300 Palleschi--rushed, armed with picks and arquebusses, &c. They killed
some stray Piagnoni whom they found praying by a shrine, and placed
guards at the streets which led to the convent; then the assault began.

The church was dimly lighted. Savonarola and Fra Domenico kneeled on
the steps of the altar, with many worshippers around them, singing
tremulous hymns; amongst these were Francesco Valori, Ridolfi, and
Baccio della Porta, but all armed, as Cronaca tells us. They still sang
hymns when the doors were attacked with stones; then leaving the
priests and women to pray for them the men rushed to the defence.

Old Valori, with a few brave friends, guarded the door; others made
loop-holes of the windows and fired out; some went up the campanile,
and some on the roof. Baccio fought bravely among the rest. The
Palleschi were almost repulsed, but at length succeeded in setting fire
to the doors. The church was filled with smoke; a turbulent crowd
rushed wildly in. Savonarola saw his people fall dead beside him on the
altar steps, and, taking up the Sacrament, he fled to the Greek
library, where the messengers of the Signoria came and arrested both
himself and Fra Domenico. It was in the fierce fight that ensued when
the enemies poured in, laying hands sacrilegiously on every thing
sacred, that Baccio made the vow that if he were saved this peril, he
would take the habit--a vow which certainly was not made in a cowardly
spirit, he fighting to the death, and then espousing the losing cause.
[Footnote: Gino Capponi, lib. vi. chaps. i. and ii., and Padre
Marchese, _San Marco_, p. 147 _et seq._]

Then came that sad 23rd of May, the eve of the Ascension, when three
martyrs went calmly to their death beneath the shadow of the old
palace, amidst the insults of an infuriated crowd, and Arno's yellow