In his final volumes of Decline and Fall which appeared in 1788, Gibbon portrayed Italy as a centre of commercial activity that invigorated her cities and endowed them with sufficient material wealth to create an environment where not only business but also ‘elegance and genius’ could find fertile ground. The Medici, it was suggested, were no longer responsible for the suppression of their country's liberty but, on the contrary, were responsible for its power and prestige. This interpretation of the Medici, according to John Hale, was not lost on some of the readers of Gibbon's work and the historian he particularly singles out as influenced by Gibbon is William Roscoe of Liverpool. Roscoe's stated ambition was to provide a bridge between the ‘golden histories of Gibbon and Robertson’. His championing of the Medici came at a time when the middle ages were still being criticized and the ‘old prejudices’ continued to be put forward in textbooks. In 1795, for example, the Revd John Adam's View of Universal History declared that ‘till the sixteenth century, Europe exhibited a picture of the most melancholy barbarity’. Roscoe's work was a vital factor in stimulating interest in the last part of the fifteenth century as a whole and in promoting the belief that it was a period of crucial significance. However, equally as important, it can be argued, was the effect of Roscoe's vision of the Medici on his native town.

Born on 8 March 1753, William Roscoe was the only son of a Liverpool innkeeper and market gardener. His formal schooling ending at the age of twelve, Roscoe valued education highly – a trait shared by many of the self–taught. The young William Roscoe was wide–ranging in his search for knowledge, taking lessons in painting and engraving from the workers in a neighbouring china works. His interest in botany began during the three years spent labouring on his father's market garden. Recognizing his son's love of reading, Roscoe senior apprenticed his son to a local bookseller, but the young William apparently found this little to his taste as he remained there only for a month.