Pazzi Conspiracy

A Thumb in the Eye

March 1477, Lorenzo shepherds through a new law that forbade daughters from inheriting large properties if they had no brothers. This unusual-sounding law was aimed squarely at the Pazzi, for the wife of Giovanni de' Pazzi was Beatrice Borromeo, who was immensely wealthy (her family produced St Charles of Borromeo). If the Pazzi could snag the papal accounts, Lorenzo seemed to be saying, yet the Medici could deal a blow on their own, too.