MEDICI, mit'd?••••eW. Tub:. The most cu.!, hrated family of the Florentine Republic. The Medici owed their earliest distinction to the success with which they had pursued various branches of commerce. and the liberal spirit in which they devoted their wealth to purposes of general utility. From the thirteenth century the Medici took part in all the leading events of the Republic. From the time when Salvestra Mellivi attained the rank of gonfaloniere in 1978 the family rose rapidly to preittninence, the foundation of its greatness being especially due to tfiovanni, who died in 1129, leaning to his sons. Cosimo and Lorenzo. a heritage of wealth and honors hitherto unparalleled in the Repuhlie. With Cosimo (1389-1464), on whom was grate• fully bestowed the title of 'Father of his Coun try.' began the glorious epoch of the Iledieit while fr Lorenzo was deseendled the collateral branch of the family, which in the sixteenth century old:tined absolute sway over Tuscany. Cosimo's life, except during a short period. when the Al bizzi and other families 1.0,tablishod a opposition against the policy and eredit of the Medici, was one uninterrupted course of prosper ity. At once a munificent patron and a success ful eultivator of art and literature, lie did more than any sovereign in Europe to revive the study of the ancient classics. and to foster a taste for mental culture. He assembled about him learned men of every nation, and gave liberal support to numerous Greek scholars; and by his foundation of an academy for the study of the philosophy of Plato, and of a library of Greek, Latin, and Oriental manuscripts, he inaugurated a new era in modern learning and art. But, though he re tained the forms of the Republic, and nominally confided the executive authority to a gonfaloniere and eight priori or senators, he totally extin guished the freedom of Florence.
His grandson, LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT (1449-92), became the virtual bead of the Flor entine State in 1469. In 1478 the conspiracy of the Pazzi nearly succeeded in overthrowing the Mediei. Lorenzo's brother Giuliano was slain, and he himself barely escaped. The result of the conspiracy was to give Lorenzo a firmer hold upon the State. He pursued with signal success
the policy of his family, which was to win the favor of the lower classes, and thereby make absolute their own power. He encouraged liter ature and the arts, employed learned men to collect choice books and antiquities for him from every part of the known world, established print ing presses in his dominions, founded academies for the study of classical learning, and filled his gardens with collections of the remains of ancient art. When, however, his munificence and conciliatory manners had gained for him the affection of the higher and the devotion of the lower classes, lie lost no time in breaking down the forms of constitutional independence that he and his predecessors had hitherto suf fered to exist. Some few Florentines, alarmed at the progress of the voluptuous refinement. which was smothering every spark of personal inde pendence, tried to stem the current of corruption by an ascetic severity of morals, which gained for them the name of piagnoni. or weepers. Fore most among them was the Dominican friar Gi rolamo Savonarola (q.v.), whose eloquent ap peals to the people in favor of a popular and democratic form of government and a life of aseeticism threatened for a time the o•e•thu•oy of the Medici. Lorenzo achieved some reputation in belles-lettres. We have from hint poems of many kinds, lyric, moral, dramatic, and descrip tive. Ilis Conzoni and Sonetti are love poems, to which he added a prose commentary. A true feeling for nature appears in the Caccia col ful ennr•, and a rather pleasing picture of rural life is to be found in his Xcneia rin Barberino. A dramatic composition of a kind held in favor at the time is 111( llapprescatazione Saila ni c Paolo (performed in 1489). Like so many writers of the period, he cultivated the form of the ballata o• dance-song. He wrote also a num ber of ('anti carnascialesehi or carnival songs. The religions spirit prevails in his Lamb spiri Tlis love poetry is the best of all that he produced, and the most distinctive characteristic in it is the note of melancholy.