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