Alessandro de' Medici, Duke of Florence

Alessandro de' Medici
Portrait by Jacopo Pontormo, c. 1534
Duke of Florence
Reign	1 May 1532 – 6 January 1537
Predecessor	Ippolito de' Medici
Successor	Cosimo I de' Medici
Born	(1510-07-22)22 July 1510 Florence, Republic of Florence
Died	6 January 1537(1537-01-06) (aged 26) Florence, Duchy of Florence
Spouse	Margaret of Parma ​ (m. 1536)​
Issue	Giulio de' Medici (illegitimate) Giulia de' Medici (illegitimate) Porzia de' Medici (illegitimate)
Father	Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, or Pope Clement VII
Mother	Simonetta da Collevecchio
Religion	Catholicism

Alessandro de' Medici (22 July 1510 – 6 January 1537), nicknamed "il Moro" ("the Moor") due to his dark complexion, Duke of Penne and the first Duke of the Florentine Republic (from 1532), was ruler of Florence from 1530 to his death in 1537.^[1] The first Medici to rule Florence as a hereditary monarch, Alessandro was also the last Medici from the senior line of the family to lead the city. His assassination at the hands of distant cousin Lorenzaccio caused the title of Duke to pass to Cosimo I de Medici, from the family's junior branch.

Life[]

Born in Florence, Alessandro was recognized by majority of his contemporaries as the only son of Lorenzo II de' Medici, grandson of Lorenzo de' Medici "the Magnificent".^[2] A few believed him to be the illegitimate son of Giulio de' Medici (later Pope Clement VII), but at the time that was a minority view.^[3]

Alessandro's nickname "il Moro" ("the Moor") is said to derive from his physical features.^[4][5][6][7] Some historians, such as Christopher Hibbert, believe that he had been born to a servant of African descent who was working in the Medici household, identified in documents as  [it].^[8] French author Jean Nestor reported in the 1560s that the claim of a Moorish slave origin was a false rumor first spread by Alessandro's exiled enemies in Naples.^[9]

Emblem of Alessandro de' Medici, based on Dürer's Rhinoceros. Motto: "Non buelvo sin vencer" (old Spanish for "I shall not return without victory")^[10] (From Paolo Giovio's Dialogo dell'imprese militari et amorose, 1557)

Early life[]

Alessandro spent his early childhood in Rome, where he received a humanist education by Valeriano, under the supervision of Pope Leo X and Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici.^[11] During those years, a number of unexpected deaths occurred in the Medici family’s senior line: Giuliano, Duke of Nemours (1516); Lorenzo II, Duke of Urbino (1519); and eventually Pope Leo X (1521). This prompted Cardinal Giulio (then Gran Maestro of Florence, later Pope Clement VII), to relocate the remaining Medici heirs to Poggio a Caiano, near Florence: Alessandro; his half-sister Catherine, (later Queen Consort of France); and his cousin Ippolito, (later Vice-Chancellor of the Catholic Church).^[12] In 1522, Cardinal Giulio purchased the title 'Duke of Penne' for Alessandro from Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.^[13][14]

When Cardinal Giulio became Pope Clement VII in 1523, he left leadership of Florence to Alessandro and Ippolito, under the regency of papal representative Cardinal Silvio Passerini. Unfortunately, Alessandro and Ippolito were “alike in one respect only, their mutual hatred of each other.”^[15] They openly feuded throughout their short lives.^[16] Additionally, "the papal representatives sent to oversee the [boys] were extremely unpopular with the anti-Medici faction [of Florence] as well as, again, elements within the family such as Clarice Strozzi, daughter of Piero di Lorenzo ("the Unfortunate"), who railed against Alessandro as being unworthy of the Medici family name and against his papal guardians as well... The status of Alessandro as Gran Maestro of Florence was largely nominal but wider events taking place in Italy would soon see him raised to a higher status, but not before enduring quite an ordeal."^[17]

During the Sack of Rome in 1527, a faction of Florentines overthrew the Medici government and installed a theocratic, Savonarola-influenced Republic.^{[18] [19]} Alessandro and Ippolito de' Medici were advised to leave the city with Cardinal Passerini. Many of the Medicis’ main supporters fled Florence; but eight-year-old Catherine de' Medici was left behind.^[20] Alessandro lived in exile for the next three years. ^[21] Florentine artist Michelangelo, then occupied in creating a funerary chapel for the Medici, initially took charge of building fortifications around Florence to support the Republic. He later fled the city, fearing retribution by the Medici. In the 1530s, Michelangelo reconciled with Clement, but he never returned to work in the city under the leadership of Alessandro or his successor, Cosimo I.^[22]

Duke of Florence[]

Portrait of Alessandro de’ Medici, by Giorgio Vasari (1534).

In 1530, after a nearly ten month siege of Florence supported by Spanish troops, Alessandro was named head of state.^[1] Pope Clement VII chose him for the position over Ippolito, who was made cardinal. Clement’s choice increased tension between the Medici cousins; for the rest of Ippolito’s life, he spoke openly about wanting to overthrow Alessandro and lead Florence.^[23] Alessandro arrived in Florence to rule on 5 July 1531. Nine months later he was made hereditary Duke by Charles, as Tuscany lay outside the Papal States. This ended the Florentine Republic and started over 200 years of Medici monarchy.^[24][25]

The Florentine Constitution of 1532 consolidated Duke Alessandro’s power.^[26] While Clement lived, Alessandro ruled "with the advice of elected councils, trying to calm the nerves of the defeated republicans"; however, as his reign progressed he showed authoritarian tendencies.^[27] In 1534, he ordered construction of Florence’s Fortezza da Basso, “to secure the Medici’s control of the city following their recent return after the Siege of Florence, and to provide lodging for a massive contingent of troops.”^[28]

Duke Alessandro’s government drew both praise and criticism. Alessandro’s “common sense and his feeling for justice won his subjects’ affection”; and he “enjoyed some status as the champion of the poor and the helpless, as ballads and novelle record.”^{[29] [30]} He was also a patron of the arts, commissioning notable works by Giorgio Vasari, Jacopo Pontormo, Benvenuto Cellini, and Antonio da Sangallo the Younger.^{[31] [32]} Conversely, Florence’s vocal exile community judged his rule as harsh, depraved, and incompetent, an assessment debated by historians.^[33] In 1535, the exiles enlisted Cardinal Ippolito to meet with Emperor Charles V to denounce Alessandro's government; however, en route to the meeting, Ippolito died under questionable circumstances. Rumors spread that he was poisoned on Alessandro's orders.^[34] After the exiles voiced their complaints to Charles, Florentine diplomat Francesco Guicciardini responded, “his Excellency’s virtue, his fame, the opinion of him held throughout the city, of his prudence, of his virtuous habits, are a sufficient reply".^[35] Emperor Charles dismissed the complaints, continuing to support Alessandro.

In 1536, Emperor Charles kept a promise to Pope Clement by marrying his daughter, Margaret of Austria, to the Duke.^[36] Duke Alessandro seems to have remained faithful to one mistress, Taddea Malaspina, who bore his only children: Giulio de' Medici (c. 1533/37–1600), who had illegitimate issue, and Giulia de' Medici.^[37]

Assassination[]

Portrait of Alessandro de' Medici in the Uffizi.

Margaret of Austria

In 1537, Duke Alessandro's distant cousin and close friend Lorenzino de' Medici, "Lorenzaccio" ("bad Lorenzo"), assassinated him.^[38] The event is the subject of Alfred de Musset’s play “Lorenzaccio”; Alexandre Dumas’ play “Lorenzino”; and the basis for Thomas Middleton’s play “The Revenger’s Tragedy”, among other works.^{[39] [40]}

On January 5/6, the Night of Epiphany, Lorenzino entrapped Duke Alessandro through the ruse of a promised sexual encounter with a beautiful widow.^[41] As Duke Alessandro waited alone and unarmed, Lorenzino and hired assassin, Scoronconcolo, ambushed him and "stabbed Alessandro with a dagger several times while the Duke fought back to the point that he bit off a significant portion of one of Lorenzino's fingers. Eventually, Alessandro succumbed to his wounds and Lorenzino and Scoronconcolo fled from the palace – after locking the door to the chamber to prevent their crime from being discovered too quickly."^{[42] [43]}

For fear of starting an uprising if news of his death became public, Medici officials wrapped Alessandro's corpse in a carpet and secretly carried it to the cemetery of San Lorenzo, where it was hurriedly buried.^[44] In Valladolid Spain, at the imperial court of Charles V, a solemn funeral was held for Alessandro.^[45]

Lorenzino, in a declaration published later, said that he had killed Alessandro to preserve the Florentine Republic. When Florence's anti-Medici faction failed to rise, Lorenzino fled to Venice, where he was killed in 1548 at the direct orders of Emperor Charles V.^[46] Florence's Medici supporters – called Palleschi from the balls on the Medici arms – ensured that power passed to Cosimo I de' Medici, the first of the "junior" branch of the Medici to rule Florence.^[1]

Alessandro was survived by two children: son Giulio (aged four at the time of his father's death) married to Lucrezia Gaetani, and daughter Giulia, married firstly to Francesco Cantelmo, the Duke of Popoli, and then to Bernadetto de' Medici, the Prince of Ottajano.

References[]

Sources[]

• Hibbert, Christopher (1999). The House of Medici, Its Rise and Fall.^{[ISBN missing]}
• Schevill, Ferdinand (1936). History of Florence.^{[ISBN missing]}
• Brackett, John (2005) "Race and Rulership: Alessandro de' Medici, first Medici Duke of Florence, 1529–1537," in T.F. Earle and K.J.P. Lowe, Black Africans in Renaissance Europe.^{[ISBN missing]}
• Fletcher, Catherine (2016). The Black Prince of Florence: The Spectacular Life and Treacherous World of Alessandro de' Medici.^{[ISBN missing]}

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Alessandro de' Medici.

• Alessandro de Medici PBS online page discussing his ancestry, and his heirs (Note: this article is known to contain at least one elementary error, involving the well-known Medici tombs.). Updated in A View on Race and the Art World.