Tag: Medici family
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The gift of the Medici
Credit for the present status of Florence as a jewel of European art and culture is rarely given to where it is due. Accounts of its history are replete with descriptions of the founder of the Medici’s wealth, Giovanni de’ Bicci; the exploits of Cosimo, pater patriae; the splendor of Lorenzo the Magnificent; and the…
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Berengario da Carpi, pre-Vesalian anatomist (1460–1530)
Berengario da Carpi was the most important anatomist of the generation preceding the so-called Anatomical Trinity of Vesalius, Fallopio, and Eustachio. He is regarded as one of the founders of scientific anatomy, challenging the reliance on ancient texts and emphasizing the primacy of direct observation based on dissecting the human body. A prolific author, he…
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The gout of the Medici
Florence in the fifteenth century was one of the most important cities in Western Europe. Rich and resplendent, first in banking and in the wool trade, it even issued its own currency, the golden florin, widely used throughout Europe. For some three hundred years the city was ruled almost continuously by the Medici, at one…