Gunther wrote:BCoop wrote:Yes those house names are extremely cool. Actually, just about everything in Latin sounds cool.
Interesting Fact: The Medici family of bankers ran end of medieval/ Renaissance Florence for 2 1/2 centuries. They were orginally patricians, not nobles, and took control of the city when Salvestro Medici rebelled. Lorenzo the Magnificent was a great supporter of the arts, especially Botticelli, Michelangelo, etc. Lorenzo was driven out for a little while and the former monk, Savonrola, began his terrible reign, but were aided in reutrn by the Spanish. One of their later rulers, Cosimo, actually tried to defended Galileo from the Inquisiton. There was a lot of stuff that happened after that too. But I'm too lazy to write more. Eventually it went to Austria.
I am impressed, Bret! Write more!
I've been to their palace, which was actually owned by a rival clan of bankers, the Pittis. Once the Medicis drove them into bankruptcy, they bought their palace. It's a huge bown building made with large stone bricks. It has a giant courtyard in the middle and a humongous garden with about a billion statues and fountains and all kinds of shrubs.
One of them had a statue made of their servant. It's hilarious. The servant is an extrmemely obese, naked, slightly-taller-than-a-midget-type character riding on a giant turtle. I'll post some pics sometime.
Anyway, Cosimo got to be Duke of Tuscany in 1569, and established his power in Florence at the Uffizi, which is now a Museum where Michelangelo's famous David is held. His grandson, Ferdinand II, was the last powerful Medici. Cosimo III, his son, was just a bad leader and his grandson, Gian Gastone, wasn't ruler long enough to fix it. The last thing Gastone did was to uild a monument in the Church of Santa Croce dedicated to Galileo. When they were moving his corpse, people stole differnet parts of him for relics. One of his fingers is now in the Mueseum of History of Science in Florence.
EDIT: here's the pic (though it's not mine):
Disturbing, eh?