politics – Page 4 – The Medici Podcast

In our inaugural episode and the first part of our prelude season, we look at how northern Italy went from being a single kingdom to a region full of small, rival states, a cutthroat environment in which families like the Medici would nonetheless thrive in. Join us as we look at how urban prosperity, a series of invasions, and a scandalous teenage pope all played a part in making northern Italy a shattered and divided kingdom under the weak sovereignty of a faraway emperor.

King Totila of the Ostrogoths besieging Florence during the sixth-century Gothic War. From Giovanni Villani’s Nuova Cronica (early 1300s).

Emperor Otto I accepting the submission of the just deposed King Berengar II of Italy. From The Chronicle of Bishop Otto of Freising (c. 1200)

A map of Italy circa 1154, more or less after most of the political changes discussed in this episode. Courtesy of undevicesimus whose work can be seen here.

Transcript

In the fall of 476, an honored prisoner arrived at a seaside fortress on the Bay of Naples, today called the Castel del’Ouvo, or in English, Egg Castle. The prisoner is well guarded, even though he’s only 16 years old, and he may have walked into his new home while dressed in silk robes. What he felt in that moment, we cannot say.