JEAN-CLAUDE WAQUET

CORRUPTION, ETHICS AND POWER IN FLORENCE, 1600-1770

University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991. 233 pp.

Corruption, Ethics and Power is the English translation of Waquet' s

original French study of 1984. The purpose of the book is to study the
incidence of corruption in the state during the ancien regime, using the
Grand Duchy of Tuscany as an example. The capital of the Grand
Duchy, Florence, makes an interesting case study in part because of the
complex history of the aristocratic elite which formed the noble
governing class but more so because the change in dynasty in 1737
shifted the accepted patterns of official corruption and the ruler's
response to it in a fundamental and demonstrable manner. The
extinction of the Medici and the accession of Francis Stephen of
Lorraine as Grand Duke resulted in Florence being ruled by a foreign
prince who exercised authority through regents. It is this shift in the
centre of power which gives Waquet's conclusions their focus.
Waquet's investigation of corruption is both an analysis of
important incidents and a theoretical discussion of the moral, legal,
personal, conventional, and circumstantial implications of using office
to enrich oneself at the expense of the state. Most of the corrupt
officials Waquet studies were nobles because of the virtual monopoly
of that class on the high offices from which they might engage in
peculation. Lesser citizens are occasionally caught up in this web of
corruption and Waquet illustrates convincingly that their fate was quite
different from their better born masters, at least under the Medici. The
examples chosen are intrinsically interesting and instructive and
comprise models of embezzlement on a grand scale and moral failings
in several other contexts.

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 The conclusions are illuminating. Corruption permitted the ruling
classes to appropriate the state by transferring public wealth to
themselves to further their ambitions of luxurious living, clientage, or
influence. Corruption, then, became an aristocratic class prerogative and
part of their family strategy in sustaining or increasing wealth and
power. Also, corruption served to subvert the authority of the prince by
creating centres of wealth, power, and influence outside the authority of
the state: it allowed nobles to achieve a degree of independence from
the Grand Duke by stealing his wealth, or stealing from lesser citizens
whose rights he should have protected. Finally, corruption served as an
important instrument to redress exclusion from power. With the
establishment of the absolute Medici rule in 1537 the old Republican
patriciate found its traditional influence gone. To remedy this exclusion
from what had been their birthright and to maintain some of the
perquisites which they had enjoyed under the Republic, nobles resorted
to corruption, the only mechanism of exercising independence open to
them, although illegal and in some cases dangerous.
Thus, Waquet suggests that corruption went far beyond the
simplistic assumptions that amoral officials used public office simply to
get rich, or that the ruler ignored such activity because low salaries
were paid to high officials on the understanding that corruption was a
perquisite of power they might reasonably employ to maintain their rank
and wealth. Also, it is shown that the Grand Dukes had in place
auditors whose responsibility it was to detect such abuse and report it
to the ruler, indicating that in theory corrupt officials might be caught
and suffer severely for a crime which came close to lse-majest.
In one of the most insightful chapters of his book Waquet explains
why the ruler seldom discovered even the most flagrant corruption until
it was too late and why the punishment for even these serious offenses
was often lenient for aristocratic thieves. First, Waquet suggests that the
Medici Grand Dukes relied heavily upon the extended noble clans for
their administration. In the world before the end of the dynasty the
Medici prince would be loath to ruin the reputation, social standing, and
solvency of an entire noble family because of the crime of one of its
members. The punishment would be too severe and the ruler risked
alienating the powerful families whose tacit acceptance of Medici rule
had been required since the collapse of the Republic. The Medici fear
of republicanism, then, provided a unique impetus not to deal too
harshly with noble malefactors. Indeed, examples of princely clemency

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could do much more to bind these families to the dynasty and cement
their allegiance to the prince. In short, the prince in effect countenanced
theft because punishment of a noble thief was a greater threat than loss
of revenue.
Second, Waquet argues that nobles and the judges charged with
prosecuting the law co-operated with the prince in ensuring that no
moral failure let alone crime was in reality committed by corrupt
officials. Noble embezzlers went to great lengths to ensure that they
would not be caught and if they were that they would not be
prosecuted. Because the system was administered by nobles and because
the prince himself shared the prejudices of this class it was not difficult
to escape detection and if caught avoid severe punishment. Legal
arguments, casuistic reasoning, bribes, appeals to clemency, family
influences, and other avenues open to the aristocracy either reduced the
culpability of the embezzler or stopped the process against him. In the
worst instances, exemplary fines might be imposed with the
understanding that they would be repaid over a very long period or not
repaid at all, with the prince not demanding restitution because of his
concern for the solvency of his nobility and in a legitimate desire to be
recognized as gracious and the soul of princely clemency, an attribute
Medici rulers cultivated as suitable to their divine election to the throne.
Moreover, by not collecting these debts, the ruler maintained a good
degree of control over noble families and his good will was carefully
protected.
The class structure of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Tuscany
facilitated this web of official corruption. Finding witnesses to testify
against a powerful noble was difficult. Lesser officials who might have
informed the auditors or judges about systematic peculation that had
lasted for years often owed their posts to those very nobles and were
also possibly guilty by association if not in deed. And, lesser men paid
with the full force of the law if caught, not enjoying the protection of
the Medici and a great name. To inform or cooperate with the auditors
could mean death and ruin while the aristocratic thief escaped serious
punishment. Finally, bourgeois lawyers and judges were often in awe
of the great families and saw the advantage of assisting in their escape
from prosecution or guilt. Clientage formed a significant element in
Tuscan society and the Medici reinforced rather than assaulted the
practice.
The arrival of the House of Lorraine changed this situation
completely. Francis Stephen did not live in Forence and had no

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connection to or interest in what he considered a provincial nobility. He
was the husband of Maria Theresa and enjoyed the Holy Roman
Empire, not a petty Grand Duchy on the fringes of the Habsburg-
Lorraine dominions. He also saw himself quite differently as a prince.
His role as God's minister, he believed, was not to condone but to
punish iniquity. He also believed in exemplary sentences and restitution.
Corrupt officials in particular were evil influences, hostile to the well-
being of the body politic. Moreover, he was not easily moved to
clemency, seeing the example of the great suffering for their crimes as
useful instruments in maintaining princely rule, power and authority:
principles altogether opposite to the practice of the Medici. Although his
gifted governor, Richecourt, arrived in Florence and reported with
obvious disgust the noble tradition of corruption at every level of the
Grand Ducal administration, he learned eventually through residence in
the city that the reputation of the nobility would be ruined by a strict
enforcement of the laws against official theft. When apprised of this and
advised by Richecourt to show clemency to officials caught with their
noble hands in the prince's till, Francis Stephen was unmoved and
refused every request. Punishment was warranted and punishment was
decreed. With that change the tradition of official corruption in Tuscany
changed, although at the expense of the loyalty of the nobility to prince:
this was another example of the tyranny of the foreign dynasty.
Waquet has provided, then, in this relatively short book a
stimulating and insightful discussion of the nature of corruption, law,
the state and complex and subtle ties that bind them all. It is an
excellent starting point in any investigation of official corruption.
There are problems, however. In particular, the unusual nature of
the Florentine nobility is not fully discussed. Having been transformed
from a republican patriciate to a new nobility resulted in memories
which even two centuries could not erase. Had Waquet been able to
graft his study on to R. Burr-Litchfield's The Emergence of a
Bureaucracy: The Florentine Patricians 1530-1790 (1986), a much
more sophisticated analysis of the relations between the elite office
holding class and the prince would have emerged. Florence, then, might
not be the best example to choose to illustrate the operation of
corruption: it was unique and the connections with the authority of the
Grand Duke unusual. In addition, the republican patrician families
equally had a tradition of using the state to advance their private
interests. Punitive or lenient taxation, oppression of less powerful

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segments of society and the very idea of seeing the state as an
instrument for oligarchic ambitions all have a long and vigorous history
in Florence. To be sure the records are well kept and the contrast
offered by the change in dynasty instructive. Still, Waquet needed to
define the elements in his case study more fully.
Finally, the translation is substandard. Besides clumsy constructions,
titles, such as knight Borgherini for cavaliere Borgherini, simply
confuse because they do not correspond to English usage; and this
confusion is exacerbated by using the original title of cavaliere at other
times. Italian offices are similarly sometimes italicized sometimes not.
Page 90 sees none governing a plural verb. Men are consistently hung
rather than hanged. "Patriciate" is often used as an adjective. I could
continue but there is no need: the subtle and at times rivetting text of
Waquet's study is not well served by the English version. Still, this is
not the fault of the author, nor does it really detract from the value of
the work.

KENNETH R. BARTLETT
Victoria College (University of Toronto),
Toronto, Ontario

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