R political, sociopolitical and cultural agendas (Wolff 1994), and harkened back for the Middle Ages (Donecker 2010; Barraclough et al. 2016; J gensen and Langum 2018). Baltic lands that twelfth-century papal-mandated crusaders conquered and christened Livonia (covering significantly of present-day Ritanserin Protocol Estonia and Latvia) for Latin Christendom, followed by the addition of Lithuania (via the Jagiellonian Christian conversion), were directly subordinated additional than three as well as a half centuries to the Holy See, and spiritually and symbolically (if not administratively) unified and sanctified below the Roman curial aegis (Houben and Toomaspoeg 2008). Notably, Medicean imperial ambitions elsewhere (one example is India) have been also negotiated via the commissioning and collecting of, and engagement with, material manifestations of nearby saints’ cults, including St. Francis Xavier in Goa and St. Thomas the Apostle in Mylapore (Benay 2020; Freddolini 2020). Cosimo’s religiosity–considered exceptional amongst contemporaries–led him to fashion himself as spiritual crusader, pilgrim, and pious collector of relics as sacred spolia within the battle against heresies (Ionomycin In Vivo Gennaioli and Sframeli 2014, pp. 2447; Guzm 2018; Spinelli 2019). That Cosimo commissioned from Florentine artist Carlo Dolci (1616686) a likeness of Kazimierz that hung within the grand duke’s bed chamber suggests his unique devotion to the saint (Gennaioli and Sframeli 2014, pp. 2723; Maslauskaite-Mazyliene 2018, pp. 803).36 (Figure 3). Rendered in an ecstatic pose with marble-white skin along with a skeletal countenance evincing his purity and self-abnegation, the prince is attended by the spray of lilies signifying his bloodless martyrdom. He is shown in the act of composing a devotional hymn for the Virgin. Though painted in a distinctly late Baroque style, Dolci’s portrayal on the fur-lined mantle and jeweled crown was inflected by a great deal older depictions of your saint that traced back to Ferreri’s woodcut. From the Medicean perspective, the grand duke sought a relic of a prince fashioned in hagiography as a spiritual crusader from a kingdom he himself developed (if only briefly) to rule, who numbered amongst the last pre-Tridentine saints raised towards the altar by a Medici pope. Additionally, the saint’s name rendered in Italian as Casimiro was a close to homophone towards the favorite grand ducal name Cosimo. The name itself retraced the dynastic line three centuries, by means of his Great-Great Grandfather and first Tuscan Grand Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici (1519574), back to the venerable Cosimo di Giovanni de’ Medici (1389464), efficiently the founder in the Medici dynasty. The rise to power from the “first Cosimo” (generally known as Cosimo il Vecchio) in late medieval Florence overlapped together with the Sarmatian prince’s pursuit of spiritual martyrdom.Religions 2021, 12, 1011 Religions 2021, 12, x FOR PEER REVIEW10 of 35 10 ofFigure 3. Carlo Dolci, Portrait of St. Kazimierz, 1670671. Pushkin State Museum of Arts, MosFigure three. Carlo Dolci, Portrait of St. Kazimierz, 1670671. Pushkin State Museum of Fine Fine Arts, cow. Image in the the Public Domain. Moscow. Image in Public Domain.For the duration of the seventeenth century, the last Medici grand duke graced with all the name During the seventeenth century, the final Medici grand duke graced with the name Cosimo pursued a relic of Casimiro. In addition to the above dynastic concerns, his quest Cosimo pursued a relic of Casimiro. Along with the above dynastic concerns, his quest was additional sustained by a pro.