num_pages: 364
description: At its height, Renaissance Florence was a center of enormous wealth, power, and influence. A republican city-state funded by trade and banking, its often bloody political scene was dominated by rich mercantile families, the most famous of which were the Medici. This enthralling book charts the family's huge influence on the political, economic and cultural history of Florence. Beginning in the early 1430s with the rise of the dynasty under the near-legendary Cosimo de Medici, it moves through their golden era as patrons of some of the most remarkable artists and architects of the Renaissance, to the era of the Medici Popes and Grand Dukes, Florence's slide into decay and bankruptcy, and the end, in 1737, of the Medici line.
language: English
title: The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall
titlecomplete: The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall
characters: Cosimo II de'Medici, Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo I de'Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo de'Medici 1389-1464
genres: Historical, History, Economics, Italy, European History, Biography, Art History, Nonfiction, Art, Politics
ratings_count: 7673
places: Florence, Tuscany
publisher: William Morrow