Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici

• 1. The Popolani Inheritance

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  Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici entered the world on the 4th of August 1463 in Florence. His father Pierfrancesco de' Medici died when Lorenzo and his brother Giovanni were still boys in 1476. Relations between their junior branch and the senior Medici line had been tense since the 1440s. The elder cousin Lorenzo il Magnifico took control of their inheritance after their father's death. Financial difficulties struck the powerful ruler by 1478, leading him to plunder the boys' assets through forced loans. By the time they reached adulthood, the brothers claimed he owed them over 100,000 ducats. Il Magnifico eventually repaid a little over half that sum in 1485.

• 2. Humanist Education And Friendship

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  Despite the financial disputes, Lorenzo il Magnifico ensured his ward received the finest education available at the time. Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco studied under Marsilio Ficino, Angelo Poliziano, and Giorgio Antonio Vespucci. Vespucci was the uncle of the famous navigator Amerigo Vespucci. Amerigo became a fellow-student and later an employee of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco from 1483 onward. In the early 1500s, Amerigo Vespucci sent most of his letters about the New World to Lorenzo. This circle fostered a reputation for liberal views and artistic connoisseurship. He emerged as a poet and a man capable of appreciating complex cultural works.

• 3. The Botticelli Commission

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  In approximately 1485, Lorenzo commissioned an illuminated manuscript of Dante's Divine Comedy featuring artwork by Sandro Botticelli. The year before, in 1482, Lorenzo il Magnifico arranged his marriage to Semiramide d'Appiani. She brought lucrative commercial ties and political connections through her father Jacopo III of Piombino. Il Magnifico may have commissioned Pallas Athene Taming a Centaur as a wedding gift. The painting suggests that Semiramide should tame young Lorenzo or represents the surrender of brute instincts to reason. Allegory of Spring likely celebrated the same occasion with Mercury representing Lorenzo. Later he is believed to have commissioned The Birth of Venus, one of the most famous paintings of the Renaissance.

• 4. Exile And Political Return

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  Quarrels over inheritance reached a breaking point in October 1484 when il Magnifico erased Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco from election lists. A settlement in 1485 awarded him and his brother Villa Cafaggiolo in the Mugello region. Public office remained out of reach during il Magnifico's rule until his death in 1492. Two years later, after Piero il Fatuo took power, the brothers were exiled. They returned when King Charles VIII of France invaded Italy and ousted Piero. The two brothers sided with the Republican party and received the nickname Popolano meaning of the people. This shift allowed them to re-enter Florentine politics after years of exclusion.