[1]: 252 [2]: 128  He made Giovanni della Rovere, who was not a priest, prefect of Rome, and arranged for him to marry into the da Montefeltro family, dukes of Urbino.

For Girolamo Riario, also a layman – and who was potentially Pope Sixtus' son and not his nephew – he arranged to buy Imola, a small town in Romagna, with the aim of establishing a new papal state in that area.

He made it clear that it would be of great benefit to the papacy to have the Medici removed from their position of power in Florence, and that he would deal kindly with anyone who did this.

[1]: 254  An encrypted letter in the archives of the Ubaldini family, discovered and decoded in 2004, shows that Federico da Montefeltro, the father-in-law of Giovanni della Rovere, was deeply embroiled in the conspiracy and had committed to position 600 troops outside Florence, waiting for the right moment.

Jacopo de' Pazzi, head of the family, escaped from Florence but was caught and brought back.

From there it was thrown into the Arno; children fished it out and hung it from a willow tree, flogged it, and then threw it back into the river.

[2]: 142  Guglielmo de' Pazzi, husband of Lorenzo's sister Bianca, was placed under house arrest,[2]: 141  and later forbidden to enter the city; he went to live at Torre a Decima, near Pontassieve.

[8] Sixtus IV reacted strongly to the death of Salviati: with a bull of 1 June 1478 he excommunicated Lorenzo, his supporters and all members of the current and preceding administration of the city.

By July troops of the Kingdom of Naples under the command of Alfonso of Aragon, and others from Urbino under Federico da Montefeltro, had begun to make attacks on Florentine territory.

[3][9] Lorenzo took an unorthodox course of action: he sailed to Naples and put himself in the hands of the king, Ferdinand I, who interceded on his behalf with the pope, though without success.

[12]: 223 Shortly after the attack Poliziano – who was in the Duomo when it took place – wrote his Pactianae coniurationis commentarium, a dramatic account of the conspiracy.