Medici Network Analysis

The research led me to the world of Social Network Analysis (SNA) is Padgett and Ansell’s classic article on power networks of the powerful Medici family. They reveal that the Medici party “was an agglomeration of doubly disarticulated parts” (Padgett and Ansell, 1993: 1285), in which new men (new political forces) were structurally tided in San Giovanni region, and this is the group the Medici mobilized and controlled directly through economic relations. And patricians residing outside San Giovanni, are people the Medici mobilized and controlled through marriage relational network. Conscious segregations were keys to the inhibition both of independent ties among followers and of multiplex tide with the Medici themselves. The result was that the Medici themselves were the only bridge holding this contradictory agglomeration together.

Padgett and Ansell’s classic research is recognized as the foundation of the centrality analysis in network research (Borgatti, 2009). But the centrality analysis of a network can be more accessible. While the logic of centrality analysis can be represented mathematically, by using Pajek software, what we need is to design a sociomatrix with the row and the column of nodes respectively (e.g. 15 members of Medici party*2), in which we can mark nodes with specific subgroup title (e.g. 5 Medici family members(M), 5 new men(NM), and 5 patricians(P)). Using binary code, any interaction of row and column counts “1” while non-interaction counts “0”. Then we upload the matrix into Pajek with several steps: first, Pajek helps visualize a network from data; second, I conduct Network>Vector>Centrality>Betweenness to have the score of centrality.

Reference:

Borgatti, S. P., Mehra, A., Brass, D. J., & Labianca, G. (2009). Network analysis in the social sciences. Science, 323(5916), 892-895. Padgett, J. F., & Ansell, C. K. (1993). Robust Action and the Rise of the Medici, 1400-1434. American Journal of Sociology, 1259-1319.