The Medici Family is intimately linked to the history of Florence since for three centuries, in one way or another, it managed to have control over the city. He also managed to influence artistic and cultural taste inside and outside Florence by supporting artists such as Botticelli, Michelangelo, Vasari and many others. Like no other it favored that revolution of the western culture that starting from Florence set the new cultural bases in Europe: the Renaissance.
Representatives of the rising bourgeoisie in the cities of northern Italy in the era of the expansion of mercantile and financial capitalism, the Medici left their mark on the art of the Renaissance, exercising abundant patronage. They appear to have held the position of gonfalonier or head of the city of Florence since the 14th century.
The first Florentine residence of the Medici Family was the Palazzo Medici Riccardi which represents the prototype of a manor palace of the Florentine Renaissance. The visit of the palace allows us to admire the architecture of Michelozzo, the sparkling chapel of the magicians of Benozzo Gozzoli, the courtyard and the austere garden. It also allows us to know the origins of the family’s fortune and its rise to power.
In front of the palace there is the basilica of San Lorenzo where the traces of the patronage of the Medici Family are tangible. The church was designed by Brunelleschi for Cosimo the Elder, there is the old sacristy, the choir of Donatello and the funeral monuments of Verrocchio. However, the complex in its entirety, with the library and the Medicean Chapels (the family pantheon), is the result of another three centuries of work and participation, which saw the participation of Michelangelo and the greatest architects of the Florentine Baroque.
In the sixteenth century the Medici family acquired the nobility title of duchy and settled in the Old Palace, redesigned by Giorgio Vasari for Cosimo I. There we will find the cycles of commemorative frescoes, the precious study, the maps that reflect the great ambitions that accompanied the acquisition of power. The statues of the Piazza della Signoria complete the apotheosis of the family: the powerful Neptune of Ammannati, the equestrian statue of Cosimo I of John of Bologna, the Hercules of Bandinelli and the famous Perseus of Cellini.
The Pitti Palace was the last Florentine residence of the Medici Family and still houses a number of museums and extremely varied collections: amber, ivories, semi-precious stones, porcelain, jewellery, dresses, floats, in addition to the paintings and sculptures that keep alive the mythical and trustworthy image of the Medici who were politicians without prejudice and avid collectors and surrounded themselves with artists, scientists and men of letters. The Silver Museum is dominated by works of gold and jewellery, but also exotic objects and spectacular creations in semi-precious stones. In the Palace Gallery the collection of paintings (Raffaello, Titian, Rubens and so many others) and the sumptuous Royal Apartments, with the scenographic background of the Boboli garden.
Their intrigues, their power games, their conspiracies, their wives, and their lovers? Do you want to know who Cosimo The Elder really was? Peter the Gouty, Lorenzo Il Magnificent? Do you also want to see the Palaces of Rinaldo degli Albizi, as well as the Strozzi and the Pazzi families, the sworn enemies of the Medici? Here is the tour for you!
You will visit the Chapel of the Magi, frescoed in the fifteenth century with the real portraits of the family members. You will stop in the magnificent cloister where the park full of statues began, where Michelangelo learned to sculpt and you will wander among the rooms where they lived: Michelangelo, Marsilio Ficino, Agnolo Poliziano, Pico della Mirandola, and many other artists and thinkers.
The Palace, the work of Michelozzo, was built in 1444 by Cosimo il Vecchio de 'Medici, Pater Patriae, and is considered the first Renaissance palace in the world.
We will then walk outside through the Florence of the time and we will stop to see buildings of relevance for the history of the Medici family and of Florence. We will see where many scenes of the TV series have been filmed.
Here the link of our Medici Group Tour: https://www.madeoftuscany.it/medicis-group-tour/
And here the link of our Medici Private Tour: https://www.madeoftuscany.it/the-medicis-private-tour/
