The rich and powerful family of Salviati descended from a doctor, Messer Salvi di Maestro Guglielmo di Forese di Gottifredo, of great reputation in Florence towards the end of the thirteenth century. His two sons, Cambio and Lotto, both became Priors of the city, and altogether the Salviati had sixty-three Priors and twenty-one Gonfaloniers in their family. A grandson of Lotto, named Forese, was extremely popular, and distinguished himself first as a diplomatist and afterwards as Captain-General of the Tuscan Romagna in 1397; and his descendants served the Republic with honour as soldiers or as envoys and ambassadors. The only one of the family whose name is still a by-word in Florence was Giuliano, son of Francesco Salviati and Laudomia de’ Medici. One of the first to incite the mob to plunder the Medici palaces and deface their arms when driven from Florence in 1527, he afterwards became the boon companion of the dissolute Duke Alessandro, and he it was who insulted Luisa Strozzi at a masked ball and paid for it by being maimed for life by her brother; whilst his wife was always supposed to have been instrumental in poisoning the beautiful and virtuous woman who had resented the infamous behaviour of the Duke and of Salviati. Fortunately that branch of the family ended with his daughter. A very different man was his cousin Jacopo Salviati, married to Lucrezia, daughter to Lorenzo the Magnificent and sister to Leo X, with whom Jacopo was a favourite. He was the one man amongst the envoys from Florence who dared to raise his voice at the court of Clement VII, against creating the bastard Alessandro de’ Medici absolute Lord of Florence, and against building the great fortress of San Giovanni, now called Fortezza da Basso, to dominate the town. Setting forth how at the death of Leo X, the citizens of Florence had preserved the State for the Medici, he contended that the best and surest fortress was the love of the people, who are content when food is abundant and justice properly administered. And when Filippo Strozzi argued against him Jacopo turned round saying, “Filippo, either you speak not your thoughts, or if you think as you speak you think amiss”; then as though gifted with the spirit of prophecy he continued, “God grant that in advocating the building of this fortress Filippo is not preparing his own grave.” “For these words,” as Varchi who describes the scene writes, “the Pope called him no more to council, and those citizens who once bore him on the palms of their hands avoided him ... and his dependants who had received favours from him turned away when they saw him in the distance.”