The Italian Renaissance | Alessandro de’ Medici (Lecture 31)

Lecture 31: In negotiations with the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, to end the sack of Rome, the Medici Pope Clement VII made the recovery of Florence part of the treaty. With the collapse of Machiavelli’s citizen army and after a terrible siege of the city, Florence fell to imperial troops in 1530. The last Florentine Republic had exhausted the republican patricians. Their courageous sons had died on the ramparts and outside the walls in fruitless attempts to break the siege. Pope Clement VII made it clear through the use of Spanish arms that the Medici were back to stay. Not having a more appropriate member of the family to rule in his place, Clement sent the 19-year-old Alessandro de’Medici as non-hereditary duke of the city.

Alessandro, who was universally believed to be Pope Clement’s natural son by a Moorish slave, was clearly mentally unstable. As long as Clement was alive, Alessandro listened to his councilors and to the bodies representing the political classes in the city. However, with Clement’s death in 1534, the duke ruled ever more tyrannically, obliterating the symbols of the republic and making arbitrary decisions. He was also showing signs of madness, especially in the company of his favorite, his bizarre, insane cousin Lorenzo (Lorenzaccio). These two together engaged increasingly in depraved behavior until Lorenzaccio, for no apparent reason, assassinated Alessandro in 1537.

Secondary Sources:
Eric Cochrane, Florence in the Forgotten Centuries, 1527−1800.

Supplementary Reading:
Christopher Hibbert, The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall.

Lecture 32: https://rumble.com/v4yoyob-the-italian-renaissance-the-monarchy-of-cosimo-i-lecture-32.html