Dolfo gave the signal for attack; Messer Giorgio stood before the door preparing to defend it with his body. The children fell upon him, rolled him over, beat him with their crosses, searched his pockets till they had found the key, and opened the door. It was a small room with a library of precious books.
'Here, here!' suggested Merula, cunningly, 'the books you seek are in this corner. You needn't waste your time over the top shelves. There's nothing there.'
But the inquisitors heeded him not. All that came to hand they piled in a vast heap, especially the books in rich bindings. Then they opened the windows and flung the fat folios straight into the street, where carts were being loaded with 'vanities.' Tibullus, Horace, Ovid, Apuleius, Aristophanes, rare copies, unique editions flew through the air before Merula's very eyes. He rescued one small volume and hid it in his bosom. It was the history of Marcellinus, containing the life of Julian the Apostate. Seeing on the floor a delicately-illuminated manuscript of the tragedies of Sophocles, he snatched it up and made piteous supplication:—
'Children, dear children! spare Sophocles. He is the most innocent of poets. Let him alone! Let him alone!'
And he pressed the precious leaves convulsively to his breast, but finding them tear beneath his too loving hands he burst into sobs and groans, dropped his treasure, and cried in impotent fury:—
'Know, ye sons of dogs, that one line of this inestimable Sophocles is worth all the prophecies put together of your madman, Fra Girolamo.'
'Old man, if you don't want to be taken by the heels and thrown after your pagan poets, you'll hold your tongue!' cried the children, dragging him from the library.
Then leaving the palace, they passed by Santa Maria del Fiore, and marched to the Piazza della Signoria.