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Leonardo Bruni's relationship to the Medici regime raises some intriguing questions. Born in 1370, Bruni was Chancellor of Florence in 1434, when Cosimo de' Medici and his adherents returned from exile, banished their opponents, and seized control of government.2 Bruni never made known his personal feelings about this sudden regime change. His memoirs and private correspondence are curiously silent on the issue.3 Yet it must have been a painful time for him. Among those banished by the Medici were many of his long-time friends and supporters: men like Palla di Nofri Strozzi, or Rinaldo degli Albizzi. Others, like the prominent humanist and anti-Medicean agitator Francesco Filelfo, would soon join the first wave of exiles.4
Bruni was not only linked to such men by ties of patronage and friendship; he had also for many years acted as the chief ideologue of the preMedicean oligarchy.5 One might logically expect that he too would become a victim of Medici vengeance in 1434, or soon thereafter. Yet this did not happen. Instead, Bruni remained Chancellor until his death in 1444. Scholars are divided as to how to characterize these last ten years of Bruni's Chancellorship. Some have followed the lead of Hans Baron, portraying Bruni as slipping into a form of political quietism.6 According to Paolo Viti, for example, Bruni after 1434 toned down his earlier republicanism in order to comply with the new order." Other scholars have stressed that Bruni-despite the occasional flamboyance of his civic rhetoric-was always an advocate of restricted government.8 While the power struggle between the Medici and their adversaries was real enough, the system Cosimo and his associates introduced after 1434 differed from its predecessor only in the consistency with which it was applied. Bruni's personal adaptation to the new state of affairs thus required no major ideological adjustments, only a certain amount of accommodation.
Bruni, in fact, flourished under the Medici as never before. Besides continuing as Chancellor, he pursued a parallel career as a holder of office in the highest councils of state.9 This was unusual for someone who already held the Chancellorship; it would not have been possible without the strong support of the Medici party. The argument that such offices were largely ceremonial, and that Bruni was effectively being sidelined...