Volume 50, Number 7 · May 1, 2003
Mad at the Medicis
By Tim Parks
April Blood: Florence and the Plot Against the Medici
by Lauro Martines
Oxford University Press, 302 pp., $26.00
When does it become justifiable to kill a political leader? Lorenzo de' Medici, otherwise known as Il Magnifico, was the acknowledged if unofficial ruler of the city-state of Florence from 1469 until his death in 1492. If he might be accused of being a tyrant, he was certainly not a monster. He could not be compared with his close ally, the debauched despot Galeazzo Maria Sforza, duke of Milan, who was assassinated in 1476. If his expansionist policies threatened the small independent towns around Florence, this was the norm for the time and no more than was expected of him. Lorenzo wrote fine poetry, maintained and built up the Medici family's extraordinary art collection, and was a brilliant conversationalist and diplomat.
Review, 4082 words
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