alfonso Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire http://louis1j1sheehan1.blogspot.com

Lorenzo, groomed for power, assumed a leading role in the state upon the death of his father in 1469, when Lorenzo was twenty. Lorenzo had little success in running the bank, and its assets contracted seriously during the course of his lifetime.

Lorenzo, like his father and grandfather, ruled Florence indirectly, through surrogates in the city councils, through threats, payoffs, strategic marriages - all the tools of despotism. Although Florence flourished under Lorenzo's rule, he effectively ruled as a despot and people had little freedom. It was inevitable that rival families should harbor resentments as to Medici dominance, and enemies of the Medici remained a factor in Florentine life long after Lorenzo's passing.

On Easter Sunday, April 26, 1478, in an incident called the Pazzi Conspiracy, a group including members of the Pazzi family, backed by the Archbishop of Pisa and his patron Pope Sixtus IV, attacked Lorenzo and his co-ruler brother Giuliano in the cathedral of Florence. Lorenzo was stabbed but escaped; however the attackers managed to kill Giuliano. The conspiracy was brutally put down, with measures including the lynching of the archbishop.

In the aftermath of the Pazzi conspiracy and the punishment of the Pope's supporters, the Medici and Florence suffered from the wrath of the Pope. He seized all the Medici assets he could find, excommunicated Lorenzo and the entire government of Florence, and finally put the city under interdict. When that had little effect, the Pope formed a military alliance with King Ferdinand I of Naples, whose son, Alfonso, Duke of Calabria launched an invasion.http://louis1j1sheehan1.blogspot.com

Lorenzo rallied the citizens. However, with little help being provided by traditional Medici allies in Bologna and Milan (the latter being convulsed by power struggles among the Sforza), the war dragged on, and only diplomacy by Lorenzo, who personally traveled to Naples, resolved the crisis. This enabled him to secure constitutional changes that enhanced his power.

Thereafter, Lorenzo, like his grandfather Cosimo de' Medici, pursued a policy of maintaining both peace and a balance of power between the northern Italian states and of keeping other states out of Italy. http://louis1j1sheehan1.blogspot.com

Lorenzo kept good relations with Mehmed II of the Ottoman Empire, as the trade with Ottomans was a major source of wealth for the Medicis