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February 26, 2004
Urbino
It turns out the Duke of Urbino was behind the grassy knoll at Florence's cathedral in April of 1478. The Flea privately suspected the Pazzi were not up to the job on there own ever since seeing that PBS special on the Medici a couple weeks ago.
"One of the prime movers in the plot was none less than Federico da Moltefeltro, Duke of Urbino, always portrayed as a good friend of Lorenzo," Marcello Simonetta, a historian at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, told Discovery News.
The proof lies in a secret letter to Urbino's ambassadors in Rome that lay forgotten in the private Ubaldini archive. The letter was encrypted, but Simonetta had one advantage when he tried to decipher it: a 15th-century booklet written by an ancestor of his, explaining how to decode diplomatic correspondence.
The proof lies in a secret letter to Urbino's ambassadors in Rome that lay forgotten in the private Ubaldini archive. The letter was encrypted, but Simonetta had one advantage when he tried to decipher it: a 15th-century booklet written by an ancestor of his, explaining how to decode diplomatic correspondence.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at February 26, 2004 10:17 AM