POLIZIANO IN THE MEDICEAN HOUSE. SCALA AND RUCELLAI.
FOR many of his contemporaries Lorenzo de’ Medici was the frequent
subject of verse, especially Latin verse, which the complimentary
art of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries preferred as the more
dignified, even after Italian poetry had secured a position by
considerable achievements. Many of these poetical productions have
been rescued from oblivion only to sink back again, unless they
contribute to the historical knowledge of the period. Their literary
worth consists merely in a talent for form which was surpassed by most
of the Latinists of the following century. Fortunately the court-poet
of the Medici was Poliziano. Many of his epigrams are addressed to
Lorenzo, and the elegance of the form as well as the warmth of feeling
which breathes through all he wrote about his patron, diminishes that
impression of servility which is inseparable from this kind of poetry.
Praise of his discretion and foresight, of his words and deeds—wishes
that he may attain the age of Nestor, as he already possesses his
wisdom—thanks for favour granted, and offers of future service, are
the themes of verse, as well as the merits of a swift runner, of a
Spanish hound, of a tree before the Medicean house, supposed to be
dead, but which had bloomed again, and of the brook of Ambra. During
Giuliano’s lifetime, the concord between the two brothers was the
object of praise; they were called Castor and Pollux, Agamemnon and
Menelaus. Angelo wrote an agreeable love-poem of some length on the
name of Giuliano. He thoroughly belonged to the Medicean household. He
was still young when Lorenzo entrusted to him the education of his son
Piero; but before the latter was eight years old dissensions occurred
which caused the poet-pedagogue many an hour of discomfort.
In the summer of 1478, when war and sickness made a residence in
Florence undesirable, Lorenzo, as already stated, sent his wife and
children to Pistoja, where they were hospitably received in the house
of Andrea Panciatichi, the head of an influential family inclined to
the Medici. They were accompanied by Angelo Poliziano, other masters,
and a doctor. Here Piero, only seven years old, with his great-uncle
Giovanni Tornabuoni received Ercole d’Este, who was going to take
the command at Florence. In October they exchanged their residence
at Pistoja for the villa at Fiesole, where the family circle was
increased by the sons of Niccolò Orsini, Count of Pitigliano. And
here arose a difference between the mother and the tutor. Clarice was
a good and careful mother. Giovanni, who was not yet three, had soon
after his birth given occasion for anxiety, and been a great trouble
to her and to his grandmother, on account of his delicate health.
Concerning Giuliano, then a few months old, whose constitution always
remained feeble, she wrote later to her husband: ‘I will care for him
as a mother should, but I beseech you to take care of yourself for
the children’s sake and mine.’ Poliziano’s mode of bringing up did
not satisfy her. Not that she began with a prejudice against him;
the good terms on which they had once been are proved by the letters
which he addressed to her on several occasions when he was absent from
Florence with Lorenzo.[48] He bestowed great care on his young pupil,
of whose writing and composition he sent specimens to the father. ‘I
shall not fail,’ he wrote to Lorenzo from Pistoja, September 20, ‘in
attention and fidelity. I know what I owe to your Magnificence, and I
feel for Piero and your other children an affection equal to that of a
father. Should anything unpleasant occur, I will endeavour myself to
bear it, out of love to you, to whom I owe everything.’ These words
show that there was already something amiss. Four weeks previously he
had written: ‘I am busy with Piero, and encourage him to write, and I
think in a few days you will receive a letter which will astonish you.
We have a master here who teaches writing in a fortnight, so that it
seems quite a miracle. The children are particularly happy, and look
quite blooming. Piero never leaves my side. I would that I could serve
you in greater things; but this is my work, and I fulfil it with joy.
But I beg you to ensure, either by letter or by a messenger, that my
authority shall not be restricted, so that I may the more easily guide
the boy and fulfil my duty. Nevertheless, act therein according to your
pleasure. Whatever may happen, I will bear it with equanimity.’ And on
the same day: ‘We get on as well as we can, but I cannot escape a few
collisions.’ That he was dissatisfied, dull, and longing to be near
Lorenzo, is clear from all his letters at this time, both to Madonna
Lucrezia and to her son.
To make matters worse, came the _villeggiatura_ at Caffaggiuolo,
whither Clarice went in November. This was, from position and climate,
a melancholy winter residence, where loneliness and bad weather seem to
have put the excitable man doubly out of humour, and all the more so
because Lorenzo’s old tutor, Gentile Becchi, who lived at the country
house with the family, grew very unsociable in consequence of the sad
circumstances of the time, which weighed heavily on the mind of this
vehement accuser of the Pope. Gentile had felt the events of the spring
deeply, and had been terribly cast down by the death of Giuliano.
Poliziano had tried to cheer him with an ode, which has acquired
historical importance from the testimony it bears to the hopes of
foreign aid which were cherished by the adherents of the Medici and
many of the Florentine people; hopes which were but very partially
fulfilled.[49]
AD GENTILEM EPISCOPUM.
GENTILES animi maxima pars mei,
Communi nimium sorte quid angeris?
Quid curis animum lugubribus teris,
Et me discrucias simul?
Passi digna quidem perpetuo sumus
Luctu, qui mediis (heu miseri) sacris
Illum, illum juvenem vidimus, O nefas!
Stratum sacrilega manu!
At sunt attonito quæ dare pectori
Solamen valeant plurima, nam super
Est, qui vel gremio creverit in tuo,
Laurens Etruriæ caput.
Laurens quem patriæ cœlicolum pater
Tutum terrifica gorgone præstitit;
Quem Tuscus pariter, quem Venetus Leo
Servant, et Draco pervigil.
Illi bellipotens excubat Hercules;
Illi fatiferis militat arcubus;
Illi mittit equos Francia martios,
Felix Francia regibus.
Circumstat populus murmure dissono;
Circumstant juvenem purpurei patres;
Causa vincimus et robore militum;
Hac stat Juppiter, hac favet.
Quare, O cum misera quid tibi Nenia,
Si nil proficimus? quin potius gravis
Absterisse bono lætitiæ die
Audes nubila pectoris.
Nam cum jam gelidos umbra reliquerit
Artus, non dolor hanc perpetuus retro
Mordacesve trahunt sollicitudines,
Mentis, curaque pervicax.
Thus rendered by Roscoe:—
O FRIEND, whose woes this bosom shares,
Why ceaseless mourn our mutual cares?
Ah! why thy days to grief resign,
With thy regrets recalling mine?
Eternal o’er the atrocious deed,
‘Tis true our kindred hearts may bleed,
When he, twin glory of our land,
Fell by a sacrilegious hand!
But sure, my friend, there yet remains
Some solace for these piercing pains,
Whilst he, once nurtured at thy side,
Lorenzo lives, Etruria’s pride.
Lorenzo, o’er whose favoured head
Jove his terrific gorgon spread;
Whose steps the lion-pair await,
Of Florence and Venetia’s state.
For him his crest the dragon rears;
For him the Herculean band appears;
Her martial succour Gallia brings—
Gallia, that glories in her kings!
See round the youth the purpled band
Of venerable fathers stand;
Exulting crowds around him throng,
And hail him as he moves along.
Strong in our cause and in our friends,
Our righteous battle Jove defends;
Thy useless sorrows then represt,
Let joy once more dilate thy breast.
To animate the clay-cold frame,
No sighs shall fan the vital flame;
Nor all the tears that love can shed
Recall to life the silent dead.
The poem seems to have had little or no effect, and the poet himself
became infected with melancholy. ‘The news from this place,’ wrote
Poliziano to Madonna Lucrezia, on November 18, ‘is that it rains
violently and incessantly, so that it is impossible to leave the house,
and instead of hunting we have taken to playing ball, that the children
may have exercise. I sit by the fire in dressing-gown and slippers,
and if you saw me you would take me for melancholy incarnate; for
that is what I seem to myself. I do, see, hear nothing that cheers
me, so deeply have our misfortunes affected me. Sleeping or waking, I
have nothing in my head but these fancies. The day before yesterday
we were all in joyful excitement, because we heard that the sickness
had ceased. Now we are down again, as there is said to be some still
going about. In town we have at least some comfort, if it is only that
of seeing Lorenzo come home safe and well. Here, everything makes us
uneasy, and I assure you I am dying of melancholy, such a burthen is
loneliness to me. Monsignore (Becchi) shuts himself up in his own room,
with no company but his thoughts; and I find him so cast down and full
of care that his society only increases my own sadness. Ser Alberto del
Malerba (a priest who was then in the Medicean household) recites the
service all day long with the children. When I am tired of studying,
my fancy goes off on a chase through pestilence and war—grief for the
past, anxiety for the future. I have no one to turn my thoughts to him,
and am dying of weariness. And here I have not my Madonna Lucrezia to
whom I can vent my feelings.’
At last matters came to an open breach. On May 6, 1479, Poliziano
wrote to Lorenzo from Careggi: ‘I am here at Careggi, having left
Caffaggiuolo by command of Madonna Clarice. The grounds of my
departure, I desire, aye I earnestly entreat, to be allowed to explain
to you by word of mouth, for it is a prolix affair. I believe that,
when you have heard me, you will find that the wrong is not all on my
side. For decency’s sake, and in order not to go to Florence without
your orders, I came here, and am waiting till your Magnificence informs
me what I am to do. For I am yours, though the world itself should turn
upside down; and if fortune will not smile upon me in your service,
that will not prevent me from always faithfully devoting myself to that
service. I commend myself to your Magnificence, and am entirely at your
commands.’ What had moved Madonna Clarice to this strong measure is
clear. She could have nothing to say against the scholar; but the man
inspired her with very little confidence, although we cannot think that
she was influenced by the evil rumours which were afterwards spread as
to Poliziano’s moral conduct—rumours characteristic of a time that
delighted in the most dishonouring accusations. Men of letters were so
full of exaggerated self-importance, and so incapable of controlling
their tongues or their pens, that Lorenzo’s wife probably had right
on her side. She wanted to superintend her children’s education; the
tutor would not suffer it. ‘As for Giovanni,’ wrote he to Lorenzo from
Caffaggiuolo on April 6, when he enclosed a letter from Piero, ‘his
mother makes him read in the Psalter, which I cannot at all approve.
When she does not interfere with him his progress is surprising, so
that he can read without any help.’ To give the Psalter to a child of
three as a reading-book is certainly a strange proceeding. But if, as
we must suppose, it was the translation made for Clarice by Marsilio
Ficino, the scholar of the fifteenth century could not make the same
objection which was made in the next by another scholar, who received
the cardinalate—Pietro Bembo—to the reading of St. Paul’s Epistles:
that they spoilt one’s style.
At this time Lorenzo was so much occupied with the crisis in public
affairs that strife in his own household must have been doubly
troublesome to him. He did not think of restoring to his post the
pedagogue who had been turned out of doors. He offered him the villa
at Fiesole, where Poliziano wrote Latin verses in praise of Lorenzo,
about the leisure he was himself enjoying, of the pleasant view towards
the city of the Muses, and of the winding Arno,[50] but evidently
put no bridle on his tongue. ‘I should like,’ wrote Madonna Clarice
to her husband on May 28 from Caffaggiuolo,[51] after affectionately
entreating him to take care of his health during the continued
sickness, ‘not to be put into a fable like Luigi Pulci in Matteo
Franco’s verses. I also wish that Messer Angelo shall not be able to
boast of remaining in the house in defiance of me, or of your having
offered him a home at Fiesole. You know I told you that if it was your
will that he should remain here, I would be content, and although I
have had to submit to his rudeness, I would bear it patiently if such
were your decision, though I cannot believe it possible.’ Clarice’s
remonstrances must have made some impression on Lorenzo. Although
Poliziano saw him frequently, he remained excluded from the house.
He repeatedly and urgently commended his cause to Madonna Lucrezia,
to whom he represented his difficult position, if the hopes set on
Piero came to nothing.[52] He begged her to try to fathom Lorenzo’s
intentions concerning him. The tutor of Giovanni Tornabuoni’s sons,
Martino della Comedia, gave lessons to Piero for a time, as did also
Bernardo Michelozzi (son of the architect), who actually educated
Giovanni, and was afterwards Bishop of Forlì. Poliziano’s impatience
and vexation are clearly shown. ‘I shall be much surprised,’ he wrote,
‘if they let Piero lose his time, and it really would be a pity. I
understand that Messer Bernardo is there, but I cannot quite see how he
is to go on with my work, unless he remains permanently. In this case,
indeed, it will be just as well that the shell has burst. But I do not
believe it, and therefore I beg you to find out Lorenzo’s intentions,
that I may judge whether to arm myself for the tourney or the battle.
I will always order myself according to Lorenzo’s wishes, for I am
certain that he sees deeper into things than I, and that he will guard
my honour as he always has done, and as my faithful services give me
some right to expect.’
When the reconciliation took place cannot be discovered from
Poliziano’s letters, which are missing for several years at this
period. The verses addressed to Lorenzo on his return from Naples,
show that at that time Poliziano had not returned to his house.[53] A
year after, in 1481, Piero was again entrusted to his guidance; for
the Latin dictation for him,[54] in which the siege of Otranto by the
Duke of Calabria is mentioned, is of this year. In these subjects for
translation, which sometimes treat of contemporary events, sometimes
allude to this or that occurrence of daily life, we vainly seek any
really healthy food for a youthful mind. Their want of connectedness
and gravity gives no brilliant testimony to the highly gifted man’s
powers of teaching. But Piero had other teachers besides Poliziano;
among them was the theologian Giorgio Cenigno, in whose learning and
conduct Lorenzo, who was often present at his lectures, had great
confidence, and to whose judgment he afterwards submitted the defence
of Pico della Mirandola. This is the same man who many years later
took so decided a part with Reuchlin against those who accused him of
heresy. Giovanni del Prato, afterwards Bishop of Aquila, and Antonio
Barberini, a professor of theology at Florence, were also called
in.[55] When Piero went to Rome, in 1484 and again in 1488, the first
time to welcome Pope Innocent VIII., the second time to be married,
Poliziano accompanied him, and he remained until his death a member of
the most intimate circle of the family. He never was a priest, though
he held a couple of ecclesiastical benefices.
We can well understand that the choice of a man of such uncommon
intellectual gifts as a tutor, at a time when everything was expected
to give way to classical culture, found many eulogists; and the words
of Cristoforo Landino in his dedication of Virgil’s works to Piero de’
Medici do not stand alone. Piero was wanting neither in understanding
nor the desire to learn, and the instruction he received was not wasted
so far as concerns the elegant culture which was fast superseding the
more practical education of older times. But the essential principle
of a serious moral view of the world Angelo Poliziano could not give
to his pupil, for he had it not himself. The father rejoiced in the
progress of the son, promoted as it was by the liberal, scientific,
artistic and social movement of which the house of Medici formed the
centre. Piero, like his father, entered life early, and was thus
prepared for the position he was in some degree destined to inherit.
He always showed interest in scientific matters. It was at his desire
that his tutor made the collection of letters above mentioned, which,
however, were not printed till after Poliziano’s death and Piero’s
banishment; a collection which, like many of the kind, contains much
that for the writer’s honour had better have remained unprinted. But
posterity has not confirmed Poliziano’s judgment on his pupil. It was
the judgment of a courtier. In Piero, thus he wrote to Pico della
Mirandola,[56] there lived again the spirit of his father, the virtue
of his grandfather, the humanity of his great-grandfather, the honesty,
piety, generosity, and high-mindedness of all his ancestors.
If Lorenzo could not keep the peace in his own house between his wife
and a literary friend, still less could he keep it between the latter
and another member of his confidential circle. To this belonged,
like Poliziano, a man whose literary merits contributed nothing
to the celebrity of the age, but who attained to a higher and more
secure position than most of his compeers because he showed himself
a manageable and useful tool. Bartolommeo Scala,[57] born about 1430
at Colle in the valley of the Elsa, has himself described his origin
and the commencement of his fortunes in a letter to Poliziano, and he
deserves at least some credit for avowing so openly what it is true
everybody already knew. ‘Deprived of all worldly goods, poor, and
born of parents of low degree, I came here, without means, without
claims, without protectors, without relations. Cosimo, the father of
the country, took me up, and I rose in the service of his family.’[58]
His father was a miller, and the youth’s first years in Florence
were passed in bitter want, as we know from the letters of Cardinal
Ammanati, who was there in not very brilliant circumstances. As in the
case of other _protégés_, Cosimo’s favour was continued by his heirs.
This only will account for the fact that, after the death of Benedetto
Accolti, Scala received the office of chancellor.[59] Although by
no means without cultivation and practice in business, Scala stood
far below those who had preceded him with so much distinction in the
chancellorship, since the days of Coluccio Salutati to the time of the
man whom he replaced. For Benedetto Accolti, who died in the prime of
manhood, did honour to the name which his family had already acquired
in the field of learning, and united sound knowledge of law with
unusual elegance of expression; while his eloquence and excellent
memory rendered him peculiarly fit for the various solemnities at
which addresses and replies had to be made without long preparation.
His Latin history of the first Crusade, founded on French materials,
and dedicated to Piero de’ Medici, is valuable as the source whence
Torquato Tasso drew the subject of his ‘Gerusalemme.’
Fortune continued to favour Bartolommeo Scala, and even in the great
commotion of 1494 he was not overthrown. Posts of honour, embassies,
knighthood, riches, fell to his share. He was Lorenzo’s confidant, and
in constant correspondence with him on civil and political affairs.
In the storms of 1478 and the following years he was of no small use
to him, and it was chiefly through him that Lorenzo always kept the
Signoria well in hand. Scala had a pretty villa—which afterwards
passed to the Guadagni[60]—on the slope of the hill at Fiesole, and
his town house (now belonging, with its beautiful gardens, to the Count
della Gherardesca) still bears on its walls the coat of arms which he
adopted in allusion to his name. As two of his predecessors had written
a history of Florence, he thought it needful to do the same. His work,
which comes down to Charles of Anjou, has no intrinsic value; and
his other writings are even more utterly forgotten than those of the
obscurest among his contemporaries. That he was most anxious to give no
ground of displeasure to foreign princes on whose relations to Florence
he was obliged to touch in his history is shown by his oft-repeated
request to the Ferrarese ambassador for information about the Este
family, ‘because he wished to write in praise of that illustrious
house.’[61]
Bartolommeo Scala’s position made him boastful. His letters to
Poliziano are full of the most ridiculous conceit.[62] ‘Thou wilt
hardly venture to compete with my honours. The Florentine people have
raised me first to the Priorship, then to the Gonfaloniership, and now
to the rank of senator and knight, with such unanimity that many were
of opinion there had never been a more popular act; besides which I
have the brilliant testimony of Lorenzo de’ Medici that distinction was
never conferred on one more worthy.’ Whereupon Poliziano did not fail
to pay him back with an abusive answer. His boast of praise from Cosimo
and Lorenzo was a lie; the latter had often said that in advancing him
he was influenced by other considerations, not by his own opinion, and
had often given Poliziano Scala’s official papers to correct, as the
latter must have known very well. Lorenzo had prevented the former from
destroying the mocking iambics on Scala,[63] saying it was a pity to
sacrifice such good verses. Lorenzo de’ Medici was dead when the two
became involved in that violent strife which gave rise to accusations
as passionate, coarse, and spiteful as those flung about by Filelfo,
Poggio, and Valla. But in the lifetime of Lorenzo a quarrel broke out
between the two men, who emulated each other in abasing the moral
dignity of scholarship.
There seems to have been another cause of strife besides literary
rivalry—Scala’s beautiful and accomplished daughter Alessandra. Like
many other women of her day, she devoted herself in her youth to the
study of Greek, and her teachers were Demetrius Chalcondylas and
Johannes Lascaris. That Poliziano was inspired with a violent passion
for her is shown by his Greek epigrams.[64]
‘Now at last have I found the object I long have been seeking,
Object of loving desire, present in all my dreams.’
But Alessandra, though she exchanged Greek verses with her admirer, and
sent him flowers and received small presents, seems to have been very
far from returning his affection. She tells him plainly that he has not
found what he sought; paying him at the same time compliments on his
learning and fame, which do not seem to have consoled him much. When
the disdainful beauty gave her hand to Michael Marullus Tarcagnota, a
Greek established in Italy early in life, jealousy made Poliziano pour
forth a torrent of abuse, which provoked corresponding replies. Time
had been when verses addressed by Poliziano to Lorenzo, son of Pier
Francesco de’ Medici, the patron of Marullus, overflowed with praises
of the Greek, who was pronounced superior to Catullus.[65] Now just
as immoderate in the opposite sense, Angelo’s invectives were most
extravagant against the man who had become his happy rival. Under the
name of Mabilius, he satirised his person and writings, heaping upon
him all the abuse that could be raked out of the poems of antiquity.[66]
Personalities of every kind, moral and physical, are flung backwards
and forwards _usque ad nauseam_. Poliziano’s hooked nose and crooked
neck, and the supposed infidelity of both combatants are mutually held
up to contempt. Well-turned though the epigrams may be, they were
better absent from the works of a great poet. Alessandra, the innocent
cause of strife, having become a widow, withdrew to the convent of San
Pier Maggiore, and died there in 1506.
Among those who rivalled the professed men of learning while taking
an active part in public affairs, Alamanno Rinuccini holds a foremost
place.[67] He was descended from an old noble family, whose castle
near San Donato alla Collina, on the road which leads from Florence
to Arezzo, along the left bank of the Arno, still keeps much of
its mediæval character. Born in 1419, he was a pupil of Poggio and
Argyropulos; in his translations from the Greek and his original
Latin writings he displayed a perfect command of both tongues, and
his house was a place where his friends met for learned discourse. He
rose to the highest offices in the city, and fulfilled with equal zeal
the chancellorship of the Universities of Florence and Pisa, various
diplomatic embassies, and a post in the war department conferred on him
in 1495, three years before his death. Like his father Filippo and his
brother Neri, he left valuable notes on contemporary events. Although
an old partisan of the Medici, he nevertheless, while fully admitting
Lorenzo’s intellectual gifts, passes on him a severe judgment, showing
how the spirit of independence still survived among the aristocracy,
and how hard it was for the Medici to secure their support, even by
raising them to office. At the same time the virulent attacks on
Lorenzo’s government throw a strange light on the character of the
writer, who never failed to profit by the favours bestowed on him. It
was much the same with Bernardo Rucellai, one of the most esteemed
members of the Medicean circle. He controlled his ambition during
the life of his brother-in-law Lorenzo; but when that firm hand was
gone and personal considerations no longer restrained him, he took
his own course. He had early distinguished himself in his classical
and philosophical studies, and while scarcely more than a youth was a
professor at the University of Pisa. Of his Latin historical writings,
that on the war of Pisa is founded on the narratives of Gino and
Neri Capponi; that on the wars of Charles VIII. of France possesses
some intrinsic value as the narrative and judgment of a contemporary
whose high position opened to him trustworthy sources of information.
Both display his command of style; and his topography of ancient
Rome shows how well versed he was in ancient literature.[68] The
first principle of this work is a mistake, because it rests on the
so-called _regionarii_, that arbitrarily interpolated version of the
old topographical texts; but Rucellai surpassed all his predecessors
in thoroughness of learning. At Lorenzo’s death he entered upon a new
phase, not merely in political life. It was he who, after the storms
which burst over Florence in 1494, received into his new house, with
its large and beautiful gardens in the Via della Scala, the Platonic
Academy, then in danger of sharing the ruin of the Medici. In these
‘Orti Oricellari’ the Academy was kept alive through the brilliant but
unquiet times that followed.[69] Here, where Bernardo Rucellai brought
together some of the sculptures scattered at the plundering of the
Medici palaces, Niccolò Machiavelli read his book on the art of war;
here in 1516 Leo X. was present at a representation of the tragedy of
‘Rosmonda,’ written by Bernardo’s son Giovanni; and here in 1522 was
laid the plot against Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici which put an end to
the Academy for ever.