Pazzi | |
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Current region | Tuscany |
Place of origin | Republic of Florence |
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The Pazzi were a powerful family in the Republic of Florence. Their main trade during the fifteenth century was banking. In the aftermath of the Pazzi conspiracy in 1478, members of the family were banished from Florence and their property was confiscated; the family name and coat-of-arms were permanently suppressed by order of the Signoria.
The traditional story is that the family was founded by Pazzo di Ranieri, first man over the walls during the Siege of Jerusalem of 1099, during the First Crusade, who returned to Florence with flints supposedly from the Holy Sepulchre, which were kept at Santi Apostoli and used on Holy Saturday to re-kindle fire in the city. [1] [2] : 131 The historical basis of this legend has been in question since the work of Luigi Passerini Orsini de' Rilli in the mid-nineteenth century. [1]
The first apparently historical figure in the family is the Jacopo de' Pazzi il Vecchio who was a captain of the Florentine (Guelph) cavalry at the battle of Montaperti on 4 September 1260, and whose hand was treacherously severed by Bocca degli Abati , causing the standard to fall. [3] His son Pazzino di Jacopo de' Pazzi was a Black Guelph and a follower of Charles de Valois. [3]
Andrea di Guglielmo de' Pazzi (1372–1445) was a banker and merchant. In 1429 he commissioned construction of the Pazzi Chapel in the Franciscan church of Santa Croce in Florence. [4] His son Jacopo de' Pazzi became head of the family in 1464. [2] : 131
Guglielmo di Antonio de' Pazzi married Bianca de' Medici, sister of Lorenzo de' Medici, in 1460; [3] Cosimo de' Pazzi , the sixth of their sixteen children, became archbishop of Florence in 1508. [5]
Francesco de' Pazzi was one of the instigators of the Pazzi conspiracy in 1477–78. He, Jacopo de' Pazzi and Jacopo's brother Renato de' Pazzi were executed after the plot failed. [2] : 141
Raffaele de' Pazzi was a condottiere; he died at the Battle of Ravenna in 1512. [6]
Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi (1566–1607) was a Carmelite nun and mystic; [7] : 218 she was canonised in 1669. [8] : 149
Early in 1477, Francesco de' Pazzi, manager in Rome of the Pazzi bank, plotted with Girolamo Riario, nephew and protégé of the pope, Sixtus IV, and with Francesco Salviati, whom Sixtus had made archbishop of Pisa, to assassinate Lorenzo de' Medici and his brother Giuliano to oust the Medici family as rulers of Florence. [2] : 131 Sixtus gave tacit support to the conspirators. [9] : 254 The assassination attempt was made during mass in the Florence Cathedral on 26 April 1478. Giuliano was killed; Lorenzo was wounded, but escaped. [9] : 254–255 Salviati, with mercenaries from Perugia, failed in his attempt to take over the Palazzo della Signoria. [2] : 138 Most of the conspirators were soon caught and summarily executed; five, including Francesco de' Pazzi, were hanged from the windows of the Palazzo della Signoria. [2] : 140 Jacopo de' Pazzi, head of the family, escaped from Florence, but was caught and brought back. He was tortured, then hanged from the Palazzo della Signoria next to the decomposing corpse of Salviati. He was buried at Santa Croce, but the body was dug up and thrown into a ditch. It was then dragged through the streets and propped up at the door of Palazzo Pazzi, where the rotting head was mockingly used as a door-knocker. From there it was thrown into the Arno; children fished it out and hung it from a willow tree, flogged it, and then threw it back into the river. [2] : 141
The Pazzi were banished from Florence, and their lands and property confiscated. Guglielmo de' Pazzi, husband of Lorenzo's sister Bianca, was placed under house arrest, [2] : 141 and later forbidden to enter the city; he went to live at Torre a Decima, near Pontassieve. [5] The family name and coat-of-arms were perpetually suppressed by decree of the Signoria. The name was erased from public registers, and all buildings and streets carrying it were renamed. Their shield with its dolphins was obliterated. [2] : 142 Anyone named Pazzi had to take a new name; [9] : 256 any man married to a Pazzi was barred from public office. [2] : 142 Customs and traditions of the family were suppressed, among them the Easter Saturday ritual involving the flint from Jerusalem. [2] : 142
After the overthrow of Piero de' Medici in 1494, members of the Pazzi family were able to return to Florence. [5]
The Pazzi Chapel in the Franciscan church of Santa Croce in Florence was commissioned by Andrea di Guglielmo de' Pazzi in 1429. [4] It was designed by Filippo Brunelleschi. [10] [lower-alpha 1] Construction began in 1442 in a cloister of the church, and continued after the death of the patron in 1445 and the architect in 1446; work was interrupted by the Pazzi plot and the chapel was never completed. [11] : 107 [4]
Palazzo Pazzi or Palazzo Pazzi-Quaratesi was the main seat of the family in the "Canto dei Pazzi", at the intersection of Borgo degli Albizi and via del Proconsolo . It was commissioned by Jacopo de' Pazzi, and built circa 1462–1472 to designs by Giuliano da Maiano. Above its traditionally rusticated ground floor of yellow-ochre sandstone, it had a then-novel stuccoed first and second floor, with delicate designs in the windows influenced by Brunelleschi. The central court is surrounded on three sides by round-headed arcading, with circular bosses in the spandrels.[ citation needed ]
Palazzo Pazzi Ammannati (or Palazzo Pazzi dell'Accademia Colombaria) is a smaller palace in the Borgo degli Albizi, between Palazzo Ramirez de Montalvo and the Palazzo Nonfinito. It houses a section of the Museum of Natural History of Florence, and hosts temporary exhibitions. The façade is attributed to Bartolomeo Ammannati.[ citation needed ]
The House of Della Rovere was a powerful Italian noble family. It had humble origins in Savona, in Liguria, and acquired power and influence through nepotism and ambitious marriages arranged by two Della Rovere popes: Francesco Della Rovere, who ruled as Sixtus IV from 1471 to 1484 and his nephew Giuliano, who became Julius II in 1503. Sixtus IV built the Sistine Chapel, which was named after him. Julius II was patron to Michelangelo, Raphael and many other Renaissance artists and started the modern rebuilt of St. Peter's Basilica. Also the Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome was the family church of the Della Rovere. Members of the family were influential in the Church of Rome, and as dukes of Urbino, dukes of Sora and lords of Senigallia; the title of Urbino was extinguished with the death of Francesco Maria II in 1631, and the family died out with the death of his granddaughter Vittoria, Grand Duchess of Tuscany.
Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici, known as Lorenzo the Magnificent, was an Italian statesman, the de facto ruler of the Florentine Republic, and the most powerful patron of Renaissance culture in Italy. Lorenzo held the balance of power within the Italic League, an alliance of states that stabilized political conditions on the Italian Peninsula for decades, and his life coincided with the mature phase of the Italian Renaissance and the golden age of Florence. As a patron, he is best known for his sponsorship of artists such as Botticelli and Michelangelo. On the foreign policy front, Lorenzo manifested a clear plan to stem the territorial ambitions of Pope Sixtus IV, in the name of the balance of the Italian League of 1454. For these reasons, Lorenzo was the subject of the Pazzi conspiracy (1478), in which his brother Giuliano was assassinated. The Peace of Lodi of 1454 that he supported among the various Italian states collapsed with his death. He is buried in the Medici Chapel in Florence.
The Pazzi conspiracy was a failed plot by members of the Pazzi family and others to displace the Medici family as rulers of Renaissance Florence.
Francesco de' Pazzi was a Florentine banker, a member of the Pazzi noble family, and one of the instigators of the Pazzi conspiracy, a plot to displace the Medici family as rulers of the Florentine Republic. His uncle, Jacopo de' Pazzi, was one of the main organizers of the conspiracy.
The Salviati family is an old and historical Italian noble family, rooted in the Republic of Florence.
Francesco Salviati was the archbishop of Pisa from 1474 to 1478. He was one of the organisers of the Pazzi conspiracy, a plot to displace the Medici family as rulers of the Florentine Republic; he was executed after the failure of the plot.
Pietro Dandini was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active mainly in Florence.
Antonio Francesco Gori, on his titlepages Franciscus Gorius, was an Italian antiquarian, a priest in minor orders, provost of the Baptistery of San Giovanni from 1746, and a professor at the Liceo, whose numerous publications of ancient Roman sculpture and antiquities formed part of the repertory on which 18th-century scholarship as well as the artistic movement of neoclassicism were based. In 1735 he was a founding member of a circle of antiquaries and connoisseurs in Florence called the Società Colombaria, the predecessor of the Accademia Toscana di Scienze e Lettere la Colombaria, to foster "not only Tuscan Poetry and Eloquence, or one faculty only; but almost all the most distinguished and useful parts of human knowledge: in a word, it is what the Greeks called Encyclopedia".
Piazza Santa Croce is one of the main plazas or squares located in the central neighbourhood of Florence, in the region of Tuscany, Italy. It is located near Piazza della Signoria and the National Central Library, and takes its name from the Basilica of Santa Croce that overlooks the square.
Bernardo Rucellai, also known as Bernardo di Giovanni Rucellai or Latinised as Bernardus Oricellarius, was a member of the Florentine political and social elite. He was the son of Giovanni di Paolo Rucellai (1403–1481) and father of Giovanni di Bernardo Rucellai (1475–1525). He was married to Nannina de' Medici, the elder sister of Lorenzo de' Medici, and was thus uncle to Popes Leo X and Clement VII, who were cousins. Oligarch, banker, ambassador and man of letters, he is today remembered principally for the meetings of the members of the Accademia Platonica in the Orti Oricellari, the gardens of his house in Florence, the Palazzo Rucellai, where Niccolò Machiavelli gave readings of his Discorsi.
Gentile de' Becchi was an Italian bishop, diplomat, orator and writer. He was a member of the Platonic Academy of the Medici of Florence and tutor of Lorenzo the Magnificent and his son Giovanni de' Medici, later Pope Leo X. Of his writings there exist many letters, poems in Latin, and prayers which are praised by historian Cecil Grayson as his finest works.
Bianca Maria di Piero de' Medici was a member of the de' Medici family, de facto rulers of Florence in the late 15th century. She was the daughter of Piero di Cosimo de' Medici, de facto ruler of the Florentine Republic, and sister of Lorenzo de' Medici, who succeeded his father in that position. She married Guglielmo de' Pazzi, a member of the Pazzi family. She was a musician, and played the organ for Pope Pius II and the future Pope Alexander VI in 1460; she was a landowner.
Medici is a historical drama television series created by Frank Spotnitz and Nicholas Meyer. The series was produced by Italian companies Lux Vide and Rai Fiction, in collaboration with Spotnitz's Big Light Productions. The series follows the House of Medici, bankers of the Pope, in 15th-century Florence. Each season follows the events of a particular moment of the family's history exploring the political and artistic landscape of Renaissance Italy.
Bernardo Bandini Baroncelli was a Florentine merchant and a protagonist in the Pazzi conspiracy, a plot to remove the Medici family from power in Florence.
Jacopo de' Pazzi was a Florentine banker who became head of the Pazzi family in 1464, and the younger child of Andrea de' Pazzi and Costanza de' Bardi. He commissioned Palazzo Pazzi between 1462 and 1472. Stefano di Ser Niccolo da Bagnone served as a secretary to Jacopo and tutor to his daughter Caterina. He was killed alongside his nephews Francesco and Renato after the failed Pazzi conspiracy, which was a plot to remove the Medici family from power in Florence.
Andrea di Guglielmo de' Pazzi was an Italian politician of Republic of Florence, known for having commissioned the Pazzi Chapel from Filippo Brunelleschi and for being the father of Jacopo de' Pazzi and the grandfather of Francesco and Guglielmo de' Pazzi.
Guglielmo di Antonio de' Pazzi, Lord of Civitella was an Italian nobleman, banker and politician from the Republic of Florence. He was also husband of Bianca de' Medici, sister of the Lord of Florence Lorenzo the Magnificent.
Renato di Piero de' Pazzi was an Italian politician and banker by Republic of Florence, who died in the riots that followed the failure of the Pazzi conspiracy against the Medici family.
Stefano da Bagnone was an Italian presbyterian, known for having taken part in the Pazzi conspiracy against Lorenzo de' Medici.