VMs: Re: 1478 Assassination Solved

[Wdimitr@xxxxxxx]

I heard Prof. Simonetta interviewed, the other night, on CBC radio's program 
"As it Happens." If anyone is interested, then I'll track down either a 
transcript or an audio file. Regards, Bill.


["...by deciphering an encrypted letter that he discovered in a private 
archive in Urbino, Marcello Simonetta, a professor of Italian history and 
literature, shows that the mercenary Federico da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino, 
orchestrated the coup."]


The New York Times

March 6, 2004

1478 Assassination Solved. The Humanist Did It.

By FELICIA R. LEE

     On April 26, 1478, Lorenzo de' Medici (who escaped) and his brother 
Giuliano (who died) were repeatedly attacked with
     knives by a gang of men who invaded the Duomo cathedral in Florence 
during a high Mass. It was part of a plot against
the powerful Medici family, de facto rulers in the Florentine republic for 
hundreds of years. Now a Wesleyan University scholar
says he has cracked the 500-year-old case with the help of a recently 
discovered coded letter.

For hundreds of years historians have known the plot was largely engineered 
by Francesco de Pazzi, from a rival family of
bankers, with an assist from Pope Sixtus IV, who sought power for his nephew. 
But by deciphering an encrypted letter that he
discovered in a private archive in Urbino, Marcello Simonetta, a professor of 
Italian history and literature, shows that the
mercenary Federico da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino, orchestrated the coup.

Notably the duke has gone down through history as a humanist, without any 
connection to the conspiracy.

Mr. Simonetta's findings have been published in The Archivo Storico Italiano, 
the oldest Italian historical journal, and in his new
book, "The Secret Renaissance: The World of the Secretary From Petrarch to 
Machiavelli" (Franco Angeli, 2004).

"This was a major plot in Renaissance history," Mr. Simonetta said in an 
interview. "The fact that Lorenzo survived changed
Italian history. His son became Pope Leo X. The posthumous son of Giuliano 
became Pope Clement VII. Federico da
Montefeltro was known as one of the most refined men of the Renaissance."

"It's very, very exciting," Mr. Simonetta said of his successful efforts to 
crack the code of the three-page letter, sent by the duke
to his ambassadors in Rome two months before the coup attempt.

The letter, Mr. Simonetta said, unveils the duke's personal insistence on 
getting rid of the Medici brothers, discusses his military
contribution to the plot (550 soldiers and 50 knights) and expresses 
gratitude for the pope's gift to the duke's son Guidubaldo, a
golden chain that represented legitimization of the Montefeltro dynasty under 
papal jurisdiction.

Mr. Simonetta's discovery is highly significant to Renaissance scholars, said 
Melissa M. Bullard, a professor of history at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Mercenary captains like 
Montefeltro, she said, always posed a threat to the state or
ruler who hired them, at at time of constant jockeying for position among 
Italian city-states.

"Had the Pazzi taken over, the course of Florentine history and the course of 
northern Italy would have been altered," said
Ronald Witt, a professor of history at Duke University. "There probably would 
have been much greater instability. The fact that
the Medici stayed meant there was continuity in the leadership."


              Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
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