One of five sons of a poor widow, Giovanni was given an opportunity by a wealthy cousin, Vieri as an employee of the Medici Bank in Rome. In a very short period of time, Giovanni rose to the top and became the Capo of the bank, replacing his cousin.

Willing to take calculated risks, Giovanni laundered money for the infamous pirate Baldasarre Cossa, and in the early years of the Quattrocento bankrolled Cossa's bid for the Papacy. In 1410, Cossa was elected Pope John XXIII and immediately rewarded his old friend Giovanni by making the Medici's the Papal Bankers - Giovanni became "God's Banker". This was the most lucrative venture for any banking firm; The Medici bank received ten percent of everything the Church took in or spent. This coupled with the most powerful delinquent debt collection technique of the day - pay up or be excommunicated - vaulted the Medici to rank as the third wealthiest family in Florence much to the chagrin of the "grande" families such as the Albizzi.

Giovanni built a network - amici degli amici - "friends of friends", demanding and rewarding loyalty. He invented limited liability and set up a franchise system where regional managers shared a stake in the bank's branches. He also set the rules for future generations of Medici Capos, such as banning loans to Kings or Princes - they were the worst risks. His advice to his descendants; "Always keep out of the public eye - never show pride", would one day be ignored much to the peril of those who followed in his trailblazing footsteps.

Trained in banking from an early age, Cosimo de' Medici also had a lust for learning, studying classic texts, attending lectures and becoming one of the first generation of Humanists. Cosimo urged his father to turn the family's wealth to civic patronage. Yet despite this, when Cosimo inherited the position of Capo from Giovanni, the jealous Albizzi family trumped up charges of treason against him. The charges were "authoured" by a friend of the Albizzi's, a poet named Filelfo. Based on Filelfo's false claims and strengthened by the Albizzi power, Cosimo was sentenced to death, but bribed his way out of prison and escaped Florence for a time.

While in exile, Cosimo played on his amici degli amici, and returned more powerful than before. Shortly after his return, Filelfo was accosted by unknown assailants in a dark street and his face was sliced open from ear to ear. His life was spared, but he wore the scars of che brutta figura "revenge through humiliation" for the rest of his life. The message was clear; The Medici not only remember their friends, but also never forget an enemy.

Cosimo went on to become one of the foremost patrons of renaissance artists, befriending and promoting Lippi, Donatello, Michelozzo, Gozzoli. Cosimo also bankrolled the extraordinary Council of Florence and lent his weight to contracting the genius of Filippo Brunelleschi to complete the Duomo.

Cosimo, like his father before him, understood the machinations of political power. his advice to his heirs was; "Do not seek power. Wait until they call you."

Suffering from gout from an early age and often sickly, Piero de' Medici ["the gouty"] was - because of his poor health - precluded from public life. As his brother Giovanni became his father's favorite and was groomed to take over the family business, Piero devoted himself to scholarship. Occasionally sent on a variety of embassies to Venice, Milan and France, Piero was respected internationally as a diplomat. King Louis XI held such a high opinion of Piero that he granted the special honour of permitting Piero to stamp the lilies of France on one of the balls of the Medici arms - this one ball coloured blue for that purpose.

On his brother Giovanni's untimely death, Piero's father Cosimo feared that his remaining son's health may interfere in his public duties. Cosimo turned to grooming his grandson Lorenzo to become the future head of the family. But Lorenzo had not yet reached maturity upon Cosimo's death in 1464, and thus Piero became the head of the family.

Following his father's wishes, Piero continued to enrich Lorenzo's education, and while retaining foreign affairs in his own hands, left Florentine politics to the young Lorenzo.

At the age of seventeen, Lorenzo de' Medici demonstrated to Florence and the world his courage and bold nature by single-handedly foiling a Pitti family plot to assassinate his father Piero. From the beginning of his public life, Lorenzo was known as a force to be reckoned with.

While well educated in the classics, banking, diplomacy and a poet, Lorenzo also displayed a lust for life - celebrating wine, women, and song in the streets of Florence. He married at the age of nineteen years and proved to be a devoted family man, raising seven children, two of them adopted. (Two of his sons - one natural, one adopted - would go on to become Popes Leo X and Clement VII) Following in his grandfather's footsteps, Lorenzo too became a favoured patron of the arts, commissioning and promoting men such as Sandro Bottcelli, Leonardo da Vinci, and even took a young Michelangelo Buonarroti into his home and raised him like a son.

Lorenzo's lust for life was summarized by his statement; "He who wishes to be happy let him be so, for of tomorrow there is no knowing."

Giuliano de' Medici was Piero's second son. He shared Lorenzo's passion for life, and sired an illegitimate son prior to his brutal murder in the Duomo on Easter Sunday, 1478, a son later adopted by Lorenzo. Sadly, it was Giuliano who would pay the ultimate price for his older brother's political machinations.