Lorenzo de'Medici was twenty-one when he took over the government of Florence in 1469. By the age of sixteen he was already an able diplomat, following the example and training of his father and grandfather, and as head of the Medici family, he became a first-class party chief as well as the most princely patron of art and thought in Christendom. Although he had virtually no physical charm, he had immense influence over people, and at the crisis of his career he saved both the Florentine state and himself by a master-stroke of personal diplomacy. He survived an assasination attempt in which his brother died, only to grow old with gout before he was thirty-eight and be crippled by the time of his death, five years later. The grief of the people of Florence was almost hysterical when the news was broken to them; to them, as to us, Lorenzo was a figure not easily matched, let alone surpassed. The author, Maurice Rowdon, looks anew at Lorenzo the man and places him in the Italy and Europe of his day. - Jacket flap.