Having founded the bank that became the most powerful in Europe in the fifteenth century, the Medici gained massive political power in Florence, raising the city to a peak of cultural achievement and becoming its hereditary dukes. Among their number were no fewer than three popes and a powerful and influential queen of France. The author argues, however, that the idea that the Medici were enlightened rulers of the Renaissance is a fiction that has now acquired the status of historical fact. In truth, the Medici were as devious and immoral as the Borgias-- tyrants loathed in the city they illegally made their own. In this dynamic new history, Hollingsworth retells the story of the family Medici and brings a fresh and exhilarating new perspective to light.