their soul-thrilling impressiveness to those studies. Michelet says,
not without justice, that the spirit of Savonarola lives again in the
frescoes of that vault.

On the 8th of April 1492, Michelangelo lost his friend and patron.
Lorenzo died in his villa at Careggi, aged little more than forty-four
years. Guicciardini implies that his health and strength had been
prematurely broken by sensual indulgences. About the circumstances of
his last hours there are some doubts and difficulties; but it seems
clear that he expired as a Christian, after a final interview with
Savonarola. His death cast a gloom over Italy. Princes and people were
growing uneasy with the presentiment of impending disaster; and now
the only man who by his diplomatical sagacity could maintain the
balance of power had been taken from them. To his friends and
dependants in Florence the loss appeared irreparable. Poliziano poured
forth his sorrow in a Latin threnody of touching and simple beauty.
Two years later both he and Pico della Mirandola followed their master
to the grave. Marsilio Ficino passed away in 1499; and a friend of his
asserted that the sage's ghost appeared to him. The atmosphere was
full of rumours, portents, strange premonitions of revolution and
doom. The true golden age of the Italian Renaissance may almost be
said to have ended with Lorenzo de' Medici's life.



CHAPTER II


I