Lorenzo de’ Medici throws himself a jousting tournament to take Florence’s minds off the fact he’s marrying a Roman girl. The ‘Queen of the Tournament’ was Lucrezia Donati, a Florentine hottie who Lorenzo was writing love poetry about, even thought she was married to someone else. His bride, Clarice Orsini, arrived in Florence a while later, and they were married just before Piero died.
Two days after the death of Piero de’ Medici in December 1469, his eldest son, Lorenzo de’ Medici, aka Larry The Med, became the new ruler of Florence. He was 20 years old. He was a major patron of the Renaissance and the father of the future Pope Leo X.
The Pitti faction get Soderini elected gonfaloniere and install an anti-Medici signoria but they can’t get the guilds, who remember the troubles of the pre-Cosimo years, to agree to banishing the Medici. So the Pitti party decide to try an armed revolution, calling in support from Venice and Ferrara. In the middle of all this, Francesco Sforza dies in Milan and his house is taken over by his craaaazy son, Galeazzo Sforza, who liked to rape noblemen’s wives and tear his enemies limb from limb.
In 1464, with the death of Cosimo, his only surviving son, Piero di Cosimo de’ Medici – or Piero the Gouty, ‘il Gottoso’, as he came to be called – took over. He was 48 years old. He would survive – and rule – Florence for just five years. Piero was perceived to be so weak and ineffectual that long-standing friends and allies of the Medici turned against him and the family. It was a decision they would live to regret.
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