Piero de’ Medici was also one of the citizens deputed to meet the Emperor Frederick III. on his entry into Florence in January 1451. He dismounted at the church of S. Gallo, which had been magnificently decorated with hangings of cloth of gold and silk. In his train was the poor boy-King of Hungary, Bandilagho, as Cambi writes Ladislaus, and many German princes and bishops, whose outlandish names are quite beyond the old chronicler’s powers of spelling. “The Emperor seated himself,” continues Cambi, “on a most splendid chair under the loggia of the church, and all the gentlemen stood round him while the Ten of the Balìa bent the knee before him on either side, representing the Magnificent Signori. Messer Carlo d’Arezzo made a speech, to which Monsignore Enea, Bishop of Siena [the celebrated Æneas Sylvius, afterwards Pope Pius II.], replied in the name of the Emperor. Then the Emperor mounted again, and the Ten of the Balìa took the bridle of his horse, and in that manner they proceeded to the fore-port of the Porta S. Gallo where the Magnificent Signori of Florence awaited him seated. The Colleges had a fine banner with the Emperor’s arms, and when he came under it the Signori rose and went to his bridle, which the Ten abandoned. Mariotto Benvenuti, the Gonfalonier of Justice, took the right side and Rosso Ridolfi took the left, the other Signori with all the citizens following them, and thus they accompanied the Emperor to S. Maria Novella where the Pope’s apartments had been prepared for him. The magistrates were on foot, and the others who had gone out to meet him were on horseback. It was, indeed, a splendid sight. Please God he may recognise it, and be grateful for such honours which have been so costly.”[63] After the sack of Constantinople in 1453 Florence became the headquarters of Greek men of learning. For fifteen years John Argyropoulos “poured forth wisdom from his golden mouth,” and Demetrius Chalcondyles, Johannes Andronicus Calistus, Constantius and Johannes Lascari succeeded him. They gave a fresh impetus to the study of Platonic philosophy as opposed to that of Aristotle; even the children of the chief citizens spoke Greek with such case and purity that Poliziano exclaims, “Athens has not been destroyed by the barbarians but has migrated to Florence.” It was then that Cosimo determined to found the celebrated Platonic Academy, and selected Marsilio Ficino, the son of his physician, to preside over it, although he was little more than a boy.