Such were life and manners in the times preceding the rise of the Medici to power. The original simplicity no longer existed, and could no longer exist; but, in the tone and conduct of public as well as private life, the good old traditions still retained their influence. When the Romans and Neapolitans mocked at the frugal habits of the Florentines, the Florentine, seeing the anarchy and degeneracy of the former, and the effeminacy and instability of the latter, could point to his beautiful city, and the order in his private life, in which, though everything was conducted with the most scrupulous economy, the necessaries of life, and, in many cases, its luxuries, were always to be found. In Florence we find no Roman and no Neapolitan in trade and industry; but in both Naples and Rome, the principal business was in the hands of the Florentines, whose gains were profitable to their native city. Among these, in the fourteenth century, none was so conspicuous as Niccolò Acciaiuoli, who became a great and influential man at the court of Anjou, and lord of extensive possessions in Apulia and Greece, but whose heart belonged to his native city, in the neighbourhood of which he prepared his family vault. The heroic times of the Farinata, Cavalcanti, and Donati were past; but the Florentine of the later times combined the citizen and the great lord, the merchant, statesman, and patron of art, in a harmonious whole, to a degree never surpassed by the denizen of any other country. CHAPTER V. THE ALBIZZI AND COSIMO DE’ MEDICI.