Two nephews, invested the one with the duchy of Sora, the other with the county of Imola; an expedition fruitless against the Mahometans; alternate alliances and enmities with the Venetians; disturbances encouraged in Ferrara, Florence and Naples; arms, stratagems, and anathemas, in turn assayed against the enemies of the Holy See: these several details of the history of Sixtus IV. would possess greater interest if the conspiracy of the Pazzi did not absorb all the attention this pontificate can claim. The Medici had offended Sixtus IV. by some shew of resistance to the elevation of his nephews, and to the nomination of the archbishop of Pisa, Salviati. Their power, so much the more imposing as it was then connected with the most honourable renown, restrained and wearied the pontiff, who aspired to become master of Florence and the North of Italy. One of the first cares of Sixtus was, to deprive the family of the Medicis of the situation of treasurer of the Holy See, in order to give it to that of the Pazzi. Till this period, no jealousy was manifested between these two illustrious houses, united on the contrary by alliances and by mutual services. The Florentine authors exhaust in vain their investigations to discover motives or pretexts for the enmity of the Pazzi to the Medici. To represent the latter as tyrants, the conspirators as liberators, is at once to oppose sound morality and contemporary history. No, it is impossible to imagine any other causes here than the instigations of the court of Rome, and the hope presented to the Pazzi, of invading under the protection of the Holy See, the government of Florence, if they were willing to become, not the rivals of the Medicis, but their assassins. To the Pazzi were joined the Count Riacio, nephew of the pope, the cardinal Riacio, nephew of the Count, the archbishop of Pisa, a a brother of this prelate; one Bandini, known by the excess of his debaucheries; Montesecco, one of Sixtus’s ‘condottieri,’ with other robbers and priests. It was arranged to poignard Lorenzo and Giulio de Medici, on Sunday, the 26th of April, in the church, in the middle of Mass, at the moment of the elevation of the host. These circumstances, which added to the crime the character of sacrilege, terrified the conscience of Montesecco,²⁸⁹ who had received, as the best skilled of them all at assassination, the commission to strike Lorenzo; two ecclesiastics took the office on them. But they acquitted themselves with less skill than zeal; and Lorenzo, only wounded, escaped from their hands, while Giulio expired under the blows of Bandini and Francisco Pazzi. ²⁸⁹ He said, his courage would never support him in commiting such a crime in a church, and adding to his treason sacrilege.—Machiavellii’s History of Flortnce, 1. 8.