Both the good and the evil which flourished on this fertile soil so luxuriantly were combined in the versatile genius of the merchant prince, whose policy it was to stifle freedom by caressing the follies, vices, and intellectual tastes of his people.
The young Savonarola was as yet no match for Lorenzo.

And whither could he look for help?
The reform of morals he so ardently desired was not to be expected from the Church.

Florence well knew that Sixtus had plotted to murder the Medici before the altar at the moment of the elevation of the Host.

Excommunicated for a deed of justice after the failure of this Popish plot, the city had long been at war with the pontiff.

If anywhere it was in the cells of the philosophers, in that retreat where Ficino burned his lamp to Plato, in that hall where the Academy crowned their master's bust with laurels, that the more sober-minded citizens found ghostly comfort and advice.