southeast of Italy, been rendered a thing of the past by the surrender of
the Moslem garrison to the Duke of Calabria in September, 1481, than
the peninsula was again ranged in opposing camps by the attempt of the
Venetians, assisted by Sixtus and his nephew, to dispossess Ercole
d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, of his dominions. The Duke had married
the daughter of Ferdinand, King of Naples, an alliance which, by
strengthening him, gave on that account great offence to the Venetians.
They therefore sought to provoke him by insisting on their monopoly of
the manufacture of salt in North Italy, and by building a fortress on
a part of the Ferrarese territory which they pretended was within the
limits of their own. When he remonstrated, they declined to remove it. In
vain he appealed to Sixtus. The latter was one of the wolves waiting to
devour him. He then turned to Lorenzo.
To the inexpressible chagrin of Venice and of Sixtus, the Magnifico
promptly espoused his cause, formed an alliance with Ferdinand and other
states, and, before the Pope and the Venetians were aware he had moved,
they found themselves confronted by Naples, Florence, Milan, Bologna,
Mantua, and Faenza. The allies were commanded by Federigo of Montefeltro,
Duke of Urbino, while the Venetian-papal troops were placed under Ruberto
Malatesta of Rimini. In this campaign, however, Lorenzo was really the
master-spirit. Although successes were won on both sides, a more than
usually tragic complexion was given to the war by the death of the two
commanders of the opposing forces. They had been friends from youth, and
such a trifle as the fact that they were hired to fight against each
other never disturbed the tenor of their mutual regard. Armstrong says no
more than the truth when he remarks: "It was a pathetic coincidence.
The two rival generals had bequeathed to each other the care of their
children and estates, a characteristic illustration of the easy
good-fellowship in this game of Italian war."
The war dragged on with varying results until Lorenzo played his reserve
card. He induced the Slavic Archbishop of Carniola, who, visiting Rome
as the emperor Frederick's envoy, had been shocked by the shameless
immorality of the Pope's life, to begin an agitation for a general
council. In this he was supported by several of the rulers in Northern
Italy and Eastern Europe. The move was so far successful. The Pope became
alarmed, and hurriedly broke off his alliance with Venice, on the plea
that the prevention of fresh schism in the Church must take precedence of
every other consideration. The real fact of the matter was he dreaded the
fate of Pope John XXIII, for he knew the actions of his nephew Girolamo
Riario would not stand conciliar examination. Moreover, his other nephew,
Giuliano della Rovere, afterward Pope Julius II, a bitter enemy to
Girolamo, and Lorenzo's warm friend, had, during the disgrace of his
cousin, gained the Pope's ear and told him some plain but wholesome
truths regarding the unpleasant consequences of a permanent rupture with
Lorenzo.
All these considerations induced Sixtus to yield and leave Venice to
prosecute the war alone. This it did against a quadruple alliance, for
the Pope, when the haughty republic of the lagoons refused to disgorge
its Ferrarese prey at his orders, promptly changed sides, and was as keen
against the aggressor as he had previously been favorable to it. The
Venetians sustained two severe defeats, while their fleet was almost
shattered by a storm. The pecuniary strain was beyond their resources
longer to maintain. They therefore resorted to the customary project of
inducing some other power to intervene. In this case they took the step
of inviting the Duke of Orleans to lay claim to the dukedom of Milan, and
the Duke of Lorraine to the throne of Naples. The move was successful
as regards Ludovico of Milan; he withdrew from the alliance, and much
against the wish of the other allies the peace of Bagnolo was concluded
in August, 1484. To Sixtus the news came as the knell of his dearest
hopes. He gave way to one wild outburst of passion, in which he cursed
all who had been engaged in making peace, then apoplexy supervened, and
within a few hours he was a corpse. He was succeeded by Cardinal Cybo, a
warm friend toward the Medici, and one who had such a profound admiration
for the genius of Lorenzo in statecraft that he seldom took any step
without consulting him, though unfortunately he did not always follow the
Magnifico's advice.
If no one else reaped honor and glory from this Ferrarese war, Lorenzo
undoubtedly did so. By both sides the fact was admitted that he had acted
throughout as a far-seeing, sagacious diplomatist, who, while giving
preeminence, as was natural, to the welfare of his own state, had sought
to conserve the cause of letters, even amid the turmoil incident upon the
collision of political interests. He had proved the friend even of the
enemies of his own country, when once they had passed from the scene
of conflict, as, for example, when he dared Girolamo Riario to raise a
finger in the direction of dispossessing the son of the Pope's general,
Ruberto Malatesta, of his Rimini estates. He was the friend of the
oppressed everywhere, and in more cases than one his powerful protection
saved the children of his friends from being robbed by powerful
relatives. This connection between Florence, Naples, Milan, Rome, and
Ferrara tended to the promotion of intellectual intercourse between
them. As printing was now being briskly prosecuted all over Northern and
Central Italy, the interchange of literature went on ceaselessly among
them.
This, however, was Lorenzo's last great war. True, he was implicated in
the prolonged quarrel between the papacy and King Ferrante of Naples, yet
it was more as a mediator between the two antagonists than as the ally
of the last-named that he took part in it; although, as Armstrong points
out, he paid for the services of Trivulsio and four hundred cross-bowmen,
that by enabling the Neapolitans to check San Severino, the leader of the
papal-Venetian troops, he might induce Innocent VIII to lose heart and
retire from the struggle.
Lorenzo, during the last six years of his life, or, to speak more
definitely, after the peace of Bagnolo, had become in Italian, as he was
rapidly becoming in European, politics the master-spirit that inspired
the moves on the diplomatic chess-board. In the mind of the historical
student whose attention is directed to this period, admiration and wonder
go hand-in-hand as we contemplate the marvellous sagacity and prevision
of the man, together with the skill wherewith he made Florence--the
weakest from a military point of view of the five greater Italian
powers--the one which exercised the most preponderating influence
upon the affairs of the peninsula. His supreme genius conceived and
consummated the great scheme for ensuring the peace of Italy by a triple
alliance of the three larger states--Florence, Milan, and Naples--against
the other two, Venice and the papacy.
As showing how entirely it was dependent upon him, the alliance was
operative only so long as he was alive to bind the antagonistic forces of
Naples and Milan together by the link of his own personal influence.
He, in a word, was the subtle acid holding in chemical combination many
mutually repellent substances. When his influence was withdrawn by death,
within a few months they had all fallen apart, the triple alliance was
forgotten and Italy was doomed. Even by those with whom he was nominally
at war he was resorted to for advice. He it was that kept Innocent VIII
from taking up a position that would have rendered the papacy ridiculous
in the eyes of Europe, when he sought to threaten Naples with
consequences he was powerless to inflict.
Many writers have accused Lorenzo of cowardice, of pusillanimity, of want
of political resolution on account of this very course of action, namely,
that he assisted the enemies of Florence to extricate themselves from
their dilemmas. Such criticism fails entirely to understand both the aim
and the scope of his policy. He desired to keep Italy for the Italians.
His clear-sighted sagacity saw nothing but danger in the plans of
Ludovico of Milan to invite the French King into Italy, or in those of
Venice to encourage the Duke of Lorraine to press his claims upon Milan.
The intervention of either France or Spain in Italy was, in his idea,
fraught only with dire disaster. Fain would he have patched up the
quarrel between Naples and the papacy by mutual concessions, because
he foresaw what would happen if the colossal northern powers had their
cupidity aroused regarding Italy, and learned how defenceless she really
was. Because he foresaw so clearly the horrors of the invasion of 1494
and 1527, he acted as he did, even toward those who were enemies of
Florence. His alarm appears in the letter, dated July, 1489, which he
addressed to his ambassador in Rome: "I dislike these Ultramontanes and
barbarians beginning to interfere in Italy. We are so disunited and so
deceitful that I believe that nothing but shame and loss would be our
lot; recent experience may serve to foretell the future." How true a
prophet he was, the subsequent course of Italian history revealed!
Anxious though the situation was, crucial though many of the problems
he had to solve undoubtedly were, yet the statement may be accepted as
approximately true that the last three or four years of Lorenzo's
life were spent amid profound peace--at least as far as Florence was
concerned. Roscoe's picture is highly colored, but not overcolored:
"At this period the city of Florence was at its highest degree
of prosperity. The vigilance of Lorenzo had secured it from all
apprehensions of external attack; and his acknowledged disinterestedness
and moderation had almost extinguished that spirit of dissension for
which it had been so long remarkable. The Florentines gloried in their
illustrious citizen, and were gratified by numbering in their body a man
who wielded in his hand the fate of nations and attracted the respect
and admiration of all Europe; the administration of justice engaged his
constant attention, and he carefully avoided giving rise to an idea that
he was himself above the control of the law."
And Guicciardini adds: "This season of tranquillity was prosperous beyond
any that Italy had experienced during the long course of a thousand
years. Abounding in men eminent in the administration of public affairs,
skilled in every honorable science and every useful art, it stood high in
the estimation of foreign nations; which extraordinary felicity, acquired
at many different opportunities, several circumstances contributed to
preserve, but among the rest no small share of it was by general consent
ascribed to the industry and the virtue of Lorenzo de' Medici, a citizen
who rose so far above the mediocrity of a private station that he
regulated by his counsels the affairs of Florence, then more important by
its situation, by the genius of its inhabitants, and the promptitude
of its resources than by the extent of its dominions, and who, having
obtained the implicit confidence of the Roman pontiff Innocent VIII,
rendered his name great and his authority important in the affairs of
Italy."
Though he had never allowed the demands of civic affairs to interfere
with his interest in the progress of the Renaissance, war-time, as we
have said, is not favorable to the cultivation of letters. While
the connection between the states during the course of hostilities
undoubtedly promoted the increase of mutual interest in each other's
intellectual development, the fact that the Magnifico had to disburse
enormous sums for the prosecution of the campaigns necessarily limited
his ability to extend the same princely patronage to the cause of
learning. But with the conclusion of peace he resumed the original scale
of his benefactions, and the last four years of his life were, perhaps,
the most fruitful of all in sterling good achieved in the fostering of
the Renaissance.
He encouraged the printers to double their output; he munificently
assisted such undertakings as the first edition of Homer, edited by the
famous scholars Demetrius Chalcondyles and Demetrius Cretensis, as well
as other editions of the classics prepared by Poliziano, Marullus, and
others. In the final estimate of his influence upon his age we hope to
show that his aim was as pure as the prosecution of its realization was
determined. He encouraged foreigners to come to Florence to study
Greek, and, when their funds failed them, in many cases he generously
entertained them at his own expense. Grocyn and Linacre, as well as
Reuchlin, testify to the wise generosity of the great Magnifico, and all
three declare that to him, more than to any other man, the Renaissance
owed not only its development, but even the character it assumed in Italy
in the second last decade of the fifteenth century.
The end came when he was literally in his prime. Only forty-two years of
age, he might reasonably have looked forward to many years of active work
and the enjoyment of his honors! But Lorenzo, although not a vicious, was
a pleasure-loving man, and he had drained the cup of enjoyment to the
very lees. His constitution was undermined by worry and late vigils, by
the very intensity of interest wherewith he had devoted himself to the
pleasures of the moment. Accordingly, late in 1491 he began to feel the
gout, from which he had suffered for some years, becoming so troublesome
that he was unable for the duties devolving on him. He had lost his
wife, Clarice Orsini, in July, 1487, at a time when he was absent at the
sulphur baths of Filetta, striving to obtain relief from pain; therefore
his last years were lonely indeed.
Life had lost its relish to the dying Magnifico. The only thing over
which he showed a flash of the old interest was in March, 1492, when his
son Giovanni (afterward Leo X), on being made a cardinal by Innocent
VIII, was invested with the _insignia_ in the Abbey Church of Fiesole.
Although then within a month of his end, although, moreover, so weak that
he was unable to attend the investiture mass or to head his table at the
banquet which followed, he caused himself to be carried in a litter into
the hall, where he publicly paid reverence to his son as a prince of
the Church. He then embraced him as a father and gave him his paternal
blessing. That done, and after addressing a few words of welcome to his
guests collectively, he was slowly borne back to his chamber to die.
Nevermore was he seen in public.
His ruling passion was, however, strong in death. In place of surrounding
himself with clergy, his last hours were spent with the humanists and
scholars he had loved so well. To his beautiful villa of Careggi, and
to that room facing the south which he called his own, he retired, and
summoned Ficino, Poliziano, and Pico della Mirandola to bear him company
until he dipped his feet in the River of Death. They discussed many
things, but principally the consolations afforded by philosophy. Then
they reverted to the subject of the classics, and to the valuable codices
which Lascaris was bringing back from Greece.
But hope at last burned low, and the physicians had to confess that the
case was beyond their skill. How rudimentary as regards medical science
that skill was may be judged from the fact that the staple remedy
prescribed by the great Milanese doctor, Lazaro da Ficino, who had been
called in to consult with Lorenzo's own medical man, Pier Leoni of
Spoleto, was a potion compounded of crushed pearls and jewels. As might
have been expected, such a treatment accelerated rather than retarded the
disease.
The last hours of Lorenzo, and particularly his historic interview with
Savonarola, have often been described and are to this day the subject
of debate. There are two sides to every story, and this one of the last
visit of the haughty prior of San Marco's to the dying Magnifico is no
exception. Poliziano relates the incident in one form, the followers
of Savonarola in another; but neither report is absolutely authentic.
Suffice it for us that Benedetto, writing a week after the Magnifico's
death, says of the matter: "Our dear friend and master died so nobly,
with all the patience, the reverence, the recognition of God which the
best of holy men and a soul divine could show, with words upon his lips
so kind, that he seemed a new St. Jerome."
Perhaps the most reasonable attitude to assume toward the problem is that
Lorenzo died as he lived, feeling that strange, restless curiosity as to
what was summed up in the idea of a "future life" which he had manifested
all his days: "If I believe aught implicitly," he is reported to have
said in earlier years to Alberti, "I believe in Plato's doctrine of
immortality in the _Phaedo,_ for religion is too much a matter of
temperament for us to lay down hard-and-fast rules about it." Lorenzo
outwardly conformed in his dying hours to the rites of the Catholic
Church. He received the _viaticum_ kneeling, he repeated the responses in
an earnest and fervent tone, and then, when he felt that the grains in
the hour-glass of life were running out, he pressed a crucifix to his
lips and so passed within the veil. As a humanist he had been reared, as
a humanist he had lived and labored, as a humanist he died, maintaining
to the very last his interest in those studies which it had been his
life's passion to pursue.
The sun of the Florentine renaissance had set forever!
[Footnote 1: By permission of Selmar Hess.]
DEATH OF CHARLES THE BOLD
LOUIS XI UNITES BURGUNDY WITH THE CROWN OF FRANCE
A.D. 1477
PHILIPPE DE COMINES
During the greater part of his rule as duke of Burgundy, Charles the
Bold was at war with Louis XI of France, notwithstanding the treaty of
Péronne, 1468, which the French monarch accepted under duress. Meanwhile
it was the constant aim of Charles to enlarge his dukedom, and when, in
1475, he had made another peace with Louis, the Duke turned anew to his
scheme of conquest.
Charles soon made himself master of Lorraine, which he had long coveted,
and then, 1476, invaded Switzerland. "It was reserved for a small people,
already celebrated for their heroic valor and their love of liberty, to
beat this powerful man." Crossing the Jura, Charles besieged the little
town of Granson, and after its capitulation he hanged or drowned all the
defenders. When the news of this barbarity had spread through Switzerland
the eight cantons arose, and almost under the walls of Granson the Swiss
inflicted upon Charles a crushing defeat. In June, 1476, the Duke saw his
second army destroyed by the Swiss and the Lorrainers, whom Comines calls
Germans. In the following winter Charles assembled a third army and
marched against Nancy, the capital of Lorraine, which was then held by
the same allies. They were commanded by the Duke of Lorraine, who went to
the relief of the garrison at Nancy from St. Nicholas, six miles away.
Comines, whose account is given below, was a French statesman and
historian, who, after being for a time in the service of Charles the
Bold, went over to Louis and became his personal counsellor. He was
therefore intimately versed in the history of these times.
The Duke of Lorraine and his army of Germans broke up from St. Nicholas,
and advanced toward the Duke of Burgundy, with a resolution to give him
battle. The Count of Campobasso joined them that very day, and carried
off with him about eightscore men-at-arms; and it grieved him much that
he could do his master no greater mischief. The garrison of Nancy had
intelligence of his design, which in some measure encouraged them to hold
out; besides, another person had got over the works, and assured them
of relief, otherwise they were just upon surrendering, and would have
capitulated in a little time, had it not been for the treachery of this
Count; but God had determined to finish this mystery.
The Duke of Burgundy, having intelligence of the approach of the Duke of
Lorraine's army, called a kind of council, contrary to his custom, for
generally he followed his own will. It was the opinion of most of his
officers that his best way would be to retire to Pont-à-Mousson, which
was not far off, and dispose his army in the towns about Nancy; affirming
that, as soon as the Germans had thrown a supply of men and provisions
into Nancy, they would march off again; and the Duke of Lorraine being in
great want of money, it would be a great while before he would be able to
assemble such an army again; and that their supplies of provisions could
not be so great but, before half the winter was over, they would be in
the same straits as they were now; and that in the mean time the Duke
might raise more forces and recruit himself; for I have been told by
those who ought to know best, that the Duke of Burgundy's army did not
then consist of full four thousand men, and of that number not above one
thousand two hundred were in a condition to fight. Money he did not want;
for in the castle of Luxembourg--which was not far off--there were in
ready cash four hundred fifty thousand crowns, which would have raised
men enough. But God was not so merciful to him as to permit him to take
this wise counsel or discern the vast multitude of enemies who on every
side surrounded him. Therefore he chose the worst plan, and, like a rash
and inconsiderate madman, resolved to try his fortune, and engage the
enemy with his weak and shattered army, notwithstanding the Duke of
Lorraine had a numerous force of Germans, and the King's army was not far
off.
As soon as the Count of Campobasso arrived in the Duke of Lorraine's
army, the Germans sent him word to leave the camp immediately, for they
would not entertain such traitors among them. Upon which message he
retired with his party to Condé, a castle and pass not far off, where he
fortified himself with carts and other things as well as he could,
in hopes that, if the Duke of Burgundy were routed, he might have an
opportunity of coming in for a share of the plunder, as he did afterward.
Nor was this practice with the Duke of Lorraine the most execrable action
that Campobasso was guilty of; but, before he left the army, he conspired
with several other officers--finding it was impracticable to attempt
anything against the Duke of Burgundy's person--to leave him just as they
came to the charge; for at that time he supposed it would put the army
into the greatest terror and consternation; and if the Duke fled, he was
sure he could not escape alive, for he had ordered thirteen or fourteen
sure men, some to run as soon as the Germans came up to charge them, and
others to watch the Duke of Burgundy and kill him in the rout; which was
well enough contrived, for I myself have seen two or three of those who
were thus employed to kill the Duke. Having thus settled his conspiracy
at home, he went over to the Duke of Lorraine upon the approach of the
German army; but, finding they would not entertain him, he retired to
Condé, as I said before.
The German army marched forward, and with them a considerable body of
French horse, whom the King had given leave to be present in that action.
Several parties lay in ambush not far off, that, if the Duke of Burgundy
were routed, they might surprise some person of quality or take some
considerable booty. By this everyone may see into what a deplorable
condition this poor Duke had brought himself by his contempt of good
counsel. Both armies being joined, the Duke of Burgundy's forces, which
had been twice beaten before, and were weak and ill-provided besides,
were quickly broken and entirely defeated. Many saved themselves by
flight; the rest were either taken or killed; and among them the Duke of
Burgundy himself was killed on the spot. Not having been in the battle
myself, I will say nothing of the manner of his death; but I was told by
some that they saw him beaten down, but, being prisoners themselves, were
not able to assist him; yet, while they were in sight, he was not killed,
but a great body of men coming that way afterward, they killed and
stripped him in the throng, not knowing who he was. This battle was
fought on January 5, 1476, upon the eve of Twelfth-day.