the Medicean palace.
It was as much as Piero, with his brothers, could do to escape beyond
the hills to Venice. The despotism of the Medici, so carefully built
up, so artfully sustained and strengthened, was overthrown in a single
day.

XVIII

Before considering what happened in Florence after the expulsion of
the Medici, it will be well to pause a moment and review the state in
which Lorenzo had left his family. Piero, his eldest son, recognised
as chief of the republic after his father's death, was married to
Alfonsina Orsini, and was in his twenty-second year. Giovanni, his
second son, a youth of seventeen, had just been made cardinal. This
honour, of vast importance for the Casa Medici in the future, he owed
to his sister Maddalena's marriage to Franceschetto Cybo, son of
Innocent VIII. The third of Lorenzo's sons, named Giuliano, was a boy
of thirteen. Giulio, the bastard son of the elder Giuliano, was
fourteen. These four princes formed the efficient strength of the
Medici, the hope of the house; and for each of them, with the
exception of Piero, who died in exile, and of whom no more notice need
be taken, a brilliant destiny was still in store. In the year 1495,
however, they now wandered, homeless and helpless, through the cities
of Italy, each of which was shaken to its foundations by the French
invasion.

XIX

Florence, left without the Medici, deprived of Pisa and other subject
cities by the passage of the French army, with no leader but the monk
Savonarola, now sought to reconstitute her liberties. During the
domination of the Albizzi and the Medici the old order of the
commonwealth had been completely broken up. The Arti had lost their
primitive importance. The distinctions between the Grandi and the
Popolani had practically passed away. In a democracy that has
submitted to a lengthened course of tyranny, such extinction of its
old life is inevitable. Yet the passion for liberty was still
powerful; and the busy brains of the Florentines were stored with
experience gained from their previous vicissitudes, from \ the study
of antique history, and from the observation of existing constitutions
in the towns of Italy. They now determined to reorganise the State
upon the model of the Venetian republic. The Signory was to remain,
with its old institution of Priors, Gonfalonier, and College, elected
for brief periods. These magistrates were to take the initiative in
debate, to propose measures, and t