ABSTRACT
Curzio Malaparte once wrote that Lorenzo de’ Medici ‘lacked only one attribute of true magnificence: he was not from Prato’.1 A mid-twentieth century Pratese is here teasing the shade of the Quattrocento Florentine, for if Lorenzo cared little for Prato and its people, many Pratesi felt precisely the same about him and his family. There was of course no getting away from one another, for commanding historical and geopolitical reasons. As the Medici increased their authority over Florence and its territory after 1434, they and their nearest Tuscan neighbour had to find a modus vivendi, which they did by putting up with, and using, each other – but rarely without suppressed tension or open conflict.
