This Blog is for devoted Bizoids, who also appreciate the humanities, particularly literature, language, history and philosophy. It is named in honour of Cosimo de’ Medici. (1)

Known as “il Vecchio” (the Elder), he was a banker, politician and philanthropist, the father of a family whose name Gibbon said was:  “..  almost synonymous with the restoration of learning… his riches were dedicated to the service of mankind; he corresponded at once with Cairo and London; and a cargo of Indian spices and Greek books were often imported in the same vessel“. (2)

As a person who has spent much of his life “getting a living” in commerce, who loves books (and Florence) and who has come late to an appreciation of the study of humanities, Cosimo is an inspiration.

He particularly loved books and, in 1433, grateful to Venice for allowing him to live there while he was in exile, he gave that city a library. In 1444, he founded the first public library in Florence, which people were allowed to use at no charge. Library historian William F Meehan III said of him: “Heartened by the romantic wanderlust of a true bibliophile, the austere banker even embarked on several journeys in the hunt for books, while guaranteeing just about any undertaking that involved books. He financed trips to nearly every European town as well as to Syria, Egypt, and Greece organized by Poggio Bracciolini, his chief book scout.” (3)

He commissioned translations of the great Greek and Roman texts, established schools for the study of Plato and provided an education in the humanities to his famous grandson Lorenzo. In sum, he had an extraordinary influence on the intellectual life of the Renaissance.

R L Clifton-Steele

(1)   As at December 2016, there is no formal definition of the word Bizoid in any reputable dictionary, but I have used it for years as a definition of someone totally immersed in business, with something of an implication that much else in the subject’s life has suffered as a result.

(2)   Edward Gibbon,  The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Philadelphia: Nottingham Society, 1880), 456-457

(3)  William F. Meehan, “The Importance of Cosimo de Medici in Library History,” Indiana Libraries Vol. 26 Number 3 (2007): 18.