Borgia & Medici Family Trees

today we're going to look at the Italian Renaissance and some of the Pope's during that period since popes are elected most of them are not related to each other and as Catholic priests they generally do not have any children and therefore making a family tree of popes is not really possible but the Italian Renaissance was an exceptional time during the Renaissance there were several popes who were related to each other and in fact there were several that even had children three families pretty much dominated the papacy during the Renaissance period there were the Borgias shown here in green della Rovere as shown in blue and the Medicis shown in red let's start in the year 1400 this was the height of the Western schism a period of conflict within the Catholic Church in which there were two rival popes at the same time and then eventually three popes at the same time in addition to the Pope at Rome there was also a pope at Avignon in France and another one in Pisa Italy eventually a special council was convened and the problems were worked out and this is generally considered to be the beginning of the renaissance papacy the first pope that we're going to look at is Pope Calixtus the third who is Spanish and was elected Pope in 1455 his real name was Alfonso de Borgia and he is the start of the Borgia family's rise to prominence he had a sister named Isabella and that sister had a son named Rodrigo so Rodrigo was his nephew at the time it was common for a pope to appoint at least one of his nephews to be a cardinal and Pope Calixtus the third did this for Rodrigo this is where the word nepotism comes from nepotism oh is the Italian word for nephew and nowadays the word nepotism is used whenever a person gets a job because one of their relatives helps them out we'll get back to Rodrigo in a moment another thing Pope Calixtus did was that he exonerated Joan of Arc now Joan of Arc had already been burned at the stake 35 years earlier so it was a little late but basically they had a retrial and determined that she was innocent in fact later the Catholic Church made her a saint the next pope were going to look at is Pope Sixtus the fourth from the della Rovere a family from Italy he was elected Pope in 1471 he's the one who commissioned the Sistine Chapel to be built and therefore this famous building is named after him cysteine meaning belonging to Sixtus he also proved the Spanish Inquisition which of course nobody expected while he was Pope he appointed his nephew Giuliano as Cardinal in 1492 Rodrigo de Borgia who as we already mentioned was the nephew of a previous Pope Pope Calixtus the third was himself elected Pope he took the name Alexander the sixth and he was perhaps the most controversial Pope of all time because of him the Borgia family became associated with wild sex parties bribery and even murder he had a longtime mistress with whom he had four children he likely had more children but these are the four that he freely admitted to being the father of Giovanni or Juan in Spanish is thought to have been the eldest and he unfortunately is best remembered for having been murdered it was suspected that one of his brothers did the deed but he had a grandson who became one of the early leaders of the Jesuits and who was also later made a saint c-czar is perhaps the most famous of the Borgia children he was originally made a cardinal but after the death of his brother he resigned that post and his father made him a prince instead giving him various lands in Italy it is thought that the famous writer niccolò machiavelli based his well-known book the prince on Cesare Borgia Lucrezia married three times each time to a member of an important Renaissance family her first husband was from the house of Sforza which ruled Milan her second husband was from the House of Aragon in Spain and her third husband was from the house of este from Ferrara there were a lot of rumors about Lucrezia during her lifetime she was suspected of being a secret murderer having a hollow ring that she used poison drinks many of these Borgias are characters in the video game Assassin's Creed now back to the Pope's Pope Alexander the sixth was followed by Pius the third but Pope Pius the third died just 27 days into its papacy and therefore another election was held and Giuliano della Rovere a nephew to Pope Sixtus the fourth was chosen he became pope julius ii he had a daughter through one of his mistresses and that daughter's name was Felice she was a well-educated powerful woman during the Renaissance with connections to many noble families pope julius was a major patron of the arts he's the person who commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel he also commissioned Raphael to paint his most famous piece pope julius ii was followed by Boublil the tenth the first pope from the medici family the medici family is perhaps the most important family of all when it comes to the italian renaissance so let's look at them in greater detail the family rose to prominence in Florence with Giovanni de Medici who founded the Medici bank but the business really took off under his eldest son Cosimo de Medici in fact he was so successful that he and his descendants became the de facto rulers or Lords of Florence he was followed by his son Piero the gouty and then Piero son Lorenzo Lorenzo is known as Lorenzo the Magnificent and he is perhaps the most famous of all the Medicis he was a big patron of the Arts and helped the Renaissance to reach its highest point but about halfway through his rule there was a conspiracy approved by Pope Sixtus to have Lorenzo killed in the attack led by the posi family Lorenzo's brother Giuliano died but Lorenzo himself was able to escape the Medicis had a better relationship with the next Pope Pope Innocent the eighth innocent was another Pope to have had a child in fact Lorenzo arranged for one of his daughters to marry that child and in exchange the Pope made one of Lorenzo's sons who was named Giovanni a cardinal and this is how he ended up in a position to later become the Pope you'll notice that there were two branches of the family a senior branch and a junior branch these two were members of the junior branch but their father died when they were young and they ended up living with Lorenzo so he had five of his own children these or and then the one that became the Pope later plus these two adopted children Lorenzo's line continued through his eldest son Piero who was known as Piero the unfortunate and then through Piero son Lorenzo the second Lorenzo the second had a daughter who went on to become queen of France marrying a king henry ii of france and she was also the mother of three different kings of france so you can see that although the Medicis were not Royals themselves they were powerful enough to basically be considered the equal of royalty let's go back to the Pope's for a second so Pope Leo the tenth was the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent and it was during his time as Pope that Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door sparking the Protestant Reformation and it was Pope Leo the tenth who had Luther excommunicated basically kicked out of the Catholic Church but the blame for the Protestant Reformation can also be given to these two previous popes as well because it was during their reigns that indulgences became a big problem indulgences were a way for rich people to pay the Catholic Church in exchange for getting forgiveness for sins and other benefits a few short years after Pope Leo the tenth another Medici was elected pope these two individuals were first cousins li of course was the son of Lorenzo de Medici and Clement the seventh was the son of his brother the individual who was killed during the posi conspiracy it was Pope Clement the seventh who was Pope during the time that King Henry the eighth wanted to divorce his first wife Clement forbade that divorce and King Henry ended up starting the Church of England in response further strengthening the Protestant Reformation during the reign of Pope Clement the seventh the holy roman emperor charles v who was also Charles the first Spain took over the city of Rome and this point is you considered to be the end of the renaissance papacy and after this we are in the Reformation few more quick points about the Medici family after Lorenzo the second the line continued with his son Alessandro and Alessandro became the first official Duke of Florence but he was assassinated by a relative and because of this the line then passed to this individual here who was the grandson of Lucrezia de Medici but also a direct mail line descendant of the junior branch of the family he was the second Duke of Florence but then he was raised to become a Grand Duke and he's called the Grand Duke of Tuscany Tuscany being the region around Florence and from this point on the Medicis were Grand Dukes of Tuscany for quite some time first Cosimo the first eldest son then his younger son and then the line goes through him all the way to 17 37 and I'll point out that Grand Duke Francesco the first had a daughter who was another Queen consort of France she married Henry the fourth King of France so to sum up this 100 year period from the end of the Western schism to the Protestant Reformation was probably the time when the papacy reached its peak of political power and it was really these three families that made that happen this period also coincided with the high Renaissance when some of the world's greatest works of art were created in Florence Rome and other parts of Italy and of course the Italian Renaissance sparked the Renaissance to occur all over Europe and this ended up laying the foundation for the modern world now this particular chart is not yet available as a poster it's still kind of under construction but I hope to expand it further and make it available at some point in the future you can check my website useful charts calm or follow me on twitter to get the latest info thanks for watching

Channel: undefined

Views: 251,542

Rating: 4.9342375 out of 5

Keywords: renaissance papacy, great schism, borgia family tree, medici family tree, borgia popes, medici popes, della rovere, rovere family tree, della rovere popes, rovere popes, renaissance popes, italian renaissance, renaissance family tree

Id: E-Vqv6r4XjY

Length: 13min 34sec (814 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 15 2018