Italy's Medici Murder Plot Solved

Discovery News ^ | 2-24-2004 | Rossella Lorenzi

[blam]

Italy's Medici Murder Plot Solved

By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News

Lorenzo dei Medici

Feb. 24, 2004 — One of the most notorious crimes of the Renaissance, the attempted assassination of Florence's grandest son, Lorenzo dei Medici, has been solved more than 500 years later.

Known as the Pazzi conspiracy, the plot was led by Francesco dei Pazzi, whose banking family had resented for years the Medici climb to power.

The Pazzi plotted to kill Lorenzo and his brother Giuliano during a High Mass in the city's cathedral in April 1478. Wounded, Lorenzo managed to escape and barricade himself behind the bronze sacristy doors, but Giuliano bled to death on the cathedral floor.

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New findings now reveal that the plot was more than the result of a feud between two families. Behind the Pazzis lay a larger network of powerful conspirators who aimed to destroy Lorenzo the Magnificent and his expansionist ambitions for the Florentine state.

"One of the prime movers in the plot was none less than Federico da Moltefeltro, Duke of Urbino, always portrayed as a good friend of Lorenzo," Marcello Simonetta, a historian at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, told Discovery News.

The proof lies in a secret letter to Urbino's ambassadors in Rome that lay forgotten in the private Ubaldini archive. The letter was encrypted, but Simonetta had one advantage when he tried to decipher it: a 15th-century booklet written by an ancestor of his, explaining how to decode diplomatic correspondence.

"The letter reveals that Federico sent 600 of his well-trained troops to the gates of Florence. They were supposed to seize the city after the killing of the Medici brothers," Simonetta said.

Immortalized by Piero della Francesca in a stupendous, impassive portrait, Federico da Montefeltro was a great warrior and patron of the arts.

The portrait, an icon of the Renaissance, shows the Duke in all his imposing authority: a bull-necked man with raven hair slipping out from a red top hat, looking fiercely at his wife, represented in profile in another portrait.

"He has always been considered the ultimate humanist condottiero. Now we know he was involved personally in the conspiracy, inspired by Pope Sixtus IV and King Ferrante of Naples," Simonetta said.

Published in the Italian Historical Archives and in Simonetta's latest book, "Secret Renaissance: the World of the Secretary from Petrarch to Machiavelli," the decrypted letter has caused controversial reactions among historians.

"Simonetta's coded letter provides an interesting detail, namely, the Duke of Urbino's readiness to contribute 600 soldiers to the plot, but adds nothing of substance to what was already known.

"We already knew that the Duke was deeply involved in the conspiracy, that he was a soldier in the pay of Pope Sixtus IV, and that he had no love for Lorenzo il Magnifico. But he was certainly not the arch-conspirator.

This role belonged to Pope Sixtus, to Count Girolamo Riario, to the banker Francesco de' Pazzi, and even, perhaps, to the King of Naples," Renaissance scholar Lauro Martines, author of "April Blood: Florence and the Plot Against the Medici," told Discovery news.

According to Ronald Witt, professor of history at Duke University, Simonetta's discovery has indeed great historical importance.

"This is one of those rare finds that historians long to get their hands on. Although we knew well who the immediate perpetrators were, the letter reveals how elaborate and far-reaching the plot was," Witt told Discovery News.

[DeaconBenjamin]

The Third Man, with Orson Welles?

[BlessedByLiberty]

Oops! My boo-boo.

[CobaltBlue]

No patronage without great - perhaps unequal - wealth? Being a full time productive artist on the grand scale of Michelangeo or Leonardo requires sufficient funding for the artist and his atelier (apprentices, assistants, studio, materials), and a grand place for the display of the creation.

To give you an idea how most artists live, espeically these days, read Cary's "The Horse's Mouth." It's about a poor painter who dreams of creating great art, but can't afford paint unless he steals it.

I have a book on making pigment in old days before synthetic pigments - for example, to make blue, you grind up real lapis lazuli and subject it to various treatments to remove the impurities, so you have less than you started out with but it's brilliant in hue. Not cheap.

No, this type of magnificent creation required lots and lots and lots and lots of money. Pots of money, bags of money, stacks of ducats.

[CobaltBlue]

You're talking about tribalism - which is very hard for most Americans to comprehend - and your reference to the Baathists is accurate, although perhaps insulting to the Medici, who had far superior aesthetic taste to Saddam. They don't appear to have been as evil, either, although perhaps Saddam benefits from 20th century advances in industrialization of homicide. Who knows what the Medici might have achieved if they'd had efficiency experts to assist them?

Jest a joke - I to enjoyed the PBS series - and do recall the bit about the Medici (can't remember name) who modernized the organization. The setup looked remarkably like late 19th century grand style offices such as you see in federal cabinet level department buildings (the old Commerce building, for one) and corporate headquarters of that era (I am thinking of some insurance companies of the time - Aetna?)

[DoctorMichael]

Thanks. Apparently 'Revelation911' found my comments "biggoted" though (#17)......LOL.

Oh well, maybe it was a little too close to home. Some people here just spoil for a fight; it wasn't meant the way it was taken.

[SunkenCiv]

The author is a descendant of one of the little-known figures in Renaissance Italian politics. Just finished reading this, and *highly* recommend it to anyone interested in nonfiction, history, the Renaissance, Italy, art, or Machiavelli. :')

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The Montefeltro Conspiracy: A Renaissance Mystery Decoded by Marcello Simonetta Kindle Paperback Bantam hardcover search

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[SunkenCiv]

1478 Assassination Solved. The Humanist Did It.
NYT | March 6, 2004 | FELICIA R. LEE
Posted on 03/07/2004 3:08:22 PM PST by farmfriend
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1092764/posts

-amusing and bemusing sidebars-

‘Satanic’ Art In Catholic Church Exposed
WorldNetDaily | March 25, 2006 | Staff
Posted on 03/25/2006 11:29:40 PM PST by Laissez-faire capitalist
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1603287/posts

The Medici Meltdown
Forbes.com | October 31, 2008 | Marcello Simonetta
Posted on 11/01/2008 6:16:27 AM PDT by billorites
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2121611/posts

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

quote from Dante on p 181:

For when the power of thought / is coupled with ill will and naked force / there is no refuge from it for mankind.

and, from Machiavelli, quoted on p 207:

What the prince does the many also soon do / for to their eyes the prince is ever in view.

[SunkenCiv]