ABSTRACT
The exclusively clerical character of the papal court in Rome rendered it a male-only preserve, from which women were supposedly excluded, after all unlike other Italian courts. Despite such contemporary disquiet, however, both Medici popes did accept the presence of their female relatives at court and, as people shall see, sought often to accede to their requests for various forms of papal patronage. In March 1513 the Florentines had great expectations of profiting from papal patronage because the new pontiff was one of them. Papal nepotism was rife from the mid-fifteenth century onwards, relatives of the pope being given preferment in both ecclesiastical and lay offices. All the women members of the Medici family were successful at the Curia during the pontificates of Popes Leo X and Clement VII because they adapted their familial roles and responsibilities in the domestic arena to the demands and protocols of the papal court.
