which surrounded his first acclamation as Duke, and which he earned
well, be it said, became dimmed by the execrations of many disgraced and
suffering households. Men and women saw the bad days of Duke Alessandro
revived, and Florence, after a temporary purgation, became once more the
sink of iniquity.

When the Duke laid aside, in 1564, his sovereignty, it was that he might
give reins to his passions, and, of the many girls he ruined, probably
not one he loved better or longer than Eleanora degli Albizzi. At Villa
del Castello he had his harem. This was the example Cosimo de' Medici
set his wayward, precocious son Piero, and the lad followed it to his
heart's content, until his escapades became so notorious, and raised up
such a storm of resentment amongst the citizens, that his father was
forced to intervene.

At fifteen, young Piero was sent off to Pisa and attached to the staff
of the Admiral of the Florentine fleet, Cavaliere Cesare Cavanglia. In
various encounters with Turkish galleons and the barques of buccaneers,
the young Medico proved himself no coward--indeed the Admiral reported
of him most favourably. Well for his fame had Piero remained before the
mast and upon the quarter-deck.

The lad was practically his own master, and the memories of Florentine
gallantries filled his mind with desires for their resumption. Two years
of naval-military discipline were quite enough for him, and he returned
home again. He found Donna Eleanora de Garzia a grown woman and a woman
of the world; an arrant flirt, like her protectress, the Duchess
Isabella; dividing her time between the Villa Poggio Baroncelli and his
father's villa at Castello.

Rumours of illicit intercourse between her and the Grand Duke were
current all over Florence, and evil gossips at Court affirmed that the
_liaison_ had been of long continuance, wherein, too, the Duchess
Isabella was herself implicated. Cosimo seems to have been conversant
with the tittle-tattle, and, fearing the evil effect it might have for
all concerned, determined to take the bull by the horns, so to speak,
and to keep the scandal within the family.

His son Piero--who was walking closely in his father's footsteps, and
leading a free and fast, wild life, heavily in debt and habitually
intoxicated, and the companion of loose women and gamesters--should be
his scapegoat. He would marry him to his cousin! At the beginning of
the negotiations Piero refused stoutly his father's p