Fifteen months after the tournament, the lady of Giuliano’s heart, Simonetta, the nymph of the poem, died; it was in the night from April 26 to 27, 1476, while Lorenzo resided at Pisa, where he continually received news of the course of the illness and the end of the beautiful girl who had charmed his brother and whom he himself lamented. Neither he nor Giuliano dreamed what cruel fate should befall one of them and threaten the other on the same day two years later. Another terrible fate was rapidly approaching, which did not immediately concern the family of the Medici, but exercised a decided influence on the political position of Italy; and which when Lorenzo had scarcely quitted the world’s stage, overthrew in its results the edifice which he had reared and watched over with such care. On St. Stephen’s day in 1476, Galeazzo Maria Sforza, at the age of thirty-two, fell in the church of the saint to whom the day was consecrated, beneath the daggers of three Milanese noblemen, inspired by indignation against the cruel and immoral reign of the degenerate son of an excellent father, who had oppressed the people with taxes in order to support a luxury, which had bordered on madness. The deed was tyrannicide after the old classical style; and as the conspirators had no ulterior projects nor any support or adherents among the people, the most distinguished councillor of the deceased, Cecco Simonetta, succeeded in preserving the people in their devotion to their ducal house, and proclaimed the son of Galeazzo Maria, Gian Galeazzo, then six years old, as duke, under the guardianship of his mother Bona. How some of the Florentines judged of the matter may be seen from the words with which Alamanno Rinuccini, a distinguished man, accompanies the news of the event recorded in his notices. ‘It was a worthy, laudable, manly deed, which should be imitated by all who live under a tyrant or anything similar. But the cowardice and depravity of the men were to blame, that the example bore little or no fruit, and those who had acted well must suffer death. Nevertheless, they freed the earth from the most worthless monster, who was stained with more shameful sins than any in his time and long before.’[211] But that Lorenzo de’ Medici, who received the first news of the event from Tommaso Soderini, at that time ambassador in Milan, was much struck by it, is easily understood. He had made the policy of his grandfather and father his own in reference to the Sforza family, and connected himself closely with them. The league of 1474 had drawn the tie still closer. An understanding with Venice was always precarious; that with Milan seemed certain. It was now threatened with sudden dissolution, for even if they could rely upon a regency, the duchess was in various ways dangerous; especially under the family circumstances known to all. Lorenzo must have perceived all this in a moment, and could not be without serious apprehension.