While the conspirators staged their attack inside the Duomo, Archbishop Francesco Salviati of Pisa and a small band of armed men attacked Florence’s city hall but the Florentines overwhelmed and captured them, according to “Papal Bull: Print, Politics, and Propaganda in Renaissance Rome.” The conspirators had believed the residents of Florence would rise up against the Medici family. Instead, they hanged every one of the killers and co-conspirators they could lay their hands on.
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Since 1434, the Medici family, wealthy bankers, had ruled Florence, with Lorenzo de’ Medici and his brother Giuliano ascending as rulers in 1469, per History and Britannica. Lorenzo was a poet and patron of the arts, supporting Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, among others. But he and his brother had made many powerful enemies along the way, especially the Pazzi family, another influential Florentine dynasty involved in banking, per History On This Day. It wasn’t only the Pazzi family who wanted the Medici brothers dead. Pope Sixtus IV also had issues with them and unofficially backed the plan to murder Lorenzo and his brother.
