was the whole family to be found assembled together. It was thus that
the Fabrianese murdered (1435) the members of their ruling house, the
Chiavelli, during high mass, the signal being given by the words of the
Creed, 'Et incarnatus est.' At Milan the Duke Giovan Maria Visconti
(1412) was assassinated at the entrance of the church of San Gottardo
Galeazzo Maria Sforza (1476) in the church of Santo Stefano, and
Lodovico il Moro only escaped (1484) the daggers of the adherents of
the widowed Duchess Bona, through entering the church of Sant' Ambrogio
by another door than that by which he was expected. There was no
intentional impiety in the act; the assassins of Galeazzo did not fail
to pray before the murder to the patron saint of the church, and to
listen devoutly to the first mass. It was, however, one cause of the
partial failure of the conspiracy of the Pazzi against Lorenzo and
Giuliano Medici (1478), that the brigand Montesecco, who had bargained
to commit the murder at a banquet, declined to undertake it in the
Cathedral of Florence. Certain of the clergy 'who were familiar with
the sacred place, and consequently had no fear' were induced to act in
his stead.

As to the imitation of antiquity, the influence of which on moral, and
more especially on political, questions we shall often refer to, the
example was set by the rulers themselves, who, both in their conception
of the State and in their personal conduct, took t he old Roman empire
avowedly as their model. In like manner their opponents, when they set
to work with a deliberate theory, took pattern by the ancient
tyrannicides. It may be hard to prove that in the main point in forming
the resolve itself they consciously followed a classical example; but
the appeal to antiquity was no mere phrase. The most striking
disclosures have been left us with respect to the murderers of Galeazzo
Sforza, Lampugnani, Olgiati, and Visconti. Though all three had