1st February 2012

Adolescent Passion, Political Tensions, and Homosocial Relations in a Letter of 1465 to Lorenzo de’ Medici

Wednesday 1st February 2012  18.00

‘Adolescent Passion, Political Tensions, and Homosocial Relations in a Letter of 1465 to Lorenzo de’ Medici’

Prof Judith Bryce (University of Bristol)

This paper offers an intensive reading of a letter to Lorenzo de’ Medici, then in his mid-teens, from Braccio Martelli, an important member of his intimate circle of friends. The text focuses on the wedding celebrations in April 1465 of Lucrezia Donati, Lorenzo’s ‘dama’, to Niccolò Ardinghelli, a member of Florence’s community of post-1434 exiles. With the overall aim of elucidating the social and sexual mores embedded in this private document, I will examine some at least of its multiple overlapping topics and contexts including the erotic, private sociability, political and clientelistic relations, and homosociality.

Society of Renaissance Studies Lecture