No sooner had Giuliano reached the entrance to the choir and was about to genuflect, than Francesco de’ Pazzi, who had followed him closely, whipped out his sword, at the very moment of the Elevation, and ran the devout prince, through the back!  At the same time Bandino leaped upon him and stabbed him repeatedly in the breast!

It was all the work of an instant, and Giuliano fell over upon his side, his crimson life’s blood ebbing swiftly out of nineteen gaping wounds and dyeing his scarlet robe deep purple.  Francesco’s frenzy was diabolical, for he leaped upon the still quivering body of his victim, and stabbed him again and again—­wounding his own thigh in his fury!

Bandino next attacked Francesco Nori, a chief agent or manager of the Medici bank, a man of renown and honour, who vainly threw himself forward to shield his unhappy young patron, and he cut him down to the ground.  With a filthy execration, he raised the dripping weapon in the air, prepared for yet another victim.

Meanwhile the two perjured priests, who, by the mock grace of their Order were placed within the choir, had taken up positions immediately behind Lorenzo, as though to render him assistance in the divine service, suddenly attacked him with daggers, but unskilfully.  Lorenzo scrambled to his feet, and, casting his heavy mantle of State over his shoulders, drew his sword in self-defence.  Turning to see who his opponents were, he received a scratch in the neck from Stefano’s steel.  Then, from the raised dais, he descried the tumult at the choir gates, whilst cries of “Il Giuliano e morto” reached his ears!

Desperadoes were struggling with the clergy and the acolytes by the great lectern, and calling out his name for vengeance.  One, more murderous than the rest, was scaling the low sanctuary wall, holding his gory dagger in the air, and making for the chairs of estate—­it was Bernardo Bandino.  Commending the Domina Clarice to the care of his uncle, Lorenzo passed hurriedly up the steps of the altar and gained the New Sacristy, followed closely by the two Cavalcanti, who were battling with the infuriated Bandino and his confederates—­“Abbasso il Lorenzo,” they yelled.

Escaping through the doorway, Luca della Robbia’s great bronze gates were slammed to, by Angelo Poliziano, almost crushing Antonio Cavalcanti, who fell with a deep wound in his shoulder, and actually flinging to the ground, outside in the aisle, the raging, baffled Bandino.  “Then arose,” wrote Filippo Strozzi, in his family Ricordi—­he was an eye-witness of the tragedy—­“a great tumult in the church.  Messer Bongiano and other knights, with whom I was conversing, were stupefied, one fled hither and another thither, loud shouts filled the building, and the hands of friends of the Pazzi and Salviati all held gleaming weapons....  The young Cardinal remained alone, crouching by the high altar, until he was led away by some priests into the Old Sacristy, whence he was escorted by two of the ‘Eight,’ with a strong bodyguard, to the Palazzo del Podesta.”