at might almost pass for a
city separated by a hundred miles from the Piazza. This is the quarter
of San Polo, one corner of which, somewhere between the back of
the Palazzo Foscari and the Campo di San Polo, was the scene of
a memorable act of vengeance in the year 1546. Here Lorenzino de'
Medici, the murderer of his cousin Alessandro, was at last tracked
down and put to death by paid cut-throats. How they succeeded in their
purpose, we know in every detail from the narrative dictated by the
chief assassin. His story so curiously illustrates the conditions of
life in Italy three centuries ago, that I have thought it worthy of
abridgment. But, in order to make it intelligible, and to paint the
manners of the times more fully, I must first relate the series of
events which led to Lorenzino's murder of his cousin Alessandro, and
from that to his own subsequent assassination. Lorenzino de' Medici,
the Florentine Brutus of the sixteenth century, is the hero of the
tragedy. Some of his relatives, however, must first appear upon the
scene before he enters with a patriot's knife concealed beneath a
court-fool's bauble.

II.--THE MURDER OF IPPOLITO DE' MEDICI

After the final extinction of the Florentine Republic, the hopes of
the Medici, who now aspired to the dukedom of Tuscany, rested on three
bastards--Alessandro, the reputed child of Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino;
Ippolito, the natural son of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours; and Giulio,
the offspring of an elder Giuliano, who was at this time Pope, with
the title of Clement VII. Clement had seen Rome sacked in 1527 by a
horde of freebooters fighting under the Imperial standard, and had
used the remnant of these troops, commanded by the Prince of Orange,
to crush his native city in the memorable siege of 1529-30. He now
determined to rule Florence from the Papal chair by the help of the
two bastard cousins I have named. Alessandro was created Duke of
Civita di Penna, and sent to take the first place in the city.
Ippolito was made a cardinal; since the Medici had learned that Rome
was the real basis of their power, and it was undoubtedly in Clement's
policy to advance this scion of his house to the Papacy. The sole
surviving representative of the great Lorenzo de' Medici's legitimate
blood was Catherine, daughter of the Duke of Urbino by Madeleine de la
Tour d'Auvergne. She was pledged in marriage to the Duke of Orleans,
who was afterwards Henry II. of France. A natural daughter of
t