Lorenzo, the second son of Giovanni di Bicci and Picarda Bueri, generally called Lorenzo the Elder to distinguish him from his grandson of the same name, took no part in the public life which formed the chief occupation  of his brother Cosimo. He was of a retiring disposition, without ambition or taste for public affairs, and was content to be a humble assistant to his more capable elder brother, and to confine himself to the banking concerns of the family. He shared in Cosimo's banishment of 1433, and in the triumphant return of 1434, and lived for six more years after that event, dying in 1440. He thus lived long enough to see his brother exercising the chief influence in the State, though not to see all the subsequent developments of the remaining twenty-four years of Cosimo's strenuous life.

He is depicted in Benozzo Gozzolli's picture in the Medici chapel, riding by Cosimo's side on a mule; and the mutual attitude of the two brothers is undoubtedly correctly represented. Lorenzo married Ginevra Cavalcanti, and left one son, Pier Francesco, who was about twenty-five years old when his father died.

Source: Artem Kaplan