ria in
Arnolfo's tower. From that high eagle's nest the sight can range
Valdarno far and wide. Florence with her towers and domes lies below;
and the blue peaks of Carrara close a prospect westward than
which, with its villa-jewelled slopes and fertile gardens, there is
nought more beautiful upon the face of earth. The prisoner can have
paid but little heed to this fair landscape. He heard the frequent
ringing of the great bell that called the Florentines to council, the
tramp of armed men on the piazza, the coming and going of the burghers
in the palace halls beneath. On all sides lurked anxiety and fear of
death. Each mouthful he tasted might be poisoned. For many days he
partook of only bread and water, till his gaoler restored his
confidence by sharing all his meals. In this peril he abode
twenty-four days. The Albizzi, in concert with the Balia they had
formed, were consulting what they might venture to do with him. Some
voted for his execution. Others feared the popular favour, and thought
that if they killed Cosimo this act would ruin their own power. The
nobler natures among them determined to proceed by constitutional
measures. At last, upon September 29th, it was settled that Cosimo
should be exiled to Padua for ten years. The Medici were declared
Grandi, by way of excluding them from political rights. But their
property remained untouched; and on October 3rd, Cosimo was released.

On the same day Cosimo took his departure. His journey northward
resembled a triumphant progress. He left Florence a simple burgher; he
entered Venice a powerful prince. Though the Albizzi seemed to have
gained the day, they had really cut away the ground beneath their
feet. They committed the fatal mistake of doing both too much and too
little--too much because they declared war against an innocent man,
and roused the sympathies of the whole people in his behalf; too
little, because they had not the nerve to complete their act by
killing him outright and extirpating his party. Machiavelli, in one of
his profoundest and most cynical critiques, remarks that few men know
how to be thoroughly bad with honour to themselves. Their will is
evil; but the grain of good in them--some fear of public opinion,
some repugnance to committing a signal crime--paralyses their arm at
the moment when it ought to have been raised to strike. He instances
Gian Paolo Baglioni's omission to murder Julius II., when that Pope
placed himself within his clutc