May 25
Born in Florence in 1566, she had a religious upbringing and entered the monastery of the Carmelite nuns there. She led a hidden life of prayer and
self-denial, praying particularly for the renewal of the Church and encouraging the sisters in holiness. Her life was marked by many extraordinary graces. She died in 1607.
No, she was called ‘de pazzi’ not because she was crazy but
because she came from a noble Florenine family that carried that name. Their main trade during the fifteenth century was banking. In the aftermath of the Pazzi conspiracy[1] in 1478, members of the family were banished from Florence and their property was confiscated; anyone named Pazzi had to take a new name.
[1] Early in 1477 Francesco
de’ Pazzi, manager in Rome of the Pazzi bank, plotted with Girolamo Riario, nephew and protegé of the pope, Sixtus IV, and with Francesco Salviati, whom Sixtus had made archbishop of Pisa, to assassinate Lorenzo de’ Medici and his brother Giuliano to oust the Medici family as rulers of Florence. The
assassination attempt was made during mass in the Duomo of Florence on 26 April 1478. Giuliano was killed; Lorenzo
was wounded but escaped. Salviati, with mercenaries from Perugia, tried but failed to take over the Palazzo
della Signoria. Most of the conspirators were soon caught and summarily executed; five, including Francesco de’ Pazzi, were hanged from the windows of the Palazzo della Signoria. Jacopo de’ Pazzi, head of the family, escaped from Florence but was caught and brought back. He was tortured,
then hanged from the Palazzo della Signoria next to the decomposing corpse of Salviati. He was buried at Santa Croce, but the body was dug up and thrown into a ditch. It was then dragged through the streets and propped up at the door of Palazzo Pazzi, where the rotting head was mockingly used as a door-knocker.
From there it was thrown into the Arno; children fished it out and hung it from a willow tree, flogged it, and then threw it back into the river. Times were tough!!!