You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Italian. (June 2023) Click [show] for important translation instructions.
View a machine-translated version of the Italian article.
Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Italian Wikipedia article at [[:it:Giuliano de' Medici]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|it|Giuliano de' Medici}} to the talk page.
Giuliano de' Medici (28 October 1453 – 26 April 1478)[1] was the second son of Piero de' Medici (the Gouty) and Lucrezia Tornabuoni. As co-ruler of Florence, with his brother Lorenzo the Magnificent, he complemented his brother's image as the "patron of the arts" with his own image as the handsome, sporting "golden boy". He was killed in a plot known as the Pazzi conspiracy in 1478.
The Pazzi conspirators attempted to lure Giuliano and Lorenzo away from Florence to kill them outside the boundaries of the city – first on the road to Piombino, then in Rome,[6] and finally at a banquet hosted by the Medici at their villa in Fiesole. Giuliano did not come, claiming to be ill. The choice to commit the murder at high mass was a last minute choice.[citation needed]
As the opening stroke of the Pazzi conspiracy, Giuliano was assassinated on 26 April 1478 – in the Duomo of Florence, Santa Maria del Fiore, by Francesco de' Pazzi and Bernardo Baroncelli.[7] During Mass, at the sounding of the Elevation, he received a fatal sword wound to the head and was stabbed 19 times. He died lying on the cathedral floor.[8][9] Lorenzo, who had escaped to the Medici palace, did not learn of his brother's death for several hours.[10]
After a modest funeral on 30 April 1478,[3] Giuliano was buried in his father's tomb in the Church of San Lorenzo, but later, with his brother Lorenzo, was reinterred in the Medici Chapel of the same church, in a tomb surmounted by a statue of the Madonna and Child of Michelangelo.[8][12] After his death, at least two sonnets about Giuliano circulated in Florence, one of them written by Luigi Pulci for Lucrezia Tornabuoni the mother of Giuliano.[13]
Portrayals in media
Angelo Poliziano wrote two works which include Giuliano de' Medici as a major character. Stanze cominciate per la giostra del Magnifico Giuliano de’ Medici was written to commemorate a joust that Giuliano won in 1475.[14] It is mostly fictionalized and involves Giuliano's love for Simonetta Vespucci. It was left unfinished, for both of his protagonists (Giuliano and Simonetta) died. The other work is Coniurationis Commentarium, which was written in 1478 to commemorate Giuliano's murder. It explains the people involved in the plot and the events of the day of his assassination.[15]
Giuliano's portrait by Sandro Botticelli is thought to have been painted shortly after his death. The open window and dove were known symbols of death, and some have suggested that the lowered eyelids suggest that a death mask may have been used as reference.[16]
^Unger, Miles J (2009). Magnifico : the brilliant life and violent times of Lorenzo De' Medici (1st Simon & Schuster trade pbk. ed.). Simon & Schuster. ISBN978-0743254359.