It was in vain that from the time of Petrarch downwards the tournament was denounced as a dangerous folly.No one was converted by the pathetic appeal of the poet: 'In what book do we read that Scipio and Caesar were skilled at the joust?' The practice became more and more popular in Florence.Every honest citizen came to consider his tournament-- now, no doubt, less dangerous than formerly--as a fashionable sport.Franco Sacchetti has left us a ludicrous picture of one of these holiday cavaliers--a notary seventy years old.He rides out on horseback to Peretola, where the tournament was cheap, on a jade hired from a dyer.A thistle is stuck by some wag under the tail of the steed, who takes fright, runs away, and carries the helmeted rider, bruised and shaken, back into the city.The inevitable conclusion of the story is a severe curtain-lecture from the wife, who is not a little enraged at these break-neck follies of her husband.
It may be mentioned in conclusion that a passionate interest in this sport was displayed by the Medici, as if they wished to show-- private citizens as they were, without noble blood in their veins-- that the society which surrounded them was in no respect inferior to a Court.
Even under Cosimo (1459), and afterwards under the elder Pietro, brilliant tournaments were held at Florence.The younger Pietro neglected the duties of government for these amusements and would never suffer himself to be painted except clad in armor.The same practice prevailed at the Court of Alexander VI, and when the Cardinal Ascanio Sforza asked the Turkish Prince Djem how he liked the spectacle, the barbarian replied with much discretion that such combats in his country only took place among slaves, since then, in the case of accident, nobody was the worse for it.The Oriental was unconsciously in accord with the old Romans in condemning the manners of the Middle Ages.