Note 578 — Chapter VIII

Moreni, Descrizione istorico-critica delle tre Cappelle Medicee in S. Lorenzo (Flor. 1813), p. 103. At the revolution of 1494 the party hostile to the Medici did not entirely spare even the monuments, for the inscription on the tomb of Cosimo the elder was removed on account of the ‘Pater patriæ’; in 1497, during the Savonarola excitement, all the Medici coats of arms were taken away or covered, and replaced by the red cross of the people. The reappearance of the ball-escutcheon after the revolution of 1512 was referred to in an epigram by the father of Benvenuto Cellini, wherein he prophesies the attainment of the Papal dignity by one of the family:—