The Medici family (the Florentine banking and political dynasty that dominated Florentine political life for most of the period between 1434 and 1743, from the rise of Cosimo de' Medici the Elder as the effective ruler of Florence in 1434 to the death of the last Medici Grand Duke, Gian Gastone, in 1737, with the specific interruption of 1494-1512 and 1527-1530 when the family was expelled from Florence by republican revolutions) is the single family most consequential for the specific visual culture of the Italian Renaissance: the Medici weren't merely the patrons of Botticelli, Michelangelo, Leonardo, Donatello, Ghirlandaio, and Brunelleschi, they were the specific economic mechanism that made the Renaissance patronage system possible, converting the profits of the Medici bank (the banking network with branches in Rome, Venice, Milan, Bruges, London, and Geneva, which handled the papal finances and the international wool and silk trade) into commissions that established the artistic vocabulary of the Western tradition for the next five centuries.
The three Medici who matter most for the cultural history: Cosimo de' Medici il Vecchio (1389-1464, "Pater Patriae," the founder of Medici political dominance, the patron of Brunelleschi's Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana and of Donatello's workshop, the man who established the Medici bank as the most powerful financial institution in Europe). Lorenzo de' Medici il Magnifico (1449-1492, the poet-politician who ran Florence as a de facto prince without the title, the patron of Botticelli's Primavera and Birth of Venus, the man who recognized the young Michelangelo's talent in the sculpture garden of San Marco and invited him to live in the Medici palace at age 14). And Cosimo I de' Medici (1519-1574, the first Grand Duke of Tuscany, the creator of the Uffizi as a government office building, the patron of Vasari and Bronzino, the ruler who converted Medici family power from Florentine banking wealth into European royal status).
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The Medici Sites in Florence
The Medici Chapels and San Lorenzo
The Cappelle Medicee (the Medici Chapels. Piazza di Madonna degli Aldobrandini, adjacent to the Basilica di San Lorenzo. Open Tuesday-Saturday 8:15-13:50. Admission approximately €9): the two Medici funerary spaces, the Sagrestia Nuova (the New Sacristy designed by Michelangelo 1520-1534, with the tomb sculptures of Lorenzo Duke of Urbino and Giuliano Duke of Nemours, the "Dawn," "Dusk," "Day," and "Night" allegories that are the most concentrated group of Michelangelo sculpture in any single space outside the Sistine Chapel) and the Cappella dei Principi (the 17th-century Medici Grand Ducal mausoleum, the most expensive building project in Florentine history, covered floor to ceiling in pietra dura semi-precious stone inlay, a demonstration of Grand Ducal wealth whose specific excess is more informative about 17th-century Medici pretension than about Renaissance values). The Basilica di San Lorenzo itself (the Medici family parish church, with the Brunelleschi nave, the specific space that Brunelleschi designed as the first Renaissance interior, the revolutionary application of classical proportion to sacred architecture, and the Old Sacristy with Donatello's bronze doors).
Italy Medici Family: tours & tickets
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See availability & prices →Compare tours on Viator →We may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you.The Uffizi and the Pitti
The Uffizi Gallery (the Medici art collection, now the world's most important single collection of Italian Renaissance painting, with the Botticelli room (the Primavera, the Birth of Venus), the Leonardo room (the Annunciation, the Adoration of the Magi), the Michelangelo Tondo Doni, and the specific collection coherence that a single family's accumulation over three centuries produces): book in advance at uffizi.it (the Uffizi summer queueing, without advance booking, reaches 1-2 hours, the Uffizi is the single Roman sight that most consistently justifies advance booking effort). The Palazzo Pitti (the Medici Grand Ducal residence from 1549, the museum complex housing the Palatina Gallery, the most private Medici art collection, the Costume Museum, and the Boboli Gardens): the Palatina (the Raphael collection, the best concentration of Raphael paintings outside the Vatican, including the Donna Velata, the Maddalena Doni, and the Gravida) is the specific Pitti recommendation for the visitor with limited time.
Q&A: The Medici Family
Did the Medici actually have people killed?
Yes, the Medici were a political dynasty who operated in a political culture where assassination was a standard tool of statecraft. The most documented Medici political violence: the Pazzi Conspiracy of April 26, 1478, when the Pazzi family (backed by Pope Sixtus IV) attempted to assassinate both Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici during High Mass in the Florentine Cathedral. Giuliano was stabbed 19 times and died. Lorenzo escaped to the sacristy. The Medici reprisals were systematic and brutal: within weeks, approximately 80 Pazzi supporters were killed or exiled, several were hanged from the windows of the Palazzo della Signoria, and the Pazzi family name was legally erased from Florence. The specific image of the hanged conspirators was painted by Botticelli on the external wall of the Bargello, a public humiliation painting that served as political intimidation.
