and brilliancy. The brothers
and grown sons of exiled citizens were never accorded such
consideration, and it is but fair to assume that the popular sentiment
of the time demanded this exceptional treatment for the women. At one
time it was even held to be against the Florentine statutes to banish a
woman; in 1497, at the time of a conspiracy to restore the banished
Piero de' Medici to power, his sister, though proved to have conspired
in equal measure with the men, was not given an equal measure of
punishment; she was merely kept in seclusion for a period at the palace
of Guglielmo de' Pazzi, and was then set at liberty through the
influence of Francesco Valori, to whom it seemed unworthy to lay hands
upon a woman.

In the midst of this exciting and excited world, it may well be imagined
that the passions were strong and that women of charm and beauty were
able to exercise no little influence upon the men who came within their
power. Never, perhaps, in the history of modern civilization has the
aesthetic instinct of a people been so thoroughly aroused as it was in
Italy at this time, and the almost pagan love of beauty which possessed
them led to many extravagances in their sentimental conceptions. As
Lorenzo de' Medici was the most powerful and distinguished Italian of
his time, so may he be termed its representative lover, for his
excursions into the land of sentiment may be considered as typical of
his day and generation. The first passion of his heart was purely
subjective and artificial, the result of a forcing process which had
been induced by the power of brotherly love. It so happened that
Lorenzo's brother Giuliano, who was assassinated later by the Pazzi,
loved, very tenderly, a lady named Simonetta, reputed to be the most
beautiful woman in all Florence; so great was her fame that she was
quite generally spoken of as _la bella Simonetta_, and the artist
Botticelli, who had an eye for a pretty woman, has left us a portrait
which vouches for her charms in no uncertain way. She was but a fragile
flower, however, and died in the bloom of youth, mourned by her lover
with such genuine grief that, with one impulse, all sought to bring him
consolation. Letters of condolence were written in prose and verse,
sonnets were fairly showered upon him, and Greek and Latin were used as
often as Italian in giving expression to the universal sorrow. But how
all this affected Lorenzo, and what inspiration it gave to his muse,