Titus Manlius Torquatus followed upon a triumphal car drawn by eight horses, preceded by senators with lictors and fasces. Behind him Julius Caesar triumphant, in a car drawn by elephants, surrounded by all the imperial court, and followed by the peoples whom he had vanquished. Caesar Augustus represented in the cortege the " Triumph of the Poets," some of whom, crowned with laurel and mounted upon winged horses, personified their native province, while each carried the works he had composed. The sixth car was that of the Emperor Trajan, accompanied by the doctors of the law and the imperial legislators. The car of the Golden Age, carved by Baccio Bandinelli, brought up the rear. Lastly, upon a golden terrestrial sphere, a figure representing Discord was writhing in convulsions ; while a naked infant, glittering with gold, represented the Youth of the renascent Golden Age. The chronicler adds that this beautiful child, the son of a baker, who had doubtless served as a model for some of Donatello's and Desiderio da Settignano's sculptures on the tombs in Santa Croce, caught cold and died soon afterwards.

Upon another occasion Lorenzo the Magnificent celebrated the "Triumph of Bacchus ;" but the only description of this masquerade we have is the lines which he composed for the occasion, his theme being,

"Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." The canti carnavaleschi of that day, it may be stated, were very often full of buffoonery and ribaldry.

The Florentine people were never tired of these festivals, and every variety of subject was brought into requisition. On one occasion a group of artists, who were in a gloomy vein, after having celebrated the " Triumph of Life," determined to represent the "Triumph of Death." In the midst of the carnival, when all joy and mirth, and the streets and balconies were filled with eager spectators, a chariot, painted black, with death's heads and cross-bones picked out in white, and drawn by black buffaloes, was paraded through the streets, a black skeleton, with a scythe in its bony hands, being enthroned upon coffins. The chariot halted at each street corner, and a suite of mourners and lugubrious phantom figures chanted in a mournful key to the accompaniment of funeral trumpets :

" We were as you are, you will be as we are ; and as you see us dead, so shall we see you dead." It may easily be imagined what consternation and terror this caused the timid women and children in the crowd, while the more sceptical indulged in sinister jokes.

Vasari has given a long description of this singular device, the invention of which he ascribes to Piero de' Medici, the father of Lorenzo. It was Pontormo, once more, who was commissioned to design the chariot, which, in order to lend more reality to the scene, was followed by a number of men (supposed to be dead) on horseback, the leanest and the most cadaverous-looking that could be found having been selected for the occasion. These were followed by naked mutes, carrying a torch in one hand, and in the other a large standard with skull and cross-bones.

Vasari was himself intrusted with the preparations for another "triumph," all the details of which, including the monuments and temporary altars, the chariots, the allegorical figures and the dresses, were designed by him. All his original drawings have been preserved in an album, which is in the print-room of the Uffizi Gallery, where I recently examined it in the company of Chevalier Carlo Pini, the librarian, whose premature death has been so universally regretted. Lorenzo was unquestionably the greatest of the Medici family, the true M cenas of his day, and even before the "Principato," when only called as first citizen to fill a post from which be could at any moment be displaced, he put himself at the head of the intellectual movement, and became the centre and the protector of art and literature. He was the intimate friend of Donatello and Michelozzo Michelozzi, and by their advice formed unrivalled collections of pictures, statuary, antique stones, gems, goldsmith's work, and sumptuous furniture, fitting out the Riccardi Palace with the most valuable and most, perfect specimens of each. Every article in this collection bore either his arms or his initials. There are porphyry vases now in the possession of Baron Davilliers of Paris which unquestionably formed part of it.

Passionately fond of architecture, Lorenzo worked himself with the most noted architects of his day, and they always found his opinions worth listening to. He was equally zealous in the cause of literature, and founded, first at San Marco and afterwards at San Lorenzo, a school of copyists, whose duty it was to reproduce ancient manuscripts. The Laurentian Library, designed by Michael Angelo, and added to by Vasari, is a witness to the zeal of the Medici for the advancement of learning.

Lorenzo spared no effort to gather around him learned men of all countries. He reopened the University of Pisa, paid the professors, took upon himself the cost of additional buildings, provided them with books, and dispatched Giovanni Lascari to the East with an unlimited credit to make fresh purchases. It was a plain citizen who did all this, and it seemed as if the whole of Florence was centred in his person. Strange to say, ambassadors were accredited to him as to a sovereign, even when he was only an individual member of the Council of State; and a hundred different circumstances combined to increase his personal authority, which made itself felt as a mere matter of course. The Emperor of Germany ; King John H. of Portugal ; that great patron of literature, Matthias Corvin ; and Louis XI. himself, that astute politician and prince, who paved the way for French unity by his abasement of the feudal lords, corresponded with him, it may be said, as with an equal, for he received, without any intermediary, their ambassadors and their messages. I have examined, in the State archives of Florence, all the letters which go to make up the Medici Carteggio before and after the "Principato," and it is most instructive to see in what familiar terms the highest personages in human history carried on discussions with a private individual.

The historian Guieciardini has left a description of Florence in the prosperous year of 1490, when the city, in the enjoyment of peace under the tranquil rule of Lorenzo, seemed to have reached the summit of its splendor. He depicts Tuscany as being enriched from mountain, to valley and plain by the peaceful and orderly labor of its prosperous inhabitants ; the State as Being calm in the knowledge of its strength, in no fear of servitude either from Rome or the Empire, and successful in attaching to itself those neighboring cities which were formerly hostile and independent ; princes as coming from all parts of the world to visit the city and do homage to the Medici and the eminent citizens who were gathered around them ; and the extraordinary advance of civilization in every department of the national life. He depicts for us a people supple, skilled, well gifted, and so devoted to art that each street was a museum in itself, and a class of artists who had an inborn taste like the Athenians in the time of Pericles, and who seemed able to create without bodily fatigue or mental effort marvels which move and fascinate us even now. And there can be no doubt that this unparalleled prosperity was due to Lorenzo de' Medici, who carried on the work of his ancestor Cosimo, the peacemaker of Italy and the moderator of the Republic.