Florentine children were noted for precocity and cruelty.  Perhaps the tragedy of Giacopo de’ Pazzi, and the mauling of his mutilated body by the street urchins, had left their marks on succeeding generations of boys and girls.  The most popular pastime was mimic warfare, wherein the actualities of wounds and even deaths were common constituents.  Every dangerous sport was encouraged and, if by chance, or by intent, a boy killed his rival, nobody cared and few lamented.  The spirit of revenge was openly cultivated, and cruelties of all kinds were not reprimanded.  Whether Cosimo’s children shared in the general juvenile depravity, it is impossible to say:  they were, as they left the nursery, kept hard at work with their lessons—­Maria certainly, and probably Isabella, shared the studies of their brothers.  At first, Maestro Francesco Riccio, who had been their father’s tutor also, grounded them all in Greek, Latin, grammar, music, and drawing; and then Maestro Antonio Angeli da Barga, a scholar and writer of considerable merit, took them through the higher subjects of composition, poetry, rhetoric, and geometry.

Foreign languages—­at least French and Spanish—­were not forgotten, for, before Donna Maria was eight years old, she spoke the latter tongue with fluency.  The very learned Maestro Pietro Vettori, when he joined the household of the Duke as teacher of Greek and philosophy to Don Francesco, was greatly struck by the young girl’s attainments, and so charmed was he by her sprightly manner, that he obtained permission for her to join her brother’s lessons.

Donna Maria, before she was twelve, could read and quote Homer with ease.  She composed elegantly in Greek and Latin, and, possessed of a remarkably sweet and sympathetic voice, she was able to recite from memory, and even to expound her own juvenile opinions, both in Latin and in Tuscan.

Cosimo and Eleanora inhabited the Medici Palace, in the Via Larga, just five years, and then he transferred his official residence to the Palazzo Vecchio.  This he did to show that he was absolute ruler of Tuscany as well as head of the Medici family.  With the skilled assistance of Tasso, the architect, and Vasari, the painter, he set about structural and decorative alterations and adornments, which rendered the old building more suitable as a residence for the Sovereign.

In 1549 Duchess Eleanora purchased the Pitti Palace from Buonaccorso Pitti, for 9000 gold florins, and laid out the adjacent gardens.  There the Duke and Duchess took up their residence with their family and their suite.

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Among young aspirants to fame and fortune, who enrolled themselves in the “Bande Nere,” were several scions of the proud and warlike Rimini family of Malatesti.  One branch of the family held the Marquisate of Roncofreddo, and their stronghold was the castle of Montecodruzzo.  Marquis Leonida de’ Malatesti was the happy father of many sons and daughters.  After the premature death of the Condottiere Giovanni de’ Medici, his sons maintained their allegiance and devotion to the cause of his son Cosimonino.