The Family Medici : the hidden history of the Medici dynasty /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Hollingsworth, Mary, author.
Uniform title:	Medici
Edition:	First Pegasus books hardcover edition March 2018.
Imprint:	New York, NY : Pegasus Books Ltd., 2018.
Description:	480 pages : color illustrations, maps, genealogical tables ; 24 cm
Language:	English
Subject:	Medici, House of. Medici, House of. Renaissance -- Italy. Politics and government. Renaissance. Florence (Italy) -- History -- 1421-1737 -- Biography. Florence (Italy) -- Politics and government -- 1421-1737. Italy. Italy -- Florence. Biographies. Biography. History. Biographies.
Format:	Map Print Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11460823

Hidden Bibliographic Details
Other authors / contributors:	Pegasus Books Ltd, publisher.
ISBN:	9781681776484 1681776480
Notes:	Originally published with the title The Medici: London : Head of Zeus Ltd, 2017. Includes bibliographical references (pages 452-465) and index. Text in English.
Summary:	Having founded the bank that became the most powerful in Europe in the fifteenth century, the Medici gained massive political power in Florence, raising the city to a peak of cultural achievement and becoming its hereditary dukes. Among their number were no fewer than three popes and a powerful and influential queen of France. Their influence brought about an explosion of Florentine art and architecture - Michelangelo, Donatello, Fra Angelico, and Leonardo were among the artists patronized by the Medici. Thus runs the "accepted view" of the House of Medici. However, Mary Hollingsworth argues that the idea that the Medici were enlightened rulers of the Renaissance is a fiction that has now acquired the status of historical fact. In truth, the Medici were as devious and immoral as the Borgias - tyrants loathed in the city they illegally made their own. In this dynamic new history, Hollingsworth argues that past narratives have focused on a sanitized view of the Medici - wise rulers, enlightened patrons of the arts, and fathers of the Renaissance - but that "in fact" their past was reinvented in the sixteenth century, mythologized by later generations of Medici who used this as propaganda for their legacy. Hollingsworth's revelatory retelling of the story of the family Medici bridges a fresh and exhilarating new perspective to the story behind the most powerful family of the Italian Renaissance.

Table of Contents:

A Note to the Reader
Prologue: A City Under Siege: 'Florence in ashes rather than under the Medici'
1. Migrants
Bonagiunta, Chiarissimo and their descendants, 1216-1348
2. Survivors
Salvestro, Foligno, Bicci and Vieri, 1348-1400
3. The Fortune
Giovanni di Bicci, 1400-1425
4. Politics
Giovanni di Bicci, Averardo and Cosimo, 1426-1433
5. For Honour and Profit
Cosimo the banker, 1434-1450
6. The Republican Toga
Cosimo the politician, 1451-1464
7. The Succession Crisis
Piero the Gouty, 1464-1469
8. Youth at the Helm
Lorenzo and Giuliano, 1469-1479
9. Pride
Lorenzo the Magnificent, 1480-1492
10. Nemesis
Piero and Cardinal Giovanni, 1492-1503
11. Exile
Cardinal Giovanni, Giulio and Giuliano, 1504-1512
12. Age of Gold
Pope Leo X, 1513-1521
13. Age of Iron
Pope Clement VII, 1521-1530
14. Imperial Poodles
Pope Clement VII, Ippolito, Alessandro and Cosimo, 1531-1543
15. The New Augustus
Cosimo I, 1544-1559
16. Grand Duke
Cosimo I, 1560-1574
17. Adultery
Francesco I and Cardinal Ferdinando, 1574-1587
18. Cardinal to Grand Duke
Ferdinando I, 1587-1609
19. The Unlucky Prince
Cosimo II, Christine of Lorraine and Maria Magdalena of Austria, 1609-1628
20. Science and Religion
Ferdinando II, 1628-1670
21. Vanity
Cosimo III, 1670-1723
22. Extinction
Gian Gastone, 1723-1737
Epilogue: Revival
Genealogical Trees
Maps
Bibliography and Sources
Notes
Image Credits
Acknowledgements
Index

The Family Medici : the hidden history of the Medici dynasty /

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