Il principe e il mercante nella Toscana del Quattrocento: Il Magnifico Signore di Piombino Jacopo III Appiani e le aziende Maschiani di Pisa (review)

This volume on Piombino and its Appiani lords, especially Jacopo III (ca. 1440–74), offers a welcome reminder of the true political particularism of Quattrocento Italy's smaller Renaissance states. Piombino stands as a unique case study because, as a newly-acquired signoria, it passed atypically into the hands of the Appiani as a consolation prize for relinquishing control of Pisa. Piombino was maintained, not through the typical efforts of condottieri or feudal military activities, but rather through the Appiani's careful exploitation of the territory's natural resources, of the advantageous geographical position of Piombino's harbor for trade and on occasion as a safe haven for pirates. It was held also through the adroit diplomatic and economic maneuvering of its rulers caught in the web of competing ambitions of the larger peninsular states.

The first part of the text, authored by Patrizia Meli, recounts the rapid political rise of the Appiani as savvy immigrants from the countryside involved first in trade and then in notarial activities that aided their advancement in the cursus honorum of political posts in Pisa, and lastly in carefully negotiated marriages by the mid-fourteenth century that allied them to the oldest families in Tuscany and the Roman aristocracy. By 1399, Gherardo Leonardo Appiani, at the time lord of Pisa, found his city caught between the expansionist aims of Giangaleazzo Visconti of Milan and the ambitions of the Medicean Republic of Florence. His solution was to cede Pisa to Milan for 200,000 florins in exchange for lands for himself, which included Piombino, part of the Maremma, and the island of Elba. The first decades of the fifteenth century required his Appiani successors once again to rely upon diplomacy, especially with Florence, Naples, and Genoa, and upon marriage alliances to impressive women of the Roman aristocracy —of particular interest in this regard is Paola Colonna —to secure their small state. It is Jacopo III's rule of Piombino, however, that interests Meli most. She first details his political, military, and trade relations with Florence from Cosimo to Lorenzo the Magnificent, and then turns to the Renaissance court of Piombino recounting court patronage and expenditures, diplomatic and military events, including an unsuccessful revolt against Jacopo, and his expansionist ambitions in Tuscany. Indeed, one of the lasting points of the text is that Piombino's history and interests were largely limited to Tuscany.

Sergio Tognetti's contribution to the second section of the book draws mostly upon economic documents from the Pisan archives and, importantly, from the Meschiani's business records in the service of the Appiani lords of Piombino, conserved today in the archives of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. Like Meli, Tognetti begins by describing the career of these Pisan homines novi who began as wine merchants, expanded their activities to the wool trade, and ultimately functioned as the major provisioners for the Appiani court at Piombino. Diversification of commodities and production explains the Maschiani wealth, as catasto and account records reveal. In particular, they became responsible for much of the iron production from Elba, for the Appiani and they engaged in a variety of joint stock ventures that yielded impressive revenues. The extant account books for purchases made for Jacopo III between 1453 and 1468 kept by the Meschiani attest further to the breadth of interests of the ruler of Piombino. The material culture of the court and personal tastes of the ruler detailed here include fine horses and fabrics, palatial decorations and books, and required expenditures for naval activities and armaments. They record Jacopo's construction of the Cittadella in the 1460s, designed and executed...