I, Mona Lisa Read Free

his employee. Baroncelli followed his gaze: It rested on Lorenzo de’ Medici, who at age twenty-nine was the de facto ruler of Florence. Technically, Florence was governed by the Signoria, a council of eight priors and the head of state, the gonfaloniere of justice; these men were chosen from among all the notable Florentine families. Supposedly the process was fair, but curiously, the majority of those chosen were always loyal to Lorenzo, and the gonfaloniere was his to control.
    Francesco de’ Pazzi was ugly, but Lorenzo was uglier still. Though he was taller than most and muscular in build, his fine body was marred by one of Florence’s homeliest faces. His nose—long and pointed, ending in a pronounced upward slope that tilted to one side—had a flattened bridge, leaving Lorenzo with a peculiarly nasal voice. His lower jaw jutted out so severely that whenever he entered a room, his chin preceded him by a thumb’s breadth. His disturbing profile was framed by a jaw-length hank of dark hair.
    Lorenzo stood awaiting the start of the Mass, flanked on one side by his loyal friend and employee, Francesco Nori, and on the other by the Archbishop of Pisa, Francesco Salviati. Despite his physiognomic failings, Lorenzo emanated profound dignity and poise. In his dark, slightly protruding eyes shone an uncommon shrewdness. Even surrounded by enemies, Lorenzo seemed at ease. Salviati, a Pazzi relative, was no friend, though he and Lorenzo greeted each other as such; the elder Medici brother had lobbied furiously against Salviati’s appointment as Archbishop of Pisa, asking instead that Pope Sixtus appoint a Medici sympathizer. The Pope turned a deaf ear to Lorenzo’s request and then—breaking with a tradition that had existed for generations—fired the Medici as the papal bankers to replace them with the Pazzi, a bitter insult to Lorenzo.
    Yet today, Lorenzo had received the Pope’s own nephew, the seventeen-year-old Cardinal Riario of San Giorgio, as an honored guest. After Mass in the great Duomo, Lorenzo would lead the young Cardinal to a feast at the Medici palace, followed by a tour of the famed Medici collection of art. In the meantime, he stood attentively beside Riario and Salviati, nodding at their occasional whispered comments.
    Smiling while they sharpen their swords
, Baroncelli thought.
    Dressed unostentatiously in a plain tunic of blue-gray silk, Lorenzo was quite unaware of the presence of a pair of black-frocked priests standing two rows behind him. The tutor to the Pazzi household was a youth Baroncelli knew only as Stefano; a somewhat older man, Antonio da Volterra, stood beside him. Baroncelli had caught da Volterra’s gaze as they entered the church and had glanced quickly away; the priest’s eyes were full of the same smoldering rage Baroncelli had seen in the penitent’s. Da Volterra, present at all the secret meetings, also had spoken vehemently against the Medici’s “love of all things pagan,” saying that the family had “ruined our city” with its decadent art.
    Like his fellow conspirators, Baroncelli knew that neither feast nor tour would ever take place. Events soon to occur would change the political face of Florence forever.
    Behind him, the hooded penitent shifted his weight, then let go a sigh which held sounds only Baroncelli could interpret. His words were muffled by the cowl that had been drawn forward to obscure his features. Baroncelli had advised against permitting the man to assist in the assassination—why should he be trusted? The fewer involved, the better—but Francesco, as always, had overridden him.
    “Where is Giuliano?” the penitent whispered.
    Giuliano de’ Medici, the younger brother, was as fair of face as Lorenzo was ugly. The darling of Florence, he was called—so handsome, it was said, that men and women alike sighed in his wake. It would not do to have only one brother present in the great cathedral.Both were required—or the entire operation would