House of Pazzi
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- "The Pazzi were a venerable and potent family, reducted to rubbly by one assassin"
- ―Rodrigo Borgia, reflecting on the collapse of the Pazzi family
The Pazzi family were Tuscan nobles who were bankers in Florence during the 15th century. They are most famous for the "Pazzi conspiracy". They are also part of the Knights Templar in Assassin's Creed II.
Conspiracy
The Pazzi family were established in Florence as one of the most powerful families of the city. It held its own guards posted all around the city, but they couldn't rule it, as long as the de facto governors of Florence held it: the Medici family. Rodrigo Borgia, the Grand Master of the Templar Order proposed them to overthrow the Medici by killing its head: Lorenzo de' Medici.
In 1476, Giovanni Auditore a close friend of Lorenzo and a member of the Assassins, sworn enemies of the Templars discovered the involvement of the Pazzi family in a conspiracy against the Medici. He managed to put Francesco de' Pazzi in jail. But the plot already reached members of the Medici government itself: Uberto Alberti, the gonfaloniere of justice freed Francesco while he executed Giovanni and most of his sons for treason, wiping out the rival family of the Pazzi from Florence.
With Giovanni dead, there were no more obstacles in the way of the Pazzi, until one Ezio, a son of Giovanni decided to fulfill his vengeance against the ones responsible for his father's murder. Outside Florence, in the city of San Gimignano, there was a first victim of the new Assassin's blade: the young Vieri de' Pazzi.
In 1478, Ezio returned to Florence. At the same moment, the Pazzi were having a meeting with the other Templars in the catacombs under the church of Santa Maria Novella. Ezio managed to attend it unnoticed. They were planning the assassination of Lorenzo and his brother Giuliano. Among the conspirators were: Stefano da Bagnone, Bernardo Baroncelli, Francesco Salviati, Antonio Maffei and of course the two members of the Pazzi family, Jacopo and Francesco and the Templar Master Rodrigo Borgia, while they were given "spiritual" and military supports from His Holiness Pope Sixtus IV.
On the next day, they executed their plan. In front of the Florence Cathedral, they publicly attacked the Medici brothers. Francesco and Bernado managed to stab Giuliano to death while Stefano and Antonio fled after their failure to kill Lorenzo but seriously wounded him. Before Francesco could kill him, Ezio intervened. He repulsed the Pazzi assault and made Francesco flee. But with Lorenzo heavily wounded, he could take over the Palazzo della Signoria installing his own men in the government.
Francesco invaded the Palazzo with his guards but Ezio tracked him down at the rooftop of building. Seeing no escape, he leaped into a haystack fleeing the young Assassin. Ezio eventually hunted him down and killed him.
When Jacopo arrived at the Palazzo with the support of many citizens, it was far too late: Francesco had been hanged from the rooftop of the building. With the failure of their plot, the Pazzi left Florence to hide in the Tuscan countryside and the city of San Gimignano. Ezio, still thirsty for revenge and in order to serve his new master Lorenzo, took all the Pazzi conspirators down wherever they were hiding.