Piero de ' Medici knew he was in trouble. He had advisors and informants that kept him abreast of activities in the city when he was out. These became too little too late as responses began to fall on deaf ears. The son of Lorenzo de Medici had even resorted to desperate tactics like sending word for servants to throw pastries and sweets from the windows of the Palazzo in the center of Florence. Few showed up for this gesture of generous largesse. In the first days of November, the Signoria ignored Piero's requests and commands and sent it's own six man delegation to the French King, whose forces already sat on both sides of the Appenines. When stories arrived that the de'Medici heir, in negotiations with the King, had given up Pisa and Livorno, the situation exploded.
Matters had grown dark for some time in Florence. The halcyonic glory days of Lorenzo Magnifico were over. In place of their devotions to him and his family, the passions of the people fell into factions and the minds of many were taking darker turns. Girolamo Savonarola, Dominican friar at San Marco, preaching the end of times, echoed the fears of too many that a terrible tyrant would be sent across the Alps to punish Florence. At times a foreign Cyrus, and at times the angel of reform, for years, a great scourge, he proclaimed, was coming soon to lay low the once proud Florence. Now, the French were on the road and the only hope in stemming the prophesied destruction was in pleading for a greater reformation in the larger, thoroughly corrupted Church. Savonarola had equated the coming French armies with the approaching sword of God, descending to snatch the unwary.
When word had reached Florence of the 'settlement' that Piero d'Medici had agreed to with the French King, the streets filled up with protesters. Piero had expected upon returning to reassure the people, that he had saved the city from invasion. At least twice, Piero tried to address the Signoria. He tried to get the Podesta to arrest the impudent Jacopo de' Nerli who had called Piero a child. But they would not do even this. When he realized he could not gain their support Piero and his retinue withdrew.
Again, Piero, now needing armed supporters, tried to gain access to the Piazza della Signoria, this time, forced to enter by a single tiny door. There he was greeted by none other than Jacopo de' Nerli who told him he could enter only by himself, and without his retainers and supporters. Jacopo then bit his knuckle at Piero, an act of public insolence intending violence. The group surrounding Piero began brandishing their weapons. Above, at a window, a member of the Signoria and doctor of law, Luca Corsini began shouting 'People and Liberty', a rallying call for anti-de'Medici, pro-Republic partisans. The call went up the street and the small group around Piero saw they were surrounded. They did manage to escape and rush north through the city.
Armed with stones, embittered about the accumulation of wealth and power, the masses of people converging in the city center would hear none of the alternate cries for calm. Piero was able to sneak back into his family home, gather up his closest family members, and the next day, retire well away from the city of his birth. The same city his family had tried to so benevolently, and generously lead. Other family members and partisans tried to remove as much of the de Medici treasure as possible, but in the mobs that engulfed the family palazzo, in the following days, much was lost. The Signoria soon elected to assign bounties for the capture of members of the de Medici clan.
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from pp. 35-7, in Martines, Lauro: Fire In The City: Savonarola and the struggle for the soul of Renaissance Florence ; Oxford University Press, New York, 2006
additional notes drawn from Hibbert, Christopher: Florence: The biography of a city; Penguin Books, London, renewed 2004
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