L’Assassino del Duca

In the middle of the night of 6 January 1537, the Duke of Florence, Alessandro de’ Medici (1510/11–1537), was stabbed and slashed to death by three assassins, one of whom was his cousin and boon companion, Lorenzino de’ Medici. A womaniser, Lorenzino had arranged for Alessandro to meet the latest target of his intended affections in an apartment near the Medici palace; there, with his guard down and his chain-mail shirt off, the Duke instead met his death. Lorenzino then went about Florence knocking on a few doors of Medici enemies in a desultory attempt at raising the Florentines to throw out the tyrants and reclaim liberty. No one believed that the Duke was dead. Lorenzino fled the city for Venice, where Florentine exiles had found shelter from Medici-controlled Florence. Principal among them was Filippo Strozzi, an erstwhile Medici supporter, who declared Lorenzino to be the ‘Tuscan Brutus’. Other nicknames for Lorenzino were ‘Lorenzino traditore’ and ‘il filòsofo’ (because, ironically enough, he was said to have been deathly afraid of weapons)

Ancient history · Art · Humanities · History · Renaissance and Early Modern Studies