difficulties of 1478 he had been compelled to borrow from his cousins, the other Medici, 60,000 gold florins, for the repayment of which he gave security on his possessions in Mugello. There were Florentine business houses which paid him a yearly sum for lending them his name. This mixing up of his private money-matters with those of the State brought about most unhappy consequences. In the war of 1478, the pay of the troops was furnished by the bank of the Bartolini, in which Lorenzo had a share. They deducted eight per cent., in return for which the commanders did not furnish the troops agreed upon, and the community had to make up the deficit. The wretched mismanagement of the military arrangements was all of a piece with this. Yet Lorenzo still thought himself entitled to venture on further operations of the same kind. The chief financial posts were held by his minions. From the treasurers (_camarlinghi_) of the offices of the national debt, of the customs, of salt, of judicial contracts, &c., he raised the needful sums, which they handed over to him without difficulty, first because they could refuse him nothing, and next because they thought their own responsibility covered and their personal security safe; for every newly appointed official had to recover the sum lent out by his predecessor; and as this process went on unchecked for years, it may easily be imagined what a deficit there was at last, after all the sham repayments one towards the other. The office of the national debt suffered most. The supreme provveditore, Antonio di Bernardo Miniati, had risen from the condition of an artisan by the favour of Lorenzo, who had actually made him a member of the Committee of Seventeen; and he proceeded quite arbitrarily, to oblige his patron and at once facilitate and hush up disgraceful embezzlement. During the revolution of 1494 the great book of the Monte was missing; nevertheless, there was an exposure of how many sums had gone to the numerous protégés and hangers-on of the Medici in and out of Florence. There was also another means by which to enrich them; and that was the furnishing of supplies, among which the supplying of cloth to the troops, in particular, brought great gain.[382] But all possible manœuvres and skill could not prevent the bad condition of this unprincipled finance from becoming known. How should they when, to mention only one instance, the Cardinalate of Giovanni de’ Medici cost the State an expenditure of 50,000 gold florins, independently of the sums which found their way secretly into Rome, and were reckoned at 200,000 more?[383] The State-creditors suffered most, from the reduction in the rate of interest caused by the drafts deposited in the Monte, and from the arrears of interest. These bills, together with the extraordinary additional taxes constantly repeated under various names, reduced the national debt. What offended the citizens most and damaged Lorenzo’s