It is Easter Sunday, April 26, 1478. The city is gathered in prayer in the Cathedral. When the priest raises the host, the signal goes off. Two daggers strike suddenly. Giuliano de' Medici falls under a barrage of stab wounds. His brother Lorenzo, the main target, escapes the fatal blow and takes refuge in the sacristy. He is wounded but alive. It is the "Pazzi Conspiracy."
Florence, in those years, was the beating heart of the Renaissance, a rich, cultured, and powerful city. Formally a republic, but real power rests with the Medici, a very important banking family. The Pazzi, an ancient banking family and rival of the Medici, refuses to remain in the shadows. A broader network of interests coalesced around them, as Medici Florence had become a rich and powerful player in the Italian political landscape: their allies, Pope Sixtus IV and the King of Naples, Ferdinand I, along with other Italian states, approached the Pazzi to pit them against the Medici, who were close to Sforza Milan and had the geopolitical goal of maintaining the balance of power in Italy. A conspiracy was therefore hatched to reshape the peninsula's political balance, with the Pazzi positioned as executors. The plan was to eliminate Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici simultaneously, take control of the city, and present themselves as liberators.
While the assassination was taking place in the Duomo, elsewhere in the city, Archbishop Francesco Salviati attempted to occupy the Palazzo della Signoria, but the coup failed. Jacopo de' Pazzi rode through the streets shouting "freedom." But the city did not follow him; instead, it sided with the Medici. Within hours, the conspiracy turned against its own perpetrators, and vengeance was swift. The conspirators were captured, hanged from the windows of the Palazzo della Signoria, and dragged through the streets. In total, dozens paid with their lives.
Lorenzo the Magnificent survived and, from that moment on, became the very symbol of Florence. The conspiracy's failure strengthened the very thing it sought to destroy. Support for the Medici grew, opposition was crushed, and the city rallied around its lord.