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 NOTES TO THE FIRST BOOK OF THE COURTIER TIAN, and as the author of the oft-cited line, "Tempora mutantur, nos et mu- tamur in illis." His father Benedetto Ambrogini died poor, leaving a widow and five young children almost destitute. At the age of ten, Angelo studied at Florence, and composed Latin poems and Greek epigrams while yet a boy. At thirteen, he published Latin epistles; at sixteen, he began his Latin transla- tion of the Iliad; at seventeen, he distributed Greek poems among the learned men of Florence; and at eighteen, he edited Catullus. He was received into Lorenzo de' Medici's household, and before he was thirty years old, he was professor of Latin and Greek at the University of Florence and was entrusted with the care of Lorenzo's children. His pupils included the chief students of Europe. A born poet, entitled to the middle place of honour between Pe- trarch and Ariosto, he was the first Italian to combine perfect mastery of Latin and a correct sense of Greek with genius for his own native literature. Towards the close of his life, he entered holy orders and became a canon of the Cathedral at Florence. He was ill formed, and had squinting eyes and an enormous nose. His morals were lax. He was succeeded by Bembo as dictator of Italian letters. Note io6, page 51. LORENZO DE' MEDICI, (born 1448; died 1492), was the grandson of Cosimo, Pater Patrice, and father of Giuliano of The Courtier. On the death of his father Pietro in 1469, he succeeded jointly with his brother Giuliano to the family w^ealth and political predominance. Giuliano's assas- sination in the Piazzi conspiracy of 1478 (which Poliziano witnessed and nar- rated in Latin) left Lorenzo sole ruler, but like his predecessors, he governed the republic without any title, by free use of money and great adroitness in securing the elevation of his adherents to the chief offices of state. He was a man of marvellous range of mental power, — an epitome of Renaissance versa- tility. Never relaxing his hold on public affairs, among philosophers he passed for a sage; among men of letters, for an original and graceful poet; among scholars, for a Hellenist sensitive to every nicety of Attic idiom; among artists, for a connoisseur of consummate taste; among libertines, for a merry and un- tiring roysterer; among the pious, for an accomplished theologian. " He was no less famous for his jokes and repartees than for his pithy apothegms and maxims, as good a judge of cattle as of statues, as much at home in the bosom of his family as in the riot of an orgy, as ready to discourse on Plato as to plan a campaign or to plot the death of a dangerous citizen." (Symonds.) Note 107, page 51. FRANCESCO Cattani da Diacceto, (born 1466; died 1522), was a native of Florence, studied at Pisa, and returning to his native city became intimate with Ficino, of whose philosophy he may be said to have been the heir. For many years he lectured at Florence with such success that the Venetians tried to entice him to the University of Padua, in vain. A partisan of the Medici, he enjoyed the favour of Leo X and of Cardinal Giulio, afterwards Clement VII. All his works (written in Latin) are of a philosophical character. His style is said to be sprightly and correct, and despite the ridicule then cast upon the vulgar tongue, he himself translated several of his books into Italian, 345