The Medici

The family that ruled Florence

Medici tours in Florence
• Context: The Medici: Portrait of a Family

ReidsItaly.com Florence Map

» View ENLARGED MAP with all listings

TOURS FROM OUR TRUSTED PARTNERS that include Florence

Intrepid Travel 2011 Italy trips
• Best of Italy (15 days)
• Italy Experience (15 days)
• Classic Italy (21 days)
• Italy Family Adventure (14 days)
• Highlights of Italy (8 days)
• Tuscan Express (7 days)

G Adventures 2011 Italy trips
• Ultimate Italy (13 days)
• Italy Culture and History Explored (9 days)
• The Taste of Tuscany (8 days)
• Venice to Rome Adventure (8 days)
• Italy Family Adventure (10 days)

iExplore Italy trips 2011
• Italy Experience (9 days)
• Italy in Style (9 days)
• Magical Tuscany & Portofino Peninsula (10 days)
• Tuscan Delights (8 days)
• Splendors of Italy & Southern France (16 days)

I promise to write a proper section on this soon. The Medici family is terribly important to Florentine history—a major banking family that rose to become the city's most prominent citizens in the 15th century, then rulers in all but name.

By the 16th century—following a few interregnums when republican forces kicked them out and a kind of democratic rule prevailed (plus Savonarola's brief reign as a theocracy)—the Medici became, under Cosimo I, the city's rulers in actual fact—first as Dukes of Florence, then as Grand Dukes of Tuscany.

Prominent early Medici

Cosimo "Il Vecchio" de' Medici ("Pater Patriae") - (1389–1464) - Founded the dynasty's fortunes by expanding his father Giovanni di Bicci's financial empire to become personal banker to various European kings and, crucially, the papal curia in Rome while also making himself an indispensable advisor to the city council. Nicknamed "Father of his Country."

Piero di Cosimo de' Medici ("The Gouty") - (1416–1469) - Son of Cosimo Il Vecchio; father of Lorenzo the Magnificent. Skilled (if short) reign as head of family, but chiefly remembered as the bridge between two greater generations.

Lorenzo de' Medici ("The Magnificent") - (1449–1492) - Godfather of the Renaissance, the most powerful man in Florence (prince of the city in everything but title), noted humanist philosopher (he gathered great books to the Medici library), and an excellent poet in his own right. He survived a dramatic assassination plot known as the Pazzi Conspiracy that actually went down in the Duomo during mass and claimed the life of his younger brother Giuliano. He is perhaps chiefly remembered, however, as the greatest patron of the arts in history. The list of artists he either discovered, supported, or encouraged in their careers reads like a who's-who of Old Masters: Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, Verrocchio, and others.

The Medici achieve new highs and new lows

The Medici Popes
While lesser Medici reigned—or were chased out of—Florence, the true inheritors of family power were playing on a much bigger stage as popes in Rome.

Pope Leo X (1513–1521) - Lorenzo's The Magnificent's second son, Giovanni de' Medici (1475–1521), is chiefly remembered for commissioning Raphael to paint his Vatican apartments, for battling it out (with papal bulls and denunciations) with some smarmy German upstart theologian named Martin Luther, and for supposedly proclaiming: "God gave us the papacy; now let us enjoy it!"

Pope Clement VII (1523–1534) - Giulio di Giuliano de' Medici (1478–1543), the illegitimate child of Lorenzo The Magnificent's slain brother Giuliano, is chiefly remembered for presiding over the papacy during the 1527 Sack of Rome by the troops of Charles V. That and, while hiding out in Orvieto, telling that pesky English king Henry VIII that no, he couldn't have an annulment of his marriage just because his wife, Catherine of Aragon, hadn't born him a son, thus inadvertently causing the creation of the Anglican Church (and one of history's most famous serial marriers). This might have been, in part, for fear of antagonizing even further Catherine's nephew... Charles V.Lorenzo's eldest son, Piero II ("The Unfortunate"), turned out to be a terrible civic leader and in 1494 (with the help of Charles VIII of France) was hounded from Florence after just two years in power.

After experimenting with theocracy courtesy of the firebrand preacher Savonarola, Florence became a Republic in 1498 and remained so for 15 years.

Once Lorenzo the Magnificent's second son, Giovanni, ascended from cardinal to become Pope Leo X (see box to the right), he had the muscle to wrest control of Florence back in 1513.

He installed as the city's ruler his nephew, Piero's son Lorenzo II ("Duke of Urbino") at the ripe old age of 21. Lorenzo II was dead of syphilis by 1519. The most significant things he accomplished were (a) to have a local noted political thinker named Niccolò Machiavelli dedicate to him his new treatise on how to govern, titled "The Prince;" and (b) to have a tomb in the Medici Chapels decorated by Michelangelo.

They were running out of Medici.

Giulio di Giuliano de' Medici—the pope's cousin and the illegitimate son of Giuliano (Lorenzo's the Magnificent's slain younger brother)—had been made Archbishop of Florence by his papal cousin in 1523. After the death of Lorenzo II, Giulio oversaw city affairs as the head of the Medici in Florence for a few years, but he had his sights set higher. The moment his cousin Leo X died, Giulio returned to Rome to begin trying to become pope himself. (He succeeded, two years later, taking the title Pope Clement VII; see box above.)

Ippolito de' Medici was the illegitimate only child of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours—the last of Lorenzo The Magnificent's sons—who died when Ippolito was five. He was raised by his uncle Giovanni and cousin Giulio—the two who went on to become popes. Giulio nominally left him (and his cousin Alessandro, about whom more in a moment) in charge of the Medici party when he lit off for Rome. Once Giulio became Pope Clement VII in 1523, he officially installed Ippolito as ruler of Florence. He did not distinguish himself except by enjoying himself and ignoring his duties, and he was chased from the city in 1527 while the true family patriarch, Clement VII, was busy being prisoner in his own Vatican thanks to the Sack of Rome (see box above).

Once Clement VII made up with Charles V and was back in power, he foisted Ippolito off with a cardinal's hat (and sent him first to Avignon and eventually to Hungary), regained control of Florence, and installed as ruler Lorenzo II's son Alessandro de' Medici. This was yet another illegitimate child (and rumor was he was no the bastard son of Lorenzo II at all, but rather the bastard son of Clement VII himself, likely with a serving girl). However, he was also the only male heir of the main Medici line, so he got the job as city ruler in 1530—with a shiny new title: Duke of Florence. He proved himself every bit as worthy a ruler as his cousin Ippolito had been, but Florence never had a chance to get tired enough of him and his carousing to send him, too, packing.

One night in 1537, Alessandro went to his cousin Lorenzaccio's house for what he thought was going to be a romantic assignation with a woman—some even say with Lorenzaccio's sister, which would make her a cousin. Ew. Instead, waiting for him in the bed was Lorenzaccio himself, along with a hired assassin. The two stabbed Alessandro to death before fleeing the city. Exciting stuff, history, eh?

Thus endeth, in sad and sordid disarray, the Medici line of Cosimo Il Vecchio.

The Medici become Grand Dukes

Cosimo I de' Medici ("The Grand Duke") - (1519–1574) - Cosimo was a distant cousin of the main Medici line, descended from Cosimo Il Vecchio's younger brother, Lorenzo (called by history "The Elder" the help distinguish him from "The Magnificent" who came later). He was put in his position by more powerful men who assumed they could control this young and relatively undistinguished cousin. Turned out, young Cosimo was destined to become the most powerful Medici yet. This was the Medici who turned the family from Florence's foremost banking concern (and foremost citizen-leaders) into the official Dukes of Florence, later the Grand Dukes of Tuscany, and major players on the European scene. He also took on the family mantle as a leading patron of the arts (Vasari, Cellini, Pontormo, Bronzino, etc.). He also built the Uffizi (family offices) and enlarged the Pitti Palace (family shack).

Gian Gastone de' Medici ("The Last Medici") - TK

Tips

Take a tour: Take a Medici tour of Florence:
- Context: The Medici: Portrait of a Family

Notable Florentines
Top 10 lists
Florence itineraries - What to do if you have 1 day, 2 days, or 3 days in Florence
Florence FAQ
Florence homepage

ShareThis

Search ReidsItaly.com

This material was last updated January 2011. All information was accurate at the time.

about | contact | faq

» THE REIDSITALY.COM DIFFERENCE «

Copyright © 2008–2012 by Reid Bramblett. Author: Reid Bramblett

Google