The Spectacle of Power: Diplomatic Mediation, Patronage and Cultural Exchanges between the Court of the Medici and the England of James I Stuart

Cultural mediation is an essential part of Renaissance patronage; the patron-mediator-client relationship consists of an indirect three-way exchange in which the mediator makes possible the meeting and reconciliation of the two extreme levels, clearly separated by physical, social, and political distances. The modernity of the terms cultural broker and cultural brokerage may seem anachronistic, but it captures the nuanced role adopted by certain aristocratic figures, who brought musicians, composers, poets, scientists, and artists into contact with powerful patrons, mediating between occasional commissions and lasting employment, encouraging the continuity of musical, literary, scientific and artistic patronage through the succession of ruling authorities (in Florence, for the Medici, Ferdinand I, Christine of Lorraine, Cosimo II, Maria Magdalena, Vittoria della Rovere, Leopold, and Giovan Carlo) and the enrichment of the artistic proposal through exchange between the various European courts.