ystery play performed in honour of their
guests, and were openly relieved to shut their gates upon the Duke of
Milan and his proud forces.

Lorenzo betrayed no weakness when the town of Volterra revolted against
Florence, which exercised the rights of a protector. He punished the
inhabitants very cruelly, banishing all the leaders of the revolt and
taking away the Volterran privilege of self-government. His enemies
hinted that he behaved despotically in order to secure certain mineral
rights in this territory, and held him responsible for the sack of
Volterra, though he asserted that he had gone to offer help to such of
the inhabitants as had lost everything.

But the war of the Pazzi conspiracy was the true test of the strength
of Medicean government. It succeeded a time of high prosperity in
Florence, when her ruler was honoured by the recognition of many
foreign powers, and felt his position so secure that he might safely
devote much leisure to the congenial study of poetry and philosophy.

Between the years 1474-8 Lorenzo had managed to incur the jealous
hatred of Pope Sixtus IV, who was determined to become the greatest
power in Christendom. This Pontiff skilfully detached Naples from her
alliance with Florence and Milan by promising to be content with a
nominal tribute of two white horses every year instead of the handsome
annual sum she had usually exacted from this vassal. He congratulated
himself especially on this stroke of policy, because he believed Venice
to be too selfish as a commercial State {37} to combine with her
Italian neighbours and so form another Triple Alliance. He then
proceeded to win over the Duke of Urbino, who had been the leader of
the Florentine army. He also thwarted the ambition of Florentine trade
by purchasing the tower of Imola from Milan. The Medici, coveting the
bargain for their traffic with the East, were too indignant to advance
the money which, as bankers to the Papacy, they should have supplied.
They preferred to see their rivals, the great Roman banking-house of
the Pazzi, accommodating the Pope, even though this might mean a fatal
blow to their supremacy.

Lorenzo's hopes of a strong coalition against his foe were destroyed by
the assassination of Sforza of Milan in 1474. The Duke was murdered in
the church of St Stephen by three young nobles who had personal
injuries to avenge and were also inspired by an ardent desire for
republican liberty. The Pope exclaime