Lorenzo De Medici Quotes

What I have dreamed in an hour is worth more than what you have done in four.

I wish that death had spared me until your library had been complete.

Too much knowing is misery.

Quant'é bella giovinezza Che si fugge tuttavia Chi vuol esser lieto, sia; Di doman non c'é certezza

There is in the garden a plant which one ought to leave dry, although most people water it. It is the weed called Envy.

If you knew how hard it is to obtain perfection in any wart, you would overlook shortcomings.

Mr. Blake idly turned over the books on his bedroom table. I had taken the precaution of looking at them, when we first entered the room. THE GUARDIAN; THE TATLER; Richardson's PAMELA; Mackenzie's MAN OF FEELING; Roscoe's LORENZO DE MEDICI; and Robertson's CHARLES THE FIFTH—all classical works; all (of course) immeasurably superior to anything produced in later times; and all (from my present point of view) possessing the one great merit of enchaining nobody's interest, and exciting nobody's brain. I left Mr. Blake to the composing influence of Standard Literature, and occupied myself in making this entry in my journal.

Together he [Girolamo Savonarola] and his archenemy Lorenzo [de' Medici] would have been the stuff of gargoyles. One could almost imagine the diptych in which their profiles confronted each other, their noses as powerful as their personalities.

The most important idea he gleaned from the swift, learned talk was that religion and knowledge could exist side by side, enriching each other. Greece and Rome, before the dawn of Christianity, had built gloriously in the arts, humanities, sciences, philosophy. Then for a thousand years all such wisdom and beauty had been crushed, declared anathema, buried in darkness. Now this little group of men, the sensual Poliziano, the lined Landino, the tiny Ficino, the golden-haired Pico della Mirandola, these few fragile men, led and aided by Lorenzo de' Medici, were attempting to create a new intellect under the banner of a word Michelangelo had never heard before: Humanism. What did it mean?

Is that a type of food

In reality, the difference between Sparta and Athens, or between Savonarola and Lorenzo de’ Medici, had nothing to do with their genes; nor did the difference between the Easter Islanders and the imperial British. They were all people – universal explainers and constructors. But their ideas were different. Nor did landscape cause the Enlightenment.

The theme of tonight’s dinner is apotheosis. What does it mean to become God? If Father Francis has no problem with lesser mortals like ourselves bursting into kaleidoscopic rainbows after decades of intense meditation, then why not simply drink the sacred potion and cut to the chase? At the end of the day, aren’t we both talking about that cryptic promise from Eleusis: overcoming the limitations of the physical body and cheating death? That “moment of intense rapture” sought by the maenads of Dionysus, until they “became identified with the god himself.” And aren’t he and Ruck both committing the same arch-heresy by suggesting that the original, obscured truth of Christianity has nothing to do with worshipping Jesus, and everything to do with becoming Jesus? Aren’t we all just gods and goddesses in the making? Maybe the concept of apotheosis doesn’t sound particularly heretical today. But a few hundred years ago, it got the likes of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola into a load of trouble. In 1484 the upstart Italian was only twenty-one years old when he met Lorenzo de’ Medici, who promptly invited him into the Florentine Academy that was about to punch the Renaissance into high gear. Already a student of Greek, as well as Latin, Hebrew, and Arabic, the newest Florentine got to work writing Oratio de hominis dignitate (Oration on the Dignity of Man): the so-called Manifesto of the Renaissance. He wanted to publicly debut the Oratio, together with his 900 Theses, in Rome on the Epiphany of 1487, the God’s Gift Day. But Pope Innocent VIII was not impressed. He put a halt to the spectacle and condemned every one of Pico della Mirandola’s theses for “renovating the errors of pagan philosophers.

In Lisa’s lifetime, a galaxy of artistic stars—Michelangelo, Botticelli, Raphael, Perugino, Filippino Lippi—rivaled the heavens with their brilliance. None outshone the incandescent genius of Leonardo, who emerges from the fog of history as more of a cultural force than a mere human being. ... During Leonardo’s and Lisa’s lifetimes, largerthan-legend characters strutted across the Florentine stage: Lorenzo de’ Medici, whose magnificence rubbed off on everything he touched. The charismatic friar Savonarola, who inflamed souls before meeting his own fiery death. Ruthless Cesare Borgia, who hired Leonardo as his military engineer. Niccolò Machiavelli, who collaborated with the artist on an audacious scheme to change the course of the Arno River.

Según el catastro de 1427, Giovanni poseía bienes por valor de 180.000 florines, lo que le convertía en el hombre más rico de Florencia después de Palla Strozzi. De los dos hijos varones que dejó, Cosme y Lorenzo, se crearon las dos ramas más conocidas de los Medici. Cosme es el fundador de la rama que podemos denominar «republicana», porque sus miembros detentaron durante cierto tiempo diversos cargos con los que se mantenía la ficción republicana de gobierno. De Lorenzo descenderían los Medici llamados popolani, menos partidarios de controlar el poder, y entre los que destacaría Cosme I, paradójicamente convertido en primer gran duque de Toscana.

Piero fallecería el 2 de diciembre de 1469, comenzando entonces la era gloriosa de Lorenzo el Magnífico, uno de los miembros más destacados de la familia Medici.

Así comienza Lorenzo, llamado el Magnífico por sus contemporáneos, sus breves Ricordi, escritos en 1472: He encontrado en los libros de Piero, nuestro padre, que yo nací el primero de enero de 1449, y tuvo nuestro padre de la señora Lucrezia di Francesco Tornabuoni, nuestra madre, siete hijos, cuatro varones y tres hembras, de los cuales al presente quedamos cuatro, dos hombres y tres mujeres, esto es, Giuliano, mi hermano, de veinte años de edad, y yo, de veinticuatro, y Bianca, esposa de Guglielmo de Pazzi, y Nannina, mujer de Bernardo Rucellai.

Lorenzo fue educado, gracias a los intereses y a la cultura de sus padres, de acuerdo con las normas de la aristocracia septentrional, por lo que acabó convirtiéndose en un personaje refinado, amante de las letras y poco inclinado hacia las actividades típicamente burguesas. Primero fue un hombre piadoso, Gentile Becchi, que más tarde alcanzaría el obispado de Arezzo, quien educó al Magnífico. Luego siguieron Marsilio Ficino y el poeta neoplatónico Cristoforo Landino, así como el filósofo griego Janos Argyropoulos, que se había instalado definitivamente en Florencia en 1456.

Agl'infelici, quando si può, rimedio si ponga; non si potendo rimediare, almeno lo sfogarsi e dolere con l'amico diminuisca la passione.

While Alessandro’s arms were displayed hanging around Cosimo’s residences, Cosimo proved to slow to apprehend Lorenzo.

In 1471, as the first printed volumes appeared in Florence, the poet and scholar Angelo Poliziano—Lorenzo de’ Medici’s librarian and tutor to his children—complained: “Now the most stupid ideas can, in a moment, be transferred into a thousand volumes and spread abroad.”16

I suoi versi lasciavano trapelare il nucleo di un paradosso. Forse, per un uomo intelligente, l’unica maniera di affrontare un simile sgomento era vivere in quella contraddizione che, per gli antichi greci, era la madre di tutte le idee. Lorenzo era un lettore insaziabile e scriveva poesie da quando aveva dodici anni, però non aveva mai rinunciato alla politica. Forse non avrebbe potuto farlo neanche se avesse voluto. È possibile che ricavasse un senso di protezione dal fatto di tenere isolate, in compartimenti stagni, le sue due nature, quella di letterato e quella di uomo d’azione. Come chi si raccomanda con una preghiera a Dio e con un’altra al diavolo.

D. Cantemir (1673�1723) e un erudit de faim[ european[, voievod moldovean, academician berlinez, prin\ moscovit, un Lorenzo de Medici al nostru.

Giudizio Universale, the Last Judgment. In the Christian tradition, this is when Jesus returns to earth to discern between right and wrong, good and evil, and to judge all souls accordingly. The souls judged righteous will ascend to heaven, while the evil ones will be damned to eternal punishment in hell. For once, Michelangelo agreed to a theme without even putting up an argument. He was tired of fighting for the soul of the Church. He was disgusted by the hedonistic heirs of the intellectual, cultured Lorenzo the Magnificent. He was more than happy with the idea of Christ coming back to judge both the Vatican and the de’ Medicis.

HIS SERENE HIGHNESS Nicolo Alessandro Lorenzo Giovanni De’Medici

The statue representing the body of the Duke stood on the funeral bier, amid numerous lights at the entrance to the Palazzo de’Medici, for as long as the procession took to pass. The mourners made their way through the city; past the churches of Santa Trinità, San Michele, and the great cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. Their destination, the church of San Lorenzo, was filled with candles.

O’ God,O’greatest Good, how is it, that I seek only you but it is you I never find?

Chi vuole esser lieto, sia, di doman non c’è certezza. "Canzone di Bacco

In contrast to the age of Lorenzo de’ Medici, in High Renaissance Rome there was no question of maintaining the appearance of sexual abstinence.

The list of luminaries receiving Medici patronage ranged from da Vinci to Galileo to Botticelli—the latter’s most famous painting, Birth of Venus, the result of a commission from Lorenzo de’ Medici, who requested a sexually provocative painting to hang over his cousin’s marital bed as a wedding gift. Lorenzo de’ Medici—known in his day as Lorenzo the Magnificent on account of his benevolence—was an accomplished artist and poet in his own right and was said to have a superb eye.

Such is the basis of humanism, a view of humanity that informs all of Western civilization today, a view of humanity that underlies our political freedoms, our liberal philosophies, and even, in an age in which organized religion has lost some of its hold, a view of humanity that justifies many of our moral beliefs.

Yet, trust in the individual gives us one of our most prized ideals as well, for belief in individualism implies tolerance for all individuals - the very basis of humanness. That trust, if we can believe Marsilio Ficino, created a golden age in Florence:

Quant’è bella giovinezza che si fugge tuttavia! Chi vuol esser lieto, sia: del doman non c’è certezza. Lorenzo de’ Medici (1449–92) How lovely is youth Which is over far too soon! Grab your happiness while you may: There is no certainty in tomorrow. (Author’s translation)

Lorenzo [de’ Medici] sent him [Savonarola] personal gifts and financial help for the monastery, which merely stimulated Savonarola to respond from the pulpit that a faithful dog does not stop barking in his“master’s defense simply because someone throws a bone to him. From the same pulpit, indifferent to threats of banishment, he urged some of Lorenzo’s friends: “Bid him to do penance for his sins, for the Lord is not a respecter of persons. He does not spare the princes of the world!