HARE BRAINED

 

I never believed in the Easter Bunny. The very idea seemed implausible at best to me. Even at the tender age of five I couldn’t ignore the fundamental disconnect between the egg and the rabbit.

Rabbits don't lay eggs. They don't even eat eggs. What eggo-centric lunatic dreamed up this harebrained mythology?  Rabbits are cute and soft, but they are not bright. They eat grass and they poop,  Bunnies are basically just tiny, long eared cows. With short legs.  And I think their contribution to the world's methane surplus has been sorely under rated. Did I mention they were not good at mathematics? 

Listen - if you put an egg in front of a rabbit, the rabbit with nudge it aside to get to the grass underneath, even if it is plastic grass. You could even write the rabbit’s name on the side of the egg, and the rabbit would still ignore it.

And yet every year we insist upon convincing our toddlers that for some reason a rabbit has chosen to hide vast numbers of eggs all over our back yards. Under bushes. Behind flower pots. In trees. What is wrong with us?! Rabbits can’t climb trees.

You might as well tell your children that elephants have been herding water buffalo in your flower bed, or that squirrels are using your attic to store up their winter supply of canned beets. Why do we insist upon telling our children this particular absurd story?

Where is this rabbit supposed to get all of these eggs? And from whom is he supposedly hiding them? From the chickens, perhaps - otherwise known as “the mothers”. If you think about it an Easter Egg Hunt is a mass kidnapping and we are encouraging our children to be accessories after the fact. The F.B.I. should be involved in this story line, or at least Farmer McGreggor.

The very idea is so silly that most of the eggs hidden today aren’t even real, They're plastic. And they are filled with chocolate and licorice and sweet tarts, and other things that rabbits don’t eat! Show me a rabbit that eats sweet tarts and I will show you a candidate for hossenfeffer..

Children eat those things. They aren't healthy for the children, but they eat them anyway. Just like they eat old gum, or crickets. Those aren't good for children either, but given half a chance , any toddler with happily stick a live cricket in their mouth. And a few teenagers, too.

And I understand that the Easter Egg hunt is for the children's entertainment. It’s just supposed to be fun. But couldn’t it be logical and fun at the same time? Couldn’t we have an Easter chicken hiding the eggs? Why does it have to be a bunny rabbit?! Maybe instead of hiding the eggs,  he could be the one looking for the eggs. Although, again, why, I have no idea. There seems to be a subtle hidden nastiness inside the Easter Rabbit,

The birth of the Easter bunny is about as murky as the reasoning behind him being a him. And yes, the gender-bender nomenclature claims Mr. Bunny is a male fertility symbol – known in any other context as a creepy old man.- or a creepy old rabbit.  

The description of male rabbits during their mating season is "Mad as a March Hare".  Because the reality is they will copulate with anything that even remotely resembles a female rabbit. Anything.

It was the immortal Bede, the 7^th century rumor trolling English monk,  who claimed the Jewish festival of Passover occurred during the month of “Eostre”, who was an ancient Gallic fertility goddess, which means she was a woman, which seems more sensible as far as fertility is concerned. And definitely less ominous than the image of a male heir to all that sexual energy.

In 1835 Jacob Grimm – the elder of the brothers of the same name – suggested there was “linguistic support” for a “Proto-Indo-European goddess named 'Ostera' who brought the dawn each morning. In reward for delivering this gift of life the sleepy Proto-Indo- European males threw things at her, eggs maybe, told her to come back in an hour and probably called her the “B” word. 

Wrote the grim Mr. Grimm about this heathen Easter “ ...there seem to have lingered among the people Easter-games so-called....I allude especially to the custom of Easter eggs...”. To which I am forced to reply, “What the hell does that mean? 

Are we talking some kind of Proto-Indo-European symbolic Ostera eggs or egg eggs? According to Grimm's theory the Easter Egg hunt is a sort of primitive endurance contest, involving stuffing your face with “pastry of heathenish form”, and/or a “Cool Hand Luke” egg eating contest, only now with psychedelic colors. So you can over think this thing any way you want, and it still makes no sense.

I know I’m overwrought over this. The Easter bunny is just another one of those little contradictions in logic accepted without question by most people, one of those silly little stripped gears in the workings of our cultural machinery, that don’t make any sense but seem to be required to hold our society together.  Like Daylight savings time. Or that bar on boy’s bicycles. Or Keanu Reeves’ movie career.

You could get excited about outrageous, silly things like the Easter Bunny  Or you can just ignore them, and pretend there is a logic to them, and live your life in some semblance of calm. But to do so would be a fraud and you know it!

The truth shall set you free. And the truth is the the spring Easter Bunny is a violently, sexual predator.  I don’t know who said the thing about truth and freedom, whoever said it would be so argumentative they will probably out live the rest of us.  We deserve to know why it is that an Easter Bunny would hide eggs. And if the answer isn’t good enough, we have a right to pick our own illogical anthropomorphic creature upon which to base our Easter fun.

In a nutshell - or an an egg shell -  Rabbits are an old German symbol of fertility, for obvious reasons. And the egg is a symbol of...I guess breakfast and birth  And if you put those two together, the Easter Egg Hunt becomes a rabbit symbolically hiding his fertility all over your back yard, where your children are encouraged to hunt until they find it.

Are we nuts?  When they are five or six years old we send them looking for the symbol of fertility in their own backyard.. When they are twelve we don't even want them to be taught about this in the public schools!  No wonder Americans are so screwed up. We get our childhood from a furry Casanova, and our adolescence from Queen Victoria.

Why do I feel so strongly about this? Because, oddly enough I once had a male rabbit actually find his fertility  in my back yard. All over my backyard. And the deposit he left behind did not smell like eggs -  at least not fresh eggs. And I ended up with about fifty million female rabbits in my backyard for the next twenty-four hours or so. My dog was too scared to go outside. And I certainly didn’t want any small children going out there, either, because I wasn’t sure I could explain what they would see. Or suffer. Not to mention their propensity for picking things up and putting it in their mouths. What an Easter that was.

But, getting back to the mythology - Why in God's name would you want your children to find the secret of fertility? And I think I have found the solution to that question. So you can have a grandchild, that’s why. Grandchildren are essential because they help you torture your adult children, thus completing one slice out of the circle of life pie chart.

It’s curious that the chickens, who actually lay the millions of eggs that are stashed under bushes and flowers and lawn chairs on Easter Sunday, are not considered symbols of fertility. The feminists’ version of this is that these chicks do all the work while some crowing cock gets all the credit.  Thank goodness feminism has been totally discredited. Still, those hard boiled chicks may have a point.  Scrambled, like everything else in our polyglot culture, but a point never-the-less. I just wish I knew what the hell it was.

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AN EASTER MURDER Chapter Three

 

I find it perfectly logical that so much greed began in Florence (above). Wool from northern Europe and dyes from Asian ports met in Tuscany, which was far enough from Rome that religious strictures against greed could be stretched, and in a region so poor the nobility were willing to experiment with capitalism. A cultural and economic “rinascità”, or renaissance was set off, which would eventually lead to an Easter Murder.

Riding the cusp of this renaissance in 1378 was Salvestro, the black sheep of the  de'Medici family, He  

expressed sympathy for the popolo minuto, the little people, the unskilled textile workers, in demanding the right to form their own guilds. Their rulers, the popolo grasso, the fat ones, initially gave in, but a month later, when the workers followed one of their own, Michele di Lando, in storming the Palazzo Vecchio, the textile makers closed their shops, and Salvestro remained silent. Within days hunger forced the unpaid workers to surrender. But thanks to Salvestro, the Medici family had established their reputation as defenders of the common man, allowing them build a great fortune by using that populist image selectively

And on the heartless application of violence. One hundred years later, on 26 April 1478, as soon as Lorenzo Medici escaped from the cathedral, he dispatched forces to retrieve his brother's mutilated body, left to bleed out on the cathedral floor. From a second story window of his home Lorenzo then appeared to a crowd of supporters, showing he was still alive, if wounded. His survival inspired the Medici forces to strike back without pity.

Archbishop Francesco Salviati was already in custody at the Palazzo Vecchio. He was quickly joined by his brother, Jacopo Salviati, and his cousin, Bartolomeo Salviati. Both of those men had been in the cathedral during the murders of Guiliano Medici and Frecesco Nori. In addition, armed de Medici supporters were dispatched to the Pazzi home, where Francesco Pazzi, still bleeding, was arrested. Dragged to the Palazzo Vecchio, they were all questioned at an rump trial judged by the eight members of the City Council. The results were, it might be said, per-ordained.

Within the hour Francisco Pazzi was stripped naked. A noose was thrown around his neck. Then he was pushed from the second story window of the Palzzo Vecchio. The drop was not intended to be far enough to break his neck. It was intended that he should slowly strangled for the amusement of the jeering mob gathered in the square. 

And while he still writhed at the end of the rope, Archbishop Salviati, also naked, was shoved out the window, to writhe in desperate agony until, as an observer noted, his eyes bugged out.

 Once both men were finally dead, the ropes were cut and the bodies dropped into the square, where the mob beat and dismembered the corpses. One enraged man, said a witness, even bit into the dead Francesco's chest.

Next out the window was the two Salviati cousins, to dance to the crowd's delight, who then vented their blood lust upon the dead bodies. Then the priests, Setefano da Bagnone and Antonio Maffei de Volterra, the pair who had attacked Lorenzo, had their noses and ears cut off, before being castrated. Then, they were thrown from the window, to dance for the mob. 

Now, eager to prove their loyalty to the Medici family and with their blood lust released, the mob tracked down as many Pazzi and Pergia supporters as they could find, breaking into private homes and public buildings, even churches, to murder  them. At least eighty were butchered that Easter Sunday on the streets or in their homes, with many thrown from the Vecchio's clock tower. Guilt in the murder or the plot was no longer required. The Pazzi name was enough of a crime.

Jacopo Pazzi was trying to reach Pisa, but only managed to get as far as the tiny mountain village of Castagno, about seven miles west of Florence, before he was captured, beaten and returned to the city. He then flew out the Palazzo Vecchio window, like his nephew and sons. After he was buried in the family crypt, a drunken mob disinterred his corpse. They dragged it through the streets. It was then reburied outside the city walls, but dug up again, this time by children, who used the severed head to pound on the Pazzi family front door. When no one answered, the rotted corpse was dragged to the river Arno and tossed into the water. It was last seen, decomposing in the shallows.

Those Pazzi males not killed outright were arrested. and confined in the new prison fortress in Volterra, twenty miles southwest of Florence. It was so secure, it is still being used as high security prison today.  Guglielmo Pazzi, Francesco’s brother, was spared execution only because he was married to a Medici daughter. He was, however,  banished from Florence for life, along with all Pazzi females, old men and children. 

All Pazzi gold and silver in Europe were ordered seized, their homes, businesses and estates plundered and confiscated. No Pazzi was ever again allowed to hold public office in Florence. The family crest of two dolphins (above)was removed wherever found, as were all images of Pazzi faces in paintings . So complete and absolute was the Medici revenge, that the name Pazzi became, in English, to define anyone who could be implicated in a crime - a patsy.

Then there was the case of Giovanni Batista da Montesecco, a cousin to the Duke of Urbano. He had originally been chosen to kill Lorenzo, but bowed out after realizing the murders were to occur in the cathedral during Easter services. But neither had he warned the Medici of the plot. Arrested after being implicated by the unfortunate Setefano and Antonio, Giovanni revealed how deeply Pope Sixtus' had been involved. In return for his testimony, he was merely beheaded (above). The man who had officiated at the Easter Mass and Sixtus' nephew, Cardinal Raphael Riario, was held incommunicado for a month before Lorenzo decided he was only niave, and was allowed to return to Rome.

Bernardo Bandini, who had helped Francesco Pazzi murder Guiliani Medici, managed to get as far away as Constantinople. But the Medici bank reached that far, and 18 months after the attack Bernardo was kidnapped and hustled aboard a fast ship back to Italy and Florence. Immediately after his arrival, on 29 December, 1479, Bandini also flew out the Palazzo Vecchio window, still dressed in his Muslim disguise.   Leonardo Di Vinci sketched him hanging there (above).

After the Easter Sunday massacre, all of Italy had to pick sides, and most either joined the Pope or chose not to support the Medici. Even  the old Medici ally, the King of Naples, Ferdinand I, sent an army to lay siege to Florence. And while the King of France offered an army to Lorenzo, the surviving Medici son saw an opening. 

In December of 1479 Lorenzo sneaked out of Florence and took ship for Naples. He was instantly imprisoned by Ferdinand, but the monarch was convinced by Lorenzo's gold and his wounds that the Pope had precipitated this crises. Also, Naples was clearly on the French wish list of Italian properties to be grab, but was saved by Lorenzo's quick wits. Ferdinand forced Sixtus to reconcile with the Medici, and the war quickly came to an end. From that day forward, Lorenzo would be known as Lorenzo the Magnificent.

Sixtus (above left) would sit on Peter's throne for another six years, but would be best remembered for this Easter Sunday attack, for the Sistine Chapel he had built - the ceiling painting would come later -  for  approving of black slavery in the new world, and for appointing Tomás Torquemada (above right) as the Grand Inquisitor of the infamous Holy Office of the Inquisition. This worldly Pope died in 1484 a bitter and disappointed man.

Lorenzo Medici (above) ruled Florence for another fifteen years, gradually more openly as a dictator. .He tracked down the new born son his brother had fathered with Fioretta Gorini, and had the boy brought into the family home and raised and educated as a full de Medici. 

When he died in 1492, Lorenzo de Medici would mostly be remembered for his wise rule, and the great public art works he commissioned, including the magnificent tomb containing his own and his brother' Guiliano's bones in the Church of San Lorenzo in Florence, a tomb designed and carved by Michelangelo.

But the ultimate Medici revenge of Sixtus came when Lorenzo's son, Giovanni de Medici, became Pope Leo X in 1513, and was succeeded by Giuliano's son, Giulio de Medici, as Pope Clement VII in 1523.   It is said, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.   And the Medici of Florence did both.

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AN EASTER MURDER Chapter Two

 

I don't believe the rumors of a plan to poison Lorenzo and Guiliano de Medici in their family villa  (above) on the sun warmed slopes of Fiesole, four miles above Florence.  No, it seems far more likely the banquet was used to lull the Medici into complacency, and set the stage for the actual assassination to take place the next day, Easter Sunday, 26 April of 1478, inside the Basilica of Maria del Fiore,

There has been a church on this spot out side the city walls since the fifth century, earning it the Italian title “duomo”, meaning 'the bishop's former house.” By the end of the thirteenth century the Florence duomo was too small and decrepit for the growing city, so the council approved a new cathedral, the Church of Saint Mary of the Flowers, 500 feet long, 124 feet wide, with walls supported by Gothic arches soaring 75 feet above the floor, and capable of holding upwards of 12, 000 faithful. The first stone was laid in 1296. Delayed by the Black Death, the red dome was not finished until 1436. Wars would slow work on the facade, which would not be completed for another 500 years. And the decision to murder the two oldest Medici males in this sacred place, on this sacred day, was an act of the Pope's arrogance and desperation.

Cardinal Raphael Riario entered the church with the man the Medici had preferred as archbishop of Florence, Rinaldo Orsini, and with Pope Sixtus' original choice for that chair, the visiting archbishop of Pisa,  Francesco Salviati.  Accompanying them was Lorezo de Medici and his close friend Frecesco Nori. Lorenzo took a pew in the front, and since his brother Guiliano had not appeared, Nori sat next to him.  The cardinal would officiate at the mass, assisted by priests, and the two archbishops sat next to each other, in chairs near the alter. Before them the great space of the cathedral filled with 10,000 penitents.

At about noon priest Francesco de Pazzi and Bernardo Bandi appeared at the younger de Medici's home, seeking to accompany Guiliano to the service, arguing their joint entrance would show unity on this holy day. Perhaps Guiliano ( above) was still ill, or perhaps the visitors plied the rakish young man with wine, or perhaps their argument took time to be effective. In any case the three men were late in arriving at the duomo. They were forced to take seats near the rear of the cathedral, with Guiliano sitting directly in front of Francesco and Bernardo. This late arrival separated the intended victims, but it also separated the assassins.

Cardinal Riaro began the mass at one in the afternoon, with the blessing in Latin, “May the Lord be in your heart and on your lips, that you may proclaim his paschal praise worthily and well, in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” While the mass continued, other pieces of the conspiracy were falling into place. Outside of the city, the Duke of Urbano (above) an in-law to Pope Sixtus, had gathered 600 mercenaries, prepared to storm the city at word of the assassinations.  Missing from the ceremony in the cathedral, if any Medici had taken note, was the old man, Jocopo Pazzi.  He had gathered about 150 supporters , mostly members of the Perugia clan, in the surrounding streets. These forces were primed to murder the mayor and seize the city hall. But everything had to wait until after the murders about to take place during the Easter Service.

Slowly, the mass progressed toward its climax, as Riaro raised the host to be blessed. This motion was a signal for the bells to be set off in the tower. And also for Archbishop Salviati.to rise silently from his chair and quickly move toward an exit. And for Francesco de Pazzi to pull a knife from his priestly robes.  He stood. He raised his arm, screaming, “Take it, traitor!" And with all the force he could muster he drove the blade deep into the top of Guiliano de Medici's skull (above). In its first instant the Pazzi conspiracy had achieved half of its goals.

Despite the loud tolling of the bells, there were screams and shouts of murder heard from the rear of the great cathedral. The two who had been assigned to murder Lorenzo de Medici, the priest Setefano da Bagnone and the vicar-in-training Antonio Maffei de Volterra, must have thought that, since Guiliano was absent, the assignation had been postponed again. But now, as Lorenzo turned to investigate the clamor, one of them drew his dagger. Lorenzo saw the movement and staggered to his feet. The blade swept across his throat, slicing into the skin and drawing blood. Lorenzo fell backwards into the aisle, where he could draw his own knife.

In the center of the insanity, and blocking the main door, Francesco de Pazzi had thrown himself upon the wounded Guiliano de Medici in such a hysteria of fear and frenzy , he stabbed himself in the leg,  Bernardo Bandi did little more than ward off any who might be inclined to intervene. None were and Guiliano suffered 19 separate knife wounds before Francesco paused to catch his breath.

At the front of the sacred hall, Frecesco Nori drew his own knife and moved to block the attackers, as other Medici allies hustled Lorenzo into the sacristy, where the priests put on their robes. The Medici supporters blockaded the only door, and the two attackers, Stefano and Antonio had to satisfy themselves with cutting down Lorenzo's friend, Frencesco .

Parishioners were climbing over pews to escape the church, and were now streaming out every exit they could find. Families huddled to protect their children. The old and blind were abandoned in the general panic. The bewildered Cardinal Riaro was pinned against the alter by pro-Medici priests who a moment before had been assisting him. They would later insist he made no attempt to take part in the violence.

Archbishop Francesco Salviati, still dressed in his robes, walked quickly from the duomo, Together with Jocopo Pazzi and his 150  supporters, they marched the less than a quarter mile south to the city hall, the old Palazzo Vecchio palace (above, center).  By the time they arrived, the bloodshed at the cathedral had already ended, and Francesco Pazzi, bleeding from his self inflicted leg wound, and realizing that Lorenzo, the elder de Medici,  was still alive, was himself staggering after them. 

Entering the palace by the Sala dei Duecento, the hall of the two hundred (above), Jacopo and Salviati, leading 150 angry looking men, demanded the guards take them to Cesare Petrucci, the Gonfloniere, or mayor, who lived in the palace. It was an unusual request for a Sunday morning, particularly from Salviati, who was supposed to be at the Easter Services. His guard already up, Mayor Cesare, a Medici supporter, agreed to speak only with Salviati. 

The problem, for the Pazzi, was that the hall had originally been the Signoria, or the city council meeting room, and the interior doors originally only led to rooms were ballots were counted. Because of this the door handles were cleverly recessed and hidden. And once Salviati entered the palace proper, he was cut off Jacopo and his soldiers, who could not find a door they could open.

Trying to convince Cesare to step outside to speak to Jacopo,  Salvati suddenly found words difficult. He was excited, and clearly worried, and Cesare responded by having his guards put the archbishop under arrest. 

At about the same time, the blood stained Francesco had made it to the Palazzo, where he gave his uncle the bad news -  the young Guiliano de Medici was dead, but Lorenzo de Medici was still lived. The conspirator's might have called upon the 600 soldiers waiting outside the city under the Duke of Urbano.   But, Francesco, weak from blood loss, decided to return home. And at that key moment, Jacopo decided to leave town. And the 150 Pazzi and Pergia supporters who had been told only to follow orders, were abandoned to fend for themselves. No one gave word to the Duke, to enter Florence. So he continued to wait outside the city walls, for a summons which never came.

The Pazzi Conspiracy, backed and funded by Pope Sixtus, had collapsed after murdering one unarmed man in the middle of a holy Easter service. And now the bill for that murder must be paid.

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