Though the Medici family ruled Florence, their rivals still existed.
Families engaged in banking and woolen cloth businesses, like the Medicis, sought to defeat them in competition and claim the vast wealth and influence of the Medici family for themselves.
However, Cosimo’s bold investments, once seen as reckless gambling, kept succeeding one after another, wiping out any chance of victory in the competition.
Seeing no hope of winning through rivalry, these competing families decided to use the oldest, most traditional methods.
Their chosen methods were assassination, kidnapping, and coup d’état.
The Medici rivals secretly plotted, but they had a fatal flaw: a lack of funds and troops.
They faced the same obstacles the young scholars had before them.
As mentioned earlier, most competitors ran banking and woolen businesses like the Medicis, but having been beaten, their coffers were empty.
In such a barely sustainable state, recruiting skilled professionals for assassination or kidnapping was no easy task.
Troop-wise, it was the same—they didn’t have enough money even to hire mercenary bands.
Even if assassination or kidnapping succeeded, they lacked the military force to expel the Medicis and seize Florence.