Michelangelo that whosoever was present at the beginning of the dinner
took his seat after the master of the house, each according to his
rank; and the arrangement of the table was not altered for those who
came later, even though they were of higher rank. All the inmates of
the house who were not servants dined together; the young Buonarotti,
then in the earliest days of his apprenticeship, was a constant guest
at his patron’s table.[439] Besides the Academic and other learned
symposia, banquets were frequently given, both in the city and at
Careggi, in honour of distinguished foreigners or ambassadors, and
on festive occasions. Cristoforo Landino has left an account of a
banquet which was something between a dinner of scholars and a feast,
and was given by Lorenzo in his young days, when a noble Greek named
Philotimos, who traced his pedigree up to the time of Constantine
and prided himself greatly thereon, came to Florence accompanied by
an Athenian philosopher named Aretophilos, to condole with the young
Medici on the death of his father. Lorenzo rode out four miles to meet
his guests, and conducted them to his house, where he had assembled
the most distinguished literary men and the friends of the family.
Among the company were Gentile Becchi, Antonio degli Agli, Giorgio
Antonio Vespucci, Leon Battista Alberti, Ficino, Landino, Poliziano,
Argyropulos, his pupils Piero and Donato Acciaiuolo, and Alamanno
Rinuccini. The discourse at table and the claims of the proud Greek
furnished Landino with the materials for his treatise on true nobility,
which he dedicated to Lorenzo.[440] On these and suchlike occasions the
hospitality was on a grand and brilliant scale; but on ordinary days
Lorenzo kept his table within the modest limits befitting a citizen.
So Franceschetto Cybò discovered when he came on a visit in June 1488.
Roman lords and a number of other people accompanied the Pope’s son;
they wished to see the splendour of the house of Medici, of which all
the world spoke so much. Franceschetto stayed in his father-in-law’s
house; a fine palace was assigned to his companions. After a few days
passed in festivities, the visitor found a simple table. He wondered;
and when the dinner and supper were served in the same style, he began
to suspect that his companions might be treated in the same way. The
suspicion troubled him, knowing as he did with what expectations they
had come to Florence. He was therefore delighted to learn that they
continued to be most sumptuously entertained. Talking confidentially
with his father-in-law he mentioned the circumstance, whereupon Lorenzo
quietly answered that he had received him into his house as a son and
was treating him as such; to act otherwise would be to make a stranger
of him. The noble lords who had come with him to celebrate his marriage
were strangers; Lorenzo was treating them accordingly, as became his
position and theirs.
At the end of 1482 an illustrious German guest came to the Medici
house: Eberhard the Bearded Count of Würtemberg, son-in-law of Lodovico
Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, a connection which formed a natural
introduction to friendly relations with the Medici.[441] The count’s
learned companions have been already mentioned. Eberhard surveyed the
riches of the house, the handsome halls filled with plate and other
valuables, the library, the terrace with its evergreen fruit-trees
and the stables. What he saw here must have been a source of great
enjoyment to this highly accomplished prince, who combined a love of
native literature with a knowledge of antiquity, possessed a fine
library, and four years before had conferred a lasting benefit on
his admiring country by founding the university of Tübingen. He saw
the whole family, Lorenzo and his sons, Clarice and her daughters,
still all together in those days. He openly expressed his pleasure at
everything, both the house and its inhabitants. When he admired the
collection of books, greatly increased and with much discrimination
since Cosimo’s days, Lorenzo, with a play on the words _libri_ and
_liberi_, answered that his children were his greatest treasures. From
Florence Eberhard went to Rome, where Sixtus IV. presented him with the
golden rose.[442]
The German prince admired Lorenzo’s stud, and no doubt with justice.
Lorenzo had a passion for riding-horses, hunters, and racers. Presents,
purchases, and borrowing of horses occur over and over again in his
correspondence. In October 1488 he bought twenty mares at Naples, and
only a short time before his death horses for him were on their way
from Egypt and the coast of Barbary.[443] The taste of the Florentines
for horse-racing, with or without riders, and for which even in those
days there were regular horse-lenders, has been preserved down to our
own time; in the house of the Alessandri is shown a room whose walls
are entirely covered with brocades won as prizes by a horse belonging
to the family. Lorenzo always kept race-horses; one in particular,
called Morello from its dark colour, always came off victorious, and
was so attached to its master that it showed signs of illness when
he did not feed it with his own hand, and testified its joy at his
approach by stamping and loud neighing.[444] In his young days a
handsome Sicilian horse was presented to him, and its value was outdone
by that of the presents he gave in return. He himself made presents
of horses. In November 1479, when he was particularly anxious to keep
on good terms with Lodovico il Moro, he sent to Roberto Sanseverino,
who was at that time a confidant of the Moro, a fine horse and a
falcon.[445] Letters about their horses passed between Lorenzo and
King Ferrante, the Este family, the Sforzas of Pesaro, and others. In
January 1473 the king thanked Lorenzo for the gift of a horse about
which his ambassador, Marino Tomacelli, had written to him. Four
years after he announced that he was sending Lorenzo two racers, a
Sicilian and another, from his own stud, and two hunters, as tokens of
his attachment. Horses of the king’s, lent for the Florentine races,
were on their way at the time of the Pazzi catastrophe.[446] It was,
moreover, the custom to send horses to allied nobles and cities, to
keep them for the races; those of the Medici went to both Ferrara
and Lucca. When Giovanni Sforza of Pesaro was going to be married to
Maddalena Gonzaga at the end of the summer of 1489, he begged Lorenzo
to lend him one of his horses for the tournament to be held on the
occasion. In Lorenzo’s latter years his eldest son had the direction of
the stables.[447]
Lorenzo has left in his pretty and cheerful description of the
hawking-party a graceful memorial of his love of the sport. Hawking was
an old pastime always in great favour with princes and nobles. Dante’s
master, Brunetto Latini, mentions in his ‘Treasury’ seven species of
falcons which served for the chase. Two contemporaries of Lorenzo paid
special attention to the training of these birds: the King of Naples,
who imported the best falcons from Rhodes with the permission of the
grand-master of the Hospitallers, and Ercole d’Este, to whom Lorenzo
gave leave to catch the birds on his estates in the Pisan territory. In
return for this the duke sent to Lorenzo some of his own well-trained
falcons for the purpose of the chase or to help in training his wild
ones, and the king several times made him presents of hawks, as he
did also to Maximilian of Austria, Ferdinand of Castile, Galeazzo
Maria Sforza, and others.[448] The wide, well-wooded and watered plain
of Pisa, and the lowlands and hills round Poggio a Cajano, were the
scenes of the chase. On December 1, 1475, Angelo Poliziano, who was
seldom absent from either studies or sports, wrote from Pisa to Madonna
Clarice, then expecting her confinement (the child was afterwards
Pope Leo):[449] ‘Yesterday we went hawking. It was windy and we were
unlucky, for we lost Pilato’s falcon called Mantovano. To-day we tried
again, and again the wind was contrary; yet we had some fine flights,
for Maestro Giorgio let loose his falcon, which returned obediently
at a given signal. Lorenzo is quite in love with the bird, and not
without justice, for Maestro Giorgio says he has never seen one larger
or finer, and he hopes to make him the best falcon in the world. While
we were in the field Pilato returned from the shore with the truant
of yesterday, which redoubled Lorenzo’s pleasure. We are hawking from
morning till night, and do nothing else. On Monday I hear our sport is
to be varied by a deer-hunt.’
Independently of hunting, Lorenzo liked being in Pisa, and it was
not his fault that the unfortunate city’s relations with Florence
did not improve, and that she could not accustom herself to bear the
position of a subject city. Even when not called there by business,
he frequently stayed there. From his youth up he was in the habit of
leaving Florence to meet friends for change, for hunting or to see
after his great estate at Agnano. This place, first a fortress and then
a villa round which had gathered a population of a few hundreds, lies
on the western slope of the Monte San Giuliano, four miles from Pisa,
near marshes which Valori says Lorenzo would have drained if he had
lived longer, and which mostly are drained now. A large pine-wood forms
part of the estate, which in Lorenzo’s days furnished a considerable
quantity of corn and oil, and with other possessions in the Maremma of
Pisa, at Colle Salvetti (now one of the stations on the railway which
passes through the plain to Civita Vecchia), at Colmezzano, and other
places, formed a most important part of the Medici landed property.
Lorenzo’s letters bear testimony to the great care he took in the
improvement of husbandry in this hitherto sadly neglected part. Like
Spedaletto, Agnano passed to Maddalena Cybò; her son Lorenzo, who was
not on very good terms with his wife—Ricciarda Malaspina, heiress of
Massa and Carrara—ended his days there in 1549.[450] After Lorenzo
had re-established the University of Pisa, its interests frequently
called him to the city. During the disastrous fight for Sarzana he made
Pisa a sort of head-quarters. The house then inhabited by the Medici,
now belonging to the Pieracchi family, stands not far from the upper
bridge over the Arno—the Ponte della Fortezza—on the right bank,
near the church of San Matteo. Here is said to have occurred, seventy
years after Lorenzo’s death, that domestic tragedy which has never been
cleared up, and which casts a dark shadow over the history of the first
Medicean grand-duke.
In Lorenzo’s days the house was more cheerful. Here, probably, was the
scene of his discourse with Federigo of Aragon on Italian poetry; here
he passed some pleasant days in April 1476. He came by San Miniato,
where a halt was always made, with six-and-twenty horses. ‘We rode
along,’ wrote Poliziano to Clarice,[451] ‘singing, and sometimes
talking theology in order not to forget this season of fasting; Lorenzo
was triumphant. At San Miniato we tried to read some of St. Augustine,
but the reading was soon exchanged for music and for polishing up
a figure of a dancer which we found there.’ There was no lack of
merriment and jesting wherever Lorenzo went; the Pisan students found
him a ready supporter of their carnaval gaieties, at which they were
permitted to take away the instruction-books from the professors and to
spend on festivities the money paid to ransom them. The attribution to
Lorenzo of the combat on the middle bridge over the Arno (_Giuoco del
Ponte_), at which the ground was disputed between armed bands on either
side, and which was forbidden by the Grand-Duke Leopold I. on account
of its fatal episodes, is a mistake; traces of it may be found in much
earlier times.
It was in Pisa, at the end of May 1477, that Lorenzo received Eleonora
of Aragon, wife of Duke Ercole of Ferrara; she had come by way of Lucca
to attend her father’s marriage at Naples, whither she was conveyed by
a royal fleet which had anchored at Livorno.[452] As long as Filippo
de’ Medici was Archbishop of Pisa, and his brother Tanai dwelt there,
there was no lack of grand hospitality; Luigi Pulci mentions the
festivities during the presence of the Duke of Calabria in the war of
Colleone.[453] Other than cheerful purposes called Lorenzo to Pisa.
He sought in its mild air relief from physical sufferings; as in the
autumn of 1474, after being cured of fever by the waters of Porretta.
He stopped at Pisa, at a critical moment of his life, before embarking
for Naples. In the little church of Sta. Maria della Spina, whose
spires and pinnacles are seen adjoining the quay on the south shore,
in 1485 he ordered for the victims of the Sarzana struggle requiems to
be sung, at which he was present together with the widow of Bongianni
Gianfigliazzi, who had met his death in the unhealthy air of the
Lunigiana coast.[454]
Lorenzo’s visits to the baths played a great part in his life, though
they never took him beyond the borders of Tuscany. Gout was hereditary
in his family; his grandfather, his father, and his uncle all suffered
from it, and his mother too was not exempt. When only twenty-six he
was obliged to take the waters of Porretta, which still attract so
many invalids to the valley of the Reno in the Apennines, on the road
between Pistoja and Bologna. His most frequent resort was Bagno a
Morba, where Madonna Lucrezia had a house and stayed frequently, and
in his latter years he had the water sent to Spedaletto. Most of the
Tuscan baths were anything but inviting; some are not more so now.
In the Roman territory they are still worse; Ser Matteo Franco,
describing the baths of Stigliano near the lake of Bracciano, remarks
that in comparison with this place Bagno a Morba was a Careggi. Lorenzo
tried other medicinal waters. In the autumn of 1484, after the taking
of Pietrasanta, he went to the baths of San Filippo in the Sienese
country. These remarkable thermal springs are reached by turning out
of the old Roman high-road at the little village of Ricorsi, at the
foot of the inhospitable height of Radicofani, and proceeding through
the valley of the Orcia towards the stately group of Mont’Amiata,
covered throughout its 5,000 feet of height with chestnuts and
beeches, and surrounded with a girdle of villages. The springs lie in
a deep ravine encircled with woods; a precipitate of carbonic acid
and lime forms a marble-like crust, and the waters are an efficacious
remedy for arthritic disorders as well as for skin-diseases. It is a
desolate place, with only a few houses destined for the reception of
invalids, in the narrow valley where oppressive heat alternates with
a damp cold atmosphere. In autumn of the following year, and several
times afterwards, Lorenzo came again. In the spring of 1490 he spent
some time at the baths of Vignone in the same valley of the Orcia, a
little southwards of San Quirico. Powerful thermal springs, similar
to those mentioned above, issue from a travertine hill in the middle
of the village, and fill a large basin; they were known in Roman
times. Here Ermolao Barbaro visited Lorenzo, and Franceschetto Cybò
and his wife kept him company; at that season the place was safe, but
in summer the air can hardly be borne even by natives. Lorenzo’s stay
at Filetto in the valley of the Merse has already been mentioned. All
these water-cures only gave temporary relief to his malady, and the
short time he usually devoted to them would have prevented any lasting
result even if his maladies had been less rooted and less complicated.
Besides, even after his health had suffered considerably, his mode of
life was not exactly regular. He not only exerted himself too much in
attending to business of all kinds, public and private, which poured
in upon him surrounded as he was by many cares, but he was always
involved in love intrigues. Bartolommea de’ Nasi, the wife of Donato
Benci, held him in her chains for years; she was neither young nor
beautiful, but graceful and attractive. Even in winter he would ride
out in the evening to her villa to be back in the city before daybreak.
Two confidants, Luigi della Stufa and Andrea de’ Medici, were his
usual companions. They got tired of it, and their remarks came to the
ears of the lady; whereupon she managed to have them punished by being
sent off on diplomatic errands, the one to Cairo and the other to
Constantinople—an old and well-worn contrivance which, in this case,
caused a sensation of a nature not very favourable to the great man,
‘who behaved himself like an inexperienced youth.’[455]
The princely dignity which Lorenzo enjoyed was as apparent in his
relations with foreign rulers as in his position in his own country,
in his own house, and in his journeys. The former have been repeatedly
mentioned. Everyone made use of him; everyone applied to him; everyone
gave him thanks and presents, from antiquities down to sweet-smelling
essences, which the Duchess of Calabria sent him. He sent his friends
and acquaintances presents of books, works of art, horses, wine, and
other things. In June 1489 he presented a vase full of balm to Anne
de Beaujeu, ‘Madama di Belgiù.’ Venison and fish seem to have been
favourite gifts on the part of communities and individuals; on one day
five wild boars were taken to Lorenzo’s house.
A great event, which has left its trace in the history of art by a
representation in a fresco at Poggio a Cajano, was an embassy from
Abu Nasr Kaitbei, Sultan of Egypt, or of Babylonia as he was called,
which arrived at Florence on November 11, 1487, and was honourably
and joyfully received by the foreign ambassadors and many of the
citizens.[456] It was a fortunate time for the Republic, which had a
few months before got rid of the dreary affair of Sarzana, and had
now entered on a period of comparative peace which was not disturbed
till the revolution of 1494. Italian affairs were of considerable
importance to the Egyptian sultan, not only on account of commerce
but also politically, on account of his relations with Naples and
Venice; difficulties with this latter state might easily have been
created by the sultan’s claims to the suzerainty of Cyprus, where
Caterina Cornaro continued to reign as a queen of shadows till 1489,
under the protection of Venice. The sultan’s eyes often turned towards
the west as the progress of the Osmanli threatened an attack on the
loosely connected empire of the Mamelukes, which, indeed, fell before
their better-compacted power within less than thirty years. After the
subjection of Pisa, Florence had frequent commercial relations with
Egypt, and a desire to enlarge and secure its privileges gave rise to
negotiations for which an Egyptian ambassador named Malphet came to
Florence in 1487, and in the following year a Florentine, the aforesaid
Luigi della Stufa, went to Cairo.[457] The former was sent at once to
the Signoria of the Republic and to the ‘Hakim’ (lord) Lorenzo de’
Medici, and brought rich presents for both. On Sunday, November 18,
he had a solemn audience of the Signoria in presence of many of the
chief citizens. He had led before him a giraffe and a tame lion, gifts
from the sultan. The giraffe was no novelty to the Florentines, for
one had been already seen at the festivals with which the visit of
Pius II. was celebrated; and the lion, the emblem of the commonwealth,
was always carefully kept here, alive as well as in effigy. A street
behind the palace of the Signoria took its name from the lion-cage,
afterwards removed to the square of San Marco. A Sicilian interpreter
translated the conversation, which turned on the privileges offered
to the Florentines in Egypt and Syria. For Lorenzo the ambassador
brought gifts of various kinds: an Arabian horse, rare animals, among
which were rams and sheep of various colours, with long hanging ears
and tails; several horns of civet, a lamp with balsam, a quantity of
aloe-wood, beautiful many coloured porcelain such as had never before
been seen, vases of preserves, and rich and finely woven silk and linen
stuffs.[458] There was a great festival in the Medici household when
all these rarities were brought home; Madonna Clarice was absent, being
then at Rome with Maddalena. Among Lorenzo’s gifts to the sultan is
mentioned a bed, carried by a special messenger.
Whenever Lorenzo went to the baths or left home for any purpose, he
was everywhere received like a prince. The municipalities within the
Florentine dominions were accustomed to send yearly presents to the
capital on certain feasts, and they did not neglect to send offerings
to the head of the Republic. After the fashion of the times these gifts
usually consisted of provisions and goods for the house. When Lorenzo
was expected, early in 1485, at San Gemignano, on his way to Bagno a
Morba, but took another route, the municipality, which had voted 100
lire for his reception, sent to Morba a load of Greek wine, capons,
marchpane and wax.[459] The Signoria of Siena, though they had not
a few complaints against Lorenzo, honoured him in a similar manner
when he was in their territory. During his stay at Vignone they sent
ample provisions for his table.[460] His suite was unusually numerous.
A list of the persons he once took with him to Morba[461] names the
following: a chaplain, Filippo (Ubaldini) da Gagliano, Francesco degli
Organi (Squarcialupi), a house-steward, two chancellors (secretaries),
two singers, Bertoldo the sculptor, a barber, two valets, a butler,
five crossbowmen, ten grooms, an equerry, a cook, a kitchen-boy, and
a coachman. For these thirty-two persons fourteen beds were required.
His family, too, when they travelled without him, were everywhere
received in the most distinguished manner possible. A letter of their
faithful, cheerful friend, Matteo Franco, gives a lively sketch of a
journey on horseback made by Clarice in May 1485, from Morba, where she
had been with her husband, through the Volterra district and the Elsa
valley to Florence. At all the places where she stopped, especially at
Colle, where the first halt for sleeping was made (the second was at
Passignano, where stood the great abbey given to Giovanni de’ Medici),
everybody was astir; yet friendly intercourse was combined with a
ceremonious reception.
Whether in town, in the country, or on a journey, Lorenzo was always
surrounded by friends, whose names are inseparable from his. Most
of them have become known in the course of this history; various
characters, of whom more than one may be differently judged, according
to whether we view them in private life and in their confidential
relations, or as public men, authors or otherwise. First come those
who were the guides of his youth or whom he knew in his father’s
house; Gentile Becchi, who remained a member of the Medicean household
even after his appointment to the see of Arezzo, as bishops were not
required to reside too strictly; Ficino, Landino, and Poliziano. Then
those who, having been friends of his parents, attached themselves to
him in his youth and manhood; or those who first came in contact with
him in his mature years; Luigi Pulci, Matteo Franco, Bartolommeo Scala,
Pico della Mirandola—besides those who were drawn to him by political
and allied interests, and who zealously served him and, in his sense of
the word, the State, without forgetting themselves. On each and all
Lorenzo had a deep and lasting influence; he was the centre around
which all revolved, the link that bound all together, however much
a few of the disaffected ones might try to fight against it. Their
attachment to him was not forced or selfish; the affection expressed
in Pulci’s letters and Poliziano’s verses had nothing artificial about
it. Lorenzo was a genial man, cordial and kind, a born prince, simple
and natural. In his intercourse with the scholars and artists who were
in some sense dependent on him, the relation of patron and client was
forgotten. Their letters to him, grave and gay, are proofs of their
confidence and intimacy. If they address him as ‘Magnifico,’ they soon
follow it up with a plain ‘Lorenzo.’ In the midst of the war-troubles
of 1479, Donatello’s pupil Bertoldo wrote Lorenzo a letter full of
fun, to the effect that it was more profitable to be a cook than an
artist;[462] and the famous Niccolò Grosso, called Caparra, in reality
a blacksmith, but who executed works of art, would not fulfil Lorenzo’s
orders till he had executed others he had received first.[463] How
entirely constraint was banished in intercourse with him is shown
by his conversation with the mosaic-worker Graffione, a pupil of
Baldovinetti. Lorenzo once said he would like to adorn the inside of
the dome of the Cathedral with mosaics. ‘For that you could not get
masters,’ replied Graffione. ‘We have money enough to get masters,’
was the probably half-jesting answer. ‘Eh, Lorenzo,’ exclaimed the
artist, ‘it is not the money that procures the masters, but the masters
who procure the money!’ He bore with their humours and oddities; he
honoured them living and dead, feeling that their fame would add to
his own. Had he done nothing for art beyond the cordial and almost
fatherly reception which he, a powerful and much-envied man of mature
years, gave to Michelangelo when the latter was almost in his boyhood,
that alone would make his memory illustrious. On his death-bed he
desired once more to see the friends in whose society he had passed his
happiest hours, and whose attachment followed him beyond the grave.
Notwithstanding many disturbances caused by political events,
increasing bad health, and several deaths in the family, still life was
cheerful in the Medici household. Music was a daily pleasure. Lorenzo’s
poetical talents attached him to this art, and his unmusical voice
did not hinder him from taking a part in singing. Marsilio relates
that he did so at a social gathering which apparently took its name of
_La Mammola_ (the Violet) from a still existing hostelry. Thus, too,
one evening, when he was singing the mysteries of love, he originated
a discussion as to whether subjects in which mourning occurred were
appropriate, which Ficino decided in the affirmative.[464] In his
poetical productions he reckoned much on musical effect, a necessary
condition of songs for dancing and for the carnaval. As long as his
health permitted he was never absent from the merry processions at
which popular melodies alternated with those of Heinrich Isaak; and on
journeys, at the May-festivals and other times of gaiety there was no
lack of musical accompaniments to the verses of Poliziano and other
friends. Although from Guido Aretino down to the father of Galileo,
Tuscany produced no remarkable composer or writer on music, yet the
people were always musical. Ficino was doubly welcome when he appeared
with his plectrum, after the pattern of the earliest half-deified
apostles of Greek culture, to secure a better reception for ancient
philosophy by his strains delighting the ear and winning the heart. As
in Poliziano’s ‘Orpheus,’ Baccio Ugolini accompanied on the lyre the
ode in praise of Cardinal Gonzaga, so did Marsilio when extemporising,
in which art he was a master.
One of Lorenzo’s protégés was the organ-builder Antonio Squarcialupi,
who, as a precentor, had been a familiar of the house in Piero’s
time. His life and conversation seem not to have been blameless; but
Lorenzo took him under his protection for the sake of his uncommon
talent. ‘If you knew,’ he said once to those who blamed him, ‘what it
is to attain perfection in anything, you would judge him more gently
and modestly.’[465] Squarcialupi set to music many of the songs of his
patron, who, it is said, composed the inscription for his tomb. To
the friendship of the Medici he owed the epigram in which Poliziano
called upon Florence to honour with a marble monument him who had long
been the voice of her temple.[466] The man really must have possessed
rare artistic merits; for a son of the Count of Altavilla—one of the
guests at the Salutati banquet—came to Florence with an introduction
from King Ferrante to Lorenzo, to study the organ and other instruments
under Squarcialupi; and ten years later a clergyman named Stephen came
from Ofen, with a recommendation from Matthias Corvinus, to learn
organ-building.[467] In 1477 a lute-player of Lodovico Sforza’s suite
came to Florence to be heard by the famous master.[468] Organ-building,
as well as organ-playing, was a somewhat rare art. The difficulty of
finding good masters is shown by the trouble and loss of time caused
in Cosimo’s days to the committee entrusted with the building of the
Cathedral, through the untrustworthiness of Matteo da Prato, who had
undertaken to furnish the new organs, to be decorated by Donatello
and Luca della Robbia. Lorenzo took great interest in this branch of
music. Many of his letters relate to organists recommended by him to
various Tuscan towns, or sent from one place to another. At his death
there were in his house no less than five organs; one large one with
a finely-carved wooden case, the rest smaller, partly metal, partly
paste-board, which was then used for these instruments.[469] Musicians
were included among the servants; and in the evenings there was singing
and playing on the lute. Michelangelo in his later years used to tell
of a man who was called the _Cardiere_, and who was a great favourite
with Lorenzo on account of his wonderful talent for improvising songs
to an instrumental accompaniment.[470] Lorenzo also looked after the
musical education of his children. ‘The evening before last,’ wrote
Poliziano to him at Bagno a Morba on June 5, 1490,[471] ‘I unexpectedly
heard our Piero sing, and then he and his companions came to my room.
He pleased me exceedingly, especially in the motetts and answers to
the strophes, and also by his charms of articulation. I felt as if I
were listening to your Magnificence.’ Leo X. had through life a true
passion for music and improvisation. As a cardinal, his palace near
Sant’Eustachio (Palazzo Madama) continually resounded with instruments
and singing; and in the Vatican music and poetry vied with each other,
and both improvisers and musicians made their fortunes with the Pope.
It is needless to repeat how closely poetry was intertwined with the
life of the Medici. The taste for it was hereditary. Cosimo the elder,
Lorenzo, his brother Giuliano, all wrote poetry; so did the younger
Piero and others of the family. As a child Lorenzo’s daughter Lucrezia
knew by heart the spiritual songs of her grandmother;[472] and the
songs of the ‘Morgante’ were first heard in the Medici house when
Lucrezia Tornabuoni took part in them. Many of Poliziano’s poems were
evidently intended to be recited to his patron; and when he relates
in a letter[473] how one asked him for sermons for the brotherhoods,
another for carnaval songs, one wanted sentimental songs for the viola,
another gay serenades, it is probable that he referred to members of
the society he met in the house of the Medici. One can fancy Pulci
and Matteo Franco sending satirical shafts in the form of sonnets at
each other across the table. In the ‘Beoni’ and ‘Nencia,’ evidently
intended for gay meetings, Lorenzo himself gave the signal for poetical
entertainments and contests; Pulci once answered him with the ‘Beca
da Dicomano.’ The poetic gifts of his eldest son are displayed in the
latter’s productions; the verses written by him in exile show more
depth of feeling than one would have given him credit for. In his
youth, at least, his contemporaries seem to have judged him favourably.
In a sonnet of Antonio da Pistoja on the poets of the time, both Piero
and his father are mentioned, and the praise bestowed on them gains
weight from the fact that Poliziano alone is placed above them:—
Who among Tuscans doth in verse excel?
In vulgar tongue? Aye, and in Latin speech.
Lorenzo and his son write passing well,
But neither can Politian’s glory reach.[474]
Piero’s letters to his father, on literary and other subjects, display
sound judgment, information, and lively interest. His boyish letters,
indeed, are of little consequence; and when, as a lad of fourteen, he
writes from the villa to his father at San Filippo, giving an account
of his own studies and those of his brother Giovanni, with whom he
was reading Virgil’s Bucolics, thereby, as he said, gaining double
profit,[475] his master’s hand is clearly traceable. But there are
other letters worthy of consideration, such as that on the visit of
Ermolao Barbaro. Although Poliziano’s descriptions of his pupil and
of the young Cardinal Giovanni lose much of their effect and even
spoil their subjects by exaggeration, yet it cannot be disputed that
Lorenzo’s eldest son, though he did not possess his father’s prudence
and calculation (a want which may perhaps be explained and excused by
the degree of splendour, fortune, and grandeur at which Lorenzo left
the personal government in his hands), yet did possess many of his
intellectual qualities. The time during which he continued to hold
the government was too short and too much disturbed by preludes of
the coming storm to furnish premisses for a decisive judgment of him;
neither can such a judgment be fairly founded on his conduct in exile,
which may be mistaken even by the keenest eye.
Piero’s wife can hardly have had a good influence on him. Alfonsina
Orsini was infinitely less fitted than her mother-in-law for Florentine
life and manners. In her nature the pride of the Roman barons seems to
have been combined with covetousness and hardness, whereby she made
herself very much disliked in later years, when her brother-in-law
was Pope and she was a great deal in Rome, where she died in 1520.
Her husband’s three sisters, Lucrezia, Maddalena, and Contessina,
the wife of Piero Ridolfi, were frequently at their father’s house.
Maddalena, whose daughter Lucrezia was born at Rome early in 1490,
became at Florence, on August 24 of the following year, the mother
of a son who was christened Innocenzo after the Pope, received the
red hat from Leo X., and, with his cousins Cardinals Salviati and
Ridolfi, played some part in Florence after the murder of the first
duke. All three sisters afterwards attached themselves to the court
of Leo X. in a way which threw no favourable light on his financial
arrangements; and the influence of Lucrezia, doubtless the most highly
gifted of the three, lasted beyond her brother’s lifetime throughout
the whole reign of her cousin Clement VII., with whom her husband,
Jacopo Salviati (father of the cardinal), was very intimate, till the
Pope’s proceedings in 1529 against the city of his fathers estranged
the relatives. In one of Ariosto’s satires, invaluable for a study
of the manners and general circumstances of the early years of the
sixteenth century, he introduces Lorenzo’s posterity and their friends
rejoicing at the elevation of Leo X.,—a rejoicing destined to be of
short duration.[476] There were numerous other members of the family,
rich and poor, nearly and distantly connected. The nearest branch was,
of course, that descended from Cosimo’s brother Lorenzo, whose chief
representative at this time was the oft-mentioned Lorenzo, son of Pier
Francesco. One of those admitted to the closest intimacy was a distant
cousin, Andrea. As long as the daughters remained at home Lorenzo
insisted on their dressing modestly and simply, in conformity to the
sumptuary laws. Certain materials he never would allow them, because
they resembled the forbidden crimson cloth, although many other grand
ladies wore them without scruple. He himself was never distinguished
from other citizens in outward apparel. In winter he wore a violet
mantle with a hood, and in summer the _lucco_: the long red robe of the
upper class of citizens, still the usual dress of the magistrates. It
is mentioned that he got Venetian silk for his dress. To elderly people
he always offered his hand and gave the place of honour, and what he
taught his sons he first followed himself.
Lorenzo’s observations generally were very pointed without falling into
the sarcasm of his grandfather. When the Sienese jurist Bartolommeo
Sozzini repeated the old reproach against the air of Florence that it
was bad for the sight (‘An ancient saying calls her people blind’)
before Lorenzo, who suffered from weak eyes, Lorenzo replied that the
air of Siena was worse still; it was bad for the brains. When the same
man, having broken his plighted word in leaving Pisa secretly, on being
caught and imprisoned complained of the punishment as unbecoming his
position, Lorenzo answered that the dishonour was not in the punishment
but in the unworthy action. He said of those who built recklessly that
they were buying repentance dear; and when his cousin Pier Francesco,
having begun at Majano a building which he kept on altering as the
work proceeded, complained that the expense far exceeded the estimate,
he exclaimed: ‘No wonder; others build according to their plans, you
make your plans after the building.’ When Carlo de’ Medici, who seems
not to have been over-nice in his methods of getting money, boasted
of the quantity of water round his villa, Lorenzo remarked that he
would have to keep his hands all the cleaner. That he also had a turn
for practical joking, which, as has been seen, was an ingredient in
Florentine life, is shown by the history of the troublesome parasitical
doctor Maestro Manente, whom he caused to be taken one evening, when
drunk, by two men in disguise, and shut up in a place unknown to him
outside the city, and given out for dead. When the supposed dead man at
last got home, his wife, who took him for a ghost, would not let him in
till the enchantment of which he was supposed to have been the victim
was cleared up by the intervention of others.[477] This trick evidently
recalls the story of the fat cabinet-maker.
In a letter to Lodovico Odasio, Poliziano has left a description of
his patron and friend in graver conversation.[478] ‘Think not that
any one of our learned brethren, even those whose very life’s work
is study, can surpass Lorenzo de’ Medici in acuteness of disputation
and in formulating a conclusion; or that he is inferior to anyone in
the easy, graceful, and varied expression of his ideas. Historical
examples occur to him as readily as to the most accomplished of his
companions; and whenever the subject of the discourse admits of it,
his conversation is richly seasoned with the salt of the ocean from
which Venus rose.’ Poliziano, the confidential friend of the house,
who was never absent either from the literary symposia or from the
narrower circle of friends, in time of joy or in time of mourning,
understood Lorenzo thoroughly, and his judgment may be accepted.
Many of Lorenzo’s sayings have been preserved which bear witness to
the soundness of his judgment, or in some way reflect credit on him.
He said once: ‘As a healthy body resists the influence of a storm, so
a state can brave dangers when the citizens are of one mind.’ When
Filippo Valori (brother of his biographer) was desirous but yet afraid
to try to reconcile Lorenzo with Antonio Tebalducci, against whom the
latter had grounds for complaint, Lorenzo said to him: ‘To recommend a
friend to me would be no merit, but for making an opponent my friend
I thank thee, and I beg thee to do it again in the like case.[479]
Only he who knows how to forgive knows how to conquer,’ he added.[480]
The combination of prince and citizen, statesman and man of letters;
the mixture of gravity and gaiety, of lofty intellect and cheerful
participation in everyday life, of grandeur and simplicity in his
household and family, of sagacious calculation and hearty unfeigned
good nature,—all this makes Lorenzo de’ Medici an unusual figure, very
attractive in its individuality, and accounts for the impression he
made on all; especially, and most lastingly, on those who were intimate
at his house and had the opportunity of observing him in private.
CHAPTER IV.
THE CARDINALATE OF GIOVANNI DE’ MEDICI.
BOTH contemporary and later writers have passed an unfavourable
judgment on Pope Innocent VIII. ‘Though the life of Innocent VIII. was
useless for the general good,’ remarks Guicciardini at the beginning
of his great history, ‘at least it was useful thus far, in that,
frightened at his unsuccessful attempt to meddle in the Barons’ War,
during the remainder of his pontificate he directed his attention to
trifles instead of planning for himself and his belongings things which
might have disturbed the peace of Italy.’ This negative praise is not
without truth, but it gives little insight into the character and aims
of the Pope. His greatest faults were weakness and inconsistency:
hence the sorry part which he played as a ruler, although he had no
tendency towards nepotism and was gifted with sound judgment. It was
his weakness which made him abandon the affairs of Aquila and of the
Barons, and caused his ever-wavering conduct towards the King of
Naples. The latter alternately lured and contemptuously defied him,
rendered the treatment of his own restless feudatories uncertain, and
provoked disturbances in Rome which led to the robbing of the papal
treasury by the Pope’s own son. Yet that son, compared with the nephews
of the last Pope—not to mention the one who followed—was but very
modestly provided for; so barely indeed that, but for the resources of
the Medici, Franceschetto Cybò, at the Pope’s death, would have been,
for one in his position, a poor man. It was long before Innocent
made up his mind to do anything serious for him; and considering the
traditions of all the Papal ‘nephews,’ the Colonna, Piccolomini, Della
Rovere, and Riari, it may be well imagined that Franceschetto became
impatient; more so, perhaps, as the Pope’s health was failing owing to
the two apoplectic attacks he had had in January 1485, and in February
of the following year, during which he had been given up for dead.
‘These occurrences,’ remarks his biographer,[481] ‘made his family
anxious to secure their position for the future, and they begged the
Pope to make provision for this while it was yet time.’
But they gained little, and not till after Franceschetto’s marriage did
his circumstances begin really to improve. Lorenzo was not behindhand
with his persuasions: ‘It is not without a blush,’ he wrote on February
26, 1488,[482] ‘that I commend to your Holiness the affairs of
Signor Francesco; for it seems to me unreasonable to commend to your
Holiness that which for natural reasons must be nearer your heart than
anything else. My letters and intercession cannot in reason have more
weight than the natural relationship between your Holiness and Signor
Francesco; but as I see that his affairs proceed very slowly, I feel I
ought not to refuse him my recommendation and every other support. As
he is, he tells me, very happy in possessing Maddalena, this should be
to your Holiness an occasion for treating him so as to please me too.
This will be the case if his position becomes such as shall befit the
dignity of your Holiness and set my mind at rest. I never had any idea
that your Holiness should take anything from others, or give offence
to any, in order to make him great. As this would be dishonourable
and contrary to the nature of your Holiness, so, on the other hand, I
think that it would not be in accordance with your natural kindness and
goodness if your Holiness did not provide for him, as he can easily
be portioned in a manner befitting his rank without any injury to
others. I humbly beg your Holiness to relieve yourself as well as me
of this trouble, and establish him so that further importunity shall
be needless. Thus your Holiness will be doing a work worthy of your
goodness, not only sensible and pious, but necessary, and greatly
desired by me, as a good example for all those who set their hopes on
your Holiness.’
Still the Pope was far too slow for Franceschetto’s impatience, and
seems to have had no great opinion of the latter’s judgment. The
son-in-law’s letters to his father-in-law are full of complaints which
really display Innocent in a more honourable light than those by whom
he was thus beset. ‘Like the ox, he needs the goad.’ This was a son
writing of his father, and that father the Pope! Lorenzo was not much
behind his son-in-law. One of his letters to the Pope[483] is but too
glaring an example of the profane tone in which this man, who could
display such a refined sense of decorum in other things, addressed
with the utmost coolness the very head of the Church. Innocent had had
another of his attacks of illness, and Lorenzo was getting anxious:
‘As St. Francis, by means of the stigmata, experienced in his own
body the Passion of Christ, so do I feel in and about myself all the
sufferings of your Holiness; for, putting aside other reasons, I have
the situation of our dear Signor Francesco and of many servants of your
Holiness very much at heart. Owing to your Holiness’ conscientious
holding back, all these remain almost empty-handed and have no part
of the fortune and favour which God has given your Holiness for your
merits; so that, should your Holiness be called away, which God
forbid, they would sink likewise into the grave. More especially,
however, am I moved, as must be the case with your Holiness also, by
the position of poor Signor Francesco, who, after five years of your
pontificate, is only just beginning to have something he can call his
own. Your Holiness knows better than I what supporters he has in the
Sacred College. The history of the Popes shows how few have reigned
much beyond five years, and how many have not waited so long before
showing themselves as Popes, without giving way to such scruples and
forbearance, justifiable no doubt before God and man, but which, if
they last long, may be misconstrued. Perhaps I seem too bold; but zeal
and conscience impose upon me the duty of speaking freely and reminding
you that men are not immortal, that a Pope is what he chooses to be,
that he cannot leave his pontificate to his heirs, and can call nothing
his own but honour and glory and what he does for his relatives.
Instead of depending on health and luck, your Holiness should not put
off doing what you project, and for which later there might perhaps
be no opportunity. Above all I commend to you your and my dear Signor
Francesco and Maddalena, who pray God to grant your Holiness a long
life that you may set their affairs in order. It is now about time to
release these holy fathers from Limbo, that their fate may not be like
that of the Jews waiting for the Messiah.’
While the Pope was thus plagued about secular matters, it was much the
same with ecclesiastical ones. In both cases the object was one and
the same—increase of riches and power. Everything was regarded and
treated from this point of view; of anything beyond, politicians—even
highly-gifted ones like Lorenzo—had no conception. Lorenzo was
impatient to get property for Franceschetto Cybò, he was still more
impatient to get the red hat for his own son. Giovanni was born on
December 11, 1475, and was consequently in his ninth year when Innocent
became Pope.[484] Some preparations had been made even then: ‘Cousin,’
wrote Louis XI. from Plessis-les-Tours on February 3, 1483, in reply to
Lorenzo who had applied to him on the death of Cardinal d’Estouteville,
‘I have seen what you wrote to me concerning the benefices of the
Cardinal of Rouen, and much regret not to have known thereof sooner;
for I should be very pleased if your son should obtain a good provision
and benefice in my kingdom.’
The king was as good as his word; that same spring he conferred on the
child not only the abbacy of Font Doulce in the diocese of Saintes,
but also the archbishopric of Aix, which was supposed to be vacant.
‘On May 19, 1483,’ says Lorenzo in his memoirs,[485] ‘news came that
the King of France, of his own free will, had conferred the abbacy
of Font Doulce on our Giovanni; and on the 31st we heard from Rome
that the Pope (Sixtus IV.) had confirmed the appointment, declared
him capable of holding benefices at the age of seven, and appointed
him a protonotary.[486] On June 1, Giovanni, accompanied by me, came
from Poggio (a Cajano) to Florence, whereupon he was confirmed and
tonsured by the Lord Bishop of Arezzo, and was thenceforth called
Messer Giovanni. The aforesaid ceremonies took place in our private
chapel, and in the evening we returned to Poggio. On the morning of
June 8, Jacopino the courier came with a letter from the French king,
whereof the contents were that he had conferred on our Messer Giovanni
the archbishopric of Aix in Provence. In the evening he went on to
Rome with letters from the king to the Pope and the Cardinal of Maçon
(Philibert Hugonet), and at the same time a courier was sent to Forlì
with a letter for Count Girolamo. On the 11th the courier came back
from Forlì with letters from the count for the Pope and San Giorgio
(Cardinal Riario), which were forwarded to Rome by the Milanese post.
May God direct all for good. On the same day, after mass, all the
children, except Messer Giovanni, were confirmed in the chapel. On
the 15th, about the sixth hour of the evening, intelligence came from
Rome that the Pope raised difficulties about the appointment to the
archbishopric on account of Messer Giovanni’s youth; of which news the
king was at once informed by the same messenger. On the 20th came from
Lionetto (de’ Rossi) the announcement that the archbishop was still
alive! On March 1, 1484 (1485), the Abbot of Passignano died, and an
express was sent to Messer Giovan Antonio Vespucci, envoy at Rome, to
beg the abbey from the Pope (Innocent VIII.) for our Messer Giovanni.
On the 2nd, in pursuance of an ordinance of the Signoria, possession
was taken of it, in virtue of the reservation made in Messer Giovanni’s
favour by Pope Sixtus and confirmed by Pope Innocent when our Piero
went to Rome to do him homage.’ These details show but too plainly how
benefices were dealt with, and how at the mere rumour of a prelate’s
death temporal sovereigns disposed of a high spiritual office in favour
of a child. A few years after this, King Matthias Corvinus conferred
on a boy of seven—his nephew Ippolito of Este—the primatial see of
Hungary, the archbishopric of Gran. Like Sixtus IV., Innocent VIII. at
first refused to confirm the appointment, but he ended by yielding.
The abbey of Passignano, belonging to the monks of Vallombrosa, was
one of the richest in Tuscany. The young abbot continued to enjoy its
possession till 1499, when he gave it up to the General of the Order
for a pension of 2,000 scudi. The grand fortress-like building, which
remained in the possession of the Order down to our own day, stands in
the valley of the Pesa, sixteen miles south of Florence, on the left
of the Roman military road; its church is adorned with paintings by
Domenico Cresti, who was somewhat of the Caracci school, and was called
by the name of his birthplace, Passignano. Everything in the shape
of benefices of all kinds, commanderies, rectorships, and so forth,
that came within reach of the Medici, fell to Lorenzo’s son; in 1486
he actually obtained, as a commandery, the abbey of Monte Cassino;
King Ferrante having, in order to conciliate the Pope, given him free
disposal of the famous convent of S. Benedict.[487] How anxious the
king was to appease the Medicean hunger after benefices is shown by his
letter of August 23, 1486, in answer to Lorenzo’s thanks.[488] ‘Thanks
from you were needless, for God knows we are ready and willing to do
anything in the world to prove to you our gratitude for what you have
continually done for our good and that of our state, on which you may
reckon as on your own property. Our obligations to you demand this;
and we can never do enough in favour of you and your house to satisfy
the thousandth part of our desire, as we hope you will perceive more
clearly every day.’ Lodovico il Moro answered in the same strain when
Lorenzo thanked him for giving his son the abbacy of Miramondo.[489]
All this, however, was but the prelude. There is something very
repulsive in the impatience with which Lorenzo looked forward to
his son’s cardinalate, and pressed the Pope to confer it. For the
ambassadors of the Republic there seemed to be nothing more important
than this. Lorenzo always took special good care that men who were in
his own deepest confidence should be sent to the Popes. In the spring
of 1487 Innocent wished that Pier Filippo Pandolfini, who had formerly
been in Rome, should be appointed to the vacant post of ambassador;
but he could not leave Florence, and the place was taken by Giovanni
Lanfredini, whose capabilities had lately been tested at Naples.
‘I have used my influence with the Signoria,’ wrote Lorenzo to the
Pope on May 6,[490] ‘to procure the appointment of a man with whom
your Holiness will be perfectly satisfied. For besides that Giovanni
Lanfredini (he who is destined for Rome) is an excellent honest man and
conversant with business, he also possesses my heart (_il core mio_),
as I am much attached to him on account of his merits.’ To Lanfredini
himself Lorenzo wrote on June 16 of the following year:[491] ‘I have
heard what his Holiness said to you about the creation of cardinals.
I think the Pope should not put off the nomination any longer than is
absolutely necessary. According to my view his Holiness will be quite
another Pope after it. For whereas hitherto he has been a head without
members, he must get some; whereas he has been the creature of others,
now others must be the creatures of him. Therefore persuade him,
yea, urge him, to take the needful decision; the sooner the better.
_Periculum est in mora_; as much as he gains by acting he loses by
hesitating. Use all your influence to procure this blessed promotion
as soon as possible. As the matter is before the Sacred College, it
cannot be delayed without great damage to the holy father’s dignity and
power. As to the persons to be nominated, I approve of all the names
which are marked; they are those of which you have spoken to me. If he
can do us that pleasure, let him do it. If the promotion were to be put
off on our account, tell him he may act according to his judgment. If
he thinks it well to begin with a single one to show that it is in his
power, he can nominate more by degrees till everybody is satisfied.’
Months passed away; the Pope’s indecision was unconquerable, and
Lorenzo’s impatience increased. ‘As I understand from our ambassador,’
he wrote to Innocent on October 1, 1488,[492] ‘that your Holiness
intends shortly to create some cardinals, I should think myself
deserving of grave censure did I not put you in mind of the honour
of this city and my own, though I am sure that your Holiness in your
goodness remembers both. I do not believe that in the whole course
of your pontificate you could do anything that would deserve more
gratitude from the city; and as the dignity of a cardinal is lofty and
much sought after, this city would feel it deeply should her hopes
not be fulfilled.’ It concerned the honour of Florence that a son of
Lorenzo—a mere boy—should be received into the senate of the Church!
Meantime, while Lorenzo thus unceasingly urged his claim, he was taking
equal trouble to prevent the same dignity from being conferred on
some fellow-countryman for whom he had no predilection. ‘The Pope,’
he wrote to the ambassador,[493] ‘does not know our people’s ways (_i
polli nostri_) as we do. Not only the cardinalate, but any increase
of position and dignity, would be dangerous if it came otherwise
than in the right way.’ Who can tell whether the chief cause of this
long delay in the only promotion undertaken by this Pope was not
really a scruple, struggling with political considerations? Innocent
himself had decided that no one under thirty should be admitted to the
cardinalate, and Giovanni de’ Medici was not yet fourteen. Lorenzo
never ceased writing,[494] Lanfredini never ceased talking. Cardinals
Sforza, Borgia, La Balue, and Zeno, were pressed into the service.
‘The services daily rendered us by Monsignor Ascanio,’ says Lorenzo
in a letter to the ambassador, February 21, 1489, ‘deserve better
thanks than words. My obligations to him could not be greater if I were
recalled from death to life.’ The story current in Florence—perhaps
exaggerated—of the sums spent on the occasion furnishes a commentary
on these words.
At last, on March 9, 1489, the promotion took place.[495] It resulted
in five cardinals, among whom were the Pope’s relative Lorenzo de’
Mari, who took the name of Cybò, and the Grand Master of the Knights
of St. John, the heroic defender of Rhodes, Pierre d’Aubusson. But
besides these five, at the same consistory, Innocent conferred the
same dignity on three others, without publishing their names—what is
now called a reservation _in petto_. One of these was Maffeo Gherardi,
a Camaldulensian, patriarch of Venice; the second was Federigo
Sanseverino, son of Roberto; the third was Giovanni de’ Medici.
It was quite clear that the Pope was ashamed of himself. In the
worst days of the Church no child had yet been made a cardinal. The
nomination was to be kept secret for three years; whosoever divulged it
was to be excommunicated. It was very soon seen how this was observed.
On the day of the promotion, cardinals Sforza and La Balue, the Bishop
of Cortona, prefect of the Apostolic Chamber, and the ambassador,
announced to Lorenzo that his son had been made cardinal-deacon of
Sta. Maria in Domenica.[496] ‘God be thanked,’ wrote Lorenzo to the
last-mentioned,[497] ‘for the good news received yesterday about
Messer Giovanni; news which gave me all the greater pleasure, because
I expected it the less on account of the importance of the matter
and its difficulty bordering on impossibility, besides which it far
exceeds my deserts.... I know not whether the Pope is displeased at
the rejoicings which have taken place here on all sides, and in such
a degree as I never saw before; there would have been a yet more
brilliant expression of general joy, had I not interfered. To prevent
the demonstration was out of my power. As Messer Giovanni’s promotion
is secret, these festivities certainly seem out of place. But you at
Rome have let the thing become so well known that it could not be
otherwise here; and it would have been impossible for me to keep aloof
from the congratulations of whole cities, small and great. If it is
wrong, it cannot be helped. Now I want to know how we are to behave
ourselves in future, and how Messer Giovanni’s mode of life, dress,
and servants are to be arranged; for I would not reward so great a
benefit by not making a proper display according to the manner most
likely to please the Pope. Messer Giovanni keeps at home; the house is
full of people. (The foreign ambassadors had immediately come to offer
their congratulations.) I wait to hear from you whether I shall, as I
proposed to you, send Piero to Rome. Perhaps it would be more befitting
the importance of the favour that I should go there myself.’ Poliziano
had written a letter to the Pope, taking occasion of the nomination to
praise Innocent and describe the lad as worthy of his new distinction.
He wanted to have it read out in the Consistory; but Lorenzo had too
much tact to join in such an absurdity, and sent the letter to the
ambassador, not concealing his own adverse opinion, and leaving it to
Lanfredini to do with it what he thought fit.[498]
On the same day, March 4, Lorenzo addressed to the Pope the following
letter of thanks.[499] ‘I have received with the utmost reverence your
Holiness’s brief of the 9th instant, concerning the promotion of Messer
Giovanni. As this news had already reached me through our ambassador,
I at once wrote to your Holiness, more to put into words my inability
to thank you fittingly, than to give expression to my gratitude. That
God alone can do, not I. This only can I say in reference to this
undying benefit, that through what your Holiness has done for my son
you have at the same time elevated me; and this increase of authority,
as well as whatever more may accrue to me, I place at the disposal of
your Holiness, to whom it belongs rather than to me.’ Then comes an
apology for the publication of the news, which had originated not with
Lorenzo but in Rome. The Italian princes by no means undervalued this
new proof of Lorenzo’s influence over the Pope. The Duke of Calabria
said to Vettori, the ambassador,[500] that one could see how great was
Lorenzo’s power, and that the Florentine ambassador ruled Innocent. He
wished he could be together with Lorenzo and Sforza to talk over the
strife with Rome. He believed it would not be difficult for him to make
the alliance of the three states such as should be apparent in their
whole conduct. One could see how much the Pope did for Lorenzo, and how
he had made his son a cardinal at an unheard-of age; so that one might
conclude that everything could be arranged if he chose to do all he
could.
The man who had contributed most to overcome the Pope’s scruples,
Giovanni Lanfredini, only survived his success a few months. In
November 1488, he had lost at Rome his eldest son, Orsino, a youth of
sixteen.[501] ‘It is with much regret,’ wrote Lorenzo,[502] ‘that I
have heard of your son’s death; the news was the more painful to me
as I had not known of his illness. If I did not know your strength
of mind, and how accustomed you are to both good and evil, I should
use more words of consolation than I do, and represent to you my own
heavy losses, which are but too well known to you. Resign yourself to
the decree of God; the more so as your son is far rather to be envied
than pitied. You and yours will never want for friends who regard your
concerns as their own. As for me, on account of the sympathy I feel for
you and for the sake of your old and tried attachment, I shall always
conduct myself towards you as your sentiments and actions, and my duty
and gratitude, require. Be comforted, Giovanni; take courage, trust
in God, and reckon on your friends.’ Another letter[503] is expressed
in equally cordial terms. But the loss of the son broke the father’s
heart. ‘Giovanni Lanfredini,’ wrote the Ferrarese ambassador on March
16, 1489,[504] ‘is at Rome confined to his bed; and as business
presses, the Signoria has ordered Pier Filippo Pandolfini, who is now
at Pitigliano, to proceed thither immediately. Lanfredini has asked for
leave of absence. He seems to have had quite enough of his post, and I
think he feels he can now give it up with honour, after helping the son
of the illustrious Lorenzo to attain the dignity of cardinal.’ As soon
as the promotion took place, Lorenzo had expressed his strong sense
of what he owed to Lanfredini.[505] ‘I recognise the duty of always
remembering him who has directed the whole affair, and of putting those
who shall come after me in mind of it. For no greater event has ever
befallen our house, and I owe more than three quarters of it to your
zeal and attachment.’ Lanfredini’s condition improved so that he could
resume his duties; but this did not last. He died on January 5, 1490,
in the house of the Acciaiuoli in the Leonine city.[506]
The Bishop of Rimini wrote to Lorenzo:[507] ‘The man is dead who
kept this court at your service. Henceforth things may take another
turn; and they have already gone so far that it has been said you
will no longer have everything your own way.’ It seems, indeed, that
the weak-minded Pope had allowed some suspicious remarks to escape
him, to the effect that he could not safely trust to Florence, where
individual interests were in the ascendant. These expressions induced
Lorenzo to send Bernardo Dovizi to Rome to consult with Pandolfini.
The instructions drawn up by Lorenzo[508] show his irritation at the
changeableness of the Pope. ‘Such as neither know me personally nor
have seen me put faith in my word; and now I am met with want of
confidence after all my trouble and exertions, and the experience there
has been of my sentiments.’ The ill-feeling, however, seems to have
soon passed away.
One of the last affairs in which Lanfredini had to act was the
canonisation of the Archbishop Antonine, in which the Emperor Frederic
III. was also interested. Lorenzo proposed that the Bishop of Arezzo
and Volterra should undertake the cause. Lanfredini’s successor
Pandolfini continued the negotiations; but it was not till 1523 that
the reverence of the Florentine people for this worthy and pious man
received the sanction of the Church from Pope Hadrian VI.
CHAPTER V.
SETTLEMENT OF THE DISPUTE BETWEEN INNOCENT VIII. AND FERRANTE OF NAPLES.
DURING all this time the quarrel between the Pope and the king was
assuming serious dimensions. One could hardly expect otherwise when
the characters of the two men are taken into consideration. The one
combined a full conception of lofty dignity with the consciousness of
very little real power, was very excitable, wanting in perseverance,
and continually going from one extreme to another; the other was slily
calculating, practised in all the arts of unprincipled cunning, and
disposed to undervalue his opponent when the tide seemed to have turned
in his own favour. When the king thought he had rid himself of all
enemies and suspicious persons in his own country, he did not hesitate
to disregard the stipulations agreed upon in August 1486, and defy
the Pope. The dispute went on through 1488 even to the proclamation
of ecclesiastical censures. This was unpleasant to Lorenzo for many
reasons: ‘I fear,’ he wrote to Lanfredini, September 3,[509] ‘people
will think it is meal out of my tub, though you know that the Pope
has acted not only without me but against my advice. Not only is the
king ready and inclined to attempt aggression, but the Pope is utterly
unprepared; in fact, his affairs are in such disorder that a most
disastrous war may arise out of this.’ Lorenzo’s son-in-law begged him
to go to Rome in the autumn, but he refused, waiting to see whether
the Pope and the king would come to terms. In the spring of 1489 the
Spanish court made an effort at mediation through ambassadors in Rome.
Ferrante’s object seemed to be to increase the Pope’s anger by personal
attacks on him and his, so as to produce an immediate rupture. This
conduct can be explained only on one of two suppositions: he either
thought that he could treat his adversary as he chose without danger
to himself, or he was determined to let things come to a pass which
might, indeed, easily bring him to the gates of Rome, but might also
just as easily call other nations to the rescue. All the misfortunes
that befell Ferrante’s family and dynasty in 1495 were provoked by
his self-will of six years before. It was no thanks to him nor to
his son, who was worse than he, nor to the Pope, that they were not
overtaken then by the misfortune of which both parties—the one in his
ambitious, tyrannical stubbornness, the other in his inconsiderate
weakness—seemed to have no foreboding. That it was avoided for a time
was chiefly owing to Lorenzo de’ Medici, a fact the merit of which
ought to cover many of his sins.
After the fruitless Spanish attempt at mediation, and while Ferrante
was doing all he could to stir up the King of the Romans against
the Pope, the latter resolved to act. On June 27, 1489, Niccolò
Orsini, Count of Pitigliano, arrived in Rome. A dispute between this
excellent soldier and the Republic of Siena had, in the previous April,
resulted in his dismissal from the Florentine service; whereupon the
Pope offered him the post of Captain-General of the Church. As the
astrologers pronounced the constellations favourable, on the very
day of the count’s arrival the Pope presented him with his insignia
of office, tunic, hat, sword, and commander’s staff, and blessed the
two standards, while Orsini knelt before him. On the following Sunday
the new captain-general made his triumphal entry into Rome from Monte
Mario. He was then forty-eight years of age, but can be best imagined
as he is represented on his monument in SS. Giovanni e Paolo at
Venice, erected twenty years later, when he had fallen a victim to his
exertions during the war of the League of Cambrai. He appears there
as a fine-looking stately horseman with waving plume and rich scarf;
his head is slightly bent as if in thought, and turned towards the
right; he holds in his hand the commander’s staff, and stands between
allegorical statues of Prudence and Faith. On the 30th, after high
mass, the citation of the King of Naples took place. He was allowed
three months’ grace to fulfil his duty as a vassal; that he would
submit was not to be expected. The most zealous preparations were made
for the war which seemed inevitable. Cardinal Sforza, on behalf of
Lodovico, and Lanfredini, who was ill, sought to restrain the Pope from
taking an extreme step. On the part of the Florentines, at least, this
mediation was honestly meant.
Lorenzo went in July to the baths, whence, according to the new
Ferrarese ambassador Manfredo Manfredi,[510] he came back refreshed
and well on August 6. Scarcely was he home when he set to work at
the Roman affair. ‘As to the deliberations yonder,’ he wrote on the
8th to Lanfredini,[511] ‘I am of opinion that in considering my Lord
Lodovico’s proposals you must always keep in view that he can be a
turncoat on occasion and may very likely have private aims, as the
quarrel between the Pope and the king may be very convenient to him
in many respects. Considering his nature, therefore, we must not rely
on him too much, but must follow his example in profiting by his
proceedings when they answer our purposes, but keeping the upper hand
if he takes it into his head to change. First of all I wish the Holy
Father to let the Venetians know that both Lord Lodovico and ourselves
have induced him to conceal from the Republic nothing that concerns his
relations with the king. This I say because in any case it seems to me
important that the Pope should at least keep the Venetians in their
present mind until we all see our way clearer. There is no real trust
to be placed in those people, but their authority is useful; and it is
quite possible to keep on tolerable terms with them without causing
my Lord Lodovico to take fright. But above all I wish to be assured
whether the Pope is determined to abide by the conditions already
settled, or whether he thinks of agreeing to some modifications. As to
the tribute-money, I think a compromise possible; as for the barons,
I see no means, as the king has gone too far to be able to draw back.
With regard to spiritual matters an arrangement will be easy, for
the king will hardly raise difficulties where he has only to give
promises. When it comes to keeping them they must just wink at each
other, as all popes and all kings have done. The point therefore is to
know exactly what we have to abide by before taking a decision which,
according to my view, must depend on what the Pope really intends; and
his will cannot be forced, particularly if peace is established in
France. Endeavour therefore to give me sure information if possible.
In any case it is my fixed opinion that the Pope’s honour must be
kept unstained, if my Lord Lodovico agrees with me, who, however, as
before said, is not much to be trusted. A good understanding must be
maintained with the Venetians, for the sake of having something to
fall back upon. I think you must decline with thanks his Holiness’
proposal to confide the negotiations in question to me. It would be a
distinction for me, but would scarcely answer his Holiness’ purposes.
I, however, prefer his Holiness’ advantage to that which would be
an honour to me personally. In any future agreement with the king,
the conditions of the last peace will have to be modified in some
particulars, and stronger shoulders than mine will be needed to bear
that burthen. I shall consider myself honoured enough if the interests
of his Holiness are secured with honour.’ Lorenzo’s unwillingness to
take part in negotiations between the Pope and Venice was partly
founded on the knowledge that the latter power was anything but
well-disposed towards him. Two years after this his friend Guidoni,
the Ferrarese ambassador, who had exchanged his post at Florence for
the more difficult one in the city of the lagoons, wrote to him: ‘The
Venetians detest your name more than Satan does the Cross.’
As Ferrante showed no sign of returning from his ways, Innocent
continued to proceed against him. On September 11, 1489, in presence
of the Neapolitan ambassador Antonio d’Alessandri, the kingdom of
Naples was solemnly declared to have lapsed to the Holy See through
non-fulfilment of homage.[512] The ambassador protested and appealed
to the Council. The next day he appeared in the Sixtine Chapel with
the other ambassadors, to celebrate the anniversary of the Pope’s
coronation, just as if nothing had happened. But he was startled on the
13th, when a French envoy, Guillaume de Poitiers, of the family of the
Counts of St. Vallier, arrived with great pomp at the Vatican.[513]
For a long time past the Pope had been negotiating with France, and
the French showed their desire for a good understanding with Rome by
delivering up the Turkish Prince Dschem to Innocent at the end of the
winter. It was already suspected that as soon as affairs were settled
in Brittany, where resistance was already broken, whose last duke was
dead, and where union with the crown was in progress, the French king,
now nineteen, would turn his eyes towards Italy. Rome, conscious of her
own weakness, reckoned on foreign aid, thinking she had two strings to
her bow—France and Spain—both of whom were supposed to be displeased
with Ferrante. But the prospect of war in Italy and interference from
abroad, no matter whence it came or what the result might be, was
highly displeasing to Lorenzo, and he renewed his efforts to change the
mind of the Pope.
‘From your despatch of October 13,’ thus he begins a letter to
Lanfredini four days later,[514] ‘I perceive that his Holiness has
taken some little offence at my remonstrances against proceeding with
the citations. Any offence to the Holy Father grieves me; but it
would grieve me very much if he thought my counsel and actions were
determined by anything but zeal for his good. I repeat, the Pope must
make up his mind about three things. Either he must get justice from
the king by force; or he must make as good terms as he can with him;
or, lastly, if this cannot be done with honour, he must temporise and
wait for more favourable circumstances. The first would be the most
honourable plan; but I consider it dangerous and expensive, and think
it cannot be executed without calling in a foreign power to Naples.
Thereto three things are needful: first, the consent of Venice and
Milan; secondly, sufficient independent means, both in men and money,
on the part of the said power; and thirdly, very great expenditure on
the part of the Pope. For the point is to over-match the king, whom
Milan may perhaps assist should Venice declare against him; so that
Milan, too, must be kept in check. An understanding with the barons
and those of similar rank would be useful in such a case. Now I may
be mistaken, but I cannot see the possibility of realising all these
presuppositions, and therefore I have dissuaded his Holiness. Of the
foreign powers only Spain and France can be taken into consideration.
Spain seems to me at this moment incapable of either acting or
paying,[515] and how France is to be relied upon I do not see.
Supposing, however, that she changed her nature, I would agree with his
Holiness, provided that in an expedition against Naples the person to
be benefited should be the Duke of Lorraine (as heir of Anjou), which
would be the least dangerous thing; for the Duke of Lorraine is not
King of France, and his relationship to the royal house is of no great
importance. Naples and Spain are much nearer relatives, and yet not
friends; and when a man is once King of Naples he will go his own way.
‘All these reasons, it seems to me, ought to dissuade the Pope from
any undertaking of the kind. In such circumstances it is of no use
exasperating the king by citations and suchlike. Nay, even if one
was armed and ready, I should still think it advisable to let such
challenges alone, in order to avoid the danger of the king’s proceeding
from words to deeds—a danger not to be under-rated. Better arm in
silence than excite others to the attack by expressing hostility. As
for the second case, that of an accommodation, I am perhaps, speaking
without an exact knowledge of the state of affairs; and possibly
conditions are being fixed in consequence of which the citation may
be an useful measure. But from what I know, I believe that such a
proceeding, instead of facilitating an accommodation, only serves to
irritate, and will lead to a rupture. As for temporising, I will say
nothing, because an immediate agreement on the most honourable terms
possible seems to me far more to the purpose than waiting for some
favourable conjuncture; the more so that, as you know better than
I, the king has plenty of means of doing harm. I can say no more at
present, not being sufficiently conversant with the details. If the
Pope’s fearlessness rests on any secure ground, take care to let me
know it, that I may be relieved from this anxiety. For though I am not
exactly faint-hearted, yet, from the confidence placed in me by the
Pope, his affairs cause me more anxiety than my own. So long as I know
of no better foundation for his security, I cannot possibly be easy. On
the subject of my lord Lodovico and his nature, I have spoken my mind
freely. I am conscious that I am walking uprightly, and have only the
Pope’s interest in view. So I repeat what I have said often before:
I think an honourable accommodation better than a successful war. If
that is impossible, he must temporise, provided the supposed possible
favourable conditions do not exist. But if this should be the case, the
king too would show himself more yielding, for he knows very well where
he can be touched.’
Lorenzo’s remonstrances were not entirely ineffectual. Innocent,
who had been informed that the Neapolitan exiles, especially the
Sanseverini, had been well received at the French court, and that the
young king had promised to restore them to their homes, went cautiously
to work at least with regard to foreign allies. Without making any
engagements, he tried to keep on good terms with France and Spain.
Remonstrances were also made on the part of France, through special
ambassadors, to King Ferrante; but he never ceased defending at foreign
courts what he called the justice of his cause, and calculating that
the French had their hands full, he showed no disposition to yield.
Letters from the Duke of Saxony, King Maximilian, and the Emperor,
produced just as little effect.[516] The Duke of Calabria told the
Florentine ambassador that his father would accede to reasonable
demands from the Pope, but not to things that were against his honour.
He would send the palfrey as a token of the feudal relation; but not
one soldo of tribute would he pay, and not one guilty baron would
he pardon.[517] So the matter dragged on. In May 1490, Florence was
visited by a Neapolitan ambassador on his way to Milan, Messer Camillo
Seruciati.[518] The king instructed him to inform the Signoria and
Lorenzo that he had hitherto endured many wrongs and insults from the
Pope. If, however, the latter persisted in his wrongful obstinacy
and hostility and did not leave off his threats of citation and
excommunication, his majesty was not minded to endure such offences any
longer. Without wasting any more words, the king meant to appear in
Rome, with lance in rest, and answer the Pope in such a way as to make
him see his error. The Neapolitan ambassador, being refused admission
to the Pope’s chapel on Whitsun-eve, threatened to make his way in by
force. To avoid scandal it was arranged that none of the diplomatic
body should appear on that day.[519] But the affair seems to have been
rather more seriously taken into consideration by France than Ferrante
expected. On June 8, the Pope said to Lanfredini’s successor[520] that
if he were not peaceable by nature and a good Italian, he held in his
hand the means of avenging himself on the king; for months ago Madame
de Beaujeu had caused a proposal to be made to him for conferring
Naples as a fief on the Duke of Lorraine, in exchange for which the
latter should cede his claims to Provence and other territories to
her husband, the Duke of Bourbon,[521] the King of France in return
assisting him to obtain Naples. This proposal had recently been
renewed; he, the Pope, had said but little in reply, in order not to
draw down the French into Italy. He wished that Lorenzo should be
informed of the matter.
The situation was growing worse every day. There were already some
hostile dealings on the frontiers. Papal couriers, carrying briefs
that were never answered, were searched and roughly treated; people
sent by the Pope to Benevento, and inhabitants of Pontecorvo going to
Montecassino to perform their devotions, were seized.[522] Innocent
complained that the indulgence he had shown towards the king on account
of the representations of the other Italian powers had only made the
former more insolent; and the powers stood and looked on while he was
being insulted. If the Italians cared so little about his honour,
he must turn to foreigners. Pandolfini adds that he had never seen
the Pope so excited. The ambassador did what he could to soothe
him, representing to him that the moderation shown towards the king
had benefited his cause, and that he could depend on the support of
Florence, Milan, and Venice. The Pope cut him short. He was always put
off with fine speeches. Real support was to be expected from Florence
alone. On account of Sforza’s changeableness, Milan was not to be
reckoned on; and Venice never proceeded to action. He was determined to
make an end of it. He would excommunicate the king, declare him guilty
of heresy, and lay the kingdom under interdict. He had a perfect right
to do so. He would give notice of everything to the allied States.
If the king, in pursuance of his threat, made war upon him, and no
assistance was afforded him, he would go abroad, where he would be
received with open arms and helped to get back his own again, to the
shame and loss of others. He could not remain in Italy otherwise than
with the dignity befitting a Pope; if they all left him in the lurch,
resistance to the king was impossible, on account of the Church’s
want of military power and the untrustworthiness of the barons, who
would only rejoice at his embarrassment. He considered himself fully
justified in going abroad if the honour of the Holy See could not be
saved otherwise. Other popes had done it, and had come back with honour
and glory.
‘I saw,’ says Pandolfini, ‘that he had thoroughly considered the
matter, and was not talking merely to get something out of me, as he
could have no doubt of our attachment and fidelity. I pointed out to
him that he should deliberate well, and not take a resolution which
might bring discredit upon him, perhaps without serving his purpose.
Foreign lands were full of strife, and the relations of Church and
State were all very different from what they had been in the times
of Innocent IV. and other popes, who had sought refuge beyond the
mountains.’ But the Pope was not to be persuaded. He announced that he
should summon the ambassadors of all the powers, declare his resolve
and the grounds which compelled him to it, and proceed against the
king. The Neapolitan ambassador was sent away. The Pope said also to
Pandolfini: ‘If I go with the court to France, of all the Italian
powers you will get the most advantage thereby, not only for your
trade, but because I shall have all possible regard to you, and shall
consult over everything with Lorenzo. Tell him these my words.’
It might have been thought that a conclusion was imminent. But after
the lapse of a year matters were at exactly the same point. At the
feast of SS. Peter and Paul, 1491, the king’s ambassador again
presented the palfrey by way of tribute, was again sent away, and
again protested.[523] Shortly after, the Florentine ambassador at
Naples, Piero Nasi, had an interview with Giovanni Pontano, who was at
that time Ferrante’s chief counsellor in political affairs, and had
concluded the treaty with Rome in August 1486.[524] Pontano certainly
must have felt that he was personally concerned, especially if, as is
said, Innocent, having during his negotiations with him been warned
of the king’s faithlessness, answered, ‘How can I be distrustful in
dealing with a man who has never broken his word?’ ‘Ambassador,’ said
Pontano to Nasi, ‘I most earnestly desire the termination of this
strife, both for the sake of your Signoria and for my own sake. If the
matter worries you in Florence, it worries me twice as much. Blame
is laid on me which I do not deserve. What I promised in those days
at Rome I had a right to promise; and it would have been kept; but
no sooner was I away (would to God I had not gone in such a hurry!)
than Cardinal della Rovere arrived from Genoa, and thereupon they
re-arranged the conditions according to their pleasure. I certainly
promised payment of the tribute, but the Pope himself gave me to
understand that he would not insist upon it, and said: “I will come to
an understanding with the king on that point.” But Ascanio (Sforza)
and the other cardinals laughed and said I might promise off-hand,
nothing would be kept.’ Pontano then went on to the affair of the
barons, whose misfortunes he attributed to their own want of head. The
king, he said, had not thought of taking them prisoners, after he had
made them harmless by occupying their strongholds, and taken into his
own hands the administration of justice within their territories. But
they themselves had compelled him to proceed against them. For after
the Prince of Salerno had gone to Rome and deluded the Pope with many
things, he drew the barons into the plot, all of which became known to
the king. Notwithstanding, the latter gave them plenty of time to place
themselves in safety; but they were determined to wait for the end, and
so it went ill with them at the last. The very man from whom proceeded
this apology for the king, afterwards himself accused Ferrante and
Alfonso of cruelty and covetousness![525] Nasi thought the Pope cared
far more about this affair than for the money question. King Alfonso
had once paid 30,000 ducats to Pope Pius II. It was indeed maintained
that this was not tribute-money; but yet such another sum would surely
be granted. For the investiture to be extended to the Duke of Calabria
they would be willing to pay 50,000. The Pope could then confirm
the bull of Sixtus IV. and content himself during the rest of his
pontificate with the gaily adorned palfrey. Lorenzo should carefully
consider the matter.
In the autumn of 1491 Pontano was sent to Rome to arrange a compromise.
The hint that Naples was willing to pay seems to have had its effect.
On reflection it is easy to see in what financial difficulties Innocent
had placed himself. Lorenzo had to lend him money and redeem his
pawned valuables; as Lanfredini had said, he was applying to all the
sovereigns for tithes, and had made debts to the amount of 300,000
ducats.[526] But further hindrances kept cropping up, chiefly through
the double-dealing of Ferrante, whom no one dared trust even when he,
perhaps, really did mean honestly. It was said both at Rome and at
Florence that he was stirring up troubles for the Pope in the States
of the Church, and confirming the inhabitants of Ascoli in their
rebellion against the Holy See, for which purpose he kept a numerous
body of troops on the Tronto.[527] Lorenzo never ceased advising a
reconciliation. Many things were done by the soldiers, he wrote to
Innocent, which it was not becoming a wise prince and thoughtful Pope
to leave unhindered, and the peace of all Italy would be in danger if
an end were not put to the quarrel.[528] In the middle of November the
king expressed his sense of obligation to Lorenzo, who was showing
himself a true friend and mediator in these differences. He hoped, he
said, soon to arrive at a settlement.[529] In the beginning of December
they did arrive at one; and two months later peace was announced in
the Consistory.[530] In the investiture to be given to the Duke of
Calabria, for which the sum before mentioned was to be paid, his son,
the Prince of Capua, was included. The new treaty was to be the only
one in force. To the barons released from prison the king promised to
pay a certain sum yearly. ‘How much,’ adds the Ferrarese ambassador,
‘is not known; and it is supposed to have been agreed upon merely for
the sake of the Pope’s honour. Whether it will be kept, the future will
show.’ The future, and no very distant one, brought on the Neapolitan
king far other troubles than those caused by his quarrel with the Pope.
Scarcely was that quarrel ended, scarcely was the settlement effected
for which Pontano went to Rome,[531] when the king exhausted himself in
demonstrations of gratitude and friendship towards the Pope, to whose
blessing he attributed his own prosperity and that of all belonging
to him, to whom he sent hippocras and twenty-four casks of choice
Neapolitan wines, and with whom he formed a connection by betrothing
his grandson, the Marquis of Gerace, to Battistina Usodimare,
daughter of Teodorina Cybò.[532] Ferrante must have felt that the
time was pressing for a reconciliation. French affairs gave him
subjects for consideration. Charles VIII. had not only—thanks to his
sister—overcome a dangerous opposition, but had reconciled the Duke
of Orleans to himself and his house, and won Britanny, whose heiress
gave him her hand on December 4, 1491. A double Papal dispensation was
needed; for Charles was betrothed to Margaret of Austria, and Anne of
Britanny already bore the title of Queen of the Romans as the bride of
Margaret’s brother Maximilian; besides which the newly-married couple
were near relations. Doubtless with a view to what was coming, a French
embassy consisting of ten persons, headed by Jean de Villiers et La
Groslaye, Bishop of Lombes and Abbot of St. Denis (afterwards highly
influential at Rome), had been sent to Rome and received there on
November 16. On December 3, a courier brought tidings of the marriage,
which gave great offence, but for which the dispensations were given
afterwards.[533] Another struggle with Maximilian was inevitable. But
France was united and peaceful within, the last great fief was joined
to the crown, and the work begun by Louis XI. was accomplished. Italy
had reason to fear that the young king, whose ambition was greater
than his intellectual capacity, would again take up claims which had
never been really set at rest. In the very same year which closed with
the agreement between Innocent and Ferrante the declaration of Charles
VIII.’s rights to the crown worn by the latter was formulated. Five
years before, the Duke of Orleans had put forward the claims to Milan
which he afterwards enforced as king.[534]
If it was to the interest of France to stand well with the Pope,
Ferrante had more than one motive for doing so. His daughter Beatrice,
the widow of Matthias Corvinus, was threatened with dissolution of
marriage by her second husband, the Polish Prince Ladislas, to whose
elevation to the throne of Hungary she had greatly contributed; and
it cost her father much trouble and anxiety to avert a decision which
touched his own honour and that of his house. But the king, now growing
old, was occupied with another family matter. The marriage of his
granddaughter with the young Duke of Milan was the immediate, if not
the principal, cause of a disagreement which sowed the seeds of ruin
far beyond palaces and dynasties. The ambassador, whose arrival at
Florence in the beginning of May 1490 has already been mentioned, was
to go to Milan ‘to find out in what relation the lady duchess stood
towards her most illustrious consort.’[535] The bad reports of Gian
Galeazzo’s state of health proved unfounded, and Isabella soon after
had hopes of becoming a mother. But matters remained unchanged. Gian
Galeazzo at one and twenty was duke only in name. The government was
still as it always had been, in the hands of his uncle, who had filled
up all state-offices and military commands with confidants of his
own. Connected with this last fact was the circumstance that in June
1488, Gian Jacopo Trivulzio, being apparently suspected by the Moro of
taking Gian Galeazzo’s part, left the Milanese service and accepted a
_condotta_ offered him by King Ferrante.[536]
The case became worse when, in January 18, 1491, Lodovico married. His
bride, Beatrice of Este, was a near relative of Isabella of Aragon,
for her mother was the sister of Isabella’s father; but the relations
between the two young wives soon became unbearable. Beatrice, the
younger by five years, handsome, clever, ambitious, and proud, soon
acquired great influence over her husband, now a man of forty; she
went hand-in-hand with him in all his far-reaching plans, and induced
him to yield to her desires with regard to outward position more than
the cunning reserved man perhaps at first intended. She and Isabella
soon came to open strife. The Duchess of Milan very naturally claimed
the first place; the Duchess of Bari had no intention of contenting
herself with the second. Lodovico’s authority made it easy for her to
satisfy her passion for ruling. Isabella bore with growing impatience
daily insults to herself and the unworthy position of her husband; of
him too little is known to furnish grounds for a decided judgment of
his character and capabilities. At last she appealed to her father,
representing to him her position and begging for his intervention.[537]
There had been no love lost between Alfonso and Lodovico ever since the
Ferrara war. Although in the disputes between the Pope and the king,
the Sforza had not furthered the views of France against Ferrante,
still the Moro’s attitude had been questionable. If the Duke of
Calabria had had his way, at the time when the treaty was concluded
with the Pope, Italy would have been in flames; for his counsel was
to cross the Tronto with an army and force Lodovico to lay down his
usurped power. But the old king was afraid of a step which threatened
to bring incalculable consequences; particularly as the Moro’s intimate
relations with France—relations whose first fruits were the complete
abandonment in favour of Milan of the French claims to Genoa—and
certain events in Florence which will be mentioned presently, gave him
every motive for extreme caution. Instead of arms he tried negotiation.
A Neapolitan embassy was sent to Milan,[538] but it had no answer but
empty phrases. Lodovico replied that his nephew was Duke and enjoyed
all the privileges of his rank. He himself had for years only borne the
burthen of affairs, which he would lay down as soon as circumstances
permitted. The only result of the application was that the good
understanding between the house of Naples and the Sforza, already
much endangered, notwithstanding the continued ostensible alliance,
received a very severe shock. There was, indeed, no lack of friendly
protestations on either side; and on February 8, 1492,[539] not long
before the departure of the embassy above-mentioned, Ferrante wrote to
his ambassador in Milan that he regarded the Duke of Bari as his own
son (it is true the latter married his granddaughter) and his interests
as his own, and congratulated him on his good understanding with
France. Lodovico, to secure the maintenance of a power which he knew he
was in danger of losing sooner or later, used all the means supplied
by his versatile and inventive genius, and deluded himself with the
increasing consciousness of his superiority over all other Italian
rulers, only to involve himself irretrievably in the machinations which
brought to ruin the edifice of Italian polity.
CHAPTER VI.
OPPOSITION TENDENCIES. FRA GIROLAMO SAVONAROLA.
THE Medici had always counted on the clergy for support. It would be
unjust to attribute this entirely to selfish motives; they had other
and nobler aims than merely that of more easily ruling the multitude
in union with its spiritual directors. Other motives besides scruples
of conscience actuated them in the building of churches and convents.
The clergy, especially the regular clergy, were, with a portion of the
nobility, still the chief representatives of the higher scientific
and literary culture. Cosimo’s grandson as well as himself found
instruction, entertainment, and intellectual animation in the society
of Camaldulensians, Dominicans, Augustinians, and Servites. But as
Lorenzo endeavoured to keep under his own control the bishoprics of
the district, he made use of the monastic orders in the same way. He
employed them privately to discover and direct the stream of popular
opinion and popular inclination. Owing to their constitution, their
varied composition, their connection with all classes, and their
comparative independence, they were at once more trustworthy and abler
instruments than the lay communities of various kinds which he ruled
by means of his confidants, high and low. These latter societies might
prove dangerous to him through party-spirit and secret machinations;
a danger which indeed afterwards became apparent, and was vigorously
opposed by the rulers of Tuscany. The religious orders, when they
devoted themselves to furthering the aims of the Medici, had
another advantage over the companies. The many little jealousies and
enmities which divided them from each other gave better security for
secresy; and the fact that very much depended upon this may afford an
explanation of the great liberality of the Medici towards the convents.
In the annals of the Monastery of the Angeli, where Cosimo was wont
to visit Ambrogio Traversari, and where Lorenzo’s sons went to hear
philosophical lectures and to be present at sacred representations,
it is recorded that besides the usual yearly gifts of money, Lorenzo
used on certain festivals to send to the monks, who were by no means
rich, fish, cheese, and fruit; and also that he procured for them the
bounty of the Signoria. ‘We owe everything to God, through Lorenzo His
instrument.’ Don Guido, formerly a Cistercian monk, who became prior of
the Angeli in 1484, was Lorenzo’s confessor.[540]
But it would be a mistake to suppose that even when his relations with
the Papacy were most intimate, Lorenzo could reckon unconditionally
upon the clergy. Those same disputes between the religious orders came
in the way, as well as the democratic spirit prevalent among the monks,
which saw through the tendencies of the existing government even when
it seemed to be favouring popular objects. This internal opposition
naturally developed more strongly as a more serious way of thinking
gained ground; such a temper as had been fostered by the pious chief
pastors Antonine and Orlando Bonarli, though their successors, under
whom the diocese of Florence was chiefly administered by vicars, did
nothing to maintain it. About the year 1490 it became apparent that
the general life of pleasure and worldliness was about to take a turn
in an opposite direction. No one could then foresee the ultimate scope
and results of this opposition; but it showed itself in a manner which
necessarily attracted the attention of him who was accustomed to
direct all things, and who had too much tact and too much practice in
judging of moral and intellectual tendencies not to recognise the first
symptoms of a turn of the tide. Its importance was the more apparent
to him because it showed itself in a field, of which, as of those of
politics and literature, he thought himself the ruler; but which was
withdrawn from his influence as soon as the prevalent materialistic
tendencies were combated by inward moral impulses and views. This
resistance was in the highest degree dangerous to the Medici, because
its chief strength lay in the moral consciousness of the people,
hitherto artificially suppressed or put to sleep, but now awakened to
new life; and it was this which enabled it to hold out so firmly long
after it appeared to be conquered. It was the fate of the Medici that
opposition sprang from ground which they had long been accustomed to
regard as their own, and to treat in the light of an heirloom.
In 1482, there entered the convent of San Marco a brother of the
order, who had been driven from his native city of Ferrara by the
storms of war raging around it, in order to seek a more peaceful
sphere of activity beyond the Apennines, little suspecting what other
storms he would have to encounter there. The Porta Savonarola at Padua
recalls to mind the neighbouring residence of that noble family; and
in the Prato della Valle stands a statue of Antonio Savonarola, who
manfully defended his native city in the middle of the thirteenth
century. In 1440 Michele Savonarola was called to Ferrara, where he
was presented with the rights of citizenship by the Marquis Lionello
d’Este, and acquired a great reputation as physician in ordinary to the
Marquis, as professor at the university, and also as an author.[541]
His son Niccolò married Elena Bonacossi, and her masculine spirit
was inherited by her son Girolamo, who has made the name of his race
famous throughout the world. At the age of three-and-twenty this son,
without consulting the wishes of his parents, entered the Predicant
order at Bologna in the spring of 1475. In a letter to his father he
pleaded, in explanation and justification of the step, his soul’s cry
of anguish against the worldliness to which he beheld Italy fallen a
prey. ‘I could no longer look upon the deep corruption of the blinded
people, the oppression of virtue, the exaltation of vice; it was an
unspeakable torment to me, and I prayed daily to God that He might
take me out of this pit of destruction. Now, in His infinite goodness,
He has vouchsafed this grace to me, notwithstanding my unworthiness.’
But it was not the worldliness of the laity alone that shocked him;
the corruption in the Church stood before the eyes of his soul in yet
more glaring colours. He lamented it in his poems—highly imaginative
and lofty outpourings of a soul brightened with the fire of love,
penetrated with the consciousness of the need for a higher development,
tortured by a foreboding of approaching judgment.[542] His first
intention was to devote himself to teaching rather than to preaching;
but in the seventh year after his entrance into the order, he was sent
to his native city, where he lived as a stranger, rarely saw even his
nearest relatives, and was not much appreciated as a speaker. Yet
he cannot have been lacking in eloquence; for one day when he was
travelling from Ferrara to Mantua his reproofs made such an impression
on the soldiers who were in the boat playing and swearing, that they
penitently fell upon their knees before him.
Fra Girolamo’s reception in Florence was not encouraging. The man and
the city could not be attractive to each other; the one was leaning
more and more towards asceticism, and the other towards immoderate
pleasure. The one cared for nothing but Holy Scripture, and developed
its doctrines in lofty, unvarnished speech, whose rough careless form
was not softened by his Lombard accent, his hoarse voice, and vehement
delivery; the other, sharing the common plight, knew little of the
Bible, and was accustomed to preachers whose artistic phraseology
recalled the elegant tone of the literary palæstra. In his own convent
the stranger found little sympathy. A philosophising tone prevailed in
conversation; and the adoption of classical learning might well raise
some scruples in the mind of the Ferrarese, whose early education had
also been of a philosophical kind. This double discord left decided
marks in its train. At Savonarola’s Lenten sermons in San Lorenzo in
1483, the number of listeners was extremely small. He himself was
perfectly aware of the defects of his delivery: ‘Those who knew me in
those days,’ he said ten years later, ‘know that I had neither voice
nor lungs, nor understood anything about preaching, so that I was a
bore to everybody.’ He needed a longer apprenticeship. For two years he
preached during Lent at San Gemignano. Then he was summoned to Brescia,
where in 1486 he preached the sermons on the Apocalypse which first
extended his reputation, the prophecies in which of divine judgment and
the exhortations to repentance recurred vividly to the souls of the
people six-and-twenty years later, when the French army was committing
that plunder whose horrors have rarely been equalled in Christian
times. A chapter of the order held at Reggio brought Savonarola in
contact with Giovanni Pico, who took such an interest in the bold and
enthusiastic preacher that he got him sent back to Florence, through
the intervention of Lorenzo de’ Medici. In 1490 Savonarola returned to
San Marco, there to begin the work which left deep and broad traces on
the ecclesiastical and political history of Italy; which led to hard
fighting, not without fault on his side, but which at last led him to
martyrdom, and encircled his brow with a glory that no contradiction
and no change of times and views have been able to deprive of its
radiance.
Savonarola found in Florence a rival who was his exact opposite in
delivery and in opinions. Fra Mariano of Genazzano came from a place
situated on the slope of the Aequian and Hernican mountains, and made
important by the great palace of the Colonna. He belonged to the
order of the Augustinian Hermits, and dwelt in the convent of Sto.
Spirito, until Lorenzo, with whom he had managed to get into favour,
built a grand convent at the gate of San Gallo, where there was an
old church with a decayed hospital and a foundling establishment.
This building was razed to the ground in 1524, when the Emperor and a
Medicean Pope were sending their troops against Florence; not a trace
of it is left, and its place is occupied by the rows of trees and
groves of the walk called the Parterre, and the little church of the
Madonna della Tosse, which looks like a shrine left standing amid the
general destruction.[543] The convent must have been finished about
1488. Lorenzo provided it with a choice library, visited it frequently
with intimate friends, and was fond of discussing philosophical and
theological questions with Fra Mariano. Naturally, the Augustinian was
wont to say that among men of such high position he had never known
one so God-fearing as Lorenzo. As a preacher Fra Mariano was just the
man for the people, as well as for scholars. He was little of stature,
but his voice was full and melodious, and his utterance agreeable; he
terrified and comforted, and made his hearers weep and laugh. Poliziano
describes the impression made on him by Mariano’s bearing, manner,
gestures, and whole appearance, his sonorous voice, his well-chosen
expressions, his majestic sentences, the artistic construction of his
phrases, the harmoniousness of his cadences, the richness of his
imagery, the clearness and force of his contrasts, the grace of his
narrations, and his easy changes of subject, preventing all monotony.
The picture Poliziano gives of the mode of life and conversation
of this spiritual orator, in whom he celebrates only the qualities
desirable in a temporal one, shows that Mariano was just the man to
sail round the rocks which threatened to wreck Girolamo. ‘I have met
him repeatedly at the villa and entered into confidential talk with
him. I never knew a man at once more attractive and more cautious. He
neither repels by immoderate severity nor deceives and leads astray
by exaggerated indulgence. Many preachers think themselves masters of
men’s life and death. While they abuse their power, they always look
gloomy, and weary men by constantly setting up for judges of morals.
But here is a man of moderation. In the pulpit he is a severe censor;
but when he descends, he indulges in winning, friendly discourse.
Therefore, I and my excellent friend Pico have much intercourse with
him, and nothing refreshes us after our literary labours so much as
his conversation. Lorenzo de’ Medici, who understands men so well,
shows how highly he esteems him, not only in that he has built him a
splendid convent, but also in that he often visits him, preferring a
conversation with him while walking to any other recreation.’[544]
Savonarola’s biographer Fra Pacifico Burlamacchi is no doubt quite
right in praising Fra Mariano’s eloquence rather than his doctrine,
in his account of the orator’s little artifice to impress the people.
But this man’s mastery of his art must have been considerable, to make
Girolamo Benivieni once say to the Ferrarese preacher, ‘Father, no one
can deny the truth, the usefulness, and needfulness of your teaching.
But your delivery lacks attraction, especially when one is daily led to
make a comparison with Fra Mariano.’ To which the other answered that
elegance of expression must give way to the simple preaching of sound
doctrine.[545] But it was long before Savonarola made his way. His
reputation, indeed, increased rapidly, but admirers still flocked round
Fra Mariano; princes and commonwealth applied to Lorenzo, begging him
to give the Augustinian, who seemed to be regarded as belonging to his
household, leave to come and preach to them. Lodovico il Moro begged
for this not merely as a personal favour, but because the city and all
the people longed for the fulfilment of Lorenzo’s promise; and the
consuls of the Sabine town of Norcia—the home of S. Benedict—called
Fra Mariano in their letter ‘God’s angel upon earth.’
It seems that Fra Girolamo was discouraged by his former failures in
this field, and the growing success of the Augustinian, and thought
at first of limiting his efforts to the philosophical and theological
instruction of the novices. His short philosophic compendia are only
valuable in the present day for their display of a spirit of justice
and sense of the need of investigation in human knowledge, and of
analytical progress from the known to the unknown, instead of belief by
authority; these, as well as his smaller ascetic and moral treatises,
mostly date from the first years after his return to Florence. In them
may be seen the mystic enthusiasm which soon became more and more
prominent in his sermons, expositions of the Bible, his poems, and
other important works. Combined with this mysticism was a striving to
clothe his views and prophecies of the future with the authority of
Holy Scripture, with which he was perhaps better acquainted than anyone
else at the time; but he interpreted it with a freedom, perfectly
honest on his part, which necessarily aroused scruples, for it opened
out a boundless field, where an excited fancy or secondary objects
might easily lead him astray; and this danger was the greater when he
turned his attention especially to the Apocalypse. In the summer of
1490 divers citizens sought admission to the lectures for the novices.
The convent-rooms being too small, Savonarola continued his lectures at
first in the court; then, as the number of hearers rapidly increased,
he transferred them on August 1 to the church. A rosebush still marks
the spot where Fra Girolamo taught in the courtyard of the convent;
and in these latter days it has been resolved to raise a statue to him
there, and a bust has been placed in what was once his cell. He needs
no such monuments where all around recalls his memory; but they are
tokens of the veneration paid to him by posterity in spite of all his
weaknesses and mistakes.
The direction Savonarola had taken soon led him further than he
calculated upon or perhaps intended. The effect produced by his
discourses is quite intelligible when one compares their character with
that of the ordinary preaching of the day, and takes the prevailing
temper into consideration. In both cases one meets with strange
contrasts. Artificial, wordy discourses, that people were accustomed to
hear in the sermons of the followers of Bernardino of Siena; besides
the simple, often impressive moral, there was a mixture of abstruse
scholasticism, asceticism, and anecdotes intended for the multitude,
on whom, however, part of their meaning was lost, and who laughed
and cried by turns, and were confirmed in their views of devotional
practices and works, in which too much stress was apt to be laid on
externals. Still the supremacy gained over the people by the moral and
political tendencies favoured by the Medici was by no means so complete
as to leave no room for opposing views, whose inward strength was only
increased by the outward resistance they encountered. The Dominican’s
subject-matter, his mode of demonstration, his whole manner, were such
as to make an impression upon opponents. To most preachers as well
as hearers, the Bible was a sealed book. When it was opened its word
became a living well springing up into a mighty fertilising stream,
and disclosing that wondrous power which has never failed wherever it
has been heard. Savonarola well knew that power. If he failed it was
from a defect exactly contrary to those of the others. They lacked
the true perception and feeling for that which alone could give their
teachings a meaning true, deep, and sound for all time. He lacked
moderation and the power to control his perceptions, his acquirements,
and himself. This was the rock on which he was ultimately wrecked.
Guicciardini, who was ten years old at Lorenzo’s death, whose youth
was passed in the midst of Fra Girolamo’s most strenuous activity,
and whose eyes were early open to all that went on around him, speaks
of the natural unstudied elegance of the sermons he heard and read,
and remarks that never had there been seen a man so versed in Holy
Scripture, never had such abundant discourse been united with such a
lasting impression.[546] In after years, when Savonarola’s attacks on
the corruption in the Church sought and found a personal object in that
Church’s unworthy head, he encountered in the enmity of other religious
societies a stumbling-block which contributed not a little to his fall.
But even in these earlier days he had long ago roused opposition, some
of which, proceeding from purely inward grounds, was unavoidable; but
a nature less rugged in its enthusiasm might have broken the force of
some of it.
Fra Girolamo’s great day was yet far distant. But this activity
and the effects produced on moral life by his preaching, by his
instructions in the convent, and by his and his pupils’ influence on
all classes, were already beginning to strike root that year when he
gathered around him the more serious-minded men and youths in San
Marco, and set himself to counteract the dominant pursuit of sensual
enjoyment which threatened to paralyse the energies of the people.
This activity and influence, when its chief source and originator had
personally succumbed, though his work was only apparently destroyed,
was described in glowing words by the great historian, though he is
not quite consistent in his views of Savonarola’s character. ‘What
he did for the amendment of morals was wonderful and holy. Never did
such order and such fear of God reign in Florence as in his time; and
the deterioration which set in after his death proves how entirely
everything was his work and the fruit of his labours. There was no more
gaming in public, people only played with trepidation and in private;
the taverns, the accustomed scenes of the wild doings of degenerate
youth, were closed; the worst vices were suppressed in consequence
of the abhorrence excited against them. Most women laid aside their
objectionable garments; the young people were rescued from their
wild ways and led back to a moral life, and visited the churches in
companies. Gamesters, blasphemers, and dissolute women were in danger
of being pursued and stoned. At the Carnaval, playing-cards, dice,
indecent pictures and books were collected and burnt on the square
of the Signoria; and on the day formerly given up to all kinds of
excesses, a great church procession took place. The elder people took
up a religious life, went diligently to mass, vespers, and sermons,
received the sacraments and distinguished themselves by doing good.
Many youths of the first families and some men of riper years entered
the Predicant Order. In all Italy was never seen a convent like that of
San Marco, where the excellent instruction given in the Latin, Greek,
and Hebrew languages and literature promised to furnish fresh ornaments
to the Order.’
This activity, which produced such a change and passed sentence of
condemnation on a system that had been carried out for years with
equal skill and perseverance, was only beginning in the last years
of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s life; but its very beginnings could not
fail to furnish matter for reflection to that keen thinker. Even
before 1490 similar symptoms had shown themselves, whether connected
with Savonarola’s earliest labours is not certain, but it is highly
probable. Poliziano’s prologue to the Menæchmi of Plautus, written in
May 1488, contains a vehement diatribe against the opponents of these
scenic representations—those who protested against the employment
of young people in reciting the too often objectionable verses of
classical plays.[547] Monks are the objects of the poet’s attack; monks
who were not like his friend Mariano.
Sed qui nos damnant, histriones sunt maxumi,
Nam Curios simulant, vivunt bacchanalia.
Hi sunt præcipuè, quidam clamosi, leves,
Cucullati, lignipedes, cincti funibus,
Superciliosum, in curvi cervicum pecus.
Qui quòd ab aliis et habitu et cultu dissentiunt,
Tristesque vultu vendunt sanctimonias,
Censuram sibi quandam et tyrranidem occupant.
Pavidamque plebem territant minaciis.
These lines, recited in Lorenzo’s presence, are witnesses to the
existence of the opposition which increased in strength every year,
and from whose influence many, even of those who sided with the ruling
party, seem not to have been free. In Lent 1491 Fra Girolamo began to
preach in Sta. Maria del Fiore, the crowd having now become too great
for the conventual church; the number of hearers increased daily,
the impression made by his predictions of the punishment and evil to
come became more vivid, till Lorenzo thought it advisable to try to
stem the tide of growing excitement which threatened to endanger his
work and his influence. For these prophecies of approaching judgment
contained something more than indirect attacks on the present state of
affairs, and the serious turn of mind encouraged by the preacher most
necessarily deprive of their force many of the means which served to
maintain that state of affairs.
Five chief citizens of the dominant party—men who all, with one
exception, later on personally fell under the mighty influence of
Savonarola—Domenico Bonsi, Guid’Antonio Vespucci, Paol’Antonio
Soderini, Bernardo Rucellai, and Francesco Valori, went to San Marco
to exhort the preacher to moderation. He answered that they had better
exhort Lorenzo, who had sent them, to repent of his sins: God would
spare no one. To the warning that he might be exiled, he replied that
Lorenzo was a Florentine citizen and he a stranger; but the former
would go and he would remain. He predicted the speedy death of Lorenzo,
the Pope, and King Ferrante. The increasing and very intelligible
discontent among the Medicean partisans, of which he could not but
be aware, led him, however, to try and moderate his too frequent and
exciting prophecies and confine himself more to moral and theological
lectures. But his restless spirit carried him away. It would have been
well for him could he have known moderation. But as his imagery, at
once brilliant and irregular, is confusing and bewildering rather than
elevating; as the terrors of his curse are weakened by repetition; as
his precepts for Christian life rise to a pitch of asceticism, whose
very exaggeration contains its own contradiction; as his teaching, so
truly that of the Gospel in its principles and right application, loses
its impressive force by straying to unsuitable ground; even so was it
with his conduct in life. He irritated needlessly and aimlessly. The
benefactions of the Medici to the convent and to the whole order had
founded a relation of clientship, in which there was nothing offensive
so long as both parties observed the moderation which had once been
guaranteed by Cosimo’s cautiousness and was continued by Lorenzo’s tact
and discretion. It was customary that when a new prior was appointed he
should make a visit to the head of the family. Fra Girolamo, on being
chosen prior in July 1491, refused to do this. ‘I hold my election
from God alone,’ said he; ‘to Him alone I owe obedience.’ It may easily
be conceived that Lorenzo took this amiss, and, in his turn, spoke out
freely. ‘A stranger has come into my house, and does not deign to visit
me.’ However, he made no change in his conduct towards the convent; he
sent gifts and money as before. Once some gold florins were found in
the alms-box of the church. Fra Girolamo, who had previously made some
personal remarks from the pulpit, caused the money to be given to the
Buonuomini of San Martino, saying that silver and copper was enough for
the convent. When Lorenzo came to walk in the convent garden, according
to his custom, the prior never showed himself. His admirers praise
his conduct towards a man from whom he was separated by a deep inward
gulf. If, instead of trying to work upon that man and so introduce a
different state of things, he intended to cause a violent conflict, he
acted rightly.
Lorenzo’s own conduct towards Savonarola was always prudent. The
Dominican’s biographers relate that the great man, being repulsed
by him, incited Fra Mariano to attack him from the pulpit; but such
incitement was probably not needed. The breach between the two
preachers was older than themselves; the antagonism of the two orders
was but personified in these men, so radically different from each
other. In a sermon preached on Ascension-Day, on the text: ‘It is not
for you to know the times or the seasons,’ the Augustinian accused
the prior of San Marco of being a false prophet, an instigator of
sedition among the people, a stirrer-up of strife and disorder. It is
said that his vehemence and exaggerated personalities gave offence
to his numerous hearers, and ruined his fame as an orator. Seven
years later, when the Roman court was in the greatest excitement on
account of events in Florence, when Savonarola lay under the ban of
the Church, when his safety and his very life depended only on the
momentary preponderance of one party or another in the excited city,
already stained with the blood of noble citizens—then this same Fra
Mariano preached in Sant’Agostino at Rome in such immoderate terms,
and applied to his hated rival such coarse expressions, that even to
unlearned hearers his gifts of eloquence seemed to have been swallowed
up by party-spirit; and the cardinals who were present turned their
backs upon him. They had expected a refutation of the Dominican’s
teaching, and they heard nothing but raging accusations accompanied by
vulgar gestures.[548] ‘If you want to understand a monk, ask a monk
about him,’ so said the Augustinian. After his personal attack at
Florence, it is said that Fra Mariano, apparently regardless of his
discomfiture, invited his rival to San Gallo, where they celebrated a
solemn mass together and exchanged civilities; but the story does not
agree with Savonarola’s character and the frankness so much praised by
his biographers in his relations with Lorenzo.
CHAPTER VII.
PROCLAMATION OF THE CARDINALATE OF GIOVANNI DE’ MEDICI.