The first citizen's table

Cosimo is old and keeps a plainer table than his wealth would allow, but the rooms around him are full of the manuscripts and antiquities he has spent a lifetime collecting. His grandson Lorenzo, not yet ten, has been brought to sit with the grown men; Rodrigo Borgia, a Spanish cardinal in Italy on church business, has been received as a matter of courtesy.

Cosimo talks about the bank and the city, about the scholars he supports, and about the difference between ruling and appearing to rule. He is careful with the cardinal and affectionate with the boy, and it is clear which of the two he thinks will inherit what he has built. They eat pease pottage, a roast pullet, manchet bread, and an apple tart, and drink spiced wine.