mankind nearer to God. He also showed wisdom and judgment in council in solving difficult theological problems.
Pico di Mirandola, a great scholar and a nobleman, was so much struck by his extraordinary qualities that he urged Lorenzo de Medici, who was at the time Lord of Florence, to invite him to come and stay in the Tuscan capital; this accordingly was done. But no one suspected that the humble monk who trudged on foot through the gateway of the city was one day to be the practical ruler of Florence. He was in his thirty-ninth year when he was elected Prior of San Marco.
Lorenzo, known as the Magnificent, was perhaps the most eminent of the Medici family, who for some years were practically rulers of Florence. Although he had a council who nominally conducted the affairs of State, he generally managed to have it filled by men who were favorable to his policy and his aims, and so he gradually became complete master of the city. He was cruel, unscrupulous, and ambitious, and under his rule the people were deprived of much of their liberty. But as an Italian historian says, "If Florence was to have a tyrant she could never have found a better or a more pleasant one." While on the one hand he was oppressing the people and persecuting those whom he suspected to be his enemies, on the other hand he encouraged festivities and reveling, song and dance, and general merriment.
