‘Luca Martini as an art consultant and patron of artists in Pisa’, in A. Geremicca and H. Mièsse (eds), Essere uomini di “lettere”: segretari e politica culturale nel Cinquecento, Firence: Cesati, 2015, pp. 145-153. (original) (raw)

Renaissance secretaries should be considered together with those administrators who, working closely with the central bureaucracy, carried out orders at a local level. This essay will analyse the last link in the chain of command, which begins with the instruction of the sovereign and ends with its operational execution. The focus will be, in particular, on a group of initiatives aimed at the cultural transformation of a peripheral Tuscan town, Pisa, under Medici rule. Specifically, I will present a case study of the relations between political power and cultural policy in Renaissance Tuscany, namely how culture contributed to create the image of Medici power in Pisa. I will briefly illustrate the interaction between art and politics, looking at some examples of the ambitious allegorical artistic programme concerning Pisa that Duke Cosimo I de' Medici hoped would help him establish control over the city in the 1540s and 1550s.