A European Scandal and its Resonances: The Pazzi-Conspiracy as a Media Event and a Lieu de Mémoire

1478年4月26日，朱利亚诺·德·美第奇在佛罗伦萨大教堂被谋杀，而他的兄弟洛伦佐几乎没有逃脱。这次暗杀标志着一场复杂阴谋的高潮，甚至涉及教皇西克斯图斯四世和他的侄子吉罗拉莫·里亚里奥。人文主义者安杰洛·波利齐亚诺（Angelo Poliziano）在一篇文学评论中将其解释为帕齐人的阴谋。在这个名字下，这一事件是意大利文艺复兴时期的一段插曲，即使在今天也引起了人们最大的兴趣。但是，为什么这个具体的阴谋变得如此突出，而政治阴谋和暗杀绝不是前现代政策的特殊工具？要回答这个问题，必须超越对意大利半岛的政治发展及其文学改编的分析。在这种情况下，非同寻常和新颖的是事件引起的巨大公众反应，以及基于人文主义和教义思想的著作的传播，这些著作在利用印刷机这一新工具的运动和反运动中被用于宣传。此外，随之而来的权力和正义之争对更多的国际观众产生了影响，导致欧洲大国积极参与解决冲突的努力。最后，这一丑闻在欧洲的记忆文化中产生了持久的共鸣。这些方面，从来没有全面研究过，在我的Habilitationsprojekt通过采取媒体，传播和接受历史的方法进行检查。这项研究是在广泛收集新发现的未发表的资料的基础上进行的，这是一个将在项目过程中通过全面查阅剩余的有关档案材料而完成的语料库。我分析的目的是展示信息、宣传（被理解为由统治者控制的说服性沟通）和国际冲突解决机制。此外，我的目的是展示前现代时代丑闻事件的长期共鸣。根据我的论文，这些机制促成了佛罗伦萨冲突扩大为全意大利范围的斗争，成为欧洲范围的丑闻，最终成为一个记忆空间（lieude de memoire），在各种转变之后，继续塑造梅迪奇政权、教皇和文艺复兴文化的形象。

The 26th April 1478, Giuliano dei Medici was murdered in the Cathedral of Florence, while his brother Lorenzo barely escaped. The assassination marked the climax of a complex intrigue that involved even Pope Sixtus IV and his Nephew Girolamo Riario. In a literary comment, the humanist Angelo Poliziano interpreted it as the Conspiracy of the Pazzi. Under this name the event counts among those episodes of the Italian Renaissance that arouse greatest interest even today. But why did this specific plot become so prominent, while political conspiracies and assassinations were by no means extraordinary instruments of pre-modern policies? An answer to this question must go beyond an analysis of the political developments on the Italian Peninsula and their literary adaptations. What was extraordinary and new, in this case was the immense public reaction caused by the event, and furthermore the dissemination of writings that were grounded in humanistic and doctrinal thought, which were used propagandistically in campaigns and counter-campaigns exploiting the new instrument of the printing press. Furthermore the ensuing struggle for power and justice had consequences on a larger international audience, leading to the intense diplomatic participation from European powers into the efforts to resolve the conflict. Finally, the scandal had long-lasting resonances in European memory culture. These aspects, never before studied comprehensively, are examined in my Habilitationsprojekt by taking up approaches of media-, communication- and reception-history. The research is carried out on the basis of a broad collection of newly found unpublished sources, a corpus to be completed in the course of the project by a complete consultation of the remaining relevant archival material. The goal of my analysis is to show mechanisms of information, propaganda (understood as persuasive communication controlled by a ruler) and international conflict resolution. Moreover my aim is to show the resonances in the long run of a scandalous event of the pre-modern era. According to my theses, those mechanisms contributed to the expansion of a Florentine conflict into an Italian-wide struggle, a scandal on a European scale and in the end into a lieu de mémoire (memory space) which, in the wake of various transformations, continues to craft the image of the Medici-regime, the Papacy and the culture of the Renaissance.