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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A WOMAN SCORNED: Kentucky Tragedy.

I don’t know if Solomon Porcius Sharp (above) could have been President. But a man who had the job, John Quincy Adams, described the Kentucky lawyer as, “The brainiest man that ever came over the Allegheny Mountains.” He was not, however, a very nice man. But then nobody in this story were very nice people.

Kentucky became a state in 1792, and, in 1825, was still mostly wilderness,  And yet the 38 year old Sharp had already served two terms as a federal Congressman for Kentucky, four years as State Attorney General, and was now starting his second term as a state legislator – so the boy was not lacking for ambition, brains or talent. He spent his last day on earth, Sunday, 5 November, 1825, conferring with political allies. Every indication was that come Monday morning, he would easily be elected Speaker of the Kentucky House. It even seemed possible his next stop would be the United States Senate, and then, possibly, the White House; except, an ex-girlfriend of his had other plans. 

Her name was Anna Cooke, and in her youth she had been a real Southern Belle. However Anna was never described as a great beauty. And her family were nearly destitute, having lost both their fortune and their father in the depression of 1819.  

Forced to retreat with her mother and five younger brothers to an isolated farm in southern Kentucky outside of Bowling Green,  Anna was not likely to make a good match. But she was  "a freethinker, reader of romantic fiction, and a libertine."  Or so said her critics.  I suspect she also had a passion for men and for gambling and for gambling on men. Given her situation and her sex, Anna had little choice.  But like all gamblers, the more Anna gambled the more she lost. Few suitable men of "good families" (i.e. wealthy,) wanted to be responsible for her gambling debts. 

In 1820, at the age of 35 and still single , Anna had gambled heavily on Solomon P. Sharp.  But when she became pregnant that year, Sharp refused to marry her. The lady was now officially socially ruined. And after her child was still born, the lady had nothing left to lose. In May of 1820, determined to return the pain she had endured, Anna publicly accused Solomon Sharp with being the father.  His political allies responded by claiming the dead child had been born with black skin, and thus could not be the child of a white politician

In a slave state like Kentucky, in a bigoted misogynous nation such as America in 1820, in a land "of the fiddle and whiskey, sweat and prayer, pride and depravity"   it was a truly vicious attack.  With no living male relatives willing to challenge Sharp to a duel, (all three of her  brothers had recently died of fever)  Anna had no way to respond.  In fact, her reputation was left in tatters no matter which side was believed.  And two hundred years later it is impossible to comprehend the depth of her social isolation. But we are certain about what happened next. 

By 1824 Anna Cook was a spinster approaching forty, and her rose had withered.  A critic described her as short, with dark hair and eyes, a few missing teeth, stoop shouldered and  “in no way a handsome or desirable woman.”  She still had slaves to provide her with some feeling of superiority, but lack of money meant her fashions could not keep up with the trends. And yet inside Anna there still burned a passion, which had metamorphosed into a burning fierce hatred of her old boyfriend and respected politician, Solomon Sharp. 

And just at this opportune moment 22 year old Jereboam Orville Beauchamp (above) appeared and asked for her hand in marriage. He had been a neighbor and a one time student in Sharp’s law office.  And to hear Jereboam tell it, the hypocrisy of the vicious attack against Anna had awakened an almost religious hunger for justice within him...or so he said.  

In response to his proposal, Ann agreed with one stipulation. She would marry the younger Jereboam if he promised to murder Solomon Sharp. Thus, to call their marriage an affair of the heart seems somehow to have missed the point.  And as soon as it was convenient after the 1824 wedding,  Jereboam traveled to the state capital of  Frankfort, looking to fulfill his promise to his new bride.

Of course there might have been another explanation for the timing of Jereboam’s marriage and expedition to Frankfort, besides moral outrage. The week before, on 25 October, 1825,  a warrant for Jereboam’s arrest had been issued by the sheriff in Bowling Green.  It seems a single young woman named Ruth Reed was suing Jereboam for child support. 

So the gallant defender of Anna's chaste womanhood might well have been the dead-beat dad of an illegitimate child himself.  Do you get the feeling that the public morality of neither of the times nor Mr. Beauchamp nor Ms. Cook nor Mr. Sharp, were quite what they claimed to be?  Sort of just like today, yes?

Frankfort in November of 1825, when Jereboam arrived, was a wooden town of just 1,500 souls. It had been established at a ford across the Kentucky River, and was named for Stephen Frank, an early settler. The village became the state capital because local boosters contributed $3,000 in gold to the state treasury, and property for public buildings. It was not a generous act, as the boosters got rich selling house lots in the new burg. 

But despite the investment, Frankfurt was, in 1825, and remains to this day, one of the smallest state capitals in the Union. There were in 1825, a few brick structures in town, so fire was constantly updating the architecture.  Earlier in 1825 Frankfort had burned down its sixth state capital building, and the legislature was currently renting a Methodist Church for its use. 

Directly across Madison Street from that Methodist temporary cathedral of democracy was the rented two story abode of Solomon Sharp, his wife and their 3 children. And around the corner from the front of the mansion there was a second door (above , right), which opened directly onto the family room.  It was referred to as the side/rear entrance.

Jereboam waited in the shadows of the Methodist church until Sharp returned to his Madison street home, sometime after midnight on 6 November, 1825. Then, as the clock approached two in the morning, he knocked on a side/rear door. 

In the murder's own words, "“I knocked three times loud and quick, Colonel Sharp said; "Who's there" - "Covington I replied," quickly... Colonel Sharp opened the door. I advanced into the room and with my left hand I grasped his right wrist. The violence of the grasp made him spring back and trying to disengage his wrist..."I don't know you," said Colonel Sharp...Mrs. Sharp appeared at the partition door and then disappeared... I said in a persuasive tone of voice, "Come to the light Colonel and you will know me," and pulling him by the arm... " Jereboam then cut the conversation short by thrusting a dagger into Solomon’s neck, severing his aorta. Solomon Sharp was dead shortly after he hit the floor. Jereboam then fled into the night. The first political assignation in American had just been committed.

There were, of course, elaborate conspiracy theories which sprang up around the assassination of Solomon Sharp, spurred on by the victim’s politics and the $4,000 reward offered.  But the police stuck to what they could prove.

Four nights after the murder Jereboam was arrested in his home. The cops never found the murder weapon. And although Sharp’s widow eventually identified Jereboam’s voice as the one she heard call out “Covington”,  she had initially identified that voice as belonging to Mr. Patrick Darby, another of her husband’s many political enemies.  But several witnesses testified that Jereboam had repeatedly threatened to kill Solomon, and after a 13 day long trial, the jury had no doubts. On 19 May, 1826, after just one hour of deliberations, they returned with a verdict of guilty.

In his jail cell Jereboam dropped all pretense of innocence and wrote out a lengthy confession (above), filled with all the drama and heroics he clearly wanted people to believe he possessed.  The court even delayed his execution so he could finish his diatribe.   According to Jereboam, Solomon had repeatedly admitted his crime against Anna, and had begged for mercy.  

Even if true (and considering his injuries, such a speech would have not been physically possible), how that justified the cold blooded murder of a father of 3 small children (above his grave the word "father" would even be carved in stone),  Jereboam did not attempt to explain.  And in the end it did not matter, because, as one commentator has pointed out,  the entire affair now “went from tragedy to romantic melodrama.”

While he awaited execution, Anna was allowed to share her husband’s cell each night, coming and going during the day.  Into his place of confinement she slipped in a bottle of laudanum, a potent mixture of 89% grain ethanol, 10% opium and 1% morphine. The lovers intended a joint suicide, but instead produced only a double regurgitation marathon.  

The absurdity of that sickening episode was matched only by the ineptitude of the jailers, because, just two days later,  these pin-headed penitenciariests allowed Anna to carry a knife into the cell for yet another unregulated visit. Jereboam stabbed himself in the abdomen. Anna then grabbed the knife and stabbed herself in the stomach. If it was a race, she won. She died an hour later. 

Jereboam lived long enough that the jailers had to manhandle the wounded thespian up the thirteen steps of the scaffold, where he died, two hours after his wife.

They were buried together in the same grave, under a lengthy poem, composed by Jereboam (above), and filled with noble words, self pity and maudlin sentiment. So the real cost of Anna Cook’s revenge and Solomon Sharp's ego was three lives; her's  and the lives of two men she professed, at various times, to have loved. And I suspect she thought that was a fair trade. And that is the real tragedy in this so called "Kentucky  Tragedy".

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