explained: embassies and honours were heaped upon him, and he remained among the foremost of the Medicean party, although there were not wanting misunderstandings between him and Cosimo, which were revealed after the death of the latter.[77] Together with Agnolo Acciaiuoli rose into eminence his cousin Donato, whose great-uncle, the celebrated and active cardinal-vice-chancellor, also bore the name of Agnolo, and was the first Duke of Athens. At Cosimo’s return, Donato was only six years old, but under the guidance of a sensible mother, Palla Strozzi’s daughter, he developed rapidly, and we shall meet him repeatedly in later years engaged in important matters. Among those who held to the Medici there was no one who enjoyed the general confidence in a higher degree, while he, although State affairs claimed so much of his time, took a lively interest in scientific pursuits.[78] If Diotisalvi Neroni, who attained in Cosimo’s later years the reputation of great acuteness and skill, was involved in the misunderstandings to which we have alluded, other causes weighed in the opposite scale; for as the father of this man essentially contributed in 1434 to the prevention of Rinaldo degli Albizzi’s elevation to power, so did he, as long as Cosimo lived, act as his clever and willing tool. To the most estimable partisans of the Medici belonged Bernardo Giugni, who was constantly employed on diplomatic embassies, and Agnolo Pandolfini, with his sons Carlo and Giannozzo. Whoever enters the Church of the Benedictines (Badia), which spite of repeated alterations even now recalls the old times of the Republic, may see the beautiful monuments, which were erected to Giugni and Giannozzo Pandolfini, whom the commonwealth honoured with a funeral at the public expense. The Giugni belonged to the oldest Guelph plebeian families, and took part in the administration at its beginning. The Pandolfini stood with them in the ranks of the Guelphs on the bloody field of Montaperti, and streets of the city are yet named after both families, which still flourish; while a palace built long after the time of which we are now treating, which, if not one of the largest, is one of the most beautiful in Florence—a work of Raffael Sanzio’s—keeps alive the remembrance of the Pandolfini even in the history of art. Alamanno Salviati would have been recommended by the talents of his father Jacopo, one of the most eminent citizens of the oligarchical time, even if he had not made himself remarkable by his talents and activity. No one could anticipate in those days that, a generation later, his relations would be involved in the most sanguinary catastrophe of the Medicean history. The Guicciardini,[79] a family from the Pesa valley, which had risen by trade, had stood on the side of the Albizzi. Of Luigi’s two sons, who in 1378 filled the office of Gonfalonier when the popular tumult broke out, in which he displayed no great energy, only