Lorenzo died in 1492, leaving three sons, of whom the eldest, Piero (1471-1503), succeeded him.  Never was such a decadence.  In a moment the Medici prestige, which had been steadily growing under Cosimo, Piero, and Lorenzo until it was world famous, crumbled to dust.  Piero was a coarse-minded, pleasure-loving youth—­“The Headstrong” his father had called him—­whose one idea of power was to be sensual and tyrannical; and the enemies of Florence and of Italy took advantage of this fact.  Savonarola’s sermons had paved the way from within too.  In 1494 Charles VIII of France marched into Italy; Piero pulled himself together and visited the king to make terms for Florence, but made such terms that on returning to the city he found an order of banishment and obeyed it.  On November 9th, 1494, he and his family were expelled, and the mob, forgetting so quickly all that they owed to the Medici who had gone before, rushed to this beautiful palace and looted it.  The losses that art and learning sustained in a few hours can never be estimated.  A certain number of treasures were subsequently collected again, such as Donatello’s David and Verrocchio’s David, while Donatello’s Judith was removed to the Palazzo Vecchio, where an inscription was placed upon it saying that her short way with Holofernes was a warning to all traitors; but priceless pictures, sculpture, and MSS. were ruthlessly demolished.

In the chapter on S. Marco we shall read of what experiments in government the Florentines substituted for that of the Medici, Savonarola for a while being at the head of the government, although only for a brief period which ended amid an orgy of lawlessness; and then, after a restless period of eighteen years, in which Florence had every claw cut and was weakened also by dissension, the Medici returned—­the change being the work of Lorenzo’s second son, Giovanni de’ Medici, who on the eve of becoming Pope Leo X procured their reinstatement, thus justifying the wisdom of his father in placing him in the Church.  Piero having been drowned long since, his admirable but ill-starred brother Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, now thirty-three, assumed the control, always under Leo X; while their cousin, Giulio, also a Churchman, and the natural son of the murdered Giuliano, was busy, behind the scenes, with the family fortunes.

Giuliano lived only till 1516 and was succeeded by his nephew Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, a son of Peiro, a young man of no more political use than his father, and one who quickly became almost equally unpopular.  Things indeed were going so badly that Leo X sent Giulio de’ Medici (now a cardinal) from Rome to straighten them out, and by some sensible repeals he succeeded in allaying a little of the bitterness in the city.  Lorenzo had one daughter, born in this palace, who was destined to make history—­Catherine de’ Medici—­and no son.  When therefore he died in 1519, at the age of twenty-seven, after a life of vicious selfishness (which, however,