By Mike Walker. Starring Patrick Baladi and Sirine Saba.

Cosimo de’ Medici inherits his father’s bank. Through shrewd trade and business innovation he becomes the richest man in Europe and a great patron of the Arts, but will Albizzi and the ruling families of Florence ever accept him as an equal?

Young Lorenzo is more interested in Art and romance than banking. His mother Lucrezia is still holding the family and the business together. Can he step up to the task of ruling Florence in all but name? Or will his enemies put a knife in his back?

Lorenzo the Magnificent has to try and stop the war with the Pope. To do it he will have to go alone to Naples to negotiate with King Ferrante – the most terrifying ruler in Europe. He would rather surround himself with Art and artists, but unexpected troubles are coming from the North too – the zealous monk Savonarola is determined to purge Florence of sin, which means the rich and all their baubles of beauty.. And the bank is in decline. Can he save anything for his dim witted successors? Will they even care?

Alessandro de Medici, known as The Moor, was the first hereditary Medici duke. He was popular with the Florentine people but his cousins Ippolito and Lorenzino never forgave him for taking up what they felt was Ippolito’s birth right. It was only a matter of time before the assassination attempts would succeed. Alessandro was murdered in somebody else’s bed, aged 26.

Catherine de Medici, orphaned within weeks of her birth, raised in a nunnery, and sold into a political marriage, becomes the dauphine of France, but her husband is in love with Diane de Poitiers and she is struggling to become pregnant.

Catherine de Medici, orphaned within weeks of her birth, was raised in a nunnery, then sold into a political marriage in the French House of Valois. Her husband is now King Henri II and Catherine has secured her position by producing an heir, but religious conflict between Protestants and Catholics is on the rise across Europe, and when Henri dies it is left to Catherine to try to hold together the bundle of sticks that is France.