The Chancellor of Florence held the most important position in the bureaucracy of the
Florentine Republic
The Republic of Florence, officially the Florentine Republic ( it, Repubblica Fiorentina, , or ), was a medieval and early modern state that was centered on the Italian city of Florence in Tuscany. The republic originated in 1115, when the Flo ...
. Though the chancellor was not officially a member of the Republic's elected political government, unlike the
gonfaloniere
The Gonfalonier (in Italian: ''Gonfaloniere'') was the holder of a highly prestigious communal office in medieval and Renaissance Italy, notably in Florence and the Papal States. The name derives from ''gonfalone'' (in English, gonfalon), the t ...
or the nine members of the
signoria, the role was roughly equivalent to the head of the civil service in some countries today, and its holder could still wield considerable political influence. Holders included some of the most famous scholars, political thinkers and humanists of the
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ide ...
.
Partial list
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Coluccio Salutati
Coluccio Salutati (16 February 1331 – 4 May 1406) was an Italian humanist and notary, and one of the most important political and cultural leaders of Renaissance Florence; as chancellor of the Republic and its most prominent voice, he was effec ...
(appointed 1375)
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Leonardo Bruni
Leonardo Bruni (or Leonardo Aretino; c. 1370 – March 9, 1444) was an Italian humanist, historian and statesman, often recognized as the most important humanist historian of the early Renaissance. He has been called the first modern historian. ...
(appointed 1410)
*
Carlo Marsuppini, known as Carlo Aretino, (1444 - 1453)
*
Poggio Bracciolini
Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini (11 February 1380 – 30 October 1459), usually referred to simply as Poggio Bracciolini, was an Italian scholar and an early Renaissance humanist. He was responsible for rediscovering and recovering many clas ...
(1453-1459)
*
Benedetto Accolti (appointed 1459)
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Bartolomeo Scala (1465-1497)
*
Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli ( , , ; 3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527), occasionally rendered in English as Nicholas Machiavel ( , ; see below), was an Italian diplomat, author, philosopher and historian who lived during the Renaissance. ...
(appointed 1498)
*
Marcello Virgilio Adriani (February 1498)
[ Dizionario biografico universale, Volume 1, by Francesco Predari, Tipografia Guigoni, Milan (1865); page 33]
See also
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Chancellor
Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...
References
Republic of Florence
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