Gender & Women's History Research Centre

Alfonsina Orsini de' Medici (1472-1520) was one of a very few women to exercise real political power in Renaissance Europe. Attacked by contemporaries for avarice and ambition for her son Lorenzo (1492-1519), she faced opposition not encountered by male rulers. Despite considerable authority and skill as a ruler, Alfonsina was viewed as a female interloper in the masculine world of Florentine government. Instead of being seen as a good mother, she was decried as a conniving dowager with only personal - rather than civic - interests at heart.

Benedetto Varchi, Duke Cosimo’s I’ de’ Medici’s chief propagandist insisted that when the 17 year old youth unexpectedly acceded to the position of ruler of Florence in January 1537 that he “governed everything on his own”. In Varchi’s view even his revered mother, Maria Salviati de ’Medici was subject to him and did not undertake a political role. I prefer another contemporary’s more nuanced analysis of Maria’s place in the regime. Cosimo “governed the republic […] often making use of the advice of Madonna Maria, his mother, as with his authority she used to manage much business”. The “business” Cosimo allowed her to manage was flexible and multi-faceted. I argue that Maria’s support for Cosimo should be viewed as a “female career”, which had one underlying objective to support the interests of her son and his regime. This article explores Maria Salviati’s career at her son’s court during the last six years of her life. That career was valued by Cosimo because of his mother’s ability to adapt her role, giving him the flexibility he needed to navigate successfully a difficult period of transition for his regime.

Kings o f the Street is a study o f th e festive b rig ad es' potenze (pow ers)know n as kingdom s o r states-o f artisans and lab ourers th at w ere p a rt of F lorence's ritu a l and com m unal fabric from th e late fifteenth until th e early seventeenth century. David R osenthal critiques an existing body o f w ork w hich views th e appearance o f these potenze o n th e urban stage on certain occasions-such as May Day, th e feast day o f F lo ren ce's p atron-saint, St John th e B aptist (24 Ju n e), o r th e b irth o f a M edici h eir as a static safety-valve, an event w hich red u ced th e chance o f low er-class reb ellio n and in w hich the plebeian brigades w ere m erely doing th e bidding o f th eir ru lers. R osenthal p resents a w ell-argued and m o re com plex view : these plebeian actors did have agency, b o th at th e tim e o f festivity and beyond it. These potenze aped th e rituals of kingship th ro u g h th e ir p erfo rm an ces and b o th the ru le r and the brigades developed relationships and created p erfo rm an ces based on shared cultural u n derstandings. It was an alliance, w hich, w hile still recognising the prim acy o f th e ru le r also allow ed agency by th e potenze.

population (pp. 202-3). Taken together, this collection reminds us that such literacy is needed in approaching the variety of religious sensibility at work among Europeans generally, even among those belonging to groups that have been historically dominant.