Note 28 — Chapter X · THE SAVONAROLA FALLACY

If there was anything astonishing for Italians in the desecration of churches at the sack of Rome, they must have had short memories. The conspiracy of the Pazzi in 1478, in which Giuliano de’ Medici was slain during high mass in the cathedral church of Florence, had been backed by the Pope; and the sacrilege of the planned deed was reckoned so horrible that one of the first appointed assassins, who blenched at it, had to be replaced by priests, who had transcended such scruples.28 On the capture of Brescia by the French under Gaston de Foix in 1512, “things sacred and profane, the goods, the honour, and the life of the inhabitants were for seven days delivered up to the greed, the lust, and the cruelty of the soldier,” only the nuns being spared.29 In 1526 the Milanese told the Constable Bourbon, the general of their ally:—