The Medici

S.Onwuka

                                                  

It is out of the question, or so it seems, that anything associated with Medieval was essentially imported to Rome. It is equally challenging to suggest that what we can now associate with Italian family of Medici originated elsewhere. Yes, we may have heard of Catherine D’ Medici called ‘Black Queen’ ‘Black Widow’ which many people associate with her so-called gift of Black Magic, and we have also heard of Alessandro De Medici who was also called the ‘Black Prince of Florence’ who was assassinated by his distant Cousin ‘Lorenszaccio’ and it believed to have been the son of an African Woman and one of the Medici. 

This man is known history as the first black prince of Europe and that corrigenda to his race and to Europe and its History. But the facts about this Medici is quite wrong or at least misleading, to the point that putting aside Edward; ‘Black Prince of England’, known as “the last of his kind” as a presence elder to Alessandro, European History is riddled with the so-called Blacks in royal offices. 

It is not always easy to comment on anything that is supported by the popular sources and sometimes, some of the commentaries may seem to people a form of reaction or an attempt to buy history. In all probability, history is more revealing than it looks, for sure; one can look at ‘Black’ or ‘White’ discourses as a sharing driven by more secondary interest than how they looked.  

 To have for instance mentioned that the English Saxons are pretty the same people as Sassoon from Middle East and Persia, many of whom are discovered today in North and South Africa and some in India may sound like off-beat tempo to anyone largely due to the wealth of history available about the English past none of which mentions this Sassoon, some of which however mentions that the Britons are not originally from Brittany, that the name Britain came from another word ‘Berit’; ‘people of convent’.  
 

One more point that needs to be argued is that the facts stated above are correct saving for the more cogent fact that it was not Alessandro that brought the black genes to their family of the Medici as Modern Sciences prove, rather this family like many other Italian families of the Florence and Sicily are actually Black by origin. Of course I have written something like this before that the Italian families that were common in Venice at the age of the Normans and a few centuries after were also common in Florence and that these were mainly Sea masters and Navigators who like their counterparts in Spain and in Monte-Negro linked the World by Sea and by their Ships and so on with regards to the source of their Wealth. 

Well we can’t take my word or another body’s word on this, but a convinced that you do not have exhaust books on this topic to reach your conclusion like a certain James Cleugh. We must understand that ‘Race’ is not factor in the past and should facts materialize itself as stated, it amounts to nothing than what is already known that inter-marriage between peoples of the world and with due respect to shifts of religious faiths, an entire history can achieved which has nothing to with its past. But if we can place learning curve of this version of world history from recent accommodations, it will easier to review the exploits of a man such as Verrazano or the exploits of Vespucci. 

From the book on the Medici who were well aware of the Northern as earlier the 11^th century and who knew Vespucci and his compradors, we can look at James Cleugh writing in his book, Medici; A tale of fifteen Generations,  that by “1304 with Corso Donati playing the part of Achilles brooding in his tent, the Whites under the Cavalcanti family were gaining against the Medici and other Blacks”, we read something of an offhand comment suggesting a comparative relationship between Medici and some others, and this statement may yet be taken as a form of reference to the flag or existing parties inside Italy in 1304, but this is hardly the case since a few years later, these Whites in Italy were nearly expelled but where actually thrown out in France by Charles of Valois, gives us the impression that the so-called Whites may have been a banner of some sorts which were taken as color. But the author mentions that the Medici at this period was “...anxious only for a settled administration of any color.”

The Book needs a lengthy discourse particular for the spate of Medici of Italy as Blacks in origin and is most probably from North Africa than Syria. That they called themselves Neri or Djeri make strike some bells for some people since the Neris or the Nerids (Djeri) are essentially from the same as the Eri, that is the ancient people of ‘Deri’ from which the name Red Sea came. 

“It is interesting to find that the historian Villani, in dealing with this period (1302-3), affirms that by this time the Medici were mainly Neri. However divided their allegiance may have been in the time of Charles of Valois, they had evidently for the most part now switched to the winning side, like the Shrewd trades they were, anxious only for a settled administration of any color. But it would probably have been impossible for Vallani or anyone else to be certain where, for instance, the true sympathies of Ardingho de’ Medici lay.”
 

 Charles of Valois Charles of Valois son of King of Philip III, authorized Charles to bring the ‘Ghebelline’ Bianchi to heel and according to the author a White wrote “ they came during the night toi our house in the old market and stole everything that they could find. But on the previous evening we had removed all that they could find. But on the previous evening we had removed the most precious of our possessions. We men were not there, for we had escaped with our portable property. That same night there came another troop to our house and stole all that the others had left. And when they had finished stealing, the Tosinghi and the Medici demanded the persons of our women....The Children, both male and female, were left naked, lying upon the straw, for all their furniture and garments lead been carried away. Worse deeds were not done even by the Saracens in Acre” 

While the book did not bother to show what it meant by White or Black, whether or not it refers to a flag as it may have mentioned, there is however enough to suggest that the presence of two other groups in Florence ‘Ghebelline Bianchi’ and some others from the ‘Republic of Guelf’ should demonstrate that the conflict pretty much existed between a people also called ‘Black Chiefs’ and others who were making in-roads into Italy through Venice and Florence. 

Above all, we can look at the color that the Medici were mainly identified with in later years, both in their apparel and in their business, suggest either a deep rooted connection to this color or a form of business of commerce that had both political as well as religious symbols. In all reality, the use of the word Blacks may be confusing except we mention the age of the word and understand the society in which the word was used. 

The author mentioned that “These passages do not, of course, afford proof that all the Medici took the Black Side”, that “Their records as a family had been the reverse of an aristocratically oppressive one so far. The most that can be deduced is that the household of Medici, like so many others was divided against itself during these disturbances and it is quite possible that both chroniclers had private reasons for hating the bearing of the name.”
 

 Whereas Spain was the huge presence of the Age of the Moors, their greatest presence where felt in Venice and Florence Italy more than anywhere else. Here’s the problem that as much we know that Rome was sacked many times throughout its history and its citizens, yes citizens, sold into Slavery in many occasions, the one of such incidents is 1085 A.D sack of Rome by the Crusading Normans who with the help of the Saracens replaced every known family of much older stock.

 It is wrong and has always been wrong to link Rome of today with even Rome of the last 500 years, to the degree that 1500 A.D Rome had nothing in common with the Romans of Old. There is hardly any family in Rome, let alone Italy that can effectively stretch their ancestral Roots beyond 1000 A.D, and the reasons are quite many yet the more realized interpretation of this fact that Majority of the Roman families came from elsewhere, perhaps a mixture of the Past and others. 

 The Greater share of that dissimilarity with the past lays with the Overall Italians, yes Italians, for sure there are many people who past are only as far as the 1500 A.D and we are dealing with few families. There are others that go into the turn of the 1100 A.D within the Peninsula but yet these families would be well known to the rest of the world. One of those families that will not more than likely surprise anyone is the Medici family, who are we know were adopted by the Catholic Church to protect the Church and its resources. Much may be made of this story seems the idea of re-conciliation may prove Italian culture and Catholic Christianity. 

Yet it is without doubt difficult to correct that the impression that the Medici themselves like their counterparts Tosinghi and many others from Florence were probably the Architect of Catholic Supremacy and may have been directly responsible for the Renaissance in Rome and as well.

I for one and as many people remember has maintained that the history of the Italy – that is history between 1900 should be separated from Italy from 1000-1800 largely for the fact that names of the families in Florence and in Venice, names such as ‘The Bardi’ ‘The Medici’ ‘The Peruzzi’ ‘The Pitt’ and the very political ‘Strozzi’ where mainly Moorish family or families who were not originally Romans or came from North Africa and Syria (Sieri: Latin Sieriri) and around the Red Sea. 

Although it is easier to suggest that these families rose to prominence in the Italian Renaissance in Florence and like many others in Italy, they were primarily associated with visible buildings erected in Florence from around the 14^th century A.D, many of which enjoyed new approach to buildings and new forms of doing business by Sea. 

I shall instill for now that these families mentioned above were Banker Families for the Catholic Church and for Europe, had their counterparts in the Moorish families in Spain, families which included the Medina or Medina Celi, some of them were familiar with Alhambra. 

When we speak of these Moors, our minds easily navigate between Morocco and Mauretania, and there is nothing to deny that these two and cultures were not respite for these Moors or their names relative, but nothing in the word Morocco (17^th century A.D) which refers to a Sheep skin industry or region of tough leather in North Africa where a lot Moorish people also settled, and Mauritania which came from Marius as founder as according to historians such as Uchita. Mauretania was gifted to a certain Bophoris (Bocchus I) who became king over one of the desert nomads of Western Nubia, as gift equal 1/3 of all the lands under the rule of Cartage or owned by Cartage and eventually owned by Jugurtha. 

Of course it took the division between Jugurtha, son of the brother of Massinassi (not a direct grandson) and one of the sons of a Massinassi to make this possible. Masinassi and Bophoris were never Kings at all – let alone king of Nubia ‘East or West’ or any place called Mauretania – but Bocchus I (Bophoris) of what was eventually called Mauritania sided Rome against Jugurtha and simultaneously to deliver Jugurtha to Rome.

That Jugurtha appeared in chains in Rome is not very correct given the circumstances leading to his surrender and that he was fined half of his inheritance. Jugurtha paid this off and returned to Africa and took on a reaction against all kinds of Roman interest on Eastern Nubia and destroying what he could find without settling in one place. 

The backdrop of this story is best known in Jordanes history of the Goths or those who became the Goths and Barbarians, from this breakdown of relationship between the descendants of Massinassi who helped Rome and Scipio overcome Hannibal, and remnants of the Numidians who opposed Rome came an enemy that challenged and destroyed Roman vessels on land and on Sea.
        

But the story is not well told, and has been for many people a question of struggle to bring themselves to accept the overlooked facts that the Moors or others like them did not just ‘rule in Europe’ as Christopher Columbus mentioned in one his letters to Queen Isabella of Spain, rather these people gave Europe is fabric and its authority. 

Unlike what we may expect from elsewhere where religion played a major hand in redeeming a forgotten past, it was Religion that dwarfed these people and their origins. For sure many will likely question the exclusion of the fact that these so-called Italian Banker families, including Peruzzi and Medici, particularly Medici came from North Africa and may have started their journey in Sicily. 

Of course, to speak of Sicily of the past, at least from the Norman Conquest of 1068-1085, we speak of the Capital of World, that Sicily was re-captured from Muslims by the Normans and they remained in this regions for about a 100 years of absolute power and another century of decline pushed other frontiers of the World and eventually Sicily and Venice would be lost to Seljuk Turbs not Turks as becomes its history (Turbans wearing people or those who match). 

Yet the Age of the Norman rule from Sicily is marked eternally by outrageous building such as those we now call Gothic Cathedrals, many of which were wrought in one century, between 1150-1250 CE and contained the greatest undertaking in Architecture known then and now. It is is i

  

That the rise of the Medici in Italy may have started with Lorenzo but reached its highest point with coming of a certain Paolo Tuscanelli, which is not his original name and who came originally from Algeria. It was Tuscanelli who brought several books regarding the practice of the health and human body given to specific numbers and healing from Alexander Egypt, and brought along the celebrated book of learning called the Hermes Trimengistus to Florence and to the Medici. Among the book that Tuscanelli brought from Egypt was the Ptolemy Atlas and Geography and he also brought Euclidean Mathematics to Rome. 

The word Medicine as from the word Medici and the celebrated genius of Michael Angelo and Davinci, all associated with Medici began with these books which Paolo brought as entrusted to his care by his Group in Egypt. The difficulty in throwing “But on June 10 a fire kindled by a priest destroyed much of the property of the Cavalcanti, as well as some of their leading adherents. These losses of the Bianchi enabled the Neri to turn the tide”
  

‘While the Black Chiefs were away, the banished Whites, assisted by some Ghibelline exiles, attacked Florence from the west. The west they repulsed with ease when the Popolo minuto’ – the support of which the Whites had expected spotted the hated Ghibelline banner and joined the black defenders”