On Easter Sunday, April 26, 1478, within the cavernous Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, as the Priest brought High Mass to a conclusion, assassin's blades brutally plunged into the bodies of two brothers, Giuliano and Lorenzo de' Medici. As the screams of horrified onlookers echoed under Brunelleschi's dome, Giuliano was stabbed nineteen times and died on the cathedral floor as his lifeblood spread beneath him like a grim shadow. His brother Lorenzo, after being stabbed in the neck, would fight free of his would-be assassins and survive. While chaos ensued within the cathedral, the alarm bells of Florence began to urgently toll their distress call that summoned all Florentines to repel an attempted coup d'etat taking place within the government palace against the Signoria. That tolling was echoed by every church throughout Florence and the surrounding countryside as the call went out and Florentines took to the streets to defend their Republic.
In the hours and days that followed the sacrilegious attack on the Medici brothers and the assault on the Republic's government, a sinister conspiracy slowly uncoiled that would result in the violent deaths of most of the conspirators, the obliteration of one of Florence's richest families, the public execution of an Archbishop, a war, and a stain on the reputation of a Pope that would haunt him for the rest of his days.
On that Easter Sunday Florentines were unaware of the hundreds of mercenary troops already within the borders of Tuscany, poised to invade the city at a signal that never came. They were unaware that the far-reaching conspiracy to assassinate the heads of Florence's premiere family and to seize its government by force included the Napolese and Papal thrones. They were unaware of the internal and international political maneuverings that led up to the conspiracy.
Who were the authors of the Pazzi Conspiracy? What brought them to this desperate act? The answers to these questions began to come to light within days of the incident during the confessions of a hired soldier, and concluded by the discovery of a encrypted letter decoded over five hundred years later.
Next: The Players - Medici