If the news Piero had received from Ricci and Lodovico Sforza in the summer of 1493 of Charles VIII’s threatened invasion of Italy was a bombshell, he received a second one, and one much closer to home, the following October when his cousins Lorenzo and Giovanni di Pierfrancesco were appointed French officials.1 A few weeks earlier, Piero Soderini had told Gentile Becchi, his fellow ambassador in France – alluding to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco’s emblem of a coiled snake – ‘this viper has its tail in Florence, and he’s not going to give it to you’.2 The brothers’ appointment was the first open challenge to Piero’s power and it provides the subtext of his downfall.