Page 25

CHAPTER 24

E RIC SETTLED INTO THE SMALL SETTEE INSIDE HIS SUITE AT THE S T. Regis. Florence was blessed with a multitude of hotels, most modest, some fine, but a few, like the St. Regis, were exceptional. The nightly rates were not any bargain, but management offered a political rate that made the luxury affordable. His suite faced the River Arno and consisted of a bedroom, two baths, and a roomy sitting area.

Where he could think.

His expert had assured him that he’d been able to extract enough viable samples that at least one of them should yield to DNA testing. Thankfully DNA did not lie. Absolute to greater than a 99 percent accuracy. Which hopefully would reveal one more line of Medici that sprang from Anna Maria and ended with himself.

But there was something else.

Of equal importance.

Francesco della Rovere was elected pope in 1471 and took the name Sixtus IV. He was both wealthy and powerful. A man accustomed to having his way. For Girolamo Riario, who may have been Sixtus’ son, he wanted to buy Imola, a small town in Romagna, with the aim of establishing a new papal state in that area. Imola lay on the trade route between Florence and Venice. Lorenzo de’ Medici had arranged in May 1473 to buy the town from the Duke of Milan for one hundred thousand ducats, but the duke reneged on the deal and agreed to sell it instead to Sixtus for forty thousand ducats. The purchase was to have been financed by the Medici bank, but Lorenzo refused, not wanting a papal enemy so close to Florence. Sixtus, in retaliation, closed the church’s accounts with the Medici and transferred them to the Pazzi family bank, which financed the purchase.

By 1478 friction between the Medici and the papacy was high. So a plan was concocted to assassinate Lorenzo and his brother, Giuliano de’ Medici. Sixtus was approached for his support and in a carefully worded statement made clear that while in the terms of his holy office he was unable to sanction killing, it would be of great benefit to the papacy to have the Medici removed from their position of power in Florence. Not a ringing endorsement, but enough for the conspirators to move forward.

The attack took place on the morning of Sunday, April 26, 1478, during High Mass at the Duomo of Florence. Murder within a church was typical for the Renaissance. It offered the easiest way to get to a well-guarded family at an unguarded moment. Lorenzo was assaulted by two of Jacopo Pazzi’s men, but managed to escape to the sacristy with only a wound. Giuliano was killed by Bernardo Bandini dei Baroncelli and Francesco de’ Pazzi, stabbed sixteen times. A number of Jacopo Pazzi’s men stormed the Palazzo Vecchio and attempted to take control of the signoria, but failed. The Florentines did not rise up against the Medici as the Pazzi had hoped. Just the opposite occurred. Many of the conspirators were captured that day and hanged, including the archbishop of Pisa, who’d been part of the plot.

More than thirty all total were hanged. Jacopo de’ Pazzi, head of the plot and the Pazzi family, escaped from Florence but was caught and brought back. He was tortured, then hanged. He was buried at Santa Croce, the Pazzi family church, but the body was dug up and thrown into a ditch, then dragged through the streets and propped up at the door of Palazzo Pazzi, where the rotting head was used as a door knocker. From there it was thrown into the River Arno. Children fished it out and hung it from a willow tree, flogged it, and then threw it back into the river.

Between April 26, the day of the attack, and October 20, 1478, eighty people were executed. Three more executions occurred on June 6, 1481. The Pazzi were banished from Florence, their lands and property confiscated. Their name and coat of arms were perpetually suppressed. All buildings and streets designated in their honor were renamed. Their family shield, with its twin dolphins, was obliterated. Anyone named Pazzi had to take a new surname. Anyone married to a Pazzi was barred from public office.

The family was all but erased.

Eric knew the stories.

The Pazzi were supposedly founded by Pazzo di Ranieri, the first man over the walls at the First Crusade during the Siege of Jerusalem in 1099. He returned to Florence with flints supposedly from the Holy Sepulcher, which the family safeguarded and used each year to rekindle the Easter fire for the city. But another tale said the Pazzis came from ancient Rome and were one of the first to settle by the River Arno and colonize Florence.

Nobody knew if either story was true.

But the Pazzis did become one of the leading noble families and gained power and wealth through banking, placing them in direct competition with the Medicis. They also managed to wrestle control of the papacy’s finances from the Medicis. The Pazzis were alarmed by the absolute authority the Medicis wielded over Florence, a sentiment shared by others. The plot to kill Lorenzo and his brother was designed to end that control. But it exploded into failure, the participants too bound to their own ideas and not able to see reality.

A majority of Florence was loyal to the Medici.

In the end the failed Pazzi Conspiracy served only to strengthen the Medicis’ control over Florence, as they used the opportunity to rid themselves of their most dangerous enemies. They ruled, barely challenged, for centuries, controlling all offices and appointments, their bank woven into the city’s existence. The Pazzis never recovered.

And the Medicis never stopped hating them.

Except one.