How the Medici Shaped the Renaissance

William Landon

Lectures

12

Per lecture

30 min

Total

~6 hrs

Source

The Great Courses

The extraordinary Medici family, through a singular exercise of wealth, political ingenuity, and dynastic power, ruled the city-state of Florence for three centuries. Hugely controversial, both in their own time and among later historians and commentators, the list of what they accomplished is nothing short of astonishing. The Medici were entrepreneurs who achieved extravagant success in commerce, and essentially invented the modern banking system, founding an immensely powerful family bank with branches across the Italian peninsula. Over the centuries, they amassed a staggering treasure trove of paintings, Egyptian and Etruscan statuary, Renaissance sculptures, furniture, tapestries, books and manuscripts, jewels, and luxury objects of every kind, housed within imposing palaces, villas, country estates, and libraries. They built political alliances, patronage networks, and structures of family power that allowed them to dominate Florentine politics, civics, and cultural life, earning Florence international influence and a status as the cultural capital of Europe. They occupied and dominated offices of power, both political and religious, including producing a succession of grand dukes of Tuscany, two queens of France, and the elevation of four members of the Medici family to the papacy. But even beyond their familial prowess and power, their positioning within Florentine society and politics led them to play a key role in the world-changing phenomenon of the Renaissance - the cultural movement following the Middle Ages that saw a “rebirth” in scholarship, art, architecture, politics and philosophy rooted in the rediscovery of classical texts and culture, which famously began in Florence. Through their wealth, influence, and patronage, the Medici were instrumental in encouraging humanistic scholarship, and commissioning iconic works of architecture and countless artistic masterpieces that emblemize the Italian Renaissance. Encounter a Dazzling Story of Dynastic…