Among the envoys who had repaired from all the parts of Italy to hail the advent of Sixtus to the tiara was Lorenzo de' Medici; and he has described the honourable reception and gifts accorded him by a pontiff whose favour was ere long turned to deadly hatred. Aware of the rising influence of this youthful guest, the Pope sought to attach him by substantial benefits, including his nomination as banker to the Camera Apostolica, with power to manage that important charge through his uncle Tornabuoni, then resident from Florence at the papal court. Fabroni, in his Life of Lorenzo, tells us that his Holiness, wishing to realise the costly jewels accumulated by Paul II., sold them to the Medici at a price yielding a large profit to the purchasers, who gained still more from a lease, now conferred upon them, of the alum mines at Cento Celle. Results more generally important of this visit were the valuable relics in literature and art, which the Florentine ambassador was enabled, by the liberality of the Pope, and many dignitaries, to accumulate; and the strong representations which he made, not vainly, against a reckless destruction of ancient buildings in the city. But this amicable intercourse quickly cooled, and the mutual jealousies of the parties, arising from complicated causes, became aggravated by various concurrent grudges. Sixtus, ambitious and warlike, desired to make himself arbiter, if not autocrat, of Italy. Lorenzo was a man of peace, content to preserve the status quo with his neighbours, that he might leisurely establish at home, on a firm basis, such power as should enable him to promote the commercial prosperity and intellectual pre-eminence of his native city. From similar views, rather than as a means of territorial aggrandisement, he sought to extend his family influence, by securing for his brother Giuliano a seat in the sacred college. With unaccountable blindness, the Pope refused a favour which policy should have induced him to volunteer; and from that moment the Medici were entirely alienated. Their able diplomacy and ample means were especially directed to thwart the views of his Holiness upon the feudatories of Romagna. By their aid, Città di Castello had, in 1474, resisted the arms of his legate Giuliano della Rovere; at their suggestion, two years later, Carlo Braccio made an attempt upon Perugia; further, their credit was interposed to extricate Taddeo Manfredi from those pecuniary difficulties which induced him to surrender his fief of Imola to the Duke of Milan. The last of these intrigues, although unavailing, provoked the special indignation of Count Girolamo Riario, who, finding himself thwarted in his matrimonial scheme, hampered in the acquisition of a new state, and baffled in his aims at further sovereignty, by the ever-watchful policy of Lorenzo, employed his boundless influence to stimulate the Pontiff's growing dislike for the Medici. This was at first vented in petty slights. Lorenzo lost his agency for the Holy See; and his personal enemy, Salviati, received the richly endowed mitre of Pisa. The quarrel, thus exasperated by mutual affronts, boiled up until it exploded in bloody vengeance.
Alinari
LORENZO DE’ MEDICI
After the fresco by Ghirlandaio in S. Trinità, Florence
It is worthy of remark, that in Florence, which by democratic writers is upheld as the model of Italian republics, almost every convulsion originated from some personal pique or family feud, rather than in any general outbreak against intolerable oppression. Without pausing to examine how far the same remark is applicable to many popular revolutions, we shall glance hurriedly at the events of the Pazzi conspiracy, one of the numerous and melancholy proofs of corruption and bad faith in high places, during these the palmy days of Italian prosperity.
Those jealousies, with which the rising star of the Medici had to contend in their native city, were the natural fruit of their rapidly extending wealth and influence, rather than of direct aggressions upon its freedom. They were sown by rival families,
"Whose aim was but themselves to magnify,"
and who were greedy of an ascendancy which, in other hands, would probably have been used with less moderation; but in most cases they were rendered abortive by the universal popularity of those against whom they were directed. Among these rivals were the Pazzi, an injury to one of whom, from the operation of a new law limiting female succession, fanned into flame the smouldering sparks of an old hatred. Francesco, another of this family, who resided at Rome, and who supplanted Lorenzo as papal banker, seems to have been the first to suggest violence, urged it is said by Count Girolamo, with whom he was intimate, and who is alleged to have interested his uncle, the Pope, in the foul scheme. At all events, there can be little doubt that the plot was matured at Rome, and that its execution was chiefly entrusted to Cardinal Raffaele Riario, the Count's nephew, aided by Francesco Salviati, Archbishop of Pisa, and by others who owed some private grudge to the Medici. The purpose of this conspiracy, apparently stimulated by a prelate, directed by a cardinal, and sanctioned by the Pontiff, was the murder of Lorenzo and his brother Giuliano. After repeated postponements, the blow was struck on the 26th of April, 1478, in the cathedral of Florence, during celebration of high mass, the elevation of the Host being the concerted signal for an assassination by priestly hands. The sacrilegious attempt was but partially successful. Giuliano, struck down by the dagger of Francesco de' Pazzi, fell pierced by many mortal wounds; but Lorenzo, after receiving a slight flesh-cut, was hurried by his attached friends into the sacristy, and its doors secured. Salviati and other conspirators meanwhile made a vain attempt to possess themselves of the Palazzo Pubblico, and raise a revolutionary cry; but they being resisted from within, and seconded by no response of the citizens, with whom the existing government was highly popular, the émeute was promptly put down, the Archbishop and its other leaders being instantly hanged from the windows, and their bodies tossed into the piazza.