bitious man, full of courage and astuteness,
familiar with the sword and with poison, which he used alternately,
according to the occasion, without feeling any repugnance or any
predilection for either of them; but quite decided to be his nephew's
heir whether he died or lived.

Florence, although she had preserved the name of a republic, had little
by little lost all her liberties, and belonged in fact, if not by right,
to Piero dei Medici, to whom she had been bequeathed as a paternal
legacy by Lorenzo, as we have seen, at the risk of his soul's salvation.

The son, unfortunately, was far from having the genius of his father:
he was handsome, it is true, whereas Lorenzo, on the contrary, was
remarkably ugly; he had an agreeable, musical voice, whereas Lorenzo had
always spoken through his nose; he was instructed in Latin and Greek,
his conversation was pleasant and easy, and he improvised verses almost
as well as the so-called Magnificent; but he was both ignorant of
political affairs and haughtily insolent in his behaviour to those who
had made them their study. Added to this, he was an ardent lover of
pleasure, passionately addicted to women, incessantly occupied with
bodily exercises that should make him shine in their eyes, above all
with tennis, a game at which he very highly excelled: he promised
himself that, when the period of mourning was fast, he would occupy
the attention not only of Florence but of the whole of Italy, by the
splendour of his courts and the renown of his fetes. Piero dei Medici
had at any rate formed this plan; but Heaven decreed otherwise.

As to the most serene republic of Venice, whose doge was Agostino
Barbarigo, she had attained, at the time we have reached, to her highest
degree of power and splendour. From Cadiz to the Palus Maeotis, there
was no port that was not open to her thousand ships; she possessed
in Italy, beyond the coastline of the canals and the ancient duchy of
Venice, the provinces of Bergamo, Brescia, Crema, Verona, Vicenza, and
Padua; she owned the marches of Treviso, which comprehend the districts
of Feltre, Belluno, Cadore, Polesella of Rovigo, and the principality
of Ravenna; she also owned the Friuli, except Aquileia; Istria, except
Trieste; she owned, on the east side of the Gulf, Zara, Spalatra, and
the shore of Albania; in the Ionian Sea, the islands of Zante and Corfu;
in Greece, Lepanto and Patras; in the Morea, Morone, Corone, Neapolis,
and Argos; lastly,