When studying architecture in Art History, your ability to view the structures, artistically, is limited. It takes several photographs with various angles to even being to understand the work. The small details, its size, and its initial impact as a building is impaired when viewing a three-dimensional art piece in a two-dimensional format.

For fellow Renaissance Art History students, I’ve found a solution to our dilemma. Not only does it give us a first person perspective of 15th century Italy, but it also provides usan amazing story line to go along with it. Assassins Creed II has the potential to foster an interactive and fun way to experience renaissance Florence. As a secret assassin, dressed in the most inconspicuous of outfits of pure white, you can run, jump, and climb across the city of Florence exploring its urban layout. The game stays fairly historical with factual people and events. The fiction comes into play to drive the plot between the Assassins and the Templars.

Medici Palace in Assassins Creed II

Those devoted enough to pre-order the game, received a special code to enter the Medici Palace. The extra mission involves saving Lorenzo Medici from an attack by the Pazzi, the Medici family’s rivals. To do so you kick some Tuscan butt, climbing and sneaking around the Medici Palace. Inside you’re exposed to a somewhat realistic interpretation of the excellence this home once possessed.

Had Lorenzo Medici died, Florence would have lost a prince. Francesco Guicciardini, a Florentinian historian, describes Lorenzo's impact on the city in his writing. He brought excellence to the city mainly because he had a fixation with power, "He wanted to equal and compete with all princes of Italy in everything." For this reason, he strove to "make the Florence of his time stand out above all other Italian cities in all arts and skills." He welcomed arts and provided the work enviroments neccessary for them to produce their masterpieces. He ventured for magnificence "no mater how costly." Lorenzo spent so much money on the arts "that the city overflowed with all these exquisuite things."

For those of us either to lazy or just simply forgot to pre-order the video game, we can only experience the building’s exterior. Which, through Michelozzo di Bartolomeo Michelozzi's skill in architecture, created an impressive fortress for the Medici family. They had rejected Brunelleschi’s plans due to its excessive lavishness, but Michelozzo provided a plan that was more discrete.

Hopefully soon, Art History teachers around the country will discover the possible use of video games to provide a fun alternative to pictures when viewing architecture - new way to view structures at different perspectives.