At a certain point in the main street, rather more than half way from
the Albergo del Marzocco to the piazza, a tablet has been let into the
wall upon the left-hand side. This records the fact that here in 1454
was born Angelo Ambrogini, the special glory of Montepulciano, the
greatest classical scholar and the greatest Italian poet of the
fifteenth century. He is better known in the history of literature as
Poliziano, or Politianus, a name he took from his native city, when he
came, a marvellous boy, at the age of ten, to Florence, and joined the
household of Lorenzo de' Medici. He had already claims upon Lorenzo's
hospitality. For his father, Benedetto, by adopting the cause of Piero
de' Medici in Montepulciano, had exposed himself to bitter feuds and
hatred of his fellow-citizens. To this animosity of party warfare he
fell a victim a few years previously. We only know that he was murdered,
and that he left a helpless widow with five children, of whom Angelo was
the eldest. The Ambrogini or Cini were a family of some importance in
Montepulciano; and their dwelling-house is a palace of considerable
size. From its eastern windows the eye can sweep that vast expanse of
country, embracing the lakes of Thrasymene and Chiusi, which has been
already described. What would have happened, we wonder, if Messer
Benedetto, the learned jurist, had not espoused the Medicean cause and
embroiled himself with murderous antagonists? Would the little Angelo
have grown up in this quiet town, and practised law, and lived and died
a citizen of Montepulciano? In that case the lecture-rooms of Florence
would never have echoed to the sonorous hexameters of the "Rusticus" and
"Ambra." Italian literature would have lacked the "Stanze" and "Orfeo."
European scholarship would have been defrauded of the impulse given to
it by the "Miscellanea." The study of Roman law would have missed those
labours on the Pandects, with which the name of Politian is honourably
associated. From the Florentine society of the fifteenth century would
have disappeared the commanding central figure of humanism, which now
contrasts dramatically with the stern monastic Prior of S. Mark.
Benedetto's tragic death gave Poliziano to Italy and to posterity.