4

THE INVISIBLE HANDS

ROME IN THE LATE FIFTEENTH CENTURY WAS NOT YET THE GRAND CAPITAL FILLED WITH THE GREAT CATHOLIC MONUMENTS THAT ONE ADMIRES TODAY. The ancient ruins were covered with dirt and grass; sheep and goats strolled undisturbed among them. The city was inhabited by hordes of parasites and whores who lived at the expense of the corrupt papal court. It had been no better in the fourteenth century, when Peter’s heirs were exiled to Avignon: then foxes, wolves, and beggars had roamed the streets. The popes were able to govern Rome only when they made deals with the local barons, such as the Colonna and the Orsini families. The Roman populace had in fact welcomed the new pope, Sixtus IV, on the day of his election by stoning him. Reportedly, the papal miter had fallen from his head, a very bad omen. However, in a few months he had learned the ways of Rome and got a solid grip on the city.

Under Sixtus IV, Rome underwent many architectural renovations. It once again became habitable, and the pope did much to improve the sanitary conditions of the city. He brought down water from the Quirinal Hill to the Trevi Fountain. The Sistine bridge connecting the city center to Trastevere was built in 1475, the same year in which the Vatican Library was inaugurated. And the Sistine Chapel was created and painted between 1477 and 1482. Michelangelo, then only a Florentine boy learning the rudiments of sculpture, had not yet set foot in Rome. The early Christian basilica was yet to be replaced with the grandiose St. Peter’s Basilica. The first stone of the new cathedral would not be laid for another thirty years by Sixtus IV’s nephew Pope Julius II. At the Vatican, family ties were extremely helpful.

A FAMILY PORTRAIT

LORENZO DE’ MEDICI’S AGENT IN ROME, BACCIO UGOLINI, had written after the murder of Galeazzo Sforza that “all the people who understand something about state matters think that Italy will be at peace.” Lorenzo replied cuttingly to this optimistic assessment, adding that corruption in the Roman curia was so rampant that nobody could be trusted there: “if it wouldn’t create a scandal, we would rather have three or four popes!” This rather heretical thought was rooted in a recent history of mistrust between the Church and the Medici family, which was feeding into the sourest of political feelings.

In hindsight, the relationship between Lorenzo and Pope Sixtus IV had begun in the most promising way. In August 1471 Francesco della Rovere, general of the Franciscan Order, ascended to St. Peter’s throne choosing the name of Sixtus, the first Church reformer. The Florentines sent a congratulatory delegation headed by the twenty-two-year-old Lorenzo, who returned home bearing expensive antique objects purchased from the papal treasure. The banking heir and the new pontiff got along very well. Lorenzo understood that the pope, despite having come from the ranks of the Order of Poverty and Humility, was very greedy and ambitious, and herein lay potential conflict. The pope’s close family members suddenly found a very convenient vocation for the ecclesiastical career. His nephews, in fact, formed a small army of young, go-getting relatives, all eager to jump at anybody’s (and at one another’s) throat to grab as much money and power as they could. It is no coincidence that the word nepotism (from the Italian nipote, nephew) was coined around this time.

The picture that best captures life at the court of Sixtus IV was painted by the great Melozzo da Forlì around 1475. It portrays the pontiff, sitting at the right, surrounded by four of his nephews and by the kneeling figure of humanist Bartolomeo Platina, the newly appointed Vatican librarian. They are all framed within a perspective of sumptuous marble columns and a decorated ceiling, with a black pillar in the middle.

Sixtus IV is shown in profile, enthroned like a Roman emperor. He enjoys his superb position of power and exhibits his supreme patronage of art and culture, which made him a direct competitor of Lorenzo de’ Medici. The theological godfather thrived in protecting his close family members. Towering in front of the pope, in a red robe, is Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, tall and strong. Another nephew, probably cardinal-to-be Raffaele Riario, is lurking behind his powerful uncle. Behind Platina’s shoulders are Girolamo Riario, Count of Imola, and Giovanni della Rovere, Prefect of the City of Rome. The two nephews on the right half of the painting were clergymen, while the ones on the left were given secular jobs.

Two figures dominate the scene: Cardinal Giuliano and Count Girolamo. They are facing opposite directions, and indeed, in life they competed to lord over the pope’s divided soul. While the cardinal is reverently watching Sixtus, the count is staring intensely at a blank point outside the boundaries of the painting. He is dressed in an elegant blue robe and wears a thick gold chain, hiding his hands inside the large sleeves.

         Melozzo da Forlì, Sixtus IV with his nephews and Vatican librarian Bartolomeo Platina, 1475.

At first, Sixtus had favored neither of them, preferring instead Pietro Riario, Girolamo’s brother. Pietro, shortly after his elevation, became the most decadent cardinal of the time and was secretly nicknamed after the infamous Roman emperor Caligula by courtiers wary of his majestic manners and expensive tastes. He was rumored to furnish his guest rooms with golden chamber pots and to cover the fingers of his many mistresses, who danced naked for him, with diamond rings. The only people Pietro cared about were his loving uncle and his younger brother. When in August 1472 Girolamo returned from his first official visit to Florence, Pietro thanked Lorenzo and Giuliano for their “incredible goodness and true love,” which he claimed “would never fall out of his mind and heart.” But Pietro’s heart and mind collapsed under the excesses of a wildly sinful, unregulated life. As poet Santi put it, after describing the lavish visit he paid to Federico:

The locust well might typify his life:

In youth a friar, but no longer bent

On things of such high import, now he deemed

Himself all but supreme. Yet of his deeds

No record lives in prose or lofty song…

Just as a locust by the sun struck down,

So perished in their prime his fancies vain,

Despite the projects hatched beneath the shade

Of his red hat…

Pietro’s no less ambitious but much more aggressive younger brother took over his role as the pope’s favorite nephew. In 1473 Girolamo acquired the title of Count of Imola, a small city in Romagna southeast of Bologna. In order to achieve this, however, the papacy had to purchase Imola from the Duke of Milan, Galeazzo Sforza. Lorenzo, worried by the papal aspiration to extend control over central Italy, had denied the loan Girolamo required for the purchase. But this had not stopped the pope, who had managed to obtain most of the funds he needed from the Medicis’ rival banking family in Florence, the Pazzi. Federico da Montefeltro, for his part, eagerly promised the final five thousand ducats needed, to make sure he would be on the good side of the deal. As a result, Girolamo’s “invisible hands” grabbed the city of Imola. He also married Caterina Sforza, Galeazzo’s legitimized daughter, to strengthen his ties with the duke. Cicco Simonetta presided over the ceremony in Milan, hoping that this marriage between the Sforza and the papal heir would bring some peace to Italy.

It was wishful thinking. The Church had always been riven with conflicts. With the election of Sixtus IV to the papacy, the turmoil that had beset the papal state during the last decades was growing. The ambitions of the pope and of his aggressive family infuriated local potentates. The Church was unpopular with the people, too: the inhabitants of the cities and villages under the Church’s control in central Italy feared that they would be squeezed by new taxes. Some of the more ruthless warlords exploited these worries in order to claim freedom and independence from the Church.

In 1474, Città di Castello, a prosperous Umbrian town, was one of the first to rebel against ecclesiastical rule. This time Sixtus sent Giuliano della Rovere to punish the insurgents. Although energetic and courageous (he would become known as the Warrior Pope, Julius II, by the end of his life), the cardinal did not have much experience in besieging a city. For months he camped outside the city walls, as the fortified città seemed to be endlessly supplied with ammunition and food. As it turned out, the leader of the antipapal rebellion was secretly being helped by Lorenzo, ever more wary of Sixtus’s intentions to occupy land bordering Tuscany. While Lorenzo perceived the pope’s initiative as an aggressive interference in the control of central Italy, the pope regarded Lorenzo’s actions as an offensive betrayal. Both felt wronged and their alliance was over.

THE HOLY SWORD

WHO WAS CALLED TO SORT OUT THIS MILITARY MESS? Sure enough, the best soldier in Italy, Federico da Montefeltro, Count of Urbino. At the end of July 1474, while in Naples—where he had received the prestigious Collar of the Ermine from King Ferrante as a sign of favor—Federico wrote to Lorenzo that if he wanted to be as pure and innocent as the “candle of the Virgin Mary,” he had better be sincere and find a settlement about Città di Castello, in the name of their friendship and brotherhood. This had been perhaps their last moment of confidence before the upcoming struggles. Federico was still awaiting his late payments from Florence. He had been preparing for some time to leave Lorenzo to his fate of unholy enemy of the Church. The Florentine leader would have to light many candles to the Virgin Mary in the next few years.

Federico signed his letter to Lorenzo as Count of Urbino. But already on August 13, according to a Mantuan ambassador in Rome, he was “awaited like a Messiah.” On August 21, 1474, exactly thirty years after he had become lord of Urbino, Federico was elevated to the title of duke by the pope. That was a truly glorious day for Federico, a lifetime’s achievement. The ancient St. Peter’s Basilica was adorned in imperial style, with triumphal festoons and burning incense. A huge crowd cheered Federico, and a large retinue of Roman barons, ambassadors, and dignitaries welcomed him at court. After entering the cathedral, the Count of Urbino was brought into the pope’s chambers, and surrounded by the College of Cardinals. Sixtus laid the ducal sword on Federico’s shoulders and handed it to him while solemnly stating that he should wield it to fight and crush the Church’s enemies. The “secular nephews,” Girolamo Riario and Giovanni della Rovere, put golden spurs on his feet. Federico grabbed the sword and, extending his arm forward, brandished it three times with great swiftness. Girolamo took back the sword, while Giovanni untied the spurs. Then they gave him a ducal robe of golden brocade and a ducal cap. The pope blessed the kneeling duke. Federico swore eternal loyalty to the Church and finally stood up and kissed the pope’s hands. Sixtus embraced him tenderly, and the new duke was then allowed to sit among the cardinals.

This elaborate ceremony was heavily symbolic, evoking the power of the Church to bestow the weapon of righteousness into the ruthless hands of secular power. The air reverberated eloquently with the clang of trumpets, the drone of bagpipes, and the crash of artillery from Castel St. Angelo, Emperor Hadrian’s mausoleum, which had been turned into a papal fortress and prison. But an accident occurred that spoiled the perfect day. As Federico’s retinue crossed the bridge in front of the castle, a sudden gust of wind broke the two staffs holding up the ducal standards, which plummeted to the ground. This was interpreted as a bad omen, just as had been the papal miter falling from Sixtus’s head on the day of his own election. The next day, however, Giovanni della Rovere’s engagement to Giovanna da Montefeltro, one of Federico’s legitimate daughters, was formalized. Blood sealed what God had determined. On August 31, Federico marched to Città di Castello, where Giuliano della Rovere was still struggling to kick out the rebels. By appearing with his fearsome troops and field guns, the duke provoked the immediate surrender of the city. It is likely that the still fresh memory of the gruesome sack of Volterra persuaded the inhabitants to submit.

But the situation in Città di Castello was very different. In Volterra Federico had fought on Lorenzo’s side and with the pope’s approval. Now that Sixtus was on bad terms with Lorenzo, the duke just “christened” by the pope perceived Lorenzo as a potential enemy he should destroy with his Holy Sword. Lorenzo, for his part, was said to be nurturing a “deadly hatred” for Federico, noticeable through his resentful silence after the ducal promotion, widely considered illegitimate in Florence, and after the shameful demise of Città di Castello. Blowing on the burning coals, Federico sent to Florence Piero Felici, one of his most reliable ambassadors, who had been his envoy to Florence for many years. Sharp-tongued Florentines had nicknamed him after his feline insincerity, coining a saying about the “she-cat who licks you in front, and claws you from behind.”

This renowned agent provocateur, “young in age but old in wits,” asked Lorenzo for a contribution to his duke’s recent campaigns. It was an astute, shameless insolence. Even Giuliano de’ Medici, usually the quiet brother, confided cockily to the Milanese ambassador that the “Count of Urbino” would be repaid in kind. The Florentine Republic firmly refused to make any payment, and Federico promptly recalled his sly diplomat before he could be expelled. Another saying about Federico himself started circulating in the streets of Florence: “Too much humility is really great haughtiness.” Rage and fear among the populace ensued: what if the man who had defended them so effectively in the past now turned against them and attacked?

The Order of the Garter.

The Felici incident happened in October 1474. Federico was then back in Rome, pampered by the pope and the cardinals. He was seen riding in the streets wearing the incredibly elegant outfit with the Collar of the Ermine. Later the same month, in Urbino, Federico solemnly received from Edward IV, King of England, the chivalric Order of the Garter. This exclusive order’s motto, HONY SOYT QUY MAL Y PENSE

(Shame on him who thinks maliciously), ironically fit his situation. While being honored by one of the highest powers in Europe, he was being slighted by a city of lowly merchants. It should have come as a warning sign that on December 30, 1474, when Lorenzo asked Federico if he could borrow a horse for Florence’s joust, the Duke of Urbino replied that he had already lent it to a member of the Pazzi family.

THE PAZZI CLAN

THE PAZZI FAMILY OWNED A BANK IN FLORENCE AND WERE perhaps even more affluent than the heavily indebted Medici. In the 1470s, the family leader was Jacopo Pazzi, famous for his gambling talents no less than for his money-making ability. His nephew Francesco, “small in body but great in spirit,” ran the Roman branch of the bank. They were both extremely ambitious and wanted to replace the Medici as city leaders and as papal bankers.

One man represented the perfect link between all of the Medici enemies. This was Francesco Salviati, related by blood to the Pazzi and by politics to the Riario, the nephews of the pontiff. Salviati came from one of the noblest Florentine families (theirs was older money than that of the Medici). After wasting his patrimony in disastrous investments and dubious activities, he had resorted to a clergyman’s career to pay off his debts. In 1471 he was among the first to latch himself onto the family of the new pope, Sixtus IV. He quickly became part of Cardinal Pietro Riario’s entourage of debauched courtiers, and he was the one who had personally brought to Milan the money lent by the Pazzi to Girolamo Riario for the key purchase of Imola in 1473. In exchange for his services, in October 1474 Salviati was elected archbishop of Pisa. But the pope made this appointment without Florentine approval, which it was customary to obtain. Sixtus had done this deliberately to embarrass Lorenzo, the putative leader of the Republic. If the all-powerful Medici accepted the appointment of Salviati, he would look weak. If he rejected it, he would appear arrogant. Since in politics there is nothing worse than looking weak, Lorenzo chose the latter course, after close consultation with his allies in Milan.

After some frantic diplomatic exchanges in early 1475, Lorenzo sent on a mission to Rome his faithful agent and friend Franceschino Nori along with his brother Giuliano, who needed to be taught the rudiments of Roman politics. Nori reported to Lorenzo that Count Riario could be bought with money and friends, if only Jacopo Pazzi (whose name was encoded in Nori’s letter) “would mind his own business—which was very unlikely.” By this he meant that the rival Pazzi bank was going to fill the pockets of the pope’s nephew with money, in effect making the Medici bank appear useless. Nori and Riario managed to reach a truce about the archbishopric of Pisa, but the threats kept coming at Lorenzo, from inside and outside Florence.

In February 1475, Cicco had issued an alarm, warning Lorenzo to watch out for his personal safety. The Milanese chancellor did so after receiving a confidential dispatch from the Sforza agent in Naples, according to whom Federico had complained about the tax exemption that the Medici bank had been unexpectedly awarded in the whole Kingdom of Naples. The dispatch reported that Federico was not praising the ever ambivalent king, but that he was “supremely sorry” for him, since he thought that his majesty “not only did not have to bow in front of a lowly merchant and citizen like Lorenzo de’ Medici, who was the worst and most dangerous enemy he had there,” but he “better kick him out of Florence or have him cut to pieces.” Federico had added that this would be easy to do since Lorenzo was hated in Florence, considered a tyrant by the largest and best part of the citizens, who did not dare to speak out of fear. But with Lorenzo out of the picture—Federico continued—“they would join their hands to God thanking His Majesty for having liberated them from such a tyranny, and would make them eternally obliged and well-disposed to him.”

When Cicco read these words, he suddenly realized that Federico was serious in his menace. The Duke of Urbino had put his heavy-duty political clout at stake, in an effort to embarrass the “lowly merchant.”

At the same time, Sixtus made a provocative double move: he suddenly replaced the Medici with the Pazzi as the official Church bank, while requesting an official audit for the Medici branch in Rome. This amounted to an open declaration of financial and political war. It was a very big blow for Lorenzo, who complained in a letter to Galeazzo Sforza dated September 7, 1475: “all my troubles derive from the same source, these Pazzi relatives of mine [Lorenzo’s sister had married Guglielmo Pazzi], who are seeking to hurt me as much as they can, both through their own ambition and with the support of the King of Naples and the Duke of Urbino…I will make sure that they do not harm me and I will keep my eyes wide open.”

In the end, Lorenzo had to yield on the ecclesiastical front, and Salviati became archbishop of Pisa in October 1475, a year after his unilateral papal nomination. As he now earned four thousand ducats a year from the richest church of Tuscany outside Florence, Salviati stopped watching his tongue and played a nasty practical joke on Lorenzo. As part of his personal dues to him, in June 1476 he sent along one hundred pounds of rotten fish, accompanied with a mocking note: “If the fish is not worthy of you, nor of my desire and debt, I apologize to you, since fishing is a game of Fortune, and She often does not satisfy our great longings.”

THE CONSPIRACY AND THE CONFESSION

THE GAME OF FORTUNE THAT WAS PLAYED OUT ON DECEMBER 26, 1476, had removed Galeazzo Sforza from the Italian scene. The bloody murder in Milan had set the stage for a new, even more daring plot. Without Galeazzo—Lorenzo’s most reliable ally—Riario, Salviati, and his Pazzi friends quickly realized that this was the time to escalate violence and eliminate their enemy. They believed Lorenzo could not count on Milanese troops as readily as before, assuming that Cicco had a weaker grip on the ducal army. And they had full military support from the Duke of Urbino.

Sometime in the spring of 1477, the archbishop and Francesco Pazzi approached Gian Battista, Count of Montesecco, a town just a few miles south of Urbino. Possibly trained by Montefeltro, Montesecco was a military veteran who had become a loyal soldier to the pope. Imprisoned after the Pazzi conspiracy, he was to be the only plotter to make a full confession. The following account of the events leading up to the conspiracy is taken from a confession written by him, on the morning of May 4, 1478, before he was beheaded in Florence. It has been argued that he had been promised freedom to induce him to be forthcoming, but it is just as likely that, good Catholic that he was, he simply wanted to discharge his conscience before it was too late.

Montesecco recalled having met Salviati in the archbishop’s apartments in the Vatican around May or June 1477. Salviati and Francesco Pazzi had introduced their proposition obliquely. They said they wanted to reveal to him a secret scheme, which they had been thinking about for a long time. First, they had him solemnly swear to keep absolutely silent about it. Then they hinted that a regime change (mutatione de lo stato) was needed in Florence. Montesecco answered that he would do anything they asked, but as he was in the pay of the pope and Count Riario, he could not be part of their plans. They replied that it was unthinkable that they would act without Count Riario’s consent. In fact, they wanted to make the count bigger and stronger, a foil against Lorenzo’s passionate hatred. Montesecco then asked why Lorenzo was so hostile to Count Riario. They gave him a long-winded and vague explanation and left the matter to be settled later.

After a couple of weeks, a second meeting was set, this time in Girolamo Riario’s palace. Montesecco recounted the chilling conversation word for word in his confession:

         

RIARIO: We have a business at hand. What do you think of it?

MONTESECCO: I have no opinion of it, since I have not yet heard enough about it.

SALVIATI: Did we not tell you that we want a regime change in Florence?

MONTESECCO: Yes, you have told me that, but not how. Without knowing the way, I don’t know what to say.

RIARIO: Lorenzo is full of ill-will and hatred towards us. If the Pope were to die, my state would be seriously endangered by Lorenzo. Changing regime in Florence would secure Imola, which he has coveted since the beginning. We need a preventive strike: for this we want to act.

MONTESECCO: And how? With what support?

SALVIATI: The houses of Pazzi and Salviati make up half of the city.

MONTESECCO: All right. But how do you plan to proceed?

SALVIATI: There is no other way than to cut Lorenzo and Giuliano into pieces. First we have to hire the troops and gather them without raising any suspicion. That would be a job well done.

MONTESECCO: My lord, do you realize what you are saying? This is a major undertaking, nor do I know how you can do it, since Florence is a big city and the Magnificence of Lorenzo enjoys a lot of benevolence there, as far as I know.

RIARIO: These people [Pazzi and Salviati] say the opposite! That he has little favor and he is ill-regarded and if the two brothers are dead, everybody will join their hands in thanking God!

SALVIATI: Gian Battista, you have never been to Florence. We know these things better than you—we know what benevolence or malevolence the Florentine people have. Don’t doubt that this business will succeed—true as the fact that we are in this room now. We just have to decide how to do it.

MONTESECCO: Sure. So how can we do it?

SALVIATI: We have to warm up Jacopo Pazzi to the whole thing. Right now he’s as cold as ice. If we have him on board, the deed is just as done.

MONTESECCO: All right. How will the Pope like all of this?

SALVIATI: We will have Our Lord do all we want Him to do. Also, He despises Lorenzo: He desires this more than anything else.

MONTESECCO: Have you spoken with Him?

RIARIO: Yes, for Madonna’s sake! And we will have Him speak to you so you will know His intentions. We just have to figure out how to put together the troops without raising any suspicion, and the rest will work out just fine.

         

Montesecco, though, was still perplexed. Or at least that is how he portrays himself in a later conversation with the pope, Count Riario, and the archbishop, also recorded in his confession:

         

MONTESECCO: Holy Father, these things will hardly be feasible without killing Lorenzo and Giuliano, and perhaps some others.

SIXTUS IV: I don’t want the death of anybody at all. It is not part of my office to consent to somebody’s death. Although Lorenzo is a villain and is behaving badly with us, I would not want his death, but a regime change.

RIARIO: We’ll do what we can so that death does not happen. If it were to happen, Your Holiness will forgive the ones who will have done it.

SIXTUS IV: You are a beast! I’m telling you: I don’t want anybody dead, but just a regime change. And I say to you, Gian Battista, that I am longing for a regime change in Florence, and for Lorenzo to get out of the way, because he’s a villain and an evil man, and he does not respect us at all. And once he is out of Florence, we can do whatever we like with that Republic, and it would indeed be a good thing for us.

RIARIO AND SALVIATI: Your Holiness says the truth, as when you have Florence under Your control and command—and ours—Your Holiness will control half of Italy and everybody will kill to be your friend. So then, be content to see that all that is needed for this purpose will be done.

SIXTUS IV: I’m telling you: do whatever you want as long as nobody gets killed. I will provide any support and military help, or anything that could be necessary.

SALVIATI: Holy Father, are you content that we steer this boat? We will guide it well.

SIXTUS IV: I am content, but preserve the honor of the Holy See and of the count.

         

Immediately after the pope’s vocal request that no one be killed, Montesecco, Riario, and Salviati discussed the matter in the count’s chambers. They concluded that it could not be settled without killing Lorenzo and his brother. When Montesecco objected that the plan was ill-conceived and evil, they replied that great things could not be achieved otherwise. In those same days, Salviati replied to a friend who asked him if he could intervene in some legal tangle of his: “Such proceedings of justice are limited in a way that you cannot pervert their style; in these little legal affairs it does not seem appropriate to make an extraordinary effort.” In other words, law is for the slow and powerless, but one can rise above morality if one has a “higher end.” This is a perfect justification for the hubris that Salviati and Riario needed to rely on in order to devise their murderous plot.

And indeed the good God was being challenged: the pope’s concern with the honor of the Church (and of the count) went to hell. Could Sixtus really be so naïve as to think that the regime change in Florence might occur without killing the Medici brothers? Was the pontiff a puppet in his nephew’s “invisible hands”? Or did he just want to achieve his “higher end” (Lorenzo “out of the way”) without naming the unholy and unjustifiable means? Here is a mystery worthy of the devilish Machiavelli, the first to describe in depth the necessity to ruthlessly “enter into evil” in The Prince, where he called Sixtus “a gutsy pope.” Cosimo de’ Medici’s maxim—“Men cannot govern states with paternosters”—acquires a new, perverse meaning in this context.

With or without Sixtus’s approval, Riario decided to dispatch Montesecco to Florence, so that he could familiarize himself with the city and his target. Sometime in midsummer—while Federico wrote to Cicco trying to alienate him from Lorenzo—Montesecco arrived in Florence. He went to the Medici palace and was received informally by Lorenzo. Lorenzo spoke very affectionately and warmly about Count Riario, who had been “like a father and a brother” to him. (These are the rather improbable words conveyed by Montesecco while being held after the Pazzi coup by the Florentine authorities, when he knew full well that his life depended on Lorenzo’s clemency.) Lorenzo then recommended that Montesecco travel to Imola, to reassure Riario that everything was in order in his city-state.

After the meeting, Montesecco went to the Osteria della Campana, a dingy inn where he would not be recognized. From there he sent a message to Jacopo, the richest member of the Pazzi clan, letting him know that they needed to talk. Jacopo appeared at the inn after dark. They met secretly in a bedroom. Montesecco offered him the greetings of the pope, the count, and the archbishop, showing all of their letters of credentials. At first Jacopo showed some reluctance, but it was easily overcome.

—What do we have to say to each other, Gian Battista? Do we have to speak about the Florentine State?

—Yes, in fact.

—I don’t want to hear you at all. These people are racking my brains, and want to become lords of Florence. I know better than them about these matters. Don’t you speak to me at all, I don’t want to listen.

—I want to impress on you that the Pope, with whom I spoke before leaving Rome, exhorted me to take care of this business of Florence, because He does not know when the next opportunity will happen that can allow Him to keep so many soldiers on the ground; and since waiting around is dangerous, He urges you to do this. His Holiness said he wanted a regime change, not the death of anybody.

There is a bit of a contradiction in Montesecco’s confession at this point. He claims to have reported verbatim the exchange he had with Sixtus IV, Riario, and Salviati. If indeed he had truly been skeptical about the feasibility of the plot, as he later recounted, he could hardly have persuaded the hesitant banker. At any rate, that evening he did not reach any conclusive agreement with Jacopo Pazzi, since Jacopo’s nephew Francesco, without whom nothing could be done, was not in town. Montesecco then went on to Imola, to complete his official mission as Lorenzo had encouraged him to do. He stayed there a few days and on his way back stopped in Cafaggiuolo, the favorite Medici countryside villa, where he met with Lorenzo and Giuliano, under the pretext of reporting about his successful trip to Imola. Montesecco then accompanied the Medici brothers back to Florence—while Lorenzo continued to show off his so-called love for Riario.

Montesecco seemed to be in awe of Lorenzo’s grace and personality. Lorenzo had treated him in a familiar, friendly manner and had seduced him into believing that he would be generous with and helpful to him. One can easily picture the reactions of Count Riario and Archbishop Salviati to Montesecco, who returned hastily to Rome on August 27 and reported his encounter to them fully, unable to hide his sympathies. Riario was not too impressed with Lorenzo’s courtesy. On the spur of the moment, he wrote a letter where love seemed implied, but the exact opposite was meant:

Magnificent Lorenzo.

Gian Battista [Montesecco] came back and conveyed to me what is undoubtedly thought by Your Magnificence. In fact, I am supremely grateful for it. I do not want to thank you through this letter, because I cannot give you anything but words. I have determined that you will see some effects of my actions, through which you will be able to judge how I love you from the goodness of my heart, as your uncle Giovanni [Tornabuoni] will hear day by day. I recommend myself to Your Magnificence. Rome, September 1st, 1477.

Of Your Magnificence                                                                                 Girolamo Viscount
of Riario in his own hand

Riario liked to remain in the shade, but his “invisible hands,” as depicted by Melozzo in his portrait of Sixtus IV’s family, were all the while twisting words and passing deadly, ciphered messages. He certainly showed this little masterpiece of double-talk to Archbishop Salviati, the man who had authored the sardonic letter to Lorenzo accompanying the rotten fish. Now it was fishing time for real: Lorenzo was to become the fish of Fortune.

Before leaving Florence in late August, Montesecco, as he recounted, finally met Francesco Pazzi, and they decided that he would not depart before having reconvened with Jacopo Pazzi. That night Francesco came to pick him up and brought him to Jacopo’s palace. They made a list of things that they needed in order to expedite their business. First, Archbishop Salviati would come to Florence with a good excuse, to avoid raising suspicions. After Salviati’s arrival, they were to determine along with the Pazzi the best way to take action. Second, they created new ciphers, through which they could communicate safely with one another. They had no doubt that with the support of the papal troops and with Federico as a commander-in-chief, their plan would be successful.

THE MONTONE AFFAIR

IN HIS LOVING LETTER TO LORENZO OF SEPTEMBER 1, 1477, Count Girolamo Riario had written that Giovanni Tornabuoni—Lorenzo’s uncle and agent for the Medici Bank in Rome—would report “the effects” of Riario’s own good heart “day by day.” He kept his promise faithfully. The first truly loving effect emerged on September 3, when Giovanni informed Lorenzo that he had officially become an absent defendant in the trial against the citizens of Perugia, who had themselves been charged by a papal official with aiding Carlo of Montone, an anti-Church rebel and Lorenzo’s ally. Carlo offered an excellent pretext for the operation: the plotters decided to lay siege to his citadel Montone—a small Umbrian stronghold only one day’s march from Florence—and to keep the siege going until the business was expedited. The idea was simple: by moving the troops around from camp to camp, one could avoid their being detected by Lorenzo or by the Sforza spies.

Federico da Montefeltro left Urbino in early August 1477 as the captain of this enterprise. He started besieging Carlo’s hometown, but the protracted resistance put up by Montone was somewhat unexpected. Federico was using his famous field guns with painstaking and devastating precision, striking the thick walls of the citadel, to no avail. He was impatient to end the siege—he certainly had more pressing matters to attend to—but he would not leave any unfinished business behind. He had never done so in his long and virtually flawless military career.

Why was Federico in such haste? The best informed person about everything was, not surprisingly, Cicco Simonetta. The Milanese chancellor had been receiving worrisome reports from his Roman agent, Sacramoro da Rimini, who wrote on September 14 a lengthy letter that contains some extraordinary revelations about the ongoing plot. He introduced the information with extreme care, knowing he could not just drop such a diplomatic bomb without corroborating it with considerable evidence: “Your Lordships of Milan seem not to disbelieve what I have expressed about the hostile attitude against Lorenzo de’ Medici etc. Once again, I want you to be certain that every day I become more convinced of such an opinion, and with arguments and evidence which are more than an opinion. Let us leave words aside, since too often the ambassador of the Duke of Urbino keeps just talking and talking.” Sacramoro added that the Urbino ambassador, Agostino Staccoli, was just too excited about the news he was receiving to keep it to himself. That was a serious breach of confidence.

That same night “in great secret” Sacramoro spoke to a Filippo da Montegridolfo, envoy to the pope on behalf of the Lord of Rimini. Sacramoro, who was himself a native of Rimini, had befriended this fellow countryman and colleague. Filippo was in constant contact with the Urbino envoy, Staccoli, and they spent much time talking together. Staccoli had apparently said that “this thing has gone so far already, that if the Duke of Urbino would end his siege of Montone soon enough, he may venture to give a big scare to Lorenzo.” The informant was talking so positively that Sacramoro felt compelled to report this warning to Milan. Filippo da Montegridolfo claimed to have spotted on Staccoli’s desk deciphered letters from Naples to the Duke of Urbino, in which the king was asking Federico to send news about how quickly he could deal with Montone, so that “if he gets it done soon, he can think of trying out the other business. Such business is not specified, unless Filippo interprets it on the basis of these and other circumstances.” Therefore Sacramoro had “immediately communicated to Lorenzo to stay alert and watch himself, and to keep an eye also on the members of his inner circle.”

Although the roundabout spying revelation was hardly understated, the expert envoy Sacramoro customarily deferred to Cicco’s prudence, casting some doubts on his own ability to grasp the situation. Then he went on: “Today I spoke with Count Girolamo and His Holiness, persuading the one and pleading with the other not to trust passionate people.” The Italian word appassionati (whose etymology is rooted in the Latin verb pati, from which the Italian passione and pazzia, madness, come) was in fact a clear, coded reference to the Pazzi clan.

Sacramoro reported having tried to utter in the Roman court the proverb “It is good to show a good face in order not to make other people suspicious, and not to threaten.” To which “Our Lord the Pope replied: ‘very well!’ and so did Count Girolamo. They jointly had me write a very reassuring letter to Lorenzo on this matter. However, I fear that a pretty incident might occur to someone, and even without the Pope’s consent they would go for it, since I believe the goodness and faith of His Holiness and I judge it very well, since He is good and peaceful. But I’m afraid that others (thanks to His goodness) may take advantage of Him and become too bold. Let us keep our eyes wide open!”

An ambassador could barely be more explicit about the threatening tone of the conversation he had just witnessed. In the final page of his dispatch, which was written by a secretary, Sacramoro also attached one postscript in his own hasty handwriting: “Your Lordships have to believe that the attitude of King Ferrante towards Lorenzo is not good, that of the Duke of Urbino is not any better. They do not think of anything else but giving him a severe beating, if only they could.” Nearly frantic with concern, Sacramoro added another telling detail: in Montone “the Duke of Urbino was spending money and more money, up to thousands of ducats,” because he needed to deliver a speedy, convincing victory. In fact, Federico later received a papal reimbursement for some “secret expenses” made at the time of this siege, perhaps money used to bribe somebody inside the citadel into betrayal.

On September 16, when Sacramoro reported that the gathering of so many troops in Montone had raised some alarm in nearby Tuscany, the pope sarcastically replied that Lorenzo should not worry, since his intention was to do nothing different from what had been done in the rebellious Città di Castello in 1474. Indeed, that unfortunate enterprise had been precisely the beginning of their open friction. As Sacramoro wrote in his letter, the pope was still angry about Lorenzo’s betrayal there. Clearly this papal reassurance—which was really a warning—should have made Lorenzo very nervous. The peace of Italy did not appear particularly high on the list of Sixtus’s priorities.

The pope, Sacramoro continued, sought to use all of his clout to punish Carlo of Montone and, “in his own words, to exterminate him!” So much for the Sistine peaceful nature and “His goodness” Sacramoro had prudently mentioned when he was referring to the pope’s Pazzi connections. In the end, Sacramoro went on, ever more ironic, he himself did “not disbelieve that there were some agitators who proposed plots to His Holiness,” but he was probably moving in the only right “direction.” The underlying meaning of these ambiguous phrases was, quite simply, that the pope was claiming to work for peace while acting violently and preparing to wage war.

The cat was out of the bag. In Florence, thanks to the timely revelations of the Sforza spies, Lorenzo was ready to defend himself. Archbishop Salviati, who left Rome on September 11, arrived in Florence via Pisa on the seventeenth, carrying a formal protest against Lorenzo: he should not have been involved in the Montone affair. (The Italian verb impacciarsi [to involve oneself] might be another coded reference to the Pazzi clan.) In their official response of September 18, Lorenzo and some Florentine officials wrote, not without a hint of mockery, that they by no means would ever oppose “any deliberation or enterprise worthy of the Vicar of Christ and of the Christian Shepherd.” The pope, surely, could not be involved in any violent enterprise. Bypassing Archbishop Salviati, the papal nuncio, Lorenzo for now had managed to corner Sixtus: to preserve his religious authority and theological integrity in the face of this smart insolence, the pope could only absolve Lorenzo of his alleged friendship with Montone, enemy of the Church. He wrote him an official pardon to that effect.

Federico’s attack on Montone, after eight weeks of heavy bombardment—and possibly some bribery—was finally bearing fruit. His five-year-old son, Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, arrived at the camp just in time to see his father’s triumph, which was meant to be a good lesson and a promising omen for the young heir. (Antonio, Federico’s illegitimate son, was a successful mercenary captain, but could not inherit his father’s title.) In those same days, Federico received counsel from an astrologer of Gubbio, who prophesied not only that he had a “very hard job at hand, besieging a well-defended town amply provided by nature or art,” but that even greater challenges awaited him in the near future. Superstitious as he was, Federico understood that the time was not ripe to attack Florence. In fact, Carlo of Montone had left his town just before Federico’s troops stormed it and quickly rode with his soldiers to Florence. There, he lodged in the Casa de’ Martelli, a few steps from the Medici palace. Carlo and his men in effect became Lorenzo’s unwitting bodyguards. Ironically, all the maneuvering designed to weaken the Medici had made them stronger.

As Montesecco would later put it in his confession, the plotters had “decided to let the Medici brothers be until the next occasion.” This holdup did not please Girolamo Riario, the pope’s nephew, who was the invisible architect of the plot. Baccio Ugolini, the Florentine poet, actor, and spy based in Rome, reported to Lorenzo in a confidential letter of October 6 that “Riario had said there was no news.” This, for Count Girolamo, meant bad news. He must try to revive his plan. And he knew he could count on the eager help of the Duke of Urbino. Ugolini added in code that this was the time to “move the pawn” and try to turn the pope against Federico by persuading Sixtus that in the affair of Città di Castello the Duke of Urbino had not been blameless: “that affair has been the origin of all the subsequent conflicts, and in such a way we would kill two birds with one stone by taking a huge weight off our shoulders and putting it on the other’s.” Ugolini closed his letter with an enigmatic, semi-ciphered postscript: “Your Magnificence will hear from Messer Rodolfo [Gonzaga, a mercenary soldier loyal to Lorenzo] some words that the Pope said…about King Ferrante and the Duke of Urbino that I did not want to write down.”

Ugolini had some understanding of the Montone affair, but he was unable to elaborate a viable defense plan. In a letter of October 25 he went on to suggest that, since the time of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Count Riario had been asked to do all he could to compete with Federico da Montefeltro in matters of military condotte and that a private rupture had occurred between the two, who were in fact “forced to be friends.” The strategy to follow in Rome, suggested Ugolini, was to pitch Riario against the Duke of Urbino. This could not hurt, because if the Count fell for it, they would gain “a good help,” and if he did not, at least they would know on which side he actually stood. But even as Lorenzo’s man knew enough to blame Federico for past and present dangers, the Duke of Urbino, too, kept his experienced eyes wide open.