THE CARDINAL OF ST GEORGE IS DETAINED PRISONER AT FLORENCE, WHERE THE ARCHBISHOP OF PISA IS STRANGLED, AND SEVERAL OTHERS PUT TO DEATH, FOR HAVING MURDERED GIULIANO DE MEDICI.--RHODES BESIEGED BY THE TURKS.--OF ST SYMON AND ANOTHER THAT WERE CRUCIFIED.--OF A DEVOUT HERMIT WHO LIVED FIFTEEN YEARS ON THE HOLY WAFER.--OF A MONSTER, BORN IN THE TOWN OF VERONA.--OF A MARVELLOUS COMET.--AND OTHER EXTRAORDINARY EVENTS. About this time, and soon after the death of the duke of Milan, a violent conspiracy was formed in the city of Florence, by the family of Pazzi, of which Francesco di Pazzi was the leader, against the family of the Medici. Francesco, accompanied by several of good family in Florence, and other conspirators, assassinated, with a dagger, Giuliano de Medici in the church of Santa Maria di Fuori, during the celebration of the mass. His elder brother, Lorenzo de Medici, was also wounded but recovered[81]. For this crime the reverend father in God Nicholas, cardinal of Saint George, and nephew[82] to count Jerome, was detained in close confinement; and Francesco Salviati, archbishop of Pisa, was publicly hanged in his archiepiscopal robes at the gates of the Medici-palace. Several of the conspirators, and their relatives, were hanged at the same time and place, and others executed in divers manners. Pope Sixtus IV. in revenge for these executions, fulminated, in the name of the cardinals in consistory, an excommunication and interdict against the city of Florence, and incited a cruel war against Tuscany, in the name of the church,--in which war numbers lost their lives. During this time, an ambassador from the republic of Venice obtained the liberty of the cardinal of St George, who returned to Rome: nevertheless, the war was still continued between the church and the Florentines, but it was at length ended, and the excommunication and interdict were taken off. The Jews, about this time, stole a child of twelve years of age, called Symon, in the city of Trent, whom they crucified, and caused to suffer the mysteries of the passion, in ridicule of what our Saviour had suffered,--for which they were most severely punished, according to their deserts. The body of the child was carried in procession, as a martyr, to the cathedral, whither great crowds of people flocked from all parts; for through the devotion of this child many miracles were performed in remembrance of the passion of our Lord. A similar crime was committed by the Jews in the city of Opiterge[83], within the principality of Venice, where they martyred a youth in like manner. They were brought to Venice, and having confessed their guiltiness of this abominable crime, were burnt alive between the two marble columns in the place of St Marco.