The Medici, Part III: The City Devours Its Masters

The Medici had ruled Florence for sixty years. They were the family the city couldn’t imagine losing—until the moment it decided to discard them like something that no longer served a purpose.

When Lorenzo the Magnificent died in 1492, he left behind a son with his name and his palace, but none of his judgment. In a single moment of weakness before a French King, the decades of patient diplomacy built by his ancestors vanished. Within hours, the family was received with stones and driven into exile.

This is the final chapter of the Medici trilogy—a story of a power vacuum filled by a radical friar, a city that burned its own treasures in the "Bonfire of the Vanities," and the eventual realization that while Florence could exile its masters, it would forever keep their inheritance.

-

Florence: The City That Changed the World is a series about the city that invented the Renaissance, financed Europe, and left a legacy still present in everything you see, think, and use every day.

Don't forget to subscribe, thank you for listening, and if you'd like to support or contribute to the project, reach out through Instagram.