A study of politics in fifteenth-century Florence, Clarke's detailed account of the careers of two brothers, Tommaso and Niccolo Soderini, and their relationship with the Medici family opens up a new perspective on the political world of Renaissance Florence. The Soderini were at different times supporters and adversaries of the Medici, whose rise to power remains the subject of historical debate. Based on hitherto unpublished sources, particularly from the archives of Florence and Milan, this book examines the nature of the ascendancy of the Medici and opposition to them, the sources of their power, the operation of their system of patronage, the bonds connecting one of the most successful political elites in Renaissance Italy, and the development of the political institutions of the Florentine state.