HIT FOR SIXTUS - THE PAPAL PAZZI

On Easter Sunday in 1478, the good burghers of Florence gathered in the Duomo, the splendid cathedral which sits at the heart of their equally splendid city, to celebrate the traditional High Mass marking the miraculous resurrection of Jesus Christ from his tomb. Amid the hundreds crowding the pews that day were the young Medici brothers, Lorenzo, not yet thirty years of age and ruler of Florence, and his brother Giuliano.

Among the other worshippers in the Duomo was a priest named Francesco de’ Pazzi, who intended to lead the assassinations of the brothers in a coup d’etat to end Medici rule of the Florentine Republic. Before the sun set that day, the River Arno ran red with the blood of the dead.

Francesco’s family the Pazzi had grievances against the Medici going back generations, to when Giovanni de’ Medici, the great grandfather of Lorenzo and Giuliano, had imposed taxes on the rich to the benefit of the poor. The move had predictably made Giovanni popular on the street but detested in the halls of the aristocracy.

Although the Pazzi had long nursed the ambition of bringing down the Medici, it was via the scheming of a pope, Sixtus IV, that they almost achieved their aim. But the Pope played the Pazzi for a patsy, by hatching a plot with them with the goal of annexing the plum prize of Florence to the papal states, while exposing himself to no risk.

The conspirators led by Francesco de' Pazzi saw their first opportunity to strike at a banquet given by Lorenzo on 25 April 1478, at his villa in the hills of Fiesole just outside Florence, but because Lorenzo’s brother Giuliano was ill and unable to attend, the plan was postponed until the next day, Easter Sunday. Even then it was uncertain whether Giuliano would be able to attend, but being a red letter day in the Christian calendar, special arrangements were made to get him there.

Francesco de’ Pazzi took his place in the pew behind the two Medici brothers, and gripped the dagger concealed in his priestly garb. He had chosen the dramatic high-point in the Mass as his moment to strike, and when the officiating cardinal raised the Sacred Host high, the bells rang and the congregation all bowed their heads, he leapt forward and thrust his dagger into the unsuspecting Giuliano, following up the first strike with a furious assault until the young man lay mortally wounded on the marble floor of the cathedral, bleeding from twenty stab-wounds.

But all did not go according to plan for the plotters. Lorenzo escaped, and the attempted coup collapsed. The Pazzi were hunted down: the Medici triumphed again, and all the while the Pope in Rome seethed.

THE PAPAL CORPSE IN THE DOCK

A century after Charlemagne’s time, Rome was again deeply riven by factional chaos, the city paralysed as two syndicates battled for control of the papacy, its wealth and possessions. This time it was the factions of Formosus (pope 891-896 CE) and the man who occupied the Throne of Saint Peter soon after his death, Stephen VI (896-897). The state of war between the two camps reached its nadir at the “Synod Horrenda”, otherwise called the “Synod of the Cadaver”, in early 897, at which the rotting corpse of the eight months dead Formosus was put on “trial” by Stephen.

‘The corpse was provided with a counsel, who wisely kept silent while Pope Stephen raved and screamed his insults at it... The real crime of Formosus was that he had been a member of the opposite faction and had crowned “emperor” one of the numerous illegitimate descendants of Charlemagne after having performed the same office for the candidate favoured by Pope Stephen’s party.’1

On the grounds of this disagreement, and the various other pretexts for which his corpse had been dragged from its tomb and re-clad in papal robes, Formosus was duly found guilty and condemned. As the death sentence was no longer an option, Pope Stephen ordered the corpse be stripped of its papal vestments, and the three now skeletal fingers of the right hand once used for blessing to be chopped off. The corpse was then dragged around the streets of Rome, no doubt as a public warning to those who still supported the faction of Formosus, before being tossed into the Tiber. The body was later recovered by fishermen, who re-buried it properly.

No such final dignity awaited Pope Stephen. The supporters of Formosus, unbowed by the ghastly display, rose against the pope and imprisoned him, before having him strangled just a few months after the notorious “trial” he staged. That murder in turn led to all-out war on the streets of Rome. Years of chaos ensued, with the papal office virtually a revolving door, with popes murdered and bloodshed rife.

‘Stephen was followed by Romanus (897), who was deposed after four months and apparently imprisoned in a monastery. Theodore II (897) served for only 20 days, dying of natural causes, to be followed by John IX (898-900) who was pope for two years, while Benedict IV (900-903) managed three. Benedict may have been murdered, though that is not certain, but Leo V (903), who followed him certainly was. Leo was imprisoned by the priest Christopher who proclaimed himself (an anti)pope. He was then put to death, along with Christopher, by Sergius III (904-911).’2

According to historian Eamon Duffy, 'a third of the popes elected between 872 and 1012 died in suspicious circumstances... Stephen VIII (939-942) [was] horribly mutilated, a fate shared by the Greek antipope John XVI (997-8) who, unfortunately for him, did not die from the removal of his eyes, nose, lips, tongue and hands.’3

For well over a century the Church and papacy would remain wracked with violence, murder and mutilation.



1. Chamberlin, R., The Bad Popes, Sutton Publishing, Phoenix Mill, 2003, p20
11. Walsh, M.J., The Popes: 50 Celebrated Occupants of the Throne of St Peter, Quercus Publishing, London, 2007, p73
12. Duffy, E., Saints and Sinners: a History of the Popes, Yale University Press, 1997, p83



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