Portrait of Giuliano de' Medici of Berlin

Giuliano de' Medici was the second son of Piero de' Medici and Lucrezia Tornabuoni. As co-ruler of Florence, with his brother Lorenzo the Magnificent, he complemented his... brother's image as the "patron of the arts" with his own image as the handsome, sporting, "golden boy." As the opening stroke of the Pazzi Conspiracy, he was assassinated on Sunday, 26 April 1478 in the Duomo of Florence, Santa Maria del Fiore, by Francesco de' Pazzi and Bernardo Bandini. He was killed by a sword wound to the head and was stabbed 19 times. Giuliano was buried in his father's tomb in the Church of San Lorenzo but later, with his brother Lorenzo, was reinterred in the Medici Chapel of the same church, in an unmarked tomb surmounted by a statue of the Madonna and Child of Michelangelo. Giulio di Giuliano de' Medici, Giuliano's illegitimate son by his mistress Fioretta Gorini, went on to become Pope Clement VII.
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The Italian Renaissance was the earliest manifestation of the general European Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement that... began in Italy around the end of the 13th century and lasted until the 16th century, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe. The term Renaissance is in essence a modern one that came into currency in the 19th century, in the work of historians such as Jacob Burckhardt. Although the origins of a movement that was confined largely to the literate culture of intellectual endeavor and patronage can be traced to the earlier part of the 14th century, many aspects of Italian culture and society remained largely Medieval; the Renaissance did not come into full swing until the end of the century. The word renaissance means “rebirth”, and the era is best known for the renewed interest in the culture of classical antiquity after the period that Renaissance humanists labelled the Dark Ages. These changes, while significant, were concentrated in the elite, and for the vast majority of the population life was little changed from the Middle Ages.
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