Of course there was no Florentine girl good enough to be the bride of young Piero de’ Medici—­at least, Domina Clarice, his mother, decided so.  She was the proudest of the proud, and as ignorant and prejudiced as she was haughty.  Her son could only wed a Roman princess, and, by preference, a daughter of the Orsini; consequently Alfonsina, daughter of Roberto d’Orsini, Clarice’s cousin, entered Florence in state on 22nd May 1488, for her magnificent nuptials with the young Capo della Repubblica.

The same year the Domina died.  Her influence had not been for good, and her want of tact and her unpopularity caused Lorenzo much anxiety.  Perhaps, however, a prince of his conspicuous and, in many ways, unique ability, was better mated with an unsympathetic spouse than with a woman who could, from parity of gifts, enter into his feelings and aspirations.  He lived for the magnanimous renown of Florence—­she for the selfish prominence of her family.

Francesco de’ Guicciardini wrote of Piero de’ Medici thus:  “He was born of a foreign mother, whereby Florentine blood got mixed, and he acquired foreign manners and bearing, too haughty for our habits of life.”  The prince gave up most of his time to pleasure and amusement with the young nobles of his court, and encouraged the aims and ambitions of the self-seeking scions of his mother’s family.  At a single bound the immense personal popularity of Lorenzo, his father, disappeared.  Florentines took the young ruler’s measure, and he was found wanting.

The imprisonment and threatened execution of his cousins, Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici, was a flagrant mistake.  The three had quarrelled about Lorenzo il Magnifico’s pretty daughter, Luigia, but it was a baseless rumour that she had been poisoned.  Bad blood was made always in Florence by such romances and such interference.

In September 1494, Charles VIII. crossed the Alps, and, whilst Savonarola fanatically hailed his coming to Florence as “God’s Captain of Chastisement,” politicians of all parties looked to Piero to show a bold front and resist the French invader as commander-in-chief of a united Italian army.

Piero made no sign, but went on playing pallone in the Piazza Santa Croce.  The enemy seized the Florentine fortresses of Sargana, Sarzanello and Pietra Santa.  The news sobered the headstrong, self-indulgent prince for the moment, and then craven fear seized his undisciplined mind.  In a panic he mounted his horse and, attended only by two officers of the city guard, he galloped off to King Charles’ camp.

In the royal tent Piero fell upon his knees, craved forgiveness for Florence’s opposition, and pleaded for generous terms for himself and his fellow-countrymen.  Charles demanded the cession absolutely of the three fortresses, with the cities of Pisa and Livorno, and with them the “loan” of 200,000 gold florins!  Piero’s report was listened to in solemn silence by the Signoria, but when its tenor was conveyed to the concourse of citizens, outside the Palazzo Vecchio, cries of “Liberta!” “Liberta!” rent the air.