Piacenza seized, while Julius claimed all the territory south of the Po. | The Medici restored to Florence. Sept. 1, 1512. In August 1512, representatives of the League met in congress at Mantua. Florence first demanded their attention. Since the death of Savonarola, the position of that republic had been most weak. The constitution established in 1494 had not worked well. It was too oligarchical to be popular, while the partisans of the exiled Medici did all they could to discredit it. In 1502, to strengthen the executive, the office of Gonfalonier had been made a life appointment, and Piero Soderini had been elected; in 1506, at the suggestion of Machiavelli, a militia had been formed. But these measures did not mend matters much. The long struggle to regain Pisa, which was only ended in 1509, exhausted the revenues of the state, and the intrigues of the Medici grew more active. Clinging to the French alliance, the city had refused the offers of the League; yet, in the pursuit of a policy of feeble neutrality, had given no help to Louis XII., when help might have saved him. Her turn was now to come. The confederates demanded that Soderini should retire from office, and that the Medici should be allowed to return as private citizens. The Florentines agreed to admit the Medici, but, over-confident in their new-formed militia, declined to depose Soderini. Accordingly, on August 12, 1512, Raymond de Cardona attacked the town of Prato, which lay a few miles to the north of Florence. The militia, although far more numerous than their enemies, did not justify the confidence which had been placed in them, and fled as soon as a breach was made; possibly there was treachery within the walls. In any case, the Spaniards entered the town without further opposition, and put it to the sack with such brutality that the memories of it are said to have disturbed the last moments of Giovanni, the future Pope, Leo X. This cruelty at least did its work. Soderini, an amiable though weak man, whose ‘silly soul’ the indignant epitaph of Machiavelli sentences to the limbo of infants, at once resigned rather than expose Florence to further woes; and, on September 1, the Cardinal Giovanni entered Florence. The Medici[23] returned nominally as private citizens, but the constitution of 1494 was swept away, and the government, restored as it had been under Lorenzo, was completely under their control. Although the revolution was effected with moderation, the partisans of the old government naturally lost office. Machiavelli, who had been secretary to the Council of Ten (Dieci di Libertà e Pace), and who had taken an active part in the diplomacy of the republic, was driven from public life, and devoted himself to writing _The Prince_, and _The Discourses_,[24] the former of which treatises has given him such an unenviable notoriety. The city under its new rulers abandoned the French alliance and joined the League. | Milan granted to Maximilian Sforza. Dec. 29, 1512.