The Players
The Pazzi
During the First Crusade in 1099, as Christian soldiers scaled the walls of Jerusalem, a fighter named Pazzo Pazzi was the first man over the top. As a reward of his courage, he was gifted three small stones from the Holy Sepulcher.
Each Easter Saturday in Florence, the Pazzi family led a procession to the Baptistry of San Giovanni by means of a cart drawn by oxen and driven by members of the family. From this cart, the Pazzi distributed "sacred fire" to the faithful to light their candles, struck by using the stones Pazzo brought back from the Holy Lands.
The Pazzi device reflected their history and was derived from the French Ducal Family with crescents, battlement towers, and twin dolphins on a blue field with nine crosses. The proud message thus displayed was one of making war for the Christian faith, generosity and freedom. The Pazzi arms were displayed proudly on their palace walls and throughout Florence.
The Pazzi were an old "grande" Florentine family, and two of the family members were even named by Dante living in hell in his Divine Comedy. The Pazzi also boasted of having at least one knight in every generation. They swallowed the bitter pill when the Republic disassociated the title of knight from one of a mounted warrior and made it purely honorary.
However, the Pazzi traded widely on their long and noble family history when doing business. But the family fortune that was to lift the Pazzi onto the political stage of Florence was begun far away from Florence. [Note: No portraits of Pazzi family members from this time period survive. In response to the Pazzi conspiracy, all evidence of the family's presence in Florence was destroyed]
Andrea di Guglielmino de' Pazzi
1371 - 1445
Andrea de' Pazzi apprenticed as a boy and entered into the banking and cloth trade in Barcelona in the closing years of the 14th century. His sharp business acumen allowed him to begin to build an immense fortune. But due to the Pazzi family being one of the "grande" names and thus excluded by Florentine Law to participate in government, Andrea elected to become a commoner (popolano) upon his return to settle in Florence in the early years of the Quattrocento. By surrendering the "grande" status of the Pazzi name, Andrea paved the way for his sons to hold public office and become participants in the Florentine Republic government.
Like Cosimo de' Medici, Andrea de' Pazzi too amassed his own network of "amici degli amici", that included King René of Anjou and Pope Eugene IV. King René knighted Andrea in 1443 and in the same year entertained Pope Eugene in his private quarters in the church of Santa Croce. During that meeting the Pope made a 4000 florin deposit in the Pazzi Bank, the first sign that the Papal accounts could be pried away from Medici control.
By the time Andrea passed on, he left three sons - Antonio, Piero, and Jacopo - all well educated in the art of banking and trade who held a large fortune and assets in the Pazzi name. But it was Jacopo alone who would live long enough to become enmeshed in the conspiracy to assassinate the Medici brothers.
Messer Jacopo de' Pazzi
1421 - 1478
Jacopo de' Pazzi was the sole survivor of his generation at the time of the conspiracy. His brothers Antonio and Piero had passed on in 1451 and 1464 respectively. Well traveled and well schooled, Jacopo held the highest office of Florence - Gonfalonier of Justice in 1469. Ironically enough, Jacopo was also a strong supporter of Piero de' Medici, Lorenzo's father.
Jacopo was known for his generosity to the poor, and though having no offspring himself, was dedicated to his nine nephews, four nieces and thirteen grandchildren. At first only a reluctant observer of the conspiracy, Jacopo would be drawn deeply into it by his nephew, Francesco, son of Antonio.
Francesco di Antonio de' Pazzi
(?) - 1478
Described as a diminutive, pale, and driven man, Francesco di Antonio de' Pazzi became obsessed with vengeance against the Medici. His hatred of Lorenzo and Giuliano was not born so much from personal dislike, but of the romantic notion that the Medici - and other new moneyed families - had forced his grandfather to relinquish the position of being a "grande" family in order to take part in the governing of their home city. Francesco's hatred of the Medici overpowered everything in his life, including the fact that he was related to the Medici through marriage. It would be the urgency that Francesco brought to the table of conspiracy that would ultimately be its undoing.