Sixtus IV., the reigning Pope, nourished also an inveterate hatred against the Medici, and under his auspices a conspiracy was formed to murder them and place Florence under the power of the Pazzi, in which Francesco Pazzi and Salviati, Archbishop of Pisa, were the chief actors. [183] “The design of the conspirators was to assassinate both the brothers, Lorenzo and Giuliano, at the same instant, for the murder of one would otherwise only have the effect of putting the other on his guard.[184] The Pope therefore wrote to the Cardinal Riario, nephew of Count Girolamo, a youth of only eighteen years of age, whom he had just admitted into the sacred college, and who was then studying at the University of Pisa, to desire him to obey whatever directions he should receive from the Archbishop of Pisa; and Salviati accordingly carried him to a seat of the Pazzi near Florence. The conspirators knew that the new Cardinal must be welcomed with public entertainments, at which they hoped that the Medici might be found present together, and despatched while unsuspicious of danger. Jacopo de’ Pazzi gave a fête, to which both the brothers were accordingly invited: Lorenzo, however, alone came, for Giuliano was indisposed. But Lorenzo, as had been foreseen, made sumptuous preparations to receive the Cardinal at his villa at Fiesole; and there the conspirators fully resolved to execute their purpose. The entertainment took place, but still Giuliano was absent; and the Pazzi, thus again disappointed, and despairing of securing the presence of the younger Medici, at a second festival to be given by his brother, resolved to defer their enterprise no longer than the following Sunday, when the Cardinal was to be present at high mass at the cathedral of Florence; an occasion at which it was thought that neither of the Medici could with decency absent himself. There it was determined that, in the midst of the most solemn offices of religion, the crime of assassination should be perpetrated; that the elevation of the host, as the kneeling victims bowed their heads, should be the signal of murder; and that at the moment of the sacrifice, the Archbishop Salviati and others should seize the palace of the signiory, while Jacopo de’ Pazzi was to raise the city by the cry of liberty. Francesco de’ Pazzi charged himself, together with Bernardo Bandini, a daring and devoted partisan of his house, with the assassination of Giuliano. Giovanni Battista Montesecco, a condottiere in the papal service, had boldly engaged with his single hand to despatch Lorenzo, while he understood that the murder was to take place at a festival. But when Montesecco found that it was before the altar of God that it was intended he should shed the blood of a man whose hospitality he had enjoyed, his courage failed him. The soldier declared that he dared not add sacrilege to murder and perfidy; and his office was committed to two ecclesiastics, who had not the same scruples.