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Charles IX. ascended the throne when but ten years of age, under the regency of his infamous mother, Catherine de Medici, perhaps the most demoniac female earth has known. Under her tutelage, her boy, equally impotent in body and in mind, became as pitiable a creature as ever disgraced a throne.

Besides this, he conferred, at Rome, many favors upon the family of the Pazzi, and opposed that of the Medici, whenever an opportunity offered. The Pazzi were at this time, both on account of nobility of birth and their great wealth, the most brilliant in France. The head of this family was Jacopo, whom the people, on account of his distinguished pre-eminence, had made a knight.

The truth seems to be, that in warm climates only, will man attain that perfect healthy and beautiful physical development which has constituted the model of the artist and the theme of the poet, in every age. I have heard some pronounce the statue of Venus de Medici, the ideal perfection of female form and beauty.

Her hand pressed her heart suddenly. "Under the sword, if it be God's will," she answered. Then, with a faint smile: "But no, I will not believe the Queen of England will send thee, one of her own Protestant faith, to the Medici." "And thou wilt marry me?" "When the Queen of England approves thee," she answered, and buried her face in the hollow of his arm.

S. Zenobius Piero della Francesca Federigo da Montefeltro Melozzo da Forli The Tribuna Raphael Re-arrangement The gems The self-painted portraits A northern room Hugo van der Goes Tommaso Portinari The sympathetic Memling Rubens riotous Vittoria della Rovere Baroccio Honthorst Giovanni the indiscreet The Medusa Medici miniatures Hercules Seghers The Sala di Niobe Beautiful antiques.

Her military and political institutions were swept away together. The Medici returned, in the train of foreign invaders, from their long exile. The policy of Machiavelli was abandoned; and his public services were requited with poverty, imprisonment, and torture. The fallen statesman still clung to his project with unabated ardour.

It was in the month of April of that year oh! how indelibly is the detested date fixed on my memory the Duke Piero de Medici gave a grand entertainment to all the aristocracy of Florence. The banquet was of the most excellent description; and the gardens of the palace were brilliantly illuminated.

Historic skeletons the father of Catherine de' Medici, the son-in-law of Charles V.; Florentine nobles one a duke of Florence, the other of Urbino both bad enough fellows, no doubt, but could any Communists have acted worse? Besides, Communist mobs assert principles, and do these things in hot blood.

Cropole deposited a tolerably large bag as directed, after having taken from it the amount of his reckoning. "Now," said he, "I hope monsieur will not give me the pain of not taking any supper. Dinner has already been refused; this is affronting to the house of les Medici. Look, monsieur, the supper is on the table, and I venture to say that it is not a bad one."

During this conversation Ficino formed the design of devoting his remaining years to the translation of Plotinus, that new Plato, in whom the mystical element in the Platonic philosophy had been worked out to the utmost limit of vision and ecstasy; and it is in dedicating this translation to Lorenzo de' Medici that Ficino has recorded these incidents.