As the sanctuary bells tolled in the Duomo of Florence on 26 April 1478, priests Maffei and Stefanno snatched daggers from their robes and moved towards Lorenzo de’ Medici, with the aim of assassinating the figurehead and displacing the Medici rule in Florence. Inexpertly, Maffei placed his hand on Lorenzo’s shoulder, as though to steady himself, giving precious seconds for Lorenzo to react. As the priest lunged, Lorenzo turned and leapt away, escaping with only a flesh wound to his neck. While Lorenzo fled the cathedral, his brother, Giuliano, was visible, lying mutilated on the floor. However, the ultimate failure of this conspiracy to kill off the bloodline, and the subsequent purging of Pazzi support in Florence, placed Lorenzo in direct opposition to the papacy, plunging Italy into the Pazzi Wars of the late 1470s.
On 26 July 1471, the Venetian Pope Paul II died, and his successor, Pope Sixtus IV, was elected less than a month later. Immediately upon his ascension, the Pope set about raising his relatives to power. Two of his nephews, Giuliano della Rovere and Pietro Riario, were promoted to the Cardinalate, while another nephew, Leonardo, was appointed Prefect of Rome. Within a few years, these men had accumulated unprecedented wealth, while senior Cardinals looked on in disgust.
For Lorenzo, the election of a Pope of obscure origin and unblemished reputation was ideal. Having been briefly excommunicated by Paul in 1466, Lorenzo desired a Pope with whom he could build a strong relationship and who would be willing to ignore former prejudices against the Medici. From the offset, his relationship with Sixtus seemed promising. While accompanying the Florentine embassy to congratulate Sixtus, he was given so cordial a reception that even the Duke of Milan took offense. However, these amicable relations were not to last.
On 5 January 1474, Pietro Riario died, worn out by his relentless enjoyment of the rich benefices his uncle had bestowed upon him. Thus, the Archbishopric of Florence became vacant once more. Lorenzo succeeded in having his brother-in-law appointed as Riario’s successor, yet he could not prevent Sixtus from nominating Francesco Salviati as Archbishop of Pisa. It was agreed that no ecclesiastical benefices in the Republic should be appointed without the consent of Florence’s governing body, the Signoria, so Salviati’s appointment was a gross violation of this rule. Upon his arrival, Lorenzo declined to admit Salviati into Tuscany, and for three years he was kept waiting in Rome, frustrated and ready to support any anti-Medici plot that might be proposed to him.
Later that year, another one of Sixtus’s nephews, Girolamo Riario, desired the province of Imola, as it provided him with a base from which to build up larger estates in Romangia. As the Pope’s bankers, Sixtus immediately set up negotiations with the Medici bank in Rome, requesting 40,000 ducats for Imola’s purchase. Lorenzo was much disturbed by this request. Naturally, he wanted to start off on the right foot with Sixtus, but he also recognised the strategic importance of the town. Imola dominated the road from Rimini to Bologna, an important trade route between Florence and the regions of northern Italy as well as a transportation corridor for troops and supplies vital to maintaining the security of Florence.
Lorenzo had been hoping to purchase Imola for himself, so when the application for a loan was placed before him, he made excuses for not granting it. Undeterred, the Pope turned to the Medici’s leading rivals as Florentine bankers in Rome, the Pazzi, who were delighted to be of service and to obtain the coveted Curial account.
There was yet further trouble when, in order to maintain the uncertain peace in northern Italy, Lorenzo proposed a mutual alliance between Florence, Milan and Venice. But far from achieving peace, the proposal almost provoked another war, for the Pope angrily condemned the new league as aimed at himself, while King Ferrante of Naples was deeply suspicious of an alliance which had been formed without his prior consultation and which seemed to threaten his interests in the Adriatic Sea. The Pope and the King of Naples were now bound closer than ever before in their mutual distrust of Lorenzo and Florence.
Lorenzo’s difficulties were made all the more complicated when, on St Stephen’s Day in 1476, his firm ally, Galeazzo Maria Sforza, the Duke of Milan, was stabbed to death by three young assassins on his way to Mass. The ensuing conflict that erupted over the succession of the duchy left Lorenzo without any support from Milan against the pro-Pazzi conspirators who were now gathering to destroy him.
The Pazzi were a much older family than the Medici. One of their forefathers had been on the First Crusade and had returned to Florence with some flints from the altar of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. However, in 1432, they had renounced their ancient lineage so as to be declared popolani (“common people”) and thus render themselves qualified for government office. They had subsequently made themselves a fortune in banking.
The head of the household, Jacopo de’ Pazzi, was a tight-fisted man, noted throughout Florence for his passion for gambling and short temper. He thought the chances of a successful coup were so slight that he was ‘colder than ice’ when his young relative, Francesco, informed him of the plot being hatched in Rome. Nevertheless, Francesco knew that the patriarch could still be won over if he could provide evidence of strong military backing.
Thus, he approached the condottiere (mercenary leader) Gian Battista de Montesecco, who had done good work in the past service of the Curia. Despite initial hesitance, Montesecco slowly began to give ground and finally agreed to join the conspirators, provided the Pope gave them his blessing. At a subsequent audience, the Pope confirmed to Montesecco that it was, indeed, his wish that “this matter of Florence” should be taken immediately in hand. With the support of the condottiere intact, it took little persuading for Jacopo to join the conspirators.
It was suggested that the best way of carrying out the assassinations would be to find some pretext for separating the two brothers, and then to kill them simultaneously. Thus, in early 1478, the conspirators decided to invite Lorenzo to Rome and assassinate him there while Giuliano was disposed of in Florence. But Lorenzo declined the invitation, forcing them to conceive a plan for killing both brothers on their home ground when they were off their guard.
What ensued was a multitude of failed attempts, in which the Pazzi plot was foiled by untimely interventions. A first effort was made when Lorenzo was invited to Jacopo’s villa at Montughi, near Florence, to meet Cardinal Raffaele Riario, the Pope’s seventeen-year-old grandson. However, when Lorenzo arrived at Montughi, it was revealed that Guiliano had hurt his leg in an accident and was at home in bed. The conspirators decided to postpone their plans and wait until Guiliano was fit again.
A further opportunity presented itself when Cardinal Riario asked if he might see the treasures at the Medici Palace. Lorenzo immediately agreed to this suggestion and made preparations for a banquet to be given in honour of his guest, issuing invitations to numerous distinguished Florentines as well as foreign ambassadors. Meanwhile, the conspirators had laid out plans to kill the brothers during the banquet. But at the last moment, the conspirators’ plans had to be changed once again: it was learned that Guiliano did not expect to be sufficiently recovered to attend the banquet after all.
So many people had now been apprised of the intended assassination that it seemed to the Pazzi too dangerous to postpone any longer, lest the secret leak. Moreover, the troops arranged by Montesecco would have arrived at the city walls by dusk. Thus, it was decided that if the Medici could not be killed together at the banquet, they would have to be murdered in the Cathedral during Mass. The plan was simple: Guiliano would be engaged by Francesco de’ Pazzi, while Lorenzo would be targeted by Montesecco. However, over the past few months, the prospect of this task had become increasingly abhorrent to the condottiere.
While in mourning, Lorenzo had encountered Montesecco at Cafaggiolo. He was amiable, talkative and attractive as ever, and Montesecco was quickly captivated by his charm. Prior to this meeting, Montesecco had succeeded in persuading himself that it was his military duty to perform the assassination, but now he felt increasingly disgruntled with the task at hand. With the altercations to the murder, Montesecco now found his excuse. He protested that his conscience could not bring himself to “add sacrilege to murder”; he could not bring himself to kill a man in the presence of God. Instead, priests Maffei and Stefanno were burdened with the task of assassination. And thus, on the morning of April 26, the attempted assassination was carried out.
At the same time as Lorenzo’s escape from the Duomo, Archbishop Salviati and the other conspirators had gone to the Palace of the Signoria, accompanied by Montesecco’s armed force. However, while Salviati confronted the Gonfaloniere (high-ranking magistrate) Cesare Petrucci, his support had been ushered into waiting rooms, where, caught unaware, they had been trapped. When Salviati called that it was the time to strike, he was met with only muffled shouts. Subsequently, he was captured and hung from the windows of the palace; Francesco de’ Pazzi was subject to the same fate shortly after.
Montesecco, one of the last conspirators to be arrested, was discovered on 1 May. He was closely questioned under torture and gave a detailed account of the origins of the conspiracy and of the Pope’s involvement in it. With all the information he could give having been forced out of him, on 4 May, the condottiere was given a soldier’s execution: beheading.
Although a temporary peace had been achieved in Florence, the fierce uprisal against those who had been involved aroused a fury in Rome. The Pope, emboldened to act by Cardinal Riario, took vengeance on the Florentine upstarts. He ordered the arrest of all principle Florentine bankers and merchants in Rome, sequestrated the assets of the Medici bank and any Medici property he could lay his hands on, excommunicated Lorenzo, and, in a final act of rage, declared war on Florence.
Despite falling short of its primary goal of displacing the Medici rule in Florence, the failure of the Pazzi conspiracy helped galvanise papal opinion against Lorenzo, ultimately leading to the declaration of war mere months later. This war pushed Florence to the brink of destruction, and without genius diplomacy from Lorenzo and a timely Ottoman invasion in August 1480, it likely would have destroyed the state altogether.
–
Strathern, Paul. 2003. The Medici. Vintage.
Acton, Harold. 1979. The Pazzi Conspiracy : The Plot against the Medici. London: Thames And Hudson.
Holmes, George. 1993. Art and Politics in Renaissance Italy.
Hibbert, Christopher. 1974. The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici.
POLIZIANO, ANGELO, and Giuseppe Mazzotta. “The Pazzi Conspiracy.” In Images of Quattrocento Florence: Selected Writings in Literature, History, and Art, edited by Stefano Ugo Baldassarri and Arielle Saiber, 96–102. Yale University Press, 2000. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt32btt6.27.