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Magnifico: The Brilliant Life and Violent Times of Lorenzo de' Medici, by Miles J. Unger

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From Publishers Weekly

Although a well-mined biography topic, the Medici dynasty continues to fascinate, and critic Unger (The Watercolors of Winslow Homer) offers a smart, highly readable and abundantly researched book, making particularly good use of Medici family letters and earlier biographical sources such as Machiavelli's writings. Heir to a vast international banking empire and trading cartel with branches in Venice, London and Geneva, Lorenzo de' Medici (1449–1492) was born to rule. Naturally sociable and charismatic with a common touch, famous temper and cynical world view, the teenaged Lorenzo excelled in classics, riding, arms, archery and music. He pursued liaisons with both women and men, represented his sickly father, Piero, on an important diplomatic mission and thwarted his father's enemies during a legendary ambush. His accomplishments do not stop there: as Florence's de facto ruler, Lorenzo actively collaborated with the artist Botticelli, was a master tactician and diplomat, and survived a papal-sanctioned assassination attempt that claimed the life of his beloved brother. Renaissance Florence—where wealthy aristocrats rubbed shoulders with the poor on narrow city streets and whose art and intellectual life dazzled Europe—is itself an intriguing character, proving Unger's mastery over his facts. Illus. (May) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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From Booklist

The milieu of the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century always presents a puzzling dilemma. It was an epoch of constant political chaos when class antagonism, family rivalry, and intrigue and assassination were endemic, yet high culture flourished and left an immortal legacy in literature, architecture, painting, and sculpture. An excellent example of these streams is seen in the personality and career of Lorenzo (the Magnificent) de’ Medici. Unger, a contributing writer for the New York Times, lived for several years in Florence. He has written an excellent biography that deftly weaves Lorenzo’s story with the wider saga of politics and culture in both Florence and the other Italian city-states. Unger views Lorenzo as a compelling mix of aesthetics and action. He was a gifted poet, a wise philosopher, and a patron of the arts who loved beauty for its own sake. He was also a tough, shrewd battler who knew how to survive in a dog-eat-dog environment where he was constantly threatened by serpentine plots. This is an outstanding chronicle of the man and his time. --Jay Freeman

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Product details

Hardcover: 528 pages

Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1 edition (May 6, 2008)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0743254341

ISBN-13: 978-0743254342

Product Dimensions:

6.2 x 1.6 x 9.2 inches

Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds

Average Customer Review:

4.2 out of 5 stars

36 customer reviews

Amazon Best Sellers Rank:

#1,179,835 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

No one volume life of Lorenzo can ever be comprehensive because he is a significant figure in too many areas. He is a major figure in Florentine, Italian and European political, diplomatic and cultural history. In the history of art, indeed, he may be said to be of global importance. He was himself a poet of skill, eminent in the literature of his time. Yet his cultural significance is his legacy to posterity. To the people of his city and time, however, his main importance was political and diplomatic; and that is the role most completely explored in this book.This is not an unreasonable choice since his political role consumed most of Lorenzo's time. He worked endlessly to buttress and expand his family's de facto control of Florence, modifying the voting and political systems at least twice to do so (always to concentrate more power in his hands while careful to observe the old republican forms). He was equally active in trying to expand Florence's influence in Italy and beyond. These efforts were strenuous and stressful, especially in the early years of Lorenzo's primacy, for there were many who sought to challenge his ambitions and those of Florence.Indeed, his first decade or so of power was fraught with a seemingly endless series of revolts and conspiracies, internal and external, culminating in the murderous Pazzi conspiracy that resulted in Lorenzo's wounding and the death of his beloved brother. There were also wars, especially after the Pazzi plot, with great danger for the regime and for Lorenzo personally. He not only survived all of this, he increased both his power and prestige because of the brilliant political and diplomatic outcome that he personally brought about. For the rest of his life he was both highly adroit and greatly influential in Italian affairs, to the point that many of his contemporaries credited him with keeping the intense rivalries of the various regimes from causing the peninsula to implode. The book's author believes that, if Lorenzo had lived (he died at the early age of 43), he might have been able to prevent the French invasion of Italy and the innumerable disasters that followed. It is a kind of tribute to Lorenzo that this wholly improbable notion cannot be totally ignored.The book covers all of this in some detail and does a good job of describing what these monumental efforts cost Lorenzo in terms of stress and energy. Note that leaders of the day had to do much of their work personally as there were no significant administrative agencies or personal staffs to carry out their intentions for them. The tasks of governing were immense and consuming; and Lorenzo was personally beset every day by dozens of citizens seeking his opinion, his favor or his fiat. Note too that Lorenzo had also to run the far flung Medici banking business, one of the two major roles in which he performed poorly (the other was trying to educate his son Piero in how to rule: Lorenzo's constant efforts and advice were ignored and Piero remained an arrogant and ultimately unsuccessful fool). These enormous demands on Lorenzo make his cultural impact even more astonishing.The book also sketches Lorenzo's role in some of the arts, primarily literature, architecture, painting and sculpture. The author does this well but just enough to whet the appetite. And other arts are mostly untouched (e. g. music, philosophy).The book is clearly aimed at the educated general reader and is almost entirely based on printed works written in English or translated into that language. There is little, if any, research into contemporary documents or archives. The book is primarily an able retelling and contains no unexpected insights or research finds. Its prose style is clear and reasonably fluid, if not enchanting. The book is marred, however, by a significant number of the sorts of typos, omissions and other printing errors that should be caught by a competent publisher's staff. The author was poorly served in this respect.Overall this is a worthwhile, if necessarily incomplete, portrait of an amazing man. In Lorenzo's day the word magnifico ("magnificent") was a term of polite respect accorded to prominent leaders. Only with Lorenzo did it in his own time become part of his personal identity and it has remained so to this day. This book suggests why.

The only problem with Miles J. Unger is that he doesn't write often enough. His Magnifico, The Brilliant Life and Violent Times of Lorenzo de' Medici was wonderful, and his new Machiavelli is equally so. Machiavelli describes his father as a man who took care of his duties as a citizen of Florence, and `'then he dined pleasantly with his family, and after he had dined, he talked with his son, advised him, taught him to understand men, and by means of various examples, ancient and modern, showed him how to live.'' (Sublime words; a lucky kid.) Unger says that `'it was an exciting time to be alive,'' and one can believe him: artists such as Michelangelo, da Vinci and Botticelli to mention just a few; swine's like Pope Alexander, his son Cesare and the available Lucrezia; the glorious Il Magnifico himself. Nights of dancing with gorgeous boys in skin-tight britches; healthy maidens equally gorgeous. (Personally I prefer the Athens of Pericles, but the Renaissance comes in a close second.) Of his youth Machiavelli writes, `'Leaving the woods, I go to a spring and then to one of the spots where I hang my bird nets. In my arms I carry a book: Dante, Petrarch. I read of their amorous passions and their loves and recall my own, and lose myself for a while in these happy thoughts.'' What could a young man write that is more exquisite? (Our own age with super heroes and the likes of Marilyn Monroe and the Kennedys, Arbeit Macht Frei and wars that have destroyed millions, isn't worth a pot to piss in.) I don't know is Unger himself translated Savonarola's words (the Introduction to chapter II), but the translation is, too, exquisite. I'm going to stop my review here, at the end of chapter II, but here are 12 more chapters to come, like 12 chests of treasure waiting to be opened. My own books can be found on Amazon under Michael Hone.

I finished this book with regret, wishing Lorenzo hadn't died so young, and that I could hear more about his role as patron of the Florence Renaissance. Yes, great names pop up as players in his life--Botticello, DaVinci, Michelangelo--but this book emphasizes the political world Lorenzo inhabited, and for me this was essential information. We tend to know the Renalssance by its geniuses and masterpieces rather than by the intense and dangerous politics of the small Italian republics and states. Here we see a very real Lorenzo, dashing, brilliant, artistic, and politically shrewd; though from a fabulously wealthy banking family, he was a prince in Machiavelli's sense.

As a non-academic who just enjoys reading about history, I found this book utterly fascinating. Many times I simply put the Kindle down and said out loud, "You can't make this stuff up!" I had never heard of the Pazzi conspiracy, but I've read several books about the plot and its various characters since, and am considering a trip to Florence next year.Though heavily footnoted and indexed, I found the book highly readable and well within the reach of anybody who just wants to read a thickly plotted, amazing story -- and best of all, this one's true.One drawback - the maps in the Kindle book are too small and fuzzy to be useful. I found it helpful to print a map of 15th Century Italy from an Internet site and keep it by me as I read. Also, there are portraits of many of the people mentioned in the book on Wikipedia, as well as photographs of sites in Italy, Medici castles, etc.

Having recently traveled to Florence, this book added greater "life" to all that I experienced. I never tire of reading about the Medici. They were such an integral part of Italian history. Unger's book on Lorenzo de' Medici is a well crafted tale of a man who lived an inspired existence.

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