The Medici Of Florence Essay Research Paper — страница 4

continued the Medician tradition of patronage of art and scholarship. He as his father before him, was a bibliophile and bought many books for his personal collection and for public libraries his father had built. Piero continued to fund the scholarship of Marsilio Ficino and the Platonic Academy as well as the who’s who in Italian Renaissance artists. The most prominent may have been Fra Angelico. Fra Angelico was making great advances in the painting of the human form. His work was the predecessor of the artists of the High Renaissance, such as, Michelangelo, Bottecelli, Raphael and others who perfected the human form on fresco, canvas and in stone and metals. Soon after Piero’s son, Lorenzo, came of age he began helping his father in every way possible. In 1466 there was a

plot to murder Piero. Not through military force, but through cunning and wit, Lorenzo himself quashed the attempt. It was at this time his father thrust him upon Italy’s political canvas. Piero, seeing his own life coming to an end, immediately sent Lorenzo on a political tour of Italy, not on official visits, but to simply introduce himself to the Monarchs of Northern Italy. Lorenzo was greeted in each nation he visited as if he were a monarch. Lorenzo was so impressive, and reports of his tour were so positive, that upon his return Piero sent him off to Rome to meet the Pope. The regions of Italy were lobbying the Pope for support with attacks to be launched against other regions, Tuscany imparticular. Lorenzo stopped the Pope from participating in any such activity. It was

clear to all that Lorenzo was a gifted politician, and even though he was very young had the poise and charisma of a man twice his age. Under his reign Florence would experience its golden age. But before the golden age there would be a struggle and an attempt to balance the powers in Florence. 10Lorenzo and his war with the Pazzi About ten years into Lorenzo’s rule there was a chain of events that lead to a war between Tuscany and the Papal States. It all began with the Pazzi stealing the Papal accounts from the Medici bank. They did not take the money or hold up a bank, but the Pazzi influenced The Pope, Sixtus IV, to switch his money to their bank. Lorenzo retaliated resulting in an attempt on his life, in which his brother Giuliano, not Lorenzo, was murdered. Machiavelli

recounted the following: April 26, 1478: The murderers being ready, each in his appointed station, which they could retain without an suspicion, on account of the vast number assembled in the church, the preconcerted moment arrived and Bernardo Bandini, with a short dagger struck Giuliano in the breast, who after a few steps, fell to the earth. Francesco de Pazzi threw himself upon Giuliano and covered him with wounds; whilst, as if blinded by rage he inflicted a deep incision upon his own leg. Antonio de Pazzi and Steffano the priest attacked Lorenzo, and after dealing many blows, effected only by a slight incision in the throat; for either their want of resolution, the activity of Lorenzo, who, finding himself attacked, used his arms in his own defense, or the assistance of

those by whom he was surrounded, rendered all attempts futile. They fled. . . . The attempt on Lorenzo’s life and the death of his brother met with immediate and severe consequences for the perpetrators. The assassins expected the city of Florence to rise up in support of them. They could not have been more sadly mistaken. A shopkeeper Luca Landucci recounts the days following in his journal, “[Florence] was up in arms, in the piazza and the Lorenzo de Medici house. And numbers of men on the side of the conspiritors were killed in the piazza, amongst others a priest. . . .The next day they hung [more conspiri11tors including] Jacopo de Pazzi and Renato de Pazzi. . . .some boys disinterred [the body of Jacopo] and dragged it through Florence by the piece of rope that was still

aroud its neck.” It is said that the children played with it for some twenty days then threw it in the river, and the whole of Florence gathered and cheered as they watched the body of Jacopo de Pazzi float away. Over seventy conspiritors met their maker because of the death of one Medici. Not only were many of the Pazzi men killed, but there name was erased from public record, streets once named in their honor were changed, and their family coat was removed from everywhere Florence it once hung proudly. The War then escalated to include the Papal States. It was a fight over Otranto, Tuscany’s gate to the Adriatic and trade to the east. The Papacy went so far as to withdraw from Florence. In this era of increased humanisitic study, there was still nothing that could have