[174] _Laurentii Medicis Vita_, op. cit. ii. 63. [175] Francesco Filelfo, born at Tolentino in 1398, was a famous classical scholar. He studied at Padua, was sent as Secretary of Legation to Constantinople by the Signoria of Venice, and afterwards taught Greek in Venice, Bologna, Florence, &c. When Cosimo de’ Medici was imprisoned he urged the Signoria to put him to death and poured out abominable accusations against him and his friends in the _Book of Exile_. Poggio replied, accusing Filelfo of the most heinous crimes, and the war of words went on for years. When Cosimo returned to Florence Filelfo fled to Milan and allied himself with Albizzi and the other exiles, but soon made abject advances to Cosimo, which were treated with silent disdain. After Cosimo’s death he sent humble letters to Lorenzo and his brother and wrote _Cosmias_, a poem in praise of the man he had abused. Lorenzo at length allowed him to return to Florence where he died in 1481. He was mean, arrogant, and intensely vain. [176] _Laurentii Medicis Vita_, op. cit. ii. 75. [177] Filippo de’ Medici. [178] _Laurentii Medicis Vita_, op. cit. ii. 58. [179] _Laurentii Medicis Vita_, op. cit. ii. 59. [180] The prison at Florence. [181] _Arch. Med. ante Prin._, Filza xxix. No. 675. [182] Lorenzo’s sister married to Gugliemo de’ Pazzi. [183] A piece torn out of the letter. [184] Lorenzo’s sister married to Bernardo Rucellai. [185] Probably a slave. [186] _Arch. Med. ante Prin._, Filza xxix. No. 822. [187] Born in Florence of poor parents named della Badessa, Matteo, as was often done in the fifteenth century, adopted his father’s Christian name and became Matteo Franco. As a lad he entered the church, and some of his first efforts in poetry are sonnets addressed to the Archbishop of Florence begging in the name of S. Peter for a cloak. He made friends with Angelo Poliziano who probably introduced him to the Medici. Witty, clever, kind-hearted, Matteo soon became indispensable to Lorenzo, who speaks of him as “among the first and best-loved creatures of my house.” He repaid Lorenzo’s affection tenfold by his devotion to his daughter Maddalena, whom he accompanied to Rome when she married Francesco Cibo. Even Lorenzo’s wife Clarice, always ill at ease among her husband’s brilliant friends and at first suspicious of Matteo’s tongue, soon discovered his many excellent qualities, and he became her treasurer, her almoner, and at length her attorney. He taught all Lorenzo’s children to read, and in one of his sonnets feelingly describes the trouble they gave him. Until lately it was supposed that Luigi Pulci and Matteo Franco were really friends, and only wrote the ferocious and biting sonnets which amused all Florence to each other to amuse Lorenzo, but Signor Volpi proves, I think, that their animosity was real and that Matteo often had the best in the war of words. [188] Vermicelli.