A few months after the Pazzi Conspiracy, Lorenzo is still animated by a spirit of revenge. There is a distance clash (to the sound of excommunications) between Lorenzo and Pope Sixtus IV; the cruel count Riario (the last of the conspirators left alive) tries to take advantage of this conflict, trying to start the war between Florence and Rome. While the Medici family learns of the existence of Giulio, the illegitimate son of the late Giuliano, a Dominican friar arrives in Florence who seems capable of reading in Lorenzo's heart: Girolamo Savonarola.