Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim
Speaker 1: and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised.
Speaker 2: Quick reminder before we start. This episode is part two
Speaker 2: of a two part series on the Pozzi conspiracy, so
Speaker 2: if you haven't listened to last week's episode, you should
Speaker 2: probably start there. The conspiracy to kill Lorenzo de Medici
Speaker 2: and his brother Juliano was in full motion. Girolimo Pozzi
Speaker 2: and Salviati had enlisted the help of the Captain Monteseco,
Speaker 2: and once the Pope gave his tacit wink of approval,
Speaker 2: things were moving ahead full speed, with the men gathering
Speaker 2: troops and making their plans. Monteseco went to Florence twice
Speaker 2: to help prepare for the assassination, first to meet with Lorenzo,
Speaker 2: and then to meet with Yacopo de Pazzi, the Pozzi
Speaker 2: family patriarch, to ensure that he was fully on board.
Speaker 2: The problem with Monteiceco meeting with Lorenzo de Medici was
Speaker 2: that Medici was actually a very lovely host. Monticeco found
Speaker 2: himself charmed by the humble and generous man that he
Speaker 2: knew in a few short months he would be tasked
Speaker 2: with sinking a dagger into like Monticecco had been. Yakapo
Speaker 2: de Pazzi was hesitant at first when approached with the
Speaker 2: plan to take down the Medici. He understood all too
Speaker 2: well how powerful the Medici family was, how well liked
Speaker 2: they were in Florence, how razor thin the margin for
Speaker 2: error was in an assassination in which they would need
Speaker 2: to kill both Lorenzo and Giuliano. The irony was the
Speaker 2: Medici finances were precarious. Poe was almost certainly aware that
Speaker 2: should they choose to wait him out, Lorenzo would be vulnerable,
Speaker 2: possibly even over in a few years. But the thing
Speaker 2: about young men is they want the glamour of violence
Speaker 2: and action. No one becomes a hero waiting for loans
Speaker 2: to default. So once the conspirator's minds had been made
Speaker 2: up that it would be a tyrant's death, they were
Speaker 2: committed to their plan with a fervor that no logic
Speaker 2: or patience would penetrate. In the end, Yakopo came around
Speaker 2: and promised to help with the plan when the time came,
Speaker 2: probably because he understood that they were going to do it,
Speaker 2: whether or not he supported them, and if they failed,
Speaker 2: he and the entire Potzi family would be ruined. Anyway,
Speaker 2: the stakes were high, and it was time to pick
Speaker 2: a side for the Potzi They were betting on themselves.
Speaker 2: I'm Danish Schwartz and this is noble blood. The logistics
Speaker 2: of planning the dual assassination would prove to be challenging
Speaker 2: because Lorenzo and Giuliano de Medici were rarely together in
Speaker 2: the same place, and when they were, they were well guarded.
Speaker 2: But the conspirators had an idea. Pope Sixtus the Fourth
Speaker 2: had just appointed another of his nephews, a seventeen year
Speaker 2: old named Raphaeli, as a cardinal. The new cardinal would
Speaker 2: need to be celebrated, and so, as a sign of
Speaker 2: false goodwill, a gesture of pretending to mend fences between
Speaker 2: the Medici and the Pope, Geralimo wrote to Lorenzo de
Speaker 2: Medici and suggested that Medici might want to invite the
Speaker 2: young new cardinal to his estate and hold a banquet
Speaker 2: in his honor. The banquet would be a perfect cover
Speaker 2: because the dinner being in the young cardinal's honor meant
Speaker 2: that his retinue of papal loyalists and family members would
Speaker 2: have an excuse to be there. Meanwhile, men from Perusia
Speaker 2: and surrounding regions had begun to sneak into Florence so
Speaker 2: that they would be ready to help lead the revolutionary charge.
Speaker 2: When the assassinations had finally been carried out, the dinner
Speaker 2: was set up. Lorenzo was there, unguarded and without armor,
Speaker 2: but something was wrong. The conspirators looked around. Where's uh Giuliano,
Speaker 2: someone probably asked casually, Is he coming soon?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Giuliano would not be coming that evening. He was in
Speaker 2: bed with an attack of sciatica, which meant that the
Speaker 2: assas asassination was off. If they couldn't get both of
Speaker 2: the Medicis in one fell swoop, it would never work.
Speaker 2: The conspirators met out on the back patio to come
Speaker 2: up with an emergency contingency plan. Lorenzo would be hosting
Speaker 2: a dinner the next night, but every minute they waited
Speaker 2: was another minute that could compromise their plan. Their soldiers
Speaker 2: were already infiltrating the city, and Medici's spies were everywhere.
Speaker 2: Sooner or later the Medici would hear about the plot
Speaker 2: to assassinate them and destroy them all. Giuliano might not
Speaker 2: even be at dinner the next night. Time was running
Speaker 2: out and they needed to act quickly. It was too
Speaker 2: late to back out, and tomorrow night might be too
Speaker 2: late to carry out the assassinations. Instead, they would attack
Speaker 2: tomorrow morning, April twenty sixth, forteen seventy eight. It was
Speaker 2: a Sunday, the Sunday before Ascension Day, and Lorenzo and
Speaker 2: Giuliano would both be at Mass. It was a holy day,
Speaker 2: and so there would be throngs of people there. The
Speaker 2: assassins would be able to squeeze their way through the
Speaker 2: crowd and kill both brothers as they were praying in
Speaker 2: the cathedral. At this point, Monteseco bulked. He had been
Speaker 2: hesitant from the beginning for logistical reasons, but now the
Speaker 2: thought of stabbing a man on a holy day in
Speaker 2: church was a bridge too far. It's also possible that
Speaker 2: by this point he sort of liked Lorenzo de Medici,
Speaker 2: and so he was out. He wasn't going to go
Speaker 2: through with the assassination, and so they replaced him. Two
Speaker 2: priests who didn't have monte Seco's Christian qualms were brought
Speaker 2: in to do the deed in his place. The next morning,
Speaker 2: Lorenzo de Medici arrived early to the Cathedral of Santa
Speaker 2: Maria del Fiori, standing in the shadow of the magnificent
Speaker 2: red brick dome, the miracle of engineering masterminded by Brunelleschi
Speaker 2: only a few decades prior. At this point, it was
Speaker 2: the largest dome since the Pantheon in Rome, which had
Speaker 2: been constructed out of a concrete whose formula had been
Speaker 2: long since lost to history. The final piece of Brunelleschi's dome,
Speaker 2: a copper ball done by Verocchio to be placed atop
Speaker 2: the lantern, had only been done in fourteen sixty nine,
Speaker 2: less than a decade earlier. At this point, ever, the
Speaker 2: attentive host, when Lorenzo heard that the teenage cardinal, the
Speaker 2: man of Honor, Cardinal Raphaeli, had actually come to his
Speaker 2: home expecting them to go to Mass together. Lorenzo returned
Speaker 2: home so that he and Cardinal Raphaeli could come back
Speaker 2: to the cathedral together arm in arm. The delay gave
Speaker 2: the assassins the upper hand more time to establish the
Speaker 2: scene and get into position. They were ready. Two priests
Speaker 2: for Lorenzo and for Giuliano Francesco de Pazzi, and another
Speaker 2: assassin named Bandini. Archbishop Salviati would go to the palace
Speaker 2: of the Signoria, the town hall now known as the
Speaker 2: Palazzo Vecchio. Jacobod Pazzi would ride throughout the city to
Speaker 2: try to rally Florentine citizens to their side. They were
Speaker 2: ready for the moment of truth, but once again the
Speaker 2: assassins found themselves looking around. Giuliano was nowhere to be found.
Speaker 2: I'm sure Pozzi looked around, maybe tried to act casual
Speaker 2: as he asked asked people around him, where's Giuliano. Giuliano
Speaker 2: was still sick in bed. He wanted to come to
Speaker 2: Mass that morning, but he just didn't seem up to it.
Speaker 2: Pozzi was determined to get him there. Frantic realizing that
Speaker 2: time was running out, he raced the palace where Giuliano
Speaker 2: was lying in bed. Pozzi begged him to come to
Speaker 2: Mass that morning for the sake of their distinguished guest,
Speaker 2: the young cardinal. I'll carry you if I have to,
Speaker 2: he joked. He walked with Giuliano all the way back
Speaker 2: to the cathedral, joking and smiling all the way. It
Speaker 2: seems you've been eating well, Giuliano, Pozzi said, patting the
Speaker 2: Medici brother's stomach. Really, he was feeling to see if
Speaker 2: Giuliano was wearing any protection. He wasn't. The cathedral was
Speaker 2: crowded that day, and the assassins waited nervously for the
Speaker 2: signal they had agreed upon. The two priests were behind
Speaker 2: Lorenzo and Pozzi and the assassin Bandini were primed to
Speaker 2: take down Giuliano. Finally, a bell rang in the church,
Speaker 2: signaling the elevation of the host. It was the signal.
Speaker 2: Bandini was the first to stab, plunging his knife deep
Speaker 2: into Giuliano. Pozzi began stabbing him in the chest once
Speaker 2: he fell, so crazed with rage and adrenaline that Giuliano's
Speaker 2: body would have nineteen total stab wounds. Allegedly, Potzi was
Speaker 2: stabbing so frantically that he stabbed himself in the leg.
Speaker 2: By mistake, Giuliano's servants, in their fear and confusion, had
Speaker 2: abandoned him, scrambling away to safety. The two priests had
Speaker 2: tried to stab Lorenzo, but they lacked the experience that
Speaker 2: Monteseco would have brought. One of the assassins grabbed at
Speaker 2: Lorenzo's sleeve, thinking that he would turn toward him. Instead,
Speaker 2: Lorenzo spun around the other way, whirling his cape and
Speaker 2: drawing his own sword to fight off the assassins. The
Speaker 2: assassin only managed to get a scratch on him before
Speaker 2: Lorenzo's friends jumped into action behind him and helped protect
Speaker 2: Lorenzo as he raced toward the security of the high altar.
Speaker 2: One of Lorenzo's friends was stabbed fatally in the stomach.
Speaker 2: As the assassins tried desperately in vain to follow their target,
Speaker 2: it was chaos in the cathedral, screaming and shouting. Someone
Speaker 2: cried that Bruno Leeshi's dome, that miracle of physics, was
Speaker 2: collapsing above them. Lorenzo and a small group of his
Speaker 2: friends managed to secure themselves behind the heavy bronze doors
Speaker 2: of the sacristy. One of Lorenzo's friends began sucking at
Speaker 2: the shallow wound the assassin had managed to make on Lorenzo,
Speaker 2: sucking and then spitting the blood onto the floor in
Speaker 2: case the assassin's blade had been poisoned. Where is Giuliano,
Speaker 2: Lorenzo said, where is my brother? Is my brother safe?
Speaker 2: Where is Juliano? No one answered. The people had stampeded
Speaker 2: out of the cathedral, The room was silent. One member
Speaker 2: of Lorenzo's group of friends was able to climb the
Speaker 2: organ loft so that he could look down at the
Speaker 2: scene to make sure that more enemies weren't waiting outside
Speaker 2: the bronze doors. He saw Giuliano's body, covered in blood,
Speaker 2: lying on the floor. Lorenzo's friends surrounded him a human
Speaker 2: shield on their way out of the cathedral, not to
Speaker 2: protect him from assassins, but so that Lorenzo wouldn't have
Speaker 2: to see the mangled body of his little brother. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: Archbishop Salviati and yakapod Pazzi were trying their best to
Speaker 2: uphold their side of the revolution, attempting to take control
Speaker 2: of the Palazzo Vecchio and rally the people. On a horse,
Speaker 2: Yakapo de Pazzi rode through the streets trying to rally
Speaker 2: the people. People and liberty. He shouted, people and liberty.
Speaker 2: He tried to start a chant, but the people of
Speaker 2: Florence were silent. And then their answer came softly, a
Speaker 2: murmur from the crowd that became a shout. Polly, They said, Polly.
Speaker 2: They repeated it, and it became louder, Polly, Polly. It
Speaker 2: drowned out yakapod Pazzi's words. Polly, Polly Pollay is ball
Speaker 2: the simbull on the Medici sigil. In almost no time,
Speaker 2: Lorenzo's men had the upper hand at the Palazzo Vecchio.
Speaker 2: The assassination attempt had succeeded in killing one out of
Speaker 2: two of its targets, but this was an all or
Speaker 2: nothing game. They had failed and there would be hell
Speaker 2: to pay. What the conspirators hadn't quite grasped was how
Speaker 2: unpopular they were and how terribly their message would be received.
Speaker 2: Lorenzo de Medici didn't even really need to do anything.
Speaker 2: The people of Florence were outraged at these foreign invaders,
Speaker 2: these traders who came in with thugs from foreign territories
Speaker 2: into their city, who killed their golden Prince, Giuliano. There
Speaker 2: was outrage at Lorenzo and the media family at the time.
Speaker 2: There were people in Florence who saw them as tyrants.
Speaker 2: But as historian Miles Unger wrote, quote, no matter how
Speaker 2: compelling the message, the Pazzi were the wrong messengers. These
Speaker 2: conspirators were mad at the Medici for their own selfish,
Speaker 2: petty reasons. They were the wrong harbingers of revolution. They
Speaker 2: weren't there to free Florence from oppression. They were there
Speaker 2: to get rid of a guy who had been thwarting
Speaker 2: their own personal political ambitions. And they were more loyal
Speaker 2: to the Pope than they were to Florence. And the
Speaker 2: people saw that there was a writer in Florence named
Speaker 2: Alamano Renuccini. A year after the assassination attempt, he would
Speaker 2: write a book called on Liberty, in which you would write, quote,
Speaker 2: it shames me, indeed, who was born in this city
Speaker 2: and in this age, to see the people who once
Speaker 2: dominated most of Tuscany, as well as regions nearby, led
Speaker 2: about in circles by the whim of this one youth
Speaker 2: referring to Lorenzo de Medici. He was not a Medici fan.
Speaker 2: He had been there during the assassination, and even he
Speaker 2: preferred to protect his own neck rather than join in
Speaker 2: the Pozzi conspiracy. And the consequences of that failed conspiracy
Speaker 2: were incredibly grisly. The men captured at the Palazzo Vecchio
Speaker 2: were hanged from the window. Archbishop Salviati was still in
Speaker 2: his vestimens. The mob took care of justice, quite literally,
Speaker 2: ripping the Pozzi men to pieces and piling the body
Speaker 2: parts on Lorenzo's doorstep as a tribute, along with piles
Speaker 2: of weapons and other provisions they gathered as a sign
Speaker 2: of strength and solidarity Lorenzo. When he had recovered from
Speaker 2: his shock, Polo lightly greeted the Florentine citizenry and assured
Speaker 2: them that as grieved as he was for his brother,
Speaker 2: he would be strong enough to carry on with state affairs.
Speaker 2: He thanked them for their support and for his life,
Speaker 2: and told them there was no need for violence. Quote.
Speaker 2: I commend myself to you, he said from a second
Speaker 2: story window. Control yourselves and let justice take its course.
Speaker 2: Do not harm the innocent. My wound is not serious.
Speaker 2: End quote. It was a nice thought, but it didn't
Speaker 2: do much to reign in the mob. Lorenzo de Medici
Speaker 2: was able to protect a Pozzi brother in law and
Speaker 2: have him merely banished from Florence, and he was able
Speaker 2: to protect the teenage Cardinal Rafaeli, who hadn't actually been
Speaker 2: involved in the plan at all, aside from being unwitting bait,
Speaker 2: but for everyone else well. The historian Harold Acton describes
Speaker 2: what happened next as a quote orgy of mutilation, bodies
Speaker 2: hanged from windows like Christmas ornaments, heads bobbed down the
Speaker 2: streets on pikes. One member of the Pozzi family tried
Speaker 2: to escape the town dressed as a beggar, but he
Speaker 2: was recognized and hanged. Old Yakapo da Pazzi, the patriarch
Speaker 2: of the family, who knew all along it had been
Speaker 2: a mistake, almost made it out, and when he was
Speaker 2: captured by guards, he tried to bribe them with gold
Speaker 2: to just kill him then and there. Once again, his
Speaker 2: instincts were right, because the guards refused, and when they did,
Speaker 2: he was dragged naked by a horse through the square.
Speaker 2: And after Yakapo da Pazzi was tortured and hanged, he
Speaker 2: was buried. But then it started raining and people thought
Speaker 2: that they were being punished for burying a trader on
Speaker 2: consequented ground, so he was dug up and buried again
Speaker 2: near the city wall. Then he was dug up again
Speaker 2: by a group of boys who dragged his corpse around
Speaker 2: the city and tied his head to the doorbell of
Speaker 2: his former home, the old Potzi mansion, which of course
Speaker 2: would be raised and looted. They sang dirty songs about
Speaker 2: him and finally threw his body into the Arno River.
Speaker 2: It's difficult to imagine a plan to try to regain
Speaker 2: power going worse. The Patzis weren't just beaten, they were demolished.
Speaker 2: All of the Potzi symbols were destroyed from the city,
Speaker 2: and any Potzi left were forced into exile or forced
Speaker 2: to change their names. Anyone even married to a Patzi
Speaker 2: wouldn't be allowed to hold office. Eventually, every conspirator was
Speaker 2: tracked down and killed, with the exception of Juralima, that
Speaker 2: Lord of Immola, the nephew of the Pope, who had
Speaker 2: made sure to keep himself actually out of physical harm's
Speaker 2: way by not being in the city at the time
Speaker 2: of the actual assassination. But even he would be killed
Speaker 2: a few years later in an apparently unrelated assassination scheme.
Speaker 2: But everyone else was hunted down and eliminated. The two
Speaker 2: bumbling priests who had botched lorenzo stabbing made it to
Speaker 2: a monastery, but eventually even the monks realized that they
Speaker 2: had to give them up in order to assuage the
Speaker 2: mobs outside. When Montesecco was captured, he gave a full confession,
Speaker 2: which might be why he got a slightly more dignified
Speaker 2: death than public hanging. He was beheaded in the courtyard
Speaker 2: of the Bargello, which had been a prison and is
Speaker 2: now a lovely sculpture museum. The final conspirator caught was
Speaker 2: actually the one who made the first strike, Bandini, the
Speaker 2: assassin whose stab had taken down beautiful young Giuliano de Medici.
Speaker 2: Bandini had made it all the way to Constantinople, but
Speaker 2: even he couldn't escape his fate. He was arrested by
Speaker 2: Sultan Mohammed the Second and at the request of the
Speaker 2: Florentine ambassador, who happened to be a Medici cousin, he
Speaker 2: was returned to Florence, where he was hanged from the
Speaker 2: window of the Bargello, still wearing his Turkish outfit. Why
Speaker 2: had they kept him in his costume, his cap and
Speaker 2: vest and turquoise jacket. Well, it sent a message, no
Speaker 2: matter how far you run, to Constantinople or beyond, you
Speaker 2: can't escape the Medici. After the dust had cleared and
Speaker 2: the blood had been swept from the streets, there was
Speaker 2: still the business of private mourning to be done. Lorenzo
Speaker 2: was breathed at the loss of his brother Giuliano, But
Speaker 2: there was one small glimmer of hope and of joy.
Speaker 2: After Juliana's death, Lorenzo learned that his brother, ever the Playboy,
Speaker 2: had actually fathered an illegitimate child just a few months old.
Speaker 2: Lorenzo would see that the child was educated alongside his
Speaker 2: own children, and while Giuliano had never been made a cardinal,
Speaker 2: his son was, And that illegitimate son, whose father was
Speaker 2: killed with the tacit approval of the Pope, would eventually
Speaker 2: go on to become the Pope himself, Clement the seventh.
Speaker 2: That's the story of the Pazzi conspiracy. But if you
Speaker 2: want to hear a little bit more about one a
Speaker 2: list cameo in the saga, stick around after a brief
Speaker 2: sponsor break. If you were interested in how we knew
Speaker 2: so much about Bandini's hanging as in what exactly he
Speaker 2: was wearing, it's because there was an artist who just
Speaker 2: happened to be there taking notes. Though the artist did
Speaker 2: draw the hanging body, he seemed to be more interested
Speaker 2: in the exotic constantinople clothing Bandini was wearing than the
Speaker 2: grotesquery of the execution itself. The artist described in his
Speaker 2: notes that Bandini wore a quote tawny cap, black satin vest,
Speaker 2: turquoise blue jacket lined with fox. The journal that the
Speaker 2: artist wrote in is still at the Louver. But the
Speaker 2: artist was actually from Florence, Well, he was from a
Speaker 2: small town nearby Vinci. The artist's name was Leonardo. Noble
Speaker 2: Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild
Speaker 2: from Aaron Manke. Noble Blood is created and hosted by
Speaker 2: me Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and researching by Hannah Johnston,
Speaker 2: Hannah Zwick, Mira Hayward, Courtney Sender, and Lori Goodman. The
Speaker 2: show is edited and produced by Noemi Griffin and rima
Speaker 2: Il Kahali, with supervising producer Josh Thain and executive producers
Speaker 2: Aaron Manke, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts.
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