Commentary on the Pazzi Conspiracy

bition. He tore down his ancestral home, built magnificently from its foundations. He set about building a new one, accustomed to hiring laborers there, yet not paying them in full. And he defrauded the wretched poor, who earned their daily bread by their own forced labor, out of their wages. Wherefore he was hated by all. Neither he nor his ancestors had ever been popular with the people. Furthermore, he was without legitimate offspring. For this reason, he was courted by his own relatives, who were surely eyeing his inheritance, more than anyone else. In the curia, there was the greatest negligence in the man, and the greatest negligence of his family estate. And since these were the man's morals, he seemed likely to quickly go bankrupt. This very fact provided him with the greatest spur and ignited the flames to hasten the crime. For the insolent and ambitious man did not expect that he would endure the ignominy of a bankrupt with a very composed mind. He therefore strove to burn down himself and his entire fatherland in a single fire. Francesco Salviati, however, a man who had become fortunate quite suddenly—as he had not long before obtained the Archbishopric of Pisa—hardly able to contain himself and his own fortune, had begun to grow more insolent than can be expressed in words due to his favorable circumstances, promising himself everything regarding himself and his fortune. That Francesco was a man—as gods and men know—ignorant of and contemptuous of all divine and human law. Covered in all disgraces and crimes. Ruined by luxury and infamous for pimping. He himself was most fond of dice. Furthermore, he was a supreme flatterer. Of great levity and vanity. He was likewise bold, ready, hot-headed, and im-