Historical Gossip: The Medici, the Pazzi and the Pitti

Did you know that the Medici family were originally původně merchants obchodníci who traded obchodovat with wool vlna as well as medicine? When they made enough dost money, they went into banking. With money and clever chytrý marriages manželství , they became the leading vůdčí noble urozená family in Florence. Here are some interesting fun facts about them:

Cosimo the Elder

Cosimo the Elder was the first powerful mocný Medici member. He lived a Spartan life but supported podporovat art umění and artists umělce such as jako Lorenzo Ghiberti, Filippo Brunelleschi, and Donatello. You might say he set off zahájit the Renaissance.

Lorenzo di Medici

Lorenzo de Medici, also known známý [ JAZYKO_TOOLTIP] as Lorenzo the Magnificent, was a poet ToolTip - Tip missing básník himself and supported podporovat the work of such Renaissance masters mistři as Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, and Michelangelo. Did you know that he married his wife for money and had many love affairs aféry [ JAZYKO_TOOLTIP] with married women? But throughout his life, he platonically loved Lucrezia Donati and wrote many poems for her.

Coat of Arms

It is not sure what the balls in their coat of arms mean. Some historians think they are oranges or coins, while others believe they represent ToolTip - Tip missing představovat pills or balls of wool.

Galileo Galilei

Guess what ?! Gallileo Galilei was the Medici’s private soukromý mathematician. His patron was Grand Duke Ferdinand I. As Galileo’s reputation pověst spread šířit through Italy and Europe, his Medici patrons gave him money and protection ochrana . In return , Galileo demonstrated prokázat his discoveries objevy at the court soud of the Medici as a form of court entertianment zábava . When the Inquisition arrested him and interrogated vyslýchat him for months, he resisted odolávat , until the Medici stopped paying the bills účty . Galileo was sentencted odsouzen to house-arrest domácí vězení and died a broken man in 1642. The Grand Duke planned a huge memorial, but the Church forbade zakázat it. It took the Vatican until 1992 to declare prohlásit that they had made a mistake .

Alchemy

Have you heard that one of the Medici was actually vlastně an alchemist? Francesco di Medici had a secret tajný room called “Lo Studiolo” inside Palazzo Vecchio, decorated zdobený with hidden closets skryté skříně full of exotic potions lektvary and peculiar podviný objects from all over the world. Legend has it that he had a special closet for a his favourite substance látku : opium.

Secret Passages

The Medici also were apparently very of fond rádi secret passages průchody . The Vasari corridor chodba crosses Florence from one end to another and there are a lot of secret doors and passages in the Palazzo Vecchio which go to other places in and even dokonce outside Florence.

Offices and Gallery

You won’t believe will not believe it but The Uffizi Gallery was originally původně the Medici offices. “Uffizi” means “offices” in Italian. And did you know they also introduced představit the modern meaning význam of the word “gallery” when speaking about art? How? When Giorgio Vasari built an arcade pasáž (or “galleria” in Italian) all around the offices, they displayed zobrazit their collections sbírky of paintings obrazů and statues soch there. Well, now the whole celý world uses this word for museums with art.

The Pazzi Conspiracy

The Pazzi Conspiracy was the most bizarre bizarní

and bloody krvavý act. It was a plan to kill the Medici family. It started when Pope Sixtus IV asked Lorenzo di Medici for a loan půjčku and also to appoint jmenovat his man, Francesco Salviati, as an archbishop arcibiskupem of Pisa. But Lorenzo refused odmítnout , He knew that the pope papež just wanted to expand rozšířit the territory of his influence vlivu . Sixtus found accomplices komplice , such as the Pazzi family, the main Medici rival soupeře . They hired najmout people to murder Lorenzo and Giuliano di Medici during během a mass mše in the cathedral. Two corrupt zkorumpovaní priests kněží were in charge vedení of the murder vraždy of Lorenzo, and the Pazzi were supposed to kill Giuliano. An armed ozbrojená company headed vedená by Francesco Salviati went to the Medici palace to take control . Everything went horrbily strašně wrong: Giuliano was killed in a violent násilné fight with blood and gore sražená krev all over the church, and Lorenzo escaped uniknout through one of the secret passages. The angry crowd dav massacred zmasakrovat the armed group by the palace. Salviati and Francesco Pazzi were hanged pověšeni from the windows, and the murderous priests were castrated kastrováni and hanged, as well as the other Pazzi members členové . Jacobo de Pazzi, the head of the family, had the most horrible end . He was tortured mučen , stripped naked svlečen donaha , and hanged next to the decaying chátrajícího Salviati. Later , when he was buried pohřben in Santa Croce, an angry crowd exhumed exhumovat him, dragged tahat his corpse mrtvolu through the streets, and finally put his decomposing rozkládající se head in place of a door knocker klepadlo . His body was thrown hozeno into the Arno river, fished out by children, flogged bičováno , and thrown into the river again. Well, so much about the medieval středověký style of punishment potrestání .

The Pitti

This is another incredible story . The Pitti family were one of the Medici rivals. They had their palace built presumably by Philippo Brunelleschi and their only condition podmínka was that their windows will be bigger than the Medici’s front přední door. Well, unfortunately the family soon went bankrupt zkrachovat and Eleanora di Toledo bought  the palace with her dowry věnem to make it the new headquarters hlavní sídlo of the Medici clan. She and Cosimo I had an incredible neuvěřitelnou love story but you will learn about that later on in this course.