Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, the would-be savior of Sienese Liberty, is thanked in advance by a local power-broker.

Presented by: Kelley Helmstutler Di Dio, Kress Research Fellow, The Medici Archive Project

DATE: 21 November 1547

FROM: Cosimo I de' Medici

PLACE: Firenze

TO: Francisco de Toledo

PLACE: Bologna

DOCUMENT CITATION:

Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Mediceo del Principato 9, f.26

TRANSLATION:

This is for your own personal information: Don Diego [Hurtado de Mendoza] has just now been in Siena and he certainly didn't stint himself when it came to having a good time. On one of those evenings, il Mandolo--a Sienese citizen belonging to the Popular Party and a member of the Council of Ten--gave Mendoza a splendid banquet in his house behind closed doors. Six of the most beautiful gentlewomen of the city appeared at the banquet and one of them particularly took Mendoza's fancy. He paid her various return visits and had amorous encounters at banquets with her and others. Even though all of this took place in secret, it has been much talked about (to the detriment of his reputation) and I personally heard it from a very reliable source. None the less, you would do me a favor if you kept this news to yourself.

TEXT:

[...] Tacere per suo aviso, come in questo tempo che Don Diego [Hurtado de Mendoza] è stato à Siena. Non ha mancato di darsi un bel tempo et una sera tra le altre il Mandolo cittadino di quella città del ordine populare, di commissione de S.ri Dieci gli fece in casa a porte chiuse et in servitio un splendidissimo banchetto, dove intervennero sei gentildonne delle più belle di quella città, et una tra le altre che molto piaceva a lui, la quale è poi tornato a rivisitare delle altre volte et stato [cancelled: in] colloquii amorosi, con essa et con altre in banchetti et io ancor che le cose si sien fatte in secreto ho intenso il tutto di buonissimo luogo et so che [cancelled: tali cose anche] hanno dato da dire assai et fatto li manchare la reputatione, [cancelled: pur et] ma [pur] havero caro che V. S. le ritenga in se [...]

HISTORICAL CONTEXT:

Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza (c.1503-75) was one of the most distinguished and versatile figures of the mid-sixteenth century, the period of Spain's greatest political and cultural influence in Italy. Born in Granada barely a decade after that city had been wrested from Moorish control, he initially prepared for a career in the church. Soon, however, he abandoned both his religious vocation and the Iberian peninsula, making a brilliantly varied career in Italy as a writer, diplomat and military leader.

In 1530, Emperor Charles V named Hurtado de Mendoza Imperial Ambassador to the Venetian republic, then Ambassador to the Council of Trent in 1543, then Ambassador Extraordinary to Pope Paul III Farnese in 1547. Throughout his life, he maintained a keen interest in poetic composition; his epic "Guerra de Granada" and satyrical "Lazarillo de Tormes" earn him an eminent place in the history of Spanish vernacular literature. Among Spaniards, Hurtado de Mendoza is still viewed as the heroic ideal of the "Renaissance Man" due to the multiplicity of his accomplishments. Francisco de Toledo, the recipient of Cosimo de' Medici's letter, was a distinguished Spanish statesman and a close associate of Diego Hurtado de Mendoza. The two of them had represented Imperial interests at the Council of Trent, which Francisco de Toledo continued to attend after the Council was transferred to Bologna in March of 1547.

Though Hurtado de Mendoza had spent two years at the University of Siena in his youth, when he reappeared in that city on 20 October 1547, it was as commander of the Spanish forces sent by Charles V to reestablish peace or at least impose order. Many decades of civil strife had culminated in an insurrection on 8 February 1546 and France, the Empire and the Papacy all sought to advance their interests by inflaming political discontent. Meanwhile, Duke Cosimo I de' Medici awaited his own moment to move on the Sienese Republic, Florence's inveterate rival for Tuscan supremacy. In the eyes of the Sienese, Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza was the man of the hour, embodying their last frantic hopes for independence and political self-determination (though it is difficult to imagine what form political self-determination might have taken, considering the local proclivity for factional bloodletting.) Although we can understand that the Sienese were eager to curry favor with their Spanish overlord, Cosimo's account raises a set of intriguing questions.

Who in fact were the beautiful "gentlewomen" (gentildonne) produced for Hurtado de Mendoza's comfort and convenience? In the sixteenth century, "gentildonna" had a concrete meaning, indicating not merely respectable women but women from established families. Though Siena had an ample supply of both "corteggiane" (courtesans) and "puttane" (whores) for such purposes, was the ruling class really desperate enough to send its own sisters, wives and daughters? Whatever may have been the case, it presumably pleased Cosimo to think so.

The offer of female companionship reflected an informed choice on the part of "il Mandolo". Diego Hurtado de Mendoza's biography is filled with romantic escapades and sentimental interludes. While in Rome, he carried on a notorious affair with an aristocratic lady, to the evident detriment of more official duties. Back in Spain, he later emerged as Philip II's rival for the affections of Doña Isabel de Velasco. "Il Mandolo", Hurtado de' Mendoza's obliging host, can be identified as Girolamo di Niccolò Piccolomini Mandoli. A member of the Popular Party, he had served as Sienese Ambassador to Emperor Charles V and was known to entertain distinguished visitors in his home, the Palazzo del Mandolo (now Palazzo Chigi-Saraceni.)

However persuasive the Sienese "gentildonne", their blandishments were not enough to turn the tide of history. Hurtado de Mendoza and his troops moved in and out of Siena over the next few years, consolidating their control by building a fortress there in 1550. Internecine mayhem meanwhile raged within the city, as the Sienese ruling class pursued their evident deathwish. Diego Hurtado de Mendoza missed the last act of the drama, returning to Spain in 1554. In April 1555, Siena definitively fell to the Imperial forces after a protracted siege. Later that year, Cosimo I de' Medici purchased the former Sienese Republic from Emperor Charles V, holding it as a hereditary fiefdom within a newly created Dukedom of Florence and Siena. In 1569, this arrangement achieved its conclusive form through the institution of the Grand Dukedom of Tuscany, which remained under Medici rule until 1737.