A good understanding was soon established with Caterina Riario Sforza;

Lorenzo endeavoured not only to thwart the attempts of the Ordelaffi

and their party against her, but also to arrange a betrothal between

her daughter and the young Manfredi, whom the Republic regarded and

treated as a ward of its own.[355] So bad was the state of affairs in

Romagna, especially in Faenza; so great was the insecurity caused by

the enmity between families and individuals, and increased by political

disturbances; and so powerless to secure lasting quiet were the efforts

to procure peace and reconciliation made on the part of the Church,

after the precedent of S. Bernardino of Siena and others before and

after him, that the Florentine influence was doubly needed in these

small states as a softening element for a people difficult to control,

and as a support for their rulers. It was Lorenzo who protected the

interests of Astorre Manfredi when Cotignola, the home and countship

of the Sforza, tried to extend its little territory at the expense of

Faenza. At the end of 1489 Giovanni Bentivoglio made another attempt to

procure his daughter’s return to the last-named city. ‘I have never,’

he wrote to Lorenzo,[356] ‘striven for this return, nor do I strive for

it now, without the approval of your Magnificence; for in this, as in

all my affairs, I wish only to act in accordance with your benevolent

and wise counsels, as beseems our old friendship and brotherhood.’

That Francesca should return and undertake the guidance of her son he

considered the only means of putting an end to the confusion, but he

would do nothing without Lorenzo.

These disturbances in Romagna were the last during Lorenzo’s lifetime

in which there occurred political and military interference in the

affairs of neighbouring states, and which threatened to create

complications with other powers. But the southern side of the Apennines

was not altogether quiet. It is a strange but undeniable fact that

the man whose efforts in general were directed to preserve peace and

secure political equilibrium could not always resist the temptation of

forging intrigues against little neighbouring states, and employing

restless, discontented parties for this purpose. He must have been

urged on by that thirst for aggrandisement which was an inheritance of

the Republic and the Medici as well as of Venice and of the Visconti.

The fine words about union and brotherhood were belied in action.

Lorenzo was, indeed, too prudent and cautious to be easily caught by

foreign bait; but he only kept out of a thing when it seemed to him

unprofitable or dangerous to himself. In March 1488, Franceschetto

Cybò tried to draw him into an attempt against Jacopo IV. Appiani, who

had long been quarrelling with Rome; in this attempt he hoped also to

gain the support of Ferrante, thinking that the latter would gladly

seize an opportunity of reconciliation with the Pope. Lorenzo showed

no disposition for the undertaking. If Piombino could not be won for

Florence, he naturally preferred to see it in the hands of a petty

native lord rather than in those of the Pope, even if the latter was

willing to give it to his son, which was not certain; and he did not

at all want to push the King of Naples into Tuscan affairs. He well

remembered having heard how the king’s father had said in 1448 that if

he took Piombino he hoped to get possession of all Tuscany; words which

he recalled to the remembrance of the Sienese, who held the little

state under their protection, when he sought to inspire them with a

good opinion of his friendly and neighbourly views.[357] But towards

Siena herself his policy was anything but straightforward. Internal

disquietude had never ceased in that city, and was paving the way for a

government similar to that of Florence, only that the rising families

of Siena—the Petrucci and Piccolomini—could not succeed in gaining a

firm footing like the Medici, and the fickleness of the people and the

nobility, violently at strife among themselves, far outdid that of the

Florentines. The party among the nobility once supported by Alfonso of

Calabria returned from exile in 1487, and brought about an apparently

sweeping change in the constitution; raising the old classes, or Monti,

long degenerated into hostile and exclusive parties, and extending

eligibility for office to all sections of the community. This change in

the constitution was hailed and joyously celebrated as the restoration

of harmony; but it was not long before the reforming faction, who had

hitherto ruled, discovered that they were getting the worst of it at

the elections, and that all the authority was passing into the hands

of their opponents. Dissatisfied with this, they secretly applied to

Lorenzo; and he, who not long before had assured the sister-Republic

of his warm interest in the preservation of peace, now showed himself

disposed to help the malcontents to regain their former position. In

March 1488 he caused troops to advance towards Arezzo and the Chiana

valley, and himself proceeded to the former place. But the Sienese got

scent of the affair, arrested a number of suspected persons, banished

those most deeply compromised, and sent Messer Niccolò Borghese

to Arezzo to demand an explanation from Lorenzo. The latter, thus

learning that the project was discovered, found out at the same time

that the Pope, on whose aid he had seemingly reckoned, had no mind

to be mixed up in the scheme, and had prevented his son from going

to see his father-in-law. Naples, however, was ready to support her

old friends at Siena. Altogether, Lorenzo thought it best openly to

avow his intention of helping the reforming party to regain their

rightful position. The ruling party in the city, excited by repeated

disturbances in the district, caused by the Orsini of Pitigliano and

by the exiles, fortified their frontiers and pressed harder than ever

on their opponents. A rupture with Florence was, however, avoided.

Lorenzo did not attain his object, but it is clear from his conduct

that he was anxious to keep on good terms with his neighbours. In this

he succeeded. His envoys were well received at Siena, and whenever

he himself came to the city, or within its dominions, he was always

most honourably received and loaded with presents. He was probably of

the same mind as Franceschetto Cybò, who once wrote to him that Siena

was a very rich morsel.[358] The state of friendly and neighbourly

relations between them may be judged from the fact that, on account of

a frontier dispute, the Florentine Signoria once had thoughts of making

the high road through Siena to Rome practically impassable by imposing

an utterly preposterous frontier-toll of one gold florin for every

foot-passenger, two for every horseman, and five for every mule.[359]

Little more than a year after these matters Lorenzo was again,

outwardly at least, on such good terms with the Sienese Signoria that

he could appeal to them for mercy on one of their imprisoned and

condemned rebels: ‘I know well, my Lords,’ are his words, ‘how serious

a matter for the state is a crime like that in question; but, on the

other hand, I consider what merit before God and praise from man is

gained by those who show mercy and pity towards such delinquents,

provided the common weal is not thereby endangered. I would earnestly

beg your Lordships, now that the safety of the state seems ensured, to

show mercy to Messer Maurizio.’ When Lorenzo wrote thus he apparently

forgot that five months before he had acted in a manner not exactly

in accordance with these words and sentiments. A young man had killed

an official of the Eight in a quarrel, fled to Siena, was from thence

delivered up, and condemned to death. When he was led to the place of

execution the people pitied him and shouted: ‘Fly! fly!’ and tried to

free him from the attendant officers. Lorenzo was then in the palace.

The foreign ambassadors and several of the youth’s relations begged him

to procure the prisoner’s pardon. He put them off with words, caused

the culprit to be hung at a window of the Palace of Justice, and four

of the rioters to be seized, scourged, and banished from the city for

several years. He did not return home till the tumult was completely

put down;[360] he feared the slightest attempt to create disorder

in the city, being perfectly aware of the inflammable material it

contained.

The Florentine policy was ambiguous towards the Sienese, as also in

relation to Lucca. Reciprocal distrust and ill-will showed itself in

many ways, and no blame can be attached to the far weaker Lucchese

that they were on their guard. The dispute about Pietrasanta was never

really settled, and when a money-compensation to Lucca came to be

discussed the two parties could not agree as to the amount. At the end

of March 1490, a plot was discovered whose only possible object was to

betray Lucca into the hands of the Florentines, and in it a factor of

the Medici appeared to be concerned. This occasioned a correspondence

between the Anziani and Lorenzo, in which, despite all formal

politeness and caution, the want of confidence was but too clearly

shown. The Lucchese opinion of Florentine friendship was expressed, far

more truly than in letters and embassies, by the trenches and ramparts

with which they surrounded their unfortified places.[361]

In Umbria and the Marches, too, Florentine interests were at stake, and

Soderini, the ambassador to King Ferrante, was right in pointing out

how anxious the Republic was to prevent any disturbance of the existing

circumstances in Bologna, Perugia, Città di Castello, Faenza, or Siena,

just as much as in her own state, and what large sums of money she

expended with this object. Franceschetto Cybò, who was always on the

look-out for something, would fain have made himself master of Città di

Castello, and represented to Lorenzo that this was desired by both the

factions—the Vitelli and the Giustini—who kept each other in check

under a Papal governor. But Lorenzo was evidently not disposed to allow

his son-in-law to have his will. Perugia was in constant excitement

from the restless character of its citizens, culminating in a perpetual

strife between the two most powerful families—the Baglioni and the

Oddi—which filled the chief city of Umbria with tumults; day after day

scenes of bloodshed occurred, and first one party and then the other

was driven into exile. The Pope’s brother, Maurizio Cybò, a brave and

sensible man, to whom the government was entrusted in February 1488,

vainly attempted to restore peace and order between the disputants. A

citation of the heads of the parties to Rome had no better success;

several positively refused to go, and though a reconciliation did take

place in consequence of the citation, it was not lasting. Quiet was

restored for a time by a general prohibition of the use of arms, but

the strife soon broke out again.

When Franceschetto Cybò was in Perugia in July 1488, with a Papal

commission to act as peacemaker,[362] many citizens came to him with

complaints of the intolerable state of the city. They declared that

right and justice had lost all power, and begged him to give his

assistance in putting an end to the evil. Franceschetto was not lacking

in goodwill; but to cure such a moral cancer required a different sort

of man, and the result justified the opinion expressed by Lorenzo in a

letter to Lanfredini when this difficult mission was conferred by the

Pope on his son. Franceschetto’s deliberations with the representatives

of the great families, and the remonstrances made in Rome to divers

noble Perugians, were all equally vain. At the end of October there

was a bloody fight in and around the square before the palace of the

Priori; small artillery was actually employed, houses were set on fire,

the cathedral of San Lorenzo was used as a fortress, and barricades

were constructed. Throughout the next day the street-fighting

continued, with plundering and burning, and the prisons were broken

open. The governor, who came back when the tumult was at its height,

was received with shouts of ‘Church! Church!’ and notwithstanding all

he could do his influence was powerless to quell the disturbance. At

last the Oddi were beaten and forced to leave the city and flee to

Castiglione del Lago (on Trasimene), where they and their numerous

adherents set up a camp. The fight threatened to spread over the

whole neighbouring country, as most of the fortresses belonged to the

nobility; Spello, Fuligno, and other important places were already in

arms and at open war with each other, the Vitelli, Orsini, and others

taking part in the contest.

From the time of the Pazzi disturbances Lorenzo had had so much to do

with Perugia, and so clearly recognised the importance of that city

to Florence, that he was most anxious to put an end to this boundless

disorder, the result of which would tend to weaken even the victorious

party. He sided with the Baglioni, who had, moreover, sent one of their

number to him. Maurizio Cybò declined to stay any longer at Perugia,

whereupon Innocent appointed Francesco Todeschini Piccolomini, Cardinal

of Siena, to be legate. On his arrival on November 16, 1488, Lorenzo

tried to persuade him to declare for the Baglioni party and to further

their interests; not merely with the object of securing their supremacy

in Perugia with the Pope’s consent, but also to keep them from forming

a closer connection with Ferrante. They were already in communication

with that king, to the displeasure of Lorenzo, who hated all Neapolitan

meddling in the affairs of central Italy. ‘The Baglioni,’ he wrote

to Lanfredini, ‘would give themselves not merely to the king, but to

the devil. Therefore I hold that all possible efforts must be made to

extinguish this flame. Believe me, if the Pope uses this opportunity he

will bring over the Baglioni completely to his own side, and be able to

make them serviceable for his own ends. It would be well to tell the

legate to deal with the exiles as he thinks good; I will then endeavour

myself to induce the Baglioni to submit to the legate’s will. At all

events, some cure for this wound is necessary.’ The Count of Pitigliano

had already headed some Florentine troops against the Oddi. Cardinal

Piccolomini was apparently not clearly convinced which party was right

and which was wrong, and he was not inclined to be the tool of either.

For a long time he withstood repeated persuasions to pronounce sentence

of banishment on the exiles, urged upon him by the Baglioni in unison

with the commissioners of Florence and Urbino, of the Orsini and the

Vitelli; Lorenzo had sent Messer Niccolò Vettori. At last the legate

saw things could no longer remain in suspense; so he caused the heads

of the ruling party to swear on the Gospels that they would keep the

city in obedience to the Pope, lay down their arms, not hinder the

course of justice, and hand over to his people the places they occupied

in the district. Then on January 22, 1489, he confirmed the privileges

of the city and issued a decree of banishment against the exiles,

confining them for the next five years to various places in Tuscany,

Romagna, and the Marches, under pain of outlawry if they left these

appointed places.

All this was done with the participation of the commissioners, who

thereupon took leave, after a state dinner given them by the Signoria.

The next thing was the election of the magistrates; the troops of the

legate, two hundred and fifty men, occupied the city and its environs;

the decree of banishment was posted up at the Cathedral and the palace

of the Podestà, and the chief persons concerned were informed of it

by an executor of the commonwealth. When this official came to one

of the heads of the Oddi party, Agamemnone della Penna, who was at

Castiglioncello on the Urbino frontier, he closed the doors, drew his

dagger and said to the messenger: ‘Take your choice; either swallow the

decree, or I will kill you.’ The man did not take long to consider.

Agamemnone took from him the papers destined for the other exiles,

most of whom were at Gubbio, close by, and sent him back with this

pleasant intelligence to Perugia. The feud, in which the Florentines

were not idle, began again in the district; but neither the fighting

nor the efforts at mediation repeatedly made by the legate, who kept

wandering from one place to another, brought about a decision. In the

city, except for a few occasional disturbances, peace was in some

degree restored, while all power was in the hands of the Baglioni, who

for a long time refused to let any foreign mediation persuade them to a

reconciliation with their adversaries. In June 1491 however an attack

on the city and fresh scenes of bloodshed obliged them to come to

terms as soon as possible. Lorenzo, who had greatly contributed to the

victory of the Baglioni through Lanfredini’s negotiations with the Pope

and Vettori’s mediation in Perugia, and who was anxious that the Holy

See should keep only a nominal authority in the latter city, could not

help perceiving how difficult it was to restore to even the smallest

degree of legal order a city torn by such wild passions and suffering

under such unfortunate circumstances.[363]

Of less importance to the Florentines than the affairs of Perugia

were the disturbances at Ascoli near the Neapolitan frontier. On

account of its position, commanding the high road from the valley of

the Tronto towards Umbria, the state of this town was not a matter of

indifference to the Republic. The quarrels in which from 1484 onwards

it was involved with Fermo and other neighbouring places attracted

considerable attention from the fact that on one side the Pope, and

on the other King Ferrante, were drawn into them, and the lords of

Urbino and Camerino found themselves obliged to interfere both for the

sake of their own states and on account of their relations with Rome.

These quarrels, which with short intervals of peace were perpetually

recommencing, and did frightful damage to the smaller places and the

unprotected country, had been profitable to some, amongst whom was

Boccalino of Osimo, who had many connections in the Marches of Fermo.

In 1487 Cardinal della Rovere vainly tried to make peace between Ascoli

and Fermo. The strife was so furious that in an attack made by the

Ascolani in April of that year on the fortress of Acquaviva, sixty men

who had entered a building by treachery were burnt in it, and those

who hurried to their assistance were slaughtered in the moat. Not long

after this the Ascolans attacked Offida, which lay between them and

the sea, drove out the vice-legate of the March, plundered, burned

and murdered all and whomsoever came in their way, and repulsed the

troops of Urbino which had marched to the rescue. Rome saw the need

of putting an end to this anarchy, and entered into negotiations with

the lords of Urbino and Camerino to overcome the resistance of Ascoli.

But the Florentines, and still more the King of Naples, although they

earnestly wished for peace on the Adriatic shores, were not willing

that the Pope’s authority should be strengthened in that quarter. ‘The

king,’ wrote Piero Nasi, Florentine ambassador at Naples, to Lorenzo,

‘is very anxious that the Pope should not get possession of Ascoli; for

he sees that should this occur, the connection between himself and us

will be for ever cut off. As we have managed to prevent the Pope from

making himself lord of Perugia, so his Majesty’s power should suffice

to compass the same at Ascoli.’

Thus, in this so-called time of peace, there was strife and disorder,

mistrust and selfishness, on all sides. Ferrante thought little enough

of Florentine interests, in his unwillingness to let Innocent gain

a firm footing on his own border. Even in Lorenzo’s last year of

rule these disputes in the Marches were not settled. It was Cesare

Borgia who first made peace here, as he did in Romagna, after his own

fashion.[364] Cares and troubles overtook De’ Medici from another

quarter. He was bound to the Orsini by other chains than family ties;

the attitude taken by this old and powerful family towards the Popes,

Naples, Siena, and Florence claimed his attention. The Orsini flattered

themselves they were sovereign lords. So great was the number and

importance of their possessions in the neighbourhood of Rome that

they might well cause uneasiness to a stronger government than that

of most of the Popes; and the only thing that tended to neutralise

their power was their almost ceaseless strife with the Colonna, who,

however, at this present time were no match for them. Their numerous

fiefs in the kingdom of Naples brought them into close connection

with its rulers. Since the beginning of the fourteenth century they

had held, through inheritance from a branch of the Teutonic dynasty

of the Aldobrandeschi, the county of Sorano-Pitigliano, between the

Patrimonium Petri and the Sienese territory; and they kept their

neighbours in constant uneasiness by the disordered state of affairs

there, caused by the constant disagreement between the members of the

family, not likely by any means to be softened by the protectorate

(_accomandigia_) of Siena, herself in a state of great unrest.

We have pointed out how much depended on the attitude of the Orsini in

the days of the quarrel between Innocent and Ferrante. The relations of

the most powerful of the family, Gentil Virginio, lord of Bracciano,

with the Pope and the king, gave Lorenzo constant occupation, as is

testified by his correspondence with the ambassadors in Rome and

Naples. ‘Should his Holiness proceed in the manner suggested,’ he

wrote to Lanfredini on March 24, 1489,[365] when Innocent for a moment

thought of arresting Gentil Virginio for his suspicious conduct amid

the Neapolitan troubles—‘he would thereby gain nothing, save that

the whole family would unite and be a prize for the king. If the Pope

answers that this will happen in any case, I reply that it is far

better that it should happen without our having a hand in it, than

that we should give them ground for laying the blame on us. The minds

and wills of these lords Orsini never agree. They cannot keep together

well, and you will see when the king most needs them they will serve

him worst, for they are ambitious and greedy, and except when need

compels them there is no constancy in them.’ In later days Ferrante

once remarked that lord Virginio was naturally very obstinate when

he had made up his mind to a thing, especially if he thought himself

in the right;[366] it may therefore be imagined how much trouble

Lorenzo had in controlling a man whom his position in Rome, his rank

as Neapolitan general, his experience in warfare, and his great landed

property rendered more powerful than many princes. He always remained

on good terms with the Medici personally. Niccolò, Count of Pitigliano

and Nola, was, as has been seen, closely connected with the Republic.

But even with this naturally prudent man there arose some difficulties

whenever his interests or inclinations as chief of a family clashed

with his position as general of a greater state. He too, like all

the warriors of the time, though his personal valour and honour are

unstained, contributed to display the corruption of the military

science of the time, and the incompatibility of the prevalent mercenary

system with the advantage and security of the state.

_SIXTH BOOK_

THE LAST YEARS OF LORENZO DE’ MEDICI

CHAPTER I.

THE FLORENTINE STATE; PUBLIC AFFAIRS AND FINANCES ABOUT 1490.

THE reform in the constitution made in the summer of 1480, whereby

the decisive part in the affairs of the State was concentrated in the

Council of Seventy, had now held its ground for ten years. These ten

years, added to the fifty during which the house of Medici had risen

to the head of the State, necessarily excluded all families which

maintained not only a hostile, but even an independent position.

Amongst the ruling portion of the aristocracy, including many popular

but not therefore liberal elements, there were men who, in their

hearts, detested both the system and its most illustrious supporter;

but the majority were attached to it both from interest or from

necessity. Others silently accepted what they could not alter without

resorting to a great revolution and outward shock which, doubtless,

few desired. The lower classes were so much influenced by the arts of

those in power, and the governments preceding that of the Medici had

oppressed them to such an extent, popular revolutions had been of so

tumultuous a character, and had always so speedily paved the way for

despotism, that there could be no serious thought of change. The upper

class of citizens, who had a share in the government in the wider

sense, who were represented in the councils and admitted to office,

contented themselves with the measure and appearance of authority,

influence, and other advantages given them by the constitution. All

the hostile families of rank were ruined by exile, confiscation, and

taxes; their old chiefs were either dead or in banishment, they had

completely lost their influence and were no longer to be feared; or

they had allowed themselves to be gained over in one way or another,

and now acted in concert with their former opponents.

According to the time of their fall these families may be divided

into three groups: the Albizzi and their adherents fell in 1434, the

partisans of Diotisalvi Neroni in 1466, the Pazzi in 1478. Lorenzo had

no need to trouble himself about any of them. In the first part of

this history we pointed out the extent of the misery into which the

Albizzi of Messer Rinaldo’s line had sunk. Forty-four years after their

banishment the rights of citizenship were restored to Alessandro, a

great-grandson of the former head of the Republic, for having, when

far away from Florence during the war which broke out after the Pazzi

conspiracy, discovered to the Signoria a plot whereby the town of

Pistoja was to be betrayed into the hands of the Duke of Urbino.[367]

The descendants of Rinaldo’s brothers remained friendly to the Medici.

The Neroni party were become powerless since the Colleone affair. Piero

de’ Medici himself had some idea of becoming reconciled with Agnolo

Acciaiuolo, more than one of whose relatives were among his own warmest

adherents; so the disunion was not likely to continue between their

posterity. But for the Pazzi affair Agnolo’s descendants, favoured by

the Aragonese, would doubtless have been taken back into favour long

before 1482. The enmity between the Medici and the Soderini ended

with the death of Niccolò Soderini in 1474, though it came to life

again later under different circumstances in the sons of that Tommaso

who was so closely connected with Piero and Lorenzo. The Pazzi were

thoroughly put out of the way; the scaffold and the prison of Volterra

swallowed up both guilty and guiltless; and even when, in consequence

of agreements with the Pope and Naples, the survivors were set free in

1482, they were still subjected to many restraints which lasted till

the revolution of 1494. Lorenzo’s brother-in-law, Guglielmo, after

a long confinement in a house in the country, was sent to Faenza,

where Galeotto Manfredi kept him in custody at Lorenzo’s disposal,

as is shown by a letter of Galeotto’s dated February 25, 1483. Three

days later he received orders for the liberation of his prisoner,

and this decision was announced by Lorenzo to his sister Bianca, who

had remained in Florence, and to his brother-in-law himself. In the

autumn of the following year Guglielmo was in Rome, and in friendly

intercourse with the Medici and Bernardo Rucellai.[368] After the

revolution of 1494 he was re-admitted to political offices; but he

showed little capacity for the work, and his son Alessandro (eleven

years old when his uncle Lorenzo died), notwithstanding his sagacity

and experience, was better fitted for scholarly work than for public

life. Of the other families who arrayed themselves against the Medici

in the attack before referred to, some never again played any important

part in politics; others let themselves be chained to the victor’s

chariot. Thus it was with the Peruzzi, the Gianfigliazzi, the Pitti,

and others. The first-named—old, rich, and illustrious—were excluded

from office after the return of Cosimo de’ Medici. The two branches

of the Strozzi, whose influence had formerly been considerable, were

now in some degree estranged, and the most famous of the two was just

rising to the height of its splendour.

Lorenzo, as he looked around him, had no need to fear the recurrence

of such opposition as had endangered the authority of his grandfather

and father. There seemed no room for even attempts at violence, and

the tendencies which sprang forth after his death were at this time

hardly perceptible even in the germ. Francesco Guicciardini described

the situation in a few sentences: ‘The city was in perfect peace. The

citizens in whose hands was the administration held firmly together;

the government, carried on and supported by them, was so powerful that

no one dared contradict it. The people were daily entertained with

festivals, spectacles, and novelties; to their profit the city abounded

in everything; trade and business were at the height of prosperity. Men

of talent found their proper place in the great liberality with which

the arts and sciences were promoted and those who practised them were

honoured. This city, quiet and peaceful at home, enjoyed also high

esteem and great consideration abroad, because she had a government

whose head had full authority; because her dominions had lately been

extended; because the deliverance of Ferrara and that of King Ferrante

were mainly owing to her; because she had complete sway over Pope

Innocent; and because, in alliance with Naples and Milan, she in some

measure kept all Italy in equilibrium.’

Amid this happy state of things, however, symptoms showed themselves

which decidedly pointed out something insecure in the foundations.

From a moral point of view there were drawbacks whose influence on the

general development and final determination of affairs was inevitable.

Anyone who looked below the glittering surface must have felt yearly

increasing care about the political situation. Putting aside foreign

politics, the home affairs gave extra cause for anxiety. It was

becoming more and more evident that everything, present and future,

depended on one man alone. It could hardly therefore go unperceived

that the necessary consequences of this man’s position and career

furnished a prospect, perhaps not a distant one, of a radical change in

the constitution.

Alessandro de’ Pazzi graphically described the difficulties of his

uncle’s position:[369] ‘When Lorenzo came to the head of the party

after Piero’s death he found a serious task before him, and, young as

he was, he had need of great prudence to keep together and govern this

party; so much the more because the citizens who were then powerful

thought they could retain their commanding position, without allowing

Lorenzo to usurp the same authority that his grandfather and father

had enjoyed. In my opinion this was a mistake; discord would soon have

parted them. But his exertions were great, and it was owing to him that

no division occurred at that time. His patience with his adherents

deserves as much praise as his prudence, activity, and liberality; and

I know from my mother that in these first years he thought day and

night of nothing but gaining over his friends for his own objects.’

Again, after referring to the dangers and consequences of the years

1478-1480, he says: ‘By dint of skill and luck, without which nothing

is to be attained in human affairs, he consolidated his position

and maintained it all his life long, not merely as his grandfather

had done, but a step higher and with fuller powers. He was in

more danger than Cosimo, but he stood so high that the danger was

outweighed. Nevertheless, with all his good fortune and the favour

of circumstances, with his superhuman intellect and his great number

of trustworthy friends, he gave himself an immense deal of trouble.

He went to work with the greatest caution, with many arts and secret

allies who knew nothing of each other, with inexhaustible patience and

endurance. He was assisted, moreover, by his wonderfully acute judgment

of foreign affairs, which he understood how to direct and balance

better than any other living man in Italy. Herein also fortune favoured

him, that he lived at a time when forces were more equally divided

than usual, and there was little danger of foreign interference.

Above all it was a happy circumstance that Cosimo had preceded him

as founder of the position of the family, and for many years past

no other and in some sense no more popular form of government had

been known in Florence. His merits, however, were his own; vigilance,

patience, perseverance, splendour combined with elegance, whereby he

made himself a great name among the Italian princes and in other lands,

while at home he attracted and gained over all to himself. This also

is to be highly esteemed in him, that he influenced his friends into

moderation and kept their hands clean, so that it may be said that,

with a few exceptions, there occurred no cases of rapine. In truth he

directed the State and his party in the best manner possible under the

circumstances. With all his good fortune and his uncommon qualities,

however, it cost him great exertions, for he never spared himself, but

took a personal share in all that occurred, whether in the square or in

the palace.’

Although business was transacted not in the house of Medici but in

the palace of the Signoria, where Lorenzo passed many hours as a

member of councils and committees, still the government was becoming

more and more a personal one. The constant change in the members of

the Signoria, intended to prevent the authority of individuals from

increasing, necessarily promoted this personal government; so much

the more as a regular and consistent treatment became necessary for

the direction of foreign affairs, ever increasing in continuity and

importance. Only in this manner could Florence maintain her position

against the larger Italian and foreign states—all monarchic except

Venice, who preserved her constitution almost unchanged. Naturally,

however, such a personal government had the grave defects of all

political arrangements where legal right and hereditary prescription

are not the fundamental principles, and whose internal nature is a

negation of their external form. This State, apparently constituted on

a broad basis, was in reality ruled by a comparatively small party with

a recognised chief at their head. Lorenzo’s contemporaries said that

he had greater authority and more personal power than any despotic

ruler.[370] Nothing was done without his initiative and approval.

Popes, kings, and princes applied to him; ambassadors corresponded

with him; thousands besieged him with petitions for offices, posts of

honour, favours, remission of taxes and imposts, and personal interests

of all kinds both at home and in the neighbouring states. Each found

him willing to listen; the letters he wrote were innumerable, many of

them written by his own hand, to different parties of high and low

rank, some personally known to him, others quite strangers. He would

willingly help merchants, stewards, farmers, countrymen, and people

of all sorts and positions in life. Besides the countless clients of

the family there were those recommended by them—as he called them,

‘my good old friends.’ He applied to the Duke of Ferrara on behalf

of the money-changers in the Prato, ‘these Jews, my friends.’[371]

His correspondence contains the strangest medley of subjects, events,

and persons; contraventions of the toll-regulations at the passage

of the flocks coming down for the winter from the Casentino and the

Pistojan hills to the Sienese Maremma; frauds by merchants; thefts

from Florentine subjects; differences with the administration of salt;

deeds of violence and murder, are all mixed up with recommendations for

judicial offices, especially the office of Podestà, judge of the court

of appeal, capitano, &c., and for spiritual dignities and benefices;

settlement of boundary disputes; concessions about the corn trade;

mediation on the passage of troops; and the affairs of the petty

dynasties seated around the Siena district, the Sforzas of Santafiora,

the Orsini of Pitigliano, and many others. His constant desire was

to oblige as many as possible at home and abroad, and to have the

influence of his personal position felt and understood on all sides.

This position was becoming year by year very glaringly exceptional,

not only to the eyes of foreign sovereigns but to those of Italian

princes as well. The authority which Lorenzo was believed to possess

with Innocent VIII., ‘because,’ as he wrote to Lanfredini on August

26, 1489, ‘I am extremely devoted to his Holiness and obliged to

him for many favours,’ caused him to be applied to by all parties

whenever a petition to Rome was to be presented. Almost simultaneously

Guid’Antonio Arcimboldo begged his recommendation to obtain the

archbishopric of Milan, and the Duke of Britanny sent a messenger to

request his support for the nomination of one of the Duke’s secretaries

to the see of Nantes. Lodovico il Moro applied to him to procure the

Sienese bishopric of Pienza, and Charles, Duke of Savoy, to have his

uncle—that Francis so well known in connection with the episcopal

troubles at Geneva—advanced to the cardinalate. When Federigo

Sanseverino, Monsignor de’ Grassi, the Archbishop of Auch, and others

desired the cardinal’s hat, he was asked to help them to procure it.

It was he who recommended to the Pope the young Alessandro Farnese,

who in 1489 was studying at Pisa and sought to obtain one of the posts

of Apostolic Secretary created by Innocent at the end of 1487. ‘I wish

you to know,’ wrote Lorenzo to Lanfredini on April 10,[372] ‘that this

gentleman, besides coming of such a noble family (_oltre allo esser

nato della casa che è_) has many distinguished qualities, among them

unusual learning and excellent morals, being at once very accomplished

and a model of virtuous conduct. For these reasons, the weight of

which with me you know, I recommend him to you as if he were my own

son, and beg you to present him to his Holiness, for which I shall be

very grateful.’ This is perhaps the first testimony, and certainly a

most honourable one, on behalf of Pomponio Leto’s former pupil, then

one-and-twenty, and destined forty-five years later to succeed a

Medici on the Papal throne. When the Duke of Ferrara and the lord of

Camerino wanted help at Rome, they applied to Lorenzo; when the Duke

of Savoy sent an ambassador thither, he recommended him to Lorenzo.

King John of Portugal wrote from Santarem, Charles VIII. from Amboise,

the Duchess Blanche from Savoy, Anne de Beaujeu and her husband Pierre

de Bourbon from Moulins, to the ‘Seigneur Laurens.’ His friendly

relations with Matthias Corvinus have been repeatedly mentioned; they

seem to have been none the worse for the fact that Matthias was for a

long time on bad terms with the Sforza, having, for the sake of his

brother-in-law Don Federigo of Aragon, accepted among the conditions

of the treaty with Kaiser Frederic in 1477 the proceedings against

the ruling house of Milan, which was not recognised by the Empire. To

the Pope Lorenzo often commended his own subjects, as, for instance,

Giovanni Savelli, ‘to whom I have especial goodwill because he is in

the service of our army, and to whom I am bound by a friendship of many

years’ standing,’ and the distinguished priest Francesco de’ Massimi.

Everyone considered a matter secured in Rome if once Lorenzo took it in

hand; and perhaps the secret of his great success in many things arose

from the shrewdness of his calculation as to what lay within the limits

of possibility.

Lorenzo was surrounded by numerous friends and adherents, some of whom

had inherited distinction, while others had been raised by him. It was

only by their help that he could maintain his position at home and

keep up his connections abroad. He was well and skilfully supported

by the Acciaiuoli, the Pandolfini, the Vespucci, the Soderini, the

Pucci, the Guicciardini, the Capponi, the Vettori, the Lanfredini, the

Alamanni, the Ridolfi, the Gaddi, &c. They and their families had a

corresponding share in the administration, in honours and privileges,

and held a prominent position; the consequence of which was that

when circumstances were altered there remained a powerful Medicean

party which at last gained the victory through external political

circumstances; for the family which had risen to greatness with their

support naturally seized the lion’s share. But Lorenzo, while advancing

his adherents in power, never allowed them to become too independent

of him. For this purpose the means he chiefly employed was that of

placing on the same level with citizens who had long been great others

who had risen solely by help of the Medici; in matters which required

entire devotion to his interests he rather gave a preference to the

latter. The most active and influential of the Florentine diplomatists,

Giovanni Lanfredini, sprung from a family originally Roman and which

became extinct in the last century in the person of a cardinal, had

become a business-partner of the Medici as early as Cosimo’s time.

Lorenzo’s policy was to let one person keep another in check. He was

probably suspicious by nature, a quality which developed as years

went on, for he often employed the chancery-officers who accompanied

the ambassadors to Rome, Naples, and Milan to send him special

reports,[373] while his creatures in Florence, especially Ser Piero

of Bibiena and Piero Michelozzi, kept up a correspondence in various

other quarters. We have remarked before that Bartolommeo Scala, the

chancellor of the Signoria, was in very intimate relations with him.

The chancellors of the other government offices, the only really stable

officials in whom the traditions of business survived, were all in

his interest, most of them having attained their influential posts

through him. Thus he let no family and no individual gain an influence

inconvenient to himself, and kept his eyes on all. He even meddled in

family affairs: hindered marriages if they seemed to him dangerous,

furthered them if he thought them likely to prove useful. Those whom

some special circumstances had unusually elevated, even when he himself

profited thereby, he always kept in check; as exemplified in the case

of Tommaso Soderini, and, after the Pazzi conspiracy, Girolamo Morelli.

Of the former, indeed, there is nothing more to add, save that he was

a member of the Council of Seventy and died as Capitano at Pisa in

1485. Lorenzo overlooked many things in his adherents, but he kept

them under his control and took care that they should feel that their

position and advantages were derived from him. A man who was, indeed,

ill-disposed towards him on account of an event which concerned his

family, remarked:[374] ‘The great citizens raised and supported Lorenzo

in his youth; in later years he would not have as companions, but used

as servants, those who had been like fathers to him.’

The event alluded to is characteristic of the political power and

position of Lorenzo with regard to the official representatives of the

State. It made no difference to him if the man on whom his resentment

fell[375] had his cause defended by others in power. When Neri Cambi

degli Opportuni was Gonfaloniere in 1488, and at the end of the year

the Signoria were to be elected for the following January and February,

it was found that the legal number of members of the colleges was not

complete, many having absented themselves without leave and gone to the

chase. To the great irritation of the people assembled in the square

the election could not take place till one of the missing members was

fetched from his country-house, from whence he came booted and spurred

to the palace, and the election then proceeded. Indignant at what had

occurred, the outgoing Signoria determined to punish the delinquents,

and condemned four of them to exclusion from office for four years.

Lorenzo was in Pisa at the time. ‘To him,’ says Guicciardini, ‘and to

all the heads of the party it was a very disagreeable affair; for it

seemed to them that if a Signoria could use the right of _ammonire_

without previous deliberation with those in power, their own

government was hanging in the air by a thread (_lo stato loro fussi a

cavallo in su uno baleno_), and they might one fine morning be driven

out of Florence by only six beans (votes). So, after that Signoria

had gone out of office, the matter was again brought up before the

Magistracy of Eight and the Council of Seventy; the decree against the

four citizens was revoked, and Neri Cambi was declared ineligible for

office for the rest of his life. The council was by no means unanimous,

but Lorenzo’s will carried the day.’

This was a pretty clear token of how matters stood with regard to the

powers of the supreme court. But this was not all; participation in the

government was to be yet further restricted. In the summer of 1490 a

measure was carried which concentrated the actual direction of affairs

in the hands of a small body. The Council of Seventy was to remain as a

council of State; but the elections to the Signoria were transferred,

as under the old system, to _accoppiatori_, named by a committee of

seventeen, of whom Lorenzo was one. The members of this committee

were chosen arbitrarily, and only one of them belonged to the minor

guilds. On them was dependent every branch of the administration, more

especially finances and the national debt.

The new committee’s first measure concerned the coinage. In appearance

it was sensible enough. The city and country were overwhelmed with

small and base foreign coin; Sienese, Lucchese, Bolognese, &c. August

28, 1490, a decree was issued forbidding the circulation of foreign

coins on and after September 8. As Alamanno Rinuccini remarked, it was

not the first decree of the kind, and it was no more observed this time

than heretofore. Indeed, it was practically impossible to distinguish

the foreign _quattrini_ from the Florentine, outwardly very like them.

So on May 1, 1491, a radical reform was undertaken. The old native

small coin, the so-called black quattrino, was called in, and replaced

by a new coin containing two ounces of silver to the pound of copper,

and reckoned as equivalent to five danari, while the old one was called

in at the rate of four danari. The public treasuries were in future

to receive only the new white quattrini. The people were pleased,

hoping to get rid of the confusion. Their rejoicing did not last long.

Instead of melting down the old money, it was stealthily brought into

circulation again, and the old quattrino remained in use side by side

with the new one. Out of this confusion arose endless difficulties; and

the people found that in taxes, duties, purchases of salt, everything

where produce went into the treasury, they were the chief sufferers.

The consequence was general discontent, directed principally against

the heads of the government, as their limited number made them the more

conspicuous.[376]

The evil was great, but it had not yet reached its worst height. The

increasingly demoralised condition of the administration of finance

displayed itself in another way, which must have utterly ruined the

credit of the State at the first serious political crisis. This was

connected with the Medici finances. Lorenzo’s pecuniary difficulties

had been in no wise removed by the precautionary measures of 1480.

His manner of life, establishments, purchases, the provisions for his

children, his by no means disinterested liberality, the bribes in money

paid for his influence abroad, required large sums. To try to meet

these requirements with the produce of his personal property (because

he considered this more secure and honourable),[377] would have

been chimerical. He had limited his banking-business and commercial

speculations; and to draw upon them never entered his head. During his

very last years he did a great deal of business in Rome. Innocent VIII.

was financially still more dependent on him than on his own Genoese

fellow-countrymen, and he allowed him corresponding advantages. In

1489 he sold him 30,000 hundredweight of alum at a very low price, in

compensation for losses sustained in the days of his predecessor; and

the alum trade passed almost entirely into Lorenzo’s private hands.

The farm-rent paid by him for the works of Tolfa amounted to 100,000

florins. In May of the same year Lorenzo furnished the Pope with a

loan to the same amount for one year; one-third of the sum in cash,

the other two-thirds in silk and woollen stuffs. For the repayment,

two-tenths, amounting to 60,000 florins, were referred to the

Florentine clergy, the rest to the revenues of Città di Castello.[378]

In 1490 Lorenzo redeemed from the Centurioni of Genoa a valuable tiara

which had been pledged to them.[379] Cosimo Sassetti, one of the

partners in the Medici bank at Lyons, was also a papal collector in

1490. In the case of smaller loans, princes sent valuables as pledges;

the Marquis of Mantua gave a precious stone for the sum of 4,000 gold

florins, and when at a marriage-feast he wanted to have it back, his

brother-in-law, Ercole d’Este, offered the salt-office of Modena for

security in its place. These transactions went on under Lorenzo’s

eldest son and even later.[380] But the profits were uncertain, for

all the parties concerned were not skilful and prudent. Even supposing

that Lorenzo drew an income of 15,000 to 20,000 gold florins from

the old family estate, and about 10,000 from the newly-acquired and

gradually increasing one in the Pisan territory, still it was terribly

insufficient for his outlay. He was driven to all kinds of shifts, at

times even somewhat mean ones, such as must have been sometimes very

unpleasant to him; as, for instance, in 1484, when he had to take a

loan of 4,000 ducats from Lodovico Sforza, or sell for the same price

the house given by Duke Francesco to his grandfather.[381] During the

difficulties of 1478 he had been compelled to borrow from his cousins,

the other Medici, 60,000 gold florins, for the repayment of which he

gave security on his possessions in Mugello. There were Florentine

business houses which paid him a yearly sum for lending them his name.

This mixing up of his private money-matters with those of the State

brought about most unhappy consequences. In the war of 1478, the pay

of the troops was furnished by the bank of the Bartolini, in which

Lorenzo had a share. They deducted eight per cent., in return for

which the commanders did not furnish the troops agreed upon, and the

community had to make up the deficit. The wretched mismanagement of

the military arrangements was all of a piece with this. Yet Lorenzo

still thought himself entitled to venture on further operations of the

same kind. The chief financial posts were held by his minions. From

the treasurers (_camarlinghi_) of the offices of the national debt,

of the customs, of salt, of judicial contracts, &c., he raised the

needful sums, which they handed over to him without difficulty, first

because they could refuse him nothing, and next because they thought

their own responsibility covered and their personal security safe; for

every newly appointed official had to recover the sum lent out by his

predecessor; and as this process went on unchecked for years, it may

easily be imagined what a deficit there was at last, after all the

sham repayments one towards the other. The office of the national debt

suffered most. The supreme provveditore, Antonio di Bernardo Miniati,

had risen from the condition of an artisan by the favour of Lorenzo,

who had actually made him a member of the Committee of Seventeen;

and he proceeded quite arbitrarily, to oblige his patron and at once

facilitate and hush up disgraceful embezzlement. During the revolution

of 1494 the great book of the Monte was missing; nevertheless, there

was an exposure of how many sums had gone to the numerous protégés

and hangers-on of the Medici in and out of Florence. There was also

another means by which to enrich them; and that was the furnishing

of supplies, among which the supplying of cloth to the troops, in

particular, brought great gain.[382] But all possible manœuvres

and skill could not prevent the bad condition of this unprincipled

finance from becoming known. How should they when, to mention only one

instance, the Cardinalate of Giovanni de’ Medici cost the State an

expenditure of 50,000 gold florins, independently of the sums which

found their way secretly into Rome, and were reckoned at 200,000

more?[383] The State-creditors suffered most, from the reduction in the

rate of interest caused by the drafts deposited in the Monte, and from

the arrears of interest. These bills, together with the extraordinary

additional taxes constantly repeated under various names, reduced the

national debt. What offended the citizens most and damaged Lorenzo’s

reputation with posterity more than anything else was the plundering

of the before-mentioned _Monte delle doti_, the establishment intended

for the dowries of maidens, and in which all citizens, great and small,

were wont to make investments.[384] It was a sort of bank of deposit,

somewhat on the plan of modern insurance-offices, and its usefulness

was increased by the changes of fortune only too sudden in Florence.

This establishment took its rise in 1424, when it was decreed that

for the liquidation of the shares in the national debt dating from

1325 to 1336, and originally bringing in eighteen per cent. interest,

the creditors should be at liberty to convert a quota of what was due

to them into a dowry for their sons and daughters; from 1468 it was

limited to daughters. The conditions were very liberal. Whosoever

paid or gave security for the amount of 104 gold florins, and had it

put down to one of his children, received at the end of fifteen years

the sum of a thousand florins in cash, or could, if he pleased, let

it remain at five per cent. interest. If the child in whose name the

money stood died, half the sum to which he would have had a claim,

according to the time that had elapsed, was paid back to the father,

and the other half went to the bank. The so-called reform of the _Monte

delle doti_, which, like all such establishments, certainly needed

improvement in its administration, was one of the avowed objects of

the change made in the constitution in 1480; but it opened a door to

the misappropriation of its funds. In 1485 a decree was issued whereby

only a fifth of the dowry, i.e. two hundred florins in the case above

described, was to be paid in cash; the rest was to be entered in a

register called _libro non ito_, the unpaid book, and to bear an

interest of seven per cent. This was not all. Six years later, the

rate of interest was lowered to three per cent.[385] This came very

near to bankruptcy, and this bankruptcy touched the citizens to the

quick, while it brought the State into discredit. Hitherto the dower

paid through the Monte had in most cases been sufficient; now the

necessary additions to it became serious, and quite unattainable for

many families. So the number of marriages diminished; that the consent

of the head of the State had to be secured before they could take

place would sound incredible, did it not belong to the system of such

party-government.[386] ‘For many years,’ says Rinuccini,[387] ‘Lorenzo

de’ Medici was doing his best, by a series of laws and decrees, to ruin

the great bank of the commonwealth, for the purpose of getting rid of

its obligations for the payment of annuities and dowries, and obtaining

arbitrary control over the State finances. For this work he selected

in particular two helpers, Antonio di Bernardo and Ser Giovanni of

Pratovecchio (chancellor of the Riformagioni), worthless fellows, who

pointed out to him day by day the way to attain his object.’

Though the position of the Medici was secured for a time, their

finances could not be set right. The banks of Lyons and Bruges,

directed by Leonetti de’ Rossi, Francesco and Cosimo Sassetti, Tommaso

Portinari, and others, only saved themselves by compounding with their

creditors. Lorenzo’s correspondence shows what a vast deal of trouble

these pecuniary embarrassments gave him, notwithstanding his levity in

money-matters. As early as 1484 he had to write to de’ Rossi to insist

on withdrawing the name of Medici from the Lyons firm before next

Easter. Eighteen months after, he ordered the balance of the Bruges

bank to be sent to him, in consequence of Portinari’s bad management.

On one day, April 21, 1488, he despatched to the King of France, the

Cardinal de Bourbon, the Duke and Duchess of Bourbon, the Seigneur du

Bouchage, the Bishop of Valence, and others, no less than seventeen

letters relating to the Lyons bank and Francesco Sassetti, after whose

death in 1490 Lorenzo Spinelli took the direction of the Medici’s

financial interests in France.[388] It was inevitable that there should

be a vehement outcry against this disorder. Many foreigners who had

placed their money in the banks sustained heavy losses, and on the

violent overthrow of the Medici, when their palace was plundered at

the entry of Charles VIII., the king’s quarter-master, the seigneur de

Balassat, who had given the signal for the plundering, defended himself

on the plea that the Medici bank of Lyons owed him large sums.[389]

One of the sufferers by these shameful money-dealings was a man who

had done much for Lorenzo, and who, on his side, was influenced in his

relations with him and his business agents by a consideration of the

advantages which Lorenzo’s political position might give him. This was

Philippe de Commines, who, at one of the most critical moments of his

life, was greatly injured by the pecuniary difficulties of the Medici

and their unwillingness or inability to meet their obligations. After

the death of Louis XI., Commines, who had been an instrument of the

king’s tyranny and enriched by his confiscations, was first sent away

from court for taking part in the intrigues of the Princes against

the Regent, Anne de Beaujeu; then shut up in one of the iron cages at

Loches; and, in the spring of 1488, sentenced by the Parliament to

lose a fourth part of his property, and find security for ten thousand

crowns. He found it impossible to realise his demands on the Medici

bank and liquidate the sums which he had deposited there since 1478

through Louis’ confidant Du Bouchage, and part of which had been

employed in 1486 to support the opposition against the Regent.[390]

Even when Commines, set free from his worst embarrassments, was again

on the way to political influence, these difficulties remained, and

a letter from Lorenzo to him[391] gives a glimpse into the financial

troubles of the Medici.

‘Illustrious Sir,’ so runs the letter, ‘I have received your lordship’s

letter, and my mind is penetrated with grief at learning into what a

state of irritation Cosimo Sassetti’s last statement of accounts has

put you. My regret would be still greater could I imagine that you

doubt the sentiments of my house towards you, whereas I am for many

reasons so deeply indebted to you that I should deserve to be called

the most ungrateful of men if I paid you now in any coin but such as I

owe you for the numerous benefits received from you in good and evil

days. When in my inmost mind I examine my obligations, I can assure

your lordship that neither by me nor by any of mine shall anything be

done which might indispose you towards me or give you an unfavourable

opinion of me. If Cosimo Sassetti’s expressions with regard to your

lordship’s interests should produce such an unhappy effect, I should

be most deeply grieved, as it would be contrary to the true position

of affairs and my earnest intentions. I do indeed confess, and your

lordship knows it, that for some time past our Lyons house has suffered

such heavy losses that it was impossible to conceal them from my

present or former business friends, of whom your lordship is one, and

not to complain of them as Cosimo has done. This may have made a bad

impression on you; but you may rest assured that there is really no

occasion for difference between us, for you can always dispose, not

only of the sum in dispute between you and Cosimo, but of my whole

means as if they were your own. I therefore beg your lordship to put

faith in me, that this matter may be ended and leave no cloud between

us. For your lordship’s friendship, whether in prosperity or adversity,

is of more value to me than any sum of money.’

In spite of all these assurances, Commines’ demands were discharged

in what he considered a very inadequate manner (_apointement bien

mègre_).[392] Nothing but the high value which he set on the friendship

of the Medici induced him to keep quiet. ‘I believe,’ wrote Lorenzo

Spinelli to Lorenzo at the close of 1491,[393] ‘the Sieur d’Argenton

will remain our friend. In order not to make him angry, I have always

told him that if God gives us grace to do well in business and make up

some of the losses we sustained in Leonetto’s time, you will give him

his share. I am of opinion that this hope will induce him to further

your interests, if he puts faith in my words.’ Spinelli was right.

Commines’ humour was likewise influenced by the favourable turn which

his affairs took after the agreement between the young king Charles

VIII. and the Princes, in the beginning of September 1491. His last

letter to Lorenzo,[394] dated January 13, 1492, and signed ‘more than

entirely yours’ (_plus que tout vostre_), treats not of money-matters,

but of Charles’ marriage with the heiress of Britanny, of the

differences with Maximilian and England, and of the Duke of Lorraine’s

attempt on Metz, which it had been hoped might be gained by treachery

and surprise; a prelude to the treachery and surprise in which a French

king succeeded but too well little more than a century later.

CHAPTER II.

LIFE IN FLORENCE.

IN 1472 certain Venetians addressed to Lorenzo de’ Medici and Niccolò

Ardinghelli a pamphlet wherein they extolled the advantages of their

city and its inhabitants, and abused Florence, her constitution,

her policy, her commerce and society, and the house of Medici. The

challenge was accepted by Benedetto Dei, a scion of an ancient family,

a man of much experience in affairs of state and of commerce, and

who had been for many years Florentine ambassador in Constantinople,

from whence he went to Damascus on a commission for the Sultan. He

defended his native city in a lengthy and rather warm reply; a curious

testimony to the deep-seated differences between two states which were

often bitter enemies and scarcely ever real friends.[395] ‘Florence,’

says the irritated patriot, who seems not to have been acquainted with

the brilliant picture of the industry and commerce of Venice drawn in

the Great Council in 1420 by the Doge Tommaso Mocenigo,[396] ‘is more

beautiful and 540 years older than your Venice. We spring from triply

noble blood. We are one-third Roman, one-third Frankish, and one-third

Fiesolan. Compare with this, I pray you, the elements of which you

are composed! First of all you are Slavonians, secondly Paduans of

Antenor’s dirty traitor-brood, thirdly fisher-people from Malamocco

and Chioggia. We hold by the Gospel of S. John, you by that of S.

Mark, in which there is as much difference as between fine French wool

and that with which mattresses are stuffed. We have round about us

thirty thousand estates, owned by noblemen and merchants, citizens and

craftsmen, yielding us yearly bread and meat, wine and oil, vegetables

and cheese, hay and wood, to the value of 900,000 ducats in cash,

as you Venetians and Genoese, Chians and Rhodians, who come to buy

them, know well enough. We have two trades greater than four of yours

in Venice put together—wool and silk. Witness the Roman court and

that of the king of Naples, the Marches and Sicily, Constantinople

and Pera, Broussa and Adrianople, Salonika and Gallipoli, Chios and

Rhodes, where to your envy and disgust there are Florentine consuls

and merchants, churches and houses, banks and offices, and whither go

more Florentine wares of all kinds, especially silken stuffs and gold

and silver brocades, than from Venice, Genoa and Lucca put together.

Ask your own merchants who visit Marseilles, Avignon, Lyons, and the

whole of Provence, Bruges, Antwerp, London, and other cities, where

there are great banks and royal warehouses, fine dwellings, and stately

churches; ask them who should know, as they go to the fairs every

year, whether they have seen the banks of the Medici, the Pazzi, the

Capponi, the Buondelmonti, the Corsini, the Falconieri, the Portinari,

and the Ghini, the bank of the Medici and their partners at Milan,

and a hundred others which I will not name, because to do so I should

need at least a ream of paper. You say we are bankrupt since Cosimo’s

death. If we have had losses, it is owing to your dishonesty and the

wickedness of your Levant merchants, who have made us lose hundreds of

thousands—people with well-known names who have filled Constantinople

and Pera with failures, whereof our great houses could tell many a

tale. But though Cosimo is dead and buried, he did not take his gold

florins and the rest of his money and bonds with him into the other

world; nor his banks and store-houses, nor his woollen and silken

cloths, nor his plate and jewellery; but he left them all to his worthy

sons and grandsons, who take pains to keep them and to add to them, to

the vexation of the Venetians and other envious foes, whose tongues are

more malicious and slanderous than if they were Sienese.’ Such was the

Florentine’s retort to the attacks of the Venetians, whom he bitterly

attacked in his turn, when in 1479 they concluded the disadvantageous

treaty by which they ceded Negroponte and other of their Levantine

possessions to the Turks.

‘Our beautiful Florence,’ says the same chronicler, ‘contains within

the city in this present year 1472, 270 shops belonging to the

wool-merchants’ guild, from whence their wares are sent to Rome and

the Marches, Naples and Sicily, Constantinople and Pera, Adrianople,

Broussa and the whole of Turkey. It contains also eighty-three rich and

splendid warehouses of the silk-merchants’ guild, and furnishes gold

and silver stuffs, velvet, brocade, damask, taffeta, and satin, to Rome

and Naples, Catalonia and the whole of Spain, especially Seville, and

to Turkey and Barbary. The principal fairs to which these wares go are

those of Genoa, the Marches, Ferrara, Mantua, and the whole of Italy;

Lyons, Avignon, Montpelier, Antwerp, and London.’ The number of the

great banks amounted to thirty-three, that of the cloth-warehouses,

which also retailed woollen cloths of all kinds (_tagliare_), to

thirty-two; the shops of the cabinet-makers, whose business was

carving and inlaid work (_tarsia_), to eighty-four, and the workshops

of the stone-cutters and marble-workers in the city and its immediate

neighbourhood to fifty-four. There were forty-four goldsmiths’ and

jewellers’ shops, thirty gold-beaters, silver-wire drawers, and

wax-figure makers; the last being in those days a productive branch

of industry, as it was the custom to consecrate in the churches and

chapels wax-figures of all kinds (_voti_), chiefly images. ‘Go through

all the cities of the world,’ adds the chronicler, ‘nowhere will you

find, nor will you ever be able to find, artists in wax equal to

those we have now in Florence, and to whom the figures in the Nunziata

(the Servite Church) can bear witness.’ Another flourishing branch

of industry was the making of the light and elegant gold and silver

wreaths and garlands which were worn by young maidens of high degree,

and gave their name to the artist-family of Ghirlandajo. Sixty-six

was the number of the apothecaries’ and grocers’ shops; seventy that

of the butchers, besides eight large shops in which were sold fowls

of all kinds, as well as game, and also the native wines which were

considered best with game, particularly the pungent white wine, called

Trebbiano, from San Giovanni in the upper Arno valley; it would wake

the dead, adds Dei, in its praise. The Florentine had a right to be

proud of his ‘beautiful’ city. From 1422, when Gino Capponi, the

conqueror of Pisa, introduced the art of gold-spinning (the gold thread

hitherto used having been procured from Cöln and from Cyprus),[397]

down to the time of Lorenzo, was the most brilliant period of the

silk manufacture which brought great wealth to the city. The Emperor

Sigismund’s ill-famed consort, Barbara von Cilly, once sent one of her

people with 1,200 gold florins and three bars of gold to buy silken

stuffs. In 1422 the first armed galley was equipped for the voyage to

Alexandria, and when she was launched there was a solemn procession to

implore the protection of Heaven. Thus Florence began to do without

the help of Venetian and Genoese vessels; and the two latter states

never got over their vexation at this. The Florentines, however, never

became famous sailors. Meanwhile the home-produce kept pace with this

freer connection with transmarine lands. There seem to have been no

silk-worms reared in Florence before 1423; this branch of industry was

much older in other parts of Tuscany: in Modigliana, Pistoja, Pescia,

Lucca, &c. In Lorenzo’s days the artisans began to emigrate, and

transplanted their art to foreign lands. The restrictions of emigration

by statute proved at first useless and afterwards injurious. The extent

of the intercourse between Florence and other lands is shown by the

list of commercial firms established in various countries in 1469; in

France there were twenty-four; in the kingdom of Naples thirty-seven;

in Turkey no less than fifty, which were under the protection of the

consul Mainardo Ubaldini, whose general relations with the Turkish

government became so much the better, as those of the Venetians, whose

political and commercial interests too often clashed, grew less secure.

Long afterwards it was known that the Florentines held in their hands

the whole commerce of France; and in 1521, when war broke out between

Charles V. and Francis I., and the Florentine merchant-colony at Lyons

found itself in danger, a memorial requesting letters of safe-conduct

was addressed to the treasurer Robertet, by no less than thirty houses,

including the Albizzi, Guadagni, Panciatichi, Salviati, Bartolini,

Strozzi, Gondi, Manetti, Antinori, Dei, Ridolfi, Pitti, Tedaldi, and

other familiar names.[398] Many of these families married and settled

in France.

In a city where prosperity was so general, it strikes one as remarkable

that the rate of interest on money remained so high. When it is

remembered that about 1420 the usurers were forbidden to take more than

20 per cent., and that about ten years later the hitherto excluded

Jews were admitted in the hope of thereby finding a protection against

the greediness of the Christians, it may be easily perceived how

shocking the evil was. The complaints about compulsory loans are quite

intelligible with such a high rate of interest. That the intended

remedy proved fruitless, and Jews and Christians sucked the blood of

their neighbours all alike, may be imagined. More than once there was

some idea of a public loan establishment. This was the case in 1488,

when the popular orator Bernardino da Feltre, of the Minorite order,

was preaching in Sta. Croce. He tried to obtain Lorenzo’s support for

the erection of a Monte di Pietà, but his efforts proved unsuccessful.

It was an universally known fact that the execution of the project

was prevented because the Signoria was bribed by a rich Jewish

money-changer in Pisa, where this trade had found a special nest.[399]

Not till three years after Lorenzo’s death a temporary exclusion of

the Jews took place, whose gains in Florence alone were reckoned at

50,000,000 gold florins, and the erection by voluntary contributions of

the public loan establishment, which, together with that founded by St.

Antonine, and other similar ones, was in the course of years exposed to

many vicissitudes.

It was natural that the wealth of the merchants should greatly

influence their manner of life. The new aristocracy, which had risen

in a great measure by trade and commerce, continued, after the pattern

of the family at the head of the State, to combine politics with other

business, and liked to display a splendour corresponding to their

means, not only in buildings, pious foundations, and works of art,

but also in the festive occasions of domestic life. Their houses were

richly furnished. The numerous cabinet-makers and marble-workers,

chiefly engaged on decorative works, were not solely occupied with

churches and public buildings; both they, and painters and sculptors

of a higher order, vied with each other in the decoration of

dwelling-houses. Pictures were interspersed and relieved with marble

and terra-cotta busts. At festive banquets fine table-linen, in keeping

with the elegance of the plate, was always used. Up to this time there

was little exaggerated luxury; the majority were too cautious for that;

and if they wanted to honour a distinguished guest or celebrate a

wedding, friends lent each other their plate, following the example of

the Medici with the Alamanni, Della Stufa, Lanfredini, Nasi, Sassetti,

Davanzati, and others.[400] The same thing occurred at a banquet given

by Messer Antonio Ridolfi, ex-ambassador at Naples, to the Duke of

Calabria, who had stood godfather to his child. On great occasions

similar loans, to which all the wealthy citizens contributed, were made

to the Signoria. For ordinary occasions people often used, besides

silver spoons and forks, gifts of the community or of friends, chiefly

brazen table-plate, dishes, cans, salvers, with silver centres and

enamelled or niello edges, with the owner’s arms and frequently also

those of his wife.[401] Fine crystal was considered necessary for a

well-furnished table. Venice provided most of this article, but Tuscany

furnished many glass-factories.

The festivals, which increased in frequency in the days of Lorenzo and

Giuliano de’ Medici and the oft-repeated visits of princes, necessarily

contributed to the increase of splendour and gaiety. More than once

the cost exceeded the amount of supply. If Luca Pitti far outran his

means it was, at least, the indulgence of a noble passion—that of

building—which tempted him to such extravagance, and a miscalculation

in politics which overthrew him. But others were ruined by senseless

luxury. A striking example of this is Benedetto Salutati, who, it will

be remembered, took part in Lorenzo’s tournament. He was a grandson

of the celebrated chancellor; his father had acquired a considerable

fortune in business, in which the son succeeded him. Benedetto, we

read,[402] had made himself a fine position and was highly esteemed;

but he was far from being able to enter the lists with many others as

far as the age and nobility of his family were concerned, nor did his

fortune put him in a position to maintain a lasting rivalry with them.

Nevertheless, he did vie with them. When he rode to that tournament at

five-and-twenty, the housings and trappings of his horse were adorned

with 168 pounds of fine silver at sixteen ducats a pound, and the cost

of the work was reckoned at 8,000_l._ That he united love for art

with love for spending is proved by the fact that his silver helmet

was wrought by Antonio del Pollaiuolo.[403] But the immoderate luxury

into which he launched may be learned from the description of the

banquet which he and his fellow-merchants gave, February 16, 1476, to

the sons of King Ferrante at Naples, where the Salutati, like so many

of their fellow-countrymen, had settled, and had intercourse with the

royal house through their connection with the above-mentioned Antonio

Ridolfi, whose daughter was Benedetto’s wife. It was as if a Florentine

merchant had tried to vie with the splendour shown by Cardinal Pietro

Riario when Ercole d’Este’s bride was in Rome. The very arrangement

of the house gave a foretaste of what was to come. The staircase was

hung with tapestry and wreaths of yew; the great hall was decorated

with richly-worked carpets; and from the ceiling, covered with cloth

of the Aragonese colours ornamented with the Duke of Calabria’s arms,

hung two great chandeliers of carved and gilt wood bearing wax candles.

Opposite the principal entrance, on a dais covered with carpets,

stood the dining-table, spread with the finest lace over a worked

cover. One side of the hall was occupied by a large sideboard, on

which stood about eighty ornamental pieces of plate—salvers, basins,

fruit-baskets, tankards—mostly silver, some gold, besides the silver

table-service, consisting of about three hundred plates of various

kinds, bowls, beakers, and dishes. Adjoining the hall were two rooms

opening into each other, hung with woollen stuff representing foliage,

and handsomely carpeted. Here the company assembled before and after

dinner, and divers musicians contributed to the liveliness of the meal.

The guests took their seats amid a flourish of trumpets and fifes. At

one end of the table sat the Count of Altavilla, next to him Don Pietro

of Aragon, the Duke of Calabria’s younger son, a boy of four years old;

then came the four sons of the king—Don Alfonso, Duke of Calabria,

Don Federigo, Count of Altamura, Don Giovanni, and Don Arrigo.[404]

Next to the latter sat the Count of Belcastro, then came the Count of

Ventimiglia and Messer Carlo da Toralto. The Florentine consul, Tommaso

Ginori, and Lorenzo Strozzi sat one on each side of Marino Caracciolo;

next to them came Francesco Nori (one of the victims of the Pazzi

conspiracy) and Andrea Spanocchi of Siena. The seats at the other end

of the table were occupied by the Commander de Requesens, Ferrante

di Gennaro, and Messer Federigo Carvajal, Commander of Rimini. The

outer side of the long table was left for the sewers and cup-bearers,

who served the guests and tasted the dishes before presenting them to

the princes. Besides these, courtiers stood around the table, partly

in attendance partly joining in the conversation. The order of the

dinner was as follows: First the introductory course; to each guest was

presented a little dish of gilt cakes made of pine-apple kernels, and

a little majolica cup containing a beverage made of milk and called

Natta (_guincata_). This was followed by eight silver dishes decorated

with coats of arms and mottoes, and containing jelly made from the

breast of capons; the dish intended for the duke had, in the middle,

a fountain which threw up a shower of orange-flower water. The first

part of the meal consisted of twelve courses of different kinds of

meat, game, veal, ham, pheasants, partridges, capons, chickens, and

blanc-mange; at the end there was placed before the duke a large silver

dish, from which, when the cover was taken off, a number of birds flew

out. On two large salvers were brought two peacocks, apparently alive,

with their tails spread, burning perfumes issuing from their bills,

and on their breasts, attached to a silken ribbon, the duke’s arms

and the motto _Modus et ordo_. The second part of the entertainment

consisted of nine courses of sweets of various kinds, tarts, light and

delicate pastry, with hippocras. The wines, mostly native—Italian or

Sicilian—were numerous, and between every two guests was placed a list

of the fifteen different kinds, of which the lighter found most favour.

At the end of the banquet scented water was offered to everyone in

which to dip his hands; then the table-cloth was removed, and on the

table was placed a great dish containing a mountain of green boughs

with precious essences whose perfume spread through the hall.

In the middle of the banquet some mumming[405] was announced. Eight

youths entered dressed as huntsmen, with horns, hounds, and slain

game; they were musicians of the chapel royal, and took leave after

entertaining the company with some pleasing music. After dinner the

guests went to the next room, where they entered into lively discourse

and listened to music and singing. The duke and the Count of Belcastro

conversed with the Florentine merchants and spoke of scarcely anything

but Florence and the prince’s stay in Tuscany. After about an hour the

sewers brought the dessert; for each person a silver dish of various

kinds of sweets, with covers made of wax and sugar; those for the

princes and knights adorned with coloured coats of arms and mottoes,

those for the merchants with escutcheons and trade-marks. Cup-bearers

also brought wine in gold and silver goblets. Towards the fifth hour

of the night the guests departed, having stayed about four hours. The

whole house was full of the courtiers and servants of the princes

and nobles. All praised the excellency of the dishes; never, it was

said, had a more splendid banquet been known. Salutati’s love of show,

however, brought its own punishment; unless indeed he was ruined by the

heavy troubles brought upon his home by these same Neapolitan princes

and nobles not long after. Four or five years after this banquet,

according to his own declaration to the registrars, he had returned

to his native city a penniless man, intending to give up his business

altogether, as, under the sad circumstances of the time and the heavy

burdens of the community, he was working at a clear loss. About this

time he changed his residence to Rome, where he was engaged in banking

business in 1491.[406]

Such doings as these, however, were exceptional; generally, the mode

of life in Florence, as throughout Italy, was simple. In describing

the English plenipotentiary who spent some time with Pope Eugene,

Vespasiano da Bisticci remarks that he had given up his native custom

of sitting four hours at table and adopted the Italian fashion of

having but one dish, from which the whole household dined together.

Even in the noblest houses there was no extravagance; they had only the

produce of the immediate neighbourhood and, in particular, of their

own estates. Thus it was that an increase of rural industry was doubly

desirable. In later days it was wont to be related of Filippo Strozzi

the Elder that he introduced the cultivation of the artichoke and

that of a new species of fig, and both Cosimo and Lorenzo de’ Medici

carefully followed the progress of agriculture. At parties there was

no lack of intellectual enjoyments, such as music and improvisation.

Politian gives, in a letter to Pico della Mirandola, an account of

a dinner at the house of Paolo Orsini, who was in the service of

the Republic; on this occasion Orsini’s son, a boy of eleven, stood

up and sang some verses of his own composition. Banquets given for

entertainment, as well as for learned discourse, chiefly took place

at the villas. The richer and more distinguished Florentines divided

their time between the city and the country. It has been seen how the

pleasant, healthy, fertile neighbourhood of Florence, especially the

hills easily attainable for both pedestrians and horsemen, became

covered with villas. These gradually spread further out in all

directions, up and down the valley of the Arno, beyond Fiesole and

Ponte a Sieve to Mugello, better suited for a real summer residence;

along the line of hills towards Prato and the valley of the Bisenzio;

on the left bank of the Arno through the valleys of the Ema, the Pesa,

and the Elsa, and the rich grape-country of Chianti, to the Sienese

border. In proportion to the number and beauty of the city residences

the number and richness of the country-houses increased also. Hither

came princes, kings, and popes; here they enjoyed hospitality at once

grand, cordial, and cheerful. The country-life contributed not a

little to arouse and maintain liveliness, freshness, fertility, and

elasticity of mind in those who were overwhelmed with grave business of

all kinds. The villas, far more than the town-houses, were the places

where men met for social intercourse, partly because there they could

keep themselves more free from business, partly because they were there

not troubled with the want of space which was an inconvenience in the

city. The villa-life of the _literati_ has been already mentioned. The

remarks concerning country-residences and country-life made by Leon

Battista Alberti, about the time now under consideration, in his book

‘The Father of the Family,’[407] throw light on an important side of

the condition of the citizens, and give a glimpse into the temperament

and tastes of the classes who held the direction of the commonwealth.

These men did not give themselves up to idle pastimes, but to gaining

and keeping a clear survey of personal and civil relations, and to

increasing their own prosperity, and with it that of others, by a wise

culture which looked beyond the limits of ordinary domestic economy.

There was a darker side to this country-life, and among its shadows was

that of the gaming-table. As far back as 1285 a decree had been found

necessary forbidding the use of dice and other games of chance,[408]

and in the year before the Pazzi conspiracy another similar decree

was issued.[409] These prohibitions, however, shared the fate of

the sumptuary laws, and no doubt the relations with Naples in the

fourteenth century did no good in this respect. Still the Florentines

never went such lengths as disgraced the society of cardinals and

great lords at Rome in the latter half of the fifteenth century in the

days of Sixtus IV. and Innocent VIII. Alberti, who in another of his

writings[410] describes gaming and its attendant ruin arising from

either loss or gain and the bad company inseparable from it, probably

witnessed these corruptions more in Rome than in his native land. But

while in the city, where they were more exposed to view, men proceeded

more cautiously and chess was the game chiefly played, the villas

were too often scenes of gambling. That this habit was by no means

rooted out in the city is shown by the history of St. Antonine. After

the holy archbishop had been preaching one day in the church of Sto.

Stefano he passed, with the cross carried before him, through the Borgo

Sant’Apostolo. As he was passing the Loggia of the Buondelmonti and saw

a company at play, he entered and overthrew the tables; the gamblers,

ashamed, threw themselves at his feet and begged for pardon.[411]

The games which were also bodily exercises, and lived on in another

form, as the _giuoco del pallone_, have already been mentioned. They

were not without danger; in 1487 a son of Ugolino Verino lost his

life by a blow from a ball while engaged in the game of _Maglio_.

During the uncommonly sharp winter of 1491 these games took place

on the frozen surface of the Arno. Hunting of all kinds had always

been a favourite pastime; in many country-houses may be seen places

prepared for decoying birds. Hawking stood first of all in the lists

of amusements. For graver exercises of the chase there was a better

field in the woods of Mugello, the low country round Pisa, the

Volterra country, and the bordering Maremma, than in the well-built

and thickly-inhabited environs of the city. As for the stage, profane

drama, as is shown by the remarks of Poliziano, was just in the dawn of

its existence, and in its present antiquated form only suited for the

higher circles. This last was also the condition of the Latin dramas,

of which a great number had been composed since the beginning of the

fourteenth century. Classical comedies were performed by students. May

12, 1488, the ‘Menæchmi’ of Plautus, a favourite and oft-copied piece,

was acted under the direction of Messer Paolo Comparini, probably one

of the professors at the university. Poliziano wrote the Latin prologue

for this performance, at which Lorenzo was present.[412] The sacred

plays continued to attract high and low; and, besides the customary

representations on feast-days, they never failed to be performed for

the edification of foreign princes and potentates who came to the city.

The Florentines seem to have been especially skilled in these dramatic

representations, for their companies acted in other places outside

their own city, for example, at Rome. Famous artists, like Brunelleschi

and the engineer Cecca, who met his death in the Faenza campaign of

1488, invented the apparatus for these mystery-plays and also for

the processions in the open air, on which occasions mass was said on

the _ringhiera_ of the palace of the Signoria before the people who

thronged the square. The most solemn procession of all was that on

the eve of St. John; the scene was the precincts of the cathedral and

the baptistery, where a gigantic machinery of clouds, with saints and

angels, was built up under a lofty canopy of linen.[413] The feasts

of the Church were many and splendid; most chiefly that of St. John,

which was connected with the history of the city and the State. On

the eve of this day and on the day itself the shops of the merchants

and artificers made a display of their finest goods; Lorenzo lent his

most valuable show-pieces to his friends; and in the Baptistery was

exhibited the great silver reredos with its statuettes and reliefs.

The splendour was heightened by the participation of the numerous

clerical and lay societies, and by the influence of the festivals on

the patriotism of the multitude through their connection with glorious

events, the memory of which was kept alive among the people by these

reciprocal relations. These historical reminiscences went back to the

very earliest mythical times of the city. Mystery-plays, shows, and

similar festivals were not confined to the churches, companies, and

public occasions and places, but also took place in the houses of

distinguished citizens, and artists constantly took part in them.[414]

When it is considered that at the beginning of the next century the

number of the civil companies or brotherhoods for religious exercises

amounted to 370,[415] partly for children and partly for adults, it may

easily be understood how closely domestic life was intertwined with

that of the Church.

Some of these societies, called Standard-companies (Compagnie

di Stendardo) did not approve of social cheerfulness. But the

unions of the lower classes for the purpose of festivities, shows,

games, and merrymakings were those called potenze. Their origin is

commonly referred to the time of the Duke of Athens; it was probably

contemporary with the development of the democratic element in the

commonwealth. These societies, whose festivals and performances

strongly resembled a carnaval, were also intended for spiritual

exercises. Their number differed greatly at different times; their

names are mostly fantastically derived from the occupation or residence

of the parties concerned; there was an emperor of the Prato of

Ognisanti, a king of the wool-carders of Orsanmichele, and various

others with similar titles derived from localities in Camaldoli;

monarchs of Sant’Ambrogio and Terrarossa, dukes of the Via Guelfa, of

the Arno, of Camporeggi, of the moon, the dove, the owl; princes of

the apple and of the standard-carriage, grand signors of the Pitti and

of the dyers, lords of the chain, the swallow, the kitchen-range, the

sword, the scourge, the elm, and suchlike names. They all bore coats

of arms on their banners; thus the emperor of the Prato displayed an

eagle; the grand signor of the dyers, a caldron standing on the fire;

the duke of the Arno, a pillar of the Rubaconte bridge, with himself

majestically seated thereon, surrounded by players. These societies had

for their chief object carnaval-amusements, with games and pastimes

which degenerated into wild orgies, till in the sixteenth century the

license became so great, the waste of time and money and the annoyance

to the other citizens so disgraceful, that, after restrictions had been

tried in vain, the whole thing was put an end to.[416] Lorenzo has been

reproached with having encouraged shows and entertainments in order to

keep the people occupied and well-disposed towards himself. He probably

acted with this view just as much as the Duke of Athens; and when the

Medici came back in 1512 from their long exile, his son Giuliano and

his grandson Lorenzo employed these same means, companies and pastimes,

chiefly, as a historian of the Medicean party, Filippo de’ Nerli,

confesses, in order to keep the citizens and common people in good

humour with triumphs, festivals, and public shows, and to gather the

young nobles around themselves.[417] But the inclinations and habits

of the people made the attainment of Lorenzo’s object easy to him. The

widespread feeling for art, which gave a special charm to all public

displays, contributed not a little thereto.

Lorenzo revolutionised and developed the songs of the carnaval. The

romance writer Lasca relates[418] the state in which he found the

carnaval and what he made of it. Youths and men were wont to walk

about the streets in women’s clothes and mimick the girls and women

on May-day. The songs they sang were all much the same; the variety

introduced into their form and substance by Lorenzo was enhanced by

the melodies of Heinrich Isaak. The first masquerade of this kind was

that of the glass-blowers and pastrycooks, with a three-part choir.

The Triumphs (_trionfi_) were great mythological or allegorical

performances; the Chariots (_carri_), representations of works, &c.

Richly dressed horsemen, to the number of 300, rode beside these

chariots, which came out in the afternoon and often enlivened the

streets till far into the night, accompanied by men on foot carrying

white wax torches. There was also instrumental music and singing

in four or eight parts, sometimes even fifteen parts. According to

the style and contents of the songs, so the nature of these popular

amusements was varied. In several of Lorenzo’s carnaval-songs

the license of the day is but too evident; they were downright

Roman saturnalia. Later on, when reaction took place against this

worldliness, the first thing attacked was the carnaval. It will be

seen hereafter that this opposition had begun long before men’s minds

were biassed in a new direction in consequence of a revolution in the

political circumstances of Italy and the foreboding of evil to come.

The sobering change which followed this license is shown by a satirical

dialogue in verse on the carnaval, which was forbidden the houses and

streets; a popular production of historical value on this account,

that it expresses a foreboding of the many evils which were to befall

Rome—Rome, the home of the saturnalia, which threatened to swallow up

all life and effort as in a whirlpool:[419]

Questo è stato carnasciale

C’ha ’l cervel nelle scarpette,

Con suo certe gente grette

C’ han giocato il capitale:

Hanno avuto certe strette

Tu Fiorenza le lor mercíe

Stazonate brutte e lercíe

Sì che han perso ogni lor fede.

Poi che vai, cammina presto

Per l’Italia tutta quanta,

Et a Roma tua ch’è santa,

Tu farai questo protesto:

Che tempesta a lei vien tanta,

Che stupisce il cielo e ’l mondo:

Lancie, spade e squadre a tondo

Chiariran la sua gran fede.

Amid the coarse sensual doings of the time there were yet some

festivals in which, although accompanied by immoderate display, poetic

feeling found room for expression. During one carnaval Lorenzo got up

a brilliant procession representing the triumph of Paulus Æmilius; it

was on this occasion that the young painter Francesco Granacci gave

the first proofs of his remarkable talent for decoration. In another

procession of the same kind the planets were personified and easily

recognised by their emblems, and were drawn through the streets in

seven chariots amid the sound of music and songs composed for the

occasion.[420] Allegorical representations of this sort were common.

Twenty or thirty years later Raphael gave them the highest consecration

of art in his pictures of the planets, and the multitude was not

lacking in a sense of allegory. These gay scenes were rivalled by the

carnaval procession got up by Bartolommeo Benci in honour of Marietta

Strozzi Giachinotti, a granddaughter of Palla.[421] Eight young men

of distinguished families—Pucci, Altoviti, Vespucci, Girolami, and

others—took part in it. On the evening of the carnaval they all went

together to the house of the Benci, whose name is still borne by a

street in the Sta. Croce quarter. They were all dressed in vests

of silver and crimson brocade, and mounted on horses with silken

housings, each accompanied by eight grooms and thirty torch-bearers.

After supper the whole party proceeded to the lady’s house, followed

by four men carrying a stage twenty ells high, made of branches of

laurel, yew, cypress, and other evergreens, and adorned with a number

of allegorical representations of the triumph of love, with the

escutcheons of the lady and the author of the festival, surmounted by

a bleeding and burning heart from which rockets flew up. Round about

were pipers and mounted pages dressed in green. Bartolommeo Benci,

with gilt wings fastened to his shoulders, came riding on a handsome

and richly caparisoned horse, surrounded by fifteen youths of good

family dressed in crimson, and 150 torch-bearers wearing his colours.

Amerigo and Francesco Benci and the lady’s brothers Nanni and Strozza

Strozzi joined the party. The gentlemen, with gilt spears in their

hands, showed off their horses before the windows; then Bartolommeo

took the wings from off his shoulders and threw them on the triumphal

stage, which at once burst into flames, while a number of rockets flew

up from it, some high in the air, some towards the house. When the

fireworks were over the party retired, the giver of the entertainment

making his horse step backwards till he was out of the square. They

then went round to the houses of the lady-loves of all the gentlemen,

and finished with an aubade (_mattinata_) before the house of Marietta,

who during the whole scene remained at the window, between four wax

torches, ‘with such a stately grace as Lucretia herself would not

have needed to be ashamed of.’ The show ended at dawn of day with a

breakfast at Bartolommeo’s house. All the Signoria’s servants, who had

kept order during the night, received stockings of the Benci colours.

The people always preserved their unwearied gaiety, which Ariosto

called ‘lo spirito bizarro fiorentino.’ They were always wide awake,

ready for a jest, keen in perception, quick at a repartee, disposed to

give merit its due, but with the eyes of a lynx for every weakness. The

merry meetings with their stories, not inventions of the Decamerone

but the links that connected it with the prevailing manners, easily

degenerated into buffoonery, as many examples remain to show. As the

Florentines went round as jesters to the courts of princes, so they

had in the herald or knight of the Signoria a sort of official buffoon

who was, however, employed in earnest as well as in jest. The best

known jesters belong to the fifteenth century; of these, the barber

Burchiello represents the literary type, while the chief example of the

ordinary jester with his verbal witticisms is the Piovano Arlotto or

Arlotto Mainardi, vicar of a little place in the diocese of Fiesole,

who is mentioned in Lorenzo’s ‘Beoni,’ a true mirror of the somewhat

coarse-grained wit of these revels. Besides the tales of Francesco

Sacchetti, written at its commencement, which are satirical in their

plot as well as in their too often licentious phraseology, the two best

known examples of buffoonery overstepping the acknowledged limits of

fiction, both in the form of romances, belong to the fifteenth century.

The one story is that of the fat cabinet-maker, Manetto Ammanatini,

a jest which is said to have driven its victim, a master of artistic

cabinet-making and tarsia-work, away to Hungary. It originated with

Brunelleschi and his artist-friends, and the actual authorship of the

tale has been attributed to him. The other story treats of Bianco

Alfani, who was made to believe that he had been chosen Podestà of

Norcia, and had to suffer for the delusion.[422] The species of humour

which distinguishes these compositions was long preserved in the

_villeggiature_. Lorenzo was no stranger to it, and Leo X., in the

story of Baraballo, gave himself up to it in a manner little becoming

his dignity.

As regards moral weakness and defects this period was certainly not

better than its neighbours; and there can be no hesitation in accusing

it of having, by gradually accustoming people to the powers that then

were, paved the way for the destruction of the commonwealth in favour

of one man, who was not a Lorenzo. The lamentations over the corruption

of the times were very frequent. ‘O city of Florence!’ cried the

honest Vespasiano da Bisticci in 1480, ‘thou art full of usury and

dishonest gain! The one devours the other; greed has made thy people

foes one towards the other. Evil-doing has become so habitual that no

one is ashamed of it. In these latter days thou hast witnessed such

unheard-of doings among thy citizens, such disorders and failures,

and dost not yet perceive that it is a judgment from God, and thus

thou continuest in thy hardness of heart. There is no hope for thee,

for thou thinkest of nought but money-making; and yet thou seest how

the wealth of thy citizens passeth away like smoke as soon as they

have closed their eyes.’ Whatever might be the state of affairs,

however, such words as these are not to be taken literally. There was

an immense amount of good sterling material left in the people who

had outstripped others on the road to intellectual knowledge, civil

order, and industrial development. The peculiar relation between the

different classes, which, in the ultimate development of democracy,

in some measure neutralised its evils, struck root so deeply that it

was never completely destroyed by the predominance of Spanish manners

which undermined and strove against it for centuries. The Tuscan

countryman, raised by the old colony-system, which formed a sort of

joint possession, assumed an attitude of freedom towards his lord; the

hard and fast lines by which classes were divided in other lands were

never known here. The Florentine nobility never forgot that by far the

greater part of their number had risen from the ranks of the people in

times which were not remote enough to be buried in the night of ages;

and in their persons the people felt themselves to a certain extent

ennobled. Feudalism never attained its full force here; even when its

tendencies prevailed throughout all the rest of Italy except Venice,

in Florence it had little more than a formal existence. Down to the

extinction of the Medici race, with a few exceptions, they never cast

off the traditions of the citizen element. Thus in Florence there were

never, as elsewhere, violent conflicts aroused by the sharpness of

social contrasts. Conflicts of another kind were avoided by the fact

that, since the strengthening of the commonwealths, the higher orders

of clergy, notwithstanding their considerable possessions, exercised no

real territorial power and almost always kept on good terms with the

commonwealths. In the appointment of bishops, too, the popular element

on the whole prevailed, though sometimes, and indeed repeatedly during

the fifteenth century, single appointments were made from a purely

papal point of view. The reaction which set in so soon after Lorenzo’s

death against the laxity of morals which is laid to his charge, and

the heroic perseverance with which these Florentines defended their

independence for nearly forty years, prove most clearly what wholesome

qualities were hidden within the nature of this genuine, pliant,

powerful citizen-people.

The picture of the Florentines in the last days of the Republic,

sketched by an historian of the following century,[423] is equally true

of Lorenzo’s time: ‘I do not share the opinion of those who refuse

to admit that the Florentines can be noble-minded and consider them

low and plebeian because they are merchants. I have often secretly

wondered how people who from their childhood have been accustomed to

handle bales of wool and silken threads, or to work like slaves all

day and part of the night at the loom or the dye-cauldron, often, when

needed, display such loftiness of heart and greatness of soul that

they speak and act surpassingly well. The air, a medium between the

keen atmosphere of Arezzo and the heavy air of Pisa, doubtless has

some influence on this peculiarity. Whosoever considers deeply the

nature and manners of the Florentines must arrive at the conclusion

that they are more fitted to command than to obey. I do not deny

that there are among them haughty, covetous, and violent men, such

as are to be found elsewhere. Nay, they are even worse here than in

other places; for as talent and merit are more brilliant there than

elsewhere, so also evil qualities are more conspicuous—so hard is it

for them to preserve moderation. Their manner of life is simple and

thrifty, but distinguished by cleanliness such as is not met with

elsewhere. It may be said that in this respect artisans and people who

live by daily labour are a pattern to the citizens of higher position;

for whereas the latter are easily led away to the taverns if they

hear that good wine is to be had there, and give themselves a day of

pleasure, the former stay at home with the thriftiness of tradespeople

who work seeking for their enjoyment in advance, and with the modesty

of citizens who understand moderation, rules, and discipline, and will

not quit the safe path. Of course there are families which have a great

household and a rich table, such as would become noblemen. People call

each other by their Christian names, also by their family names, and

usually say ‘thou’ unless there is a great difference of rank or age.

The knights, doctors, prebendaries, and canons are entitled Messere,

the professors Maestro, and the monks Padre.’

Leon Battista Alberti and the pious Fra Giovanni Dominici speak in

similar terms of the respect for parents and superiors.[424] ‘My

father,’ Alberti describes his cousin Francesco as saying, ‘never

sat down on public occasions when his brother, who had received the

honour of knighthood, was present; and he pronounced it as his opinion

that one ought not to sit down in the presence of one’s father or the

head of the family. Your Romans,’ he added, turning to Leon Battista,

‘who are now ill-conducted in all things (_in ogni cosa mal corretti

oggi_), have likewise fallen into great error in this respect: they

honour their parents less than their neighbours, and thus grow up in

disorder and vice.’ Fra Giovanni recommends Madonna Bartolommea degli

Obizzi to teach her children before all things to reverence their

parents, and thus secure earthly happiness. We have before remarked how

Lorenzo impressed on his son the duty of showing proper respect for his

elders; on this point he was always consistent. The good old habits of

strictness were also kept up by many distinguished women. In Lorenzo’s

time there are no such charming portraits as those sketched in his

grandfather’s days by the good Vespasiano;[425] but Alessandra de’

Bardi, wife of Lorenzo Strozzi; Francesca Giacomini Tebalducci, wife of

Donato Acciaiuolo; Nanna Valori, wife of Giannozzo Pandolfini; Caterina

Strozzi Ardinghelli; Saracina Giacomini Acciaiuolo, and others, could

not fail to have worthy successors; and the beautiful and dignified

female portraits which give such a peculiar charm to Ghirlandajo’s

frescoes in Sta. Maria Novella would alone be enough to prove that

the generation had not died out. Times had become more settled and

peaceful, and since 1478 there had been no sudden overthrow or turn

of fortune such as had hitherto rapidly succeeded each other. In the

undisturbed peace of their homes good women found ample scope for the

practice of the Christian virtues which had distinguished their mothers

and grandmothers, often widowed or homeless in early youth, amid the

stormy days of trouble.

Knighthood has been frequently alluded to in this work. While nobility

of birth was attended by civil disadvantages, personal nobility, or

knighthood, had a peculiar value of its own. This distinction was

a relic of the romantic days of Charles the Great. In imitation of

kings and emperors the commonwealth claimed the power of granting it,

and in 1288 the first example is said to have occurred in the war

against Pisa. Knighthood was a necessary qualification for the office

of Podestà, and was conferred on those appointed if they had not

previously received it. Knights of this sort were called _Cavalieri

di popolo_. Two cases of strangely conferred knighthood occurred in

the fourteenth century. After the rising of the lower classes on July

20, 1378, more than sixty citizens, with Salvestro de’ Medici at their

head, were knighted at the request of the multitude. When quiet was in

some degree restored these knights of the Ciompi, as they were called,

were summoned to declare whether they wished to keep the dignity

thus tumultuously conferred on them; in which case they were to be

knighted over again by a syndic of the commonwealth who had himself

attained that honour. Thirty-one accepted the offer. On October 15

they assembled in the church of the Annunziata and thence proceeded,

in knightly attire, to the great square; and there, in presence of the

Signoria, the Podestà—a Venetian nobleman—completed the ceremony as

syndic of the commonwealth, whereupon they took the oaths of allegiance

and received from the Gonfalonier their lances, standards, and shields

with the arms of the people.[426] On April 26, 1389, two members of the

Panciatichi family, one a child not much more than four years old, were

made knights of the people. Great honour was shown them, and like Cola

Rienzi in Rome of old, they, with many of their relations and friends,

spent the night in the Baptistery, where seven great beds were set up;

and the next day a banquet took place in the convent of Sta. Maria

Novella[427] at which 250 citizens were present.

The knights of the people were divided into two classes-the _cavalieri

di corredo_, knighted for civil services, and the _cavalieri di scudo_

for military ones; the former named from the banquet which they gave

after the ceremony, the latter from the shield; like the _noblesse

de robe_ and _noblesse d’épée_ in France. Both classes bore on their

breasts, or on their helmets, shields, &c., the arms of the people,

usually with the red lily of the Republic on a round, white escutcheon,

sometimes also with the arms of the Guelf party. Besides these there

were other knights who had received their dignity from Popes or foreign

sovereigns, especially the kings of France, on embassies and suchlike

occasions; and others who had been knighted on the battle-field by a

commander-in-chief, as a reward for their bravery. These last were

entitled _cavalieri d’arme_, to distinguish them from the _cavalieri di

scudo_. The wearing of the golden spurs, afterwards so much abused, was

the prerogative of these military knights.

Embassies had always been important to the Florentines in a political

point of view, as well as a means of obtaining personal distinction.

In the first jubilee year, when twelve of them appeared before Pope

Boniface VIII. as the representatives of various states, he called

them the fifth element. They always preserved their reputation as good

diplomatists. Not only did clergy, statesmen, and scholars take an

active part in diplomacy, it was a career open even to the Grandi, the

real nobility who were excluded from all the offices of state. In the

fifteenth century the splendour with which the embassies were conducted

corresponded with the importance of the state and the personal rank

of the ambassadors. Their posts, however, were not lucrative; for

if, as was the case in 1483, each ambassador received about ten gold

florins a day, the expenses in excess of those which he could charge

for were very heavy. Besides the solemn embassies on special occasions,

there were resident envoys at Naples, Rome, Milan, and Venice. The

former were numerous and brilliant, and comprised, besides the actual

ambassadors, younger men (who, according to a later regulation, were

not to be under the age of twenty-four), who went to learn the business

of diplomacy and see foreign lands; there was also a chancellor and

other officials. Only two examples need be referred to for the high

honour in which Florentine embassies were held—Neri Capponi’s famous

embassy to Venice during the war of the Visconti, and that to Louis

XI. on his accession. ‘Never,’ says Macchiavelli, ‘did that Signoria

receive a prince with so much honour as they did Neri.’ King Louis,

with the Duke of Britanny and a suite of about forty horsemen, advanced

two leagues from Tours to meet Monsignor Filippo de’ Medici, Piero de’

Pazzi, and Buonaccorso Pitti (Luca’s son), envoys of the Republic,

and kept his hat in his hand because the first-named would not be

covered.[428] Travelling was slow; the embassy had left Florence on

October 27, and reached Tours on December 23. With what splendour Piero

de’ Pazzi returned home has been mentioned already.

CHAPTER III.

THE HOUSE AND FAMILY OF THE MEDICI.

THE house of the Medici had not its equal in Florence, probably not in

all Italy. Its inner arrangements corresponded with its outward stately

and beautiful architecture. Three generations, with the whole world

open before them, of highly-cultivated, art-loving owners had ruled

in it. No other family ever existed in which the love of collecting,

combined with a hearty appreciation of the value and importance of the

most various objects, retained its ardour and thoroughness through

so many centuries, as in the case of these Florentine merchants, who

gradually developed and grew into a princely house, and intermarried

with the royal houses of Hapsburg, Lorraine, Wittelsbach, and Bourbon.

As in other great historical families, the same traits were noticeable

in all the Medici. Even in the days when several members of the house

fell victims to the curse that eventually destroyed many of the ruling

families of Italy, when the Medici as a distinct family were fast

perishing, though mourned for by thousands—even then the surviving

members of the race preserved the many brilliant qualities which had

made their ancestors famous. In every direction they had relations

with grand-dukes and princes; beautiful, curious, and rare objects of

art were sent to them from all quarters of the globe by their agents,

diplomatists, scholars, artists, and merchants; and in their own

country they constantly employed those who displayed talent, learning,

or skill. The colossal wealth of the Florentine collections, chiefly

inheritances from the Medici, proves this; and the sudden bankruptcy

which occurred in all these things at their extinction gives a striking

example of the contrast which was brought about by years.

The history of art and literature from Cosimo’s days shows what a

treasury of paintings, sculptures, coins, engraved stones, manuscripts,

gems, and antiquities of all kinds were collected together in that

house in the Via Larga. Commines, describing the shameless plunder of

the Medici’s houses begun in November 1494 by the French and continued

by the Florentines,[429] estimates the value of the objects destroyed

in one day at 100,000 crowns;—‘the most beautiful rings, specimens

of agate, admirable cameos, and near three thousand gold and silver

medals, such as no other collection in Italy could equal.’ Galeazzo

Maria Sforza once said that he, too, could show treasures; but the

finest things in all the world were collected in the house of a

private man—Lorenzo. And what a quantity had been gathered together

there since the visit of the Milanese Duke! ‘Lorenzo,’ says Niccolò

Valori,[430] ‘took the liveliest interest in all things antique. I

have heard from Marsilio that on receiving from Girolamo Rossi of

Pistoja a bust of Plato, found amid the ruins of the Athenian Academy,

his delight was exceeding great, and he always held that bust in high

honour. Those who wished to do this great man a pleasure vied with

each other in bringing him coins and bronze works distinguished by

their value and workmanship, and antiquities of all sorts, from all

parts of the world. When I came home from Naples I sent him busts of

the Empress Faustina and Africanus and several beautifully chiselled

marbles. I cannot describe the manner in which he received them. What

he had collected from all quarters he carefully preserved in his house.

He did not show them to just anybody, but only to those who understood

them, and at festive banquets he adorned his table with works of art

to do honour to his guests. When the excellent Duke Federigo of Urbino

saw these treasures of Lorenzo, he admired not only the materials and

skilful workmanship, but also the almost incredible number of the

objects. He is said to have thus addressed Lorenzo: ‘How much can love

and perseverance accomplish! I behold, here, a royal treasure-house;

yet one such as no king is able to gather together, either by money, or

power, or rapine.’

These treasures were collected in the most various ways. Sellers of

antiques brought them to Florence or sent them from a distance. When

Paul III.’s rich collection of engraved and precious stones was sold

after his death, a considerable part of it passed into the hands

of the Medici for a moderate sum, by means of Giovanni Tornabuoni.

Lorenzo himself in his memoirs mentions the marble busts of Augustus

and Agrippa, gifts of Sixtus IV., and the vases of chalcedony and

engraved stones bought in Rome. In 1484, 1488, and 1490, Luigi Lotti

of Barberino, Giovan Antonio of Arezzo, and Andrea of Fojano were

commissioned to make purchases in Rome and Siena.[431] On Giuliano

da Sangallo’s return from Naples, King Ferrante gave him a bust of

Hadrian, a nude female statue and a sleeping Cupid, for Lorenzo, who

had sent him to the king.[432] Messer Zaccaria Barbaro, grateful for

the sympathy shown to his son, sent a precious Greek vase. Carlo de’

Medici bought antiquities, coins, &c., in Rome. Besides the manuscripts

and objects of art, there were a quantity of curiosities and handsome

household furniture of all sorts, porcelain and majolica, given by the

Malatesta, and, as Lorenzo wrote,[433] more highly prized by him than

if they were of silver, because they were excellent, rare, and, till

then, unknown in Florence. Much of what now adorns the great Uffizi

collection came to Florence in those days. Most of the sculptures

and larger works of art, however, were not placed in the house in the

Via Larga, where there was no space for them, but in the neighbouring

garden of San Marco. Opposite the left aisle, near to where the long

street joins the large conventual and other gardens, the Medici had a

casino, to which were attached grounds and plantations extending as

far as the Via San Gallo. Casinos of this kind, intended for social

purposes and walks, were usual among the great Florentine families even

down to the last century. The whole place has been altered; a century

after Lorenzo’s time, Bernardo Buontalenti built a grand but heavy

palace, which has been lately used for various purposes, and after the

extinction of the Medici, part of the ground was cleared for the pretty

house called Casino della Livia, after a favourite of the Grand-Duke

Leopold I. About the same time the appearance of the adjoining Piazza

San Marco was completely changed by the new façade of the church, the

new front of the convent, and the building of the Academy of Arts on

the site of Lemmo Balducci’s hospital.[434] Here, in the alleys of

trees, were set up the antique sculptures, and in the house were kept

the cartoons and pictures which had been collected in the course of

years; here young artists studied from old and new models. Lorenzo,

most eager of collectors, knew how to appreciate love of art in others.

Not only to allied princes did he give great assistance in this

respect. When Commines returned from his embassy in 1478, he brought

home several beautiful medals of which the ‘Seigneur Laurens’ had made

him a present.[435]

The Medici did not confine their splendour to their town houses.

Lorenzo divided his time between the city and the country. His

appreciation of the beauties of nature made a sojourn at his villas

particularly agreeable to him; and following the example of his father

and grandfather, he frequently went to stay at Careggi, whose nearness

to the city facilitated the transaction of business; in the hot season

he went up to the more retired and cooler Cafaggiuolo or Trebbio. After

Careggi, however, his favourite abode was Poggio a Cajano. Half way

between Florence and Pistoja, ten miles from either city, on a low

hill, the last on the north-eastern slope of the Monte Albano, which

separates the plain of Pistoja from the valley of the Nievole and the

lower part of that of the Arno, stands Sangallo’s handsome building,

overlooking the green and fruitful valley watered by the Ombrone, and

made famous by Lorenzo’s poem of ‘Ambra.’ Travellers may now wander

through the well-cultivated grounds of the farm, and the park, twenty

or thirty years ago still full of gold pheasants, the descendants of

those procured by Lorenzo from Sicily; or cross the stream by means

of a suspension-bridge. The beauty of the place, and the admirable

arrangements made for purposes of husbandry by the owner of the villa,

were described by Poliziano at the end of his ‘Ambra’ (composed in

1485), and by Michele Verino in a letter to Simone Canigiani. An

aqueduct brought water from the neighbouring height of Bonistallo.

Besides the vegetable and fruit gardens there were large mulberry

plantations for rearing silk-worms, still a profitable business in

that district. On the low uplands were large stalls, paved with stone

for the sake of cleanliness, and with their four turrets resembling

little fortresses; here was kept a whole herd of fine cows which fed on

the rich pasture-lands and supplied the city of Florence with cheese,

an article which hitherto had had to be fetched from Lombardy. There

were plenty of calves and sheep; a breed of uncommonly large pigs had

been got from Calabria, and a breed of rabbits from Spain. Birds of

all kinds abounded, particularly water-fowl and quails. The quantity

of water made the soil fruitful, but there was ample provision for

manure.[436] It is interesting to see the statesman and patron of

literature and art occupied with agricultural interests, a liking

for which he had inherited from his grandfather, and to which he was

specially attracted by his strong feeling for nature.

Down to our own time the villa of Poggio a Cajano has kept up these

traditions side by side with its historic reminiscences. The very

ancient and noble family of the Cadolingi of Fucecchio had property

here which passed to the powerful Pistojan family of the Cancellieri,

and in 1420, by sale, to Palla Strozzi.[437] How and when the Medici

came into possession of it is unknown. That it should have changed

hands twice in a century is nothing astonishing, considering the

vicissitudes of families in those eventful times. Nowhere is one

so vividly reminded as here of Lorenzo il Magnifico, who actually

built the place as it is now. When his second son had mounted the

Papal chair, he caused the great hall to be decorated with frescoes

representing scenes from the old Roman world, and containing allusions

to home events. Paolo Giovio, a client of the Pope and of Cardinal

Giulio de’ Medici, chose the subjects; the animals bringing tribute

to Cæsar were painted by Andrea del Sarto; the triumph of Cicero,

which Poggio Bracciolini had compared to the return of Cosimo, by

Franciabigo; and some mythological representations by Jacopo da

Pontormo. Leo’s death interrupted the work, which was completed in 1580

by Alessandro Allori. In a Pietà forming the altar-piece of the village

church Giorgio Vasari placed the two patron saints of the Medici beside

the dead Saviour.[438]

In these stately and beautiful localities, both in the city and

country, active, energetic, comfortable, and cheerful life went on its

way in spite of a few natural troubles. Lorenzo never gave himself up

to senseless luxury such as many princes and cardinals indulged in;

but he was always a grand gentleman in the true sense of the words. He

never forgot that he was a Florentine citizen, as he loved to describe

himself; his correspondents adopted the same idea of him, and he

impressed the fact strongly upon his sons. At the same time he never

forgot that at home all eyes were fixed on him, and that abroad it was

he who represented the State. In his house and his villas there was

perpetual movement. Everybody and everything went to and fro in the

house of the man who stood at the head of all. Besides politics, he was

constantly engaged with family affairs and intercourse with scholars

and artists. He had many relations, and made good use of some of them.

Numerous families were intimately connected with his. Many were made

great by him; others, great already, he tried to attach more and more

to himself. He stood godfather to his own countrymen as well as to

foreign princes. When in 1490, Duke Alfonso of Calabria consented to be

sponsor for the son of Giuliano Gondi, a business friend of the Medici,

he asked Lorenzo to act as proxy for him.