Francesco Vettori

Francesco Vettori (* 1474 in Florence, † 1539 ) was a Florentine statesman.

Life

Opposition under Piero Soderini (up to 1512)

Vettori rose after the expulsion of the Medici in 1494, the government and was a member of the Governing Council in 1503. However, Vettori stood in the years after 1502 rather against the upright in Florence under the rule of Piero Soderini Gonfaloniere used for life in his office. The main factor which determined the opposition of the oligarchy of Florence, was the unfulfilled hope that the winner of the top office should involve the leading families of the rule after years of disorder and not - as Soderini did - with the People's Assembly and with the help of climbers against they govern. Francesco and his brother Paolo were two nephews of this opposition sustainable representing Bernardo Rucellai, moreover, about their mother.

In the summer of 1507 his posting was enforced to the Diet of Constance by the opposition, what the unofficial embassy of Soderini - Follower Niccolò Machiavelli was foiled. Nevertheless, dated to this time of the beginning of the lifelong friendship between the two Florentines, had so Machiavelli break up under the pretext of oral messaging and joined the band in January 1508 at the time of a meeting of the Estates of Tyrol. Together they testify to early summer 1508 the battle of Maximilian I against the Venetians and the failure of the planned Italian expedition to the Alps. While Machiavelli in June of the year took his way back to Florence, Vettori remained until the spring of 1509 in Germany.

As Soderini in late summer 1512 in front of his deposition, because after the collapse of the French protecting power penetrated the Spaniard Ramón de Cardona in Tuscany and aimed at the expulsion of the Medici, Francesco Vettori came a key role in the rescue of Gonfaloniere to: As far as the brother Paolo was one of the conspirators who dared the coup on 31 August, the less partisan Francesco was called to mediate. Then he was commissioned in the night of August 31 to September 1, Piero Soderini to secondary explode after his forced resignation with some escort riders from Florence and into the direction of the Sienese and lead them to safety.

Partisan of the Medici (from 1512)

After the return of the Medici was Francesco Vettori January 1513 to May 1515, the official ambassador of the Republic of Florence, in Rome, but eked out a shadowy existence: the fortunes of his native town and pontificate of Leo X de ' Medici rested in the hands of a family. The disgraced Niccolò Machiavelli hoped through him in vain for the favor of the new rulers. In addition, given the correspondence between him and Vettori for example, information on the assessment of the political situation in the period before the reconquest of Lombardy by the French under Francis I..

In the summer of 1515 Vettori was the military commissar of the Florentine troops on the younger Lorenzo de ' Medici page. Until 1518 he was involved envoy in France and a major role in the negotiations that cemented the new alliance of the Medici and the French and led to the marriage of the younger Lorenzo with Madeleine de la Tour d' Auvergne. In the aftermath of the fall of the Medici in 1527 Vettori in 1529 was again ambassador in Rome. He is also documented with some writings within the constitutional discourse of the Republic of Florence.

Among the more important writings of Francesco Vettori is found, inter alia, the Viaggio in Alamagna, its written on his legation of 1507 /08 in retrospect travel description and portrayal of the Germans. The history of Italy he has described for the years 1511-1527 in his Sommario delle cose di Italia and the European Begegebenheiten interacting, be led to the events surrounding the Sacco di Roma.

Swell

• Enrico Nicolini (Ed.): Francesco Vettori. Scritti politici e storici, Bari 1972.