only half, and sometimes only a fifth. The exchequer then took the quotas of taxes in question not at the nominal value of the bonds, but according to the rate of payment then current at the Monte. All these manipulations, which made the artificial financial system of Florence a perfect labyrinth of perplexity, could not but be injurious to the interests of the community, while they deprived property of its secure foundations.[231] At the same time, the repeated modifications in the constitution which had been going on ever since Cosimo’s time had thrown it completely off the balance. People had long been accustomed to see the exercise of popular sovereignty by means of parliaments converted into a mere party manœuvre. The men in power, in order to gain a formal legal countenance for their measures, would have some extraordinary authority conferred on them by the so-called people, i.e. by that portion of the citizens who were either on their side or were coerced into becoming so through fear. The constant change in the mode of election to the offices, either by lot or by nomination, produced in the end no great difference, for all were excluded who were not thought to have been made sure of. In Lorenzo’s time, at least after the restrictions subsequently imposed on the scheme introduced in 1480, there was no more trouble in that respect. In defiance of democratic forms, everything tended to a personal government. As if enough had not already occurred to increase the power of the Medici, another circumstance—unimportant in itself—occurred to raise Lorenzo’s position. On the evening of June 2, Amoretto Baldovinetti, natural son of a citizen of good family, was arrested, and on the following morning Battista Frescobaldi, formerly consul at Constantinople. Scarcely were they in custody when an attempt was made to seize the brothers Francesco and Antonio Balducci, but only the latter was captured. Immediately a report was spread of a conspiracy against Lorenzo’s life. Frescobaldi had once greatly assisted in delivering up Giovanni Bandini to justice, and seems to have thought himself insufficiently rewarded for having spent some of his private means in the affair. In Rome he met some Florentine emigrants who put him in communication with Amoretto, just the man, he considered, for a hazardous undertaking. Provided with weapons and poison, these two came to Florence. Their efforts to gain supporters had little success; even the brothers Balducci seem to have been undecided. Nevertheless they resolved to attempt the assassination, and again in a church; according to some it was to be in the cathedral, according to others in S. Pietro in Carmine, where Lorenzo was expected on Ascension day. The plot failed and the three conspirators were condemned to death. A legal objection was raised against the sentence, as the case was only that of a criminal project; but the Signoria and the Council of Seventy