Medici Money: Banking, metaphysics and art in fifteenth-century Florence

Girolamo Riario lent Francesco Pazzi his personal condottiere, Count Montesecco. They plotted. But Lorenzo refused their invitation down to Rome. He was suspicious. Where could they kill him then, and when and how? They must act soon, before someone got wind of the plot. In April 1478, the seventeen-year-old Cardinal Raffaele Riario (nephew to the lord of Imola and great-nephew to the pope — in short, nepotism incarnate) was visiting Florence. Armed men could be sent to the city as his escort. The Medici brothers had offered the child cardinal a celebratory lunch at their villa in Fiesole. The two could be murdered there. But Giuliano didn’t turn up for the party. There was no point, the conspirators had all agreed, in killing one brother without the other.

So the appointment with death was set back a week, to another Sunday lunch, after mass, at the Palazzo Medici in town, where the juvenile cardinal was now invited to inspect Il Magnifico’s famous collection of cameos. For all the animosity between the families, it seemed there was no question of renouncing formal visits with all their etiquette. Sometime during the morning, however, it turned out that once again Giuliano wouldn’t be eating with his brother. Frantic, the conspirators agreed they must do the deed at mass, only minutes away. But Count Montesecco shook his head. Not in church, he protested. God would see him in church. Did he imagine the Almighty was blind elsewhere? Montesecco had been Lorenzo’s designated assassin and was the most professional of the bunch. A key man. All in a hurry — because now it appeared that someone would actually have to go to Giuliano’s house and persuade him to come to church — two priests were given Montesecco’s brutal job. Nobody appears to have found their willingness strange. One hailed from Volterra and so had good reason to bear Lorenzo a grudge. Meantime, an army of papal soldiers was within striking distance of the town to the south and the archbishop of Pisa, Francesco Salviati, with about thirty armed men from Perugia, set off to take over the Palazzo della Signoria, the seat of Florentine government.

IT WAS ONE of the rules of Florentine republicanism that for their two-month term of government, the eight priors and one gonfaloniere della giustizia must spend the whole time together in the Palazzo della Signoria, eating and sleeping included. Looked at this way, eight weeks in power could seem rather a long time, which is perhaps why the Medici so rarely served on the signoria. In any event, as luck would have it, the gonfaloniere that day, Cesare Petrucci, was the same man who, as captain of Prato, had courageously put down an armed insurrection in 1470. When Salviati came asking for an audience, it took Petrucci just a few moments to appreciate that there was something suspicious about the archbishop’s behavior and to have both him and his men locked up.

In the church, too, everything goes wrong. The Medici brothers are standing well apart. At some agreed moment in the liturgy, Francesco Pazzi and Baroncelli simply massacre Giuliano. Why hadn’t they been assigned to Lorenzo? Francesco strikes so repeatedly and violently that he stabs himself in the leg and can barely walk. No doubt the packed church is in an uproar. But the two priests have failed to dispatch Lorenzo. Il Magnifico draws his sword, runs. Francesco Nori, once would-be inspector of Accerito Portinari’s accounts in Milan and now head of the Florence branch of the Medici bank, blocks the path of the assassins. It’s unusual to think of a bank manager protecting his boss with his body. Baroncelli stabs him to death. But Lorenzo is already locked in the sacristy. He is safe. Outside, at the city gates, the papal troops have failed to show. In desperation, old Uncle Iacopo takes to his horse yelling, “Liberty!” up and down the streets. The confused crowd is not impressed. In the end, the common people rally to Lorenzo. He speaks from the balcony of his house. He is identified with law and order. It’s a huge step toward a Medici dictatorship.

Revenge is rapid and brutal. Archbishop Salviati, Francesco Pazzi, and scores of others, many innocent, are strung from the windows of the Palazzo della Signoria, or in some cases simply tossed to their deaths from the higher floors. Bodies are dragged about the streets, derided and defiled. Only Baroncelli escapes. The young Cardinal Riario is held prisoner; a hostage is essential to discourage the pope from taking revenge on Florentines in Rome. All adult Pazzi males, with the exception of Lorenzo’s brother-in-law Guglielmo, are killed or imprisoned. Their children are ordered to change their last name. Their widows and daughters are forbidden to marry. All over Europe, Pazzi assets will be tracked down and confiscated for years to come. The family’s name and emblems must be destroyed wherever they are found.