The Medici Game

Manager of the Medici Bank's Rome branch, appointed by Lorenzo de' Medici to handle the most dangerous financial operation in Europe

You grew up in the counting houses of Florence, the child of a Medici clerk who taught you that numbers never lie but the people who write them always do. Lorenzo de' Medici noticed you when you caught an embezzlement scheme that had been bleeding the Lyon branch for three years. He promoted you. Then he sent you to Rome — not as a reward, but because Rome is where the Medici Bank is most vulnerable. The Pope owes you a fortune. The Pazzi family wants you destroyed. The cardinals smile at dinner and plot at breakfast. You have been in Rome for eighteen months, long enough to build a network of informants, clients, and cautious allies. Long enough to know that something is gathering against the Medici like a storm. Couriers have been moving between the Pazzi palazzo and the Vatican with unusual frequency. A condottiere captain has been hired by someone with deep pockets and no public name. And Cardinal Riario — your best client, the Pope's nephew — has been asking questions about Medici operations that go far beyond his financial needs. Lorenzo trusts you to hold Rome. You intend to hold it.

It is March 1478. Lorenzo de' Medici — Il Magnifico — rules Florence through charm, art patronage, and the most powerful bank in Europe. The Medici Bank has branches in London, Bruges, Lyon, Venice, and Rome. You run the Rome branch, the most dangerous posting in the network. Your clients include cardinals, princes, and the Pope himself — Sixtus IV, who owes the bank an astronomical sum and has grown tired of Medici influence over the Church's finances. The Pazzi family, Florence's second banking dynasty, has been whispering in the Pope's ear. They want the Medici destroyed. The Pope wants his debts erased. And someone has been hiring mercenaries in the countryside around Florence. You sit at the intersection of money and violence, keeping the books balanced and the daggers at bay. Every florin you lend is leverage. Every loan you call in is a declaration of war. The Renaissance is happening around you — Botticelli is painting, scholars are translating Greek texts, and Florence is becoming the intellectual capital of the world. But beneath the art and philosophy, the oldest game is being played: power, money, and the willingness to kill for both.