In 1476 a conspiracy was formed, at Milan, against Galeazzo Sforza, whose yoke became insupportable to all who had any elevation of soul. There was no crime of which that false and ferocious man was not believed to be capable. Among other crimes, he was accused of having poisoned his mother. It was remarked of him that, enjoying the spectacle of astonishment and despair, he always preferred to strike the most suddenly and cruelly those whom he had given most reason to rely on his friendship.
Not satisfied with making the most distinguished women of his states the victims of his seduction or his violence, he took pleasure in publishing their shame—in exposing it to their brothers or husbands. He not unfrequently gave them up to prostitution. His extravagant pomp exhausted his finances, which he afterwards recruited by the most cruel extortion on the people. He took pleasure in inventing new and most atrocious forms of capital punishment; even that of burying his victims alive was not the most cruel. At last, three young nobles, of families who had courageously resisted the usurpation of Francesco Sforza, and who had themselves experienced the injustice and outrages of his son, resolved to deliver their country from this monster; not doubting that, when he had fallen, the Milanese would joyfully unite in substituting a free government for a tyranny.
Girolamo Olgiati, Carlo Visconti, and Andrea Lampugnani resolved, in concert, to trust only to themselves, without admitting one other person into their secret. Their enthusiasm had been excited by the lessons of their literary instructor, Colas di Montano, who continually set before them the grandeur of the ancient republics, and the glory of those who had delivered them from tyranny. Determined on killing the duke, they long exercised themselves in the handling of the dagger, to be more sure of striking him, each in the precise part of the tyrant’s body assigned to him. Animated with a religious zeal, not less ardent than their republican enthusiasm, they prepared themselves by prayer, by vows to St. Stephen, and by the assistance of the mass, for the act which they were about to perform. They made choice of the 26th of December, 1476, St. Stephen’s Day, on which they knew that the duke Galeazzo would go in state to the church of the saint. They waited for him in that church; and when they saw him advance between the ambassadors of Ferrara and Mantua, they respectfully approached him, their caps in hand. Feigning to keep off the crowd, they surrounded him, and struck him all at the same instant, in the midst of his guards and courtiers. Galeazzo Sforza fell dead under their weapons; and the crowd which filled the church saw the tumult and heard the cries, without comprehending the cause.
[1476-1478 A.D.]
The three conspirators endeavoured to escape from the church, to call the people to arms and liberty; but the first sentiments which they encountered were astonishment and terror. The guards of the duke drew their swords only to avenge him. Lampugnani, in attempting to avoid them, got entangled in the trains of the kneeling women, was thrown down, and killed by an esquire of Galeazzo; a few steps from him, Visconti also was put to death by the guards. But Olgiati had the misfortune to escape, in this first moment, from all who pursued him; and, running through the streets, called loudly to arms and liberty; not one person answered the call. He afterwards sought to conceal himself, but was discovered, seized, and put to the most excruciating torture. In the interval between that infliction and his death, he wrote or dictated the narrative demanded of him, and which has been handed down to us. It is composed in a strain of the noblest enthusiasm, with a deep religious feeling, with an ardent love of liberty, and with the firm persuasion that he had performed a good action. He was again delivered to the executioner to have his flesh torn with red-hot pincers. At the time of his martyrdom he was only twenty-two years of age.[e]
The Pazzi Conspiracy
The public agitation excited by the assassination of the duke of Milan had scarcely subsided, before an event took place at Florence of a much more atrocious nature, inasmuch as the objects destined to destruction had not afforded a pretext, in any degree plausible, for such an attempt. Accordingly, we have now to enter on a transaction that has seldom been mentioned without emotions of the strongest horror and detestation; and which, as has justly been observed, is an incontrovertible proof of the practical atheism of the times in which it took place—a transaction in which a pope, a cardinal, an archbishop, and several other ecclesiastics associated themselves with a band of ruffians, to destroy two men who were an honour to their age and country; and purposed to perpetrate their crime at a season of hospitality, in the sanctuary of a Christian church, and at the very moment of the elevation of the Host, when the audience bowed down before it, and the assassins were presumed to be in the immediate presence of their God.
At the head of this conspiracy were Sixtus IV and his nephew, Girolamo Riario. Raffaello Riario, the nephew of this Girolamo, who, although a young man then pursuing his studies, had lately been raised to the dignity of cardinal, was rather an instrument than an accomplice in the scheme. The enmity of Sixtus to Lorenzo had for some time been apparent, and if not occasioned by the assistance which Lorenzo had afforded to Niccolo Vitelli, and other independent nobles, whose dominions Sixtus had either threatened or attacked, was certainly increased by it. The destruction of the Medici appeared, therefore, to Sixtus as the removal of an obstacle that thwarted all his views, and by the accomplishment of which the small surrounding states would soon become an easy prey. There is, however, great reason to believe that the pope did not confine his ambition to these subordinate governments, but that if the conspiracy had succeeded to his wish, he meant to have grasped at the dominion of Florence itself. The alliance lately formed between the Florentines, the Venetians, and the duke of Milan, which was principally effected by Lorenzo de’ Medici, and by which the pope found himself prevented from disturbing the peace of Italy, was an additional and powerful motive of resentment. One of the first proofs of the displeasure of the pope was his depriving Lorenzo of the office of treasurer of the papal see, which he gave to the Pazzi, a Florentine family, who, as well as the Medici, had a public bank at Rome, and who afterwards became the coadjutors of Sixtus in the execution of his treacherous purpose.
The conspiracy, of which Sixtus and his nephew were the real instigators, was first agitated at Rome, where the intercourse between the count Girolamo Riario and Francesco de’ Pazzi, in consequence of the office held by the latter, afforded them an opportunity of communicating to each other their common jealousy of the power of the Medici, and their desire of depriving them of their influence in Florence; in which event it is highly probable that the Pazzi were to have exercised the chief authority in the city, under the patronage, if not under the avowed dominion, of the papal see. The principal agent engaged in the undertaking was Francesco Salviati, archbishop of Pisa, to which rank he had lately been promoted by Sixtus, in opposition to the wishes of the Medici, who had for some time endeavoured to prevent him from exercising his episcopal functions. If it be allowed that the unfavourable character given him by Politian is exaggerated, it is generally agreed that his qualities were the reverse of those which ought to have been the recommendations to such high preferment. The other conspirators were Jacopo Salviati, brother of the archbishop; Jacopo Poggio, one of the sons of the celebrated Poggio Bracciolini, and who, like all the other sons of that eminent scholar, had obtained no small share of literary reputation; Bernardo Bandini, a daring libertine, rendered desperate by the consequences of his excesses; Giovan Battista Montesicco, who had distinguished himself by his military talents as one of the condottieri of the armies of the pope; Antonio Maffei, a priest of Volterra, and Stefano de Bagnone, one of the apostolic scribes, with several others of inferior note.
In the arrangement of their plan, which appears to have been concerted with great precaution and secrecy, the conspirators soon discovered that the dangers which they had to encounter were not so likely to arise from the difficulty of the attempt, as from the subsequent resentment of the Florentines, a great majority of whom were strongly attached to the Medici. Hence it became necessary to provide a military force, the assistance of which might be equally requisite whether the enterprise proved abortive or successful. By the influence of the pope, the king of Naples, who was then in alliance with him, and on one of whose sons he had recently bestowed a cardinal’s hat, was also induced to countenance the attempt.