ABSTRACT
In the wake of a formal appeal by Cellini to Duke Cosimo I de' Medici, the magistrates commuted the prison term to house arrest. Cellini's conviction for sodomy offers us a unique opportunity to examine relations between the duke, his judges, and criminals in Florence, as well as between patrons and clients. It serves as a case study of Cosimo's personal involvement in legal-juridical matters and illustrates how he positioned himself strategically vis-a-vis the courts and his subjects first by enacting strict legislation and then by mitigating it with his clemency. Cosimo thus presented himself as a firm, yet compassionate ruler. The loss of ducal favour and the humiliation of imprisonment for the sex crime of sodomy in turn led the irascible Cellini into a scathing attack on Medicean politics.
