Family dynasties can be very powerful and enduring organizations. A good example is the Medici family of Florence several centuries ago. It’s so long ago that nobody knows all the details, but one of the major factors in their ascendance was the Medici Bank. Giovanni de’ Medici founded it around 1397, and it became the largest and most respected bank in all of Europe. The Medicis may have been the wealthiest family in Europe, too — once again, it’s so long ago that it’s hard to be sure. But they were, in any event, filthy rich.
They were involved in politics, too, and by the 1400s were running Florence. It was unofficial, but Giovanni’s son Cosimo, who would eventually be known as Cosimo the Elder, became the gran maestro of Florence. If you’ve heard the phrase “the power behind the throne,” that’s what the gran maestro was.
In 1421 Giovanni had a son who he named Giovanni after his father — in medieval times this was all kept straight by naming; the young Giovanni was “Giovanni di Cosimo de’ Medici.” He was also, by the way, born on June 3.
By that time the Medicis were at least three generations into fabulous wealth and power, and some of the youngsters began to wonder what they were doing working for a living, particularly in a bank, which really isn’t very exciting. Giovanni (the young one) was much more interested in art and music than business, and although he did run the bank for a while, he’s mostly remembered for collecting sculptures, jewels, manuscripts, and paintings by the famous artists of the day, including Donatello, Pesellino, and their peers.
Giovanni only lived to be 42 (not that unusual in the 1400s), and had a son he named after his father, Cosimo. The family alternated the names “Giovanni” and “Cosimo” for several generations, until we arrive at the Cosimo called Cosimo I because he was the Duke of Florence in 1537 — sometime in the intervening century, the Medicis had made their power official. In case you’re wondering, by the way, Cosimo I’s father was, sure enough, named Giovanni.
But Cosimo I defied the pattern, possibly because he had so many children (15). One of them was named Giovanni, but since it’s June 3, we’re only interested in Pietro, born June 3, 1554. The Medici family was by then even more generations into extreme wealth and power, and Pietro was by all reports not much more than a spoiled rich kid. He went to visit Spain when he was in his early 20s and liked it so much he stayed for a year. Of course, “visiting Spain” in the 1500s when you were a Medici meant you stayed in the King’s palace. His reputation in Spain was…well, you’d probably want to stay away from him, especially if you were a young woman. He did throw money around though, so if you wanted some sort of expensive bauble it might be worth at least having dinner with the kid.
Pietro spent so much money that he exhausted his allowance, or whatever cash he had simply by being a Medici. He appealed to his more stable brother Ferdinando I, who had a more responsible position in the family and was also the Grand Duke of Tuscany. His brother turned him down, so Pietro, as I guess you do as a rich kid, marched right over to the Pope to try to get him to command Fernando to pay up. The Pope took a close look at Pietro (well, I’m making that part up, but it makes sense) and noticed that (1) he’d strangled his first wife (with a dog leash!), (2) he had five or six illegitimate children with at least two lovers, and (3) he had reportedly had people imprisoned and even killed just because of personal quarrels. The pope turned him down flat. People still apparently loaned him money, but he died at 50 and in the words of The Dude, “owed money all over town.”
If Pietro de’ Medici hadn’t been a member of the most prominent dynasty of the time nobody would remember him at all. And if he hadn’t been born on June 3, the same day as his (I think) great-great-grandfather Giovanni, he wouldn’t be mentioned here either. If you’re interested in generations worth of rich kids and their exploits, you can explore the Medici Archive Project online. But you can’t do your banking at the Medici bank; it was shut down a few hundred years ago. There was an Austrian bank called Bank Medici that was bankrupted by Bernie Madoff, the US investment scammer, but that had no connection to the family.
