XV Century, Florence and Medici family.
COSIMO DEI MEDICI
After the death of his father Giovanni occurred in 1429, wealthy banker who didin’t belong from birth to an aristocratic family, Cosimo became de facto head of the Popular Party.
His family did not belong to the nobility, but starting from Mugello area, it has gained a prestigious title in Florence with his merchant and commercial activities, arriving at least to possess a large bank. It seemed to be the same path of the Medici family: in fact, themselves were very poor at the beginning but they become very popular among the groups more humble, even though they become very wealthy. This humble groups projected themselves in this families because it was the new "spirit of time": "You can be born poor but also You cannot prevent from becoming rich." It is not important the origin, but Your ability.
This was the most important legacy of mind which had left John. It was not a small matter, was a new philosophy of life. The predestination collapse, was a lie. The emulation was that he was doing the real "miracle". The ransom was simple: it was necessary to move, act. And the information necessary for their activities were stubbornly chased, applied with determination.
Like the Medici, they had become the symbol of this “iron will”. He created the idea of what we could call the "new economy" of the time. An economy in a much enlarged market. Economical and cultural pluralism that feeds on the comparison of different proposals, allows the emerging of a new company which realizes that the only freedom for citizenz is the one that sees them lined up on the line of departure. Then, he will win the better. Liberalism is not yet born, but already is being said that this freedom is for the good of all.
The spirit of the time was that reason that it was first performed as part of a religious faith, and that now was fast and look forward to grope new horizons.
Cosimo, who invoked the help of God once started his own work and activity, decided then
to put the trust in his strength and his richness. That reflects the fact that from that time on
so many people started not to think to the Universal Empire to be reflected on Earth as divine
plan decided for the mankind by God but people started to think more that the republic was founded
by the will of all its children, and that the think the Government of a Town like Florence must be built
as a work of art, by the courage, the tenacity,
and by new lord’s will.
Machiavelli has yet to be born (1469-1527), but the environment is ready to his "doctrine",
there are already those individuals who feel the pride of new intellectual resources, which have no claim
any limitations.
Always hated, envied, despised and marginalized by the nobles, the Medici were deployed by the people.
As in 1417, when opposed to the application of a tax on people to minutes recover the costs of the war
that was going only for the benefit the rich. But why did the poor have to pay that?
The reflection of the Medici was also economically deep, not only socially. It was the people of minutes, despite poor but still large, to turn the flywheel of the small economy, with their arts and crafts and the small trader, that in one way or another, fed the great economy, the major importers, including all the banks.
In a word, the Medici looked very carefully at what we can call today the "redistribution of income". If a few money left for the poor all were gobbled up by the tax and wasted, not only the free market itself suffers, died, but the whole new economy in recent years was supporting the city, was indeed the turning and directed to die.
A worth recallingof this concept is Dello Delli’s tale, a poor craftsman immigrant in Spain for several years, returned to Florence declared in a too parcel way the fortune he made. The Florentine seigniory wanted to give him the knight titolations for his merits. Dello Delli going for the feast in his honour, was on horseback dressed festively up in Vacchereccia street, where then there were the shops of goldsmiths to show to his colleagues how wealthy he has turned. He was welcomed by bad cheers and gestures some to which he replied making horns with both hands. Then he returned to Spain to continue its fortune but the representative of his colleagues were true and above all their derogatory intention. Many began to think that the accumulation of capital was not only an artifice of Beelzebub, as others wanted to paint, that is, as the evil dark satanic. Some people began to say, "but if someone like Dellio Delli has made money than there, then I could be able to do, too. "
Unfortunately, the small minority had the power, the old nobility had over the institutions, the soldiers, the courts, and immediately took to the field to defend their privileges. Cosimo, now champion of this new philosophy, was then accused of undermining the institutions, and various other crimes subversive and then exiled to Padovs for 10 years.
But already in 1434 the Albrizzi family, the main opposition party oligarchic that the previous year had removed the Medici, suffered a defeat and this time put them on trial. The people, always determined to want a government of the city more democratic and sensitive to social changes that have occurred in recent years, in a few months have reversed the situation.
On 1 October 1434 Cosimo came back to of town between the crowd’s cheers. He assumed without any political processes, the regency of the city of Florence and he governed it for 30 years without any official title. A "dictatorship" wanted and desired by the people.
Florence was one of the largest and most important cities of Europe and for all those reasons we have set out above, in economic terms the Fiorino Gold was the main European currency. Do not forget that both the France and England if they wanted to do or not to continue a war could do without turning to Florentine bankers, the only ones able not only to grant loans to long maturity, but they were the only ones who really had the money.
London had nearly 400,000 inhabitants, as many Paris, but the reserves gold of these two major cities were put together, not even half those who hold in their safes’ Florentine banks. The reason was very simple. The two most powerful (virtually) cities, used his as finances in a government made by wastes and so many employees for single activities without encouraging the free market, which in Florence started to turn already in that liberalism that the English people will discover only much later (Elizabethian period) and that was already reality.
If the florentine bankers had suddently abandoned the capitalist vocation and all together would have decided to become politicians, they would have brought down first economically and politically France and England, while the rest of it was bought with the change, including the Papal States with which the Florentines had always debts as France and England.
Bologna (not a village any) a few years earlier, by Pepoli, was bought for 200,000 guilders (Golden Fiorini). Giovanni de Medici to his death left to his heirs in its coffers hundredfold.
LORENZO DE' MEDICI “IL MAGNIFICO”
The figure of Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449-1492), son of Piero, was either in time or subject of glorification of downsizing.
Educated as a prince, was born with the fate already marked by its title; ascended to power after the death
of his father, without great changes or troubles.
Married to the noble Roman Clarice Orsini was the first of the Medici to link his name with a character of aristocratic blood.
In 29 years, after nine years of government, suffered the worst attack in history Medici,
known as “Pazzi Plot” in which he died and his brother Giuliano himself was wounded, but
leaving exceptionally alive. As a result of the conspiracy, which had participated in some of his
opponents Florentine with the support of the Pope and other Italian states, the people of Florence
sided even more clearly on his side.
His supporters (Palleschi said in reference to the “palle” (balls) in the actual Medici emblem) were punished hardly, giving to Lawrence the opportunity to further centralize power in his hands, by reforming the Republican establishment, which became subordinate to him.
From the point of view of foreign policy, Lorenzo reconstructed relationships with other Italian states, going often personally creating a great company of a diplomatic peace-keeping in Italy, through the concept of peaceful coexistence.
Great man of finance and politics, Lorenzo used to live his spare time with poetry and literature. Indeed his personality was of considerable literary standing, it was so marked to tarnish his political role. He also loved philosophy, collecting items, but the biggest love was for the arts in general, which after all he had inherited from his predecessors: that love plays a fundamental role as an instrument of prestige and reputation. It is thanks to his concern that the Sistine Chapel, already given to artists such as the umbrian Perugino, is then painted by the best painters in Florence, Rome, exporting to those outstanding news of the Florentine Renaissance. On similar grounds, you can put the departure of Leonardo da Vinci in Milan.
Lorenzo’s declared enemy was Girolamo Savonarola who in his ultra-religious conviction, could not but clash with the cultural climate of the recovery (seen as a monk from neo-paganism), the centrality of man, freedom of thought promoted by Lorenzo . The Magnificent tolerated him as if he were a lesser evil, however, keeping him with mutual respect, so that between the two there was never open a direct confrontation.
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