Medici

Medici , Italian family that directed the destinies of Florence from the 15th cent. until 1737. Of obscure origin, they rose to immense wealth as merchants and bankers, became affiliated through marriage with the major houses of Europe, and, besides acquiring (1569) the title grand duke of Tuscany, produced three popes ( Leo X , Clement VII , and Leo XI), two queens of France ( Catherine de' Medici and Marie de' Medici ), and several cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church. They also ruled for a brief period (1516-21) the duchy of Urbino.

Influence

The rise of the Medici in Florence coincided with the triumph of the capitalist class over the guild merchants and artisans. Until 1532 the democratic constitution of Florence was outwardly upheld, but the Medici exerted actual control over the government without holding any permanent official position. They were driven from power and expelled from Florence in 1433-34, from 1494 to 1512, and from 1527 to 1530. However, the attempts (such as the Pazzi conspiracy , 1478) of the Florentine republicans to restore the former liberties failed ultimately because of the Medici's wealth and powerful connections.

When their influence began, in the early 15th cent., much of the glorious period of the Renaissance in Florence lay already in the past; however, the magnificence and liberality of many of the members of the house, who were passionate patrons of the arts, literature, and learning, led to Florence's becoming the richest repository of European culture since the Athens of Pericles. Florence as it is today is largely the accomplishment of the Medici. This cultural flowering was accompanied by tremendous economic prosperity and expansion and also by territorial aggrandizement (see Tuscany ) that reached its climax in the 16th cent. The rule of the Medici, though denounced by their enemies as tyrannical, was at first generally tolerant and wise, but became stultifying and bigoted in the 17th and 18th cent.

Family Members

The genealogy of the family is complicated by numerous illegitimate offspring and by the tendency of some of the members to dispose of each other by assassination. The first important member was Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici (1360-1429). His elder son, Cosimo, founded the senior line, which included Piero (1416-69); Lorenzo (Lorenzo il Magnifico); Piero (1471-1503); Pope Leo X; Giuliano, duke of Nemours; Lorenzo, duke of Urbino; Catherine de' Medici, queen of France; Ippolito de' Medici; Alessandro de' Medici; and Pope Clement VII. Giovanni di Bicci's younger son, Lorenzo (d.1440), founded the younger line, which included Lorenzino; Giovanni (delle Bande Nere); and the grand dukes of Tuscany—Cosimo I, Francesco (whose daughter was Marie de' Medici), Ferdinand I, Cosimo II, Ferdinand II, Cosimo III, and Gian Gastone, last of the line.

See separate articles on the most important members of the family.

Bibliography

See L. Collison-Morley, The Early Medici (1936); H. M. M. Acton, The Last Medici (rev. ed. 1958, repr. 1980); M. Brion, The Medici (tr. 1969); C. Hibbert, The House of Medici: Its Rise & Fall (1980); T. Parks, Medici Money (2005). See also bibliographies under Florence and Renaissance.

Medici a powerful Italian family of bankers and merchants whose members effectively ruled Florence for much of the 15th century, and to whom belonged four popes, including Leo X (1513–21) and Clement VII (1523–34), and two queens of France; from 1569 they were grand dukes of Tuscany.
Medicean designating any of the four largest moons of Jupiter (Io, Europa, Ganymede, or Callisto), named by their discoverer Galileo in honour of his patron Cosimo II de' Medici.

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.