With more cunning than Giacopo had shown, he made, not to the Tuscan hills, but to the Tuscan sea, and reached Corneto just in time to board a ship bound for the East, and at the point of weighing anchor.  At Galata he went ashore and communicated with Sixtus, who sent him a goodly sum of money and sundry Papal safeguards, with his blessing!

There he lay hid for many weeks, but, as luck would have it, one day he came out of his lair in a Turkish divan, and encountered an agent of the Medici, who recognised him, followed him, and charged him before the Pasha.  Put in irons by the Sultan’s command, communication was made with Lorenzo.  An envoy was despatched to Constantinople, to whom the wretch was handed, and, two months after his crimes in Santa Maria del Fiore, his living body was added to the string of stinking corpses, upon the side of the Campanile, which still dangled in their iron chains, betwixt earth and heaven, rained on and withered by the elements, and fed upon by carrion!

All the seven sons of Piero de’ Pazzi were banished for life.  They seem to have had no very intimate knowledge of the conspiracy; indeed, they were all away from Florence, except the fourth, Renato, and he was beheaded “for not having revealed the plot, he being privy to the treachery of his uncle Giacopo and his cousin Francesco.”

Renato, indeed, tried to escape, knowing that he was implicated, although not engaged in the plot, but the garrison of Radicofani discovered him and his hiding-place, and he was despatched under guard to Florence.  Giovanni de’ Pazzi, Francesco’s brother, who had married Beatrice Buonromeo, hid, for a time, in the monastery of Degli Angeli, and then, with his wife, was banished to the castle of Volterra, where he died in 1481.  It does not appear that he took any active part in the plot, although his wronging by Lorenzo was the spark which fired the whole conspiracy.

Guglielmo de’ Pazzi, the husband of Bianca de’ Medici, Lorenzo and Giuliano’s sister, was protected by Il Magnifico, and allowed to reside in a villa twelve miles outside Florence.

Napoleone de’ Franzesi, alone of all the conspirators, effected his escape, but Piero de’ Vespucci, father-in-law to “La bella Simonetta”—­“Il bel Giulio’s” innamorata,—­who assisted him, was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment in the Stinche, with a heavy fine.

Giovanni Battista da Montesicco’s fate was, perhaps, the only one which excited commiseration, even from the point of view of the Medici.  A soldier of fortune, his weapon was at your command, did you but fill his pouch with ducats of Rome or florins of Florence.  To him it mattered not whether the adventure partook of romance and espionage, or of intrigue and murder.  Unlike many of his profession, he was a religious man, and just.  He drew back from his bargain as soon as he had experience of Lorenzo’s character, and he refused point-blank to slay him in