1. Money is Power

Available for 23 days

The Medici family is a name synonymous with the Renaissance but why did these bankers act as patrons to artists like Michelangelo and Donatello? Was it a love of art or something altogether more sinister? Historian Bettany Hughes re-evaluates one of the most creative and complicated partnerships in the Western world, that between the millennium's most inspired artists and the family who supported them. First of a three-part series. Taking part: * Tim Parks, Author * Evelyn Welsh, Professor of Religious Studies, Queen Mary and Westfield College * Professor Martello Frantoni, University of Tolerno * Quentin Skinner, Regius Professor of History, Cambridge * Paul Stathern, author of "Godfathers of the Renaissance." Readings by Jonathan Keeble Producer Philip Sellars First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in February 2006.