It said that Marco Dandolo of Venice, when news reached the Pregadi of the fall of Florence, exclaimed aloud: "Baglioni has put upon his head the cap of the biggest traitor upon record." V The city was saved from wreckage by a lucky quarrel between the Italian and Spanish troops in the Imperial camp.

But no sooner was Clement aware that Florence lay at his mercy, than he disregarded the articles of capitulation, and began to act as an autocratic despot.
Before confiding the government to his kinsmen, the Cardinal Ippolito and Alessandro Duke of Penna, he made Valori institute a series of criminal prosecutions against the patriots.

Battista della Palla and Raffaello Girolami were sent to prison and poisoned.

Five citizens were tortured and decapitated in one day of October.

Those who had managed to escape from Florence were sentenced to exile, outlawry, and confiscation of goods by hundreds.