Amidei

[1][2] They have been described by Niccolò Machiavelli as being one of the most powerful families of its time, and were featured in Dante's poems on the political struggles of the Guelphs and Ghibellines in medieval Italy.

In the early thirteenth century, the Amidei were allied with the Ghibelline faction, led by the Uberti and Lamberti families.

The Amidei are best remembered for a particular event occurring at a 1215 banquet in Florence during the Guelf and Ghibelline conflicts, an era of war between the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, such as Frederick Barbarossa and his successors.

As restitution for the injury and dishonor, the elders at the banquet decided that the young Buondelmonte must wed a girl from the Amidei family.

On Easter morning on his way to marry the Donati girl, as Buondelmonte crossed the Ponte Vecchio, he was ambushed and murdered by the Amidei and their Ghibelline allies.

[8] In 1532, in his book Florentine Histories, Niccolò Machiavelli referred to the Amideis as being one of the most powerful families of Florence, along with the Buondelmontis, the Ubertis and the Donatis.

[9] The ouvrage was commissioned by Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, later known as Pope Clement VII, Patron of Michelangelo, Raphael, Copernicus, and Leonardo da Vinci.

In that story, he relates to Aeneas Silvius and Ascanius, who were the mythical ancestors of the Kings of Alba Longa, to which, according to Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus, the gens Julia family claimed descent.

He moved from Florence to Mount Senarius (18 km away from the city), with his six friends, in order to be left alone and to concentrate on his devotion to God.