#lorenzo de medici and octavian augustus are the same to me

[sforzesco]

What interests you most about the pazzo conspiracy? I've been reading up about it and all the forces at play are so fascinating and also the long chain of events that leas to it. Have a good day!

the biggest thing is probably that I hate the medici family with the force of a hundred suns exploding at once lmao

but also! I love the interconnected dialogues on tyranny that happen between the conspiracies! it's interesting, especially when you get into the reception of it.

Conspiracy Literature in Early Renaissance Italy, Marta Celati

there is something very revealing in a failed conspiracy, in how the people who maintain their hold to power choose to invent the narrative, and who they employ to create the propaganda. the resulting art and literature people create about an event, on an event, discoursing on it, is equally revealing and complex.

April Blood, Lauro Martines

with the pazzi specifically, it's sort of how the medici have gotten away with basically everything they ever did. public reception of them to a casual enthusiast of art or history tends to lean positive, you'd be surprised how many assassin's creed fans have strong opinions on the matter even though that's a game, although it does have a place in the arena of historical reception and fiction and how it reflects/informs a casual audience's opinion on the event. (pour one out for my twitter notifications when my handle was 'francesco de' pazzi apologist' jesus fucking christ)

April Blood, Lauro Martines

the pazzi are a recognizable strike against them, and it's all the more fascinating to me how they persist (whether positive or negative, nbc's hannibal uses the pazzi thematically, i medici [the show]......exists, assassin's creed does as it does, etc) despite how thoroughly lorenzo de medici tried to erase them while simultaneously celebrating his own triumph. pazzi portraits were probably altered or destroyed. there was also a fresco of their bodies commissioned for the public to see. (botticelli got the commission for the pittura infamante)

April Blood, Lauro Martines

and also the literature commissioned after the conspiracy was obviously propaganda* to paint the pazzi in a bad light, some of it fucks hard.

*most art commissioned was propaganda in one way or another

Conspiracy Literature in Early Renaissance Italy, Marta Celati

April Blood, Lauro Martines

in summary: I hate the Medici, and I like the Themes™