of Pitti were on the side of the plebeians, whose policy during the siege was carried out by the Gonfalonier Carducci.  At the same time he admitted the feebleness and insufficiency of many of these men, called from a low rank of life and from mechanical trades to the administration of the commonwealth.  The state of Florence under Piero Soderini—­that ‘non mai abbastanza lodato cavaliere,’ as he calls him—­was the ideal to which he reverted with longing eyes.  Segni, on the other hand, condemns the ambition of the plebeian leaders, and declares his opinion that the State could only have been saved by the more moderate among the influential citizens.  He belonged in fact to that section of the Medicean party which Varchi styles the Neutrals.  He had strong aristocratic leanings, and preferred a government of nobles to the popular democracy which flourished under Francesco Carducci.  While he desired the liberty of Florence, Segni saw that the republic could not hold its own against both Pope and Emperor, at a crisis when the King of France, who ought to have rendered assistance in the hour of need, was bound by the treaty of Cambray, and by the pledges he had given to Charles in the persons of his two sons.  The policy of which Segni approved was that which Niccolo Capponi had prepared before his fall—­a reconciliation with Clement through the intervention of the Emperor, according to the terms of which the Medici should have been restored as citizens of paramount authority, but not as sovereigns.  Varchi, while no less alive to the insecurity of Carducci’s policy, was animated with a more democratic spirit.  He had none of Segni’s Whig leanings, but shared the patriotic enthusiasm which at that supreme moment made the whole state splendidly audacious in the face of insurmountable difficulties.  Both Segni and Varchi discerned the exaggerated and therefore baneful influence of Savonarola’s prophecies over the populace of Florence.  In spite of continued failure, the people kept trusting to the monk’s prediction that, after her chastisement, Florence would bloom forth with double luster, and that angels in the last resort would man her walls and repel the invaders.  There is something pathetic in this delusion of a great city, trusting with infantine pertinacity to the promises of the man whom they had seen burned as an impostor, when all the while their statesmen and their generals were striking bargains with the foe.  Nardi is more sincerely Piagnone than either Segni or Varchi.  Yet, writing after the events of the siege, his faith is shaken; and while he records his conviction that Savonarola was an excellent Nomothetes, he questions his prophetic mission, and deplores the effect produced by his vain promises.  Nerli, as might have been expected from a noble married to Caterina Salviati, the niece of Leo and the aunt of Cosimo, who had himself been courtier to Clement and privy councilor to Alessandro, sustains the Medicean note throughout his commentaries.