The Medici: a great Florentine family;

by Marcel Brion

Banquiers, maîtres de Florence, papes, humanistes et mécènes, les Médicis ont incarné la Renaissance italienne. Du  XIVe au XVIIIe siècle, ils ont été des acteurs majeurs de l’échiquier politique européen. De Cosme l’Ancien à Laurent le Magnifique et Cosme Ier, premier grand-duc de Toscane, l’ascension des Médicis a été exceptionnelle : ils ont marié leurs filles à des rois, ont prêté de l’argent aux monarques, sont devenus papes et ont été au cœur des grands courants sociaux, culturels et politiques de leur temps. Rois sans couronne, ils ont été les maîtres de la République de Florence. Encourageant et subventionnant les génies naissants, la Renaissance toscane a rayonné grâce à eux du plus magnifique éclat. De la Florence de Dante à la veille de la Révolution française, Marcel Brion fait revivre les passionnants destins de cette captivante lignée.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

1000 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Marcel Brion (1895, Marseille - 1984, Paris) was a French essayist, literary critic, novelist, and historian.

The son of a lawyer, Brion was classmates in Thiers with Marcel Pagnol and Albert Cohen. After completing his secondary education in Champittet, Switzerland, he studied law at the Faculty of Aix-en-Provence. Counsel to the bar of Marseille between 1920 and 1924, he abandoned his legal career to turn to literature.

Brion wrote nearly a hundred books in his career, ranging from historical biography to examinations of Italian and German art, and turning later in life to novels. His most famous collection of stories is the 1942 Les Escales de la Haute Nuit (The Shore Leaves Of The Deepest Night). An essay of Brion appears in Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress, the important 1929 critical appreciation of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake.

He was a friend of the philosopher Xavier Tilliette.

In 1964, Brion was elected to the French Academy chair 33, replacing his friend Jean-Louis Vaudoyer. Other distinctions include membership in the Légion d'honneur, the Croix de guerre 1914-1918, a Grand Officer in the French Ordre national du Mérite, and an Officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

His son, Patrick Brion, critic and film historian, is the "voice" of Cinema midnight on France 3.

Reviews

[Althea Mcintosh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good text, but the translation consistently favours fidelity to the French syntax over semantic sense, leading to strained and even sesquipedalian prose.

[Yoni · Rating 4 out of 5]

"de la royauté il ne vous manque que le titre " je ne pensais pas que cette famille était aussi intéressante

[Aurélien Mir · Rating 4 out of 5]

Top class. The illustrated version makes it such an enjoyable read.
A must read if you have ever visited Florence.