disquietude. Peter de’ Medici, who was
lightly confident, returned to Florence on the 8th
of November, and attempted again to seize the supreme
power. A violent outbreak took place; Peter was
as weak before the Florentine populace as he had been
before the King of France; and, having been harried
in his very palace, which was given up to pillage,
it was only in the disguise of a monk that he was able,
on the 9th of November, to get out of the city in
company with his two brothers, Julian and Cardinal
John de’ Medici, of whom the latter was to be,
ten years later, Pope Leo X. Peter and his brothers
having been driven out, the Florentines were anxious
to be reconciled with Charles VIII. Both by
political tradition and popular bias the Florentine
republic was favorable to France. Charles, annoyed
at what had just taken place, showed but slight inclination
to enter into negotiation with them; but his wisest
advisers represented to him that, in order to accomplish
his enterprise and march securely on Naples, he needed
the good will of Florence; and the new Florentine
authorities promised him the best of receptions in
their city. Into it Charles entered on the 17th
of November, 1494, at the head of all his army.
His reception on the part of officials and populace
was really magnificent. Negotiation was resumed.
Charles was at first very exacting; the Florentine
negotiators protested; one of them, Peter Capponi,
“a man of great wits and great courage,”
says Guiceiardini, “highly esteemed for those
qualities in Florence, and issue of a family which
had been very powerful in the republic,” when
he heard read the exorbitant conditions proposed to
them on the king’s behalf, started up suddenly,
took the paper from the secretary’s hands, and
tore it up before the king’s eyes, saying, “Since
you impose upon us things so dishonorable, have your
trumpets sounded, and we will have our bells rung;”
and he went forth from the chamber together with his
comrades. Charles and his advisers thought better
of it; mutual concessions were made; a treaty, concluded
on the 25th of November, secured to the King of France
a free passage through the whole extent of the republic,
and a sum of one hundred and twenty thousand golden
florins “to help towards the success of the expedition
against Naples;” the commune of Florence engaged
to revoke the order putting a price upon the head
of Peter de’ Medici as well as confiscating his
goods, and not to enforce against him any penalty beyond
proscription from the territory; and, the honor as
well as the security of both the contracting parties
having thus been provided for, Charles VIII. left
Florence, and took, with his army, the road towards
the Roman States.