IT was a wise decision of Lorenzo to fix on Pisa as a residence for

his son Giovanni. His efforts to raise that unfortunate city and to

bridge over as much as he could the gulf between it and Florence had

been unwearying. Moreover, Pisa not only offered to the youth, in the

persons of its learned men, ample means of scientific cultivation,

it also gave the needful quiet which, while his elevation to a great

dignity was an open secret, he could not find in his father’s house,

constantly filled with friends and clients. Philosophy, law, and

polite literature seem to have been Giovanni’s chief studies; his

whole after-life shows that he was not much taken up with theology.

Filippo Decio and Bartolommeo Sozzini were his chief instructors in

civil and ecclesiastical law. With his quick mind his studies were

a pleasure; and the uncommon capacity which he always displayed in

literary matters, independently of the accurate taste he inherited

from his father, and his perfect mastery of the Latin tongue, suffice

to show that he no more lost his time at Pisa than he had done in

the villa or the house at Florence. He always attached great weight

to Latin scholarship, as he proved by his choice of secretaries when

he became Pope. In a brief of 1517, he speaks of the enrichment of

the Latin tongue, doubtless alluding both to the increased publicity

of its master-pieces, and to the efforts made, in accordance with

Poliziano’s views, to apply that language to the purposes of modern

science and modern life, instead of confining it to mere imitation,

yet without offending against the severity of the classical. His tutor

Bernardo Michelozzi has already been mentioned. Chalkondylas and Peter

of Ægina are named as his instructors in Greek. His constant companion

was Bernardo Dovizj, in whom he placed as much confidence as Lorenzo

had given to his father, and, indeed, also gave to the son. Another

of Giovanni’s companions was Silvio Passerini, who belonged to the

Cortona branch of a good Florentine family, and whose father was one

of the stanchest adherents of the Medici. Lorenzo caused the boy to

be brought up with his second son; and Silvio, who was five years

older than Giovanni, followed him faithfully through prosperity and

adversity. In later days he enjoyed the revived glory of the family,

and was raised to the highest ecclesiastical dignities, and also to

civil power in Florence; but he showed himself unequal to the situation

when another storm overthrew the Medicean authority.[549] The degree

of doctor of canon law had already been conferred on Giovanni. Towards

the end of his stay at Pisa he had a strange fellow-student—the

Cardinal vice-chancellor Rodrigo Borgia’s son Cesare, who was studying

jurisprudence under the future Cardinals Vera and Romolino, and

attended the lectures of Filippo Decio.[550]

Naturally Giovanni held a prominent position, and his influence was

reckoned on in favour of the city and university, as well as for

private persons. His letters to his father, mostly short, are written

in the tone of respect and obedience which at that time universally

characterised the relation of children to their parents, and in a

great degree does so still. He occasionally retired to the solitude

of Camaldoli for the purpose of meditation and of indulging in the

spiritual exercises usual to one in his circumstances. In the

beginning of August 1491, he was residing in the abbey of Passignano

with his cousin Giulio. Lorenzo had not ceased interceding for

benefices for his son. When a Tuscan abbot was dying in May 1489, he

wrote to the ambassador at Rome: ‘Induce the Pope to give the benefice

to his Messer Giovanni. I say _his_, because he is far more his servant

than my son. On account of the importance of the benefice, his Holiness

should confer it only on one of our people (Florentines), and if it is

given to one of ours, it can come to no one who will be more thankful

for it.’[551]

The Pope’s stipulation for delay in proclaiming Giovanni cardinal

did not at all suit Lorenzo, and he took no pains to conceal the

fact. Within a year from the nomination he was urgent to have it

published immediately; but Innocent was not to be moved. ‘I thanked his

Holiness,’ wrote on January 8, 1490, Piero Alamanni,[552] temporarily

replacing Lanfredini, who had died three days before, ‘for Messer

Giovanni’s preferment, and declared how gratifying it was to our whole

people, and how grateful they are to the Holy Father; at the same time

I hinted, in the most suitable words I could command, that a shortening

of the appointed delay was greatly desired. In his detailed reply, the

Pope remarked first that what he did was all for the best, and for the

reasons and grounds which he had communicated to you through M. Pier

Filippo (Pandolfini). Then he turned the conversation to M. Giovanni,

and spoke of him in such a way as if he were his own son. He said he

had been informed what progress he was making in his studies at Pisa,

and how he had distinguished himself in several disputations; at which

he showed extreme pleasure. At last he spoke as follows: “Leave me to

care for Messer Giovanni’s interests, for I regard him as my son, and

shall of my own accord take in hand his proclamation when you are least

thinking of it. I have yet other views for his honour and advantage.“‘

This was all very fine, but it was the less calculated to soothe

Lorenzo’s impatience, as the Pope’s state of health gave good cause for

the gravest anxiety. On September 23, Innocent was seized with another

apoplectic fit. All Rome was in the most intense excitement; the Pope’s

death was reported; all shops were closed, and all persons working in

the fields and vineyards hurried home. Franceschetto Cybò tried to

get possession both of the church treasury and of Prince Dschem, in

consequence of which, on the following day, while Innocent still lay

unconscious, the cardinals took precautionary measures; not, however,

it was said, till part of the treasure had been sent to Florence.[553]

The invalid came to himself, and on May 27 Pandolfini wrote that he

was getting better and hopeful of recovery. It is related that he said

to Cardinal Savelli and his colleagues, who came to the palace in the

moment of danger to secure the treasure, ‘he hoped yet to bury them

all.’ But there was great alarm at Florence. As soon as the news of

the Pope’s critical condition arrived, Guid’Antonio Vespucci and Piero

Guicciardini were commissioned to go to Rome to demand, in the name

of the city, the admission of Giovanni de’ Medici to the approaching

Conclave. More favourable news made the embassy needless,[554] but

Lorenzo determined to make every effort not to let his success be

spoiled. His brother-in-law, the archbishop, was then in Florence,

and went to Rome at his request. Through Franceschetto’s mediation he

obtained admission to the Pope, whom he found suffering from quartan

fever, and in a state which did not at all inspire confidence. His

mission had no success with the influential cardinals; his letter

to Lorenzo[555] shows how slightingly he was treated. All he gained

was the assurance that the family, and especially Lorenzo, should be

treated with consideration and not offended. When he became more urgent

on the subject of the Conclave, he was told that matters had not got

so far as that yet; the Pope was well, and should anything fatal happen

to him, they would proceed with due consideration. Pandolfini, too,

obtained nothing. On the part of the cardinals, he wrote,[556] there

would be no serious difficulty; it lay with the Pope, who was afraid

of publication in this individual case, lest it should offend others.

‘Do not think that to speak of the matter at the present moment would

lead to the attainment of the object. Everyone is warned to speak to

him only of cheerful things, and that only in the presence of others.

If one tried to obtain an interview without witnesses, one would expose

oneself to the suspicion that it was for something of importance.

For more than a month not a cardinal has spoken with him, save those

belonging to the palace; and of the prelates, only those who cheer him

up are admitted.’

The Pope’s health really became stronger; and as he remained firm,

Lorenzo had to wait patiently till the three years’ delay was over.

When the moment arrived, neither Innocent nor the young cardinal’s

father could hope to live much longer. On the afternoon of March 8,

1492, Giovanni, who had in the meantime left Pisa, proceeded with a

small retinue to the abbey of Fiesole. That convent and church, where

everything recalled the munificence of the Medici, had been chosen

to witness the conferring of the highest honours upon a scion of the

family. The next morning Pico della Mirandola and Jacopo Salviati

arrived with the notary Simone Staza, and at the sixth hour they

accompanied the youth to the church. The office of the Madonna was

solemnly sung and was followed by the sacrifice of the mass, the

celebrant, the Prior Matteo Bosso, giving the Host to Giovanni as he

knelt on the altar-steps. He then blessed the cardinal’s robes, took in

his hands the Pope’s bull and brief and said: ‘May it be for the good

of God’s church, of our country, and of thy house! This day, Giovanni

Medici, the three years’ delay appointed by the bull and this brief

for thy dignity as cardinal is expired. Whosoever will read, let him

read; all is fulfilled. Do thou, Simone, make a public record of it.’

He then presented to the kneeling youth his insignia, the pallium,

biretta, hat, and ring, and the choir sang the _Veni Creator_. After

proclaiming the indulgences to which he was now competent, the cardinal

returned to the convent with the rest. After dinner Piero de’ Medici

arrived mounted on a handsome horse adorned with gilded trappings, and

accompanied by some friends of the family; and the whole party mounted

on horseback to proceed to the city.

In spite of the rainy weather thousands had crowded to the Porta San

Gallo to see the procession. To avoid a press a regulation had been

made that no one should cross the bridge over the Mugnone; so the

whole space before the gate and the convent was filled with people.

When the cardinal and his companions rode up, they found the whole of

the clergy, protonotaries and prelates, the chief citizens, and the

foreign ambassadors. On reaching the city the procession entered the

Servite Church, where Giovanni prayed in the chapel of the Annunziata,

and thence to Sta. Maria del Fiore. After this the cardinal paid a

visit to the Signoria, and then, accompanied by the ambassadors,

rode to his father’s house, where Lorenzo received his son. The

streets through which the procession passed were gaily decorated, and

the windows and roofs filled with people. The whole population was

astir. At night the houses and numerous towers were brilliant with

illuminations; bonfires were lighted in the squares, so that it was as

bright as daylight, and shouts of rejoicing and the sound of musical

instruments continued so long that sleep seemed forgotten. The next

morning, Sunday, March 10, the grand ecclesiastical celebration took

place in Sta. Maria del Fiore, whither the cardinal was accompanied by

the ambassadors and chief citizens. The church was full; the Signoria

were present: eight bishops sang the Mass of the Holy Ghost. It

was not fourteen years since the blood of a Medici had been shed on

that spot, in the presence of another youthful cardinal. After Mass,

Giovanni took leave of the Signoria and returned home, where a grand

banquet was prepared in his honour. Sixty covers were laid; the guests

were the foreign diplomatists and the foremost men of the city. For

several days preparations had been made and provisions procured ‘for

the solemnity of our Monsignore.’[557] Lorenzo was so ill on his son’s

day of triumph that he could not take part either in the service at

church or at the banquet. He had himself carried into the hall to see

the brilliant company at table; that was all he could do. Before the

end of the banquet the Signoria presented to the new Prince of the

Church a gift of honour, consisting of silver plate of the finest

workmanship and more than a thousand pounds in weight; its value was

estimated at 10,000 gold florins at the least. After Giovanni had

withdrawn to his own apartments with the ambassadors and Signori, the

various communities of the State, and the Jews of Florence, sent him

presents of handsome silver plate; all of which, as also gifts from

private persons, except his own relatives, he immediately returned with

thanks.[558]

Little more than two years and a half after this day of triumph, he

whom Florence now greeted with acclamations left his desolate home in

the habit of a Franciscan monk; the convent of St. Mark, built by his

family, closed its gates against him, and the terrified fugitive turned

towards the Apennines; thus beginning an exile destined to last for

eighteen years, to be followed later on by a period of yet greater,

and, in its way, unequalled splendour.

Giovanni stayed but one day more in his native city. He had to go to

Rome to express his thanks to the Pope and take his place in the Sacred

College. On Tuesday, March 12, he took leave of his sick father and set

off on horseback, accompanied by his suite. Among the latter was the

general of the Camaldulensians, Pietro Delfino, descended from a noble

Venetian family; he had been formerly in the monastery of San Michele

di Murano, was elected general of his Order in 1480, and was a great

friend of Lorenzo and other distinguished Florentines; no one could

be better fitted to direct the first steps of a youth raised to such

high honours. A letter written by him from Rome to Guido, prior of the

monastery of the Angeli, gives an account of the journey and reception.

For two miles from the Porta Romana, as far as the Carthusian convent,

the departing cardinal was escorted by a number of distinguished

citizens; they then returned to Florence, and he rode on to his abbey

of Passignano. The greater part of his suite went to pass the night

at Poggibonzi, and on the following morning reached Siena, where the

cardinal arrived in the afternoon, and was triumphantly and joyfully

received by the people. March 16 the party resumed their journey, and

dined at Buonconvento; they passed that night at San Quirico and the

next at Acquapendente. Throughout the Sienese territory they were

entertained at the public expense. Several prelates came to meet the

cardinal at Acquapendente, and he was saluted on the way to Viterbo

by several of the Orsini whose territories near the lake of Bolsena

bordered on those of Siena.[559]

At Viterbo Franceschetto Cybò received his brother-in-law, and all

rode together to Bracciano, whose lord, Gentil Virginio Orsini, had

gone eight miles, up to the foot of the Viterbo mountains, to meet

the welcome guest. They were all housed in the gigantic pentagonal

fortress, impregnable in those days, and even now startling in its

gloomy grandeur as it towers above the slumbering depths of the

lake below. The travellers spent a whole day with the powerful lord

of Bracciano, who in a few years was ruined by the same storm that

overthrew the Medici. On the following day, March 22, the Pope

announced to the cardinals and envoys the approaching arrival of the

new member of the Sacred College. It took place in the afternoon amid

pouring rain. Giovanni dismounted at Sta. Maria del Popolo, prayed

in the church and slept in the convent, and the next morning his

colleagues and the ambassadors came to fetch him. Francesco Piccolomini

and Raffael Riario headed the procession; Giovanni himself rode between

the cardinal-deacons Giovan Battista Savelli and Giovanni Colonna. The

new cardinal-deacon of Sta. Maria in Dominica was received by the Pope

in the Consistory. After the ceremony they all escorted him back to

his dwelling in the Campo di Fiore, and the rain was unceasing. Pietro

Delfino reports that the youth’s bearing and conduct made a favourable

impression on all, and he was thought more mature in mind than was to

be expected from his age; which may be accounted for by considering

what great care his father, who himself had been early brought into

public life, had bestowed upon his son’s education, and what a lasting

impression was left on that son by the father’s example.

The letter addressed by Lorenzo to Giovanni[560] is an honourable

proof not merely of political wisdom and consummate knowledge of human

affairs, but also of a genuine sense of propriety and a moral feeling

which seems to have been strengthened by the experience of advancing

years and his own personal circumstances. ‘Messer Giovanni,’ thus runs

the letter, ‘you, and we for your sake owe sincere thankfulness to our

Lord God. For over and above many benefits and honours conferred on our

house, He has granted to it in your person the highest dignity to which

it has ever risen. The matter, already great in itself, is made yet far

greater by the circumstances, namely, your youth and our position. My

earnest exhortation to you, therefore, is that you endeavour yourself

to be thankful to God; for it is not your deserts nor your prudence

and foresight that have made you a cardinal, but the wondrous grace of

God. This you must recognise, and prove your recognition of it by an

honest, exemplary, virtuous life. To this you are all the more bound,

as in your youth you have already given an impression of yourself which

furnishes reason to expect riper fruits. It would be a shame for you

and a sad disappointment for me, if you forgot your good beginnings at

an age when others are wont to arrive at discretion and a regular life.

You must, therefore, be careful to lighten the burden of the dignity

conferred on you by a moral course of life, and perseverance in the

studies befitting your vocation. Last year it was a great comfort to

me to hear that, without being exhorted by others, you went frequently

to confession and to the Lord’s Table; and I believe that there is

no better means of continuing in the grace of God than constant

perseverance in this practice. It seems to me that I can give no more

useful and suitable exhortation than this. As you are going to Rome,

the very pit of all evil, the difficulty of doing what I recommend

naturally increases; for not only does example have its influence, but

you personally will have no lack of evil counsellors and tempters. As

you can understand for yourself, your elevation to the cardinalate

excites great envy, on account both of your youth and of the other

circumstances to which I have alluded. Those who were unable to hinder

that elevation will endeavour artfully to diminish its value, by trying

to make your manner of life appear in an unfavourable light, and to

drag you down into the pit into which they themselves are fallen. They

trust that your youth will make this easier to them. You must take the

more pains to frustrate these hopes, as there is the less virtue to

be found now in the College [‘quanto nel Collegio hora si vede manco

virtù’]. I remember seeing that College full of learned and virtuous

men; be advised to follow their example; for the more your course of

life differs from that of others, the more you will be sure of being

loved and esteemed. But you must flee the reproach of hypocrisy as well

as that of an evil reputation, like Scylla and Charybdis. You must

endeavour to cultivate moderation, and both in your conduct and speech

avoid everything which might offend others, and not make a display of

austerity and strictness. These are things which you will understand

with time, and learn to act up to my meaning better than I can explain

it to you now.

‘You will have no difficulty in perceiving how much depends on the

individuality and example of a Cardinal. If the Cardinals were what

they should be, the world would be the better for it; for they would

always choose a good Pope and thus secure the peace of Christendom.

Endeavour therefore to so comport yourself, that others in resembling

you will promote the general well being of all. As there is nothing

in the world more difficult than to converse fittingly with people of

different sorts, I can give you no minute instruction on this point.

But in all cases you must take care to be respectful and unpretending

in your intercourse with the Cardinals and others of high rank, and

measure things with a calm judgment and not according to the passions

of others; for many violate reason in aiming at that which is unlawful.

Keep your own conscience at peace by giving no place in your discourse

to offensive matters. This seems to me in your case the first and most

important precept; for if anyone should let himself be led into enmity

by passion, the return is easy with such as have no sound reason for

disagreement. During this your first stay in Rome, I think you will do

well to use your ears more than your tongue.

‘This day I have given you up wholly to God and the holy Church.

Therefore you must become a good priest and convince everyone that

you prefer the good and honour of the Church and of the Apostolic

See to all the things of this world, and all private considerations

and interests. If you keep this before your eyes you will not lack

opportunities of being useful to this city and our house. For the

alliance with the Church is advantageous to the city; you must form the

link between the two; and the house goes with the city. And although

the future cannot be foreseen, yet I have a general belief that we

shall not lack means on both sides if you hold firmly to this most

important resolution that I urge on you of placing the Church before

all else.

‘You are the youngest member of the College; not only at the present

time, but of all that have ever hitherto been created. Therefore you

must be attentive and respectful when you meet the other Cardinals, and

never make people wait for you at chapel, in the Consistory, or at a

deputation. You will soon discover which of your colleagues are most,

and which are least commendable. You will have to avoid confidential

intercourse with those of irregular lives, not only on account of the

thing itself, but also on account of public opinion. Let your discourse

with all men turn as much as possible on indifferent subjects. When you

have to appear in public or solemn occasions, it seems to me advisable

rather to moderate your outward enthusiasm than to overstep it. I would

prefer a well-filled stable, and well-ordered cleanly servants, to pomp

and riches. Try to live regularly, and gradually to introduce fixed

order, which is unattainable at present, while master and household

are alike unknown to each other. Silk and jewels suit your position on

certain occasions only; far more suitable are a few good antiquities

and fine books, and respectable and learned, rather than numerous

society. Rather invite people frequently to you than go to many

entertainments; but herein also you must proceed with moderation. Have

for your own use simple food, and take a great deal of exercise, for

in your present position you might easily be overcome by some illness

for want of prudence. This position is no less secure than lofty; so

that it often happens that those who have attained it become negligent,

saying to themselves that they have reached a lofty goal, and thinking

that they can keep it without much effort; thereby often bringing

injury to their position as well as to their health. With respect to

the latter I advise you to be as careful as possible, and to have

rather too little than too much confidence in your strength.

‘One rule of life I commend to you before all others: get up early

every morning. Putting aside the benefit to health, it gives time

for attending to all the business of the day, and you will find it a

great assistance in fulfilling your various duties, as you have to

read your service, to study, to give audiences and do various other

things. Another thing is very useful for one in your position: always,

and particularly now at first, consider in the evening what you have

to do the next day, that business may not find you unprepared. As for

speaking in the Consistory, I am of opinion that in all cases which

may occur it will, on account of your youth and inexperience, be most

praiseworthy and befitting the circumstances that you should always

follow the Holy Father and his wise judgment. Without doubt you will

often be urged to speak to his Holiness about particular matters

and use your influence. Be careful now at first to ask as little as

possible and not trouble the Holy Father; for he is naturally inclined

to grant the most to him who dins least into his ears. I think it

salutary to take care not to weary him, but to lay before him pleasant

things; and a request modestly preferred corresponds better with his

nature and will put him in a more favourable disposition. Fare you

well.’

CHAPTER VIII.

DEATH OF LORENZO.

WHEN Lorenzo wrote that letter to his son his condition might be called

hopeless. From his youth up he had suffered from hereditary physical

ailments. The attacks had increased with age, till they weakened his

originally strong constitution. Gout made its appearance in various

forms, and the waters, tried frequently and one after another, failed

to give lasting relief, partly because he never gave them time to

produce their full effect. He often joked about his sufferings. ‘Pain

in my feet,’ he wrote to Lanfredini in August 1489, ‘has hindered my

correspondence with you. Feet and tongue are indeed far apart, yet they

interfere with each other.’ Towards the end of August 1491, he was

so ill that he had to be carried to Spedaletto in a litter.[561] The

waters of Morba had only a passing soothing effect; and at the end of

the autumn a slow fever set in with grave symptoms. His whole system

seemed attacked at once—bowels, limbs, and nerves. To the arthritic

pains were added pains in the bones, which robbed him of rest by night

and day; gout had attacked the higher organs: the physicians were at

their wits’ end. When the year 1492 opened, he could see no one; all

grave political business had to be set aside; a Milanese ambassador

waited more than a fortnight for an audience. An improvement permitted

him to leave the house again, but it was not lasting. ‘The illustrious

Lorenzo,’ wrote the Ferrarese ambassador on February 11,[562] ‘has been

again for some days greatly tormented with pains which attack the whole

of his body except his head. At times he suffers so acutely that it

is hard to understand how he can hold out. The doctors do not indeed

consider the illness mortal; but his condition is getting very bad,

because he enjoys very little rest. God grant him health again; for the

accounts of his state are really such as to excite sympathy.’ On the

8th of the same month, King Ferrante wrote to his ambassador, Marino

Tomacelli:[563] ‘We have received many letters from you, but now we

only reply concerning the long-continued sufferings of the illustrious

Lorenzo, which have grieved and do grieve us to the depths of our soul.

Would God we could procure him recovery, or even alleviation! Exhort

his Magnificence to arm himself with patience and thus overcome the

evil; more especially as we may now expect better weather, after these

last days which have indeed been bad. Inform his Magnificence also that

we congratulate him on the settlement of the dispute with his Holiness,

which must be as pleasing to him as to ourself, he having had so great

a share in it, as is known to us and all. May he, by God’s help, the

advice of good doctors and prudence on his own part, recover his

health, so that we may both enjoy peace, and especially peace of mind.’

The king was not deceived in his estimate of how much depended on

Lorenzo’s life and activity. In the middle of February an improvement

set in, but again it was but transitory. The weather continued bad, and

at the beginning of March the pains returned; no one was admitted to

the invalid with the exception of his family and a very few intimate

friends. We remarked before that he was unable to take part in the

solemnities attending the proclamation of his son’s cardinalate; his

most ardent wish was now fulfilled, and his life was on the wane. He

seems to have been aware of his condition, when the young Cardinal

set out on March 12. He spoke thus to Filippo Valori, brother of his

biographer, and Andrea Carubini, the former of whom was to accompany

Giovanni to Rome, and the latter was attached to his household: ‘I

entrust my son’s youth to you; me you will never see again.’ Who can

tell what were his feelings as he wrote that beautiful letter!—There

was again a slight improvement; but it was the last. The disease made

rapid progress. On the 21st the invalid was taken to Careggi, his

favourite abode, where he had planned and done so much, and where he

could get more air and sunshine than in the city. Towards the end of

March a physician was expected from Naples. At the beginning of April,

Duke Ercole of Ferrara came to Florence[564] on his journey to Rome,

whither he was going ostensibly for purposes of devotion, in reality

for political objects, and to try to obtain the cardinalate for his son

Ippolito. The boy was only thirteen, but he had already been Archbishop

of Gran for six years; and if a Medici had won the purple at fourteen,

why not an Este, a scion of one of the oldest families of Italy? If

Innocent VIII. had lived longer he would have been unable to avoid

giving this nomination also. The duke could not see Lorenzo, but the

latter had already promised him his son’s vote in the future Consistory.

The sufferer’s days were numbered. He made himself ready for the

worst, set his house in order, and made what arrangements he could

to secure for his son the position he had himself held. But he was

too clear-sighted not to perceive the dangers which the old love of

freedom and impatience under the long and ever-strengthening supremacy

of a single family, together with Piero’s inexperience and haughty

character, must bring upon him. Poliziano indeed relates that Lorenzo

had cherished an intention of retiring, and handing over the direction

of affairs to his son. ‘About two years before his death,’ he says, ‘I

was sitting with him in his bed-chamber, and we were talking, as usual,

of philosophy and literature. He then said that he intended passing

the rest of his days with Ficino, Pico, and myself, in study, far from

the bustle of the city. To my objection that this would be impossible,

as the citizens needed his counsel and authority more and more every

day, he answered smiling: “I shall provide a substitute in the person

of thy pupil, and entrust the burden to his shoulders.“‘ Then on

Poliziano’s expressing a doubt whether Piero’s age was sufficient to

render him competent, he praised his son’s mind and bearing, and the

good foundations which Poliziano had laid. The story may be true,

notwithstanding the writer’s visible tendency to over-rate his friend’s

actions and sayings. But doubtless Lorenzo’s sole object was to hear

what would be said to such an intention. He can hardly have had serious

thoughts of retiring from public life, least of all at such a time.

Looking back upon his own short but eventful career, he could see more

clearly than ever what unceasing care and trouble, what knowledge of

characters and calculation of humours and circumstances, had been

necessary to govern parties, keep down opponents without driving them

to extremity, and make use of and direct adherents without letting

them outgrow his control. He knew but too well that a single false

step might upset everything. In the depths of his own mind he felt

the discords that ran through the general tone of thought and feeling

in the state. He measured the force of the hardly-concealed moral

and religious currents that were threatening to break forth. When

he, the experienced statesman, looked around him and surveyed the

political condition of Italy, he was alarmed at the weak foundations

of the edifice which it had cost him so much exertion to support by

his counsels and actions. But just now he had put an end to the long

and dangerous strife between the Pope and the King; and who was to

answer for the future? And when the unstable Pope and the unprincipled

King were gone, who could predict the former’s successor—who dared

flatter himself with the hope that the latter’s heir, in every respect

worse than himself, would keep even his own disaffected land at peace,

and not foster the seeds, sown long ago, of dissensions with other

countries? Perhaps Lorenzo’s death-bed was haunted even more by the

consciousness of the preponderance of evil elements in the College,

by the thoughts of Alfonso of Naples, of Lodovico il Moro, and of the

hostility of Venice, than even by the dread of attempts at a change in

Florence.

In his religious views and his mode of expressing them Lorenzo had

always been a true child of the age, which combined a secular temper

with a tinge of unfeigned religious feeling, and amid all its grave

intellectual errors was not without moral consciousness. That Lorenzo

possessed this moral consciousness is proved by many of his expressions

through his latter years. He had gained from his excellent and pious

mother something more than a literary acquaintance with religious

matters. He had inherited from his forefathers the traditions of

a close and active connection with ecclesiastical foundations and

ecclesiastical interests, which he furthered in a manner that cannot

be attributed solely to political motives. His sensuous temperament,

his early elevation to such authority as perhaps no private man has

ever enjoyed in a city so full of genuine life, led him into many moral

errors. But as he was at the same time the author of the lays of the

Carnaval and the poet of philosophical and spiritual songs, even so,

amid all his errors and notwithstanding the great influence exercised

over him from his youth up by antique philosophy, he still adhered

to the faith of Christianity practised and taught by his teacher

Ficino and his friend Pico della Mirandola. All his life he had been

attentive to the observance of religious ordinances; and he continued

so when that life was near its close. His sister Bianca de’ Pazzi had

accompanied him to Careggi; and it was she who told him of his imminent

danger. ‘Brother,’ said she, ‘thou hast lived as a man of lofty mind;

thou must quit this life not only bravely but piously. Know that all

hope is over.’[565] He seemed somewhat distressed that hope had been

encouraged too long; then he asked for the aid of the Church. It was

late when the priest who was summoned from San Lorenzo reached the

villa. The dying man would not receive him in bed: in spite of the

remonstrances of those about him, he got up and had himself dressed:

then, supported by his attendants, he entered the room, where he sank

on his knees before the ciborium. Seeing how weak he was, the priest

insisted that he should lie down again; and he was with difficulty

induced to do so. He then received the viaticum with a devoutness which

made an impression on all present.[566]

His eldest son, his sister, and Angelo Poliziano were almost constantly

near him. After the religious ceremony Piero remained alone by his

bedside. Lorenzo comforted him, and gave him warnings and good advice

as to his conduct in the city and the state when he himself should have

departed. ‘The citizens,’ said he, ‘will, I believe, acknowledge thee,

my son, as worthy to fill the position which I have occupied; and I

doubt not that thou wilt have the same authority in the commonwealth

as I have enjoyed until now. But as this commonwealth is, according to

the common expression, a body with many heads, and it is impossible

to please them all, remember that in all the varied circumstances of

life the way to be kept is that which appears most honourable; and

always prefer the general good to personal and party interests.’ Wise

counsel this; if he who gave it had but followed it more strictly,

it would have saved him from much bitter and but too well-founded

reproach! He charged Piero to take a father’s place towards his young

brother Giuliano; to the Cardinal he commended his nephew Giulio,

then aged fourteen, and for whom he seems already to have had visions

of an ecclesiastical career. He also spoke to his son about his

funeral, ordering that it should be arranged after the pattern of his

grandfather’s, and that the limits usual in the interment of a private

man should not be overstepped.

Meanwhile a famous Lombard doctor, Lazaro of Pavia, sent by Lodovico

il Moro, had arrived at Careggi. The invalid asked the attendants

what he was doing, and on being told that he was composing a draught

of pulverised pearls, precious stones, and other costly substances,

he exclaimed with eager voice and cheerful look to Poliziano, who was

standing near the bed: ‘Dost thou hear, Angelo, dost thou hear?’ Then,

stretching out his enfeebled arms, he seized his friend by both hands

and held him fast, while the latter sought to turn away to hide the

rising tears; at last Lorenzo, seeing his emotion, let him go, and

he rushed to his own rooms to let his grief take its course. When he

came back, Lorenzo asked why Pico did not come to see him; and being

answered that probably Pico feared to trouble him, he remarked that

he rather feared it was the distance from the villa to the city that

troubled Pico. The latter, thus called for, came; and the invalid

received him with the old cordiality. He begged him to excuse the

trouble he was giving him, adding that it must be attributed to his

affection, for he should die more content after having seen him once

more. Then he spoke on many subjects, both general and particular, and

said, looking at the two: ‘I would that death had spared me till I had

been able to complete your libraries.’ Poliziano knelt down beside the

bed to catch the words, which were already becoming indistinct.

Scarcely had Pico left Careggi when another man entered the chamber

of death.[567] If Lorenzo summoned Girolamo Savonarola to him, it

must have been because he was not easy in his conscience. The several

versions of the interview, as related by those who were connected

either with Lorenzo or the Dominican Prior, differ so widely as to

the circumstances that only greater or less probability can decide

between them. This is Poliziano’s story: Fra Girolamo of Ferrara, a man

distinguished by his learning and godliness, and an excellent preacher

of the Divine Word, entered the room, and admonished the invalid to

hold fast to the Faith; to which Lorenzo replied that he continued

immovable therein. Hereupon he exhorted him thenceforth to lead a

virtuous life; to which the reply was that he would endeavour himself

so to do. Thirdly, he recommended him to meet death, if it needs must

be, with firmness. ‘Nothing,’ replied the invalid, ‘is sweeter to

me, if it be God’s will.’ The monk was departing, when Lorenzo said

to him: ‘Give me thy blessing, father, before thou partest from me.’

And with bowed head, and in the attitude of religious earnestness, he

responded correctly, and with full consciousness to Savonarola’s words

and prayers, undisturbed by the no longer concealed mourning of the

household.

So reports the friend of many years—he who knew the dying man better

perhaps than anyone else. But another story stands in opposition

to his. According to this version, Lorenzo wished to make one last

confession to the Dominican. He accused himself of three things: the

sack of Volterra, the squandering of the dower-moneys, and the blood

shed at the time of the Pazzi conspiracy. The dying man’s agitation

was distressing. ‘God is gracious, God is merciful,’ said the monk

to soothe him. Then, when he had done, Savonarola spoke. ‘You have

need of three things. First, true and lively confidence in the Divine

grace.’ To this the invalid replied, ‘I am penetrated therewith.’

‘Secondly, you must restore what you have wrongfully appropriated, and

make restitution a duty for your sons.’ Lorenzo reflected a moment,

then assented by a movement of the head. ‘Lastly, you must restore to

the people of Florence their freedom.’ The invalid turned away his head

without answering, and the monk left him unabsolved.

Lorenzo’s death—to resume Poliziano’s report—was peaceful. It seemed

that it was not he who was about to undergo the fate of all mortals,

but rather those who stood around his bed. He did not refuse what the

doctors prescribed, though he expected no effect from it. Even his old

cheerfulness had not altogether deserted him. When after taking some

food he was asked how he relished it, he answered: ‘Like a dying man.’

He embraced his relatives and friends and begged them to forgive him

if he had offended them or shown impatience during his long illness.

When he asked to have read to him from the Gospel the history of the

Passion and Death of our Lord, at first he repeated the words of

Scripture, then, getting weaker, only moved his lips and at last his

fingers, in token that he still followed the sense. When death drew

near, a crucifix was held out to him; he opened his eyes, kissed it and

departed. This was on Sunday, April 8, 1492, about the fifth hour of

the night.

What a strange abundant variety of cares and pleasures, of labour and

enjoyment, of thought and action, of poetry and realism, of danger and

success, of evil and good, had been crowded together into that life of

barely forty-three years!

The tidings of his death naturally put all Florence in commotion.

Almost simultaneously with it came the news that the physician Piero

Leoni had thrown himself into a well at Francesco Martelli’s villa at

San Gervasio by the Porta Pinti, whither he had been secretly taken

because his life was threatened at Careggi, as he was suspected of an

intent to poison. It was not known whether the unhappy man really

perished by his own resolve or by another’s hand.[568] As usual,

prodigies were believed to have presaged the event with which all

minds were occupied. In Sta. Maria Novella a woman had started up in

the middle of the sermon, crying out that she saw a raging bull, with

burning horns, overthrowing the church. Three days before Lorenzo’s

death a flash of lightning had struck the lantern of the Cathedral and

hurled down some heavy blocks of marble on the north-west, the side

towards the Medici’s dwelling; one fell in through the roof, another

crushed the house of Luca Rinieri. On the night of the death a meteor

was said to have been seen to shine over Careggi and then vanish.[569]

Three hours after death the body was taken from Careggi to San Marco;

there it remained in the chapel of a lay-brotherhood till the following

evening, when the clergy of San Lorenzo came in solemn procession

to fetch it away and carry it to the sacristy of the Basilica. The

ceremony at church was simple, as he had wished it. The mourning was

general. The upper ranks, almost entirely attached to the Medicean

interest, felt deeply the loss of the man whose firm and practised hand

had guided the helm for so long, and whose vices had been outweighed

by his brilliant qualities. Who should tell them what might happen

now? On April 10, wrote Bartolommeo Cerretani, the whole city went

to Piero. The people lamented the loss of him who, at whatever cost,

had procured them peace and comfort.[570] There were indeed some who

rejoiced at his death and expected good from it; there is no lack of

testimony to such feelings in memoirs not intended for the eyes of

strangers. ‘As I know,’ writes Alamanno Rinuccini, when describing

the merits and demerits of the Medici, ‘that many falsehoods about

him have been spread, in eye-service and deceit, by flatterers and

perverters of the truth, mostly bought and corrupted by him by means of

honours and enrichment at the public expense. I intend to give a brief

account of his life and manners, with both of which I was intimately

acquainted: not by way of detraction, nor from hatred towards him, from

whom I have received divers marks of distinction, to which I had no

claim, but in compliance with truth. The multitude regarded the signs

before his death as prognostics of great evils; they would have been

prognostics of great good, had the citizens known how to use their

opportunity.’[571]

On April 13, three days after the funeral, the assembled councils and

the people, in conjunction with the Signoria, issued the following

decree:[572] ‘Whereas the foremost man of all this city, the lately

deceased Lorenzo de’ Medici, did during his whole life neglect no

opportunity of protecting, increasing, adorning, and raising this city,

but was always ready with counsel, authority, and painstaking, in

thought and deed; subordinated his personal interest to the advantage

and benefit of the community; shrank from neither trouble nor dangers

for the good of the State and its freedom; and devoted to that object

all his thoughts and powers, securing public order by excellent laws;

by his presence brought a dangerous war to a conclusion; regained the

places lost in battle and took those belonging to the enemies;—whereas

he furthermore, after the rare examples furnished by antiquity, for

the safety of his fellow-citizens and the freedom of his country gave

himself up into his enemies’ power, and, filled with love for his

house, averted the general danger by drawing it all upon his own head;

whereas, finally, he omitted nothing which could tend to raise our

reputation and enlarge our borders; it hath seemed good to the Senate

and people of Florence, on the motion of the chief magistrate, to

establish a public testimonial of gratitude to the memory of such a

man, in order that virtue may not be unhonoured among the Florentines,

and that in days to come other citizens may be incited to serve the

commonwealth with might and wisdom. But whereas the memory of Lorenzo

needs no outward adornments, as it has struck deep root, and blooms

fresher every day, it hath been determined to transfer to Piero,

the eldest son of the deceased, the heir of his father’s dignity

and successor to his fame, the public honour due to his father and

his ancestors. So much the more, as Piero has already in his youth

displayed the endowments of his father and is in some degree his image,

and has already shown himself such that we may hope he will, by God’s

assistance, tread in his father’s steps.’

On April 10, before break of day, a special messenger brought to the

Cardinal the fatal tidings which had been expected for several days.

Giovanni, his attendants and servants, at once put on mourning, the

house was hung with black, and all the Cardinals, headed by Francesco

Piccolomini, paid visits of condolence to their youthful colleague.

Four days after, a Requiem was sung in Sta. Maria sopra Minerva;

Franceschetto Cybò and the Count of Pitigliano were present in coarse

black mantles reaching to the ground, and also Onofrio Tornabuoni, the

Medicean agent at the Roman Curia, and many prelates and gentlemen.

The next day Innocent proclaimed the appointment of Giovanni de’

Medici to be legate in Tuscany, whither the boy wished to return

in consequence of his father’s death, that he might consult on the

condition of affairs with his brother, to whom he had already written

many letters. The young Cardinal was so much moved that he had to

retire for a while during mass.[573] Nothing is known of the remarks

made by the Pope (who sent an orator to Florence) on the loss of the

man with whom he was so intimate, although throughout his pontificate

he had never personally seen him. The case is otherwise with regard

to King Ferrante. On the morning of April 11, being then in the

neighbourhood of Palma, he learned from a letter of Marino Tomacelli

that all hope was abandoned. He thereupon wrote to Gioviano Pontano

at Rome that he should offer the Pope all the means at his command to

prevent a disturbance of the peace of Italy, and place at his disposal

the troops commanded by Virginio Orsini. To Virginio he wrote the same

evening, after receiving news of the death (‘which has grieved us to

the depths of our soul’), charging him to act without further orders

from him according to the disposition of the Pope, in case the latter

should have need of him.[574] To those around him the King is said

to have thus spoken: ‘That man’s life has been long enough for his

own deathless fame, but too short for Italy. God grant that now he is

dead, that may not be attempted which was not ventured on during his

life.’[575]

That Innocent was entirely of one mind with Ferrante in considering

the maintenance of the house of Medici in the position it had hitherto

occupied as necessary for the preservation of the existing political

system, may be judged from the answer addressed to the Pope, from

Vigevano on April 20, by Lodovico il Moro in the name of his nephew

Gian Galeazzo.[576] Whatever might be the real feeling of Sforza, who

had already two months ago drawn up the instructions for that embassy

to Charles VIII. which was the first step towards the ruin of Italy—at

all events, his letter throws a favourable light on the Pope’s views of

the matter: ‘Your Holiness could have written me nothing more welcome

than what you have lately communicated to me as to your desire to

keep Italy in peace, and maintain the sons of Lorenzo de’ Medici in

their position. For I have nothing more at heart than the preservation

of the peace of Italy, for which I have not shrunk from subjecting

myself to intolerable burdens and struggles; and between me and the

Medici family there is a bond of friendship both public and private. My

memory recalls how the illustrious prince my grandfather (Francesco),

aided by the pecuniary means of Cosimo de’ Medici, regained the state

of our forefathers, which after his father-in-law’s death had been,

so to say, lost. I likewise remember how since then Florence and the

house of Medici have never been in a position to need our help without

our placing arms and money at their disposal. I am therefore glad that

amid the deep mourning occasioned by the death of the illustrious

Lorenzo, your Holiness’s letter calls upon me to do that to which my

own inclination prompted me, and which is as interesting to me as if

it concerned my own personal welfare. For not only your Holiness, to

whom my attachment to the Medici family is known, but all who know

anything of Italian affairs must be convinced that I shall continue

to act towards the sons of Lorenzo as my predecessors acted towards

his father and grandfather. No one can imagine that I shall not tread

as heretofore in the footsteps of my ancestors; for this friendship

with the Medici has always been cultivated and confirmed by practical

proofs on both sides, up to the present hour, and has not only never

experienced a disturbance, but has been constantly strengthened, to the

advantage and pleasure of both parties. Perseverance in this mind is

made doubly my duty, by old and new relations with the Medici, and by

the circumstance that I shall thereby suit the views of your Holiness.’

Lorenzo de’ Medici was buried in the sacristy of San Lorenzo, the

resting-place of his father, uncle, brother, grandparents, and other

relatives. When Giovanni, who left Rome on May 11, 1492, to return

home, stood here at his father’s grave, he little thought that more

than twenty-three years later, on Advent Sunday, 1515, he was destined

to kneel there in tears as the spiritual head of Christendom.[577]

Amid all the splendour and greatness to which the Medici afterwards

rose, not one of them seems to have thought of raising a monument to

the most famous man of the family, though the greatest sculptor of the

age helped to immortalise on their monuments two of its insignificant

members. In 1559 Duke Cosimo I. caused the mortal remains of Lorenzo

and his brother Giuliano to be laid in the porphyry sarcophagus which

they had erected for their father and uncle.[578]

The following poem,[579] set to music by Heinrich Isaak, was written by

Angelo Poliziano on the death of the man to whom he had been through

life so deeply attached:—

MONODIA IN LAURENTIUM MEDICEM.

Quis dabit capiti meo

Aquam? quis oculis meis

Fontem lachrymarum dabit?

Ut nocte fleam,

Ut luce fleam.

Sic turtur viduus solet;

Sic cygnus moriens solet,

Sic luscinia conqueri.

Heu miser, miser;

O dolor, dolor!

Laurus impetu fulminis

Illa illa jacet subito;

Laurus omnium celebris

Musarum choris,

Nympharum choris,

Sub cujus patula coma,

Et Phœbi lyra blandius

Et vox dulcius insonat.

Nunc muta omnia,

Nunc surda omnia.

Quis dabit capiti meo

Aquam? quis oculis meis

Fontem lachrymarum dabit?

Ut nocte fleam,

Ut luce fleam.

Sic turtur viduus solet;

Sic cygnus moriens solet,

Sic luscinia conqueri.

Heu miser, miser;

O dolor, dolor!

CONCLUSION.

AT the age of forty-three Lorenzo was called away. His span of life

had been but a short one for such manifold activity and such lasting

fame. A remarkable man, he was the most brilliant representative of

a remarkable time; in no one else were its qualities and excellences

united in such a harmonious whole. Energetic in action, and earnest in

his endeavours to watch the phases of progress in the establishment

of a new order of things; endowed with the liveliest susceptibilities

and the quickest perceptions, combined with the earnestness and

thoroughness of a student; with a strongly sympathetic feeling for

art, yet capable of immediate application to the business of life;

he united imaginative power with clear common sense, the capacity

for lofty projects with that for patient calculation; he had all the

qualities of poet and statesman, connoisseur and patron of learning,

citizen and prince. He was indefatigable and persevering in the endless

business thrown upon him by his position as the leader of a peculiarly

constituted state; with a quick and unerring eye he was able to grasp

the whole and yet observe its smallest detail; in his riper years he

was cautious and prudent, keeping his object immovably in view without

blind self-confidence or presumption, though fully alive to his own

position and that of the state which he represented. He passed with

wonderful ease from practical to speculative politics, from science to

poetry. Few could equal him in comprehensive, manifold, creative gifts,

or in the most delicate sense of beauty, and the most active interest,

with the deepest insight, into the character and purposes of art. In

his home and family relations he was kindly, sociable, cheerful, even

amid physical sufferings; not free from errors which even in earlier

years and afterwards far more decidedly loosened the bond between him

and his wife, yet still unaffectedly attached to all his family; to the

admirable mother, many of whose qualities he had inherited, to the wife

who was not of his own choosing, to the children to whom he was a wise

and prudent counsellor, and a tender but not a weak father. Moreover he

was a warm, attentive, and constant friend, attracting and attaching to

himself the most different natures, ever ready to help in counsel and

action, interposing and interceding for high and low with equal zeal

amid a thousand occupations. He was gifted with a delicate sense of

propriety, though he could not keep himself free from the Epicureanism

of the time, which exacted a sacrifice even from him; and vividly

conscious of the power of culture in the field of the Church, though

a frivolous materialism threatened to weaken that power and lead him

seriously astray in his views of life.

He was not without the weaknesses and vices of his time. They cramped

his policy, though it still stood far higher than that of most princes

and statesmen of the age, both Italian and others. He was superior too

in honesty and consistency, and, at least during the last ten years of

his life, in unalterable adherence to the preservation of peace and

unity, and to a feeling of nationality such as answered to the ideas of

the time, from which it is not fair to demand conceptions unfamiliar to

it. His home policy has called forth severe blame both on account of

his progressive violations of the constitution to increase his personal

authority, and of the corruption he employed in order to obtain

undisturbed control of the finances. With regard to the latter, it is

hard to see how, had he lived longer, he could have avoided national

bankruptcy, unless indeed he and the state had contrived by the

preservation of peace to restore an internal equilibrium, for which in

his last years he had begun to lay some slight foundation. As to the

former, many of his contemporaries expressed the opinion that he aimed

at becoming a recognised prince, and was only waiting for a favourable

opportunity—such as his entrance on the office of Gonfalonier, as soon

as that dignity should fall to him on his reaching the legal age. And

yet he, who had everything in his power, could not have lacked means

and opportunities, if this had been his object. But he knew the city

and the people too well to be blind to the obstacles and dangers which

threatened to impede that path.

Perhaps the worst evil of Lorenzo’s government lay in the increasing

incongruity between the outward form and the real power, and in the

displacement of authority from its legal centre, whereby both law

and moderation were called in question. Personal influence decided

everything in politics, in administration, in finance, even in the

dispensation of justice. The more clear-sighted among Lorenzo’s

contemporaries did not fail to perceive this radical evil, and

expressed their opinion of it in the bitterest terms. Nevertheless

not merely did Florence escape such excesses as occurred in all other

Italian states, almost without an exception, but Lorenzo’s government

was on the whole free from the violence which had characterised that

of Cosimo. Doubtless the greater tranquillity of the time, the more

secure position of the Medici, the fact that the people had been

longer accustomed to their rule, contributed to this result; but so

also did the character of the man himself. Lorenzo was ambitious to

rule, but he was no tyrant. On the one hand he was too keen-sighted,

and had calculated too accurately the character and traditions of the

people; on the other hand his own nature was too grand, too open, too

high-minded, too warm-hearted, and also too fond of enjoyment; finally,

he was too much of a Florentine citizen, and that not merely in name

but in his appearance, his dress and his bearing. He would have had

nothing to distinguish him from the rest of the community, had there

not been permitted or granted to him, ever since the Pazzi conspiracy,

a suite consisting at first of four of his own confidants, afterwards

of twelve men paid by the Signoria. It is true that this was a grave

offence against civil equality. This citizen-character was not kept up

by Lorenzo’s sons—it was said of Piero that he was not a Florentine

by nature—and its outward signs vanished altogether in some others of

the race. In his own family Lorenzo maintained simplicity; in public

affairs, however completely he held the real direction of them, he

tried to keep up fair appearances; though indeed he could not prevent a

complaint that Ser Piero da Bibiena brought into his court of chancery

matters which rightly belonged to the police-jurisdiction of the Eight.

On important occasions he liked to consult with many persons, but with

each one separately; and then he formed his own decision independently.

On his arbitrary proceedings in money matters there were very divided

opinions even in his own time. If he had not used the money of the

state he would have been ruined; and it was said that his ruin would

have entailed that of everybody else; that all he took to save his

credit and to lead a showy life was nothing in comparison of the losses

to which a state would be exposed by incapable administration; that one

single unskilful or ill-timed measure might cost a state dearer than

Lorenzo’s whole course of government; that the ultimate and highest

object of the Medici, for which they calculated everything they did or

left undone, was indeed their own benefit; but they were and always

had been Florentine citizens, and in most cases their interest and

that of the state was one and the same. So said the favourable party

after Lorenzo’s death and Piero’s fall. To this it was answered that

the ultimate object of the Medici was not supremacy like that of the

Albizzi in a state becoming more and more aristocratic in form, but

simply autocracy, which they had sought to attain under the form

of democracy, by removing the influence of the noble families and

favouring many members of the lower classes. A cunning tyranny like

that of Cosimo, or one softened by affability and generosity like

that of Lorenzo, was all the worse because it spread poison among the

people, preparing the way for the endurance of something harder. The

truth of this view was proved at no very distant time.

For good or for evil the Medici’s influence struck deep root in

Florence. They made the lasting existence of the Republic impossible.

‘We are suffering’—such are the words placed by Francesco Guicciardini

in the mouth of a man frequently named in this history—Paol’Antonio

Soderini—after their expulsion in 1494—‘from two mortal wounds: the

Pisan war, and the exile of the Medici. With their numerous friends

in the city and country, and the greatness of their name abroad, they

will give us a great deal of trouble.’ He was right. The Medicean party

would have given the death-blow to the Republic of 1495 as well as to

that of 1527, even if external circumstances had not come to their

assistance. The work was made easier for them because here, as in many

other republics, the relation of the ruling commonwealth to her subject

towns and districts was an unnatural and very oppressive one; these

subjects, influenced by the traditions of their old freedom, obeyed

only on compulsion; and endured a personal government such as was

permanently established forty years after Lorenzo’s death, more easily

than their former position—perhaps because their old masters now had

to bow their necks to the same yoke.

In the ninth chapter of his Florentine history, the great writer just

mentioned sums up at the close, in a few words, his masterly picture of

Lorenzo de’ Medici’s influence on his native city. The city, he says,

was not free under him; but it could not have found a more endurable

and better master. For while there proceeded from him much good, owing

to his natural goodness and amiable disposition, the evils, so far as

they proceeded from the nature of the tyranny itself, were slight and

limited to absolute necessity, and infinitely slighter still where his

own will was concerned. Therefore, although many might rejoice at his

death, yet it grieved those who had a share in the government, and even

those who had some ground of complaint against him, for no one knew

whither the change might lead.

This was soon discovered. Lorenzo the Magnificent had been scarcely

two years and a half in his grave, and his sons had not yet found

time to raise a monument to his memory, when the stately edifice of

which Giovanni d’Averardo had laid the foundation-stone, which Cosimo

had built up, and Piero and Lorenzo enlarged and adorned, crumbled to

pieces. On November 9, 1494, Luca Corsini, one of the Priori, shut the

gate of the palace of the Signoria in the face of Piero de’ Medici, on

his return from the French camp at Sarzana, and thus gave the signal

for a great change in the destinies of the commonwealth. Lorenzo’s son

and successor had neither his father’s sagacity and experience, nor

his father’s authority with the great men nor the attachment of the

people, to help him. In the long-threatened division which brought

down France to interfere in the dynastic troubles of Italy, he first

made common cause with the house of Aragon against the Moro and the

French king, and then, as soon as the latter, having crossed the Alps

without obstacle, was threatening Florence, the young man lost his

head and his courage, and without a shadow of right delivered up the

fortresses of the state, Sarzana, Pietrasanta, Pisa, Livorno, to the

foreigner. As soon as the old cry of ‘People and liberty!’ was raised

in a burst of anger at this unheard-of proceeding, Piero mounted his

horse and was glad when he found himself safe on the road to Bologna,

whither he was followed by his brothers and those of his adherents who

were most deeply compromised, while the mob was sacking the Medici

palace and the houses of the most detested tools of their financial

administration. Thus in a moment a revolution was accomplished which

created a new popular state, under the eyes of a foreign sovereign.

That same November 9 Charles VIII. entered Pisa, where the rising

against Florence began, and a week later he was in the palace in the

Via Larga. This state lasted, amid the greatest internal and external

difficulties, for nearly eighteen years, and then gave way to a new

Medicean supremacy, which after another three years’ interruption,

brought about by similar extraneous circumstances, formed itself into

an hereditary autocracy, lasting till, after the lapse of two full

centuries, the altered family died out in the altered country, and was

mourned even then, when but little was left of the qualities which had

lent it so much splendour.

Lorenzo’s friends and adherents met with various fates. Of the heads

of the party, now left to their own resources, some attained influence

and power in the new commonwealth; others came to a bloody end. Of the

friends who stood round his death-bed, one, Angelo Poliziano, did not

live to see the catastrophe that befell the once splendid house. He was

taken away on September 24, 1494; and the evil reports which his life,

notwithstanding all his high intellectual gifts, had in some measure

called forth, did not spare him even in death. Giovanni Pico della

Mirandola died on the day of the French king’s entry, and the comforter

of his last moments was the man whom Lorenzo, too, had summoned in the

hour of death—the Predicant monk of Ferrara who was destined to stir

Florence to her deepest depths, and to die amid the flames lighted by

his own hand. Marsilio Ficino and Cristoforo Landino were doomed to

witness the misfortunes of the family to whom they owed everything and

were attached by hereditary affection, and to survive the execution

of many friends, and the dispersion of the rich treasures of art and

learning which adorned the house in which they had been born and grown

up. Of the younger members of the circle, some spent eighteen years in

exile and vicissitude, to come back at last and sun themselves in the

splendour, brilliant indeed but fleeting, of the pontificate of Leo

X. Then the seeds of literature and art sown in the days of Lorenzo,

sprang up in the works of Ariosto and Machiavelli, of Raphael and

Michelangelo; but the political edifice, whose chief pillar he had

been, and the national polity were irrecoverably destroyed; Italy had

become the whole world’s battle-field; Lombardy was subject to the

French, Naples to the Spaniards; the crowd of dynasties in Romagna had

been swept away by the flood; while of those who had once held in their

control the weal and woe of the peninsula, Ferrante and Alfonso of

Aragon had died in distress and remorse, and Lodovico il Moro had ended

his days in a French prison.

APPENDICES.

APPENDIX I.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.[580]

1115. Death of the Countess Matilda. Increased independence of the

Tuscan towns.

1188. Frederic Barbarossa in Florence.

1201. Chiarissimo de’ Medici member of the council of the Florentine

Commonwealth.

1207. Election of the first Podestà.

1215. Beginning of civil feuds.

1250. First constitution of the Florentine commonalty of citizens in

opposition to the nobility. The _Capitano del Popolo_.

1260. Battle of Montaperti. Victory of the Ghibelline party.

1266. Charles of Anjou. The Ghibellines leave Florence.

1282. Origin of the political constitution of the guilds (_Priori

delle Arti_).

1293. Reform of the constitution of the guilds. _Gonfalonieri di

giustizia._ Penal laws against the nobility.

1294. Building of the Palace of the Commonwealth (_Palazzo dei

Priori_), and of the new Cathedral begun.

1312. Siege of Florence by the Emperor Henry VII.

1320. Beginning of the war against Castruccio, Lord of Lucca.

1336. War against Martino della Scala, Lord of Verona.

1342-43. Tyrannical government of Gautier de Brienne, Duke of Athens.

Complete downfall of the ancient nobility.

1346. Great losses of the Florentine banks.

1351. Beginning of the wars against the Visconti of Milan.

1362. War with Pisa.

1371. Factions of the Albizzi and Ricci. Exclusion of many citizens

from office.

1375. Beginning of enmity between the Florentines and Pope Gregory XI.

(1377, return of the Pope from Avignon to Rome.)

1378. Gonfaloniership of Salvestro de’ Medici. Rising and government

of the lowest classes (_Tumulto dei Ciompi_).

Ambrogio Traversari born (d. 1439).

1379. Execution of Piero degli Albizzi.

Filippo Brunelleschi b. (d. 1446).

1380. Poggio Bracciolini b. (d. 1459).

1381? Lorenzo Ghiberti b. (d. 1455).

1382. End of the popular government. Rise of the power of the Albizzi.

1386. Donatello b. (d. 1466).

1387. Exile of Benedetto degli Alberti and his family. Fra Giovanni of

Fiesole b. (d. 1455).

1388. Salvestro de’ Medici d.

1389. Cosimo de’ Medici b. (d. 1464).

1391. Neri Capponi, son of Gino, b. (d. 1457). Michelozzo Michelozzi

b. (d. 1472).

1393. Tyranny of Maso degli Albizzi. Vieri de’ Medici.

1394. Luigi Marsigli d.

1396. Emmanuel Chrysoloras called to Florence (d. 1415). Giannozzo

Manetti b. (d. 1459).

1399. Pilgrimages of the White Penitents. Great mortality. Carlo

Marsuppini b. (d. 1453).

1400. War with Gian-Galeazzo Visconti (d. 1402). Alliance with King

Ruprecht of the Pfalz. Luca della Robbia b. (d. 1482).

1401. Masaccio b., at San Giovanni in Val d’Arno (d. 1428).

1403. League with Pope Boniface IX. and others against the Visconti.

L. Ghiberti receives the commission for the first door of the

Baptistery.

1404. Beginning of the enterprise against Pisa.

1405. Fight for Pisa. Gino Capponi.

Matteo Palmieri b. (d. 1475). L. B. Alberti b. (d. 1472).

1406. Capture of Pisa.

Coluccio Salutati d. (b. 1330).

1408. Efforts to restore the unity of the Church.

1409. Council of Pisa. (P. Alexander V.)

Bernardo Rossellino b. (d. 1464).

1410. League with Pope John XXIII. [Baldassar Cossa]. Feo Belcari b.

(d. 1484).

1411. Treaty with K. Ladislas of Naples. Purchase of Cortona.

Establishment of the Council of Two Hundred.

1412? Fra Filippo Lippi b. (d. 1469).

1414. New treaty with K. Ladislas, and after his death, with his

sister Queen Joanna II. Cosimo de’ Medici and John XXII. at

Constance.

1415. Benedetto Accolti b. (d. 1466).

1416. Plague at Florence.

Piero de’ Medici b. (d. 1469).

1417. Maso degli Albizzi d. His son Rinaldo and Niccolò da Uzzano at

the head of the Commonwealth.

1419. Pope Martin V. in Florence. Reconciliation and death of John

XXII.

Archbishopric of Florence. Amerigo Corsini.

1420. Filippo Brunelleschi architect of the dome of the Cathedral.

Benozzo Gozzoli b. (d. 1498).

1421. Purchase of Livorno. Gino Capponi d.

1422. Flourishing state of commerce. Relations with the Levant.

1423. Beginning of the war with Filippo Maria Visconti.

1424. Defeat at Zagonara.

Cristoforo Landino b. (d. 1504).

1425. Defeat at Anghiari.

Lorenzo Ghiberti receives the commission for the second door of

the Baptistery.

1426. Disputes about taxes and war-imposts. The Albizzi and Giovanni

de’ Medici.

1427. First register of lands.

Antonio Rossellino b. (d. 1478).

1428. Peace with F. M. Visconti.

Reform of the University. Palla Strozzi.

1429. Giovanni de’ Medici d. Revolt of Volterra on account of the

introduction of the land-register.

Francesco Filelfo in Florence.

Antonio Pollaiuolo b. (d. 1498).

1430. War with Lucca. The Jews in Florence.

Bartolommeo Scala b. (d. 1495).

1431. Pope Eugene IV.

Luigi Pulci b. (d. 1486).

Mino da Fiesole b. (d. 1484).

1432. Giuliano da Majano b. (d. 1490.)

Niccolò da Uzzano d.

K. Sigismund in Italy. (Crowned Emperor 1433).

1433. War with Lucca ended by a treaty with Milan.

Exile of Cosimo de’ Medici.

Marsilio Ficino b. (d. 1499).

1434. Recall of Cosimo de’ Medici. Exile of Rinaldo degli Albizzi,

Palla Strozzi and their friends. Pope Eugene IV. in Florence.

Completion of the dome of the Cathedral.

1435. Cosimo de’ Medici Gonfalonier.

Andrea del Verrocchio b. (d. 1488).

1436. Consecration of the Cathedral by Pope Eugene IV. Convent and

library of San Marco. Medici palace.

1439. Florentine Council of Union. The Greeks in Florence.

1440. War of the Visconti. Battle of Anghiari. End of the dominion of

the Guidi in the Casentino.

1441. Death of Baldaccio da Anghiari.

Pietro Pollaiuolo b. (d. 1489?).

? Luca Signorelli b. (d. 1523).

1442. Benedetto da Majano b. (d. 1498?).

Rinaldo degli Albizzi d., at Ancona.

1445. Giuliano Giamberti da Sangallo b. (d. 1516).

1446. S. Antonine Archbishop (d. 1459).

1447. War in the Chiana valley with Alfonso of Aragon, King of Naples.

Pope Nicholas V.

1449. (January 1) Lorenzo de’ Medici b. (d. 1492).

Bernardo Rucellai b. (d. 1514).

Domenico Ghirlandajo b. (d. 1494).

1450. Dispute with Venice. Francesco Sforza Duke of Milan.

1451. Amerigo Vespucci b. (d. 1512).

1452. Emperor Frederic III. in Florence. The Neapolitans in the Chiana

valley. Leonardo da Vinci b. (d. 1519).

1453. Giuliano de’ Medici b. (d. 1478).

Girolamo Benevieni b. (d. 1542).

1454. Peace of Lodi, between Florence, Milan, Venice, and Naples.

Angelo Ambrogio Poliziano b. (d. 1494).

1455. Intrigues against Cosimo de’ Medici. Luca Pitti. Pope Calixtus

III.

1456. Johannes Argyropulos called to Florence.

1457. Simone Pollaiuolo Cronaca b. (d. 1508).

Filippino Lippi b. (d. 1504).

1458. Changes in the Constitution by Luca Pitti. Pope Pius II.

1459. Pope Pius II. in Florence.

Benozzo Gozzoli paints the chapel of the Medici palace.

1461. Piero de’ Medici Gonfalonier.

1463. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola b. (d. 1494).

1464. Cosimo de’ Medici, ‘Pater Patriæ,’ d. Pope Paul II.

Marcello Virgilio Adriani b. (d. 1521).

1465. Beginning of the Pitti disturbances.

1466. Conspiracy of Diotisalvi Neroni, Luca Pitti, and their friends

against Piero de’ Medici.

1467. War of Colleone.

1468. Peace with Venice. Purchase of Sarzana. Tournament and marriage

of Lorenzo de’ Medici.

1469. Piero de’ Medici d. Authority of Lorenzo. Tommaso Soderini.

1470. Attempted revolt at Prato.

Bernardo Dovizj of Bibiena b. (d. 1520).

1471. Galeazzo Maria Sforza in Florence. Lorenzo de’ Medici at Rome

with Pope Sixtus IV. Piero de’ Medici b. (d. 1503). Bernardo

Cennini, first Florentine printer.

1472. Revolt and conquest of Volterra.

1473. Re-opening of the University of Pisa.

1474. King Christian of Denmark in Florence.

1475. Giovanni de’ Medici [Pope Leo X.] b. (d. 1521). Michelangelo

Buonarotti b. (d. 1564). Murder of Galeazzo M. Sforza. Regency

of Bona of Savoy.

1478. Conspiracy of the Pazzi. Death of Giuliano de’ Medici. War with

Rome and Naples. Giulio de’ Medici [Pope Clement VII.] b.

1479. Defeat at Poggibonzi. Lorenzo de’ Medici in Naples. Lodovico il

Moro regent of Milan.

1480. Peace between Florence, Naples, and the Pope. Establishment of

the Council of Seventy.

1481. Cristoforo Landino’s edition of Dante.

1482. Ferrarese war. Francesco Guicciardini b. (d. 1540).

1483. Fra Girolamo Savonarola in Florence. King Louis XI. of France d.

Charles VIII. king.

1484. Peace of Bagnolo. Pope Sixtus IV. d. Innocent VIII. Pope.

1485. The Florentines in the Neapolitan barons’ war against the Pope.

1486. Peace between the Pope and King Ferrante.

1487. Re-capture of Sarzana by the Florentines.

1488. Family alliance between the Medici and Innocent VIII. Clarice

de’ Medici d. Homer’s works first printed. Convent of San

Gallo.

Murder of Girolamo Riario and Galeotto Manfredi.

1489. Cardinalate of Giovanni de’ Medici.

Fra Girolamo Savonarola again at San Marco.

Building of the Strozzi palace begun.

Benedetto da Majano.

1490. New constitutional reform. Lorenzo de’ Medici mediator between

Pope Innocent and King Ferrante.

Cathedral. Choir of Sta. Maria Novella by Ghirlandajo.

Negotiations for completion of the Cathedral façade.

1491. Reconciliation between the Pope and Naples.

1492. Proclamation of the Cardinalate of Giovanni de’ Medici.

Lorenzo de’ Medici d., April 8.

APPENDIX II.

MEDICI.

Giovanni de’ Averardo=Piccarda Bueri.

b. 1360, d. 1429. │

┌──────────────────┴────────────────────+

│ │

Cosimo = Contessina de’ Bardi Lorenzo = Ginevra

‘pater │ d. 1473 b. 1395 │ Cavalcanti.

patriæ’│ d. 1440 │

b. 1389│ │

d. 1464│ Grand─Ducal line,

│ extinct 1737.

┌───┴─────────────┬──────+

│ │ │

Piero = Lucrezia │ Carlo

b. 1416 │ Tornabuoni │ (nat)

d. 1469 │ d. 1482. │ d. 1492.

│ │

│ Giovanni=Ginevra

│ d. 1463 degli

│ Albizzi.

├──────────────┬───────────┬────────────┬────────+

│ │ │ │ │

Lorenzo ‘il=Clarice │ Bianca=Guglielmo │ Maria = Lionetto

magnifico’ │Orsini │ de’ Pazzi. │ (nat.) de’ Rossi.

b. 1449 │d. 1488 │ │

d. 1492. │ │ Nannina=Bernardo

│ │ Rucellai.

│ Giuliano b. 1453

│ d. 1478.

│ │

│ Giulio

│ b. 1478

│ d. 1534

│ (Pope Clement

│ VII.)

│

┌─────┴─────┬──────────┬──────────┬─────┬──────┬─────┐

│ │ │ │ │ │ │

Piero = Alfonsina │ Giuliano=Filiberta │ Luisa │Contessina=

b. 1471 │ Orsini │ Duke of │of Savoy. │ betrothed │Piero Ridolfi.

d. 1503 │ d. 1520 │ Nemours │ │ to Giovanni│

│ │ b. 1479 │ │ de’ Medici.│

│ │ d. 1516 │ │ │

│ │ │ │ Maddalena=

│ Giovanni │ Lucrezia=Jacopo Franceschetto

│ b. 1475 │ Salviati. Cybò.

│ d. 1521 │

│ (Pope └──────────────────────────────┐

│ Leo X.) │

│ Ippolito (nat.)

├───────────────────────────┐ Cardinal

│ │ d. 1535.

Lorenzo = Madeleine Clarice = Filippo Strozzi

Duke of │ de la Tour d. 1528. the younger.

Urbino, │ d’Auvergne

b. 1492 │ d. 1519

d. 1519 │

│

├─────────────────────────────────────────┐

│ │

Caterina=Henri II. King of France. Alessandro (nat.),

b. 1519 first Duke of Florence

d. 1589 d. 1537

PAZZI.

GUIDOTTO DE’ PAZZI

fought at Montecatini 1315, exiled after the time of

the Duke of Athens,

d. 1348.

│

Guglielmo = Costanza de’ Bardi.

condemned 1345, afterwards in │

offices of State, Camarlingo │

1374, d. 1377. │

┌──────┘

│

Andrea = Caterina Salviati.

b. 1372, Capitano di parte Guelfa │

1413, made eligible to municipal │

offices by Cosimo de’ Medici 1434, │

knighted by René of Anjou 1442, │

d. 1445. │

┌──────────────────┬─────┴─────────────────┐

│ │ │

Jacopo = Maddalena Piero =Fiammetta Antonio=Cosa

Gonfalonier │ Serristori. ambassador│Giugni. │degli

1469, │ at Naples,│ │Alessandri.

d. 1478. │ aid to │ │

│ Louis XI. │ │

│ in 1461. │ │

Caterina, b. 1463, │ │

Abbess of Sta. Maria di │ │

Monticelli, d. 1490. │ │

│ │

┌───────┬─────────┬─────────┬───────┴─┐ │

│ │ │ │ │ │

Renato. Andrea. Niccolò. Leonardo. Galeotto. │

1478. │

┌─────────────────────┬──────────────────┴─────┐

│ │ │

Guglielmo = Bianca Giovanni = Beatrice Francesco

d. 1516. │ de Medici. d. 1481. Borromeo. d. 1478.

│

├─────────────────────┐

│ │

Cosimo Alessandro

Archbishop of Florence d. 1530.

d. 1513.

SODERINI.

TOMMASO SODERINI.

Capitano di parte Guelfa 1377─78, then banished, returned 1381,

Gonfalonier 1395, d. 1402.

│

┌─────────┴─────────────────────┐

│ │

Lorenzo = Ghilla Cambi. Francesco = Margherita

(nat., legitimatized), │ of Elisabetta Altoviti, dau. of

knighted by K. Charles V. │ b. 1376, member of the Palla

1397, d. 1405. │ magistracy of Eight 1433. Strozzi

│

┌─────────┴────────────────────────────────┐

│ │

Niccolò Tommaso=Dianora

b. 1401, Gonfalonier 1451 and 1465, b. 1403. several times│Tornabuoni

exiled in consequence of the ambassador and five │

conspiracy of Diotisalvi Neroni, times Gonfalonier, │

d. at Ravenna 1474. d. 1485. │

│

┌────────────────┬───────────────┬──────────┬────────┴───┐

│ │ │ │ │

Francesco Piero Paol’Antonio Tommaso Gian Vittorio

b. 1453. made several times knighted Rector of

Cardinal─Bishop Gonfalonier ambassador, by Leo X. Pisa and

of Volterra, for life d. 1499. ambassador.

d. 1524. in 1502,

d. 1522.

VISCONTI AND SFORZA.

GIAN GALEAZZO VISCONTI = Isabelle of France.

Duke of Milan, d. 1402. │

┌───────┬────────┴─────┐ Muzio Attendolo

│ │ │ of Cotignola,

│ Giovanni Filippo │ called Sforza d. 1424.

│ Maria Maria │ ┌─────┬────┬───────┐

│ d. 1412. d. 1447. │ │ │ │ │

│ Bianca=Francesco │ Bosio │

Valentina = Louis, Maria │b. 1401, │ Count of │

│ Duke of (nat.)│ Duke of │ Sta. Fiora,│

│ Orleans. │Milan 1450,│ d. 1476. │

│ │ d. 1466. │ │

Charles, Duke of Orleans. │ │ ┌──┘

│ │ │ │

│ │ Alessandro Lisa=Leonetto

Louis XII., King of France. │ Lord of │da

│ Pesaro, │San

│ d. 1473. │Severino.

│ │ │

│ Costanzo Roberto

│ d. 1483. da San

│ Severino.

│

┌────────────┬───────┬─────────┴────────┬────┬────┐

│ │ │ │ │ │

Galeazzo=Bona of │ Lodovico = Beatrice │ Ascanio │

Maria │Savoy. │ ‘il Moro’ d’Este │ Maria │

d. 1476.│ │ Duke of dau. of │ Cardinal│

│ │ Bari and Duke Ercole │ 1484, │

│ │ of Milan, and Eleonora│ d. 1505│

│ Sforza d. 1510. of Aragon. │ │

│ Duke of │ │

│ Bari, Ottaviano Ippolita

│ d. 1479. d. 1477. Maria

│ d. 1488.=Alfonso

│ │of

│ │Aragon,

│ │afterwards

│ │King of

│ │Naples.

│ │

│ ┌──────────────────────────────────┘

│ │

Giovanni Galeazzo = Isabella

Duke of Milan,

d. 1495.

APPENDIX III.

LORENZO’S LAST HOURS.

_Book VI. Chapter VIII._

THE interview of Savonarola and Lorenzo de’ Medici has given rise to a

controversy which has never been definitively settled. The account of

the monk’s biographers, Giovan Francesco Pico and Pacifico Burlamachi,

cannot be reconciled with that given in Politian’s letter above

referred to. This last has the air of containing a mitigated version

of the facts, intended to efface the bad impression made by current

reports of the matter; and the third exhortation put into the monk’s

mouth by Politian—‘that he should endure death with patience’—sounds

almost like a commonplace, considering the gravity of the moment and

the characters of the interlocutors. C. F. Meier, in his History

of Savonarola (p. 52, &c.), and Villari, in ‘La Storia di Girolamo

Savonarola’ (i. 136), accept the version given by the Ferrarese monk’s

earliest biographers, and Villari tries to establish it by a long note

(p. 155-158). But this version contains great improbabilities. How

should the dying man, who had just received the viaticum, make another

confession? And what could Savonarola have meant by his famous third

demand—what practical use or effect could he expect from it, or from

the possible assent of the dying man? The story looks like an invention

of the after-days of excitement. The doubts as to the authenticity

of the books of Burlamachi and Pico, which, it is suspected, were

fabricated in the convent of San Marco and adorned with these authors’

names, are of little consequence in this connection, as in any case the

tradition was doubtless current among Savonarola’s contemporaries.

Bartolommeo Cerretani gives, in the third book of his MS. chronicle,

the following account of Lorenzo’s last hours:—‘April 7, about the

fifth hour, Lorenzo received the Lord’s Supper. As his illness was

making such rapid progress, Messer Pier Leoni, otherwise an excellent

physician, lost heart; other doctors were at once sent for, but it

was too late. Feeling his end approaching, the sick man sent for his

eldest son Piero, gave him divers exhortations, and then sent him away.

About the twentieth hour he began to cry out: “I am dying and there is

none to help me!” All hastened to him. He said he wanted to get up a

little, and had himself lifted out of bed, but only to be laid down

immediately. The pains were so violent that he lost consciousness.

Those standing round him began to weep, for they thought he was dead.

A Camaldulensian who was present took off his spectacles, and holding

them to his mouth perceived that he still breathed. A restorative was

given him and he came to himself. Then he called for his son again and

spoke to him softly, so that none of the others heard. After that his

condition rapidly grew worse, so that he gave up the ghost on the 8th,

about the fourth hour of the evening, in the arms of a valet.’

The doctor who, though a learned man, certainly seems to have blundered

in his judgment as to Lorenzo’s illness, put an end to his life next

morning as has been related above (p. 461), by jumping into the well at

the Martelli villa at San Gervasio before Porta Pinti.

Sannazzaro’s poem in terza rima (in Roscoe, Ap. lxxviii.) on the death

of Piero Leoni attributes it to the instigation of Piero de’ Medici.

The fragment beginning: ‘Fu trovato essere stato gettato in un pozzo’

&c., published in Fabroni (l. c. ii. 397) as being from some anonymous

author in the Magliabecchiana, is borrowed from the Ricordi of Alamanno

Rinuccini (p. cxlvi). Petrus Crinitus and Valerianus (De literatorum

infelicitate) take it for granted that the doctor in his agitation took

his own life; and Cerretani certainly indicates that Leoni, who a short

time before had been in good hopes, lost his head. He states, moreover,

that the Medici’s grooms threatened the life of the physician, who was,

therefore, taken to San Gervasio, and that the report of his death

by the violence of others was immediately spread, but was unfounded.

Burcard in his defective report (p. 175) alludes to Piero de’ Medici’s

complaint by saying that the fatal termination of the illness was to be

attributed to wrong medical treatment, and raises a supposition that at

Rome there was believed to have been a murder.

In May, Demetrius Chalcondylas wrote from Milan to Marcello Virgilio

Adriani: ‘Thou hast announced to me two sad events; the flash of

lightning which has struck the principal church of the city, occasioned

so much ruin, and presaged so great evils; and the death of Lorenzo,

the most famous man of our time, who was distinguished in so many

ways. His decease causes me deep sorrow, not merely on account of the

loss, which touches us all in no slight degree, but also on account

of what I personally lose, who have always found him a kind patron.

And to all this is added the sad and fearful death of Piero Leoni,

which has shocked me more than anything for a long time past. Believe

me, Marcello, this end casts a shadow over Lorenzo’s death, and is

a dishonour to the family and to the whole city. For although thou,

like others, writest that he threw himself into the well, yet it is

difficult to convince thoughtful people that such a wise and learned

man, who, as thou thyself also tellest me, treated Lorenzo in his

illness with so much care, could have been seized with such madness as

to choose so shameful a death.’ (Bandini, Collectio, &c., p. 22).

In Fabroni, l. c., and Roscoe, ‘Life of Leo X.’ (Ap. No. xxii.) will

be found the letters written by Cardinal Giovanni to his brother after

their father’s death. The first may be given here. The original is in

the curious mixture of Latin and Italian sentences which was then still

in vogue.

‘My beloved brother, now the only support of our house. What shall I

write to thee, when only tears are left me? For when I consider that

our father of blessed memory is taken from us, I am nearer weeping than

speaking. What a father! None was kinder than he to his children; of

this facts are witness. Therefore it is no wonder that I lament and can

find no rest; and my only consolation is that I have thee, my brother,

in our father’s place. It is for thee to command, for me to obey,

and thy commands will always give me the greatest pleasure. Try me;

nothing shall find me backward. But I beg thee, my Piero, be towards

all, especially towards thine own people, as I wish thee, beneficent,

kind, courteous, gracious; thereby all is obtained, all is preserved.

Not because I mistrust thee do I remind thee of this, but because it

is my duty. I am consoled and sustained by the concourse of mourners

to our house, the universal sympathy, the mourning of the whole city,

and other things which help to alleviate sorrow. But what consoles me

above all is that I have thee, whom I trust more than my words are able

to express. As to what thou wishest arranged with his Holiness, nothing

has been done, as it seemed better to take another way, on which the

ambassador will report to thee, and which seems as if it must lead more

easily to the object. Rome, April 12, 1492.’

THE END.

LONDON: PRINTED BY

SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. NEW-STREET SQUARE

AND PARLIAMENT STREET

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The collection of Italian poetry made by Lorenzo de’ Medici for Don

Federigo is to be found—not, indeed, in the original, which was lost

probably during the French invasion of Naples in 1495—but in a copy

made either at the end of the fifteenth or in the sixteenth century,

and now in the Florentine National Library (Magliabecchi), to which it

passed with the Palatine MSS. (Fr. Palermo, _I manoscritti Palatini di

Firenze_, Flor. 1853 _seq._; i. 353 _seq._). This MS. belonged to Marco

Foscarini, with whose library it went in 1800 to Vienna, and later

to the Archduke, afterwards Grand Duke, Leopold, when he collected

and published the poems of Lorenzo (_Opere di Lorenzo de’ Medici_,

Florence, 1825, 4 vols. i. p. xxvi., where occur also Apostolo Zeno’s

remarks on the MS. in question). On the MSS. and printed copies of

Lorenzo’s poems, compare the same edition, i. p. xiii.-xlv., and Gamba,

_Testi di Lingua_, pp. 648-660. For a complete critically revised text

much is still wanting, even after the splendid edition of 1825, which

came out under the auspices of the della Crusca Academy. A large and

well-arranged selection, _Poesie di Lorenzo de’ Medici_, Flor. 1859,

has an introduction by Giosuè Carducci, which has been a guide to much

of what is said here of Lorenzo as a poet.

The letter of Lorenzo to Don Federigo, from which extracts are given

above, is among the Riccardi MSS., No. 2723, under the name of

Poliziano, and was published under that name in the edition of the

_Rime_ by V. Manucci and L. Ciampolini, Flor. 1814. The mistake is

palpable; Poliziano’s age and the agreement with Lorenzo’s views in

the commentary on his poems, show it as clearly as do the historical

allusions.

[2] Cf. Carducci’s edition of the _Poesie di Lor. de’ Med._, p. 54

_seq._, and Fabroni, _supra_, p. 10.

[3] Herr von Reumont here gives two or three specimens of Lorenzo’s

sonnets translated into German verse. It is not attempted to

retranslate these, but the English reader in search of examples of the

poet’s style is referred to Roscoe’s _Lorenzo de’ Medici_, ii., iii.,

v.—_Note by Translator._

[4] ‘Il montanino ha scarpe grosse e cervello fino.’ The fullest

collection of _rispetti_ and other Tuscan popular songs is that of

G. Tigri, _Canti popolari Toscani_, first published at Florence in

1856, and reprinted several times since. The reproach against the

‘Wunderhorn’ has been repeated in this case, and indeed not without

reason.

[5] Tommaso Lancillotto’s _Chronicle_ in the _Cronache inedite

Modenesi_, pp. 8, 9. _Poesie musicali dei secoli XIV, XV, XVI, tratte

da vari codici per cura di Ant. Cappelli_, Bologna 1869. Cf. the last

story of the fifth day of the _Decameron_.

[6] _Oratio christiani gregis ad pastorem Xistum_, Epist. 1. vi. 1. Cf.

_supra_, i. 440.

[7] _Lettere di Marsilio Ficino_, i. 66 _seq._

[8] Inscription on the monument in Sta. Maria del Fiore:

EN HOSPES HIC EST MARSILIUS SOPHIÆ PATER,

PLATONICUM QUI DOGMA CULPA TEMPORUM

SITU OBRUTUM ILLUSTRANS, ET ATTICUM DECUS

SERVANS, LATIO DEDIT FORES PRIMUS SACRAS,

DIVINO APERIENS MENTIS ACTUS NUMINE.

VIXIT BEATUS ANTE COSMI MUNERE

LAURIQUE MEDICI NUNC REVIXIT PUBLICO.

S. P. Q. F.

ANNO MXDXI.

[9] See a remarkable letter to Lorenzo, dated 1475, in which he speaks

of the neglected muses, in Bandini, _Collectio veterum monumentorum_,

p. 1.

[10] In his poem of _Xandra_, book ii. Cf. Bandini, _Specimen litt._,

i. 124.

[11] The copy of _Christophori Landini Florentini ad illustrem

Fridericim principem Urbinatem Disputationum Camaldulensiam libri IV._,

now in the Laurentian library, was written by Pietro Cennini, son of

Bernardo, the first Florentine printer, finished at the end of spring,

and collated with the original. Cf. Bandini, l. c. ii. 188 _seq._ (see

also p. 3 _seq._ as to the meeting and the persons present). The first

edition is said (_ibid._ p. 192) to have been printed in 1475(?) and a

second at Strasburg in 1508. It was translated into Italian by Antonio

Cambini, a literary man much employed by Lorenzo and also in the

service of his son the Cardinal. He was also in communication with the

Este family, and afterwards attached himself to Savonarola, at whose

fall his house was burnt down. (Cf. Cappelli, l. c. p. 309; Villari,

_Storia di G. Savonarola_, ii. 388.)

[12] Manni, _Istoria del Decamerone_, pt. i. chap. xxix.

[13] Mehus, _Traversari_, p. 178.

[14] Mehus, l. c. p. 176.

[15] ‘Che ‘l Dante io leggeva per mio piacere e per fare cosa grata

alla vostra inclyta città.’ Milan, May 29, 1473, in Fabroni, _Laur.

Med. Vita_, ii. 76.

[16] On the various editions of the old biographies of Dante, see G.

C. Galletti in _Phil. Villani liber_, &c., where Villani, Leon. Bruni,

and Giann. Manetti are printed, the last with Melius’ notes for his

edition, Flor. 1747. The MS. of G. M. Filelfo in the Laurentiana was

published by D. Morini, Flor. 1826.

[17] Vide section iii. chap. iii.

[18] For the numerous bibliographical works on the history of Dante and

his writings, we can only give a general reference to the _Bibliografia

Dantesca_ of Colomb de Batines and the _Enciclopedia Dantesca_ of

Ferrazzi.

[19] According to the colophon, the printing was finished on August

30, 1481. Cf. Bandini, l. c. ii. 131, 140-143; Colomb de Batines, l.

c. vol. i. pt. ii. p. 43; Marsilio’s Address, Bandini, pp. 132-134;

Batines, pp. 43, 44. The Magliabecchian copy has been lately rebound,

and not in very good taste.

[20] _Paradiso_, xxv. 7. Girol. Benivieni, _Cantico in laude di Dante

Alighieri_, in _Works_, Venice 1522. Cf. Bandini, ii. 134-136. The

latter part of the poem, from the line ‘La patria, che a me madre, a Te

noverca,’ refers to the above-quoted lines of Dante. The restoration of

citizen rights to the poet’s great-great-grandson, who bore his name,

and who was a friend of Poliziano (_Letter to Lorenzo_, Flor. June 5,

1490, in the _Prose volgari_, &c., p. 76), did not take place till

1496, and was paid for! (Gaye, l. c. p. 584.)

[21] Isidoro del Lungo, _Un documento Dantesco, Arch. Stor. Ital._,

series iii. vol. xix. p. 4.

[22] Vespasiano da Bisticci, l. c. p. 499 _seq._ Palmieri’s Latin

biography of the grand seneschal was translated into Italian by a

relative of the latter, Donato Acciaiuolo.

[23] On the _Giostra_, see above, i. 264 _seq._, and Salvator Bongi’s

oft-mentioned edition of the _Lettere di Luigi Pulci_. A new edition of

_Ciriffo Calvaneo_, with full bibliographical references by S. L. G.

Audin, appeared at Florence in 1834.

[24] L. Ranke’s academical treatise, _Zur Geschichte der italienischen

Poesie_, Berlin, 1837, contains an excellent account of the elements

and the development of the romantic epopee. The last edition of

_Morgante_, which was first printed at Venice in 1481 and at Florence

in the following year (Gamba, _Testi di Lingua_, p. 241 _seq._) is

that by P. Sermolli, published at Florence a few years ago. The oldest

impression of the _Reali di Francia_ is that published at Modena in

1491, ten years after Pulci’s poem.

[25] L. Pulci, _Lettere_, p. 38. Cf. _supra_, i. 313.

[26] February 1, 1468. L. Pulci, _Lettere_, p. 8.

[27] A petition of his widow, July 14, 1485, states that he had been

dead more than eight months. Cf. _Lettere_, pp. 10, 102, 114.

[28] Fabroni, l. c. ii. 98.

[29] Isidoro del Lungo, _La patria e gli antenati d’Angelo Poliziano_

in _Arch. Stor. Ital._, series iii. vol. xi. p. 9 _seq._ Id. _Uno

Scolare dello studio fiorentino nel sec. XV_, in the _Nuova Antologia_,

x. 215, _seq._ Fr. Otto Mencke’s _Historia Vitæ, etc. Ang. Pol._,

Leipzig, 1736, will always be valuable as a careful collection of

literary and critical materials. _Opera Ang. Politiani_, Flor. 1499.

_Le Stanze, l’Orfeo e le Rime di Messer Ang. Ambrogini Pol., illustrate

da Giosuè Carducci_, Flor. 1863. _Prose volgari e Poesie latine e

greche di A. A. P. raccolte da Isidoro del Lungo_, Flor. 1867.

[30] _Prose volgari_, p. 109.

[31] Ibid. p. 248.

[32] See _Prose volgare_, p. 481: ‘O cui tyrrheni florentia signa

leonis.’