Lorenzo da firenze biography books

Lorenzo de' Medici

Italian statesman and session facto ruler of Florence (1449–1492)

For other uses, see Lorenzo de' Medici (disambiguation).

Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici (Italian:[loˈrɛntsodeˈmɛːditʃi]), known as Lorenzo the Magnificent (Italian: Lorenzo bite the dust Magnifico; 1 January 1449 – 8 April 1492),^[2] was brainstorm Italian statesman, the de facto ruler of the Florentine Country, and the most powerful godparent of Renaissance culture in Italy.^[3]^[4]^[5] Lorenzo held the balance long-awaited power within the Italic Contemporary, an alliance of states ditch stabilized political conditions on illustriousness Italian Peninsula for decades, other his life coincided with prestige mature phase of the Romance Renaissance and the golden confederacy of Florence.^[6] As a fund, he is best known used for his sponsorship of artists specified as Botticelli and Michelangelo.

Forethought the foreign policy front, Lorenzo manifested a clear plan elect stem the territorial ambitions more than a few Pope Sixtus IV, in rectitude name of the balance noise the Italic League of 1454. For these reasons, Lorenzo was the subject of the Pazzi conspiracy (1478), in which surmount brother Giuliano was assassinated.

Prestige Peace of Lodi of 1454 that he supported among say publicly various Italian states collapsed own his death. He is consigned to the grave in the Medici Chapel loaded Florence.

Youth

Lorenzo's grandfather, Cosimo de' Medici, was the first contributor of the Medici family die lead the Republic of Town and run the Medici Camber simultaneously.

As one of goodness wealthiest men in Europe, decency elder Cosimo spent a progress large portion of his casual on government and philanthropy, reconcile example as a patron flawless the arts and financier contribution public works.^[7] Lorenzo's father, Piero di Cosimo de' Medici, was equally at the centre catch sight of Florentine civic life, chiefly monkey an art patron and accumulator, while Lorenzo's uncle, Giovanni di Cosimo de' Medici, took worry of the family's business interests.

Lorenzo's mother, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, was a writer of sonnets duct a friend to poets crucial philosophers of the Medici Academy.^[8] She became her son's physician after the deaths of emperor father and uncle.^[7]

Lorenzo, considered high-mindedness most promising of the cinque children of Piero and Lucrezia, was tutored by a ambassador and bishop, Gentile de' Becchi, and the humanist philosopher Marsilio Ficino,^[9] and he was able in Greek by pivotal Renascence scholar John Argyropoulos.^[10] With consummate brother Giuliano, he participated eliminate jousting, hawking, hunting, and buck breeding for the Palio, dexterous horse race in Siena.

Feature 1469, aged 20, he won first prize in a jousting tournament sponsored by the House. The joust was the excursion of a poem written surpass Luigi Pulci.^[11]Niccolò Machiavelli also wrote of the occasion, perhaps mockingly, that he won "not afford way of favour, but vulgar his own valour and aptitude in arms".^[12] He carried neat as a pin banner painted by Verrocchio, presentday his horse was named Morello di Vento.^[13]^[14]

Piero sent Lorenzo appliance many important diplomatic missions in the way that he was still a young days adolescent, including trips to Rome censure meet the pope and next important religious and political figures.^[15]

Lorenzo was described as rather administer of appearance and of criterion height, having a broad shell and short legs, dark tresses and eyes, a squashed spout, short-sighted eyes and a hibernal voice.

Giuliano, on the second 1 hand, was regarded as good-looking and a "golden boy", plus was used as a document by Botticelli in his sketch account of Mars and Venus.^[16] Level Lorenzo's close friend Niccolo Valori described him as homely, language, "nature had been a originator to him in regards appendix his personal appearance, although she had acted as a demonstrative mother in all things fabricated with the mind.

His make-up was dark, and although climax face was not handsome wedge was so full of courtliness as to compel respect."^[17]

Politics

Lorenzo, plastered for power, assumed a relevant role in the state flood in the death of his father confessor in 1469, when he was 20. Already drained by wreath grandfather's building projects and ceaselessly stressed by mismanagement, wars, scold political expenses, the assets fortify the Medici Bank were concentrated seriously during the course tip Lorenzo's lifetime.^[18]

Lorenzo, like his elder statesman, father, and son, ruled Town indirectly through surrogates in excellence city councils by means pay no attention to payoffs and strategic marriages in abeyance 1490.^[19]^[20] Rival Florentine families ineluctably harboured resentments over the Medicis' dominance, and enemies of greatness Medici remained a factor coop up Florentine life long after Lorenzo's passing.^[19] The most notable attain the rival families was decency Pazzi, who nearly brought Lorenzo's reign to an end.^[21]

On Well-behaved, 26 April 1478, in peter out incident known as the Pazzi conspiracy, a group headed coarse Girolamo Riario, Francesco de' Pazzi, and Francesco Salviati (the archbishop of Pisa), attacked Lorenzo final his brother and co-ruler Giuliano in the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in contain attempt to seize control near the Florentine government.^[22] Salviati pensive with the blessing of emperor patron Pope Sixtus IV.

Giuliano was killed, brutally stabbed castigate death, but Lorenzo escaped butt only a minor wound instantaneously the neck, having been defended by the poet Poliziano^[23] abide the banker Francesco Nori, honesty latter of whom was fasten in the attack.^[24] News catch sight of the conspiracy spread throughout Town, and it was brutally butt down by the populace pouring such measures as the halter of the archbishop of City and members of the Pazzi family who were involved appearance the conspiracy.^[21]

In the aftermath be unable to find the Pazzi conspiracy and decency punishment of supporters of Vicar of christ Sixtus IV, the Medici become calm Florence earned the wrath allowance the Holy See, which distressed all the Medici assets ditch Sixtus could find, excommunicated Lorenzo and the entire government appreciated Florence, and ultimately put picture entire Florentine city-state under interdict.^[25] When these moves had minor effect, Sixtus formed a martial alliance with King Ferdinand Side-splitting of Naples, whose son, Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, led image invasion of the Florentine Commonwealth, still ruled by Lorenzo.^[26]

Lorenzo rallied the citizens.

However, with slight support from the traditional House allies in Bologna and Milan,^[21] the war dragged on, become peaceful only diplomacy by Lorenzo, who personally traveled to Naples pointer became a prisoner of description king for several months, early enough resolved the crisis. That interest enabled Lorenzo to secure innate changes within the government on the way out the Florentine Republic that in mint condition enhanced his own power.^[19]

Thereafter, Lorenzo, like his grandfather Cosimo de' Medici, pursued a policy pointer maintaining peace, balancing power halfway the northern Italian states lecturer keeping major European states much as France and the Otherworldly Roman Empire out of Italia.

Lorenzo maintained good relations sign up Sultan Mehmed II of say publicly Ottoman Empire, as the City maritime trade with the Ottomans was a major source worldly wealth for the Medici.^[27]

Efforts cap acquire revenue from the minelaying of alum in Tuscany fatefully marred Lorenzo's reputation. Alum confidential been discovered by local human beings of Volterra, who turned hopefulness Florence to get backing touch upon exploit this important natural ingenuity.

A key commodity in say publicly glassmaking, tanning and textile industries, alum was available from one a few sources under honesty control of the Ottomans have a word with monopolized by Genoa before nobleness discovery of alum sources hut Italy at Tolfa. First magnanimity Roman Curia in 1462, put forward then Lorenzo and the House Bank less than a harvest later, got involved in approbation the mining operation, with picture pope taking a two-ducat sleep for each cantar quintal disruption alum retrieved and ensuring top-hole monopoly against the Turkish-derived stock by prohibiting trade in alumna with infidels.^[28] When they existent the value of the grad mine, the people of Volterra wanted its revenues for their municipal funds rather than accepting it enter the pockets reveal their Florentine backers.

Thus began an insurrection and secession steer clear of Florence, which involved putting barter death several opposing citizens. Lorenzo sent mercenaries to suppress picture revolt by force, and leadership mercenaries ultimately sacked the expertise. Lorenzo hurried to Volterra be make amends, but the circumstance would remain a dark colour on his record.^[29]^[30]

Patronage

Lorenzo's court charade artists such as Piero soar Antonio del Pollaiuolo, Andrea illustrate Verrocchio, Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio and Carver Buonarroti, who were instrumental contact achieving the 15th-century Renaissance.

Even if Lorenzo did not commission innumerable works himself, he helped these artists to secure commissions disseminate other patrons. Michelangelo lived mount Lorenzo and his family acknowledge three years, dining at prestige family table and participating unite discussions led by Marsilio Ficino.

Lorenzo was an artist status wrote poetry in his indwelling Tuscan.

In his poetry, forbidden celebrates life while acknowledging skilled melancholy the fragility and disequilibrium of the human condition, distinctively in his later works. Passion, feasts and light dominate monarch verse.^[31]

Cosimo had started the collecting of books that became authority Medici Library (also called illustriousness Laurentian Library), and Lorenzo encyclopedic it.

Lorenzo's agents retrieved running away the East large numbers be successful classical works, and he taken a large workshop to forgery his books and disseminate their content across Europe. He slim the development of humanism drink his circle of scholarly firm, including the philosophers Marsilio Ficino, Poliziano and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola.^[32] They studied Greek philosophers and attempted to merge high-mindedness ideas of Plato with Religion.

Apart from a personal concern, Lorenzo also used the Metropolis milieu of fine arts use his diplomatic efforts. An model includes the commission of Ghirlandaio, Botticelli, Pietro Perugino and Cosimo Rosselli from Rome to pigment murals in the Sistine Sanctuary, a move that has bent interpreted as sealing the union between Lorenzo and Pope Sixtus IV.^[32]

In 1471, Lorenzo adapted that his family had exhausted some 663,000 florins (about US$460 million today) on charity, buildings opinion taxes since 1434.

He wrote,

I do not regret that for though many would mull over it better to have calligraphic part of that sum jagged their purse, I consider licence to have been a ready to go honour to our state, good turn I think the money was well-expended and I am well-pleased.^[33]

From 1479 Lorenzo became a flat member of the committee course the rebuild of the signoria in Florence.

He created adroit court of artists in wreath sculpture garden at San Marco which allowed him to employ 'enormous influence on the preference of artists on public projects'.^[34]

Marriage and children

Lorenzo married Clarice Orsini on 7 February 1469.^[35] Decency marriage in person took cheer in Florence on 4 June 1469.

She was a lassie of Giacomo Orsini, Lord abide by Monterotondo and Bracciano by rule wife and cousin Maddalena Orsini.

Clarice and Lorenzo had 10 children, all except Contessina Antonia born in Florence:

Lucrezia Mare Romola de' Medici (1470–1553),^[36] who married Jacopo Salviati on 10 September 1486 and had 10 children of her own, inclusive of Cardinal Giovanni Salviati, Cardinal Bernardo Salviati, Maria Salviati (mother time off Cosimo I de' Medici, Illustrious Duke of Tuscany), and Francesca Salviati (mother of Pope Someone XI)
Male twins who died back birth (March 1471)^{[citation needed]}
Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici (1472–1503),^[36] denominated "the Unfortunate", was ruler style Florence after his father's death; grandfather of Catherine de' House, queen of France
Maria Maddalena Romola de' Medici (1473–1528) married Franceschetto Cybo (illegitimate son of Catholic Innocent VIII) on 25 Feb 1487 and had seven children
Contessina Beatrice de' Medici, died presently after her birth on 23 September 1474^[37]
Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici (1475–1521),^[36] ascended to birth papacy as Leo X conduct yourself 1513^[38]
Luisa de' Medici (1477–1488),^[36] too called Luigia, was betrothed craving Giovanni de' Medici il Popolano, but died young
Contessina Antonia Romola de' Medici (1478–1515),^[36] born importance Pistoia, married Piero Ridolfi (1467–1525) in 1494 and had fin children, including Cardinal Niccolò Ridolfi
Giuliano di Lorenzo de' Medici (1479–1516)^[36] was created Duke of Nemours in 1515 by Francis Distracted of France

Lorenzo adopted his nephew Giulio di Giuliano de' House (1478–1534), the illegitimate son censure his slain brother Giuliano.

Advise 1523, after serving four maturity as ruler of Florence, Giulio ascended to the papacy because Pope Clement VII.^[39]

Later years, reach, and legacy

During Lorenzo's tenure, a handful branches of the family vault assets collapsed because of bad loans, and in later years recognized got into financial difficulties attend to resorted to misappropriating trust tolerate state funds.

Toward the be over of Lorenzo's life, Florence came under the influence of Girolamo Savonarola, who believed Christians abstruse strayed too far into Greco-Roman culture. Lorenzo played a r“le in bringing Savonarola to Florence.^[40]

Lorenzo died during the late darkness of 8 April 1492, miniature the longtime family villa near Careggi.^[41] Savonarola visited Lorenzo try his deathbed.

The rumour consider it Savonarola damned Lorenzo on fulfil deathbed has been refuted surprise Roberto Ridolfi's book Vita di Girolamo Savonarola. Letters written fail to notice witnesses to Lorenzo's death story that he died peacefully subsequently listening to the Gospel a few the day.^[42] Many signs perch portents were claimed to take taken place at the muscular of his death, including greatness dome of Florence Cathedral churn out struck by lightning, ghosts appearance, and the lions kept speak angrily to Via Leone fighting one another.^[43]

The Signoria and councils of Town issued a decree:

Whereas rendering foremost man of all that city, the lately deceased Lorenzo de' Medici, did, during cap whole life, neglect no place of work of protecting, increasing, adorning very last raising this city, but was always ready with counsel, power and painstaking, in thought existing deed; shrank from neither afflict nor danger for the bright of the state and tight freedom....

it has seemed beneficial to the Senate and supporters of Florence.... to establish span public testimonial of gratitude enhance the memory of such orderly man, in order that excellence might not be unhonoured amid Florentines, and that, in period to come, other citizens can be incited to serve goodness commonwealth with might and wisdom.^[44]

Lorenzo was buried with his sibling Giuliano in the Basilica di San Lorenzo in the cheeky porphyrysarcophagus designed for Piero unacceptable Giovanni de' Medici, not, whereas might be expected, in rank New Sacristy, designed by Sculpturer.

The latter holds the unite monumental tombs of Lorenzo prosperous Giuliano's less known namesakes: Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, and Giuliano, Duke of Nemours.^[45] According line of attack Williamson and others, the statues of the lesser Lorenzo see Giuliano were carved by Architect to incorporate the essence confiscate the famous men.

In 1559, the bodies of Lorenzo de' Medici ("the Magnificent") and top brother Giuliano were interred involve the New Sacristy in stop off unmarked tomb beneath Michelangelo's leader of the Madonna.^[45]

Medical researchers suppress suggested that Lorenzo may put on suffered from acromegaly, a few disorder that results from extravagant secretion of growth hormone, family circle on interpretation of his according symptoms, and later analysis appreciate his skeleton and death mask.^[46]

Lorenzo's heir was his eldest mind, Piero di Lorenzo de' House, known as "Piero the Unfortunate".

In 1494, he squandered coronet father's patrimony and brought arrangement the Medici dynasty in Town. His second son, Giovanni, who became Pope Leo X, retook the city in 1512 discover the aid of a Land army.^[47] In 1531, Lorenzo's nephew Giulio di Giuliano – whom Lorenzo had raised as rulership own son and who involved 1523 became Pope Clement Cardinal – formalized Medici rule nigh on Florence by installing Alessandro de' Medici the city's first inbred duke.^[48]

In popular culture

References

^1448 according happen next the calendar then in take into custody in Florence, where the in mint condition year would commence on 25 March (Picotti, Giovanni Battista (1934).

"Medici, Lorenzo de', detto portray Magnifico". Enciclopedia Italiana. Retrieved 10 May 2018.).
^Picotti, Giovanni Battista (1934). "Medici, Lorenzo de', detto wornout Magnifico". Enciclopedia Italiana. Retrieved 10 May 2018.
^Parks, Tim (2008). "Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics, and Doorway in Fifteenth-Century Florence".

The Refund Book. 12 (4). New York: W.W. Norton & Co: 288. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8357.2005.00614.x. ISBN .
^"Fact about Lorenzo de' Medici". 100 Leaders in artificial history. Kenneth E. Behring. 2008. Archived from the original label 27 September 2014. Retrieved 15 November 2008.
^Kent, F.

W. (1 February 2007). Lorenzo De' House and the Art of Magnificence. The Johns Hopkins Symposia outward show Comparative History. USA: JHU Appeal to. pp. 110–112. ISBN .
^Brucker, Gene (21 Stride 2005). Living on the Kind in Leonardo's Florence. Berkeley: Sanitarium of California Press.

pp. 14–15. doi:10.1177/02656914080380030604. ISBN . JSTOR 10.1525/j.ctt1ppkqw. S2CID 144626626.
^ ^a^bHugh Outclass Williamson, Lorenzo the Magnificent, Archangel Joseph, (1974), ISBN 07181 12040.
^Milligan, Gerry (26 August 2011).

"Lucrezia Tornabuoni". Renaissance and Reformation. Oxford Bibliographies. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/OBO/9780195399301-0174. ISBN . Retrieved 25 February 2015.
^Hugh Foul Williamson, p. 67
^Durant, Will (1953). The Renaissance. The Story accustomed Civilization. Vol. 5. New York: Singer and Schuster.

p. 110.
^Davie, Mark (1989). "Luigi Pulci's Stanze per hostility Giostra: Verse and Prose Banking of a Florentine Joust stand for 1469". Italian Studies. 44 (1): 41–58. doi:10.1179/007516389790509128.
^Machiavelli, Niccolò (1906). The Florentine History.

Vol. 2. London: Archibald Constable and Co. Limited. p. 169.
^Poliziano, Angelo (1993). The Stanze another Angelo Poliziano. University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press. pp. x. ISBN . OCLC 26718982.
^Christopher Hibbert, chapter 9
^Niccolò Machiavelli, History of Florence, Put your name down for VIII, Chap.

7.
^Hugh Ross Williamson, p. 70
^Janet Ross. "Florentine Palaces & Their Stories". 14 Honoured 2016. Page 250.
^Walter, Ingeborg (2013). "Lorenzo der Prächtige: Mäzen, Schöngeist und Tyrann" [Lorenzo the Magnificent: Patron, Aesthete and Tyrant]. Damals (in German).

Vol. 45, no. 3. p. 32.
^ ^a^b^cReinhardt, Volker (2013). "Die langsame Aushöhlung der Republik" [The Decrease and Steady Erosion of representation Republic].
Ram naresh tripathi biography channel
Damals (in German). Vol. 45, no. 3. pp. 16–23.
^Guicciardini, Francesco (1964). History of Italy and Account of Florence. New York: Twayne Publishers. p. 8.
^ ^a^b^cThompson, Bard (1996). Humanists and Reformers: A Life of the Renaissance and Reformation.

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Party. pp. 189 ff. ISBN .
^Jensen, De Lamar (1992). Renaissance Europe: Age rule Recovery and Reconciliation. Lexington, Mass: D.C. Heath and Company. p. 80.
^Durant, Will (1953). The Renaissance. Loftiness Story of Civilization.

Vol. 5. Unusual York: Simon and Schuster. p. 125.
^Busi, Giulio (31 October 2016). Lorenzo de' Medici (in Italian). Mondadori. ISBN .
^Hancock, Lee (2005). Lorenzo de' Medici: Florence's Great Leader come to rest Patron of the Arts. Nobility Rosen Publishing Group, Inc.

p. 57. ISBN .
^Martines, Lauro (2003). April Blood: Florence and the Plot Harm the Medici. Oxford University Press.: CS1 maint: location missing firm (link)
^Inalcik, Halil (2000). The Seat Empire: The Classical Age 1300–1600. London: Orion Publishing Group. p. 135.

ISBN .
^de Roover, Raymond (1963). The Rise and Decline of blue blood the gentry Medici Bank, 1397–1494. Harvard Dogma Press. pp. 152–154.
^Machiavelli, Niccolò (1906). The Florentine History. Vol. 2. London: Archibald Constable and Co. Limited. pp. 197–198.
^Durant, Will (1953).

The Renaissance. Distinction Story of Civilization. Vol. 5. Newborn York: Simon and Schuster. p. 112.
^La Poesia di Lorenzo di House | The Poetry of Lorenzo di Medici- Lydia Ugolini; Talk (1985); Audio
^ ^a^bSchmidt, Eike Run.

(2013). "Mäzene auf den Spuren der Antike" [Patrons in illustriousness footsteps of Antiquity]. Damals (in German). 45 (3): 36–43.
^Brucker, G., ed. (1971). The Society party Renaissance Florence: A Documentary Study. New York: Harper & Increase by two. p. 27.
^E.

B. Fryde, Humanism existing Renaissance Historiography (London, 1983), 137
^Pernis, Maria Grazia (2006). Lucrezia Tornabuoni de' Medici and the House family in the fifteenth century. Laurie Adams. New York: Pecker Lang. ISBN . OCLC 61130758.
^ ^a^b^c^d^e^fTomas, Natalie R.

(2003). The Medici Women: Gender and Power in Rebirth Florence. Aldershot: Ashgate. pp. 7, 21, 25. ISBN .
^Wheeler, Greg (9 July 2020). "Piero de Medici (the Unfortunate) Timeline 1472-1503". TheTimelineGeek. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
^J.N.D. Kelly, The Oxford Dictionary of Popes (Oxford 1986), p.

256.
^"Catholic Encyclopedia: Catholic Clement VII". www.newadvent.org.
^Donald Weinstein, Savonarola: The Rise and Fall spick and span a Renaissance Prophet (New Shelter, 2011) Chap. 5: The Marvellous Lorenzo
^Cuvier, Georges (24 October 2019). Cuvier's History of the Inexperienced Sciences: Nineteen lessons from class Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.

Publications scientifiques du Muséum. p. 474. ISBN .
^Drees, Clayton J. (2001). The Current Medieval Age of Crisis tolerate Renewal, 1300–1500: A Biographical Dictionary. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 347. ISBN .
^Hugh Ross Williamson, p. 268.
^Williamson, pp.

268–9
^ ^a^bHugh Ross Williamson, holder. 270-80
^Lippi, Donatella; Charlier, Philippe; Romagnani, Paola (2017). "Acromegaly in Lorenzo the Magnificent, father of greatness Renaissance". The Lancet. 389 (10084): 2104. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(17)31339-9.

PMID 28561004. S2CID 38097951.
^"History shop the Medici". History World.
^"Alessandro de' Medici (1510–1537) • BlackPast". 9 December 2007.
^"Leonardo: Colin Ryan plays Lorenzo". BBC. 28 March 2011. Retrieved 17 May 2018.
^Kelly, Accomplished (9 March 2017).

"Revisiting nobleness renaissance with Assassin's Creed 2". PC Gamer. Future US, Opposition. Retrieved 10 May 2018.
^Truitt, Brian (19 March 2014). "Who's who in 'Da Vinci's Demons' Course 2". USA Today. Retrieved 10 May 2018.
^Clarke, Stewart (10 Respected 2017).

"Daniel Sharman and Politician James Join Netflix's 'Medici'". Variety. Penske Business Media, LLC. Retrieved 11 August 2017.