The Pazzi family were Tuscan nobles who had become bankers in Florence in the 14th century. They are now best known for the "Pazzi conspiracy" to assassinate Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici on April 26, 1478. Andrea de' Pazzi was also the patron for Brunelleschi's chapter house for the Franciscan community at Florence's Santa Croce church, often known as the Pazzi Chapel. After the conspiracy, the Pazzi were rehabilitated and returned to Florence. Tuscany (Italian Toscana) is a region in central Italy, bordering on Latium to the south, Umbria and Marche to the east, Emilia-Romagna and Liguria to the north, and the Tyrrhenian Sea to the west. ... The First Provincial Bank of Taiwan in Taipei, Republic of China was formerly the central bank of the Republic of China and issued the New Taiwan dollar. ... Country Italy Region Tuscany Province Florence (FI) Mayor Leonardo Domenici Elevation 50 m Area 102 km² Population  - Total (as of 2006-06-02) 366,488  - Density 3,593/km² Time zone CET, UTC+1 Coordinates Gentilic Fiorentini Dialing code 055 Postal code 50100 Frazioni Galluzzo, Settignano Patron St. ... Jack Ruby murdered the assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, in a very public manner. ... Lorenzo de Medici Lorenzo di Piero de Medici (Florence, January 1, 1449 – 9 April 1492) was an Italian statesman and ruler of the Florentine Republic during the Italian Renaissance. ... Portrait by Sandro Botticelli. ... April 26 is the 116th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (117th in leap years). ... Events February 18 - George, Duke of Clarence, convicted of treason against his older brother Edward IV of England, is privately executed in the Tower of London. ... Sculpture of Brunelleschi looking at the dome in Florence Filippo Brunelleschi (1377 – April 15, 1446) was a great Florentine architect of the Italian Renaissance. ... A chapter house is a building or room attached to a cathedral or collegiate church in which meetings are held. ... The Order of Friars Minor and other Franciscan movements are disciples of Saint Francis of Assisi. ... Country Italy Region Tuscany Province Florence (FI) Mayor Leonardo Domenici Elevation 50 m Area 102 km² Population  - Total (as of 2006-06-02) 366,488  - Density 3,593/km² Time zone CET, UTC+1 Coordinates Gentilic Fiorentini Dialing code 055 Postal code 50100 Frazioni Galluzzo, Settignano Patron St. ... Cappella Pazzi & First Cloister Pazzi Chapel (Cappella dei Pazzi) at the Basilica di Santa Croce is a typical Renaissance chapel in Florence. ...

The family stemmed from Pazzo ("the madman"), one of the first over the walls in the Siege of Jerusalem during the First Crusade, who brought away with him and returned to Florence a stone from the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre. A member of the Pazzi family was accorded the privilege of striking a light from this stone on Holy Saturday when all fires in the city were extinguished, from which light the altar light of the Duomo would be annually rekindled, and from it all the hearth fires of Florence. In an elaboration of the primal ceremony, the following day, Easter, a dove-shaped rocket would slide on a wire from above the high altar to an oxcart loaded with fireworks in the piazza. From the fireworks' explosion (the scoppio del carro), sparks would be carried to the city's hearths. Combatants Crusaders Fatimids Commanders Raymond of Toulouse Godfrey of Bouillon Iftikhar ad-Dawla Strength 1,500 knights 12,000 infantry 1,000 garrison Casualties Unknown At least 40,000 military and civilian dead The Siege of Jerusalem took place from June 7 to July 15, 1099 during the First Crusade. ... The First Crusade was launched in 1095 by Pope Urban II to regain control of the sacred city of Jerusalem and the Christian Holy Land from Muslims. ... The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, called Church of the Resurrection (Anastasis) by Eastern Christians, is a Christian church now within the walled Old City of Jerusalem. ... The Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore is the cathedral church, or Duomo, of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Florence, noted for its distinctive dome. ...

The conspiracy

Lesser rivals of the Medici, the Pazzi were caught up in a conspiracy to replace the Medici as de facto rulers of Tuscany with Girolamo Riario, a nephew of Francesco della Rovere, who was reigning as Pope Sixtus IV. Power politics, often ruthless in the Italian Renaissance, were the main motive. The Medici coat of arms The Medici family was a powerful and influential Florentine family from the 13th to 17th century. ... Girolamo Riario (Savona 1443 - Forlí 1488), Lord of Imola and Forlì. The Pazzi conspiracy in Florence, 1478, had him as intended beneficiary, once Lorenzo and Giuliano de Medici had been assassinated. ... Sixtus IV, born Francesco della Rovere (July 21, 1414 – August 12, 1484) was Pope from 1471 to 1484. ... Power politics is a state of international relations in which sovereigns protect their own interests by threatening one another with military, economic, or political aggression. ... The Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 14th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe. ...

The Pazzi family were not the instigators. The Salviati, Papal bankers in Florence, were at the center of the Florentine conspirators. Sixtus was an enemy of the Medici. He had purchased the lordship of Imola, a stronghold on the border between Papal and Tuscan territory that Lorenzo wanted for Florence. The purchase was financed by the Pazzi bank, even though Francesco dei Pazzi had promised Lorenzo they would not aid the Pope. As a reward, Sixtus granted the Pazzi a monopoly at the alum mines at Tolfa— alum being an essential mordant in dyeing in the textile trade that was central to the Florentine economy— and he assigned to the Pazzi bank lucrative rights to manage Papal revenues. Sixtus appointed his nephew Girolamo Riario as the new governor of Imola, and Francesco Salviati as archbishop of Pisa, a city that was a former commercial rival but now subject to Florence. Lorenzo ordered Pisa to exclude Salviati from his see. The Salviati were a prominent Florentine-Roman family. ... Country Italy Region Tuscany Province Florence (FI) Mayor Leonardo Domenici Elevation 50 m Area 102 km² Population  - Total (as of 2006-06-02) 366,488  - Density 3,593/km² Time zone CET, UTC+1 Coordinates Gentilic Fiorentini Dialing code 055 Postal code 50100 Frazioni Galluzzo, Settignano Patron St. ... The Medici coat of arms The Medici family was a powerful and influential Florentine family from the 13th to 17th century. ... Country Italy Region Emilia-Romagna Province Bologna (BO) Mayor Massimo Marchignoli Elevation 47 m Area 204. ... A crystal of Alum Alum, in chemistry, is a term given to the crystallized double sulfates of the typical formula M+2SO4·M3+2(SO4)3·24H2O, where M+ is the sign of an alkali metal (lithium, sodium, potassium, rubidium, or caesium), and M3+ denotes one of the trivalent metal... Look up Mordant on Wiktionary, the free dictionary A mordant is a substance used to set dyes. ... Girolamo Riario (Savona 1443 - Forlí 1488), Lord of Imola and Forlì. The Pazzi conspiracy in Florence, 1478, had him as intended beneficiary, once Lorenzo and Giuliano de Medici had been assassinated. ... The Salviati were a prominent Florentine-Roman family. ... Country Italy Region Toscana Province Pisa (PI) Mayor Paolo Fontanelli (since May 25, 2003) Elevation 4 m Area 185 km² Population  - Total (as of December 31, 2005) 90,482  - Density 462/km² Time zone CET, UTC+1 Coordinates Gentilic Pisani Dialing code 050 Postal code 56100 Frazioni Marina di Pisa...

Salviati and Francesco de' Pazzi put together a plan to assassinate Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici. Riario himself remained in Rome. The plan was widely known: the Pope was reported to have said "I support it— as long as no one is killed." In 2004, an encrypted letter in the archives of the Ubaldini family was discovered by Marcello Simonetta, a historian at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, United States and decoded. It revealed that Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, a condottiere for the Papacy who was deeply embroiled in the conspiracy, committed himself to position 600 troops outside Florence, waiting for the moment. 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Wesleyan University founded in 1831, is a private, liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Fedrico da Montefeltro painted by Piero della Francesca Federico da Montefeltro (1422–1482) was one of the most successful condottieri of the Italian Renaissance, a fighter for hire who created one of the great libraries, perhaps the largest of Italy after the Vatican, with his own team of scribes in... Panorama of Urbino with the cathedral and the palazzo ducale Urbino is a city in the Marche in Italy, southwest of Pesaro, a World Heritage Site with a great cultural history during the Renaissance as the seat of Federico da Montefeltro. ... Condottieri were mercenary leaders employed by Italian city-states from the late Middle Ages until the mid-fifteenth century. ...

On April 26, 1478, during High Mass at the Duomo, Giuliano de' Medici was stabbed nineteen times by a gang that included a priest, and bled to death on the cathedral floor, while his brother Lorenzo escaped with serious, but non life-threatening wounds. He appeared shortly after, locked safely in the sacristy by the humanist Poliziano. A coordinated attempt to capture the Gonfaloniere and Signoria was thwarted when the archbishop and the head of the Salviati clan were trapped in a room whose doors had a hidden latch. The coup d'état failed, and the enraged Florentines seized and killed the conspirators. Jacopo de' Pazzi was tossed from a window, finished off by the mob, and dragged naked through the streets and thrown into the Arno River. The Pazzi family were stripped of their possessions in Florence, every vestige of their name effaced. Salviati, though he was an archbishop, was hanged on the walls of the Palazzo della Signoria. Although Lorenzo appealed to the crowd not to exact summary justice, many of the conspirators, as well as many people accused of being conspirators, were killed. Lorenzo did manage to save the nephew of Sixtus IV, Cardinal Raffaele Riario, who was almost certainly an innocent dupe of the plotters, as well as two relatives of plotters. The main conspirators were hunted down all over Italy, but a wider retribution of Lorenzo, including hundreds of killings, is a myth. April 26 is the 116th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (117th in leap years). ... Events February 18 - George, Duke of Clarence, convicted of treason against his older brother Edward IV of England, is privately executed in the Tower of London. ... In the United States of America the term High Mass refers to what in Great Britain & Ireland, as well as in many traditional-minded Anglo-Catholic parishes in the U.S.A., is called Sung Mass or Misa Cantata. ... The Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore is the cathedral church, or Duomo, of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Florence, noted for its distinctive dome. ... Angelo Polizian (Angelo Ambrogini) (1454 - 1494) was a Florentine classical scholar and poet, one of the revivers of Humanist Latin. ... A Gonfaloniere is a government post in medieval and renaissance Florence. ... The Signoria was the government of medieval and renaissance Florence. ... Palazzo della Signoria Palazzo della Signoria was the original name of the Palazzo Vecchio, before the government of the Republic of Florence was moved to the Uffizi under Cosimo I de Medici. ... Raffaele Sansoni Galeoti Riario (May 3, 1461 – July 9, 1521) was an Italian Cardinal of the Renaissance, mainly known as the constructor of the Palazzo della Cancelleria and the one who called Michelangelo in Rome. ...

In the actual aftermath of the so-called "Pazzi" conspiracy, the Della Rovere Pope placed Florence under interdict, forbidding mass and communion, for the execution of the Salviati archbishop. Sixtus enlisted the traditional Papal military arm, the King of Naples, Ferdinand I (also called Don Ferrante), to attack Florence. With no help coming from Florence's traditional allies in Bologna and Milan, only skillful personal diplomacy by Lorenzo himself saved the day. He sailed to Naples and put himself in the hands of Don Ferrante, who held him captive for three months before releasing him with gifts. Lorenzo's courage and his Machiavellian realpolitik showed Don Ferrante how the pope would turn against him if he were too successful in the north. Ferdinand I (1423 - January 25, 1494), also called Don Ferrante, was the King of Naples from 1458 to 1494. ... Statue at the Uffizi. ... Realpolitik (German: real (realistic, practical or actual) and Politik (politics)) is a term used to describe politics based on strictly practical rather than idealistic notions, and practiced without any sentimental illusions. ...

The Pazzi Chapel

Main article: Pazzi Chapel

On another level, perhaps the greater mark on history left by the Pazzi is the Pazzi Chapel built under the direction of Filippo Brunelleschi in a discreet cloister of the Franciscan preaching church, Santa Croce in Florence. After some early agreements, the chapel was begun in 1442. It is one of the incunabula of Renaissance architecture, severely restrained, made of the gray stone called pietra serena and white plaster, unrelieved by color. A hemispherical dome (completed after Brunelleschi's death following his plans) caps a cubical sacristy for the Franciscan church: within it the Pazzi family were permitted to bury their dead. Cappella Pazzi & First Cloister Pazzi Chapel (Cappella dei Pazzi) at the Basilica di Santa Croce is a typical Renaissance chapel in Florence. ... Sculpture of Brunelleschi looking at the dome in Florence Filippo Brunelleschi (1377 – April 15, 1446) was a great Florentine architect of the Italian Renaissance. ... The Basilica di Santa Croce (Basilica of the Holy Cross) is the principal Franciscan church of Florence, Italy, and a minor basilica of the Roman Catholic Church. ...

A saint was to arise from among the family, the ecstatic Carmelite nun Saint Maria Magdalena de' Pazzi (1566-1607). A saint is a term used to refer to someone who is a holy person. ... Origin and early history Carmelites (in Latin Ordo fratrum Beatæ Virginis Mariæ de monte Carmelo) is the name of a Roman Catholic order founded in the 12th century by a certain Berthold (d. ...

Palazzo Pazzi (Palazzo Pazzi-Quaratesi)

Palazzo Pazzi showing the yellow-ochre sandstone and pietra forte architecture.

The main seat of the family, at canto Pazzi, where Borgo degli Albizi crosses the via del Proconsolo was rebuilt 1462–1472 for Jacopo de' Pazzi to designs by Giuliano da Maiano, the sculptor-architect favored by the family. Above its wholly traditional rusticated ground floor of the yellow-ochre sandstone Florentines call pietra forte it has a stuccoed facade in a new taste, with delicate designs round the windows in the manner associated with Brunelleschi. The central court is surrounded on three sides by round-headed arcading, with circular bosses in the spandrels. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1600x1200, 551 KB) Summary Palazzo de Pazzi, palace, outside view from Florence, Italy Licensing File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Pazzi Metadata This file contains additional information... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1600x1200, 551 KB) Summary Palazzo de Pazzi, palace, outside view from Florence, Italy Licensing File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Pazzi Metadata This file contains additional information... Giuliano da Maiano (ca 1432- 1490) was a Florentine architect, intarsia-worker and sculptor, the elder brother of Benedetto da Maiano, with whom he often collaborated. ...

Next to it is the smaller 16th-century three-story Palazzo Pazzi-Ammannati, rebuilt for Antonio Ramirez di Montalvo, housing Florence's small museum of natural history and host to temporary exhibitions. Its design is attributed to Bartolomeo Ammanati. Bartolomeo Ammanati (1511-1592) was a Florentine architect and sculptor. ...

The Pazzi in fiction

Two members of the Pazzi family are placed in Hell in Dante's Inferno, both in the circle of the traitors, though The Divine Comedy does not reference the Pazzi Conspiracy, being written nearly 200 years earlier. Medieval illustration of Hell in the Hortus deliciarum manuscript of Herrad of Landsberg (about 1180) Hell, according to many religious beliefs, is a place or a state of pain and suffering. ... Durante degli Alighieri, better known as Dante Alighieri or simply Dante, (c. ... Dante shown holding a copy of The Divine Comedy, next to the entrance to Hell, the seven terraces of Mount Purgatory and the city of Florence, with the spheres of Heaven above, in Michelinos fresco. ... Dante shown holding a copy of The Divine Comedy, next to the entrance to Hell, the seven terraces of Mount Purgatory and the city of Florence, with the spheres of Heaven above, in Michelinos fresco. ...

Rinaldo Pazzi is a modern-day Florentine corrupt police detective in the 1999 novel Hannibal and its film adaptation, released two years later. He is murdered by Hannibal Lecter, who disembowels him, and then hangs him from the balcony of the Palazzo della Signoria, just as his famous "ancestor" was. A detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. ... 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ... Hannibal is a 2001 film, directed by Ridley Scott, adapted from the Thomas Harris novel of the same name. ... Dr. Hannibal Lecter is a fictional character appearing in four novels by author Thomas Harris and their film adaptations. ...

A fictionalized version of the Pazzi conspiracy was the basis for the DC Comics Elseworlds story "Black Masterpiece", in Batman Annual #18, which features a Renaissance-era Batman and Leonardo da Vinci. DC Comics is one of the largest American companies in comic book and related media publishing. ... Elseworlds logo. ... Batman (originally referred to as the Bat-Man and still sometimes as the Batman) is a DC Comics fictional character and superhero who first appeared in Detective Comics #27 in May 1939. ... Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was a talented Italian Renaissance Roman Catholic[1] polymath: architect, anatomist, sculptor, engineer, inventor, geometer, scientist, mathematician, musician, and painter. ...

External links

• Tim Parks' review of Lauro Martines, April Blood: Florence and the Plot Against the Medici: a sketch of the subtleties and contradictions in the background to the "Pazzi conspiracy"
• Italy's Medici Murder Plot Solved: discusses a recently discovered piece of evidence showing the scale of the conspiracy
• Great Buildings on-line: Pazzi Chapel
• Pazzi Chapel: Brief description, with clear and evocative photos
• Susan and Joanna Horner, Walks in Florence and Its Environs (London 1873): Chapter xvii