The Comic Old Man in a Medicean Context: Lorenzino,the Florentine “New Brutus,” and ARIDOSIA

Abstract

Playwright Lorenzino de' Medici (1514–48) is best known for assassinating his cousin and patron Alessandro, the despotic Duke of Florence, in 1537 and for justifying the murder publicly in an Apologia, which advocated the restoration of republican government in the city. While Lorenzino's stage comedy Aridosia (1536) has received considerable critical attention, its own political implications — its standing as ideological precursor to the apology — have been underestimated. With its central character, the miserly senex Aridosio, the play delineates an advanced form of corruption consonant with the wider ills described in the Apologia. The domestic tyrant's obsessive resolve to keep his wealth from his children evokes the Medicean determination to maintain absolute control in Florence. At other moments, Aridosio's unflattering portrayal recalls a different target: the older generation of greedy Florentine aristocrats, whom Lorenzino also charged with hindering the republican cause. The significant modifications made to the Plautine and Terentian source plays support this reading of Aridosia as political allegory.