d, on vacating office, a
knighthood at the hands of his rival.

Cavaliere Giacopo's relations with Lorenzo were fairly cordial,
outwardly at least, for as late as 1474, when at Avignon, he wrote
several letters to him, full of grateful expressions for favours
received and of wishes for a continuance of a good understanding. None
of Cavaliere Giacopo's illegitimate children arrived at maturity, and,
on account of the failure of his elder brother's sons to achieve
distinction, the proud banner of the family was clutched by the hands of
the four boys of the youngest of Messer Andrea's sons--Guglielmo,
Antonio, Giovanni, and Francesco. Their mother was Cosa degli
Alessandri, a granddaughter of Alessandro degli Albizzi, who first
adopted the new surname.

The brothers were very wealthy, they had amassed large fortunes in
commerce, and their houses extended for a considerable distance along
that most fashionable of streets--the Borgo degli Albizzi. The Palazzo
de' Pazzi doubtless was commenced by their grandfather, whose emblem--a
ship--is among the architectural enrichments. The building was finished
by their uncle, Giacopo--it is in the Via del Proconsolo.

As bankers, the Pazzi were noted for their enterprise generally, and for
their competition with the Medici in particular. They had agencies in
all the chief cities of Europe and the East, but their reputation for
avarice and sharp dealing was proverbial. Perhaps no family was quite so
unpopular in Florence. Their traditions were aristocratic, whilst the
Medici were champions of the people.

This distinction was referred to by Madonna Alessandra Macinghi di
Matteo degli Strozzi, in one of her letters to her son Filippo, at
Naples. "I must bid you remember," she wrote, "that those who are upon
the side of the Medici have always done well, whilst those who belong
to the Pazzi, the contrary. So I pray you be on your guard."

The growing importance of the Pazzi gave Piero and Lucrezia de' Medici
much uneasiness, and it is quite certain that the marriage of their
eldest daughter, Bianca--"Piero's tall daughter" as she was called--to
the eldest of the three brothers, was a stroke of domestic policy by way
of controlling the race for wealth and power.

Lorenzo, very soon after his accession to the Headship of the State,
"took the bull by the horns" and excluded the Pazzi from participation
in public office. It was an extreme measure and not in accordance with
his usual ta