1478
Spanish Inquisition Established
A papal bull at Isabella and Ferdinand's urging authorized a new ecclesiastical court under royal control to investigate conversos suspected of Judaizing. The first tribunal opened in Seville a year later. Its bonfires would light Spain for three centuries, and its techniques would define, in every language, the word inquisition.
Pazzi Conspiracy
During High Mass in Florence's cathedral, assassins hired by the Pazzi family and Pope Sixtus IV stabbed Giuliano de Medici to death at the altar. His brother Lorenzo, wounded in the neck, fought his way to the sacristy. Within hours the conspirators were hanging from the Palazzo della Signoria's windows. Florence rallied to the Medici.
Botticelli Paints Primavera
In a Medici villa workroom, Sandro Botticelli completed a vast allegory of Venus, Mercury, the Three Graces, and Flora scattering roses across a spring meadow. It was pagan, philosophical, and quietly erotic. The painting, commissioned by a young Medici cousin, hangs now in the Uffizi still smelling faintly of Tuscan flowers.
Botticelli Paints Birth of Venus
Sandro Botticelli produced his image of Venus standing on a scallop shell, blown ashore by the west wind, her hair a cascade of gold. Commissioned by a Medici cousin for a country villa, the painting is one of the earliest large-scale nudes since antiquity. It quietly violated every medieval convention about sacred painting.
Giuliano de Medici Murdered at Mass
The younger Medici brother was stabbed nineteen times at the elevation of the host in Florence's cathedral by Pazzi conspirators. His corpse was carried out by horrified worshippers. Lorenzo survived, only slightly wounded. The failed coup handed the Medici a blank check with the Florentine people for the next decade.