ABSTRACT
The death of Lorenzo de’ Medici did the Medici cause in Florence as much good as the death of his father Piero had done. The fresh infusion of Orsini blood, the newly created dukedom, the recent connection by marriage with the royal house of France, his mother’s bad influence, and the bad advice of his courtiers, had stripped the last legitimate descendant of the great Lorenzo of that Florentine urbanity which the Florentines loved better than their liberty, for they sometimes might seem to have given up the latter willingly, the former never. In the last years of his life he lived surrounded by a few trusted advisers like a prince, and would have liked to make himself absolute master, held in check only by Pope Leo, who like a true son of the Magnificent deeply disliked Lorenzo’s behaviour. Needless to say how he also displeased citizens like Jacopo Salviati, Lanfredini and others who were at once partisans of the Medici and of the Republic. Even his uncle, Cardinal Giulio, had been at loggerheads with him.
