Note 1. This personage cannot be identified. The Filippo Strozzi
mentioned as having been his master was the great opponent of the
Medicean despotism, who killed himself in prison after the defeat of
Montemurlo in 1539. He married in early life a daughter of Piero de’
Medici.
Note 2. 'Passatojacci.'
Note 3. Franciotto Orsini was educated in the household of his kinsman
Lorenzo de’ Medici. He followed the profession of arms, and married; but
after losing his wife took orders, and received the hat in 1517.
Note 4. 'Io che non potevo stare alle mosse.'
XXXIX
AFTER I had melted down the gold, I took it to the Pope, who thanked me
cordially for what I had done, and ordered the Cavalierino to give me
twenty-five crowns, apologising to me for his inability to give me more.
A few days afterwards the articles of peace were signed. I went with
three hundred comrades in the train of Signor Orazio Baglioni toward
Perugia; and there he wished to make me captain of the company, but I
was unwilling at the moment, saying that I wanted first to go and see my
father, and to redeem the ban which was still in force against me at
Florence. Signor Orazio told me that he had been appointed general of
the Florentines; and Sir Pier Maria del Lotto, the envoy from Florence,
was with him, to whom he specially recommended me as his man. 1
In course of time I came to Florence in the company of several comrades.
The plague was raging with indescribable fury. When I reached home, I
found my good father, who thought either that I must have been killed in
the sack of Rome, or else that I should come back to him a beggar.
However, I entirely defeated both these expectations; for I was alive,
with plenty of money, a fellow to wait on me, and a good horse. My joy
on greeting the old man was so intense, that, while he embraced and
kissed me, I thought that I must die upon the spot. After I had narrated
all the devilries of that dreadful sack, and had given him a good
quantity of crowns which I had gained by my soldiering, and when we had
exchanged our tokens of affection, he went off to the Eight to redeem my
ban. It so happened that one of those magistrates who sentenced me, was
now again a member of the board. It was the very man who had so
inconsiderately told my father he meant to march me out into the country
with the lances. My father took this opportunity of addressing him with
some meaning words, in order to mark his revenge, relying on the favour
which Orazio Baglioni showed me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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