The notion of a pope and an archbishop being involved in a murder plot strikes us as startling: in the fifteenth century it was almost commonplace. The pope was, in effect, the Roman emperor, the Caesar. With enormous revenues flowing in from all over the civilised world, he built palaces, employed great artists, hired armies, poisoned rivals, fathered bastards and gave away important Church appointments to members of his family. Italy was full of rival cities that tried to gobble up all the small towns in their area; the popes made sure that Rome did her share of the gobbling. This is partly what had caused the present coolness between the pope and Lorenzo de’ Medici. They both wanted a little town called Imola, which happened to be under the protection of the duke of Milan; the duke had promised it to Lorenzo. Then the pope bribed the duke with an advantageous marriage between his own nephew and the duke’s bastard daughter; so Imola became part of the Papal States. Lorenzo took it philosophically – he was that kind of a man. But he got his own back when the Archbishop of Florence died and the pope wanted to appoint one of his favourites, Francesco Salviati. Lorenzo blocked the appointment and gave it to his own brother-in-law; Salviati had to be contented with a second best – Pisa.
The Medicis were, of course, the leading family of bankers in Florence, although their chief rivals were the Pazzis. The Pazzis were popular with the common people of Florence, but not quite as popular as the Medicis, who were naturally friendly and democratic. When the pope was trying to raise the cash to buy Imola, Lorenzo de’ Medici asked the Pazzis not to lend him any money. He thought he could trust their loyalty. Instead, Francesco de’ Pazzi went straight to the pope and told him what Lorenzo had suggested. As a result, the pope got his money, and the papal bank account was transferred from the house of Medici to that of Pazzi.
Lorenzo now made the mistake that almost cost him his life. He was young and impulsive, and irritated by Francesco’s treachery. A rich man called Giovanni Borromeo was on his death bed; he had no sons, but his daughter was married to a Pazzi. Lorenzo quickly passed a law that said male heirs should be preferred over females; the result was that his own nephews inherited Borromeo’s fortune. And it was at this point that the pope and his nephews (the Riario family, who also hated the Medicis) and Archbishop Salviati and Francesco de’ Pazzi entered into a conspiracy to remove the Medici brothers and make the Pazzis the rulers of Florence. The pope, in fact, announced that he would not countenance bloodshed; but he knew as well as anyone that the Medicis could not be removed without bloodshed.
The head of the Pazzi family, Jacopo, was brought into the plot; he disliked it, but agreed anyway. Another member, Renato de’ Pazzi, thought it would be easier to destroy the Medicis by ruining them financially and opposed the risks of assassination. He was overruled. The duke of Milan had recently been murdered by three noblemen as he entered the cathedral; they did it with such smooth efficiency that no one realised for a few minutes that the duke had been killed – everyone thought he had fainted. Killing the two Medici brothers would be slightly more complicated, since it had to be done at more or less the same time; but at least the Medicis walked about unarmed and without bodyguards.
A condottiere – a professional killer – named Montesecco was hired to carry out the assassination, and he was introduced to Lorenzo de Medici so that he would know his man on the day. Lorenzo was charming and courteous, and Montesecco began to have twinges of conscience about the murder. But it was too late for a change of plan. Two armies of mercenaries were due to arrive outside the gates of Florence on the morning after the killings, and when that happened the cat would be out of the bag anyway.
The plot was simple. A boy named Raffaello Sansoni, one of the Riario family, was staying with the Pazzis for a few days on his way to take up an appointment as the governor of Perugia; he also happened to be a cardinal and a brilliant student at the university of Pisa. Lorenzo was sure to ask the boy to dinner – together with the Pazzis. Lorenzo and his brother Giuliano would be stabbed as they rose from the table.
The invitation went according to plan; when Lorenzo heard that the brilliant boy was in Florence, he invited him to dinner on the evening of Saturday 25 April 1478. But at this point, a hitch arose. Giuliano had hurt his knee, and had to stay in bed. The assassinations had to be postponed. If Giuliano was in bed, it seemed unlikely that he would come to his brother’s house the next day. But he might just possibly be persuaded to attend mass in the great cathedral, the Duomo.
And now Montesecco’s conscience got the better of him; he had no objection to stabbing a man at dinner, but it was another thing to do it as he knelt at Mass. The archbishop assured him that it was perfectly legal and moral, and that the pope would give him absolution, but Montesecco still refused. The plotters had to turn to the two priests of the Duomo, Antonio Maffei and Stefano de Bagnone, who felt there could be no possible religious objection to killing someone on their own premises.
The boy Raffaello was told nothing about the plot. He was due to collect Lorenzo at his house on Easter Sunday and then go on to the cathedral to perform Mass. When the plotters arrived at Lorenzo’s house, they were told that he had already gone ahead with Raffaello. But his brother was still in bed. Pazzi and Baroncelli asked to see Giuliano, exerted their powers of persuasion, and finally got him to dress and accompany them to the cathedral. As they walked in, Pazzi gave Giuliano a friendly squeeze around the waist: he was actually feeling to see if he had brought his dagger. Giuliano was unarmed.
At the given signal, Baroncelli shouted ‘Traitor’ and plunged his dagger into Giuliano’s side. Then other members of the Pazzi family rushed forward and stabbed him another eighteen times. Giuliano died almost immediately. But the priest Maffei was less successful with Lorenzo. Instead of striking first, he placed a hand on Lorenzo’s shoulder to steady him for a powerful blow. Lorenzo, more alert than his sick brother, turned quickly, and received a stab wound in the neck. As Pazzi and Baroncelli rushed up to stab him, Lorenzo was surrounded by his friends and hustled into the sacristy, which had bronze doors. The assassins battered on these in vain, then decided it was time to leave. Lorenzo waited until the cathedral was empty and was led home by his friends.
Meanwhile, the head of the Pazzi family was riding around outside waving his sword and shouting ‘Liberty and the republic’ at the top of his voice. The angry crowd shouted ‘Balls’, not a reference to that part of the anatomy but to the balls on the Medici coat of arms. When the crowd showed signs of turning ugly, Jacopo rode out of the city gate to his country estate.
Archbishop Salviati’s part of the plot was to hurry to the Signoria Palace, where the town councillors – the priors – were meeting and announce that he was taking over the government of the city. His crowd of hired bravos were to rush in shortly afterwards to intimidate the priors. But having entered the courtyard, and let Salviati into the palace, they closed the door behind him, unaware that it had recently been fitted with a spring lock, so that they could not get in. So when, stuttering and stammering, Salviati tried to make his announcement – looking anxiously over his shoulder and wondering what had happened to his bravos – the head of the town council called his guards and arrested the archbishop.
Meanwhile news of Giuliano’s murder had spread, and an angry crowd gathered outside the palace. When the gate was forced open they found the trapped bravos and massacred them. Some of the crowd rushed to the Pazzis’ house, where Francesco had retired to bed with a wound in his leg; he was dragged back to the palace. Then, as the crowd below screamed ‘Balls!’, the body of Francesco shot out of the upstairs window, a rope around the neck, and stopped with a grotesque jerk. There was a sound of screaming, and Archbishop Salviati fell out of the same window; he was actually seen to bite Pazzi in the breast as he dangled on the end of the rope, then try to bite through the rope with his teeth. Two more of the plotters followed him. In the square, anyone who was suspected of being in the plot was hacked to death. The boy cardinal had to be escorted back home, while the crowd shouted threats about lynching. Finally, Lorenzo himself appeared at the window of the Signoria, his neck bandaged, and asked the crowd to go to their homes. They obeyed him.
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