SCULPTURE AND PAINTING.
THE first man to whom Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici gave a commission
for a great piece of sculpture, after they became independent, was
Andrea del Verrocchio. He was a disciple of Donatello, and had worked
with the master in San Lorenzo. This was of itself a recommendation
to the Medici, who found him also employed by their relatives, the
Tornabuoni. Vasari rightly observes that a certain severity is even
more prominent in his works than in those of his master, because he
lacked the creative versatility of the latter and tried to supply
by study what Nature had denied him. In bronze-casting he displays
a delicacy which recalls the goldsmith. The monument to Piero and
Giovanni de’ Medici was finished in 1472. Like Donatello, Verrocchio
restored damaged antique sculptures for the Medici house and garden,
and executed for Lorenzo some bronze busts which were sent to Matthias
Corvinus. For the palace of the Signoria he furnished a bronze statue
of David, now in the Podestà Museum, not very remarkable either in
conception or execution. His shortcomings, however, are amply atoned
for by the charming bronze group over the fountain in the courtyard,
representing a boy, half-fighting, half-playing with a dolphin, full
of easy grace that seems almost above this artist. It was a commission
from Lorenzo, and intended for the fountain in the court at Careggi,
but placed in its present position by Duke Cosimo. Verrocchio’s
capabilities in more serious work were shown in Florence by the group
of our Lord and the apostle St. Thomas, which in 1483 received the
most prominent place in front of the church of Or San Michele—and in
Venice, by his equestrian statue of Colleone. Though the former, with
its broken and angular drapery—recalling the Umbrian school—does not
exactly conform to the rules of plastic art, it is penetrated with a
depth of feeling that renders it highly attractive; and in the latter
the defiant self-conscious bearing of the old _condottiere_ brings his
position and character vividly before the eye. Among Andrea’s marble
works is a relievo, very naturalistic, representing the death (in her
confinement, September 24, 1477) of Francesca Pitti, wife of Giovanni
Tornabuoni; it was intended for her tomb, and is now to be seen in the
palace of the Podestà.[191]
Equally intimate with the Medici, if not more so, was Antonio del
Pollaiuolo, whose family connections linked him to the school of
Ghiberti. In his sculptures the goldsmith is more closely discernible
than in those of Verrocchio. They both, while painting and sculpturing,
continued to work as goldsmiths, and Pollaiuolo was regarded in his
native city as the first master of this branch. ‘A man unique in his
art,’ wrote the Signoria, after his death, to the ambassador in Rome,
‘well deserving that we, who are wont to value praiseworthy qualities
of whatever nature, should honour his memory by supporting his
heirs.’[192] Lorenzo’s high esteem for him is shown by passages in his
letters to Giovanni Lanfredini. The silver helmet presented in 1472 to
the conqueror of Volterra was by Pollaiuolo; so was also the oft-copied
medal representing the criminal attempt of the Pazzi, more valuable
in a historical than in an artistic point of view. No great works of
sculpture by him are known in Florence, the labour of his latter years
being chiefly devoted to Rome, where his masterpiece is the tomb of
Pope Sixtus IV. in the chapel of the Holy Sacrament in St. Peter’s, and
where he died in 1498.[193]
As Verocchio and Pollaiuolo passed from goldsmith’s work to
sculpture, without abandoning altogether their original occupation,
so Benedetto da Majano rose from artistic cabinet-work to sculpture
and architecture. The monument to Giotto in Sta. Maria del Fiore—a
marble bust in a richly ornamented circular frame—was, according
to the inscription, erected by the citizens in 1490.[194] The bust
of Antonio Squarcialupi, in the same church, is only ascribed to
Benedetto by a later tradition, which the merit of the work by no
means justifies.[195] The erection of both monuments was, doubtless,
due to Lorenzo. Benedetto’s greatest work was a pulpit, executed for
a Florentine citizen—Pietro Mellini—of whom he also made, in 1474,
a most natural and expressive marble bust, which he signed with his
name. The pulpit is decorated with reliefs, representing scenes in
the history of St. Francis of Assisi—the richest and finest work
of the kind since that of the Pisani. In imitation of Ghiberti, the
reliefs are freely handled; landscapes and backgrounds in perspective
are introduced, but with a careful subordination of the pictorial
elements which afterwards became too prominent.[196] In Sta. Maria
Novella is Benedetto’s monument to Filippo Strozzi. The artist who
built the palace, of which the owner lived to see only the beginning,
also erected in his beautiful family chapel this mausoleum, which was
begun before his death.[197] Above the black marble sarcophagus, in the
middle of a panel under an arch delicately carved in arabesques, is a
large medallion of the Virgin and Child, in white marble, surrounded
by a rich garland of flowers and foliage; at the sides are four angels
in adoration. The charm of expression and delicacy of treatment recall
Antonio Rossellino and Desiderio da Settignano. Filippo’s bust,
preserved by his descendants in the Strozzi Palace, shows the marked,
expressive features of the energetic man. Benedetto’s capabilities
in decorative sculpture are displayed in the marble doors of the
audience-chamber in the palace of the Signoria, where he worked, as has
been mentioned, with his brother. Time and ignorance have not spared
this fine work, and the statuette of the youthful Baptist, which once
adorned it, is now in the Uffizi collection.
The two finest works of Mino da Fiesole which adorn the Benedictine
Abbey-Church, were executed about 1470; one represents the artist’s own
time, the other the earlier days of Florence. They are the monuments of
Bernardo Giugni, and of the Marquis Hugo. The former, and his services
to the State have been already mentioned. The figure of an elderly
man, in his long robe, with his hands crossed on his breast, lies on
the sarcophagus; between Ionian pilasters is a semi-circular niche,
in which is a figure of Justice in relief, and in the lunette is a
medallion profile of the deceased.[198] The other monument, finished in
1481, is richer, but very like the first in general arrangement. It is
a token of gratitude from the monks to their founder—the half-mythical
Marquis who, in Emperor Otto’s days, is said to have come from the
neighbourhood of the Elbe and the Havel—the ‘great Baron’ of the
‘Divine Comedy,’ whose arms are quartered on the armorial bearings of
the chief Florentine families.[199] His effigies rest on a low couch
on the top of the sarcophagus, two genii support shields at his head
and feet; there is a group in relief, representing Charity, and in
the lunette a medallion of the Virgin and Child. As in all Mino’s
sculpture, careful workmanship is manifest in the accessories. This
attention to detail and richness of ornamentation long remained a
characteristic of the Florentines, who carried it to Rome and Naples.
In the early decades of the following century, when the revolution in
monumental style, introduced chiefly by Michel Angelo, was beginning
to make its way, and ornamentation was compelled to take refuge in
painting, admirable works in the old manner were raised in Florence.
Such were the tombs of Oddo Altoviti, and Pier Soderini, both by
Benedetto da Rovezzano; also the monument to Cardinal Luigi de’ Rossi,
cousin of Leo X., said to be by Raffaello da Montelupo. With regard
to ornamentation, a distinct position is held by two monuments,
companions to each other, which tradition ascribes to Giuliano da
Sangallo—those of Francesco Sassetti and his wife, in their family
chapel in Sta. Trinità.[200] They consist of black marble sarcophagi,
decorated with rams’ heads, and standing beneath an arch adorned with
antique arabesques and medallions, and a frieze, in the middle of
which are medallion heads of the husband and wife, surrounded by small
figures representing ceremonies of heathen worship. They are clearly
the work of an artist well acquainted with classical antiquity; who,
in this case, has certainly made rather a strange use of his studies.
That Giuliano da Sangallo was expert in the use of the chisel and
thoroughly understood the working of the Fiesolian stone, employed in
this monument, is shown by his famous mantelpiece in the Gondi Palace,
which served as a model for that by Benedetto da Rovezzano in the
Casa Rosselli del Turco, near Sant’Apostolo.[201] Tuscan sculptors
of ornamental work, particularly those from Fiesole, Settignano,
Rovezzano, and the neighbourhood, found occupation all over Italy,
like the architects and sculptors from the Lake of Como, the _maestri
Comacini_, in the Middle Ages. In our own days the Tuscans still show
great ability in working both marble and _macigno_ (the greyish stone
of the neighbourhood of Florence) in which they produce objects of
beautifully delicate workmanship.
Other arts at this time rose to a highly flourishing condition. The
connection between architecture and cabinet-making, and that between
sculpture and goldsmith’s work, have been repeatedly referred to.
The architect and cabinet-maker were often one, down to the middle
of the following century, when the Del Tasso family continued their
double occupation. But artistic cabinet-work was also connected with
sculpture and painting, as may be seen by the rich choir-stalls of
many churches; the ceilings and other woodwork of the palaces, with
their fine reliefs, elegant panelling, and wood-mosaic (_tarsia_),
much used to represent perspective as well as to imitate flowers and
foliage. Many of the artists mentioned furnished work of this kind
to the cathedral of Sta. Maria del Fiore, and to the palace of the
Signoria. The goldsmith’s art was in its glory, followed as it was by
great sculptors, who found excellent assistants in those who never rose
to the height of sculpture. The finest work of this kind in Florence
is the silver reredos for the Baptistery (mentioned at p. 130), which
was never quite finished. The growing taste for ornamental vessels and
other objects favoured this branch of art; as did also the custom of
presenting silver helmets or pieces of plate to commanders and others
who had deserved well of the Republic. As early as the summer of 1397,
436 florins were paid to the goldsmiths Piero, Matteo and Donato, for
silver gold and enamel, for dishes (_bacinetti_) intended for the
generals Paolo Orsini, Giovanni Colonna and Bernardin de Serre. Antonio
del Pollaiuolo made a large silver dish for the Signoria, and various
ornaments for rich families; and the churches were adorned with silver
crucifixes and elegant lamps.
Die-cutting was only a branch of sculpture and the goldsmith’s art,
sure to be practised where these two arts flourished, and contemporary
history furnished a store of materials. But here the Tuscans do
not hold the foremost place, either in time or in excellence of
workmanship. Natives of Northern Italy, Lombards, and Venetians, came
before them in the great cast portrait-medallions, by which Vittore
Pisanello made a name in the fifteenth century. Donatello’s followers
strove to follow but never came up to him. Three of the Tuscan
medallists—Antonio Pollaiuolo, Bertoldo, and Andrea Guazzalotti of
Prato, had dealings with the Medici. Only the first is known to have
struck a medal referring to his country’s history, namely, one relating
to the Pazzi conspiracy. Guazzalotti, who was in correspondence with
Lorenzo and cast statues for him, commemorated the Pope and the Duke of
Calabria as victors over the Turks; the medals are characteristically
conceived, but lacking in delicacy of treatment. Medals of Cosimo and
of Filippo de’ Medici, Archbishop of Pisa, are attributed to Pisanello,
the latter probably incorrectly; a medallion with the head of Lorenzo
seems to be the work of a Florentine, Pietro di Niccolò.[202]
Yet another branch of art reached a high perfection in Florence—that
of engraving precious stones. The taste for engraved gems, which
kept pace with the increasing knowledge of antiquity and the passion
for books and antique works of all kinds, revived the art of cutting
cameos and precious stones. A good example of the growth of this taste
is related by Vespasiano da Bisticci in the ‘Life of Niccoli,’[203]
whose house was full of antiquities. Passing along the street one
day, he saw a boy wearing round his neck a chalcedony with a figure
engraved, which the learned man thought he recognised as a work of
Polycletes. He inquired the name of the boy’s father, and sent to
ask him whether he would sell the stone. The man was willing to let
him have it for five florins, which he thought good payment. Now, in
the days of Pope Eugene, the future Cardinal Luigi Scarampi—who had
much taste for matters of this sort—being in Florence, asked Niccoli
to show him the stone, and offered him two hundred ducats for it.
Niccoli, who was not rich, accepted, and the chalcedony passed into the
hands of Scarampi, then to Paul II., and, after his death, to Lorenzo
de’ Medici. Lorenzo’s uncle, Giovanni, had collected many gems, of
which not the least famous was the carnelian representing Apollo and
Marsyas. It was supposed to be Nero’s seal, and was set in gold by
Lorenzo Ghiberti.[204] Lorenzo considerably increased the collection of
antique gems inherited from his father, and formed a treasury, of which
numerous remains still exist, after all the disasters that befell his
posterity. He and Paul II. inspired this branch of art with new life,
and enabled modern workers to enter the lists against the ancients. The
first modern gem of known date, is a portrait of Pope Paul in 1470,
now in the Uffizi collection. Giovanni delle Corniuole formed himself
on the models in the Medici collection, and attained the perfection
conspicuous in his famous head of Savonarola. He had a competitor in
the Milanese Domenico de’ Cammei, who worked chiefly for Lodovico il
Moro, and to whom is attributed the portrait of Lorenzo on an onyx of
three strata, placed with that of the great Dominican in the Uffizi
collection. Many other stones, with subjects taken from mythology,
sacred history, &c., are works of this period, when, also, much antique
work was copied. The name of Lorenzo de’ Medici, to be read on many
gems in Florence and elsewhere, recalls the former wealth told of in
Latin verses, and in the testimonies of contemporaries.[205]
In painting we now witness the development of the tendencies which
first appeared in Masaccio, and were so actively reciprocated by the
sister-art of sculpture. Here the two branches of art frequently met,
and their reciprocal influence is discernible in the character of the
work. It was thus with Verrocchio, and the Pollaiuoli. The former, of
no great distinction as a painter, recalls his bronze works in his
picture of the Baptism of Christ.[206] The brothers Pollaiuoli, whose
grave, quiet faces may be seen together on their tomb in San Pietro in
Vincoli at Rome, cannot well be separated in their works; and, though
Piero occupied himself with painting more than Antonio, the inscription
by the latter on the monument of Pope Sixtus IV. shows his excellence
in gold and silver work, in painting, and bronze casting. Antonio
painted for Lorenzo the Labours of Hercules, of which some small
copies are still in existence. The picture of St. James was painted
for the chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal; that of the Martyrdom
of St. Sebastian,[207] the most famous work of these painters, was
executed in 1475, for the Pucci chapel in the entrance-court of the
Annunziata. In these works may be recognised the sculptor, and the
student of anatomy, to whom fidelity in representing the figure is
more important than the feeling for beauty. Alesso Baldovinetti, who
was probably a pupil of Uccello, and a fellow-worker of Andrea del
Castagno, experienced the influence of sculpture indirectly; and where
he might have learned from it, in regard to modelling, he has only
acquired a constrained, angular style, which is far from pleasing. An
example of this may be seen in his picture of the Madonna enthroned
with saints, painted for the villa at Caffaggiuolo, and now in the
Uffizi collection. More satisfactory is a work executed from a design
of his—the picture of Dante in Sta. Maria del Fiore which represents
the _altissimo Poeta_ in the attitude of speaking, with his open book
in his hand; on his right is hell, on his left the city of Florence, in
the background the Mount of Purgatory, above his head the firmament.
This picture was actually attributed to Orcagna, till the artist’s
name—Domenico di Michelino—and the date of execution, 1466, were
discovered.[208]
Benozzo Gozzoli’s most important works—his Pisan frescoes—were
executed from 1469 onwards; they display great creative power,
though the harmony is defective and the masses and spaces are ill
distributed. It is observable in the works of Filippo Lippi, Gozzoli,
and Baldovinetti, a far inferior artist, that the custom was growing
in Florence of introducing into historical and religious compositions
portraits of spectators who had nothing to do with the subject. Nothing
remains of the frescoes painted by Baldovinetti for the Gianfigliazzi
in the choir of Sta. Trinità; they contained portraits of Lorenzo and
Giuliano de’ Medici, Bongianni and others of the Gianfigliazzi, Luigi
Guicciardini, Luca Pitti, Diotisalvi Neroni, Filippo Strozzi, Lorenzo
della Volpaia, and Paolo Toscanelli.[209] This branch of painting
reached its highest development in the hands of Baldovinetti’s famous
pupil, Domenico Ghirlandajo. Sandro Botticelli and Filippino Lippi
pursued the same branch of art. The former learned the goldsmith’s
trade in his youth, and shows traces of the influence of the
Pollaiuoli. He was the pupil of Fra Filippo and became the master of
his son, whom he survived, though Filippino was his junior by twenty
years. In the paintings of both there is a peculiar fantastic element,
attractive and interesting at first, but tiresome after a time. In
the faces it degenerates into a constantly recurring type, and in the
composition becomes mannerism. The way, too, in which both painters
employ allegory increases the appearance of affectation. Yet both were
men of great talent, with a fine and delicate sense of beauty when not
marred by superficiality and exaggeration. Both had much to do with
Lorenzo. None of the pictures painted for him by Botticelli are now
in existence, but his fine picture of the Epiphany must have been a
commission from the Medici, for in this work (formerly in Sta. Maria
Novella, and now in the Uffizi) the Three Kings have the features
of three members of the family—Cosimo the elder, his younger son
Giovanni, and his grandson Giuliano.[210] The colouring is more like
that of Ghirlandajo, to whom the picture was long attributed, than the
brighter, thinner tone of most of Botticelli’s works. Florence contains
many of his allegorical pictures, as well as Madonnas and saints;
among them the Coronation of the Virgin, painted for the church of San
Marco, as a commission for the Silk-workers’ Guild.[211] Botticelli not
only introduced likenesses into his historical pictures, he painted
separate portraits; among them those of Lorenzo’s mother and Giuliano’s
early lost love, the ‘bella Simonetta,’ very pleasing in the gentle
simplicity which characterises her expression, her attitude, and even
her dress. Both heads are in profile, the contour a little exaggerated,
in the manner of this artist.[212] Botticelli’s close connection with
the Medici is shown by the circumstance that after the conspiracy of
the Pazzi he undertook to paint the likenesses of the conspirators on
the wall of the palace of the Podestà.[213]
Only one work of Filippino Lippi is mentioned as having been executed
for Lorenzo—the unfinished fresco, representing a sacrifice, in
the hall at Poggio a Cajano—but their intimacy is well known. The
commission given to Filippino by Cardinal Olivieri Caraffa for the
painting of his chapel in Sta. Maria sopra Minerva is said to have
been procured by Lorenzo, and so, probably, were those of Matthias
Corvinus. The influence exercised on the views and tendencies of the
son by his father’s works, especially those at Prato—where Filippino
passed most of his youth—was mingled with that of Botticelli. The
former comes out most in the earlier works, notably in the frescoes
of the Brancacci chapel at San Pietro in Carmine, painted about 1485;
the latter in the wall-paintings begun for Filippo Strozzi, but not
finished till long after, in the chapel in Sta. Maria Novella. The
immediate neighbourhood of Masaccio’s works had, no doubt, a beneficial
effect on the young artist in his earlier works, for Filippino, not
yet thirty, shows in the Brancacci frescoes infinitely more fidelity
to nature and feeling for historical composition than in the paintings
of the Caraffa and Strozzi chapels. The scenes in the last,[214]
from the Acts and legends of the Apostles, display undeniable tokens
of spirit and imagination, giving a vivid representation of the
passions. But there is affected mannerism, inharmonious colouring,
and an apparent delight in light tints playing into each other. Some
of these defects may be partly laid to the account of restoration.
The preference, noticeable in Botticelli, for antique accessories,
produces in Filippino an effect of artificial overloading. Among his
easel-pieces, the great Madonna with saints, painted in 1485 for the
council-chamber of the palace of the Signoria, is distinguished by
grace and earnest work.[215] Filippino, too, was fond of introducing
figures of contemporaries. In his frescoes at S. Pietro in Carmine may
be seen Tommaso Soderini, Piero Guicciardini (father of the historian),
Luigi Pulci, Antonio Pollaiuolo, Sandro Botticelli, Francesco Granacci,
and the painter himself. In an altar-piece (now in the Uffizi),
representing the Epiphany, are portraits of several members of the
younger branch of the Medici, doubtless benefactors of the convent
of San Donato, for which the picture was painted four years after
Lorenzo’s death. There are Pierfrancesco, grandson of Giovanni di
Bicci, his son Giovanni, father of the famous leader of the Black Bands
and grandfather of the first Grand-Duke, and the younger Pierfrancesco,
father of Lorenzino, the murderer of the first Duke of Florence.[216]
Other portraits, such as those of the Nerli family in Sto. Spirito,
represent donors. In Cosimo Rosselli’s greatest work, the Procession
with the Chalice in the church of Sant’Ambrogio, only one portrait is
named, that of Pico della Mirandola. In Lucca, where Rosselli painted
a good deal, he fell into the reigning fashion. He had formed himself
on the model, first of Fra Angelico, then of Benozzo Gozzoli, and with
moderate talents endeavoured to combine the conventional with the
naturalistic tendency.[217]
The highest achievements of painting in Lorenzo’s days were those of
Domenico Ghirlandajo. He is a nobler Benozzo, guided by a refined
sense of symmetry. His power of drawing figures and groups is
combined with variety and animation. He has a strong feeling for
historical character, and makes a moderate use of architecture and
accessories that heighten the interest of his compositions without
seeming obtrusive. What he lacks in point of ideality is compensated
by his love of nature and that cultivated sense of form which makes
him select natural beauty and avoid whatever is repulsive in the
reality. His scenes from Scripture and the history of the Saints are
full of figures, and produce a grand, often a solemn, effect without
being at all forced or far-fetched. They transport us, undisturbed by
anything foreign or strange, into the Florence of his day. We seem
to stand in the middle of that gay and busy life, among the gallant
active citizens and the stately, beautiful women of that city, which,
according to the inscription—doubtless Poliziano’s—on the picture in
the choir of Sta. Maria Novella of the Angel appearing to Zacharias,
was rich in the spoils of victory and the treasures of art, in noble
buildings, in plenty, health, and peace.[218] Ghirlandajo’s frescoes
are a sort of monumental glorification of Lorenzo’s latter years. Among
the many portraits which give these works a value, independent of
their qualities as works of art, may be seen Lorenzo’s in the Sassetti
chapel in Sta. Trinità, which was decorated in 1485 with scenes from
the history of St. Francis of Assisi. The frescoes in the choir of
Sta. Maria Novella make quite a portrait gallery. They were begun in
1490 for Giovanni Tornabuoni, and after five years’ work were finished
four years before the death of the painter, who is here seen at his
best. Here are limned many members of the Tornabuoni and Tornaquinci
families (between whom there was a connection), as well as numerous
friends—Ficino, Landino, Poliziano, Gentile of Urbino, the most
distinguished scholars of the time. Baldovinetti, too, is there; David
Ghirlandajo, Domenico’s brother; his brother-in-law Bastiano Mainardi
and himself; Andrea de’ Medici, Federigo Sassetti, Gianfrancesco
Ridolfi—a partner in the Medicean bank—besides noble ladies and
matrons, among whom is Ginevra de’ Benci, a famous beauty also painted
by Leonardo da Vinci, and another pleasing face, that of Giovanna degli
Albizzi, who married Lorenzo Tornabuoni in 1486.[219]
Like the Brancacci chapel, the choir of Sta. Maria Novella was a school
for painters in the palmy days of art; Andrea del Sarto, in particular,
received a great impulse from the compositions of Ghirlandajo. When
it is considered that the latter was taken away in the full strength
of manhood, at the age of forty-five, and that his development was not
rapid, it is hard to understand how he could have executed so many
works in Florence and elsewhere. The frescoes may have been done in
part by his pupils, but the easel-pieces—of which there are so many,
executed with the most careful technical perfection—must have come
chiefly from his own hand. Of those in Florence it will suffice to name
one, the fine Epiphany painted in 1488 for the church of the Foundling
Hospital. For Lorenzo, in 1488, he painted in the villa at Spedaletto
some mythological subjects of Vulcan and his comrades, of which little
now remains. For Giovanni de’ Medici he did two altar-pieces in the
abbey church of San Giusto near Volterra, of which one, ‘Christ in the
act of Blessing, with Saints,’ still exists. But Ghirlandajo’s chief
patrons were the Tornabuoni, family connections of the Medici. That he
and several other Tuscan artists were sent for to Rome to decorate the
Sixtine Chapel may safely be attributed to these two families. About
twenty years before the close of the century—when Sandro Botticelli,
Cosimo Rosselli, and his pupil Piero di Cosimo, were painting there
with and after Ghirlandajo—the Pope and Lorenzo were reconciled; and
as in Florence nothing was ever done in matters of art without him, he
and Giovanni Tornabuoni doubtless procured these commissions.
The diplomatic, literary, and artistic intercourse between Florence and
Rome had never been so active and fertile as in those days when the
predominance of Florentine influence in Rome was openly acknowledged.
Almost all the remarkable works of the time of Sixtus IV. are due to
Florentine architects, sculptors, and painters. They may have commenced
even before the Pazzi conspiracy, for Baccio Pontelli began to build
the chapel in 1473, and Sixtus was urgent for its completion. Beside
the Florentine painters above named two other Tuscans were employed,
Don Bartolommeo della Gatta, abbot of a small Camaldulensian convent
at Arezzo, and perhaps a Florentine by birth, and Luca Signorelli
of Cortona, who by his connection with Piero della Francesca forms
a link between Tuscan and Umbrian art. His chief works belong to an
Umbrian city, Orvieto, where indeed Tuscan masters had long taken the
lead. Luca Signorelli also painted for Lorenzo. A Madonna, once in the
villa at Castello now in the Uffizi, and a mythological picture, the
‘Education of Pan,’ seem to have been offerings of the artist to his
patron. The last-named picture recalls the grandeur of conception and
strong feeling for form noticeable in the frescoes in the chapel of San
Brizio in Orvieto Cathedral.[220]
The head of the Umbrian school in the latter decades of the century,
Pietro Perugino, made repeated and long visits to Florence, and was
considerably influenced by Florentine art, though with an admixture
of other elements. Thus was formed a style which, opposed on the one
hand to the naturalism of most of the Florentines, on the other to the
enthusiastic tendencies of some among them, gave expression to the
religious element which long remained dominant in the master’s own
country and beyond it. It is ascertained that Perugino was in Florence
in 1482 and in the beginning of 1491, but nothing is known of what
he did then. His chief works in Florence are of later date, as are
those of his school, first among which is the ‘Last Supper,’ in Sant’
Onofrio, probably by Bernardino Pinturicchio. In 1496, Perugino had
thoughts of building a house in Florence, and in 1515—when his talent
was on the wane—he purchased a future resting-place in the Annunziata;
such tokens did he give of his attachment to the city which, spite of
the superhuman activity of Rome, was yet the focus of all artist-life
and work. Of paintings by Perugino for the Medici nothing is known.
Miniature painting[221] rapidly approached its highest development.
Great illuminated church-books, antiphonaries, psalters, hours,
breviaries, &c., had come forth from Benedictine, Camaldulensian,
Dominican, and other convents, and were lodged in cathedrals
and churches. The art of illumination was extended by Dante’s
contemporaries, Oderigi of Gubbio and Franco of Bologna, to
prayer-books for private use and to works of profane literature, when
men of rank and citizens took to forming libraries and beautiful
manuscripts became objects of luxury. The field for representation was
correspondingly enlarged, and from figures of angels and saints the
artists of the fifteenth century passed to scenes from the classic
poets or the ‘Divine Comedy.’ In this century the Florentine churches
were filled with the finest works of this kind, most of which are now
in the National Library or that of San Marco. The Dominican order were
especially rich in miniature painters after Giovanni Dominici had given
an impulse to this branch of art. In Cosimo’s time, Fra Angelico and
Fra Benedetto worked in San Marco under the eyes of St. Antonine. Don
Bartolommeo della Gatta, Attavante degli Attavanti, Gherardo and Monti
di Giovanni, Zanobi Strozzi, Francesco Rosselli, brother of Cosimo,
and many others, distinguished themselves in this art, in which they
were emulated by foreigners connected with Florence: Liberale of
Verona, Girolamo of Cremona, several Sienese, and others. From the
middle of the century miniature painting underwent the influence of
the Van Eyck school. Many beautiful works found their way into the
Medici collections. Lorenzo’s tastes and traditions were inherited
by his son Giovanni, whom Raphael’s famous portrait represents with a
book adorned with miniatures, and a glass for looking at them lying
before him. Many miniatures went abroad, and foreign ones came to
Italy. Gherardo, Attavanti, and others worked for Matthias Corvinus;
and in the Burgundian Library at Brussels is preserved the mass-book
painted for the king by the last-named artist in 1485, and brought to
the Netherlands by Mary of Hungary, sister of Charles V. At Matthias’s
death Lorenzo acquired several of the manuscripts, probably ordered
at his own instigation, and some of which were still in hand. Lorenzo
was deeply interested in the revival of mosaic. Vasari’s statement
that Alesso Baldovinetti learned the long-forgotten principles of this
art from a German pilgrim going to Rome must rest on its own merits;
anyhow, the art was revived in Lorenzo’s latter years. In 1482-83,
Baldovinetti undertook to restore the mosaics in the Baptistery. About
1490, Gherardo di Giovanni and Domenico Ghirlandajo began for Lorenzo
the mosaic decoration of the chapel in the choir of the cathedral,
where stands the shrine of St. Zanobi. This work was never finished.
The same year Domenico executed the pleasing mosaic picture of the
‘Annunciation,’ over the side-door of the church, towards the Via de’
Servi. Baldovinetti’s pupil Graffione, and Ghirlandajo’s brother David,
took part in these works; the latter, who busied himself with the
technicalities of glass-making at Montaione, in the Elsa valley—where
there are potteries and glass-houses to this day—afterwards worked
both in Florence and in the cathedrals of Siena and Orvieto.[222]
Thus varied and fruitful was the development of art around Lorenzo, in
a great measure stimulated and shared in by him. Like his grandfather,
he was not content to profit by ripe talents and pluck the fruits,
he sowed for the future; he, more than any one else, contributed to
bring on the most brilliant period of art. He founded a nursery for
choice spirits in the collection of works of art of all kinds, ancient
and modern, which he laid out in his garden at San Marco and the
neighbouring casino, and the superintendence of which he confided to
Donatello’s pupil, Bertoldo. At a time when antique sculptures were
rare, and the means of study limited, and when young men of talent
had to remain for years in a dependent position which checked their
individual development, advantages like these, offered to youth,
were as unusual as they were invaluable. Lorenzo’s sound judgment
was no less useful here than his goodwill. ‘It is no small matter,’
remarks Vasari in the ‘Life of Giovan Francesco Rustici,’[223] ‘that
distinction was attained by all those who went to school in the Medici
garden, and were assisted by the illustrious Lorenzo. This can only be
ascribed to the uncommon perspicacity of that noble gentleman, who was
a veritable Mæcenas, who knew how to recognise genius and merit, and to
encourage them by rewards.’ The painters Francesco Granacci, Lorenzo
di Credi, Niccolò Soggi; the sculptors Giovan Francesco Rustici,
Pietro Torrigiano, Baccio of Montelupo, Andrea Contucci of Monte San
Sovino—who on Lorenzo’s recommendation was summoned to Portugal,
where he executed works of architecture and sculpture for King John
II.—these, and others, came forth from the garden of San Marco.
The variety of their gifts and accomplishments bears witness to the
freedom they had there enjoyed in the development of the most diverse
intellectual powers. But the one who gave to the Medicean garden a
worldwide fame was Michelangelo Buonarotti. Before he was fifteen
he passed from the school of Ghirlandajo into this new world. His
sculptures soon disclosed the marvellous talent which his sympathetic
teacher had foreboded when he recommended him and Granacci to Lorenzo;
the latter having, as the story goes, expressed to his artist-friend a
regret that sculpture did not keep pace with painting. The youth came
of a good family, but without property.[224] During the few remaining
years of Lorenzo, he enjoyed a sympathy and kindness which had a
decided influence on his life up to the threshold of old age, although
the independent spirit of the free citizen often rebelled against the
attachment which, as artist, he continued to feel for the Medici.
It has been generally believed that the greatest Florentine artist
of the second half of the fifteenth century—Leonardo da Vinci—was
a stranger to Lorenzo. The fact appeared the more strange because
Leonardo was the son of a chancellor or notary of the Republic, and a
pupil of Andrea del Verocchio, who was in constant intercourse with
the Medici. Newly discovered documents[225] show that Leonardo, if not
among those admitted to study in the San Marco gardens, was at least
acquainted with the Medici, and that it was Lorenzo who sent him, when
thirty years old, to Lodovico il Moro, in company with one Atalante
Migliorotti, famous for playing on the lyre. The date hitherto assigned
to his first visit to Milan—1482 or 1483—is confirmed; but there is
no explanation of the fact that his name is never mentioned during
the war of 1478-79. He was then twenty-six, and might have done good
service to his country by that knowledge of mechanics and hydraulics
which he afterwards turned to such good account in Lombardy. On January
1 of the fatal year 1478, the Signoria commissioned him to paint an
altar-piece for the chapel dedicated to St. Bernard in the palace.
This commission, like many of the same kind, was not executed, but was
transferred after Leonardo’s departure for Milan to Filippino Lippi,
whose beautiful Madonna (see p. 175) was placed not in the chapel,
but in the council chamber. Under the rule of the two Sforzas—Gian
Galeazzo and Lodovico il Moro—Leonardo founded at Milan a school of
painting which gave a new direction to Lombard art. When he returned to
Florence after the downfall of the Moro, Lorenzo had been seven years
in his grave, and his sons were in exile.
_FIFTH BOOK._
THE GROWTH OF THE MEDICEAN SUPREMACY.
CHAPTER I.
CHANGE IN THE FLORENTINE CONSTITUTION.
THE events of two years had shown that Lorenzo was not quite so
secure of the direction of public affairs as he had seemed to be
immediately after the conspiracy of the Pazzi. The vicissitudes of
the war had produced an abrupt change in public feeling; it had
become clear that internal affairs were in a great measure subject to
external influences. Even when Lorenzo’s position was far stronger, a
diplomatist justly observed that his authority in the city depended on
the estimation in which he was held by the other Italian powers and
by foreign sovereigns.[226] The traditions of independence were too
fresh, party interests too various and too powerful, not to create
constant difficulties. The great art of the party leaders had always
consisted in excluding from office any but their own partisans. But it
was by no means easy to prevent internal divisions between sections
of the parties themselves. During the war, a college of magistrates
had to be dismissed, on account of the opposition they offered to a
measure which aimed at reducing their jurisdiction to its original
limits. Lorenzo’s standing difficulty was the necessity he was under of
controlling parties in the state, without altering constitutional forms
except in apparent agreement with the popular sentiment. The ostracism
known as the power of _ammonire_ had proved just as dangerous as the
excitement caused by the frequent summoning of parliaments. His only
plan therefore was, by creating a docile following, to exclude, without
the use of strong measures, all elements he could not rely upon, and
to accustom the multitude to the gradual extension of his influence
on home as well as foreign policy. Lorenzo had another motive. He had
not been fortunate in business matters. During his grandfather’s time
the State finances had become entangled with those of the family.
Cosimo, who was a financial genius, took care of his own interests
without letting those of the State suffer. With his grandson the case
was different. Cosimo had advanced money to the State; Lorenzo, on
the other hand, stood in need of public money for private objects.
The expenses of the war, sacrifices and losses of all kinds were the
ostensible cause of irregularity in the payment of interest on the
national debt, and in the settlement of marriage portions by the
establishment existing for that purpose. This state of things could
not last if the public bonds were to retain any value and the national
credit to be maintained. For further operations, rendered hazardous by
the embarrassment that already existed, men were needed who were both
familiar with business and willing to go hand in hand with the director
of the State. The embarrassment was already so publicly known, that it
was thought advisable to avow it with apparent frankness before taking
measures which really aimed at withdrawing the direction of the banks
from public control, although their object was made to appear a reform
for the general welfare.
On April 8, 1480, scarcely a fortnight after peace was proclaimed, the
Signoria, who were all in Lorenzo’s confidence, proceeded, without
the intervention of a parliament, to make sweeping changes in the
constitution. They carried through the three legislative councils a
resolution empowering them to create a new college, in whose hands were
to be placed all the appointments to public offices. This college was
divided into a smaller and greater council: the former consisting of
thirty citizens capable of holding office, elected with the Signoria;
the latter containing 210 members not under thirty years of age, who
with the Signoria and first college filled up the required number of
offices. The presence of two-thirds of the members and a proportionate
majority of those present sufficed for the validity of the proceedings.
One-fourth of the councillors were to come from each quarter of the
city; if a family or _consorteria_ had sent but one representative
among the thirty, two of its members were eligible as councillors;
otherwise only one, except in the case of two houses to be named by
the Signoria and the thirty, for which there was to be no limit as
to number or age. The 210 then added to their body 48 other members,
and thus formed a great council of 288 members, which was to meet in
November for the elections. On April 11 the Signoria proceeded to
nominate the thirty. But a few days later a considerable modification
was made in the scheme, for on the 19th the smaller council of
thirty was increased by a resolution of the Signoria to seventy; the
additional members being chosen by those already nominated. The new
members were to be at least forty years old, and, if belonging to one
of the great guilds, must have held the office of Gonfaloniere. This
permanent senate of seventy, which now took the place of the former
electors to the offices (_accoppiatori_), was divided into two equal
parts, alternating every half year. When united, it had in fact the
direction of the whole state; the more so because it had the right of
filling up vacancies in its own body from among those who had held the
office of Gonfaloniere, provided they had done nothing to displease the
ruling party. To this senate no proposal or petition could be addressed
by private persons, but only by the Signoria.
The Council of Seventy then appointed two committees of its own
members. The first, commonly called from its number the _Otto di
pratica_, took the place of the Magistracy of Ten. It sat only in time
of war, and assumed the control of political and military affairs,
which, after deliberation in full session, it submitted to the Seventy.
The other committee, consisting of twelve members, was entrusted
with all affairs concerning the national credit, and all matters of
jurisdiction. Both were nominated for a period of six months, and any
vacancies caused by death or an appointment to offices abroad were
to be filled up from the same college.[227] The existing magistracy,
called the _Otto di balia_, whose authority in both civil and criminal
affairs had almost extinguished that of the podestà but had lately been
reduced within narrower limits, was likewise chosen from among the
Seventy.
However widely the opinions of contemporaries and posterity may differ
as to the character and scope of these institutions, which were
afterwards greatly modified in the direction of centralisation, all
agree that the measures just described contributed most effectively
to the establishment of personal government. ‘One must perceive,’
observes Alamanno Rinuccini on the first resolution, ‘that all freedom
was taken from the people and they were made the servants of the
Thirty, as I, Alamanno Rinuccini, though a member of the Council
of the Two Hundred and Ten, testify in accordance with truth.’ And
further, on the completion of the scheme: ‘The decree contained many
things dishonourable and opposed to citizen-life and to the freedom
of the people; and, indeed, from that day their freedom seemed to
me dead and buried.’ The general opinion on the connection of the
administration with the financial affairs of the Medici is shown by
the remarks of both friends and foes. Giovanni Cambi remarks: ‘Lorenzo
was always thinking how he could increase his authority. After the
new reform had conferred on the electors a power formerly belonging
to the whole body of citizens, the former took into their own hands
the money matters that needed regulating. The state finances had been
used to support Lorenzo in his private affairs. More than a hundred
thousand gold florins went to Bruges alone, where Tommaso Portinari
was at the head of the Medici bank, then in danger of failure. The
unfortunate community had to pay it all, for the members of the new
elective body cared for nothing but to keep their own position, and
assented to everything. Thus a servile feeling gained ground; the
citizens sacrificed their freedom to obtain office. Yet what they did
obtain was not enough to satisfy them; for all looked enviously on the
inner council, to which each thought himself worthy to belong.’ The
voice that carries most weight is perhaps that of Alessandro de’ Pazzi,
who gives a sketch of his uncle in his disquisition on the Florentine
constitution of 1522. ‘As Lorenzo,’ he says,[228] ‘spent a great deal
of money on a thousand things, and was not a good man of business, his
fortune suffered considerably. Cosimo had spent large sums of money;
perhaps because he believed that the glory of building churches and
monuments would be of more advantage to his family than stores of
gold; and in this his example was followed by Piero and his sons. When
their credit fell, they would have been driven from their position
but for the events of 1478, which gained for the Medici new friends
and confirmed the attachment of old ones, and altogether strengthened
their power. The same events furnished Lorenzo with the means of using
both his private means and the moneys of the State, which before
he would not have dared to touch, to fulfil his own obligations,
and re-establish his political influence on a permanent basis while
rectifying his financial embarrassments.’
The altered constitution with respect to finance is thus described
by Niccolò Valori:[229] ‘Although no new taxes were imposed, the
revenues of the State increased so much after peace was assured, that
State-creditors had reason to be satisfied. The Republic has such
good resources that she can hold out long in time of war, and recover
rapidly in time of peace.’ This sounds very well; but, according to
Alamanno Rinuccini,[230] the public credit had to be supported in the
course of the very next year by a sale of State property. The bad
name which Lorenzo acquired by his arbitrary appropriation of public
moneys seems to have induced him to restrict his banking operations,
which depended for success on changes of fortune and on the skill of
agents, and to lay out his means in landed property rather than trust
to foreign speculations.
If Niccolò Valori is to be believed, no new taxes were imposed in 1480.
But an examination of the proceedings of the board of taxation shows
how little this statement is to be relied on. The progressive scale of
1447, which originally produced the large sums laid out in supporting
Francesco Sforza, and which was to be in operation for three years
only, the tax being collected in small instalments as need arose, had
remained in force during the remaining years of Cosimo, and with some
modifications under Piero and his son. According to a calculation of
the payments in 1471-1480, the sum total amounted to 1,682,888, or on
an average 168,288 gold florins annually. In 1479 the tax had risen to
367,450 gold florins. The new law issued by the new finance committee
on May 18, 1480, and modified on the following January 30, introduced
a double progressive duty in place of the former one. The first, fixed
for seven years, was on immovable property, so that the lowest class,
with an income extending beyond the actual necessaries of life but
under fifty gold florins, was to pay seven per cent., and the highest,
having an income of 400 and over, twenty-two per cent. The second was
a personal tax, which, according to the same scale, amounted to one
gold florin and four-twentieths for the lowest class, four florins and
four-twentieths for the highest. This mode of taxation, whereby a quota
of the national debt could be discharged, lasted with some changes till
Lorenzo’s death; its real aim being to keep the lower orders in good
humour and weaken the great families; while those that governed always
found means to indemnify themselves and their friends, so that equality
of taxation was merely apparent. The taxes were collected according
to the needs of the Government. More than once they were paid seven
times in the year. The proceeds at one collection of the first of these
taxes had been estimated at about 30,000 gold florins, but only yielded
25,000; in 1487 it fell to 18,000; and in the following year to 15,000.
From 1481 to 1492 the sum of the tax payments amounted to 1,561,836
gold florins, or, on an average, 130,153. The largest revenue was
that of the year 1483—that of the Ferrara war—viz. 164,665, and the
smallest those of the years of peace, from 1489 to 1492, viz. 105,000.
Under Lorenzo’s son the total annual amount was reduced to 90,000. On
calculating the various duties on both movable and immovable property,
appearing under manifold names, ever changing with circumstances,
alternately rising and falling, it becomes evident that the direct
tax, which by the old financial system of the Republic was limited to
25,000 or 30,000 gold florins, a light weight in the balance against
the duties estimated at 250,000 to 300,000, had increased twelvefold
in Lorenzo’s time. The taxpayers were indeed registered at the Monte,
and might discharge part of their payments in its bonds. But the
Monte more than once stopped paying interest altogether, often paid
only half, and sometimes only a fifth. The exchequer then took the
quotas of taxes in question not at the nominal value of the bonds, but
according to the rate of payment then current at the Monte. All these
manipulations, which made the artificial financial system of Florence
a perfect labyrinth of perplexity, could not but be injurious to the
interests of the community, while they deprived property of its secure
foundations.[231]
At the same time, the repeated modifications in the constitution which
had been going on ever since Cosimo’s time had thrown it completely
off the balance. People had long been accustomed to see the exercise
of popular sovereignty by means of parliaments converted into a
mere party manœuvre. The men in power, in order to gain a formal
legal countenance for their measures, would have some extraordinary
authority conferred on them by the so-called people, i.e. by that
portion of the citizens who were either on their side or were coerced
into becoming so through fear. The constant change in the mode of
election to the offices, either by lot or by nomination, produced
in the end no great difference, for all were excluded who were not
thought to have been made sure of. In Lorenzo’s time, at least after
the restrictions subsequently imposed on the scheme introduced in 1480,
there was no more trouble in that respect. In defiance of democratic
forms, everything tended to a personal government. As if enough had
not already occurred to increase the power of the Medici, another
circumstance—unimportant in itself—occurred to raise Lorenzo’s
position. On the evening of June 2, Amoretto Baldovinetti, natural
son of a citizen of good family, was arrested, and on the following
morning Battista Frescobaldi, formerly consul at Constantinople.
Scarcely were they in custody when an attempt was made to seize the
brothers Francesco and Antonio Balducci, but only the latter was
captured. Immediately a report was spread of a conspiracy against
Lorenzo’s life. Frescobaldi had once greatly assisted in delivering
up Giovanni Bandini to justice, and seems to have thought himself
insufficiently rewarded for having spent some of his private means
in the affair. In Rome he met some Florentine emigrants who put him
in communication with Amoretto, just the man, he considered, for a
hazardous undertaking. Provided with weapons and poison, these two
came to Florence. Their efforts to gain supporters had little success;
even the brothers Balducci seem to have been undecided. Nevertheless
they resolved to attempt the assassination, and again in a church;
according to some it was to be in the cathedral, according to others
in S. Pietro in Carmine, where Lorenzo was expected on Ascension day.
The plot failed and the three conspirators were condemned to death. A
legal objection was raised against the sentence, as the case was only
that of a criminal project; but the Signoria and the Council of Seventy
pronounced it high treason, and enacted that in future every act by
which Lorenzo was injured or his life threatened was to be regarded
in the same light. ‘Lorenzo’s position and authority,’ remarks the
Ferrarese agent,[232] ‘was certainly heightened by this event, but
many are of opinion that it did him more harm than good, by increasing
the number of his enemies.’ When sentence was pronounced many citizens
went to console the prisoners; but they answered cheerfully that they
regretted not so much the sentence they had to undergo as the failure
of their scheme to free the city; they had tried to do what ought to be
the duty of every citizen, and if they had only had two hours more it
would have been seen of what they were capable. They met their doom on
the morning of the 6th, on the gallows in the palace of the Podestà.
Lorenzo took care to announce to the courts and to his noble friends
throughout Italy, either by private letters or through the ambassadors
of the Republic, the danger with which he had been threatened ‘by that
traitor Battista Frescobaldi and his companions.’ The consequence was
that the following of friends and clients which had served to protect
Lorenzo since the Pazzi conspiracy formed itself into a regular
body-guard, and the capital became accustomed to see him appear in
public with a suite differing from that of a tyrant only by the civil
character of its members.
Three months after this Otranto was re-taken. In the beginning of the
year the plenipotentiaries of the Italian States had met at Rome to
consider an alliance in which foreign countries were invited to join
against the Infidels. Sixtus IV. bestirred himself actively. With help
from various quarters, King Ferrante made great exertions to meet the
danger that was threatening not only Apulia but all Italy. Alfonso of
Calabria besieged Otranto with a large force. As he could not succeed
in completely cutting off the approach by sea, the town might have held
out a long time, particularly as a new Turkish army was gathering on
the Albanian and Dalmatian coasts; but the death of the Grand Signor,
and the strife of his two sons for the throne, put an end to the
resistance of the place. On September 10, Otranto opened its gates, but
it never recovered from these heavy strokes of fate. The duke, whose
easy victory was commemorated by medals, did not keep to the conditions
of the surrender. A year later, Rome, so lately threatened by the
Turks, saw many of them within her walls, not as victors but as doubly
vanquished; they were those who had taken service in the Neapolitan
army, which thus once again—as in the days of Frederic II.—numbered
unbelievers in its ranks.
CHAPTER II.
THE FERRARESE WAR.
THE Pazzi conspiracy was only a prelude to the events which caused a
Neapolitan army to stand as an enemy before the walls of Rome. The Pope
and the Venetians had had no time to give free course to their spite
against old enemies or former allies so long as the storm was hanging
over the Apulian coast. Sixtus IV. even showed himself friendly to the
Florentines, and Guid’Antonio Vespucci, who, towards the end of January
1481, returned to Rome as ambassador, endeavoured to strengthen this
good understanding. But no sooner had the imminent danger from the
East disappeared than the object of clearing the coast of Albania and
Western Greece of the Turks, which might have been more easily attained
then than at any previous period, passed out of sight. A dispute
between Venice and Ferrara furnished an occasion for fresh strife.
Ercole of Este refused to recognise any longer as valid certain old and
burdensome obligations which kept him in a sort of dependence on the
Republic with respect to the execution of justice in his capital by a
Venetian vicegerent, and the procuring of salt from Venetian saltworks.
The dispute rose to such a height that Venice threatened to take up
arms; she thought the moment favourable on account of her alliance
with the Pope. Sixtus IV. had sound reasons for avoiding everything
that could favour the interference of Venice in the affairs of Ferrara
and Romagna; but the requirements of prudent policy were driven into
the background by the selfish ambition of his nephew, who hoped to
strengthen his position in Romagna by Venetian influence. Duke Ercole
vainly tried through Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere to make the Pope
understand that it would be neither to the honour nor the advantage
of the Holy See to leave him to be crushed by the superior power of
Venice.[233]
Girolamo Riario went to Venice, where he was most honourably received
and presented with the patriciate. War was decided on. King Ferrante
sided with his son-in-law, as did also Milan and Florence. The alliance
of Bologna and several of the lords of Romagna was secure; Siena and
Genoa adhered to the Pope and Venice. Most of the captains of the
Tuscan war undertook the leadership again, under somewhat altered
circumstances. Besides Roberto Malatesta, the Venetians gained Roberto
da Sanseverino, who had fallen out with Lodovico Sforza and given him a
great deal of trouble in his own territory. The command of the Milanese
troops was entrusted to the Duke of Urbino. The Florentines were led
by Costanzo Sforza, to whom the general’s _bâton_ had been solemnly
presented October 2, 1481.[234] In the spring of 1482 the struggle
began in several quarters at once.[235]
A large Venetian fleet sailed up the Po, while two armies attacked the
Ferrarese territory—Sanseverino from the Lombard side and Malatesta
from that of Romagna. Rovigo and the whole Polesina fell into the
hands of the Venetians, whose commander-in-chief encamped, on May 28,
before Ficcarolo—a castle situated on the Po to the north-west of
Ferrara—intending to take it, and then to cross the river and attack
the capital, Malatesta co-operating with him from the south side.
But meanwhile the Duke of Urbino, with the Milanese troops, raised
his camp at Stellata, on the right bank, to assist the besieged and
cover Ferrara; and Malatesta was called away from the Po district to
meet a threatened danger in an opposite quarter. Alfonso of Calabria
had appeared at the Tronto, demanding a free pass to bring aid to his
brother-in-law. The Pope had not yet declared himself; the envoys of
Naples, Milan, Florence, and Ferrara were still in Rome. On the refusal
of the pass they left the city, and the duke entered the States of the
Church as an enemy. He met no serious resistance. Rome resounded with
the clang of arms; as an annalist says, ‘The city which had hitherto
been wont to produce only bulls and briefs now produced nothing but
arms.’[236] Girolamo Riario had the post of captain-general for the
Church, but his incapacity soon became apparent. The Neapolitans were
at Grottaferrata; their horsemen made excursions to the very gates of
the city; vineyards and fields were laid waste. This state of things
continued for weeks. At last the Pope saw himself compelled to appeal
for help to Venice, and she ordered Roberto Malatesta to go to the
assistance of her hard-pressed ally. Meanwhile, the Florentines had
made a diversion; Niccolò Vitelli, supported by Costanzo Sforza, had
taken Città di Castello on June 19, and the whole country around had
fallen into his hands.
Thus far matters seemed to be going in favour of the Duke of Ferrara
and his allies. The Pope was angry as well as distressed, and in
his anger and distress he did not disdain the policy followed by
one Italian state after another, to the ruin of Italy, the policy
of seeking help from a foreign power. To Louis XI. he addressed the
bitterest complaints against Ferrante, seeking to stir up the French
king to an expedition against Naples, where the prevailing discontent
was in his favour, and he offered the Dauphin an opportunity of
becoming a standard-bearer of the Church.[237] Raimond Pérault,
afterwards Bishop of Saintes and Cardinal, was sent to the king with
positive proposals. Louis XI. was too practical to enter upon such
far-reaching and uncertain projects, but, as in all similar proposals,
the seed sown did not fall on barren soil. Meanwhile things had changed
in Italy. Ficcarolo surrendered after a siege of rather more than a
month, and the enemy crossed the Po unimpeded by the troops of the
Duke of Urbino, which were no match for the Venetians, especially
when their leader, having been seized with fever in the low unhealthy
neighbourhood of the river, had to be carried to Bologna. Ferrara was
threatened, and a Venetian fleet alarmed the coast of Apulia. But the
heaviest blow was yet to come. On August 21, at Campomorto, on the
road from Rome to Porto d’Anzo, Alfonso of Calabria was completely
defeated by Malatesta, with heavy loss of men and artillery.[238]
The victor died at Rome on September 8, of fever which he had caught
in the infected Campagna. At the same time the other side lost their
best general, Federigo da Montefeltro, who closed his eventful life
in Bologna. These two, opposed to each other on the battle-field, but
connected by the closest family ties, each ignorant of the other’s
mortal danger, commended in their last hour their states and families
to each other’s care. Girolamo Riario had tried to profit both by the
victory and the death of Malatesta, on the one hand to retake Città
di Castello, and on the other to get Rimini into his own power. Both
attempts were frustrated by the Florentines, who supported Vitelli and
enabled Roberto’s widow, Elisabetta di Montefeltro, to preserve for her
little step-son Pandolfo his paternal inheritance. Still the situation
was very serious. Roberto Sanseverino established himself on the right
bank of the Po, and raised strong fortifications at Pontelagoscuro,
close to Ferrara. The duke began seriously to think of abandoning his
capital and withdrawing to Modena, but the Florentine plenipotentiary,
Bongianni Gianfigliazzi, restrained him. Lodovico Sforza was kept in
check by a rising in the Parmesan territory.
The way the war was carried on in the Duchy of Ferrara was regarded
in Florence as very unsatisfactory. The Duke of Urbino had in nowise
answered to the expectations formed of him. Jacopo Guicciardini
remarked to the Ferrarese ambassador that the league had no head.
Lorenzo de’ Medici was anxious, but said in reference to the Duke of
Ferrara, ‘I cannot imagine you will lose, unless you fail for want of
spirit. _Here_ all will be done that can be.’ The expedition against
Città di Castello, he observed, had been made with the object of giving
the duke breathing time. Ercole was always commending his interests to
the Republic. If Ferrara fell into the hands of the Venetians, Florence
would be likewise endangered. Military operations were not accounted
sufficient; the old threat of a council was renewed. But just at this
time the adventurous Archbishop of Carniola, whose character and
history have never been thoroughly investigated, made a feeble attempt
to revive the Synod of Basel, which had been dissolved for forty
years. This man, a Dominican, whose name seems to have been Andrea
Zuccalmaglio, was in Rome with commissions from the Emperor Frederic
about the time of the Pazzi conspiracy. There he enjoyed high favour
for a time, but afterwards he fell into such deep disgrace that he was
not only deposed from his ecclesiastical dignity but imprisoned in the
castle of St. Angelo, from whence the Emperor’s intercession liberated
him in the summer of 1481. He betook himself, _viâ_ Florence, first
to Bern and then to Basel, where, falsely giving himself out as still
Frederic’s messenger, and finally assuming the title of cardinal, he
proclaimed the opening of the great Assembly of the Church on the feast
of the Annunciation, 1482. The moment for this proclamation was not
badly chosen, for the Pope was just involving himself in a fresh war;
but measures being immediately taken in Rome to put on their guard both
foreign powers and the free city in which the fire threatened to kindle
once more, the wretched man—whose sanity had begun to be doubted, and
who was not joined by one single prelate from France or Germany—rushed
into extremities, and in the beginning of the summer launched the
wildest invectives against Francesco da Savona, who was no Pope but
a son of the devil, against whom he called Christ and the œcumenical
council to witness.
Not long before, Lorenzo had found out that it is not safe to play
with spiritual weapons, however much they might be blunted by misuse
in temporal projects. It seems, therefore, hardly intelligible that he
could think of letting himself appear to take part in such a senseless
enterprise. Possibly he had seen the archbishop when the latter passed
through Florence, with his heart full of rancour against the Pope
and his nephew. In Lorenzo’s defence it may be urged that affairs in
Italy were in a sad plight while the Pope blindly allowed himself to
be led by the ambition of his kinsmen. In a letter written about this
time to Pier Capponi, ambassador at Naples,[239] Lorenzo says plainly
that the authority of religion itself is endangered by a mode of
government so unbecoming the supreme pastor. King Ferrante nominated
ambassadors to the council, and proposed that the Italian League should
be represented, as well as the individual states. He hoped to induce
the Kings of Hungary and Spain to favour the cause. But in vain. On
September 14, by Lorenzo’s orders, Baccio Ugolini arrived in Basel, in
company with a Milanese delegate—Bartolommeo, Archpriest of Piacenza.
They at once entered into communication with the _Pronunciator_ of the
Council, as Andrea called himself, but they soon became convinced of
the utter groundlessness and hopelessness of the whole proceeding. The
Florentine’s idea of proposing Pisa as a more suitable spot than Basel,
where matters were going wrong already, is interesting only as an echo
of the Council of 1409, and a foreshadowing of the _conciliabulum_ of
1511. On December 18, the two delegates, with Philip of Savoy, Lord of
Bresse, and other princes and nobles, were present at a solemn sitting
of the town-council of Basel, at which the case was decided against
the archbishop. Having avowed his obedience to the head of the Empire,
and his zeal for the good of the church, but declining to retract his
accusations against the Pope, he was arrested; he was then prosecuted,
but at the same time, the town council of Basel refused to deliver
him up to Rome. Legal proceedings were taken against the imperial
city, and were the cause of great trouble, until the dispute was ended
by a compromise arising out of the suicide of the rash man who had
originated this melancholy episode.[240]
While Baccio Ugolini and his colleague were taking part in these
deliberations, a revolution was preparing in Italy which altered the
whole position of affairs and placed Florence and Milan in quite a
different attitude towards the Pope. Sixtus was influenced less by
distant apprehensions than by the consideration, to which he could not
shut his eyes, that he was helping to strengthen the very power which
threatened to become most dangerous to him by its constant endeavours
to obtain control over the cities on the Adriatic coast. Giuliano della
Rovere—who, twenty years after, as his uncle’s successor, opposed
in arms the power of this Republic, his uncle’s old ally—seems to
have been the means of finally inducing the Pope to break with Venice.
Girolamo Riario, the soul of the war party, might be gained over by a
prospect of the Malatesta fiefs. First, a truce was made with the Duke
of Calabria, who was still in the Campagna; then, on December 23, peace
was agreed upon between the Pope, Naples, Florence, and Milan, with
a proviso that Venice was to accede to it. The Florentines were not
satisfied with the conditions, and seem to have accused the Milanese of
lukewarmness both in regard to the war and to the negotiations. Yet,
considering the state of affairs and the losses already sustained, the
conditions were not unfavourable. The Duke of Ferrara, who was in the
utmost need, was to be reinstated in his possessions. The next point,
however, was to persuade or compel the Venetians to accede to the
treaty, and thus give reality to the peace, in commemoration of which
Sixtus built the church of Sta. Maria della Pace. A congress was to be
held at Cremona to regulate everything.
There was no time to lose, for Ferrara was besieged and could not
hold out much longer; and the conduct of Costanzo Sforza, who had
strengthened the garrison with his own troops after being repeatedly
urged to do so by the Florentines, inspired but little confidence.
In spite of the unfavourable time of year, King Ferrante was not
behind hand. A thousand men, among whom were the Turks who bad fought
bravely at Campomorto, were sent by sea to Piombino, to march through
Sienese and Florentine territory; while the Duke of Calabria advanced
by way of Orvieto towards the valleys of the Chiana and the Arno. On
January 5, 1483, he was in Florence, where he abode in the house of
Giovanni Tornabuoni. At the end of three days he set out for Ferrara,
from whence he intended proceeding to Cremona. The Cardinal-Legate
Gonzaga also passed through Florence on his way to Cremona; and now
Lorenzo de’ Medici, who was to represent the Republic at the congress,
also set out on February 12. A week before he received the customary
instructions,[241] relating principally to the contingents of troops
and money for the prosecution of the war; in fact, he went as master
of the city and the State, to decide on war and peace according to his
own judgment. His brother-in-law Bernardo Rucellai was to accompany
him. Louis XI. warned him of possible danger. ‘As to the meeting about
Ferrara,’ he wrote on January 20, ‘at which you tell me you have agreed
to be present, I, who know neither the people nor the place, would have
advised you not to go, but to take care of your own safety. I would
have sent a messenger with excuses. Since, however, you have consented
to go, I must leave the rest to you and trust in God that all may go as
you wish.’[242] Even in Florence the matter seems to have been thought
somewhat serious. When Lorenzo, on January 30, announced to the Duke of
Ferrara[243] his intended departure, he added that he had to contend
with the general opposition of the citizens, who were unwilling to let
him go. At the same time he remarks that his presence cannot be of
much consequence at a meeting of so many mighty lords; but it is not
necessary to take him at his word. He announced his impending journey
to the French king on the same day.
The lords who met at Cremona were, besides the Legate, the Duke of
Calabria and Lorenzo de’ Medici, Lodovico and Ascanio Sforza, Ercole
d’Este, Federigo Gonzaga Marquis of Mantua, Giovanni Bentivoglio,
Girolamo Riario,[244] and various envoys and plenipotentiaries. On the
last day of February, 1483, the treaty was settled, according to which
Venice was to be compelled by active prosecution of the war to cease
hostilities against Ferrara. At the end of the first week in March,
Lorenzo was back in Florence. The Venetians had no idea of yielding.
They had already begun negotiations with the Duke of Lorraine, that he
might alarm King Ferrante once more by raising the standard of Anjou,
while their fleet desolated the Apulian coast and took the important
post of Gallipoli. Their ambassador Francesco Diedo had quitted Rome
at the end of February. The Pope had refused to give him an audience;
Diedo complained that no Turk would be treated so, but he feared a
crusade would be preached against the Republic, and declared that in
that case they would never obtain peace—they might give themselves up
for lost.[245] In March, Ferrara seemed near its fall. All the country
within a mile round was in the enemy’s hands. The Venetian Chronicler
Marin Sanuto, who was in Sanseverino’s camp, gives a lively description
of the doings before the city-gates. ‘We eat with the most illustrious
Roberto, and then to horse. We were about five hundred horsemen and
many foot; we left the camp and rode to the park of Ferrara, where we
proceeded _more solito_ as far as a small canal, about a mile and a
half from the city. Sanseverino was wont to march into the park every
morning to escort the plundering bands. I saw the enemy’s troops under
the Duke of Calabria and the Count of Pitigliano; we advanced towards
them as far as the canal, but, _sic volente fato_, it did not come to a
fight. Only, to mock them, we let fly our falcons. The park comprises a
space of seven miles, full of game and fruit of all kinds; now it lies
open and deserted.’[246] Costanzo Sforza, who had thoughts of making
terms with Venice, evacuated Ferrara in defiance of orders. Giovanni
Bentivoglio and Galeotto Manfredi were hastily ordered thither; but
the most effectual help was the victory gained over the Venetians at
Argenta by Alfonso of Calabria, captain-general of the allies. From
thenceforth matters took a favourable turn for the latter, who were
also benefited by the interdict laid on Venice by the Pope. An attempt
made by Sanseverino to kindle a revolt in the Milanese roused Sforza
to serious proceedings. By autumn the whole country as far as the
Adige was in the hands of the Milanese; the Venetian fleet on the Po
sustained heavy loss, and René of Lorraine, called by the Republic to
its aid, was forced to retreat before the troops of Este.
In the beginning of January 1484, at Milan, another congress was
held, at which Jacopo Guicciardini was present on behalf of Florence.
By actively prosecuting the war by land and sea, it was hoped that
Venice would soon be compelled to sue for peace—a consummation for
which all longed, as the expenses were becoming burdensome, and each
of the allies had its own separate interests. Peace did indeed come
to pass in the course of the summer; but it scarcely answered general
expectation. To obtain a little relief in their difficult predicament,
the Venetians, beside their alliance with the heir of Anjou, now tried
to stir up Louis XI. to an expedition against Naples, and the Duke
of Orleans to an expedition against Milan, while their enemies were
setting the Turks upon them.[247] At last they succeeded in detaching
Lodovico il Moro from the league, of which he was but a half-hearted
adherent. His own position and projects furnished them with a pretext,
and now began the complications which in ten years brought Italy to
ruin. In Milan things had drifted into a state that might easily have
been foreseen. The duchess-regent, who, _par sottise_, as Commines
unceremoniously expressed it, had put herself into Lodovico’s power,
now saw her truest counsellor dying in prison at Pavia, her own son
used as a tool, and her unworthy favourite driven out of Milan; and
when she tried to leave the country she was herself detained in the
castle of Abbiategrasso, a prisoner, though the word itself was not
uttered in her presence, and she was allowed to see her children
occasionally. There she closed her sorrowful career in 1494, so
completely forgotten that the exact date and manner of her death are
unknown. Lodovico once rid of his sister-in-law, ruled supreme in
Milan. His nephew was duke only in name; at sixteen he was still under
a guardianship which became daily more oppressive. Alfonso of Calabria,
to whose daughter the young duke was betrothed, was not inclined to
let this state of affairs continue; Lodovico, on the other hand, was
determined to make every possible effort to maintain his position. The
Marquis of Mantua had contrived to prevent the rupture which seemed
imminent when both princes were in Northern Italy; but his death put an
end to all chances of mediation. The reciprocal distrust of Lodovico
and the Medici was constantly increasing, and occasionally sharp words
passed between them.
Venice profited in this state of affairs by employing Roberto da
Sanseverino, an old confidant of Lodovico’s and anxious to be
reconciled to him, to make him perceive that he was acting against
his own interest in taking part in this war, which, if it ended
unfavourably for the Republic, must strengthen the authority of the
Aragonese in Central and Northern Italy. Without troubling himself
about his allies, Lodovico entered into negotiations, in which Naples
and Florence participated, because they could not venture to carry
on the war without Milan. Pier Filippo Pandolfini took part in the
arrangements for peace, as Florentine plenipotentiary. Lorenzo de’
Medici, who had need of Sforza, was full of distrust. ‘We shall
conquer,’ said he after the Congress of Cremona, ‘if Lodovico’s
words correspond to his thoughts.’[248] But he soon discovered that
his doubts were well founded. He could not help seeing how all the
advantages that had been gained were being given up, and that an
inadequate result of the long and costly war was all that Este could
obtain by the treaty. ‘Antonio,’ said he to the Ferrarese ambassador,
‘thou rememberest that I was once in the same position in which thy
lord is now—aye, and even worse. If I had not helped myself, I
should have been lost. Then, too, the fault lay with Milan. I do not
say that thy lord should do as I did.’ ‘My illustrious lord,’ adds
the ambassador in his report to the duke, ‘I think he meant that if
he was in your Excellency’s place he would come to an understanding
direct with Venice herself, and trust himself to his foes as he did at
Naples.’[249]
The conditions of the peace signed at Bagnolo on August 8, 1484, were
dictated by Venice, who regained by the treaty the territory she had
lost in the war. That is to say the peace was highly disadvantageous
to Ferrara. Not only was Ercole compelled to admit the old demands of
the Republic; the Polesina and Rovigo remained in its hands. ‘When the
Venetians were getting the worst of it, and their funds were becoming
very much exhausted,’ says Commines,[250] ‘the lord Lodovico came to
the assistance of their honour and credit, and every man got his own
again except the poor Duke of Ferrara, who had gone into the war at
the instigation of his father-in-law and Lodovico, and now had to
yield to the Venetians the Polesina, which they still possess. It was
said that the transaction brought 60,000 ducats to my lord Lodovico; I
cannot tell how the truth may be, but I found such was the belief of
the Duke of Ferrara, to whose daughter, however, he was not yet married
in those days.’ Gallipoli and other places on the coast were restored
to Ferrante. Sixtus IV. having thus seen the war continued contrary to
his views, and ended without his participation, when he thought he had
the decision in his own hands, did not long survive the conclusion of
the peace, which made all his exertions useless and strengthened his
opponent. He had an attack of gout on August 2; on the 13th he died.
It was said that he, the restless one, had been killed by the peace.
Scarcely five months before, he had given the red hat to the brother of
the man who had since crossed all his plans—to Ascanio Maria Sforza,
who thus began under warlike auspices a cardinalate destined to be
devoid of peace.
The Florentines felt all the shame of the treaty, but they made a show
of rejoicing after the war was over. There was indeed every reason to
wish for quiet in that quarter, for there was no lack of troubles of
all kinds. It was not long since a compromise had with great difficulty
been arrived at about Città di Castello. The Pope had tried both
arms and negotiations to regain possession of the town, and neither
had succeeded. Niccolò Vitelli held out till 1484, by the Florentine
assistance. Florence had indeed no intention of offending the Pope
for his sake, and thereby damaging the far more important cause of
Ferrara, and was inclined to let Sixtus have his will in the matter.
But he wanted to give the town and neighbouring places as a fief to his
nephew, and at the same time to enlarge the latter’s possessions in the
direction of Rimini and Cesena by a treaty with the Malatestas, neither
of which things suited the Florentines.[251] Amid this uncertainty
Vitelli resolved to imitate Lorenzo’s example. He went to Rome, came
to terms with the Pope, recognised the latter’s supremacy, agreed with
his rival Lorenzo Giustini, and accepted the office of a governor of
the Maritima and Campagna. Peace was restored in the valley of the
Upper Tiber, and Città di Castello was preserved to the Church; while
the Vitelli, who continued to govern through various changes of form
and destiny, maintained till their extinction their active relations
with Florence and the Medici. On June 14, 1483, an agreement was made
with Siena for the restoration of the places which Florence had been
compelled to yield to her in the treaty of peace of 1480.[252] But
another revolution in Siena, where the party raised to power by the
Duke of Calabria’s influence had been unable to maintain themselves,
had been required to produce this restoration and decide the Sienese to
form an alliance with Florence, to secure herself against the exiles
supposed to be favoured by Rome and Naples. The Florentine opinion of
the neighbouring state was still the same as that expressed nearly two
hundred years before by the poet of the ‘Divine Comedy,’[253] as may
be seen by a letter from the Signoria to Lorenzo during his stay at
Cremona. The treaty with the Sienese, say they, is a long process, and
no real confidence can be placed in them and their doings, because of
the changeableness of their nature.[254]
The long feud about Sarzana had not yet come to an end; the siege
had dragged on all through the Ferrarese war. Things were in a bad
position. Agostino Fregoso, who held the town, had made it over to the
great commercial company of the Banco di San Giorgio, which formed in
Genoa a state within the State, and owned many places on the Ligurian
coast as well as in the far-off Crimea. Not only had the garrison of
Sarzana been strengthened, but also that of its neighbour Pietrasanta,
originally a Lucchese town, which cut off all communications while a
fleet attacked the coast of the Maremma. As at the peace of Naples
so at that of Bagnolo, to the great vexation of the Florentines, the
dispute about Sarzana was left unsettled. The honour of the Republic
urgently demanded a settlement. But instead of taking the place, a
Florentine corps escorting a transport of ammunition was defeated
near Pietrasanta. The necessity was now felt for rendering the castle
incapable of further harm, but it was not done without heavy losses.
The marshy atmosphere of the coast of the Lunigiana seized many
victims from the Florentine camp; Bongianni Gianfigliazzi and Antonio
Pucci, army commissaries, succumbed to the fever in Pisa. Then Lorenzo
resolved to go himself to the camp to spur on the troops. A few days
after his arrival, in the beginning of November, 1484, Pietrasanta
surrendered. An embassy from Lucca, demanding its restoration, was
deferred with a reference to the coming accommodation with Genoa; but
Florence was resolved beforehand to keep the place as an excellent
check upon Lucca. When the castle was taken, which was to remain a
boundary-mark on the Lunigiana side down to the dissolution of the
Tuscan autonomy, many things had occurred to claim the whole attention
of those who governed the Republic.
CHAPTER III.
THE EARLY YEARS OF INNOCENT VIII. LOUIS XI. AND FRANCE.
THE last years of Sixtus IV. were disturbed in Rome as well as
elsewhere. In both cases Girolamo Riario was the chief person to blame,
though it was a great pity that such a gifted and superior man as the
Pope should be led astray into crooked ways by a petty tyrant devoid
of talent, hesitating before no violence, and versed only in intrigue.
Sixtus could not be deceived as to the nature of his unworthy nephew;
all Rome was full of his wickedness, though the excesses committed by
the Florentines after the Pazzi conspiracy had damaged their cause
and would have added to the power of the Pope if he, too, had not
overstepped all bounds in his impetuosity. Of Riario’s part in the
matter there was but one opinion. Two years later a painful occurrence
took place in the Pope’s family. One of his numerous nephews, Antonio
Basso della Rovere, son of his sister Luchina and brother of Cardinal
Girolamo Basso, had been married only a year to Caterina Marzano,
daughter of the Prince of Rossano and granddaughter of King Ferrante,
when he was seized with a fever from which he never recovered.
Girolamo Riario was visiting his cousin when the latter (whether,
as the chronicler suggests, in the delirium of fever, or venting
long-restrained malice), instead of thanking him for his sympathy,
attacked him as if he were his bitterest enemy. ‘He vehemently
reproached him with various actions which were universally condemned,
and with his manner of life, which was a subject of general complaint,
and denounced against him the judgment of God, which no human favour
or power could enable him to escape. The sick man’s excitement was so
great that those who had been intimate with him for years could no
longer recognise his usual gentleness. The count, however, wisely bore
it all patiently as the words of one delirious with fever, and openly
expressed his compassion for his cousin’s state. All we who stood round
the bed blushed for shame, and several tried to leave the room.’[255]
Since 1482 Rome had been constantly filled with the clang of arms. The
stronghold of the spiritual power was scarcely to be recognised. After
the immediate anxieties consequent on the Ferrarese war were ended by
the battle of Campomorto, and the Romans had stared to their hearts’
content at the Duke of Calabria’s captive troopers and janissaries,
feverish excitement was again aroused by fresh disputes between the
Colonna and Orsini factions, in which many other families—the Savelli,
Santacroce, Tuttivilla, Della Valle, &c.—took part. The city was
divided into two hostile camps; palaces were besieged and destroyed;
the streets and the neighbourhood filled with armed bands. One Colonna
lost his life in defending the cause of his family. Girolamo Riario
was mixed up in all this, and through him the Pope also became a party
to it. Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, who favoured the Colonnas,
quarrelled so desperately with Girolamo that the latter threatened to
attack his palace. Even after a compact was agreed upon by the two
great families, peace was not restored. In the beginning of July, 1484,
the Pope’s nephew, with a considerable body of troops, attacked the
Colonna possessions, which surrounded Rome on the west like a girdle.
He took Capranica and Cave, and was laying siege to the stronghold
of Paliano when he was startled by the news of the Pope’s death. He
felt the ground give way under his feet. On the morning of August
13 the populace stormed and plundered his palace at Sant’Apollinare;
his magazine in the Campagna, that of his brother-in-law and of the
Genoese—hated by the people for their usury—the papal galleys at
Ostia, everything was sacked. His brave wife, Caterina Sforza, was safe
in the castle of St. Angelo. The siege of Paliano was raised at once;
the troops marched to Rome, but only to turn towards the north-west
to seek a junction with the Orsini, for from all sides, even from
the Abruzzi, armed auxiliaries were flocking to the Colonna, to whom
Florence and Siena also proffered assistance. Deifebo dell’ Anguillara
retook several castles; the city and neighbourhood were in complete
anarchy; every man was in arms, and the palaces were barricaded. At
last a compromise was arrived at, which, by the departure of the party
leaders and the surrender of the castle of St. Angelo to the College of
Cardinals, put an end to the worst disorder. On August 26 the conclave
met, and at the end of three days Giovan Battista Cybò was chosen Pope
under the title of Innocent VIII.
Thus, amid all this confusion, ended the reign of a Pope who had
thought he could govern the policy of Italy, and, in a certain sense,
did control it better than anyone who had preceded him. He brought
together the finest library of his time, carried out legal reforms
for the benefit of the Roman Municipium, did more than anyone else to
transform Rome from a mediæval city into one more suited to modern
requirements, and enriched it with churches, palaces, bridges, and
beneficent establishments. Innocent VIII. was far from possessing
the striking qualities of his predecessor, but he was free from the
latter’s immoderate self-confidence. He sprang from a Genoese family
believed to be of Levantine origin and connected with the Tomacelli,
relatives of Boniface IX.[256] But the first Cybò known to history
is the Pope’s father Arano, who married into a Genoese patrician
house—that of the Mari—held important offices in Naples under René
of Anjou, and later on, though still leaning towards the Angevin
party, under Alfonso of Aragon, and in 1455 was a senator of Rome.
Giovan Battista Cybò studied in Padua and Rome, was appointed Bishop
of Savona by Paul II., and afterwards translated to Molfetta, from
whence he took his usual appellation after being created a cardinal
in May 1473. In the Pope’s absence, during the plague in the summer
of 1476, he acted as his representative. He was in his fifty-second
year. ‘The disposition of the new Pope,’ wrote Guid’Antonio Vespucci to
Lorenzo immediately after the election, ‘was, during his cardinalate,
benevolent and kind, and he was far more affable in society than he
whom you wot of. He is not versed in either matters of state or of
learning, but he is not wholly ignorant. He belonged completely to the
party of San Pietro in Vincola (Giuliano della Rovere), who procured
him his hat, and of whom it may be said that he is now practically
Pope, and will have far more power than under Sixtus if he only knows
how to manage his successor cleverly. The latter, as a cardinal, was
on bad terms with the count (Riario). He is of middle height, strongly
built, full in the face, has a brother and several grown-up natural
children, at any rate a son and a married daughter. He gives one the
impression of one who will let himself be counselled by others rather
than rule by himself.’[257] Luigi Lotti wrote: ‘If he governs and
proceeds according to his own judgment and not by that of others, I
think he will be a good quiet Pope, and keep clear of all strife of
arms. His court will resemble him, as the general opinion is that he
will show a gracious disposition.’
Lodovico il Moro had proposed that the allied states should send
their congratulatory embassies to Rome together. The Florentines
were all the more eager to offer their congratulations because they
wanted to secure the favour of a Genoese Pope in their differences
with Genoa. Immediately after his election Lorenzo heard, from his
brother-in-law the archbishop, that Innocent had expressed the most
friendly interest in his position and the affairs of Florence, and
declared his readiness to be of use to him; adding that all his hopes
were founded on Lorenzo’s wisdom, as there was no knowing whether the
end would correspond with the beginning.[258] At the close of November
the embassy started for Rome, where it arrived on December 8, and
was received, according to custom, by the papal court, the household
officers of the cardinals, and the foreign envoys. Its members were
Francesco Soderini, Antonio Canigiani, Bartolommeo Scala, Angelo
Niccolini, and Giovanni Tornabuoni, besides the resident ambassador
Guid’Antonio Vespucci.[259] In the ‘Instructions’ reference was made
to the earnest desire of the Republic to have a speedy ending put to
the strife in the Lunigiana. ‘Should the new Pope or anyone else turn
the discourse on the subject of the war, ye shall answer that your
commission deals solely with the duty of congratulation; but add, as
if from yourselves, in justification of late events, that we were
compelled to fight contrary to our intention and will; as indeed ye
very well know that our city is ever faithful to her natural desire for
peace, as far as is consistent with honour and fair advantage.’
Lorenzo had sent with the ambassadors his eldest son, a lad of
fourteen, as it was then customary for solemn embassies to be
accompanied by youths of high rank, who might contribute to the
splendour of processions and ceremonies. He gave the boy detailed
instructions, such as were usual in such cases on the part of wise
and careful fathers.[260] At Siena he was to proclaim the readiness
of both Lorenzo and the Government to be of use to the authorities
there. ‘Everywhere, when the other young companions of the envoys are
together with thee, behave thyself gravely and discreetly and with
politeness towards thine equals. Beware of taking precedence of anyone
older than thyself; for although thou art my son, yet thou art nothing
but a Florentine citizen like the rest. If Giovanni (Tornabuoni) thinks
fit to present thee to the Pope at a special audience, take care to
be previously well instructed in all the customary ceremonies; then,
when thou comest to his Holiness, kiss the credentials which I give
thee for the Holy Father and beg him to read them. After that, if thou
hast to speak, thou shalt commend me with reverence to his Holiness,
and say that I well know it was my duty to appear before him in person
as I did before his predecessor of blessed memory, but that I trust
he will be graciously pleased to excuse me; for at the time when I
went to Rome I could leave my brother at home, who was well able to
represent me, but now I should have no one to leave behind numbering
more years or possessing more authority than thyself. Therefore, I
think I should have pleased his Holiness less by coming than by sending
thee, whereby I express in the best way possible my desire to appear
in person. Moreover, I send thee in order that thou mayest have an
early opportunity of learning to know his Holiness as thy father and
lord, and of fostering for many years those feelings which, I hope,
will be shared by thy brothers, whom I would rather not have as sons
if it is not to be so. Hereupon thou shalt declare to his Holiness my
firm resolve not to swerve from his commands, for my innate devotion to
the Apostolic See is increased by that towards the person of the Holy
Father, to whom our house has long been under obligation. Moreover, I
have experienced what disadvantages were brought upon me by the loss of
the late Pope’s favour, although I believe I suffered many persecutions
without fault of my own, and more on account of the sins of others
than for misconduct towards him. But I leave this to the judgment of
others, and however this may be, my resolution is fixed, not only never
to offend his Holiness, but to meditate day and night on what may be
pleasing to him.’ Doubtless Lorenzo was as much in earnest in this as
in his sensible advice. It would have been well for Piero de’ Medici
had he never forgotten what Cosimo had impressed on his son and the
latter again on his, who, as a father, now repeated it to the boy—that
he was a Florentine citizen like all the rest. But this tradition came
to an end with Lorenzo. The further contents of the instructions will
be referred to again. Innocent VIII. afterwards said to Pier Filippo
Pandolfini, the new ambassador of the Republic, that after the Genoese
quarrel had been laid aside Lorenzo would perceive there had never
been a Pope who took the interests of his house so much to heart as he
did. ‘For as I have learned by experience how great is his honesty and
wisdom, I will most willingly be guided by his counsels.’[261]
Lorenzo must have been the more anxious to obtain the lasting favour
of the head of the Church since a change had taken place abroad
which might possibly have an important influence on the political
circumstances of Italy. A year before the death of Sixtus IV. the
monarch was called away, who, amid all his dependence on the clergy and
his devotion—approaching to superstition, and heightened by suspicion
and torments of conscience—raised the most vehement opposition to the
Pope and the papacy. Louis XI. died at the age of sixty, at his castle
of Plessis-les-Tours, on the evening of August 30, 1483. Two years
before, when out hunting, he had had his first apoplectic fit, which
was repeated without destroying his clearness of intellect, though his
physical strength gradually sank. He had seen his approaching end with
a terror which prayers and sacraments could not soothe, which drove him
ceaselessly from pilgrimage to pilgrimage whenever he was not staying
at Plessis. There, tortured day and night by the consciousness of
hatred which his cold treacherous tyranny had excited in the breasts
of others, he shut himself in with a few confidants, surrounded by
double and triple guards of all kinds. To the end of his days the king
maintained friendly relations with Florence and the Medici; of all
his political connections, this was perhaps the only one in which he
never changed. In his instructions to the ambassadors sent to Rome in
November 1478,[262] he expressly mentioned that the Florentines had
always, time out of mind, shown themselves true and loyal friends to
France, had never done anything against the crown, and lived according
to the laws and customs given them by Charles the Great.[263] A few
weeks before his death, Louis wrote to Lorenzo. Not content with
having called to his bedside the holy hermit of Calabria, St. Francis
of Paola, and procured relics without end from Rome, he tried through
Lorenzo to obtain the episcopal ring of St. Zanobi, which was preserved
at Florence in the Girolami family, and believed to have the power of
curing skin-diseases. His wish was gratified. ‘Cousin and friend,’
thus wrote the dying man on July 9, 1483, from Notre-Dame de Cléry
near Orleans, whither he had gone on a pilgrimage,[264] ‘I have seen
the ring which you sent to Monsieur de Soliers (Palamède de Fobrin,
governor of Provence). But I wish to know for certain whether it is
really that of the saint, and whether it works miracles; whether it
has cured anybody, and whom; and how it is to be worn. I beg you to
inform me of all this as quickly as you can, or to write about it in
detail to the general of Normandy; also whether you have out yonder any
particular cure which has the virtues of the said ring. If you can find
one, send it to the said general, I beg you, for the sake of all the
pleasure you can give me. Now farewell, cousin and friend.’
In the last years of Louis XI. the male line of the house of Anjou
became extinct. We have seen how the king obtained from the last of the
house, who could no longer escape from his powerful arm, the cession
of their French provinces and their Italian claims: of the former he
took immediate possession, the latter remained in abeyance waiting
for eventualities which did not fail to come, to the ruin of Italy,
whose old sins were expiated centuries later. René, a king of shadows
if ever there was one, saw his son Jean and his grandson Nicolas both
die before he himself was laid to rest at Angers on July 10, 1480.
His nephew Charles, Count of Maine, to whom his French possessions
passed with the consent of Louis XI., followed him to the grave
within seventeen months; and the sole heiress was now René’s daughter
Yolande, widow of Ferry, Count of Lorraine-Vaudemont. She too died in
the beginning of 1483, a few months before the king. Her marriage with
her cousin had been intended to reconcile the claims of the Vaudemont
branch to the Duchy of Lorraine with those of primogeniture in the
female line on behalf of which René, as the husband of the heiress
Isabelle, had fought unsuccessfully with Antoine de Vaudemont, father
of Ferry. Yolande’s son, René II., now succeeded to the dukedom of
Lorraine, as well as to the French fiefs of the Vaudemonts. It was he
who defeated Charles the Bold at Nancy, and was led by the Venetians
into the war with King Ferrante in Italy, where years after, in the war
against the Spaniards, his son revived the old family claims to the
Neapolitan crown—those claims which were to be practically made good
once more in the middle of the seventeenth century by a scion of the
French branch of the old house.
Lorenzo could not fail to notice that in Louis XI. he lost both a
friend and a supporter. The political situation of France foreboded
the worst vicissitudes. A delicate illtrained boy of thirteen was
left heir to a kingdom which a long, skilful, and despotic reign had
considerably enlarged, but also filled more terribly than ever with
the elements of discord. The Queen-mother, Charlotte of Savoy, was an
invalid, and incapable of acting; according to Louis’ arrangements
his elder daughter Anne, wife of Pierre de Bourbon, Count of Beaujeu,
was to conduct the government for Charles VIII. without the title
of regent. Amid the opposition of the nobles, of whom one, Louis of
Orleans, was the next heir to the throne, this task was fulfilled
with no little skill by the Princess, then aged twenty-two, of whom
her father once said that ‘no woman was wise, but Anne was the least
foolish.’ It was she who thwarted all the plans of the restless nobles
and put down their attempts to arm. She paved the way for the union of
Brittany with the crown, by interfering with the views of Maximilian of
Austria who, after the early death of Mary of Burgundy, contemplated
extending the new possessions of the house of Habsburg into the very
heart of France by his marriage with the heiress of the great western
duchy. It is evident, however, that under all the circumstances there
was not much chance of French influence extending into Italy or
anywhere beyond the borders of the country itself.
Immediately after the death of Louis, Florence despatched an embassy to
present to the young king good wishes on his accession, and to express
sincere regret for the loss of his father.[265] Gentile Becchi, Antonio
Canigiani, and Lorenzo de’ Medici the son of Pier Francesco, were the
members of this embassy, which was to visit the potentates of Northern
Italy on its way. Its chief object was the fulfilment of formalities.
If any intention should be shown on the French side of interfering
to restore peace in Italy, the envoys were instructed to take care
that this should appear to proceed from an independent resolve of the
French government, and not from the influence of the allies (for
at that time the war with Venice was still going on). This would be
the best way ‘to avoid dangerous conjunctures which might arise in
Italy from these obstinate dissensions,’ and at the same time remain
most honourable for the young king. But Anne de Beaujeu, who had just
summoned the States-General in order to checkmate the allied princes by
the same move which they had intended to make against her, had other
things to think of than Italian complications; and the Florentine
embassy, after all due ceremonies had been gone through, seems to have
had to deal merely with commercial and personal interests.
Five years later the Regent of France remembered the old friendship
with the Medici, when she was looking about her on all sides for help
against the great feudatories who supported Maximilian in his alliance
with the mightiest of them all, the Duke of Brittany. On April 5, 1486,
Maximilian was crowned king of the Romans at Aachen; and in spite of
the great difficulties with which he had to contend in his Burgundian
provinces, his position was a very threatening one for France so long
as internal peace was not restored, and every addition to his power
was an addition to the cares of Anne de Beaujeu. The advanced age of
Frederic III. pointed to a speedy vacancy of the imperial throne. That
the idea occurred to France of trying to prevent Innocent VIII. from
confirming Maximilian’s election is, however, somewhat startling. The
Pope was on friendly terms with the emperor and the king; just before,
at the end of 1487, he had given proof of this by signing the treaty
which put an end to the long-standing war between Venice and Archduke
Sigismund of Tyrol. On February 8, 1488, a letter was sent in the
name of the young king Charles to Lorenzo de’ Medici, claiming his
friendship for the royal house of France and soliciting the employment
of his influence with the Pope, in order that Maximilian’s kingly
dignity, as injurious to the interests of France, should remain for a
time unconfirmed. ‘You may assure the Holy Father that if the matter
is delayed, we will so conduct ourselves that his Holiness and all who
have anything to do in the matter shall perceive the result.’[266]
It is very clear that Lorenzo, with all his attachment to France, was
reluctant to mix himself with such an intrigue as this. ‘By the copy of
a letter from the King of France to me,’ he wrote on February 8 to the
ambassador at Rome, ‘you will see the king’s desire and the importance
of the affair. For practical reasons I do not think it fitting to
write to his Holiness; but I am for your informing him of it with your
usual adroitness as soon as you think good, and pointing out to him
its importance and possible consequences; for I am of opinion that
mature reflection and deliberation are needful, that the investiture in
question may not give occasion to embarrassment and offence. According
to my judgment, the Most Christian king is so powerful and has so much
influence in the affairs of Christendom, that it will always appear
to me advisable to keep in harmony and friendship with him. I shall
always order myself according to the wise judgment of his Holiness; but
wish first fully to express my own view. The rest I leave to you, and
I shall be glad if you can manage so that the king’s plenipotentiary
is pleased. But you will not neglect any precautions which may appear
needful, that we may not lose in one quarter what we gain in another.’
Lorenzo was right in his caution. ‘The French envoys,’ reports the
Ferrarese ambassador at Florence to his duke on March 10,[267] ‘have
petitioned the Pope that he should not invest Maximilian with the
dignity of King of the Romans, declaring that, should he do so, their
king will set every influence to work at Naples to avenge the insult.
The Pope gave them a very sharp reply, saying that no request had as
yet been addressed to him in relation to this matter by Maximilian’s
orators; and, moreover, he thought that such a message as that just
delivered to him must have come not from the King of France, but from
his evil counsellors. If he had only the latter to deal with, he would
soon be able to make them understand how unworthy of a Pope was such a
message, and how his footstool deserved greater reverence.’
CHAPTER IV.
POLITICAL CARES. THE BARONS’ WAR.
AFTER the disturbance and unrest which ended the pontificate of Sixtus
IV., the reign of Innocent VIII. seemed destined to commence in peace
and tranquillity. The Pope’s desire to terminate the long dispute about
Sarzana, which had distracted the Lunigiana for years, and threatened
to assume dimensions greater than the worth of the cause, was very
honourable to him, especially as it did not arise from partiality
for his Genoese home. On September 17, only three weeks after his
election, the Pope summoned the ambassadors of Naples, Florence,
and Milan[268] to discuss the political situation. After the recent
conclusion of peace, he said he considered it a duty of his apostolic
office to ensure that peace, in order that all the Italian states might
really enjoy its fruits and recover from the heavy expenses which
had burthened the holy see with a debt of more than 250,000 ducats.
The dispute about Sarzana, complicated by the Florentine attack on
Pietrasanta, made him anxious in consideration of the disposition of
the Genoese; for the latter, where their honour was at stake, would
not scruple to set the world on fire, and had already, in times past,
called the foreigner into Italy. He knew that they were not only in
league with the Marquis of Saluzzo and Philip of Savoy, lord of Bresse,
but were trying to stir up the Duke of Orleans against Milan and
the Duke of Lorraine against Naples; in which they would get support
from France, as the regent was desirous to find occupation for these
princes, and sustenance for their numerous troops in a foreign land.
The commonwealth of Genoa had applied to him to bring the matter to a
legal conclusion. He knew that his predecessor had made an unsuccessful
attempt to do so; but as a native of Genoa, and being in a more
favourable position than Pope Sixtus, he hoped to attain his object,
as the Signoria would doubtless do all in their power to compose the
strife.
The ambassadors of Naples and Milan kept to generalities, though the
former could not help owning that Sarzana had been taken from the
Florentines in time of truce; that the blame really lay with the son
of his king he naturally could not admit. Vespucci, however, went
thoroughly into the matter. Sarzana, said he, was sold to the Republic
by Lodovico Fregoso, the lord of the place. After we had held it for
several years, his son Agostino took it by surprise in time of truce,
and as he did not feel able to keep it, made it over to the bank of San
Giorgio. In defiance of law and custom, which forbid the acceptance
of an object in dispute, the bank received it just as if there were
no such place as Florence in the world. Florence has a perfect right
to make every effort to get back her own. She has equally a right
to attack Pietrasanta, because Pietrasanta is an obstacle and an
enemy to her. The Signoria, he added, has no thought of giving your
Holiness advice, which you do not need, and is willing to agree to
any reasonable compromise. But after all the unsuccessful efforts
of Pope Sixtus, there is not much to be hoped. As to the possible
introduction of foreigners by the Genoese, that is a matter not to be
deemed unworthy of consideration, but it is not a ground for anxiety.
The Dukes of Orleans and Lorraine personally are not in a condition to
begin such an undertaking; and in the exhausted state of France her
rulers will never think of giving them a sou towards it. The Genoese
alone would be utterly incapable of holding out long, even were they
differently inclined. The Ferrarese ambassador offered his Duke’s
mediation in case of a negotiation. The Pope had also consulted on the
matter with Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, and expressed his anxiety to him;
whereupon Lodovico il Moro declared that nothing but the voluntary
surrender of Sarzana on the part of Genoa could render a satisfactory
termination possible.[269] Innocent’s mediation came to nothing. The
Florentines took Pietrasanta, as has been already related, and the
contest went on amid numberless suggestions of compromise for fully
three years more.
In vain the Pope honestly desired to make and to keep peace;
misunderstandings arose on all sides. In defiance of their ostensible
relations to each other, there was no true understanding and confidence
between Lorenzo de’ Medici and Lodovico Sforza. The Moro’s conduct was
always ambiguous; not only in the matter of Sarzana, where there was
much underhand work going forward, but also in the constant miserable
disturbances in Romagna, where Girolamo Riario, supported by him,
was operating against the Manfredi, they having given shelter to the
Florentine’s _protégé_, the claimant of Forlì, Antoniello Ordelaffi,
and being in alliance with the Bentivogli, who stood in equal fear of
Lodovico and the Pope’s nephew. Giovanni Bentivoglio was in Tuscany in
the beginning of 1485. He visited Siena, Pisa, Lucca, and in May he
came to Florence, where he stayed with the Medici. He spoke out his
mind unreservedly about the Moro’s intrigues.[270] Lorenzo was absent
at the time; gout, the hereditary disease of the family, obliged him
constantly to visit various baths, and just then he was at Bagno a
Morba. During his stay there he had to devote his attention to the
Sienese affairs, which were of some consequence to Florence. He had
perceived the mistake once committed in the Fortebracci affair, and
thenceforward strove to keep on good terms with the neighbouring
commonwealth. With regard to the frontier disputes, chiefly in the
Chiana valley, where the small places were always in a state of feud
one with the other, Florence showed herself disposed for an amicable
settlement. ‘God is my witness,’ wrote Lorenzo to the Signoria of Siena
on February 28, 1484,[271] ‘that my personal mediation and that of
others was little needed in the negotiations for the advantage of your
Republic, namely, in the matter of the frontiers; for the whole city
recognised, just as if acting in its own behalf, our common interest
in a close and friendly connection. As the thing has been settled now
with the agreement of all, so also in future we shall not fail to give
active proofs of our sincere friendship.’
This friendship was soon put to the proof. The party which had been
defeated on the departure of the Duke of Calabria from Siena could not
forget the mortification. In the beginning of April 1485, the Sienese
ambassador at Florence announced that a body of 2,000 men, under
the command of Giulio Orsini, was meditating an attack; whereupon a
considerable force under Ranuccio da Farnese was despatched to the
threatened ally.[272] It was believed that Perugia, Spoleto, and
Todi served as places of meeting for the discontented, and that the
Cardinal della Rovere had a hand in the undertaking. On May 4, Lorenzo
wrote from Bagno a Morba to Siena[273] that they must look to the
security of the frontiers. It was said that the Pope was inclined to
maintain peace, and had spoken to the ambassadors to that effect. By
the Florentines he had been urged to give practical proof of his good
intentions, and not to suffer his dominions to be a harbour for designs
against neighbouring States. ‘Your Lordships must know,’ he continues,
‘better than I who am at a distance, what is your internal state and
the mind of the citizens. If you are united, then, in my opinion, you
have nothing to fear: for Siena is not to be taken with 2,000 men,
and if the number of the aggressors increases, you will also receive
increased assistance. Of that you need not doubt. Therefore, if there
is among your citizens the amount of concord and love which is reckoned
upon, your affairs will take a favourable course. I do not believe that
this movement of the exiles can count on much support; for we hear from
Lombardy that all the chief powers are desirous of peace. Nevertheless
it is your and our duty to prepare for the worst and to have all
available means in readiness. Thereunto I desire to encourage your
Lordships, assuring you that we are of one mind with you, as events
will prove.’
A few days after this the exiles made a raid from Umbria into the
Arezzo territory and thence turned towards the valley of the Arbia,
where they attacked the castle of San Quirico, on the Roman road, but
were beaten back; whereupon the troop dispersed. ‘The Signoria here,’
wrote the Ferrarese ambassador, ‘is delighted at the news and in
good spirits. But the Sienese must be more delighted still; now they
must be convinced that the number of participators is less than they
suspected.’ On May 14, Lorenzo wrote from Pisa to the Sienese Signoria
that Florence regarded their danger as her own; but he advised them
to look to their internal condition. ‘It would be best to prevent
the recurrence of such troubles by removing the occasion of your
distress and of reproach from others. It seems to me time to come to a
settlement of everything, provided that the origin of all this evil is
rooted out. If this is done the past must not be too strictly inquired
about. If such attempts against your Lordships are continued you will
not want for protection, but the most effectual protection will be
good and just government and true unity.’ More than two years later,
Lorenzo wrote on another occasion: ‘Your Lordships know what has always
been my conduct with respect to attempts at revolution and dangers
which have befallen your citizens, and that I regard your welfare even
as that of our own commonwealth. This seems to me to suit our friendly
and neighbourly relations, as well as my devotion to your Signoria.’
Both by word and deed Lorenzo displayed his anxiety to maintain his
political principle that it was important for the Republic to make
herself secure by a good understanding with her neighbours, and to
surround herself with a circle of bulwarks by keeping friends with
Siena, Lucca, Bologna, Faenza, Perugia, and Città di Castello.[274] He
remained faithful to this principle, with a few trifling exceptions,
during the remainder of his life.
His other principle was to do all he could to prevent any Italian state
from gaining such an increase of importance as to destroy the balance
of power. In the summer of that same year, 1485, a complication arose
which threatened the peace of Italy and put to the proof Lorenzo’s
political skill. It was a quarrel between Innocent VIII. and Ferrante
of Naples. The kingdom of Naples, the greatest territorial power in
Italy except Venice, was suffering from internal evils which both in
earlier and later times proved incurable, and brought about the ruin of
the fairest and richest portion of the peninsula. The political parties
were as old as the monarchy; they were connected with deep-seated
national divergences; and their differences were heightened and
embittered by repeated conquests and changes of dynasty, by the feudal
connection with the Holy See—dating from the time of the Normans—and
by the passionate temper and moral degradation that poisoned and
corrupted all civil and political relations in Southern Italy. The
crown was completely held in check by the higher nobility; it would
have been powerless had not the nobility been torn by factions. The
split between the Aragonese and Angevin parties was of very long
standing. The times of the second and of the first Joanna, the Sicilian
Vespers, the French conquest, were all steps of a ladder ascending up
to the Hohenstaufen Kaiser Henry VI. and the last of the Norman kings.
The wars were fresh in the memories of all. It was not much more than
twenty years since Ferrante had quelled the dangerous rising, the
calamitous consequences of which never gave him any peace. His policy
differed considerably from that of his father. King Alfonso’s hand had
borne heavily on the party who had so long disputed his sovereignty
over Naples, but when peace was restored he not only richly rewarded
his own adherents, but tried to win over to his side his opponents.
His son had a deep distrust of both parties, and his only aim was to
increase the royal power at the expense of feudalism.
Ferrante was not lacking in kingly qualities. He was sagacious,
skilful, energetic, and a good financier according to the fiscal
principles of the day—principles which of themselves would have
sufficed to kindle rebellion among the nobles had political reasons
been wanting. Numerous and important improvements in all branches of
administration were due to him; increase of industry and commerce,
great works for the general good, constructions for the enlargement
and embellishment of the capital and other places, which assumed
quite a different appearance under him. The disposition to promote
the interests of science, art, and education he inherited from his
father; and under both kings the Neapolitan Court, adorned by graceful
and intellectual women, took a prominent place among the many Italian
princely houses which distinguished themselves in this respect. Alfonso
of Calabria equalled, if he did not surpass, his father in his love
of literature and art. Ferrante had some regard for the condition
of his people: ‘It is our will,’ he wrote, in November 1486, to the
superintendent of finances in Terra di Bari and Otranto,[275] ‘that
our subjects shall receive good treatment at the hands of all our
officers, and that they may not have to complain of oppression and
undue burthens.’ Again, to the governor of Castrovillari, an important
place in Calabria, and one which had been in the power of the enemies
of the crown: ‘You are to treat all well, and not suffer any to be
oppressed on account of the past. You are to bridle the passions which
create discord among the people, and to see that every one obeys the
laws.’ He formed a considerable military force, which enabled him to
take a fitting part in Italian affairs, and to preserve peace for many
years within his own dominions.