Daggers and Domes

Daggers and Domes, story by story.

1. IFlorence, 1478
   

   Chapter I · Florence, 1478

   The Pazzi Conspiracy

   You play Lorenzo de' Medici

   Your brother is dead and the Pope wants you gone. Revenge, or survival?

   Florence, 1478: a rich city that calls itself a republic. It runs on one family's bank and one young man, who holds no title at all.

   Your first call · The Pope's grandnephew: your prisoner

   Keep him under guard for nowSend him home to Rome at once

   Sources

   • Niccolò Machiavelli, History of Florence, Book VIII ch. 1 to 4: the Pazzi grievances and plot, Montesecco refusing to kill in a church, the two priests, the signal at the sacrament, Bandini's blow and Francesco's self-inflicted leg wound, Lorenzo's neck wound and the sacristy, the cardinal kept by the priests at the altar and taken to the palace, Salviati's stammer and the hanging, Jacopo's ride with about a hundred men crying 'people' and 'liberty', stones from the palace, Jacopo dug up and thrown into the Arno, Giuliano's natural son Giulio born months after his death, the war declared against Lorenzo alone, the excommunication, priests compelled to say Mass and the appeal to a future council, the cardinal restored, Colle surrendering 13 November, the three-month truce, 'The city is exhausted, and can endure no more war', the pestilence, Lorenzo leaving in early December, Ferrante keeping him December to March and the alliance, Otranto and the Pope's peace
   • Janet Ross, Lives of the Early Medici as Told in Their Correspondence (1910), pp. 186 to 192, 194 to 198, 228 to 230, 237: Imola and the Pazzi made papal treasurer, Salviati kept out of Pisa three years, Montesecco's confession ('I will have no bloodshed'; 'Go and do what you will'; 'are you content that we steer this boat'), the cardinal aged seventeen, Lorenzo's dinner invitation and Giuliano's message, 'where God would see him', Strozzi's eyewitness account (Lorenzo drew his sword, leaped into the choir, the sacristy door locked), Poliziano ('Is Giuliano safe?'; Giuliano a fine rider, jouster and dancer, the people's darling), Vasari on Lorenzo at his window with his neck bandaged, Lorenzo to Soderini 10 June 1478 ('We have set the Cardinal at liberty, but the Pope has shown no sign of taking off the excommunications or the interdicts'), Lorenzo to the Signoria from San Miniato 7 December 1479 ('Being the one most hated and persecuted by our enemies I may by placing myself in their hands be the means of restoring peace'), Piccinino 'invited to Naples and foully murdered', Lorenzo's age at death (born January 1449)
   • Luca Landucci, Diario fiorentino (ed. Del Badia, 1883), entries for 26 to 28 April 1478 (the attack at the elevation, the archbishop and Franceschino hanged that evening, more than 70 men hanged in three days), 6 December 1479 (Lorenzo leaves for Naples), 23 and 28 December 1479 (Bandini handed over by the Great Turk and hanged), 13 March 1480 (Lorenzo's return)
   • Francesco Guicciardini, The History of Italy, trans. Goddard, vol. 8 (Book 16): Giulio de' Medici raised to cardinal by Leo X and elected Pope
2. IIFlorence, 1494 to 1498
   

   Chapter II · Florence, 1494 to 1498

   The Bonfire of the Vanities

   You play Girolamo Savonarola

   The friar says God talks to him. The Pope says otherwise. Which will Florence believe?

   Florence, 1497: carnival, the week for masks, gambling and bad behaviour. This year, bands of boys knock on every door and ask you to hand over your sins.

   Your first call · Excommunicated since June

   Climb back into the pulpitStay silent and keep appealing

   Sources

   • Luca Landucci, A Florentine Diary from 1450 to 1516, trans. A. de Rosen Jervis (1927): 18 June 1497 (excommunication published, no one to hear him), February to April 1498 (sermons in the Duomo defying the excommunication; the carnival pile of 27 February 1498; the Pope's ban and threat of interdict; the Signoria's request of 17 March; Fra Domenico preaching; the Santa Croce preacher; 28 March, many stood up; 7 April, the oil-soaked platform, the quarrel over robes and the Host, Landucci soaked by the rain; the Compagnacci and Piagnoni; Palm Sunday at San Marco, Valori's murder, the surrender at 3 a.m. under a promise of safety, irons; the rack; the confession read 19 April; the hanging and burning of the three friars, ashes carted to the Arno)
   • Pasquale Villari, Life and Times of Girolamo Savonarola, trans. L. Villari (1888): recalled to San Marco in 1490; the new Cyrus who would march through Italy without obstacles; the invasion from the Alps; Piero ceding the fortresses and his flight; Savonarola's exhortation to Charles at Pisa ('if thou shouldst fail to respect the city of Florence'); the Great Council; Alexander VI's bought election and 'principalities for his children'; the 1495 brief and the suspension revoked by word of mouth through the Ten; the 1497 vanities (indecent books and pictures, masks and costumes, a prayer at each house) and the 60-foot octagonal pyramid fired at four points with trumpets and bells; six months in his cell proving the excommunication invalid; the Pope insisting he be delivered into his hands; benches set up in the Duomo by permission of the Signory; the twelve-hour exile decree; the friars' arms; 'you will be torn to pieces'; Valori let down over the wall to rally his adherents, killed on the way to the palace
   • W. K. Marriott, introduction to The Prince: Machiavelli appointed to the Second Chancery after four years in public office (1498)
3. IIIThe Romagna, 1502
   

   Chapter III · The Romagna, 1502

   The Trap at Senigallia

   You play Cesare Borgia

   Your own captains have turned on you. Strike back, or smile?

   Italy, 1502. The Pope's son is building himself a kingdom with his father's money, French soldiers and hired captains.

   Your first call · Your army: gone over to the rebels

   Stall them with talks, hire new troopsSplit them: offer the Orsini a private deal

   Sources

   • Niccolò Machiavelli, Description of the Methods Adopted by the Duke Valentino (trans. Marriott): Bologna as the head of the duchy; Magione; San Leo and the rising of Urbino; 'the common firebrand'; Florence's hatred of the Vitelli and Orsini and Machiavelli sent to offer shelter and assistance; the duke 'full of fear at Imola'; temporizing, sending to France and enlisting men; Fossombrone; Paolo sent to negotiate; troops dispersed through the Romagna; five hundred French lancers; four thousand ducats, no obligation to come into his presence, Urbino restored; Senigallia; the French sent away; eight trusted men in pairs; two thousand horse and ten thousand foot; the captains' men sent to castles six miles off; Vitellozzo unarmed on a mule in a cape lined with green; Oliverotto missing and fetched by Don Michele; the secret chamber; the strangling that night and of the Orsini on 18 January
   • Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, ch. 7 (the Romagna's plundering lords; Ramiro d'Orco, 'a swift and cruel man', executed and left on the piazza at Cesena; the Orsini going 'very unwillingly' against Bologna; Paolo won with money, apparel and horses; Sinigalia 31 December 1502; all the Romagna and Urbino held; 'I do not know what better precepts to give a new prince') and ch. 8 (Oliverotto's banquet, the private chamber, strangled one year later)
   • Rafael Sabatini, The Life of Cesare Borgia (1912): Cesare made cardinal in September 1493 'in his nineteenth year'; Alexander VI elected August 1492; the renunciation of the purple on 7 August 1498 and the duchy of Valentinois ('Valentino remained Valentino'); the seizure of Urbino by stratagem in June 1502 and Guidobaldo's flight; Giuliano della Rovere elected as Julius II
   • Allan Gilbert, The Letters of Machiavelli (1961), introduction: nearly four months with Cesare Borgia from October 1502
4. IVRome, 1505 to 1512
   

   Chapter IV · Rome, 1505 to 1512

   The Sistine Ceiling

   You play Michelangelo

   You are a sculptor, and the Pope wants a painting.

   Rome, 1508. The best sculptor alive has just made peace with the Pope who chased him across Italy.

   Your first call · The Pope's patience: thin

   Take the jobRefuse and go home to Florence

   Sources

   • Ascanio Condivi, Life of Michelangelo, and Michelangelo's letter to Fattucci (December 1523), in Charles Holroyd, Michael Angelo Buonarroti (1903), with Holroyd's notes (summoned early 1505; flight 1506; work on the vault from 10 May 1508; the closing note 'probably of October 1512'; Julius died 21 February 1513; the tomb set up in 1545)
   • Janet Ross, Lives of the Early Medici (1910), p. 187: Giuliano della Rovere among the nephews Sixtus IV made cardinals
   • Rafael Sabatini, The Life of Cesare Borgia (1912): Giuliano della Rovere elected Pope as Julius II
5. VFlorence, 1512 to 1513
   

   Chapter V · Florence, 1512 to 1513

   Machiavelli's Fall

   You play Niccolò Machiavelli

   Tortured and exiled by the family you worked against: what do you write next?

   Florence, 1512. For fourteen years one clerk has handled the republic's letters, its secret missions and its brand-new army of farmers.

   Your first call · Two plotters: condemned to die

   Confess nothingTell them what they want to hear

   Sources

   • Allan Gilbert, The Letters of Machiavelli (1961), excerpts: introduction (missions to France and the Emperor; nearly four months with Cesare Borgia from October 1502; militia from 1506); letter to Vettori of 13 March 1513 ('I have got out of prison amid the universal rejoicing'; 'I have borne them so bravely that I love myself for it'; 'I was born poor'); letter of 10 December 1513 (the inn, cricca and backgammon, courtly garments, On Princedoms)
   • Machiavelli, letter to Francesco Vettori, 10 December 1513 (Italian text): thrushes all September; the inn with a butcher, a miller and two kiln men; courtly clothes in the evening; De principatibus addressed to Giuliano; Filippo Casavecchia has seen it; 'tutta volta io l'ingrasso e ripulisco'; whether to give it, and whether to bring it or send it; fear that Giuliano would not read it and Ardinghelli take the credit; 'io mi logoro'; 'se dovessino cominciare a farmi voltolare un sasso'; 'quarantatré anni, che io ho'
   • Machiavelli, sonnet to Giuliano de' Medici from prison: 'Io ho, Giuliano, in gamba un paio di geti / con sei tratti di fune in su le spalle'; lice as big as butterflies
   • Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, ch. 12 ('a trifle of stipend') and the dedication to Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici; W. K. Marriott's introduction (born 3 May 1469; four years in office before the Second Chancery; dismissed 7 November 1512; imprisoned and tortured; Leo X procured his release; the 1513 letter; finally dedicated to Lorenzo, 'no evidence that Lorenzo ever received or even read it'; the 1520 commission at the instance of Cardinal de' Medici; the Medici expelled in 1527, Machiavelli hurrying back hoping for his old office, died June 1527; The Prince 'never published by him')
   • Luca Landucci, A Florentine Diary from 1450 to 1516, trans. A. de Rosen Jervis (1927): 15 February 1506 (400 peasant recruits mustered in the Piazza with iron breastplates and lances); 26 to 31 August 1512 (the viceroy's demands, militia levied, Prato taken in one day, Soderini dismissed); 1 September 1512 (Giuliano de' Medici enters Florence); 18 to 22 February 1513 (the plot discovered, about 14 young men arrested, Boscoli and Capponi beheaded; translator's note: eighteen or twenty indicted, the list of names fallen from Boscoli's pocket); 11 March 1513 (Cardinal de' Medici elected Pope)
   • Pasquale Villari, Life and Times of Girolamo Savonarola (1888), on his torture in April 1498: how the Florentine rope torture worked (hoisted, dropped, checked with a jerk, arms forced back)
   • Francesco Guicciardini, The History of Italy, trans. Goddard, vol. 8 (Book 16): Giulio de' Medici, Leo's cousin, made cardinal and later Pope
   • Niccolò Machiavelli, History of Florence, Book VIII ch. 2: Giuliano's son Giulio
   • Machiavelli, letter to Francesco Vettori of 18 March 1513 (Italian text): 'gli ho portati tanto francamente, che io stesso me ne voglio bene'; 'nacqui povero, ed imparai prima a stentare che a godere'
   • Francesco Guicciardini, The History of Italy, trans. Goddard, vol. 6 (Book 11): Julius II soliciting the restoration of the Medici and making Cardinal de' Medici legate; Prato garrisoned with 'Two Thousand Foot, almost all of them of the Militia', the first place the viceroy would attack
6. VIRome, 1526 to 1527
   

   Chapter VI · Rome, 1526 to 1527

   The Sack of Rome

   You play Pope Clement VII

   An unpaid army is coming. Buy it off, or trust the walls?

   Rome, 1527. The Pope is a Medici, the son of the young man stabbed in Florence's cathedral almost fifty years ago.

   Your first call · Bourbon's army: has not agreed yet

   Disband it and save the moneyKeep your army paid, just in case

   Sources

   • Francesco Guicciardini, The History of Italy, trans. Goddard, vol. 7 (Book 13): 'Charles of Austria, King of Spain, was elected Emperor' (28 June 1519); the Kingdom of Naples and Germany as Caesar's
   • Francesco Guicciardini, The History of Italy, trans. A. P. Goddard, vol. 8 (Book 16: Giulio raised by Leo from Knight of Rhodes to cardinal, managing 'all the important affairs', elected Pope; his 'capacious understanding' but 'irresolution and perplexity')
   • Francesco Guicciardini, The History of Italy, trans. A. P. Goddard, vol. 9 (Books 17 and 18): the alliance of the Pope, France, Venice and Francesco Sforza; the Colonna raid of 20 September 1526 (800 horse and 3,000 foot, the Pope with no forces, the Romans unmoved, flight to the Castle, palace and St Peter's plundered, 'a little more than three hours', the truce); the refusal to create cardinals for money; the mutiny of 13 March 1527 ('crying out Money!'), Bourbon fleeing his quarters, General George's apoplectic fit; the eight-month truce for 60,000 ducats; the viceroy's coming and the disbanding of all but a hundred light horse and two thousand foot of the Black Bands; 'many believed' 100,000 ducats would have sufficed; the money left to the Florentines; the march from 26 April without cannon in heavy rain; three cardinals created too late; Renzo da Ceri's levies from stables, shops and inns; the ban on leaving Rome or shipping goods by the river; the trumpet on 5 May; the fog and Bourbon's death on 6 May; the flight into the Castle; the sack; surrender on 6 June for 400,000 ducats; cardinals created for money to pay it; the escape in a merchant's habit to Orvieto
   • Niccolò Machiavelli, History of Florence, Book VIII ch. 2: Giulio, Giuliano's son born months after his death
   • W. K. Marriott, introduction to The Prince: Pavia in 1525 destroyed French rule in Italy and left Francis I prisoner of Charles V
   • Vatican News, 'Swiss Guard announce preparations for 500th Anniversary of Sack of Rome' (October 2026): 147 Guards died on 6 May 1527 and 42 escorted the Pope to Castel Sant'Angelo