The conflict after the Pazzi conspiracy and Poliziano's ‘Coniurationis commentarium’ : literature, law and politics

This article aims to analyse how and to what extent juridical and diplomatic issues influenced Angelo Poliziano's Coniurationis commentarium, the very famous literary account of the Pazzi conspiracy against the Medici brothers (1478). Written immediately after the plot, Poliziano's work is a sophisticated literary transposition of the historical events and is conceived as the cornerstone of the Medici propaganda, aimed at supporting the Florentine government against the accusations by the instigators of the attack, Pope Sixtus IV and the King of Naples, Ferdinando of Aragon. In particular, the juridical controversy between Florence and Rome, which is built on different legal texts and doctrinal documents, plays a not irrelevant role in the composition of Poliziano's work. The Commentarium indeed shows unspoken but direct correlations with the legal consilia commissioned by Lorenzo de' Medici from the most eminent Italian jurists, who formulated the Medici's official defence against the pope. Poliziano himself actively collaborated in the collection of these consilia and was influenced by diplomatic and legal issues also in the revision of his literary work two years after the composition, in 1480, in a changed political context