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The Montefeltro Conspiracy: A Renaissance Mystery Decoded | 
 enlarge | Author: Marcello Simonetta
Publisher: Doubleday
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 18918
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.6 x 1
ISBN: 0385524684
Dewey Decimal Number: 945.05
EAN: 9780385524681
ASIN: 0385524684
Publication Date: June 3, 2008
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Product Description
A brutal murder, a nefarious plot, a coded letter. After five hundred years, the most notorious mystery of the Renaissance is finally solved.
The Italian Renaissance is remembered as much for intrigue as it is for art, with papal politics and infighting among Italy’s many city-states providing the grist for Machiavelli’s classic work on take-no-prisoners politics, The Prince. The attempted assassination of the Medici brothers in the Duomo in Florence in 1478 is one of the best-known examples of the machinations endemic to the age. While the assailants were the Medici’s rivals, the Pazzi family, questions have always lingered about who really orchestrated the attack, which has come to be known as the Pazzi Conspiracy.
More than five hundred years later, Marcello Simonetta, working in a private archive in Italy, stumbled upon a coded letter written by Federico da Montefeltro, the Duke of Urbino, to Pope Sixtus IV. Using a codebook written by his own ancestor to crack its secrets, Simonetta unearthed proof of an all-out power grab by the Pope for control of Florence. Montefeltro, long believed to be a close friend of Lorenzo de Medici, was in fact conspiring with the Pope to unseat the Medici and put the more malleable Pazzi in their place.
In The Montefeltro Conspiracy, Simonetta unravels this plot, showing not only how the plot came together but how its failure (only one of the Medici brothers, Giuliano, was killed; Lorenzo survived) changed the course of Italian and papal history for generations. In the course of his gripping narrative, we encounter the period’s most colorful characters, relive its tumultuous politics, and discover that two famous paintings, including one in the Sistine Chapel, contain the Medici’s astounding revenge.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 High Drama and Renaissance Intrigue October 26, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
When a beautifully written, highly accesible, and abundantly informative book like 'The Montefeltro Conspiracy' manages to elicit a chorus of pedantic sniping from jealous academics, you know it has to be a truly great piece of work. Marcello Simonetta is the real deal: a rigorous scholar who isn't afraid to reach beyond the narrow confines of academe and address a general audience. He writes thrilling narrative prose such as few historians working today could hope to rival, and his insights into Renaissance history, though provocative and revisionist, are so clearly presented that readers will feel smarter, better informed, and intellectually energized after finishing this treasure of a book. Frankly, after reading 'The Montefeltro Conspiracy,' I was left aching with a wish that I had written it myself.
--Jonathan Lopez, author of 'The Man Who Made Vermeers'
 A mixed bag October 5, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
"The Montefeltro Conspiracy" is an attempt, only partially successful, to turn a scholarly discovery of genuine importance within the field of Renaissance history into a sprawling pop-history book for lay readers. In 2001, the author, Marcello Simonetta, a professor at Wesleyan, discovered an encrypted document in an Italian archive that he was able to decipher with the aid of a fifteenth-century code book written by one of his own ancestors, Cicco Simonetta, an advisor to the powerful Sforza family. The document in question implicated the Duke of Urbino -- Federico da Montefeltro, an important allay of the Papacy -- as a primary mover in the so-called "Pazzi conspiracy," a well-known historical episode in which the Pazzi family of Florence attempted to supplant the Medici as the de facto rulers of that city-state. The Pazzi conspirators arranged for the murder of Guiliano de' Medici but did not succeed in finishing off his brother Lorenzo. With hundreds of troops under Montefeltro's command waiting outside the city to aid the Pazzi conspirators, the coup fizzled, and the main conspirators were executed. Florence remained under Medici rule, and Montefeltro's troops never entered the city proper.
This story is certainly interesting, but Simonetta attempts to turn his discovery into something that it isn't: a document that fundamentally alters the world's understanding of the Pazzi conspiracy. Simonetta is actually at his best when narrating the established rendition of events, which he does with elegance and skill. When he veers off into arguing for the centrality of his own academic work -- which is certainly interesting, but not earth-shattering -- he becomes quite tedious. Likewise, the end of the book is entirely ruined, in my opinion, when Simonetta veers off into Dan Brown territory, attempting to find hidden encoded meanings referring to the Pazzi conspiracy in the works of Botticelli. This discussion, aside from being insufficiently substantiated, and, to my mind unconvincing, is a distraction from the primary subject matter of the book.
On the whole, "The Montefeltro Conspiracy" is an interesting read for the middle 150 pages, which unfortunately are bookended by a tendentious introduction and a very disappointing ending.
Well Presented Material September 30, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
The author is focused, as a writer of a book with this title should be, on this one episode of Renaissance Italy. The writing is clear. The arrangement of short chapters, help a lay reader like me to understand the complicated relationships. The illustrations are a big plus.
Through this episode you can learn about the political structures of Italy's main city states, the role of the church, how armies were raised and what armies did, and how interlocking loyalties functioned and changed. You also learn about mail, how it was sent, spied upon and coded.
I think the discussion of Boticelli at the end was appropriate. Not being attuned to the heavily allegorical art of the time, I couldn't debate the author's thesis, but found it plausible. It got me wondering what stories might lurk in Michelangelo's ceiling.
Because I am new to the literature of Renaissance in Italy, I can only review this for those who are also new to the material. While I am sure there are better places to start, if you know something about the city states, the Medici, and the art of the period, this book will add to your understanding and provides an interesting story.
Highly recommended September 23, 2008
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
Those familiar with the Italian Renaissance know the events of April 26, 1478 like they know the fingers on their right hand. It is a well-worn story: we learn in college seminar rooms, through books and on banners unfurled on museum facades that the Medici were early modern Italy's beloved bankers, and primary patrons of the arts. We read that in dramatic and violent fashion, the Pazzi family (with support from Pope Sixtus IV) attempted to murder their banking rivals at high mass in Florence's cathedral - killing Giuliano, and injuring Lorenzo, who escaped with the humanist Angelo Poliziano. We discover that the murder plot's imperfect execution inspired the Medici's vicious retaliation, in the form of the total extermination of the Pazzi surname. This story has become so central in histories of the Renaissance that we feel we can re-tell it with absolute certainty.
Prepare to be shocked. Dr. Simonetta, a noted authority on Early Modern Italy, provides crucial archival evidence and exhaustive research that deeply implicates Federico da Montefeltro (the Duke of Urbino) in the Pazzi assassination plot, a discovery that will stir the pot for years to come. As Simonetta's story unfolds, other well-known Renaissance figures become embroiled in the conspiracy to oust the Florentine despot, which the author illustrates in clear prose, and using the interpretative tools appropriate to his guild (he is an historian at Wesleyan University, although the excitement here rivals that of any good detective whodunit).
Throughout, Simonetta demonstrates to be true the maxim that art is never far from politics. The visual culture of this fascinating time - seen here in the paintings of Botticelli and Cosimo Rosselli, among others - was always embedded within the socio-cultural, political and religious beliefs of the individuals who produced and used them. Art was never just beautiful when ecclesiastical and princely patrons were involved.
As with the previous reviewer, I disagree with Mr. Katz's appraisal of this book. I would add that besides those foundational art-historical luminaries whom Katz cites (he neglects to mention their mentor, Aby Warburg), the list of Botticelli scholars in the last century alone is so extensive - their interpretations so diverse - that to include a historiographic overview would merit a fifty-page excursus, or a post-modernist footnote resembling the work of David Foster Wallace. This is not in the spirit of the book.
All told, "The Montefeltro Conspiracy" is a joy to read. Simonetta's book will provide both battle-tested scholars and general Renaissance enthusiasts with equal excitement and satisfaction on every printed page. It comes with my highest recommendation.
A brilliant discovery September 20, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
This book is a must read for anyone interested in the Renaissance broadly, and politics more generally. The book is a riveting account of the delicate balance of power that existed in Italy during the fifteenth century.
With so much academic research being focused these days on esoteric topics, it is remarkable that Mr. Simonetta has been able to shed new light on the Pazzi Consiperacy, with primary research that conclusively links all of the major leaders of the time. From Naples, through the Vatican, Urbino and Florence, this book traces the motives and actions of the men who helped shape Western civilization as we know it today.
The latter part of the book, which discusses Boticelli, is perhaps the most interesting as it links religion and politics with Boticelli's masterpieces.
I cannot agree with Mr. Katzo's review. This is a highly recommended book that will provide a riveting read for anyone who picks it up.
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