he owed to his sister Maddalena’s marriage to Franceschetto Cybo, son of Innocent VIII.  The third of Lorenzo’s sons, named Giuliano, was a boy of thirteen.  Giulio, the bastard son of the elder Giuliano, was fourteen.  These four princes formed the efficient strength of the Medici, the hope of the house; and for each of them, with the exception of Piero, who died in exile, and of whom no more notice need be taken, a brilliant destiny was still in store.  In the year 1495, however, they now wandered, homeless and helpless, through the cities of Italy, each of which was shaken to its foundations by the French invasion.

XIX

Florence, left without the Medici, deprived of Pisa and other subject cities by the passage of the French army, with no leader but the monk Savonarola, now sought to reconstitute her liberties.  During the domination of the Albizzi and the Medici the old order of the commonwealth had been completely broken up.  The Arti had lost their primitive importance.  The distinctions between the Grandi and the Popolani had practically passed away.  In a democracy that has submitted to a lengthened course of tyranny, such extinction of its old life is inevitable.  Yet the passion for liberty was still powerful; and the busy brains of the Florentines were stored with experience gained from their previous vicissitudes, from \ the study of antique history, and from the observation of existing constitutions in the towns of Italy.  They now determined to reorganise the State upon the model of the Venetian republic.  The Signory was to remain, with its old institution of Priors, Gonfalonier, and College, elected for brief periods.  These magistrates were to take the initiative in debate, to propose measures, and to consider plans of action.  The real power of the State, for voting supplies and ratifying the measures of the Signory, was vested in a senate of one thousand members, called the Grand Council, from whom a smaller body of forty, acting as intermediates between the Council and the Signory, were elected.  It is said that the plan of this constitution originated with Savonarola; nor is there any doubt that he used all his influence in the pulpit of the Duomo to render it acceptable to the people.  Whoever may have been responsible for its formation, the new government was carried in 1495, and a large hall for the assembly of the Grand Council was opened in the Public Palace.

Savonarola, meanwhile, had become the ruling spirit of Florence.  He gained his great power as a preacher:  he used it like a monk.  The motive principle of his action was the passion for reform.  To bring the Church back to its pristine state of purity, without altering its doctrine or suggesting any new form of creed; to purge Italy of ungodly customs; to overthrow the tyrants who encouraged evil living, and to place the power of the State in the hands of sober citizens:  these were his objects.  Though he set himself