Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici

Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici lived from about 1360 until February 1429 and was an Italian banker, best remembered as the founder of the Medici Bank. Other members of the Medici family, among them Chiarissimo di Giambuono de' Medici, who sat in the Signoria of Florence in 1401, and Salvestro de' Medici, who was caught up in the Ciompi Revolt of 1378, have their own place in the history of the city. Yet it was Giovanni's creation of the family bank that truly set the family on its path to power in Florence. He was the father of Cosimo de' Medici and of Lorenzo the Elder, the grandfather of Piero di Cosimo de' Medici, the great-grandfather of Lorenzo de' Medici known as the Magnificent, and the great-great-great-grandfather of Cosimo I de' Medici, who became Grand Duke of Tuscany.