He thereby acquired a long lasting and weighty customer. His most successful was to bet on the Popes and their return-after that messy Avignon split- to unquestionable power in Rome. And he knew how to make the suitable investments. Giovanni di Bicci de Medici set the ground he established a bank at the right time. This family appears clearly on the map in the second half of the 14thC, that is, after the Black Death, when society was beginning anew. The Medici were formidable, but as so often happens with these powerful clans, the source of excellence had already disappeared by the time all its splendour shone in its full marvel. The glitz precludes us seeing its source. I have also enjoyed learning a fair amount about a family with whose name one is greatly familiar but about whom one really knows very little. Hibbert has written this book with great clarity and with more fluency and less dryness than I remembered in his George III: A Personal History.
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