Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site
Main
Page This family-friendly site celebrates Italian culture for the enjoyment of children and
adults. Site-Overview
Giotto's famous bell-tower of the Cathedral of Florence
Giotto's early Madonna and Child in the Iconic style
Giotto's Annunciation altarpiece
Giotto's The Lamentation of the Death of Christ
Giotto's Adoration of the Magi with the rare view of Mary reclining
after giving birth, instead of praying on her knees
Giotto's Nativity with the reclining Mary and Joseph who is sitting
attending a fire to keep them warm. I love the playful angels on
the roof of the stables.
One of Giotto's many paintings depicting the life of Saint Francis of
Assisi, decorating the Church of Saint Francis in Assisi
Ghirlandaio decorated Sala del Gigli in the Palazzo Vecchio done in 1482
Ghirlandaio's famous portrait of Giovanna Tornabuoni, a relation by
marriage of the de' Medici
Ghirlandaio's Adoration of the Magi, look closely and you may see a de'
Medici!
Ghirlandaio's Christ in Heaven
Ghirlandaio's beautiful Last Supper, with the typical pose and depiction
of effeminate Peter, crying in Christ's lap (Sorry to those who may like
to believe Dan Brown's interpretation of Da Vinci's Last Supper, but
Peter always looked like a girl during the Renaissance.)
Ghirlandaio's Nativity with a host of Florentine's in attendance
Ghirlandaio's beautiful Visitation
A Ghirlandaio Madonna and Child
Leonardo Da Vinci's most famous painting, a portrait of the young wife
of a Florentine merchant, Giocondo, giving the painting it's Italian
name, La Gioconda. It's been recently said by art experts that she
wears a veiled dress signifying a pregnancy or recent birth, dating the
image soon after the birth of her second son. She went on to
mother 5 children.
Leonardo's Madonna with a Carnation, with his characteristic
architectural and natural background
A Madonna by Leonardo Da Vinci
A portrait sketch of an old man from one of Leonardo's sketch books,
sketches he used when working up his paintings
A Leonardo woman's portrait sketch, a face that he seems to have used in
some of his paintings
A late self-portrait sketch of Leonardo made not long before his death.
He was famous as a young man for his striking beauty, a beauty that was
the envy of Michelangelo, a man known for his small build, and rough and
off-kilter features.
Doni Tondo by Michelangelo
This trilogy by historian/novelist Linda Proud is a real
accomplishment. She manages to bring to life Lorenzo de'
Medici's Italy through characters key to the Italian Renaissance,
but never loses sight of the human aspect of that time of clashing
ideas from the Medieval and the rebirth of classic art and
philosophy. Go to my
Historical Novels set in
Italy page, where I link to her publisher's site,
Godstow Press, where you can read about the books and
enjoy excerpts from the three novels. You can purchase the books
via Amazon.uk.
Just so you know what's happening with the junior branch while I
trace the line of the senior branch...
Lorenzo's descendants were not
happy being the junior branch of the family. Over the years they
rejoiced in any problems the senior branch suffered, and when possible,
caused problems for them.
One of them eventually murdered the last
senior branch ruler, passing the Florentine Lordship and the family
business to the junior branch. But the murderer, who was the
junior branch's rightful heir to the title, was in turn murdered by his
cousin to secure the position of Lord of Florence for himself.
When it comes to the de' Medici, truth is stranger than fiction.
More about all that below...here's an image of Lorenzo the Elder by Bronzino, painted long after Lorenzo's death.
Lorenzo the Elder, father of the junior branch of
the family, that will eventually take over from the senior branch when
it dies out, by the hand of someone from the junior branch, so-Medici!
Cosimo had three sons, and his eldest was Piero I de' Medici, il Gottoso (the Gouty).
We now know that his illness was more likely an inherited
form of arthritis called Forestier's Disease that left him at times
completely immobile. Piero lived from 1416 to 1469.
Piero I from a fresco in the Medici Palace chapel by Gozzoli
Piero
took over the family business and the power behind the Florentine state. Piero suffered not only from Gout but also lung disease and general poor
health all his life long.
Piero I only ran the family business from his father's death in 1464 to
his own death in 1469, 5 years in which he:
Seemingly, he lacked his father's political savvy.
But one thing Piero I did excel in was his tastes in art and for rare
books, perhaps inherited from his father Cosimo. Unlike his
father, Piero had a
reputation as a studious and shy deep-thinker.
Piero commissioned works from
Botticelli including his
famous Adoration of the Magi and a fresco series in the Medici Palace chapel by Gozzoli of the procession of the Magi to Jesus on his birth.
Both those works famously depict members of the de' Medici family as
participants in Biblical history.
And in the procession in the fresco which shows the
procession beginning at the Medici country
seat of Cafaggiolo, members of the de' Medici family are shown
together with other prominent Florentines in the procession behind the
youngest of the three kings (fresco detail
below).
Having oneself added to the Bible may
seem egotistical, but it can be argued that the paintings show not the
Biblical story, but the yearly pageant by the Florentine Brotherhood of
the Magi (of which Cosimo and his family were members) that went from
the countryside into Florence down the Via Larga.
Villa Cafaggiolo
is privately owned today and divided into luxury rental apartments.
Cafaggiolo in the fresco by Gozzoli
Piero I had two sons, Lorenzo and Giuliano.
Lorenzo, the elder
son, took over the family business and power in Florence at a time
historians now call the Renaissance's Golden Age, when his father died
in 1469 at the age of 53. (Technically, Lorenzo shared power with
his bother, Giuliano.)
Lorenzo lived from 1449 to 1492, taking
power at the age of 20, and dying at the age of 43.
This wasn't a long life, but it was long enough to get himself the title
of Il Magnifico, the Magnificent.
Lorenzo immediately commissioned the artist Andrea Verrocchio to create the classically styled tombs for his father and
uncle in the Old Sacristy of the Basilica of San Lorenzo.
An
interesting side note, is the introduction of printing in Florence in
1471. Printers from northern Europe spread throughout all the rich
Italian city-states around this time, setting up printing workshops
either as private businesses, or under the patronage of a local merchant
family.
Studious Piero had seen to it that his sons, Lorenzo and his
Giuliano, were educated by the best minds in Florence, a
center for learning, and he himself was patron to writers, artists, composers
and architects. But it was Lorenzo who had the mind and spirit to
become the classical Renaissance Man.
Lorenzo excelled in all the arts
and diplomacy and politics and in physical challenges, but less so in
the family business of banking.
Part of the problem was a growing
argument with Pope Sixtus IV who wanted to unite Italy under the Papal
States. The Pope eventually took away
the Papal business from the de' Medici bank .
Like his father before him, Lorenzo also had himself painted into
many of the frescos he paid for, so we have lots of images of him, not
all consistent likenesses. Some were painted after his death
from other portraits.
The portrait above appears to portray
Lorenzo's squashed nose bridge correctly. He inherited this trait
from his mother, and both were unable to taste or smell anything because
of it.
Lorenzo's Mother, Lucrezia
This posthumous portrait below seems to attempt to correct the nose,
idealize his famous mane of dark hair, and show to a lesser extent
is well-documented olive-colored skin. He is wearing the
red robe of a citizen of Florence.
Lorenzo was very fond of his four-year-younger brother,
Giuliano, and co-ruler for
the beginning of his rule. Giuliano is the
proud-looking man in the image below (although some call him 'pensieroso',
thoughtful).
Giuliano fathered an
illegitimate child, Giulio, who was born after Giuliano was
murdered by the de' Medici business rivals, the Pazzi, who were backed
by Pope Sixtus IV, in 1478. The assassination took place while
the brothers were
attending Easter service in church, of all places.
Lorenzo was stabbed in the attack too
but managed to escape. His brother couldn't escape and was stabbed to
death in full view of everyone.
Lorenzo named his next born son
after his brother, and brought Giulio, who was born after the death of
his father, up as his own
son.
Lorenzo had all the boys educated by the brightest minds in Florence.
The three boys, Giuliano, Giovanni and
Giulio, are depicted in this piece of the famous Ghirlandaio
fresco 'Confirmation of the Rule', about the moment when the Pope
allowed St. Francis to set up his community in Assisi.
The event in
St. Francis's life is moved from Rome to Florence, and the de' Medici
are painted in attendance, the masters of public relations that they
were. This
image links to the Web Gallery of Art's explanation.
After the assassination of his brother
and the attempt on his life, there was a popular revolt in Florence and
all the supporters of the Pazzi family were killed by mobs. In a
bizarre bit, they even dug up the Pazzi father and had fun
hanging him and throwing his body into the river, twice. (Odd
goings on in the days before television.) Lorenzo also had the Archbishop of Pisa, who was also behind the
attack, hung. This lead to a war with the Papal Forces, the
excommunication of Lorenzo, and all of Florence! Leonardo da Vinci
took advantage of the events to make a few unusual sketches, like this
one below. All I can say is, artists must be like cops and doctors, less affected by
gruesome sights than most. Here's a link to a book that recounts of all this in great detail, if
you're interested in reading more. Lorenzo personally
brought about peace in 1479 by negotiating directly, and in person,
alone, with the Pope's Neapolitan
allies. Actually he bribed them to stop supporting the Pope, but
he spent a year in Naples cementing the friendship, and charming King Ferdinando d'Aragona with his company and high culture.
Lorenzo also used the new printing technology to
have his side of the whole Pazzi Conspiracy affair distributed to the
people of Florence and beyond. When he returned to Florence in
1480, a council was created to run Florence's affairs, but like his
grandfather Cosimo before him, Lorenzo made sure he controlled a
majority of the council members. He ruled Florence from behind the
scenes. Pope Sixtus IV died in 1484 and was replaced by Pope Innocent VIII, a
supporter of the de' Medici, and from this point on, the de' Medici
built their influence in the Vatican by sons ordained as priests and
Cardinals, and even eventually 3 de' Medici Popes.
Lorenzo spent much of his short life securing the
peace by gathering all the power he could to himself, and keeping the
masses happy, even if it meant breaking the bank, the de' Medici bank,
which he cleaned out, and he even stole from the state to cover the debts.
Lorenzo was also a famous patron of the humanities
and the arts with projects such as: Lorenzo even let a young
prodigy, Michelangelo (when he was younger than in this
portrait from his time in Rome where he died), live at the
Palace as a member of his family and be educated together with Lorenzo's children.
This was the beginning of a complex relationship between the de' Medici
and Michelangelo.
Michelangelo was grateful to the de' Medici for
their affection and support of his art and architecture, but he was a
patriotic Florentine above all else. He wanted the Florentine
Republic to return, with the powerful families subordinate to the will
of the people. The love-hate relationship lasted his whole life. Lorenzo commissioned Giuliano da Sangallo,
an architect in a long line of architects, to build the Villa Poggio a
Caiano, near Prato, Tuscany, in 1485. His son Giovanni completed
it. The grounds were altered greatly over the years. The de'
Medici successors donated it to the state in 1919. Today it's open to the public.
Lorenzo also expanded his father's and grandfather's library, now
called the
Laurentian Library. He purchased rare books from the Near East
and set up a translation and copy center to disperse the books
throughout Europe. He supported the great minds of his time such
as humanist-neo-Platonic philosophers, linguists and translators: Lorenzo also hired illuminators to decorate
his books. This is a page of one of his prayer books (yes, he was
a secular leader, but a religious man) decorated by
the artist Cherico.
Lorenzo died in 1492, six months before Columbus
reached the Americas. Lorenzo died at the young age of 43.
Although he suffered from the hereditary arthritis that his father had
suffered from, he died from some sort of stomach aliment, most likely.
Machiavelli reported that Lorenzo was suffering from severe stomach
pains leading up to his death, possibly from bleeding ulcers but more
probably from stomach
cancer. The encouragement of secular art and
humanist thought, did not please everyone in this very religious time,
when the Vatican exerted not just spiritual power but also secular power
backed by Papal Armies. An account at the
time of Lorenzo's death, by an eye-witness, says Fra' Girolamo Savonarola, a religious
fanatic who had originally returned to Florence under Lorenzo's
protection, but who now preached against Lorenzo and the de' Medici,
came to pay his respects to the dying man. Despite popular claims
to the contrary, it was a respectful parting, and Lorenzo died in peace
at Villa Careggi. Many scholars use Lorenzo's death as the marking
of the end of Florence's being the center of the Italian Renaissance.
From that time on, Rome and the Popes, one of whom was Lorenzo's son, the
other his nephew, would be the main setting and sponsor of the Italian
Renaissance, until it was crushed by the Vatican's counter-reformation
and Inquisition. Here's a link to a biography of Lorenzo. One result of Columbus's trips to the Americas was
a flood of new food and plants from the New World to Europe, with the
royal houses, including the de' Medici, enjoying everything first.
An unpleasant import from the New World by Columbus and his crews was an
extremely virulent form of
syphilis. The sexually transmitted infection first hit Naples in
1494 and spread quickly across Europe. After 100 years, it was
reduced greatly in virulence, but there was still only minimal treatment for it,
and no cure, until after WWII when antibiotics were available. The
early treatments were mercury and later arsenic, besides treatments for
the many symptoms which mimicked other illnesses. A saying at the
time was "spend a night with Venus and a lifetime with Mercury".
Venus represented love or sex with a prostitute, Mercury represented
the medicine mercury for the syphilis you got from the prostitute. Over the years described in the following sections,
the de' Medici family
suffered from the scourge like all others in Europe.
The infection
caused miscarriages, early deaths, insanity, heart problems, poor
eyesight, and lethargy, among
other symptoms.
It was transmitted to children in the womb,
causing still higher numbers of still-births and infant mortality rates,
especially among boys, generally more susceptible to prenatal illnesses.
When you review the history of the royal houses of
Europe during this period, it is clear that syphilis influenced much of
European history: When a ruler or his heir had syphilis, it was
generally known to the royal physicians but also generally not made
public for fear of risking the leader's position through admitting this
weakness, a weakness that everyone knew led to insanity and erratic
behavior. But rest assured, in this time of: the de' Medici suffered the consequences of the
disease and it affected their reign. To the next section: Florentine Independence and the End of the
Florentine Renaissance, Piero II and Lorenzo II in Exile
The
de' Medici Dynasty
The family's history parallels
Italy's history. I've divided it into sections listed in the left
column.
This concise history is a helpful guide to read before
traveling to Florence and the Vatican.
The de' Medici Dynasty and Italian History
The Late-Middle-Ages, Early Renaissance, Giovanni: The Founder
The Early Renaissance, Cosimo and Lorenzo: The Elders
The High Renaissance, Piero and his son, Lorenzo the Magnificent
Florentine Independence and the End of the
Florentine Renaissance, Piero II and Lorenzo II in Exile
The Roman Renaissance, Cardinal Giulio de' Medici and Pope Leo X
(Giovanni de' Medici)
The End of Florentine Independence, Pope Clement VII (Giulio de' Medici), Alessandro, and
Caterina de' Medici
The Late Renaissance, The Grand Duke and Duchess of Tuscany: Cosimo de' Medici
and Eleonora di Toledo
The Age of Discovery, Francesco and Ferdinando: Two Very Different Brothers
The Age of Reason and The Enlightenment, The Decline of de' Medici Reason and Enlightened
Governance
The High Renaissance
Piero and his son, Lorenzo the Magnificent
Most of the attributions you'll see are fishy. The best
scholarship is on the
Web Gallery of Art site.
Villa Cafaggiolo
Lorenzo de Medici 'The Magnificent'
Portrait of Lorenzo De' Medici 'The Magnificent'
Portrait of Giuliano de' Medici (1478-1534) c.1480
Villa Poggio a Caiano from a Series of Lunettes Depicting Views of The Medici Villas, 1599
Syphilis's Affect on the de' Medici and History
