The Florentine banking family Strozzi's name has a telling meaning: The stranglers. Nomen est omen. While the family was obviously highly successful in the field of finance, its members were repeatedly defeated in the field of politics by the more powerful Medici clan. Various members of the Strozzi family were forced into exile and built their fortunes abroad in Naples, Brugge and Barcelona. Perhaps it was precisely the shift from politics to finance that made their commercial ventures so successful. Despite their success abroad, the family pined to be restored to prominence among the leading families of Florence, a task they succeeded in by supporting the Medici clan and entering into marriage alliances with them. The Palazzo Strozzi, approved by the Medicis and similar in design to their Palazzo Medici, is the architectural proof of this assimilation.

Ingeborg Walter has written a splendid biography of three generations of the Strozzi family living during the turbulences of 15th and 16th century Italy. ( )