Concept

Cosimo de' Medici

Overview

Cosimo di Giovanni de' Medici (27 September 1389 – 1 August 1464) was an Italian banker and politician who became the de facto ruler of Florence during the Italian Renaissance, and was the first to establish the Medici family as its effective leaders for generations.

His power derived from his wealth as a banker and intermarriage with other rich and powerful families. He was a patron of arts, learning, and architecture. He spent over 600,000 gold florins (approx. $500 million inflation adjusted) on art and culture, including Donatello's David, the first freestanding nude male sculpture since antiquity.

Despite his influence, his power was not absolute; he was viewed by fellow Florentine politicians as first among equals rather than an autocrat. Florence's legislative councils resisted his proposals throughout his political career, even sending him into exile from 1433 to 1434.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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1. Now in those days the god Thamus was the king of the whole country of Egypt; and he dwelt in that great city of Upper Egypt which the Hellenes call Egyptian Thebes, and the god himself is called by them Ammon. To him came Theuth and showed his inventions, desiring that the other Egyptians might be allowed to have the benefit of them; he enumerated them, and Thamus enquired about their several uses, and praised some…

   Plato, Phaedrus

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2. There are still extant some declamations by Cato, during his censorship, against the practice of erecting statues of women in the Roman provinces. However, he could not prevent a statue being erected at Rome to Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, and daughter of the elder Scipio Africanus. She is represented in a sitting posture, and the statue is remarkable for having no straps to the shoes. Various circumstances…

   the Elder Pliny, The Boys' and Girls' Pliny

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3. Whether the legislator is establishing a new state or restoring an old and decayed one, in respect of Gods and temples,--the temples which are to be built in each city, and the Gods or demi-gods after whom they are to be called,--if he be a man of sense, he will make no change in anything which the oracle of Delphi, or Dodona, or the God Ammon, or any ancient tradition has sanctioned in whatever manner, whether by…

   Plato, Laws

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Philosophers who discussed Cosimo de' Medici

• Gemistos Plethon
• Platonic Academy (Florence)
• Marsilio Ficino
• Villa Medici at Careggi

Related ideas

• Edward Gibbon
• Florence
• Geneva
• Gemistos Plethon
• Platonic Academy (Florence)
• Byzantine Empire
• Lübeck
• London
• Marsilio Ficino
• Intellectual
• Plato
• Neoplatonism
• Pisa
• Rome
• Renaissance
• Siena
• Renaissance humanism
• Republic of Florence
• The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
• Italian Renaissance
• Venice
• Milan
• The Story of Civilization
• Padua

Place in the tradition

Part of Italian philosophy.

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