This book is perhaps the definitive intellectual work on power relationships within Renaissance Italy. Power and imagination in the City-States formed in a reciprocal relationship. Artistry oft relected what patrons desired more than anything else. Patronage kept the purse and told painters exactly what to paint and even allocated how much of what paint to use. Thus great works of art and intellect not so much reflected the imaginative genious of individuals as the pull from strings of power. The irony is that this gave birth to intellectual freedom. Martinez is a true genious in telling the theoretical as well as practical implications of this.

I must agree with the other reviewers who found the book a tough go. The actual narrative of the plot itself takes up very little of the book. The majority of the text deals with the complex interweave of family politics in Renaissance Italy, but much of it seems tangential. Engrossing it certainly is not. It's too bad, as I had high hopes for the book. I wonder if some of the other reviewers actually read the same book that I had.

This book was a disappointment. Although it is supposed to concentrate on the plot surrounding the April 1478 attempt to murder Lorenzo and Giuliano de Medici, in reality it wanders off into many other areas and loses focus. In one chapter, the author gives detailed information about the finances of the Pazzi family (the family behind the conspiracy to kill the two Medici brothers). In another chapter, Professor Martines quotes extensively from the personal letters of matriarchs of some of the leading Florentine families, regarding their attempts at matrimonial matchmaking. The author discusses other plots and political murders, unrelated to the 1478 attack, and which did not occur in Florence. He has three chapters in which he provides profiles of three people, none of whom had any connection to the 1478 plot. Professor Martines also attempts to explore the serpentine world of 15th century Italian realpolitik. We learn about the shifting alliances and chessboard maneuverings involving Florence, Milan, Genoa, Venice, the Papal States, etc. The names of many people are introduced. Quite a few are not central to the story. Bringing them into the tale serves to confuse rather than to enlighten. I still am giving the book three stars because it is worth reading. If you want to know the bare facts about who was behind the plot and why they wanted the Medici family out of power and what actions Lorenzo took against the plotters after he survived the attack, those facts are here. But because of the lack of focus and the questionable decision to include so much peripheral material, the experience of reading this book is a lot less satisfying than it could, and should, have been. It's sort of like being hungry for a nice, thick, juicy steak but after you cut away all of the fat you find yourself with just a few decent bits of meat. It's hardly worth the effort.

The title reads, "April Blood - Florence and the Plot Against the Medici". The details of Florentine society that Professor Martines so eloquently presents are required for the reader to appreciate the events leading up to April 1478 and to those that happened after. Medicean Florence of the late fifteenth century and the Pazzi Conspiracy to murder the Medici brothers are presented so vividly and with a fluid style that does not read like a dry college textbook that you have to fight to understand and stay awake for. The author is very knowledgeable about this subject, and he has a gift for presenting it in a way that is enjoyable to read and easy to comprehend.

When a book receives positive endoresments from such noted Renaissance historians as John Julius Norwich and Gene Brucker, I take notice, and I wasn't disappointed.