“On to the Palace of the Signoria! They’ve captured the Archbishop! He’s a prisoner there!”
“Get a ram and we’ll break the door down!”
The people in the street were caught up in the surging mass. Already soldiers of the Medici were spreading out through the city. Cobblestones were ripped from the street, and swords, knives, and clubs were being brandished in the air.
Leonardo, backed against a wall of a house, was soon left in an almost deserted street. Still holding the drawings, he made his way carefully back to his studio.
As it turned out, Lorenzo was not dead at all.
It was on this Sunday that the Pazzi conspiracy had broken out in Florence. In the cathedral, the ailing Giuliano de’ Medici, brother of Lorenzo, was killed by assassins. Lorenzo himself escaped with only a scratched arm. The Pazzi family were rival bankers of the Medicis and had joined in this plot with Girolamo Riario, a relative of Pope Sixtus IV, and Francesco Salviati, a long-time enemy of Lorenzo. A hired professional thug completed the members of the conspiracy.
Girolamo Riario hated the Medicis because they refused him money for his own ambitions, and the Pope opposed Lorenzo because Lorenzo was supporting raids against papal territory. As for Archbishop Salviati, he had for years nursed a personal hatred for Lorenzo.
Leonardo, backed against a wall, was soon left in an almost deserted street.
When the assassination attempt failed, the Archbishop and Francesco de’ Pazzi fled to the Palace of the Signoria for protection. However, the members of the Council of Florence, who were meeting, then became suspicious and bolted the doors after them. Both men were later killed by the Medici followers and their bodies were hung from the barred windows of the Palace. In the terror of the days afterward, eighty victims lost their lives. The Pazzi conspiracy also had an effect on Leonardo’s future, as we shall see later on.