PIERO I. (NICKNAMED THE GOUTY.) -(1416-1469. )

Piero the Gouty, who was never popular, survived his father five years, and died at the age of fifty-three, his ill-health preventing him from taking an active part in public affairs. As his brothers Carlo and Giovanni had predeceased him, the only brilliant representative of the race of the Medici was his son, Lorenzo, who gave early promise of his distinguished abilities. At Cosimo's death Piero on the advice of Diotisalvi Neroni, a trusted friend and councillor of his father, took a step which made him very unpopular. He had a list of his debtors made out, and sought to recover the sums standing against their names, but as Cosimo had never claimed these moneys, which in many cases had been advanced without any intention of having them repaid, his right was called in question and his popularity gone. For all that he was a thorough Medici and in many respects a very interesting character. Following the example of Cosimo, he retained the services of Marcilio Ficino, and published at his own expense the five volumes of Plato which the latter had translated into Latin. It should be borne in mind, too, that he founded a chair, in which Marcilio gave lectures on the great Greek philosopher to large and enthusiastic audiences. There was quite a fever for study, and it is difficult for us, absorbed as we are in the Common-places of politics and in the dreary round which dampens all onerous ideas and extinguishes all noble aspirations, to conceive the enthusiasm which took possession of the people of Florence. Marcilio Ficino suspended before the bust of Plato, as above the altar of a church, a lighted lamp, Francesco Sacchetti tells us that on one occasion an admirer of Dante took the tapers which were burning upon the altar of the crucifix, and placed them before the poet's bust, saying, " Accept them, for you are more worthy of them than He." The whole city was a prey to delirium, but delirium of a most generous kind.

Boccaccio was the earliest reader of the Iliad and the Odyssey in the original, and he translated them into Latin with the assistance of a Greek residing in Calabria. Petrarch, who did not know Greek, but who had read the Latin translation, preserved the originals as a relic. The movement in favor of Hellenism was started by the, Greeks who came to the Council of Florence, and Piero's son vulgarized the poets and historians of antiquity by forming the famous library of manuscripts which in course of time became the"Laurentiana."

During the reign of Cosimo the Elder, Niccolo Niccoli spent all his fortune in purchasing manuscripts, and Cosimo, remarking how well versed he was in antiquities, took him into his employ, and opened a credit to enable him to buy whatever seemed to him worth having. It was he who discovered the remaining works of Ammianus -Marcellinus, Cicero's "de Oratore," and the Lubecca Pliny. He had converted his house into a public library, and any one was allowed to go in and read, copy, or translate, while those who wanted advice on any point connected with their studies received all the assistance in his power. At his death he left eight hundred manuscripts, valued at eight thousand gold florins, which Cosimo, with his usual liberality, purchased and presented to the monastery of San Marco, which occupies so prominent a place in the history of Florence. By his wife Lucrezia Tornabuoni, Piero had two sons, Lorenzo and Giuliano, and by his own express desire he was buried without pomp in the Sagrestia Vecchia of San Lorenzo. His sons Lorenzo surnamed the Magnificent, and Giuliano, built him a superb tomb near the entrance to the Lady Chapel. Andrea Verocchio, the sculptor of the equestrian statue of Colleoni and the " Child and the Dolphin," was employed on its execution. It consists of a porphyry sarcophagus resting upon a marble slab supported by bronze tortoises, and decorated with foliage of the most exquisite workmanship.

LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT. -(1448-1492.)

Camilla Lucrezia Tornabuoni, the mother of Lorenzo the Magnificent son of Piero, has left behind her a reputation for great prudence, resolution, and dignity, some, of the stories which are related of her reminding one of the mother of the Gracchi. She was as highly educated as any woman of her time, and the number of works dedicated to her prove how much interest she took in literature. Piero and she had selected, as tutor for their son Lorenzo, Gentile of Urbino, afterwards Bishop of Arezzo. He was succeeded by Cristofero Landino ; and Argyropulus, a learned Hellenist who had taken refuge at Florence after the fall of Constantinople, taught the boy Greek and the philosophy of Aristotle. Marcilio Ficino, the friend of his father and the son of his grandfather's physician, instructed him in the doctrines of Plato.

The precocity of Lorenzo had struck every one, and at the age of sixteen he was so intimately versed in political affairs that he was deemed ripe for a diplomatic mission. He was first sent to Pisa, to receive Frederick, son of Ferdinand King of Naples ; then to Rome, where Pope Paul II. took a great fancy to him; to Bologna, in order to strengthen the ancient alliance between Florence and the Bentivoglios; to Ferrara, in order to gain over the Este family to Milan, where he stood godfather to a son of Duke Galeazzo Sforza; and to Venice, where he kept himself informed as to the doings of the Republic, which was always ready to take hostile action against Florence. In 1466 a conspiracy formed against him and his father, who was to have been put to death while being carried in his litter from Careggi to Florence, was discovered and crushed, some assert through the vigilance of Lorenzo. Accaiuoli and Diotisalvi Neroni at once fled, and the rest of the conspirators being exiled, fined, or admonished, the Medician party was left in complete power. On the death of Piero there followed a comparatively peaceful epoch of development for arts and literature. Lorenzo was at the head of this movement, forming his magnificent collections and founding libraries. Always surrounded by the leading personages of the time, he devoted all his leisure to literary pursuits, and it was at this period that he carried on those discussions in the woods of the Camaldulae with Cristofero Landino, Rinuccini, the two Acciajoli, Leo Battista Alberti, and Marcilio Ficino, anent the charms of a contemplative life, which gave rise to the Disputationes Camaldulenses of Landino.

Full of enthusiasm for literature, Lorenzo was himself the author of numerous sonnets, odes, religious and other poems of sufficient merit to place him among the foremost poetical writers of his day. His Canti Carnavaleshi are sometimes called the earliest examples of the modern satire in the Italian language. He was very partial to what were then called triumphal displays," the various tableaux in which were designed by himself, and the execution intrusted to the greatest artists of the day. No pains were spared to make these fleeting representations, in which antiquity was revived for an hour, as perfect as possible. The painters decorated the chariots and designed the costumes, the sculptors had the modelling of the groups, horses were caparisoned in the skins of lions, tigers, or elephants, beautiful women were adorned with the emblems of the pagan divinities, and poets commented on these compositions, and described the figures in the triumphal processions. Parts in it were taken by such men as Alemanni, Ruccelai, and Nardi; and a Medici or a Strozzi would spend fabulous sums in converting his fancy into reality for an hour. The corporations, at that time so powerful, united in the effort to make these "triumphs" succeed, and men learned in antiquity, like Politian and Marcilio Ficino, were asked to do their part towards gratifying the partiality of the, Florentine people for these allegories.

I have searched in vain for some pictorial record of the wonderful fetes given by the Medici and other wealthy citizens of their day; but the art of engraving, by which they might have been preserved to us, was not then in existence. It was not until the close of the fifteenth century that a few painters, whose very names have been forgotten, began to reproduce on canvas contemporaneous events; these pictures, which enable' us to form ,in accurate idea of the costumes and festivals of the time, and of Florentine life in the fifteenth century, being very scarce. It is only in Paolo Ucello, or upon the marriage caskets, of which South Kensington Museum possesses a fine collection, that we catch a few glimpses of what public and private life was at that period. We know by a casket in the Academy of Fine Arts at Florence what an aristocratic wedding was like, and the frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli in the Riccardi Palace enable us to form an opinion of the deportment of the day; but a plastic record of life in Florence anterior to 1450 is rarely to be met with. The only insight into the inner ways of the inhabitants is that which is to be gained from the manuscripts of the beginning of the century, the embossed reliefs on caskets, and a few rare specimens of contemporary art. With these exceptions all is antique. Piero Bella Francesca, Pisanello, Pollaniolo, Paolo Ucello, Benozzo Gozzoli, and Alatteo da Pasti have recorded with chisel, pen, or brush some incidents of every-day life, trifling at that time, but of surpassing interest now ; and this is all we know. Botticelli, Lippi, and Memmi, engrossed in allegorical studies, tell us nothing of their own time, closely as their style is identified with it.

We are more fortunate as regards literature, though without illustrations to accompany them the many narratives of these contemporary writers carry little meaning with them, interesting as are the works of Boccaccio, Francesco Sacchetti, Jacobo Passavanti, Giovanni Villani, Poggio Bracciolini, and Niccolo Niccoli.

The sixteenth century abounds in documents, and there are as many as twenty illustrated works representing festivals and "triumphs." Yet, interesting as these are, they have not the raciness of the fifteenth century, and one cannot help regretting that it is impossible to convey a precise idea of the singular customs which then prevailed.

The narrative of a Florentine triumph, designed by Andrea Dazzi reader of Greek and Latin to the academy of the city the cost of which was borne by the Del Diamante Company, is still extant. Dazzi suggested three chariots representing Youth, Manhood, and Old Age. The artists who designed the chariots were Raffaello Belle Vivole, La Carota, and Andrea del Sarto ; while the costumes and figures were designed by Piero da Vinci, the father of Leonardo, and Bernardino di Giordano. The first chariot bore the motto " We shall be ;" the second, " We are;" the third, We have been."

Lorenzo the Magnificent, like all the citizens of that day, belonged to a corporation ; he was president of his, the "Broncone," and he commissioned Japo Nardi, a very learned man, to design him six chariots, so that the festival might be a more imposing one.