The International Award for Art, Culture, Design and Science "Lorenzo il Magnifico".

It is awarded every two years to artists participating in the current edition of the Biennale, to important cultural individuals that have stood out on an international level, to Authorities and Institutions that have played an important role in international cultural life.

Many important names have already been awarded this recognition: Christo & Jeanne-Claude, Richard Anuszkiewicz, Alfredo Zalce and David Hockney for Art; the Restoration Laboratories of the Vatican Museums for Recovery of Historical Heritage; Ferrari, Pininfarina and Harley-Davidson for Design; Carla Fracci, Ferruccio Soleri and Mario Luzi for Culture.

The award is in the name of the gentleman of Florence and Patron of Renaissance Arts, Lorenzo de' Medici, also known as the Magnificent.

Lorenzo was born in Florence in 1449, his education, that soon reached an elegant erudition, was looked after by the most important erudite in Florence in that period, such as Gentile Becchi of Urbino, Marsilio Ficino, Cristoforo Landino and Giovanni Argiropulo, who enlarged his culture dramatically. In 1469, after having married Clarice Orsini and after the death of his father, he became the Gentleman of the City and acquired a huge personal power in a very short time. Surrounded by important philosophers and litterateurs including Marsilio Ficino, Lorenzo provided Florentine culture with a clear impulse in a neo-platonic direction, carrying out intensive impartial support that, in just a short period of time, attracted the most important intellectuals of the era: Angelo Poliziano, Luigi Pulci, Leon Battista Alberti, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Girolamo Savonarola and many more. Lorenzo, the promoter of culture in his Florence, the protector of artists and litterateurs, and himself a poet, founded in S. Marco an exclusive school for young artists, recognised as the first Art Academy of Europe, where a very young Michelangelo also studied.