Giuliano de' Medici, Duke of Nemours


Giuliano di Lorenzo de' Medici KG was an Italian nobleman, the third son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and a ruler of Florence.

Biography

Born in Florence, he was raised with his brothers Piero and Giovanni de' Medici, who became Pope Leo X; as well as his cousin Guilio de' Medici, who became Pope Clement VII.
His older brother Piero was briefly the ruler of Florence after Lorenzo's death, until the republican faction drove out the Medici in 1494. Giuliano moved therefore to Venice. The Medici family was restored to power after the Holy League drove the French forces that had supported the Florentine republicans from Italy. This effort was headed by Spain. Giuliano reigned at Florence from 1512 to 1516.
He married Filiberta, daughter of Philip II, Duke of Savoy, on 22 February 1515 at the court of France, thanks to the intercession of his brother Giovanni, now pope as Leo X, in the same year that King Francis I of France invested him with the title Duke of Nemours on the occasion. The French were apparently grooming him for the throne of Naples, when Giuliano died prematurely. He was succeeded in Florence by his nephew Lorenzo II de' Medici.
Giuliano left a single illegitimate son, Ippolito de' Medici, who became a cardinal.
His portrait, painted in Rome by Raphael, shows Rome's Castel Sant'Angelo behind a curtain.
Giuliano's tomb in the Medici Chapel of the Church of San Lorenzo, Florence, is ornamented with the Night and Day of Michelangelo, along with a statue of Giuliano by Michelangelo. Due to the identical common name that he shared with his uncle Giuliano di Piero de' Medici, whose tomb is also in the Medici Chapel, his tomb is often mistaken for that of his uncle.

Ancestry