e, in which city he was born in 1510. His
mother, a slave named Anna, was the wife of a Florentine
coachman, but Lorenzo II. de' Medici, one of this woman's
lovers, acknowledged him as his offspring, though, according
to some accounts, his real father was one of the popes,
Clement VII. or Julius II. After the Emperor Charles V. had
made himself master of Florence in 1530, he confided the
governorship of the city to Alexander, upon whom he bestowed
the title of Duke. Two years later Alexander threw off the
imperial control, and soon afterwards embarked on a career
of debauchery and crime. In 1536, Charles V., being desirous
of obtaining the support of Florence against France, treated
with Alexander, and gave him the hand of his illegitimate
daughter, Margaret. The latter--whose mother was Margaret
van Gheenst, a Flemish damsel of noble birth--was at that
time barely fourteen, having been born at Brussels in 1522.
The Queen of Navarre's statements concerning the
youthfulness of the Duchess are thus corroborated by fact.
After the death of Alexander de' Medici, his widow was
married to Octavius Farnese, Duke of Parma, who was then
only twelve years old, but by whom she eventually became the
mother of the celebrated Alexander Farnese. Margaret of
Austria occupies a prominent place in the history of the
Netherlands, which she governed during a lengthy period for
her brother Philip II. She died in retirement at Ortonna in
Italy in 1586.--L. and Ed.

Among these there was one very beautiful, discreet, and honourable lady,
sister to a gentleman whom the Duke loved even as himself, and to whom
he gave such authority in his household that his orders were feared and
obeyed equally with the Duke's own. And moreover the Duke had no secrets
that he did not share with this gentleman, so that the latter might have
been called his second-self. (3)

3 The gentleman here mentioned was the Duke's cousin,
Lorenzo di Pier-Francesco de' Medici, commonly called
Lorenzino on account of his short stature. He was born at
Florence in 1514, and, being the eldest member of the junior
branch of the Medici family, it had been decided by the
Emperor Charles V. that he should succeed to the Dukedom of
Florence, if Alexander died without issue. Lorenzino
cultivated letters, and is said t