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The happiness which the family of Ponziano had enjoyed since Lorenzo's marriage was interrupted by the sudden and dangerous illness of his wife, which baffled all medical skill, and soon brought her to the verge of the grave. The affliction of her husband and of his whole family was extreme. Their pearl of great price seemed about to be taken from them.
Jacob presently gave two knocks, and, receiving permission, ushered in the Italians. Marie Touchet was instantly affected by the grandeur of Lorenzo's presence, which struck all those who met him, great and small alike. The silvery whiteness of the old man's beard was heightened by a robe of black velvet; his brow was like a marble dome.
If the figures should arise and walk across the chapel, changing places with the couple opposite them, as if in a sepulchral quadrille, would the allegory become more intelligible? Could not Day or Night move from Julian's monument, and take up the same position at Lorenzo's tomb, or "Ninny's tomb," or any other tomb? Was Lorenzo any more to Aurora than Julian, that she should weep for him only?
With feverish impetuosity Ganganelli grasped Lorenzo's arm and drew him away. Then, suddenly stopping, he turned toward his favorite place. "Lorenzo," he said in a low tone, and with deep sadness, "it was yet very pleasant in the Franciscan cloister. Why did we not remain there? Only see, my friend, how beautifully the sun glitters there among the pines, and how delightfully this air fans us!
Some of the social unions which were afterwards formed in Florence were in part political clubs, though not without a certain poetical and philosophical character. Of this kind was the so-called Platonic Academy which met after Lorenzo's death in the gardens of the Rucellai. At the courts of the princes, society naturally depended on the character of the ruler.
Italy herself lacked moral purpose, sense of righteous necessity, that consecration of self to a noble cause, which could alone have justified Lorenzo's perfidy. Confused memories of Judith, Jael, Brutus, and other classical tyrannicides, exalted his imagination.
Lorenzo's right arm was broken by a bullet, and then, while he was running, he was shot in the back. This same band had killed a man and a boy at Black Rock and a herdsman at Bear Springs Flat. May 23, 1886, Frank Thurston of Pima, while starting a lime kiln, six miles from the town, was surprised by eight Apaches and killed.
All the family of Pazzi were condemned as traitors. Their coat of arms was erased by Lorenzo's adherents wherever it was discovered. Henceforth, Lorenzo exercised supreme control over his native city. He won Naples to a new alliance by a diplomatic visit that proved his skill in foreign negotiations.
In spite, however, of the genuine naïveté and natural realism of the piece, it is easy to recognize in it something of the same spirit of gentle raillery that sparkles in the graceful octaves of Lorenzo's Nencia.
Whereat the young men, marvelling mightily, resolved to see what the pot might contain; and having removed the earth they espied the cloth, and therein the head, which was not yet so decayed, but that by the curled locks they knew it for Lorenzo's head.
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