Giuliano de' Medici, Duke of Nemours

Giuliano di Lorenzo de' Medici was born on 12 March 1479, the third son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, into the family that controlled Florence's political and cultural life. He grew up in the shadow of his father's power and his older brother's expectations, but after Lorenzo's death the Medici were expelled from the city, and Giuliano spent years in exile. When the family returned to Florence in 1512, he briefly took up rule alongside his brother, though his tenure was short and his temperament better suited to patronage than politics. He died on 17 March 1516, just past his thirty-seventh birthday, leaving behind little political legacy but immortalized soon after in Michelangelo's tomb sculpture - a young duke frozen in marble, reclining in thought, more enduring than anything he did in life.