ure than any other citizen who claimed Val d'Arno[1] as his
birthplace. His influence was great because he was in sympathy so
catholic with all the varied life of his age and circle. While during the
one hour he would be found learnedly discussing the rival claims of the
Platonic and Aristotelian philosophers with Ficino and Landino, the next
might witness him the foremost reveller in the Florentine carnival,
crowned with flowers and with the winecup in his hand, gayly carolling
the _ballate_ he had composed for the occasion; while the third might
behold him surrounded by the leading painters and sculptors of Tuscany,
discoursing profoundly on the aims and mission of art. Truly a unique
personality, at one and the same time the glorious creation and the
splendid epitome of the spirit of the Renaissance!

When Lorenzo de' Medici consented to assume the "position" occupied by
his father Piero and his grandfather Cosmo, he was not the raw youth his
immature years would lead one to suppose. Although intellectual maturity
is reached at an earlier age in the sunny South than in the fog-haunted
lands of Northern Europe, Lorenzo had enjoyed a long apprenticeship
before being called to undertake the duties devolving on him as the
uncrowned king of Florence. From his thirteenth year he had been the
companion and shared the counsels, first of his grandfather and father,
and subsequently of his father alone. From the former especially he
learned many important lessons in statecraft. The matter is open to
question, however, if any advice had more far-reaching results or was
laid more carefully to heart than this which is contained in more
than one of Cosmo's letters: "Never stint your favors to the cause
of learning, and cultivate sedulously the friendship of scholars and
humanists." Toward such a course Lorenzo's inclinations, as well as his
interests, pointed, and during his life Florence was the Athens not only
of Italy but of Europe as a whole. Here, among many others, were to be
found such "epoch-makers" as Poliziano, Ficino, and Landino, Pico della
Mirandola, Leo Battista Alberti, Michelangelo, Luigi Pulci--men who
glorified their age by crowning it with the nimbus of their genius.

The literary and artistic greatness of Florence was not due, however,
to the comparative intellectual poverty of the other states in Italy.
Florence was only _primus inter pares_--greatest among many that were
great. When the fact is recalled that