em pills.

The beautiful lantern at the corner was added by Lorenzo and was
the work of an odd ironsmith in Florence for whom he had a great
liking--Niccolo Grosso. For Lorenzo had all that delight in character
which belongs so often to the born patron and usually to the born
connoisseur. This Grosso was a man of humorous independence and
bluntness. He had the admirable custom of carrying out his commissions
in the order in which they arrived, so that if he was at work upon a
set of fire-irons for a poor client, not even Lorenzo himself (who as
a matter of fact often tried) could induce him to turn to something
more lucrative. The rich who cannot wait he forced to wait. Grosso
also always insisted upon something in advance and payment on
delivery, and pleasantly described his workshop as being the Sign
of the Burning Books,--since if his books were burnt how could he
enter a debt? This rule earned for him from Lorenzo the nickname of
"Il Caparra" (earnest money). Another of Grosso's eccentricities was
to refuse to work for Jews.

Within the palace, up stairs, is the little chapel which Gozzoli made
so gay and fascinating that it is probably the very gem among the
private chapels of the world. Here not only did the Medici perform
their devotions--Lorenzo's corner seat is still shown, and anyone
may sit in it--but their splendour and taste are reflected on the
walls. Cosimo, as we shall see when we reach S. Marco, invited Fra
Angelico to paint upon the walls of that convent sweet and simple
frescoes to the glory of God. Piero employed Fra Angelico's pupil,
Benozzo Gozzoli to decorate this chapel.

In the year 1439, as chapter II related, through the instrumentality
of Cosimo a great episcopal Council was held at Florence, at which
John Palaeologus, Emperor of the East, met Pope Eugenius IV. In that
year Cosimo's son Piero was twenty-three, and Gozzoli nineteen,
and probably upon both, but certainly on the young artist, such
pomp and splendour and gorgeousness of costume as then were visible
in Florence made a deep impression. When therefore Piero, after
becoming head of the family, decided to decorate the chapel with
a procession of Magi, it is not surprising that the painter should
recall this historic occasion. We thus get the pageantry of the East
with more than common realism, while the portraits, or at any rate
representations, of the Patriarch of Constantinople (the first king)
and the Emperor (the second king)