COSIMO DE’ MEDICI was a man of mature age when his father died. Born on September 27, 1389, the day of the saints Cosmo and Damian, he was christened after the former; and a Florentine expression blended veneration for the sacred martyrs with veneration for the ruling family, who had chosen them as patrons: ‘Per San Cosmo e Damiano ogni male fia lontana.’ His education was excellent; and, although he was intended for a mercantile life, he studied the Latin language thoroughly, and under the guidance of masters such as the grammarians Niccolò of Arezzo,[52] and Roberto de’ Rossi, acquired a taste for literature and science which remained with him, and even increased, during the whole of his long life. He was, perhaps, twenty-four years old when he married Contessina de’ Bardi. Her father, Alessandro, Count of Vernio, belonged to a family which is of note among the Florentines from the eleventh century; and from which the principal street on the left bank of the Arno, between the old bridge and that of Sta. Maria delle Grazie, derived its name. The Bardi were originally a plebeian family, but were afterwards counted among the nobility. They, with other nobles, had aided the people to break the tyranny of the Duke of Athens, but were defeated a year later in valiant strife with the same people, who would no longer suffer ‘the great’ to have any share in the government, and set on fire the houses of those who had shortly before fought beside them. Piero de’ Bardi, Contessina’s great-grandfather, then withdrew to his castle of Vernio, situated in the Apennines to the north of Prato, which had been purchased ten years before by his brother from the Alberti, and recognised by the Emperor Charles IV. as a fief held under him. The enmity between the castellans and the Florentine people grew so violent, that Sozzo, Piero’s son, was condemned by the commune _in contumaciam_ to death by fire, under the seemingly false accusation of having coined false money in Vernio.[53] Sozzo’s son was the father of Contessina, whose mother, Milla Pannocchieschi, was descended from the ancient Sienese dynasty of the Counts of Elci, which has lately become extinct. The name of Contessina (Contessa, Tessa), which we so frequently meet with in earlier times in Tuscany, calls to mind the great Countess Matilda, whose memory was preserved by a grateful people. The enmity between the great and the plebeians, though it still prevailed, and was used as a pretext when the question of political rights arose, never at that time interfered with family alliances.