simple in his habits, affable in conversation,
sparing of speech, he knew how to combine that burgher-like civility
for which the Romans praised Augustus, with the reality of a despotism
all the more difficult to combat because it seemed nowhere and was
everywhere. When he died, at the age of seventy-five, in 1464, the
people whom he had enslaved, but whom he had neither injured nor
insulted, honoured him with the title of _Pater Patriae_. This was
inscribed upon his tomb in S. Lorenzo. He left to posterity the fame
of a great and generous patron,[14] the infamy of a cynical,
self-seeking, bourgeois tyrant. Such combinations of contradictory
qualities were common enough at the time of the Renaissance. Did not
Machiavelli spend his days in tavern-brawls and low amours, his nights
among the mighty spirits of the dead, with whom, when he had changed
his country suit of homespun for the habit of the Court, he found
himself an honoured equal?

XI

Cosimo had shown consummate skill by governing Florence through a
party created and raised to influence by himself. The jealousy of
these adherents formed the chief difficulty with which his son Piero
had to contend. Unless the Medici could manage to kick down the ladder
whereby they had risen, they ran the risk of losing all. As on a
former occasion, so now they profited by the mistakes of their
antagonists. Three chief men of their own party, Diotisalvi Neroni,
Agnolo Acciaiuoli, and Luca Pitti, determined to shake off the yoke of
their masters, and to repay the Medici for what they owed by leading
them to ruin. Niccolo Soderini, a patriot, indignant at the slow
enslavement of his country, joined them. At first they strove to
undermine the credit of the Medici with the Florentines by inducing
Piero to call in the moneys placed at interest by his father in the
hands of private citizens. This act was unpopular; but it did not
suffice to move a revolution. To proceed by constitutional measures
against the Medici was judged impolitic. Therefore the conspirators
decided to take, if possible, Piero's life. The plot failed, chiefly
owing to the coolness and the cunning of the young Lorenzo, Piero's
eldest son. Public sympathy was strongly excited against the
aggressors. Neroni, Acciaiuoli, and Soderini were exiled. Pitti was
allowed to stay, dishonoured, powerless, and penniless, in Florence.
Meanwhile, the failure of their foes had only served to strengthen the
position of the