THE CERTOSA OF FLORENCE 
in his will he remembers his mother long dead, and 
appoints masses to be said for her soul. As long as 
his fathei lived he paid him the most dutiful attention, 
and on his death caused his remains to be interred in 
the chapel reserved for his own sepulchre at the 
Certosa, where Niccolo’s sister Lapa, for whom he 
had an especial fondness, is also buried. With the 
same faithfulness he clung to everything belonging 
to his early days, and in one of his later letters he stops 
in the details of business to tell his kinsman to buy 
back the houses of the Acciaiuoli at Monte Gufoni 
which had passed into other hands, u if they are not 
too dear,” since he would, if possible, erect a chapel 
on the spot where he was born. 
All through his life he retained the beauty of 
countenance and majesty of bearing which distin¬ 
guished him as a youth. Fair-haired and of tall 
stature, with a broad, serene brow and a peculiar 
brightness in his eye, his presence commanded re¬ 
spect and inspired even his enemies with awe. In 
the corrupt couit to which he came while yet a youth, 
he remained untainted by the evil influences around 
him, and, Sismondi tells us, preserved the purity of 
republican morals. The exalted station which he 
occupied rendered him naturally the object of envy 
and calumny, but he recked little of the ill-will shown 
him, and treated slander with the scorn it deserved. 
211 
