s disturbance the Signory closed the palace and kept their
magistrates about them, without showing favor to either party. The
citizens, especially those who had followed Luca Pitti, finding Piero
fully prepared and his adversaries unarmed, began to consider, not how
they might injure him, but how, with least observation, glide into
the ranks of his friends. The principal citizens, the leaders of both
factions, assembled in the palace in the presence of the Signory,
and spoke respecting the state of the city and the reconciliation
of parties; and as the infirmities of Piero prevented him from being
present, they, with one exception, unanimously determined to wait upon
him at his house. Niccolo Soderini having first placed his children
and his effects under the care of his brother Tommaso, withdrew to his
villa, there to await the event, but apprehended misfortune to himself
and ruin to his country. The other citizens coming into Piero's
presence, one of them who had been appointed spokesman, complained of
the disturbances that had arisen in the city, and endeavored to show,
that those must be most to blame who had been first to take up arms; and
not knowing what Piero (who was evidently the first to do so) intended,
they had come in order to be informed of his design, and if it had in
view the welfare of the city, they were desirous of supporting it. Piero
replied, that not those who first take arms are the most to blame, but
those who give the first occasion for it, and if they would reflect a
little on their mode of proceeding toward himself, they would cease to
wonder at what he had done; for they could not fail to perceive, that
nocturnal assemblies, the enrollment of partisans, and attempts to
deprive him both of his authority and his life, had caused him to take
arms; and they might further observe, that as his forces had not quitted
his own house, his design was evidently only to defend himself and not
to injure others. He neither sought nor desired anything but safety and
repose; neither had his conduct ever manifested a desire for ought else;
for when the authority of the Balia expired, he never made any attempt
to renew it, and was very glad the magistrates had governed the city and
had been content. They might also remember that Cosmo and his sons could
live respected in Florence, either with the Balia or without it, and
that in 1458, it was not his family, but themselves, who had renewed it.
That if they did no