Tales from the crypt that bury Medici history in ever deeper mystery [View All]

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John Hooper in Rome
Monday March 21, 2005
The Guardian

Donatella Lippi calls it a "terrible problem". She and other researchers who have spent the past 10 months prising open the tombs of one of Europe's most illustrious families, the Medicis of Florence, have got more than they bargained for.

They have found the remains of eight children they cannot place on the family tree. Worse still, some of the bodies appear to have been switched around or muddled up over the centuries.

The resulting confusion is making yet more difficult an already immense and challenging undertaking that is shining light into the recesses of the Renaissance.

The aim of the project, which reached the end of its first phase last week, is to build up a picture of the lives, and deaths, of the members of a family that ruled Florence for more than 300 years and funded many of Italy's greatest artists.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/italy/story/0,12576,1442285,00.html#article_continue