I saw the show last night about the forensic analysis of the remains of the great Medici family of Florence. It was pretty disappointing…I expected to see well-preserved corpses, dressed in high-renaissance finery. Instead, just a bunch of moldy old bones. Of course, it came out that the tombs had been opened before (in the 1940’s), and the bones reboxed and reburied. I have a few questions:
-why did the Medicis shoose that awful location for their tombs? the Arno river regularly floods and submerges the place!
-did the Renaissance Italians practice embalming? O f course, if your grave is under water, NO amount of embalming will preserve you!
-For all their wealth, they lived a pretty wretched life…Cosimo’s oldest son died around age 19! the boy had a severe dental abcess, which ate awy the bone around one of his upper jaw incisors…the poor kid must have been in agony! Would a doctor of the time have know enough to lance such an abcess?
-Cosimo’s wife died around age 44-afetr bearing 11 children! the poor woman had a real workout!
I’m glad I’m living in he 21st century…for all their wealth the Medicis lived like extremely poorpeople today (as far as health care)!
I didn’t see the show, but I assume it discussed the Medici tombs (including the famous Michelangelo-designed tombs) at San Lorenzo? This particular site was important to the Medici since it featured the Medici’s parish church, which carried an additional significance as the oldest Christian church in Florence (founded in 393; rebuilt in the Middle Ages; and rebuilt again, by Brunelleschi in the 15th century). Cosimo the Elder endowed the San Lorenzo monastery with lots of lire (OK, with florins), and so the family and the monastery had a pretty strong relationship.
I’m surprised to hear they have had repeated problems with flood waters there–San Lorenzo isn’t that close to the Arno banks. Nearly all of central Florence was hit hard during the devastating 1966 flood, but that disaster wasn’t a typical experience–the Medici couldn’t have foreseen that happening.
Maybe the show was talking about a different set of tombs, closer to the river?
As for embalming, neither the Medici nor any other Renaissance family would have practiced it.
And, yes, health standards for fifteenth-century Florence were fairly low compared to 21st-century medicine and society (and things were certainly worse outside of
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…and things were certainly worse outside of urban centers like Florence during that time).
I saw this last night too. According to the program , the looting probably took place by the tomb builders themselves, since they knew how to get into the tombs and they knew what was in there. It was pretty sad actually. The one tomb that they entered into by the stairs under the round opening/entrance, those coffins were looted and just left open or with the lids not put back on.
It was also disturbing how the people who opened the tombs in 1940 scraped the flesh off the bones to make plaster casts. They were not trained archaeologists and did a poor job, and after they were done, they just put the bones back into the boxes haphazardly.
It was pretty amazing about Cosimo’s wide (Elanora?) They showed how her skeleton was deformed from all the births. Can you imagine being pregnant 11 times in 16 years? (I am pretty sure that is what they said it was). That poor woman! This is way before epidurals! And it was sad to see the two paintings of her, young and old. She was so beautiful in the young painting, and so sickly and gaunt looking in the older one. They speculated that she probably died of TB, and not a broken heart from her two sons dying right before her.
Oh yeah, and that dental abcess looked SO PAINFUL! I wonder why they didn’t just yank that tooth out?
Here’s one of the paintings of Eleonora, with her son, I am pretty sure one of the son’s whose tomb they examined in the program. They said in the program that the seamstress who made her dress was paid just as much as the painter, because fashion was very important to Eleonora. http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/b/bronzino/1/eleonora.html
Ah I found it! Here is the second portrait of Eleonora, the older one where she looks really sickly. Can you believe it’s the same woman? http://gallery.euroweb.hu/art/b/bronzino/1/eleonor_.jpg
No they are talking about the same tombs. Indeed, the show dosn't mention REPEATED floods, when refering to the flood damage, they repeadly mention the 1966 flood.The Medici family were probably the wealthiest in Europe at the time, but it couln’d buy much in the way of dental care (re the dental abcess). Still, wouldn’t a physician of the time have pulled the tooth (or at least lanced the boil)? Think about it…your 19 year old son is DYING (and suffering horribly) from a massive tooth abcess…and nothing is done? possibly, Cosimo’s physician was afraid to do anyhting-perhaps he feared being punished if his actions had hastened the boy’s death?
What was the average life span in 15th century florence?