Without more ado they ran the miscreants, Francesco, Giacopo, and Giacopo di Giacopo de’ Salviati, Giacopo de’ Bracciolini, and Giovanni da Perugia, up to the lantern of the Campanile, and, thrusting their bodies through the machicolations, hung them head downwards!  Others of the party and some of the Cardinal’s servants, who had accompanied the Archbishop, were flung from the windows.

Cavaliere Giacopo de’ Pazzi was neither at the Duomo, nor did he accompany the Archbishop to the Palazzo Vecchio.  His part was to await news from Salviati that he had seized the Gonfaloniere and the palace, and then to ride fully armed with a retinue of mercenaries and Montesicco’s bodyguard of the Cardinal to the Piazza della Signoria.  Without awaiting the signal he advanced, raising the cry “Liberta!” “Liberta!” but none rallied to his side.

Instead, he and his escort were pelted with stones and, on arriving in the Piazza, he beheld the gruesome human decoration of the Campanile.  Without a moment’s hesitation, spurring his horse, he rode swiftly towards the Porta della Croce, and set off into the open country—­a fugitive!

Francesco de’ Pazzi, after the slaughter of Giuliano, escaped to his uncle’s house, and stripping himself, received attention to his wound, which was of a very serious nature.  He was not, however, left very long in peace, for the cry had gone forth in the streets—­“Death to the traitors!” “Down with the Pazzi and the Salviati!” “Fire their houses!” The sword, still reeking red with the bluest blood of Florence, was swiftly crossed by the sword of retribution.  Francesco was dragged forth, naked as he was from his bed, buffeted, pelted, and spat upon, they thrust him with staves, weapons, hands and feet, right through the Piazza della Signoria; up they forced him to the giddy gallery of the Campanile, and then, flinging his bleeding, battered body out among his bloodthirsty comrades, they left him to dangle and to die with them there!  The Archbishop, still in his gorgeous vestments, turned in fury, as he hung head downwards in that ghastly company, and, seizing his fiendish confederate, fixed his teeth in his bare breast, and so the guilty pair expiated their hellish rage—­unlovely in their lives, revolting in their deaths!

* * * * *

Poor Giuliano’s corpse was left weltering in his blood, where he had been done to death, outside the choir screen of the Duomo.  At length he was picked up tenderly by the good Misericordia.  His terrible wounds were reverently washed and his godlike body prepared for sepulture.  News of his assassination had been swiftly carried out to Careggi, and Domina Lucrezia, bracing herself for the afflicting sight, hastened to lay his fair head in her lap, a very real replica of “La Pieta”—­Blessed Mary and her Son.

Ah! how she and the women who bore her company wept for the beloved dead.  Ah! how with tender fingers they counted each gaping wound.  Ah! how gently they cut off locks of his rich hair, as memorials of a sweet young life.