badly worded thoughts about so called tyrannicides during Renaissance (I am specifically looking at late 15th century) after a conversation with a professor first of all, what even is a tyrant? because it’s a concept that changed through time. is a tyrant someone who rules without legitimacy? (but what even is legitimacy? a made-up thing to be used in one’s favour and against one’s enemies?) is a tyrant someone who rules with violence? (but are all lords and politicians tyrants then? at a time when violence is necessarily tied to political power?) second of all, tyrannicide has a narrative associated to it, that narrative is to be taken into consideration when dealing with accounts of political assassinations— the parallelisms between Lorenzo de’ Medici and Cesare have been already spoken about but, if we take someone who did die in a congiura, such as Galeazzo Maria Sforza, it becomes more evident. He’s tyrannical. Where? All accounts of qualities which would justify his being a tyrant tend to come from people close to Ludovico’s later court (the Ludovico that was probably involved in the assassination, yes, the Ludovico that was very interest in delegitimising his brother’s rule to legitimise his own). Most speak of qualities which wouldn’t be amiss on any other lord of the time (temperamental? didn’t know that was a determining factor for being a tyrant—) or focus heavily on his “lust”. His father had much much more illegitimate children than him. His brother Ludovico had Leonardo da Vinci mostly paint his many lovers while in Milano. But Galeazzo’s “lust” is a sign of his tyrannical nature. Never mind it is unlikely he did lay with Lampugnani’s wife because he was head over heels for Lucia Marliani at the time and that the “taking” of another man’s wife is a trope in tyrannicides (looking at Tarquinius Superbus). anyway, I dunno, bitter history student grumbling over, here’s your daily reminder to contextualise your sources and never take them at face value
