Lorenzo de’ Medici, whose wonderful personality still has the power to excite bitter hatred and an almost passionate admiration, was a marvellously many-sided man. Marsilio Ficino said he possessed the three endowments called “graces” by Orpheus, splendour, light-heartedness, and rejuvenescence--splendour of intellect, light-heartedness in resolution, and a continual renewal of youth in person and in fortune. He was not twenty-one when his father died, worn out by bodily suffering, but Lorenzo had been his right hand for years, had been sent to represent him at foreign courts, and had seen more of the world than most men of double his age. He and his younger brother Giuliano received the education of princes rather than of the sons of a merchant. Gentile Becchi of Urbino, a man of unblemished life and considerable learning, was their tutor, Landino taught them Italian literature, Argyropoulos Greek, and Marsilio Ficino Platonic philosophy. They had also evidently been taught good manners, as Cambi, who never misses an opportunity to decry the Medici, tells us that when Lorenzo was with a citizen older than himself he always gave him the place of honour on his right. Above all, the two lads had the example and the teaching of their mother Lucrezia, a woman of strong good sense and genuine piety, who possessed a sunny nature, that rare gift humour, and a marked poetical temperament. From early childhood she sent Lorenzo to the meetings of the confraternity of S. Paolo, where men met for vigil and prayer, and after the services Messer Gentile by her orders made him distribute alms to the poor. When the boy was thirteen Gentile wrote to his father: “Lorenzo is well, your absence is ever before him. We are well advanced in Ovid and also in Justinian, four books of history and fables. You need not ask how he delights in these studies. His conduct is excellent, and he is very obedient.” After Piero’s death Lucrezia, who had always been her husband’s trusted helpmate, became the counsellor to whom Lorenzo turned for help, consolation, and advice. He also had the good fortune to have a wise and capable man by his side, Tommaso Soderini, husband of his mother’s sister, Dianora Tornabuoni. Soderini’s influence was considerable, and he used it to induce his fellow-citizens to confirm Lorenzo in the pre-eminent though entirely unofficial position held by his grandfather and his father. There was hardly a dissentient voice when the chief citizens of Florence came to the Medici palace and begged him to take charge of the city as they had done.