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- [00:02]
Red Bull Announcer
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- [00:27]
Mark Gagnon
Chronic migraine is 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more.
- [00:32]
Red Bull Announcer
Botox Onobotulinum toxin a prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine before they start. It's not for those with 14 or fewer headache days a month. It prevents on average eight to nine headache days a month versus six to seven for placebo.
- [00:45]
Medical Disclaimer Narrator
Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems or muscle weakness can be signs of a life threatening condition. Pain patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions including als, Lou Gehrig's disease, Myasthenia gravis or Lambert Eaton syndrome and medications including botulinum toxins as these may increase the risk of serious side effects.
- [01:21]
Mark Gagnon
Why wait? Ask your doctor, visit botoxchronicmigraine.com or call 1-844botox to learn more. There is a family that shaped the money, the religion, the art and the politics of the Western world. And for roughly 300 years, they never officially ruled anything. They funded Michelangelo, they bankrolled Leonardo da Vinci, they helped four of their own become popes. And they placed two queens on the throne of France. And they did all of it. Starting with no royal blood, no inherited titles, and no army of their own. They did it all. A bank and a very specific understanding of how power actually works. Today, we're talking about the Medici family, and their story involves a financial empire built in secret, a conspiracy inside the cathedral, an exile that somehow ended in a stunning comeback, and a blueprint for influence that honestly doesn't look all that different from how the world operates today. This isn't just history. This is the playbook of how power really works. And it all starts with one man who wanted no attention at all and understood that that was exactly the point so sit back, relax, and welcome to History Camp. What's up, people? And welcome back to History Camp. My name is Mark Gagnon and thank you for joining me in my tent, where every single week we explore the most interesting, fascinating, controversial stories from all history, from all time, forever. Yes, that is the point of this show. That is the existence of exact digital meeting place that we call the campsite. Because I'm trying to figure out everything that's ever happened. That's what I do here at History Camp. I sit down in this tent, my little tush goes in this chair, and me and a team of researchers try to figure out all the stuff that's ever happened in the world, ever. And then I share it with you and we discuss on the Internet. That's what it's all about. And today, oh, boy, we have an episode a long time coming. I've had a bunch of people commenting, being like, when are you going to do this episode? And it's been one that's been in the works for a little bit, and I'm very excited to share with you guys. It is the actual inner workings of the allegiances of Christos. Yeah, it's who Christos is really working for. Right, Christos?
- [03:35]
Christos
Absolutely.
- [03:36]
Mark Gagnon
All right, Christos. Look, I don't want to derail the whole show. God bless you. We're talking about the Italians. We're talking about some good old Roman Catholics. Actually, four popes came out of this family. We're talking about the Medicis. Now, if you ever took a high school history class, you probably heard of the Medici family. You're like, oh, yeah, there's some wealthy people in Italy that ran a bunch of stuff and that might have been the extent of it. That's all it was for me. And, oh, man, there is so much history with this family. It might not even be one episode. We might have to do a few to even cover, like, what exactly this family did and how they actually grew their empire. Now, a few things. Let me just point out, I'm not a historian, okay. I'm a stand up comedian with an Internet connection that I like to research history. And so if there's anything I miss, if you're a historian yourself, if you are a member of the Medici family and I get anything wrong, please drop a comment. I would love to know what it is I missed. I also want to say thank you so much to you. Every time you click on one of these videos and support the show, you really make my dreams come true. You make the channel grow and you Keep the fire burning here at the campsite. Also a few things. Most of the people that watch this channel are not subscribed. Isn't that crazy? Got a couple thousand subscribers going, but we get hundreds of thousands of views on an episode. And I'm like, where are all these people coming from? If you click that subscribe button, you really help things grow. Also, we have an inner sanctum. We have the meeting place, we have the campfire where everyone comes around. It's called patreon.com Camp Gagnon. We do zooms every month. We do extra episodes every month, ad free episodes. So if you're upset about the ads, well, great news. For a price of a cup of coffee, you can get every episode ad free every month. And you can also talk to Christos. Hit me up. All right, so maybe that's not a good selling point, but regardless, today we're talking about the Medicis. All right, now, right off the bat, let me just make something clear. The Medicis are not some ancient noble family with a castle and a coat of arms going back for centuries. We're talking specifically about a period of time in Italy where the only people that really had power or influence were connected to, you know, the Vatican. They were connected to the Catholic Church, or they were just like dukes that inherited money from thousands and thousands of years ago, maybe hundreds of years ago. Maybe I'm being, you know, I'm being absurd. And that was really kind of the only way things were very. This is not modern capitalism. This is kind of a feudal system in a way, where people that had money kept it, and the people that didn't have money worked for the people that had money. Now, the Medicis were of the other class. You know, they were originally rural landowners. They were farmers, basically, and they came from a small region in the north of Florence called Mugello. And somewhere along the way, they wound up in the city and started doing what a lot of ambitious families were doing at the time. They were trading and lending money and really understanding how the levers of commerce work. And for a while, they were just around, they were present, but nothing remarkable. And all of that changed in 1397 when a man named Giovanni di Bici de Medici opens the Medici bank in Florence. Now, here's the thing that you need to understand about Giovanni. He was not loud about this. He was not ostentatious. While other wealthy families in Florence were fighting over political titles and trying to be dukes and duchesses and trying to out status each other and swing their pieces around, Giovanni was Going under the radar, which is honestly a lot smarter. Behind the scenes, he was actually making himself impossible to ignore without ever having to do the status game and fight for attention, because he was revolutionizing banking, truly just changing the fundamental infrastructure of how banking worked, and no one was really paying attention at the beginning. He helped develop and refine instruments like letters of credit and bills of exchange, financial tools that let merchants move money across countries and across borders without physically having to transport gold or coins. And it might sound pretty simple, but in the 1400s, shipping gold across Europe was extremely dangerous, super slow, and really expensive. Giovanni built a network that fixed that whole problem. And suddenly every major merchant and a bunch of rulers and, you know, wealthy monarchs all over the continent had a reason to work with him. And that is how he became essential. Giovanni's ploy was this. You don't demand a seat at the table. You just build a new table. And Giovanni did eventually take a seat on Florence's ruling council, the Signoria. But the thing is, he never went after the top position. He never tried to be the man in charge. He never tried to be out front where everyone can see him and put a target on his back. He sat near the center of power, and he built relationships and collected favors and made himself really useful to the actual people that were at the very top. And his whole philosophy seemed to be this. The person everyone needs is more powerful than the person that everyone knows. Sound familiar? He also backed a major tax reform known as the catasto, a new property tax that shifted more of the financial burden onto Florence's wealthy and noble families. And, you know, these are the people that had always had the most and always paid the least, because, of course, and the regular people of Florence loved him. And Giovanni never went around taking credit. He let the goodwill just quietly accumulate. And by the end of his life, the Medici bank wasn't just successful. It was, like, the foremost principal banker of one of the most important institutions in the entirety of Europe and arguably the whole world. That is the Catholic Church, the institution that basically ran the spiritual and political life of all of Catholic Europe. They were banking with the Medici family. I mean, it's just wild. You can just imagine that level of influence. A guy from, like, a farm in the north of Florence who never wanted to be the big star or have all the medals and never started a war, never was like a big public, you know, player for power. Ended his career as one of the main bankers during to the most powerful organization that the world had ever seen. He died in 1429. And what he left behind wasn't just wealth. It was a machine, an empire. The bank, the relationships, the reputation all got handed off to his son Cosimo. And Cosimo looked at everything that his father had quietly built up and decided that he wanted to go someplace different, someplace that his father would never dare to go. Right. Giovanni built the machine. But the real question here is, what happens when someone with a bigger appetite, someone with more ambition, actually gets a hold of it? And to be honest with you, at this point in the story, it reminds me a lot of an episode that we did before about Philip II of Macedon. Philip ii, of course, unites Macedonia and really creates, like this, this empire, a real player in the region. And hands off this, you know, quiet but really sustainable empire to his son, a ruthless and remarkably ambitious young man named Alexander the Great. Now, our Alexander in this story goes by the name of Cosimo. Now, Cosimo de Medici grew up watching his dad do everything right. You know, he was quiet, he was useful, he never overstepped. But he also learned from it. And he had a bigger appetite than Giovanni. He wasn't content just being helpful. He wanted to be the guy. So he took the bank that is dad built, and he scaled it in a way that the world had never seen. So by the time Cosimo was done expanding, the Medici bank had major branches in every banking hub around Europe. I mean, Rome, London, Geneva, Venice. I mean, what, Bruges? Like, everywhere, basically. And it was effectively a 15th century multinational company. Instead of, like, selling software, like shipping stuff or, you know, making iPhones, it was the financial hub. They were the finance kings, and they would support kings and they would fund wars and they would move money for the Catholic Church across the entire continent. And here's the thing about lending money to kings and popes. They can't easily move against you without hurting themselves, because if they do, the loans will dry up. So Cosimo understood that debt is a leash. And it's not his leash. It's the people he's loaning the money to. It's their leash. The more powerful the people that owed the Medicis were, the more protected the Medici family became, right? It's not that complicated. It's just something that most people don't really think through. They think, oh, if I'm, you know, if I'm putting the Catholic Church in debt or if I'm putting this king in debt, you know, they might come for me, but they need the money. Pope Pius II actually described Cosimo as, and I'm kind of paraphrasing here, but basically the king of everything, except in name. Literally. That's the whole story in just one sentence. But then something happened that puts all of it to the test. In 1433, a rival Florentine family called the Albizi, who had been watching Cosimo come up and getting all this clout and power and success, they were getting nervous about it. And so they made their move and they actually had him arrested, brought up on charges, and planned to have him just executed. They settled for an exile instead, probably because Cosimo had enough allies that killing him was just too risky. And they thought that exile would just finish him and finish the family and that they could just move on and this guy that was aggregating all this power would just be done. But they were wrong. You see, Cosimo was very clever. He saw this coming. Before they arrested him, he had already moved the bulk of his assets out of Florence. So when he landed in Venice, he wasn't a disgraced exile, just, you know, scraping by. He was a wealthy, well connected man with a fully operational network, just operating from a different city. And he waited, and it didn't take long. Within a year, the political situation in Florence had just completely shifted upside down. The people who supported Cosimo, and there were a lot of them because his family spent decades building genuine goodwill with the tax reforms, all that stuff they pushed back, it was kind of like a populist rebellion in a way. The new government actually recalled Cosimo and the Albizi were exiled. The whole thing flipped it literally. The Albizzi tried to get Cosimo and the whole Medici family done. And then the people said, no, no, no, we want Cosimo, we want the Medicis, and you guys got to go. So when Cosimo walks back into Florence in 1434, he didn't take a princely title. He was not like, oh, the great king is back. The Duke of Florence. There was no formal declaration of monarchy or any of that stuff. He just got back to work. He went back to running his bank, went back to his relationships, went back to pulling the levers of influence. Except now everyone knew without a doubt that he was kind of the guy in charge. He dominated Florence's politics for the next 30 years, just as a regular citizen, occasionally holding office, but always as the man behind the scenes. He also started doing something that his father only ever hinted at. He began commissioning art and architecture, things like churches and libraries, public buildings on a scale that transformed how the city of Florence actually looked. And I want to be very clear about this, because it's easy to look at it and think, like, oh, maybe he just. He liked art and beautiful things, and he wanted to be, like, a cute little artist and build some stuff. And maybe he did, but it had a way bigger impact than just that. You see, when you fund buildings that people worship in, when you build libraries that people are studying in and finding their passion and growing and learning and maybe even building their own lives in the streets that people are walking on every single day, you are basically signing the city with your name for the rest of eternity. People look at that building, they go, oh, yeah, the Medicis built that. Part of the reason we're talking about them is because you walk around, you go, oh, yeah, that church was built by them. Florence started to look like a Medici project. But here's the thing that's so brilliant. It's not just generosity, it's building legitimacy. Cosimo died in 1464, and the city of Florence basically gave him the title Pater Patrii, Father of the Fatherland. This is a very high honor that's typically reserved for, like, the heads of state and, you know, ruling dukes and stuff like that. They gave it to someone who was technically never was a king or even held that high of an office. And then his grandson Lorenzo would take this art as soft power strategy idea and run so far with it that it would legit, just reshape Western civilization, like, the way you like. Yeah, dude, you. That's listening or watching this right now. The way you view art and the names, you know, probably came from this guy. But before we get there, we need to look at the engine underneath all of this, because the way that the Medici family used their bank to get inside the Catholic Church is one of the boldest, most daring maneuvers in history. We've seen how Cosimo built something that was impossible to break down. And we're going to see how he actually did it, because the mechanics and the maneuvering and the strategy here, or maybe even crazier than what you were taught in history class. Now, at its peak, the Medici bank was arguably the most important financial institution in all of Europe. It handled currency exchange, royal loans, and trade financing across multiple kingdoms and cities simultaneously. It also operated through a kind of, like, early holding company infrastructure, like a central partnership in Florence that owns stakes in these different branches all across the continent. And that's something that, you know, normal corporations would do today, but the Medici family really helped pioneer it. In a world that had never seen banking or any type of, you know, intercontinental business at that scale, ever. But that doesn't even come close to what they were able to accomplish. Beyond people's finances and their worldly treasures, sits something deeper, right, that there's something more valuable than the riches of the world, and that is their faith. And that's exactly what the Medici family was going for next. The Catholic Church. Even starting in Giovanni's era and deepening significantly under Cosimo, the Medici bank became the main banker of the Papacy. Which means that they weren't just lending money to the Church. They were collecting fees, donations and taxes from Catholics across a lot of Europe on the Church's behalf, and then routing that money back to Rome. So think about that for a second. Every time money moved through the Catholic Church, the institution that told you how to live, how much to tithe, what's moral, who's going to heaven, who's going to hell, it was very often going through the Medici hands as an escrow or kind of an intermediary. That's not like a normal banking relationship. Now, here's what's wild about this. The Church had an official position that charging interest on loans is a sin. In Catholic dogma, this is called usury, and it's morally condemned publicly and by the same institution that the Medicis were now banking for. So how did the Medici family charge interest? Well, they hid it. Specifically, they buried it inside of foreign currency exchange transaction, basically bills of exchange. You maybe have heard of forex trading. This is kind of like the early version of this. You borrow money in one currency and you repay it in another, and the exchange rate conveniently has the interest already built into it. So technically, there's no interest ever getting charged, there's no fee that you see on paper. It was just an exchange. Like, we got money in France's currency, and all of a sudden we changed it to Italian currency. But in reality, the Medici were collecting interest from clients, including, at the Times, the Church itself. They were charging the most powerful moral authority in the world for a service that authority itself had declared sinful, and doing it with the Church's own blessing, kind of because the Church needed them too much to really look closely to, you know, scrutinize the math. It seems like the Church has kind of looked the other way because it was so useful. And the leverage that this created was staggering. In the 1400s, if you were a king or a duke and the Pope decided that you weren't legit, like. Like he would basically be like, yo, this duke is not real. He's excommunicated. Like, he's done. You had a massive problem. This is the ongoing tension between Church and State. The Church's approval isn't just spiritual at the time. It is the political currency. And the institution that is basically approving who's legit and who's not is financially entangled with the Medici family. I mean, at that point, you didn't even have to, like, threaten anyone. You didn't have to say a word. The web and the connections and relationships were just there, and everyone that was on the inside just kind of understood how it worked. And. And then the Medici family would take it again one step further. Over the course of the family's history, they produced four Catholic popes. Yeah, four. Leo X, Clement vii, Pius IV and Leo xi. The most famous of those, of course, is Leo X. This is Lorenzo de Medici's own son. Lorenzo had secured him a cardinal's appointment when he was just a teenager. So just to trace the arc here, Giovanni builds the bank. Cosimo makes the bank a part of the Catholic Church, like, really ingrains it. And eventually the family put one of their own sons in the Pope's chair, like, literally puts one of their own kids on the throne of the Catholic Church that basically runs all of Europe, especially Italy. And they didn't just influence the Church, they were running it from the inside and the outside. So the bank itself actually collapses in 1494, about two years after Lorenzo dies, largely because his successors weren't actually careful enough with it. Right. It's a classic story, but by then, the job was kind of already done. The wealth it generated and the relationships that they built and the institution that it had created, all the access that was built up, it had already given the Medici family something that money can't buy. A real sense of legacy and permanence that is really unbreakable. And speaking of Lorenzo, that's exactly where we're going to go next, because everything that we talked about so far, the banking, political maneuvering, the Church, relationships. Lorenzo inherited all of it. Can we actually get a picture of Lorenzo? I would love to see this guy. And then he added something that none of his predecessors had ever thought of to scale their power to insane new heights. Lorenzo bought the future through art. Like, literally that when people say, like, oh, art is just for these poor artists, like, it's. You know, it might not have. It is so culturally significant, especially in this time.
- [21:38]
Christos
It.
- [21:38]
Mark Gagnon
It runs the symbols and the. The visual apparatus to understanding who's in charge. And he's about to run the entire cultural imagination of Western civilization. Lorenzo de Medici took over in 1469 at just 20 years old. And there he is a little older than 20 there. He's probably 35. Nice head of hair. The middle part's a little crazy, though. Did you get a word on if Lord Farquhar is inspired?
- [22:03]
Christos
Lord Farquhar is not officially based on Lorenzo de Medici, but rather his visual design has been compared to portraits of
- [22:09]
Mark Gagnon
the Renaissance figure by podcasters and comedians over here at Camp Gagnon. Sure. What's up, guys? We're gonna take a break because I want to talk to you about something that happens in your late 20s, early 30s, that no one tells you that basically, your ability to handle a night out drinking with the boys completely changes, bro. When I was 22, I could go out on, like, a Thursday, sleep three hours, wake up, go to work, then go to the gym, feel completely normal, and then do it again the same day. Like, I felt invincible. And now I have, like, two glasses of wine, and the next morning I wake up and I'm like, what did I do? And the craziest part is I can actually, like, see it now. Like, I literally will wear, like, a whoop. And I can see my sleep score that night and be like, oh, I had two beers. So now I'm have, like, a 5% recovery. My body's trying to recover from alcohol in a bunch of different ways. Not just dehydration. I mean, it affects, you know, brain chemistry, and your liver has to process everything you drink. And that is why I started using alcohol. Cheers Restore Now. Cheers Restore is unbelievable. I'm not even the biggest drinker, and this absolutely has saved me on multiple occasions. All right, this is an after alcohol aid that's designed specifically to support your liver and your brain after drinking. So the key ingredient is something called dhm, which researchers started studying for how it interacts with alcohol in the body. Cheers was actually invented by a student at Princeton, and now it's everywhere. I mean, it's been on Shark Tank. 50 million doses, 30,000 stores. It also has thousands of five star reviews on Amazon and has been backed by doctors and PhDs and clinicians and all this stuff. And the idea is very simple. You're a normal adult, you're having a couple drinks, all right? Cheers help support your body so that you feel way better the next morning. And all you do is you take three capsules after your last drink or before bed. And obviously, this isn't for, like, the insane, you know, college nights. All right, if you have, like, 12 tequila shots, I don't know what to tell you, but if you're a responsible adult, having a couple drinks at a wedding, it's going to make a huge difference. And honestly, for me, the biggest thing is that, you know, I just wake up feeling like a functional person that's still able to get stuff done. I'm able to recover better, and I'm still able to have fun with the boys at night. So same night out, but a way better morning. And that is what Cheers. So for a limited time, our listeners are getting 20% off their entire order when they go to cheershealth.com and they use the code camp. So you just go to Cheers Health, use the code camp, and you're going to get 20% off. And after your purchase, they're going to ask where you heard about Cheers. Please tell them it was from the good people over at camp. Gagged on it really helps us. It keeps the fire burning. It keeps the lights on. Thank you guys so much. Cheers has been amazing. I can't handle the uneasiness of the next day. And Cheers makes it all possible. Now let's get back to the show. Hey, guys, we're gonna take a break real quick because I gotta tell you something that I'm actually stoked about now. If you know me, you know, I love coffee, I love caffeine. I was also ripping nicotine pouches all the time. Like, sometimes going through, like, a pack a day. And honestly, I started to notice I was, like, a little wound up. Like, my heart was racing. I was, like, kind of on edge, not sleeping great. I was, like, kind of anxious. And if you're into, into, like, you know, wellness and biohacking like I am, that's your body trying to tell you something. And that is why I love ultra pouches. I reached out to them because I love the product. And before you ask, no, these are not a nicotine product. There's zero nicotine, technically, no caffeine. What they are is a pouch loaded with nootropics and adaptogens. Stuff like Alpha GPC for mental sharpness, L Theanine for this calm focus, and Infinity px, which gives you this clean, smooth energy, make you feel like you're gonna explode. I still get, like, the ritual that I love. Like, I just love taking a pouch out and trying it. Watermelon is actually my favorite flavor. But you don't get the anxiety spike or the withdrawal like you do with nicotine. And my sleep was actually, it's gotten a lot better. Which, if you know anything about recovery is the most important thing. I mean, these are legit. I keep them on the desk. I actually have one in right now. And if you've been thinking about, you know, maybe using a little bit less nicotine, or you just want, like, a cleaner energy source than nicotine, you got to check out Ultra. And you're going to do it@take ultra.com and you're going to use the code camp C, M, P for 15% off. That's take ultra.com camp. And when they ask you about how you heard about us, tell them the good people at Camp Gagnon sent you. It really helps out the show. Now, let's get back to it. Now, Lorenzo doesn't have, like, the royal title or, you know, the princely position. Nothing official. Right. Just like his predecessors, just the name and the network and everything that, you know, Cosimo and Giovanni had basically built, and he ran with it, where Giovanni was staying quiet and Cosimo was staying useful and, you know, building it up. Lorenzo was completely front and center. Not politically loud, necessarily, but culturally, he was everywhere. He understood that the next frontier of Medici power was, you know, it wasn't more money, it's not more loans, it's not more bank and stuff. It was reputation. It's legacy, the kind of influence that outlasts, like, the bank balance or the number in your bank account. So he starts to fund the people who inspire the future. I mean, this is something that goes on to this very day. Like, if you went to college and you saw your library, it probably has some guy's name on there. And that guy didn't do it because, you know, he loves reading. He did it because he goes, I'm going to be there forever. I mean, imagine the Harvard Library. Who's that named after? Because that's after some very wealthy person that was like, you guys are all going to remember me. Every person that walks through these halls and my kids and my great grandkids, they'll be able to say, my daddy built that. So, I mean, for example, did you find it?
- [27:26]
Christos
Yeah. The main Harvard library, Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library, is named after Harry Elkins Widener, a Harvard College graduate, an avid book collector.
- [27:38]
Mark Gagnon
And an avid book collector.
- [27:39]
Christos
And he died in the sinking of the Titanic.
- [27:43]
Mark Gagnon
No. Did he really?
- [27:44]
Christos
Yeah.
- [27:45]
Mark Gagnon
Wow. What an interesting ripple. Yeah. What was his business? What did he do?
- [27:49]
Christos
He was just an avid book collector. Stop it. And his mother donated the funds for the Library as a memorial to her son.
- [27:56]
Mark Gagnon
Well, that's nice. Well, how did the family get the money?
- [27:58]
Christos
I'll dig in.
- [27:59]
Mark Gagnon
Yeah, let me. I'm. So. This is a sidebar. Completely. But I'm so curious. Now, let's get back to the Medicis. All right. Lorenzo, he funds an artist, this young guy named Michelangelo. You see, he moved into the Medici palace as a teenager, and he ate dinner with the family. Lorenzo spotted him young and recognized what was essentially one of the greatest artists of a generation and said, hey, great news. You live here now. Leonardo da Vinci moved in circles deeply shaped by Medici patronage. Botticelli was closely tied to the family, as well as Raphael a generation later, who would work for a Medici pope in Rome. Every artist that Lorenzo funded or drew into his orbit was making Florence more famous and more prestigious and more of a destination for the wealthiest and most powerful people in all of Europe to come visit or to do business or to live. Scholars were going there. Foreign rulers sent their children there to be educated. The city became the symbol of civilization itself. This isn't even in the realm of philanthropy anymore. This is branding, really, at a scale that most modern institutions like can't even really grasp. But Lorenzo was also a genuine intellectual, not just a sponsor. He himself would write poetry. He hosted, like, gatherings of philosophers at his villa with the sharpest minds of his time. The Renaissance, as a movement had multiple contributors, but a significant portion of it ran through Lorenzo's world. He wasn't just watching history happen. He wasn't there when the Renaissance was going on. He was actively a part of creating the Renaissance. So by the late 1470s, Lorenzo was one of, if not the most prominent political figure in all of Italy, managing relationships with foreign states and dignitaries, keeping Florence out of wars, balancing allies across the region that were constantly threatening to destroy each other or collapse into conflict. Now, the thing with the Medicis at this point is that they had been cooking for a few generations, and for the longest time, they were kind of the big dogs in charge. But they weren't the only ones in the neighborhood. You see, the Pazzi family were one of Florence's other major banking dynasties. They were actually the family that managed to take the papal banking contract away from the Medici family for a period which, if you've been paying attention, you know that this is about as direct of a challenge as you can make. The Pazzi and their allies, including Pope Sixtus iv, had reason to really want the Medicis to go away. The Pope had his own political ambitions in central Italy. That Lorenzo Kept blocking and the tension had been building for years. What they decided to do about it is one of the most audacious things that ever happened in the entirety of the Renaissance. It might even be worth its own episode, but we're going to discuss it right now. It happened on Easter Sunday, April 26, 1478. Lorenzo and his brother Giuliano are at mass inside of the Florence Cathedral, the Duomo, surrounded by people of the city. I mean, you can see the structure here, and on the inside, it's unbelievably beautiful. Now, unbeknownst to these two brothers mixed into that crowd on Easter Sunday are assassins. The plan was to kill both the brothers at exactly the same time, then seize the government before Florence ever has time to react. The signal was the elevation of the host. This is truly the holiest moment in all of the Catholic Mass, where the priest lifts up the Eucharist and everyone recognizes the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. This is the moment when, literally, transubstantiation happens, where the body of Christ is imbued with the spirit of Christ and transforms into the body. I mean, I'm kind of nerding out on Catholic theology here, but it's so important and so ritualistic. If you've ever been to a Catholic Mass, that is the moment. Now, in that exact moment, the signal is given. Giuliano is stabbed 19 times. He dies bleeding out on the floor of the cathedral. Lorenzo is wounded in the neck, but his friends and people around him actually get him into the sacristy and they barricade the door. He survives. And then everything went wrong for the Pazzi. They had assumed Florence would rise up against the Medicis. And, you know, once the brothers were gone, everyone would say, oh, they're gone. Good riddance. Instead, the city closed ranks around Lorenzo immediately. The Pazzi had completely misread the room. Decades of Medici goodwill and building projects going all the way back to Giovanni's tax reforms and these beautiful libraries and churches. They had made the family genuinely popular with just the ordinary people of Florence. And wildly enough, the retaliation was swift and brutal. Francesco de Pazzi, one of the main conspirators of was hung from the windows of the Palazzo dello Signoria. This is one of the most significant buildings. You can see it still to this day. But it wasn't just him. The Archbishop of Pisa, who had been a part of this plot, was also killed. Dozens of conspirators and co conspirators were executed. In total. The Pazzi family name was legally erased from Florence. Their coat of arms chiseled off of buildings. Everything that they had ever done, their whole legacy, the properties that they owned, were all seized. Their symbols were taken out of public view. Surviving family members were basically forced to change their names and leave Florence and live in exile. Now, here's the craziest irony of the whole thing. The conspiracy made Lorenzo more powerful. Think about that. Any question about whether Florence truly supported the Medicis was answered in the days after the attack. Now, once again, I don't want to get too modern politics here, but this reminds me of when a presidential candidate was speaking in Butler, Pennsylvania, and survived an assassination attack, and for that week was heralded as like. Almost like a divine figure. That man is Donald Trump. If you remember that moment. He stands up, blood coming down his face, putting his fist in the air. The American people, in my opinion, were gathered around. They were like, wow, this guy is like. It was a transcendent moment. I mean, regardless of what you think about the guy in that moment, I think the election was kind of won. And this is not the first time it happened. It happened hundreds of years before with Lorenzo. Now, Lorenzo ruled for another 14 years. He kept building, kept funding, kept maneuvering. And he died in 1492 at just 43 years old. And what he left behind was a family that had started as rural farmers, that became bankers, that built one of the largest financial institutions in all of Europe, embedded themselves in the Church, survived exile, survived assassination, and shaped the entire cultural output of civilization. They never had a crown. They never had, like, an official royal title. And they never were trying to get it either. But the story here is not over. Because after Lorenzo, the Medici family did something that even they had couldn't even conceive of, and that was finally becoming actual royalty. Now, when Lorenzo dies in 1492, it looked for a moment that the whole thing might just be done. His son Piero took over. And Piero was not like his father. Okay. When a French army marched into Italy two years later, Piero panicked and surrendered Florence, really without a fight. The city was humiliated. And after generations, the Medici were finally expelled. The bank, already weakened from years of neglect under Lorenzo, completely collapsed. Now, this time for good. In 1494, after a century of quiet dominance, the family was done. No bank, no Florence, no power base. And, you know, most families don't come back from that at that point. You know, it's done right. That's. That's. They had a good run. But the Medicis were not like most families. You see, years earlier, Lorenzo had done something that Looked at the time just like a dad doing a favor for one of his kids. He secured that cardinal appointment for his 13 year old son, Giovanni. Now, in the 15th century in Italy, these positions around the Church, specifically, like a cardinal, which is a very high ranking position within the Catholic Church, these appointments were obviously spiritual, I guess, but they were also political currency. And Lorenzo spent some of this to give Giovanni a seat inside the Church's inner circle of while he was still just a teenager. And that investment took about two decades to pay off. But in 1513, Giovanni de Medici becomes Pope Leo the 10th. There's a quote actually attributed to Pope Leo the 10th upon his election. God has given us the papacy, let us enjoy it. Which again, accurate or not, it's difficult to know if he actually said it. It captures the energy perfectly. The Medicis are back, just in a different way. Then Giulio, Lorenzo's nephew, became Pope Clement VII in 1523. Two Medici popes in one decade. With that kind of institutional backing, the Catholic Church, right, the formal titles started to come. So in 1532, the family received the hereditary title Duke of Florence, the official recognition of what they had been doing for the better part of like 100 years. They just finally got it codified as dukes. And then in 1569, that title would turn into the Grand Duke of Tuscany. The unofficial kings had officially signed the paperwork. But the most remarkable thing about this era isn't the titles or the sons becoming popes or dukes. It's the Medici daughters. Caterina de Medici, also known as Catherine de Medici, a great granddaughter of Lorenzo, married Henry, the heir to the French throne, in 1533 when he became King Henry II of France. Catherine de Medici became Queen of France after his death. She served as regent and remained one of the most influential figures in French politics for decades, navigating one of the most turbulent periods in all of French history. Then in 1600, Marie de Medici married King Henry IV of France. Another Medici, another Queen of France. Two queens, one family from this farm region somewhere in Italy. Four popes, two queens of France, Grand Dukes of Tuscany. And it all started with just a farmer who opened a bank. So what does that really tell us about power? The story of the Medici family isn't just a dynasty or some rich people that got lucky, right? And, you know, it's a, it's, it's a blueprint, really. It's not, not a blueprint for ruling, but for how power actually works beneath the surface. Because the Medici didn't chase power outright. They didn't want the titles they chased, positioning. They chase utility, in a way. And that distinction made all the difference in their success. You see, power is loud. Power puts a target on you. It's the title, the office, the public facing role that everyone can point to. You get blamed for all the failures. You never get praised. When it goes well, it's visible. And because of that, it's often fragile. But positioning is quieter. It's structural. It's being the institution that everyone needs, that they depend on. The connector in every room, the one that's funding and facilitating and shaping outcomes without needing to stand at the center of anything. In a modern context, that should sound really familiar, because the people in the organizations that shape the world today rarely are the most obvious ones. Right? I'm sure you can think of some people right now. They build networks, they build relationships. They control the flows that actually make our world work. The flow of money, the flow of information, the flow of culture. And they do it in a way that's harder to actually see where it's coming from. And if you don't know where it's coming from, it's impossible to remove. I mean, again, this is going to sound disrespectful, and I don't mean that in that way. I don't. I don't. I'm not saying that these two people are exactly the same. I mean, Epstein, I mean, of course, he was a horrendous person and a degenerate criminal. I don't even say. I don't even know if I can say his crimes without getting demonetized. But he was kind of unknown up until his arrest. And, you know, obviously the wealthy people, the powerful people, they knew who he was. They wanted to be in the rooms with him. They wanted to get access to his funding, to his relationships, to his connections to the cool island and, you know, the lavish trips and the amazing mansions and stuff. And of course, he was using that for his own nefarious purposes. But in a way, he kind of copied the Medici model, where they were just at the centers of finance, that they were actually the glue that connected everyone together. And whenever money had to move around, they took a piece. Giovanni de Bici de Medici, he understood it first, Cosimo de Medici expanded it, and Lorenzo de Medici perfected it. Even when it looked like everything had collapsed, the positions that they had spent generations building, they didn't go away. Their influence inside the church, inside the courts, inside the cultural DNA of what it means to be Italian, of what it means to be Florentine. All that stayed. And that's what made the return possible, the numerous returns that they made. It wasn't luck, it wasn't force and, you know, destroying everything in their way. It was structure. It was being so fundamental to the fabric of a society that when they're gone, people want them back. And that pattern hasn't gone anywhere. If anything, it's just scaled. It's easy to look at the Medici family and reduce everything that they did to, you know, strategy of like, of course they're rich. To say that it was all calculated for power, control, I think is missing the point. And, you know, maybe most of it was. But the outcome of that system wasn't just control, it was creation. I mean, they literally invented culture in a way. I mean, Michelangelo, da Vinci, Botticelli, I mean, so many others. I mean, great works and massive cathedrals and beautiful public projects that are still standing, still visited to this day, that still shape how we understand beauty and what human potential really is. And now, whatever their intentions were, and I'm sure you have your theories, I have mine, the Medici didn't just accumulate influence, they redirected it into this long lasting thing that has certainly outlived them or their family or their business in any way. I mean, their bank is gone, the political dominance has faded, but the imprint didn't. The systems that they helped refine still underpin modern finance. The cultural explosion that they created or ignited, rather, is still studied and referenced and still shaping how we think to this day. All of that from just a family of farmers in Italy, because, no, they were never officially kings of Florence, but they didn't need to be because they were able to be something far greater. And that is an abridged history of the de Medici family. I mean, fascinating, right? I mean, you can really see the parallels with like the modern day from the amount of times that they were, you know, exiled, their business collapses, assassination attempts, and yet they're still able to kind of stay populist and maintain control with the people. They're still able to, you know, build public projects and help the casual person. Even in a non democratic system, they still recognize the power of rebellion and the voice of the people, and they play into that. They also recognize that having power at the very top, that's a target. That's why, again, I don't want to like spout my own political philosophy here, but the politicians of the day, when we're looking at, you know, this politician or that politician, I'm like, I don't even think they, they do the bidding of the people that finance them. You know, like the kings of Italy or the kings of France or whatever. Like they're doing the bidding of the Medicis that are loaning them all the money. And maybe not directly, maybe not on paper, maybe it's just relationships and it's just kind of the implication, but the fact that you can still see it to this day is remarkable. And today there's probably versions of the Medici family. There's probably wealthy families in America that control politics to a great degree. I'm sure you can think of these people now, they're probably dynastic families, but there's also new billionaires that come along that influence modern politics. And then of course, there's corporations that are now basically operating like the Medici family themselves. Whether it's Apple or Microsoft, Nvidia. They have their hands in the government in some way and the government needs them and they need the government. And as a result, things don't really change that much. So whether you're living in, you know, medieval or Renaissance Italy and dealing with a duke and a monarch, or you're living in good old fashioned, you know, democratic republic America, things don't really change that much. I mean, what a fascinating family. I mean, if you've ever read Machiavelli's the Prince, I've heard that it was heavily inspired by the Medici family and how they operate. I think specifically Lorenzo de Medici, but I mean, just truly remarkable. I mean, what are your thoughts?
- [44:33]
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- [45:03]
Christos
Well, Mark, you mentioned that they had four family members. The Medici's, There was a family with five.
- [45:11]
Mark Gagnon
What do you mean?
- [45:11]
Christos
The Orsini family had five popes.
- [45:14]
Mark Gagnon
Wow.
- [45:15]
Christos
Major Italian noble family in medieval Italy
- [45:18]
Mark Gagnon
and Renaissance Rome, we never hear about them. No, the Orsini family, it does sound familiar.
- [45:23]
Christos
I just have. I have no context about it.
- [45:25]
Mark Gagnon
Maybe they're the real Medicis because we've never heard about them. And they got five popes.
- [45:30]
Christos
Stephen II, Paul the First, Celestine III, Nicholas III and Benedict VIII or the 13th.
- [45:39]
Mark Gagnon
I'm not sure it's hard to tell with these numerals. I'm with you. You're Greek. You don't deal with these Latin words and letters, you know, shout out to the Orini family. Yeah. If you guys are listening, we'd love to get in touch. Or the Medicis. There's probably Medicis out there now.
- [45:53]
Christos
That's pretty cool.
- [45:54]
Mark Gagnon
Can you look up if there's. There must be living Medicis with the same last name. There must be. I mean, granted, it was a long time ago. We're talking about generations of people, but there's got to be some. I mean, if you're a Medici daughter and you get remarried in, like, the 1800s, you got to just keep your name. They're out there, right? Yep. And I bet you they still have clout, for sure. I mean, where are they at? Oh, it says here, there. While the main ruling line of the Medici family went extinct in 1737 with the death of Gian Gastone de Medici and his sister, distant collateral branches still exist. These living descendants generally do not carry the Medici surname due to intermarriage, though some, such as Medici of Ottajano line, still bear the name. Wow. I mean, I couldn't imagine. Like, I wonder what that life is like, you know? Like, I wonder what, like. Like, I guess it's so recent that, like, it probably means more, but, like, the Rockefellers now, or like, the Rothschild family now. Like, these kinds of families that, like, you hear about, they're, like, very prominent in banking. The fact that they get, like, they probably have, like, special status. It's also funny because, like, I don't know, maybe I'm gonna. I'm gonna show my hand here. But it's just funny because you always hear people be like, oh, these. These families. You know what I mean? The Rothschild family. And it's like the Rothschilds were just one of many very wealthy banking families, you know what I mean? And the fact that the Medicis were dealing with the Catholic Church as Catholics, still doing, like, the little usury. Still doing the banking, I mean, it's just. They got to avoid the stereotype, you know, when the Medicis do it, it's like, oh, yeah, you know, powerful family.
- [47:30]
Christos
And avoid sinning by hiding the interest on forex trading.
- [47:34]
Mark Gagnon
How crazy is that? I mean, if there's anything I missed on the Medicis that is significant, I mean, the Easter plot, we might need to do a whole episode on that, because that's a wild tale. But if there's anything I missed, if you're A historian or just a casual hobbyist that loves to read about the Medicis, please let me know. Drop a comment. I read all of them. YouTube, Spotify, all that good stuff. Additionally, if there's anything you learned or something you didn't know that you all of a sudden just realized or a connection that you made while watching this episode, please let me know. If you find modern parallels, that's something I would love to. If you have modern parallels with people today, like, you know, references to how Lorenzo de Medici, like consolidated power, like used art, I would love to know how that applies to this moment, because there must be people now. Like, I can think of a couple, but I'd have to think about it more. I want to know what you guys think. Please drop a comment. I'd love to read all of them and talks amongst yourselves, but be nice. All right? This is a history camp. It's a nice place where we gather and just share ideas. All right? We don't have to be mean on the Internet for once. Also, great news, if you like religious topics, obviously, we talked a lot about the Catholic Church here. You're in luck because we have religion camp. That's where I talk about where we're all going. That's where I talk about what everyone believes, okay? And not just Catholics. I talk about Hinduism and Islam and Jehovah's Witness, Mormonism, all that stuff. You can find it all at religion camp. And if you like, you know, what's going on right now, modern day conspiracies, talking with real geniuses and experts that talk about mysticism to geopolitics, to, you know, ancient history. Well, we have Camp Yagnon. That's the main pod where, you know, it's all sorts of crazy deep dives on current events. And then of course, if you just rock with history, great news. We have history camp here, as well as the inner sanctum, that is the campfire, that is our most sacred place where the most enlightened minds of the camp universe gather. And that's patreon.com Camp Gagnam. We do, you know, monthly zooms. We do extra episodes that we drop only on Patreon. Then of course, ad free episodes. So if you're not a part of the Medici family inheritance and, you know, budget's a little tight, Great news. It's only the price of a cup of coffee and you get every episode we drop ad free. You never have to listen to another ad again. Pretty sick. And that's@patreon.com Camp Gagnon. As always, I appreciate you all dearly for being a part of this and making this show possible. You truly have have made my dreams come true. God bless you all, and I will see you in the future to talk about the past. Peace.