The Medici Family: Bankers of the Renaissance (Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries)

The renaissance Italian Medici family, were entrepreneurs with a focus on financing. The Medici’s further stretch Church rules on interest taking, using their books to see where business could be developed or had to be halted. Entities throughout Western Europe acted as profit centers. Under prosperous conditions with moderate warfare and maintaining sound relations with the Church and city states governed by open-minded local upper classes, operations grew. Fascinating is the position taken by Cosimo de’ Medici (1389–1464). He was a strategist, networker and administrator. He grew and reorganised the Bank. Being briefly expelled, he could eliminate his enemies in the home base Florence. However, the Medici’s policies waned later.