VIII

The years Michelangelo spent in the Casa Medici were probably the blithest and most joyous of his lifetime.  The men of wit and learning who surrounded the Magnificent were not remarkable for piety or moral austerity.  Lorenzo himself found it politically useful “to occupy the Florentines with shows and festivals, in order that they might think of their own pastimes and not of his designs, and, growing unused to the conduct of the commonwealth, might leave the reins of government in his hands.”  Accordingly he devised those Carnival triumphs and processions which filled the sombre streets of Florence with Bacchanalian revellers, and the ears of her grave citizens with ill-disguised obscenity.  Lorenzo took part in them himself, and composed several choruses of high literary merit to be sung by the masqueraders.  One of these carries a refrain which might be chosen as a motto for the spirit of that age upon the brink of ruin:—­

  Youths and maids, enjoy to-day: 
  Naught ye know about to-morrow!

He caused the triumphs to be carefully prepared by the best artists, the dresses of the masquers to be accurately studied, and their chariots to be adorned with illustrative paintings.  Michelangelo’s old friend Granacci dedicated his talents to these shows, which also employed the wayward fancy of Piero di Cosimo and Pontormo’s power as a colourist.  “It was their wont,” says Il Lasca, “to go forth after dinner; and often the processions paraded through the streets till three or four hours into the night, with a multitude of masked men on horseback following, richly dressed, exceeding sometimes three hundred in number, and as many on foot with lighted torches.  Thus they traversed the city, singing to the accompaniment of music arranged for four, eight, twelve, or even fifteen voices, and supported by various instruments.”  Lorenzo represented the worst as well as the best qualities of his age.  If he knew how to enslave Florence, it was because his own temperament inclined him to share the amusements of the crowd, while his genius enabled him to invest corruption with charm.  His friend Poliziano entered with the zest of a poet and a pleasure-seeker into these diversions.  He helped Lorenzo to revive the Tuscan Mayday games, and wrote exquisite lyrics to be sung by girls in summer evenings on the public squares.  This giant of learning, who filled the lecture-rooms of Florence with Students of all nations, and whose critical and rhetorical labours marked an epoch in the history of scholarship, was by nature a versifier, and a versifier of the people.  He found nothing’ easier than to throw aside his professor’s mantle and to improvise ballate for women to chant as they danced their rounds upon the Piazza di S. Trinita.  The frontispiece to an old edition of such lyrics represents Lorenzo surrounded with masquers in quaint dresses, leading the revel