Medici. Italian family of bankers and merchants that ruled Florence and later Tuscany for most of the period from 1434 to 1737 and was famous for its patronage of learning and the arts throughout the
Renaissance. Unlike most of the great Italian ruling dynasties, the Medici were not primarily military men, gaining their power through wealth and political astuteness rather than force. Their influence extended beyond the city and the region, for the family produced three popes and two queens of France.
The Medici name appears in Florentine records as early as the 12th century, but the real founder of the family fortune was
Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici (1360–1429), who became one of the leading bankers in Italy and in 1421 was appointed gonfalonier (head of Florence's governing council). He also began the family tradition of art patronage, notably by commissioning
Brunelleschi to build the Old Sacristy of the church of S. Lorenzo in 1419. His son
Cosimo (1389–1464) was effectively ruler of Florence from 1434, although in theory he was an ordinary citizen of the republic. His major artistic undertaking was the building of the family palace (now known as the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi), designed by
Michelozzo and begun in 1445. The other artists he employed included
Donatello and
Uccello, and he was an important collector of manuscripts, founding what is now the Laurentian Library in Florence. His son
Piero (1416–69), known as Piero the Gouty, is best remembered in artistic terms for commissioning Benozzo
Gozzoli's celebrated frescos in the family palace.
Piero's son and successor
Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449–92) was the most famous member of the family. A poet and scholar, he had a great interest in the classical world and made a fine collection of antiquities, including sculpture, gems, and cameos. He also patronized some of the best contemporary artists, including the young
Michelangelo, who was treated almost like an adopted son (he lived in the Medici Palace for a time and had access to Lorenzo's sculpture garden, which served as a kind of informal art
academy). Lorenzo's most important architectural commission was the Villa Medici at Poggio a Caiano, near Florence, designed by Giuliano da Sangallo and built in the 1480s. For another villa, near Volterra, he commissioned paintings from
Botticelli and other artists. This building has been destroyed, but Botticelli produced other work for the Medici; his
Primavera and
Birth of Venus were certainly owned by the family and were perhaps painted for Lorenzo's second cousin
Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco (1463–1503). Lorenzo the Magnificent was succeeded by his son
Piero (1471–1503), who was exiled from Florence in 1494 after being forced to make humiliating concessions to Charles VIII of France, who had invaded Italy.
The Medici were absent from Florence until 1512, when Piero's brother
Giuliano (1479–1516) returned and assumed power. From 1527 to 1532 the family was again expelled, then
Alessandro (1511–37), an illegitimate descendant of Lorenzo the Magnificent, regained control and assumed the title of Duke of Florence. A despotic ruler, he was assassinated in 1537 and succeeded by a distant cousin
Cosimo (1519–74), who restored stability to the city. In 1557 Cosimo gained control of Siena and most of its dependent territories, giving him dominion over much of the region, and in 1569 Pope Pius V awarded him the hereditary title of Grand Duke of Tuscany. Unlike some other Medici rulers, Cosimo was not a connoisseur, but he appreciated the propaganda value of art and he spent lavishly on glorifying himself and his family and on embellishing Florence.
Bronzino was his favourite artist, and the others he employed included
Ammanati,
Cellini,
Giambologna,
Pontormo, and
Vasari, who designed the
Uffizi, originally used as offices but soon adapted to include gallery space for the family art collections. Its great collection of artists' self-portraits was founded by Cardinal
Leopoldo de' Medici (1617–75), who in this way made perhaps the most distinctive contribution to the arts of any of the later members of the family. Cosimo's descendants ruled until 1737, when the last Medici grand duke,
Gian Gastone, died without a male heir and was succeeded by a distant relative, Francis Stephen, Duke of Lorraine. At this point Gian Gastone's sister
Anna Maria Luisa (1667–1743) presented the family collections to the city of Florence.
The three Medici popes were Leo X (reigned 1513–21), Clement VII (1523–34), and Leo XI (reigned for a month in 1605); the first two were notable art patrons. Leo X (born
Giovanni de' Medici in 1475) was the second son of Lorenzo the Magnificent. As pope he continued his predecessor Julius II's projects in the rebuilding of St Peter's and the decoration of the Vatican Stanze (see
Raphael). His extravagant spending (on war and personal pleasures as well as art) left the papal treasury in heavy debt. Clement VII (born
Giulio de' Medici in 1478) was a nephew of Lorenzo the Magnificent. The artists he patronized included Cellini, Michelangelo, and
Sebastiano del Piombo. ( Giovanni Angelo Medici (1499–1565), who became Pius IV in 1559, came from a Milanese family that was not related to the Florentine Medici.)
The two Medici queens of France were
Catherine de' Medici (1519–89), known in France as Catherine de Médicis, and
Maria de' Medici (1573–1642), known in France as Marie de Médicis. Catherine was the wife of Henry II and after his death in 1559 she was regent or adviser to three of their sons who became king in turn: Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III. The artists she patronized included Niccolò dell'
Abate, Germain
Pilon, and Francesco
Primaticcio. Maria was the second wife of Henry IV and after his death in 1610 she became regent for their son Louis XIII.
Rubens painted a great cycle of paintings glorifying her life (1622–5, Louvre, Paris). The image it presents of her is far from the truth, for she was politically inept and ended her life in exile.
