Stanford Humanities Center
J. G. Amato is a PhD candidate in early modern European history at Stanford University, whose research explores religious, political, and intellectual culture in sixteenth-century Italy. He holds degrees from City College of San Francisco, the University of California, Berkeley, Westminster Seminary California, and Stanford University.
SHC Project
Cosimo's Church: The Politics of Religious Reform in Sixteenth-Century Florence
Sixteenth-century Florence’s transformation from a republic to an hereditary duchy entailed the simultaneous generation of a Tuscan church, dependent on the will and vision of Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici (1519–74) for its form and constitution. Paradoxically, Cosimo negotiated political and ecclesiastical liberty for Tuscany not by war or adversarial politics, but by drawing closer into Rome’s embrace.
