man much employed about the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth centuries. His activity partakes somewhat of the character of an adventurer, and he seems to have been equally versed in political and mercantile affairs. No one was so successful as he in obtaining foreign assistance against Gian Galeazzo Visconti, and it was chiefly he who, on the part of Florence, persuaded Rupert of the Palatinate to undertake the unsuccessful march into Lombardy, particulars of which are given in his instructive memoirs.[74] Buonaccorso’s son was the principal tool of Cosimo. ‘Luca Pitti,’ says Francesco Guicciardini, ‘was not a man of remarkable capabilities, but vivacious, liberal, courageous; one who ventured more for his friends than any one in Florence; a man who might safely be allowed to carry out everything, while he had not head enough to become formidable.’ Cosimo had friends of another kind than these two. At their head stood Neri Capponi. His father Gino, descended from a family which appears in the second half of the thirteenth century among the most distinguished, had won a good name for himself by the capture of Pisa in 1406, and by the judicious and reasonable administration of the severely tried city, while his history of the popular rebellion of 1378 is one of the most important aids to a right understanding of this important occurrence.[75] Neri belonged to those who before 1433 formed a kind of moderate party, but after the death of Niccolò da Uzzano he inclined more and more to Cosimo, and if unable to prevent his exile, he aided essentially in his recall. He was for the Medicean party what Niccolò had been for the Albizzi, the mediating element, but he never attained to the position which the latter held, because Cosimo was of a different nature from Maso, and still more unlike Rinaldo, and because in many cases Neri rather complemented him than represented a different principle. Neri Capponi certainly aided essentially in restraining the Medicean party government within certain limits; yet the measures which most confirmed their government were effected under his eyes. Cosimo, who required him because he enjoyed general confidence, and was skilled alike in peace and war, always found means to counteract his influence when it was inconvenient to himself. ‘Neri,’ says Francesco Guicciardini,[76] ‘well knew the means employed against him. As he saw, however, that Cosimo’s position was impregnable, and that to break with him would be to run his own head against the wall, he pretended, intelligent as he was, not to observe anything that passed, and waited patiently for time and opportunity.’ But it is evident that this waiting, which we cannot but attribute to weakness of character or selfish indirect motives, established Cosimo’s position more and more firmly; Neri’s influence did not, however, increase, notwithstanding the great services accomplished by him, which will be more fully dwelt upon as we proceed.