These vacillations on the part of Leo have been slightly touched upon, in order to clear the ground for displaying his ambitious nepotism in its proper field,--the duchy of Urbino. This, his prevailing weakness, had met with many disappointments. No opening occurred for its exercise in the direction of Naples. Parma and Piacenza had passed from his grasp, by reluctant surrender to a professing ally. But, worst of all, his favourite brother Giuliano, the object in whom centred most of his schemes, had been removed by death on the 17th of March, not without surmise of poison from the jealousy of his nephew Lorenzo.[*262] Although his great popularity favoured the ambitious views which were thrust upon him by the Pontiff, his mind lay rather towards elegant pursuits and splendid tastes, than to such high aspirations. Indeed, the Venetian ambassador, Capello, represents his dying request to Leo as in favour of Urbino[*263]; but the Pope waived the discussion of a point upon which his resolution was taken. Lorenzo, his successor in the papal favour, was a much more willing, though less conciliatory, instrument of his Holiness's designs. [Footnote *262: Giuliano had certainly been ailing for months. His death did not seem to have been unexpected.] [Footnote *263: So does Giorgi. Cf. _Relazioni Venete_, 2nd series, vol. II., p. 51.] Lorenzo de' Medici was eldest son of Pietro, the first-born of Lorenzo the Magnificent.[*264] He was born on the 13th of September, 1492, and his youth was passed amid many trials. His father, after ten years of exile from Florence, had been drowned in the Garigliano, in 1504, and, four years thereafter, his sister Clarissa's marriage with Filippo Strozzi involved him in a second banishment. He was of good person and gallant presence, endowed with a stirring spirit, but destitute of generous or heroic qualities. Giorgi, another Venetian envoy, even considered him scarcely inferior in cunning and capacity to the redoubted Valentino. The government of Florence was committed to him by Leo, on his uncle Giuliano being called to a higher destiny, and feeling his advancement restrained by the prior claims, as well as by the moderation of the latter, he is believed to have removed him by poison; at all events he was immediately named to succeed him as gonfaloniere of the Church. [Footnote *264: Cf. VERDI: _Gli ultimi anni di Lorenzo de' Medici duca d'Urbino, 1515-1519_ (Pietrogrande, 1905).]