Medici Money by Parks Tim

Author:Parks, Tim
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Profile
Published: 2006-09-03T04:00:00+00:00

THROUGHOUT THE 1440S and 1450s, draconian balias are instituted, made semi-permanent, then suddenly dissolved in the face of angry public reaction. New scrutinies are compiled with new rules. How many name tags are to be put in which electoral bags? How many members of the same family can serve on the same commission? Some people get only one tag in one bag and some get many tags in many bags. Some people are taxed out of business and some are hardly touched. “Whoever keeps in with the Medici does well for themselves,” writes Alessandro Strozzi bitterly to his exiled brother-in-law. Again and again, the Councils of the People and of the Commune are presented with the most ambiguous legislation. They reject it. The signoria reformulates it. The regime is determined to follow the letter of the law, if rarely its spirit. The process is exhausting. Some of Cosimo’s allies are calling loudly for a more drastic and definitive solution. They’re losing patience. Why can’t we have complete control and be done? But Cosimo has long since understood—and this is his modernity—that since power can no longer stem from a truly legitimate source, but is always at the end of the day “seized,” it will always be at best ad hoc, pro tem. Any drastic and definitive solution would thus be a fort waiting to be stormed by someone else equally drastic and determined. It is better to appear to be in constant negotiation, constantly ready to compromise. In the end, the key thing is to keep people, if not actually happy, then happy enough. To keep the lid on.

The figure of the so-called veduto was important. When the podestà pulled a name from an electoral bag—for prior perhaps, or for one of the Twelve Good Men—the electoral officials had to check whether the person chosen wasn’t in some way barred from holding office. Had he paid his taxes? Had he, or a member of his family, served in a similar office within the last two years? Was he presently resident in Florence? Was he, or any of his relatives, already sitting on another council or commission? In the old days, when the election really was an honest lottery, many names might be pulled from the bag before one was eligible. To be pulled from the bag was to be veduto: “seen.” Actually to take office was to be seduto: “seated.” Since the results of the scrutinies that decided which names were in which bags were kept secret, to be veduto for the position of prior—or, better still, gonfaloniere della giustizia—was a great honor. It meant you had passed the tough selection procedure, you were a respected citizen. When new consultative commissions were convened, being a veduto was often a criterion of eligibility.

With the new form of “elections”—just ten names in each bag, rather than hundreds—there had been no veduti, or very few. People were disappointed. Resuming control of the elections in 1443, after a brief return to the constitutional procedure,

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