The Romance of a Medici Warrior: Being the True Story of Giovanni Delle Bande Nere to Which is Added the Life of his Son Cosimo I., Grand Duke of Tuscany, is a rich, detailed biography of two of late-Medieval Europe's most storied men. The Sun and Moon, if you will, of the Medici family, the biographies of Giovanni delle Bande Nere and Cosimo I., Grand Duke of Tuscany, are phenomenal windows into starkly opposing dyads of historical greatness. It can be said that the former failed in achieving his ends; lasting victory and bounty for his Bands. But having sought to achieve them through the virtues of strength, the will, camaraderie, personal sacrifice and bravery saw him touch greatness nonetheless. Contrarily, much as Cosimo achieved his goals in becoming Grand Duke of all Tuscany by a total inversion of those values which typified his father, through machiavellian cunning, betrayal and pitilessness, we must nevertheless concede a greatness of its own to the ambitious aristocrat. Though perhaps only the condittiere of the Pope can be spoken of as both good and great.

The reader should be tremendously thankful to Christopher Hare, who chronicled these men, and who spent so much time researching the stories of theirs which he tells so expertly. Great care has been taken to re-publish this work, and Big Sun Press can only hope it provides a faithful rendition of the original. Whose tales of individual greatness should invest in the reader an ambition to go out and make great men of history of themselves.