ITALIAN GARDENS OF THE RENAISSANCE 
blow. His head sank on his breast, and the persons 
who were present held their peace, awestruck in the 
presence of his great sorrow. Then he lifted his 
head slowly and stood erect before them all. 
“ My grief is hard to bear,” he said, “ because I 
loved him too well. Yet, dearly as I loved him, I 
knew that he must die some day ; and God, who 
knows best, has called him for his eternal welfare. 
Farewell, then ; since it is His will, farewell for ever, 
my most dear Lorenzo ! ” After this one passionate 
cry he recovered ;his usual serenity, and gave orders 
that his son’s corpse should be borne to Florence to 
receive the last honours. 
On the 7th of April 1354 a splendid train of 
knights and squires, with flying banners and shields 
blazoned with the Acciaiuoli arms—a silver lion ram¬ 
pant on an azure field—issued from the Porta San 
Pier Gattolini, now the Porta Romana, followed 
by the noblest citizens of Florence. In the midst, 
on a bier hung with crimson velvet and cloth of gold, 
under a canopy of embroidered silk, the body of the 
young hero was borne in state, surrounded by horse¬ 
men in rich attire carrying lighted torches. So the 
procession passed along Val d’Ema and wound its 
way up the steep hillside to the gates of the Certosa, 
where, in the newly erected chapel of St. Tobias, 
chosen by Niccolo as the place of his own sepul- 
214 
