Buongiorno, everyone, and welcome to Medici country.

I█m Dr. Rocky Ruggiero, and that church that you see behind me is the Basilica of San Lorenzo, or what I like to call the "unofficial official" church of the Medici family.

It is the burial place to all but a few of the Medici men.

And just a stone█s throw away, we have the Medici Palace, which was home to the great family for century and a half.

Today we█re going to discuss the rise to power of perhaps the most famous of Renaissance families, and also discuss the art and architectural language that they left behind, which was clearly a language of power.

(dramatic music) The rise to power of the Medici family began around the year 1400, when Florence was one of Europe█s wealthiest and most politically influential cities.

Florence was also the cradle of the historical period known as the Italian Renaissance, and so the appearance of the Medici corresponds with one of humanity█s greatest periods of artistic achievement.

The first important Medici man was Giovanni di Bicci de█Medici, who established the Medici bank in Florence in the year 1397, and who carved out a new social position for the family as one of the leading political families in the great Florentine Republic.

And with Giovanni█s death in 1429, his son Cosimo, known as the elder or "il Vecchio," took over the family.

According to the famous historian and political theorist, Niccolo Machiavelli, those who rejoiced at Giovanni█s death now regretted it, perceiving what manner of man Cosimo was.

Cosimo, who has been described as the greatest political boss in the history of political boss-ship, not only consolidated the position of the Medici family, both in Florence and abroad, but also improved it.

And the meteoric rise of the Medici had upset the political status quo of Florence, and so their enemies move against them.

Led by Ronaldo degli Albizzi, the anti-Medici faction succeeded in having Cosimo arrested, with the accusation of rising above the rank of an ordinary citizen, which in a republic amounts to treason, and the punishment for which is death.

(dramatic music) On September 7th, 1433, Cosimo de█Medici was summoned before the Signoria, but instead of being brought before the city council, he was ushered up the 233 stairs and nearly 90 meters of tower and brought into the prison cell reserved for political prisoners.

Cosimo was brought into the prison cell known as the Alberghetto, or "little hotel room" in English.

The irony, of course, being the five-star luxury that its guests received.

And tradition in Florence was that if you came into the cell, you never made it to trial, because you accidentally fell out the window first, or you came down with a mysterious illness, which means that you were poisoned.

We█re told that Cosimo did not eat nor drink for several days while he was in this cell, for fear that he would be poisoned.

And he was essentially cut off from the outside world, with the exception of one man, and that was his jailer, who, fortunately for Cosimo, was sympathetic to his cause and communicated with the outside world for him, essentially informing all of Cosimo█s supporters and enemies that Cosimo was willing to spend as much money as necessary to reduce his sentence from death, which is the usual punishment for treason, to exile.

And essentially getting out of Florence with his life was Cosimo█s priority.

(dramatic music) After only a year, Cosimo returned to Florence from exile.

And after ridding himself of his political enemies, he commissioned the construction of a new family palace that would reflect the new primary role of the family in Florence.

So we█re here in the courtyard of the Medici Palace, and although this building is celebrated as being the first Renaissance-style domestic structure, there█s very little that█s Renaissance about it from the outside.

That rusticated brownstone is typical of medieval buildings in the city of Florence, but when you come inside, it█s a celebration of early Renaissance architecture.

A square courtyard that is delineated by these pietra sirena columns.

This gray stone or serene stone, as it█s called, was actually introduced into architecture by the great Filippo Brunelleschi, and it█s perfect for architectural articulation because it cuts so precisely.

In fact, Michelozzo using that same stone here for his columns which are then in turn covered with Corinthian capitals.

And so one of the innovations of Renaissance architecture was reintroducing the classical orders of columns and here we have Michelozzo using that Corinthian order, and those capitals in turn surmounted by semicircular arches.

And so too, going back to doing arches the way the Romans did, which was rounded in form.

No longer pointed arches, which was the typical way to articulate Gothic architecture.

Then above the arches we have this horizontal band or what we call an entablature, and that entablature accommodates those three circular stone frames, or roundels.

Now the central roundel houses one of the most recognizable symbols in the city of Florence and that of course is the coat of arms of the Medici family.

The shield with the balls that you see was the symbol of the family itself.

And so regardless of the shape of the shield, regardless of the number of balls, which will vary between five and eight, seeing that symbol is like seeing the name Medici written on something.

So one of the questions that I get very often is about the origins of the coat of arms of the Medici.

Just what are those balls?

Well, there are several theories.

The first going all the way back to the ninth century, and the first Medici man whose name was Averardo, who allegedly defeated a giant in battle, and in his combat, actually had his shield struck eight times, creating these eight distinct indentations.

And then the shield was flipped, giving the distinct shape of balls.

And the story goes that Charlemagne was so impressed by this feat that he allowed Averardo to actually keep that dented shield as his family crest or coat.

Of course, the fundamental problem with this theory is the involvement of the giant.

Another theory instead claims that the balls are derived from pills or compresses.

Remember that the name "Medici" translates into English as "doctors."

And that supposedly these were pills that they would prescribe to their patients.

The problem with this theory is that they weren█t prescribing pills in the Middle Ages.

It█s the third theory that I think holds most credence and that is that, in fact, those balls are stylized oranges.

Consider that the name of the orange was the "mela medica" or the medical apple.

They didn█t know about ascorbic acid at the time, but they did know that oranges helped cure things like scurvy.

And consider as well that the Medici would use the orange as a substitute for their coat of arms.

In fact, when we go upstairs and look at the frescoes here in the Chapel of the Magi, there is an orange tree present.

When we look at, for instance, the Primavera painting by Botticelli, the whole thing takes place in an orange grove.

And if you look around me here in the garden of the Medici Palace, you see that I am surrounded by orange trees.

Now these, of course, are not the original 600-year-old orange trees, but we do know that there were orange trees here in the garden at the time of Lorenzo il Magnifico in the 15th century, because Lorenzo wrote that when his humors were awry, he would sleep in one of the bedrooms facing out into the garden and that the sweet perfume of orange blossoms would revive him.

In the lateral reliefs, we have instead reproductions of ancient Roman cameos.

Now, these cameos were about the size of dimes and they were housed here in the Medici Palace, the world█s most important collection of ancient cameos.

And so, because it was highly improbable that an average Joe Schmo would ever get the opportunity to go up and see them firsthand, the Medici have reproduced them here in their courtyard.

And so the Medici kind of mass marketing here, if you will, their assets as collectors, their assets obviously as wealthy citizens of the city of Florence.

Now, the first floor of the palace is what we call the piano nobile or the noble floor.

And in all of these domestic structures, it was where the living quarters were actually located.

And in fact, the artistic gem that█s housed here in the Medici Palace, which is the Chapel of the Magi, is up on that first floor.

We█ll go up there in just a sec and take a look.

And then the top floor of the Medici Palace was the one that was most exclusive, but not exclusive in terms of importance.

Exclusive because it was where the unsightly aspects of domestic living were, in fact, contained.

That is where the kitchens were located, the storage facilities, and the servants quarters.

So much like mansions in the United States where those kitchens were always kept in the basement to keep them out of sight, so too did Renaissance Palace keep those aspects hidden away from the average visitor.

The location of the palace is not arbitrary.

It█s located on a street that used to be called the Via Larga, or the Wide Road.

It was the widest and longest street in the city of Florence, extending all the way up to the northern gate that you see there.

And let█s imagine that you were visiting Florence at the end of the 15th century, coming from the north and heading south.

The first monument you█d pass would be the Dominican convent of San Marco, which was entirely funded with Medici money.

In fact, their coat of arms ubiquitous on the outside of that structure.

Then you█d continue down further and you█d pass their family palace, which was a one-of-a-kind structure at the time.

And their coat of arms clearly visible on the outside.

The next thing you█d see would be their Church of San Lorenzo, which is located right behind the church that you see here, which was actually built in the 18th century.

And then the next two monuments you█d pass would be the Baptistry and the Duomo.

So if you simply run the numbers, if three of the first five buildings were paid for with Medici money, why would the next two not be?

And in fact, still today in the 21st century, people come to Florence and make this mistake that the Medici were patrons of everything in the city.

Most of Florence was technically already standing by the time the Medici came along, but if you weave your monumental patronage into the urban fabric of a city the way the Medici did, then essentially what happens is that the name Medici becomes synonymous with Florence, and Florence synonymous with Medici.

With the death of Cosimo in 1464, his son Piero took over the family.

Known as "the Gouty," because he was often bedridden by the condition.

Piero is not as celebrated as his father or son, but successfully maintained the helm of the family for five years.

He was married to an extraordinary woman named Lucrezia Tornabuoni, who was as talented a poet as she was a stateswoman.

Piero█s greatest artistic legacy was the commissioning of the extraordinary Chapel of the Magi, inside of the Medici Palace.

(dramatic music) So I█m climbing up to the Chapel of the Magi.

These are not the original stairs.

These are 18th-century stairs that were added later, and you can tell because the height of the stairs is quite low and the incline in fact quite gradual.

Renaissance stairs would be steeper and harder to climb.

Okay, so let█s head on in and take a look at this extraordinary chapel.

Welcome to one of the hidden treasures of Florence.

This is the Chapel of the Magi inside of the Medici Palace.

It was a private chapel in the home of the Medici where a priest could come over daily from the nearby Medici Church of San Lorenzo and say mass for a very intimate audience.

There█s only room for about 10 people or so in these wooden choir stalls that you see.

And while the Medici were hearing mass, they could bask in art that was meant to glorify them.

They could recharge their ego batteries here through the use of porphyry just about everywhere inside of this chapel, through the use of Medici symbols and models all over the walls, and probably most of all through this beautiful fresco cycle that you see that was painted by the great Florentine artist Benozzo Gozzoli, depicting the Adoration of the Magi.

The fresco cycle starts in the upper left hand corner of this wall, where you see the caravan of the Magi making its way down.

And when you hit that orange tree, we█ve already discussed the symbolism of oranges, and the meaning essentially is the source of the Medici coat of arms.

Just to the right of the orange tree, you█ll see this young man wearing a blue hat that looks suspiciously like an orange press.

That█s just pure coincidence.

We don█t care about him, but we█re gonna use him as a point of reference to point out all of the portraits that are included in this group.

One row below that young man, an older crabby-looking man with this old-style aviator hat on, is a portrait of Pope Pius II, the Pope who gave the Medici permission to build this chapel in their home.

One row below him, and then slightly to the right, you have this clean-shaven, very serious-looking young man with a furrowed brow and pursed lips.

And if you look carefully at that red hat that he█s wearing, there are golden letters written across, spelling out the name Benozzi, Latin for Benozzo, the first name of the artist.

That is a self-portrait of the painter, Benozzo Gozzoli.

One row below him and pushed back a row, you have a portrait of a six-year-old Giuliano de█Medici, the younger of the Magnifici brothers, and the brother who was assassinated in Florence Cathedral in 1478.

To your left of him, the older boy nearly in profile is a 10-year-old Lorenzo il Magnifico.

In the front row, the figure on the far left on the orange horse was the illegitimate overlord of an Italian city called Rimini.

His name: Sigismondo Malatesta, a mercenary general by profession and client of the Medici bank.

He sort of represented the muscle branch, if you will, of the Medici family.

Next to him on the white horse is Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Lord of, and soon to be Duke of, the city of Milan, also a client of the Medici and muscle should they need it.

Then you have this older gentleman riding this donkey, and you think to yourself, "Who would be so modest and humble as to show himself riding this most simple beast of burden?"

The answer, of course: Cosimo.

But then you remember that someone else once rode a donkey and he rode it into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and his name of course was Jesus Christ.

And so we█re back to that "Who the hell do you think you are?"

question.

Is Cosimo simply showing himself as this simple citizen?

Or is he showing himself as a megalomaniacal equivalent to the Messiah himself?

And consider that this is a contemporary portrait of Cosimo.

So if you█re wondering what he looked like, there you go.

1459, he still had five years left to live.

Now to the right of him, you have Cosimo█s firstborn son, Piero.

And Cosimo had already handed over the control of the family to his son, and stayed on in a kind of consigliere position to ease the transition between generations.

And you notice the way Piero is presented: riding this magnificent white charger without reins.

He simply holds onto the mane of the horse to show power.

But if you look carefully at the bridle of the white horse, you█ll see more Medici propaganda.

In the upper band, you have this motif of three vertical feathers separated by rings with the Medici balls, but more importantly, on the lower band of the bridle, you have the overlapping rings with the letters S-E-M-P-E-R inscribed inside.

Semper.

Latin for "always."

And so essentially, "the Medici forever."

An explicit dynastic term.

They would never use it anywhere else because people would understand what they were up to, but they could use it here because this was a private space and what the Medici did publicly and what the Medici did privately were often two different things.

We move to the right again, where we have the youngest of the kings.

That elfish looking figure who looks like he just rode out of Lord of the Rings, is the third of the magi.

And then to the right of him, you have these figures, these horses that have turned orthogonally because the artist wants us to turn and move onto this wall here to my left.

When we turn the corner, you█ll notice that window behind me, which was actually a later addition, added when the Riccardi family purchased the palace and knocked through the 15th century wall.

The second king is the gentleman that you see riding that white horse above what was the original door of the chapel.

Much more to scale with the actual size of the space.

And the face of that king is actually a portrait of the Byzantine Emperor John Palaiologos.

He had come to Florence in the year 1439 for the famous Council of Florence.

In fact, the most important historic event to ever have taken place in the city of Florence was this particular council.

I describe it to my students as a G20, times an Olympics, times a World Cup, all happening simultaneously in this city.

All Christian leaders converged upon Florence to decide what to do about the Ottoman threat, knocking at the door of a city we once called Constantinople.

And that event, of course, was sponsored by the Medici.

So what they█re doing here is showing off these great personalities and celebrities that they brought from throughout the world to the city of Florence.

It█s like walking into my office and seeing photos of me with world leaders.

It adds to the prestige of the family.

Now, when we turn the corner again, you█ll notice this neat little magic trick.

You see what looks to be the back third of a white horse on this wall, and then you█ll see the remaining two-thirds of what actually turns out to be a mule on that wall.

The reason: that door behind me was actually a later addition in the 17th century.

The Riccardi family decided to add another door at the top of that staircase that we just used, and when they did, they cut this wall, pushed a third of it forward, separating the back of the horse from the front.

Now, the third Magus, the older gentleman that you see on that white mule, is, in all probability, a portrait of Joseph of Constantinople, the patriarch of Constantinople, who had also come to Florence in 1439 for that famous council.

To the right of him, we have these young men with freshly permanented hairdos that you see with the lynx and the falcon.

And then to the far right, you have this procession of men whose faces are way too detailed to be arbitrary.

Those are portraits of local Medici supporters.

And one very effective way to win their loyalty was to invite them periodically to this chapel, to hear mass and to see their faces up on the same walls as Dukes and Emperors and Popes.

And so the procession of the Magi culminating here in the apse of the chapel, where the choirs of angels are already singing the praises of the newborn king that you see here in the altarpiece behind me.

Now, the original altarpiece is presently in Berlin.

This is a copy, but it recreates the original look of the chapel, suggesting technically that these Medici were using their wealth also in a type of pious patronage to celebrate God and Christianity, as well, of course, as celebrating themselves.

(violin music) When Piero passed away in 1469, his 20-year-old son Lorenzo took over the family.

Known as "il Magnifico," Lorenzo embodied the idea of the Renaissance man.

Poet, statesman, soldier, and philosopher.

He successfully navigated the murky waters of Renaissance politics and had his 14-year-old son elevated to the rank of Cardinal in 1489.

And Cardinal Giovanni de█Medici went on to become Pope Leo X.

And while he was Pope, he made his younger cousin Giulio a cardinal as well.

And Cardinal Giulio de█Medici went on to become Pope Clement VII.

It was Pope Clement who used all of his wealth and power to install his nephew Alessandro de█Medici as first Duke of Florence in 1532.

The problem with Alessandro was that he was a clinical sociopath.

He was eventually assassinated by a cousin and replaced by another cousin named Cosimo.

It was Duke Cosimo I who upgraded the rank of the Medici family by marrying into Europe█s most powerful and wealthy family at the time, which was named Hapsburg.

He and his new Duchess Eleonora of Toledo temporarily moved into the Palazzo Vecchio, but after complaining that the former town hall was too small to accommodate her court, Duchess Eleonora purchased a new palace on the other side of the Arno river, known as the Pitti Palace.

When Duchess Eleonora of Toledo purchased the Pitti Palace in 1542 for the total cost of 9,000 florins, it looked a lot different than it does today.

In fact, you see that main door behind me, the window above it, and then the window again.

That█s the central axis of the building.

And if you add three window bays to the left and three to the right, that was the original width of he 15th century Pitti Palace.

Everything beyond that was added by the Medici to make this a proper home for the new royal family of Florence.

Shortly thereafter, Duke Cosimo would move all of the administrative offices out of the former town hall and into the Uffizi, which is the Italian word for "offices."

And to connect their home to their offices, Duke Cosimo commissioned the construction of an exclusive elevated covered passageway known as the Vasari Corridor.

Two-thirds of a mile long, the corridor allowed the royal Medici to move securely back and forth throughout the city while avoiding the vile masses down below.

When the Medici become monarchs, their whole philosophy of patronage changes.

In the 15th century, it was this constant staying off the radar and worrying about your neighbors asking "who the hell you thought you were."

But when you become legitimate royalty, if you█re not going over the top, then you█re not doing your job.

And that█s exactly what the Medici Dukes did here at the so-called Chapel of the Princes, what I like to call the Las Vegas of the Renaissance.

Just about every square inch of floor and wall and ceiling surface covered in decoration, porphyry ubiquitous throughout the entire space.

In fact, porphyry presently extinct.

You can no longer find this in the natural world.

And the joke is, the reason is because the Medici used it all up here to decorate this structure.

Imagine the contrast, as well, between that austere interior of the Basilica of San Lorenzo versus this explosion of baroque decoration here in the Chapel of the Princes.

This is something that was intended on their part, and the organization is such that the sarcophagi are actually lifted up off the ground.

So the idea is that even in death, the Dukes rule over us.

Look at the size of those sarcophagi as well.

I hope none of you think that the Medici Dukes were physically this large.

Their egos may have been, but they were not.

The idea of oversized meaning monumentality, the Medici coat of arms at the center of the sarcophagus, and then the crown positioned on top of the cushion that breaks the lid that you see as well.

You notice that the niches behind me are empty, because the plan was to fill them with effigies of the Dukes but of the six niches in this room, only two actually received their statues.

The inscription above, indicating to whom each of the tombs is dedicated.

And so what you have there is "Cosmus," or Cosimo.

Capital letter I, for the first.

M is an abbreviation for "magna" or grand.

Then D-V-X, or D-U-X when you█re reading these inscriptions.

"Dux," which is Latin for Duke, and then E-T-R, abbreviation for "Etruria."

"Cosimo I, Grand Duke of Etruria."

Etruria was the ancient name of the region that today we call Tuscany.

And why are the Dukes alluding to the Etruscans?

Well, back in Etruscan times, they had kings.

And so what these Medici Dukes are doing is appropriating the legacy of the Etruscan kings saying, "Look, once we had kings, now we are kings once again."

Above the inscription, you have this large elaborate frame meant to contain the Medici coat of arms.

But you see again that most of those are empty.

Then a clerestory level, with the eight windows.

And as much as the Medici would love to think that the sun is sitting directly above this structure and illuminating all eight sides at the same time, it is actually electric lighting that brings that light in, illuminating a fresco cycle up there on the dome that was executed in the 1870s.

So consider, while artists like Cezanne and Manet were revolutionizing painting up in Paris -- In Florence, we█re still painting like we did in the 16th century.

And in fact, consider the floors here were put together in the 20th century, the early 20th century.

Because essentially once that Medici line went extinct, this entire structure was left unfinished and only completed once it was transformed into a museum at the end of the 19th century.

Grand Duke Cosimo I was succeeded by six Grand Dukes, the last of which was named Gian Gastone, who died heirless in 1737.

Gian Gastone█s sister, Anna Maria Louisa de█Medici was the last surviving member of the family.

And when she died in 1743 without any heirs, the Medici family went extinct.

Yet it was Anna Maria Louisa de█Medici who preserved the artistic heritage and legacy of Renaissance Florence by guaranteeing that all of the art owned by the Medici remained in the city of Florence, where millions of people still enjoy it today.