by Paul Strathern (Jonathon Cape). Review / Brendan Moran

IN his remarkable European history, Norman Davies notes that Florence, “as the first home of the Renaissance, can fairly claim to be the mother of modern Europe”. Many of the iconic names that we associate with art, architecture and scholarship lived and worked in the city. That they were able to make best use of their gifts was largely due to a regime of patronage, much of it from the Medici family, which was both exacting and generous.

Paul Strathern’s new book on the Medici, subtitled Godfathers of the Renaissance, is an entertaining, if not always precise account of a family often derided for its excesses but renowned for its good taste. Cosimo de’ Medici (1389-1464), for example, built a collection of rare manuscripts that eventually numbered more than 10,000 and employed copyists so these works could be made more widely available. He also invested massively in beautiful buildings, notably the cathedral (Santa Maria del Fiore) which was 122 years in the making.

Lorenzo de’ Medici (1449-1492), like his grandfather Cosimo, was a great reader and the poet Poliziano recalls a day with Lorenzo which involved horse-riding, singing, “discussing holy things” (because it was Lent), reading and debating the philosophy of Augustine and Plato, dancing and then setting off to Mass the next morning. On his deathbed Lorenzo wrote to his young son, Giovanni, dispensing much distilled wisdom that included one rule above all others: “Rise early in the morning’”.

Strathern traces the rise of the family to prominence through commerce and its tactical use of business relationships to influence and then lead the chaotic politics of the time. As a result there were two Medici popes and numerous relatives in many of the courts of Europe. The family’s story takes place against a backdrop, well-described, of a most tumultuous world order – an expansionist Islam, the division of Europe through the Reformation and endless small wars for territory.

The book is, as the author says, a “popular history” and to cater for his audience’s real or imagined predilections, Strathern seeks out all that is salacious. He consistently and irritatingly turns rumour into fact. On one page, for instance, Pope Leo X (Giovanni de’ Medici) is “suggested” to be agnostic, yet within a dozen lines he is the “first agnostic pope”. There are many other examples. The Medici, though, provides a lively, if not sensationalist, entrée into what is probably the most important period of the emerging modern era.