. . . was the wife of Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici and the mother of Cosimo the Elder. She lived from 1368 until 1433 and is entombed next to her husband in the Old Sacristy of San Lorenzo. Piccarda was the daughter of an old noble Tuscan family, and Giovanni made the first large banking fortune for the Medici family when he backed one of the successful candidates for the papacy. Giovanni had received little in the way of an inheritance when his father died, but he may have gotten a significant cash infusion early in life with the dowry of his wife. Dowries were an important part of Renaissance life, and accounted for the large number of women entering convents, as it cost the family less to fund the dowry for a Bride of Christ.
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