Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating
Review: I find this to be fascinating. I've got to research this family more. I've always been interested in history, especially church history, but I did not grasp the extent in which this family's power influenced all of history. It seems that everything from art, to science, to Catholicism, to the reformation, had a member of this family in its shadows.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating
Review: I find this to be fascinating. I've got to research this family more. I've always been interested in history, especially church history, but I did not grasp the extent in which this family's power influenced all of history. It seems that everything from art, to science, to Catholicism, to the reformation, had a member of this family in its shadows.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful, informative and beautiful reenactments
Review: I just had the pleasure of watching this documentary on PBS and simply loved the show that I had to purchase the DVD. I only wished that I had watched this documentary before visiting Italy; I would have had a better appreciation of the city of Florence and the influence of the Medici Family. I knew the Medici Family was one, if not, the most influential family in Italy. With their patronage, they supported the arts supporting such artist as Bernini, Michaelangelo, Raphael, and Leanardo Devinci. But I had no idea how their influence had shaped how the world viewed the arts. The episode brought to life wonderful reanactments such as the building of the Duomo cathedral and the challange of building the dome. I'm looking forward to watching the other series offered by PBS.
Rating: 
Summary: This was just fabulous
Review: I just LOVE this program!!! It is just engrossing. I started watching it by myself and by the midway mark had 11 other people watching it with me. I am buying a second copy because mine has not seen home since my first viewing.
The narration is excellent as are the writing and the visuals. The subject, of course, is truly fascinating The way all the notables of the day dovetailed and had their lives so intertwined, one would think this was a Dicken's novel. So many things we take for granted & so many phrases one never considers the origin of come from this period.
I actually sat and listened to my nieces and nephews saying "Oh wow!" over and over. It totally kept their attention and interest. One niece signed up for a Renaissance History class in college this quarter as a result of viewing this program - something she had never even contemplated before.
I cannot recommend this too highly. I think it would be a great teaching tool or something that surely will spark interest for the person who is more than a little reluctant to have to study this period.
Rating:
Summary: This was just fabulous
Review: I just LOVE this program!!! It is just engrossing. I started watching it by myself and by the midway mark had 11 other people watching it with me. I am buying a second copy because mine has not seen home since my first viewing.
The narration is excellent as are the writing and the visuals. The subject, of course, is truly fascinating The way all the notables of the day dovetailed and had their lives so intertwined, one would think this was a Dicken's novel. So many things we take for granted & so many phrases one never considers the origin of come from this period.
I actually sat and listened to my nieces and nephews saying "Oh wow!" over and over. It totally kept their attention and interest. One niece signed up for a Renaissance History class in college this quarter as a result of viewing this program - something she had never even contemplated before.
I cannot recommend this too highly. I think it would be a great teaching tool or something that surely will spark interest for the person who is more than a little reluctant to have to study this period.
Rating: 
Summary: Missed Opportunity: More Art than History
Review: I wanted so much to like this program. The sets, costumes and even background music were excellent. The artwork was wonderful. The history, however, left a lot to be desired.
Sometimes the story is told correctly. Sometimes it was incomplete. Sometimes, it was downright misleading. In short, the show was mainly about some members of the Medici family and the artists they supported. However, there are long time periods not addressed or given a cursory mention.
Among the issues/problems I had with the program: the reform-minded monk Savonarola is mentioned prominently in episode two, but we are not told of his eventual fate (he was hanged and burned); the city of Florence enjoys ten years as a republic, away from the influence of the Medici, but it lasts barely minutes in the show; the sack of Rome in 1527, a horrible event motivated by greed, was portrayed as an act of "holy war" by Lutherans against Catholic Rome (incorrect - there were both Lutherans and Catholics in the ransacking army, and some fellow Romans took part as well); the break between Pope Clement VII (aka Giulio de Medici) and Henry VIII of England, resulting in the creation of the Anglican Church, is not even mentioned; Galileo is portrayed as the originator of the idea that the sun is the center of the universe, when in fact the theory had already been proposed, most notably by Copernicus; and finally, the show depicts Galileo as a broken man after his hearing with the Inquisition. In reality, although he was under house arrest, he was able to continue his work, and lived for nine more years before dying in 1642.
As I mentioned earlier, there was so much to like about this program, I am disappointed that some of the statements and accounts presented are just not accurate. Still, I would recommend it is a starting point to learn more about this fascinating period in history; there is much worthwhile information here.
Three stars. "The Medici" was good, but it could have been SO MUCH better.
Rating:
Summary: The Magnificent Medici
Review: I was amazed that this was a PBS production. It depicts in sumptuous, photography and commentary the Medici influence on Renaissance Florence in its patronage of discovery, its appreciation for beauty, and its violence as well as you could expect in a 4 hour film. I particularly liked the actor portraying Cosimo "Pater Patrie". He managed to convey with facial expressions and without spoken lines, Cosimo's inquiring mind, his gravity and even his overwhelming sadness at the loss of his father Giovanni "di Bicci". Of course, a lot gets left out. Florentine Renaissance philosophy and poetry gets short shrift in favor of the political and artistic climate. A discussion of Neoplatonist philosophy and its effect on the art and writing of the period would have contributed to an understanding of the period. There is little mention of Lorenzo "il Magnifico's" academy, his poetry, and his patronage of philospher poets such as Agnolo Poliziano and others.
The series is gorier than most PBS productions, but Renaissance Italy was a gory place torn often by internal warfare. Giuliano di Medici, brother of Lorenzo "il Magnifico" was, after all, murdered at Mass, and when Bernardino di Bandino Baroncelli, one of the conspirators was summarily hanged from the magistrate's palace, Leonardo da Vinci down in the square was busily sketching the hanged man, almost like a news photographer. Art and violence were often juxtaposed in Renaissance Italy.
Unlike an earlier reviewer, I loved the background chants and wish it were possible to purchase a soundtrack CD.
My one carp is with the accents of the narrator and one of the talking heads, an Italian who sounds like he learned English from someone who had a brogue. His Italian/Celtic brogue is an jarring departure from the perfectly clipped British intonations of past PBS productions
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining --- but there are big historical gaps
Review: One might more accurately title this series, "Some of the Medici and the Renaissance artists & thinkers who knew them," as the series at times seems to dwell excessively on the assorted artists that flourished within the Medici sphere of influence (while consigning the Medici themselves to the background). Anyone hoping to come away with a clear historical picture of the Medici family is out of luck. The narrative at times skips over entire generations and leaves the viewer with a somewhat blurry timeline, as though the producers had to edit the larger story in order to deal with time constraints. Fair enough --- nearly every producer in television has to deal with time constraints and something always has to be left out. However, when one watches this program & sees the time lavished on Brunelleschi & his dome (or on Michelangelo's "David" and "The Last Judgement"), one can be left feeling impatient with the rather slipshod treatment of history. Really, is their patronage of the arts the only reason that the Medici are important? One is left with that impression from this series.
Echoing other reviewers, I found the chapter on the Medici Popes to be particularly lacking in detail. All one sees is parties, parties, parties. Is that all these Popes did? Clement VII, among other things, excommunicated Henry VIII of England for divorcing Catherine of Aragon (we all know what happened next) and married his niece Catherine to Henri II of France (which helped lead to the French Wars of Religion a half century later). He also struggled to keep Hapsburgs at arm's length while simultaneously accepting financial support from Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Pretty historically significant, I would think, but this series would have you believe that it was nothing but parties and commissions for Michelangelo that made Leo X and Clement VII historically important.
One need not even bother with the hereditary Grand Dukes of Tuscany. Aside from Cosimo I, the series can hardly be bothered to mention the Grand Dukes by name. Once the series is past Cosimo I, it is all Galileo, all the time. One really doesn't even find out what ultimately happened to the Medici Grand Dukes, even though the series ostensibly is about them and their family. Ahhh, picky picky picky. I guess that is what books are for.
If you want lots of lovingly framed camera shots of Renaissance artwork, then by golly you will love this series. If you are looking for a comprehensive historical treatment of the Medici family, then it's off to the nearest library with you, for you surely will not come away from this series knowing much more than you did beforehand.
Rating: 
Summary: Propaganda Masquerading as a Documentary
Review: Richly costumed, the Medici deserves 4 stars for telling a cursory tale in an enjoyable manner. Unfortunately, the final 30 minutes, focusing on Galileo Galilei, are marred by such reckless disregard for history that the entire "documentary" should be shunned. Why would PBS twist his story into a morality play only a 21st century ideologue would tell and why focus on a man who received less than a page of attention in Hibbert's The House of Medici if not to make a political rather than historical statement? Full disclosure of my religion: I am an agnostic and could care less about Catholicism; however, history should be told from what we know, not distorted into biases we want people to swallow. If one watched only this PBS film, one would believe this about Galileo:The most brilliant scientist of his age, Galileo dropped cannon balls off the tower of Pisa and proved a key concept of gravity. Amazingly, Galileo determined that the Earth orbited the Sun, not the other way around as taught by those narrow-minded Catholics. To publicize his breakthrough, Galileo wrote The Dialogues. For challenging church dogma, wedded to the Ptolemaic view of an Earth-centered universe, the pope, a silent glowering figure, ordered Galileo before the Inquisition where people are tortured. Later groveling before the evil pope, Galileo renounced his correct view and was confined to house arrest where he died shortly thereafter. What a story! But why tell a falsehood when the truth is more enlightening? Forget that this is a documentary on the Medici but never finishes the tale of their dissolute decline. The long discourse on Galileo is riddled with errors so serious it drags this presentation into the category of fiction. Following are some of PBS's intentional distortions. First, they do not mention Copernicus, a Catholic priest who first claimed that the Earth circles the sun in De Revolutionibus two decades before Galileo was born. Although brilliant, Galileo's conceit and self-righteousness marred his historical accomplishments. He was a liar who wrested from the Venetians a huge stipend for supplying his invention of the telescope before being revealed as a charlatan since the telescope was an invention of others passed off as his own. For this deceit, he was ridiculed in a play by Bertolt Brecht. The problem with Copernicus' theory (passed off by PBS as Galileo's discovery) is fundamental: the Earth does not circle the sun. The proof is simple enough: Copernicus' theory failed to predict future eclipses as well as the Ptolemaic theory - it was off by weeks where the latter theory missed by days. An infantile Galileo refused to supply Kepler with a telescope - leading Albert Einstein to condemn Galileo hundreds of years later: "It has always hurt me to think that Galilei did not acknowledge the work of Kepler. That, alas, is vanity." Galileo's jealousy forced Kepler to toil a decade longer to discover that planets orbited in an ellipse, not a circle as Galileo believed. In another burst of foolishness, Galileo denounced Kepler's theory that the moon caused the tides. Again, Galileo was wrong. Galileo waged a campaign to teach Copernicus' theory as absolute truth and damn all other theories. Contrary to PBS's claim, many in the Catholic Church embraced Copernicus' theory; for example, Cardinal Bellarmine, Master of Controversial Questions at the Roman College, wrote in an April 4, 1615 letter that he was intrigued by the Copernican theory but requested it be taught as theory rather than absolute truth, barring proof. Galileo scoffed that he could provide proof but he did not want to waste his time. Scientist Timothy Ferris, who admires Galileo but recognizes his childishness, writes: "This was pure sophistry. Galileo did not, in fact, have definitive proof of the Copernican theory. In Rome, Galileo ridiculed the anti-Copernicans at every opportunity, and promised that he would finally reveal his irrefutable proof of the Copernican theory. This turned out to be his erroneous account of the tides - Kepler's more nearly correct theory having, as usual, been ignored by Galileo." When his great friend and admirer Maffeo Barberini was elected pope in 1623 as Urban VIII, the pope showered Galileo with gifts and declarations of "fatherly love." This is the same pope who PBS depicts as a silent, glowering evil presence. In response to the pope's support, Galileo wrote The Dialogues, exposing his critics as buffoons; Galileo inserted a belief of the pope's in the mouth of an idiot named "Simplicio" (simpleton). The pope, through the simpleton, uttered Kepler's correct belief (denounced by Galileo) that the moon affects the tides. Angered, the pope banned the book. Growing increasingly irrational, Galileo denounced his friend the pope and fled to the pope's enemies, placing the pope in danger of assassination by pro-Spanish factions. To quiet him the pope placed Galileo before the inquisition but ensured no harm would come to a former friend who nearly caused his assassination. Galileo spent his final 8 years under house arrest. Despite PBS's artfully filmed shots of Galileo dropping balls from atop the tower of Pisa, he never practiced this experiment. Although Galileo was a devout Catholic (he ordered his daughter to a convent against her wishes), he imposed dangerously on his friend the pope. PBS twists history to claim that the church was suppressing the fact that the Earth orbits the sun when in reality many in the church believed but couldn't prove it since the mathematics were incorrect. PBS presents the pope as a narrow-minded torturer rather than a learned man disappointed that his friend Galileo was halting the advancement of science and placing his life in danger. Had Galileo triumphed, science would have been wounded because he wanted to squelch all theories, including the elliptical theory posited by Kepler, who used another man's telescope to determine the truth of Earth's orbit. I recommend the same: use another media's teachings to determine the truth and shun this shameful piece of propaganda.
Rating:
Summary: A Rich Tapestry of the Renaissance Comes to Life!
Review: THE MEDICI: GODFATHERS OF THE RENAISSANCE is a four-hour docudrama that is at once entertaining and educational. Using the technique of contemporary seated scholars in discussion with the viewer interspersed with actors playing the roles of the peoples of Florence and Rome and the famous Medici family that spanned three centuries of control and influence in Italy, this highly entertaining and beautifully photographed history lesson is a valuable addition to schools, historians, and lovers of history and biography. The Medici family was a mercantile line that amassed enough wealth to be able to live (and even become) royally. The Medicis are attributed with the advent of the Renaissance, having been the patrons of the greats of Western Art and Science, not the least of which are Michelangelo, Botticelli, da Vinci, Vasari, Bruneschelli, and Galileo. But patronage of the arts was not their only forte: through sheer power they were able to produce two popes (Leo and Clement)and it was through the debauchery and power of Leo, bankrupting the papacy with his earthly appetites, that the use of Papal Indulgences (anyone could 'purchase' redemption for a price that fed the papal coffers) that was the immediate cause driving Martin Luther to initiate the Reformation. Along the 4 hours of this DVD we are introduced to Savoranola, Machiavelli, Pope Julius II, and the various fighting factions of Florence Italy wherein the Medicis held court for over 200 years. Despite the recorded evils of this infamous family, they were enlightened (especially Lorenzo the Magnificent) to see the gifts of Michelangelo, da Vinci, etc and were it not for their patronage we may never have had the beauties of the statues David, Pieta, the Medici tombs, or the Sistine chapel frescoes to mention only a few. Nor would Galileo, the giant of Science, have been able to nudge his theories of the Universe, gravity, telescopic drawings of the moon, etc. The filming is magnificent, especially the use of very Renaissance period costumes and actors with faces that seem to leap from the paintings of the era. Bloodshed is not spared: the period would not seem completely evaluated with out the atrocities of the Inquisition. At times the docudrama portion seems a bit pushed toward the Hollywood spectacle, but how else could this colorfully rich and historically important period be represented? The one flaw that is a constant is the atrocious music score: every moment of death or defeat is backed by a simplistically awful plagiarism of Wagner's "Gotterdamerung" and non-authentic vocal wailings by bad boy sopranos attempting to sound like folk music or plainsong. But these flaws are minor in evaluating the whole project. This is definitely a DVD that every home should own - for pleasure, for historical resource, and for appreciation of where we are as a civilization today. Excellent!
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