Who was Lorenzo de' Medici or Lorenzo the Magnificent?

Who was Lorenzo de' Medici or Lorenzo the Magnificent?
Lorenzo de' Medici (1449-1492) was the de facto ruler of the Florentine Republic in the time of the Italian Renaissance. He was known to Florentines as Lorenzo il Magnifico, Lorenzo the Magnificent. He was a patron of scholarship and the arts and managed to keep a fragile peace between competing Italian states such as Venice and the Papal States. He ruled over a time known to Italians as the Golden Age.

Within 2 years of his passing, the peace beween the Italian states came to an end, and shortly after that the French invaded Naples, beginning a period of occupation by France, Spain, or Austria for nearly four centuries.