'This forensic study of the Renaissance banking dynasty conjures up a world of art literature
philosophy - and brutality' Telegraph 'Likely to become the standard work of reference on the
members of the family that dominated Florence' TLS 'A lucid and beautifully illustrated family
history' The Times Wealthy bankers wise politicians patrons of the arts glittering dukes...
so runs the traditional telling of the story of the Medici the family that ruled Florence for
two hundred years and inspired the birth of the Italian Renaissance. In this definitive account
of their rise and fall Mary Hollingsworth argues that the idea that the Medici were wise
rulers and enlightened fathers of the Renaissance is a fiction. In truth she says the Medici
were as devious and immoral as the Borgias - tyrants loathed in the city they illegally made
their own and which they beggared in their lust for power.
