Born to a dark-skinned maid and Lorenzo II de\' Medici, the illegitimate Alessandro was groomed for power.
Catherine Fletcher \'s The Black Prince of Florence is the first complete account of the real-Life counterpart to Machiavelli\'s Pri.
In 1532, at the age of nineteen, backed by the Holy Roman Emperor--his future father-in-law--and the Pope, he became Duke of Florence, facing down family rivals and oligarchs and inheriting the grandest dynasty of the Italian Renaissance.
Born to a dark-skinned maid and Lorenzo II de\' Medici, the illegitimate Alessandro was groomed for power