MEDICI FAMILY RECENT HISTORY

When your family history is history, the family does not always get along.

Take the Medici, one of Italy's most celebrated clans. Known for writing cheques to Michelangelo, the Medici have of late been airing some dirty laundry as a handful of their descendants fall into a spat.

Why are the descendants of this famous Renaissance dynasty sniping at one another in acid aristocratic jabs? Scientists in Florence are planning to exhume the remains of 49 Medici corpses this month for a wide-ranging forensic study. One branch of the family was invited to take part, but a second branch was not.

"They are doing this without asking permission," said Marchese Giuliano Medici Tornaquinci, an elder of the family clan that now lives in Rome. "If they went into your chapel, into your tomb, and opened your family's graves, how would you feel?"

Unfortunately for Marchese Tornaquinci, a distant relative, Prince Ottaviano de Medici, of a less distant Florentine branch of the family, is already deeply involved with the project and has given his consent.

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The prince is aware of his relation's great displeasure, although he seems not to pay much heed. "It is not very important what they think," the prince said, referring to the Florentine branch of the family.

The study has been described by one of its chief scientists as a 16th century version of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.

The forensic team, including a medical historian from the University of Pisa and a mummy expert from New York, will take tissue samples from the noble corpses, hoping to deepen the understanding of ancient cancers and other illnesses, and to get a sense of Renaissance funeral rites, leisure activities and even tastes in clothes.

The team may also try to solve a 417-year-old murder mystery: Francesco de Medici, grand duke of Tuscany, and his wife, Bianca, died suddenly, a day apart, in 1587.

Although official records suggest they died of malaria, there have been whispers ever since that they were poisoned by Francesco's brother, Ferdinand, who eventually succeeded to the throne.

"There are some mysteries, but they are probably more the stuff of legend," said Gino Forniciari, the medical historian from Pisa, who will help lead the team. "These are legends without a base in reality, but we will check."

Checking, in this case, means that the Forniciari team will set up shop in the magnificent Medici chapel in Florence, famous for its Michelangelo sculptures.

The sensitive nature of working in one of Florence's most hallowed historic sites required reaching out to the surviving members of the family, which is where the problems began.

Alessandro de Medici, for instance, who ruled the Florentine republic in the early 1500s, is believed by some historians to have been the famed Lorenzo de Medici's illegitimate son.

It is said that Alessandro had his cousin Ippolito killed shortly before he himself was done away with by another vengeful member of the clan.

No one is suggesting that the squabble over who was - and was not - invited to take part in the study is going to end in blood. But lawyers are already involved.