The Rest Is History - 573. The Medici: Lorenzo the Magnificent (Part 2)

Episode Date: June 11, 2025

Who was Lorenzo the Magnificent, the most glamorous, glittering, and blood-soaked of all the Medici, who became his family’s formidable but compulsive “Godfather” from the age of only twenty one? What was the Pazzi Conspiracy, in which he was almost murdered in a bloody plot to eliminate Medici supremacy in Florence, in the middle of a church mass? Were the Medici the first Italian mafia? What influence did Lorenzo have upon the Renaissance? And, what would become of the Medici, with conspirators circling, the Papacy against them, and their bank coffers draining away?  Join Dominic and Tom as they dive into the colourful, salacious and politically tumultuous early life of one of Europe’s most charming and charismatic figures: Lorenzo the Magnificent. Could he remain Prince of Florence, and save his beloved city, against all the odds?  ⁠The Rest Is History Club⁠: Become a member for exclusive bonus content, early access to full series and live show tickets, ad-free listening, our exclusive newsletter, discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, and our members’ chatroom on Discord. Just head to ⁠therestishistory.com⁠ to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: ⁠apple.co/therestishistory⁠. For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to ⁠www.goalhanger.com⁠ _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett + Aaliyah Akude  Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is the restishistory.com. Citizens of San Gimignano, heed well my words. You must repent, repent and seek forgiveness, for your wicked ways have incurred the wrath of a demon. Summoned by your sins, he now walks our world, cloaked in shadow and darkness, and everywhere he treads, death follows. Why, you ask?

Because you have strayed and sacrificed your liberty to that wretch Lorenzo de Medici. You are puppets, enslaved by purse strings, won over by poisonous words. You have lost your virtue. You have lost your dignity. You have lost your faith. And this draws the demons into feed. And feed they will. So that was a priest called Antonio Maffei addressing the people of San Gimignano in

Tuscany and it is a speech that follows one of the most dramatic episodes in the history of the Renaissance, perhaps indeed in all Italian history, and that is the Pazzi Conspiracy, which was a plot to murder Lorenzo the Magnificent, who is head of the Medici family during high mass in the cathedral, the Duomo in Florence on the 26th of April 1478. People alert to the nuances and rhetorical rhythms of Florentine rhetoric in the 15th century, may be wondering whether that speech was actually made by Antonio Maffei or whether it was made up very possibly for a computer game. So Dominic, what's the answer? Because that doesn't sound genuine to me. It's not genuine, Tom. It's a scene from the video game Assassin's Creed 2, which I heartily recommend to the listeners. A brilliant game set in Medici, Florence. In reality,

Mafay, who definitely existed and plays a big part in this story, he was in no condition to give such a speech since he had just gone under the knife in a peculiarly excruciating way. Oh, so this is delivered after he's gone under the knife? No, I think they cut in the game him going under the knife. Okay, because in which case I should have done it in a slightly higher pitched voice. You should indeed, but we'll give that moment to you, Tom, don't worry. Okay, something for listeners to look forward to. Exactly. The fact that this moment plays a part in a best-selling video game tells you, I guess, something about the enduring reputation of Lorenzo the Magnificent.

By any historical standards, he is a figure of extraordinary glamour and romance. He is the embodiment of Renaissance Florence at its peak. Now, last time, in the last episode, we looked at the foundations of Medici power in Florence, in particular, Lorenzo's grandfather Cosimo. And today, we're going to look at Lorenzo himself behind the myths of his magnificence and we will concentrate particularly on the story of the Pazzi conspiracy, this amazing kind of Godfather 2 style conspiracy that almost destroys him. So shall we start with Lorenzo himself? Why not? Yeah, I know you'd love that. So he was born on the 1st of January, 1449 in Florence. His father was Piero de' Medici, who was the son of Cosimo, who we talked about last time.

And Piero is being groomed to succeed his own father as head of the Medici political network. Lorenzo's mother, now we haven't actually had any women in the story really at all. So it's nice to have one. His mother is called Lucrezia Tornabone and she came from a rich patrician family and she was a remarkable person actually. She's very religious. She's very keen on the arts. She is a poet in her own right.

She writes hymns. She writes verse translations of the Bible. She sounds brilliant. Yeah, she is brilliant. Everybody says Lucrezia Tornaboni is a very very accomplished and impressive woman There was the other one who was jolly and fat in the previous episode a Contesina Yes, who's his grandmother fat and capable and cheerful. I think was the description. So what about Lucretia? Is she she's not fat She's capable. Is she jolly? I think if you're writing verse translations the Bible Bible by definition you're not jolly, surely.

Necessarily. So, Lorenzo has three sisters and he has a younger brother called Giuliano and Giuliano will return in this story in a thrillingly blood-stained way. So Lorenzo is said to be a very ungainly boy, but he's good at sports, Tom, which will please you and he's very clever. And he has a classic kind of mid 15th century humanist education from his private tutors. Classical, you might say. Classical education, loads of Latin, loads of Aristotle, loads of Plato now because people

are getting really excited about Plato. By the time he's 15, his family are already training him for a life in politics. He's been sent on diplomatic missions to Pisa, to Milan, of course, Florence's big ally, to Bologna, to Naples, and so on. When he's 17 in 1466, he goes to meet the Pope, Paul II, to Rome to discuss something that is going to, again, play a part in this story. Something that matters a lot to the Medici Empire, which is they have a concession for

alum mines in a place called Tolfa. Alum is a kind of mineral, mineral salts that you use for dying. And you make a lot of money from it. And this mine is really important for the Medici. And as you will see, its importance has consequences. And why is the Pope into this? The alum mines at Tulsa are in the papal states. So they're under the Pope's kind of jurisdiction.

He's granted the Medici a concession. Right. Now by this time his life has already changed because his grandfather States, so they're under the Pope's kind of jurisdiction. He's granted the Medici a concession. Right. Now, by this time, his life has already changed because his grandfather Cosimo, the godfather of the family business, has died of his gout. So that's where we entered last time. Now, Cosimo, as people will remember, is not a duke, he's not a prince or a king. He is the de facto ruler of Florence because he's the head of the bank and he's the head

of the political network. So when he dies, Cosimo, it's not actually guaranteed that Medici influence will continue. Because I guess, I mean, we compared him to Augustus in the previous episode. Yes. And Augustus has this kind of officially voted raft of powers, doesn't he? But Cosimo doesn't have that. It's much more shadowy for him. And so it's a question of can he maintain the bonds, the dues, the networks?

Exactly. The person who succeeds is Lorenzo's father, Piero. He is accepted pretty smoothly as the new head of the family. But is he really up to it? Piero is 48 years old at this point, and he's a bit of a wreck, to be honest, he has massive eczema, he has arthritis and he, of course, he has this gout, so actually people call him Il Gotoso, the gouty, he's known as Piero the gouty. He looks very unappealing, he has massively swollen glands, his eyelids droop so he appears to be constantly asleep.

But actually, he's a smart guy. You see, I had always kind of imagined him as Jeremy Strong. No. And I realize that that's because he's playing a role slightly analogous to Jeremy Strong's character in Succession. No, he's much more impressive than Kendall Roy. Yes. He looks very sleepy, but

he's always thinking and he's a methodical, he's a famously methodical banker. So actually, I think he's a reasonably impressive person. So he's underplayed in the historical record. I think he's underplayed exactly because he's head of the family for only four and a half years. So he's easily forgotten and it's not smooth sailing actually. So when he takes over, he asks for a report. He says, like, I want to have a report on the family finances on the state of the Medici Bank. And he is shocked to find out that they have overextended themselves a bit. There's a lot of turbulence in Northern Europe and they basically loan too much money. And he says, right, we should cut back on credit some of these big spenders, actually people

like Edward IV, King of England. He's a massive spender, isn't he? Massive spender, very extravagant. Or the dukes of Burgundy. And he says, we've also loaned too much money to the Florentine elite. Let's call in some of these loans. But actually calling in the loans means that some of the Florentine elite go bankrupt. And this triggers a bit of a crash in Florence itself.

So there's an economic crash. There's then a split in Florence itself. So there's an economic crash. There's then a split in the Medici party. Some of the old guards say, oh, Piero's, what's he canceling all the loans for? This is terrible. And this comes to a head in the summer of 1466. Actually, you mentioned succession. It's a very succession scene.

So the sort of hangers-on of the Roy family in succession, they're all called Carl or whatever, these kind of old guys. These people in the Medici story say, Piero's not up to it, and they call for an end to Medici domination and they say, let's go back to the old free Republican system. And Piero shows that despite his gout, he does have the backbone, he does have his father's ruthlessness because he immediately spends a load of money bringing in troops from Milan.

He raises a private army of mercenaries. He brings them into the center of the city the day before the Signoria elections. And the opposition kind of panic and crumble. The elections go his way. They're banished from Rome and Piero is able to cement his power. I mean, you've got to say that being a senior banker in the 15th century Florence sounds a lot more dramatic and fun than maybe being one today. Yeah.

It's not just sort of VIP tickets to Wimbledon. No, it's eliminating your enemies by bringing in paid mercenaries. Who wasn't want to do that? Everyone loves that. But actually, this is the side of the Medici story, you see, that we often miss. Because people think it's all kind of fancy palaces and Renaissance paintings like a thousand or more different versions of the Annunciation. But actually what you miss is the kind of armed intimidation, the election rigging, the sort of political

gangsters, sort of mafia politics, I think, to some degree. And that's the aspect you admire. That's the aspect I like. I can take or leave some of these paintings of, you know, the Annunciation and what. They're all the same, ultimately. What have you got against the Annunciation? I just think there's so many of them. Oh, you can never have too many. Or indeed the Adoration of the Magi. They're very keen on that as well.

Yeah, exactly. So I was in Florence a few months ago and Tabby, our assistant producer, said, how's it going? And I just said, listen, if I see another painting of the Annunciation I'm gonna go mad. But what if it's an Adoration of the Magi with a giraffe? Well we'll come on to the giraffe later on. But the art is part of the story because like Cosimo, Piero was very keen on artistic patronage. He spent a lot of money on coins and stuff for churches. Brilliant. I love him. On manuscripts.

He was a big fan of Donatello. We talked about Donatello last time, the sculptor. When he died, Piero paid for him to be buried next to Cosimo, next to his father. Wasn't Donatello a teenage mutant ninja turtle? He absolutely was. That would mean nothing to most of our listeners who are all under the age of 15. No, but it means something to me, Tom. And it's Piero who actually promotes a young painter called Sandro Botticelli.

So he was Atana's son and he gets Botticelli to actually come and live in the Palazzo Medici and treats him as one of the family. And if you go to the Uffizi Gallery, you mention the adoration for the Magi. Botticelli's painting of that in the painting are Cosimo and Piero and one of the young men on the right is the young Lorenzo the Magnificent. And you know what this reminds me of? What? Our appearance as donkeys in... Oh yeah, Malcolm Price's novel. The Welsh noir novels of Malcolm Price. Yeah. So anyway, Lorenzo. So Piero the Gaudi is the boss, is the new godfather, and he's pushing Lorenzo forward.

And one of the elements of pushing him forward is they have to get him a wife. So he's 18, and Piero and Lucrezia are looking for a wife for him. The fact that they're looking for a wife when he's only 18, which is young by Florentine standards, is a sign that they are beginning to rank themselves alongside the kind of the princes and the aristocratic families of Europe. Because princes get married young. But to remind a point made in the previous episode, in Florence, if you remember the aristocracy, you can't run for office.

Right. Exactly. So is this starting to change by this point? I mean, the Medici have reaching a point where they don't have to worry about Lawrence, if you remember the aristocracy, you can't run for office. Right. Exactly. So is this starting to change by this point? I mean, the Medici have reaching a point where they don't have to worry about this or what's going on? They can't become aristocrats. They want to live like aristocrats and they want aristocrats abroad to treat them like aristocrats.

Right. So it's very telling. Lorenzo's bride will be a foreign noblewoman, a young woman called Clarice Orsini. She's 16 years old. She's an heiress from Rome. Her family have bigger states near Naples. Lucrezia goes off to Rome to meet her and inspect her at Mass at St. Peter's. And she reports back.

She says to Clarice, she's all right. She's got a round face and red hair. And I quote, she's tall and not got a round face and red hair and I quote she's tall and not unattractive her face is not pretty but it is not common and her figure is good altogether I think the girl is a good deal above the average. So it's kind of 15th century hinge. Yeah it's. Now what about Lorenzo is Lorenzo a catch?

Well people say Lorenzo looks a little bit unconventional. He has long dark shoulder length hair. He has a long broken looking nose. He has a kind of jutting jaw and a kind of glowering angry brow and his voice we're told is nasal and high pitched. And when I read those words Tom, you know who I thought of? I know exactly who you thought of. And he's listening in as we record this right now. I thought of Theo Young Smith, the producer of the rest is history.

Because, of course, we're also told that Lorenzo was very charming and energetic and clever and the parallels are uncanny. It is Theo. They really are. Although Lorenzo has slightly grander taste in clothes than Theoodosy. You know right there's jewelry and stuff No, oh, it's harsh. They looks like he's just coming off the street. Whereas you'd never say that of Lorenzo I can't believe you've gone there Tom, but you have theory Please remember who it was who said he praised you as charming clever and who said you look like somebody off the street

So anyway, Lorenzo marries this clarity che. I was about to say it's not a great love affair, although they do have 10 children, but he's not faithful. He has mistresses, whatever. Well, he's the magnificent, isn't he? Yeah, do what he likes. That's the kind of thing. If you call them magnificent, that's going to happen. What does he like doing? How does he spend his time? He loves a bit of sport. He plays a kind of football. So again, like Theo, who's very good at football.

Yeah, but he plays a calcio fiorentina, which is 27 players on each team I think it's too many. He plays a kind of fives called Paloni Now he loves a prank and a joke not quite at the standard We're used to on the show though Peter the great or sort of Augustus the strong or Charles the 12th standard Yeah, but you see thing is I think that their japs are quite menacing You wouldn't want to be caught up in you know in something involving bellows or bears or anything like that. No, that's not the race that's fired.

But tell me what you think of this tasteful prank. So they were all out drinking with some friends like Theo with Paul Rouse in Dublin. One of their friends who was a doctor got absolutely wasted. And basically, when he passed out, they bundled him up to the country. They locked him in a farmhouse. And they went back to Florence and spread a rumor that he was dead. And when he escaped and went home, his wife shrieked, thought he was a ghost who wouldn't let him in. What do you think of that? I see. I think that's great.

Yeah, it's great banter. Well, I think it's very, very Renaissance Florence appropriate, because it's like a short story from Boccaccio or something. Yeah, it is exactly. It is. Whereas if they had kind of mated him with a bear or something like that, that would be inappropriate. I don't think we've ever had a moment of, of human bear relations

in that way on the show. Have we? Yeah, but you know, I mean, that's obviously where it's heading. Yeah. So I like that. I like that. Anyway, Lorenzo also liked Theo. He loves music. He loves songs and poems. I think this is unlike Theo. He dabbles in architectural

drawing, which I'm not aware as a youngsmith hobby. On the downside, actually very like Theo, he's really competitive. Whenever he loses at something, he has a massive tantrum. So I think that's a black mark. Yeah, that is like Theo, isn't it? But he loves a party. So the most famous is they had this massive tournament in the Piazza Santa Croce in 1469 to celebrate his betrothal to Clarice. It was the most glamorous tournament anyone could remember.

It cost 10,000 ducats. They all had these fancy helmets. He was wearing a white scarlet and silk cape, a velvet surcoat, a silk scarf embroidered with roses and a black velvet cap and he wore a helmet with three tall blue feathers. I mean that is not Theo. He looked very camp I would think. Theo does not dress in a camp manner.

No, but he was declared the winner. He was actually not very good at fighting, but he was declared the winner anyway, basically because he bought the title. And then they have the wedding, which is a gigantic blowout. Remember we did that episode with John Dickey about Italian food. Yes. Mad Italian food. Yeah, all kinds of weird combinations.

Right. So it's been like calf's liver stuffed with marzipan, a jelly made of a goose, all this kind of like weird sugared lamb or something like that. They have all this. That's what they're having at this. Yeah. 300 barrels of wine. However, there is a bad omen.

It rains so heavily on the wedding morning that everybody gets completely soaked and all their lovely dresses are ruined. What about Lorenzo's feathers droopy? Probably drooping, disconsolate. Could this be an omen of disaster? Maybe. Because Piero the gout is health a few weeks afterwards takes a turn for the worse. And on the 2nd of December, 1469, Piero

dies at his country villa in the hills above Florence. So he's done a solid job, Piero. He's only been there four and a half years, but he's weathered the kind of a bit of protest. He's strengthened the family's links with Milan and with Naples. But the question is, what will happen to the Medici bank and the Medici network now? Because I would say he's done more than a solid job. Because what effectively he's done is to establish the idea of heredity in the context of a republic. That's pretty impressive, I think. I agree with you. and the proof of that is what happens next So the night before Pierrot's funeral the Medici loyalists hold a meeting at the convent of Sant'Antonio And it's a very godfather scene

Because they all gather and the chief voice is this elderly Medici crony called Tommaso Sodorini, Tommy, Tommy, Tommy Sodorini is gonna give his verdict He's an old associate of Cosmos and he says, give the boy his chance. That's so good. And everybody kind of agrees and they say to Lorenzo, will you take on the care of the state? And he says, oh, I'm very reluctant. I would hate to do it. But obviously he's gagging to do it. He says he'll do it. And he wrote later on, he said, I did it solely to protect my friends and possessions, put fairs ill in Florence for anyone who is rich and does not

control the state. I mean, that's such a telling phrase, isn't it? Yeah. So it might be an element of truth in that you're targets. And if you're not in charge, they will come for you. You'll be brought down. You'll be brought down. Now he's already written to the Duke of Milan to secure his support.

That gives him the muscle that he needs. And so at the age of not yet 21, Lorenzo de' Medici assumes control of the bank, of the family, and of the fortunes of Florence. But Tom, in the shadows, the knives are glinting. Oh my goodness, Dominic. And if the knives are glinting. Oh my goodness, Dominic. And if the knives are glinting, then that suggests that after the break, conspirators will be striking.

But which conspirators and who will they be striking at? We will find out after the break. Whether it's a family member, friend or furry companion joining your summer road trip, enjoy the peace of mind that comes with Volvo's legendary safety. During Volvo Discover Days, enjoy limited time savings as you make plans to cruise through Muskoka or down Toronto's bustling streets. From now until June 30th, lease a 2025 Volvo XC60 from 1.74% and save up to $4,000. Condition Supply. Visit your GTA Volvo retailer or go to volvocars.ca for full details. Hello, I'm Gordon Carrera, National Security Journalist.

And I'm David McCloskey, CIA Analyst, Turnspy novelist. Together we're the co-hosts of another Goldhanger show called The Rest is Classified, where we bring you the best stories from the world of secrets and spies. We have just released a series on the decades-long battle between the CIA and Osama Bin Laden and this week we are stepping into the devastation of the 9-11 terror attacks to understand how Osama Bin Laden was able to carry out such a plot right under the nose of the CIA. It was a moment that changed global politics forever, shifting the focus of spy agencies away from nation states

towards hunting for terrorists and understanding the extremist ideology that drove them. We will then go into the decade-long manhunt for Osama bin Laden, which culminated in a dramatic raid at his compound in Pakistan in 2011, which killed the world's most wanted terrorist. So if all of this sounds good, we've got a clip waiting for you at the end of the episode. Hello and welcome back to The Rest Is History and Dominic, it is December 1469 and Lorenzo

de' Medici, only 20 years old, has become head of the Medici family and therefore the master of Florence. But I suppose the huge question is, you know, is he up to it? Well, Cosimo and Piero were much older and more experienced when they took power. They were famously cautious and more experienced when they took power. They were famously cautious and calculating. Everybody says about Lorenzo, he's inexperienced, but he's also impulsive. He has absolutely no interest in banking. And this is a problem and it will become a bigger problem for his successors. But basically, they've inherited a family business in which

they are no longer terribly interested. He's good at writing poetry, he's good at playing football, he's good at playing music and playing pranks, but he's never actually run anything. And in the long run, as we will see, this is a problem for him and for the Medici family. And this is again, is a kind of classic business story, isn't it? Of course it is. Yeah, absolutely it is. The grandfather, the father, very calculating, and then the son who kind of blows it all, you know, has an expensive education and can't be bothered with what's actually made the money.

And actually the tone is set right away. So right away there's a sort of a lot of feasting and dancing. I think there's a slightly camp side to Lorenzo as we discussed before. You've written Lorenzo's slightly camp hey nonny nonny way. Yeah, I think there's a lot of capering. Yeah. To a loot. Yeah, there's a lot of loot work and a lot of capering and laughing. A lot of tights. Yeah, laughing excessively at slightly amusing jokes. I think there's a lot of that. And there's all these horse races and mock battles. Lorenzo particularly enjoys a jake with an animal, which is a real theme of history as we've discovered on this podcast. So he turns the Piazza della Signoria into this sort of circus.

So they'll have people attacking boars with lances, they'll try to stage fights between lions and dogs. And the weirdest one I think is basically they fill the square with stallions and then they set loose a mare in the square and the stallions all went absolutely berserk. And a diarist writing at the time said, and I quote, it was the most marvelous entertainment for girls to behold. Nice. So I don't know whether Tabby would agree with that. I mean, again, there's an obvious kind of slight Roman echo there.

Oh, definitely. The pillar work in Florence that is going into the Medici palace and so on. It is drawn from the Coliseum. Yeah. And the Coliseum obviously serves no purpose because they're not staging beast fights, but it's obviously on the Medici radar. So perhaps there's something like that going on. I think so.

And again, just to flag up what I think is the single most exciting event in the whole story of the Medici is the arrival of a giraffe. But I think that's in the next episode, isn't it? I think that's in the next episode. But that's coming. So that's also part of this Roman style obsession with animals and things. If you're a member of the Rested Sister Club and you're into giraffes, you can skip the rest of this episode about the conspiracy.

Go straight to the giraffe. But most people obviously should listen to this episode first. So why is Lorenzo so extravagant? I think because unlike his father and his grandfather, he is desperate to be considered a prince. Now his nickname, Il Magnifico, the Magnificent, we think that's because he was so great. He was so glorious. No, that is wrong.

It is a standard honorific that was given to rich merchants and to the heads of families. Right. So he's not a principae. No. So every time he is called ill magnifico, that is a reminder of his sort of subordinate status. He's silver class, not gold class. Exactly. Exactly.

And here's the thing. This is the big difference between him and his father and grandfather. They lent money. He borrows it. He trades on the bank's reputation to start borrowing money to fund his lifestyle. So he borrowed 61,000 Florins from his cousin. He borrowed 10,000 Florins from the Duke of Milan. And remember, the whole thing with the alliance with Milan was that the Medici Bank was bankrolling Milan. Now it's the other way around. He's borrowing money. Now he said later on, you know, I don't regret it. I think the money was well spent and I'm well pleased. But more caustic historians of the Medici

family like Mary Hollingsworth in her book say this is when the rot started. I mean, she basically paints him. It's a great book, actually, her book. She paints him as this arrogant, spoiled, super rich kid who blew his inheritance. She says, quote, a depressing tale of greed and inexperience from which the Medici brand never really recovered. Just to present the counter argument, I mean, the fact that he is still thought of as the embodiment of Renaissance prints right up to the present day, and the fact that, spoiler alert, the Medici in due course will establish themselves as the Dukes of Florence. Surely that suggests that to a degree

he's right in saying that by presenting himself as a princely figure, he's able to elevate his descendants to the actual rank of princes. Possibly, although there are an awful lot of twists and turns before we get to that point. I mean, there are a couple of generations, there are periods of exile and whatnot. I mean, you could argue that in the long run would have been better for them to be remained in the shadows and piled up the money. That's what I would have done, Tom.

I don't need a fancy helmet, you know, with feathers on it. I'd rather have the money. This is perhaps where you and I differ. All I will say is that we're going to be doing a series on Mary Queen of Scots. Edamidechi will be featuring in that story as a Queen of France. So they did do well in the end. They do do well. Now some listeners may be a bit surprised to hear anybody criticizing Lorenzo because

basically as in the Assassin's Creed video game he's usually treated as thoroughly admirable but of course you're not thoroughly admirable if you're wielding power in Renaissance Italy. You know, a saint doesn't wield such power. And his chief ally, I mean, it's a really good example of this. His chief ally is the Duke of Milan, Gagliazzo Maria Sforza. He's a patron of the arts, he's a complete Renaissance man, but he's also a complete psycho. Is this the son of the guy who was bending iron bars in the previous episode? It is his son, Francesco's son, and Galeazzo Maria Sforzi. He's a pungent character, I think it's fair to say, Tom.

Do you want to know what he got up to? Yeah, I'd love to. I quote, he raped the wives and daughters of numerous Milanese nobles. He took sadistic pleasure in devising tortures for men who offended him. He supervised these tortures himself and pulled their limbs apart with his own bare hands. And he delighted in the moans of dying men in the sight of corpses." So this is very much the English Renaissance sense of what Italian princes are getting up to, isn't it?

Exactly, yeah. The black legend of the Italian Renaissance, if such a thing existed. And actually you may say, well, obviously this is exaggerating propaganda, but to be a Renaissance magnate you have to behave in pretty grim ways and Lorenzo himself is a good example. Remember we talked about that alum mine? Oh yes. So in 1472 Lorenzo becomes involved with another alum mine. This is in Volterra, just south of Florence. Now this is a town that is under Florentine control where the locals have discovered a load of alum and they've developed a mine. The problem for Lorenzo is that Volterra's alum is cheaper than the alum made by the Medici controlled mine near Rome. And so basically there's a big dispute

about control of the Volterra consortium. He uses Florentine troops to go in and teach Volterra a lesson and bring it into his orbit. And the Volterrans are completely helpless and the result is an unbridled massacre. Lorenzo's mercenaries run amok in Volterra. They rampage through the town for 12 hours. They loot all the shops. They kill hundreds of people. There is mass rape.

It is a horrendous story. Now afterwards, Lorenzo says, oh, that's such a shame. I'm so sad that that went a little bit too far. I feel so guilty about it. But actually, I think even at the time, people thought this is very disingenuous of him. He basically unleashed his mercenaries on this town for his own financial gain. And also to enhance his reputation as a man, it's dangerous to cross. I assume. Right. But the problem with doing that is that if there are other powerful people,

they may say you've crossed a line and now we're going to move against you. And there are other powerful people in Florence because the Medici are not the only powerful banking family. There is another family called the Pazzi. Now Patsy are an older and more prestigious family than the Medici. So one of their ancestors, Tom, this will appeal to you, had gone on the first crusade and he brought back some stone flints from the altar of the Holy Sepulcher. Oh, I'm definitely team Patsy. Right. Well, the Patsy trade on this. They bring them out, I think, every Easter and kind of parade around the city with them and people are weeping with joy and all this. I don't want to sound dismissive, but

you know my views on Relics. The Pazzi have got a big banking network of their own. They've got offices in Florence and in Rome and in Avignon, Valencia and all these places. And the head of the Pazzi family is not like Lorenzo at all. He's called Jacopo de Pazzi. He's in his mid-50s. He's simultaneously, I think an interesting combination, he's both a miser and a gambler. He's very competitive. And you get this sense, I think maybe this is my sort of romantic imagination, that he is watching Lorenzo with the cold eyes of a predator all the time.

I like the sound of him. He's got relics. He's in his mid fifties, intensely competitive. He's like you. He's quite like me. Cold eyes of a predator. Cold eyes of a predator. Exactly.

But let's see who this man reminds you of. There's another ruthless character who's watching Lorenzo very closely. And this is a man called Francesco del Rovere or rather Pope Sixtus IV. So Pope Sixtus IV came from a fishing town in Liguria. He's a bit of a self-made man. He has climbed the ecclesiastical ladder to win the papacy. He's very clever, but he's a complete bruiser. So Christopher Hibbett, who's very good at these pen portraits, calls him a big, gruff,

toothless man with a massive head, a small squashed nose and an intimidating expression. Goodness, I can't think who that reminds me of. I think he's a bit like the Emperor of Aspasian. A bit, yeah. Now, he's incredibly corrupt, even by papal standards. So that I can now bring out my inner Thomas Cromwell. He's handing out offices to his family.

He makes six of his nephews cardinals. But if he genuinely thought that they were worthy of it, I don't see what the problem is. I'm sure he did think that. Yeah, I'm sure they're genuinely really kind of upstanding religious people. Now, at first, he confirmed the Medici as the papal bankers and he actually sent Lorenzo some presents. He sent him busts of Augustus and a gripper. No better present than that. Those choices are a sign of Lorenzo. Lorenzo is following in Cosimo's footsteps at this

point, right? Yeah. Cosimo admired Augustus, but then they have a massive falling out in 1473. Sixtus had a favorite nephew who he hadn't made to Cardinal yet called Girolamimo Riario, who is described as, and I quote, a fat uncouth rowdy young man. And everybody says this bloke Riario is actually the Pope's son. He's not really his nephew, he's his son. Riario wanted to buy the town of Imola.

He's a fan of Formula One. Formula One, exactly, has a key strategic location on the road from Bologna. And Sixtus said to the Medici bank, could you lend us the money, please, to buy this town of Imola? Now Lorenzo was horrified at this. He wanted Imola for Florence. There was no way he was gonna let it fall into somebody else's hands.

And he turns down the loan. The Pope is furious. Who does the Pope turn to for the money? He turns to the Pazzi bank, and Jacopo gave him the money. A year later, in the summer of 1474, Sixtus got his revenge on the Medici. He stripped them of the papal account and gave it to the Pazzi. And then, as the new Archbishop of Pisa, which was in Florentine control, he appointed Jacopo

de Pazzi's cousin, Francesco Salviati. Remember him, this bloke Salviati. Lorenzo was obviously very offended by this. You could see that this was a massive snub, that the Pazzi were being advanced. And Lorenzo, how old is he at this point? He's born in 1449, so he's 27, Tom, because we're now approaching the end of 1476.

Now, there's a sense in which things are turning against him. The Pope has turned against him, and then on Boxing Day, he gets terrible news from Milan. His friend Galeazzo Maria Sforza, the psycho, he has been assassinated on his way to mass. And his son is only seven and there's a massive succession crisis in Milan. So Milan is now effectively out of the game. Lorenzo's biggest ally. And a few weeks later, three men meet in secret in Rome. One of them is Girolamo Riario.

So he's the fat, rowdy, papal nephew stroke son. Yeah. One of them is Francesco Salviati, the Pazzi cousin who has just been made the Archbishop of Pisa. And the other man is Francesco de Pazzi and he is the manager of the Pazzi Bank in Rome and he is described as an quote a young man of great arrogance and pretension. And these three men have met to discuss one thing and one thing only and that is how to get rid of Lorenzo de Medici.

God it's so mafia, isn't it? So they have this meeting. Soon after that, Francesco de' Pazzi, the bank manager, who's basically brains behind all this, he asks for a meeting with one of Rome's most hard-bitten mercenary commanders. And this is a man called Montesecco, who has done a lot of dirty work

for the papacy over the years. And Francesco de Pazzi says to him, I would like to hire you for an operation against the Medici. And Montesecco says, I'm not going to do anything without the Pope's approval. And Francesco says, great, because the Pope is already on board. Now Montesecco doesn't believe him. So they organize a meeting with Sixtus IV himself. And the Pope says, he's quite elliptical, he says, obviously the last thing I would

like to see is any killing. Heaven for Fenn. It would make me really sad if you killed. That would be awful. If you killed Lorenzo de' Medici. I actually hate bloodshed and if Lorenzo was dead, I'd be very, very upset. However, I'd really like to see the back of Lorenzo. I really strongly desire to see the back of Lorenzo. I really strongly

desire to see this change. I want to see Lorenzo disappear from the picture in Florence. And obviously Montesecco gets the message. Lorenzo has got to go and probably doesn't really mind that much. So there's only one link in the chain left and that is Jacopo de Pazzi, the head of the family. But he's a chill calculating man, isn't he? Exactly. Now, he's a banker and he knows the costs of failure. When Montesecco, the mercenary, goes to see him, he says, I think this is a bad movie, he says, quote,

they're going to break their necks. I understand what is going on here better than they do. I don't want to hear any more about this. But Montesecco says, look, the pope is on board with this. We've got the money, we've got the muscle, we can do it. And Jacopo says, you know, it's so Godfather Part 2. He says, fine, do it. But you can't just kill Lorenzo. You must kill his brother, Giuliano, and you must do it at the same time. You know, no slip ups. We have to get this right.

Because the lesson from the previous episode is that if you're striking at the Medici, you've got to get rid of all of them. Exactly. So the months pass while they're negotiating all this. And finally we get to early 1478. They've toyed with various different schemes, but now they have what they think is the right opportunity. Another relative of the Pope, who's a young Cardinal called Raffaele Riario, is going

to visit Florence, completely unrelated. And Lorenzo has organized a banquet for him. And they're like, right, the banquet is the time to strike. They make their plans and Montesecco basically stations his mercenary company in the villages outside Florence, ready to pour into the city at the crucial moment. But then they hear bad news. Giuliano, the brother, has an eye infection and he's probably not going to go to the banquet. So they can't do it there after all.

They meet hurriedly to discuss the position. They say, look, we've told so many people now, word is leaking out. Montesecco has brought his men to Tuscany, like it's really now or never. And then one of them says, look, there is actually one more possibility. On Sunday the 26th of April, the Medici brothers are bound to go to high mass in the cathedral with this young Cardinal Viario. This is the chance. This is the one place where the brothers are bound to be together. Why don't we strike there? The plan is to cut them down at mass in front of the altar. Yeah. In a church. Yeah. In front of everybody. All the assembled clergy. How would the Pope react to this?

We'll find out. I think the Pope will live with it. I mean, God's watching wherever they do it, Tom. Let's be honest. It doesn't make any difference to God where it happens. I think it does make a difference to God where it happens I don't think God would at all approve of people being murdered in front of the altar of the church But you think God would be right with it was like a public toilet or something fine. Yeah crack on It's an interesting theological question, but I just generally think murdering people in cathedrals at high mass is probably not you don't approve it Not whether I approve it, whether God approves it. I just don't think God would approve of that. Going out on a theological limb there.

Okay. Let's talk through the details of the plan. So Francesco de Pazzi, the young, arrogant bank manager, he will kill Giuliano and he will be helped by an adventurer called Baroncelli who owes the Pazzi lots of money and wants to basically wipe away the debt. So that's how they deal with Giuliano. Now Lorenzo, the hard-bitten mercenary captain Montesecco will kill him. But actually Montesecco is like you.

He's in a terrible funk about doing this in the cathedral. He says, I can't do it. And actually he says explicitly, I can't do it because God will see it. So he agrees with me, God wouldn't see it in a public toilet, but he would see it at the cathedral. I don't think that's what he's saying, Dominic. But there are two other candidates on hand, which is good news. And these are, and I quote, lean, embittered priests.

The best kind. The best kind of priests and the best kind of lean and bittered people. And these are called Bagnoni and Mafei. So the person we began with, the person from Assassin's Creed 2. Banyoni is a Pazzi tutor. Maffei is the thing, he is from Volterra, the place with the Alamein. Yeah, where they've all been massacred. He hates Lorenzo for what he did to his town and this is what they agree the signal will be when the sacristy bell rings at the point in the service where the priest elevates the host before communion. This is just getting more and more sacrilegious.

Oh it's brilliant so this is an unmissable signal and crucially at that moment when the bell rings the whole congregation including the Medici brothers will have bowed their heads in reverence. So they'll kill them then and then the bloke is the Archbishop of Pisa, Salviati. He will seize the Palazzo della Signore with the armed mercenaries. He'll take the Florentine government prisoner, he'll crush resistance and the pazzi will control the city. It's a great plan.

I mean, this is not good archepiscopal behavior. It's not, but it is a fun plan. I suppose it is. I suppose that's the genius of it. It's the last thing they would expect from an archbishop. Exactly. If an archbishop and two embittered priests. Brilliant. Who'd have thought it? So we get to the morning of Sunday the 26th of April 1478. About 11 o'clock, Lorenzo sets off from the Medici Palace with his guest, Cardinal Riario.

It literally takes them, I've actually checked it on Google Maps, it takes them three minutes to walk from the palazzo to the Duomo. And they're joined on the walk by Archbishop Salviati, the snake. And when they get to the cathedral, the Archbishop says, oh, I actually have to skip Mass because my mother is feeling ill. So I'll leave you here. God, so not only is he going to launch a massacre as the host is being raised, but he's lying. Yeah, that's poor, isn't it? Is there no limit to his iniquity?

So Lorenzo goes into the cathedral with the cardinal, they go to the high altar, and then Lorenzo leaves the cardinal, they go to the high altar, and then Lorenzo leaves the cardinal and goes off to chat to some friends, some sort of Medici cronies. Now, important for people to picture this, you don't sit down, there are no chairs in the cathedral, no pews, people are standing and they're standing in groups, chatting and mingling and moving about, which they would do during the service. Giuliano, however, has not arrived.

Where is he? Francesco de Pazzi and the adventurer Baroncelli, they go to the Palazzo Medici to fetch him. It's quite like Julius Caesar not going to the Senate House on the day he's murdered. Exactly. I mean, obviously they are kind of classical cosplaying in the Renaissance, but the kind of the rhythms and rhymes, it's nice to see. Giuliano is feeling ill and he was actually thinking about skipping mass, but they persuade him, again, very Julius Caesar, to change his mind. They say, come on, it'll be great fun. And so they walk with him to the cathedral. Along the way, I love this detail,

Francesco de Pazzi puts his arm around him and gives him a squeeze and says, you're getting fat. But actually, the reason Francesco does that is to check if he's wearing armor under his clothes and he's relieved to find that he isn't. So they're now into the cathedral. It's midday. The service is about to start. Giuliano is on one side of the choir, the north side with his assassins standing around it.

Lorenzo is on the other side of the altars in the ambulatory, whatever that is. I don't even know what it is. Some cathedral thing. There's lots of his friends nearby, but the two killer priests, the lean murderers were standing right, right behind him. The service starts, you know, a lot of chanting, whatever we reach. We reached the crucial moments, right? The priest of the altar lifts up the host

and the congregation bow their heads and the bell rings. And the priests draw their daggers. And the guy from Volterra, Maffei, he puts his hand gently on Lorenzo's shoulder, sort of to steady himself for the thrust. And Lorenzo turns at that point and he feels the dagger on his neck and just at the point when Murphy is digging it in he pulls away so what

happens is the dagger slices into his neck but it doesn't kill him. So there's a spurting of blood. Blood! Lorenzo pulls off his cloak he wraps it around his arm and he uses it as a shield kind of ward off the blows then he reaches for his ward off the blows. Then he reaches for his sword. He's carrying a sword. He reaches for his sword. He unsheathes it. He slashes at the priests and then he turns and he runs and he leaps over the rail of the altar and then he sprints for the bronze doors of the sacristy, which might offer some

refuge. Because there are a lot of bronze doors in the Dwightway, aren't there? The Florentines love a bronze door. While that's happening, what's happened to Giuliano? When the bell rang, Giuliano bowed his head as Lorenzo had, and the guys on his side were much more efficient. Baroncelli, the adventurer, struck first. He shouted, take that, you traitor!

Slashed at his head so fiercely, it's you almost split it in two, apparently. And then Francesco de Pazzi was on him. He stabbed him in the chest again and again. Giuliano fell to the floor with blood everywhere. Francesco like a madman stabbing furiously. 19 wounds in all. So a puddle of blood spreading over the Holy Altar. Exactly.

The two killers look up. They can see Lorenzo running for the doors. They run after him. They want to cut him off before he gets to the doors. But at that point, a very unappreciated man, a man called Francesco Nori, who's a partner in the Medici bank, a mate of Lorenzo's, he rushes in to intervene. A crucial moment actually in the whole story of the Medici dynasty. Nori throw himself in their path.

Barancelli plunged his dagger in and stabbed him and killed him. But in doing so, they lost vital seconds. Lorenzo and a couple of his friends were able to get through the sacristy doors, slam them shut and jam them behind them. So now he's safe. So now the cathedral, a scene of total chaos and uproar. There are people running and screaming.

There's this puddle of blood from Giuliano's body spreading everywhere. It was said that the high altar, Cardinal Riario, who knew nothing about this, was standing there like gaping in shock and was rushed to safety. But it was said afterwards that his face never lost the pallor that it had had at that moment at the altar. I can well believe it. Yeah. He wasn't expecting it. I think it's fair to say, Tom.

The day had not unfolded as he imagined. Now, meanwhile, what's happened to Lorenzo? Lorenzo's friends kind of bustled him out to the back door of the cathedral to the Medici Palace. A great crowd assembles outside the Medici Palace and he comes out and he's kind of bleeding from his neck, but he's still very clearly alive. And he says, you know, there's a coup, we must fight back against the conspirators.

Now, meanwhile, what happened to the Archbishop, Salviati, he had marched on the Palazzo della Signoria with his mercenaries, but he was taken aback. He thought the counselors would be, you know, he'd be able to kind of steamroll with them, but no, they fought back. The standard bearer of Florence, the gonfalonieri, apparently grabbed a cooking spit and fought back against the archbishop personally. The council start ringing the big bell, the vacca, calling for aid. Loads of people pour into the square. They completely outnumber the plotters and the mercenaries and they're chanting spendedly, Vivano la PE, long live the balls, hurrah for the balls.

So that's from the Medici symbol, the Cote de Farms, yeah. Exactly. So these people chanting about balls, they end up slaughtering all of the archbishop's mercenaries. They cut off their heads and then they rampage around the city with these heads on lances. The archbishop, he was cornered. They tied a rope around his neck and then they threw him out of an upper window of the Palazzo De La Signoria and they left him to dangle there

I think that's fair enough and now Francesco de Pazzi the bank manager. They found him. They stripped him naked They did the same thing to him. Would you like a gory fact go up? Go for it. These two blokes dangling from the ropes and kind of writhing and agony and the Archbishop It was said what he was writhing at the end of his rope about to die for some peculiar reason he took a massive bite out of Francesco de Paz's chest and sank his teeth into his torso. You know what it's like something out of Dante's Inferno. It is a bit isn't it.

Hideous scene. Well it actually is a hideous thing because it turns into a massive riot and about 80 people, many of them completely innocent, were lynched until Lorenzo managed to calm things down. So what happened to the other plotters? So we mentioned that that bloke, Maffei, who you began with, had an appointment with the knife. He did indeed.

He and the other priests, they were caught, they were castrated, and then one of them was hanged and one of them was beheaded. So that was the end of them. Monteseco, the sort of hard-bitten mercenary captain, he was interrogated under torture. That's how we know the details of the story. And then he had a slightly more benign end in that he was beheaded with a sword in the courtyard of the Bargello, which is now a very famous art sculpture museum. But if he revealed all the details, I mean, he's not that heart-bitten, is he?

Don't forget, he had been worried that God would see him in the cathedral. That's true, yeah. So he clearly had doubts the whole time. And then the adventurer, Barancelli, who killed Giuliani, he escaped as far as Constantinople. But he was recognized somehow in Constantinople, and the Sultan agreed to extradite him to Florence and he ended up being beheaded in the Bargello as well. So that was what happened to him.

Now what about the godfather, the Pazzi Jacopo? He fled to a village, people recognized him, he was dragged back to Florence. This is a very gory end actually. He was tortured, he was stripped naked, he again was hanged from a window of the Palazzo della Signoria. So that's the style of execution of choice. Very much so, very much the vibe. His body was thrown into the River Arno but some children then fished it out and children hung it from a willow tree and to amuse themselves used to go and beat it and flog it. It's more innocent times.

How long was it hanging there? I don't know but it's better than being stuck inside in a PlayStation, no? I mean I think it's good to get outside and have some fun. I suppose so. And in the course of all this his head came off. People took it to the Palazzo Patson. They used to amuse themselves by banging it on the door, like using it as a door knocker. Oh God. So he should have gone with his original instincts, shouldn't he? He should have gone with his instincts. It's a sign never go against your instincts. The Pazzi family were banished forever from Florence. Their property confiscated. Their symbol, which was the dolphin, was erased from the city. Even if you'd married a Pazzi, you were

banned forever from holding office. And actually Botticelli painted a lovely mural at the Bargello where the executions had taken place. A lovely mural of the patsy with ropes around their necks kind of dangling to their deaths. So that's nice. Now, actually, across Europe, the Patsy Conspiracy was a great story. Everyone was very shocked by it. The King of France, Louis XI, he wrote to Lorenzo saying, gosh, what a terrible story. Unbelievable to do it at mass. I mean, he's not wrong. I find that very shocking. No, I think you should pay more heed to the pope.

The pope said, there's absolutely nothing wrong with this and the real miscreants here are the Medici. Do you know what he did? When he heard about the failure of the plots, he promptly excommunicated Lorenzo and the entire Signoria of Florence. He said for killing the two priests and the archbishop. He thought that was absolutely disgraceful. You hear Catholics complaining about, I don't know, Francis or whatever. Woke popes. Woke popes. You have to say, I mean.

Sixtus is a more robust pope, I think. It looks pretty feeble compared to Sixtus the fourth. Sixtus the fourth is a very robust pope, I think. It looks pretty feeble compared to Sixtus IV. Sixtus IV is a very robust pope. Now, Lorenzo said to the council of Florence, look, we're up against here with the pope against us. I could go into exile. He knows that they'll say no, but he says, I could go into exile.

And everybody said, oh, no, don't do that. We'll all stand together. We'll defend the House of Medici as we will defend our own republic. But at the end of June 1478, Sixtus placed Florence under interdict, which I believe Tom, means that no one can take the sacraments, they can't take communion in Florence. Yeah, and they're not allowed to be born or die or anything like that. Right, and he actually then issued, it's like George W Bush in the Axis of Evil or something, he said, I call on all the other Italian states.

Let's stage a liberal intervention against the excommunicated and heretical Lorenzo de Medici. You know, God wants us to basically punish him for his wickedness. The Medici bank was expelled from Rome and from Naples. Its assets were seized. And a few weeks later, heeding the Pope's call, the heir to the throne of Naples, who was Alfonso Duke of Calabria, left Naples with the big army heading for Florence. So things are looking a bit desperate now for Lorenzo. He really needs money to raise an army, but actually he's blown all his money on fancy

helmets and stuff with stallions and altarpieces and all of this. Annunciations. Yeah, exactly. So he has to send messengers across Italy to beg for cash, especially to Milan. He sends his family to the Medici castle at Cafagiolo, which is in the mountains north of Florence, for safety. The months go by and Alfonso makes very slow progress, basically grinding his way through central Italy.

Take town by town, castle by castle, heading for Florence. Alfonso makes very slow progress, basically grinding his way through central Italy, take town by town, castle by castle, heading for Florence. The war drags on. It blows a hole in the Florentine economy. People start running out of food. There are bread riots. You know, Alfonso and the Neapolitan army with the Pope's backing is getting closer and closer.

In the late summer of 1479, a friend writes to Lorenzo and says, you know, Florence is exhausted. People just want this to end. You know, there were bread riots now, something has to change. And then Lorenzo comes to a really extraordinary decision. Is it a bombshell? It is a bombshell. We haven't had a bombshell in this episode, but now we have.

On the 5th of December, 1479, he sends a message to the Signoria. He says, I made my mind up. I'm going to make the ultimate sacrifice for peace. He says, given the dangerous circumstances in which our city is placed, the time for deliberation is over. It is time for action. I have decided to sail for Naples immediately. I am the chief target of our city's enemies, so I have decided to surrender myself into their hands and perhaps that way we will have peace. The war began with the blood of my brother and of myself, and perhaps such as the will of God, that this is how we will end it." So Tom, an incredible gamble. Lorenzo, the playboy, the patron of the arts, is going to

risk his freedom, perhaps even his life to save the people of Florence. Goodness, stunning stuff. If you want to know what happens, you can find out right now by joining the Rest is History club at therestishistory.com. And not only will you find out what happens to Lorenzo, but you will get to hear about his giraffe, which is for me, the highlight of the whole series. And of course you get episode four as well, the last in the

series, Savonarola, Bonfire of the Vanities, all of that. But if you want to wait, that's fine. It will be coming out next Monday and next Thursday, episodes three and four. So thank Thanks everyone for listening and bye bye. Garcia Riverace. mentioned earlier on. When I look back on it now, you still see that, you know, there's plans, there's memoranda, there's notifications, there's all these things, but they're never actually executed. They never actually kind of pull the trigger on anything, do they? I'm a little bit of two minds on this because I agree with you that the theme of this episode really is a series of missed opportunities to get Osama bin Laden prior to 9-11. But we should also note that once Tenet and the CIA understand that Osama bin Laden is coming for us, in particular after the East Africa bombings, there is a push to improve our collection

and our understanding of Al-Qaeda pretty significantly. I mean, there's a bunch of human sources who get recruited in this period. There's a lot more technical collection. Alex Station is beefed up to more than 40 people. There's a bunch of connections with foreign partners on Al-Qaeda that hadn't existed before. I mean, interestingly, there's a PDB president's daily brief in December, December the fourth of 1998, which is titled quote, Bin Laden preparing to hijack US aircraft and other attacks. And so there's a lot of strategic warning, I think you

could say about what Al Qaeda is up to. And yet there's an inability, I think, to translate that into practical efforts and operations to stop these attacks and just stop Al-Qaeda from ultimately carrying out 9-11. If you want to hear the full episode, listen to the rest is classified wherever you get your podcasts.