Salvestro de’ Medici is the gonfalonier of justice of Florence around 1300 and head of the rising Medici house, through whom envoys enter Florentine politics during the crisis around Savonarola.
| Era | 1300 |
| Office | Gonfalonier of justice |
| Chronicle | florenzen |
| Spanish entry | Salvestro de’ Medici |
Description
About fifty, with a well-kept beard except where a scar crosses much of his cheek. He carries “a terrible greatsword” and receives visitors in his official capacity.
Office, trade and lineage
- Office. The gonfalonier of justice is a prior of special authority among the guild representatives; going to Florence in his name gives a delegation official entry.
- Trade. The Medici import spices and luxury goods and have their own emblem.
- Name. Saying “I am a Medici” is itself an act of social authority, with no document needed.
His office gives jurisdiction; trade, money and contacts; kinship, agents he can send abroad without compromising the government. The Medici house lies thirty kilometers from Florence and holds his office; there he receives and summons in private.
History
The Medici are rising but not yet the city’s foremost family; Salvestro’s office, not the house’s fortune, sustains them, and the present crisis decides whether the rise continues. Around the family there is a quilombo (a mess) involving all Florence.
He summons envoys one per house: “a Spini, a Cuscarmano, a Medici”. Against the revolution Savonarola might unleash “tonight” he prepares military contingencies, justified as closing “an apology for a greater crime, which is civil war”. He knew he could not stop his nephew, the paladin Luca di Medici, from going to the Holy Land; that tacit permission, like the envoys’ summons and reception, passes through him.
Conflicting accounts
- One account calls him Luca’s uncle; another leaves the kinship unconfirmed.
Open questions
- Whether “Cuscarmano” is a house, another spelling or a mishearing.
- The ancestor is recorded only as “Gánlorez”, the magnificent of Medici.
- What “in the position of Spain”, said of the family, means.
- Whether the house is a rural residence, the trading seat, or both.
- The office’s term and election; the emblem and the spices traded.
- What the contingencies against Savonarola are and what force he has.