Piero de 'Medici known as "the Gouty"
Piero de ’Medici (1416-1469), father of Giuliano (1453-1478) and the famous Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449-1492), has gone down in history with the unattractive name of "the Gouty" because of the disease that afflicted him for most of his life, gout precisely.
Gout, as well as being hereditary within the most important family of Florence, was at the time a very widespread disease mainly due to a daily diet based on the high consumption of red meat and game, a wrong habit that often involved serious consequences for the organism.
Piero ruled for only five years, from 1464 to 1469, but his work was certainly heavily influenced by health problems, which worsened over time, preventing him from acting with that freedom and clarity of thought that should always distinguish the decisions of a man of power.
Despite the physical problems however, Piero, as well as Cosimo father of him before him and like Lorenzo after, he did not fail to worry about giving prestige to his city by calling the greatest artists of the time to embellish it, including Sandro Botticelli, the Verrocchio and Donatello, also contributing to making Florence the undisputed cradle of our Renaissance.