Agostino Chigi

Italian banker and merchant

• Born: c. 1465
• Birthplace: Siena (now in Italy)
• Died: 1520
• Place of death: Rome, Papal States (now in Italy)

Chigi was one of the wealthiest bankers and merchants in late fifteenth and early sixteenth century Europe. Active primarily in Rome as the banker to the pope, he was also an important patron of the arts. His art patronage is epitomized by the Villa Farnesina, the residence he built in Rome.

Sources of wealth: Banking; trade

Bequeathal of wealth: Spouse; children; artistic patronage

Early Life

Agostino Chigi (ahg-oh-STEE-noh KEE-jee) was born around 1465, and according to the baptismal rolls of Battistero di San Giovanni in Siena, he was baptized at this cathedral on November 29, 1466. Chigi was born into a wealthy Sienese family of merchants. His parents were Mariano Chigi (1439-1504) and Caterina Baldi. Mariano was well known in Siena and held important political and financial positions, including that of Sienese ambassador to the Holy See. Like his son Agostino, Mariano was a patron of the arts, and he commissioned the painter Perugino, the artist Raphael’s teacher, to create a major altarpiece. In addition to receiving a basic education in letters as appropriate to his social standing, Agostino learned the banking and financing business, first at his father’s offices in Siena and Viterbo and in 1487 in Rome at Ambrogio Spannocchi’s firm, which performed accounting services for the Holy See.

First Ventures

Perhaps as early as 1487, the Chigis, father and son, together with Stefano Ghinucci, opened a banking business in Rome. This newly established financial firm, which was managed by Agostino, flourished in the 1490’s. The firm’s dealings covered the full business spectrum, from trade in grain, wine, and livestock to currency exchange and tax accounting. The company’s most important loan before the end of the fifteenth century was finalized in December, 1499, when Agostino convinced his partners to lend 3,000 ducats to Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI, when Borgia was overseeing military campaigns in northern Italy for his father. Agostino had started financing Borgia’s operations in 1498.

Since the 1490’s, Agostino had achieved considerable distinction on his own. In 1492, he was named director of the papal salt marshes (salt was an important commodity in the premodern world), of the customs operations of the Papal States, and of the taxes imposed by the Holy See. These appointments were crucial for Chigi’s development as a businessman and financier. He became inextricably involved with the financial affairs of the pope, and he also developed an extensive network of international connections, which eventually supported the opening of more than one hundred offices of his firm in Italy and branches from London to the Levant. While primarily devoted to doing business with the pope, Chigi also lent considerable sums to Charles VIII, the king of France, who occupied Rome in 1496; to the Medici family (4,000 ducats); and to the condottiere (mercenary soldier) Guidobaldo da Montefeltro in 1497 (111,173 ducats).

Mature Wealth

The foundation of Chigi’s mature wealth was the concession he received from the pope in December, 1500, to manage the alum mines at Tolfa, leasing them for 34,000 ducats per year. Until then, the alum mineral, a crucial ingredient in dyeing processes in which it serves as the binding agent between the cloth and the dye, was imported in Europe from the Ottoman Empire. In just a few years, during which he also bought all the smaller alum mines in Italy, Chigi gained dominance of the alum market, achieving a virtual monopoly on this commodity in Europe—a monopoly that was made official in Flanders in 1508 for a payment of 85,000 ducats. Chigi extended his sales of alum throughout the East, all the way to China. In addition to improving alum extraction techniques, he assembled a commercial fleet of about one hundred ships to distribute the mineral, harboring the fleet at Porto Ercole in Tuscany, a city-port that he rented from the Republic of Siena for 8,000 ducats. The alum business was particularly lucrative: In 1520, Chigi’s net profits from the mineral reached 300,000 ducats.

In 1502, Chigi founded his own financial firm, the Banco Chigi, in partnership with his father and a friend, Francesco Tommasi. The original capital committed to the venture was 8,000 ducats, with 3,250 each from Chigi and his father and 1,500 from Tommasi, and the partners agreed to split their profits and risks according to these proportions. Combining his living and office spaces, Chigi rented the large house that had been occupied by his father’s business since 1476. Thanks to his shrewdness, Banco Chigi prospered even after a Genoese clergyman became Pope Julius II in 1502. Even though Julius gave his business to Genoese firms, Chigi had lent him considerable sums through which he secured his election to the Papacy, and these loans guaranteed Chigi’s business with the Holy See.

Chigi remained close to Julius as the pope’s trusted friend, banker, financier, political adviser, ambassador, and patron of the arts. He followed the pope in two military campaigns in 1506 and 1510, and it is said that Chigi instigated the second one in order to protect his alum business from the Ferrarese family’s interference. Julius excommunicated Chigi’s adversaries, and he also entrusted Chigi to handle the financial arrangements that would ally the Venetian Republic with the Holy League against France in the War of the League of Cambrai in 1511. The friendship between the pope and his banker is epitomized by the fact that Julius officially adopted Chigi into the pope’s family in 1511. Among the many privileges granted through this adoption, a special benefit was the integration of the oak leaves, the symbol of the coat of arms of Julius’s family, the della Rovere, into Chigi’s coat of arms.

Perhaps inspired by the patronage policies of Popes Sixtus IV, Alexander VI, and Julius II, Chigi understood that the success of any urban leader is closely tied to his public image. Accordingly, he used his wealth to fashion his public persona in a variety of ways, from holding extravagant parties and memorable processions in Rome to being the supportive patron of celebrated artists and the donor of major public projects. This policy is instantiated early in Chigi’s career by his donation to build a new church in Tolfa. In Rome, Chigi’s participation in three projects conceived during Julius’s term as pope stand out: Chigi provided the funds to build and decorate two prominent chapels, one in Santa Maria della Pace and a second one, his funerary chapel, in Santa Maria del Popolo. He had the pope’s favorite painter, Raphael, decorate these churches with frescoes. Chigi also hired Raphael to complete the complex decorative program of his urban palace, Villa Farnesina.

In 1513, Julius was succeeded by Pope Leo X, a Florentine cleric. Chigi managed to remain a primary financial personality in the new pope’s administration by lending Leo considerable sums during the papal conclave, at which Leo was elected pope.

Three noteworthy events in Chigi’s personal life took place in the early sixteenth century: In 1508, his first wife, Margherita Saracini, died, leaving him childless. His proposal to marry Margherita Gonzaga, the natural daughter of the duke of Mantua, through a gift of 10,000 ducats (Chigi’s inheritance at the time was valued in excess of 400,000 ducats) proved unsuccessful. In 1512, Chigi married Francesca Ordeaschi and they had three sons.

In his 1519 will, he left his estate to his sons, none of whom was of age and one of whom had yet to be born. Chigi died peacefully in his sleep at home after a busy workday in 1520.

Legacy

Of Chigi’s three sons, only Lorenzo survived into adulthood. Unfortunately, because of his son’s poor business sense and the many lawsuits arising from his estate, Chigi’s wealth was basically dissipated by the time Lorenzo died in September, 1573. Surely, as the more than five thousand attendees to his funeral suggest, Chigi’s impact on the people and culture of Rome was considerable, his wealth and his business having touched the lives of many. Chigi’s patronage had a lasting influence on the visual arts, which was particularly evident in his support of Raphael.

Bibliography

Frommel, Christoph Luitpold, ed. La Villa Farnesina a Roma = The Villa Farnesina in Rome. 2 vols. Modena, Italy: Panini, 2003. Definitive publication on Villa Farnesina, detailing its building, decoration program, and history through the centuries. The second volume is particularly useful for the splendid illustrations documenting in detail the entire building.

Gilbert, Felix. The Pope, His Banker, and Venice. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980. Readable account detailing the friendship between Pope Julius II and Chigi in matters of international politics and art patronage. This study is particularly valuable for its contextualization of the interaction between these two figures.

Quinlan-McGrath, Mary. “The Astrological Vault of the Villa Farnesina: Agostino Chigi’s Rising Sign.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 47 (1984): 91-105. In-depth article detailing the last parts of the astrological fresco program at Villa Farnesina, demonstrating that the paintings represent Chigi’s own life horoscope and confirming that they reference his birth date.

Rowland, Ingrid D., ed. The Correspondence of Agostino Chigi (1466-1520) in Cod. Chigi R.V.c: An Annotated Edition. Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 2001. Presents the original and English translations of Chigi’s mercantile correspondence. The content of the letters reveals his human nature, documents his business dealings, and presents his acumen as a patron of the arts.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. “Render unto Caesar the Things Which Are Caesar’s: Humanism and the Arts in the Patronage of Agostino Chigi.” Renaissance Quarterly 39 (Winter, 1986): 673-730. This lengthy and important article describes Chigi’s politics of patronage of the visual arts—particularly his commissions to Raphael in his chapel in Santa Maria della Pace, his mortuary chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo, and at the Villa Farnesina—detailing his attempt to devise a myth for his persona.