The guilds of Florence were secular corporations that controlled the arts and trades in Florence from the twelfth into the sixteenth century. These Arti included seven major guilds, five middle guilds and nine minor guilds. Their rigorous quality control and the political role in the commune that the Arti Maggiori assumed were formative influences in the history of Florence, which became one of the richest cities of late medieval Europe.

Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici was an Italian banker and founder of the Medici Bank. While other members of the Medici family, such as Chiarissimo di Giambuono de' Medici, who served in the Signoria of Florence in 1401, and Salvestro de' Medici, who was implicated in the Ciompi Revolt of 1378, are of historical interest, it was Giovanni's founding of the family bank that truly initiated the family's rise to power in Florence. He was the father of Cosimo de' Medici and of Lorenzo the Elder; grandfather of Piero di Cosimo de' Medici; great-grandfather of Lorenzo de' Medici ; and the great-great-great-grandfather of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany.