The Medici family

The tour will help you discover one of the best known families in history, covering its rise to power. We will start from the so-called “pater patriae”: Cosimo “the Elder”, the true initiator of the family’s political fortunes. We will visit his palazzo in via Larga, which later became the model for all the other major Florentine palazzi and was built by his favourite architect: Michelozzo. We shall first admire the building from outside, as we understand its main innovations compared to ancient inhabitations from the Middle Ages. We will then enter the courtyard, the elite parlour where guests were received and important celebrations were held, such as the reception for the wedding of Lorenzo the Magnificent. Next, we will admire the first private garden of the city, with its picturesque citrus trees, still today cultivated in large terracotta vases from Impruneta. However, the true gem of the palazzo is its Chapel, a masterpiece designed by Benozzo Gozzoli, where visitors can admire the Journey of the Magi, suspended in a fairy-tale atmosphere between the sacred and the profane, celebrating the Medici family alongside religious meanings. 

After exiting the building, we will reach the political heart of Florence, Palazzo Vecchio, which still today hosts the headquarters of the Town Hall. The palazzo, the pride of the Florentine Republic, was turned into the private residence of the Medici and its name was changed into Palazzo Ducale. A new age began in Florence, under the dominion of another Cosimo, Cosimo I, who was capable of transforming Tuscany into a Grand Duchy and of making his family a powerful dynasty, destined to change the city according to its members’ whims and customs. We will visit the Renaissance courtyard built by Michelozzo as the heart of the ancient Republic before entering the building to discover its many environments: from the magnificent Salone dei Cinquecento, which once hosted masterpieces by Leonardo and Michelangelo, to the small private space commissioned by Francesco I, first son of the Grand Duke, as his own alchemic studio; from the Grand Duke’s apartments, where we will focus on the private rooms of the Grand Duchess Eleonora of Toledo, wife of Cosimo I, to the spaces dedicated to political activities during the Republican era. Here one of Donatello’s most famous statues will act as perfect metaphor for the struggle between the Medici and the Republic: we are speaking of his Judith and Holofernes.