The Florence of the Medici: Commerce, Power and Art in Renaissance Italy May 1, 2010

Out of a small but fiercely competitive city of some 60,000 inhabitants there erupted, between the 14th and 17th centuries, a torrent of artistic and intellectual creativity that transformed western culture. The wealth of the city, and especially of its rulers, the Medici, whose patronage and influence embraced much of Italy and beyond, made possible an outburst of artistic and intellectual innovations that had consequences throughout Europe. Home to Dante, Toscanelli (the geographer who inspired Columbus), Michelangelo, Machiavelli and Galileo, Florence in these years was at the cutting edge of changes that eventually were to shape the modern world.