42 of his report).

The flux of Florence struck a Venetian profoundly.
[2] The Gonfalonier Capponi put up a tablet on the Public Palace, in 1528, to this effect: 'Jesus Christus Rex Florentini Populi S.F.
decreto electus.' This inscription is differently given.

See Varchi, vol.i.p.

266; Segni, p.46.Nothing is more significant of the difference between Venice and Florence than the political idealism implied in this religious consecration of the republic by statute.
In my essay on 'Florence and the Medici' (_Sketches and Studies in Italy_) I have attempted to condense the internal history of the Republic and to analyze the state-craft of the Medici.
Throughout all these vicissitudes every form and phase of republican government was advocated, discussed, and put in practice by the Florentines.

All the arts of factions, all the machinations of exiles, all the skill of demagogues, all the selfishness of party-leaders, all the learning of scholars, all the cupidity of subordinate officials, all the daring of conspirators, all the ingenuity of theorists, and all the malice of traitors, were brought successively or simultaneously into play by the burghers, who looked upon their State as something they might mold at will.