We make certain historical figures into cultural heroes and grant them an afterlife ofttimes richer and filled with more rewards and recognition than their actual chronological lives. Lorenzo de' Medici is one of them. Mention his name, and vivid and striking images of the golden age of Florence and the Renaissance spring to mind. Lorenzo the Magnificent plays a double role for us. He is that historical person who lived in fifteenth-century Florence, and at the same time, he is a symbol of his age. As with many a figure from the past, historians can study his thought and actions through contemporary records, through his own copious correspondence and other primary sources, but those historical documents are hardly adequate sources for an analysis of his larger symbolic role.

Historical myths present special difficulties for the historian, first of all because it is not clear exactly what they are. They exist somewhere between myth and history. Like myth they are expressions of collective belief, but not disembodied belief devoid of connections to established fact. Rather they acquire significance precisely because they are beliefs about the past. The subjects of historical myths, men like Lorenzo de' Medici or George Washington, are the curious stepchildren of history because they combine elements of both myth and historical reality. They are similar to the ancient Greek demigods or Roman emperors who people believed were haif-mortal, half-divine, neither entirely one nor the other.

For Filippo, the conclusion of his marriage to Clarice de'Medici despite the opposition of Soderini was a personal victory. He had gained for himself a rich wife and for his family an important alliance with the Medici. He had escaped the clutches of the Quaranta and received a relatively light punishment at the hands of the Otto. The Signoria had lessened his sentence by allowing him to come back to Florence, and he was permitted to remain there under probation.

But he had been back in Florence barely a year when his new-found security was seriously threatened. His boyhood friend, Prinzivalle della Stufa, with whom he had staged the Dovitia mime in 1506, tried to involve him in a plot to murder Soderini and overthrow the government to reinstate the Medici. One night, a week before Christmas 1510, Prinzivalle arrived in Florence from Bologna where he had frequently visited Cardinal Medici, papal legate to that city. He came straight to the Strozzi palace to confide in Filippo, who he supposed would be sympathetic to the plot, since Strozzi was a Medici parente and had ample reason to dislike Soderini. Prinzivalle informed Filippo that their mutual friend and childhood companion Marco Antonio Colonna, now a condottiere in the pay of the pope, was waiting outside the city's gates with a band of loyal men ready to enter Florence and strike down Soderini at some public event during the holidays. Filippo flatly refused to participate in the plot.

Although the Medici regime established in Florence after 1512 was heir to the earlier governments of Cosimo il Vecchio and Lorenzo il Magnifico of the fifteenth century, important differences between them show that the city, once so fiercely proud of her republican traditions, had moved decidedly towards a principate. The evidence that Medici patronage determined a person's political and economic position within the state indicates that they had consolidated their power in the city and had secured the acquiescence of the Florentine aristocracy in their hegemony. In the sixteenth century, as the Medici extended their control over the government, they distributed political offices and influence to their friends and supporters and denied them to their opponents. This growing dependency of the Florentine aristocracy on the Medici had an economic side which served to win them devoted adherents such as Filippo Strozzi.

A comparison of Strozzi's situation in the sixteenth century with that of his father in the fifteenth shows the relationship that obtained between his banking success and the favor he received. Back in the 1430s the Strozzi family had been ostracized as adversaries of the Medici. Strozzi's father, Filippo di Matteo, was exiled as a child from Florence following the exile of his own father and other members of the Albizzi faction who had opposed the return of Cosimo de'Medici to the city. He lived in Naples where, unmolested by his political enemies, he was able to make his fortune as a banker at the Neapolitan court. Eventually in 1466 Lorenzo il Magnifico welcomed him back to his native city.

Whether in Florence or Rome Filippo continued to stand by the Medici, ready to risk life and fortune in their service. The assistance he gave the family in war finance and through the depositories of the Signoria and of the Apostolic Chamber formed but part of his total financial involvement with the Medici papacy. In many ways, only after he had relinquished control of the Depository General in 1527 at the time of the Sack of Rome did he reach the peak of his career as a papal banker. During the subsequent period, 1529–1534, he made his biggest loans to the pope and took the greatest risks of his life. In the five years that ended with the pope's death in September 1534, he devoted his energies and his wealth unreservedly to his last remaining Medici patron and long-time friend, Giulio de'Medici, Clement VII.

We have already seen in our discussion of the Depository General in Rome how Filippo's credit dealings extended his participation in church finance and administration well beyond the duties connected with the Depository itself. In fact, in the course of his career as a banker to the Medici popes, Strozzi held nine other administrative positions, had title at various times to at least 258 venal offices and possessed a minimum of 80,000 ducats worth of Monte shares.

My work on Filippo Strozzi began as a doctoral dissertation submitted to Cornell University. The archival research which forms its heart and core was made possible by funds from the Gertrude A. Gilmore and Theodor Mommsen fellowships and by a grant from the Center for International Studies at Cornell. I am grateful to the staffs of the various archives I consulted who made the treasures in their trust available to me, and to the personnel of the American Academy in Rome, my home during the final stages of research. I appreciate Richard Goldthwaite's sharing his interest in Filippo Strozzi with me at the project's inception. Special thanks go to my dear friend Reina Barile who made her home mine whenever I was in Florence. For awakening in me a deep appreciation of the value of works in my life, express thanks go to Ira Progoff and the Intensive Journal.

In preparing the manuscript for publication I benefited greatly from Felix Gilbert's suggestions and from John H. Elliott's thoughtful reading and incisive comments which guided my footsteps on the path from dissertation to book. My gratitude to Helmut Koenigsberger reaches beyond these pages. The generosity and cheerful encouragement he extended me despite often discouraging barriers of time and distance buoyed me along the way. Most of all I wish to express appreciation to my helpmate and husband Jim to whom this book is dedicated. Were it not for his unwavering faith and support to hearten my faltering stride, this book would never have materialized.

An army of ragged exiles defeated at Montemurlo in 1537 by Duke Cosimo de'Medici of Florence and a suicide note echoing the words of Cato found beside his body in the duke's prison a year later are the images most closely associated with the memory of Filippo Strozzi the Younger. When not confused from the outset with his father who was also named Filippo, builder of the magnificent family palace in Florence, Filippo the Younger is most often remembered as a tragic hero, defender of the lost Florentine Republic against her new masters the Medici dukes. But for most of his adult life Strozzi could hardly be called a champion of Florentine liberties against Medici hegemony. If anything he was one of the staunchest supporters of the Medici both in Florence and at the papal court in Rome, personally profiting from his association with them and the favor they bestowed. He unhesitatingly abetted Lorenzo di Piero de'Medici's machinations to make himself sole ruler of Florence and obligingly diverted the commune's money into the pope's war chest. Basking in the sun of Medici favor, he enjoyed a reputation for power, wealth, education and magnanimity befitting the brilliance of his age. As a merchant-banker and speculator he amassed a fortune of legendary size and built an international financial empire rivaling that of the famous Fugger of Augsburg.