Lore : The Coven in Florence

The relationship between the Coven and Florence has always been very strange and it still is today. The Grand Master Arturo Leoni III was a dear friend of the Duke of Milan Gian Galeazzo Visconti and for this reason the Coven, for a certain period of time, served as a sort of Milanese secret service. The Grand Master and the Duke of Milan had already prepared a project to succeed in creating a great Milanese state that would host the new headquarters of the Coven.

The fate, however, played a bad joke to both of them who died in 1402. With the death of Arturo Leoni III, the Coven distanced itself from Milan and the new Grand Master Giulio Croce I decided to break his relations with the new Duke of Milan Giovanni Maria Visconti. 

The Coven, under a new guide, undertook to connect with Florence because the Grand Master was convinced that Cosimo de’Medici would be able to found a “new Rome”, that is, a new cultural, economic and military center. The Coven supported the banker even after the death of the Grand Master but only until 1421 because in that year Marco Paolino II abandoned Florence, considering it a "lost case", and allied again with Milan. 

The Duke of Milan Filippo Maria Visconti and Marco Paolino II made agreements and revived the dream of Gian Galeazzo Visconti. In 1424 the Coven helped the Visconti to win the war against Florence. The alliance with Milan broke up again in 1447 by order of Marco Paolino III, two months before the death of the Duke of Milan.

The Coven restored a state of total closure, the Grand Master feared the attrition of the organization also because he knew that the new Duke of Milan Francesco Sforza had the intention of forcing the Coven to move from Rome to Milan thus abandoning the direct protection of the pope .

 In 1471 Giulio Croce II, the new Grand Master of the Coven, presented himself at the Florence court with the aim of forming an alliance with Lorenzo de 'Medici, also known as Lorenzo the Magnificent. The powerful lord of Florence accepted the support of the Coven in exchange for their teachings. 

The alliance between the Coven and the Medici suffered a severe blow in 1494 when Piero de 'Medici was ousted. The Grand Master Marco Pacifico III appealed to Pope Alexander VI and wanted to persuade him to give the Coven the opportunity to restore the order in Florence and bring the Medici back to power but it was too late. 

Girolamo Savonarola, a Dominican friar and a political figure, publicly condemned both the Medici and the Coven, accusing the latter of being heretics. The Grand Master did not accept such accusations and wanted the public execution of that friar who dared to defame the Coven.

Marco Pacifico III finally succeeded in convincing the Pope to excommunicate Girolamo Savonarola who was then hanged and burned at the stake in 1497. But the Pope also ordered the Coven to return to Rome and to abandon Florence which had now fallen into chaos.