Grand Duchy of Tuscany

The Medici state, which turned a republic into a principality and paid for the Renaissance on the way. Florence's republic was dominated by the Medici from 1434 without their holding office, and after a siege in 1530 they returned as hereditary dukes, with Cosimo I raised to grand duke in 1569 and absorbing Siena after conquering it. The dynasty's patronage is the reason the period looks as it does - Brunelleschi, Donatello, Botticelli, Michelangelo, and later Galileo, who named Jupiter's moons after them and was appointed court mathematician. Two Medici became queens of France and four became popes. The state was efficiently administered, with Livorno developed as a free port that admitted Jews, Moriscos and Protestants expelled elsewhere. The line ended in 1737 and Tuscany passed to the Habsburg-Lorraine family, under whom Leopold abolished the death penalty in 1786 - the first state anywhere to do so. Anna Maria Luisa, the last Medici, left the family's entire art collection to Florence on condition it never leave the city, which is why the Uffizi is where it is. Tuscany joined Italy in 1860. The grand duchy covered most of modern Tuscany. Florence was the capital and was briefly the capital of Italy from 1865 to 1871. Galileo is buried in Santa Croce. The Medici villas and gardens are a World Heritage site. Tuscan became the Italian language because of the writers who used it. The Medici line died out in 1737 and the grand duchy passed to the house of Lorraine, which held it until 1859.

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