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Sei Pazzo

15 December 2010
Pazza/pazzo/pazzi/ pazze- crazy

Sei pazzo/a= you are crazy or mad. Yes I know I am crazy but let me give you a bit of a history lesson today.

The Pazzi family were a noble Florentine family of bankers who originated from Il Pazzo, one of the first soldiers over the wall in the Siege of Jerusalem during the First Crusade--which was the only Crusade campaign that the Christian empires won--in 1099 A.D. against the Ottoman Empire. The Pazzi family were open rivals of the Medici family and being frank, they were quite jealous of their power and wealth and wanted to usurp their rule over Florence, therefore they cooked up a crazy, pazzo if you will, scheme to depose the Medici family by killing Lorenzo and his brother Giuliano during High Mass on April 26, 1478 at Il Duomo before a crowd of 10,000 people. Giuliano died from 19 wounds inflicted upon his person by a mob that included members of the Pazzi and Salviati families and a priest. Lorenzo was rescued by humanist Poliziano escaping with non fatal wounds and reappeared later in the safety of the sacristy.

Francesco de Pazzi, Francesco Salviati and a few priests and others were hung by a Florentine crowd in support of the de Medicis for what was later dubbed the Pazzi Conspiracy. It was because of this incidence and the craziness of the Pazzi family that word pazzo is now synonymous with craziness or madness in the Italian vocabulary.

The Renaissance was an amazing and intriguing period. Pulling the world forward kicking and screaming into modernity. There was love, romance, conspiracies, debauchery, the birth of art, science and modern astronomy. There were empires collapsing and being born and history being made that will change people and empires the world over. This was a time where a family of merchants could become a part of royalty and the richest family in Europe during this time.

The Renaissance proved to be an era of endless possibilities.

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Forever chic,