ials with the young _Capo della
Repubblica_.

The same year the Domina died. Her influence had not been for good, and
her want of tact and her unpopularity caused Lorenzo much anxiety.
Perhaps, however, a prince of his conspicuous and, in many ways, unique
ability, was better mated with an unsympathetic spouse than with a woman
who could, from parity of gifts, enter into his feelings and
aspirations. He lived for the magnanimous renown of Florence--she for
the selfish prominence of her family.

Francesco de' Guicciardini wrote of Piero de' Medici thus: "He was born
of a foreign mother, whereby Florentine blood got mixed, and he acquired
foreign manners and bearing, too haughty for our habits of life." The
prince gave up most of his time to pleasure and amusement with the young
nobles of his court, and encouraged the aims and ambitions of the
self-seeking scions of his mother's family. At a single bound the
immense personal popularity of Lorenzo, his father, disappeared.
Florentines took the young ruler's measure, and he was found wanting.

The imprisonment and threatened execution of his cousins, Lorenzo and
Giuliano de' Medici, was a flagrant mistake. The three had quarrelled
about Lorenzo il Magnifico's pretty daughter, Luigia, but it was a
baseless rumour that she had been poisoned. Bad blood was made always in
Florence by such romances and such interference.

In September 1494, Charles VIII. crossed the Alps, and, whilst
Savonarola fanatically hailed his coming to Florence as "God's Captain
of Chastisement," politicians of all parties looked to Piero to show a
bold front and resist the French invader as commander-in-chief of a
united Italian army.

Piero made no sign, but went on playing _pallone_ in the Piazza Santa
Croce. The enemy seized the Florentine fortresses of Sargana, Sarzanello
and Pietra Santa. The news sobered the headstrong, self-indulgent prince
for the moment, and then craven fear seized his undisciplined mind. In
a panic he mounted his horse and, attended only by two officers of the
city guard, he galloped off to King Charles' camp.

In the royal tent Piero fell upon his knees, craved forgiveness for
Florence's opposition, and pleaded for generous terms for himself and
his fellow-countrymen. Charles demanded the cession absolutely of the
three fortresses, with the cities of Pisa and Livorno, and with them the
"loan" of 200,000 gold florins! Piero's report was listened to in solemn
silence by