The Acciajuoli constantly figure in the history of Florence as Gonfaloniers, Vicars, Ambassadors, Envoys, Cardinals and Bishops; and one of the saddest and most romantic stories of the eighteenth century has an Acciajuoli as its hero. Roberto, eldest son of Donato Acciajuoli, handsome, clever, brave and fascinating, had long admired Elisabetta Mormorai, wife of Captain Giulio Berardi. On the death of her husband he declared his love and the beautiful widow accepted him. But he reckoned without his uncle Cardinal Acciajuoli, who had made up his mind that his handsome nephew should make an alliance in Rome which might help him in his designs on the papal chair. Prayers, admonitions and threats being of no avail, the Cardinal induced the Grand Duke Cosimo III, to imprison Elisabetta in a convent; upon which Roberto contracted a canonical marriage with her by letter and fled to Milan where he published it, demanding at the same time justice from the Grand Duke, the Archbishop, the Cardinal and his own father. In Lombardy the validity of the marriage was upheld, while in Florence it was declared to be a mere engagement. The lady was removed from her convent to a fortress, upon which Roberto, while the papal chair was vacant in 1691, wrote a circular to all the cardinals, imploring justice from them and from the future pope. All Italy was interested in the unhappy lovers and blamed the high-handed Cardinal and his slavish abettor Cosimo III. In vain Cardinal Acciajuoli tried to excuse himself by throwing all the blame on his relations, his conduct lost him the chance of being made pope, while the Grand Duke was accused of arbitrary and unjust conduct and of truckling to the private spite of a cardinal. Cosimo determined to revenge himself, but for the moment he set the fair prisoner free who immediately joined her husband in Venice, where everyone pitied them and blamed the Grand Duke, by whom formal application was made to the Republic to deliver up the lovers, accusing them of want of respect to their sovereign. They fled, but their steps were dogged, and at Trent they were arrested disguised as friars and taken back to Tuscany, where Roberto Acciajuoli was condemned to perpetual imprisonment in the fortress of Volterra and the loss of his patrimony, while Elisabetta was given the choice of repudiating her marriage or being immured in the same prison. In the hope of mitigating his sentence she chose the former and ended her days in tears and misery, while Roberto died in the most terrible prison of Tuscany, as anyone who has visited the _Mastio_ of Volterra will know. This is but one of the many instances of Cosimo’s tyranny. An insensate bigot, he was entirely under the dominion of priests and monks who ruined the country and destroyed its morality. Few princes have been more hated by their subjects and their own family, or with better reason.