Medici. Godfathers of the Renaissance

The Medici family. She gave the Renaissance many outstanding personalities - patrons of the arts and sciences and prominent statesmen. Representatives of the Medici clan ruled the rebellious "cradle of the Renaissance" Florence and occupied the throne of St. Peter, and Catherine de Medici became the strongest and most powerful queen in the history of France ... But how did the humble banking family achieve political power and the ducal crown?

How did the Medici's relations with the greatest people of their era - Galileo and Michelangelo, Donatello and Pico de Mirandola, Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael, Botticelli and the violent reformer of the Roman Catholic Church Savonarola - build? Paul Stratern, in his brilliant study, reveals the role of the Medici in the formation and development of not only the Italian, but also the European Renaissance - a role that is not always unambiguous, but invariably significant.