Bicci’s handful of Christian texts and Cosimo’s extensive collection of classical works, and “Per la storia della libreria medicea nel Rinascimento” (Rome, 1904), which quotes from sources that refer to books in Medicean ownership.
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Ullman, Berthold L. and Philip A. Stadter. The Public Library of Renaissance Florence: Niccolò Niccoli, Cosimo de’ Medici and the Library of San Marco. Padua, Italy: Antenore, 1972.
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Part 1 relates the history of the library from 1436 to 1888. Part 2 identifies the manuscripts owned by Niccolò Niccoli and profiles the collection as a whole. Part 3 is an introduction to the catalogue and Part 4 the catalogue of the library of S. Marco. Appendices include a list of the manuscripts donated by Cosimo.
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Humanists and Humanism

Even before the term “Renaissance” had been coined, Cosimo de’ Medici and his grandson Lorenzo acquired the reputation of being somehow personally responsible for a general revival of learning and the arts. This was an integral part of the myth of the Medici. This section of the article picks up the development of this interpretation in the 20th century. Gutkind 1938 can be read as a pendant to the author’s biography of Cosimo (Gutkind 1938, cited under Histories and Biographies) and provides what can now be regarded as a traditional overview of his relations with humanists. Brown 1961 is the earliest piece in this selection to return to the sources in an attempt to explore the reality behind Cosimo’s popular reputation. Brown’s angle on Cosimo is provided by the Florentine chancellor Bartolomeo Scala (b. 1430–d. 1479), of whom she subsequently published a biography. Brown 1992 undertakes a similar exercise, in this case returning to the familiar territory of Vespasiano 1997 (cited under Primary Sources) in order to assess the character of a man who achieved much but wrote little about it. With the works of Arthur Field and James Hankins there is material for a genuine debate. Whereas Field 1988 accepts the traditional interpretation of Cosimo’s relationship with Marsilio Ficino and is happy to cast Cosimo as godfather to the Platonic Academy of Florence, Hankins 1990 casts doubt on the evidence on which such an interpretation relies: if there was no formal academy, it potentially diminishes Cosimo’s significance. Hankins 1992 therefore provides an alternative survey of Cosimo’s importance for the humanists, securely rooted in literary dedications. Jurdjevic 1999 responds to Dale Kent’s emphasis on the practicalities of faction building (especially Kent 1978, cited under Florentine Politics) by examining the intellectual support for Cosimo’s political position among his humanist contemporaries. Ianziti 2008 retains a political focus, analyzing treatment of the Medici in one particular work, Leonardo Bruni’s History of the Florentine People. On Bruni and Cosimo see also Rubinstein 1968 (cited under Florentine Politics).

Brown, Alison. “The Humanist Portrait of Cosimo de’ Medici, Pater Patriae.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 24 (1961): 188–214.
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Working from the Collectiones Cosmianae compiled by Bartolomeo Scala (see Scala 2008, cited under Primary Sources), Brown examines the prefaces of translated works, letters of consolation, orations for public delivery, poetic elegies and epigrams to find that, in his lifetime, Cosimo was initially praised as a Roman republican statesman and later as a Platonic philosopher-prince. No serious attempt to appraise his political position was made until the 16th century. Reprinted in Brown 1992 (cited under Collections of Papers).
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Brown, Alison. “Cosimo de’ Medici’s Wit and Wisdom.” In Cosimo “il Vecchio” de’ Medici, 1389–1464: Essays in Commemoration of the 600th Anniversary of Cosimo de’ Medici’s Birth. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992. Edited by Francis Ames-Lewis, 95–113.
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Sources for this study include Vespasiano 1997 (cited under Primary Sources), who refers to Cosimo’s “salty replies” and Machiavelli 1988 (cited under 16th–19th Centuries), a quarter of whose coverage of Cosimo is devoted to his anecdotes and pithy one-liners. Brown’s analysis of Cosimo’s wit reveals him to have been wise and shrewd, rather than the life and soul of the party.
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Field, Arthur. The Origins of the Platonic Academy of Florence. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988.
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Works on the assumption that the humanists of later 15th-century Florence did constitute an “academy,” the origins of which are traced to Cosimo being inspired by bearded Magi-like Greeks at the Council of Florence and offering a systematic pattern of patronage to scholars such as Janus Argyropoulous and Marsilio Ficino. Other figures examined by Field include Donato Acciaiuoli and Cristoforo Landino.
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Gutkind, C. S. “Cosimo de’ Medici il Vecchio and Humanism.” Italian Studies 1.3 (1938): 116–131.
DOI: 10.1179/007516338790559417Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An extremely fluent account of Cosmio’s dealings with various men of letters, from the early influence of Roberto de’ Rossi and Niccolò Niccoli, through the donation of Niccoli’s library to S. Marco and Tommaso Parentucelli’s scheme for Cosimo’s own library, to his patronage of Greek scholars in Florence and Marsilio Ficino at Careggi. This is the classic version of events to which more recent scholars, especially Hankins, have reacted.
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Hankins, James. “Cosimo de’ Medici and the ‘Platonic Academy.’” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 53 (1990): 144–162.
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Hankins analyzes the claim that Cosimo was inspired by Gemistos Pletho at the Council of Florence and resolved to refound Plato’s Academy in Florence. This “foundation myth” is found only in a letter of Marsilio Ficino to Cosimo in 1462 and in his later translation of Plotinus, with no other contemporaries leaving any record of a Florentine Academy. Hankins concludes that Ficino was writing metaphorically.
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Hankins, James. “Cosimo de’ Medici as a Patron of Humanistic Literature.” In Cosimo “il Vecchio” de’ Medici, 1389–1464: Essays in Commemoration of the 600th Anniversary of Cosimo de’ Medici’s Birth. Edited by Francis Ames-Lewis, 69–94. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
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Opens with a wide-ranging survey before the author homes in on translations and original works dedicated to Cosimo, one of the most popular dedicatees of his generation. The appendix lists works by twenty-three authors, principally Antonio degli Agli, Janus Argyropoulos, Poggio Bracciolini, Leonardo Bruni, Marsilio Ficino, and Ambrogio Traversari. Also in James Hankins, Humanism and Platonism in the Italian Renaissance (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2003), 427–455.
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Ianziti, Gary. “Leonardo Bruni, the Medici and the Florentine Histories.” Journal of the History of Ideas 69.1 (2008): 1–22.
DOI: 10.1353/jhi.2008.0009Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Responds to Arthur Field’s contention that Bruni, the Florentine chancellor, was an opponent of Cosimo. Argues that certain episodes in Bruni’s History of the Florentine People were written after Cosimo’s return from exile as a clear glorification of the Medici, and that the last six books of the History demonstrate how effectively Bruni accommodated himself to the new regime.
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Jurdjevic, Mark. “Civic Humanism and the Rise of the Medici.” Renaissance Quarterly 52.4 (1999): 994–1020.
DOI: 10.2307/2901833Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Writing over four decades after Hans Baron identified the concept of “civic humanism” in the republicanism of early 15th-century Florence, Jurdjevic argues that humanists such as Leonardo Bruni, Poggio Bracciolini, and Francesco Filelfo accommodated themselves to Cosimo’s rise to political power, and that civic humanism even provided intellectual underpinning for Cosimo’s position in the Florentine state.