[295] The danger which Lorenzo de’ Medici exposed himself to has been made much greater in later times than it really was. Jacopo Pitti (l. c. p. 25) says clearly that safety had been promised him both by the king and the pope (?); but it was believed that he gave himself into Ferrante’s power unconditionally (liberamente), in order to increase the fame of the latter and the splendour of his own patriotism. The danger lay less in what might happen at Naples than what might occur at Florence from a longer absence. Guicciardini hints at this (p. 59). Confidence shown in a man like the king was never without danger however.
[296] Lettere de’ Principi (Venet. edit. 1581), i. 3. Translated by Roscoe, i. 221.
[297] Lettere di Lorenzo de’ Medici from the Modena Archives, edited by A. Cappelli. Atti e Memorie della R. Diputazione di Storia patria per le prov. Modenesi e Parmensi, i. 230.
[298] Malavotti, Historia di Sienna, part iii. p. 176.
[299] B. Scala’s Letter (see Fabroni, p. 205) has the date of December 5, which must be a mistake, as the Signoria was first informed on the 7th.
[300] Lorenzo de’ Medici to the Ferrarese ambassador Antonio Montecatino, Pisa, December 10; see Cappelli, l. c. p. 240.
[301] Cronaca di Notar Giacomo, p. 145.
[302] Fabroni, i. 103 seq., has an address to the king spoken by Lorenzo, evidently a later oratorical production.
[303] Guicciardini, l. c. chap. vi. p. 58.
[304] Fabroni, l. c. ii. 201, 202. Agnolo della Stufa to Lorenzo de’ Medici, January 4, 1480; Idem. pp. 207-210.