CHAPTER V.

HOME AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS IN THE EARLY YEARS OF LORENZO’S GOVERNMENT. ‘ON the second day after my father’s death,’ so we read in Lorenzo de’ Medici’s memoirs, ‘the most distinguished men of the State and of the ruling party came to our house to express their condolence, and at the same time to request me to undertake the conduct of affairs in the city and government, as my father and grandfather had done. As such a responsibility seemed too great for my inexperience (I was only twenty-one), and involved so much labo…