Pazzi
The Pazzi were an old Tuscan aristocratic family who had made their fortune in Florence in the 14th century with banking.
history
Andrea de 'Pazzi commissioned Brunelleschi's Franciscan chapter house at the Church of Santa Croce , which is now called the Pazzi Chapel .
The Pazzi, however, are best known for their involvement in the Pazzi conspiracy that aimed to assassinate Lorenzo il Magnifico and his brother and co-regent Giuliano di Piero de 'Medici . As rivals of the ruling Medici , the Pazzi wanted to replace them as the de facto rulers of Tuscany together with Girolamo Riario , a nephew of Francesco della Rovere, who was Pope Sixtus IV .
The assassination took place on April 26, 1478, but only Giuliano fell victim to it. Lorenzo survived and had all the conspirators killed. Another hundred men lost their lives simply because they were distant relatives. Others languished in prison or had to go into exile. The ledgers were confiscated and the Pazzi properties sealed. But this was not enough for Lorenzo and he enforced humiliating laws: all Pazzi still free had to discard their name and family crest and choose new ones. If a Florentine married a descendant of the Pazzi, he automatically lost his eligibility. Thus he made it practically impossible for the women of the Pazzi family to marry a man. Lorenzo even had the coins minted by the Pazzi family melted down and streets were renamed. This is how the Medici wanted to demonstrate their superiority. He only wanted to see the conspirators immortalized in one place: on the walls of the Palazzo della Signoria. There, portraits of bankrupts and criminals have been painted on the walls since time immemorial in order to make them the mockery of their fellow men. Lorenzo's commission to paint the Pazzi conspirators on the walls as lifelike as possible went to Sandro Botticelli.
The surviving Pazzi returned from 1494 after Lorenzo's death (April 8, 1492) and were even rehabilitated. From the once proud and powerful family, however, only artistic buildings remained, because Lorenzo had all portraits of the Pazzi destroyed after the assassination.
The canonized ecstatic Carmelite Maria Magdalena de Pazzi (1566–1607) also belongs to the Pazzi family .
coat of arms
The coat of arms shows two turned golden heraldic dolphins on a blue background, which is studded with pointed golden crosses, the arms of which end in shamrocks .
family members
- Francesco de 'Pazzi (1444-1478)
- Vieri de 'Pazzi (1454-1478)
- Maria Magdalena von Pazzi (1566–1607)
- Jacopo de 'Pazzi (1423-1478)
literature
- Tobias Daniels: La congiura dei Pazzi: i documenti del conflitto fra Lorenzo de 'Medici e Sisto IV. Le bolle di scomunica, la “Florentina Synodus”, e la “Dissentio” insorta tra la Santità del Papa ei Fiorentini. Edizione critica e commento, Edifir, Florence 2013, ISBN 978-88-7970-649-0 .
- Jan Dreßler: The Pazzi Conspiracy and the Foundations of Medici Rule. Grin Verlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-638-79497-8 .
- Lauro Martines, Eva Dempewolf: The Conspiracy: Rise and Fall of the Medici in Renaissance Florence. Primus Verlag, Darmstadt 2004, ISBN 3-89678-254-1 .
