MEDICI

On April 26th in the year of our Lord 1478, Lorenzo “The Magnificent” Medici, ruler of Florence and patron of Italy’s Renaissance, was attending Sunday mass with his younger brother Giuliano inside Florence’s Duomo—the architectural masterpiece designed by local genius Filippo Brunelleschi. Inside the cathedral, they were attacked by members of the Pazzi family: Giuliano was killed after being stabbed 19 times. Lorenzo survived.

Had he died like his brother, the world would have been deprived of Michelangelo—one of the greatest artists of all time—and of many extraordinary palaces and masterpieces. In fact, modern museums from New York to Moscow would be half-empty today, as many of the artefacts they house originate from the Renaissance and, more specifically, 15th-century Florence.

At the time, Europe was the world’s leading region, and Italy was its cultural and political heart. Just fifteen years after the failed assassination of the Medici brothers, another prominent Italian—Christopher Columbus—would discover a new continent, changing the course of world history. The very year Lorenzo Medici died—coincidentally—marked the beginning of Florence’s decline, and with it, the waning of the Renaissance and of the Italian peninsula itself. The world’s centre of gravity shifted to the New World, pushing aside the Mediterranean, once the cradle of power, politics, and civilization.

Back to that bloody Sunday in Florence, the “Pazzi Conspiracy” is considered the most gruesome event since the assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket inside Canterbury Cathedral three centuries earlier. Yet, the plot has often been dismissed as a mere family feud between two of Florence’s most prominent dynasties. The Pazzi, like the Medici, were bankers—driven mostly by jealousy towards their competitors who had risen to power and ruled the city. In reality, the Pazzi Conspiracy was far more than a local squabble: it was the most intricate political plot in 15th-century Europe. It also inspired the greatest political treatise of all time: a young boy named Niccolò Machiavelli, then just nine years old, was so affected by the event that he later wrote The Prince, a guidebook for any ruler seeking to avoid assassination and hold on to power indefinitely.

While the Renaissance gifted the world with unparalleled art, literature, and architecture, Italian politics and governance at the time were chaotic. Italy was not even a country, but a fragmented patchwork of city-states and dukedoms, constantly at war over minor issues of power.

The Papal States, which controlled much of central Italy, were no exception. In fact, the Pope himself—Sixtus IV—was the mastermind behind the heinous attack. Lorenzo, acting as a banker, had denied a loan to the Pope, fearing the latter’s ambition to extend his dominion over central Italy. Sixtus IV then turned to the other major Florentine banking family: the Pazzi were more than happy to support Lorenzo’s enemy. Eventually, inspired by the Pope, they attempted to eliminate him.

The Medici family—also known as the House of Medici—first rose to wealth and political prominence in 13th-century Florence through commerce and banking. Beginning in 1434 with the rise to power of Cosimo de’ Medici (known as Cosimo the Elder), the family’s patronage of the arts and humanities made Florence the cradle of the Renaissance: Europe’s scientific, artistic, and cultural rebirth after the dark centuries of the Middle Ages. The Medici produced four popes (Leo X, Clement VII, Pius IV, and Leo XI), and their bloodline intermingled with many of Europe’s royal families. Each year, millions of visitors flock to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence to admire Botticelli’s Venus, Michelangelo’s David, and Piero della Francesca’s masterpieces. It all started with Cosimo: when he moved Florence’s administrative offices into a building called the Uffizi (literally “Offices”), he also opened a small museum inside. That building is now one of the world’s most iconic museums.

The Medici story began around the year 1100, shortly after the Annus Mille (Year 1000), when members of the family left the small village of Cafaggiolo in the Mugello mountains and moved to Florence. Engaging in banking—an activity forbidden to commoners in the Papal States—they rose to become one of the city’s most important families. However, by the late 14th century, their ascent nearly ended abruptly. After about 200 years in Florence, Salvestro de’ Medici became gonfaloniere (standard bearer), the city’s highest public office. He was the first Medici to attain such political stature. But in 1382, he was exiled for oppressive policies, and the family’s influence seemed to vanish. It didn’t.

The true power and glory of the Medici came from another branch of the family, descending from Salvestro’s distant cousin, Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici—founder of the Medici dynasty as history knows it. Giovanni had several sons; the eldest, Cosimo, rose to political power in 1434 after returning from another family exile.

Unlike his cousin, Cosimo was smart enough to be welcomed back as Pater Patriae—Father of the Fatherland. He managed to gain control of the Florentine Republic and turned it into an oligarchy dominated by his relatives. Though he never held formal office, he ruled as an uncrowned monarch for the rest of his life. Known to history as Cosimo the Elder, he lived simply but was a zealous patron of the arts, supporting figures like Lorenzo Ghiberti, Filippo Brunelleschi, Donatello, and Fra Angelico. During Cosimo’s time, the Renaissance flourished. Under his grandson Lorenzo, the Medici reached their apex, and Florence became the cultural capital of Europe.

The reason for such a remarkable reversal of fortunes lies about 300 kilometres north, in another “country”: the Sforza dukedom in Lombardy.

The rise of the Medici was intertwined with the rise of the Sforza in Milan. For centuries during the Middle Ages, Milan—once the capital of the Western Roman Empire and a “free city” under Charlemagne’s Holy Roman Empire—was ruled by the Visconti family, longtime adversaries of Florence. But in 1450, a military commander named Francesco Sforza suddenly became Duke of Milan. He needed financial backing and turned to his old friend Cosimo de’ Medici. Cosimo, ever the banker, granted the loan. In return, Sforza provided military support to Florence. With that alliance, the two cities were no longer enemies. Four years later, the Sforza signed the Peace of Lodi, ushering in decades of tranquillity across Italy—laying the groundwork for the Renaissance to flourish.

As often happens, Cosimo’s heir lacked his father’s gravitas. Piero de’ Medici, nicknamed Gottoso for his struggle with gout, barely survived a coup attempt by Florence’s elite in 1466 and died three years later. His son Lorenzo—just shy of 20—took command. Fortunately, his father had preserved the family fortune.

The Medici reached their zenith with Lorenzo, known as Lorenzo the Magnificent. Despite his large, misshapen nose—due to an accident—he was a poet and a devoted patron of the arts. He supported Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, and Michelangelo—who would gift Florence with the iconic David, the namesake square, and the Medici family tomb. Reportedly, every morning Lorenzo would gaze at a portrait of Galeazzo Maria Sforza—Francesco Sforza’s son—hung in his bedroom. The portrait, painted by Piero Pollaiuolo, depicted Sforza Jr. as a hedonistic dandy, playing with a glove like a woman. Though they were friends and allies, Lorenzo used that image as a reminder of what not to become: a cruel and decadent landlord.

In 1476, Galeazzo was murdered. It was an ominous moment for Lorenzo: with his most important ally gone, the Medici’s hold on Florence began to weaken. Just two years later, the Pope launched his conspiracy using the Pazzi family. Lorenzo survived the cathedral attack with a neck wound. He ruled for another 15 years, but the dynasty’s decline had begun—even though the Medici managed to remain in power for nearly two more centuries.

After Lorenzo’s untimely death at 43, his son Piero took over but soon angered the public by signing a humiliating peace treaty with France. He was exiled in 1494 and died in disgrace. Fifteen years later, in 1512, thanks to the efforts of his brother Giovanni—then a cardinal and later Pope Leo X—the Medici returned to Florence. Under Leo’s humanistic papacy, the family briefly regained European influence.

Piero’s son, also named Lorenzo, regained control of Florence, but it was the swan song for the Medici. Lorenzo Jr.’s daughter, Caterina (1519–1589), would become Queen of France after marrying King Henry II. Three of their four sons would later rule France. Yet the Medici name began to fade from history. By the early 1500s, only a few descendants of Cosimo the Elder remained.

Giulio de’ Medici, the illegitimate son of the murdered Giuliano, renounced power in 1523 to become Pope Clement VII. The brutal and short-lived reign of Alessandro—reputedly Giulio’s own illegitimate son—ended with his assassination in 1537.

In their later years, the Medici abandoned the republican ideals of their forebears and embraced authoritarianism. While this brought stability to Florence and Tuscany, it also led to cultural decline. After Cosimo II—son of Grand Duke Ferdinand and supporter of Galileo—died in 1720, the region suffered under ineffective rule.

The last Medici ruler, Gian Gastone, died without a male heir in 1737, ending the dynasty after nearly 300 years. By agreement among Europe’s great powers—Austria, France, England, and the Netherlands—control of Tuscany passed to Francis of Lorraine. His marriage to Habsburg heiress Maria Theresa (mother of Marie Antoinette) marked the beginning of the long European reign of the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty.