(While reading today’s post, whether silently or out loud, please pronounce all names with a heavy Italian accent.)

It’s the birthday of Lorenzo de’ Medici (1449 – 1492), also known as Lorenzo the Magnificent, ruler of Florence from 1478 to 1492 and a great patron of the arts during the Italian Renaissance, supporting the likes of Botticelli and Michelangelo. His rule was that of a benevolent despot: the people didn’t have much political freedom, but there were lots of festivals, balls, carnivals, etc., and relative peace, so that was good, right?

Lorenzo actually began by co-reigning with his brother Giuliano from 1469 – 1478, until Giuliano was assassinated during the Pazzi Conspiracy. The Pazzi family, rivals of the Medici and with full support of the papacy, tried to assassinate both brothers in the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore during Easter Mass on April 26—and I’m just going to say it, that is not okay. Not cool. They killed Giuliano in front of the altar but Lorenzo escaped with the help of his poet friend Politian (thus establishing that poets are not completely useless, and shame on you for thinking so), and the crowd sided with the Medicis, hanging some of the conspirators from windows, and not in a decorative sense.

Things then tanked further between the Medicis and the papacy, with Pope Sixtus IV seizing assets and excommunicating Lorenzo and his government, and the Florentines basically thumbing their noses back. Lorenzo, in a truly gutsy move, went himself to the pope’s ally King Ferdinand I of Naples, was his prisoner for several months, and somehow resolved the situation via diplomacy. His street cred with fellow Florentines soared and from then on he was nicknamed The Wise as well as The Magnificent, the only drawback being that addressing envelopes to him was getting complicated .

He died six months before Christopher Columbus reached the New World, and his death heralded the end of the Golden Age of Florence.

Happy New Year, and stay scrupulously honest to the data.