Beschreibung:

Pope Leo XI [Alessandro Ottaviano de' Medici] Autograph letter signed, as archbishop of Florence, to the Prior of San Friano [i.e. Frediano] advising the priest, whom he has just appointed in charge of the convent [of Santa Maria degli Angeli, attached to the church of San Frediano] despite his young age, about the perils attendant on the charge of a community of nuns, telling him never to hear their confessions, or enter the cloister except to administer the sacraments to the infirm, not to accept new nuns without the archbishop's agreement, not to favour one nun over another, and that they have been poorly enclosed and poorly governed in the past, in Italian, 2 pages, folio, Rome, 25 April 1603, wear with loss of text at centre fold Alessandro de' Medici (1535-1605) was elected Pope less than a month before his death; he held numerous other important roles within the Church, including as archbishop of his native Florence from 1574. He was an active archbishop, renovating the archiepiscopal palace and implementing the ideas of the Counter-Reformation in Florence, as shown here by his personal interest in the management of and behaviour inside one of the many convents under his jurisdiction. The church of San Frediano in Florence was completely rebuilt later in the seventeenth century, and the attached convent (on whose site the modern church is located) was home to St Magdalena de' Pazzi at the time of this letter; she supposedly predicted the election of the archbishop to the Holy See. PROVENANCE:Christie's, London, 5 July 1978, lot 40