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    A great fc&uribil was forthwith convoked ; The Council } of Eighty wlafc again established : Cappont was elected " Gon- » faloniere di Justma , " and all the other magistrates werd reitcfrecL This form of government lasted only three years In 1530 Florence divided within itself : a large party de * matided the return of the Medici , and that family being

    supported by the Imperial army , under the command of the Prince of Orange , the city was besieged and speedily capita * lated . The Emperor and the Pope then constructed the government , appointing Valori , Guicciardini , Vettori , Nerii * and Strozzi , to form the constitution . The term u Republic ? was no longer adopted ; nor , in truth , had this form existed in a practical sense during upwards of a century . In 1532 Alessandro de' Medici was made Chief and Prince of the

    State and City of Florence , by the Emperor and the Pops * urjdfcr the very contradictory title of Doge , or Duke , of thf Florentine Republic ; and his dignity was Hereditary in tb £ order of primogeniture . There were , however , two legislative assemblies ; the " Senate of Eighty , " and the " Council of Two Hundred / ' Alessandro was assassinated in 1537 .

    The Medici family had exercised a power in Florence ^ amounting , as Guicciardini expresses it , almost to that of actual sovereignty , during a period of one hundred years * when Cosmo succeeded to the Dukedom . With few and brief intervals , Florence , under the name of a " Republic /'

    was thus virtually governed by this powerful family . To the virtues and splendid talents of Lorenzo the Magnificent * not only did Florence owe much of her greatness and her riches * but the whole of Italy derived therefrom a most beneficial influence . The weakness of his son , Piero , and the vice *

    of his other lineal descendants , who had also to contend with times of great difficulty and danger ; ( whereby Italy , through foreign invasion , became a hideous theatre of war between France and the Emperor ) Anally baused the expulsidn of that brahch of the Medici from the government . : Ak rulers in Florence , his line ended with Alessandro * wh 0

    wttft assassinated by Lorenzino , his first cousin ; the pander to his unrestrained and despotic licentiousness ; the sharer in the infamous spoils ; and the next heir to the Dukedttot . Thfe disgust and indignation of the Florentines at the con * duct of Alessaridro , who violated the domestic ties of tmrate families , as if to show his scorn of the civic ngnte , $ t Republicanism , occasioned them to rejoice at his death * ttour exalt $ m murderer as a pattern Of virtue ; Ttey trtffe both men of talents and accomplishment ** but by the gWM » ^ repo rtderance of their vicee , an equal disgrace T to ; ih& hamfe of Medici . i

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    Cosmo di Medici fit

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 1, 1837, page 237, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1830/page/47/