Monday 7 November 2016

The little evidence of the Soderini in Florence - By Sinja Aardema

In the spring of 2016 I did an internship at the Patrician Patronage Project in Florence. It was a wonderful time in which I researched the patronage of the Soderini family of the period 1530-1670. Nowadays, the Soderini family is not one of the most famous patrician families of Florence.  Some descendants, however, made their way into the history books. Well-known, for example, are Piero Soderini (1450-1522), who was the gonfaloniere a vita of the Florentine Republic from 1503 until the Medici returned in 1512, and his brother Cardinal Francesco Soderini (1453-1524). There is not much known about the Soderini in the sixteenth and seventeenth century and not much is left of their patronage. Therefore, it was really exciting when I did encounter the little physical ‘evidence’ still visible in Florence.

Giambologna's bust of Jupiter, ca. 1560, Boboli Gardens, Florence
(Photo: author)