Indeed, he then found it necessary to retire into exile in France, on the excuse of superintending his vast commercial affairs at Lyons.

After the restoration of the Medici he returned to Florence as the courtier of Duke Alessandro, whom he aided and abetted in his juvenile debaucheries.

Quarreling with Alessandro on the occasion of an insult offered to his daughter Luisa, and the accusation of murder brought against his son Piero, he went into opposition and exile, less for political than for private reasons.

After the murder of Alessandro, he received Lorenzo de' Medici, the fratricide, with the title of 'Second Brutus' at Venice.

Meanwhile it was he who paid the dowry of Catherine de' Medici to the Duke of Orleans, helping thus to strengthen the house of princes against whom he was plotting, by that splendid foreign alliance which placed a descendant of the Florentine bill-brokers on the throne of France.