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The Medici

Power, Money, and Ambition in the Italian Renaissance
Mar 01, 2018tjdickey rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
Strathern presents an extremely readable tale of the rise and fall of the lasting Renaissance dynasty. The Medici stepped from their initial foundations as a local house of bankers to international prominence, financing popes and emperors, and eventually becomes popes and royal figures themselves. The story here sweeps along with the many pillars of early modern European civilization: Botticelli, Leonardo, and Michelangelo; Brunelleschi and Benvenuto Cellini; Pico della Mirandola and Machiavelli; Savonarola and Martin Luther; even the later Medici patronage of Galileo gets a chapter. Over the course of history we see a succession of Medici acting in Strathern's words, as "godfathers" of society, of the Florentine people, and even of the Renaissance itself.