He lives chiefly by his Latin poems; but he did much to make the language of Tuscany a literary tongue.

His elegy on the death of Lorenzo has real feeling in it and proves him to have esteemed that friend and patron.

Like Pico, he survived Lorenzo only two years, and he also was buried in Dominican robes.

Perhaps the finest feat of Poliziano's life was his action in slamming the sacristy doors in the face of Lorenzo's pursuers on that fatal day in the Duomo when Giuliano de' Medici was stabbed.
Ghirlandaio's fresco in S.Trinita of the granting of the charter to S.Francis gives portraits both of Poliziano and Lorenzo in the year 1485.

Lorenzo stands in a little group of four in the right-hand corner, holding out his hand towards Poliziano, who, with Lorenzo's son Giuliano on his right and followed by two other boys, is advancing up the steps.