Among those who escaped from Rome were Filippo negli Strozzi and his wife Clarice.  They posted off to Florence, and whilst Filippo temporised with the Cardinal and with the party of reform on either hand, Clarice declared openly for the opponents of her own family.

She attended a specially convened meeting of the anti-Medicean party, and placed her services at their disposal.  It was arranged that she should visit the Cardinal the following day.  Dressed superbly, wearing the family jewels, and conveyed in a State sedan-chair, she proceeded to the Palazzo Medici—­the house of her fathers.  Ippolito and Alessandro, with their tutors and attendants, met her upon the grand staircase, and conducted her to the presence of the Cardinal.

Standing in the Long Gallery, she poured forth a torrent of scornful words upon the base-born scions of her family.  “My Lord,” she cried, “my Lord, to what a pass has my family sunk.  Do you think that any of my great ancestors would have borne you so long.  Alas! that my race has none but female legitimate offspring.”  Then turning to the astonished lads she continued:  “You had better both look out for yourselves and go away before the Cardinal here destroys you and Florence!”

Some of the suite tried to interfere and to pacify the enraged woman, but to no avail, she went on vehemently to denounce the intrusion of the two bastards.

“Begone, you who are not of the blood of the Medici, both of you, from a house and from a city to which neither of you, nor your patron, Clement—­wrongfully Pope and now justly a prisoner in Sant Angelo—­have any legitimate claim, by reason of birth or of merit.  Go at once, ye base-born bastards, or I will be the first to thrust you out!”

Her hearers quailed under her invective, and Passerini humbly promised to quit the palace, but when Clarice had gone, he sent for Filippo negli Strozzi and expostulated with him.  Filippo’s apology was as quaint as it was effective.  “Had she not been,” said he, “a woman and a Medici, he would have administered to her such a public chastisement as would have gone bad with her!” He, nevertheless, strongly advised the Cardinal to depart, and he conveyed the intelligence that the lives of the two lads were by no means secure, and that should anything happen to them, the Pope would demand them at his hands.

On 29th May 1527, Cardinal Passerini, with Ippolito and Alessandro and their suite, accompanied by Filippo, rode out to Poggio a Caiano, amid the execrations of the populace.  Thence they departed for Rome, where the young men lived more or less quietly for two years in Clement’s private apartments at the Vatican.

* * * * *

In spite of Ippolito’s superiority of appearance, manners and attainments, the Pope made no concealment of his preference for Alessandro.  He created him Duke of Citta di Penna—­a fief within the Papal States—­and decided that the riches and greatness of the House of Medici should be continued in Alessandro and not in Ippolito.