Most of them stay three days and then go; and I have to receive them all, to see to their food, to provide what they want and have not brought with them, grass, oats, hay, in short, everything. For all this they have to pay me, so I hope to glean more than four hundred ducats for Madonna Maddalena if God gives me health. With cooks, innkeepers, bakers and so on, I have about twenty-five men in my pay; and if you could see your Franco in this tempest and purgatory and whirl, host of this great inn of the devil, by God you would pity him. They comfort me by saying that Christ must wish me well if I escape without a beating, a knife in my ribs, a quarrel, or an illness, for no one has ever returned whole from here, God be praised for His mercies. Yet I am of good cheer and have such faith in my fair dealing that I hope to do myself honour, if it pleases God. Till now I have pocketed about a hundred ducats, and all sorts and conditions of men have come. If I have not gained with the bad ones I have not lost; most went away contented. From those of the better sort, couriers, gentlemen, and the like, I think I have gained affection and esteem, for since they returned to Rome they have written to me and sent me presents. Some day I hope to find a great joy, I even hope in the ---- of Lucifer the Great, serving for the love of God, of Lorenzo and of what is his. _Vale._--May 6, 1488. Your Franco, fighting at the Baths of Stigliano.[350] The rejoicings for Piero’s marriage were suddenly turned to mourning. Lorenzo’s second daughter Luisa, betrothed to her cousin Giovanni, of the junior branch of the Medici, died at the age of sixteen, so bride and bridegroom went to Careggi without entering Florence. Early in June, however, a magnificent banquet was given in honour of Alfonsina, to which all the foreign ambassadors and the chief citizens of the city were invited. Soon afterwards arrived Francesco Cibò, and for the first time since the Pazzi conspiracy in 1478 the day of S. Giovanni (24th June) was again celebrated with great magnificence. The peasants flocked into Florence to see the Pope’s son, husband of the gentle Maddalena, and the crowd saluted him with loud cries of “_Cibò e Palle_.” Serdonati’s account of Lorenzo’s home life, apropos of these festivities, is interesting.