Florence was the city of creativity and art with the greatest artists such as Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, Brunelleschi, Galileo and many others. The explosion of ideas with these artists was one of the reasons for the Renaissance. Florence was an important commercial center and was a city like no other in Europe in the 1400s. It was a republic with powerful families fighting together for political control. In Florence there was the Medici family who were ambitious, trying to make a name for themselves. It was a small scale operational bank that operated out of the back of the wool shop. The growing business was managed by Giovanni, Cosimo's father. He chose his clients very carefully. The family supported a pirate who wanted to enter the Vatican and become Pope. Then from priest to cardinal to pope, he remembered the Medici family and trusted their bank. Then the Medici family joined a powerful group of Florentines. They wanted to build the largest dome in the world and failed, and without a dome there was no secret building. All contemporary ideas were exhausted and fresh new ideas from a new G were needed...