La Nannina

Nannina de’ Medici

Nannina de’ Medici, baptized as Lucrezia (Florence, February 14 1448 – May 14 1493), was the second daughter of Piero di Cosimo de’ Medici and Lucrezia Tornabuoni, and sister of Lorenzo the Magnificent.

Education was cultured and refined, but less thorough than males brothers Lorenzo and Giuliano. Nannina was the familiar name of the great-grandmother Piccarda Bueri.
Nannina de' Medici

She is probably depicted in two portraits: one, rather unlikely to be her, in the Chapel of the Magi in the group of riders in the wall of John VII Palaeologus (they are probably three children), and another, idealized, in the Madonna of the Magnificat by Sandro Botticelli, where she is depicted as the angel on the right that supports the crown of Our Lady.

Nannina de' Medici home

Held in high regard by his brothers, it was also due to their prestige that she was married, on June 8 1466, with the humanist scholar Bernardo Rucellai. Their marriage remained in the annals for the magnificence and the profusion of parties and banquets held in the Loggia Rucellai, built and designed by Leon Battista Alberti. Due to the precise cost statement which has come down to us, we know the huge list of food consumed.

She and her husband bought the Orti Oricellari, a famous garden where the Neo-Platonic Academy met.

She had two sons, Palla and John. She died in May 1493.