Donatello's Bronze David

Donatello's Bronze "David" and "Judith" as Metaphors of Medici Rule in Florence Author(s): Sarah Blake McHam Source: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 83, No. 1 (Mar., 2001), pp. 32-47 Published by: College Art Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3177189 .

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Donatello's of

Medici

Bronze

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David in

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Metaphors

Florence

SarahBlakeMcHam For all the individual analyses of Donatello's bronze David and Judith and Holofernes, these sculptures have rarely been considered jointly, despite the fact that they were displayed in coordinated outdoor spaces of the Medici Palace for about thirty years. I argue here that their iconography was meant to evoke republican themes, well known to the Florentine elite, that the Medici aimed to embrace and co-opt.l The associated meanings of the David and the Judith and Holofernes were signaled by their related inscriptions. As I shall demonstrate by reference to Greek and Roman authors, particularly Pliny the Elder, these two works drew on descriptions of the Athenian statue group called the Tyrannicides, and on the writings of the twelfth-century English theologian John of Salisbury, all well known in fifteenth-century Florence, for the purpose of creating a visual rhetoric insinuating that the Medici were defenders of Florentine liberty. These literary and artistic sources combine with the two sculptures' related size and material to strengthen the likelihood that the David and the Judith and Holofernes were intended as pendants.

Together the sculptures conveyed the controversial, selfserving message that the family's role in Florence was akin to that of venerable Old Testament tyrant slayers and saviors of their people, symbolically inverting the growing chorus of accusations that the Medici had become tyrants who had sucked all real power out of the city's republican institutions.

The Statues' Setting Donatello's bronze sculptures of Judith and Holofernes (Fig. 1) and David (Fig. 2), according to evidence recently uncovered in contemporary sources, stood respectively in the Medici Palace garden and courtyard by 1469, possibly even as early as 1464-66.2 They remained in these adjoining locations until 1495, after the Medici were expelled from Florence in the previous year.3 We know that the palace was constructed for Cosimo de' Medici, between 1445 and the mid-1450s, but both sculptures are undocumented commissions.4 They were installed in the palace within a decade after 1457, the approximate date when Cosimo, his two sons, and their families moved into the recently completed residence. The sculptures' status as two of the earliest freestanding Renaissance statues makes the uncertainties of their dates and patronage particularly tantalizing, because these pieces are crucial to the reconstruction of the history of Italian Renaissance art.5 Nevertheless, their existence in the Medici Palace courtyard and garden for about thirty years allows them to be studied jointly in the context of their placement within the most public spaces of the palace that served as the de facto seat of Florentine political power. Investigation of the sculptures reveals a prime and largely unexplored example of how Cosimo and Piero de' Medici contributed to the creation of a family imagery in the secular context most closely identified with it, the newly constructed palace on the Via Larga.6

The bronzes were focal points of the two connected open spaces, the courtyard and garden (Fig. 3). The axial arrangement of the palace's main entrance and courtyard means that the David, which was raised on a high base at the center of the courtyard, was visible even from the street when the main portal of the palace was open.7 Although there is no certainty about the precise position of the Judith and Holofernesin the garden,8 since the garden was just behind the courtyard, the sculpture could have been visible from the courtyard if it was situated on the garden-courtyard axis. Nevertheless, as the courtyard was open to palace visitors and the garden to an invited group, the two statues were readily accessible to the desired audience.9 The family's suites were grouped around the palace's most striking innovation all'antica, the first colonnaded courtyard of the Renaissance, in which the David was positioned centrally. The courtyard, whose proportions and regular shape determined the impressive symmetry of the palace's plan, established a new type of interior formal space that came to supplant the exterior loggia on the Medici and other Florentine palaces as the site of formal receptions and family rituals. Behind it, the walled garden, with arcaded loggias at its north and south sides, provided a more private outdoor area, which was sometimes open to guests to the palace and used in conjunction with the central court when magnificent occasions, such as the wedding of Lorenzo de' Medici and Clarice Orsini in 1469, demanded additional space.'0 The Medici family expended considerable attention on the decorative program for the courtyard and garden. Complementing the classicizing columns in the courtyard were sgraffitodecoration of garlands and shields decorated with the Medici palle (or balls), as well as a series of roundels above the arcade of the courtyard. These stone roundels, of uncertain date and attribution, seem like large-scale sculptures derived from ancient gems and incised precious stones acquired by the Medici. Perhaps they were intended to remind the visitor of the family's prestigious collection and interest in antiquity.11 There were ancient sculptures flanking the interior portals of the garden, notably, two of Marsyas on either side of the exit to the Via de' Ginori.12 David as a Tyrant Slayer The recent discovery of the inscription once on the David ("The victor is whoever defends the fatherland. God crushes the wrath of an enormous foe. Behold! A boy overcame a great tyrant. Conquer, o citizens!")'3 seems to calm the controversy as to whether the sculpture indeed represents the young giant slayer, at least on a primary level.14 The inscription does not, however, narrow the range of dates for the sculpture, which different historians have placed as early as about 1428-30 and as late as after 1460.15 Most scholars agree, however, that the Judith and Holofernes probably dates after

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DAVID AND JUDITH: METAPHORS

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1 Donatello,Judith and Holofernes,bronze. Florence, Palazzo Vecchio (photo: Scala/Art Resource, New York)

Donatello's return to Florence from Padua, in 1453. Since the statue was recorded in the garden of the Medici Palace by 1469, possibly as early as 1464, it was most likely executed in the late 1450s or early 1460s and commissioned by Cosimo or Piero de' Medici.16 If the late dating of the David proves

2 Donatello, David, bronze. Florence, Museo Nazionale del Bargello (photo: Erich Lessing/Art Resource)

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3 Attributed to Michelozzo, Medici Palace courtyard, Florence, view toward garden (photo: Alinari/Art Resource)

correct, then it could have been commissioned by the Medici together with the Judith, but at this point there is insufficient evidence to confirm the theory.

The historical context of the bronze David provides some necessary background. Although very different in material and style from Donatello's earlier marble David (Fig. 4), it repeats the theme of David triumphantly standing with one foot on Goliath's decapitated head. Because David's identity as a victorious warrior has become so familiar to us through such later sculptures as Michelangelo's colossal David, we overlook that before Donatello's marble sculpture almost every representation of David interpreted him in other ways, as a king, prophet, writer of the Psalms, or ancestor of Christ.17 Documents indicate that in 1416 the marble David was transferred from the workshop at the cathedral of Florence and installed in the Palazzo della Signoria before a pattern of heraldic lilies painted expressly to complement it.18 Its site at the seat of government against a backdrop of symbolic lilies, the emblems of Florence's alliance with the Angevin dynasty, argues that the theme was interpreted in political terms.

Supporting evidence was recently found by Maria Monica Donato, who discovered two manuscript accounts that describe the Palazzo della Signoria in the early fifteenth century.

They allude to an inscription, "To those who bravely fight for the fatherland god will offer victory even against the most terrible foes."19 The manuscripts validate H. W. Janson's earlier, unproved speculation that this inscription might have been added to the sculpture by 1416, and that Donatello then recut the figure to emphasize a new political role for David as a defender of Florence by baring his left leg and removing the scroll formerly used to identify David as a prophet.20 The placement of the bronze David in the courtyard of the Medici Palace with an inscription of patriotic exhortation should be seen as a self-conscious allusion to the earlier marble analogue and its inscription. The marble David was at the time still standing in the priors' meeting hall in the Palazzo della Signoria, which made the Medici's identification with a symbol of the Florentine Republic all the more potent. The decision to situate an emblem of Florentine

4 Donatello, David, marble. Florence, Museo Nazionale del Bargello (photo: Alinari/Art Resource)

republican government in their palace could be understood as a sign that the Medici were closely connected to that regime and continued its ideals. Nevertheless, at the same time it represented an unprecedented appropriation by a single family of a corporate symbol of the state and informed the cognoscenti that true power resided several hundred meters north of the Palazzo della Signoria.

Judith as a Tyrant Slayer David and Judith are partners in meaning, which provides a rationale for their pairing. Both were Old Testament heroes and traditionally linked as saviors of the Jewish people in

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Jewish and Christian imagery (as in an early medieval fresco at the church of S. Maria Antiqua, Rome, or on Lorenzo Ghiberti's East Doors for the Baptistery, where the statuette of Judith is placed in a niche next to the relief of David Killing Goliath).21This partially explains their choice for the public spaces of the Medici Palace, but there were additional reasons for linking the two.

Unlike David, Judith had not been politically associated with Florence, but the textual source, the apocryphal Old Testament Book of Judith, certainly lent itself to a political interpretation and was written to inspire Jewish patriotism.22 In the medieval period Jewish and Christian writers alike interpreted Judith as a moral, religious, and political heroine.

In Christian symbolic thought her victory over Holofernes was elaborated as the triumph of virtue, specified variously as self-control, chastity, or humility, over the vices of licentiousness and pride. In visual representations of Judith and Holofernes, which are usually found among manuscript illustrations of cycles of the virtues, she stands powerful over Holofernes, holding his sword in one hand and his head by the hair in the other. Associations with these virtues meant thatJudith even came to be regarded as a type of the Virgin and of the Church.23 In the bronze by Donatello, the depiction of Judith and Holofernes continues these traditions. Judith's virtue is indicated by the demure clothing and veil that cover her from head to toe while Holofernes, in contrast, is almost naked.24 His nudity and drunkenness and the cushion on which he is propped identify Holofernes as a figure of Lust and Licentiousness, whereas Judith represents Chastity.25 The medallion Holofernes wears, which has swung around to his slumping bare back, depicts a galloping horse, symbolic of Pride or Superbia, the vice traditionally defeated by Humility, represented byJudith.26 Judith's valiant act of decapitating Holofernes is dramatically emphasized by Donatello, who created the first (and only) representation in monumental sculpture of this moment. Equally unprecedented is Donatello's narration of the actual killing. Rather than interpreting the confrontation betweenJudith and Holofernes in the traditional emblematic language of Judith standing motionless over the fallen Holofernes, Donatello for the first time depicted the grisly detail of Judith's delivering a second blow to Holofernes, the one that results in his decapitation. The canopy she has ripped from Holofernes' bed (and later triumphantly presents in the Temple atJerusalem) is wound through his hair in her hand and around her upper back and thighs (Figs. 5, 6).27 The visual effect of these features encourages the spectator to circle the sculpture in order to appreciate gradually how the complex intertwining of the protagonists' bodies connotes their physical intimacy, and finally to confront the psychological nuances of Judith's expression of horrifying calm and steadfast resolve (Fig. 7). Judith raises Holofernes' scimitar high over her head and is poised to attack again. Vestiges on the weapon indicate that it was entirely gilded, and so this dramatic fulcrum of the sculpture must have shone in the garden sunlight at the statue's pinnacle, emphasizing the impending movement of Judith's arm.28 To ensure a deadly

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5 Donatello,Judith, side view (photo: Alinari/Art Resource)

cut, Judith steadies Holofernes' unconscious form by straddling his bare chest, bracing his head against her thigh, standing on his wrist, and grabbing his hair tightly. She has already opened a huge gash in his neck, and his head is collapsed unnaturally on his shoulders.

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7 Donatello,Judith, detail: head ofJudith (photo: Alinari/Art Resource)

(

The inscription recorded on the base-"Kingdoms fall

i?!

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_:,- _ _or=f .....

~ z , ISto

*Florence,

through luxury [sin], cities rise through virtues. Behold the neck of pride severed by the hand of humility"-underscores the moral meaning of the decapitation.29 The exhortation to the viewer to focus on the physical evidence of the truncated neck is unusual and important (this will be explored later). A second inscription connects its reference to contemporary "The salvation of the state. Piero de' Medici son of Cosimo dedicated this statue of a woman both to liberty and fortitude, whereby the citizens with unvanquished and constant heart might return to the republic."30 Together they echo the rallying cry for liberty against the evils of tyrannical rule carved on the base of the David.

Relationship to the Athenian Tyrannicides The Judith and Holofernesand the David evoke references to tyrannicide well known to the Medici and to other members of the educated elite in Florence through ancient and contemporary texts. The fifteenth-century audience was familiar with accounts of two celebrated instances of tyrannicide in "_lis;~*- , -the ancient world: the first, the attempted murder of Hippias in Athens, was hailed as establishing democracy in the west; the second, the assassination of Julius Caesar in Rome, was a of continuing controversy. Considered a treacherous ', > .~subject murder by some-for example, Dante31-others, like Boccaccio, viewed Caesar's killing by Brutus and Cassius as a 6 Donatello,Judith, back view (photo: Alinari/Art Resource) legitimate tyrannicide.32

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9 Tyrannicide:Aristogeiton,Roman copy in marble of original Greek bronze. Naples, Museo Nazionale (photo: Alinari/Art Resource)

8 Tyrannicide:Harmodios,Roman copy in marble of original Greek bronze. Naples, Museo Nazionale (photo: Alinari/Art Resource)

The antityrannical inscriptions on the base of both sculptures by Donatello suggest a link to these renowned historical episodes and to the statue that became the most famous monument to tyrannicide in the West. The Tyrannicides(Figs.

8, 9), the monumental bronze group of Harmodios and

Aristogeiton, heroically nude and advancing forward, ready to strike, was erected at public expense in the Agora to honor them for overthrowing the tyrannical regime that led to the establishment of democracy in Athens (despite the fact that they botched the attempt).33 The pair was given full honors as heroes, and their statue was considered such a symbol of the city and its liberty that the Athenians legislated that no other sculptures could be erected near it in the Agora. When the Persians conquered Athens in 480-79 B.C.E., they acknowledged the statue's symbolic importance to the city by carrying it off as a trophy. The Athenians immediately commissioned a replacement to stand in the Agora, and when the original Tyrannicidesgroup was recaptured more than a century later and returned to Athens, it was placed alongside the second version of the theme in Athens's civic center.34 Only after Athens had been conquered by Rome was an exception made to the edict honoring the Athenian tyrannicides by solitary prominence in the Agora: in 44 B.C.E. Athenian citizens voted to erect statues of Brutus and Cassius next to the Tyrannicides,thereby paying tribute to their slaying of Caesar in the same terms as the commemoration of Harmodios and Aristogeiton.35 General descriptions of the sculpture of Harmodios and Aristogeiton survived into the Renaissance in writings by authors such as Pliny, Pausanias, and Philostratus. As one or more copies of each of these

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relevant ancient author's texts were housed in the S. Marco Library in the fifteenth century, the monument must have been known to the Medici family.36 Pliny's Natural History, in one of its most detailed accounts of any single Greek or Roman work of art, provided the fullest commentary. Pliny called the heroes and their sculpture symbols of Athenian democracy. He suggested that the Tyrannicides were among the first recorded examples of bronze sculpture, thus making them a landmark in the invention of that artistic form.37 He further recounted how the brave deeds of Harmodios and Aristogeiton were immortalized by an inscription on the sculpture's base. Pliny specified that their portrait sculpture was installed at public expense in the Agora so that the feats of the tyrant slayers might live in the memory of Athenian citizens. He claimed the precedent started the fashion in many municipalities of decorating public squares with statues of heroes atop bases inscribed with their identities. He related the precedent to a subsequent practice of installing statuary in the private spaces of residences.38 Pliny embellished the story of the tyrannicides with dramatic human interest by recounting the ancillary episode of the harlot Laena, who was tortured to death rather than reveal the identities of Harmodios and Aristogeiton, and of the monument of a tongueless lion erected in her honor by the grateful Athenian state.39 Ghiberti summarized Pliny's version of the story in his Commentarii,and Leon Battista Alberti's treatise on architecture repeated all major features of Pliny's description.40 In its own right, the epigram on the Athenian statue's base was just as celebrated as the sculptures. Attributed to the famous poet Simonides, it extolled the tyrannicides and their liberation of Athens with the words, "A marvelous great light shone upon Athens when Aristogeiton and Harmodios slew Hipparchus."41 Several drinking songs (scholia) derived from the inscription remained popular for centuries and were used to encourage patriotic emulation of the heroism of the tyrannicides.42 The poetic inscriptions on the bases of the sculptures by Donatello, which distinguish the figures as exempla by invoking spectators' attention to their feats, may be inspired by that precedent.43 The statue group was widely copied in later Greek and Roman art; often, as in the case of the Brutus and Cassius statues mentioned above, imitations of the Tyrannicideswere motivated by the goal of rallying patriotism in response to some threat to political freedom.44 There are a number of extant monumental variants, and renditions proliferated in copies and in versions on coins and vases and in relief sculpture. Characteristic aspects of the figures' gestures and poses were transferred to other heroes, such as Theseus, as a sign of their identification with the political import of the Tyrannicides.45 The installation of the David and the Judith in the courtyard and garden of the Medici Palace recalls Pliny's allusion to the fashion of erecting sculptures in private residences that derived from the fame of the Tyrannicides.The sequence of these spaces in the palace suggests the atrium and peristyle of Roman houses, basic features of domestic architecture emphasized by the Roman writer Vitruvius.46 In his treatise on architecture completed by 1452, Alberti elaborated on Vitru-

vius's description and connected these spaces to the sort of public civic area where the Tyrannicideshad been installed: ... the principal member of the whole building is that which I shall call the courtyard with its portico, to which all the other members must correspond, as being in a manner a public marketplace to the whole house....

(5.17)47 Places of public reception in houses ought to be like squares and other open spaces in cities ... in the center and most public place where all the other members may readily meet. (5.2)48 The incriptions of the Judith and Holoferneswere later effaced and then recarved with pointed reference to the reinstated republic when it was transferred from the Medici Palace to the ringhiera, or rostrum once attached to the west side of the Palazzo della Signoria. This history suggests the intensity of the statue's political associations and may reflect awareness of how the original Tyrannicideswere carted off as spoils by the victorious Persians to be reinstalled as a symbol of triumph in the public space of their capital.49 The sculptures in the Medici Palace repeat features of the Athenian sculpture reflected in works of art and described in the literary sources. Like it, they represent tyrannicide through the medium of large-scale bronze sculpture of figures in dramatic action. The correspondences between the David, a bronze freestanding nude in the tradition of Greek heroic statues, situated in the courtyard of the Medici Palace, the analogous space in private residences to the public square of cities, reinforce the association. Judith's gestures of raising the sword over her head with one arm while thrusting forward her other, drapery-covered arm to grab the hair of her victim conflate the poses of the Athenians' arms as had the gestures of earlier heroes like Theseus and may reflect a limited knowledge of the Tyrannicides'sactual physical appearance, pieced together from literary references and imitations of the group in the visual arts, or else fortuitously inspired by their laconic evidence into a partial resemblance.

Historical Influence of John of Salisbury's Policraticus Another equally famous precedent regarding tyrannicide apparently influenced the fifteenth-century sculptures. Donatello's unprecedented emphasis on the physical acts of murder and decapitation seems to reflect the contemporary impact ofJohn of Salisbury's Policraticus.The Policraticuswas a treatise about government written in the twelfth century by an English theologian who became bishop of Chartres. It stood at the center of impassioned debate throughout Europe three hundred years later because it provided the most notable theoretical justification for the legitimacy of tyrannicide written by a Christian authority.50 The Policraticus had long enjoyed a special status as the earliest elaborate medieval exposition of political theory. Since it was based extensively on the Bible and patristic literature, the Policraticus was construed to represent the viewpoint of the Church. The treatise played a prominent role throughout the late Middle Ages and Renaissance in the popular genre of literature known as the "Mirror of Princes," that is, treatises written to instruct rulers.51John of Salisbury's theories about the nature

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of the state directly engaged issues of political legitimacy and made the Policraticus influential on legal theory, philosophy, and political thought.52 For more than a century the treatise was considered the most authoritative work on government throughout Europe; it yielded its unchallenged supremacy to Thomas Aquinas, who drew extensively onJohn of Salisbury's theories and increased their circulation.53 After the midthirteenth century, the constitutional and political problems of legitimacy grew ever more urgent as new governmental units coalesced, and more attention focused on the Policraticus. Its influence was so significant in Italian legal and political circles that a fourteenth-century Bolognese jurist wrote a reference index to its contents.54 The Policraticus became widely known as its many moralizing stories proved a popular source for the teaching exempla cited by friars in their sermons. Finally, because the treatise drew extensively on ancient authors, interest in it was further stimulated by the incorporation of pagan classical literature into the curriculum of universities.55 In some circles the authority of the Policraticus was further enhanced by the misconception that the title represented the author's name and he was Greek.56 An excerpt, which John of Salisbury called the "Institutio Traiani" and claimed was written by Plutarch, was widely diffused independently. Regarded as a major ancient source on tyranny and tyrannicide, it was the only text attributed to Plutarch known and taught during the fourteenth and much of the fifteenth century.57 John of Salisbury's discussions of tyranny and tyrannicide had enduring popularity in Italy for additional reasons. He provided information and a theoretical context with which to assess the rulers of ancient Greece and Rome, making his work important to authors like Petrarch and Boccaccio.

Petrarch's De remediis utriusquefortunae contains several dialogues on the nature of tyranny.58 In the De casibus virorum illustrium, published in 1371, Boccaccio devoted several chapters to tyrants in the ancient world.

But John's commentary had more specific implications in Florence, one of the few Italian cities that remained a republic by the end of the fourteenth century, after most other Italian communes had evolved into semimonarchical or even tyrannical governments. Florentine claims for the city's foundation during the Roman Republic and other associations to that venerable precedent were mainstays of civic pride and propaganda. This made the assassination of Caesar and arguments about whether tyrannicide was justified topics of particular significance.

The Policraticusproposed the legitimacy of tyrannicide in a series of explicit arguments unparalleled in Western thought,59 with a key book of the treatise headed "That by the authority of the divine book it is lawful and glorious to kill public tyrants, so long as the murderer is not obligated to the tyrant by fealty...."60 When the Florentine chancellor Coluccio Salutati wrote a treatise called De tyrannoin 1400, he naturally drew on the Policraticus. Salutati's text is the first by a major Italian political figure to focus on tyrannical government and the legitimacy of tyrannicide. His objective in writing it was to defend the reputation of Dante, who, rather than according immortality to Cassius and Brutus as tyrannicides, had deemed them murderers and relegated them to the lowest circles of the Inferno.61 Unlike John of Salisbury, who had considered

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Caesar a tyrant, Salutati argued that Caesar was a benevolent despot. Therefore, according to Salutati, Caesar's assassination was not a legitimate tyrannicide, and Dante was right to put Cassius and Brutus in Hell.62 Not surprisingly, the numerous assassinations of contemporary political leaders in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Europe and the tenuous hold on power of many more kept attention focused on the Policraticus'sjustifications of tyrannicide. In 1407 the murder of Louis, duke of Orleans, brother of Charles VI, king of France, by John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy, thrustJohn of Salisbury's theories again into the spotlight. In a move that galvanized all of Europe, the duke of Burgundy denied that he had committed any crime, thereby skirting the obvious charge that the killing enhanced his own chance of succeeding to the throne of France. He contended that, as a loyal servant of the crown, he had been honorbound to rid the country of a detestable tyrant who had perverted French royal institutions. His stance had grave theoretical consequences for rulers anywhere in Europe and direct ramifications not only for France and Burgundy but also for England and Italy. Henry V of England soon thereafter married Catherine, the daughter of the French king, and the duke of Orleans left as his widow Valentina Visconti, the daughter of the duke of Milan.

To argue his case, the duke of Burgundy hired Jean Petit, a distinguished theologian at the University of Paris, who argued on the duke's behalf that the murder of a tyrant was the praiseworthy obligation of a good Christian citizen. To buttress his stance that the Church sanctioned such assassinations, Petit drew on Thomas Aquinas and other theologians, but the defense rested onJohn of Salisbury's explicit theories about the legitimacy of tyrannicide. Petit presented the position in a series of tracts entitled Justificatio Ducis Burgundiae.63 The outraged son of the assassinated duke of Orl6ans demanded that their validity be judged by a Council of the Faith, attended by doctors and masters of the University of Paris. This distinguished group vehemently debated the issues throughout 1413 and 1414. The eminent theologian Jean Gerson represented the duke of Orl&ans's position that his father had been unjustly murdered.64 In 1414, the synod condemned the ideas of Jean Petit and required that all copies of the Justificatio be burned.65 Nevertheless, at the Burgundian court it was preserved as a precious document, recopied, and over the course of the century incorporated into the manuscript and ultimately the printed histories of Burgundy and of France.66 In response to the synod's decision, the duke of Burgundy brought his case before John XXIII, the claimant to the papacy not supported by the king of France. John first assigned a committee of Italian cardinals to make a ruling; he named them because of their experience, as Italians, with political assassinations.67 John XXIII subsequently decided that the matter should be put before the full-scale church council at Constance. There it was debated at great length, with Gerson again representing the position of the family of Louis of Orleans.68 Nevertheless, the Council of Constance broke up in 1418 without ruling against the duke of Burgundy.69 Burgundian partisans immediately retook control of the

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royal government in Paris. Soon thereafter the University of Paris published a long letter excusing itself for the Council of the Faith's decision, on the basis that hardly any impressive masters of theology remained in Paris during its tenure. Royal letters were composed specifically disavowing the work of Gerson. The assassination of the duke of Burgundy in 1419 made his culpability a moot point but intensified the controversy about the succession of power in France and Burgundy, as well as the theoretical basis of legitimate government and citizens' rights to take action against unlawful rulers.

Practical repercussions continued to be felt in Italy. Charles of Orleans, the son ofValentina Visconti and the assassinated duke, laid claim to various territories in northwestern Italy, including the duchy of Milan. Charles died in 1465, but the title of the house of Orleans to Milan did not. The French invasion of Italy at the end of the fifteenth century was mounted to enforce it. During the fifteenth century, other attempts to overthrow existing Italian governments sprang from native soil. The most significant occurred in Rome, Milan, and Florence; one plot achieved its goal of killing a head of state.70 In 1476 the Olgiati Conspiracy in Milan resulted in the murder of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza.71Just a couple of years later the Pazzi Conspiracy in Florence succeeded in the assassination of Giovanni de' Medici, although his brother, Lorenzo, the head of state, escaped. Unlike their Milanese counterparts, the Pazzi conspirators did not justify their deeds by rhetorical allusions to legitimate tyrannicide, but other Florentines did so for them. In 1478-79, Alamanno Rinuccini wrote the treatise "De libertate," in which he likened the Pazzi conspirators to the heroic teams of Harmodios and Aristogeiton, Cassius and Brutus, and the Milanese conspirators.72 More than recurrent political crises, killings, and problems of succession kept alive the themes with which John of Salisbury had grappled. Riccardo Fubini has pointed out that the theological and political interpretation of a state's legitimate authority-the fundamental question left unresolved at in Florentine fifteenthParis and Constance-festered to and led successive crises such as century political thought the rebellion against Piero de' Medici in 1466 and the Pazzi Conspiracy. As he noted, the editorial debates leading to a new Latin edition of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics in 1463 demonstrate the continuing importance of the controversy.73 The Sculptures in Relation to the Policraticus Let us now return to the focus of this essay and examine how the two sculptures by Donatello relate to John of Salisbury's discussions of the state and tyrannicide. To begin with the obvious: they both depict tyrannicides. Judith's killing of Holofernes is made unprecedentedly dramatic. In addition to being the first monumental depiction of the episode, it is rendered as a freestanding sculpture whose physical tangibility heightens the explicit horror of the freeze-frame rendition of a murder in progress. That the tyrannicides are legitimate and morallyjustified is underscored by the inscriptions on the David and the Judith.

The graphic aspect ofJudith's pause between two blows as she decapitates Holofernes and the inscription's focus on the severed head relate to the peculiarly precise anatomical characterization that is John of Salisbury's original contribu-

tion to the long-standing analogy between the body and the state. He made clear that the prince is the state's head, and that it ineluctably followed that the tyrant, or prince who misruled, must be killed so that the head is severed from the body.74 Although he credited Plutarch's "Institutio Traiani" as his authority, John of Salisbury seems to have invented the details of the metaphor himself.75 John contended that tyrannicide was a duty if it set people free for the service of God.76 In support of his position, he cited various examples of the oppression of the Jews in the Old Testament and their deliverance by the slayers of these tyrants; by far the most important savior wasJudith, who killed the general of an army threatening her people.77 In the same chapter,John extolled David as a counter example. According to John's philosophy of fealty, David was bound by oath as a subject Saul, and so unlike Judith, who owed no allegiance to Holofernes, David could not rightfully murder Saul, even though he was a tyrant. John argued that David's patient, passive resistance and decision to leave Saul's fate to God represented the moral course of action in such cases.78 Nevertheless, John realized that not all tyrants could be peaceably overcome and offered specific advice about deposing them by force. According toJohn, the most expedient way to destroy tyrants was to beseech God's retribution, but he explicitly sanctioned human dissimulation and treachery when they served the cause.79 In this regard, his most prominent case was again that of Judith, whose beauty and charms were enhanced by God,John tells us, so that she could entice Holofernes into a drunken stupor and kill him: Let me prove by another story that it is just for public tyrants to be killed and the people thus set free for the service of God. This story shows that even priests of God repute the killing of tyrants as a pious act, and if it appears to wear the semblance of treachery, they say it is consecrated to the Lord by a holy mystery. Thus Holofernes fell a victim not to the valor of the enemy but to his own vices by means of a sword in the hands of a woman; and he who had been terrible to strong men was vanquished by luxury and drink, and slain by a woman. Nor would the woman have gained access to the tyrant had she not piously dissimulated her hostile intention for that is not treachery which serves the cause of the faith.... For this is shown by her words ... "Bring to pass, Lord," she prayed, "that by his own sword his pride may be cut off, and that he may be caught in the net of his own eyes turned upon me....

Grant to me constancy of soul that I may despise him, and fortitude that I may destroy him. For it will be a glorious monument of Thy name when the hand of a woman strike him down." . . . she who had not come to wanton, used a borrowed wantonness as the instrument of her devotion and courage.80 Donatello's bronze representsJudith as chaste and humble, although the sensuous implications of her encounter with Holofernes and the ways in which she guilefully ensnared him are amply suggested by their intimate physical positioning: she stands on his wrist and straddles his chest.81 The topicality of John's treatise helps to explain the commission for the first monumental, three-dimensional

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statue of the story of Judith and Holofernes. The brutal decapitation reflects his citation of Holofernes' murder as the prime example of justified killing of an overlord who disobeyed God's laws. John singled out the sword as the suitable agent of retribution against a ruler who unlawfully used it against his people: "For whosoever takes up the sword deserves to perish by the sword."82 The unprecedented portrayal of a decapitation in progress is the physical embodiment ofJohn's theory about the actual separation of the head from the body politic, that is, the severing of the tyrant from his state in a whollyjustifiable murder.83 Even though David's killing of Goliath was not cited as an example of tyrannicide in the Policraticus, Donatello's depiction of the boy standing victorious, sword in hand, over the decapitated head of Goliath easily relates toJohn's ideas. Like Holofernes, Goliath was the major warrior of an army menacing the Jews.

Holofernes' killing by a woman and Goliath's death at the hands of a boy could only have been accomplished with God's help. Despite the fact that David killed Goliath with a stone, the sword, the meansJohn recommended to slay a tyrant, and Goliath's severed head are emphasized. The inscription originally on the statue's base and the statue's inevitable association with the nearby Judith and Holofernes reinforced the appropriateness of interpreting the killing of Goliath as another illustration ofjustified tyrannicide.

The David and the Judith and Holofernes, sculptural centerpieces of the two most public spaces in the Medici Palace, thus seem to have been coordinated in a program that was calculated to advertise to invited guests that Cosimo and his family were protectors of liberty-in a period when that was very much in question and in need of corroboration. Their control of Florence was sufficiently threatened that in 1458 Cosimo secretly consulted with Duke Francesco Sforza of Milan about sending troops to Florence should conspiring against the regime explode into fighting. Cosimo next masterminded a series of changes that weakened traditional republican governmental structures. These were confirmed by a sham parlamento, in which the intimidated citizenry surrounded by armed soldiers voted to consolidate the family's hold on power. Cosimo and then Piero ruled for the next eight years, taking harsh measures to suppress any opposition.

In this period they had a great need to deflect charges of tyranny from themselves. Donatello's statues conveyed that message powerfully by suggesting instead that the Medici family should be seen in the flattering light of celebrators, even preservers, of Florentine liberty against any threat, a self-serving political strategy that many Florentines would have considered outrageous.84 Related Aspects of the Courtyard's Decoration This reading of the statues is reinforced by their thematic and formal links to the other aspects of the decoration of the garden and the courtyard. Two ancient statues of Marsyas, restored in the fifteenth century, flanked the doors leading from the garden into the Via de' Ginori. One, now lost, represented a seated Marsyas prior to his torture.85 The other, depicting the torture of Marsyas, is presently in the Uffizi (Fig. 10). Recently Francesco Caglioti convincingly reattributed its restoration to Mino da Fiesole.86 He also argued that these two statues were included in the garden because the theme of

10 Marsyas,Roman sculpture with restorations attributed to Mino da Fiesole, marble. Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi (photo: Alinari) Marsyas could be understood as representing liberty. In support of that argument, he cited an unpublished commentary by Giovanni Nesi on Aristotle's NicomacheanEthics, which

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11 Attributed to Donatello, roundel of Centaur, stone. Medici Palace courtyard (photo: Alinari/Art Resource)

12 Attributed to Donatello, roundel of Daedalus and Icarus, stone. Medici Palace courtyard (photo: Alinari/Art Resource)

Nesi directed to the young Piero de' Medici, the son of Lorenzo.87 The roundels of the courtyard's upper walls, which may have been designed by Donatello, further develop the meaning of the program.88 One depicts centaurs (Fig. 11), cited by Dante as incapable of successfully governing because of their supposed fault of pride.89 They therefore connect to the statues' allusions to prideful tyrants overcome by virtuous deliverers who restore liberty to their people. Another roun-

13 Attributed to Donatello, roundel of Triumph ofBacchus, stone. Medici Palace courtyard (photo: Alinari/Art Resource)

del represents Daedalus and Icarus (Fig. 12). The proud Icarus is posed nude atop a high pedestal, recalling prominent features of the statue of David below. According to Francis Ames-Lewis, this similarity also establishes a link between the interpretation of the David and the roundel. He sees them together representing the results of contemplation of truth in a Neoplatonic sense, as the soul rises from the terrestrial state to the divine state personified by Icarus.90 In this light, the statue and roundel together could be seen as validating the "truth" of the cycle. A third roundel, often considered to represent the Triumph of Eros, depicts a scene very close to that on Goliath's helmet, relating the roundel to the statue by Donatello (Fig. 13). Both the helmet decoration and the roundel have been identified in this way because of their compositional connections with a sardonyx cameo traceable in the fifteenth century to the collections of Pietro Barbo, and now in Naples.91 However, art historians had not taken into account that the gem was also identified as a Triumph of Bacchus, an interpretation applied by Patricia Ann Leach to the roundel and helmet decoration both.92 She argued that in this context the triumph suggested not only a Christian meaning of salvation but also a political sense of liberty, because of Boccaccio's description of how Bacchus or Liber brought liberty (libertas) to mankind.93 Wendy Stedman Sheard extended this line of interpretation by noting that Bacchus can be considered a god of military triumph and as such personifies the connection of peace and prosperity with the reign of a legitimate ruler, in this case the Medici.94 Artistic Patronage Converted to Political Power The interpretation of the statues and courtyard decoration accords with the claims of humanists seeking Cosimo's favor, such as the Sienese Francesco Patrizi. In his "Ad Cosimum Medicem virum excellentissimum," written about 1434, Pa-

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trizi flattered Cosimo as a new Brutus for his symbolic slaying of the tyrant Rinaldo degli Albizzi, or Caesar: Like Brutus, he, fearing for the Roman flower of Freedom, struck, and broke the tyrant's power.95 Not many humanists adopted this rhetoric. But it served the Medici well to create an imagery that advertised the family's stance as defenders of Florence. The prominent precedent of Donatello's marble David in the Palazzo della Signoria ensured that the bronze David would have been immediately associated with the cause of Florentine liberty and the defeat of enemies of the state. By erecting Donatello's bronze David in the public space of their palace's courtyard and inscribing its base with an antityrannical message, the Medici were usurping this symbol of the republic and inverting its meaning-making themselves, not the republic, tyrant slayers like David. AlthoughJudith was a new symbol to Florence,John of Salisbury's citation of her as a paradigmatic tyrannicide made the Old Testament heroine a second exemplar. The bronze sculpture's unprecedented stress on Judith's encounter with Holofernes as a dramatic narrative of murder and decapitation derives from John's famous metaphor of the tyrannical prince as the head of the body politic who must be sundered from it by decapitation.

The multiple connections among the Donatello sculptures, John of Salisbury's Policraticus,and the famed ancient statues of the Tyrannicidesreveal another way in which Cosimo and Piero created their family imagery, knowledgeably converting to their own aggrandizement venerable historical precedents in addressing a simmering contemporary controversy. By so doing, the Medici manipulated republican imagery to establish the family's political propaganda, here subverting the charge of tyranny often leveled against them to their own purpose.96 The message was subtle and coexisted with more obvious and conventional interpretations of David andJudith as Old Testament heroes honored by Christian tradition.

Scholars have demonstrated many examples of how the Medici employed a strategy of commissioning works of art that veiled their political thrust in a context of acceptable religious and moral themes. The program discussed here provides another instance of the family's carefully calculated and sophisticated use of artistic patronage to further its goal of maintaining power in Florence.97

Sarah Blake McHam, professorof art history, Rutgers University, editedLooking at Italian Renaissance Sculpture and contributed an essay on public sculpture to the volume. She is also the author of The Chapel of St. Anthony at the Santo and the Development of Venetian Renaissance Sculpture [Departmentof Art History, VoorheesHall, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J. 089011248, mcham@rci.rutgers.edu].

Frequently Cited Sources Ames-Lewis, Francis, 1989, "Donatello's Bronze David and the Palazzo Medici Courtyard," Renaissance Studies 3, no. 3: 235-51.

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1389-1464 (Oxford:Clarendon , ed., 1992, Cosimo"ilVecchio"de'Medici Press).

Coville, Alfred, Jean Petit: La question du tyrannicide au commencementdu xve siecle (Paris: Auguste Picard, 1932).

Hyman, Isabelle, Fifteenth Century Florentine Studies: The Palazzo Medici and a Ledgerfor the Churchof San Lorenzo (New York: Garland, 1977).

Janson, H. W., The Sculpture of Donatello, 2d ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979).

The Statesman's Book ofJohn of Salisbury, Being the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Books, and Selectionsfrom the Seventh and Eighth Books of thePolicraticus, trans. and ed.

John Dickinson (NewYork:AlfredA. Knopf, 1927).

Ullman, Berthold Louis, and Philip A. Stadter,ThePublicLibraryofRenaissance Florence: Niccoli Niccoli, Cosimo de' Medici and the Library of San Marco,

Medievoe umanesimo, vol. 10 (Padua:Antenore, 1972).

Notes Some of this researchwasfirstpresented at the WesleyanRenaissanceSeminar in December 1994 and later revisedin a paper given at the annual meeting of the RenaissanceSocietyof Americain Bloomington, Indiana, in 1996. I would like to thank the participants at both for their comments. I want to acknowledge especially the assistanceof Professor Susan McKillop,who first brought to my attention John of Salisbury's reference to Judith in the Policraticusand for encouraging my research. I would also like to thank ProfessorsRoger Crum,Tod Marder,JohnPaoletti,and Debra Pincus for their many helpful comments about earlier drafts of this essay, and Professors Jocelyn Penny Small and John Kenfield for their bibliographic assistance.

Unless otherwise noted, translationsare mine.

1. This interpretationwasfirstadvancedby Bonnie A. Bennett and DavidG. Wilkins,Donatello(Oxford: Phaidon, 1984), 85. Roger Crum, "Retrospection and Response:The Medici Palace in the Service of the Medici, c. 1420-1469," Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1992, considered the sculptures and paintings at the palace together, arguing that they should be seen as celebrationsof the victoryof humilityover pride and of concord over discord.

Crum argued more specificallythat the Davidserved to connect the Medici to a general messageof libertyand antityrannyin an article that he brought to my attention after reading an earlier draft of this essay; see his "Donatello's Bronze Davidand the Question of Foreign vs. Domestic Tyranny,"Renaissance Studies10, no. 4 (Dec. 1996): 440-50. I thank him for his comments and the citation. I believe that the Davidand the Judithshare this meaning and suggest in this essayliteraryand artisticsources that support the argument.

2. ChristineM. Sperling, "Donatello's Bronze 'David'and the Demands of Medici Politics," BurlingtonMagazine134 (1992): 218-24, published a manuscriptshe discoveredin the BibliotecaRiccardiana,Florence, which recordsan and specifies inscription for the David as well as for the Judithand Holofernes was located in the garden of the palace. Sperling that the Judithand Holofernes argued that the manuscriptcould be dated between 1466 and 1469, and thus offered the earliest terminusante quemfor the installation of the Judith and there. Sperling is the firstscholar to analyzethese points in relation Holofernes to Donatello's sculptures.However,she wasunawarethat Paul OskarKristeller, IterItalicum,2d ed. (London: WarburgInstitute, 1967), 115, had earlier noted the citation in another manuscriptin the Biblioteca Corsini, Rome, and that Cecil Grayson,"Poesie latine di Gentile Becchi in un codice bodleiano," in Studi offertia RobertoRidolfi,ed. Berta Maracchi Biagiarelli and Dennis E. Rhodes (Florence:L. S. Olschki, 1973), 285-303, had published still another version of it that is in the Bodleian Library,Oxford. Grayson'sdemonstration that the manuscriptwas written by Gentile Becchi negates Sperling'sattempt to argue that Filelfo was its author and, on that basis, date the Davidca. 1430.

Her other arguments,that the sculpturewascommissioned in response to the Milanese threat to Florence at that time and that it relates in style to other sculpturesby Donatello in the late 1420sand early1430s, are takenfrom H. W. Janson, "Lasignificationpolitique du Daviden bronze de Donatello," Revuede l'Art39 (1978): 33-38, and are inconclusive. Crum, 1996 (as in n. 1), makes a more convincing case that, ratherthan alluding to a single threat of tyrannical aggression, the Medici disingenuously intended the David to suggest their defense of Florence from all danger of foreign or domestic tyranny,despite the realitythat many considered their own rule tyrannical.

Following Sperling's article, Francesco Caglioti, "Donatello, i Medici e Gentile de' Becchi:Un po' d'ordine intorno alla 'Giuditta'(e al 'David')di Via Larga," pt. 1, Prospettiva75-76 (July-Oct. 1994): 14-22, published several more versions of the 15th-centurymanuscriptcitation of the inscriptions on the David and on the Judith.As Caglioti noted, a date as early as 1464 is suggested by the context in which the record is found, a letter of condolence on Cosimo de' Medici'sdeath (1464) writtento his son Piero on Aug. 5, 1464. I thank ProfessorCagliotifor sending me a copy of this article and its sequels.

3. Luca Landucci, Diariofiorentinodal 1450 al 1516, ed. Iodoco Del Badia (Florence:G. C. Sansoni, 1883), 121.

4. On the palace's architecture, see Hyman; and Brenda Preyer, di Firenze,ed.

"L'architetturadel PalazzoMedici," in II PalazzoMedici-Riccardi GiovanniCherubini and GiovanniFanelli (Florence:Giunti, 1990), 58-75.

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5. Other noteworthy features include the total nudity of the David, the as a group in dramaticaction, and the conception of the Judithand Holofernes installationof life-size statues in a residential setting. To my knowledge, they are the firstRenaissanceexamples of these phenomena.

Caglioti (as in n. 2), 19-49, made the most recent contribution to the He argued controversyabout the date and patron of the Judithand Holofernes. that Donatello began the commission for Cosimo by 1457, put it aside during his sojourn in Siena (1457-61), and then completed the sculpture after his return to Florence and before his death in 1466. Previoushistorians divided into two camps about the commission, some followingJanson, 202-5, who, on the basis of Milanesi's reading of an elliptical reference regarding the purchase of bronze in Siena for Donatello in a document of 1457 (Siena, Archivio dell'Opera Metropolitana), contended that Donatello began the as a civic commission for that city and then completed it Judithand Holofernes for the Medici. Others, led by Volker Herzner, who retranscribed the document and read it differently,argued that it alluded to another commission entirely,namely,a reliquarybust of Saint Giuletta ("Donatello in Siena," Institutesin Florenz15 [1971]: 178-85; and Mitteilungendes Kunsthistorischen "Die 'Judith'der Medici," ZeitschriftfirKunstgeschichte43 [1980]: 159-63), and commissionhad nothing to do with Siena, but was that the JudithandHolofernes instead a Medici commission.

6. See Crum, 1992 (as in n. 1), for a comprehensive analysisof the palace.

The frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli in the Medici Palace Chapel have received much attention in regard to their political meaning; see the recent discussion and bibliographyin Rab Hatfield, "Cosimo de' Medici and His Chapel," in Ames-Lewis,1992, 221-44; Diane Cole Ahl, BenozzoGozzoli(New Haven:Yale UniversityPress, 1996), 81-119, 219-20; and Roger Crum, "RobertoMartelli, the Council of Florence, and the Medici Palace Chapel," Zeitschrift fur 59 (1996): 403-17.

Kunstgeschichte 7. The Davidstood at the center of the courtyard,which is on axis with the main portal of the palace and visible from the street. Its original base by Desiderio da Settignano has been lost, but it was described by Giorgio Vasari.

Speculation has centered on its appearance and height, and how these affected spectators'view of the Davidfrom ground level in the courtyardand from the windows of the piano nobileof the palace. On these issues, see Ames-Lewis,1989, 235-51, who first presented a reconstruction of the base; and FrancescoCaglioti, "Donatello, i Medici e Gentile de' Becchi .... ," pt. 3, 80 (Oct. 1995): 15-58, where a more convincing reconstruction is Prospettiva offered.

8. Ames-Lewis,1989, 240-41, first analyzed the uncertainties surrounding the original placement of the statue in the garden. Previously,scholars had assumedthat it waslocated on axiswith the Davidin the courtyard;see Hyman, 195. Recently, Francesco Caglioti, "Donatello, i Medici e Gentile de' Becchi....," pt. 2, Prospettiva78 (Apr. 1995): 22-55, expanded Ames-Lewis's was located at the north arguments,contending that the Judithand Holofernes end of the garden.

Cagliotialso challenged the long-standinginterpretationthat the Judithand functioned as a fountain in the Medici garden. He argued that the Holofernes base of the statue,which had been considered a replacementwhen the group was transferredto the Palazzodella Signoria, had been its base in the garden of the Medici Palace. In addition, he contended that the location of the Judith in that garden was not on axis with the Davidbut instead at the and Holofernes north end of the garden and that a fountain without statuarystood on the site on axis with the Davidthat historianshad traditionallyassigned to the Judith See his diagram,31. andHolofernes.

The recent restoration of the Judith and Holofernesrevealed that the supposed waterspoutsin the center of each relief of the three-sidedbase had never been opened, and confirmed the observationoccasionallymade earlier that the openings at the corners of the cushion on which Holofernes is propped could have been plugged with now-lostbronze tassels, rather than serving as waterspouts;see Antonio Natali, "Exemplumsalutatispublicae," in Donatelloe il restaurodellaGiuditta,ed. Loretta Dolcini (Florence: Centro Di, 1988), 27.

9. On Cosimo's quasiofficialuse of his palace as the site of government consultations,see Nicolai Rubinstein, "Cosimo optimuscives,"in Ames-Lewis, 1992, 13, where the acerbic remarksof GiovanniCavalcanti'sIstoriefiorentine, ed. Guido di Pino (Milan: A. Martello, 1944), 20, are quoted: "... the governing of the city took place more at dinners and in privatestudies than at the town hall." The Terzerime,a panegyricwritten ca. 1459, recounted how Cosimo and Piero often entertained visitorsat the palace; see Rab Hatfield, "Some Unknown Descriptions of the Medici Palace in 1459," Art Bulletin52 (1970): 240, where fol. 26v is discussed.

10. On the wedding, see Hyman, 167. It was also availableto receive guests after dinners, as for example when Galeazzo Maria Sforza visited in 1459, described in the Terzerime,41v, in Hatfield (as in n. 9), 236; and in a letter in idem (as in n. 6), 227.

11. On these stone roundels, see Ursula Wester and Erika Simon, "Die Reliefmedallionsim Hofe des PalazzoMedici zu Florenz,"JahrbuchderBerliner Museen 7 (1965): 15-91; on their relation to gems in the Medici collections, see Gennaro Pesce, "Gemme medicee del Museo Nazionale di Napoli," Rivista del Reale Istituto d 'Archeologiae Storia dell'Arte5 (1935-36): 50-97.

12. On the two sculptures of Marsyas, see Francesco Caglioti, "Due 'restauratori' per le antichita dei primi Medici: Mino da Fiesole, Andrea del Verrocchio e il 'Marsia Rosso' degli Uffizi," pt. 1, Prospettiva72 (Oct. 1993): 17-42, and pt.

2, 73-74 (Jan.-Apr. 1994): 74-96.

13. "Victorest quisquispatriamtuetur./ FrangitimmanisDeus hostis iras./ En puer grandem domuit tiramnum. / Vincite, cives!" For variantspellings, see Caglioti (as in n. 2), 39 nn. 30, 31. Sperling (as in n. 2) discovered the inscriptionconnected to the Davidrecorded in a 15th-centurymanuscriptand introduced it into the art historicalliterature.

14. Alessandro Parronchi, "Mercurioe non David," in Donatelloe il potere (Bologna: Cappelli;Florence: Il Portolano, 1980), 101-15, first suggested the reidentificationof the statue as Mercury,andJohn Pope-Hennessy,"Donatello's Bronze David," in Scrittidi storiadell'artein onoredi FedericoZeri(Milan: Electa, 1984), vol. 1, 122-27, supported it. Ames-Lewis,1989, 238-39, and others have convincingly proposed that the identities of David and Mercury were instead conflated to create a multivalent image, different features of which could be seen from the ground and from the upper floor of the Medici Palace, thereby nuancing the sculpture's meaning to its audience. Patricia Ann Leach, "Images of Political Triumph: Donatello's Iconography of Heroes," Ph.D. diss., Princeton University,1984, 53-154, most fully explored the underlying motives for merging David and Mercury in 15th-century Florence.

15. On the vexed question of dating, see, for example,Janson (as in n. 2), 33-38, who proposed a date of ca. 1430, seconded most recently by Sperling (as in n. 2). On the other hand, FrancisAmes-Lewis,"ArtHistoryor Stilkritik?

Donatello's Bronze David Reconsidered," Art History 2 (1979): 139-55, presented a serious case for a date as late as ca. 1460. For a convincing rebuttal of the literary and political arguments made by Sperling in favor of an early date, see Crum, 1996 (as in n. 1), 440-50. Although the weight of evidence now favorsthe late dating, the issue is not yet definitivelyresolved.

16. If, as some historians have argued, the purchase of bronze in Siena in 1457 is connected with the Judithand Holofernes commission, then the statue was under way by that date. For further speculation about the commissioner and date, see n. 5 above.

17. Michelangelo'scommission for the colossal Davidis the fulfillment of a project originallyawardedin 1463 to Agostino di Duccio to carve a statue of the Old Testamentfigure for one of the buttressesof the Duomo in Florence.

The contract was rescinded by the Opera del Duomo in late 1466, by which time Agostino had completed little, if any,carving.CharlesSeymour,Michelangelo'sDavid: A Searchfor Identity(Pittsburgh:University of Pittsburgh Press, 1967), 36-38, suggested that Donatello was providing the design for Agostino's execution and that Donatello's death in 1466 led to the contract's cancellation. If Donatello's bronze Daviddates as late as ca. 1460, then these two commissions are roughly coincident, but we know nothing useful about the intended appearance of Agostino's sculpture and cannot characterizeits interpretationof David.

18. For the documents, see Giovanni Poggi, II Duomodi Firenze:Documenti sulla decorazione della chiesae del campaniletratti dall'Archiviodell'Opera,ed.

Margaret Haines, rev. ed., 2 vols. (Florence: Medicea, 1988) vol. 1, docs.

425-27. On the history of the sculpture,see Janson, 3-7.

19. See MariaMonica Donato, "Herculesand Davidin the EarlyDecoration of the Palazzo Vecchio: Manuscript Evidence," Journal of the Warburgand Courtauld Institutes54 (1991): 83-98. The inscriptionreads:". .. statuaDavidis marmoreacum funda in manu: cui adscriptumpro patriadimicantibusetiam adversusterribilissimoshostes deus prestatvictoriam."This inscriptionis very similar to that in a late 16th-century guidebook by Laurentius Schrader, Monumentorum Italiae, quae hoc saeculoet a christianispositasunt, libriquatuor (Helmstadt:IacobusLuciusTransylvanus,1592), fol. 78v,earlierdiscoveredby Janson, 4. The difference lies in the last words,which in Schrader'stext read "dii prestant auxilium." The pagan implications of the phrase in Schrader occasioned doubts among scholarsthat the inscriptioncould have dated from the 15th century.The inscriptionuncovered by Donato refers to one god and removesthat problem.

20. SeeJanson, 3-7. Other scholarshave disputedJanson'sargumentsabout the successivestagesof David'sidentityand the statue'srecarving,arguingthat it was alwaysintended for the Palazzodella Signoria and not recut. For these points and bibliography,see Luciano Bellosi, "I problemi dell'attivitagiovaed. Alan nile," in Donatelloe i suoi: SculturafiorentinadelprimoRinascimento, Phipps Darr and Giorgio Bonsanti (Detroit: Founders Society, Detroit Institute of Arts;Florence:La CasaUsher, 1986), 47-54.

21. On examples of Judith with David, see Herzner, 1980 (as in n. 5), 164-69; and Mira Friedman, "The Metamorphoses of Judith," JewishArt Journal12-13 (1986-87): 235-39.

22. Modern theologians analyzing the text have pointed out its anachronisms and historical inconsistencies and argued that it was written as an allegory of the Jewish people to spur pride in their sense of identity.See The and Critical BookofJudith:GreekTextwith an EnglishTranslation,Commentary, Notes,ed., trans.,and annotated Morton S. Enslin and Solomon Zeitlin,Jewish ApocryphalLiterature,vol. 7 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1972), 1.

23.Judith's role as a paragon of Christianvirtues such as chastity,temperance, justice, fortitude, wisdom, and humility was established in the early of Prudentius, the very influential Christian Middle Ages by the Psychomachia epic written in 405. This spurred a large number of literary and visual interpretations of the theme, and an equally extensive secondary literature in the modern period. For a brief synthesis of the Christian interpretations of Judith, see Mary Garrard, Artemisia Gentileschi: The Image of the Female Hero in Italian BaroqueArt (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 282-89; and Frank Capozzi, "The Evolution and Transformation of the Judith and Holofernes Theme in Italian Drama and Art before 1627," Ph.D. diss.,

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DONATELLO'S

University of Wisconsin, 1975, 3-22. For the additional connotations of situatinga sculptureof this theme in a garden setting, see MatthewG. Looper, "PoliticalMessagesin the Medici Palace Garden,"Journalof GardenHistory12, no. 4 (1992): 255-68. For an exploration of the popularityof the theme, see the recent study by MargaritaStocker,Judith:SexualWarriorWomenand Power in Western Culture(New Haven:YaleUniversityPress, 1998).

24. The rim of roughlywoven cloth, riding lower on her forehead than her veil, which has usually been discussed as an indication of Donatello's technique of casting from real cloth (see Bruno Bearzi, "Considerazionidi tecnica sul San Ludovicoe la Giudittadi Donatello," Bollettinod'Arte16 [1950]: 119-23), is relevantto the tale ofJudith. It could hint at the sackclothin which she and the otherJews of Bethulia dressed as they beseeched God to deliver them from Holofernes' siege of their town. It further indicates the modesty with which the widowedJudith typicallydressed, disguised by the finery and jewels with which she covered herself to seduce Holofernes.

25. The three Bacchanalian reliefs on the statue's base reinforce this meaning; see EdgarWind, "Donatello'sJudith: A Symbol of 'Sanctimonia,'" and CourtauldInstitutes1 (1937): 62-63.

Journalof theWarburg 26. The medallion is described inJanson, 203.

27. BookofJudith,13: 6-10, 16: 19-20 (as in n. 22), 153, 175-76: "Andgoing to the bedpost which was at Holofernes's head, she took down from it his sword, and nearing the bed she seized hold of the hair of his head and said, 'Give me strength this day,Adonai God of Israel.'And with all her might she smote him twice in the neck and took his head from him. And she rolled his body from the couch and took the canopyfrom the poles.... Judith dedicated to God all Holofernes's possessions ... and the canopy which she had taken for herself from his bed, she presented to Adonai as a votive offering."

Generally,this more dramaticrendition is not common until the 17th century, as in paintings by Caravaggioand ArtemisiaGentileschi;see Garrard(as in n.

23), 290-91, 307-36. A rare earlyexample is Guariento'sversionfor the chapel of the CarraraPalace in Padua, now in the Musei Civici,Padua (first cited by Herzner, 1980 [as in n. 5], 144-45).

28. An anonymous early 16th-centurypainting of the Executionof Savonarola in the Museo di S. Marco, Florence, records the group on the ringhiera,or rostrum, outside the Palazzo della Signoria after 1495, representing it as entirely gilded. Conservation reports indicate that it was not, but the painting's exaggeration makes clear the brilliantimpression it must have had in the sun; seeJanson, 201.

29. "Regnacadunt luxu, surguntvirtutibusurbes:/ Caesavides humili colla superba manu."

30. "Salus Publica. Petrus Medices. Cos. fi. Libertati simul et fortitudini hanc mulierisstatuam,quo cives invicto constantique animo ad rem publicam redderent, dedicavit."

31. Dante, Inferno,canto 4, line 123, and canto 34; Paradiso,canto 6.

32. In Boccaccio's unfinished commentary on Dante's Commedia,he described how Caesarseized control of the government against Roman law and made himself perpetual dictator. See Boccaccio, Il Comentoalla Divina ed. Domenico Guerri,Scrittorid'Italia,vols. 84-86 (Bari:Giuseppe Commedia, Laterzaand Sons, 1918), vol. 1, 205, vol. 2, 49.

33. Harmodios and Aristogeiton succeeded in slayingonly Hipparchos,the younger brother of the tyrant Hippias. The significance of the date of the killing was given additional resonance by Pliny in the NaturalHistory,who claimed that it coincided with the day on which the kings were expelled from Rome. See the quotation of the passagein n. 38 below.

34. There are authoritativeaccounts of the group by Sture Brunnsaker,The ofKritiosand Nesiotes(Lund:Hakan Ohlssons Boktryckeri,1955); Tyrant-Slayers and Michael W. Taylor,TheTyrantSlayers:TheHeroicImagein FifthCenturyBC AthenianArtandPolitics,Monographsin ClassicalStudies, 2d ed. (Salem, N.H.: Ayer, 1981). For a succinct analysiswith bibliography,see Sarah P. Morris, Daidalosand the Originsof GreekArt (Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 1993), 297-308. For a recent account of the monument in relation to its site, see Ulf Kenzler, Studienzur Entwicklungund Strukturdergriechischen Agorain und klassischer archaischer Zeit,EuropaischeHochschulschriften,ser. 38, vol. 72 (Frankfurt:Peter Lang, 1999).

35. The only contemporarysource is CassiusDio, RomanHistory47.20.4. For further information, see ElizabethRawson,"Cassiusand Brutus:The Memory Studiesin Greekand RomanHistorical of the Liberators,"in Past Perspectives: Writing,ed. I. S. Moxon, J. D. Smart, and A. J. Woodman (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1986), 107; and Antony E. Raubitschek, "The Internazionale di Epigrafia Brutus Statue in Athens," in Atti del terzoCongresso Grecae Latina (Rome: "L'Erma"di Bretschneider,1959), 15-21. No description of the statuesof Brutusand Cassiusappearsto have been preserved.

36. For the availabilityof these texts, see Ullman and Stadter, 216, nos.

791-92 (Pliny), 260, no. 1171 (Philostratus),261, no. 1186 (Pausanias).See Brunnsaker (as in n. 34), 33-39, for a complete list of ancient authors who allude to the sculptures of Harmodios and Aristogeiton. The historical event was described by many authors; the most important sources, according to ibid., 1-3, are Aristotle,Thucydides,Plutarch,Cicero, and Seneca. is Pliny's NaturalHistory, The most comprehensive text on the Tyrannicides although even Pliny does not offer a complete physical description of the sculpture group. Cosimo owned a 13th-century manuscript of the Natural Historyprocured for him by Niccolo Niccoli in Liibeck (listed in Ullman and Stadter as nos. 791-92). Cosimo's sons, Giovanni and Piero, each commissioned an illuminatedversion.All three manuscriptsare now in the Biblioteca

DAVID AND JUDITH: METAPHORS

OF MEDICI RULE

45

Laurenziana,Florence. Cosimo's manuscriptis Plut. LXXXII.1;those owned by his sons are Plut. LXXXII.3and Plut. LXXXII.4.

37. The citation of the Tyrannicides stands out in Pliny's accounts of the development of bronze sculpture because it is so early in date. He otherwise traced the firstbronze sculpturesand the firstpaintingsno earlier than the era of Phidias, decades after the creation of the Tyrannicides(Natural History 36.15).

38. According to the NaturalHistory34.17, from TheElderPliny'sChapters on theHistoryofArt,trans.KatherineJex-Blakeand annot. Eugenie Sellers, 2d ed.

(Chicago:Argonaut, 1968), 14-15: "The Athenians were, I believe, introducing a new custom when they set up statues at the public expense in honor of Harmodios and Aristogeiton,who killed the tyrant.This occurred in the very year in which the kings were expelled from Rome. A refined ambition led to the universaladoption of the custom, and statues began to adorn the public places of every town; the memories of men were immortalized, and their honors were no longer merely graven on their tombstones, but handed down for posterityto read on the pedestals of statues. Later on the rooms and halls of privatehouses became so many public places, and clients began to honor patrons in this way";and in the NaturalHistory34.70 (Jex-Blakeand Sellers, 55-57): "Praxitelesalso, although more successful and consequently better known as a worker of marble, created admirableworks in bronze.... Other worksof his are ... statues of Harmodios and Aristogeiton, the Slayersof the Tyrant.These were carried off by Xerxes, king of the Persians,and restored to Athens by Alexander the Great after his conquest of Persia."

39. Pliny particularlypraised the ingenuity of Amphicrates' sculpture of Laena. He explained that the Athenianswanted to honor Laena'sbraverybut that they were unwillingto commemoratea harlot,so resorted to a play on her name and commissioned a statue of a lioness. They stipulated that Amphicratesshould carve the animalwithouta tongue so that Laena'sheroic choice of silence would long be remembered (NaturalHistory34.72).

40. Lorenzo Ghiberti, I commentarii 1.6.8, ed. Lorenzo Bartoli (Florence: Giunti, 1998), 55-56, my translation:"I believe that the Athenians were the first to set up statues in public of the tyrannicidesHarmodios and Aristogeiton. It was done in the same Olympiad that the kings were expelled from Rome. From that point on very human ambitions led to the practice of installingstatuary... as an ornament in all cities to commemorate throughout time the memory of men and of the honors they had gained, and the practice 1.6.33 began of inscribing the bases [of the monuments] ...." Commentarii to Praxiteles:"Praxiteles (62), again following Pliny,attributesthe Tyrannicides was very happy and famous, and created the most beautiful worksin bronze ... during the reign of Claudiushe also made the Venus,which was in marble and of the most perfect art, and ... HarmodiosandAristogeiton theTyrannicides, which was carried off by Xerxes and then returned to the Athenians by Alexander the Great,after he had conquered the [capital] city of Persia."

Leon BattistaAlberti,De reaedificatoria 7.16, in the context of the invention of statues, wrote, "Accordingto Aristotle, the first statues to be set up in the Athenian forum were those of Hermodorus [sic] and Aristogiton, who had originally delivered that city from tyranny.Arrian the historian recalls that Alexander returned these statues to Athens, after they had been removed to Susa by Xerxes"; Alberti, On the Art of Building in TenBooks,trans.Joseph Rykwert,Neil Leach, and Robert Tavernor (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1988), 240. On 398 n. 184 discussing this passage, the authors point out that AlbertimistakenlyclaimsAristotleas his source instead of Pliny,NaturalHistory 34.17.

41. The inscription was recorded by Hephaestion, Handbookof Meter;see LyricPoets John MaxwellEdmonds,LyraGraeca;BeingtheRemainsofAll theGreek from Eumelusto TimotheusexceptingPindar,3 vols. (London: William Heinemann; NewYork:G. P.Putnam'sSons, 1931), vol. 2, 377. On the impact of the tyrannicidein Greekhistoryand literature,see CharlesW.Fornara,"The Cult of Harmodios and Aristogeiton,"Philologus14 (1970): 155-80. On reflections of the event in folk tales,see M. Hirsch, "Die athenischen Tyrannenm6rderin Geschichtsschreibungund Volkslegende,"Klio20 (1926): 126-67.

42. See Victor Ehrenberg, "Das Harmodioslied," in Polis und Imperium: ed. KarlFriedrich Stroheker and AlexanderJohn Beitragezur altenGeschichte, Graham(Zurich:Artemis,1965), 253-64; and Taylor(as in n. 34), 51-77. Such songs had so widespreadan influence that, for example, in performances of Aristophanes' plays, characters who were meant to be identified with the tyrannicidessang the "Harmodios"and took the pose of his statue. See ibid., 195.

43. Donato (as in n. 19), 98, in her discussion of the marble Davidpointed out that this type of poetic verse was an innovation in inscriptions on 15th-centuryworksof art.

44. See Morris (as in n. 34), 301, for a number of examples that seem politicallymotivated.

45. For the popularityof the depiction of the Tyrannicides, see Taylor (as in n. 34), 147-97; and Morris (as in n. 34), 300-308, 349-50. For a specific discussion of copies of the group, see W.-H. Schuchhardt and Charles Landwehr,"Statuenkopiender Tyrannenmorder-Gruppe," JahrbuchdesDeutschen ArchdologischenInstituts, Athen 101 (1986): 85-126. Taylor (as in n. 34), 78-158; and Morris (as in n. 34), 301-2, discussed how the poses of the Tyrannicides were adapted in depictions of other mythological heroes like Herakles and Theseus and actual historical personages like Kallimachos. The association of Theseus with the tyrannicides is particularly significant as Theseus is the mythical founder of Athens and became a personification of its freedom. On Theseus, see Frank Brommer, Theseus:Die Taten des griechischen

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46

ART BULLETIN

MARCH 2001 VOLUME LXXXIII

NUMBER 1

Heldenin derantikenKunstundLiteratur(Darmstadt:WissenschaftlicheBuchgesellschaft,1982).

46. See Hyman, 186-202.

Translatedinto Italian by 47. Leon BattistaAlberti, TenBookson Architecture, ed. Joseph Rykwert Bartoliand intoEnglishbyJamesLeoni,Venetian Cosimo Architect, (London:A.Tiranti,1955), 105.Alberti'sremarkswerecitedin Hyman,198.

48. Alberti (as in n. 47), 84, cited in Hyman, 198.

49. It also reflectsa more general, frequentlyreiteratedtheme of the Natural History:that the proper site for statues was in the public realm, where they served their rightfulpurpose of edifying citizens by reminding them of heroic deeds. Pliny'sanecdote (NaturalHistory34.93) about the bronze sculpture of Herakles near the Rostra stands as a paradigm for his position that public displayof power and splendor must be reserved for the state. Pliny described three inscriptionson the bronze. One said that it had been part of the booty taken by the general Lucius Lucullus, and another that it was dedicated, according to a decree of the Senate, by Lucullus'sson while still a ward, and the third, that a public officialhad caused it to be restored to the public from privateownership.Plinyconcluded the anecdote, "So manywere the rivalries connected with this statue and so highly wasit valued."

50. See Diane Bornstein, "Reflectionsof PoliticalTheory and PoliticalFact in Fifteenth-CenturyMirrorsfor the Prince," in MedievalStudiesfor Lillian HerlandsHornstein,ed. Jess B. BessingerJr.and Robert R. Raymo (New York: New York University Press, 1976), 77-85. On the presence of John of Salisbury'streatisein the libraryat S. Marco,see Ullman and Stadter,195, no.

625. I would like to thank ProfessorSusan McKillopfor bringing the treatise and its presence in the library to my attention. For McKillop'swork on Medicean imagery, see "Dante and Lumen Christi: A Proposal for the Meaning of the Tomb of Cosimo de' Medici," in Ames-Lewis,1992, 245-301, and her forthcoming book.

Cosimo himself owned a copy of "Epistula ad Traianum,"or "Institutio Traiani,"the supposed letter to Trajanfrom Plutarch,whichJohn of Salisbury may have writtenhimself but claimed as the ancient authorityfor his theories about the state as an organism. It is integrated into the prologue and the first bk. 5, and providesthe frameworkfor that book and chapter of the Policraticus, the following one, but it also circulated as an independent text. On the controversiesabout its authorship,see Tilman Struve,"The Importanceof the Organismin the Political Theory of John of Salisbury,"in TheWorldofJohnof Salisbury,ed. Michael Wilks (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984), 305-6. For Cosimo's ownership of the "InstitutioTraiani,"see Ullman and Stadter,144, no. 170, 310. For the history of the doctrine of Christas the head of the body of the Church and its application to medieval theories of kingship, see Ernst H. Kantorowicz,TheKing'sTwoBodies:A Studyin MediaevalPoliticalTheology, 6th ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), 193-232. For a cogent summaryof the history of the classicaltraditionof equating the human body with the commonwealth and the medieval identification of the human body with the Church as well as the state, see Leonard Barkan,Nature'sWorkof Art: TheHumanBodyas Imageof the World(New Haven:Yale UniversityPress, 1975), 63-79. John of Salisburywas the first to elaborate this long-standing analogyinto a lengthy and full-scaleanatomyof the anthropomorphicstate.

Although she did not explore the relationship, Susan L. Smith cited the in connection with a Renaissanceimage ofJudith in her article "A Policraticus Nude Judith from Padua and the Reception of Donatello's Bronze David," Comitatus 25 (1994): 72.

51. On the popularity of this sort of literature throughout the medieval period, see Bornstein (as in n. 50), 77-85.

52. EphraimEmerton, Humanismand Tyranny:Studiesin theItalian Trecento (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1925), 33-119, analyzed its impact on Italian political thought. W. Ullmann, "The Influence of John of Salisburyon MedievalItalianJurists,"in TheChurchand theLaw in theEarlier Middle Ages: SelectedEssays (London: Variorum Reprints, 1975), 383-92 (reprinted from EnglishHistoricalReview59 [1944]); and idem, "John of und Salisbury'sPolicraticusin the Later Middle Ages," in Geschichtsschreibung Festschrift fur HeinzLowezum 65. Geburtstaged. K. geistigesLebenim Mittelalter: Hauck and H. Mordek (Cologne: Bohlau, 1978), 519-45, traced its impact on legal theory.

53. HaroldJ. Berman, Law and Revolution:TheFormationof theWestern Legal Tradition(Cambridge, Mass.:Harvard UniversityPress, 1983), 278-79. The writingsof Thomas Aquinaswere thoroughlyrepresented in the Libraryof S. Marco.They constitutedthe largestsingle block of manuscriptsdonated to the libraryby Cosimo de' Medici. See Ullman and Stadter,21, 310-13.

54. Ammon Linder, "The Knowledge of John of Salisbury in the Late Middle Ages," Studi Medievali,ser. 3, 18, no. 2 (1977): 900, discussed the Sariberiensis Tabula,seu indexrerummemorabilium quaesunt in PolicraticoJohannis byJohn Calderini,which became enormouslypopular throughout Europe.

55. Linder (as in n. 54), 893-94.

56. Ullmann, 1975 (as in n. 52), 385.

57. Linder (as in n. 54), 899. See n. 50 above.

58. In one of the dialogues, the "De occupata tyrannide,"Petrarch,who

annotated his own manuscript of Pliny's Natural History extensively, recounted with approval the tyrannicide accomplished by Harmodios and Aristogeiton.

On Petrarch's manuscript of Pliny, now in the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris, see Pierre de Nolhac, Petrarque et l'humanisme, rev. ed., 2 vols.

(Paris: Honore Champion, 1965), vol. 1, 51, vol. 2, 70-77.

59. R. Rouse and M. A. Rouse, "John of Salisbury and the Doctrine of Tyrannicide," Speculum42 (1967): 693-709.

60. John of Salisbury, Policraticus: Of theFrivolitiesof Courtiersand theFootprints

8.20, ed. and trans. Cary Nederman (Cambridge:Cambridge of Philosophers, UniversityPress, 1990), 207-9.

61. Ronald G. Witt, Hercules at the Crossroads:The Life, Worksand Thought of

ColuccioSalutati(Durham,N.C.:Duke UniversityPress, 1983), 368-69.

62. For further analysisand a translationof the De tyranno,see Emerton (as in n. 52), 49-116.

63. See Coville; and Bernard Guen6e, Un meurtre,une societe:L'assassinat du duc d'Orleans, 23 novembre1407 (Paris: Gallimard, 1992).

64. The proceedings were published as ActaConciliiParisiensisin the edition of Jean Gerson's Operaomnia, ed. Louis Ellies du Pin, 5 vols. (Antwerp: Sumptibus Societatis, 1706), vol. 5, 49-342. Petit'sJustificatio Ducis Burgundiae is included there, 15-42, as is the Acta in Concilio Constantiensi, 341-1012.

65. Coville,497.

66. Ibid., 135-77.

67. Guenee (as in n. 63), 258-60. The proximate cause of this practical experience and legal expertise was the assassination in 1412 of Duke Gianmariaof Milan,heir of GiangaleazzoVisconti,but equallyrelevantwasthe earlier Milanesehistory of acknowledgedtyrantslike Bernab6Visconti,which had alreadyraised the issues of what persons and means were authorized to end a tyrant'sreign.

68. Cosimo de' Medici and other Florentines attended the Council of Constance motivated by ardent support of John XXIII, who had made the Medici papal bankers.John was deposed at the Council of Constance and offered refuge in Florence. He wassubsequentlyaccorded the rare honor of a tomb in the Baptisteryof Florence, created by Donatello. On these issues, see Sarah Blake McHam, "Donatello's Tomb of Pope John XXIII," in Life and Death in Fifteenth-CenturyFlorence,ed. Marcel Tetel, Ronald G. Witt, and Rona

Goffen (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1989), 146-73, 232-42. In addition, a record of the debates between Gerson and Petit in Paris and Constanceis contained in the OperaomniaofJohn Gerson,a copy of which was in the Libraryof S. Marco;see Ullman and Stadter,175, nos. 435-37.

69. Bernhard Bess, "Die Lehre vom Tyrannenmordauf dem Konstanzer 36 (1916): 1-61.

Konzil," ZeitschriftfiirKirchengeschichte 70. Ludwig Pastor, History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages, ed.

Frederick Ignatius Antrobus, 40 vols. (London:John Hodges, 1891), vol. 2, 216-37, provides a succinct account of Stefano Porcari'sattempt to kill Pope Nicholas V and end papal rule in Rome. Porcari claimed that he wanted to reinstatea republic in the city of Rome modeled on that of ancient Rome.

71. Bortolo Belotti, II drammadi Gerolamo Olgiati(Milan:L. F.Cogliatidel Dr. Guido Martinelli, 1929), provides a detailed account of the Milanese conspiracy.The three conspirators,GiovanniAndreaLampugnani,GerolamoOlgiati, and CarloVisconti,were inspiredby the teachingsof the court humanistCola Montano.They were convincedof their legitimateright to rid Milanof Sforza, whom they considereda tyrant,and invokedthe model of heroic Romanslike Cassiusand Brutuswho had alsobeen willingto die for the benefitof the state.

72. Rinuccini's treatise is translatedin Renee Neu Watkins,Humanismand Liberty: Writings on Freedomfrom Fifteenth-CenturyFlorence (Columbia,

S.C.:

University of South Carolina Press, 1978), 193-224. Rinuccini considered Lorenzo de' Medicia tyrant.Tellingly,he has Alietheus, the interlocutorcalled "the Truthful," speak the following words: "In all Italy ... there is no city [Florence] that has so energeticallyand enduringlychampioned the cause of liberty.... Thus did they [acopo and Francesco dei Pazzi] undertake a glorious deed, an action worthy of the highest praise. They tried to restore their own liberty and that of the country.... Men of sound judgment will always rank them with Dion of Syracuse, Aristogiton and Harmodius of Athens, Brutus and Cassius of Rome, and in our own day, Giovanni and GeronimoAndrea of Milan" (195-96).

On the Pazzi Conspiracy,see Riccardo Fubini, "La congiura dei Pazzi: Radici politico-sociali e ragione di un fallimento," Lorenzode' Medici,New Perspectives:An International Conference,April 30-May 2, 1992, ed. B. Toscani

Politica (NewYork:Peter Lang, 1993), reprintedin Fubini,Italiaquattrocentesca:

e diplomazia nell'ett di Lorenzoil Magnifico (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1994), 87-106.

I thank ProfessorsJohnNajemyandJudith Brownfor bringing Fubini'sessays to my attention and Dr.BetsyRosascofor discussingthe conspiracywith me.

73. Riccardo Fubini, Quattrocentofiorentino: Politica diplomazia cultura (Pisa:

Pacini, 1996), 141-57, discusses the relationship of the legitimacy issues provoked by the assassination of the duke of Orleans to these events in 15th-centuryFlorence. According to him (149), the notes of Donato Acciaiuoli, largely based on the lectures at the Universityof Florence given by the Greek scholar John Argyropoulos, reveal that interpretations of equitable authority,and consequently legitimate rule, were debated as the new edition of Aristotle was prepared. Aristotle'sNichomachean Ethicscontinued to be of direct concern in Florence;see n. 87 below.

74. Policraticus 5.2 (The Statesman's Book, 65): "The place of the head in the body of the commonwealth is filled by the prince who is subject only to God and to those who exercise his office and represent Him on earth, even as in the human body the head is quickened and governed by the soul...." John continued the biological metaphor by describing priests as the soul of the body politic, judges and provincial administrators as the eyes, ears, and tongue, knights as the body's hands, clerks of the treasury as its bowels, and the peasants and tradesmen of the state as its feet.

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75. For John's claims that he followed a political manual, the "Institutio Traiani,"which he said was written by Plutarchfor Emperor Trajan,see, for Book,64). Historiansgenerally think that example, ibid., 5.2 (The Statesman's John himself originated these theories and invented the existence of this manual. See, for example, Hans Liebeschitz, MedievalHumanismin theLifeand Writingsof John of Salisbury,Warburg Institute Studies, vol. 17 (London: WarburgInstitute,Universityof London, 1950), 24-25. On the wide independent circulation of this excerpt of the Policraticus,see above at n. 57. On its presence in the Libraryof S. Marco,see n. 50 above.

76. Policraticus 3.15; TheStatesman's Book,lxxiii: "To kill a tyrantis not merely lawful,but right andjust. For whosoevertakesup the sworddeserves to perish by the sword.And he is understood to take up the swordwho usurps it by his own temerity and who does not receive the power of using it from God. Therefore the lawrightlytakesarms againsthim who disarmsthe laws ..."

77. For the account ofJudith, see ibid., 8.20 (TheStatesman's Book,370-72).

It is quoted in part below at n. 80.John made clear that not only kings but also their agents and other privateindividualscould be considered tyrants(ibid., 8.17; TheStatesman's Book,336): "It is not only kings who practice tyranny,but among private men there are a host of tyrants,since the power which they have, they turn to some forbidden object."

Both Jean Petit and Jean Gerson picked up the Policraticus's emphasis on Judith as an exemplar of tyrannicideand cited her in the debates at Parisand Constance. See Coville,213, 436.

78. Policraticus8.18, 8.20 (The Statesman'sBook, 350-51, 373). Professor Roger Crum suggested to me that the expression on the face of the bronze Davidmay relate to this characterizationof David'srole byJohn of Salisbury.

79. Ibid., 8.18 (TheStatesman's Book,356). Coville, 436, notes that Gerson in the debates at Paris and Constance exempted Judith from any sin for having flattered Holofernes.

80. Ibid., 8.20 (TheStatesman's Book,370-72).John is quoting from the Book ofJudith 9.12-15 and 10.2-4. He emphasizes his point that tyrannicidesmust work as God's agents by includingJudith's prayerfor sufficientcourage to do the deed and a detailed description ofJudith's beautyenhanced by God, both taken from the Book ofJudith.

81.John's endorsement of deceit and cunning was repeated by Italian political figures such as Cola di Rienzo, whose letter to the archbishop of Prague articulates this aspect of Judith (Epistolariodi Cola di Rienzo,ed.

Annibale Gabrielli [Rome: Forzani, 1890], 84, cited in Capozzi [as in n. 23], 22).

In later Renaissancethought and artisticrepresentation,the undertones of Judith's sexualityand manipulativebehaviorbecame increasinglyobvious and erotic, alluded to by partialor full nudity.By this time the subject of the wiles of women had become popular, and Judith was sometimes associated negativelywith women like Delilah, Eve, and Aristotle'swife, Phyllis,who wielded their sexualityagainstmen, betrayingthem and leading them to ruin. See, for example, Jan Biaostocki, "La gamba sinistra della Giuditta: II quadro di Giorgione nella storia della tema," in Giorgionee l'umanesimoveneziano,ed.

Rodolfo Pallucchini,2 vols. (Florence:L. S. Olschki, 1981), vol. 1, 193-227; H. Diane Russell, ed., with Bernadine Barnes, Eva/Ave:Womenin Renaissanceand BaroquePrints(Washington,D.C.: National Galleryof Art;New York:Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 1990); and Raimond Van Marle, de l'artprofaneau Moyen-Age et a la Renaissanceet la decoration des L'iconographie demeures, 2 vols. (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1931-32), vol. 2, 479-81. There is a very rare alternate use of nudity to characterizeJudith as an emblem of all'antica heroism;see the bronze statuetteofJudith by an anonymous late 15th-century artistfrom Padua,formerlyin the KaiserFriedrichMuseum,Berlin, discussed

by Smith (as in n. 50), 59-80.

By the early 16th century reaction in Florence to Donatello's statue was mixed, perhaps reflecting some of these changes. When the question of where to place Michelangelo's Davidwas debated in 1503, one committee member was considered an evil omen because it suggested that the JudithandHolofernes depicted a woman killing a man. Nevertheless,when the decision was made to set up the David on the ringhierain its place, the Judith and Holoferneswas reinstalled in the equally important ceremonial space of the republican government, the Loggia dei Lanzi. Perhapsits repositioning under the reliefs of the Virtues on the loggia facade was intended to emphasize the traditional associationsof the theme as a triumphof virtueovervice, as suggested to me by ProfessorJohn Paoletti. In contrast, Yael Even, "The Loggia dei Lanzi: A Showcaseof Female Subjugation,"in TheExpandingDiscourse: FeminismandArt History,ed. Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard (New York:Icon Editions, 1992), 126-37, sees the sculpture's transfer to the loggia as a deliberate demotion.

82. John counseled againstmurderby poison, insistingthe tyrannicidemust be accomplished "without loss of religion and honor" (Policraticus8.20; The Statesman's Book,373). For the fuller context of his statement about murder by the sword, see n. 76 above. One of the arguments advanced at Paris and at Constance inJean Petit's defense of the legitimacyof the duke of Burgundy's tyrannicideof Louis of Orleanswasits appropriatechoice of weapon, a sword.

Petit contrasted this to the earlier murder of the son of the duke of Burgundy by poisoned apple. See Coville, 104.

83. The topicality of the Policraticusmay have inspired the changed iconographyof Davidfirstseen in the marbleDavidby Donatello, carved at the beginning of the 15th century when the controversyabout the murder in France erupted. According to Janson, 6, there had been only one earlier representation of David standing triumphant over the decapitated Goliath,

DAVID AND JUDITH: METAPHORS

OF MEDICI RULE

47

that painted by Taddeo Gaddiin the BaroncelliChapel, S. Croce, in the 1330s.

It was part of a cycle of the lives of the Virgin and Christ, in which David figured as an ancestor, prophet, and type of Christ. RobertJ. H. Janson-La Palme, "Taddeo Gaddi'sBaroncelli Chapel: Studies in Design and Content," Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1976, 340-45, argued that the unprecedented interpretation resulted from a specific familial association. He contended that the emphasis on David'sheroic victorywasintended to allude to the militaryaccomplishmentsof Bartolo Manetti Baroncelli, an illustrious member of the patron'sfamily.

84. See Nicolai Rubinstein, TheGovernment undertheMedici(1434 to ofFlorence 1494) (Oxford:ClarendonPress, 1966), 88-135.

85. For the literaryand graphic evidence concerning the appearanceof the lost seated Marsyasstatue, see Caglioti, 1994 (as in n. 12), 81-88.

86. Ibid., esp. 74-86.

87. Cagliotianalyzedthe relationship to Nesi's treatiseL'eticanicomachea, pt. in ibid., 87-90. For copies of the treatise,see Indice 1, Demoribusdialogiquattuor, d'Italia(Rome: Istituto Poligraficodello generaledegliincunabolidellebiblioteche Stato, 1972), vol. 5, 78, no. 8945. The copy owned by the Medici is in the Biblioteca LaurenzianaPlut. LXXVII.24. As Cagliotinoted, Rosella Bonfanti, "Su un dialogo filosofico del tardo '400: Il 'De Moribus' del fiorentino GiovanniNesi (1456-1522?)," Rinascimento, ser.2, 11 (1971): 203-21, esp. 211, stressedthe antityrannicalemphasisof Nesi's commentary.The importance of Aristotle'streatisein Florentinepolitical thought of the 15th century,precisely in regard to issues of legitimate rule and equitable government, was emphasized by Fubini. See n. 73 above.

88. Wester and Simon (as in n. 11) attribute them to Donatello and date them ca. 1460;both argumentsare followed by Ames-Lewis(as in n. 15), 147.

89. MarthaA. A. Fader,"Sculpturein the Piazzadella Signoriaas Emblem of the Florentine Republic,"Ph.D. diss., Universityof Michigan, 1977, 193 n. 89.

90. Ames-Lewis,1989, 248-49.

91. Ames-Lewis (as in n. 15), 144-45, 153, amplified the Neoplatonic interpretation of the theme most recently expounded by Laurie Schneider, "Donatello'sBronze David,"ArtBulletin55 (1973): 215.

92. Leach (as in n. 14), 124-34.

93. Boccaccio, Genealogia deorum5.25, cited in ibid., 133-34.

94. Wendy Stedman Sheard, "Antonio Lombardo's Reliefs for Alfonso d'Este's Studio di Marmi:Their Significance and Impact on Titian," in Titian 500, ed. Joseph Manca, special issue of Studiesin theHistoryof Art 45 (1993): 327-28, 330-34, analyzedhow Ercole d'Este wasinspired by the decoration of the courtyardof the MediciPalaceto link his own self-imageas legitimate ruler of a peaceful and prosperousstate to Bacchus.

95. FrancescoPatrizi,"Ad CosimumMedicem virum excellentissimum,"in his Poemata(dedicated to Pius II), Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale II x 31, fol.

8v: "Ille pudicitiae libertatis quatit verendus. / Romanae, Brutus vindex ultorque tyranni."Patriziand other partisansof Cosimo took the opportunity to praise Cosimo as the defender of a liberty akin to that of the Roman Republic against the Albizzi clan. Patriziwas also the author of De institutione reipublicae,a treatise on government of about 1460, which addressed the dangers of a state falling into tyranny if the people rejected outstanding leaders. On Patrizi,see James Hankins, "Cosimo de' Medici as a Patron of HumanisticLiterature,"in Ames-Lewis,1992, 69-94, esp. 86, where the verse is cited; and Domenico Bassi, "L'epitome di Quintiliano di Francesco Patrizi senese," Rivista di filologia e d'istruzioneclassica22 (1893): 385-470. More generally,on these humanist encomia to Cosimo, see Alison M. Brown, "The Humanist Portraitof Cosimo de' Medici, Pater Patriae,"Journalof theWarburg and CourtauldInstitutes24 (1961): 186-221.

96. On the enduring attachment to the concept of political freedom in Florence, even after its meaning had become symbolic under Medici rule in the 15th century, see Nicolai Rubinstein, "FlorentinaLibertas,"Rinascimento 26 (1986): 3-27. After the expulsion of the Medici in November 1495, the Signoria decreed that the inscription on Cosimo's tomb reading "Pater Patriae"be destroyed and replaced by "Potius Tyrannus";see idem (as in n.

9), 19-20. The original inscription was restored in 1512 and obliterated again in 1528.

97. The literatureabout the Medici family'sstrategyin the 15th century of manipulating traditionalforms of Florentine art and architecture and Christian imagery to its private purpose is too extensive to cite in full. See the pioneering essayby ErnstH. Gombrich, "The EarlyMedici as Patronsof Art," vol. 1 (London: reprinted in NormandForm:Studiesin theArt of theRenaissance, Praeger, 1964), 35-57. More recent studies by Francis Ames-Lewis,Roger Crum, and Isabelle Hyman are cited above. Among the many other publications that could be cited, see Rab Hatfield, "The Compagnia de' Magi," and CourtauldInstitutes33 (1970): 108-61; Irving Lavin, Journalof theWarburg "Donatello'sBronze Pulpits in San Lorenzo and the EarlyChristianRevival," in Past-Present: Essayson Historicismin ArtfromDonatelloto Picasso(Berkeley: Universityof California Press, 1993), 1-28; and the essays in the following collections: Andreas Beyer and Bruce Boucher, eds., Cosimo"il Vecchio, "Piero de'Medici"ilGottoso,"1416-1469: KunstimDienstederMediceer/ Artin theService of theMedici(Berlin:Akademie, 1993); and FrancisAmes-Lewis,ed., TheEarly Mediciand TheirArtists (London: Birkbeck College, University of London, 1995). Ames-Lewis has devoted a number of essays and articles to the patronage of Piero de' Medici.John Paoletti,who has published manyarticles on the family's patronage, and Susan McKillop are both preparing booklength examinations of the goals and political meanings underlying the family'spatronage.

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