ted with a more democratic spirit. He had none of Segni's Whig
leanings, but shared the patriotic enthusiasm which at that supreme
moment made the whole state splendidly audacious in the face of
insurmountable difficulties. Both Segni and Varchi discerned the
exaggerated and therefore baneful influence of Savonarola's prophecies
over the populace of Florence. In spite of continued failure, the people
kept trusting to the monk's prediction that, after her chastisement,
Florence would bloom forth with double luster, and that angels in the
last resort would man her walls and repel the invaders. There is
something pathetic in this delusion of a great city, trusting with
infantine pertinacity to the promises of the man whom they had seen
burned as an impostor, when all the while their statesmen and their
generals were striking bargains with the foe. Nardi is more sincerely
Piagnone than either Segni or Varchi. Yet, writing after the events of
the siege, his faith is shaken; and while he records his conviction that
Savonarola was an excellent Nomothetes, he questions his prophetic
mission, and deplores the effect produced by his vain promises. Nerli,
as might have been expected from a noble married to Caterina Salviati,
the niece of Leo and the aunt of Cosimo, who had himself been courtier
to Clement and privy councilor to Alessandro, sustains the Medicean note
throughout his commentaries.

[1] He goes so far as to assert that Leo X. and Clement VII. wished
to give a liberal constitution to Florence, but that their plans
were frustrated by the avarice and jealousy of the would-be
oligarchs. See _Arch. Stor_. vol. i. pp. 121,131. The passages
quoted from his 'Apologia de' Cappucci,' relative to Machiavelli,
Filippo Strozzi, and Francesco Guicciardini (_Arch. Stor_. vol. i.
pp. xxxix. xxxviii.), are very instructive; with such greedy
self-seeking oligarchs, it was impossible for the Medicean Popes to
establish any government but a tyranny in Florence.

Thus from these five authors, writing from different points of view, we
gain a complete insight into the complicated politics of Florence, at a
period when her vitality was still vigorous, but when she had lost all
faculty for centralized or concerted action. In sagacity, in the power
of analysis with which they pierce below the surface, trace effects to
causes, discern character, and regard the facts of history as the proper
subject-matter of