Piero Soderini

Piero Soderini (1451–1522) was a Florentine statesman who served the republic after the fall of the Medici and Savonarola. Already ambassador to France in 1493, he was elected gonfaloniere of justice for life in 1502 to give the restored republic stable government.

Under his rule Florence replaced foreign mercenaries with a citizen militia and finally captured Pisa in 1509; Niccolò Machiavelli served as his second chancellor. Soderini also maintained an alliance with France.

In 1512 a Spanish army restored the Medici, deposed Soderini and drove him into exile in Dalmatia. Pope Leo X later summoned him to Rome, where he spent his remaining years and died in 1522, never having been allowed to return to Florence.