Lorenzo de' Medici in Florence

The story

A city without a king

Florence, in the 15th century, was officially a republic, with magistrates who changed often and councils of citizens. In reality, for some decades, one single family had been in charge behind the scenes: the Medici. They were bankers, and had branches of their bank in many European cities, from Venice to Bruges, from London to Lyon. Money, and friendship with popes and princes, gave them enormous power, even though they had no title of ruler.

It was Lorenzo's grandfather, Cosimo the Elder, who built this system: he paid for public works, helped citizens in difficulty and placed friends in important posts. After him, his son Piero, who suffered from gout, governed for a few years. When Piero died, in December 1469, the leaders of the city turned to his elder son, who was barely twenty: Lorenzo.

A young man in charge

Lorenzo was born in 1449. He had been taught by excellent teachers and studied Latin, Greek, philosophy and poetry, but he could also ride, take part in tournaments and talk with ambassadors and merchants. He was not handsome, with a flattened nose and a slightly nasal voice, but he had a charm that won people over. He was an excellent politician: he knew how to listen, negotiate and wait.

The Florentines began to call him “the Magnificent”, a title which in the 15th century was given to important and generous people. His foreign policy was one of balance: to stop any one state in Italy from becoming too strong, and to keep the larger states at peace. For this reason some historians called him “the needle of the scales” of Italy.

The Pazzi conspiracy

Not everyone was happy with the power of the Medici. The rival Pazzi family, backed by Pope Sixtus IV, who wanted to extend the power of his own family into Tuscany too, organised a conspiracy. On 26 April 1478, during solemn Mass in the Cathedral, the conspirators attacked Lorenzo and his brother Giuliano. Giuliano was stabbed to death. Lorenzo, wounded in the neck, managed to take refuge in the sacristy with the help of his friends.

The Florentines did not rise up against the Medici, as the conspirators had hoped: on the contrary, they sided with Lorenzo and avenged Giuliano. Many of the conspirators were hanged from the windows of the Palazzo della Signoria. The Pope excommunicated Lorenzo and a coalition was formed to make war on him. Between 1479 and 1480, with great courage, Lorenzo went in person to Naples, to negotiate with King Ferrante, and managed to obtain peace.

The patron

Lorenzo was also a great protector of the arts, that is, a patron. Around him he had painters such as Sandro Botticelli, sculptors such as Verrocchio, and poets and philosophers such as Angelo Poliziano and Marsilio Ficino. In the garden near the church of San Marco he kept ancient statues, and there he had young artists study: among them was a boy called Michelangelo, who lived for a time in his house. Lorenzo himself wrote poems, carnival songs and a short narrative poem, in Italian, and helped give dignity to the language of the Florentines.

Lorenzo also collected gems, vases of hard stone and ancient manuscripts, and sent his agents around Europe and the East to look for them. The books gathered by the family became the core of the Medici Laurentian Library, which was opened to readers in 1571 and can still be visited.

He died on 8 April 1492, at the villa of Careggi, at the age of forty-three. He had governed Florence for twenty-three years. It is said that in his last days he wanted the friar Girolamo Savonarola, who preached against luxury, near him, but the details of this episode are uncertain.