Those Darn Medici's

So I've been reading "The House of the Medici" by Christopher Hibbert. While the book succeeds in taking a lot of the magical intrigue out of the powerful family it does do a good job of burying you in facts and names. In spite of the prosaic writing style I came away with a better sense of the Renaissance, the family, and of that time.

First things first, I was not surprised to see that the same themes that are uncovered when I read about Rome or Constantinople are also present here. Greed, power, and lust have been powerful forces in just about every civilization. I guess human nature is always human nature. This is still the case today although it seems somewhat covered in a shroud of restraint and civility.

Second, the level of corruption that was oozing out of the Vatican was astounding. Positions were bartered as means to buttress the power of certain families. Enemies were mercilessly killed. All of the sins that were so clearly condemned in scripture were being openly violated in front of the public eye. This is especially upsetting given the upcoming movie, "September Dawn" that is using shoddy facts and inclusive circumstantial evidence to paint Brigham Young as a murderous tyrant and the LDS church as cult like. Yes, the episode was horrible but it is irresponsible to draw those conclusions given the information available. I hate being demonized as a church for one episode for which there is no established tie and yet there are so many religions/groups with confirmed skeletons that are leveling these charges. Anyways...

Third, It is absolutely astonishing the this many influential figures came from one region and during one period of time. The list is long and includes names like: Botticelli, Da Vinci, Machiavelli, Michelangelo, Galileo, Donatello, and Brunichelli. It makes you wonder if there were many other equally impressive people in history who are forgotten because they didn't benefit from the incredible Medici PR machine that brought them prominence and immortality.