probably where Lorenzo de’ Medici died, and not the one generally
pointed out to strangers. On an ancient plan of the villa the end room
is found marked “the room of Messer Lorenzo,” and the small closet
opening out of it, with a spiral staircase in the thickness of the wall
leading down into the courtyard, is indicated as “the study of Messer
Lorenzo.”
From the courtyard one enters a fine vaulted and frescoed room leading
into a loggia under the one painted by Poccetti. This has been closed
in by glass windows, and here Mr Watts, while staying with Lord
Holland, who rented Careggi when he was minister to the Tuscan court in
1845, painted a large fresco of the murder of Piero Leoni, doctor to
Lorenzo. It is a fine work with daring and successful foreshortening.
From the covered gallery round the top of the villa the view is
splendid. To the south is “the delightful hill Montughi,” dotted with
villas, to most of which is attached some story of love or bloodshed;
then the towers and palaces of fair Florence backed with line upon line
of blue and violet mountains. Looking westward we can follow the track
of the Arno flowing down to the sea, until lost behind the hill on
which stands Artimino, another Medici villa. The little town of Prato
shines white in the sun, and if the day be at all clear Pistoja can
be seen, with the rugged Apennines and the white peaks of the Carrara
mountains in the distance. To the north, shielding Careggi from the
harsh north wind, rises Monte de’ Vecchi, so-called because the great
family of Vecchi, or Vecchietti, whose palaces stood on the site of
the Campidoglio in the centre of Florence and were destroyed by the
Ghibellines after the battle of Monteaperti, possessed villas and
estates on its slopes.
At Careggi, Cosimo the elder passed what time he could spare from the
affairs of state, surrounded by a galaxy of artists and men of letters
such as the world has seldom seen. Among the former were Brunelleschi,
Donatello, Michelozzo Michelozzi, Ghiberti, Verrocchio, Paolo Uccello,
Luca della Robbia, Fra Angelico, Fra Filippo Lippi and Masaccio.
Among the latter, Marsilio Ficino, Niccolò de’ Niccoli, Cristofano
Landino, Lionardo Aretino (Bruni), Carlo Aretino (Marsuppini), Poggio
Bracciolini, Ambrogio Traversari and Giannozzo Manetti.
To Ficino Cosimo gave a villa (la Fontanella)[21] close to Careggi,
and named him President of the Platonic Academy which he founded,
having been convinced of the importance of Platonic studies by Giorgius
Gemistus, a native of Byzantium, who came to Florence in 1438 in
the train of the Emperor Palaelogus. Niccolò de’ Niccoli “censor of
the Latin tongue,” as Lionardo Aretino called him, was one of the
Academicians. He spent his whole fortune in buying MSS., and his
house, stored with treasures, was open to all strangers, students and
artists. Cristofano Landino, known for his commentary on Dante, and
Lionardo Aretino (Bruni), Chancellor of the Republic of Florence, were
also Academicians. The translations of the latter from Greek were
celebrated for their sound scholarship and pure latinity, while his
diplomatic letters were regarded as models, and his public speeches
were compared to those of Pericles. When he walked abroad a train of
scholars and foreigners attended him, and when he died the Priors of
Florence decreed him a public funeral in Santa Croce, “after the manner
of the ancients.” Carlo Aretino (Marsuppini), another member of the
Platonic Academy, succeeded Bruni as Chancellor; an omnivorous reader
and possessed of an extraordinary memory, he formed a great contrast to
Niccoli, who had introduced him to Cosimo. Vespasiano describes Niccoli
as “of a most fair presence, lively, with a smile ever on his lips, and
very pleasant in his talk”; whereas Marsuppini was grave in manner,
taciturn, and given to melancholy.
Poggio Bracciolini was another of the great scholars attracted to
Florence by the fame of Cosimo’s liberality. He was a friend of
Ambrogio Traversari, whose cell in the convent of the Angeli was the
meeting-place of learned men. Giannozzo Manetti, the Hebrew scholar,
had studied Greek under Traversari, and his Latin was so perfect that
Bruni is said to have been jealous of him. The Republic sent him as
her ambassador to various Italian courts, and there is a good story
in the Commentario, that “when he was speaking at Naples the King was
so entranced he did not even brush the flies from his face.” At last
Manetti roused the jealousy of the Medicean party and ended his life
in exile. “These men,” writes Symonds, “formed the literary oligarchy
who surrounded Cosimo de’ Medici, and through their industry and
influence restored the studies of antiquity at Florence.” Cosimo was
a Mæcenas worth serving. For his own family he built the great palace
in Via Larga (afterwards Riccardi, now the Prefecture), he restored
or rebuilt the villas of Cafaggiuolo, Trebbio and Careggi, while he
expended 500,000 golden florins on public buildings. During the last
years of his life he seldom moved from Careggi, and the following
letter, written by his son Piero to Lorenzo and Giuliano about their
grandfather four days before his death, gives a pleasant picture of the
private life of the Medici family:—
“I wrote to you the day before yesterday how much worse Cosimo was;
it appears to me that he is gradually sinking, and he thinks the same
himself. On Tuesday evening he would have no one in his room save only
Mona Contessina [Cosimo’s wife] and myself. He began by recounting
all his past life, then he touched upon the government of the city,
and then on its commerce, and at last spoke of the management of the
private possessions of our family and of what concerns you two; taking
comfort that you had good wits, and bidding me educate you well so that
you might be of help to me. Two things he deplored. Firstly, that he
had not done as much as he had wished or could have done; secondly,
that he left me in such poor health and with much irksome business.
Then he said he would make no will, not having made one whilst
Giovanni[22] was alive seeing us always united in true love, amity and
esteem; and that when it pleased God to so order it he desired to be
buried without pomp or show, and reminded me of his often expressed
wish to be interred in San Lorenzo. All this he said with much method
and prudence, and with a courage that was marvellous to behold; adding
that his life had been a long one and that he was ready and content
to depart whensoever it pleased God. Yestermorn he left his bed, and
caused himself to be carefully dressed. The Priors of San Marco, of
San Lorenzo and of the Badia were present, and he spoke the responses
as though in perfect health. Then being asked the articles of faith,
he repeated them word by word, made his confession, and took the Holy
Sacrament with more devotion than can be described, having first asked
pardon of all present. These things have raised my courage and my hope
in God Almighty, and although according to the flesh I am sorrowful,
yet, seeing the greatness of his soul and how well disposed, I am in
part content that his end should be thus. Yesterday he was pretty
well and also during the night, but on account of his great age I
have small hope of his recovery. Cause prayers to be said for him by
the Monks of the Wood, and bestow alms as seems good to you, praying
God to leave him to us for a while, if such be for the best. And you,
who are young, take example and take your share of care and trouble
as God has ordained, and make up your minds to be men, your condition
and the present case demanding that of you lads. And above all take
heed to everything that can add to your honour and be of use to you,
because the time has come when it is necessary that you should rely on
yourselves, and live in the fear of God, and hope all will go well. Of
what happens to Cosimo I will advise you. We are expecting a doctor
from Milan, but I have more hope in Almighty God than in aught else. No
more at present. Careggi, the 26 July 1464.”
Cosimo died on the 1st August 1464; he was buried with sovereign
honours in the sacristy he had built in San Lorenzo, and on his tomb
was inscribed, by public desire, “Cosimo Pater Patriae.” Piero, his
son, succeeded quietly to the honours and power of his father. He had
met and loved Lucrezia Tornabuoni at Careggi, her father having a villa
close by,[23] and Cosimo sanctioned the marriage and regarded Lucrezia
as a daughter. She was a gifted woman, handsome and virtuous, a
poetess, and at the same time devoted to all her household cares. Piero
de’ Medici died only five years after his father of a fit of the gout
at Careggi on the 3rd December 1469, and was succeeded by his brilliant
son Lorenzo the Magnificent.
“Lorenzo,” writes John Addington Symonds, “was a man of marvellous
variety and range of mental power. He possessed one of those rare
natures, fitted to comprehend all knowledge and to sympathise with
the most diverse forms of life. While he never for one moment relaxed
his grasp on politics, among philosophers he passed for a sage; among
men of letters for an original and graceful poet; among scholars for
a Grecian, sensitive to every nicety of Attic idiom; among artists
for an amateur gifted with refined discernment and consummate taste.
Pleasure-seekers knew in him the libertine, who jousted with the
boldest, danced and masqueraded with the merriest, sought adventures in
the streets at night, and joined the people in their May-day games and
Carnival festivities. The pious extolled him as an author of devotional
lauds and mystery plays, a profound theologian, a critic of sermons.
He was no less famous for his jokes and repartees than for his pithy
apothegms and maxims; as good a judge of cattle as of statues; as much
at home in the bosom of his family as in the riot of an orgy; as ready
to discourse on Plato as to plan a campaign or to plot the death of a
dangerous citizen.”[24]
“What other men call study and hard toil, for thee shall be pastime;”
sings Poliziano, “wearied with deeds of state, to this thou hast
recourse, and dost address the vigour of thy well-worn powers to song;
blest in thy mental gifts, blest to be able thus to play so many parts,
to vary thus the great cares of thy all-embracing mind, and weave so
many divers duties into one.”[25] Angelo Poliziano, “honour and glory
of Montepulciano” as Pulci calls him, who thus sounds the praises of
Lorenzo, was born in 1454. His name, famous in Italian literature,
is a latinised version of his birthplace, Montepulciano. As a boy of
ten he entered the University of Florence, and studied under Landino,
Argyropoulos, Andronicus Kallistos and Ficino. At thirteen he published
Latin letters, at seventeen Greek poems, and edited Catullus when he
was eighteen. Lorenzo de’ Medici received the young student into his
own household, and made him tutor to his children. Ugly and misshapen,
he squinted and had an enormous nose, but his voice was wonderfully
sweet and melodious, and his eloquence great. Men of learning visited
Florence on purpose to see him, and he complains (in a letter to
Hieronymus Donatus, May 1480), “does a man want a motto for a ring, an
inscription for his bedroom or a device for his plate, or even for his
pots and pans, he runs like all the world to Poliziano.”
Another famous frequenter of Careggi, Pico della Mirandola, is thus
described by Poliziano:—
“Nature seemed to have showered on this man, or hero, all her gifts.
He was tall and finely moulded, from his face a something of divinity
shone forth. Acute, and gifted with prodigious memory, in his studies
he was indefatigable, in his style perspicuous and eloquent. You could
not say whether his talents or his moral qualities conferred on him the
greater lustre. Familiar with all branches of philosophy and the master
of many languages, he stood on high above the reach of praise.” Pico
della Mirandola showed remarkable abilities at a very early age. His
mother, a niece of Boiardo the knightly poet of “Orlando Innamorato,”
sent him at the age of fourteen to Bologna. There he mastered the
humanities and what was taught of mathematics, logic, philosophy
and oriental languages, and then went to Paris, the headquarters of
scholastic theology. His memory was wonderful, a single reading served
to fix the language and the matter of the text on his mind for ever.
Pico was about twenty when he came to Florence, and his beauty, noble
manners and great learning made him the idol of society. But every year
he inclined more and more to grave and abstruse studies, and as Symonds
notes: “at last the Prince was merged in the philosopher, the man of
letters in the mystic.”[26]
In a letter to Jacopo Antiquario Poliziano, after describing the malady
from which Lorenzo had been suffering for some time, continues: “The
day before his death, being at his villa of Careggi, he grew so weak
that all hope of saving him vanished. Perceiving this, like a wise man,
he called before all else for the confessor to purge himself of his
past sins. This same confessor told me afterwards that he marvelled
to see with what courage and constancy Lorenzo prepared himself for
death; how well he ordered all things pertaining thereunto, and with
what prudence and religious feeling he thought on the life to come.
Towards midnight, while he was quietly meditating, he was informed that
the priest, bearing the Holy Sacrament, had arrived. Rousing himself,
he exclaimed, ‘It shall never be said that my Lord, who created and
saved me, shall come to me—in my room—raise me I beg of you, raise
me quickly, so that I may go and meet Him.’ Saying this he raised
himself as well as he could, and supported by his servants advanced to
meet the priest in the outer room, there crying he knelt.” Poliziano
here gives the text of a long prayer which Lorenzo recited and then
continues: “these and other things he said sobbing, while all around
cried bitterly. At length the priest ordered that he should be raised
from the ground and carried to bed, so as to receive the Viaticum in
more comfort. For some time he resisted, but at last out of respect
to the priest he obeyed. In bed, repeating almost the same prayer and
with much gravity and devotion, he received the body and blood of
Christ. Then he devoted himself to consoling his son Pietro, for the
others were away, and exhorted him to bear this law of necessity with
constancy; feeling sure the aid of Heaven would be vouchsafed to him,
as it had been to himself in many and divers occasions, if he only
acted wisely. Meanwhile your Lorenzo, the doctor from Pavia, arrived;
most learned as it seemed to me, but summoned too late to be of any
use; yet to do something he ordered various precious stones to be
pounded together in a mortar, for I know not what kind of medicine.
Lorenzo thereupon asked the servants what that doctor was doing in
his room and what he was preparing; and when I answered that he was
composing a remedy to comfort his intestines he recognised my voice
and looking kindly, as was his wont, ‘Oh Angiolo,’ he said, ‘art thou
here?’ and raising his languid arms took both my hands and pressed them
tightly. I could not stifle my sobs or stay my tears, though I tried
hard to hide them by turning my face away. But he showed no emotion
and continued to press my hands between his. When he saw that I could
not speak for crying, quite naturally he loosed my hands and I ran
into the adjoining room where I could give free vent to my grief and
to my tears. Then drying my eyes I returned, and as soon as he saw me
he called me to him and asked what Pico della Mirandola was doing. I
replied that Pico had remained in town, fearing to molest him with his
presence. ‘And I,’ said Lorenzo, ‘but for the fear that the journey
here might be irksome to him, would be most glad to see him and speak
to him for the last time before I leave you all.’ I asked if I should
send for him. ‘Certainly, and with all speed,’ answered he. This I did,
and Pico came and sat near the bed, while I leaned against it by his
knees in order to hear the languid voice of my lord for the last time.
With what goodness, with what courtesy, I may say with what caresses,
Lorenzo received him. First he asked his pardon for thus disturbing
him, begging him to look upon it as a sign of the friendship—the
love—he bore him; assuring him that he died more willingly after seeing
so dear a friend. Then introducing, as was his wont, pleasant and
familiar sayings, he joked also with us. ‘I wish,’ he said to Pico,
‘that death had spared me until your library had been complete.’ Pico
had hardly left the room when Fra Girolamo (Savonarola) of Ferrara,
a man celebrated for his doctrine and his sanctity and an excellent
preacher, came in. To his exhortations to remain firm in his faith, and
to live in future, if Heaven granted him life, free from crime; or if
God so willed it, to receive death willingly; Lorenzo replied that he
was firm in his religion, that his life would always be guided by it,
and that nothing could be sweeter to him than death if such was the
divine will. Fra Girolamo then turned to go, when Lorenzo said, ‘Oh,
father, before going deign to give me thy benediction.’ Then bowing his
head, immersed in piety and religion, he repeated the words and the
prayers of the friar, without attending to the grief, now openly shown,
of his familiars. It seemed as though all save Lorenzo were going to
die, so calm was he. He gave no signs of anxiety or of sorrow; even in
that extreme moment he showed his usual strength of mind and fortitude.
The doctors who stood round him, not to seem idle, worried him with
their remedies and assistance: he accepted and submitted to everything
they suggested, not because he thought it would save him, but in order
not to offend anyone, even in death. To the last he had such mastery
over himself that he joked about his own death. Thus when given
something to eat and asked how he liked it he answered, ‘As well as a
dying man can like anything.’ He embraced us all tenderly and humbly
asked pardon if, during his illness, he had caused annoyance to anyone.
Then disposing himself to receive extreme unction he recommended his
soul to God. The gospel containing the passion of Christ was then read,
and he showed that he understood by moving his lips, or raising his
languid eyes, or sometimes moving his fingers. Gazing upon a silver
crucifix inlaid with precious stones and kissing it from time to time,
he expired....”
The other accounts of the last interview of Lorenzo with Savonarola by
various authors—Pico della Mirandola, Cinozzi, Burlamacchi, Barsanti,
Razzi, Fra Marco della Casa, etc.—give the more generally accepted
story that Lorenzo sent for Savonarola, and said he wished to confess
to him. He deplored three great sins: the sack of Volterra; the dowry
monies taken from the Monte delle Fanciulle, whereby so many girls
were driven to a life of shame; and the blood shed after the Pazzi
conspiracy. The friar told him that three things were required of him.
“Firstly, a lively faith in the mercy of God.” “I have that,” said
Lorenzo. “Secondly, to restore what you have unjustly taken, and to bid
your sons make restitution.” This, after some moments of hesitation,
Lorenzo also acceded to. Then Savonarola drew himself up to his full
height and said, “Lastly, to restore to Florence her liberty.” Lorenzo
turned his head away and Savonarola departed without hearing his
confession and without giving him absolution. Professor Villari, who
may be supposed to understand the manners and motives of his countrymen
better than foreigners, does not believe that Savonarola would have
gone to Careggi save at the express desire of Lorenzo, who sent for
him in order to confess his sins and receive absolution from a man he
knew to be honest. Cinozzi gives the words of Savonarola, stating that
the conversation was a preliminary to the confession which was never
made. He adds: “These words were repeated to me by Fra Silvestro, who
died with his superior Fra Ieronimo, and who, as I well believe, had
them and heard them from Fra Ieronimo’s own lips.” Professor Villari
considers that Poliziano would not have dared to make a genuine report
of the scene (supposing he saw it), in order not to cast a slur on the
memory of his patron and benefactor, and to avoid giving offence to the
Medicean party.
[Illustration: (Drawing of Villa Di Careggi.)]
Various versions also exist of the death of Pier Leoni, who evidently
was what we should call the trusted family doctor of the Medici; for
when Lorenzo’s daughter Magdalena, married to Francesco Cybo, son of
Innocent III, was so ill at Rome, she sent an express messenger to her
father to beg him to send Maestro Leoni to see her. Poliziano declares
that Piero Leoni killed himself in despair at not being able to save
Lorenzo; Piero Ricci (Petrus Crinitus), a contemporary author, also
records that he drowned himself in a well near Florence, but other
accounts say that he was murdered by some of Lorenzo’s people, who
suspected him, unjustly, of poisoning their master. Enemies of the
Medici went so far as to accuse Piero de’ Medici of inducing him to
administer poison to his father, and then of drowning him in the well
of the courtyard at Careggi.
In 1494 the Medici were expelled from Florence and an attempt was
made to reconstitute a commonwealth upon the model of Venice. But
the internal elements of discord were too potent. The Medici were
recalled, again to be expelled in 1527. “Two years later Dante and
Lorenzo da Castiglione and a number of youths went in hot haste,”
writes Varchi, “and set fire to the villas of Careggi and Castello;
the latter, however, did not burn easily, and fearing lest the enemy’s
forces should cut off their retreat they fell back. So one of Signor
Cosimo’s labourers was enabled to saw some beams in half and put out
the fire. They also set fire to the palace of Jacopo Salviati, which
was burnt, as well as Careggi.”
Luckily the thick walls of the fine old villa defied the flames,
and the first care of Alessandro de’ Medici was to restore it to
its pristine splendour; but he was murdered by his cousin Lorenzino
before he had time to finish the work. The Grand Duke Ferdinando II,
had an especial affection for Careggi, and attempted to resuscitate
the Platonic Academy which once flourished there, but in vain. All he
could do was to commemorate it in a fresco in the Pitti palace, which
represents Plato surrounded by the illustrious men who had formed part
of it—
“Mira qui di Careggi all’ aure amene
Marsilio, e il Pico, e cento egregj spirti,
E di, s’ all’ ombre degli Elisj mirti
Tanti n’ ebber giammai Tebe, o Atene.”
(Behold here in the soft air of Careggi, Marsilio, and Pico, and a
hundred men of learning, and say whether at Thebes or Athens there were
as many in the shade of the Elysian myrtles) is the inscription.
In 1779 Careggi was sold to Vincenzo Orsi for 31,000 scudi. In 1848 it
again changed hands and was bought by Mr Sloane, who left it to Count
Boutourline, from whose family the present owner, M. Segré, bought the
villa a few years ago.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] Benedetto Varchi. _Storia Florentina._ Lib. IX. p. 251 F. Mazzei
in a pamphlet, _La Macine a Montughi_, gives another derivation; he
says that in 1100 the Marchioness Villa left large estates to her
son Ugone in this district, and thence the hill was called _Montem
Hugonis_, corrupted into Montui by the common people and into Montughi
by writers.
[20] Moreni. _Contorni di Firense._ Vol. I. p. 45, _et seq._
[21] Now belonging to Mr Mason.
[22] Cosimo’s favourite son, who died 1463.
[23] Villa Lemmi. The frescoes by Botticelli, now in the Louvre, were
discovered there.
[24] John Addington Symonds. _Renaissance in Italy._ _The Revival of
Learning_, p. 320.
[25] Angelo Poliziano. _Carmina_, etc., p. 179.
[26] J. A. Symonds. _Renaissance in Italy._ _The Revival of Learning_,
p. 331.
[Illustration: COSIMO PATER PATRIAE,
By MICHELOZZI.
(_Villa di Cafaggiuolo_).]
[Illustration: LORENZO DE’ MEDICI,
By NICCOLÒ FIORENTINO.
(_Villa di Coreggi_).]
[Illustration: MARSILIO FICINO,
By ANONIMO.
(_Villa Medici_).]
[Illustration: (Drawing of Villa Di Rusciano)]
VILLA DI RUSCIANO