Among the Medici, the great banking family that counted popes among its clients and came to be de facto rulers (and later dukes) of Florence, one name tends to loom large over all others: Lorenzo the Magnificent.

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Born on 1 January 1449 to Piero de’ Medici and Lucrezia Tornabuoni, he would become one of greatest figures of the Renaissance – a masterful politician and diplomat. But he was also a renowned patron of the arts, who rubbed shoulders with the likes of Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli and Michelangelo, and an accomplished poet in his own right. He would become an exemplar of the ‘merchant prince’ – though for all this, his rule and life were not without their challenges.

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