Lorenzo was then nineteen years old. As his father was hindered by ill-health from appearing in public, or taking an active share in civic festivities, the gifted young man, who had shown in the Pitti conspiracy how ripe was his understanding, and how he could combine forethought with prompt action, naturally was brought prominently before the public. In festivities he took the foremost place, as became the position of his family and his own inclinations. On February 7, 1469, a festival took place at Florence, which forms a brilliant page, not only in the history of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s life, but also in the history of Italian poetry of the time closely connected with it. Niccolò Machiavelli, in describing this tournament, accuses Lorenzo of having sought to amuse the people in order to avert their attention from his politics. Savonarola had expressed the same opinion long before. But it is unfair to ascribe the splendid tourneys of Lorenzo, the spirited amusements then common to high-born and vivacious youths, to indirect political motives. When in 1467 Braccio Martelli, the son of a distinguished family allied by friendship with the Medici, celebrated his marriage, there was a tournament, in which Lorenzo de’ Medici took part. Among the young ladies present was Lucrezia Donati. The name of the ancient and ambitious race from which she sprang was mentioned in the first ranks of those who in the days of Guelphs and Ghibellines, and afterwards in those of the White and Black factions, filled the city with sanguinary quarrels. Dante Alighieri, who allied himself in marriage to that family without making peace with them, has bestowed on Piccarda, a daughter of the Donati—of whom he makes her brother Forese say, he knows not whether her beauty or her goodness is her greatest ornament—a crown whose glory far outshines historical fame.[158] In the introduction to one of his youthful poems, which will be mentioned afterwards, Lorenzo has described the object of his early love, whose name, never mentioned by him, has been made known by his friends and admirers. The story of the rise of his love is a mixture of truth and fiction, as he connects it with the death of a young girl who was beloved by Lorenzo’s brother, a circumstance which belonged, however, to a later time. We know nothing of Lucrezia Donati but what is said of her by the young poet—who at this tournament begged for a wreath of violets which she held in her hand, and promised to give a similar entertainment in her honour—and what his friends say of her, one of whom puts a verse into her mouth, in the pompous style of the stilted poetry of the fifteenth century which Lorenzo mainly contributed to do away with; while another seeks to persuade her to return the young man’s love.