Lorenzo, who always knew how to combine his love of splendour with useful aims, and judged others from the same point of view, had no very high opinion of his son-in-law. ‘As you have before heard from me,’ he wrote to Lanfredini before the marriage on November 4, 1487, when Franceschetto had got himself made captain-general,[329] ‘I think Signor Francesco should not pursue mere smoke; things without moderation do not suit me. A captain ought to have seen service and made himself a reputation. I wish he had rather sought to secure a maintenance, and I wonder it does not strike him that the day after the Pope dies he will be the poorest man on earth, and I shall have to provide for him and his wife. Endeavour to make this clear to him if you see that he hankers after titles and vanities; I must speak to him freely and then help him, however he may take it. I hear he keeps aloof from frivolous people and those of evil report, and that he avoids play. We must support him as much as possible, and lovingly point out to him what is becoming, if we are to fulfil our duty.’ Lorenzo did not wish his son to remain in Rome longer than was absolutely necessary. On December 9, he wrote to his wife desiring that Piero should return with the bishop and Jacopo Salviati as soon as he had despatched certain business of his own, of which more will be said hereafter. Piero returned to Florence, the bishop remained. Lorenzo wrote repeatedly to Clarice leaving the length of her stay to her own decision, but expressing a wish, towards the end of the winter, that she might stay somewhat longer.[330] Everything did not go according to Lorenzo’s wishes. The elevation of his son Giovanni to the cardinalate, undoubtedly one of the motives for the match, was delayed; Clarice was ill; and the home arrangements of the Cybò seem not to have suited Florentine and Medicean ideas. ‘I have received,’ wrote Lorenzo to Lanfredini on April 11, 1488,[331] ‘your information about Clarice, and am grieved at it, though her ill-health is nothing new to me. I have informed her of the cause which will somewhat delay Piero’s departure from here, but let her not trouble herself about it if she wishes to return here sooner, though I should be glad if she could wait for Alfonsina [Piero’s bride]. I wish Maddalena might come with her, for the latter is still quite a child, and Signor Francesco’s household is badly managed; and, besides, she would be a comfort to Clarice. But I should wish this to be done with the full consent and without the slightest dissatisfaction of his Holiness or Signor Francesco, and I should take it as a favour.’ And after recurring to the insecure position of his son-in-law, he adds: ‘His Holiness seems to me to go to work with great lukewarmness in all these things. Independently of Signor Francesco I also regret that my daughter should find herself in unfavourable circumstances, and I am in a kind of despair over this and