We see how gently he dealt with his great tutor Politian, and how the
sovereignty of the poet and scholar was reconciled, though not without
difficulty, with the inevitable reserve prescribed by the approaching
change in the position of the house of Medici and by consideration for
the sensitiveness of the wife. In return for the treatment he received,
Politian became the herald and the living symbol of Medicean glory.
Lorenzo, after the fashion of a true Medici, delighted in giving an
outward and artistic expression to his social amusements. In his
brilliant improvisation--the Hawking Party--he gives us a humorous
description of his comrades, and in the Symposium a burlesque of them,
but in both cases in such a manner that we clearly feel his capacity
for more serious companionship. Of this intercourse his correspondence
and the records of his literary and philosophical conversation give
ample proof. Some of the social unions which were afterwards formed in
Florence were in part political clubs, though not without a certain
poetical and philosophical character. Of this kind was the so-called
Platonic Academy which met after Lorenzo's death in the gardens of the
Rucellai.
At the courts of the princes, society naturally depended on the
character of the ruler. After the beginning of the sixteenth century
they became few in number, and these few soon lost their importance.
Pages:
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440