This was an ideal companion to Tim Parks’ Medici Money: Parks is good at explaining the workings of fifteenth century banking, but Hibbert is better at bringing the people to life. His approach is traditional: the biographies of the powerful, the concerns of those who have the say and little concern for lesser mortals. It’s lively and readable, takes the story right through to the Grand Dukes of the seventeenth century and is excellent on the shifting of loyalties and European coalitions. There are footnotes that indicate where the numerous works of art commissioned by the Medicis can be found, but the relationship between Medici wealth and art is not the main focus of this work. But extremely useful as preparation for any time spent in Florence.
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