Medici family, Italian bourgeois family that ruled Florence and, later, Tuscany during most of the period from 1434 to 1737. It provided the Roman Catholic Church with four popes (Leo X, Clement VII, Pius IV, and Leon XI) and married into the royal families of Europe (most notably in France, in the persons of Queens Catherine de Medici and Marie de Médicis).
Origins
The Medici were originally of Tuscan peasant origin, from the village of Cafaggiolo in the Mugello, the valley of the Sieve, north of Florence.
Interesting facts
- they were constantly confronting their adversaries with bribes of gold rather than with battalions of armed men
- the early Medici resolutely courted favour with the middle and poorer classes in the city
- all were consumed by a passion for arts and letters and for building. They were more than beneficent and ostentatious patrons of the arts; they were also enlightened and were probably the most magnificent such patrons that the West has ever seen.