The Montefeltro Conspiracy
By Marcello Simonetta
Doubleday, 2008
Warring states, balance of power, unfettered ambition, shifting loyalties, people with unpronounceable names, coded messages, suicidal assassins, religious orthodoxy, wealthy bankers, torture, spectacular art. Sex!
These are the chief ingredients of this book which validates once again the comforting adage that the more things change the more they stay the same. The players on this stage of late 15th Century Renaissance Italy are flesh and blood people driven by the very same passions that we see today throughout the world, 500 years later. What are these passions? The love of glory, prestige, communion with god, great art, money, and women (and men). There is very little actual virtue to be found in this book, even (or especially) on the part of the reigning pope, Sixtus IV, who is famous today as the driving force behind the Sistine Chapel paintings. Back then he was just another super ambitious tin pot potentate.
The book revolves around Lorenzo de Medici, Florence’s leading financier and its effective ruler who lived from 1449 to 1492. Known during his lifetime as The Magnificent, he was a devoted patron of the arts helping to support such giants as Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, and Michelangelo, among others.
The book begins in 1476, when Galeaza Maria Sforza (1444-1476), the dissolute and self-indulgent Duke of Milan, an incorrigible womanizer, was stabbed to death while attending mass at the Church of St. Stephen in Milan. He decided to go to this mass because he loved the beautiful music of the ducal choir and, perhaps, to ogle the pious young women in attendance. But hardly to do honor to God. He was murdered inside the church by three youths with a variety of grudges against him. They were soon to follow him into the next world at the hands of Galeaza’s obviously ineffective bodyguards.
Galeaza was a close military ally of Florence and his death upset the balance of power among the various city-states on the Italian peninsula, triggering an effort by the pope to extend his temporal power over Tuscany, of which Florence was the capital. He intended to place his 17 year old nephew, Riario, recently elevated to the level of Cardinal, in control of Florence. But first, of course, he had to eliminate the Medici brothers, Lorenzo and his younger brother, Guiliano.
To do this, he gathered a group of hired military men as well as a Florentine merchant family, the Pazzi’s, who were envious and resentful of the greater success of the Medici clan. The chief military plotter was Federico da Montefeltro (1422-1482), the Duke of Urbino, who until very recently was thought to have had no part in the scheme. The plotters expected that once they did away with the Medici brothers, the Florentines would welcome them with open arms as liberators from these tyrants. (Sound familiar?) It did not work out that way at all much to their chagrin as many were horribly butchered on the spot by a hopping mad populace. To their everlasting but short lived surprise, no flowers or candy was tossed at them.
The attack on the Medici brothers took place on Ascension Sunday, in April 1478 during mass at the Duomo, the beautiful main church in Florence. The assassins, two Pazzi brothers, dressed as monks first struck Guiliano who was at the time listening to the Agnes Dei—_Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world”. (He was sitting at the time next to Cardinal Riario, who expected to take control of Florence.) They assigned the murder of Lorenzo at the last minute to two disgruntled local priests who bungled the job, allowing him to escape.
There is much more to this story, of course. The author, Marcello Simonetta, a direct descendent of one of the key players in this murderous soap opera, came upon a long coded letter in 2001 that had never before been deciphered. In that far away time, because diplomatic letters between states sometimes fell into the hands of enemies, they were written in secret codes. Simonetta cracked the code and uncovered a much more extensive scheme involving many more people than had been previously thought.
The plot became much thicker and far more interesting when he found out the message of the secret letter.
By Marcello Simonetta
Doubleday, 2008
Warring states, balance of power, unfettered ambition, shifting loyalties, people with unpronounceable names, coded messages, suicidal assassins, religious orthodoxy, wealthy bankers, torture, spectacular art. Sex!
These are the chief ingredients of this book which validates once again the comforting adage that the more things change the more they stay the same. The players on this stage of late 15th Century Renaissance Italy are flesh and blood people driven by the very same passions that we see today throughout the world, 500 years later. What are these passions? The love of glory, prestige, communion with god, great art, money, and women (and men). There is very little actual virtue to be found in this book, even (or especially) on the part of the reigning pope, Sixtus IV, who is famous today as the driving force behind the Sistine Chapel paintings. Back then he was just another super ambitious tin pot potentate.
The book revolves around Lorenzo de Medici, Florence’s leading financier and its effective ruler who lived from 1449 to 1492. Known during his lifetime as The Magnificent, he was a devoted patron of the arts helping to support such giants as Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, and Michelangelo, among others.
The book begins in 1476, when Galeaza Maria Sforza (1444-1476), the dissolute and self-indulgent Duke of Milan, an incorrigible womanizer, was stabbed to death while attending mass at the Church of St. Stephen in Milan. He decided to go to this mass because he loved the beautiful music of the ducal choir and, perhaps, to ogle the pious young women in attendance. But hardly to do honor to God. He was murdered inside the church by three youths with a variety of grudges against him. They were soon to follow him into the next world at the hands of Galeaza’s obviously ineffective bodyguards.
Galeaza was a close military ally of Florence and his death upset the balance of power among the various city-states on the Italian peninsula, triggering an effort by the pope to extend his temporal power over Tuscany, of which Florence was the capital. He intended to place his 17 year old nephew, Riario, recently elevated to the level of Cardinal, in control of Florence. But first, of course, he had to eliminate the Medici brothers, Lorenzo and his younger brother, Guiliano.
To do this, he gathered a group of hired military men as well as a Florentine merchant family, the Pazzi’s, who were envious and resentful of the greater success of the Medici clan. The chief military plotter was Federico da Montefeltro (1422-1482), the Duke of Urbino, who until very recently was thought to have had no part in the scheme. The plotters expected that once they did away with the Medici brothers, the Florentines would welcome them with open arms as liberators from these tyrants. (Sound familiar?) It did not work out that way at all much to their chagrin as many were horribly butchered on the spot by a hopping mad populace. To their everlasting but short lived surprise, no flowers or candy was tossed at them.
The attack on the Medici brothers took place on Ascension Sunday, in April 1478 during mass at the Duomo, the beautiful main church in Florence. The assassins, two Pazzi brothers, dressed as monks first struck Guiliano who was at the time listening to the Agnes Dei—_Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world”. (He was sitting at the time next to Cardinal Riario, who expected to take control of Florence.) They assigned the murder of Lorenzo at the last minute to two disgruntled local priests who bungled the job, allowing him to escape.
There is much more to this story, of course. The author, Marcello Simonetta, a direct descendent of one of the key players in this murderous soap opera, came upon a long coded letter in 2001 that had never before been deciphered. In that far away time, because diplomatic letters between states sometimes fell into the hands of enemies, they were written in secret codes. Simonetta cracked the code and uncovered a much more extensive scheme involving many more people than had been previously thought.
The plot became much thicker and far more interesting when he found out the message of the secret letter.
Labels: Lorenzo de Medici, Pazzi Conspiracy
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