after two generations of the Medicean ascendency, than it had been at first.  Meanwhile the people were maintained in good humour by public shows, ease, plenty, and a general laxity of discipline.  The splendour of Lorenzo’s foreign alliances and the consideration he received from all the Courts of Italy contributed in no small measure to his popularity and security at home.  By using his authority over Florence to inspire respect abroad, and by using his foreign credit to impose upon the burghers, Lorenzo displayed the tact of a true Italian diplomatist.  His genius for statecraft, as then understood, was indeed of a rare order, equally adapted to the conduct of a complicated foreign policy and to the control of a suspicious and variable Commonwealth.  In one point alone he was inferior to his grandfather.  He neglected commerce, and allowed his banking business to fall into disorder so hopeless that in course of time he ceased to be solvent.  Meanwhile his personal expenses, both as a prince in his own palace, and as the representative of majesty in Florence, continually increased.  The bankruptcy of the Medici, it had long been foreseen, would involve the public finances in serious confusion.  And now, in order to retrieve his fortunes, Lorenzo was not only obliged to repudiate his debts to the exchequer, but had also to gain complete disposal of the State purse.  It was this necessity that drove him to effect the constitutional revolution of 1480, by which he substituted a Privy Council of seventy members for the old Councils of the State, absorbing the chief functions of the commonwealth into this single body, whom he practically nominated at pleasure.  The same want of money led to the great scandal of his reign—­the plundering of the Monte delle Doti, or State Insurance Office Fund for securing dowers to the children of its creditors.

XIV

While tracing the salient points of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s administration I have omitted to mention the important events which followed shortly after his accession to power in 1469.  What happened between that date and 1480 was not only decisive for the future fortunes of the Casa Medici, but it was also eminently characteristic of the perils and the difficulties which beset Italian despots.  The year 1471 was signalised by a visit by the Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza of Milan, and his wife Bona of Savoy, to the Medici in Florence.  They came attended by their whole Court—­body guards on horse and foot, ushers, pages, falconers, grooms, kennel-varlets, and huntsmen.  Omitting the mere baggage service, their train counted two thousand horses.  To mention this incident would be superfluous, had not so acute an observer as Machiavelli marked it out as a turning-point in Florentine history.  Now, for the first time, the democratic commonwealth saw its streets filled with a mob of courtiers.  Masques, balls, and tournaments succeeded each other with magnificent variety;