st vices of his age and nation,
consorting with young men whom he instructed in the arts of dissolute
living, and to whom he communicated his own selfish Epicureanism. To him
in a great measure may be attributed the corruption of the Florentine
aristocracy in the sixteenth century. In his public action he was no
less vacillating than unprincipled in private life. After prevailing
upon Ippolito and Alessandro de' Medici to leave Florence in 1527, he
failed to execute his trust of getting Pisa from their grasp (moved, it
is said, by a guilty fondness for the young and handsome Ippolito), nor
did he afterwards share any of the hardships and responsibilities of
the siege. Indeed, he then found it necessary to retire into exile in
France, on the excuse of superintending his vast commercial affairs at
Lyons. After the restoration of the Medici he returned to Florence as
the courtier of Duke Alessandro, whom he aided and abetted in his
juvenile debaucheries. Quarreling with Alessandro on the occasion of an
insult offered to his daughter Luisa, and the accusation of murder
brought against his son Piero, he went into opposition and exile, less
for political than for private reasons. After the murder of Alessandro,
he received Lorenzo de' Medici, the fratricide, with the title of
'Second Brutus' at Venice. Meanwhile it was he who paid the dowry of
Catherine de' Medici to the Duke of Orleans, helping thus to strengthen
the house of princes against whom he was plotting, by that splendid
foreign alliance which placed a descendant of the Florentine
bill-brokers on the throne of France. After all these vicissitudes
Filippo Strozzi headed an armed attack upon the dominions of Duke
Cosimo, was taken in the battle of Montemurlo, and finally was murdered
in that very fortress, outside the Porto a Faenza, which he had
counseled Alessandro to construct for the intimidation of the
Florentines.[1] The historians with the exception of Nerli agree in
describing him as a pleasure-loving and self-seeking man, whose many
changes of policy were due, not to conviction, but to the desire of
gaining the utmost license of disorderly living. At the same time we
cannot deny him the fame of brilliant mental qualities, a princely
bearing, and great courage.

[1] See Varchi, vol. iii. p. 61, for the first stone laid of this
castle. It should be said that accounts disagree about Filippo's
death. Nerli very distinctly asserts that he committed sui