Lorenzo, like Richelieu, recognized the value of moderation in giving,
and caused every favor to be regarded as a possible earnest of others to
come.

The earlier years of his power were associated with many stirring events
which exercised no inconsiderable influence on the state of learning. For
example, his skilful playing off of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza of Milan
against Ferrante, King of Naples, led to greater attention being directed
by the Florentines to Neapolitan and Milanese affairs, with the result
that humanists and artists from both these places paid frequent visits to
Florence, where they were welcomed by Lorenzo as his guests. Then when
the revolt of the small city of Volterra from Florentine rule was
suppressed by Lorenzo's agents, with a rigorous severity that cast a
stain on their master's name, owing to many unoffending scholars having
suffered to the extent of losing their all, Lorenzo made noble amends.
Not only did he generously assist the inhabitants to repair their losses,
not only did he make grants to the local scholars and send them copies of
many of the codices in his own library to supply the loss of their books
which had been burned by the soldiery, but he purchased large estates in
the neighborhood, that the citizens might benefit by his residence among
them. In this way, too, he brought the Volterran scholars into more
intimate relations with the Florentine humanists, and thus contributed to
the further diffusion of the benefits of the Renaissance.

All was not plain sailing, however, as regards the progress of the "New
Learning." Despite his efforts, Lorenzo could not prevent its development
being checked during the papal-Neapolitan quarrel with Florence. That war
originated in a dispute with Pope Sixtus IV, who kept Italy in a ferment
during the whole duration of his pontificate, 1471-1484. Were no other
proof forthcoming of Lorenzo's marvellous diplomatic genius than this one
fact, that he checkmated the political schemes of Sixtus, and finally
so neutralized his influence as to render him wellnigh impotent for
evil-doing, such an achievement was sufficient to stamp him one of the
greatest masters of statecraft Europe has known. In any estimate of his
ability we must take into account the unsatisfactory character of many of
the instruments wherewith he had to achieve his purposes, and also the
fact that he had neither a great army at his back with which to enforce
the fulfilment of tr