Why was he called Il Magnifico? Florence Cathedral 4. He was a gifted poet Lorenzo was more than just an astute diplomat and politician out to secure power for himself. Your friendly online guide to Florence and Tuscany. Get our insider travel tips delivered to your mailbox every month.
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Tuscany Itinerary 5 days — See iconic Tuscany in one trip. Lorenzo lead Florence through desperate times, which included wars, conspiracies, financial problems and prickly Papal relations.
He possessed the ability to keep his head in trying circumstances and successfully dealt with ruthless enemies who tried to challenge his power. This event left Lorenzo excommunicated and highly unpopular, but due to his demonstrations of diplomacy, he managed to resolve all of this. He went on to pursuing peaceful policies in order to maintain peace and the balance of power. When the bad harvest of that year threatened the population with disaster, it was Lorenzo who imported large amounts of grain.
Although it was a maxim of Medici policy to retain close ties with the Holy See, relations between Lorenzo and Pope Sixtus were not always cordial. The Pontiff was very displeased when Lorenzo's diplomacy achieved an alliance between Florence, Venice, and Milan, for such a combination was more than a match for the armies of the Church. Sixtus felt thwarted in his ambitions to expand the papal territory and uneasy about the safety of what the Church already held. His hostility grew when he learned that Lorenzo was trying to buy the town of Imola, which was strategically important.
Consequently the Pope agreed to a plot designed to rid Florence of both Lorenzo and his brother Giuliano. The chief conspirators were the Pazzi family, a rival banking house and bitter enemies of the Medici. The plan was to assassinate the two brothers at a moment when their guard would be down, during the celebration of Mass on Easter Sunday, April 26, Giuliano was slain, but Lorenzo escaped with wounds. The people of Florence rallied to the Medici standard and visited a terrible retribution on the hapless conspirators, most of whom did not survive the day.
Among those killed was Francesco Salviato, Archbishop of Pisa. The Pope, enraged, excommunicated Lorenzo and placed an interdict on the city. Lorenzo, knowing that the safety of his city and his dynasty were at stake, undertook the most hazardous adventure of his colorful career.
He went by sea to Naples, virtually placing his life in the hands of the King. Lorenzo, who was still papal banker, refused to finance the purchase. Sixtus sacked the Medici Bank and looked to alternative lenders, including the Pazzi family.
While Lorenzo escaped the killers, there were hard political consequences. The Pazzi Conspiracy threatened to destabilise the entire Italian peninsula, which had been at an uneasy peace for the best part of two decades following the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in As the Medici pursued the conspirators — including Francesco Salviati, archbishop of Pisa — the pope moved against the Medici.
There was a real prospect of war, only avoided by an impressive piece of personal diplomacy in which Lorenzo effectively made himself a hostage of King Ferrante of Naples, persuaded the king into an alliance and, eventually, in March , returned to Florence and to power.
The legacy that is most familiar today is one of patronage. It was at the villa in Careggi where he died on 8 April , regretting that his library was still not finished.
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