While the archbishop and the doctors were debating, a plot was hatching in the Rucellai Gardens.  It was here that the Florentine Academy now held their meetings.  For this society Machiavelli wrote his ‘Treatise on the Art of War,’ and his ‘Discourses upon Livy.’  The former was an exposition of Machiavelli’s scheme for creating a national militia, as the only safeguard for Italy, exposed at this period to the invasions of great foreign armies.  The latter is one of the three or four masterpieces produced by the Florentine school of critical historians.  Stimulated by the daring speculations of Machiavelli, and fired to enthusiasm by their study of antiquity, the younger academicians formed a conspiracy for murdering Giulio de’ Medici, and restoring the republic on a Roman model.  An intercepted letter betrayed their plans.  Two of the conspirators were taken and beheaded.  Others escaped.  But the discovery of this conjuration put a stop to Giulio’s scheme of reforming the State.  Henceforth he ruled Florence like a despot, mild in manners, cautious in the exercise of arbitrary power, but firm in his autocracy.  The Condottiere.  Alessandro Vitelli, with a company of soldiers, was taken into service for the protection of his person and the intimidation of the citizens.

In 1523, the Pope, Adrian VI., expired after a short papacy, from which he gained no honour and Italy no profit.  Giulio hurried to Rome, and, by the clever use of his large influence, caused himself to be elected with the title of Clement VII.  In Florence he left Silvio Passerini, Cardinal of Cortona, as his vicegerent and the guardian of the two boys Alessandro and Ippolito.  The discipline of many years had accustomed the Florentines to a government of priests.  Still the burghers, mindful of their ancient liberties, were galled by the yoke of a Cortonese, sprung up from one of their subject cities; nor could they bear the bastards who were being reared to rule them.  Foreigners threw it in their teeth that Florence, the city glorious of art and freedom, was become a stable for mules—­stalla da muli, in the expressive language of popular sarcasm.  Bastardy, it may be said in passing, carried with it small dishonour among the Italians.  The Estensi were all illegitimate; the Aragonese house in Naples sprang from Alfonso’s natural son; and children of Popes ranked among the princes.  Yet the uncertainty of Alessandro’s birth and the base condition of his mother made the prospect of this tyrant peculiarly odious; while the primacy of a foreign cardinal in the midst of citizens whose spirit was still unbroken, embittered the cup of humiliation.  The Casa Medici held its authority by a slender thread, and depended more upon the disunion of the burghers than on any power of its own.  It could always reckon on the favour of the lower populace, who gained profit and amusement from the presence of a court.  The Ottimati again hoped more from a weak despotism than from a