Heroes of Modern Europe

								

to perform the deed of sacrilege from which the original assassin
recoiled.  They hated Lorenzo for his treatment of Volterra, and drove
him behind the gates of the new sacristy.  Giuliano was slain at the
very altar, his body being pierced with no less than nineteen wounds,
but Lorenzo escaped to mourn the fate of the handsome noble brother who
had been a model for Botticelli's famous "Primavera."
He heard the citizens cry, "Down with traitors!  The Medici!  The
Medici!" and resolved to move {39} them to a desperate vengeance on the
Pazzi.  The Archbishop of Pisa was hanged from the window of a palace,
while a fellow-conspirator was hurled to the ground from the same
building.  This gruesome scene was painted to gratify the avengers of
Giuliano.
Florence was enthusiastic in defence of her remaining tyrant.  He was
depicted by Botticelli in an attitude of triumph over the triple forces
of anarchy, warfare and sedition.  All the family of Pazzi were
condemned as traitors.  Their coat of arms was erased by Lorenzo's
adherents wherever it was discovered.
Henceforth, Lorenzo exercised supreme control over his native city.  He
won Naples to a new alliance by a diplomatic visit that proved his
skill in foreign negotiations.  The gifts that came to him from strange
lands were presented, in reality, to the master of the Florentine
"republic."  Egypt sent a lion and a giraffe, which were welcomed as
wonders of the East even by those who did not appreciate the fact that
they showed a desire to trade.  It was easy soon to find new markets
for the rich burghers whose class was in complete ascendancy over the
ancient nobles.
Lorenzo was seized with mortal sickness in the early spring of 1492,
and found no comfort in philosophy.  He drank from a golden cup which
was supposed to revive the dying when it held a draught, strangely
concocted from precious pearls according to some Eastern fancy.  But
the sick man found nothing of avail in his hour of death except a visit
from an honest monk he had seen many times in the cloisters of San
Marco.
Savonarola came to the bedside of the magnificent pagan and demanded
three things as the price of absolution.  Lorenzo was to believe in the
mercy of God, to {40} restore all that he had wrongfully acquired, and
to agree to popular government being restored to Florence.  The third
condition was too hard, for Lorenzo would not own himself a tyrant.  He
turned his face to the wall in bitterness of spirit, and the monk
withdrew leaving him unshriven.
The sack of Volterra, and the murder of innocent kinsfolk of the Pazzi
who had been involved in the great conspiracy haunted Lorenzo as he
passed from life in the prime of manhood and glorious achievements.  He
would have mourned for the commerce of his city if he had known that in
the same year of 1492 the discovery of America would be made, through
which the Atlantic Ocean was to become the highway of commerce,
reducing to sad inferiority the ports of the Mediterranean.