#51 The Rise Of The Medici (part 13)

By April 1434, six months after Cosimo de Medici’s banishment, the people were turning against Rinaldo degli Albizzi.  Even the banking families weren’t supporting him, not sure he could be around much longer. According to Cosimo, nobody could be persuaded to fill the city treasury ‘with so much as a pistachio nut’. He was so unpopular, that supporters of Cosimo were elected to all 8 seats on the Signoria and a Medici business partner from the wool guild even ended up as gonfaloniere. Albizzi first tried to prevent them from taking office, then relents on one condition – they swear not to bring back the Medici. And they so swear. With their fingers crossed behind their backs.  

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Starting in Florence in the 14th century, a new era began to emerge in the West. People like Petrarch, who re-discovered Cicero’s lost letters, and the new humanists - who valued the study of classical antiquity - ushered in a rebirth, or as we know it today, a “renaissance" - in the study of the arts, the sciences, philosophy, and the theatre. They rediscovered what it meant to be human.