The year that followed Piero’s and Maddalena’s high-ranking marriages in 1488 saw Piero faced with a choice between two different ways of life. On one hand, he had to play his part in the civic life of Florence and learn the political role that he would inherit from Lorenzo. On the other, he had been seduced by his reception in Rome and by the courtly pleasures he had experienced there with Franceschetto and his curial friends. Its impact on him became clear when, at the end of that year, he demanded two of Franceschetto’s men to accompany him to Milan for Gian Galeazzo Sforza’s wedding, ‘because here it’s impossible to find men who are their equal’.1 Like Hercules approaching the crossroads as a young man (according to the well-known tale told by Prodicus), he seemed to be faced by a choice between a rocky uphill path and an easy downhill one.2

Although Piero was criticised for his love of sports and footballing in the streets, sportsmanship – like cultural patronage – contributed to the soft power increasingly enjoyed by Renaissance rulers. Visits to the antiquities in the Medici palace and to the model farm at Poggio a Caiano formed part of diplomats’ tours of Florence, while the sports of horse racing and falconry provided invaluable items for gift exchanges with other rulers. So too did Piero’s famous Spanish runner Garzerano, who was regarded as a trophy (‘like some prince’, in the eyes of the royal court) when borrowed by Alfonso of Naples for his son.1 So if Piero’s sporting activities were unappreciated at home, they gave him more standing outside Florence than his critics may have realised.