The Theatre of Magnificence
Chivalry and Spectacle in Medici Florence
The Theatre of Magnificence
Chivalry and Spectacle
in
Medici Florence
A4 printed hardback, approx 200 pages and 160+ illustrations
Special Crowdfunder Offer: €55.00 EURO plus shipping*
*For international shipping rates click here.
This book will be published summer 2025
IMPORTANT PUBLICATION UPDATE December 18th 2024:
By popular demand I am putting this book on sale as a sort of exclusive crowdfunder: see below.
Despite not knowing how many pages this book will have, or how many illustrations, or even what the retail price will be, multiple clients have been quite insistent about wanting to place orders already, so: I have decided to treat this project as a special sort of crowdfunder. The book itself is not a limited-edition print run, but for those people who want to put in a pre-order on the basis of it coming out around June 1st 2025, you will get a specially-signed and numbered collector’s edition book of a maximum number of only 200 copies that will not be available to the general public. As of today I can’t be more precise about this special offer, but bear with me while I sort out to the details, which I shall post on this page.
Otherwise you can subscribe to my mailing list for updates by emailing me here.
How to pre-order your special limited edition:
First, download a book order form. For Word.docx format click here, and for Word.doc format click here. Fill in the form and send it to me in either Word or PDF format, stating that you wish to make an order, and I shall send you a Paypal link to make payment. I also accept payment via Bank Transfer. Before ordering, please read my publications terms and conditions. Orders are confirmed on receipt of payment.
In Florence, the history of public spectacles where the participants were pitted against each other in combat is a long one. In the mid-2nd century AD, the Roman city, then known as Florentia, already had an amphitheatre for gladiatorial shows. It was outside the city when it was built, but it was swallowed within the walls up as Florence expanded in the Middle Ages, when it became a prison. Today its footprint can still be made out in the oval street pattern between the Palazzo Vecchio and Santa Croce (on the left in the map below). And it was the great piazza of Santa Croce nearby which became the main venue for Medieval tournaments, involving armoured warriors on horseback, jousting with lances, or fighting with other weapons, either individually or in teams. The piazza is shown in a 16th century map with a stout wooden fence erected around the piazza to separate the combatants from the spectators, who sat in tiered stands and watched from the windows of the surrounding palazzi. In the Middle Ages Florence also ran a horse race called the Palio (Siena was by no means the only Italian city to have such a race), which was so violent that it might as well have been a form of mounted combat - the jockeys used their crops to attack each other as they galloped through the streets of the city.
Medieval Florence was not alone in staging tournaments, but the city suffered from a particular problem for individuals being asociated with the nobility - grandi - because of politcal tensions arising from the political conflict between the Guelph and Ghibelline factions. The nobility, who were traditionally mounted and armoured for service in war, naturally provided participants for tournaments, but tournaments could have political aspects, and being classed as one of the grandi could get you disbarred from public office. So while Florence did have have ancient noble families, a natural source of participants experienced in mounted combat was viewed with suspicion by the populace. To some extent, Florence’s use of mercenary soldiers to fight its frequent wars provided a solution, as mercenary Captains and their household troops participated. Being professional warriors, they were naturally highly-skilled in the use of weapons and armour. Nobles from other cities also participated.
But powerful families from within the city did participate in tournaments, and in the 15th century, the most famous of them - the Medici - elevated chivalric events into a purely Renaissance form of performative art. And while tournaments had always been used for great displays of wealth and splendour, two great tournaments organised by the Medici in honour of the sons of Piero - Lorenzo and Giuliano, both known as the magnificent, were lavish events, rich with Neo-Classical allegory and symbolism. By this period, specialised jousting armours had been developed to limit the risks of injury for those taking part, but these events were nevertheless dangerous, so they still served to demonstrate the martial valour of the participants. The joust of Lorenzo took place in 1469, followed by the joust of Giuliano in 1475, and both brothers played leading roles in the events.
These tournaments had considerable erotic overtones, but they were not the only displays of martial skills to do so. Young scions of wealthy families like Lorenzo went into public mounted, leading groups of supporters all dressed in their family livery, known as their brigata, or ‘brigade’. These brigate staged armeggerie as groups, which were a sort of cross between feats of arms and dressage displays, in the course of which the young men of the brigata peeled of layers of their liveries and gave them away to people in the watching crowds, so they could wear them as a visible sign of their support. An explicitly erotic form of entertainment was when the brigata went to the palazzo where a young lady lived, who was focus of the romantic desire of one of its members. A display was staged in the street in front of the palazzo, watched from the windows above by the young lady and her friends, and at a certain point the member of the brigata paying court to the young lady would gallop his horse at the front gate of the palazzo, shattering his lance against it, but swerving his horse away at the last moment to avoid injury to himself or his horse. These events could be staged at night, by torchlight, adding a further air of romance to the proceedings.
But these were only some of the martial spectacles staged in Medieval and Renaissance Florence, from humble boxing matches in the street, all the way up to a recreation of a naval battle in the flooded courtyard of the Palazzo Pitti, to celebrate the marriage of Ferdinando de’ Medici to Christina of Lorraine in 1589. This book will take you to a world of amazing events that Hollywood, with all its computer animation and special effects, will never, ever match.
