A review of “The Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance” (PBS Empires)

“To the Magnificent Lorenzo Di Piero De' Medici:

Those who strive to obtain the good graces of a prince are accustomed to come before him with such things as they hold most precious, or in which they see him take most delight; whence one often sees horses, arms, cloth of gold, precious stones, and similar ornaments presented to princes, worthy of their greatness. Desiring therefore to present myself to your Magnificence with some testimony of my devotion towards you, I have not found among my possessions anything which I hold more dear than, or value so much as, the knowledge of the actions of great men, acquired by long experience in contemporary affairs, and a continual study of antiquity; which, having reflected upon it with great and prolonged diligence, I now send, digested into a little volume, to your Magnificence.”

– Dedication of Niccolò Machiavelli's “The Prince” (1532)

When people today think of the “Italian Renaissance,” they usually think of accomplishments in the arts and sciences – or sometimes, philosophy. They would not often think of power politics, or the squabbling among the Italian city-states of the time. But this era was marked by ferocious power politics in Italy, which created great turmoil on the Italian peninsula. Niccolò Machiavelli's “The Prince” was the product of this time, and so was its disturbing view of ethics and politics. There was much to fear for Italians of this time.

The rise of the Medici family owed much to the economic strength that they gained from banking

During this time, one family in particular rose to prominence in Italy – and more specifically, in Florence. In its heyday, this family produced kings, queens, and even three popes. That family was, of course, the Medici; but it did not start out as a royal family. Rather, it made its name through banking; and amassing wealth by means of the private sector. The rise of the Medici family owed much to the economic strength that they gained in this way. They actually started out their ascendancy as a family of Italian merchant-bankers, and continued to be such even during their political rule. They were among the earliest bankers in Europe, and were great pioneers in the banking industry. Their depositors stored their money in the “Medici Bank,” and the Medici then loaned out this money to people who needed it. The interest from these loans actually brought great wealth to the Medici family, and allowed them to pay some small interest to their depositors as well. It helped to create the family fortune, which brought them to political prominence in Italy. Money was often the greatest weapon in the Medici arsenal, and was a great driver of the politics of the Renaissance (as it was for every other era of human history).

Cosimo de Medici, the Italian banker who became the first of the Medici dynasty

The document that changed everything in America …

When the Founding Fathers wrote the original Constitution in 1787, they were creating a document that would change everything in America, keeping a fragile union of thirteen states from descending into war debts, bankruptcy, and even armed rebellions. One uprising in particular came from a disgruntled Revolutionary War veteran named Daniel Shays, whose uprising against the government of Massachusetts had been an impetus for holding the Constitutional Convention in the first place. It did not start out as a popular document, and was opposed openly even by some of the men who had been present at the Convention. Thus, the particulars of this document were debated fiercely from one end of the thirteen former colonies to the other.

George Mason

Luther Martin

What were the particulars of this document, and why did they create such an uproar when they were first written? What relevance might its passages have today, when our world is so different from the one they inhabited 200 years ago? What was it about this document that caused it to be so successful, and which made the country that adopted it into the greatest superpower that the world has ever known? And why is this most essential ingredient to the country's remarkable success story such an obscure and forgotten secret?

In this series, I will try to answer these questions, as I talk about everything from the people that influenced the Constitution (such as John Locke, and Baron de Montesquieu) to the men that commented on it (such as William Lloyd Garrison, and Abraham Lincoln). I will try to be informative, but I will not shy away from inserting persuasive commentary at times as well. I will lay out the case for why the Constitution of the United States is the greatest success story that human politics has ever known.

A review of “Rome: Rise and Fall of an Empire” (History Channel)

Note: This is a different series from “Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire” (which is made by the BBC).

There aren't too many documentaries out there about ancient history …

If you've ever looked online for movies about ancient history, you've probably had a hard time finding any. Ancient history isn't a popular subject for Hollywood movies (or even documentaries), and so very few programs about it have ever been made. I don't know why this has been the case, but I can probably make some guesses about it. If you make a documentary about World War II (a modern topic), you have access to actual archival footage from the period. You can get it at very low cost, and advertise its benefits to your viewers. Some of them will even prefer the gritty realism of the actual footage to re-enactments, which are just educated guesses (albeit good ones, if they're done right). Thus, you can sometimes get more effectiveness for less money, which is a real advantage in the world of documentaries. But if you depict the distant past, you are usually forced to rely on re-enactments, and the cost of these re-enactments can be steep. Consequently, many of these ancient history documentaries are never made in the first place.

This documentary is primarily a military history

An ancient history topic must thus be fairly popular before a for-profit network like the History Channel will decide to throw significant money at it. No matter how much the producers of these networks might like these topics, they usually can't justify the budget for these programs unless they think that they have a reasonable chance of recovering these expenses with some added cash flow. One presumes that the Roman Empire was considered popular enough to justify these budgets to investors at this time. If it had not been, after all, it's safe to assume that this series would never have been made. I imagine part of its appeal to the general public was its focus on military history (rather than other kinds of history). Military history has long been a popular topic with certain segments of the general population (perhaps especially the male population); and although political history is sometimes covered here, the primary focus of this series is military history. This may be the most comprehensive military history of Rome ever made for television. It has some weaknesses (which I will note later), but it's still a fine series despite these.

Relief scene of Roman legionaries marching, from the Column of Marcus Aurelius – Rome, Italy, 2nd century AD