ith he made Florence--the
weakest from a military point of view of the five greater Italian
powers--the one which exercised the most preponderating influence
upon the affairs of the peninsula. His supreme genius conceived and
consummated the great scheme for ensuring the peace of Italy by a triple
alliance of the three larger states--Florence, Milan, and Naples--against
the other two, Venice and the papacy.

As showing how entirely it was dependent upon him, the alliance was
operative only so long as he was alive to bind the antagonistic forces of
Naples and Milan together by the link of his own personal influence.
He, in a word, was the subtle acid holding in chemical combination many
mutually repellent substances. When his influence was withdrawn by death,
within a few months they had all fallen apart, the triple alliance was
forgotten and Italy was doomed. Even by those with whom he was nominally
at war he was resorted to for advice. He it was that kept Innocent VIII
from taking up a position that would have rendered the papacy ridiculous
in the eyes of Europe, when he sought to threaten Naples with
consequences he was powerless to inflict.

Many writers have accused Lorenzo of cowardice, of pusillanimity, of want
of political resolution on account of this very course of action, namely,
that he assisted the enemies of Florence to extricate themselves from
their dilemmas. Such criticism fails entirely to understand both the aim
and the scope of his policy. He desired to keep Italy for the Italians.
His clear-sighted sagacity saw nothing but danger in the plans of
Ludovico of Milan to invite the French King into Italy, or in those of
Venice to encourage the Duke of Lorraine to press his claims upon Milan.
The intervention of either France or Spain in Italy was, in his idea,
fraught only with dire disaster. Fain would he have patched up the
quarrel between Naples and the papacy by mutual concessions, because
he foresaw what would happen if the colossal northern powers had their
cupidity aroused regarding Italy, and learned how defenceless she really
was. Because he foresaw so clearly the horrors of the invasion of 1494
and 1527, he acted as he did, even toward those who were enemies of
Florence. His alarm appears in the letter, dated July, 1489, which he
addressed to his ambassador in Rome: "I dislike these Ultramontanes and
barbarians beginning to interfere in Italy. We are so disunited and so
deceitful that I believe