Many were the Gonfaloniers, Priors and ambassadors, the Acciaiuoli gave to Florence. Donato, whose mother was a daughter of Palla Strozzi, inherited his grandfather’s love of letters, and when ambassador to France presented King Louis XI. with the lives of Charlemagne, Scipio and Hannibal, written by himself. He also wrote commentaries on Aristotle’s Ethics, Politics and Physics. He died at Milan whilst on an embassy to the Duke and his body was brought to Florence where Cristofano Landini read the funeral oration in the Duomo. The Republic dowered his two daughters and named Lorenzo de’ Medici and three other citizens guardians of the young sons. One of them, “the prudent and well-endowed” Ruberto, was sent on an embassy to Louis XII., who bestowed on him and his descendants the privilege of adding a Lily of France, surmounted by a royal crown, to his arms. A descendant and a namesake of his is the hero of one of the saddest and most romantic stories of the seventeenth century. Handsome and brave like all his race, the son of Donato Acciaiuoli had long admired Elisabetta Mormorai, wife of Giulio Berardi, and on her husband’s death they agreed to marry. But his uncle the Cardinal had decided that his good-looking nephew was to make an alliance which might be of use to him in his designs upon the Papal chair. So he induced the Grand Duke Cosimo III. to forbid the marriage and to order Elisabetta to enter a convent. Ruberto immediately contracted a canonical marriage with her by letter, and fled to Milan where he published it. At the same time he demanded justice from the Grand Duke, the Archbishop, the Cardinal and his own father. The validity of the marriage was upheld in Lombardy, in Florence it was declared to be a mere engagement and not binding, and the lady was removed from her convent and shut up in a fortress. On the death of the Pope in 1691 Ruberto wrote to the assembled cardinals imploring them, and the future Pope, to do him justice. All Italy was interested in the fate of the lovers and the Cardinal Acciaiuoli tried to throw all the blame on his relations. The Grand Duke set Elisabetta free and she joined her husband at Venice, where Cosimo was openly accused of arbitrary and unjust conduct, and of truckling to the private spite of the Cardinal. He thereupon made formal application to the Republic to deliver up Acciaiuoli and his wife on the plea of _lèse majesté_. They fled, but were followed by his emissaries and taken into custody at Trent disguised as friars. Ruberto Acciaiuoli was condemned to imprisonment for life in the fortress of Volterra and to the loss of his patrimony, whilst to Elisabetta was offered the choice of repudiating her marriage or of being confined in the women’s part of the same prison. In the hopes of mitigating the severity of her husband’s sentence she chose the former, and died of grief a few months later. [Illustration: TOWER OF THE ALBERTI.]