Lorenzo at once called a Parliament to consider the position, and to take steps for the protection of the city and the defence of the State.  He addressed the assembly as follows:  “I know not, Most Excellent Lords and Most Worshipful Citizens, whether to mourn or to rejoice with you over what has happened.  When I think of the treachery and hatred wherewith I have been attacked, and my brother slain, I cannot but grieve; but when I reflect with what eagerness and zeal, with what love and unanimity, on the part of the whole city, my brother has been avenged and myself defended, I am moved not merely to rejoice, but even to glory in what has transpired.  For, if I have found that I have more enemies in Florence than I had thought I had, I have at the same time discovered that I have warmer and more devoted friends than I knew....  It lies with you, my Most Excellent Lords, to support me still, or to throw me over....  You are my fathers and protectors, and what you wish me to do, I shall do only too willingly....”

All the hearers were deeply affected by Lorenzo’s oration, some indeed shed tears, but all vowed to support him in resisting the enemy at the gate.  “Take courage,” they cried, “it behoves thee, Lorenzo, to live and die for the Republic!”

At the same time they enrolled a bodyguard of twelve soldiers, whose duty it should be to accompany Lorenzo whenever he went abroad, and to protect him in his palace or at his villas.  Doubtless they thought the Pope might resort to further secret measures for the slaughter of his enemy.

Thus ended the terrible “Conspiracy of the Pazzi.”

CHAPTER II

IPPOLITO—­“Il Cardinale.”

ALESSANDRO—­“Il Negro.”

LORENZINO—­“Il Terribile.”

The First Tyrannicide

“Go at once, ye base-born bastards, or I will be the first to thrust you out—­Begone!”

These were the passionate words of the proudest and most ambitious princess that ever bore the great name of Medici—­Clarice, daughter of Piero di Lorenzo—­“Il Magnifico,” and wife of Filippo di Filippo degli Strozzi—­“Il Primo Gentiluomo del Secolo.”

They were spoken on 16th May 1527, in the Long Gallery of the Palazzo Medici in Florence, and were addressed to two youths—­sixteen and thirteen years old respectively, who shrank with terror at the aspect and the vehemence of their contemner.  Clarice was a virago, both in the Florentine sense of man’s equal in ability and action, and in the sense of the present day—­a woman with a mighty will and endowed with physical strength to enforce it.

The two “bastards” were Ippolito, the natural son of Giuliano de’ Medici, Duke of Nemours, and Alessandro, the so-called illegitimate son of Lorenzo de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino, the virtual ruler of Florence.  The lads were not alone in their exposure to the wrath of Madonna Clarice, for, sitting in his chair of estate, was Silvio Passerini, Cardinal of Cortona, their Governor, and Pope Clement VII.’s Regent of the Republic.