medici

In the late 17th century, Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici (only daughter of the penultimate Medici Grand Duke, Cosimo III), married Elector Johann Wilhelm of the Palatinate as his second wife. The marriage was considered a happy one (the Electoral couple had a close relationship and shared love for...

The Thornton Expedition was the only time an Italian nation (Excluding Malta) try to colonize the New World. In 1608, Robert Thornton, under the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinando I, was sent to prepare the establishment of Tuscan Colony in modern-day modern day French Guiana. However, when...

In 1478, a plot was hatched in Renaissance Italy. This was not exactly an uncommon occurrence, but what distinguished this plot was its ambition: kill Lorenzo de' Medici, the de facto ruler of Florence and one of the most powerful men on the peninsula. While the Pazzi conspiracy killed Lorenzo's...

The Pazzi family were a Florentine banking family during the middle ages and renaissance, but after the Pazzi Conspiracy failed in 1478, the family were exiled by the Medici, and their name removed from Florence. Challenge: Have the Pazzi family replace the Medici as the dominant and...

(A bit ASB, and ignoring a lot of butterflies and events at that time, just mostly a compare two empires) What if most of Italy was unified, between 14th Century-17th Century? How would the combined armies of Italians, face off against the Ottoman Empire? Venice is still independent, but...

Challenge: have a member of the house of Borgia marry a member of the House of Medici, and create a powerful Noble Family in Italy.

Many historical dramas set during the early reign of Henry VIII (The Tudors, Wolf Hall, Carlos, King and Emperor - even Borgia references it IIRC) focus on the fact that Thomas Wolsey had ambitions to become pope. But them (and most history books) are silent about just exactly Wolsey planned to...

In 1484 pope sixtus IV dies, the greatest opponent to Lorenzo Il magnific. the next Pope the genoese Vybo elected as Innocent VII was even a fan of Lorenzo. Pod: what if Lorenzo is able to create a stable Italian league were the Italian state won't anymore battle between them but solve disputes...

Lorenzo de Piero de Medici, duke of Urbino died on May 4 1519 - more or less alongside his wife (28 April) - of an unspecified cause (although hers may have been childbed fever). What happens if Lorenzo were to recover? His uncle (Giuliano de Lorenzo) had died only three years before, so for...

In 1608 Captain Robert Thornton was sent by Ferdinand I de' Medici Grand Duke of Tuscany to explore Northern Brazil, the Amazon and nowadays' French Guyana. The ambitious Grand Duke wanted Thornton to explore in particular Guyana in order to find supplies of rosewood, balsam and cotton that the...

The decline of the Tuscan state has been ascribed to the disastrous double Tutrici regency of Dowager Grand Duchesses Christine (of Lorraine) and Maria Magdalene (of Austria) following the death of Cosimo II. They brought in a lot more priests, turned Galileo over to the Inquisition and became...

Your mission, should you chose to accept it, is to put a member or descendant of the House of Medici on the thrones of say England, France, Scotland, or one of the Iberian countries, for as long as possible. Ever since I show the PBS Empires Special "The Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance"...

Inspired by my question regarding Eduard of Simmern's son surviving, I decided to look at another Pfalz prince who also lost a son that could've had an interesting effect on the European chessboard: Eduard's distant cousin, Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine of the Rhine. Now, JW was a notorious...

Inspired by a pair of threads that asked for an AH timeline with a plausible Spanish and French speaking parts of Australia. Setting: The 1640s Summary: An Englishman who claims to be a disciple of Galileo thinks he has found a way to travel from Italies to Australia, the mythic continent of...

House Medici was expelled from power and exiled from Florence in 1493; they would return to power under Cosimo Medici in 1512. Your challenge here is, how can the latter be prevented with a PoD after the former? (Can it be after the death of Savonarola?) How long can the "people's republic" of...

Of late I’ve been looking at the last generation of Medicis to rule Tuscany, the three children of Cosimo III and his estranged French wife. All three had marriages where one of the partners had syphilis. None left children. Now, of the three matches – two (that of Giovan’ Gastone and his...