Piero de Medici engineers a commercial coup for the Medici family that makes up for all of their recent losses. He takes over the Pope’s alum business. Alum was the mineral salts derived from volcanic deposits that were used to make dyes for cloth. Essential for the Florentine textile business.
Meanwhile Piero continues to extend Medici patronage to Florence’s artists, including Antonio di Jacobo Benci and Fra Filippo Lippi, one of the craziest and ballsiest guys ever to hold a brush.