To talk about Florence without mentioning the Medici family would be meaningless: the mark left by this dynasty on the city transcends space and time: it is everywhere and endures beyond the centuries.
The French know Catherine de Medici – whose legend is unjustly dark, and Marie de Medici, whom posterity judges harshly when it does not completely forget her. Yet they each reigned over France.
The Italians, for their part, probably remember Cosimo de Medici and Lorenzo the Magnificent, the two major figures of a family whose power is exercised for a long time in an underground manner thanks to the financing of institutions, hospitals and artists.
Let’s start from the beginning.
Of modest origin, the Medici family appears in the 12th century in the Florence region, at first farmers, then doctors (hence the name medici) or apothecaries, which explains the existence on their future coat of arms of six balls supposed to represent the pills manufactured in the pharmacy of their ancestors.
Still poor, they probably emigrate to Florence during the 13th century to take advantage of the economic expansion that the city is experiencing at the time. They quickly devote themselves to foreign exchange and banking activities, which will soon ensure them increasing power in Italy and Europe.
The Medici bank is founded in 1397 by Giovanni de Medici and it continues to establish the influence and political power of this ambitious family, helped by a black plague that leads to the bankruptcy, if not the death, of its competitors. The branches in Venice and Rome are opened in 1408, followed by those in Naples, Milan, Pisa, Geneva, Lyon, Avignon, Bruges and London. Huge loans are granted to European sovereigns and successive popes.
Giovanni’s son, Lorenzo the Elder, continues to manage the bank, but it is in the middle of the 15th century, under the direction of the latter’s son, Cosimo de Medici, known as the Elder, that the bank becomes the most profitable and most renowned in Europe.
Cosimo the Elder, who was born in 1389, receives a humanist education, learning Latin, Greek, French and German. He travelled around Europe inspecting the branches of the family bank, travelled for two years in the Holy Roman Empire, in France and Flanders, then for three years in Rome.
As an adult, he is gifted with remarkable political acumen and opposes the oligarchic regime then in place in Florence.
The theory is that Florence has been a republic since the Middle Ages, governed by a council of nine elected officials: eight priors from the city’s guilds and the gonfalonier of justice, that is to say the president of the council, belonging to the first family of one of the city’s districts. In reality, power is soon to be taken by the Medici, who manage to divert the elections to their advantage by ensuring that the elected officials are always favorable to them.
Cosimo the Elder avoids plots and life imprisonment thanks to corruption, goes into exile in Venice while maintaining his control over Florence: his Florentine supporters demand immediate repayment of their loans from the Medici’s debtors, gradually paralyzing the economy of Florence.
Cosimo de Medici returns to Florence a year after his flight. His influence is immense both on Florence and on Italy as a whole, thanks to his immense fortune and the subsidiaries of the family bank. He is the de facto leader of the Republic of Florence, while maintaining its democratic appearances.
Cosimo understands well that political influence also comes through the arts. His education naturally led him towards patronage and it is thanks to the Medici that the Renaissance will see the light of day.
The Florence Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore is the best example of this influence. Although of imposing size, the building remained for a long time like a wound in the heart of the city because the construction of the dome proved technically impossible. It is under the patronage of Cosimo de Medici that the architect Filippo Brunelleschi succeeds in 1436 in building the largest masonry dome ever built – thanks to a double dome, one interior whose ingenious assembly of bricks allows to support the other, exterior.
The feat is certainly architectural but also political because it further establishes the power and influence of the Medici family.
The Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral is accompanied by Giotto’s bell tower, whose construction began in 1298 and lasted for around fifty years, and the Baptistery of Saint John the Baptist, the patron saint of the city, dedicated to the investiture of knights, oaths and celebrations dedicated to Saint John the Baptist.
It is also under the patronage of Cosimo de Medici that Fra Angelico undertakes the pictorial decoration of the San Marco convent, each monastic cell of which displays a fresco representing an episode from the New Testament.
The Medici-Riccardi Palace reflects the power of this influent family. Built between 1444 and 1459 for Cosimo de Medici, the palace hides the family’s wealth behind its severe façade.
The palace has a chapel whose religious character of the fresco barely conceals the glorification of the various members of the Medici family. The Chapel of the Magi, painted by Benozzo Gozzoli, presents a green landscape that evokes, under the cover of the Gardens of Paradise, the Florentine countryside. The procession of the Magi actually depicts the Medici and their friends. They are beautiful, richly dressed, have traveled the world and are accompanied by exotic beasts.
The Chapel of the Princes, a mausoleum whose idea was formulated by Cosimo de Medici but whose realization would take place later, is designed by Matteo Nigetti who completes its construction in 1640. The Chapel of the Princes perfectly reflects court art and the collaboration between designers and patrons. Octagonal in shape, the opulent chapel clad in colored marble inlaid with semi-precious stones is topped by a 59-meter-high dome that would not be built until the 18th century and is surpassed only by the dome of Florence Cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore.
The immense sarcophagi are in fact empty: the remains of the Medici are buried in the crypt below.
The coats of arms of the sixteen Tuscan cities under the control of the Medici run along the interior walls of the Chapel of the Princes.
Under the government of Cosimo’s grandson, Lorenzo the Magnificent, Florence reaches its peak: the city enjoys great prosperity and is a leading intellectual and artistic center. The Republic retains its institutions, but reforms continue to empty them of substance. Lorenzo the Magnificent governs fully, without behaving like a despot. However, he comes up against the authority of Pope Sixtus IV who, wishing to extend his authority in Tuscany, plots with the Kingdom of Naples and with the rival Medici family – the Pazzi – to remove Lorenzo. What will remain in the historical annals as the Pazzi conspiracy in 1478 ends up with the assassination of Giuliano, Lorenzo’s brother. The Florentines engage in a bloody repression of the attackers and Lorenzo will, in a perilous mission, conclude in 1480 a peace treaty with the King of Naples. The restored peace increases his popularity – he takes advantage of it to further strengthen his power. Like his grandfather, he encourages arts and literature to assert his prestige and his patronage allows the spread of the excellence of Florentine artists throughout Europe. He forms close ties with his artists – whether Verrocchio, Lippi, Botticelli, da Vinci or Michelangelo – and supports philosophers.
His premature death in 1492 marks the end of the glory of the Medici, the end of their power legitimized by the people – and the end of the apogee of the Quattrocento.
Lorenzo’s son, Pietro II de’ Medici, is ousted from Florence in 1494 by Savonarola, the prior of the convent of San Marco, who castigates in his sermons the moral depravity of the Church and the Medici family. Savonarola prophesies the arrival of a new Cyrus to purify Italy – and the prediction seems to come true when the King of France, Charles VIII, who claims the throne of the Kingdom of Naples, declares war on the Republic of Florence. Pietro II de’ Medici, seeing the French army approaching Florence, gives in without negotiation to Charles VIII’s demands and these concessions, considered humiliating, provoke the anger of the Florentines and the flight of Pietro II to Venice. Savonarola, who negotiated better with the French sovereign, is brought to the head of the Republic of Florence and he establishes a puritan theocracy where works of art, paintings, jewels, mirrors, cosmetics and books are thrown into bonfires of the vanities. Savonarola is finally burned in public in 1498 and after a few years marked by strong political instability, Florence finds the Medici again, who returns from their exile with the support of the Spanish army and Pope Julius II in 1512.
The influence and government of the new generations of Medici are no longer republican and the Republic of Florence is considered a personal asset from which they drew endlessly.
In 1539, Cosimo I de Medici marries the daughter of the Viceroy of Naples, Eleanor of Toledo. This marriage allows the Medici to form lasting alliances with foreign powers, and Eleanor’s constant patronage greatly influence cultural and artistic exchanges between Florence and Spain.
While the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi remained the private home of the Medici family for several decades, the Palazzo Vecchio – a medieval palace completed in 1314 dedicated to the seigneurie, that is, the government of the Florentine Republic – becomes the official residence of Cosimo I and Eleanor of Toledo in 1540.
The couple moves again in 1549 to the Palazzo Pitti, which soon sees the Boboli Gardens adorn it.
Cosimo I moves the seat of government to the Uffizi and the three buildings – the Palazzo Vecchio, the Uffizi and the Pittio Palace – will soon be connected by the so-called Vasari Corridor, which is over a kilometer long and passes over the streets and the Arno river, allowing members of the Medici family to pass from one to the other discreetly.
The last heiress of the Medici line, Anna Maria Luisa dies in 1743 and donates the immense wealth accumulated by her family over four centuries to the Tuscan State, on the condition that no precious objects would leave the city of Florence and that the collections would be open to the public.
The Medici would have ruled the Republic of Florence for a long time, but their greatest legacy would probably be artistic: without this family, the Renaissance would probably not have seen the light of day.
April 24, 2026
