Empires: The Medici: The Medici Popes and Power Versus Truth

The Medici Popes: This episode focused on the son and nephew of Lorenzo de Medici, Giovanni de Medici and Giulio de Medici. After Lorenzo's death, the cousins were forced out of the city by zealous followers of Savonarola and Florentine rebels, including the infamous Niccolo Machiavelli. At that time, Giovanni was already a cardinal, and Giulio was a priest. Only by traveling in secret to Rome itself and seeking the aid of Pope Julius could they hope to retake the city. Returning with Julius' army in tow, they advanced to attack Florence, massacring all who stood in their way. Machiavelli a member of Florence's new political council, attempted to raise an army of citizen-soldiers, but they were crushed by Julius' hardened force and Florence was retaken by the Medici. After the Medici reoccupied their city, Giovanni, already a cardinal, cast the deciding vote for his election as pope after Julius' death. Now Pope Leo II, Giovanni went about strengthening both the Church and the Medici dynasty. Although he succeeded at weathering assassination attempts, Pope Leo's excesses exhausted the papal coffers, and he reverted to the sale of indulgences as a moneymaking strategy. This tactic locked him in a struggle with the German Reformer Martin Luther, a struggle which would tear the Catholic Church in two and weaken the power of the Papacy. After Leo's death from natural causes, his cousin Giulio succeeded him as Pope Clement. As Rome was invaded by violent followers of Luther, however, Clement locked himself away in Rome's most secure fortress, eventually fleeing, disguised as a peasant, with the papal jewels hidden in his clothing. But his own death was not long from passing, and he died powerless, leaving the Medici dynasty weak and broken.

Power Versus Truth: This episode highlights the last influence of the Medici in Florence as patrons of the arts and sciences. Under Duke Cosimo I de Medici, a distant cousin to the main Medici line, the arts flourished anew, as did an efficient ruling bureaucracy. Cosimo and his propagandist, Giorgio Vasari, created a massive bureaucratic system that Cosimo could control in safety, along with mass-produced art highlighting the glories of the Medici. In the late Renaissance, however, science began to rise above art in its importance. Cosimo's descendants commissioned the finest minds of the Renaissance, including Leonardo da Vinci and Galileo Galilei. Their patronage of Galileo, however, led them into conflict with the Catholic Church's Inquisition, and they were forced to retract their support of him as he was forced to recant and put under house arrest. Within another century, the once-powerful Medici of the Renaissance disappeared into a new age - one that they had helped to create with their patronage of art and science.