Francesco Guicciardini and others inform us that the news of the sack of Volterra aroused the most lively displeasure in Florence; but this pretended displeasure did not prevent them from rewarding the conqueror and making use of the victory. That the Count of Urbino, when he returned, was highly honoured was a matter of course. He was presented with a banner and a silver helmet, besides the right of citizenship; and that the last might not be a mere form, he received as a location Luca Pitti’s villa at Rusciano. The success of the enterprise was very welcome to Lorenzo de’ Medici, for the victory was specially ascribed to him. One of his confidants said to Tommaso Soderini, ‘What do you say now that Volterra is taken?’ To which he replied, ‘It seems to me that the town is lost. Had you compounded on reasonable terms, you would have preserved an advantage and security. But as you must now maintain it by force, it will create weakness and embarrassment for you in case of war, and expense and injury in time of peace.’ But the Government took care to weaken Volterra, so that the defiant spirit of its citizens was broken. The Signoria were obliged to give up their palace to the Florentine commander; the church of San Pietro and the bishop’s lodging in a high-lying part of the town were pulled down to make room for a new fortress; a number of citizens were banished, and many who had refused to keep within bounds were outlawed. The administration of the district was taken away from Volterra. Lorenzo himself proceeded to the humbled town, and sought to arouse a more favourable feeling by liberality and fine words. He caused 2,000 gold florins to be distributed in the name of the Florentine Signoria. But what was all this in comparison to the misery which he, before all others, had brought upon the town? When we read the letter which the Pope’s private secretary, Antonio Inghirami, a member of a family always attached to the Medici, writes to Lorenzo from Rome on March 10, 1473, we see from the tone that he was already considered the ruler of Florence, while the sad state of the ill-used and oppressed town penetrates through the flattering phrases. ‘The visit of Your Magnificence to Volterra was a real consolation to me, for you will have far better recognised how things stood by seeing them than by mere hearsay. You will be able to measure our sufferings and misery, public and private; you will yourself have found your old faithful adherents and servants deprived of all their property, oppressed, confused, and, as it were, distracted, by the terrible pillage which has swept away everything. As you must have been moved to pity and compassion at sight of this, so will your coming have lifted up and consoled those for whom it was a last hope.’[197] If we consider what great misery was caused by this conflict, and that the expedition cost 100,000 gold florins, which had to be borrowed from the credit-fund for