de’ Pazzi to second their views and to stimulate their passion.  The three between them hatched a plot which was joined by Salviati, Archbishop of Pisa, another private foe of the Medici, and by Giambattista Montesecco, a captain well affected to the Count Girolamo.  The first design of the conspirators was to lure the brothers Medici to Rome, and to kill them there.  But the young men were too prudent to leave Florence.  Pazzi and Salviati then proceeded to Tuscany, hoping either at a banquet or in church to succeed in murdering their two enemies together.  Bernardo Bandini, a man of blood by trade, and Francesco de’ Pazzi were chosen to assassinate Giuliano.  Giambattista Montesecco undertook to dispose of Lorenzo.[1] The 26th of April 1478 was finally fixed for the deed.  The place selected was the Duomo.[2] The elevation of the Host at Mass-time was to be the signal.  Both the Medici arrived.  The murderers embraced Giuliano and discovered that this timid youth had left his secret coat of mail at home.  But a difficulty, which ought to have been foreseen, arose.  Monteseoco, cut-throat as he was, refused to stab Lorenzo before the high altar:  at the last moment some sense of the religio loci dashed his courage.  Two priests were then discovered who had no such silly scruples.  In the words of an old chronicle, ’Another man was found, who, being a priest, was more accustomed to the place and therefore less superstitious about its sanctity.’  This, however, spoiled all.  The priests, though more sacrilegious than the bravos, were less used to the trade of assassination.  They failed to strike home.  Giuliano, it is true, was stabbed to death by Bernardo Bandini and Francesco de’ Pazzi at the very moment of the elevation of Christ’s body.  But Lorenzo escaped with a slight flesh-wound.  The whole conspiracy collapsed.  In the retaliation which the infuriated people of Florence took upon the murderers, the Archbishop Salviati, together with Jacopo and Francesco de’ Pazzi and some others among the principal conspirators, were hung from the windows of the Palazzo Pubblico.  For this act of violence to the sacred person of a traitorous priest, Sixtus, who had upon his own conscience the crime of mingled treason, sacrilege, and murder, ex-communicated Florence, and carried on for years a savage war with the Republic.  It was not until 1481, when the descent of the Turks upon Otranto made him tremble for his own safety, that he chose to make peace with these enemies whom he had himself provoked and plotted against.

[1] His ‘Confession,’ printed by Fabroni, Lorenzi Medicis Vita, vol. ii. p. 168, gives an interesting account of the hatching of the plot.  It is fair to Sixtus to say that Montesecco exculpates him of the design to murder the Medici.  He only wanted to ruin them.

[2] It is curious to note how many of the numerous Italian tyrannicides took place in church.  The Chiavelli of Fabriano were murdered