Lorenzo De' Medici - Politics

Politics

Lorenzo, groomed for power, assumed a leading role in the state upon the death of his father in 1469, when Lorenzo was twenty. Lorenzo had little success in running the bank, and its assets contracted seriously during the course of his lifetime.

Lorenzo, like his grandfather, father, and son ruled Florence indirectly, through surrogates in the city councils, threats, payoffs, and strategic marriages. Although Florence flourished under Lorenzo's rule, he effectively reigned as a despot and people had little political freedom. It was inevitable that rival Florentine families should harbor resentments over the Medici's dominance, and enemies of the Medici remained a factor in Florentine life long after Lorenzo's passing. The most notable of these rival families was the Pazzi, who nearly brought Lorenzo's reign to an end when it had barely begun.

On Easter Sunday, April 26, 1478, in an incident called the Pazzi Conspiracy, a group including members of the Pazzi family, backed by the Archbishop of Pisa and his patron Pope Sixtus IV, attacked Lorenzo and his brother and co-ruler Giuliano in the Cathedral of Florence. Giuliano was killed but Lorenzo escaped with only a stab wound. The conspiracy was brutally put down by such measures as the lynching of the Archbishop of Pisa and the death of the Pazzi family members who were directly involved, which resulted in the "loss of face" of the Pazzi Family.

In the aftermath of the Pazzi Conspiracy and the punishment of Pope Sixtus IV's supporters, the Medici and Florence suffered from the wrath of the Vatican. The Papacy seized all the Medici assets Sixtus IV could find, excommunicated Lorenzo and the entire government of Florence, and ultimately put the entire Florentine city-state under interdict. When these moves had little effect, Sixtus IV formed a military alliance with King Ferdinand I of Naples, whose son Alfonso, Duke of Calabria led an invasion of the Florentine Republic, still ruled by Lorenzo.

Lorenzo rallied the citizens. However, with little support from the traditional Medici allies in Bologna and Milan (the latter being convulsed by power struggles among the Milanese ruling family, the Sforza), the war dragged on and only diplomacy by Lorenzo, who personally traveled to Naples, ultimately resolved the crisis. This success enabled Lorenzo to secure constitutional changes within the Florentine Republic's government which further enhanced his own power.

Thereafter Lorenzo, like his grandfather Cosimo de' Medici, pursued a policy both of maintaining peace and a balance of power between the northern Italian states and of keeping the other major European states such as France and the Holy Roman Empire's Habsburg rulers out of Italy. Lorenzo maintained good relations with Sultan Mehmed II of the Ottoman Empire, as the Florentine maritime trade with the Ottomans was a major source of wealth for the Medici.