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After three seasons of intrigue, hookups, and death, Medici has finally come to an end. The final season of Medici saw Lorenzo de’ Medici (Daniel Sharman) outwit Riario (Jack Roth) and lose his beloved wife Clarice (Synnøve Karlsen). The show also — SPOILER ALERT — ends with Lorenzo the Magnificent’s own untimely passing. The real Lorenzo de’ Medici was only 43 years old when he passed, leaving Italy in disarray.
Medici on Netflix — or Medici: Masters of Florence and Medici: The Magnificent Seasons 1 & 2 — is an Italian-British series about the rise of the Medici clan in Renaissance Florence. The family of bankers exerted their influence to such an extent that by Season 3, they’re literally in the fight to pick the next Pope. While they wage war and hatch plots, the Medici are also working to build Florence into a center of art and enlightenment. Indeed, the Medici are remembered as fondly as they are because of their patronage of the arts, something that plays a key role in the series.
So what exactly did Lorenzo de’ Medici die from? Was it cancer, gout, or some kind of poison that was slipped into his goblet? And what happens next? What can you watch on Netflix to fulfill your hunger for more Italian Renaissance drama.
HOW DID LORENZO DE’ MEDICI DIE ON MEDICI?
There’s a lot we do and don’t know for sure about the lives of the Medicis in Medieval Florence. One thing that remains unclear? Lorenzo de’ Medici’s exact cause of death. Many sources simply don’t come up with a reason for the 43-year-old’s demise, so barring a highly inadvisable trip to Florence, Italy to dig up his tomb, test his DNA, and comb through archives, we’ve got to rely on the one website on the internet that offers any explanation whatsoever.
Florence Inferno, a site devoted to analyzing Florentine history through the lens of Dan Brown’s novel, Inferno, alleges that Lorenzo de’ Medici died of gangrene of the leg, which was in part caused by a genetic disease. I mean, that sounds plausible, especially since we know that Cosimo de’ Medici suffered for decades from gout. So maybe it was gout? Or was it gangrene? Man, maybe I should break quarantine to fly to Florence to get to the bottom of this!
Going off the show, they seem to have hedged close to this gangrene infection. As early as Episode 6, we see Lorenzo struggle with leg and foot pain. It intensifies in Episode 7, and by Episode 8, he’s dying of whatever ailment has stricken his legs. So lets go with gangrene, and stay inside.
HOW TRUE IS THE ENDING OF MEDICI ON NETFLIX?
So…it’s kind of hard to tell. That’s because there’s a lot of conflicting reports about Lorenzo’s death. There were rumors that Savonarola (Francesco Montanari) cursed him on his deathbed, while other historians have asserted this didn’t happen in real life. These sources say he died peacefully after listening to the Gospel of the day. However, there were also stories of lions fighting, ghosts appearing, and lightning striking cathedral domes. All of those things could have happened, but methinks they are urban legends added to glorify the great man. That said, the ghosts totally showed up.
One thing that Medici got very wrong? Lorenzo was not present at the death of his wife, Clarice. She died about four years before he did and he was not in Florence when it happened. There are multiple accounts of him being haunted by the fact that he was not by her side. (This is why I think the ghosts showed up.)
WILL THERE BE A MEDICI SEASON 4? WHAT CAN I WATCH ON NETFLIX NEXT?
So far, Netflix has not announced a fourth season of Medici, but given the extremely tidy ending, I would not expect more from the series.
That said, the turmoil in Renaissance Italy is far from over. Lorenzo de’ Medici died in 1492. Suspiciously, that is also the year the Borgias rose to power in Rome.
You can watch Showtime’s The Borgias, starring Jeremy Irons and Holliday Grainger, on Netflix.
