Lauro Martines, April Blood: Florence and the Plot against the Medici
(London: Jonathan Cape, 2003), 324 pp. ISBN 0224061674
Scholarly works and novels on Medici Florence appear regularly and in great
profusion. In 2002-03 the Medici formed the subject of yet another major
exhibition Magnificenza!, attracting large numbers of visitors in Italy and the
USA. Such books and exhibitions usually focus on artistic achievement under
Medici patronage. Lauro Martines, however, points out in his most recent
work April Blood that: ‘Contrary to popular belief, the genius of Renaissance
Italy was not all spent in art and literature. Quite as much went into politics,
never more so than among the heavyweight politicians of Medicean Florence.’
(p. 51)
Martines’s April Blood deals with an episode of Florentine history, the
bare facts of which would easily make a compelling film: members of the
Pazzi family conspiring against Lorenzo il Magnifico who ruled Florence
without office or title; the murder of Lorenzo’s brother Giuliano in Florence
Cathedral, Lorenzo’s flight into the sacristy; the ensuing bloodbath and near
extinction of the Pazzi. But what made the Pazzi plot against Medici rule?
Why the Pazzi? Were they acting alone? Did they have support from outside
Florence? How did the other powers on the Italian peninsula influence
Florentine politics of the 1470s?
Martines answers these questions in a series of tableaux and profiles.
He gives us the background of the main characters and sets events in the
context of an Italian political scene in which conspiracy and murder were rife.
The events of April 1478 were the result of long-running grievances between
the Medici and the Pazzi, and also between Lorenzo and Pope Sixtus IV
Riario. Lorenzo and Giuliano may even have expected trouble; they were
taking care not to appear in public together. Several assassination attempts
had had to be aborted for this reason. The plotters were becoming
increasingly nervous and impatient. Finally the Cathedral was chosen as the
venue, and although the Count of Montesecco refused to commit murder in a
holy place, the conspirators decided to go on. Two priests were willing to kill
during Mass. Again, Giuliano failed to appear and two of the plotters had to
persuade him to come to church. Once all were assembled, the attack took
place. Giuliano was stabbed to death. Onlookers could scarcely believe their
eyes: afterwards they compared the murder to the dome of the Cathedral
crashing down. Lorenzo and some of his supporters were able to save
themselves, while Archbishop Salviati set out to take over the government
palace. He and his fellow conspirators were arrested and thrown out of the
palazzo’s windows with nooses round their necks. Any who had escaped were
hunted down and speedily executed. The lucky ones were imprisoned or
exiled, while the intercession of Lorenzo’s sister Bianca saved at least her
husband Guglielmo de’ Pazzi who had started to protest his innocence as
soon as the attackers struck. Bloodshed in Florence escalated into the socalled Pazzi War, and ten years later the last living plotter, Count Girolamo
Riario, Lord of Imola and Forlì and a nephew of Pope Sixtus IV, would finally
be murdered, thus completing Lorenzo’s vengeance.
The Medici were the victims of the conspiracy, with little mercy to
hope for should the plot have been successful. However, Martines explains
why the Pazzi were driven to become conspirators and murderers; he presents
the April conspiracy as a direct confrontation between ‘magnate’ Pazzi and
‘upstart’ Medici. The Pazzi were noble, rich and successful, with a string of
businesses in Florence, Rome and outside Italy. They had been heroes at the
time of the Capture of Jerusalem, and had a coat of arms to prove it. Their
relationship with the Medici had been amicable for a long time. As a result the
wedding between Bianca and Guglielmo had taken place, and three
generations of Pazzi held the highest Florentine offices in a Medicean
environment. This only changed when Lorenzo started to regard his Pazzi
relatives as rivals, a view which made it necessary for him to marginalise them
politically and to ridicule them socially. Martines’s Lorenzo is more than an
erudite sponsor of the arts: he was also vain; he lacked scruples; he did not
take sufficient care of the family finances; he embezzled public money; his
political situation was precarious and needed to be reaffirmed regularly. His
success was achieved at the cost of many others.
It is questionable whether the Pazzi would really have gone so far as to
plot an assassination on their own. The events leading up to the attack in the
Cathedral portray them as hapless amateurs rather than strategic thinkers.
Could the April conspiracy have succeeded? The plot itself was good but
there were too many people involved. The notable exception was the
Archbishop, who, like Lorenzo, was unafraid to use any means to achieve his
goal. He was the one to keep his head after the botched attack and to march
on the Palazzo della Signoria, going ahead with the plan as if the first steps
had been successful. In hindsight, the most important mistake was the
conspirators’ assumption that they had the majority of Florentines on their
side.
‘What if ... ?’: Martines is convinced that if the attack had been
successful, this would have meant the end of Medici rule over Florence. He
also asserts that in this case the Florentine Republic would have continued as
before. The first outcome is likely, and would have depended on how
thoroughly the conspirators meant to eliminate any trace of the Medici. Even
if there had been survivors, the Medici had not yet established their Roman
power base in 1478; without Lorenzo this might never have been achieved. As
for the second claim, who can really tell? The Republic might have continued,
as it did even with the Medici biding their time in Rome, but for how long and
under whose guidance? Would Savonarola have played an important role in
Florence without being invited by Lorenzo? The power vacuum left by the
Medici would eventually have been filled, perhaps by Riario rule in Florence.
In this case the Pazzi could have benefited financially, although the Riario
family might have disembarrassed themselves of their tools. Should Florence
have successfully resisted such a take-over, the leading families would have
continued to compete, elections would have been a sham as before, and
eventually one of the members of the Florentine oligarchy (not necessarily the
Pazzi) might have taken the place of the Medici. Possibly, an independent
Florentine state might have continued to exist. But, far more likely, one of the
foreign powers in Italy would have taken over, perhaps as early as 1494 when
French troops passed through Florence, and probably in the sixteenth century
as an episode of the struggle between Hapsburgs and Valois.
Fifty-three years after the conspiracy failed, Alessandro de’ Medici
became ruler of Florence with the Emperor’s backing. He was succeeded in
early 1537 by a relative, Cosimo, who belonged to a cadet branch of the
Medici family, and was only through his mother a direct descendant of
Lorenzo il Magnifico. Cosimo’s mother was Maria Salviati, while his paternal
grandmother was Caterina Sforza, widow of Count Girolamo Riario. Cosimo,
Duke of Florence, was therefore related through both his parents to main
players in the conspiracy of the previous century. Ruthless and ambitious like
all his forebears, he started a new dynasty which proved to be both longlasting and remarkably effective. The surviving Pazzi were rehabilitated days
after the Medici’s forced departure in 1494, and some played a minor role in
sixteenth-century Florentine politics. Their most important descendant was
Santa Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi (1566-1607), buried in the Carmelite church
at Careggi.
Martines’s April Blood is an intriguing book, of great interest to the
educated laity and to the scholarly world. It presents lucidly the results of the
author’s exhaustive research on Florentine history and the Pazzi conspiracy.
The book is a ‘popular’ work, in the sense that Martines’s ‘delightful laity’ will
understand and enjoy it. Readers will find themselves drawn in from the start,
not least by Martines’s distinctive style. The incorrect date of the capture of
Jerusalem in 1099 (p. 62) is probably one of very few inaccuracies; ‘Black
Plague’ is an awkward conflation. The inclusion of both bibliography and
index is much appreciated. So also is the brief apparatus for each chapter.
Nevertheless, the presence of a separate list of manuscript sources in the
bibliography and footnotes would have increased the book’s usefulness to
scholars, while these tools need not spoil the enjoyment of other readers.
However, these points do not detract from Martines’s ability to look at
the events from a new angle, without ever forgetting how these incidents
would have appeared to a Renaissance audience. He reminds us constantly
that in fifteenth-century Florence politics were a favourite pastime. We are
taught how best to rig an election; how to broker dodgy financial transactions;
and how to set up a maze of interrelated companies to protect the family
business. The bloody events of April 1478 as presented by Martines also serve
to rehabilitate the Pazzi to some degree:
Since the historical record has always been stacked against the Pazzi, with events
being seen in the light of the supposed brilliance of the Medici, it seemed to me
proper and almost obligatory to try to restore the balance, all the more so in a time
like ours, when “acts of terrorism”, such as explosive political murders, are likely to
abort rational argument. (p. 254)
The book thus becomes an enquiry into the true identity of the victims; into
the question of opposition to tyranny; and into who has the right or the moral
obligation to define what makes a tyrant. All of which are as important today
as they were in the fifteenth century.
Dr Andrea M. Gáldy
University of Manchester