The Pazzi Plot

I just learned today about The Pazzi Plot. This is a key event in Florentine and Papal history. Don’t you just love the word ‘papal’? I do. Pope Sixtus IV is the pope in question and the year was the fateful year of our Lord, 1478 (Leonardo DaVinci’s time). Some of these jokers thought that they had enough of the Medici’s running Florence, so decided to kill them during the most sacred part of the most sacred mass: The blessing of the host, Easter Mass (The POPE is a main partner behind this, remember). When the holy bells rang two priests tried to stab Lorenzo De Medici. They got a scratch in before he could escape to the sacristy. Unfortunately, his brother is brutally murdered right there in church. The Pazzi family guy, and the archbishop (a nephew of Pope Sixtus) go parading through the streets declaring “Freedom!” braveheart style, assuming they were successful. Soldiers loyal to the Medici’s let them into the Medici Palace as if they were conquerors. And then they locked the doors from the outside, and slaughtered the bastards. So the Medici’s political power was not harmed, and perhaps even hightened, and lots of people died to keep it that way. I love it! There is something about showing what bad, evil people those damned Popes (and other Christians and/or Catholics) were that really gets me going. There is actually a term for them: “Renaissance Popes.” It makes me wonder if all that assuredly unholy activity is truly over and done with. How will the new Pope be chosen when the current one kicks the bucket? The process will not be wholly Holy, I can tell you that.