The Tragedies of the Medici Part 5

What had happened was tragically this. Whilst one half of the conspirators was told off to strike the fatal blow, the other half was directed to rally round Archbishop Salviati, who, by the way, made some excuse for not a.s.sisting ministerially at the Ma.s.s, but took up his station close to the north door of the Duomo. Directly they saw Giuliano struck to the ground, they made all haste to the Palazzo Vecchio, and demanded an interview with Messer Cesare de' Petrucci, the _Gonfaloniere di Giustizia_, who had been detained by urgent matters in the Courts.

When Messer Petruccio enquired the nature of their business, the Archbishop replied: "We are come, all the family of Salviati, to pay our respects to the _Gonfaloniere_, as in duty bound." Messer Cesare was at lunch, but, rising from table, he welcomed the Archbishop, who entered the apartment alone. He asked him to be speedy, as he had to join the banquet to the Cardinal di San Giorgio almost immediately.

Salviati said he was the bearer of his family's greetings to the _Gonfaloniere_, and also of a private Brief to him from the Pope. His manner seemed so strange, and his errand so irregular, that Petruccio's suspicions were aroused, and raising the arras, he saw the pa.s.sage was filled with armed men. At once he called the palace guard to arrest the intruders, and caused every door of exit to be locked.

The object, of course, of the Archbishop and those with him was to seize the person of the _Gonfaloniere_ and possess themselves of the Banner of Justice--that they might rouse the citizens to fight in its defence.

On the contrary, the people were for the Medici, and "_Palle!_"

"_Palle!_" prevailed. Noting that the Salviati did not leave the palace, and that the guards had been withdrawn from the gate and every door was bolted, the populace broke into the building, rescued the _Gonfaloniere_, and the _Signori_ with him, and seized the persons of the intruders.

Without more ado they ran the miscreants, Francesco, Giacopo, and Giacopo di Giacopo de' Salviati, Giacopo de' Bracciolini, and Giovanni da Perugia, up to the lantern of the Campanile, and, thrusting their bodies through the machicolations, hung them head downwards! Others of the party and some of the Cardinal's servants, who had accompanied the Archbishop, were flung from the windows.

Cavaliere Giacopo de' Pazzi was neither at the Duomo, nor did he accompany the Archbishop to the Palazzo Vecchio. His part was to await news from Salviati that he had seized the _Gonfaloniere_ and the palace, and then to ride fully armed with a retinue of mercenaries and Montesicco's bodyguard of the Cardinal to the Piazza della Signoria.

Without awaiting the signal he advanced, raising the cry "_Liberta!_"

"_Liberta!_" but none rallied to his side.

Instead, he and his escort were pelted with stones and, on arriving in the Piazza, he beheld the gruesome human decoration of the Campanile.

Without a moment's hesitation, spurring his horse, he rode swiftly towards the Porta della Croce, and set off into the open country--a fugitive!

Francesco de' Pazzi, after the slaughter of Giuliano, escaped to his uncle's house, and stripping himself, received attention to his wound, which was of a very serious nature. He was not, however, left very long in peace, for the cry had gone forth in the streets--"Death to the traitors!" "Down with the Pazzi and the Salviati!" "Fire their houses!"

The sword, still reeking red with the bluest blood of Florence, was swiftly crossed by the sword of retribution. Francesco was dragged forth, naked as he was from his bed, buffeted, pelted, and spat upon, they thrust him with staves, weapons, hands and feet, right through the Piazza della Signoria; up they forced him to the giddy gallery of the Campanile, and then, flinging his bleeding, battered body out among his bloodthirsty comrades, they left him to dangle and to die with them there! The Archbishop, still in his gorgeous vestments, turned in fury, as he hung head downwards in that ghastly company, and, seizing his fiendish confederate, fixed his teeth in his bare breast, and so the guilty pair expiated their h.e.l.lish rage--unlovely in their lives, revolting in their deaths!

Poor Giuliano's corpse was left weltering in his blood, where he had been done to death, outside the choir screen of the Duomo. At length he was picked up tenderly by the good _Misericordia_. His terrible wounds were reverently washed and his G.o.dlike body prepared for sepulture. News of his a.s.sa.s.sination had been swiftly carried out to Careggi, and Domina Lucrezia, bracing herself for the afflicting sight, hastened to lay his fair head in her lap, a very real replica of "_La Pieta_"--Blessed Mary and her Son.

Ah! how she and the women who bore her company wept for the beloved dead. Ah! how with tender fingers they counted each gaping wound. Ah!

how gently they cut off locks of his rich hair, as memorials of a sweet young life.

They buried Giuliano that same evening, with all the honours due to his rank, amid the tears of an immense concourse of people--stayed for a while from their savage man-hunt. To the Medici shrine of San Lorenzo they bore him--the yellow light of the wax candles revealing the tombs of Cosimo and Piero.

"There was not a citizen," says Macchiavelli, "who, armed or unarmed, did not go to the palace of Lorenzo in this time of trouble, to offer him his person and his property--such was the position and the affection that the Medici had acquired by their prudence and their liberality."

Lorenzo came out on the loggia, and addressed the people ma.s.sed in the street. He thanked them for their devotion and a.s.sistance, but entreated them, for his dear, dead brother's sake, to abstain from further atrocities and to disperse to their homes in peace.

Nevertheless, all the Pazzi and Salviati were proclaimed "_Ammoniti_"

and they were pursued from house to house, whilst the peasants took up the hue and cry in the _contado_. Bleeding heads and torn limbs were everywhere scattered in the streets; door-posts and curb-stones were dashed with gore; men and women and the children, too, were all relentless avengers of "_Il bel Giulio's_" blood. It is said that one hundred and eighty stark corpses were borne away by the merciful _Misericordia_ and buried secretly!

Cavaliere Giacopo, who had escaped into the hilly country of the Falterona, near the source of the Arno, was recognised by a couple of countrymen, who were frequenters of the markets in Florence. They seized him and took him to the city gate, where they sold him for fifty gold florins. His shrift was short, for his purchasers, adherents of the Medici, hacked off his head in the street, and carried it upon a pole to the Ponte Vecchio! Buried at Santa Croce, in the chapel of the Pazzi, his mutilated body was not left long in its grave. It was pulled up, denuded of the shroud, and, with a rope tied round the feet, dragged by men and women and even children to the Lung' Arno, and pitched, like a load of refuse, into the dusky river!

Several of the arch-conspirators hid for a while in various places, mostly in convents, but their time came for punishment. The two priests, Antonio and Stefano, were, two days after the tragedy in the Duomo, brought out of the cellars of the _Badia_ of the Benedictines at Santa Firenze, and killed, not swiftly and mercifully, but tortured and mutilated to the satisfaction of the rabble.

Bernard Bandino, after picking himself up at the New Sacristy doors, immediately realised the failure of the conspiracy, and, wise man that he was, put his own safety before all other considerations. He worked his way through the struggling crowd in the Cathedral and got out by the south portal. Luckily enough, the Cardinal's horse had been left tethered by its affrighted groom hard by, so without awaiting news from the Archbishop, he vaulted into the saddle and made off at a hand gallop to the Porta Santa Croce.

With more cunning than Giacopo had shown, he made, not to the Tuscan hills, but to the Tuscan sea, and reached Corneto just in time to board a ship bound for the East, and at the point of weighing anchor. At Galata he went ash.o.r.e and communicated with Sixtus, who sent him a goodly sum of money and sundry Papal safeguards, with his blessing!

There he lay hid for many weeks, but, as luck would have it, one day he came out of his lair in a Turkish divan, and encountered an agent of the Medici, who recognised him, followed him, and charged him before the Pasha. Put in irons by the Sultan's command, communication was made with Lorenzo. An envoy was despatched to Constantinople, to whom the wretch was handed, and, two months after his crimes in Santa Maria del Fiore, his living body was added to the string of stinking corpses, upon the side of the Campanile, which still dangled in their iron chains, betwixt earth and heaven, rained on and withered by the elements, and fed upon by carrion!

All the seven sons of Piero de' Pazzi were banished for life. They seem to have had no very intimate knowledge of the conspiracy; indeed, they were all away from Florence, except the fourth, Renato, and he was beheaded "for not having revealed the plot, he being privy to the treachery of his uncle Giacopo and his cousin Francesco."

Renato, indeed, tried to escape, knowing that he was implicated, although not engaged in the plot, but the garrison of Radicofani discovered him and his hiding-place, and he was despatched under guard to Florence. Giovanni de' Pazzi, Francesco's brother, who had married Beatrice Buonromeo, hid, for a time, in the monastery of Degli Angeli, and then, with his wife, was banished to the castle of Volterra, where he died in 1481. It does not appear that he took any active part in the plot, although his wronging by Lorenzo was the spark which fired the whole conspiracy.

Guglielmo de' Pazzi, the husband of Bianca de' Medici, Lorenzo and Giuliano's sister, was protected by _Il Magnifico_, and allowed to reside in a villa twelve miles outside Florence.

Napoleone de' Franzesi, alone of all the conspirators, effected his escape, but Piero de' Vespucci, father-in-law to "_La bella Simonetta_"--"_Il bel Giulio's_" _innamorata_,--who a.s.sisted him, was sentenced to two years' imprisonment in the Stinche, with a heavy fine.

Giovanni Battista da Montesicco's fate was, perhaps, the only one which excited commiseration, even from the point of view of the Medici. A soldier of fortune, his weapon was at your command, did you but fill his pouch with ducats of Rome or florins of Florence. To him it mattered not whether the adventure partook of romance and espionage, or of intrigue and murder. Unlike many of his profession, he was a religious man, and just. He drew back from his bargain as soon as he had experience of Lorenzo's character, and he refused point-blank to slay him in a spot "where Christ could see him," as he said. It does not appear that he was inside the Cathedral that dread April morning, but remained on watch to see what transpired. On the defeat of the conspiracy he fled, with many more, right out of Tuscany. Agents of the Medici, however, pursued him and, having captured him, dragged him back to Florence. Before the Lords of the _Signoria_ he made confession of what he knew of the conspiracy and of his own part therein. On 4th May, just seven days after the tragedy, he paid the penalty of his misplaced devotion, and he was hanged within the Palace of the Podesta.

Two arch-conspirators are still to be accounted for, Pope Sixtus IV. and Count Girolamo de' Riari! The former never expressed the least regret or concern at the tragic occurrences in Florence, but openly deplored the failure of his scheme to replace Lorenzo by Girolamo. Furthermore, he issued a "Bull," which began: "Iniquitatis filius et perditionis alumnus," and ended by anathema of Lorenzo, whereby he was excommunicated, and all Florence placed under an Interdict!

Moreover, he laid violent hands upon Donato Acciaiuolo, the Florentine amba.s.sador, and, but for the prompt intervention of the envoys of Venice and Milan, would have cast him, uncharged, into the dungeons of the castle of Sant Angelo. The majority of the Florentine merchants in Rome were arrested, their property confiscated, and, to add insult to injury, Sixtus demanded from the _Signoria_ the immediate banishment of Lorenzo. He expressed his keen sorrow for the deaths of the Pazzi and Salviati, his "devoted sons and trusty counsellors." He spoke of the execution of the Archbishop as "a foul murder caused by the tyranny of the Medici," and he put a price upon the head of Cesare de' Petrucci, the _Gonfaloniere di Giustizia_!

As for Count Girolamo, who had, coward-like, kept in the background--he was probably little more than a complacent tool in the hands of the pontiff--he was permitted to leave Florence in the train of the young Cardinal, immediately before the reception of the Interdict. He returned to Rome and abandoned himself to a life of profligacy; his palace became a brothel and a gambling h.e.l.l, and there he lived for ten years, dishonoured and diseased. His retributive death was by the hand of an a.s.sa.s.sin in 1488.

The failure of the plot, whilst it added tremendously to the popularity of the Medici and strengthened still more Lorenzo's position, threw the Pope frantically into the arms of the King of Naples. He persuaded him to join in a combined and powerful invasion of Tuscany. At Ironto the Neapolitan troops crossed the frontier and encamped, whilst the Papal forces moved on from Perugia and Siena.

Lorenzo at once called a Parliament to consider the position, and to take steps for the protection of the city and the defence of the State.

He addressed the a.s.sembly as follows: "I know not, Most Excellent Lords and Most Worshipful Citizens, whether to mourn or to rejoice with you over what has happened. When I think of the treachery and hatred wherewith I have been attacked, and my brother slain, I cannot but grieve; but when I reflect with what eagerness and zeal, with what love and unanimity, on the part of the whole city, my brother has been avenged and myself defended, I am moved not merely to rejoice, but even to glory in what has transpired. For, if I have found that I have more enemies in Florence than I had thought I had, I have at the same time discovered that I have warmer and more devoted friends than I knew....

It lies with you, my Most Excellent Lords, to support me still, or to throw me over.... You are my fathers and protectors, and what you wish me to do, I shall do only too willingly...."

All the hearers were deeply affected by Lorenzo's oration, some indeed shed tears, but all vowed to support him in resisting the enemy at the gate. "Take courage," they cried, "it behoves thee, Lorenzo, to live and die for the Republic!"

At the same time they enrolled a bodyguard of twelve soldiers, whose duty it should be to accompany Lorenzo whenever he went abroad, and to protect him in his palace or at his villas. Doubtless they thought the Pope might resort to further secret measures for the slaughter of his enemy.

Thus ended the terrible "Conspiracy of the Pazzi."

CHAPTER II

IPPOLITO--"_Il Cardinale_."

ALESSANDRO--"_Il Negro_."

LORENZINO--"_Il Terribile_."

_The First Tyrannicide_

"Go at once, ye base-born b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, or I will be the first to thrust you out--Begone!"

These were the pa.s.sionate words of the proudest and most ambitious princess that ever bore the great name of Medici--Clarice, daughter of Piero di Lorenzo--"Il Magnifico," and wife of Filippo di Filippo degli Strozzi--"Il Primo Gentiluomo del Secolo."

They were spoken on 16th May 1527, in the Long Gallery of the Palazzo Medici in Florence, and were addressed to two youths--sixteen and thirteen years old respectively, who shrank with terror at the aspect and the vehemence of their contemner. Clarice was a virago, both in the Florentine sense of man's equal in ability and action, and in the sense of the present day--a woman with a mighty will and endowed with physical strength to enforce it.

The two "b.a.s.t.a.r.ds" were Ippolito, the natural son of Giuliano de'