Lorenzo’s stay at the baths was absolutely necessary, and all his friends had entreated him not to return till the cure was completed. On the evening after her death Clarice de’ Medici was entombed without pomp in San Lorenzo, and on the following morning all the ambassadors present in Florence went to Piero to offer their condolences. The solemn obsequies, at which the whole city was present, took place on August 1.[341] Lorenzo’s wife was not quite forty. No notice is to be found in his writings of the woman who shared the lights and shadows of life with him for nineteen years; an idea of their conjugal relations can be formed only from a few words of his in earlier days, and the inadequate testimony of contemporaries, which seems to indicate that their views and inclinations did not always agree. Clarice’s disagreement with such a celebrated man as Poliziano has tended to bias the judgment of her contemporaries against her. Nevertheless, this daughter of an old Roman baronial house, obliged, when young and inexperienced, to enter a strange world as the wife of a man for whom she had no affection, displayed in all things tact and sound judgment; without putting herself forward she did honour to her position and her husband, and she brought up her children tenderly and carefully. Her feelings and her relations to Lorenzo are indicated, amongst others, by the following letter, written to her husband from Caffaggiuolo on December 13 of the year they were so long separated, 1478, on behalf of a servant who had been dismissed for some misconduct.[342] ‘Illustrious husband,’ she wrote; ‘Andrea your messenger has been up here for two days, and earnestly begged me to put in a good word for him as he is deeply grieved for his fault. I therefore beg you to keep him with you or procure him another situation; for, as he has formerly shown his fidelity, you would be acting contrary to your nature if you did not forgive him his error, besides being responsible for his falling into worse ways; also you might inadvertently by this means discourage others who are faithful to you. He has a mother who was delighted at his position in your service, and is now in like measure distressed, fearing that her son may, if you dismiss him, go astray and bring her to sorrow. He has already expiated his fault by grief and shame; for, since you sent him away, he has been like one beside himself and has never had a moment’s happiness. I think he is especially touched on the point of honour, which is a good sign and should have weight with you. I beg you therefore to be indulgent to him, whether for the sake of his proved fidelity, or from pity for his mother, or because he shows right feeling, or, lastly, for the sake of my intercession, either by taking him back or by providing for him in some other way.’