Bindo altoviti biography sample

Bindo Altoviti (26 November – 22 January ) of the Altoviti family was an Italian banker and one of the most influential papal bankers of his generation.

A patron of the arts, he cultivated close friendships with artists such as Benvenuto Cellini, Raphael, Michelangelo and Giorgio Vasari.

His father was Antonio Altoviti, the papal Master of the Mint, and his mother was La Papessa Dianora Altoviti, niece of Pope Innocent VIII.

The Portrait of Bindo Altoviti is a painting finished around by the Italian High Renaissance painter Raphael.

One of his direct descendants was Pope Clement XII.

Life and career

Bindo Altoviti was born in Rome in to Antonio, a Florentine nobleman, and to Dianora di Clarenza Cibo, Pope Innocent VIII's niece. Little is known about his youth or early education.

As the Altoviti had blood ties with the houses of Cybo and Medici, and alliances with the della Rovere, Pope Julius II (Giuliano della Rovere) became a mentor to Bindo, as he was to his later papal successors Leo X (Giovanni de' Medici) and Clemente VII (Giulio de' Medici).

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