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Lauro Martines
April Blood
Hay Festival 2003,
In April 1478, a plot to murder the two heads of the powerful Medici family miscarried dramatically in the Cathedral of Florence. The younger of the two brothers was killed, but Lorenzo the Magnificent, the brilliant poet and connoisseur escaped. A bloodbath followed in reprisal. All Italy was affected as it emerged that the Pope, the King of Naples and the Duke of Urbino were deeply implicated in the plot.