Medici

The Medici family was a powerful and influential Florentine family from the 13th to 17th century. The family produced three popes, numerous rulers of Florence, and later members of the French royalty.

Further reading

• Christopher Hibbert, The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall (Morrow-Quill, 1980) is an excellent and highly readable overall history of the family
• Ferdinand Schevill, History of Florence: From the Founding of the City Through the Renaissance (Frederick Ungar, 1936) is the standard overall history of Florence
• Niccolo Machiavelli, History of Florence and of the Affairs of Italy: From the Earliest Times to the Death of Lorenzo the Magnificent (Niccolo Machiavelli, 1521-25) is one of Machiavelli's most important works
• Paul Strathern, The Medici - Godfathers of the Renaissance (Pimlico, 2005) is an informative and lively account of the Medici family, their finesse and foibles - extremely readable.
• Lauro Martines, "April Blood - Florence and the Plot Against the Medici" (Oxford University Press 2003) a detailed account of the Pazzi Conspiracy, the players, the politics of the day, and the fallout of the assasination plot . Though accurate in historic details, Martines writes with a definate 'anti-Medici' tone.