Italian family of merchants, bankers, rulers, patrons and collectors. They dominated the political and cultural life of Florence from the 15th century to the mid-18th. Their name and their coat-of-arms showing five to nine spheres were not derived from medical ancestors, since the family had always been merchants. However, they appropriated this interpretation, making the physicians Cosmas and Damian their patron saints. International trade in wool, silk, metals and spices made them one of the wealthiest and most influential families in Italy. The family seat was in Cafaggiolo in the Mugello region, 25 km north of Florence, but by 1201 several towers belonging to them are mentioned in notarial records in Florence. In 1240 the Medici appear among the financiers of Conte Guido Guerra and of the abbey of Camaldoli and on several occasions thereafter in the list of the ruling council of Florence. They extended their trade by setting up branches in Genoa, Treviso, Nîmes and Gascony and were one of the few Florentine houses that survived the economic crisis of the first half of the 14th century. In ...