Nel’s Reviews > The Medici > Status Update

Finished it.
It's ironic how it only takes one religious nut with a long lifespan to undo the hardwon glories of his ancestors.

Cosimo III to his dissolute son: okay, you can go to Venice but don't be too much of a slut there.
Ferdinando: ok boomer. *brings back a castrato twink with him called Cecchino*

God bless Ferdinando for being such an icon.

Robert Boyle also recorded the unpleasant experience of being 'somewhat rudely pressed by the preposterous courtship of two friars whose lust makes no distinction of sexes.'

welcome to italy, i guess.
also, 'two lustful friars' would make an excellent title for a secret sex diary

3 chapters left. i think im gonna finish it tmr. and start working on caterina.
im definitely team early medici thou. they might have been the parvenu but they had more class about them than the later gen. esp the OG cosimo.

6 chappies left
this book aint getting more than 3 stars from me cuz its dry and mostly recounting of events. i feel like with books like that the second half tends to be ever drier and there is this feeling like the author is dead tired and doesnt care anymore they just wanna finish this cursed book and even the quality of the recounting drops significantly. ya know?

reading about Cosimo 2.0

"His [Leo X] kitchen bills were huge - his successor was shocked at how much the cooks had spent on peacocks' tongues."

if julius II was the battle pope, leo X was the party pope. and u cant have a party without peacocks' tongues. i mean...impossible!

the first medici pope Leo X - from that book on the renaissance i remember he had a latin speaking parrot.

piero the gouty would outlive his father, cosimo, only by 5 years. ouchy.
but now its Lorenzo's turn to shine.

idk i feel like for now Cosimo might be my fave Medici.