Whilst Filelfo was brooding over his real or imagined wrongs, a contest arose between the two factions which divided the city of Florence, in consequence of a quarrel which had occurred between the houses of Soderini and Guzano.[225] On this occasion he publicly enlisted himself on the side of the aristocracy, and under the pretext of honest indignation against injustice, gratified his personal resentment, by publishing a poetical philippic against the factious disposition of the Florentine populace, into the commencement of which he introduced a violent attack upon the family of the Medici.[226] Not contented with this act of provocation, he afterwards turned the artillery of his wrath directly against Cosmo, whom he insulted in a satire against confidence in riches, in which he attempted to disguise the reproaches of malevolence in the garb of philosophic advice. The well known liberality of Cosmo’s disposition, the laudable uses to which he appropriated a considerable portion of his vast wealth, and the engaging familiarity with which he was accustomed to converse with people of merit in every class of life, constituted the most convincing proof of the malignant falsehood of this libel; and the adherents of the house of Medici would have done well, had they treated it with contempt. But thirsting for revenge, they endeavoured to expel the offending satirist from the city, by inducing the assembly of the people considerably to diminish the salaries allowed to the public instructors maintained by the state. To this defalcation of their revenues, the other professors patiently submitted; but Filelfo appealed to the senate, and by the power of his eloquence persuaded that body to restore their literary servants to their former footing in point of emolument. He had also the good fortune to procure the abrogation of a second ordinance obtained by his enemies, whereby the whole of the sums annually granted for the support of public education were marked as objects of retrenchment.[227] Irritated by these hostile measures, Filelfo declared open war against Cosmo and his friends. He poured forth a torrent of invective in a series of satires, in which the severity of Juvenal, and his nauseous delineations of atrocious vices, are much more successfully imitated than the sublimity of his moral precepts, or the dignity of his style. The bitterness of Filelfo’s wrath was particularly directed against Niccolo Niccoli, whom, sometimes under the contemptuous appellation of Utis, and sometimes under the fanciful designation of Lycolaus, he charged with envy of the learned—hatred of the virtuous—extravagant anger—infidelity—blasphemy—and the most disgusting impurities which have ever swelled the black catalogue of human crimes.[228]