rfluous, had not so
acute an observer as Machiavelli marked it out as a turning-point in
Florentine history. Now, for the first time, the democratic
commonwealth saw its streets filled with a mob of courtiers. Masques,
balls, and tournaments succeeded each other with magnificent variety;
and all the arts of Florence were pressed into the service of these
festivals. Machiavelli says that the burghers lost the last remnant of
their old austerity of manners, and became, like the degenerate
Romans, ready to obey the masters who provided them with brilliant
spectacles. They gazed with admiration on the pomp of Italian
princes, their dissolute and godless living, their luxury and prodigal
expenditure; and when the Medici affected similar habits in the next
generation, the people had no courage to resist the invasion of their
pleasant vices.

In the same year, 1471, Volterra was reconquered for the Florentines
by Frederick of Urbino. The honours of this victory, disgraced by a
brutal sack of the conquered city, in violation of its articles of
capitulation, were reserved for Lorenzo, who returned in triumph to
Florence. More than ever he assumed the prince, and in his person
undertook to represent the State.

In the same year, 1471, Francesco della Rovere was raised to the
Papacy with the memorable name of Sixtus IV. Sixtus was a man of
violent temper and fierce passions, restless and impatiently
ambitious, bent on the aggrandisement of the beautiful and wanton
youths, his nephews. Of these the most aspiring was Girolamo Riario,
for whom Sixtus bought the town of Imola from Taddeo Manfredi, in
order that he might possess the title of count and the nucleus of a
tyranny in the Romagna. This purchase thwarted the plans of Lorenzo,
who wished to secure the same advantages for Florence. Smarting with
the sense of disappointment, he forbade the Roman banker, Francesco
Pazzi, to guarantee the purchase-money. By this act Lorenzo made two
mortal foes--the Pope and Francesco Pazzi. Francesco was a thin, pale,
atrabilious fanatic, all nerve and passion, with a monomaniac
intensity of purpose, and a will inflamed and guided by imagination--a
man formed by nature for conspiracy, such a man, in fact, as Shakspere
drew in Cassius. Maddened by Lorenzo's prohibition, he conceived the
notion of overthrowing the Medici in Florence by a violent blow.
Girolamo Riario entered into his views. So did Francesco Salviati,
Archbishop of Pisa, who had