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season three

Episode 39: The Lion of God

The unlikely partnership between the bookish, affable Giovanni de’ Medici and the rough-and-tumble Pope Julius II will finally bring the Medici back to power and set the stage for Giovanni’s turn as Pope Leo X, which would prove to be one of the most consequential papal reigns in history for reasons no one could have predicted.

A contemporaneous portrait of Giuliano della Rovere, Pope Julius II, by Raphael (1511). Despite their very different personalities, Pope Julius was Giovanni de’ Medici’s mentor and biggest benefactor, playing an essential role in the Medici’s restoration. Source: The National Gallery, London.

Raphael’s portrait of Pope Leo X with his cousins, Giulio de’ Medici (the future Pope Clement VII) and Luigi de’ Rossi, who were both cardinals (1518). Source: Uffizi Gallery, Florence.

Sketches of Hanno the Elephant by Giulio Romano (c. 1515). Hanno proved to be the most popular attraction at Leo X’s coronation and essentially became the Pope’s pet.

Transcript

According to a story, when Lucrezia was about to give birth to her son Giovanni, she had a dream that she gave birth to a lion. You don’t have to be all that skeptical to suspect this account is probably apocryphal. Still, there’s a tinge of truth in that Giovanni de’ Medici did end up becoming the hero that saved the future of the family. That much his father, Lorenzo the Magnificent, glimpsed when he boasted that making Giovanni a cardinal was his greatest achievement.

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season three

Episode 38: Mother Church

The Catholic Church was once the most important, omnipresent institution in Europe. Before we meet the Medici Popes, we’ll delve into what exactly the Church did for the people, from providing early nursing homes to giving people one of the few shots at social mobility, and how powerful the Popes really were.

Transcript

I originally said that I was going to start with the life of the new head of the Medici family, Giovanni de’ Medici, who becomes Pope Leo X, but I realized that this is a huge shift away from what we’ve been talking about, mainly the happenings in Florence and northern Italy, to the politics of the Catholic Church. So I decided it was probably be better if I first do a context episode laying down general information about the Church and the papacy.

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season three

Episode 33: God’s Republic

Charles VIII marches on Naples not knowing a brand-new plague is waiting for him, the Medici adapt to the existence of the new republic in different ways, and Savonarola and his allies in government tighten their grip over Florence, even while Rodrigo Borgia closes in on Florence’s popular preacher.

Transcript

Savonarola never really ruled Florence. In fact, you couldn’t even say that he had an invisible throne like the Medici did. But his sermons captivated his audiences with how they shifted gracefully from apocalyptic thunder to gentle cries for social reform, and as a result he had a great deal of influence over both the average people and the elites. As much as Savonarola owed to his skills as a preacher, he was also lucky enough to have a chance to hedge his bets on King Charles VIII of France. As Florence and Savonarola were about to christen their reformed republic, Charles was marching on Rome to face Pope Alexander VI, and it still seemed like King Charles really would reform the papacy itself.

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season three

Episode 32: The Friar and the King

Piero de’ Medici is gone, and a new rising star is a hotshot preacher named Girolamo Savonarola. Once an itinerant preacher and lecturer, Savonarola now finds himself hobnobbing with King Charles VIII of France and even having a say in Florence’s newly rebuilt, Medici-free republic. 

The only known contemporaneous portrait of Girolamo Savonarola (1497 or 1498) by Fra Bartolomeo. Source: Museo di San Marco, Firenze.
A statue of Girolamo Savonarola in the Palazzo Savonarola in Ferrara (1875) by Stefano Galletti. Source: Dominican Friars of England, Wales, and Scotland website.

Transcript

Today, we’re leaving behind the Medici golden age. This episode marks the start of a new season, the Holy Family. It’s an era that begins with the Medici being driven out of their home city. By rights they should have faded into obscurity. Yet, ironically, this will be the time when they really left their mark on European and even world history. A Medici would assume the role of antagonist in a little tiff you might have heard of called the Protestant Reformation. The family would also, like that other great Italian family the Borgias, take a part in the story of how the golden age of the Italian city-states drew to a close and how Italy would lose much of its independence to the great powers of Europe for roughly 300 years. Basically, this season is about how a dynasty stripped of political power and the bank they founded and driven into exile just simply refused to step off the stage of history.

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