During the ten days’ visit of the Pope there died on May 2, Archbishop Antoninus, who was already called a saint, before Pope Adrian VI. canonised him. Sound common sense, great goodness of heart, piety, and well-directed benevolence, which founded several institutions still standing, reformatory zeal and firmness in defending the rights of the Church, had made him, who was also learned in science, appear the model of an excellent pastor to the people during the fourteen years which he dedicated to the office of archbishop, in a time full of suffering and sudden revolutions of fortune. Such a model he has remained to the present day, when his writings have been collected, and a beautiful marble statue has been erected to his memory among those of distinguished Florentines. The pageantry of the days immediately preceding and following his decease suited but ill with the loss of a man so honourable and excellent, which was heavily felt by all the people. Splendid games and festivals were arranged for the princes of Milan and the other lords. To a tourney succeeded a festival on the New Market Place, where the most beautiful women were assembled; then a hunting-party on the Piazza before Sta. Croce, where, besides the usual forest animals, a lion and a giraffe were exhibited. A triumphal procession took place in the evening. A silver table-service, weighing 125 pounds, was presented to the youthful Sforza. It was a custom to entertain princely personages at the cost of the Commune. On November 10, 1461, Charlotte of Lusignan, consort of Prince Louis of Savoy, arrived at Florence[95] on her way to Rome, whither she was going to entreat the aid of Pius II. against her illegitimate step-brother Jacob. The latter had possessed himself of the supremacy over Cyprus, belonging to her of right, and held her husband besieged in Nicosia. The Signoria, with the Gonfaloniere, Alessandro Machiavelli, at their head, went to meet her, and conducted her under a canopy to the house of Cambiozzo de’ Medici, in the Borgo San Lorenzo, which was prepared for her reception. During her seven days’ visit she went up to the basilica of San Miniato, which towers above the city, to visit the grave of the cardinal of Portugal, brother of Juan of Coimbra, her first husband, who had died here in 1459, on an embassy from Pius II. Pope Pius has described in his memoirs the last of the Lusignans, who in the summer of 1487, after more than a quarter of a century spent in exile, found in St. Peter’s church in the Vatican that rest which had been denied to her in this life. CHAPTER VIII. COSIMO DE’ MEDICI’S LAST DAYS.