Piero the Unfortunate

Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici (15 February 1472 – 28 December 1503), called Piero the Fatuous or Piero the Unfortunate, was the lord of Florence from 1492 until his exile in 1494. Early life Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici was the eldest son of Lorenzo de' Medici (Lorenzo the Magnificent) and Clarice Orsini. He was raised alongside his younger brother Giovanni, who would go on to become Pope Leo X, and his cousin Giulio, who would later become Pope Clement VII. Piero was educated to succeed his father as head of the Medici family and de facto ruler of the Florentine state, under figures such as Angelo Poliziano or Marsilio Ficino. However, his feeble, arrogant, and undisciplined character was to prove unsuited to such a role. Poliziano later died of poisoning, very possibly by Piero, on 24 September 1494. Piero was also constantly at odds with his cousins, Lorenzo and Giovanni, the two sons of Pierfrancesco de' Medici, who were both older and richer than Piero. Marriage and children In 1486, Piero's uncle Bernardo Rucellai negotiated for him to marry the Tuscan noblewoman Alfonsina Orsini and stood in for him in a marriage by proxy. Piero and Alfonsina met in 1488. She was a daughter of Roberto Orsini, Count of Tagliacozzo, and Caterina Sanseverino. They had at least three children: Clarice (September 1489–1528), who later married Filippo Strozzi the Younger; * Lorenzo (September 1492–1519), later Duke of Urbino; and Luisa, born February 1494. From baptismal records it appears that in February 1492 he also had another daughter, Maria, who was probably illegitimate.