Among the Florentines, whenever they got rid of, or tried to get rid
of, the Medici, tyrannicide was a practice universally accepted and
approved. After the flight of the Medici in 1494, the bronze group of
Donatello Judith with the dead Holofernes was taken from their
collection and placed before the Palazzo della Signoria, on the spot
where the 'David' of Michelangelo now stands, with the inscription,
'Exemplum salutis publicae cives posuere 1495. No example was more
popular than that of the younger Brutus, who, in Dante, lies with
Cassius and Judas Iscariot in the lowest pit of hell, because of his
treason to the empire. Pietro Paolo Boscoli, whose plot against
Giuliano, Giovanni, and Giulio Medici failed (1513), was an
enthusiastic admirer of Brutus, and in order to follow his steps, only
waited to find a Cassius. Such a partner he met with in Agostino
Capponi. His last utterances in prison a striking evidence of the
religious feeling of the time show with what an effort he rid his mind
of these classical imaginations, in order to die like a Christian. A
friend and the confessor both had to assure him that St. Thomas Aquinas
condemned conspirators absolutely; but the confessor afterwards
admitted to the same friend that St. Thomas drew a distinction and
permitted conspiracies against a tyrant who bad forced himself on a
people against their will.
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