Jacopo de’ Pazzi, so overcome by despair at the failure of the plot that he boxed his own ears and threw himself to the floor in despair and rage, managed to escape from the city to the village of Castagno; but the villagers recognized him and brought him back to Florence where, after being tortured, he was stripped naked and strung from a window of the Palazzo della Signoria next to the Archbishop. Later, he was buried in Santa Croce; but the people, blaming the subsequent heavy rains upon his evil spirit, dug up the body and threw it into a ditch in an apple orchard. From here also it was later removed, to be dragged through the streets by a mob shouting, ‘Make way for the great knight!’ It was then propped against the door of the Pazzi Palace where, to the accompaniment of obscene jokes and cries of ‘Open! Your master wishes to enter!’ its decomposing head was used as a knocker. Eventually, the putrid corpse was thrown into the Arno from which it was fished by a gang of children who strung it up on the branch of a willow tree, flogged it and tossed it back into the water again.
My husband, who always enjoys the idea of Sean Bean being dispatched on screen, is very much hoping that all of this is filmed.
He's also hoping that one day Sean will play Rasputin, so he can be poisoned, shot, stabbed, and thrown in a river all in one movie.
