The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1913-10-10

' Jacopo, or, rather, she was given t
me-" He had his eyes on a certai
black-eyed Lucrezia Donati, but La
= renzo's father had other arrange
\ ments for he knew it would be a fin
\ political stroke to marry his son t
! an Orsini. The possessions of tn
Orsini spread from the sea of tn
Apprentices on the north of Rome ant
then turned southwark until the.
touched the estates of their heredi
tary enemies, the Colonna, in th'
mountains of the capital. The house
was famous for its numerous cardi
nails and gay blades. The younger
sons made their way either by the
sword or the mass book. In Naples
also they held high office.
$50 this soldier family might com
pensate the Medici for their weak
ness in the field, would form an ad-
ditional link in the house of Naples
and give them influence at the papal
court. The Orsini, moreover, owned
chain of fortresses across the
highroad from Florence to the south,
sufficiently near to aid in suppress
ing domestic disaffection or foreign
enterprise.
In 1873 the conspiracy of the Pazzi
family came near putting an end to
the Medici. LorenZo's brother, Giu-
liano, was assassinated, and Lorenzo
himself had to hide in one of the
Orsini castles until the excitement
had died down. Then at the right
moment he returned to Florence and
got a firmer hold on the state than
he had ever had. So after this Lo-
renzo was rather glad he married
Clarice instead of Lucrezia. For
Clarice's father had limited that it
might be a good idea to let Lorenzo
come back to Florence.
A Political Boss.
Lorenzo now started in to rule his
native city as it had never been ruled
before. He followed in the footsteps
of his grandfather and won the ia
vOr of the lower classes, thereby
making absolute his own power.
And to win the favor of the high
bTOws, struggling authors and the
c1ub women he encouraged literature
and the arts, employed learned men
to collect choice books and antiqui-
ties for him from every part of the
world, established printing presses
in his dominions, founded acade-
mics for the study of classical learn
ing and filled his gardens with a
collection of the remains of an an
cient art. He himself wrote a num-
Der of poems and dramatic compost
tons, and could talk Greek and Latin
as we'll as he did Italian.
Led Florence a Pace.
When his munificence and cOncil-
iatory manners had gained for him
the affection of the higher and the
devotion of the lower classes Lorenzo
lost no time in making use of his
popularity. While they were all
praising him and telling each other
what a noble fellow he was he slipp
ed in and took away from them all
forms of constitutional independence
that he and his predecessors had al
lowed to exist.
Some few Florentines, alarmed by
the progress of the voluptuous re-
finement which was smOthering ev-
cry spark of personal independence,
tried to call halt on Lorenzo and
stem the current of corruption BY
an ascetic severity of morals which
gained for them the name of 'fpaig-
noni," or weepers. Foremost among
them was the Dominican friar, Girol-
amo Savonarola, whose eloquent ap-
peals to the people in favor of pop
ular government and a life of ascot
icism threatened for time to over
throw the Medici. But after Loren
EOS death a reaction against the
monks preaching set in and he was
burned at the stake.
Unlike most of his predecessors,
/ Lorenzo died in his house and in his
4 bed. and he died of govt, very
commonplace end for such an unusu-
al person as Lorenzo.
i With his death the fortunes of the
4 family began to decline. His son
was a weak, incompetent boy, unable
\ to follow in the footsteps of his ia
nous father And the family whose
fourth generation gave st. Peters
chair two of it's most famous occu-
pants and whose blood has found its
way into every great dynasty of Eu-
rope in a comparatively short time
lost its glory and prestige.