Giuliano de' Medici was the second son of Piero de' Medici and Lucrezia Tornabuoni. As co-ruler of Florence, with his brother Lorenzo the Magnificent, he complemented his brother's image as the "patron of the arts" with his own image as the handsome, sporting, "golden boy."
Death
As the opening stroke of the Pazzi Conspiracy, he was assassinated on Sunday, 26 April 1478 – in the Duomo of Florence, Santa Maria del Fiore, by Francesco de' Pazzi and Bernardo Baroncelli. He was killed by a sword wound to the head and was stabbed 19 times. However, this was not the first attempt at assassination. Rather, the conspirators had attempted to lure Lorenzo and Giuliano away from Florence to kill them outside the boundaries of the city – first on the road to Piombino, then in Rome, and finally at a banquet hosted by the Medici at their villa in Fiesole. Giuliano didn't come, claiming to be ill. The choice to commit the murder at high mass was only a last minute choice. bust by Andrea del Verrocchio, c. 1475/1478, in the National Gallery of Art. After a modest funeral on 30 April 1478, Giuliano was buried in his father's tomb in the Church of San Lorenzo, but later, with his brother Lorenzo, was reinterred in the Medici Chapel of the same church, in a tomb surmounted by a statue of the Madonna and Child of Michelangelo.
Giuliano de' Medici is portrayed by Tom Bateman in Starz's original seriesDa Vinci's Demons. He has an affair with Vanessa, who becomes pregnant with his child. He is murdered in the season 1 finale. Giuliano de' Medici was portrayed by Bradley James in the second season of the TV series . Giuliano makes a brief appearance in the video game Assassin's Creed II where he is murdered by Francesco de' Pazzi and other conspirators of the Pazzi conspiracy who were seeking to take over Florence under the command of Rodrigo Borgia, the future Pope Alexander VI. Angelo Poliziano wrote two works which include Giuliano de' Medici as a major character. Stanze cominciate per la giostra del Magnifico Giuliano de’ Medici was written to commemorate a joust that Giuliano won in 1475. It is mostly fictionalized and involves Giuliano's love for Simonetta Vespucci. It was left unfinished, for both of his protagonists died. The other work is Coniurationis Commentarium, which was written in 1478 to commemorate Giuliano's murder. It explains the people involved in the plot and the events of the day of his assassination.
