Set in Renaissance Florence at the court of Lorenzo de' Medici, it was intended as the first part of a planned but unfinished trilogy called Crepusculum.

[3] However, one contemporary review of the premiere stated: In I Medici we have a historical opera like those that have been made many times before and will be hence ... [but] we do not have either an epoch or a set of characters brought truthfully to life; we do not have, in a word, that human counterpart of Wagner's mythological trilogy at which Leoncavallo gazed.

However, it was revived at the Frankfurt Alte Oper in 1993 in a concert version conducted by Marcello Viotti (the opera's first performance in Germany) and was given a fully staged performance in March 2013 at the Theater Erfurt in Erfurt, Germany, conducted by Emmanuel Joel-Hornak.

[5] The opera is set in Renaissance Italy and concerns intrigues centering on the Medici family, and the Pazzi conspiracy.

It was recorded in July 2007 at the Teatro Comunale Florence, with Alberto Veronesi conducting the Orchestra and Chorus of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino .