The death of Giulio was instantly revenged: the traitors were seized, and exterminated by the populace. The archbishop of Pisa was seen when hanged by the side of Francisco Pazzi, biting in his agony the carcase of his companion. Montesecco revealed at the foot of the scaffold the dark clues and sacred origin of the conspiracy. Bandini, after having fled to Constantinople, was sent back by Mahomet 11. to Florence, where he was executed: a sultan would not afford an asylum to an assassin that a pope did not blush to arm; and while Lorenzo, scarcely recovered from his wounds, endeavoured to repress the popular indignation, even while he saves the Cardinal Riario, what does Sixtus do? As if his being an accomplice was not sufficiently exposed by Montesecco, was not abundantly demonstrated by the circumstances themselves, he proclaims it himself by the excommunication of Lorenzo de Medicis and the Florentines. He terms Lorenzo and the magistrates, children of perdition, suckers of iniquity: he declares them and their successors born or to be born, incapable of receiving or transmitting any property by will or inheritance; he summons the Florentines to deliver Lorenzo up to him; and, when he can no longer hope for so unprincipled a treason, he raises troops against Florence; he arms some Neapolitans; at any price he is desirous to consummate the crime, of which the Pazzi succeeded in effecting but the half. In the mean time Italy, Germany, and France, interested themselves for the Medicis; Louis XI. himself declares that he will restore the ‘pragmatic,’ if the pope does not revoke his anathemas: but the descent of the Turks at Otranto was requisite, and that the fears and the forces of the courts of Naples and of Rome should have to turn their attention to this point, before the pontiff would pardon the victim who had escaped his thunders and his poignards.²⁹⁰ ²⁹⁰ Ang. Politian. De Hist, coryurat. Pactianæ comment.— Don Bossi, chron. ann. 1478.—Machiav. Hist, of Flor. 1. 8.— Ammir. Hist. Flor. vol. iii. p. 118, &c.—Valori, Vita Laurent. Med.—Fabr. Vit. ejusdem.—Muratori’s Annals of Italy, years 1478, 1479, &c. Sixtus, to associate the court of Naples in his vengeance, had abolished a quit rent which it paid to the Court of Rome. Innocent VIII. designed its re-establishment, as necessary to the undertakings he meditated against the Mussulmans. Upon the refusal of king Ferdinand, the pope encouraged the Neapolitan barons to revolt, partisans of the Duke of Calabria, and little attached to the house of Arragon. He promised, and sent them troops; he excommunicated the king, deposed him, and called the king of France, Charles VIII. into Italy: but, indolent and unskilful, Innocent merited no success; and the eight years of his pontificate have left behind but trifling mementos.