58. The Pazzi Conspiracy, Florence, Italy, Easter 1478

Leonardo da Vinci drew this nicely gruesome view of one of the Pazzi conspirators, Bernardo Bandini dei Baroncelli, hanging out of the city hall window, in 1479.

In 1478, in Florence, the banking family of the Medici was very powerful. Very powerful indeed. But another banking family, the Pazzi, were not happy with this.  No, no! They wanted to be more powerful in Florence than the Medici were! So they created A Plan. Well, a few plans, really, but finally  one of the plans was carried out, which was to kill two of the Medici at High Mass in the Cathedral, after which the citizens of Florence were going to say, yay! hoorah! Now the Pazzi will be our leaders! Only they didn’t, and all of the members of the Pazzi Conspiracy got hung from the windows of the city hall, and Lorenzo de’ Medici, who (unlike his brother) had survived the Conspiracy, continued to be Lorenzo the Magnificent.  Michelle is Highly Scandalized by all this.  Highly, I say. 

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