Medici Family and Their Role in the Art of the Renaissance

The Medici Family unit, Florence
During the Early Italian Renaissance (c.1400-1500)

An Old Human and His Grandson
(c.1490, Louvre, Paris)
Past Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-94).

The City of Florence
Florentine Art and Its Patrons
Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici
Cosimo de' Medici
Piero de' Medici
Lorenzo de' Medici
The Plot to Kill Lorenzo and Giuliano
The Bear upon of the Plot on Lorenzo de' Medici
The Rising and Fall of Savonarola
Savonarola's Entrada Against Worldly Art
The Bonfire of the Vanities

The City of Florence

When nosotros look at the panel by an unknown Florentine painter showing the called-for of the fanatical religious leader Girolamo Savonarola (1452-98), we become a vivid moving-picture show of what Florence looked like around 1500. Although the perspective of the painting is inferior to that of some of the earlier works we take seen, the picture is interesting for its sweeping view of the Piazza della Signoria, i of the numerous public squares for which the city was famous, and gives equally well some idea of the surrounding landscape. We can encounter the rolling hills, the distant mountains, and the valley through which the Arno River flows. Two buildings dominate the composition. To the left, part of the cathedral is visible, and we meet a portion of the imperial dome by Filippo Brunelleschi. To the right, interim as a foil for the cathedral and vying with it for our attending, is the Palazzo Vecchio ("Old Palace"), which served as the town hall. We note its fortress-like construction and soaring tower from which observers could spot the approach of hostile troops. The buildings of the Piazza della Signori a provide almost a sheathing history of Florence; her struggles, her ambitions, and her grapheme.
The houses that surround the foursquare are simple, sturdy, and severely geometric, recalling the buildings in the paintings of Masaccio and Piero della Francesca. In general, the architecture makes few concessions to lightness of spirit. Venice*, with her glorious light, colour, and network of canals, suggests an temper of romance, but the solid architecture of Florence seems to take been built past and for hard-working and hard-thinking men. Even the colour schemes of the important buildings are sombre: black and white, green and white, or the reddish-brown of the earth on which they are built. Although today many Florentine palaces firm wonderful collections of paintings, sculpture, and article of furniture, their stern and solid exteriors give little indication of the riches within. They resemble military strongholds, and they were in fact often used as such past their early inhabitants.

[*For information about Venetian painting and sculpture during this time, come across Renaissance Fine art in Venice.]

In fifteenth-century Florence, one prominent family was often pitted confronting another in the struggle for political and economic power. Normally this rivalry was confined to business dealings or covert diplomacy, simply at times open warfare broke out. So the town house became a fortress to which the family could retreat in fourth dimension of set on or from which they might launch an offensive. Accordingly, the outside of the ground floor of the palace was faced with the heavy rusticated (roughly hewn or beveled) stones that one also finds in the land strongholds of warrior nobles. In the ground floor 'were located the powder magazines, the storage and workshop areas, and the kitchen. The numerous occupants of the palace were housed in chambers in a higher place the street roar. Today, only street names remind the visitor of Florence's stormy history. The Piazza dei Pazzi, for case, was named for the famous enemies of the Medici who plotted to impale Lorenzo and Giuliano in 1478.

Florentine Art and Its Patrons

Under the influence of the Medicis, the advances achieved in Proto-Renaissance art (1300-1400) were exceeded many times over during the Florentine Renaissance of the fifteenth century. Well-nigh visibly, much sculpture was created to adorn the squares and buildings of the city. Similar the ancient Greeks and Romans, the citizens of Florence viewed statues every bit important public art. Statues were both beautiful and instructive, symbolic of valued qualities and, to many, even more: many people of the fourth dimension believed that spirits were imprisoned in sculptured figures. This is evidenced past numerous pop tales that immature girls had been transformed into statues. Many of the sculptures that adorn the squares of Florence testify to the city's admiration of heroism and concrete courage. Michelangelo's huge marble statue of the Sometime Attestation king David was meant to stand guard over the Ponte Vecchio ("Former Bridge") in the company of the infidel warriors Hercules, Ajax, and Perseus. Gimmicky figures also joined those of ancient history. Since the center of the sixteenth century, the commanding presence of Cosimo I, 1 of the most dynamic of the Medici, has dominated the Piazza della Signoria, reminding visitors of the many associations of this great family with the city. Encounter too: Renaissance Architecture.

Who were the boggling men who brought artists, philosophers, and scientists to Florence and created in that location a Renaissance - a golden age in the history of art to rival that of Athens? Contrary to what one might await, they were not aristocrats, merely businessmen. The businessmen of Florence in the late Middle Ages accumulated considerable wealth from their participation in the local silk and wool industries. The success of the Medici family was a question of being in the right identify at the correct time. By the fifteenth century, Florence was at the crossroads of the trade routes of Europe. Merchants and commercial agents from the Depression Countries, France, and Frg maintained headquarters in the city. Within a generation, the urban center had become a major banking center, as those with surplus capital lent it for interest. Merchants needed cash to appoint ships, local princes were constantly borrowing funds to finance their private wars, and the Church required the services of bankers to administer her numerous holdings. The most enterprising and successful moneylenders in Florence belonged to the Medici family, which bore on its glaze of arms 7 red balls (1 for each of the fundamental virtues) against a field of golden.

Earth's Top Art
- For a listing of the Top 10 painters/sculptors: see: All-time Artists of All Time.
- For the Top 300 oils, watercolours, see: Greatest Paintings Ever.
- For the Top 100 works of sculpture, see: Greatest Sculptures Ever.

Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici

The founder of this amazing brood of men was Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici, who was by 1400 one of the richest men in Italian republic. During Giovanni's lifetime, the city of Florence, different most of its neighbours, was a republic; in it ordinary citizens might rising to prominence if they possessed sufficient manufacture and vision. Public spirit was evident in the many cultural activities supported by the textile merchants' club, to which Giovanni belonged. Nether his leadership, the city'south businessmen commissioned numerous works of sculpture and compages, the most notable of these the construction of the great dome for the cathedral - the visible symbol of the Renaissance in Florence - and the erection of a foundling hospital, both designed by the foremost architect of the mean solar day, Filippo Brunelleschi.

Giovanni was so admired past the Florentine citizenry that he was elected Gonfaloniere, which fabricated him the city's chief executive. One of his greatest achievements was the establishment of tax reforms. This benefited the bulk of the people, although it enraged many nobles. Constantly mindful of public stance, Giovanni wisely advised his sons Cosimo and Lorenzo to "do nothing that is reverse to the interests of the people." When Giovanni de' Medici died in 1429, the nobles (organized past the rival Albizzi family unit) saw a run a risk to discredit the household. They accused Giovanni'south sons of excessive spending and undemocratic attitudes, and succeeded in bribing members of the Signory, or town authorities. Cosimo and Lorenzo were forced into exile. But mismanagement by these members of the dignity brought the city to the brink of financial disaster, and the brothers were recalled to Florence in triumph. For the next thirty years Cosimo, the elder of the two, was supreme ruler of the metropolis.

Cosimo de' Medici

His male parent, Giovanni, had fostered the fine arts because he felt it was his patriotic duty to do so, but Cosimo was a genuinely enthusiastic patron both of fine art painting and sculpture. From childhood, he had enjoyed the visitor of wise tutors. In his maturity, he loved naught ameliorate than those times when he was able to leave the responsibilities of business organization and government and surround himself with learned men. He was knowledgeable most art and constantly receptive to new talent.

It was Cosimo who persuaded the architect Michelozzo to rebuild the Dominican monastery of San Marco and who encouraged the gentle Fra Angelico to live and work at that place. He too commissioned the great Brunelleschi to build a church for the Medici family, which was named later San Lorenzo, ane of their patron saints. One of Cosimo'southward greatest gifts to Florence and to the earth was the founding of the first public library in Europe, chosen the Medicea. Although many princes and prelates of the Italian Renaissance were as smitten by the enthusiasm for collecting ancient and rare manuscripts, none was quite and so successful as Cosimo, whose scholarly detectives stalked the world in search of such magnificent examples of aboriginal learning as the five books of the Roman historian Tacitus and the legal codes of the Byzantine emperor Justinian.

Cosimo proved to exist a remarkably able administrator, besides. He was virtually a one-human chamber of commerce, ever quick to seize any opportunity to center globe interest and attention on Florence. When a corking ecumenical council was alleged by the Pope in 1438, Cosimo persuaded the participants to move from the modest metropolis of Ferrara to Florence. For months thereafter, the optics of Europe were stock-still on Florence and on the spectacle enacted there. Though there are few surviving souvenirs of the dramatic meeting between the bishop of Rome (the Pope) and the patriarch of Constantinople, some of the splendour of the occasion was remembered and recreated in Benozzo Gozzoli'south fresco "The Journey of the Magi". In the fresco, which covers the wall of a chapel in the Medici palace, we meet the elaborate, exotic retinue of the Byzantine emperor John Paleologus VII portrayed as the Magi, or kings of the East. Benozzo too included in his composition members of the Medici family, who had journeyed out of the city to greet the distinguished visitors. The excitement of the meeting, the costumed pages and soldiers, and the numerous animals are lavishly rendered. In one detail, we fifty-fifty grab a glimpse of immature Giuliano de' Medici with his pet leopard at his side.

When Cosimo's long life came to an finish in 1464, the Siguory alleged that he should exist cached with highest honors and bestowed on him the title "Father of his Country." His death was typical of his serious and purposeful attitude toward life, for he died as he was listening to a reading of 1 of Plato's Dialogues. Cosimo'south personal reputation and the esteem in which he was held were and so loftier that his son Piero was immediately acknowledged every bit his successor. Thus, even though Florence was a commonwealth, the responsibilities of government were passed on in almost the aforementioned style that kingship was bestowed in a monarchy.

Piero de' Medici

Piero continued Cosimo's political policies but he governed the affairs of the Medici household somewhat differently. Marriages had previously been bundled between an eligible Medici and some other wealthy bourgeois family, just Piero decided that his son, Lorenzo, would marry the girl of ane of the oldest and noblest of Roman houses, the Orsini. To celebrate this brotherhood, he planned a program of elaborate festivities and invited the entire city to attend. For five days and nights, sober Florence was transformed into a joyous, music-filled phase on which the gaily clad populace sang, danced, wined, and dined. The loftier indicate of the celebration was a mock tournament in which festively garbed knights (like those depicted in "The Boxing of San Romano" by Paolo Uccello) competed for the favour of their ladies. As befitted the occasion, the about dashing condescending was the bridegroom, who appeared in a suit embroidered with diamonds and rubies, while his horse was outfitted in red and white silk covered with pearls.

Lorenzo de' Medici

Young Lorenzo, who was to earn the title "The Magnificent," assumed the responsibilities of his begetter in 1469, when he was scarcely twenty years old. Piero had been, like his father before him, a sympathetic friend to painters such as Gozzoli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, and the immature Sandro Botticelli, simply he lacked Cosimo'due south enthusiasm for art. Young Lorenzo was birthday different. He was a gifted statesman, a generous host, and, above all, a devoted patron of art, science, and philosophy. An achieved poet himself, he created an academy to support the painters, sculptors, and scholars whose company he craved. He and his younger brother Giuliano were non unlike former Cosimo in their desire to rival the cultural achievements of both Greek art and Roman art. Not merely did they back up the creation of works of art that gave the Florentine citizenry a glimpse of classical grandeur, but they also staged pageants and processions that aimed at recreating the spirit of Greek and Roman borough celebrations.

Under Lorenzo the Magnificent, the art of the Early on Renaissance entered an important new phase. Previously, the business organisation of painters and sculptors with ancient art was largely confined to the imitation or reproduction of such architectural elements as columns or triumphal arches, or was expressed in their interest in the hnman body, especially the male nude. At present, under Lorenzo, artists began to change art from an enterprise devoted to the representation of religious subjects to one that reflected secular or human values. A wholly new range of themes became open up to painters and sculptors - themes drawn from ancient history, philosophy, and the mythology that chronicled the lives of the heathen gods: encounter for instance The Birth of Venus (1484-6), Botticelli's masterpiece that was commissioned by Lorenzo de Medici.

The Plot to Impale Lorenzo de' Medici and His Blood brother Giuliano

The air of joy and optimism that characterized Botticelli'south earlier painting La Primavera and the Medici'due south Florence was shattered unexpectedly. The first of a series of quick and violent blows to the Medici household was the death in 1477 of the immature Simonetta Vespucci, Giuliano's mistress. This woman, whose beauty was celebrated in verse and vocal, in toasts and duels, is regarded by many as the prime inspiration for Botticelli's female figures. The same articulate-eyed, blonde elegance that marks his portrait of her - the but surviving portrait fabricated from life - is present in his Madonnas and in the figures of Venus and "Primavera," which might almost be called variations on the theme of Simonetta.

The mourning period for the tragic young beauty was scarcely over when expiry struck again, in a much more trigger-happy form. On Easter Sunday, 1478, Giuliano was the victim of a assuming and savage program designed to eliminate both Medici brothers, Giuliano and Lorenzo, at the aforementioned time. The master organizer of the plot was Francesco de' Pazzi, a member of a distinguished rival banking family, a confidant of the reigning Pope, Sixtus 4, and a seemingly devoted friend of Giuliano. The plotters, who resented the power and popularity of the Medici, planned to murder the brothers while they attended High Mass in the cathedral.

As it happened, Giuliano had been ill and was not inclined to go to mass. Anxious to see the plan through, Francesco de' Pazzi went to the Medici palace and persuaded Giuliano to go along with him to the cathedral. Arm in arm, the two friends made their way through the crowded holiday streets. Historians of the incident draw with irony how specially good-natured and affectionate Francesco seemed toward Giuliano, oftentimes patting him on the back and shoulders - to determine whether he was wearing any protective garments. Inside the cathedral, the carefully organized plan misfired. While nineteen stab wounds claimed Giuliano's life, Lorenzo managed to make his way to the condom of the old sacristy.

Fleeing the cathedral, the Pazzi conspirators quickly discovered that the mood of the city was violently against them. Most disappeared from Florence immediately, but Francesco went to his home. He was found there haemorrhage to decease from deep, self-inflicted gashes in the leg. His suicide did not pacify the aroused people, who took his naked body and strung information technology up in front of the Palazzo Vecchio for all to run across. Before the Pazzi-Medici power struggle was over, three hundred other Pazzi sympathizers followed Giuliano and Francesco to horrible deaths.

The Impact of the Plot on Lorenzo de' Medici and the Renaissance

The loss of his beloved blood brother and the problem in the city had a profound outcome on the grapheme of Lorenzo de' Medici. The immature man who had enthusiastically participated in tournaments and other diversions was replaced by a serious and devoted statesman, dedicated to the maintenance of peace and stability. More and more than of Lorenzo's leisure time was spent in the study of the ancient literature and philosophy that he had get-go come to know through his youthful tutor, Marsilio Ficino. And he actively encouraged such artists as Filippino Lippi, who was Filippo'southward son, Lorenzo di Credi, Andrea del Verrocchio, Domenico Ghirlandaio and Sandro Botticelli.

Lorenzo died 14 years later, in 1492. Later on his blood brother's assassination, Lorenzo had guided the political destiny of Florence with a firm paw, and he had enlarged the financial empire of the Medici, also. Without benefit of title or crown, he presided over commercial interests that extended from Spain to Constantinople and from the tip of the Italian kicking northward beyond the Alps. With his expiry, the gaiety and vitality, the love of art and music that were the Medici heritage disappeared.

The Rise and Fall of Savonarola

The golden age of Lorenzo the Magnificent was shortly followed by the gloomy reign of a monk named Girolamo Savonarola, a fanatical religious reformer. This Dominican monk's execution in the Piazza della Signoria on May 23, 1498, climaxed the metropolis's repudiation of him and his rule, but before the people turned against him, he had held them in his power for iv years.

What enabled Savonarola to boss and change Florence were the fiery eloquence of his sermons and the force of his strange personality. Some historians say that he had entered the church because of disappointment in a love thing; certainly he was credited with the writing of love poems, which he afterward disowned. Although initially headed for a medical career, he turned away from the world and entered a Dominican monastery every bit a youth. His gifts for preaching led him to Florence and the famed monastery of San Marco, which is located but a short distance from the Medici palace. After he became prior of the monastery, he instituted many moral reforms, which ultimately were extended to all of Florence. He believed that divine power had sent him to purge the metropolis of evil and arrive a paradise on earth. In guild to effect this, he terrified congregations with visions of death and destruction. In September, 1494, his voice boomed at them the dreadful Old Testament warning: "And behold I, even I, practise bring a flood of waters upon the globe." That same day, this warning was fulfilled, as the Florentines received the news of a human being deluge - the invasion of Italy by the armies of the French king, Charles VIII.

With his spellbinding oratory, Savonarola captured the imagination of the rich and poor, the learned and the illiterate. Even the nifty philosopher Pica della Mirandola, who had introduced Lorenzo de' Medici to the report of Plato, fell nether the preacher'southward spell, and and then did Sandro Botticelli. Under Savonarola'southward influence, he first gave up his joyous heathen themes, and then renounced painting birthday.

The Bonfire of the Vanities

The elevation of Savonarola's ability was reached only a yr before his decease in 1498. On the beginning day of the carnival that traditionally preceded the Lenten flavor, his followers erected a huge pyre in the Piazza della Signoria. A great pyramid seven tiers high, it contained rows of "vanities" - mirrors, cards, dice, musical instruments, jewelry, books, paintings, and sculpture - that were all consigned to the flames. In a burst of wild enthusiasm, the artists Fra Bartolommeo and Lorenzo di Credi even contributed their paintings to the enormous burn down around which monks and citizens performed a frenzied dance.

Ironically, the Bonfire of the Vanities, which marked the zenith of Savonarola's power, was erected in almost the same spot in which the religious reformer was hanged and burned ane year later. It is hard to imagine how Savonarola could have maintained his ability much longer. His supporters were fanatically devoted, but his criticisms of the aristocrats, the rich merchants, and the local church authorities had earned him an increasing number of enemies in Florence. Still, it was his unrelenting set on on the Pope in Rome, Rodrigo Borgia, whom he regarded as the greatest of sinners, that led to his beingness alleged a heretic and to his ex-advice and condemnation to the fire.
Savonarola'southward impact was felt long after the Medici returned to Florence. In 1527, many felt his dire predictions of destruction were fulfilled. A corking number of those followers who had seen him executed lived to witness the violent plunder of the invaders his sermons had warned them of - the army of the Emperor Charles 5.

By 1500, the swell artistic and intellectual vitality that had marked Florentine life for over two centuries had left the urban center and moved south to Rome where it gave rise to the High Renaissance. There the popes were attempting to assert spiritual and political authority over all of Italy and to create a city that would exist a splendid and worthy successor to the Rome of the emperors. The Renaissance in Rome went on for 3 decades, and some of the most magnificent examples of High Renaissance painting were produced by the two geniuses Raphael and Michelangelo, both of whom served the ambitious Pontiffs Julius II (1503-13) and Leo 10 (1513-21).

As an indication of Medici power, encounter Raphael'southward famous group portrait of the family'south ecclesiastical representatives: Pope Leo X with Cardinals (1518) Galleria Palatina, Pitti Palace, Florence.

Further Information

• For details of developments in painting and sculpture in Northern European countries like England, Flanders, Holland and Deutschland, delight come across Northern Renaissance and Artists of the Northern Renaissance.

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Source: http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/history-of-art/medici-family-florence-renaissance.htm

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