Giuliano de’ Medici, Duke of Nemours (1479-1516) was the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent. He was the brother of Giovanni de’ Medici, who became Pope Leo X, and Piero de’ Medici (1471–1503).
Domenico Ghirlandaio portrayed Giuliano as a boy, standing next to his tutor, Angelo Poliziano.After the Medici were expelled from Florence in 1494, he spent some time in exile in Urbino.
He returned to Florence with his brother Giovanni in 1512 and assumed the title of head of state, a position he held without great effect for only one year before handing it over to his nephe Lorenzo.
Giuliano was represented as cultured and of a literary bent by Baldassare Castiglione in The Courtier, although subsequent descriptions referred to him as feckless and weak. He was awarded the title Duc de Nemours by the French king, Francis I. His marble tomb in the New Sacristy of San Lorenzo, Florence, was sculpted by Michelangelo, who portrayed Giuliano above the figures of Night and Day, in an ‘active’ pose, wearing fanciful antique armour and holding coins, perhaps to suggest his liberality (picture bellow).
