the young cardinal excepted. But the festival came to an end, and the guests departed with grateful expressions of their sense of their host's courtesy and munificence.

If a spirit of folly had not taken possession of these bad men, as well as a spirit of cruelty and impiety, they could not by any possibility have adopted their next execrable planviz., that of murdering the two brothers in the great church next Sunday, at the solemn moment of the ELEVATION. These were the particulars of the plot as determined on. Antonio Volterra and Signor Stephano, the governor of the young Princes Pazzi, would, at the moment indicated, stab to the death Lorenzo, while Francisco Pazzi and Bernardo Bandini would despatch Julian in the same way. The Archbishop Salviati, accompanied by Jacomo Poggio, son of the tutor of the two Medicis, and a strong body of adherents, would seize on the Hotel de Ville, on pretence of paying a visit to Cæsar Perucci, the Gonfalonier, who resided there. The elder Pazzi, on hearing the death of the brothers, would ride to the public square, in his collar and other insignia, and surrounded by his adherents, and aid Salviati if he saw need.

Even as in former plots, the commencement promised well. Lorenzo made his appearance before the mass commenced. He intended to communicate on that day. His intended assassins took their place beside him; but the Introit commenced, and still no appearance of Julian. His two men, dreading a second failure, and the improbability of the plot, known to so many, being kept a secret, quietly left the church, and penetrated to the dressing-room, where they found him. brushing his hair. Francisco Pazzi laughingly upbraided with his sluggishness, especially as his lady-love was at that moment in the church on the look-out for him, herself the centre of many admiring eyes. The

idea hastened Julian's movements; his foemen acted as his valet, and at the very moment of time fixed for his destruction the three entered the church. Without losing a moment, they did their cruel office on him, and he sunk expiring on the pavement. The attention of Lorenzo's companions being occupied by the entry of the men, for a moment they were not up to time, and their intended victim, wrapping his left arm in his cloak, received the assault with firmness, and parried their strokes so skilfully, that time was given to a few courageous priests and other friends to get between him and the assassins. They succeeded in pushing him into the sanctuary and closing the door, before Bandini, who determinedly followed him, could inflict a mortal wound.

Meanwhile, Salviati, with a large and well-armed retinue, came to the Hotel de Ville, and announced to the guardian of the entrance that he wished to speak with the Gonfalonier. "He is at dinner with the officers of the guard," said the man, "and I do not wish to disturb him.” "Let him know," said he, "that I bring him a message direct from the Pope, which brooks not of delay." This pretence came into his head at the moment. He had not expected

to find the Gonfalonier surrounded by his men of war. That chief, on receiving the announcement, was not well-pleased with the dignitary for selecting such an inconvenient time. However, he sent to request the Archbishop to walk up stairs to the reception - room; and thither Salviati proceeded, leaning on the arm of Poggio, the conspirator already mentioned.

Entering the room into which the Gonfalonier had proceeded from the dining-room, the chief, after a hasty greeting, rather impatiently asked for the brevet in question. Salviati had not made up his mind as to the statement he would preface his pro

ceedings by, and hesitated. This increased Perucci's impatience, and raised some suspicion in his mind, which was much increased when the confused and conscience-stricken prelate turned red and pale by turns, and found himself unable to make any plausible statement. The Gonfalonier, inheriting the quality of most Italians, suspicion, at once hurried out of the room; and as Poggio, who was on the outside, made an attempt to stop him, he struck him to the ground, entered the dining-room, and directed his guests to repair to the donjon, and barricade the entrance. He then shouted to his armed retainers, and in a second or two heard the doors of all the rooms which communicated with the great hall violently closed. In these apartments there were at the moment all those who had followed the archbishop, and who thought it prudent to separate into groups, and divide themselves among the rooms, rather than excite suspicion by keeping together in a large body.

At the entry of every Gonfalonier into office, he had the locks and keys of the different rooms of his little fortress changed, and the present chief, who prided himself on his mechanical skill, put on such locks as allowed the doors to close with the greatest ease, but prevented their opening except by the keys which hung at the warder's girdle. It was never rightly known whether a vigilant servant of the house at once closed the doors round the hall when he first heard the shout of the Gonfalonier, or some frightened inmate of every room closed its door through apprehension, on hearing the armed garrison summoned. Lorenzo encouraged the belief that the thing resulted from a direct interposition of Providence. However produced, the issue was most for tunate in the securing of a fierce band of traitors.

Lorenzo had, in the onset made

on him, received a wound in his neck, which, being dressed by the clergyman in the sacristy, he was conducted to the assembly where the magistrates had already assembled. The city was by this time cognisant of the traitorous attempts, and an armed crowd composed of the adherents of the Medicis and all friends of good order, were thronging to the Hotel de Ville. If the magistrates even willed the pardon of the traitors, they could not effect it, so eager were the crowd for the instant execution of the would-be assassins. Poggio was the first who paid the penalty of his guilt, suspended from the bars of a window; then came the turn of Salviati, who had previously made a written revelation of the plot and the plotters, in order to save his life.

Francisco Pazzi had escaped from the church after helping to murder Julian, but he happened to give himself a wound while bestowing the death-blows on his victim, and retired to his uncle's house to have it dressed. A servant maid of the family, actuated by laudable or mercenary motives, reported his whereabouts, and he was brought and hung from the window over the principal entrance. The elder Pazzi, who had ridden into the great square, to give countenance and aid to the movement, seeing the turn which things had taken, escaped out of the town, and wandered ahout for a day or two. Hunger obliging him to enter the house of a peasant, the worthy boor took the opportunity of betraying him while pretending to be occupied about selling his horse. He got a regular trial, and time to prepare for death, but he obstinately refused to avail himself of any ghostly succour. He was interred within the church beside his ancestors; but the people, enraged at his rejection of religious aid, forcibly removed the body, and after treating it with the utmost indignity, left it on a dust-heap.

It

was re-interred in an obscure cemetery, but again brought out, and this time thrown into the Arno. Every one who had followed the Archbishop and Poggio into the Hotel de Ville shared the fate of the leaders. Of all the principal actors in the conspiracy, no one was granted the honour of decapitation but the brave Signor Montesicco. This man had entered among the conspirators through attachment to the Riaire family. He had even offered to slay Lorenzo at the banquet given at Frejola. Entering into conversation with him, after the change of purpose, he was glad for having been spared the murder of so amiable and estimable a man, and afterwards flatly refused to raise his hand against him in the church. He had not appeared either at the Hotel de Ville nor the church, but his complicity in the plot was set forth in the written statements of Salviati and the elder Pazzi. He was apprehended in his flight to Romagna, sent to Florence, formally tried, and beheaded.

Signor Stefano and Antonio di Volterra, who had attacked Lorenzo, finding their attempt unsuccessful, made their escape, favoured by the confusion. They took refuge in a monastery; but such a hot search was made for them, that after two or three days they were discovered, and brought to judgment.

Of all directly engaged in the bloody conspiracy not one escaped out of the Florentine territory but the most active agent of them all, Bandini. Having struck Julian in the left breast, he left to Francisco Pazzi the contemptible satisfaction of piercing the fallen body repeatedly with his poniard; and turning to Julian's valet, he despatched him with a single thrust. Then seeing the failure of the other two murderers in their assault on Lorenzo, he pressed on towards him and would have killed him but for a stout monk, who kept him back with the foot of

his cross. He attempted to keep the door of the sacristy open with his foot, but the interposing priests. disappointed him. So feeling his further stay rather dangerous, he made his way out, and, aided by accomplices, directed his flight towards the sea, rightly judging that a direct run towards the Ecclesiastical states would be sure to be crossed. He succeeded in reaching Corneto, a port of Sienna, where he luckily found a vessel ready to sail for the Levant. He arrived without accident at Galata, where he received payment of drafts which he had obtained on merchants of the place before he joined in the conspiracy. Some time went by, and he began to feel the comfort of a secure existence, but he reckoned without the blood hounds of Nemesis, which, however slowly they appear at first to follow the trail of guilt, are guided by an unerring scent till they seize on their prey, sooner or later. The emissaries of the Medicis kept their eyes and their ears ever open for sight or hearing of Bandini, and at last his place of refuge was discovered, The influence of the house was brought to bear upon the Grand Vizier Cadi Pacha, and he so well adapted its wishes to the taste and prejudices of Bajazet, that the wretched culprit was delivered over to the representatives of Florence then at the Sublime Porte, and transferred in irons to the scene of his sacrilegious offence. His trial occupied but little time, and death by the rope closed his evil career.

The young cardinal, who was in the church the day of the murder of Julian, was calmly awaiting death from the fury of the people, for they were far from supposing him innocent of the plot. However, the clergymen of the church protected him effectually till Lorenzo had an opportunity of taking him under his special care. He even procured a declaration from some of the conspirators, when under trial, that he

had been uncognisant of their designs from the beginning.

Shortly after the murder of Julian, a young woman who was known to have lived in intimacy with him, presented herself to Lorenzo, declared she had been legally married to him, and that the infant, of whose birth she was in daily expectation, was his. This child's education was carefully looked after by Cardinal de Medicis, son to Lorenzo, and in time he wore the Tiara under the name of Clement VII.

LORENZO'S STRUGGLES AND

TRIUMPH.

The Riaire family still continued the determined enemies of Lorenzo, the young cardinal excepted, and all the politic moderation of the great Florentine did not suffice to stave off a war made on him by the Papal family, aided by the King of Naples. After it had gone on for a while, the Duke of Milan was obliged to recal his auxiliaries from the Florentine army; and his other allies, of Mantua, of Ferrara, and of Urbino, dismayed by this desertion, followed suite, and the brave and politic chief was left to contend single-handed with the Roman and Neapolitan armies. In this strait he conceived and successfully executed a hazardous enterprise. He obtained an armistice for two months; and apparently desirous of relaxation, formed a hunting party chiefly consisting of the sons of unreliable nobles, and led his pleasureseeking train to the coast. After enjoying a day or two's sport, what was to prevent the party from enjoying a short voyage? The young folk wrote home in high glee, and Lorenzo also wrote to the magistrates, announcing his determination of visiting Ferdinand in his palace at Naples, of setting him right with respect to the motives and designs of the Riaires, and persuading him to withdraw from the unholy league. The resentment of this league towards the Florentines was centered in him;

and if things came to the worst, and he was imprisoned or executed at Naples, the wrath of the enemy would be averted from his loved state.

The restless or disloyal

fathers, finding their heirs now abiding with Lorenzo as hostages, in fact though not in name, kept at home.

Ferdinand was a cruel and cautious prince; but the noble mien, the eloquence, and the winning ways of the Florentine acquired a complete ascendancy over him, notwithstanding all the counter efforts of Ressally, the Riaire envoy.

In fact, it should have been sufficient to any king with common prudence to detach him from his unholy alliance, to learn the particulars of the infamous Pazzi plot, and to think on the consequences to the kingdom of Naples if the States of the Church and Tuscany were united under the sovereignty of a Riaire, who would then infallibly use all means at his command to subject Naples to his sway.

So Lorenzo succeeded to his heart's desire in his mission. Ferdinand recalied his son, the Duke of Calabria, then commanding in Tuscany; but struggles of a complicated character continued to occupy Italy for some years, till a union was effected by a descent of Turkish troops on Otranto. These being driven out of Italy, it pleased the Venetians, aided by the troops of the Romagna, to aspire to new possessions on terra firma.

They were disappointed by the influence of Lorenzo's eloquence, energy, and judgment, in forming a strong league against them. After some further exhibition of ill-blood, the different states of Italy gathered themselves within their own rights and territories, and bloodshed ceased.

Lorenzo having at last secured peace for his beloved city, used every rational means for its continuance. He effected a league between.

the Florentines, the Perugians, the Bolognese, and the people of Sienna, and arranged that if any dispute occurred between any two of the states, the matter should be left to the decision of the chief councillors of the others, and if either party would not receive the decision, the forces of all the rest should unite to compel obedience.

He practised the utmost impartiality in distributing the various offices of the state, endeavouring to have every one filled by the persons best fitted for its discharge. Willing to benefit the poor, he once had provisions sold to them at less than the price of production; but he gave up this system on finding it gave umbrage to the nobles. So to make an outlet for his compassionate generosity, he commenced to build a large country house.

He did not neglect the popular amusements, which before his time were such as no respectable man or woman of modern times could wit

ness.

The only one for which his taste might be censured, was the combat of wild beasts brought from Africa. The scenes of carnivallicense, he replaced by representations of events from ancient history and legend. Having employed painters, statuaries, and other artists to some purpose, he had the combat of Hercules and the other heroes against the Centaurs represented. On another occasion he exhibited the triumphs of Petrarch. He even imported Arab steeds, and tended for prizes with the coursers of Naples, Rome, &c. Being generally victorious, he devoted the rich silks, and wrought gold and silver vessels, to the use and ornamention of the altars of the various Florentine .churches.

con

One of his greatest and most estimable public acts for the welfare of Italy, as well as of his own city, was his preservation of peace among the different little governments of the peninsula. So highly were his good

will and his great political capacity esteemed, that deputies from every state and municipality were always to be found in Florence. During the latter years of his life, the general good understanding was never interrupted.

Here was a man who, without any recognised legal or political authority, governed and ruled at his will the most self-opinionated, the most fickle, and the most free in its aspirations of any people in Europe; and kept peace among the neighbouring states, naturally jealous of and most disobliging to each other. He effected these wonders by mere personal worth and ability, self abnegation, practical affection for his people, great aptitude for business, and thorough disregard and forgetfulness of personal injuries, and profound political wisdom. So well and so far were his good qualities appreciated, that Bajazet II., Turkish Emperor, sent a special embassy to testify his esteem for him,and to congratulate him on his fortunate position. Another embassy arrived at Florence about the same time from Mathew Corvinus, King of Hungary, with the same object. The then Soldan of Egypt, not content with mere compliments, sent a mass of treasure, consisting of rich stuffs, precious stones, gold, balm, benzoin, and frankincense; and along with the embassade came a camelleopard, such as for size, beauty of colour, and other rare qualities, could not be matched in our day. novel and attractive was the sight, that people thronged from all parts to see it, the most skilful painters of the day made its portrait, and the poets employed their powers on it, till spiteful fate or change of climate and diet, brought it to an untimely grave in eighteen months. Only for the birth of a grandson to Lorenzo at the same time, the good Florentines would have been inconsolable for the loss of the poor animal.

So