Their power and wealth knew no bounds. Surrounded by their kinsmen and retainers, they maintained princely courts. They rode about the city in the garb of condottieri, encased in steel, with swords clanking at their sides. In their palaces they maintained hundreds of men, whose number was increased, when occasion demanded, by the addition of gangs of paid bullies and ruffians. Every palace was a stronghold, and in addition those of the cardinals possessed the right of sanctuary--a right, it may be observed, which was not generally respected unless it was backed by might, as is shown by the frequent murders in churches in Italy in the period of the Renaissance, one of the most extraordinary of which was the stabbing to death of Giuliano de’ Medici by Bernardo Bandini and Francesco de’ Pazzi, assisted by a priest, who “being accustomed to the place, was less superstitious about its sanctity,” at the steps of the altar in the duomo of Florence in 1478, under the very eyes of Cardinal Raffaele Riario, the raising of the Host being the signal for the attack. The palaces were great stone fortresses with towers and battlements; the portal was closed with doors barred and studded with iron, capable of resisting almost any force; within were vast courts and living quarters for the swarms of retainers. Many of these strongholds were even supplied with artillery. A criminal often secured the protection of some cardinal who, with the aid of his “family,” his armed followers, would rescue and save him from prison. On one occasion a number of playful young Romans having assaulted some of Cardinal Ascanio Sforza’s servants, the good prelate’s “family,” armed to the teeth, sallied forth, fell upon the jokers, and slashed and hacked about twenty of them. At another time when a certain Savelli, Captain of the Curia, was about to proceed with an execution in the vicinity of the palace of Cardinal Balue, that worthy ecclesiastic called to him from a window and commanded him to stop, as the place was in his own jurisdiction. On the captain’s refusal to do as he was commanded the cardinal ordered his “family” to storm the prison, which they did, liberating all the captives and destroying the records. That night Cardinals Savelli and Colonna dispatched their own forces against their colleague. Subsequently all the belligerents were summoned to appear before the Pope on the charge of contumacy, but the only notice which Cardinal Balue took of the order was to fill his lair with armed men.