Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance

The book is one of the best I've read: easy to read, packed full of revealing facts and stories about the peoples and the times. Amazing what they all got up to.

It's also easy to read so if, like me, you're not an intellectual type, you'll have no trouble getting through the 400+ pages. Left me wanting to find out more.

Great stuff.


The Best Renaissance Book I've ever read.   March 8, 2005
11 out of 11 found this review helpful

This book is fantastic. Even if you have a passing interest in the Renaissance, even art, European History or Italy, you should by this book. For historical characters, they seem alive and the Medici themselves are fantastic to read about.

Deception, Scheming, Murder, it almost seems like fiction. But unbelievabley everything is correct and the author has gone to unbelievable lenghts to bring the most truthful renaissance book I've ever read.

Also if the Medici affairs weren't enough, the chapters are laiden with Renaissance greats like Da Vinci, Brunelleshci, Donatello and many more, giving you a suprisingly in depth look into each artist's, architect's or humanist's life.

From humble beginings beneath the mountains, to popes, to queens, to trading across the known world, the author has compated this Renaissance history into a fantastic, well written read. A brilliant book!!! Buy it.


Narrative history that makes you feel like you're there   February 16, 2005
F. Caldwell (London)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful

Not really much to do with the Channel 4 series that claimed it as its "companion". But that doesn't matter because its brilliant. He keeps you absorbed by the little motifs you become familiar with such as the "vacca" (so called because its ring sounds like a mooing cow).
The book is good on the artists and scholars the family sponsored as well as the Medicis themselves.
My only criticism: things get a bit rushed towards the end.


Exciting times for Europe   March 2, 2008
J. Mcguinness (Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland)
The book covers not only the changes that took place in this most civilised corner of medievil Italy but also describes how all this took place at the same time the Spanish discovered the new world and also when Martin Luther nailed his treatise to the church door in Germany. The world would never be the same again and this book describes how the Medici's ensured that by fair means or foul the family would ride out any storm and always come out on top.


wonderfully woven   June 18, 2008
Ms. Chele Z. Hanley (england)
this book is such an intresting read i would highly recomend this book to anyone who has fallen in love with florance or has an intrest in the history of the renaissance. Strathern wrights in such a way that you do not feel as if you are reading an history book, it is a wonderfull story about an amazing period in time. i am an art history student with prior knowlage of the medici but this book is perfectly writen for both readers with some knolage of the family and thoughs without. i would not recomend this book to people who are not intressted in the renaissance.