what? There are many prophecies in those lands runned across by invisibles Count Riario's enemies”.
“And that confirm the things that are still destined to happen there, willed by God and celestial mechanics15”, replied the fencing master.
“If you say it was written ten years ago, so tell me who wrote it? Who is the soothsayer who gave it to you?” asked the scribe.
“That is not for you to know”.
“So I bet it was the astrologer Girolamo Manfredi, friar and healer astrologer, related in its name to your lords of Faenza, friends of Florence and enemies of Riario16”, replied the scribe.
“This too is not given you to know, but what the matter?” replied the swordsman.
“The matter is: who has paid this astrologer friar to make this book? Astrologers and horoscopes cost a lot and someone rich must have paid for them”, asked the scribe even more critically.
“I don't know what's your problem, and I'm not want argue about it with you. But if you mean to say that I am a ciurmadore17and you want to pass the truth on to the tournament,18 I will be well disposed to it”, replied the swordsman.
“I am a scribe and I do not intend to say that you are a swindler, nor do I intend to hold on you or pass with you at tournament, I just wanted to know how things were to take note for me and my citizens”, the scribe lowered his tone.
“Then let the Master Leon Cobello do this and let's end our discussion here that is better in this way”, concluded the fencing teacher with the scribe.
“You”, ordered the fencer at the farmer:
“Take and keep this book. Just give it to Master Leon Cobello, and he'll know what to do with it. We'll both be grateful for what you do for us”.
“All right, let's not quarrel again about it”, said the farmer, taking the book, turning is back to secure it in his travel bag.
“Listen, what did you say your name is?” asked the farmer, turning back again to the swordsman, but the swordsman had already quietly walked away in the crowd of the marketplace.
“When he arrived in Forlì the farmer handed the book to the chronicler Leone Cobelli telling him everything, but Cobelli, as hard he tried to remember who the swordsman and the monk might be, said he couldn't remember anyone who had promised such a thing to him. In any case the chronicler Cobelli was also an astrologer and held those prophecies in great consideration”.
“And as soon some strange sign appeared in the sky, he wrote that they arrived from Faenza or had been seen above the convent of the local Franciscan friars”, the witness concluded the explanation of his story.
The researcher had listened attentively him and asked:
“In a nutshell, do you mean say that this book was written by Riario's murderers to prepare the Forlians for his death and make the people believe that Riario was predestined to die?”
“Something like that, but planned a little bit better. A similar book was indeed ordered ten years earlier by people of Florence who run around Lorenzo de' Medici and contained the way and manner in which Riario should be die”, replied the witness.
“Lorenzo de Medici? Lorenzo the Magnificent ordered it?” asked the researcher in amazement.
“Yes, himself”.
“What does he have to do with Riario?” asked the researcher.
“He has a lot to do with it. It was in fact a settlement between them”.
“What are you talking about?”
“I'm telling you what happened. It all began when Pope Sixtus IV and his nephew, Girolamo Riario, try to take over Florence and overthrow Lorenzo de' Medici and his brother Giuliano de Medici”.
“And then what append?”
“And then Riario and the Pope found nothing better than trying to assassinate both during a solemn mass in Florence Cathedral, where they lying down Giuliano de' Medici in a pool of blood, while Lorenzo the Magnificent was missed and managed to save himself locking himself in a sacristy”.
“Are you talking about the conspiracy of Pazzi?” asked the researcher.
“Just that. The Pope, Riario and his followers organized it in Rome during a mass in the cathedral of Florence”, replied the witness. Then he added:
“The impact, the outrage and resentment at what a Pope and his nephew had organized in a church during a public mass, was enormous even at the time. And the reaction and revenge of the Florentines and Lorenzo de' Medici was equally proportionate to what had happened, so much that he set up a company of assassins or ‘ucciditori’19 with the aim of making a list of the people involved to take revenge on the conspirators who had taken part in that assassination”.
“And what about Riario?” asked the researcher.
“Riario was at the top of that list of murderers”.
“And what was the difference between a company of assassins and a company of ‘ucciditori’?”
“Not to much. At the time, assassins were considered murderers in the service of someone, while the ‘ucciditori’ were secret avengers with the task of settling crimes and avenging the work of conspirators and murderers. But apart from these small details, more or less both did the same things and operated in very similar ways”, replied the witness.
“So that book of prophecies was true?”
“Only in part, because it was not born as a real book of prophecies but as a kind of mocking in macabre verses that mocked and narrated the end that Riario should have and the fate that would fall over Forli, immediately after his death”, replied the test.
“At the beginning, that book came from Florence and told facts and things that had to happen to Girolamo Riario and our city until 1500. They were more or less nothing else but the plans for revenge and the conquest of Forlì by Florence, disguised as verses and prophecies to take revenge for the conspiracy of the Pazzi in Florence”.
“What did that monk and that astrologer have to do with it?”
“Those Florentine verses were given to some friars of Florence and the surrounding area, as normal political propaganda of the time. So they would narrate and make well known to the people of those parts, the end that the enemies of Florence had to receive”.
“After a while these verse were also given to an astrologer followed and known in Romagna, so that he could read in the stars and explain scientifically to everyone what was about to happen to the Medici's assassins, because at that time astrology was considered by the people as science.
“Unbelievable”, replied the researcher.
“Not even that much. In truth, it was normal preparatory black propaganda, followed by the military conquest policy of the time”.
“And then
