read under that
date: "La Signora Cammilla d'il Serenissimo Gran Duca Cosimo de' Medici,
despositata in San Lorenzo." Some say she died imbecile.

Upon the reverse of one medal, which Cosimo had struck in honour of
their nuptials, was cut around the heraldic emblazonment of an oak tree
and a dragon, her legend: "_Uno avulso non deficit alter aureus_." This
may be the epitome of her life's history, and upon it one may moralise
at will; and certainly readers of the "Tragedy of Cammilla de' Martelli"
will admit that a spoilt life is as great a catastrophe as a violent
death.

* * * * *

It requires no great stretch of the imagination to picture the morals
and the manners of society in Tuscany during the last half of the
sixteenth century. The superabundance of private riches and the
enervation of idle leisure destroyed the framework of domestic economy;
"_Di fare il Signore_!"--to play the gentleman--was the current mode.
Everyone strove to surpass his neighbours in luxury and extravagance.

The example of the Court was felt in every grade of life: marital
unfaithfulness, personal spleen, and family feuds divided every
household. The worst of human passions ran riot, and life became a
pandemonium, wherein the sharp poignard, the poison phial, and the
strangling rope, played their part at the dastardly will of their
owners.

Fair Florence was still--as she will ever be--"The City of the Lily";
but the blue and silver emblematic _giglio_--the modestly unfolding
fragrant iris of the unsophisticated countryside, drooped before the
flaming, passionate tiger-lily of the formal garden of debauchery, with
its pungent odour and its secretive, incurled scarlet petals--splashed
with the blacks and yellows of crime and greed!

"Nature ever
Finding discordant fortune, like all seed
Out of its proper climate, thrives but ill:
But were the world content to work,
And work on the foundation Nature lays,
It would not lack of excellence." ...

IL PARADISO, _Canto viii_.

A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY

_Anecdota Letteraria_. 4 vols. Florence. 1773.

Bocchi, F., _Le Bellezze della Citta di Firenze_. Florence. 1591.

Corsini, B., _Lorenzino de' Medici_. Florence. 1890.

Cronacci, F., _Lorenzo de' Medici_. Florence. 1760.

Dumas, A., _Une Annee a Florence_. 2 vols. Paris. 1841.

Dumas, A., _Les Galeries de Florence_. Paris. 1842.

Fabroni, A., _Vie de Laurent de Medic