Triumph of Fame Stein Mug

Artist: Giovanni di ser Guidi; 1449

This is the Triumph of Fame and was the centerpiece of a tray that was created to commemorate the birth of Lorenzo de Medici.

The knights hold their hands in salute to an allegorical figure that symbolizes fame.  One one hand she holds a sword symbolizing arms and strength, on the other she is holding a winged cupid symbolizing love.  

Lorenzo Medici became one History's greatest patrons of the arts and ran one of the most successful family banks in all of history. 

His son Giovanni di Lorenzo Medici would be born in 1475 and he would become a cardinal at age 13 and pope at 37 and changed his name to Pope Leo X.  He is the last person to become Pope having never been a priest. 

His papacy was short lived and he died suddenly of pnemonia at the age of 45 only 6 months after he ex communicated a man by the name of Martin Luther who famously began a protostant reformation by nailing a treatise to a church door in Germany on October 31, 1517.  He also assisted in reclaiming Venice from France by hiring thousands of Swiss mercinaries.  He also arranged a marriage between the Medici family and France.  That marriage resulted in the birth of the future Queen of France Catherine Medici.

Lorenzo Medici funded some of the great Florentine artists like Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci.  Lorenzo died at a young age in April of 1492 as Columbus was beginning to set sail from Seville.  One of the Medici's employees who worked at a bank in Seville at the time became more interested in exploration as a result of the voyage of the Genoan explorer.  He was Florentine and funded his own expedition and later would have two contintents on the Western Himisphere named after him by a German cartographer.  His name is of course is; Amerigo Vespucci and is the namesake of the lands known as the "Americas." 

A few years after the death of Pope Leo X, another Medici became Pope Clement VII.  He arranged the marriage of Catherine Medici to King Henry II. This marriage brought many changes to French culture the three biggest were her admiration of arranged gardens and landscapes which sparked the growth of French gardening.  She also brought with her a team of pastry chefs who used sugar an ingredient not widely used in French cuisine in the 1500's but quickly changed.  She also brought with her the use of the fork which changed the eating habits of Europeans and later on Americans as well.  Soon after the marriage Pope Clement VII became ill and died.  Having been an advisor to Pope Leo X and Pope himself he made some very important decisions that changed the course of history.  He made sure Michalengelo painted the Last Judgement in the Sistene Chapel, he also rejected the divorce of King Henry VIII which resulted in the creation of the Church of England and the subsequante marraige of Anne Boleyn and her death.

All of this history began in part with the birth of a new member to the Medici family.  Lorenzo the Magnificent in 1449 and this design on a plate.