March 2021

This is a guest post from Becoming Unbendable, another site I write with my brother. I wrote the post, so ordinarily I would never double-up. But this one fit both blogs so well that I couldn’t decide which one to write for. So since I own both sites, I’m taking a selfish.

The older I get, the more I learn that virtually everything in life comes down to a question of power. Brace yourselves, because this post is heavy on history and philosophy. But bear with me, because there’s a really cool question at the heart of it all.

I recently finished watching Medici on Netflix with my family, and as it was my second run through the show I was able to spend a lot of time philosophizing while we watched.

Now, Medici is not 100% accurate, but there’s a surprising amount of historical accuracy throughout the show–and the rest I looked up on my own. The accomplishments of this family raise important philosophical questions about the nature of power and the cost of progress.

Background of Medici Power

I’ll try not to say anything to spoil the show, but it’s important to know at least a little bit about the family for the sake of this post.

Essentially, the Medici family played an integral part in the Italian Renaissance. It all began with Giovanni de’ Medici who worked his way up from being a wool merchant to becoming a successful banker.

Giovanni’s son, Cosimo de’ Medici (portrayed by Richard Madden in the Netflix Original show), became the de facto monarch of Florence in 1434 and set in motion the Medici dynasty that would continue to influence Europe until the 1700’s.

Political giants, the Medici family quite literally changed the face of the city, turning the Medici bank into the richest and most respected financial institution in Europe at the time.

But their primary influence, aside from politics, was that they served as devoted patrons of the arts. They actively supported artists like Brunelleschi, Donatello, Boticelli, Michaelangelo, and Leonardo Da Vinci. As a result, they were hated by many higher-ups of the Catholic church, as well as those who considered themselves too pious for art and science and therefore openly rebelled against the renaissance.

The gist of it is that, thanks to the Medici, Florence became the cultural center of Europe.

Powerful Leaders Make Powerful Enemies

As you might expect, the vast influence of the Medici family brought out a whole host of enemies, including most notably the Pazzi family and Pope Sixtus IV.

A popular sentiment among the Medici men, and the central concept at the heart of the show, is that it is sometimes necessary to do bad in order to do good.

And They Did Do Some Unthinkable Things

It is sometimes necessary to do some bad in order to achieve a much greater good. For the new leaders to rise the old must fall. All men are capable of murder! Given the right circumstances.

Giovanni de’ Medici, Medici: The Magnificent, Netflix.

It is often said to justify something awful that one of the Medici men has done. But when we look at history, the Medici truly did change Florence, and Europe, for the better as much as they harmed it. The Renaissance was an unprecedented time of knowledge, art, and exploration following the Middle Ages, and it would not have been possible without the Medici.

So, in effect, it seems Giovanni is right. In order to bring about all the good that they did, it was often necessary for the Medici to do bad first. But the question asked by the show in the final season is at what cost?

Shifting Power From Nobility

Surely there is something to be said for long-term goals. Had the Medici not had such ambition, there is every chance the Middle Ages would have persisted. It was a time when people were reluctant to change, and the truth of progress is that it requires great sacrifice.

The cool thing about the Medici is that it started with Giovanni the wool merchant. Because he came from nothing, rising up during the mercantile period, he was more or less a man of the people. The Medici family sought to distribute power out of the hands of the nobles and into the hands of regular people, as they had been.

The trouble is, in order to take power away from the nobles, the Medici had to claim it for themselves. And the one thing we all know about power is that it corrupts.

The Burden of Power

It is the nature of living things to trend towards some kind of power structure. As a result, history has shown us a never-ending cycle of people clambering for the top of the pyramid.

Many of us love to fantasize about characters like Aragorn, the unwilling king who leads his people with humility and grace specifically because he does not lust after power. It’s one of my favorite tropes in fiction, because that’s the ideal, isn’t it? We’d all love to believe there’s someone out there who can rule without corruption.

But Medici is based on history, not fiction. Nothing was as simple for this family as it is in fairytales. It is easy to be an idealist when it comes to stories. But stories with morally burdened kings always end when they take the throne.

What about what comes next? What happens when the right course, historically speaking, demands an act of corruption? It’s a question the Medici face time and time again as they interfere with the Pope, the Signoria, and everything in between.

Can Power Ever be Moral?

It would be too simplistic to say you should always do the right thing no matter the cost. After all, the “right” thing varies greatly depending on your definition. Ethical dilemmas have proven this time and again both in literature and throughout history.

This is why I love the show so much, as it seems to have an intimate understanding of the problem with progress. And instead of picking a firm side on whether or not the Medici were good or bad in the whole scheme of things, the show begs important questions such as is it worth it, and what does it mean to be good?

There is no Ready Answer

I’m so impressed with the show because it was made in a time when so many storytellers are eager to push an opinion or an agenda instead of posing questions designed to do what I believe all stories should do, which is to make the audience think.

It is better for a good man to do a bad thing in order to stop a bad man from doing a hundred bad things. But at what point does the good man become a bad man in doing the bad thing, even if it is done in the service of something good?

It’s one of those questions that philosophy can’t really answer, as the deeper you dive, the more complex it gets. The Medici, like anyone who had a hand in carving history, did a lot of shady (and even vastly immoral) things in order to stay in power. And since they are the victors of the story, we can assume there’s even more filth behind the curtain that only an eyewitness could provide.

One thing is for certain: at least for a time, the Medici prevented worse people from taking/remaining in charge. Whether or not they were worth it is another question entirely.

What’s the Point?

In true philosophical fashion, I am left with more questions than answers. Part of me wants to believe that the more unsavory aspects of the Medici are outweighed by the vast good they achieved through the Renaissance. Another part believes the cost, both of the family and those they influenced, was too great to justify.

I mean, can achievement really act as a substitute for morality? And yet, if they hadn’t been willing to get their hands dirty, there is every chance a much greater amount of evil might have been committed. Keyword being might.

Perhaps it is the burden of a great leader to endure a certain amount of filth in order to protect the next generation. Or perhaps that line of thinking is simply another in a long line of justifications used by dastardly folks to escape responsibility.

So What is There to Do?

In any case, I think we ought to study history a whole lot more. Everything I learned about the Medici family in my research helped me to understand why the world works the way that it does and how their influence lives on even today. As for the show itself, there is often far more value in questions than in answers, and so I consider it a huge success.

In terms of a more hopeful solution, I believe we should keep telling stories about idealistic rulers. And more than that, I believe we should strive to be those people. But the simple fact is the answer is never simple. It is equally necessary to study history and accept the realities of how easily power corrupts even those with the greatest intentions. We will spend our lives chasing the ideal, and likely never reach it.

The point, as far as I’m concerned, is that it’s impossible to say whether the Medici were good or bad. Such is the nature of power. It will always be necessary to walk the line between leadership and corruption. Perhaps the best we can do is learn what we can from the past and hope to do better in the future.