CHAPTER II.

ALLIANCES AND COUNTER ALLIANCES. PREPARATION FOR THE CONFLICT. IN the speech which he addressed to the people after the murder of his brother, Lorenzo alluded to the danger then threatening the Republic from foreign enemies. His anxiety was only too well founded. Girolamo Riario had taken measures to support the enterprise of the conspirators. Giovan Francesco da Tolentino advancing with a band of a thousand foot from the district of Imola, had already passed the Florentine boundary, and Lorenzo Giustini had set ou…