Pazzi Conspiracy

Pazzi Conspiracy

Commemorative medal by Bertoldo di Giovanni, 1478, showing the assassination attempt (Staatliche Münzsammlung, Munich)
Native name	Congiura dei Pazzi
Date	26 April 1478
Location	Duomo of Florence
Also known as	Pazzi Plot
Type	Assassination attempt
Organised by	Pope Sixtus IV Girolamo Riario Francesco Salviati Francesco de' Pazzi
Participants	Giovan Battista da Montesecco Antonio Maffei Stefano da Bagnone Bernardo Bandini Baroncelli Jacopo di Poggio Bracciolini
Outcome	partial failure
Giuliano de' Medici, killed
Francesco Nori, killed
Non-fatal injuries	Lorenzo de' Medici, wounded
Convictions	about 80
Sentence	execution

The Pazzi conspiracy was a plot by members of the Pazzi family and others to displace the de' Medici family as rulers of Renaissance Florence. On 26 April 1478 there was an attempt to assassinate Lorenzo de' Medici and his brother Giuliano de' Medici. Lorenzo was wounded but survived; Giuliano was killed. The failure of the plot served to strengthen the position of the Medici. The Pazzi were banished from Florence.

Francesco della Rovere, who came from a poor family in Liguria, was elected pope in 1471. As Sixtus IV he was both wealthy and powerful, and at once set about giving power and wealth to his nephews of the della Rovere and Riario families. Within months, he had made Giuliano della Rovere (the future pope Julius II) and Pietro Riario both cardinals and bishops; four other nephews were also made cardinals. He made Giovanni della Rovere, who was not a priest, prefect of Rome, and arranged for him to marry into the da Montefeltro family, dukes of Urbino. For Girolamo Riario, also a layman, – and who may in fact have been his son rather than his nephew – he arranged to buy Imola, a small town in Romagna, with the aim of establishing a new papal state in that area.

Imola lay on the trade route between Florence and Venice. Lorenzo de' Medici had arranged in May 1473 to buy it from Galeazzo Maria Sforza, the duke of Milan, for 100,000 fiorini d'oro, but Sforza subsequently agreed to sell it instead to Sixtus for 40,000 ducats, provided that his illegitimate daughter Caterina Sforza was married to Girolamo Riario.