ly-married ladies of the city. In the courtyard, round
the David of Donatello, some seventy of the greatest among the citizens
sat together, while the stewards were all sons of the _grandi_. Piero
de' Medici entertained each day some thousand guests, while for their
entertainment mimic battles were fought, and in the manner of the time
wooden forts were built, defended, and taken by assault, and at night
there were dances and songs. Almost immediately after the marriage
Lorenzo set out for Milan to visit the new Duke, and stand godfather to
his heir. All his way through Prato, Pistoja, Lucca, Pietrasanta
Sarzana, Pontremoli to Milan was a triumphal progress. He came home to
find his father ailing, and on 2nd December 1469, Piero de' Medici died.
He was buried in S. Lorenzo, in a tomb made by Verrocchio.

It was to a great extent owing to the prompt action of Tommaso Soderini
that the power of the Medici did not pass away at Piero's death, as that
of many another family had done in Florence. The tried friend of that
house, Soderini gathered some six hundred of the leading citizens in the
convent of S. Antonio, and, as it seems, with the help of the relatives
of Luca Pitti, persuaded them that the fortunes of Florence were wrapped
up in the Medici. "The second day after my father's death," writes
Lorenzo in his Memoir, "although I, Lorenzo, was very young, in fact
only in my twenty-first year, the leading men of the city and of the
ruling party came to our house to express their sorrow for our
misfortune, and to persuade me to take upon myself the charge of the
government of the city as my grandfather and father had already done.
This proposal being contrary to the instincts of my age, and entailing
great labour and danger, I accepted against my will, and only for the
sake of protecting my friends and our own fortunes, for in Florence one
can ill live in the possession of wealth without control of the
government." Thus Lorenzo came to be tyrant of Florence. It was a rule
illegitimate in its essence, purchased with gold, and without any
outward sign of office. That it would come to be disputed might have
seemed certain.

FOOTNOTES:

[96] The Alberghettino was the prison in the great tower.

XV. FLORENCE

SAN MARCO AND SAVONAROLA

For there was another spirit, too, moving secretly through the ways of
the city, among the crowds that gathered round the Cantastoria of the
Mercato Vecchio, or mingled with the wil