The Discovery of the Body of Jacopo de' Pazzi

Borrani signed this 1864, the autumn Florence learned it was to become the capital of the new Kingdom of Italy. The scene he took from the city's past is one of its worst days. After the Pazzi conspiracy against the Medici in 1478, Jacopo de' Pazzi was hanged and buried in Santa Croce, then dug up and reburied in unconsecrated ground by the walls, because heavy rain that ruined the crops was being blamed on where he lay. Weeks later a crowd pulled him out again and dragged him through the streets by the rope he had been hanged with, before throwing the body in the Arno. Borrani painted the moment of the second uncovering, outside the walls near Porta San Miniato. In the museum's deposit inventory the picture went for years under a milder name, a scene of old Florence outside the walls.