Pazzi Conspiracy
The Terrible End of Jacopo de' Pazzi
Messer Jacopo did manage to get out of the city, but he was captured by peasants in the mountains on April 27. To ensure that he did not escape them, they beat him until he could not walk. They bore him back to Florence, where he had a brief trial and was hanged from the Signory tower like the others. Perhaps because of his status, he was not given over to the mob, however. Instead, his body was cut down that evening and was buried.
Jacopo's troubles were not over, though. For four days after his death, it rained in torrents. The downpour threatened the new crops, and the people from the countryside said it was because the unholy traitor had been buried in consecrated ground. God was angry. It was not right that all should suffer because of a traitor. After four days, a group of boys went to the graveyard and dug Jacopo up. They tied a rope to the corpse and dragged it through the streets of Florence. A group went ahead, announcing the arrival of Messer Jacopo, as if he were a great nobleman. They dragged him to his now-abandoned home. They used his head as a door-knocker, calling out to the servants that their master had returned. They finally tired of their sport, dragged him to the Rubiconte (now the Ponte alle Grazie), and threw him into the Arno River.