a spot “where Christ could see him,” as he said.  It does not appear that he was inside the Cathedral that dread April morning, but remained on watch to see what transpired.  On the defeat of the conspiracy he fled, with many more, right out of Tuscany.  Agents of the Medici, however, pursued him and, having captured him, dragged him back to Florence.  Before the Lords of the Signoria he made confession of what he knew of the conspiracy and of his own part therein.  On 4th May, just seven days after the tragedy, he paid the penalty of his misplaced devotion, and he was hanged within the Palace of the Podesta.

Two arch-conspirators are still to be accounted for, Pope Sixtus IV. and Count Girolamo de’ Riari!  The former never expressed the least regret or concern at the tragic occurrences in Florence, but openly deplored the failure of his scheme to replace Lorenzo by Girolamo.  Furthermore, he issued a “Bull,” which began:  “Iniquitatis filius et perditionis alumnus,” and ended by anathema of Lorenzo, whereby he was excommunicated, and all Florence placed under an Interdict!

Moreover, he laid violent hands upon Donato Acciaiuolo, the Florentine ambassador, and, but for the prompt intervention of the envoys of Venice and Milan, would have cast him, uncharged, into the dungeons of the castle of Sant Angelo.  The majority of the Florentine merchants in Rome were arrested, their property confiscated, and, to add insult to injury, Sixtus demanded from the Signoria the immediate banishment of Lorenzo.  He expressed his keen sorrow for the deaths of the Pazzi and Salviati, his “devoted sons and trusty counsellors.”  He spoke of the execution of the Archbishop as “a foul murder caused by the tyranny of the Medici,” and he put a price upon the head of Cesare de’ Petrucci, the Gonfaloniere di Giustizia!

As for Count Girolamo, who had, coward-like, kept in the background—­he was probably little more than a complacent tool in the hands of the pontiff—­he was permitted to leave Florence in the train of the young Cardinal, immediately before the reception of the Interdict.  He returned to Rome and abandoned himself to a life of profligacy; his palace became a brothel and a gambling hell, and there he lived for ten years, dishonoured and diseased.  His retributive death was by the hand of an assassin in 1488.

The failure of the plot, whilst it added tremendously to the popularity of the Medici and strengthened still more Lorenzo’s position, threw the Pope frantically into the arms of the King of Naples.  He persuaded him to join in a combined and powerful invasion of Tuscany.  At Ironto the Neapolitan troops crossed the frontier and encamped, whilst the Papal forces moved on from Perugia and Siena.