Medici Piero di Cosimo de’, *1416 Florence, †2 December 1469 Florence, son of Cosimo. He continued his father’s patronage of the Florentine Academy and the Cantori di S. Giovanni ensemble, to which he recruited outstanding musicians. He was also a patron of other artists, including Donatello, A. and P. Pollaiuoli, A. Verrocchio, and S. Botticelli. A letter from G. Dufay, dated 22 February 1454, addressed to Piero de’ Medici and his brother Giovanni (1421–1453), has survived; in it the composer undertakes to send, among other things, four lamentations written in response to the fall of Constantinople. Piero de’ Medici also enriched the collections of the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, for which he acquired a collection of polyphonic works from the Notre-Dame school.
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The Medici, House of Medici, an Italian merchant and banking family, from the 16th century a ducal house, initially ruling Florence and later the whole of Tuscany. Under their rule in the 15th century, Florence became the cultural capital of Italy and the birthplace of the Renaissance. The Medici’s patronage played a major role in the development of architecture, sculpture, painting and music, extending throughout Tuscany. There were three lines of the family, two of them — the line descended from Cosimo (1389–1464) and the line of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany beginning with Cosimo’s brother Lorenzo (1395–1440) — played the most important role in the history of Italy.
Literature: A. Solerti Musica, ballo e drammatica alla corte medicea dal 1600 al 1637, Florence 1905, reprint Bologna 1969; G.F. Young The Medici, London 1909, reprint 1930; B. Becherini Relazioni di musici fiamminghi con la corte dei Medici. Nuovi documenti, “La rinascita” IV, 1941; F. Schevill The Medici, New York 1949, reprint 1960; F.A. D’Accone The Singers of San Giovanni in Florence during the 15th Century, “Journal of the American Musicological Society” XIV, 1961; M. Fabbri Alessandro Scarlatti e il Principe Ferdinando dei Medici, Florence 1961; A.M. Nagler Theatre Festivals of the M. 1539–1637, New Haven (Connecticut), 1964, reprint 1976; Feste e apparati medicei da Cosimo I a Cosimo II, ed. G. Bartelà, A. Tofani, Florence 1969; F.A. D’Accone The Musical Chapels at the Florentine Cathedral and Baptistry during the First Half of the 16th Century, “Journal of the American Musicological Society” XXIV, 1971; H.M. Brown Psyche’s Lament. Some Music for the Medici Wedding in 1565, in: Words and Music, commemorative book of A.T. Merritta, Cambridge (Massachusetts), 1972; F. Hammond Musicians at the Medici Court in the Mid-Seventeenth Century and Musical Instruments at the Medici Court in the MidSeventeenth Century, «Analecta Musicologica» XIV, XV, 1974, 1975.
