Stefano Dall'Aglio

Stefano Dall’Aglio sheds new light on the notorious Florentine Lorenzino de’ Medici (also known as Lorenzaccio) and on two of the most infamous assassinations in Italian Renaissance history. In 1537 Lorenzino changed the course of history by murdering Alessandro de’ Medici, first duke of Florence, and paving the way for the accession of the new duke, Cosimo I. In 1548 Lorenzino was killed in Venice in revenge for the assassination. The events surrounding these murders, which Dall’Aglio reconstructs, involved the Medici, their loyalists, Florentine republican exiles, and some of the most powerful sovereigns of the time. The first publication in a century to examine the life of Lorenzino de’ Medici, and the first work in English, this fascinating revisionist history is based on extensive research in the historical archives of Florence and Simancas. The tale is as gripping as a detective novel, as Dall’Aglio unravels a 500-year-old mystery, revealing who was behind the bloody death of the duke’s assassin: the emperor Charles V.

Exile and Death of Lorenzino de' Medici

The Duke's Assassin

Part I. The eleven-year exile -- Part II. Anatomy of a murder.

Exile and Death of Lorenzino De' Medici

Brian Richardson

Massimo Rospocher

This book studies the uses of orality in Italian society, across all classes, from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century, with an emphasis on the interrelationships between oral communication and the written word. The Introduction provides an overview of the topic as a whole and links the chapters together. Part 1 concerns public life in the states of northern, central, and southern Italy. The chapters examine a range of performances that used the spoken word or song: concerted shouts that expressed the feelings of the lower classes and were then recorded in writing; the proclamation of state policy by town criers; songs that gave news of executions; the exercise of power relations in society as recorded in trial records; and diplomatic orations and interactions. Part 2 centres on private entertainments. It considers the practices of the performance of poetry sung in social gatherings and on stage with and without improvisation; the extent to which lyric poets anticipated the singing of their verse and collaborated with composers; performances of comedies given as dinner entertainments for the governing body of republican Florence; and a reading of a prose work in a house in Venice, subsequently made famous through a printed account. Part 3 concerns collective religious practices. Its chapters study sermons in their own right and in relation to written texts, the battle to control spaces for public performance by civic and religious authorities, and singing texts in sacred spaces.

Stefano Dall'Aglio

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