Cosimo de' Medici
Cosimo di Giovanni de' Medici | |
---|---|
Carlo di Cosimo de' Medici (illegitimate) | |
Father | Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici |
Mother | Piccarda Bueri |
Cosimo di Giovanni de' Medici (27 September 1389 – 1 August 1464) was an Italian banker and politician who established the
Despite his influence, his power was not absolute; Florence's legislative councils at times resisted his proposals throughout his life, and he was viewed as first among equals, rather than an autocrat.[5] He was even exiled for a year in 1433-1434.
Biography
Early life and family business
Cosimo de' Medici was born in Florence to Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici and his wife Piccarda Bueri on 27 September 1389.[6] At the time, it was customary to indicate the name of one's father in one's name for the purpose of distinguishing the identities of two like-named individuals; thus, Giovanni was the son of Bicci, and Cosimo's name was properly rendered Cosimo di Giovanni de' Medici. He was born along with a twin brother Damiano, who survived only a short time. The twins were named after Saints Cosmas and Damian, whose feast day was then celebrated on 27 September; Cosimo would later celebrate his own birthday on that day, his "name day", rather than on the actual date of his birth.[7] Cosimo also had a brother Lorenzo, known as "Lorenzo the Elder", who was some six years younger and participated in the family's banking enterprise.
Cosimo inherited both his wealth and his expertise in banking from his father Giovanni, who had gone from being a moneylender to join the bank of his relative Vieri di Cambio de' Medici. Giovanni had been running Vieri's branch in Rome independently since the dissolution of the latter's bank into three separate and independent entities until 1397, when he left Rome to return to Florence to found his own bank, the Medici Bank. Over the next two decades, the Medici Bank opened branches in Rome, Geneva, Venice, and temporarily in Naples; the majority of profits was derived from Rome. The branch manager in Rome was a papal depositario generale who managed Church finances in return for a commission.[8] Cosimo would later expand the bank throughout western Europe and opened offices in London, Pisa, Avignon, Bruges, Milan,[9] and Lübeck.[10] The far-flung branches of the Medici rendered it the best bank for the business of the papacy, since it enabled bishoprics in many parts of Europe to pay their fees into the nearest branch, whose manager would then issue a papal license, and the popes could more easily order a variety of wares – such as spices, textiles, and relics – through the bankers' wholesale trade.[10] In fifteen years, Giovanni would make a profit of 290,791 florins.[9]
In 1415, Cosimo allegedly accompanied the
About 1415, Cosimo married
Giovanni withdrew from the Medici Bank in 1420, leaving its leadership to both of his surviving sons. He left them 179,221 florins upon his death in 1429.
Florentine politics
Cosimo's power over Florence stemmed from his wealth, which he used to control the votes of office holders in the municipal councils, most importantly the Signoria of Florence. As Florence was proud of its "democracy", he pretended to have little political ambition and did not often hold public office. Enea Silvio Piccolomini, Bishop of Siena and later Pope Pius II, said of him:
Political questions are settled in [Cosimo's] house. The man he chooses holds office... He is who decides peace and war... He is king in all but name.[19]
In 1433, Cosimo's power over Florence began to look like a menace to the anti-Medici party led by figures such as
Cosimo's time in exile instilled in him the need to quash the factionalism that resulted in his exile in the first place. In order to do this, he instigated a series of constitutional changes with the help of favorable priors in the Signoria to secure his power through influence.
Following the death of
In terms of foreign policy, Cosimo worked to create peace in northern Italy through the creation of a balance of power between
Death
"[Cosimo was] the father of a line of princes, whose name and age are almost synonymous with the restoration of learning; his credit was ennobled into fame; his riches were dedicated to the service of mankind; he corresponded at once with Cairo and London; and a cargo of Indian spices and Greek books were often imported in the same vessel."
Edward Gibbon (1880). The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Philadelphia: Nottingham Society. pp. 456–457
On his death in 1464 at
Patronage
Cosimo de' Medici used his personal fortune to control the Florentine political system and to sponsor orators, poets and philosophers,[29] as well as a series of artistic accomplishments.[30]
Arts
Cosimo was also noted for his patronage of culture and the arts during the Renaissance and spent the family fortune liberally to enrich the civic life of Florence. According to
Cosimo hired the young
Libraries
"Cosimo de' Medici... [was] a citizen of rare wisdom and inestimable riches, and therefore most celebrated all over Europe, especially because he had spent over 400,000 ducats in building churches, monasteries and other sumptuous edifices not only in his own country but in many other parts of the world, doing all this with admirable magnificence and truly regal spirit, since he had been more concerned with immortalizing his name than providing for his descendants."
Francesco Guicciardini. The History of Italy. Translated by Sidney Alexander. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. p. 60
In 1444, Cosimo de' Medici founded the
Cosimo had grown up with only three books, but by the time he was thirty, his collection had grown to 70 volumes. After being introduced to humanism by a group of literati who had asked for his help in preserving books, he grew to love the movement and gladly sponsored the effort to renew Greek and Roman civilization through literature, for which book collecting was a central activity. "Heartened by the romantic wanderlust of a true bibliophile, the austere banker even embarked on several journeys in the hunt for books, while guaranteeing just about any undertaking that involved books. He financed trips to nearly every European town as well as to Syria, Egypt, and Greece organized by Poggio Bracciolini, his chief book scout."[35] He engaged 45 copyists under the bookseller Vespasiano da Bisticci to transcribe manuscripts and paid off the debts of Niccolò de' Niccoli after his death in exchange for control over his collection of some 800 manuscripts valued at around 6,000 florins.[36] These manuscripts that Cosimo acquired from Niccoli would later be the cornerstone of the Laurentian Library, a library in Florence founded by Cosimo's grandson, Lorenzo de' Medici.[37]
Philosophy
In the realm of philosophy, Cosimo, influenced by the lectures of
Fictional depictions
Roberto Rossellini's three-part television miniseries The Age of the Medici (1973) has Cosimo as its central character (the original Italian title is L'età di Cosimo de' Medici, meaning "The Age of Cosimo de' Medici"). The first part, The Exile of Cosimo, and the second part, The Power of Cosimo, focus on Cosimo's political struggles and on his patronage of the arts and sciences in Florence. Cosimo is portrayed by Italian actor Marcello Di Falco.[43]
Frank Spotnitz's eight-part television series Medici: Masters of Florence (2016) depicts the rise of the powerful banking family after the death of Giovanni (played by Dustin Hoffman), as his son Cosimo (Richard Madden) takes over as head of the family. The sixteen-part sequel, Medici (2019–2020), follows the career of Cosimo's grandson, Lorenzo the Magnificent (Daniel Sharman).[44]
See also
References
- ^ "An Introduction to the Course - Introduction, Empirical Background and Definitions". Coursera. Retrieved 30 September 2022.
- ISBN 978-1-84413-098-6.
- ^ "Medici Patronage Notes < Brunelleschi". bdml.stanford.edu. Archived from the original on 20 May 2021. Retrieved 20 May 2021.
- ^ "How the Medici family's influences are still felt today". Guide. 19 April 2017. Retrieved 20 May 2021.
- ^ a b Martines, Lauro (2011). The Social World of the Florentine Humanists, 1390–1460. University of Toronto Press. p. 8.
- ^ Christopher Hibbert, The House Of Medici: Its Rise and Fall, (Will Morrow, 2012), 37.
- '^ Dale Kent: Medici, Cosimo de. In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Vol. 73, Rome 2009, pg. 36–43, here: 36; Susan McKillop: Dante and Lumen Christi: A Proposal for the Meaning of the Tomb of Cosimo de' Medici. In: Francis Ames-Lewis (Ed.): Cosimo 'il Vecchio' de' Medici, 1389–1464, Oxford 1992, pg. 245–301, here: 245–248.
- ^ a b George Holmes: How the Medici became the Pope’s Bankers. In: Nicolai Rubinstein (Ed.): Florentine Studies. Politics and Society in Renaissance Florence, London 1968, pp. 357–380; Raymond de Roover: The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank 1397–1494, Cambridge (Massachusetts)/London 1963, p. 46 f., 198, 203; Volker Reinhardt: Die Medici, 4., revised edition, Munich 2007, S. 21; John R. Hale: Die Medici und Florenz, Stuttgart 1979, p. 13; Alison Williams Lewin: Negotiating Survival, Madison 2003, p. 210 f.
- ^ a b Setton, Kenneth M. (Ed.) (1970). The Renaissance: Maker of Modern Man. National Geographic Society. p. 46.
- ^ a b Hallam, Elizabeth (1988). The War of the Roses. New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. p. 111.
- ^ Hallam, Elizabeth, ed. (1988). The Wars of the Roses. New York: Weidenfeld & in the same year he was named "Priore of the Republic [of Florence]". Later he acted frequently as an ambassador for Florence and demonstrated a prudence for which he became renowned. Nicolson. p. 110.
- ^ Durant, Will (1953). The Renaissance. The Story of Civilization. Vol. 5. New York: Simon and Schuster. p. 366.
- ^ Tomas 2003, p. 16.
- ^ Volker Reinhardt: Die Medici, 4., revised edition, Munich 2007, p. 20 f.
- ^ Kent, Dale (1978). The Rise of the Medici. Oxford. pp. 49–61.
- ^ Tomas 2003, p. 7.
- ^ Burckhardt, Jakob (1960). The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. The New American Library, inc. p. 900.
- ^ Heinrich Lang: Zwischen Geschäft, Kunst und Macht. In: Mark Häberlein et al. (Ed.): Generationen in spätmittelalterlichen und frühneuzeitlichen Städten (ca. 1250–1750), Konstanz 2011, pp. 43–71, here: 48 f.; Volker Reinhardt: Die Medici, 4., revised edition, Munich 2007, p. 21; Raymond de Roover: The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank 1397–1494, Cambridge (Massachusetts)/London 1963, S. 52; John R. Hale: Die Medici und Florenz, Stuttgart 1979, p. 14.
- ^ Quoted by C.Hibbert in The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici, 1974 in Martin Longman, Italian Renaissance (Longman, 1992).
- ^ After the return of the Medici in 1512, Lorenzo di Piero formed a compagnia for carnival 1513, and called it Broncone; the Pontormo portrait was commissioned by Goro Gheri, Lorenzo's secretary. Shearman, John (November 1962). "Pontormo and Andrea Del Sarto, 1513". The Burlington Magazine. 104 (716): 450, 478–483.
- ^ Durant, Will (1953). The Renaissance. The Story of Civilization. Vol. 5. New York: New York. p. 193.
- ^ Williams, Henry Smith (1905). The History of Italy. The Historians' History of the World. Vol. 9. New York: The Outlook Company. p. 352.
- ^ Gilbert, Kelly Ann, "Medici Power and Patronage under Cosimo the Elder and Lorenzo the Magnificent" (2005). Senior Honors Theses. 103. http://commons.emich.edu/honors/103
- ^ Schevill, Ferdinand (1963). Medieval and Renaissance Florence. Vol. 2. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers. p. 360.
- ^ Durant, Will (1953). The Renaissance. The Story of Civilization. Vol. 5. New York: Simon and Schuster. p. 76.
- ^ Schevill, Ferdinand (1963). Medieval and Renaissance Florence. Vol. 2. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers. p. 361.
- ^ Bisaha, Nancy (2004). Making East and West: Renaissance Humanists and the Ottoman Turks. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. chpt. 3.
- ^ Jones, Jonathan (18 October 2003). "Cosimo the Elder, Pontormo (c1516-20)". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 29 April 2018. Retrieved 29 April 2018.
- ^ Thomas, Joseph (29 April 1896). "Universal Pronouncing Dictionary of Biography and Mythology". Lippincott. Archived from the original on 29 April 2018. Retrieved 29 April 2018 – via Google Books.
- ^ R. de Roover, The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank, 1397–1494 (Cambridge, MA, 1963), p. 28.
- ^ Taylor, F.H. (1948). The taste of angels, a history of art collecting from Rameses to Napoleon. Boston: Little, Brown. pp. 65–66.
- S2CID 145451441.
- ^ "Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance. Brunelleschi". www.pbs.org. Archived from the original on 27 September 2017. Retrieved 29 April 2018.
- ^ Terry-Fritsch, Allie (2012). "Florentine Convent as Practiced Place; Cosimo de'Medici, Fra Angelico, and the Public Library of San Marco". Medieval Encounters: Jewish, Christian and Muslim Culture in Confluence and Dialogue. 18 (2–3): 237.
- ^ a b Meehan, William F. (2007). "The Importance of Cosimo de Medici in Library History". Indiana Libraries. 26 (3).
- ^ Durant, Will (1953). The Renaissance. The Story of Civilization. Vol. 5. New York: Simon and Schuster. pp. 76–77.
- ISBN 978-1628733228. Retrieved 19 February 2021.
- ^ Kent, Dale V. Cosimo de' Medici and the Florentine Renaissance: The patron's oeuvre. New Haven: Yale UP, 2000, pp. 34–38.
- ^ Durant, Will (1953). The Renaissance. The Story of Civilization. Vol. 5. New York: Simon and Schuster. p. 80.
- ^ Parks, Tim (2008). Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics, and Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. p. 288.
- ^ "Fact about Lorenzo de' Medici". 100 Leader in world history. 2008. Archived from the original on 27 September 2014. Retrieved 15 November 2008.
- ISBN 0-8018-8627-9.
- ^ The Criterion Collection, The Age of the Medici (1973) | The Criterion Collection
- ^ "Medici: Masters of Florence". Internet Movie Database. Archived from the original on 29 December 2016. Retrieved 24 December 2016.
Further reading
- Burckhardt, Jacob, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860) 1878.
- Connell, William. Society and Individual in Renaissance Florence, 2002.
- Cook, Jon (2003). "Why Renaissance? Why Florence?" History Review, 47, 44–46.
- De Roover, R. The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank, 1397–1494. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963.
- Durant, Will (1953). The Renaissance. The Story of Civilization. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1953.
- Guerrieri, Francesco; Fabbri, Patrizia (1996). Palaces of Florence. Rizzoli. for the Palazzo Medici.
- Kent, Dale. Cosimo De' Medici and the Florentine Renaissance: The patron's oeuvre. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.
- Martin Roberts, Italian Renaissance. Longman, 1992.
- Meehan, William F. III (2007). "The Importance of Cosimo de Medici in Library History." Indiana libraries, 26(3), 15–17. Retrieved from: http://hdl.handle.net/1805/1579
- Parks, Tim. Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics, and Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence. New York: W. W. Norton, 2005.
- Padgett, John F.; Ansell, Christopher K. (1993). "Robust Action and the Rise of the Medici, 1400–1434". American Journal of Sociology. 98 (6). University of Chicago Press: 1259–1319. S2CID 56166159.
- Tomas, Natalie R. (2003). The Medici Women: Gender and Power in Renaissance Florence. Aldershot: Ashgate. ISBN 0-7546-0777-1.