The Medici controlled fifteenth-century Florence. Other Italian rulers treated Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449-1492) as an equal. To his close associates he was "the boss" ("master of the workshop"). But Lorenzo liked to say he was just another Florentine citizen. Were the Medici like the kings, princes and despots of contemporary Italy?  Or were they just powerful citizens? This book takes a novel, comparative approach.  It sets Medici rule against princely states such as Milan and Ferrara. It asks how much the Medici changed Florence and contrasts their supremacy with earlier Florentine regimes. The contributors take diverse angles, focusing on politics, political thought, social history, economic policy, religion, the church, humanism, intellectual history, Italian literature, theater, festivals, music, imagery, iconography, architecture, historiography, and marriage. This book is perfect for students of  History, Renaissance Studies, Italian Literature, Art History or anyone keen to learn about one of history's most colorful, influential and puzzling families

.The Bernard and Mary Berenson Collection of European Paintings at I Tatti surveys the 149 works assembled by the Berensons for their home in Florence from the late 1890s through the first decades of the twentieth century at the time that they were making their mark on the world as connoisseurs. The catalogue presents a privileged window on the Berensons' intellectual interests through the objects they owned. The entries, written by an international team of art historians, take full advantage of the extensive correspondence from the Berensons' friends, family, and colleagues at I Tatti as well as the couple's diaries and notations on the backs of their vast gathering of photographs. All the entries are lavishly illustrated with full scholarly and technical accountings of the objects. There are also 17 illustrated reconstructions of the original contexts of panel paintings. The catalogue includes essays on the progress of the Berensons' collecting, their love for Siena, the Sienese forger Icilio Federico Joni, the critic Roger Fry, and René Piot's murals at I Tatti, as well as a listing of 94 pictures that were once at I Tatti including donations made to museums in Europe and America.

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