Medici

a Florentine family that played an important role in the political and economic life of medieval Italy.

Members of the Medici family founded a trading-banking company that was one of the largest in 15th-century Europe. From 1434 to 1737 (with interruptions from 1494 to 1512 and from 1527 to 1530), they ruled Florence. In the 14th century the Medici, who belonged to the popolo grasso (upper class), waged a vigorous struggle against the feudal nobility. The first prominent member of the family was Salvestro de’ Medici (1331-88), who helped provoke and then used the 1378 uprising of the ciompi (artisans of the lowest class) to consolidate his family’s political and economic position. Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici (1360-1429) carried out extensive trading-banking operations, becoming papal banker and opening branches of his company in Bruges, London, Paris, and other cities.

The main line. Cosimo the Elder (1389-1464), son of Giovanni di Bicci, was Florence’s wealthiest man and expanded the scale of operations of the Medici bank. He carried on a struggle against the Albizzi family and in 1434 became to all intents and purposes sole ruler (signor) of Florence (which retained republican institutions in form). Patron of scholars and artists, he contributed to the development of Renaissance culture. Piero the Gouty (1416-69), son of Cosimo, ruled from 1464. Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449-92), son of Piero, ruled from 1469. Virtually ending the system of republican government, he became sole tyrant of Florence. He maintained his authority through terror, harshly suppressing the 1478 conspiracy directed by members of the Pazzi family against Medici tyranny. Lorenzo was a poet and philosopher. Under his rule the Florentine political regime was “aristocratized.”

Piero (1472-1503), Lorenzo’s son, was expelled in 1494 from Florence by the insurgent people under Savonarola. Giovanni (1475-1521), Piero’s brother, became pope (Leo X) in 1513. After restoration of Medici tyranny in Florence in 1512, he became to all intents and purposes its ruler, although in 1512-13 the nominal ruler was his younger brother, Giuliano (1479-1516), who was granted the title duke of Nemours by the French king in 1515, and from 1513 to 1519 the nominal ruler was Lorenzo (1492-1519), Piero’s son. Catherine de’ Medici (1519-89), Lorenzo’s daughter, by marrying Henry II became queen of France. Giulio (1477 or 1478 to 1534), nephew of Lorenzo the Magnificent, was pope (Clement VII) from 1523 to 1534. Ippolito (1510-35), Giuliano’s son and nominal ruler of Florence from 1524, was expelled from the city in 1527. Alessandro (1510-37) ruled from 1530, after Medici tyranny was restored in Florence. In 1532 the Florentine state became a duchy, and Alessandro accordingly became duke. His murder brought the main line of the Medici to an end. Members of the family’s collateral line became rulers of Florence.

The collateral line. Cosimo I (1519-74), duke of Florence from 1537, subjugated Siena, united all Tuscany, and received in 1569 the title of grand duke of Tuscany. His grandson, Cosimo II (1590-1621), grand duke of Tuscany from 1609, was completely subordinate to the Spanish Hapsburgs (as were all subsequent dukes of Tuscany from the Medici family). Gian Gastone (1671-1737), great-grandson of Cosimo II, was the last grand duke of Tuscany from the Medici family; he had no children. Extinction of the family line came with the death of Gian Gastone’s sister, Anna Maria Ludovica (1667-1743). A French queen, Marie de Medicis (1573-1642), the wife of Henry IV and granddaughter of Cosimo I, belonged to a collateral line of the family.