In Imagining the Americas in Medici Florence, Lia Markey, currently the Director of the Center for Renaissance Studies at the Newberry Library, offers a thought-provoking study on how the objects and imagery of the New World influenced the arts and politics in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Medici Florence. Without direct access to the trade of the Americas and lacking the capability to conquer the peoples there, the Medici rulers of Florence flaunted their wealth and power by associating themselves with the richness of the flora, fauna, and peoples of the New World. They did this by raising plants and animals from the Americas, collecting Native American artifacts, and commissioning art depicting the newly discovered continents. Markey calls this a “vicarious conquest” in which the Medici “sought to create a sense of symbolic possession or ownership” over the Americas (p. 159), a way for them to demonstrate to the rest of the world their importance short of actual, physical conquest.

Imagining the Americas in Medici Florence offers an insightful and intriguing glimpse into how the Medici gathered, processed, and displayed knowledge of the New World to flaunt their wealth and impress people with their power. In her conclusion, Markey compares the “phenomenon of vicarious conquest” to the “German Orientalism” of the nineteenth century. Germans, who did not build a colonial empire until late in the century, competed with the imperial powers Britain and France with their scholarship on the Middle East and East. Similarly, Markey maintains that Medici Florence’s “cultural engagement with foreign places was a critical way to lay claim and to demonstrate dominance” (p. 161) even though they did not have a colonial empire like Spain and Portugal. Imagining the Americas in Medici Florence is a large-sized book, copiously illustrated, lucidly written, and engaging throughout. Well-researched, Markey supports her contentions with expansive notes and an extensive bibliography. Though lacking in maps and direct details of exploration and discovery, it is an interesting book detailing how information from such expeditions can be processed and used by scholars and rulers for their own benefit. Historians of discovery and art would benefit from reading this fascinating work. ( )