The Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance | Power VS. Truth (Episode 4)

Episode 4: Florence, 1537 - Alessandro de'Medici the Duke of Florence, lies murdered in his bed. His cousin is plucked from obscurity to lead Florence. He is just 17. His rivals think he's a puppet, but despite his youth, Cosimo de'Medici, the new Duke of Florence, is ambitious.

NOTE (on Cosimo I de' Medici): Cosimo I was not a nobody. It is true that up to the time of his accession, Cosimo had lived only in Mugello (the ancestral homeland of the Medici family) and was almost unknown in Florence - although, many of the influential men in the city favoured. However, he was the son of the famous Ludovico de' Medici (known as Giovanni dalle Bande Nere) and his wife Maria Salviati, herself a granddaughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent. He was the grandson of Caterina Sforza, the Countess of Forlì and Lady of Imola, and one of the most famous women of the Italian Renaissance.

The reason they chose him was exactly because of his lineage, and because the only male child of Alessandro de' Medici (the first Duke of Florence and the last lineal descendant of the senior branch), was born out-of-wedlock and was only four years' old at the time of his father's death. Thus the senior branch line of the Medici (those descended from Cosimo the Elder) died with Alessandro.

Cosimo I united the two branches of the Medici family; the senior branch through his mother Maria Salviati (the daughter of Lucrezia de' Medici, the eldest daughter of Lorenzo de' Medici and Clarice Orsini) and the "junior" branch (the so-called "Popolani" ) who were descended from Lorenzo the Elder, the younger brother of Cosimo de' Medici the Elder. As such, he became the first Grand Duke of Tuscany. Marie de' Medici, Queen of France and Navarre as the second wife of King Henry IV, was his granddaughter.