Born in 1448, Lorenzo always believed that he owed almost everything that was valuable in his life to his mother Lucrezia, of the noble Florentine house of Tornabuoni, which had abandoned its nobility in order to qualify for public office. A poetess herself, and the patron of poets, she remained the best counsellor her son ever had. In his early youth she had watched over his religious education, and in his grandfather's house he had met not only statesmen and bankers, but artists and men of letters. His first tutor had been Gentile Becchi of Urbino, afterwards Bishop of Arezzo; from him he learned Latin, but Argyropolus and Ficino and Landino taught him Greek, and read Plato and Aristotle with him. Nor was this all, for we read of his eagerness for every sort of exercise. He could play calcio and pallone, and his own poems witness his love of hunting and of country life, and he ran a horse often enough in the palii of Siena. He was more than common tall, with broad shoulders, and very active. In colour dark, though he was not handsome, his face had a sort of dignity that compelled respect, but he was shortsighted too, and his nose was rather broad and flat. If he lacked the comeliness of outward form, he loved all beauteous things, and was in many ways the most extraordinary man of his age; his verse, for instance, has just that touch of genius which seems to be wanting in the work of contemporary poets. His love for Lucrezia Donati, in whose honour the tournament of 1467 was popularly supposed to be held, though in reality it was given to celebrate his betrothal with Clarice Orsini, seems to have been merely an affectation in the manner of Petrarch, so fashionable at that time. Certainly the Florentines, for that day at least, wished to substitute a lady of their city for the Roman beauty, and Lorenzo seems to have agreed with them. Like the tournament that Giuliano held later in honour of Simonetta Vespucci, which Poliziano has immortalised, and for which Botticelli painted a banner, this pageant of Lorenzo's, for it was rather a pageant than a fight, was sung, too, by Luca Pulci, and was held in Piazza S. Croce. A rumour of the splendour of the dresses, the beauty and enthusiasm of the scene, has come down to us, together with Lorenzo's own account of the day, and Clarice's charming letter to him concerning it. "To follow the custom," he writes unenthusiastically in his Memoir--"to follow the custom and do as others do, I gave a tournament in Piazza S. Croce at a great cost, and with a considerable magnificence; it seems about 10,000 ducats were spent. Although I was not a great fighter, nor even a very strong hitter, I won the prize, a helmet of inlaid silver, with a figure of Mars as a crest." "I have received your letter, in which you tell me of the tournament where you won the prize," writes Clarice, "and it has given me much pleasure. I am glad you are fortunate in what pleases you and that my