AN influence hardly less important than that of the philosophers and grammarians was exercised on Lorenzo and his epoch by the literary innovators who, with some infusion of classic learning, were not so pedantic as the early humanists, while they bore the impress of the teaching of the preceding century. The Medici were to these men of letters, just as much as they were to the philosophers, the centre to which their several rays converged, and Lorenzo’s name is inseparable from the names of several among them. One in this brilliant circle holds a different position from the rest. He took as a poet the part which Landino took as a critic in the revival of the study of Dante. Matteo Palmieri holds a place by himself. The first glance into his great poem, the ‘City of Life,’ (‘Città di Vita’) shows it to be an imitation of the ‘Divine Comedy;’ but only in the outward form. It is a philosophical work, the object of which is to describe and correct the problems and abuses of citizen life. It contains no real poetry, but has the merit of popularising the doctrines of moral philosophy in language somewhat lifeless, indeed, yet expressive, comparatively pure, and free from the philological follies of the age. The book became known only within a narrow circle. Theological criticism discovered in it the heretical doctrine of the transmigration of souls, which indeed Alamanno Rinuccini avowed without scruple in his funeral oration on the poet, and the work was suppressed. In later years the author wrote an unfinished history of the world, and a life of the grand seneschal Nicola Acciaiuolo. He had been a pupil of Traversari and Marsuppini, had held important offices of state, and after fulfilling several embassies with honour, died at a ripe age in 1475.[22]