Page "Pazzi" Paragraph 5

The Pazzi family were not the only instigators-the Salviati, Papal bankers in Florence, were at the center of the conspiracy.

Pope Sixtus IV was an enemy of the Medici.

He had purchased from Milan the lordship of Imola, a stronghold on the border between Papal and Tuscan territory that Lorenzo de ' Medici wanted for Florence.

The purchase was financed by the Pazzi bank, even though Francesco de ' Pazzi had promised Lorenzo they would not aid the Pope.

As a reward, Sixtus IV granted the Pazzi monopoly at the alum mines at Tolfa — alum being an essential mordant in dyeing in the textile trade that was central to the Florentine economy — and he assigned to the Pazzi bank lucrative rights to manage Papal revenues.

Sixtus IV appointed his nephew, Girolamo Riario, as the new governor of Imola, and Francesco Salviati as archbishop of Pisa, a city that was a former commercial rival but now subject to Florence.

Lorenzo had refused to permit Salviati to enter Pisa because of the challenge such an ecclesiastical position offered to his own government in Florence.