Magnifico (42 page)

With Giuliano now accounted for, everything was in place. As the priests chanted and the choir filled the air with angelic strains,
*
Giuliano found a spot before the altar some twenty to thirty yards away from Lorenzo. The crowd was so thick that neither was able to see the other. Francesco de’ Pazzi and Bernardo Bandini stood behind Giuliano, while Bagnone and Maffei stood similarly arrayed behind Lorenzo, their hands gripping the hilts of the daggers they had hidden beneath their robes.

It was now 11:00 in the morning. The assassins waited tensely for the agreed-upon signal—the chiming of the bell that preceded the Elevation of the Host.
†
In anticipation of this most solemn moment the crowd had grown still and silent. The little bell rang clear beneath the wide stone arches and the priest began to intone the formula
accepit panem in sanctas ac venerabiles manus suas
(“he took bread into his holy hands”). An instant later four steel blades flashed in the dim light.

BERNARDO BANDINI WAS THE FIRST TO HIT THE MARK,
plunging his sword into Giuliano’s chest, shouting, “Here traitor!” Staggering backward, Giuliano was struck again, now by Francesco de’ Pazzi who continued to slash at him with his dagger even as he fell to the ground. So furious was Francesco’s attack that he wounded himself in the thigh with his own blade. Giuliano received nineteen wounds, the majority of them delivered by Francesco.

At the same moment the two priests came up behind Lorenzo. One of them—it is not recorded if it was Maffei or Bagnone—grabbed him by the shoulders as if to steady himself before delivering the blow. This was the kind of amateurish blunder Montesecco would never have made. Lorenzo broke free from his assailant. Wrapping his cloak about his left arm he parried the next blow and, drawing his own sword, quickly beat back the two attackers. Within seconds Lorenzo’s friends had closed ranks around him and hurried him in the direction of the New Sacristy, whose heavy bronze doors would provide a means of defense.
*

By now all was chaos. The large crowd pushed, shoved, stumbled, and trampled as men and women tried to make their way toward the exits. Few had seen what actually happened but ignorance merely increased the panic. The crowd grew even more frantic when someone began to shout that the dome was collapsing, a rumor easily accepted since to Florentines it seemed that Brunelleschi’s structure had been supported more by black magic than sound engineering. Of the assassins, only Bandini kept his wits about him. Seeing that the two priests had bungled their assignment he sprinted across the apse to catch the fleeing Lorenzo. It was Francesco Nori who turned to face the assailant, but he proved to be no match for Bandini, who ran him through the stomach with his sword. In sacrificing himself, Nori delayed Bandini just long enough for Lorenzo and his friends to reach safety. As Nori, mortally wounded, was dragged bleeding into the sacristy, Lorenzo and his friends squeezed inside. Poliziano managed to bolt the bronze doors just ahead of the onrushing Bandini.

Within the space of a few minutes the cathedral was nearly deserted. Cardinal Raffaele had collapsed in a heap by the High Altar, where he remained until he was escorted to the Old Sacristy by two of the cathedral canons who had bravely kept to their posts while everyone else bolted for the doors. There he remained, pale and trembling, until taken into custody by officers of the Eight.

The four assassins had fled with the crowd. Bandini was quickly through the city gates and galloping along the dusty roads as fast as his horse would carry him. Francesco de’ Pazzi, bleeding profusely from his thigh, hobbled the few blocks to the Pazzi palace, where he threw himself into bed, paralyzed as much by his despair over the disastrous turn of events as by his injuries. Quickly disappearing into narrow alleys surrounding the cathedral were the two priests, Bagnone and Maffei, whose ineptitude had spared Lorenzo’s life.

Inside the sacristy, Lorenzo’s friends anxiously tried to determine the extent of his injuries. He had only one visible wound, a wide gash on his throat received when Lorenzo had deflected the initial blow with his arm. Though the cut was only superficial, Antonio Ridolfi, fearing that the priest’s blade had been poisoned, sucked out the wound and spat the blood on the pavement. Alternating between fear for the safety of his family and rage at the unprovoked attack, Lorenzo called out repeatedly for any news of Giuliano. Only when the limber Sigismondo della Stufa climbed up to the choir loft was the sad truth discovered. Finding a perch on della Robbia’s frieze of dancing cherubs he found the nave deserted but for the crumpled body of Giuliano dead beside the altar.

It was not long before a loud banging on the door and the sound of familiar voices signaled the arrival of friends. The door was unbolted and, surrounded by a protective cordon of armed men who shielded him from the sight of Giuliano’s disfigured corpse, Lorenzo made his way from the empty church and out into the equally deserted streets of the city. Poliziano was not spared the gruesome sight of his dead friend: “Going out through the church towards home myself,” he recalled, “I did come upon Giuliano lying in wretched state, covered with wounds and hideous with blood. I was so weakened by the sight that I could hardly walk or control myself in my overwhelming grief, but some friends helped me to get home.”

Meanwhile, a second drama was playing itself out only a few blocks away. Francesco Salviati, along with Poggio Bracciolini and his escort of about twenty Perugian soldiers, had exited the cathedral only minutes before the attacks, intending, he claimed, to visit his ailing mother. But instead of heading toward the Salviati palace he and his men made straight for the Palace of the Priors, less than a quarter mile from the cathedral along one of the city’s main thoroughfares. It was Salviati’s job to seize this vital seat of government while his colleagues went about their bloody business in the Duomo.

Upon arriving at the palace, Archbishop Salviati confronted one of the guards and demanded an immediate audience with the
Gonfaloniere di Giustizia
, announcing he was on “very secret business” from the pope. Salviati was told that the head of state was currently dining with the other members of the
Signoria
and would attend him shortly. As Salviati and Bracciolini were led into a second-floor room to await the head of state, their armed escort seemed to melt away into the mazelike warren of rooms behind them. It was during these minutes of agonized waiting that Salviati’s nerve failed him completely. Everything about the situation spelled disaster. The building itself, for all its opulence, must have felt like a prison, its thick walls and massive doors meant to foil any attempt at insurrection. The Perugian soldiers who had accompanied him were in fact already trapped inside the chancellery, a room equipped with a lock that could only be opened from the outside—just one of many precautions taken by the building’s architects, whose ideas of interior design had been shaped by centuries of civil unrest.

Luck this day seemed to be with Lorenzo rather than the unfortunate archbishop. Lorenzo was singularly fortunate in the man currently serving as the head of state: Cesare Petrucci was not only entirely devoted to the Medici family but had already faced a similar crisis a few years back as the Florentine
Podestà
during the revolt of Prato. (See Chapter IX.) At a critical juncture in that earlier revolt he had faced down the rebels and helped turn the tide in favor of Florence; he was unlikely to lose his cool in the current situation.

When Petrucci entered the room, Salviati’s extreme agitation immediately aroused the
Gonfaloniere
’s suspicions. Salviati stammered out something about the pope and his son, but his speech was so garbled that Petrucci could barely make out what he was saying. When Salviati shouted for his men to come and seize the
Gonfaloniere
, Petrucci rushed from the room, running straight into Jacopo Bracciolini, who was waiting in the hallway. Before Bracciolini could unsheathe his sword, Petrucci grabbed him by the hair and threw him to the ground. By now the commotion had alerted the palace guards, who came running to help. They quickly seized both Bracciolini and the archbishop, who was slightly injured in the scuffle. Meanwhile the Perugians had broken through the chancellery doors. Soon the clash of swords could be heard ringing through the hallways as the palace guard did battle with the intruders. Even the servants rushed to help, grabbing spits from the kitchen and any other makeshift weapon they could lay their hands on.

After a few minutes of confusion in which the battle hung in the balance, the palace staff managed to overwhelm the Perugians and secure the building. Still fearing an assault from outside, Petrucci, along with the other Priors and those men not assigned to guarding the prisoners, climbed to the fortified galleries on the top floor, where they barricaded themselves against attack. Petrucci ordered the tolling of the great bell in the tower, alerting the citizens that their government was in danger and that they should assemble in the square below.
*

It was not long before those defending the palace heard the clamor of marching men. Friend or foe, they wondered? The answer came quickly as the cry
“Popolo e Liberta!”
rose from the surrounding streets. About sixty armed men poured into the piazza led by old Jacopo de’Pazzi on horseback, who raised the ancient cry of Florentine revolution. Approaching the palace—which they hoped by now was in the hands of Salviati and his Perugians—they found the doors barred against them. They tried to force their way inside, but Jacopo and his men were quickly scrambling for their lives as lances, stones, and other heavy objects rained down on their heads, a pretty good indication that Salviati and his companions had failed to take their objective. For some minutes the Pazzi patriarch kept up a brave show, wheeling about on his horse and calling on the people of Florence to rise up against their oppressors. At first, Jacopo’s exhortations were met with stony silence, but then the response came, faintly at first but growing louder with each passing minute:
Palle! Palle!
More joined the chorus as Medici partisans gained their courage and their voice. Soon the cry went from street corner to street corner, drowning out the feeble
Popolo e Liberta!
†
Turning his horse back into the narrow streets Jacopo made his way toward home. Here he was met by his brother-in-law Giovanni Serristori, who confirmed his worst fears: all attempts to rouse the people of Florence had been in vain. Realizing all was lost, Jacopo—no doubt cursing his nephew who had gotten him into this fix—fled the city by the gate nearest the church of Santa Croce.

Thus the most concerted effort to topple Lorenzo and his regime was over almost as soon as it began. As Jacopo himself had prophesied, lack of popular support doomed the rebels’ cause. Such opposition as there was to Lorenzo and his government was scattered, disorganized, and demoralized. Nor had the conspirators done anything to rally support among old-line republicans. Men like Alamanno Rinuccini may have secretly prayed for a violent overthrow of the tyranny they believed Lorenzo had imposed on the city, but they would not lift a hand, or endanger their necks, to help. Rinuccini’s epitaph on the Pazzi family is revealing: “[A]nd so for the most part ended the great attempt to transform the state, begun by the family of the Pazzi; whom, to tell the truth, showed themselves to have a spirit both manly and generous, and not being able to tolerate the many injuries and indignities at the hands of Lorenzo de’ Medici; but although the undertaking to liberate their fatherland was just and honest, nonetheless it amounted to little, but for the ruination in the space of a few days of one of the most noble, richest, and most powerful families.” Had the men now facing the hangman’s noose learned of Rinuccini’s secret admiration they would have derived little comfort from it.
*

No matter how compelling the message, the Pazzi were the wrong messengers. They represented no legitimate alternative to Medicean rule in Florence but, as their compatriots well knew, and as even Rinuccini implies, they were proud, disdainful men whose enmity toward the Medici stemmed from personal grievance rather than a love of freedom. Worse, the Pazzi always looked to their own interests first and to the pope’s second. Neither cause was one that any Florentine would lay down his life for. Had they managed to kill both brothers, and had Salviati seized the seat of government, it is likely that the coup would have succeeded, at least in the short run; a confused and traumatized people might well have acquiesced for a time in a fait accompli. But even had all gone as planned, Salviati and Francesco de’ Pazzi would not have been acclaimed as heroes. The vast majority of their compatriots would revile them as traitors who had handed the state over to foreign occupation. How long would Florentines tolerate papal garrisons on their territory, and how long could those lifted to power on their shoulders hope to maintain themselves against an angry populace? With Lorenzo still alive and with the resourceful Petrucci showing his mettle, almost all chance of a success was gone. The one glimmer of hope remaining to the conspirators was that the 1, 500 or so troops marching toward the city under the banners of Giovan Francesco da Tolentino and Federico da Montefeltro—these latter led in person by Lorenzo Giustini—would be able to storm the city gates before forces loyal to the Medici could organize.

From the Medici’s vantage point on the Via Larga, the first hours following the attack in the Duomo were filled with anxiety and confusion. Lorenzo himself had little time to dwell on his loss, busy as he was trying to stave off disaster: “Neither his wound nor his fear nor his great sorrow for his brother’s death prevented Lorenzo from overseeing his affairs,” wrote Poliziano. Amid the uproar of his household, Lorenzo dashed off a brief note to Bona, Duchess of Milan:
*

Help from that quarter would take days to arrive. In the meantime, Lorenzo prepared for the worst. Poliziano recalled the chaotic scene at the Medici palace: “There, armed men were everywhere and every room resounded with the cries of supporters, the roof rang with the din of weapons and voices. You saw boys, old men, youths, clergy and laymen all arming themselves to defend the Medici house as they would the public welfare.”