"Go at once, ye base-born bastards, or I will be the first to thrust you
out--Begone!"

These were the passionate words of the proudest and most ambitious
princess that ever bore the great name of Medici--Clarice, daughter of
Piero di Lorenzo--"Il Magnifico," and wife of Filippo di Filippo degli
Strozzi--"Il Primo Gentiluomo del Secolo."

They were spoken on 16th May 1527, in the Long Gallery of the Palazzo
Medici in Florence, and were addressed to two youths--sixteen and
thirteen years old respectively, who shrank with terror at the aspect
and the vehemence of their contemner. Clarice was a virago, both in the
Florentine sense of man's equal in ability and action, and in the sense
of the present day--a woman with a mighty will and endowed with physical
strength to enforce it.

The two "bastards" were Ippolito, the natural son of Giuliano de'
Medici, Duke of Nemours, and Alessandro, the so-called illegitimate son
of Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, the virtual ruler of Florence.
The lads were not alone in their exposure to the wrath of Madonna
Clarice, for, sitting in his chair of estate, was Silvio Passerini,
Cardinal of Cortona, their Governor, and Pope Clement VII.'s Regent of
the Republic.

"Begone"! Well had it been if the Cardinal had taken his charges right
away from Florence never to return.

* * * * *

"The splendour, not of Tuscany only, but of the whole of Italy has