CLARA COLLADO - THE MEDICIS

The medicis

Hello! I am Clara and I’m going to talk about the Medici family:

This family was made up of bankers and traders. The lived in Florence and they governed the Toscana and influenced in the Italian politics. They lived in the North of Italy during the expansion of the capitalism. This period was in the Renaissance. There were the bosses of the city in the 14th century.

From Juan of Medicis the family was divided in two parts:

-Lorenzo was the youngest son and his part wasn’t very important.

-Cosme el Viejo was the other son. He was the real power of Florence because his part was more important.

This family became dictators in 1434. Cosme, the son of Juan doubled the money of the family and he used it to promote the art in Florence, turning Florence in a city of Renaissance art. To recover the classical culture, the Medicis bought Greek writings and built a family library.

Pedro the First, just wanted to make an alliance with the Osani family, so he got his son Lorenzo the First married to one of the women of the Osani family. He lost his brother Julian during the rebellion of the Pazzi. Lorenzo was a typical Renaissance king. He protected the writers, the wise people, and the artists. His son, Pedro II, was out of the power because of a revolution, and his alliance with Carlos VIII of France wasn’t enough to recover the city.

In 1492, Florence was governed by Lorenzo II, son of Pedro II. From his marriage with a French woman, Catalina was born. Catalina married Henry II and she became queen of France.

Hipólito, son of Julian, was named cardinal by his uncle and he had the power in1532. Later, he died, poisoned by Alexandro, son of Lorenzo II, or by the cardinal Lorenzo of the Medicis – it is not known by sure.

Alejandro also died, what caused the disappearance of the first branch of the family. He was killed by a member of the other part of the family, called Lorenzino.

These are just some of the people of the Medici family. It was a huge family and if you want to learn more about them, here is a link to a really good website.

http://www.biografiasyvidas.com/biografia/m/medicis_familia.htm