Having removed his cousin and rival from the scene, Alessandro de’ Medici plunged with even greater effrontery into the cruelties and debaucheries which made him odious in Florence.  It seemed as though fortune meant to smile on him; for in this same year (1535) Charles V. decided at Naples in his favour against the Florentine exiles, who were pleading their own cause and that of the city injured by his tyrannies; and in February of the following year he married Margaret of Austria, the Emperor’s natural daughter.  Francesco Guicciardini, the first statesman and historian of his age, had undertaken his defence, and was ready to support him by advice and countenance in the conduct of his government.  Within the lute of this prosperity, however, there was one little rift.  For some months past he had closely attached to his person a certain kinsman, Lorenzo de’ Medici, who was descended in the fourth generation from Lorenzo, the brother of Cosimo Pater Patriae.  This Lorenzo, or Lorenzino, or Lorenzaccio, as his most intimate acquaintances called him, was destined to murder Alessandro; and it is worthy of notice that the Duke had received frequent warnings of his fate.  A Perugian page, for instance, who suffered from some infirmity, saw in a dream that Lorenzino would kill his master.  Astrologers predicted that the Duke must die by having his throat cut.  One of them is said to have named Lorenzo de’ Medici as the assassin; and another described him so accurately that there was no mistaking the man.  Moreover, Madonna Lucrezia Salviati wrote to the Duke from Rome that he should beware of a certain person, indicating Lorenzino; and her daughter, Madonna Maria, told him to his face she hated the young man, ’because I know he means to murder you, and murder you he will.’  Nor was this all.  The Duke’s favourite body-servants mistrusted Lorenzino.  On one occasion, when Alessandro and Lorenzino, attended by a certain Giomo, were escalading a wall at night, as was their wont upon illicit love-adventures, Giomo whispered to his master:  ’Ah, my lord, do let me cut the rope, and rid ourselves of him!’ To which the Duke replied:  ’No, I do not want this; but if he could, I know he’d twist it round my neck.’

In spite, then, of these warnings and the want of confidence he felt, the Duke continually lived with Lorenzino, employing him as pander in his intrigues, and preferring his society to that of simpler men.  When he rode abroad, he took this evil friend upon his crupper; although he knew for certain that Lorenzino had stolen a tight-fitting vest of mail he used to wear, and, while his arms were round his waist, was always meditating how to stick a poignard in his body.  He trusted, so it seems, to his own great strength and to the other’s physical weakness.