Cosimo de' Medici

Cosimo di Giovanni de' Medici, who lived from 27 September 1389 to 1 August 1464, was an Italian banker and politician who became the de facto ruler of Florence during the early Italian Renaissance and was the first of his family to establish the Medici as its effective leaders for generations to come. His power rested on his wealth as head of the Medici Bank and on intermarriage with other rich and powerful Florentine families, yet he was never an absolute ruler, and Florence's legislative councils resisted his proposals throughout his political career and even sent him into exile from 1433 to 1434 before recalling him the following year. As a patron of the arts, learning and architecture, Cosimo is estimated to have spent over 600,000 gold florins, a sum equivalent to hundreds of millions of dollars in modern terms, on cultural and artistic projects across Florence, commissions that included Donatello's bronze David, the first freestanding nude male sculpture cast since antiquity. Through this sustained patronage of architects, sculptors and scholars, Cosimo helped set Florence on course to become the leading center of the early Renaissance, a position his descendants would extend for generations.