Lorenzo the Magnificent ended a war by walking into his enemy's court
After a papal-backed plot killed his brother in Florence's cathedral in 1478, Lorenzo de' Medici faced excommunication and a Neapolitan invasion. His solution was audacious: he travelled to Naples himself, spent months as the king's captive, and came home with peace and more power than before.
Lorenzo, born in 1449, was the grandson of Cosimo de' Medici, the first of the family to lead Florence while running the Medici Bank. He was tutored by the humanist Marsilio Ficino and learned Greek from John Argyropoulos, and his mother, the poet Lucrezia Tornabuoni, later became his adviser. By his friends' own accounts he was homely, with a flattened nose, weak eyes and a harsh voice, while his brother Giuliano was the handsome one, said to have modelled for Botticelli. When their father died in 1469, Lorenzo, just 20, took charge. Like his forebears, he ruled not by title but through allies placed on city councils, payments and marriages.
Rival families resented that dominance. On 26 April 1478 conspirators led by members of the Pazzi family and Francesco Salviati, archbishop of Pisa, acting with the blessing of Pope Sixtus IV, attacked the brothers during Mass in the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. Giuliano died; Lorenzo escaped with a neck wound, shielded by the poet Poliziano. Florentines turned furiously on the plotters. Sixtus retaliated by seizing Medici assets, excommunicating Lorenzo and placing the city under interdict, then allied with King Ferdinand I of Naples to invade.
Lorenzo's personal diplomacy in Naples ended the war, and he used the victory to push constitutional changes strengthening his grip. Afterwards he pursued balance, keeping peace among northern Italian states and holding France and the Holy Roman Empire at bay, while maintaining good relations with the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II to protect lucrative trade. His reputation suffered, however, from a dispute over alum mines near Volterra, and the family bank's fortunes declined steadily under his watch.
His lasting fame is cultural. Lorenzo commissioned relatively little himself but helped artists such as Botticelli and Leonardo da Vinci win work from others. The young Michelangelo lived in his household for three years, eating at the family table. Lorenzo died in 1492.
Source: Lorenzo de' Medici
