Note 324 — CHAP. VIII.
Reading edition
The short-sightedness of the Florentines seems to have been a subject of proverbial sarcasm to their neighbours. “Bartolomeo Soccini, of Siena,” says Mr. Roscoe, in his life of Lorenzo de’ Medici, “having observed, in allusion to the defect in Lorenzo’s sight, that the air of Florence was injurious to the eyes—true, said Lorenzo, and that of Siena to the brain.” When Leo X. was elected to the pontificate, the Roman wits thus interpreted a certain date of the year MCCCCXL, which was inscribed on a tablet in the church of the Vatican: Multi cæci cardinales creaverunt cæcum decimum Leonem.
Roscoe’s Life of Lorenzo de’ Medici, vol. ii. p. 119—Fabroni Vita Leonis. X.