History: Reviews of New Books
ISSN: 0361-2759 (Print) 1930-8280 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vhis20
Cosimo de' Medici and the Florentine Renaissance:
The Patron's Oeuvre
Kathleen M. Comerford
To cite this article: Kathleen M. Comerford (2001) Cosimo de' Medici and the Florentine
Renaissance: The Patron's Oeuvre, History: Reviews of New Books, 29:3, 99-100, DOI:
10.1080/03612750109602040
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03612750109602040
Published online: 30 Mar 2010.
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Date: 16 March 2017, At: 21:34
Cosimo de’ Medici and the Florentine
Renaissance: The Patron’s Oeuvre
Kent, Dale
Cosimo de’ Medici and
the Florentine Renaissance:
The Patron’s Oeuvre
New Haven: Yale University Press
544 PI)., $49.95, ISBN 0-300-08128-6
Publication Date: November 2000
An equally valid subtitle for this
lavi\h (and yet surprisingly affordable) volume would be “Patronage
and Context.” This study of Cosimo
de’ Medici, his sons, his contemporariec, and his city is another formidable chapter in the continuing work
of Dale Kent, the author of Neighbourt and Neighbourhood in
Rencrr wancr Florence: The District
oj the Red Lion in the Fifteenth Cent u n (with Francis William Kent,
Locu\t Valley, New York: J. J.
Auguhn, 1982).
The world continues to be fascinated by both Renaissance Florence
and its most important family. A
quick search of any library database
will yield literally hundreds of
books, making the contextualization
of such a work as this particularly
frustrating. Some works do suggest
themselves as appropriate bases for
comparison, however, including
“The Early Medici as Patrons of Art:
A Survey of Primary Sources,” edited by E. H. Gombrich, in Italian
Rrnciissunce
Studies
(1960):
279-3 1 1 ; Cristina Acidini and
Maria Sframeli’s Magnificenza afla
corte (lei Medici: Arte a Firenze alla
finr rld Cinquecento (Milano: Electa, 1097); Francis Ames-Lewis’s
The Eurly Medici and Their Artists
(London: Birkbeck College, 1995);
and Richard Fremantle’s God and
Mom.\,: Florence and the Medici in
the Rcmiissance: Including Cosimo
I’s Ujfizi and Its Collections (Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1992). In addition. several works on other Tuscan
Spring 2001
families should be mentioned: F. W.
Kent’s Giovanni Rucellai ed il suo
Zibaldone (London: The Warburg
Institute, University of London,
1981); F. W. Kent’s Household and
Lineage in Renaissance Florence:
The Family Life of the Capponi,
Ginori, and Rucellai (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1977);
and Giovanna Benadusi’s A Provincial Elite in Early Modern Tuscany:
Family and Power in the Creation of
the State (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1996).
Given this list and the knowledge
that it represents only a tiny fraction
of works on the subject, one automatically begins with questions:
Does the world truly need another
book on the Medici and the arts?
Has not Florence received enough
attention from art historians and
economic historians? Is another
study of Cosimo de’ Medici, Pater
Patriae, necessary? Dale Kent asks
the reader to go beyond such questions and to look with a fresh eye at
the Medici patronage in general, at
Cosimo in particular, and at Florence as the context, source, audience, and museum. Although it
looks rather like a coffee-table book,
the book is very valuable for anyone
teaching the Renaissance. It would
be less useful for research, unless
one is willing to mine the copious
notes to which Kent has relegated
the most technical arguments.
Indeed, the introductory material
almost begs our indulgence: Read
this volume, Kent states, and you
will realize that this is not merely
page after page of pictures of Florence, mixing the familiar with the
hidden treasure. It is not a new or
even rehashed biography of Cosimo,
but a study of his world, his interests, and, therefore, also the artists
involved. The preface begins: “The
primary aim of this book is to reexamine the entire body of works of
art commissioned by Cosimo de’
Medici, or by his sons on behalf of
the family, between the early 1420s
and his death in 1464, with a view to
discerning the interests and themes
to which his patronage gave visual
expression” (ix). However, Kent’s
work is explicitly not revisionist.
She absolutely avoids labeling Cosimo sexist or classist, for example,
which some late-twentieth-century
historians tended to do; yet she still
challenges some traditional notions
of popular culture, of the role of
religion in the lives of the rich and
famous, and of the relationships of
patrons to artists, of patrons to art,
and of the powerful families to the
political organization.
In some ways, the scope of this
book is daunting. Kent discusses in
detail a large number of diverse
aspects of Cosimo’s life and family,
from his personal library to his correspondence, and from his palace to
his chapels. She examines his public
and private patronage, as well as the
contexts-familial,
political, and
religious-in which those types of
patronage operated. She argues that
one must distinguish the political
function of art patronage from propaganda. She explains that one must
recognize that private functions of
art patronage are also important in
uncovering the ideologies and amhitions of the Medici and their contemporaries. She shifts focal points
from Cosimo to the people to whom
the art and architecture “spoke,”
which is to say the inhabitants of
Florence (and its environs, where
several Medici villas were built).
Cosimo de’ Medici and the Florentine Renaissance is truly a readable book, illustrated richly in
halftones and color, with pictures of
99
art and architecture found in Florence, Fiesole, Cavaggi, and outside
Italy. Rut it would be a mistake to
consider this book as anything less
than a scholarly endeavor. Kent
argues shrewdly that the traditional
assumptions of historians and art historians that patrons and artists had little interaction on creative issues is in
fact incorrect: The two related disciplines employ methodology sufficiently diverse as to miss important
issues. Art historians look for contracts with explicit statements of
influence, missing the implications
that historians are trained to tease out
of supplementary documents. For
their part, historians often fail to recognize art and architectural vocabulary, which is at the basis of art-historical interpretation. In using both
types of analysis, scholars can indeed
uncover important connections, not
only from the contacts Cosimo had
with his favorites Donatello and
Michelozzo but in, for example, a
1441 letter from Matteo de’ Pasti to
Piero di Cosimo, in which Matteo
invited Piero to complete a sketch
according to Piero’s preferences.
Political history is also taken to
task: It, too, needs more contact with
art history because the specific statements Cositno made in his patronage
are as important as the amount of
money he spent. It is well known that
Cosimo manipulated republican institutions to his own ends and that the
cost of his art was on the scale of
other Renaissance princes’-yet, it is
of the utmost importance to recognize, as Kent does, that Cosimo’s
artistic themes were not the same as
those princes’. “Everything that Cosimo said and did, in private letters or
public debate, about politics, himself,
and Florence, is framed in terms of
the commune; the opportunities it
offered him, and the constraints it
imposed. The city needed Cosimo’s
wealth, prestige, and political judgment, and his fellow citizens allowed
him in return to exercise unprecedented authority in the state. However,
Florence in Cosimo’s time remained a
republic; he was not its prince, and he
did not rule it” (158).
It is clear from Kent’s book that
Renaissance humanists of all stripes
consorted with each other regularly
and that religious art and architecture
influenced civic art and architecture.
Scholars have failed to appreciate the
complex levels of interaction, and
Kent’s study is a valuable contribution
to bridging those gaps. Kent’s use of
methods from social, political, economic, urban, and art history adds to
the book’s appeal and exemplifies the
interdisciplinarity that has marked so
much work in the humanities in the
late 1990s and the present decade.
Cosimo de’ Medici and the Florentine
Renaissance is a book that will serve
the connoisseur as well as the biographer, and the lover of things Florentine as well as the social historian.
KATHLEEN M. COMERFORD
Georgia Southern University
To advertise in
please contact
Alison Mayhew
in the Advertising Department
202-296-6267 ext 247
100
Fraser, James W.
Between Church and State:
Religion and Public Education
in a Multicultural America
New York: St. Martin’s
278 pp.. $24.95, ISBN 0-312021636-X
Publication Date: September 2000
The Christian religion has played a central
role in the teachings and conduct of American
schools since colonial days, yet its proper
relation to the educational system in a society
lacking confessional homogeneity has never
been satisfactorily established. Present-day
controversies over such matters as the expenditure of public money for religious schools,
prayer in the schools, and increasingly over
the demand to teach something called Creationism in opposition to Darwinian evolution
have a long and complicated history in America. Although not new, the story is well told
here, with a clarity and absence of pedantry
that makes it an excellent summary for the
general reading public seeking an understanding of the difficulties of the problem.
James w.Frdser, a dean, a professor of
education, and an admirer of John Dewey, is
clearly a member of the educational establishment. Yet at the same time he is the pastor
of a Protestant church and demonstrates deep
sympathy and respect for that considerable
segment of the American public that feels
aggrieved over what it sees as a too disrnissive, barely civil, almost contemptuous attitude toward their deepest concerns by sonic
public school leaders.
The question Fraser poses is: “How should
a diverse and democratic society deal with
issues of religion in the public schools’?”His
answer is bound to seem inadequate to many
readers: “tolerance . . . that enthusiastically
embraces diversity” (4). Thus, it is not merely “a love of diversity” that will be demanded
in the new religious-scholastic era, but an
“enrhusiastic embrace of dikersity”! (One
wonders whether special committees will
have to be set up to deal with the case of
those whose compliance, though patent, i h
deemed insufficiently enthusiastic.) Furthermore, we hear that “If religion can be added
to the multicultural agenda, along with race.
class, gender, then there is hope of transcending some of the nation’s longest running and
most bitter school wars” (Sa). One wonders if
Fraser is really serious here. Considering the
questionable success the nation has had so far
in dealing with the problems of race, class,
and gender, readers may be excused from
using this book not simply as an excellent
source of information but as a practical guide
to public policy.
FRED SOMKIN
Cornell University
HISTORY
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