walls of their villa
at Cajano under the transparent allegory of Cicero's entrance into
Rome.

X

By their brief exile the Medici had gained the credit of injured
innocence, the fame of martyrdom in the popular cause. Their foes had
struck the first blow, and in striking at them had seemed to aim
against the liberties of the republic. The mere failure of their
adversaries to hold the power they had acquired, handed over this
power to the Medici; and the reprisals which the Medici began to take
had the show of justice, not of personal hatred, or petty vengeance.
Cosimo was a true Florentine. He disliked violence, because he knew
that blood spilt cries for blood. His passions, too, were cool and
temperate. No gust of anger, no intoxication of success, destroyed his
balance. His one object, the consolidation of power for his family on
the basis of popular favour, was kept steadily in view; and he would
do nothing that might compromise that end. Yet he was neither generous
nor merciful. We therefore find that from the first moment of his
return to Florence he instituted a system of pitiless and unforgiving
persecution against his old opponents. The Albizzi were banished, root
and branch, with all their followers, consigned to lonely and often to
unwholesome stations through the length and breadth of Italy. If they
broke the bonds assigned them, they were forthwith declared traitors
and their property was confiscated. After a long series of years, by
merely keeping in force the first sentence pronounced upon them,
Cosimo had the cruel satisfaction of seeing the whole of that proud
oligarchy die out by slow degrees in the insufferable tedium of
solitude and exile. Even the high-souled Palla degli Strozzi, who had
striven to remain neutral, and whose wealth and talents were devoted
to the revival of classical studies, was proscribed because to Cosimo
he seemed too powerful. Separated from his children, he died in
banishment at Padua. In this way the return of the Medici involved the
loss to Florence of some noble citizens, who might perchance have
checked the Medicean tyranny if they had stayed to guide the State.
The plebeians, raised to wealth and influence by Cosimo before his
exile, now took the lead in the republic. He used these men as
catspaws, rarely putting himself forward or allowing his own name to
appear, but pulling the wires of government in privacy by means of
intermediate agents. The Medicean party was c