Audiobook16 hours
The Medici: Power, Money, and Ambition in the Italian Renaissance
Written by Paul Strathern
Narrated by Derek Perkins
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
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About this audiobook
A dazzling history of the modest family that rose to become one of the most powerful in Europe, The Medici is a remarkably modern story of power, money, and ambition. Against the background of an age that saw the rebirth of ancient and classical learning Paul Strathern explores the intensely dramatic rise and fall of the Medici family in Florence, as well as the Italian Renaissance which they did so much to sponsor and encourage. Interwoven into the narrative are the lives of many of the great Renaissance artists with whom the Medici had dealings, including Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Donatello, as well as scientists like Galileo and Pico della Mirandola.
In his enthralling study, Strathern also follows the fortunes of those members of the Medici family who achieved success away from Florence, including the two Medici popes and Catherine de' Medici, who became queen of France and played a major role in that country through three turbulent reigns.
In his enthralling study, Strathern also follows the fortunes of those members of the Medici family who achieved success away from Florence, including the two Medici popes and Catherine de' Medici, who became queen of France and played a major role in that country through three turbulent reigns.
Author
Paul Strathern
Paul Strathern is a Somerset Maugham Award-winning novelist, and his nonfiction works include The Venetians, Death in Florence, The Medici, Mendeleyev's Dream, The Florentines, Empire, and The Borgias, all available from Pegasus Books. He lives in England.
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Reviews for The Medici
Rating: 4.1206896793103445 out of 5 stars
4/5
116 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is the first purely historical non fiction I have read. I am definitely not sure about the accuracy of the information. But this book was definitely not dry. I have been an admirer of Lorenzo The Magnificent since watching Da Vinci Demons. I watched other shows about the Medicis which took a lot of liberty around historical characters and wanted to read something closer to reality. This was a nice book for someone like me who wants to understand different time periods without dry academic rigor. I would go as far as to say that this was a page Turner.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm a fan of history books that take a premise or subject and like a big stew, toss in all kinds of contemporary context. You can learn a lot about Renaissance art, warfare, politics, religion, literature, just from reading this one book.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I've always been somewhat precocious. A nerd, if you will. What we call gammelklog in Danish. And there are quite a few contributing factors to this. At this stage, I've reached the point where a lot of people won't play Trivial Pursuit with me. Even my fiancée wouldn't indulge me without tricking me into playing the God-damn Disney edition! (My secret weakness - CURSE YOU!) My personal belief is that my Dad carries a lot of the responsibility for my multi-faceted trove of trivial knowledge; because for several years he was the one who planned our family summer vacations. They often had Southern Europe as their final destination, but it wasn't your average, easy-going recreational sojourn. Oh no. This was hardcore, full-on Grand Tour for the modern era. And seeing how he is quite fond of Andrea Palladio - and Renaissance art and architecture in general - it was only natural that we spent A LOT of time in Northern Italy (and Tuscany in particular). So when I spotted this Medici biography at my trusty old D-A haunt, I pounced on it immediately. It took some time for me to get started on it, however, because I misplaced it. Yep, again-again. But once I got started with it, it was damn near glued to my hands. It is frankly enthralling. So many characters, plot threads, names and dates - all exquisitely researched and conveyed. Strathern doesn't pull any punches from the get-go - the reader is dropped straight in the middle of the Pazzi conspiracy, at the point where the assassins pounce on Lorenzo and Giuliano. And from there, it's a roughshod ride through the colourful history of Tuscany's most (in)famous clan/dynasty. From the shrewd, discreet bankers/moguls Giovanni Di Bicci and Cosimo the Elder, past the iconic Lorenzo il Magnifico and the Medici Popes, all the way to the ignominious end with the grotesque glutton Gian Gastone. And yet, this book is more than just a biography of this influential family. It's also a collection of biographies - of the people that fell into the sphere of the Medici. Botticelli, Da Vinci, Vasari, Galilei, Cellini, Poliziano, Macchiavelli - you get acquainted with all of them. On top of this, the tone and language is accesible, enjoyable and fluent throughout. One of my few grievances with this tome is the fact that one of the colour plates fell out about halfway through. But, then again, it WAS a second-hand purchase. This turned out to be one of my longest reviews to date, but this book really struck a chord with me. I genuinely loved it.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The fact that this is a book about a fascinating dynasty keeps our interest going to the end but truth be told the author was running out of fuel by the time we got to Ferdinando. The real Medici power lay between Cosimo and Pope Clement VII. What amazing men! So human, so fallible and yet with a touch of brilliance that lifted them (and Europe) from the mediaeval world view into the Renaissance. Men, who not artists themselves, funded the geniuses of that golden era, the well spring of the Renaissance - Enlightenment – Industrial Revolution – splitting the atom – cyberspace? The author wisely diverts from the somewhat limiting contributions of the family itself to dwell in loving detail on the masters and their mastery. He brought me to a new appreciation of, for example, Donatello’s David and of the remarkable (for the era) tolerance, indeed embracing, of homosexuality. So, all the men, men, men when the most influential and powerful of the Medici was a woman and to my mind this books stands or falls on its analysis and assessment of this most influential of queens. Catherine, deserving and recipient of full books in her own right, is the most fascinating of the Medici and I feel that the scant chapter she gets in this book will do little more than whet your appetite.Finally, the book could have done with some tighter editorial input. If we were told once in the early chapters that Cosimo was a conservative banker we were told four times; my memory is quite good, especially when a point was made only a few pages back. The same point made repeatedly began to grate after a while and, unfortunately, this reoccurs with other themes throughout the book (though not with the same pernicious effect on my harmony. Pity ‘cos the point was pertinent.But these are mere quibbles; this is a well written, enjoyable broad brush canvas of the, mainly, Medici men whose sexual preferences eventually saw the end of the line.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This gallop through the rise and fall of the Medici family charts the characters who made it as merchants, dukes, popes, queens, scientists, patrons and villains from medieval to Enlightenment Italy. Real characters these that one can alternately cheer or boo but rarely be indifferent to, their lives are charted in some detail against a backdrop of international intrigue, trade and war in a narrative that at times almost feels like fiction if we didn't know that it really happened. Paul Strathern strikes just the right balance between scholarship and accessibility, and the text is complemented by a selection of maps and portraits.