being willing to serve him, I answered, “That I supposed his flight was for fear of the people, not of the king.” Upon which he was received, and the next day after his appearance before the Signory I made him a visit. The Signory ordered a handsome apartment for him, permitted him and about twenty of his retinue to wear their swords, and showed him a great deal of honour and respect; for, though his grandfather Cosmo had formerly hindered them from making themselves masters of Milan[308], yet they had a reverence for the honour of his family, which had been so renowned and triumphant all over Christendom. When I came into his presence, methought he seemed not to answer my expectation. He gave me a long narrative of his misfortunes, and I gave him the best consolation I could. Among the rest of his complaints, he told me he had lost all; but that which made the deepest impression on his spirits was, that, having written to his factor in that town to furnish him with cloth for himself and his brother, though only to the value of a hundred ducats, he had been refused. Not long after he had good news from the Lord de Bresse, who has since become Duke of Savoy; and the king wrote to him to come to him. However, the king left Florence about the same time, as you will find hereafter; but I was forced to say something of this Peter de Medicis, for he was a great man, considering his estate and authority, which his family had enjoyed in its fullest extent for threescore years. CH. XI.—How the King made his Entrance into Florence, and what other Towns he passed through in his March to Rome.—1494. The next day the king made his entrance into the city of Florence, where Peter de Medicis had prepared apartments for him in his own palace, and appointed the Lord de Ballassat to attend him; but, as soon as that nobleman was informed of the flight of Peter de Medicis, he fell to rifling the palace, upon pretence that the bank of Lyons was in arrear to him for a considerable sum of money; and among other things he seized upon a whole unicorn’s horn[309], valued at six or seven thousand ducats, besides two great pieces of another, and several other things; and other people followed his example. The best of his furniture had been conveyed into another house in the city; but the mob plundered it. The Signory got part of his richest jewels, twenty thousand ducats in ready money, that he had in his bank in the city; several fine agate cups, besides an incredible number of cameos admirably well cut, which I had formerly seen, and three thousand medals of gold and silver, weighing near forty pounds’ weight, and I believe there were not so many fine medals in all Italy besides: so that his losses in the city that day might be computed at a hundred thousand crowns, if not more.