Note 218 — LORENZO DI PIERO DE’ MEDICI (continued 2)

The young Cardinal was set at liberty on June 5th, and went for a few days to the Servite monastery in the SS. Annunziata. From there he wrote to the Pope expressing deep gratitude to the Signoria and to Lorenzo de’ Medici for the kind treatment he had received, and bitterly lamented that His Holiness had not acceded to his prayer that the interdict should be taken off. On June 12th he left for Siena, and an old chronicler writes that he was still under the influence of great terror and seemed to feel the rope round his neck. If at the time of the assassination he had not been well guarded the exasperated populace would probably have torn him to pieces.