Frank Spotnitz has a new show in the works: Medici: Masters of Florence. The new show, created by Spotnitz and Nicolas Meyer (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Houdini) will chronicle the rise of the Medici family and the renaissance. Lux Vide and Big Light have snatched a couple of heavy hitters, including Richard Madden (Game of Thrones) playing the lead, enterprising son Cosimo de' Medici, and Dustin Hoffman (Rainman) playing the family patriarch Giovanni de' Medici.
The eight-part drama series will be broadcast in Italy and Wild Bunch TV will oversee sales in the upcoming weeks at MIPCOM. The show starts principal photography this month in Rome and Florence's most coveted locations. According to Big Light's announcement: "The series dramatizes the story of the family’s ascent from simple merchants to power brokers who sparked an economic and cultural revolution, in the process creating a long list of powerful enemies." The family is headed by Giovanni de’ Medici, who was born the son of a wool merchant but founded a powerful bank he entrusted to his sons Cosimo and Lorenzo.
With his strategic thinking, Giovanni devised a way to circumvent The Pope’s ban on “usury,” ushering in a new era of financial freedom that led to the expansion of commerce throughout Europe. The family became one of the wealthiest financiers in Europe and a political dynasty in the 15th Century and beyond. Their new power, wealth, and influence would transform banking, commerce, art, and religion well beyond Italy’s borders and reach into the modern world. In the process, the Medici would disrupt the class structure, expand the influence of the church, and empower the masses. Their rise led to the Renaissance, the most profound financial, artistic, and scientific awakening the world has ever known. But this transformation also created many powerful enemies, who would stop at nothing to destroy the Medici and what they stood for.
“The Medici came to power at a time of great social and economic inequality,” said Big Light’s Frank Spotnitz. “They were great disrupters. Their banking practices led to the creation of a middle class, making them unimaginably wealthy. The Medici in turn used their vast power and resources to challenge traditional thinking, ushering in a new era of revolutionary art and science such as the world had never seen. It’s a powerful story that resonates even now.”
The series’ executive producers are Frank Spotnitz (Emmy winner The X-Files) and Matilde and Luca Bernabei (Golden Globe nominee Coco Chanel). All episodes will be directed by Sergio Mimica-Gezzan whose credits include Under the Dome, The Pillars of the Earth, Battlestar Galactica, and The Bridge. He also has remarkable credits as first assistant director, in Steven Spielberg films that include Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me If You Can, Minority Report, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Amistad and Schindler’s List, among others.
Stay tuned for more details.