Note 225 — Chapter I

The confession of Giovan Batista da Montesecco, in the Excusatio Florentinorum, drawn up by the Chancellor Bartolommeo Scala in Fabroni, vol. ii. p. 167, gives the clearest insight into the course of the conspiracy, and the measure of Pope Sixtus IV’s. share in it. We have not the least ground to doubt the truth of the statements contained in this document. The best-known contemporary account of the occurrences is Angelo Poliziano’s De Coniuratione Pactiana Commentarius, printed in the year of the conspiracy, and extremely rare, reprinted in the edition of Poliziano’s works which appeared at Bâle, 1553, and then carefully re-edited, with many valuable additions by Giovanni Adimari. A translation made, as it seems, after the middle of the sixteenth century, was printed in the Prose Volgari inedite, &c., di Angelo Poliziano, Flor. 1867, pp. 87-105. There was no lack of later translation. The relation of the facts is undoubtedly correct; the opinions regarding the acting persons are those of a partizan. The later ones follow that of Poliziano in all essentials, whom, however, G. M. Bruto rightly accuses of partizanship. The best and most reliable representation, according to the documents, is that in Scipione Ammirato, in the twenty-fourth book of his Florentine History, printed separately with remarks, Flor. 1826. Fabroni, as usual, has selected the most important from the documentary materials, as far as they were at his disposal in Florence.