Read more
'This forensic study of the Renaissance banking dynasty conjures up a world of art, literature, philosophy - and brutality' Telegraph'Likely to become the standard work of reference on the members of the family that dominated Florence' TLS'A lucid and beautifully illustrated family history' The TimesWealthy bankers, wise politicians, patrons of the arts, glittering dukes... so runs the traditional telling of the story of the Medici, the family that ruled Florence for two hundred years and inspired the birth of the Italian Renaissance.
In this definitive account of their rise and fall, Mary Hollingsworth argues that the idea that the Medici were wise rulers and enlightened fathers of the Renaissance is a fiction. In truth, she says, the Medici were as devious and immoral as the Borgias - tyrants loathed in the city they illegally made their own and which they beggared in their lust for power.
About the author
Mary Hollingsworth is a scholar of the Italian Renaissance and the author of The Medici, which was widely praised on its publication by Head of Zeus in 2017, Princes of the Renaissance, published in 2021 and Conclave 1559: The Story of a Papal Election (2021). Her other books include The Cardinal's Hat, The Borgias: History's Most Notorious Dynasty and Patronage in Renaissance Italy: From 1400 to the Early Sixteenth Century.
Summary
A fresh telling of the rise and fall of the House of Medici, the family that dominated political and cultural life in Florence for three centuries.
Foreword
A fresh telling of the rise and fall of the House of Medici, the family that dominated political and cultural life in Florence for three centuries.
Additional text
The Medici family dominated political and cultural life in Florence for three centuries, but the received wisdom, that they were beneficent, enlightened rulers, is challenged by Renaissance scholar Mary Hollingsworth in this engrossing, fully illustrated account
