r
of St. Peter was beaten all along the line, and the Magnifico carried
away with him a treaty, signed and sealed, which practically meant that
henceforth Naples and the papacy would be in antagonistic camps.

It was the Renaissance card which won the trick. With startling boldness,
yet with consummate art, Lorenzo played the game of flattering Ferrante.
No ordinary adulation, however, would have had success with the
Neapolitan Phaleris. He was too strong-minded a man for anything of that
kind. But to be hailed by the great Renaissance patron of the period,
by one also who was himself one of the leading humanists, as a
brother-humanist and a fellow-patron of learning, was a delicate incense
to his vanity which he could not resist. He liked to be consulted on
matters of literary moment, and, when he blundered, Lorenzo was too
shrewd a student of human nature to correct him.

Another fact in Lorenzo's favor was that he had the warm support not only
of the beautiful Ippolyta Maria, daughter of Cosmo's friend, Francesco
Sforza of Milan, and now wife of Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, King
Ferrante's heir, as well as of Don Federigo, the monarch's younger son,
who, along with Ippolyta, was a friend to the "New Learning," but he also
had the whole body of Neapolitan humanists on his side, scarce one of
whom but had experienced in some form or another the Medicean bounty.
Such powerful advocacy was not without its influence in bringing about
the result; while Ferrante more and more realized that if the Florentine
Medici were crushed he would have no ally to whom to look for help when
the inevitable shuffle of the political cards took place on the death of
Sixtus.

In February, 1480, therefore, Lorenzo returned in triumph to Florence,
to be received with rapture by his fellow-citizens. Had he delayed a few
months longer, his visit and his _ad-miseri-cordiam_ appeals would not
have been needed. In August of that year Keduk Achmed, one of the Turkish
Sultan's (Mahomet II) ablest generals, besieged and took the city of
Otranto. In face of the common danger to all Italy, Sixtus was compelled
to accept the treaty made by Ferrante with Lorenzo, and a general peace
ensued. The decade accordingly closed with an absolution for all offences
granted by the Pope to Florence, conditional on the Tuscan republic
contributing its share to the expenses of the military preparations to
resist the invasion of the Turk.

Notwithstanding the war, the