The _Pater
Patriae,_--so called, because, having at last absorbed all the
authority, he could afford to affect some of the benignity of a
parent, and to treat his fellow-citizens, not as men, but as little
children,--the Father of his Country had acquired, by means of his
great fortune and large financial connections, an immense control over
the destinies of Florence and Italy. But he was still a private
citizen in externals. There was, at least, elevation of taste,
refinement of sentiment in Cosmo's conception of a great citizen. His
habits of life were elegant, but frugal. He built churches, palaces,
villas. He employed all the great architects of the age. He adorned
these edifices with masterpieces from the pencils and chisels of the
wonderful _Quattrocentisti_, whose productions alone would have
given Florence an immortal name in Art history. Yet he preserved a
perfect simplicity of equipage and apparel. In this regard, faithful
to the traditions of the republic, which his family had really changed
from a democracy to a ploutarchy, he had the good taste to scorn the
vulgar pomp of kings,--"the horses led, and grooms besmeared with
gold,"--all the theatrical paraphernalia and plebeian tinsel "which
dazzle the crowd and set them all agape"; but his expenditures were
those of an intellectual and accomplished oligarch.
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