DURING these events, which, however, promised no quiet time, the inhabitants of Florence had lived for long years as merrily as if their state and all Italy were secured against foreign enemies and internal dissensions. One could see that a young man held the rudder, however much political affairs and plans and party questions might claim his attention. In respect to his intellectual pursuits, no time was so rich in fruits as this. His style of living became more and more splendid. The many visits of princely personages, for whom his house served as a lodging, led him to incur expenses of various kinds, in purchases of works of art as well as for his daily requirements, while they were an encouragement to luxury for the distinguished citizens who could not let the Medici act as sovereigns, and accustomed the people to pastimes and good living. All this had its dark sides. The income of the Medici was all the more insufficient because strict supervision was lacking; their foreign business was too widely spread and dependent on conjunctures of the moment. The waste of public money, which afterwards was so prevalent, had already begun. Everything seemed allowable when it was a question of satisfying ambition. To this time belongs the tournament of Giuliano de’ Medici, which was still more famous than that of his brother, because the most gifted poet of the Medicean circle, Angelo Poliziano (not sixteen years old, as has been believed in consequence of a chronological error, but still only two-and-twenty[209]) sang this knightly diversion in the renowned verses which he dedicated to Lorenzo. This tournament took place on January 28, 1475, probably in the square of Sta. Croce. Giuliano, who rode a horse named Orso, and wore a rich suit of armour, obtained the prize. When we consider that he was powerful and practised in knightly dexterity, an accomplishment which then belonged to the education of distinguished young Italians, even if he had not devoted himself to the art of war, as the Florentines seldom did, one need not suppose that this victory was agreed upon beforehand. Already, when a boy of twelve, Giuliano had wished, much against his father’s inclination, to show his prowess and skill at the time of the visit of the Duchess of Calabria. Giuliano’s arms and helmet were beautifully wrought by Michel Angelo of Gaiole, father of the sculptor Baccio Bandinelli, a clever goldsmith, who during many years served the Medici with equal zeal and fidelity, and was employed by Lorenzo especially in setting his gems and other precious stones.[210] Poliziano’s mythological poem does not, like that of Pulci, give us a description of the event, nor the names of the combatants; and if we hear much in praise of both brothers and of the whole Medicean house in their harmonious but somewhat pedantically antiquated octosyllabics, they teach us little which can give a knowledge of the time or of the persons.