The Merchant of Florence

The Rennaisance is a funny name for the most culturally productive period in European development. France's Rennaisance man Rene Des Cartes founder of the Cartesian plane and still holder of the most convincing arguement that I exist 'I think therefore I am' is one of the few French contributions to the period, versus Italy's Michaelangelo, Donatello, Leonardi Da Vinci, Botticelli, Nicolo Machiavelli, Frar Angelico, Rafael, Christoforo Columbo (better known as Christopher Columbus) and of course the family that paid for it all and noted humanists the Medici.
I first took a liking to Lorenzo di Medici when I discovered he was popularly known as 'il magnifico' or Lorenzo the magnificent. He was a popular lad too, a tyrant and consumate capitalist he survived wave after wave of plots to overthrow his family as first citizen of the Republic of Florence.
Turns out Lorenzo was more or less incompetent at managing the family banking business driving the most profitable bank in all of Europe just about into the ground and dipping into his nephews trusts to clear himself of debts. But he valued human develpment and that strikes a cord with me. Its the sticking point of any government whether it be capitalist, communist, socialist or totalitarian it really comes down to the values of leadership groups. Corporates are like this, mini countries in effect which is why I'm happy to work for a man. The long standing effective companies have a core set of values and driving philosophies.
The Medici as a family where a departue from the Church dominated mentallities of the Dark Ages, Cosimo de Medici being trained in the humanist philosophies of Plato was one of the first to back a blatent homosexual but brilliant artist such as Donatello for the shared love of human beauty and human potential personified in Donatello's David.
At the same time Cosimo (Who was the real powerhouse of the Medici line despite the larger popularity and fame of Lorenzo) banked for the Vatican and made vast profits from the European Tax House. This was channeled into wealth namely in the sponsorship of talented artists and architects. It was a corrupt tyrannical farce of a Republic but what is the worth of Leonardo's invention of the Technical Drawing (and also anatomical drawings) which underpin all Engineering and most Medical learning still today, or Christopher Columbus' Voyage to the New World, or Michaelangelo's dominance of artistic design or Machiavelli's treatise on statecraft, the foundation of politics (and blatently honest too) We'd still be peasents living in the Shadow of a Cathedral listening to sermons in latin about pretty boring and uninsightful shit.
As for why this period has a French name instead of an Italian one: France was the powerhouse Government of the time being able to call the Vatican to sit, Italy being broken into The Republics of Florence and Venice, Duchy of Milan, several Papal States and the King of Naples ruling below Tuscany. In short it was a shamozle. But the time and place to be alive.