Lorenzo I di Medici, "il Magnifico"

1449 - 1492  (43 years)    Has 83 ancestors and more than 100 descendants in this family tree.

• Name	Lorenzo I di Medici
  Suffix	"il Magnifico"
  Birth	1449
  Gender	Male
  Death	8 Apr 1492	Villa of Careggi, Florence
  Siblings	5 Siblings
  1. Maria di Medici   d. Yes, date unknown + 2. Lucrezia de' Medici,   b. 1448   d. 1493  (Age 45 years) ▻ Bernardo Rucellai + 3. Lorenzo I di Medici, "il Magnifico",   b. 1449   d. 8 Apr 1492, Villa of Careggi, Florence  (Age 43 years) ▻ Philippina di Savoya;   Clarice Orsini + 4. Giuliano di Medici,   b. 1453   d. 1478, Firenze, Toscana, Italia  (Age 25 years) ▻   5. Bianca di Medici   d. Yes, date unknown   6. Naninna di Medici   d. 1493
  Person ID	I53019	Geneagraphie
  Last Modified	29 Aug 2000

  
  

  Father	Pietro di Medici, 'il Gottoso',   b. 1416, Firenze, Toscana, Italia d. 3 Dec 1469, Firenze, Toscana, Italia (Age 53 years)
  Mother	Lucretia Tornabuoni,   b. 1425   d. 25 Mar 1482 (Age 57 years)
  Marriage	3 Jun 1444
  Family ID	F21622	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family 1	Philippina di Savoya   d. Yes, date unknown
  Family ID	F21626	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	29 Aug 2000

  
  

  Family 2	Clarice Orsini,   b. 1450-1453   d. 1488 (Age 35 years)
  Children	+ 1. Piero II di Medici, "il Sfortunato",   b. 1471   d. 28 Dec 1503 (Age 32 years) + 2. Maddalena di Medici,   b. 1473   d. 1519 (Age 46 years)   3. Pope Leo, X,   b. 1475   d. 1 Dec 1521 (Age 46 years)   4. Duc Giuliano di Medici,   b. 1479   d. 17 Mar 1516 (Age 37 years) + 5. Lucrezia di Medici,   b. 4 Aug 1470   d. 1550 (Age 79 years)
  Family ID	F21628	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	29 Aug 2000

  
  

• Photos

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• Notes

  Lorenzo the Magnificent is, withouth doubt, the most important and significant member of the Medici family from all points of view. He was one of the great leaders of the Italy of his time, which precisely in Florence witnessed on extraordinary flowering of intellectual activities. He was a politician, a man of power and culture. Lorenzo began his public life very early and he succeeded his father when he was not yet twenty-one. Immediatly he had to face difficult situations such as financial problems, conspiracies, relations with the Popacy, with Kings princes and milers of the countries. Nevertheless slowly the "balance of power" that Lorenzo maintained with Milan, Venice and Naples reinforced the florentine position, and wise economic measures improved the family finances. But Lorenzo's genius went further than this: he continued his family's traditional patronage of artists, opening his house and gardens to the younger ones. First Leonardo then Michelangelo and many others such as Botticelli, Filippino Lippi etc. turned to him for aid and protection. At the time of Lorenzo the Magnificent, precisely in 1485, Girolamo Savonarola, a Dominican from the convent of San Marco began to seduce the Florentines with his prophetic language. He spoke of the Apocalypse and of the dreadful God, first from the pulpit of San Marco and then from that of the cathedral. Although it had been Lorenzo who had brought the Dominican back from exile in Bologna, Savonarola's preaching soon took on a tone of implacable accusation against his benefactor. The friar accused Lorenzo publicy and univocably of ruining the state and squandering the wealth of the people deposited in the public coffers. Those who attempted to appease the spirit of the friar received the answer, "I do not care. But let (the Magnificent) know that I am a foreigner and he is a citizen and the first of the city: I am to stay and he is to go: I shall stay and not he." Many saw in these words a prophesy of Lorenzo's death, like the lightning-bolt that had struck Brunelleschi's dome a few months before his death. Accounts of this last meeting between Lorenzo the Magnificent and Savonarola, differ, but one may suppose, or hope, that in the end the friar remembered above all his duties as a priest. Lorenzo died peacefully in the night between April 8 and 9, 1492 in the Villa of Careggi Florence was deeply shaken by his death which left an immense void in the world. Two years after Lorenzo's death his eldest son Piero, called the "unfortunate", was exiled from Florence for his political "incapacity" and only after 18 years the Medici family could return to its home-town.