Alessandro de’ Pazzi graphically described the difficulties of his uncle’s position:[369] ‘When Lorenzo came to the head of the party after Piero’s death he found a serious task before him, and, young as he was, he had need of great prudence to keep together and govern this party; so much the more because the citizens who were then powerful thought they could retain their commanding position, without allowing Lorenzo to usurp the same authority that his grandfather and father had enjoyed. In my opinion this was a mistake; discord would soon have parted them. But his exertions were great, and it was owing to him that no division occurred at that time. His patience with his adherents deserves as much praise as his prudence, activity, and liberality; and I know from my mother that in these first years he thought day and night of nothing but gaining over his friends for his own objects.’ Again, after referring to the dangers and consequences of the years 1478-1480, he says: ‘By dint of skill and luck, without which nothing is to be attained in human affairs, he consolidated his position and maintained it all his life long, not merely as his grandfather had done, but a step higher and with fuller powers. He was in more danger than Cosimo, but he stood so high that the danger was outweighed. Nevertheless, with all his good fortune and the favour of circumstances, with his superhuman intellect and his great number of trustworthy friends, he gave himself an immense deal of trouble. He went to work with the greatest caution, with many arts and secret allies who knew nothing of each other, with inexhaustible patience and endurance. He was assisted, moreover, by his wonderfully acute judgment of foreign affairs, which he understood how to direct and balance better than any other living man in Italy. Herein also fortune favoured him, that he lived at a time when forces were more equally divided than usual, and there was little danger of foreign interference. Above all it was a happy circumstance that Cosimo had preceded him as founder of the position of the family, and for many years past no other and in some sense no more popular form of government had been known in Florence. His merits, however, were his own; vigilance, patience, perseverance, splendour combined with elegance, whereby he made himself a great name among the Italian princes and in other lands, while at home he attracted and gained over all to himself. This also is to be highly esteemed in him, that he influenced his friends into moderation and kept their hands clean, so that it may be said that, with a few exceptions, there occurred no cases of rapine. In truth he directed the State and his party in the best manner possible under the circumstances. With all his good fortune and his uncommon qualities, however, it cost him great exertions, for he never spared himself, but took a personal share in all that occurred, whether in the square or in the palace.’