Characters / Assassin's Creed: Ezio Auditore

Main Character Index

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May contain unmarked and/or Late Arrival Spoilers.

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Ezio Auditore da Firenze

— "There is no book or teacher to give you the answers, to show you the way. Choose your own way! Do not follow me, or anyone else." —

^{Click here to see Ezio in Brotherhood}  — "The liberation of Roma has begun!" —

^{Click here to see Ezio in Revelations}  — "To say that nothing is true, is to realize that the foundations of society are fragile, and that we must be the shepherds of our own civilization. To say that everything is permitted, is to understand that we are the architects of our actions, and that we must live with their consequences, whether glorious or tragic." —

Main Game Appearances: Assassin's Creed II | Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood | Assassin's Creed: Revelations | Assassin's Creed: Odyssey | Assassin's Creed: Valhalla

Other Appearances: Assassin's Creed: Lineage | Assassin's Creed II: Discovery | Assassin's Creed: Embers | Soul Calibur V | Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China | Assassin's Creed: Reflections | Assassin's Creed: Identity | Assassin's Creed: Rebellion | For Honor ^note As a boss in the December 2018/January 2019 For Honor / For the Creed crossover | Assassin's Creed: Blade of Shao Jun | Assassin's Creed: Freerunners | Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood of Venice | Assassin's Creed: Mister Men and Little Miss - Mister Ezio | Assassin's Creed: Nexus VR | Lineage W

Voiced by: Roger Craig Smith (English), Gilbert Lachance (French)^note Other Languages:Tomokazu Seki (Japanese), Vasily Zotov (AC II, Brotherhood), Denis Nekrasov (Revelations) (Russian), Renato Novara (AC II, Brotherhood), Diego Baldoin (Revelations) (Italian)

Played by: Devon Bostick (Lineage)

"Resquiescat in Pace."

Ezio Auditore is the ancestral character of the game trilogy encompassing Assassin's Creed II, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and Assassin's Creed: Revelations. He is an ancestor of William Miles, Desmond Miles and Clay Kaczmarek (aka Subject 16).

The second son of banker Giovanni Auditore, he was born and raised in 15th century Florence (hence "da Firenze"). After his blissful and carefree life is destroyed when his father is betrayed, framed and executed as well as his two brothers (older and younger), Ezio learns that his father was an Assassin, puts his father's gear on and sets out on an epic decades-long quest for vengeance, hunting down — as well as adding to — Templar names from a list his father wrote, and gets progressively inducted in the Assassin Brotherhood.

The plot of the "Ezio Auditore Trilogy" shows his progression and growth, as Ezio goes from an enraged young man seeking revenge and cursing those he kills, to a mature and patient hunter of his foes, to a wise master who eventually rises to inspire the whole Assassin Brotherhood through wisdom, personal skill and leadership and allows it to prosper for centuries to come.

See here for his Soul Calibur V character sheet.

Go here for his self-demonstrating page.

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A - C

• 11th-Hour Superpower: Upon obtaining the Apple of Eden near the end of Assassin's Creed II and Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. In the former, he uses the same trick Al Mualim used against Altaïr in the first game by cloning himself against the Final Boss. In the latter, he can sacrifice a portion of his health to force enemies to commit suicide, although going for full synchronization states that he should not use it under any circumstance.
• The Ace:
  • Actually invoked. Desmond is reliving Ezio's memories so, via the Bleeding Effect, he can learn proper Assassin skills, and Ezio is such a pinnacle of what the Order can do that he's the natural choice for that.
  • When her Brotherhood is all but eliminated, Shao Jun travels all the way from China to find Ezio, because his reputation is just that great.
• Almighty Janitor: Ezio is not officially inducted into the Brotherhood until near the end of II, making him an initiate at best who has nevertheless taken out several high-ranking Templars and thoroughly derailed their overall plans.
• Aloof Big Brother: Ezio ends up dedicating 25-years of his life to his Roaring Rampage of Revenge against Rodrigo and his conspiracy to the point where he alienated himself from his surviving family. By the time of the sequel, Brotherhood, Ezio is rather estranged from his sister, Claudia. This is something of a self-inflicted trope to as Ezio wants to keep Claudia from getting involved with the Assassin Brotherhood, so he purposely keeps her at arms length.
• Animal Motifs: The eagle, as is standard for our Assassin protagonists.
• Anti-Hero: While he's a good person overall, saves innocents, and fights Templar oppression, he's also a man driven primarily by revenge for over twenty years, and kills plenty of people.
• Armor of Invincibility: All three of the games starring Ezio features a set of special armor that gives him the highest HP rating in the game and is also completely unbreakable, with no need to pay repairs:
  • The Armor of Altaïr in Assassin's Creed II. It was created by Altaïr Ibn La-Ahad using the knowledge he got from the Apple of Eden that he had in his possession, and it takes most of the game to obtain it. In order to access it, six sigils have to be collected by platforming in hidden sanctuaries in Florence, San Gimignano, Forlì and Venice.
  • The Armor of Brutus in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. It's an ancient Roman armor that belonged to Marcus Junius Brutus (who would later appear in Assassin's Creed Origins) and, again, it takes most of the game to obtain it. Much like in AC II, six seals have to be collected by platforming in ancient Roman ruins in order to access it.
  • There are two such armors in Assassin's Creed: Revelations. The Master Assassin Armor can be obtained quite early in the game (by the second memory sequence), making it a veritable Disc-One Nuke, but it takes much grinding by sending your Assassin recruits on missions all over the Mediterranean plus quite a few Den Defenses. The Armor of Ishak Pasha meanwhile renders Ezio impervious to bullets, it belonged to dead Turkish Assassin Ishak Pasha, whose grave inside Hagia Sophia can be accessed by retrieving ten scrolls.
• Aura Vision: His "talent", Eagle Vision (upgraded to Eagle Sense in Revelations), allows him to identify targets and important items in the area, as well as, in the case of Eagle Sense, track the movements of people long gone by their traces and mark off areas to look for things from his View Points. In effect, this makes him a Scarily Competent Tracker.
• Badass Cape: Which also serves to conceal his left-forearm Hidden Blade bracer, the Short Blade, and the hilt of his sword, axe, or bludgeon, as whenever he walks in Low Profile he pulls it over his left shoulder. Sadly, it gets shot off by an arrow in the opening cutscene in Assassin's Creed: Revelations.
• Been There, Shaped History: He was a protagonist of some Real Life events of The Renaissance, the official history of which forgot his name, of course, and he was friends with Leonardo da Vinci and Niccolo Machiavelli, of all people. If it happened during the Renaissance, Ezio probably had something to do with it. An attempt at a comprehensive list:
  • In Assassin's Creed II, he personally defended the life of Lorenzo de' Medici from the assassination attempt at Florence's cathedral during the Pazzi Conspiracy and escorted him to safety, killed Francesco de' Pazzi and hung his body from the Palazzo della Signoria, personally hunted down and assassinated his co-conspirators, then was involved with no less than three consecutive doges of Venice — Giovanni Mocenigo (failed to protect and framed for the killing), Marco Barbarigo (assassinated by Ezio), and Agostino Barbarigo (succeeded Marco), then fought in both the conflict following the death of the lord of Forlì and Imola, and in the Bonfire of the Vanities (mercy-killing the "mad monk" Girolamo Savanarola — for which Rodrigo Borgia's papacy would take credit). Afterwards, Ezio personally assaulted Pope Alexander VI / Rodrigo Borgia right after Christmas (ahistorical). Oh, and he dated the cousin of the man who would name the Americas, Amerigo Vespucci.
    • In Assassin's Creed II: Discovery, he assisted Christopher Columbus in sailing to said "New World".
  • In Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, he witnessed the death of Rodrigo Borgia/Pope Alexander VI and caused the downfall of the latter's son Cesare Borgia, and then was the man who threw Cesare from a wall to his death in 1507. He also more or less convinced Leonardo da Vinci to finish painting The Mona Lisa.
  • And if Renaissance Italy wasn't enough, he personally killed Manuel Palaiologos and took part in the downfall of Prince Ahmet in the Ottoman Empire in Assassin's Creed: Revelations.
• BFS: Can wield gigantic two-handed weapons almost as large as he is.
• Big Brother Instinct: Does not take kindly to people bad-mouthing or hurting his little sister and beats the guy up on her behalf (and at her request!). On the other hand, his protectiveness can also pretty smothering, as when demonstrated in Brotherhood when he gets angry at her for coming to Rome in order to help him.
• Big Good: Ezio is the reason why Monteriggioni (briefly) returned to its former glory between Assassin's Creed II and Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. Also, more prominently after becoming head of the Assassin Brotherhood in Brotherhood, because of his leadership, tutelage and actions, he very much singlehandedly resulted in the Brotherhood continuing to prosper for centuries, right up until the present day. Gamewise, he also takes up this role in Assassin's Creed: Revelations for the Ottoman Brotherhood of Assassins as long as he's in Constantinople/Istanbul.
  • This can especially be seen as his story continues and his reputation amongst the Templar grows. By the time he retires, Ezio is essentially the Templars' boogeyman.
    Caterina Sforza: You are the leader of the Assassins now. Unite them Ezio Auditore and take back Roma!
• Breakout Character: His very positive reception in Assassin's Creed II led to him continuing as the player character in the two subsequent Mission-Pack Sequel games, with spin-off stories designed to follow the rest of his life before or after the events of Revelations, making him the only historical Assassin to be the focus character for an entire trilogy. To this day, Ezio is generally considered one of, if not the, most popular protagonist(s) in the series.
• Bully Hunter: Although The Brotherhood of Altair's era was also dedicated to smiting the wicked, it is from Ezio's grandmastery of the Italian Brotherhood that the Order evolved into one motivated primarily by compassion rather than wrath. Even though Ezio slays the wicked regardless of race or religious affiliations, he does so to give happiness and freedom to all (especially children), and invariably makes sure to leave the place he saves a better place before the tyrant was slain by financially rebuilding its infrastructures, turning hives of poverty and despair into communities of prosperity and hope.
• Call to Agriculture: As seen in Assassin's Creed: Embers, Ezio retired to a vineyard near his birth city of Florence after Assassin's Creed: Revelations.
• Catchphrase:
  • Requiescat in Pace, which he says to (almost) all of his targets during their final moments. He teaches this to his followers in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and Assassin's Creed: Revelations. Interestingly, Aya/Amunet from Assassin's Creed Origins used it long before he did.
  • The liberation of Roma has begun. He says this to the citizens he assists against Borgia guards before he invites them to join his Assassin's guild.
• Character Death: He dies of a heart attack at the age of 65 in the middle of his beloved birth city of Florence, after helping Shao Jun in one last battle that strained him too much.
• Character Focus: He's the primary ancestor in three games and an extremely important figure in the overall Assassins vs Templars conflict of the series. Not only do his adventures affect the Assassins in the Renaissance era, but they are also a large part of Desmond Miles's journey in the present time. The sum of most Assassin's Creed media chronicles Ezio's entire life from birth to death.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: More than any other Assassin in the series, he is incredibly strong and resilient. In his fifties he's strong enough to dead-lift a heavily armored soldier with one hand and can survive a straight hundred-foot drop uninjured (landing hard enough to buckle the wooden platform he lands on). Presumably, this is to hint at his First Civilization genetic heritage, making him borderline super-human anyway.
• The Charmer: Develops into a textbook example. All the lady-killing magnetismo of The Casanova, with none of the callousness.
• The Cameo:
  • Ezio Auditore briefly appears in a vision seen by the Eagle Bearer in The Fate of Atlantis DLC of Assassin's Creed: Odyssey.
  • Ezio also shows up in Assassin's Creed: Blade of Shao Jun when the titular character is reciting her mentor's instructions and teachings.
  • In Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, he is one of the voices of the future heard by Gunlodr/Minerva.
• Combat Pragmatist: A tradition for Desmond's bloodline, even more so in Brotherhood.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Particularly when one views their whole lives. Altaïr was extremely cynical all the way to the end, taking the view that Humans Are the Real Monsters and that the world we live on is an extreme Crapsack World. Ezio, particularly after many years working as an assassin in different parts of the world, while taking the view that Humans Are Flawed, never lost his faith that humans are overall still quite decent and also had a great appreciation for life and the world we live in.
• Cool Old Guy: Ends the second game in his 40s, and by the end of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, he is 48 years old. By Assassin's Creed: Revelations he's over 50, which is pretty old by the times' lifespan standards. By the time of Assassin's Creed: Embers, he is 65 and can still pick up a sword, though his age has finally caught up to him at this point and can't go around running like he used to. Still, for a man nearing the end of his life, he sure has a lot of fighting capability left in him.

• Costume Evolution:
  • At first, Ezio takes his father's Assassin robes at the beginning of Assassin's Creed II and wears them throughout the game until he canonically claims the Armor of Altaïr shortly before the Bonfire of the Vanities. However, he loses both his father's robes and the Armor at the beginning of Brotherhood, before being given a new set of robes◊ upon his arrival in Rome, which looks closer to Altaïr's outfit in the original game.
  • When venturing in the Ottoman Empire in Revelations, Ezio dons a darker blue with some fur, reflecting him growing to be less of a showoff and more of a wise master and allowing him to blend in more in the streets of Constantinople. The Master Assassin Armor adds dark green and gold armored parts, while the dark green and orange Armor of Ishak Pasha also includes a Menpō-like mask.
• Cradle To Grave Character: Assassin's Creed II includes a brief section where you control him as a newborn, and he dies a peaceful death from old age at the end of Assassin's Creed: Embers.
• Cultured Badass: Loves his art and literature. When asked to describe the Templars by Sofia, he is very terse:
  "Men who don't read."
• Cunning Linguist: Apart from his native Italian, he can speak at minimum Turkish and some French. He is a downplayed example as he claims his Turkish is "absurd" and an actual Frenchman isn't impressed by his use of the language.

D - M

• Deadpan Snarker: While it was already a major trait of his during the first two games, this especially shows in Revelations where he even tells an excited Assassin wannabe to "keep his leggings on". When he goes undercover as a bard, all of his songs are low-key jabs at past enemies, the audience, and himself.
• Denying the Dead Parent's Sins: Subverted. After the initial shock, he accepts the fact that his father was indeed an Assassin.
• The Determinator: Ezio was a fighter quite literally from the moment he was born, and continued his war with the Templars into old age right up until his death.
• Did Not Get the Girl: Cristina, who ends up in an Arranged Marriage to Manfredo Soderini before getting killed during the Bonfire of the Vanities, all of it can be relived in fragmentary memories that are explored in Brotherhood.
• Dork Knight: Once upon a time, Ezio really was just a kid. We get to see him make his first approach to a pretty girl (Cristina Vespucci) in a flashback in Brotherhood (presumably the day before he has his big fistfight with Vieri during his introduction in AC II). He walks up, flashes a goofy grin, and completely freezes.
• The Dreaded: By the Templars. Ezio's quite possibly the most feared assassin the series. Best seen in the Assassin's Creed: Revelations trailer, where he has been disarmed and his hands are bound but the simple act of him standing up and walking on his own makes an entire room full of mooks panic.
• Dual Wielding: Carries two Hidden Blades; also applies to the Medium Weapon/Hidden Gun and the Short Blade/Throwing Knives combinations in Brotherhood. Upgraded to a hidden blade/hookblade pairing in Revelations.
• Due to the Dead:
  • Utters "Requiescat In Pace" to (almost) all of his targets during their final moments.
  • Averted in his initial assassinations where he slaughters his first few targets and continues violently shaking Vieri de' Pazzi's corpse while shouting swear words after the latter callously witholds a confession, earning him a harsh rebuke from Mario as it's against the rules of etiquette the Assassins abide by.
• The Dutiful Son: Family means a great deal to Ezio, and even in his early playboy phase, he's very obedient and deferential to them, even if they are sometimes embarrassing. He's finally convinced to stay with the Assassins when Mario accuses him of walking away from his father's legacy and he persists in keeping contact and helping his sick mother to recover, never abandoning her even when Mario seems to have given up.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Ezio's life was hard and often traumatic, losing family members, loved ones and friends throughout his decades-long struggle against the Templars. Revelations also shows that he's aware that all of his suffering is just him being an unknowing conduit for a message to Desmond. After Revelations he's able to find a new love in Sofia. Pledging to live for himself, he retires with her to his beloved Florence to peacefully raise a family for the last decade of his life.
• Even the Guys Want Him: Gets quite a bit of admiring looks from men. Leonardo is only the most prominent example.
• Everyone Has Standards: When Ezio sees the crowd ready to burn Savonarola alive on the stake, he deems it too inhumane, stating that no one deserves to die in such pain, and goes in to give Savonarola a quick death instead. After which, he lectures the crowd for their inhumane actions as well.
• Famed In-Story:
  • As of Revelations, where his reputation precedes him among the Assassins there.
  • Hell, even in Assassin's Creed II he's already this by the time the Bonfire of the Vanities rolls around.
  Civilian: Sometimes I wish the assassino would return to Firenze. See what he would say to such tyranny.
• Feeling Their Age: Lampshaded in the opening mission of Revelations, where an older Ezio (he's over 50 by the time of Revelations, which is quite an advanced age at the time) nearly dies because his reactions are dulled with age and laments that "this used to be so easy". Whenever he tries to deny this, Yusuf is always there to keep him honest. On the other hand it's something of an Informed Attribute; in Revelations he's still an unstoppable One-Man Army and was only captured by Templars at Masyaf due to being distracted by a vision of Altaïr.
  Yusuf: When were you ever young?
• Folk Hero: Following the Pazzi conspiracy, Ezio is being treated as such by the people of Florence and by the time of the Bonfire of Vanitas, he has become an urban legend equivalent to the Boogeyman.
• The First Cut Is the Deepest: His repressed memories in Brotherhood are all tied to his failed relationship with Cristina Vespucci.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: "Nightmare" from the Templars' perspective.
  • In Assassin's Creed II, Ezio goes from being a young insignificant Florentine nobleman to bringing the Pope to his knees.
  • When he arrives in Rome in Brotherhood, he has nothing left bar one Hidden Blade, and he's badly injured. Count two to three years, and he has gathered an Army of Thieves and Whores and stolen Rome from under the Borgias.
• Good Is Not Soft: Ezio is a kind man for an Assassin but as seen in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood in his flashback, after he returns to Florence to meet Cristina again, he learns she's engaged to Manfredo, a faithful husband but also a gambling addict, and after he kills off the gamblers who owe the latter his debt to them, he doesn't have any qualms dangling him over the bridge because his addiction nearly endangered Cristina's life and threatens to kill him if he gambles again.
• Good Wears White: In II and Brotherhood, Ezio wears a white and red Assassin outfit. He's also the main protagonist of his own trilogy.
• Grumpy Old Man: Initially in Assassin's Creed: Embers when confronted by Chinese Assassin Shao Jun. And his response basically amounts to "Get out, kid! I'm too old for this crap".
• Guest Fighter:
  • His Brotherhood characterization appears in Soul Calibur V.
  • He was a guest boss in the temporary For Honor / Assassin's Creed crossover event of December 2018/January 2019 titled For Honor - For the Creed.
• Half-Human Hybrid: It is heavily implied that Ezio, just as everyone in his bloodline, has genetic material from one of Those Who Came Before in his DNA, which gives him his Eagle Vision ability and very possibly his endurance.
• Happily Married: He is enjoying quiet domestic bliss with Sofia Sartor in Assassin's Creed: Embers.
• Handsome Lech: Even during his 20-year Roaring Rampage of Revenge, he still tries to find time for the ladies and is pretty much confirmed to have bedded at least one countess in Forlì... until the Siege of Monteriggioni (begun while in bed with Caterina Sforza), after which he doesn't so much as look at a woman suggestively for the next three years. He eventually settled down with Sofia Sartor, whom he met in Constantinople, fathering Desmond's line in his fifties, though according to Word of God Ezio has fathered many other children in his lifetime, and one of them was an ancestor of Clay Kaczmarek (a.k.a. Subject 16).
• Heartbroken Badass: The repressed memories of his old flame Cristina show that during the Bonfire of the Vanities she was mortally wounded and died in his arms. His later writings state that something in him "withered" after her death.
• A Hero Is Born: The first memory Desmond explores in in Assassin's Creed II is that of Ezio's birth.
• Heroic BSoD: A recording in Valhalla has Desmond recounting a memory of Ezio leaving Capaddocia during the events of Revelation and feeling incapable of going on any further, figuring that was the moment Ezio decided to quit the Assassin business.
• Heroic Neutral: After defeating Rodrigo Borgia at the Vatican, Ezio seems to feel his battles are over; after all, even though he let Borgia live, the Pope is now scared shitless of him and he's also lost the Apple of Eden. And Minerva's warnings of destruction speak of an event that will happen far into the future, so there's nothing Ezio himself can do about it in his lifetime, and he's quite looking forward to retiring to Monteriggioni and living the rest of his life in peace with his family. Of course, while the Pope is content to leave Ezio alone and merely focus on consolidating the Templar's power, Ezio didn't take his son Cesare into account, who leads an army against Monteriggioni, destroying the city, steals back the Apple, and kills Ezio's uncle Mario. Ezio pays him back by returning to Rome, setting up a proper Assassin's Guild, pretty much steals the city out from underneath the Borgia, and also completely destroys Cesare's army and finances. Late in the game, when Cesare comes to beg his father for more money to continue his war, Rodrigo instead reams him out for his stupidity by telling him Ezio would have left them alone if Cesare hadn't attacked Monteriggioni in the first place.
• Highly-Visible Ninja: Just look at his portrait up there. His default Italian Assassin robes are pure white with scarlet accents, have the trademark tails and "beak" on the hood, and his belt buckle is a huge, ornate Assassin symbol. All of this should broadcast his affiliation to any Templar in the vicinity, and he wears this uniform all the damn time, though the player can unlock other color schemes if they so choose. Even to someone who doesn't recognize the significance of the symbols, he should stick out like a sore thumb. Judging by the ambient comments from random civilians, and the fact that by the third game the player sometimes has to counter-kill random Templar hitmen, he is just as conspicuous to the citizens as he is to the player. It's a wonder he lived long enough to die of old age, but he's just that good.
  • The blue-grey default robe he wears while he's in Constantinople in Assassin's Creed: Revelations is definitely much less conspicuous. Unless he dons the armor of Ishak Pasha — it's quite impossible to miss that menpō-like mask.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: Impressively averted — mostly. All of Ezio's weapons except bombs are modeled on his body. See Walking Armoury.
• Iconic Sequel Character: He's perhaps the most iconic Assassin of the franchise, and was introduced in the second main game.
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: He told Manfredo, Cristina Vespucci's fiancé, to stop gambling and be a good husband or he will hunt the guy down and kill him.
• Incurable Cough of Death: In Assassin's Creed: Embers, he has recurring coughing fits, most likely from wine-grower's lung given that he's running a vineyard.
• Indy Ploy: "I am improvising!"
• In the Hood: Runs in the family, being an Assassin and all. Ironically, he becomes so famous that he is recognized because of the hood.
• In the Past, Everyone Will Be Famous: Leonardo da Vinci, Caterina Sforza, Niccolò Machiavelli, Nicolaus Copernicus... that's quite a handful of famous people he deals with on a daily basis. He also pals around with a very young Suleiman the Magnificent in Revelations.
• Italians Talk with Hands: He adds gestures to his words sometimes.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: As a teenager, his known negative flaws are womanizing, starting fights, and being prone to anger quickly. Still, he's really likable and a genuine Nice Guy who's loyal to his families and friends and compassionate to innocent people especially children.
• Latin Lover: Ezio fits this trope well, given he is native Italian, Really Gets Around, and the Animus often leaves some phrases in his native language untranslated.
• Legendary in the Sequel: He's hailed as one of the greatest Assassins of all time and the pinnacle of what they're capable of centuries after his death.
• Le Parkour: Even before he became an Assassin, Ezio was highly adept at free-running. As his Animus entry in Assassin's Creed III so aptly puts it:
  "He was terrific at jumping, too."
• Living Legend: By the time of Revelations, he's famous among Assassins and infamous among Templars for defeating the Borgias, as shown by Yusuf in Constantinople.
• Made of Iron: He can take absurd amounts of punishment with little negative effect. Cutscenes reveal this is canon, and not just because he's a player character, as evidenced by the "Charles Atlas Superpower" entry above.
• Man of the City: He is responsible for refurbishing Monteriggioni in II. He basically owns Rome (both its buildings and the hearts of its people) in Brotherhood because he cleaned up the Borgia corruption. Then, he goes to Constantinople during Revelations and helps Yusuf push out the encroaching Templar influence, be it in the dens, the marketplace or the palace.
• May–December Romance: He's old enough to be Sofia's father.
• The Mentor:
  • In Brotherhood he becomes titled il Mentore when Machiavelli steps down in favor of him as Grand Master of the Assassin Order in Rome, and trains plenty of new recruits to take on the Borgias.
  • He trains new recruits for the Assassin brotherhood of Constantinople in Revelations.
  • The comics show he served as mentor to Giovanni Borgia and Hiram Stoddard, an ancestor of Tom Stoddard's, mentor in 1515, two years after technically retiring from active Assassin duties.
  • In Embers, he gives a few teachings to Shao Jun.
• Multi-Melee Master: Ezio is proficient with many weapons.
  • He can use swords, axes, Hidden Blades, spears, warhammers and daggers.
  • He can sometimes take up brooms or farming equipment to fight people if he so chooses.
• The Musketeer: Uses his melee weapons independently of the Hidden Gun.
• Multi-Ranged Master: Throwing knives, Hidden Gun and crossbow. In Assassin's Creed: Revelations, he adds darts and bombs.

N - Y

• Nice Guy: Noted for being one of the kindest protagonists in the series.
• Old Master: He becomes a mentor to the Assassin Brotherhood of Constantinople when he's over 50 (which is pretty advanced by 16th century lifespan standards). Then, at age 65, he gives some teachings to Shao Jun, who has come all the way from China to seek his wisdom.
• One-Man Army: Ezio can slaughter entire groups of soldiers single-handedly well into his late 40s and his 50s. Had he not gotten distracted by his vision of Altaïr in the opening cinematic of Assassin's Creed: Revelations, it's likely that he would've completely slaughtered all of the Byzantines trying to capture and/or kill him.
• The Paragon: He serves as a role model and inspiration to the Assassins in Italy and beyond. Indeed his actions are set to have brought about and spread The Renaissance across Europe starting a Golden Age. It can also be argued that his era was the Golden Age for the Brotherhood as a whole since the eras after him shows much less definitive victories and only marginal impact on culture and history.
• Patrick Stewart Speech: Gives two awesome speeches. One at the end of the Bonfire of the Vanities and another in his final letter to his wife Sofia, where he tells her that for all his life's troubles, he has nothing but love for her, her children, their brothers and "this vast world that gives us life".
  • He also gives one to Shao Jun in Embers.
  "I spent many years teaching men and women to think and act for themselves. First in Roma, then Constantinople. Love binds our order together. Love of people, of cultures, of the world. Fight to preserve that which inspires hope, and you will win back your people."
• Percussive Pickpocket: He was taught how to steal through "accidental" bumping-into by Paola.
• Persona Non Grata: He is banned from Constantinople by order of the Sultan Selim, likely for wrongly killing Tarik, who was Selim's close friend and Captain of the Janissaries as well as sinking an entire Ottoman navy fleet. It's only because Suleiman put in a good word for him that Ezio is not attacked on the spot. Though with some negotiation, Ezio was able to come back to finish his business in Constantinople.
• Poirot Speak: In contrast to Altair in the first game, who the Animus system depicted as speaking in Desmond's own voice, Ezio's dialogue is rendered into English with a noticeable Italian accent and peppered with untranslated words, especially when cursing. Desmond can point this discrepancy out in some of the idle dialogue, to which he's given the answer that it's a result of the Animus the Assassins are using being a bootleg copy of Abstergo's version with an inferior synch rate and laggy translation software.
• Posthumous Character: He's already dead by the time that his last student Shao Jun goes back to China to restart the Brotherhood in Assassin's Creed: Chronicles and Assassin's Creed: The Ming Storm.
• The Power of Love: What ultimately makes his mother Maria recover from her trauma of losing her husband and her children. Ezio's devotion to little Petruccio's memory (the 100 feathers Collection Sidequest in Assassin's Creed II) eventually brings Maria Back from the Brink of her Despair Event Horizon. In his letter to Sofia, he affirms that love is the force which has kept him going through all his adventures and he expresses the same belief to Shao Jun.
• Previous Player-Character Cameo: He shows up as an Old Master to train Shao Jun in the combat tutorials of Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China.
• Raised as a Host: Sort of. While he lived his own life, wreaked havoc on the Templars and allowed the Assassin Brotherhood to prosper like never before, he was destined to be a host allowing Those Who Came Before to transmit messages to Desmond Miles through him and through time. Justified since the things Those Who Came Before want to warn Desmond about won't happen until centuries after the end of Ezio's life.
• Rambunctious Italian: As a young man, he was impetuous and Hot-Blooded, often cursing in untranslated Italian. Then he grew wiser as an Assassin in his formative years.
• Really Gets Around: The first game has him sleeping with lots of different women, though he eventually ends up Happily Married to Sofia Sartor after the third game. It's also confirmed that Clay Kaczmarek was descended from Ezio through an illegitimate child he fathered at some point during his life and likely never knew about. Desmond, meanwhile, was descended from one of his children with Sofia.
• Rebel Leader: When he leads the Assassins and the thieves in Venice against the tyranny of Marco Barbarigo and when he leads the Assassins and gradually the people of Rome against the Borgia tyranny.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: His Character Development sees him going from a solid Red to his Uncle Mario (being younger, more passionate, less cautious and reasonable) to a Blue for the Brotherhood (older, cool-headed, wiser) as a whole as well as Yusuf Tazim and even Machiavelli himself.
• Retired Badass: By Embers, he has quit the Order for over a decade in order to spend a quiet life with Sofia Sartor and their children Flavia and Marcello.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Conducts a decades long one against his enemies because they killed his father and brothers.
  • Then he goes against the Borgias in Rome, Cesare in particular, for killing his uncle Mario and destroying Monteriggioni, and the body count keeps piling up.
• Rousing Speech: Gives a famous speech at the end of The Bonfire of Vanities which summarizes his Character Development and conceptualizes the themes of the series. Serves as one not only for Ezio but the crowd as well, and the admiring Assassins who look at him with pride. For added awesome value, it is Truth in Television and borrows from Roy T. Bennett's The Light in the Heart.
  "Silencio! Silencio! Twenty-two years ago, I stood where I stand now... and watched my loved ones die, betrayed by those I called friends. Vengeance clouded my mind, and it would have consumed me, were it not for the wisdom of a few strangers, who taught me to look past my instincts. They never preached answers, but guided me to learn for myself. We don't need anyone to tell us what to do. Not Savonarola, nor the Medici. We are free to follow our own path. There are those who would take that freedom from us, and too many of you gladly give it up. But it is our ability to choose - whatever you think is true - that makes us human. There is no book or teacher to give you the answers, to show you the path. Choose your own way. Do not follow me, or anyone else."
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Downplayed a bit. He was from an aristocratic family that produced a long line of Assassins dating back to the late 12th century. Ezio simply becomes a master Assassin and Mentor to the Brotherhood and dismantles Templar influence over Renaissance era Italy.
• Scarily Competent Tracker: His Eagle Vision/Sense enables him to identify targets in a crowd, mark them for his normal vision, and even see tracks that they don't even know they're making. This makes escaping him quite difficult.
• Series Mascot: Ezio is far and away the most popular character in the entire franchise; the only characters that come anywhere near his level of popularity is Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad (due to being the first Assassin) and Edward Kenway (because of his Ezio-style Character Development and Matt Ryan's performance being praised). As a result, he is the go-to figure for advertising for the series and crossovers, having crossed over to For Honor and Soul Calibur V. In terms of the main trilogy of games starring him (II, Brotherhood, and Revelations), it's literally called "The Ezio Trilogy", making this trope invoked.
• Silver Fox: In Assassin's Creed: Revelations. Despite the fact that he's past fifty, most of the women (and some of the men) in Constantinople can't keep their eyes off him. To put it another way, Sofia Sartor (his eventual wife) was born in 1476; the year that Ezio, then 17, started his Assassin career.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: As mentioned in Character Focus, Ezio had an entire trilogy of games telling his story. By comparison, every other ancestor has only had one game a piece. On the same token, Ezio is generally considered the most well-liked of the series' protagonists, so you will find people who didn't take issue with it.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Assassin's Creed: Reflections reveals that he and Lisa del Giocondo, the model for Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, had a romantic attraction towards one another due to her nursing him back to health after he was injured fighting Borgia mercenaries in 1504, but Ezio's commitment to the Brotherhood and Lisa's faithfulness to her husband kept them apart.
• Suddenly Always Knew That: Sure is handy that he picked up French from a couple girls in Florence and recalls it enough to let him get past some guards thirty years later.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: In his old age, his eyes have turned a solid shade of gold. This likely represents the shift in his Eagle Vision to Eagle Sense.
• Sword and Gun: In Brotherhood Ezio can use a longsword or bludgeon (Medium Weapons) and his Hidden Gun together in combat while the Medium Weapon is equipped by holding down the Attack button (effectively switching to the Hidden Gun, though in a kill streak this will cause him to aim at a different person); the Short Blade and Throwing Knives have a similar relationship.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Tall for his time and place (5'9), dark-haired, dark-eyed, tan-skinned, and quite popular with the ladies.
• Tempting Fate:
  • During Sequence 1 of Assassin's Creed II, he wishes for his life to never change alongside his brother. Cue hos brothers and father being arrested and executed.
  • Also by sparing Rodrigo Borgia's life, and then by assuming at the beginning of Assassin's Creed; Brotherhood that "our work is finished". Cue Cesare Borgia attacking Monteriggioni.
  • Averted in Brotherhood when he spares Micheletto in order to save the actor. Micheletto does not become a threat from that point on and is arrested off-screen according to his portrait, with the novelization revealing that he was eventually killed by Cesare.
• The Unfettered: As noted in the What the Hell, Hero? entry, Ezio will do anything and everything to eliminate a target. He is willing to use things like poison and explosives, in contrast to The Fettered Altaïr, who called poison a coward's weapon. The Irony is that Altaïr designed those weapons. Make of that as you will.
• Unscrupulous Hero: By the end of his life, Ezio has killed hundreds if not thousands of people in a multitude of unpleasant fashions, and caused a lot of property damage and chaos in the process. However, all of his targets are very deserving of it, and he learns to pay dues to his victims as they die at his hands.
• "The Villain Sucks" Song: When impersonating a minstrel in Assassin's Creed: Revelations, he takes to singing songs about his former foes (the Borgia, the Pazzi, Duccio de Luca), none of them complimentary, of course.
• Vocal Evolution:
  • Roger Craig Smith gave Ezio a high-pitched, youthful voice for the beginning of II that gradually deepens over the years until it sounds like Smith's own voice with an Italian accent. He kept that voice for Brotherhood, then added a layer of gruffness to portray Ezio's advanced age in Revelations and Embers.
  • The very same happened with Gilbert Lachance in both the Canadian and European French versions.
• Walking Armoury: By the end of Assassin's Creed: Revelations, he's packing a hidden blade, a hookblade, a sword/axe/hammer, a dagger, a poison dart launcher, a pistol, a crossbow, and a couple of dozen throwing knives. All these are modelled on his body. In addition, his unseen Hyperspace Arsenal includes ammo (10 bullets for the gun, 10 darts and 25 crossbow bolts), 15 parachutes and a dozen grenades of various types. Good grief.
• Welcomed to the Masquerade: Ezio is the first known instance, being raised in an Assassin family without knowing his heritage. After his father and brothers are publicly executed, he discovers his family's Assassin gear and operates alone for a while before being formally inducted into the Brotherhood.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Machiavelli is pissed when he finds out Ezio did not kill Rodrigo Borgia at the end of Assassin's Creed II. He's shown to be right when as soon as Ezio gets home his villa is burned down and his uncle killed by Cesare Borgia as retaliation. On the other hand, this was done by Cesare himself against Rodrigo's orders, and probably would have happened anyway. It becomes a much more prominent phenomenon in Assassin's Creed: Revelations, where he is reprimanded several times by Yusuf and others for the actions he took there. One of them is when he incites a riot outside the Arsenal gates which resulted in heavy damage in both property and lives(the Arsenal district remains ruined unto the end of the game) so he can get into the Arsenal to spy on information necessary to thwart a Byzantine/Templar uprising.
• The World Is Just Awesome: How Ezio feels at the end of his life. His final letter to his wife Sofia ends like this:
  "Love, liberty, and time: once so disposable, are the fuels that drive me forward. And love, most especially, mio caro. For you, our children, our brothers and sisters. And for the vast and wonderful world that gave us life, and keeps us guessing."
• Would Hit a Girl: Some of his targets have been female, and he killed "The Smuggler" Lia de Russo. He also has no problem tackling Lucrezia Borgia to the ground and holding her hostage.
• Written by the Winners: Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag has a video from Abstergo Entertainment, a 2013 front for the 21st-century Templars, that hilariously misinterprets Ezio's character, and even mispronounces his name for good measure.
• You Killed My Father: ...and my brothers and my uncle, Borgia!
• Your Days Are Numbered: In Assassin's Creed: Embers, even at his old age, he helps Shao Jun fend off Templar mooks who were chasing her. Unfortunately, given his age his heart doesn't take it very well. Realizing that he doesn't have much time left, he spends the most of his last day writing a farewell letter.

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