- [Sydney] Out of all the
assassins in Assassin's Creed,
none shine quite like
Ezio Auditore da Firenze.
Altair comes close, but come on.
Ubisoft released the Ezio Trilogy.
They know he's the best, and so do we.
That's why we're laying out his place
in the world of Assassin's
Creed with the Ezio timeline.
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(smooth electro music)
Birth of the Assassin,
June 24th, 1459 to 1477.
Ezio Auditore da Firenze
is born on June 24th, 1459 in Florence
to Giovanni and Maria Auditore.
The Auditores are a noble family,
so Ezio's childhood and teenage
years are pretty bougie.
He apprentices under a banker
and loves what all snobby rich boys love:
ladies and alcohol.
Ezio makes his first of many
enemies, Vieri de' Pazzi,
the son of another
Florentine noble family.
Vieri's all over Cristina Vespucci,
but Ezio fights him off and saves her.
Ezio and Cristina develop
feelings for one another
and Vieri's rage simmers,
culminating at a fight
on the Ponte Vecchio
where Vieri throws a stone
and gives Ezio his infamous lip scar.
Vieri flees and Ezio celebrates
by spending a scandalous
night with Cristina,
until her dad finds them.
Once Ezio gets home, his
father asks him to run a letter
that happened to implicate
Vieri's father in a murder.
In December, Ezio meets
his lifelong friend,
Leonardo da Vinci.
But after running a few more
letter errands for his father,
Ezio returns to find his home ransacked,
and his father and two brothers missing.
Since there's a warrant
out for his arrest, too,
Ezio sneaks to Giovanni's prison window.
Giovanni tells Ezio where
to find a secret chest
that contains Assassin gear.
Ezio finds it and suits
up for the first time.
Giovanni also instructs Ezio
to take a letter detailing a plot
against Florence and the Auditores
to Uberto Alberti, the Gonfalonier,
and a supposed family friend.
Except, now, he's acting sketchy.
The next day, Uberto denies
ever getting this letter
as he presides over the execution
of Ezio's father and two brothers.
Ezio nearly gets himself killed
by trying to kill Uberto on the spot,
but he flees to a brothel
run by friends of his family.
That night, Ezio and Cristina
go to recover the bodies
so they can be given proper last rights,
since the government was planning
on just dumping them in the river.
Cristina refuses to run away with Ezio,
so they kiss and part ways.
Ezio wastes no time.
He gets Leonardo to repair
Giovanni's broken Hidden Blade,
then promptly assassinates Uberto
in front of tons of people.
He reclaims his documents, too.
Ezio flees with his mother and sister
to his uncle Mario's
villa in Monteriggioni.
Vieri and his goons are waiting for them,
but Mario chases them off.
Uncle Mario tells Ezio the
secret Auditore family history:
they're all Assassins.
Turns out the Pazzis are
part of the Templar Order,
the Assassins' long-time enemy,
and they ordered a hit on Ezio's family.
Mario trains Ezio in the
Assassin arts for one year,
and after some hesitation,
Ezio accepts his place in
the Assassin Brotherhood.
Going after the Pazzis: 1478.
Ezio joins Mario just in time
to kill Vieri de Pazzi in a duel.
Killing Vieri also frees up the villa
from continual harassment.
From here, Ezio vows to
track and kill every Templar
responsible for his family's death,
in particular, Rodrigo Borgia,
the grand master of the
Templar Order in Italy.
Mario shows Ezio the villa's codex wall,
and Ezio vows to continue
his father's work
to decode the codex
of the legendary Assassin
mentor, Altair Ibn-La'Ahad,
which contains the location
of a mysterious vault.
Oh, and he ropes in his pal Leonardo
to help build him fancy
new Assassin gadgets.
When Ezio returns to Florence,
he learns of the Pazzis' plan
to assassinate the heads
of the Medici family,
the de facto leaders of Florence,
as well as Auditore allies.
With the Medicis gone, the
Pazzi would place their own man,
Borgia, in charge of Florence.
Ezio isn't able to save
Giuliano de' Medici,
but he does manage to protect Lorenzo.
As the city's on the cusp of civil war,
Ezio kills Francesco de' Pazzi
and forces the rest of
the Pazzi gang to flee.
He begins to regularly get
contracts from Lorenzo.
For the next few years,
Ezio continues to hunt
down the Pazzis and Borgia.
This climaxes in 1480, when
Borgia kills the last Pazzi,
and very nearly kills an
eavesdropping Ezio, too.
Going after the Barbarigos: 1480 to 1486.
Ezio heads to Venice
to hunt down Borgia's Templar
associate, Emilio Barbarigo,
a corrupt, tyrannical merchant.
With the help of some local thieves,
Ezio kills Emilio in his own palace.
He gets a lead to another Templar meeting
attended by Borgia himself,
and learns of the Templars'
plan to poison the Doge
and replace him with
Emilio's cousin, Marco.
Ezio and his allies use
Leonardo's new flying machine
to get into the Doge's palace,
but Ezio arrives too late
and gets framed for the Doge's murder.
Marco becomes the Doge,
but Ezio is quickly able to
infiltrate his Carnevale party
and kill him before he
can do any real damage.
The one nice Barbarigo then becomes Doge.
He asks Ezio and company
to kill the other Barbarigo, Silvio,
since Silvio's planning on killing him.
Ezio does, but discovers
that the assassination plot was a decoy
so that the Templars could flee to Cyprus.
Securing the Apple, Formal
Induction: June 24th, 1488.
Two years later, the
Templars' ship comes back,
bearing the Apple of
Eden, a powerful artifact.
Ezio snags it and
finally confronts Borgia,
who, after claiming he's The Prophet,
escapes after a beating from
Ezio and his Assassin pals.
Uncle Mario and the Assassins
take this opportunity
to tell Ezio that they believe
he's the fabled prophet
who will open the vault,
and so, they formally induct
him into the Assassin Order.
The Battle of Forli: late summer, 1488.
The Assassins decide to keep
the apple with Caterina Sforza,
lord of Forli and an Assassin ally.
However, Templar mercenaries
intercept the party.
During the ensuing Battle of Forli,
a nine-fingered monk
named Girolamo Savonarola
snags the apple for himself.
While searching for
Savonarola and the apple,
Ezio agrees to take a job
protecting Christopher Columbus
from an assassination plot twice,
and he wasn't even asked
to the second time.
But before this second, or valiant rescue,
Ezio decides to postpone
searching for the apple
and heads to Spain to save some Assassins
from the Templar-backed
Spanish Inquisition.
In the process, he kills
a ton of inquisitors,
frees the King of the Moors,
and brings an end to the war.
He also learns that Borgia
is a papal candidate.
Savonarola Rises: 1494 to 1496.
After his little vacation,
Ezio returns to Italy
and his actual quest of
looking for the apple.
Unfortunately, his chase
hits a dead-end in Florence in 1494.
And when he gets back to
Venice, he gets even worse news.
His ally, Lorenzo de' Medici, is dead,
and Borgia is now the
new Pope, Alexander VI.
Plus, Savonarola has used
Medici's death to his advantage
and taken control over Florence.
Savonarola is preaching for
a return to the middle ages
and ordering people to
burn all the writing
and artworks of the Renaissance.
Bonfire of the Vanities: 1497 to 1498.
Ezio heads back to
Florence and sets to work
assassinating Savonarola's
nine lieutenants
who had been suppressing the citizens.
His old flame Cristina dies in the chaos,
but the second the lieutenants are gone,
the citizens of Florence rise up
and drive Savonarola out of his house.
Even the apple can't save him!
So, Ezio finally recovers the
apple and kills Savonarola.
Hey, it's a better way to go
than being burnt to death by an angry mob.
Into the Vault: 1499.
Now armed with the apple
and a complete codex,
the Assassins learn that the fabled vault
is beneath the Vatican.
They also learn that the
papal staff Borgia possesses
is another Piece of Eden,
which can open the vault
when used with the apple.
After a fierce,
Piece-of-Eden-wielding duel,
Ezio bests Borgia, but
refuses to kill him.
That won't bring his family back.
Instead, Ezio proves he's the
prophet by entering the vault.
Inside, he finds only a
holographic figure named Minerva
who claims to be a member
of a first civilization who made humans.
She also warns about the
recurrence of a great catastrophe
and addresses some guy named
Desmond, whoever that is.
It's a whole thing we don't
have time to get into.
Just go check out our complete
Assassin's Creed timeline
if you want the whole story,
'cause that also exists.
When he exits the vault, Ezio
discovers that Borgia is gone
and the staff has sunken into the floor.
He contemplates casting the
apple into the Tiber River,
but decides to hand it
over to Uncle Mario,
and the two ride back to the family villa.
Siege of Monteriggioni: January 2nd, 1500.
Shortly after their return,
Cesare Borgia, Rodrigo's son,
lays siege on Monteriggioni
with the papal army.
His army destroys the city,
and Cesare himself steals
the apple and kills Mario.
Ezio attempts to pursue Cesare to Rome,
but passes out from his
own severe injuries.
Liberation of Rome: 1500 to 1503.
Fellow Assassin, Niccolo
Machiavelli, brings Ezio to Rome
and explains that Borgia's ascent to power
has brought Rome into a
state of serious disrepair.
The city is in ruins, people
are oppressed and starving.
Soon after burning his first Borgia tower,
Ezio meets Nicolas Copernicus,
a scholar whose teachings
are so radically anti-Templar
that Vatican guards
are trying to kill him.
Ezio ends up following the breadcrumbs
and killing the Pope's
Master of the Sacred Palace,
who's been tasked
with making sure Rome's
philosophy stayed pure.
Ezio then starts strengthening
the Assassin Order,
dwindling Borgia's
influence at the same time.
He revitalizes the
Assassins' relationships
with the courtesans, the
thieves, and the mercenaries.
By 1501, he starts
rebuilding the Assassin Order
by recruiting new apprentices,
including his sister, Claudia.
From here, Ezio burns down
the rest of the Borgia's towers in Rome
and kills a ton of Templar agents
and two of Cesare's three generals.
After he snags the key
to Castel Sant'Angelo
from an amorous actor,
he's appointed mentor of
the Italian Assassins.
But he doesn't have time for any ceremony.
He immediately heads out
to kill Rodrigo Borgia.
But his work is already done.
Cesare has just murdered his father.
But to be fair, he was
trying to poison him.
Ezio beats Cesare to
the apple's hiding spot,
and in December 1503,
the Assassins wipe out the
rest of Cesare's loyalists.
The new pope orders Cesare's arrest,
and the Borgias' rule of
Rome is officially done.
Cesare Imprisoned: 1504 to 1506.
Cesare is exiled to Spain and imprisoned.
His whereabouts are a secret even to Ezio,
who is now a counselor to the Pope.
Despite all the precautions,
Cesare escapes after two years
and takes shelter with his brother-in-law,
King John III of Navarre.
The King then gives Cesare full control
of the Navarrese Army.
Meanwhile, in 1506,
Ezio seals the apple away
in the Colosseum vault.
After following some Borgia-lovers
who had kidnapped Claudia,
Ezio is already on Cesare's
trail by the time he escapes.
Siege of Viana: March 1507.
King John has Cesare lead
a force of 10,000 soldiers
to seize the town of
Viana, and Cesare's hoping
that this can eventually
help him recapture Rome.
Ezio finds Cesare in the
midst of a brutal siege
and nearly kills him,
but Cesare escapes again.
Surrounded by scenes
of the Navarrese army killing civilians,
Ezio finds Cesare once more
as his forces encroach upon the castle
and kills him for good by
throwing him off a wall.
Good job.
With their commander gone,
the Navarrese quickly lose the battle,
and the Borgia tyranny is finally over.
Ezio returns to Rome
and continues to reform
and improve the Assassin Order.
Arrival in Masyaf: March 1511.
Two years after Cesare's death,
Ezio finds an interesting letter
among Uncle Mario's belongings.
The letter is from his father,
and mentions a sealed library
beneath the fortress of Masyaf
which belonged to Altair.
Curiosity leads Ezio
to leave Italy in 1510,
and he arrives in Masyaf
the following March,
and is immediately ambushed by Templars.
Ezio escapes, only to learn
that special keys are needed
to unlock the special library.
And the Templar captain, Leandros,
has the journal containing
their whereabouts.
He figures they're
looking for the keys, too.
So, naturally, Ezio assassinates
him, claims the journal,
and heads to where they
keys are: Constantinople.
Arrival in Constantinople: May 1511.
In Constantinople, Ezio
quickly makes new friends
and helps retake some Assassin
dens from the Templars.
He recovers his first
key beneath the bookstore
run by his future-wife, Sofia Sartor.
She helps Ezio decode a
map leading to more keys.
Ezio also manages to save
an Ottoman prince, Suleiman,
from an assassination plot
by the remnants of Byzantine forces.
Ezio agrees to help hunt
down those responsible
in between key-hunting.
With each new key he recovers,
Ezio is able to live
through significant moments
of Altair's life.
Conflict with Prince Ahmet: 1512.
Ezio suspects that one
of the captains, Tarik,
was behind the botched assassination.
This guy also has ties
to the former Byzantine
heir, Manuel Palaiologos,
so Suleiman has Ezio assassinate Tarik.
Just as Ezio fatally wounds him,
Tarik admits he was actually a spy
plotting to ambush Manuel.
He was just trying to
get in his good graces.
So, Ezio follows up on Tarik's mission,
follows Manuel to Cappadocia,
and assassinates him.
Manuel also happens to have the final key.
Ezio finally has all the keys
but turns out that Suleiman's
uncle, Prince Ahmet,
is the leader of the Byzantine Templars.
Ahmet threatens to harm Sofia Sartor
if Ezio doesn't hand over the key,
but Ezio refuses and tries to beat Ahmet
back to Constantinople.
Fight for the Masyaf Keys: 1512.
Ezio returns to find
Sofia's bookshop ransacked
and his closest Assassin
allies slaughtered.
To save Sofia, Ezio has no choice
but to hand the keys over to Ahmet.
But it's a trick.
Sofia is about to be
killed elsewhere, anyway.
However, Ezio saves her and
pursues Ahmet's carriage.
Just as he wrecks the carriage,
Ahmet's brother and
Suleiman's father, Selim,
appear with a platoon of Ottoman guards.
Selim and Ahmet's father
had just chosen Selim as the new Sultan,
so Selim proceeds to
throw Ahmet off a cliff.
But it's not all bad.
Selim spares Ezio
because he'd heard such
good things from his son,
but orders him to not
return to Constantinople.
Retirement and Death: 1512
to November 30th, 1524.
Ezio and Sofia travel to Masyaf
where Ezio can now
successfully open the library
with his five keys.
Inside, he finds no books,
but an apple and the remains of Altair,
with one last memory sealed
detailing the final moments of his life.
Ezio rejects the temptation
to touch the apple,
yet the apple activates,
and Ezio is able to directly
address this Desmond
that he's heard about all those years ago.
Ezio lays down his arms
as a sign of retirement
and says he's merely a conduit
for a message he doesn't understand.
Ezio and Sofia then
travel to Italy and marry.
Ezio and Sofia retire to a
villa in the Tuscan countryside.
They have their first
child Flavia in 1513,
and their son Marcello the following year.
In 1519, Ezio gets a
serious chest infection,
which leaves him with a cough
for the rest of his life.
Still, that doesn't stop him
from briefly coming out of retirement.
In 1524, A Chinese Assassin named Shao Jun
seeks him out at his villa,
asking for his advice
on how to rebuild the
Chinese Assassin Order.
Ezio initially refuses, but
eventually agrees to help out.
Chinese Imperial soldiers
ambush the pair in Florence,
and Ezio trains Shao Jun
in preparation for the
next ambush on his villa.
The pair successfully defend Ezio's home,
and Shao Jun goes on her way
as a fully formed Assassin.
Finally, Ezio accompanies Sofia and Flavia
on a trip to Florence.
And while his wife and
daughter go shopping,
he passes away on a park bench.
Wow!
After everything he did,
Ezio deserved to go in peace.
The Assassin's Creed train has
kept on rolling without him,
but he'll still go down
as one of the greatest
Assassins of all time.
Which Ezio game is your favorite?
I think Assassins Creed
2 is just a classic.
That's my opinion.
I'm Sydney, your host.
Thanks for watching, thanks for listening,
and be sure to subscribe
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All players are welcome.
