Commentary on the Pazzi Conspiracy

...being conveyed and carried in—bread and whatever was suitable for sustenance. Lorenzo himself was not hindered by his wound, nor by fear, nor by the grief which he had taken most deeply from his brother's death, from looking after his own affairs. He took every citizen by the hand, expressing thanks to each individually, telling them all that he counted his own safety as derived from them, and occasionally showing himself from the windows to the people who were anxious for his health. There, all the people would acclaim him, lift their hands to heaven, rejoice in his health, and exult with joy. He himself, intent upon all affairs, acted, nor did he lose heart or counsel. While these things were being done, it was announced that Johannes Franciscus of Tolentino, the prefect of Forlì Imola, had broken into our territory with a collected band of knights from the very borders of Forlì. The same, soon after, did Tifernas, where the Sienese borders separate the Florentine field Città di Castello. We were warned of this by the messengers of many. Then, each having been driven back, he retreated into his own house. During the dark night, watches were stationed through the city. The Laurentian house was diligently guarded. Stations of armed men were in the intersections, in the forum, throughout the city. The day after that, Johannes Bentivolius, a Bolognese knight and prince of his own republic—a man most joined to the Medici family by many services—had come to the Mugello with several squadrons of horse and many cohorts of infantry Puccius Dionysius armed force? as an aid. And already the whole city began to be filled with infantry. But the Eight Men, whose leader was Dionysius Puccius, fearing that the soldiers, greedy for plunder, might cause a tumult, ordered those chosen to guard the city to return to their own homes or wherever they deemed they would be of use, as soon as the others had come into the city. Renatus de' Pazzi, who had retreated to his villa in the Mugello the day before the crime was committed, and there [with] the military...