Your son Piero.[256]
Piero de’ Medici at Gagliano to his father Lorenzo
Magnifico Patri meo,—I cannot tell you, Magnificent Father, how glad I am to have the pony, and how his arrival incites me to work. If I desire to praise him, Ante diem clause componet vesper Olympo. He is so handsome and so perfect that the trumpet of Maronius would hardly suffice to sing his praises. You may think how I love him; particularly when his joyous neighs resound and rejoice all the neighbourhood. I owe you and I send you many thanks for such a fine gift, and I shall try and repay you by becoming what you wish. Of this be sure. I promise you that I shall try with all my heart. We are all well, and we all long for your arrival. God save you.—1479.[257]
Your son Piero at Gagliano.[258]
Antonio Pucci to Lorenzo de’ Medici at Cafaggiuolo
Magnifice Frater honorande,—That priest from Imola has been interrogated. He says Count Girolamo [Riario] sent him here to offer, on the pretext that he had been badly treated, to poison the Count; thinking that we, desiring the Count’s death, would entrust him with poison. We were then to be accused to the Pope, and in the Consistory, and the Count was to show the poison, saying, “See, Lorenzo de’ Medici has attempted to poison me.” He also offered to consign into our hands one of the gates of Imola in order to accuse us before the Pope and the Cardinals so that they might imagine that we were going to make war on the Pope. He has been tortured and shall be put to the question again in order to get everything out of him. God guard thee.—Florence, June 18, 1479.
Till to-day there have been eighteen deaths and fourteen new cases [of plague]. Benedetto Nori is one.[259]
Lucrezia de’ Medici (daughter of Lorenzo) to her grandmother Lucrezia
Magnificent and loved as a Mother,—I send you news that we are all well; and I hope you are so too, may God keep us so. I long to see you and pray you to come, for it seems to me a thousand years since I last saw you. Mona Lucrezia mine, I wish you would send me a sash of the palio of Sancto Giovanni, or better still that one from Volterra which was given to you when you stood godmother to me. Piero and Maddalena commend themselves to you and Giovanni begs you to send him some sugar-plums, he says that last time you sent very few. I pray you to answer, for reading your letters is a great comfort to me. No more. Christ guard you from all ill.—Written on July 7, 1479.
Your Lucrezia in Cafaggiuolo.[260]