Pazzi, Jacopo

The son of Andrea Pazzi , was associated with the Medici family due to the marriage of his nephew Guglielmo with Bianca Medici , the sister of Lorenzo the Magnificent . In fact, Jacopo was one of the richest citizens of Florence: for example, he invited Giuliano da Mayano (or perhaps Filippo Brunelleschi himself ) to build a family palace .

Jacopo was married to Magdalene Serristori, who, after the failure of the conspiracy, was imprisoned in a monastery near Florence, where she lived the rest of her life. He also had an illegitimate daughter, Katerina, who also later left as a nun. She was canonized by Pope Benedict XIV . She should not be confused with Caterina Pazzi, who went down in history as St. Mary Magdalene Pazzi .

Thanks to his nephew, Francesco Pazzi , the treasurer of Pope Sixtus IV , Jacopo entered into a conspiracy that was supported internally and externally, including by the pope himself. On April 26, 1478, he went into action at the same time as the killers who attacked Lorenzo and his brother Giuliano during a mass in the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore .

However, the plot failed. Giuliano, who was not the main target of the murder, was stabbed to death on the spot, but Lorenzo was able to hide in the sacristy and escape. Immediately after the attack, an angry mob, completely on the Medici side, seized Francesco and some of his accomplices, subjected to lynching, and a few hours later they were hung on the walls of the Signoria Palace .

Jacopo, in turn, tried to raise the people with the slogan "Libertà!" (from Italian. - “Freedom!”), however, he was stoned and tried to escape from Florence. The next day, while trying to cross the Apennines, he was captured by the Highlanders, who beat him to such a state that he could not walk. Soon Jacopo was brought back to Florence, where he went through a short trial, and on April 30 was hanged on the walls of the Palazzo Vecchio, like the other conspirators. Perhaps because of his former position, he was not given to the crowd - that same evening his body was removed and buried in the church of Santa Croce ^[1] .

But the misfortunes of Jacopo Pazzi did not end there: after his death, heavy rain poured for four days. Rainfall threatened a grain harvest, and villagers began to say that God had sent people punishment for burying a terrible traitor in the holy land. Four days later, a group of young people came to the cemetery and dug up Jacopo's body. They tied him to a rope and began to drag him through the streets of Florence. They did not stop, announcing the arrival of Mr. Jacopo, as if he were a great nobleman. They dragged the corpse of Jacopo to his now empty family palace. Knocking on the door with his head cut off like a door knocker , they called the servants from the palace and said that their master had returned. Tired of their entertainment, the guys dragged the body to the Rubiconte (now Ponte alle Grazie ) and threw it into the Arno River ^[1] .

Jacopo Pazzi appears in the 2009 computer game Assassin's Creed II as an antagonist and one of the enemies of the protagonist, assassin Ezio Auditore , whose family suffered as a result of the Pazzi conspiracy, and from whose hands he dies ^[2] .