LORENZO’S YOUTH. CONSPIRACY OF DIOTISALVI NERONI AND HIS COMPANIONS.
LORENZO DE’ MEDICI grew up. He was seventeen years old when his father
sent him to Pisa to welcome Don Federigo of Aragon, King Ferrante’s
younger son, who set out from Naples, March 18, 1465, and having
received the golden rose at Rome, was on his way to Milan with the most
brilliant suite, no less than six hundred horse, to escort to Naples
Francesco Sforza’s intellectual and beautiful daughter Ippolita Maria,
the bride of his elder brother, Alfonso, Duke of Calabria.[117] On
April 17, Don Federigo entered Florence, accompanied by the Prince of
Salerno, the Duke of Amalfi, the Bishop of Gaeta, and many other lords,
and was received by the Signoria on the Ringhiera of the palace, after
which he rode to Sta. Maria Novella, where the Papal lodgings were
prepared for him, and where, entertained at the public cost, he stayed
five days amid mutual expressions of politeness. The Prince, then only
thirteen years old, wore mourning, with all his suite, in consequence
of the death of the Queen his mother, which had happened shortly
before.[118]
Florence had had much cause to complain of the Aragonese, even in
later years, and had long remained true to her sympathies with Anjou;
but Cosimo de’ Medici was too diplomatic not to see that the house
of Spain had gained a firmer footing than that of France in southern
Italy, and that peace was better secured by an alliance with the
former, if the interests of the State made it possible. Cosimo always
held fast to Francesco Sforza, even when he believed that he had
cause of complaint against him; for Sforza, who had once encouraged
his Florentine friend in the belief that after he was Duke of Milan
he would aid him with his power in the subjection of Lucca, let the
matter entirely drop when he had attained his end. Cosimo had more than
anyone the conquest of Lucca at heart, for, unlike the Albizzi, who had
enlarged the territory of the Republic by Pisa, he had nothing to show
but trifling annexations by purchase, such as the Borgo San Sepolcro,
in the valley of the Tiber, and he complained of the ingratitude of a
man to whose grandeur he had so much contributed, though he still kept
up a close connection with him.
The meeting with Federigo d’Aragona was afterwards of great use to
Lorenzo; he met him again when he undertook a journey which led him to
Bologna, Ferrara, Venice, and Milan. A letter addressed to him during
this excursion is a proof of the interest which the gifted youth had
long excited, even if we take into account the dependent position in
which the writer stood towards the family. This was Luigi Pulci. The
name of the author of the most celebrated heroic poem of the fifteenth
century, which will be mentioned in the consideration of the literary
movement, is inseparable from that of his constant patron and friend.
Luigi Pulci belonged to a family of Provençal origin, which was ranked
among the oldest in Florence, but did not rise, because when the
popular element prevailed it was characterised as noble, and excluded
from all share in public offices. A street was once named after the
residence of the Pulci, which was pulled down in the sixteenth century
when the Uffizi was built. Jacopo Pulci had by Brigida de’ Bardi
three sons, of whom Luigi was the second: all three were poets, and
had better success in poetry than in pecuniary affairs. Luigi was born
on August 15, 1432, in Florence. He was still unmarried at the time
now under consideration, and one of the confidants of the Medici,
who employed him in various commissions. Piero’s wife was especially
well-disposed towards him, and we shall find him later as her escort on
a journey. ‘You have left us,’ he writes to Lorenzo, April 27, 1465,
‘so disconsolate at your departure that I do not know how to hold the
pen to write this letter to you. Through Braccio, I am informed of your
journey, and assume that you are now in Venice; and in order to begin
my correspondence well, I inform you that I am lonely, forsaken, and
sad without you. On the other hand, I rejoice in your journey, which
seems to me a piece of good fortune for many reasons. You will see many
remarkable things, which will delight your mind, superior, I consider,
to all, with one only exception. What promotes your interests can only
be a pleasure to me.’[119]
Lorenzo’s brother-in-law, Guglielmo de’ Pazzi, was his companion on
this journey, which was connected with the marriage of Francesco
Sforza’s daughter, who soon afterwards came through Tuscany on her
wedding tour.
Piero de’ Medici wrote repeatedly to his son during this journey,[120]
showing the utmost solicitude for his welfare, as well as that he
should make a good figure among these princes and noble ladies. He sent
him plate for festivals which the young man might be called upon to
give. ‘Do not care for expense,’ he says; ‘think only of doing honour
to your family. Think of making yourself alive, and of showing that
you are a man and not a boy, and that henceforward you are capable of
managing greater things. This journey is to you the touchstone of your
future career.’ More than once Piero expressed a wish that Lorenzo and
his companion should return before the arrival of the Milanese princes.
‘It seems necessary to me that you should leave Milan before the
bridal train; for the Princess is to inhabit our house, and if you and
Guglielmo were absent, I should be like a man without hands.’ On the
afternoon of June 22, Donna Ippolita entered Florence, and was lodged
in the Medicean house. Beside Don Federigo, she was accompanied by her
two brothers, Filippo and Sforza Maria; suite and escort numbered 1000
horses; and all were maintained at the public cost during the passage
through Florentine territory, while the Duchess herself enjoyed the
princely hospitality of the most distinguished family in the city.[121]
At the beginning of March of the following year, Lorenzo went to Rome.
Pope Pius II., in the midst of his preparations for the crusade, and
in sight of the sea which was to bear his fleet and his allies to the
Eastern coasts, had died at Ancona in the middle of August, 1464, a
fortnight after Cosimo, and had been succeeded by the Venetian Pietro
Barbo, under the name of Paul II. Pius’s death had put an end for
the time to the crusade which he had been about to undertake with
insufficient power. But the thought of it was kept alive, particularly
in the Pontificate; and the progress of the Turks, who in Paul’s
reign wrested the fortress of Negroponte from the Venetians, was so
alarming that the preservation of peace in Italy, by which alone means
of resistance could be hoped for, was most important for the Popes
as well as the other rulers. In this respect Paul II. laboured in
the most praiseworthy manner, at least during the first years of his
reign, after he had disposed of the restless little dynasties in the
neighbourhood of Rome.
Lorenzo was sent, ostensibly on business connected with some
alum-works and the bank, directed by his maternal uncle, Giovanni
Tornabuoni, to Rome, where he was honourably received by the Pope, the
court, and numerous friends of the family. But Piero had doubtless the
intention of making him personally acquainted with the customs and
life of a city which was of the utmost importance for Florence and the
Medicean family, and where Cosimo had always striven to preserve an
influence. He had scarcely arrived there when an event happened which
attracted the attention of all Italy, and the Medici in particular. On
March 8, 1466, Francesco Sforza died, after a long illness, at the age
of sixty-six. He had attained by craft and violence the throne which
he maintained bravely, and developed capacities of government hitherto
unknown at Milan.
The last and most successful of the great _condottieri_ of Italy, he
laid down arms in order to exercise the arts of peace for the last
twelve years of his life. In later times Machiavelli, who witnessed
the swift and sad change in Lombardy under one of the sons and the
grandsons of the first Sforza, said, in his reflections on Titus
Livius, that nothing, however great and important it might be, could
give Milan or Naples their freedom, because all their limbs were
decayed; the reproach of having made them so belongs far less to
Francesco than to the Visconti, for his government healed many wounds,
opened many resources, and restored peace to the land, to which it had
long been unknown. As at the Duke’s death his eldest son, Galeazzo
Maria, was absent in France, where he had been sent with a body of
troops to assist King Louis XI. in the civil war which had broken out
soon after his accession to the throne, the widowed Duchess Bianca
Maria seized the reins of government with a firm hand, assured herself
of the consent of the most eminent men of the State, and prepared a
festal reception and peaceful accession to power for her son, who
entered Milan on the 20th of the same month.
It was necessary to induce the Italian princes to recognise Sforza, in
opposition to certain other claims, especially those of the house of
Savoy, and Piero de’ Medici was very active in this matter. On March 15
he wrote to Lorenzo[122] in Rome, who was soon able to give reassuring
news with regard to the Pope’s inclinations. He had himself applied to
the latter immediately after receiving the news. Venice, however little
affection she might feel for Sforza, was too much threatened in the
Levant not to wish for peace in Italy; King Ferrante was related to the
Milanese house. Thus it was not difficult to obtain the recognition of
Galeazzo Maria everywhere, and although the Emperor Frederick III.,
who came again to Italy two years later, ignored the new duke, as
well as his father, this was of small importance, from the political
weakness of the temporal head of Christendom. That the French King, to
whom the Republic wrote on April 3 to express sorrow at the loss of
Francesco Sforza, ‘so great a prince and friend, so rare a master of
peace and war, so high an honour to the Italian name,’ would share the
same opinion, was to be foreseen, although his cousin, Duke Charles of
Orleans, never resigned the hereditary claims of his mother, Valentina
Visconti, on Milan. In fact, Louis answered on the 18th of the same
month from Orleans, promising to interfere himself if it should be
necessary.[123] Piero’s letters to his son, eighteen years old, showed
sufficiently how he trusted to his insight and wisdom. Soon events
were to happen at home which would test these qualities of the youth
severely.
The last years of Cosimo’s life had shown how hard it was for him to
maintain the supremacy over his party in Florence. The people had grown
too rich and powerful. Cosimo had himself much contributed to it by
his fear of putting himself forward; his prudent reserve had gone too
far. He had long foreseen that his son would not be in a position to
master and guide the contending elements, but precisely the measures
he took to meet the danger brought it nearer. Those in whom he trusted,
from the conviction that as they had grown rich with him, and mostly
through him, they would hold to his family, did not respond to this
confidence. However different their motives might be, in a city
where so many special interests prevailed beside the political party
currents, and where men were so little accustomed to subordination,
they yet united against him, whose inherited position was burdensome
and hateful to them, and whom more than one looked down upon. The
causes of the movement which broke out in 1466, and which threatened
the authority of the Medici, were apparent soon after Cosimo’s death.
The great liberality of the rich merchant, by no means always dictated
by pure motives, but for the sake of preserving his authority, had
brought much idle capital into strangers’ hands. The evil necessarily
became clear when the accounts were revised. It was Diotisalvi Neroni,
the man on whose acuteness and attachment Cosimo relied the most, who
owed him much, and whom he had recommended to his son as the most
trustworthy friend, who advised the former to call in the outstanding
sums. The evil effect of following this advice—namely, the sudden
embarrassment in which numerous citizens who were under obligations
to the Medici found themselves, and the discontent and estrangement
which followed—caused Diotisalvi to be suspected of bad intentions,
a belief which was strengthened by his behaviour afterwards. Thus the
historians of the time immediately succeeding him, as well as almost
all later ones, express themselves in this sense.[124] But the motives
must ever be veiled in obscurity. Diotisalvi was wealthy and respected,
his brother Giovanni was Archbishop of Florence after 1462. Still it is
difficult to believe that he aimed at becoming the head of the State.
The motives of the distinguished citizens who allied themselves to this
man, in order first to undermine the position of the Medici, and then
to overthrow them by violence, were, however, so different that we
cannot be surprised at the failure of the undertaking.
Diotisalvi seems to have had an understanding with Niccolò Soderini. We
have seen how Niccolò, then more than sixty years old, had been from
his youth upward one of the zealous adherents of the Medici. But he
belonged also to the number, always very great in Florence, of those
who wished for a supreme authority, but not the government of one
family; equality of all rights for citizens qualified for the guidance
of the State, and the freest possible form of government. There were
scarcely any citizens more esteemed than he and his brother Tommaso.
But it was otherwise with Luca Pitti. He was of a despotic nature, and
had already shown that violent proceedings cost him nothing. Willingly
or not, Cosimo had allowed him so much liberty that he already
considered himself the head of the State while Cosimo was still alive.
It was very unlikely, therefore, that he would be subordinate to the
weaker son. Diotisalvi is said to have encouraged him in the hope of
taking his place, thinking it easy to put aside the incapable man.
The fourth in the association was Agnolo Acciaiuoli, lately returned
from Milan, where he was highly esteemed by Francesco Sforza, and had
much contributed to maintain the harmony so desirable for the Republic
between the Duke and the King of Naples, when this seemed endangered by
a tragical event, the murder of Jacopo Piccinino, a son of the famous
_condottiere_, at the King’s instigation.[125] Even though it may have
been represented to Agnolo that the majority of the city wished for a
change, still the motives which estranged him from the Medici seem
to have been purely selfish; whether it was that he was incensed at a
legal decision in a matter of property unfavourable to his eldest son,
or on account of the archbishopric of Pisa not having been granted to
another son, or, finally, on account of the preference which Piero gave
to the Rucellai family, when it was proposed to marry his youngest
daughter, whose hand the Acciaiuoli wished to obtain. Agnolo attached
himself to the others later, and they do not seem to have entirely let
him into the secret of their intentions.[126]
The movement began in 1465. Diotisalvi Neroni had returned from Milan,
whither he had gone as ambassador on the occasion of the marriage of
Ippolita Maria, with the dignity of knighthood, which gave him still
greater consideration. It was determined to proceed slowly against
the Medici; abolition of the discretionary power of the Balia and
the choice of magistrates by lot were first demanded. Piero and his
friends knew too well how much attached the people were to this method
of choice, which had often proved to be a mere sham, not to give way
at once. On November 1, Niccolò Soderini undertook the office of
Gonfaloniere, and now they thought the time had come for striking
the first blow. The expectations cherished by the new Gonfaloniere
recalled the time, eighty-seven years before, when Salvestro de’
Medici entered office; only now his relations took the place of their
former opponents. The people were in the greatest excitement. Niccolò
proceeded to the palace, crowned with olive branches. Again, however,
was seen the deceitfulness of such hopes when formed by parties
composed of different elements. The old adherent of the Medici was
driven hither and thither by contrary inclinations. On the one side
were his new companions; on the other his brother. He twice summoned
numerous assemblies of eminent citizens to his palace, to consult on
the means of removing existing evils, and both times the result was
mere words. He wished to effect the dissolution of the Council of a
Hundred, and could not carry it. He proposed to demand an account of
the administration of the last years, and failed through the opposition
of Luca Pitti, who dreaded such an inquisition. Altogether his
adherents rendered the measures contemplated by Soderini impossible,
because they feared they would not enable them to carry out their
private ends; and his period of office expired without decisive action.
In the meanwhile, as has been said, Francesco Sforza died, and his
successor sent messengers to Florence to renew the alliance with
the Republic, and at the same time to request a loan to suffice for
pressing necessities. Piero contrived that 40,000 gold florins should
be granted; but Diotisalvi Neroni, Luca Pitti, and Agnolo Acciaiuoli
made such violent opposition, under the pretext that the State was in
quite another position towards the inexperienced young Duke than it
was formerly towards his father, that the payment was never made. The
intention of the opposition was merely to bring Piero and his adherents
into discredit, and loosen their connections with foreign lands.
Another manœuvre was to serve the same purpose. In March 1465, Cardinal
Lodovico Scarampi, the former Archbishop of Florence, had died, leaving
a colossal fortune which was partly invested in Florentine banks. Pope
Paul II. claimed this property as belonging to the Church; but Luca
Pitti, whose brother Luigi was related to the Scarampi by marriage,
prevented the delivery of the sums deposited in Florence, which by no
means increased the goodwill of the Pope towards the State.
In the spring of 1466 it became evident that a party strife was
impending. In the beginning of May, after the occasion of the
Milanese grant of money had revealed the deep-lying discord, the
Signoria endeavoured to bring about a compromise. On the proposal
of a commission appointed for the purpose of consultation, all the
citizens eligible for the offices of State, from the age of twenty-four
years upwards, were summoned to the palace, where the assembly took
place in a hall adjoining the chapel. Here resolutions were passed
that no meetings should be held, political consultations, public or
private, that were not summoned by the government; that everyone
should solemnly promise to act in his office only according to right
and law, and to let all party quarrels rest; that finally all existing
political societies should be dissolved, and the ties which bound
them become null and void.[127] The stipulations show plainly enough
how things stood with the city. Those present took the oath to these
obligations, which, being the mere outgrowth of discontent, no one,
however, seriously thought of fulfilling. Everyone had a pretext in
his neighbour’s behaviour. Things took their natural course; Piero de’
Medici knew nothing of the violent intentions of his opponents, but
the factions already stood opposed to one another, although the strife
was maintained on the grounds of the constitution. These factions were
called those of the Mountain and the Plain (del Poggio—del Piano),
because Luca Pitti’s house stood on the slope of the hill of San
Giorgio, that of the Medici on a level part of the city. When the heads
of the Mountain party saw that the others were not to be reached by the
usual seemingly legal means, they set on foot a formal conspiracy. The
story of this conspiracy affords a remarkable example of the insecure
foundation of public affairs in such states, as well as the want of
all real determination when it was necessary to act. With Bartolommeo
Colleone of Bergamo, the celebrated _condottiere_, negotiations were
opened which subsequently bore fruit. At all events, the opponents of
the Medici appear to have been the first who had no dread of employing
foreign military power. Ercole of Este, brother of the Marquis Borso
of Ferrara, was to march into the territory and upon the capital
itself, while they were to attempt to take the life of Piero, whom
Diotisalvi Neroni was to endeavour to lull into a false security. The
circumstance that Piero mostly resided in his villa at Careggi, from
whence he, ill as he was, used to have himself carried in a litter to
the city, seemed to favour the plans of the conspirators. The Signoria,
which had entered upon office on July 1, with the Gonfaloniere Bernardo
Lotti, were mostly favourable to them: they determined to make use of
this opportunity, but, nevertheless, allowed many weeks to pass before
proceeding to action.
Piero had meanwhile received warnings from two directions. Giovanni
Bentivoglio, lord of Bologna, had informed him of the intrigues
of Este. Niccolò Fedini, a notary whom the conspirators employed,
revealed their intentions. Piero did not shut his eyes to the danger
when he measured the number and importance of his opponents. He knew
the fickleness of the city. He held it good to send his son, on whose
skill he could rely in spite of his youth, to Naples. Lorenzo managed
to strengthen King Ferrante in his inclination towards the Medici,
while the King (as Jacopo Acciaiuoli, then in the above-mentioned
town, wrote to his father),[128] believed that he could better make
use of the Republic for his own purposes under the guidance of the
Medici than under any other circumstances. The favourable impression
which the youth made upon Ferrante is evident. Meanwhile the means of
defence were deliberated upon in meetings with the most faithful and
influential of his party. Both sides were arming; it is clear that
the enemies of the Medici knew of their preparations, but they did
not yet get to work, either because they were not ready, or because
the characteristic dread which the Florentines had of beginning a
revolution in the State with arms, restrained them. Piero had time to
inform the Duke of Milan, through his ambassador, Nicodemo Tanchedini.
The villa of Careggi, the favourite residence of the elder line of
the Medici, lies a little more than two miles to the north-west of
Florence, on the last southern spur of the Uccellatojo, of which
the ‘Divina Commedia’ says that it surpasses the view of Rome from
Monte Mario.[129] The name, once Campus Regis, is in harmony with the
fertility and beauty of the neighbourhood; for here the spectator,
overlooking the whole valley of the Arno from the gently sinking
slope, sees villa join villa, and splendid gardens in a thousand
flowery colours stretch before him, besides vineyards and olive-tree
plantations. The Medicean villa, private property for more than a
century, preserves, like the Salviati villa, lying in the neighbourhood
of the Fiesolan abbey, the form given to it in the first half of the
fifteenth century—an immense cube, which more resembles a fortress
than a country house, with jutting battlements and a quadrangular
inner court. In the present day an intelligent owner, no Tuscan, but
full of warm love for his second home,[130] has called up afresh the
remembrances of ancient days, and again summoned hither the arts once
native here. We can easily transport ourselves to the times of Cosimo
and Lorenzo, so rich in intellectual creations, and feel inspired by
the breath of Platonic symposia, and the statesmanlike consultations
which guided the fortunes of Italy at a memorable epoch. The nearest
way from Careggi to the city led to the Faenza gate, which was
destroyed when the Medicean city was built, partly upon the pleasant
hill of Montughi, already covered with villas, amongst which was that
of Sant’Antonio, belonging to the archiepiscopal see.
On the morning of August 23, Piero de’ Medici was about to have himself
carried in his litter to Florence, when a messenger sent by his son
hastened up to him. Lorenzo, who, after his return from Naples, was
staying at the villa, had ridden out earlier, met suspicious-looking
people, and heard them inquire after his father. Already warned, he
suspected the danger. Saying that Piero was following him, he commanded
one of his men to return to Careggi in order to inform his father
of the suspicious circumstance, and advise him to take another way,
probably that leading to Porta al Prato. Perhaps Piero de’ Medici owed
his life to Lorenzo’s prudence, for the villa of the archbishop was
filled with armed men lying in wait for him.
Scarcely had he arrived in town when he summoned his chief partisans
to him, and it was determined to be beforehand with the opponents. The
decisive moment was come. The troops of Este stood already at Fiumalbo
near the frontiers. A body of Milanese mercenaries were coming from
Imola to Firenzuola to aid Piero. All the adherents of the Medici were
in motion; Antonio Serristori collected together the same morning a
number of country people in the neighbourhood. Lorenzo, supported by
Antonio Pucci, was active with the young people. The Medicean party
stood ready in arms before the others had come to an agreement with
their four leaders, equal in power but different in disposition. When
Piero sent to the Signoria, laid the letter of Bentivoglio before them,
and pointed to the danger threatening the peace of the city, in order
to excuse the speedy arming of his friends, the Signoria could not
avoid taking measures. They sent Bernardo Corbinelli as commissary, to
hinder if possible the passage of the Este troops over the frontier,
and sought to oblige the parties to lay down their weapons. This was,
however, in vain; the whole city was in such a state of excitement
that the Signoria had the palace closed in their anxiety, and the
guards strengthened. And the fear was not groundless. Niccolò Soderini
had brought together and armed nearly two hundred in that part of his
district on the left bank of the river inhabited by the poorer classes,
and called the Camaldoli of San Frediano,[131] and in the evening had
marched with them to the neighbouring house of Luca Pitti. Here the
chief adherents were assembled, but even now they could not agree.
Some, Soderini at their head, advised them to seize the palace and
summon a parliament, since the majority was favourable to them; others
proposed to set the houses of the leaders of the opposition on fire, in
order to strike terror into the crowd. But nothing was accomplished;
the chiefs were irresolute. Diotisalvi, whose house lay near the Medici
palace, was afraid lest, in case of an attack, the mob might get the
better of the contending parties, and renew the scenes of 1378. Luca,
usually impetuous, was undecided. Soderini said to him, bitterly, that
they would both be ruined; he, because he had relied too much on Luca,
Luca because he had heeded his advice too little. Neither did things
proceed smoothly with the Medici. An attack was feared; in order to
meet it, many wished to cross the river and give battle. On the other
side it was confessed that an attack from the Medicean party this night
would have given the victory into their hands. Piero and the more
cautious were for waiting, as they were for the present stronger than
the enemy, and would hardly lose by the delay. Within a few days a new
Signoria must enter upon office; and as the district of Sta. Croce
had to appoint the Gonfaloniere, and here the adherents of the Medici
preponderated, the circumstances could not but be more favourable.
They had not calculated wrongly. Already, on the following day, that
of St. Bartholomew, negotiations between the two parties began. Luca
Pitti is said to have been won by a prospect of the marriage of his
daughter with Lorenzo de’ Medici before a Signoria favourable to that
family could be chosen on the 28th. Piero’s opponents had spread the
report that he had secretly managed to remove all the names of those
of whom he was not sure from the ballot-boxes, but no proof of this
accusation exists.[132] The city was meantime filled more and more with
armed men; from Volterra alone, where the Medici had strong adherents,
400 foot, well armed and provided with money, were obtained.[133]
The retiring Signori wished to combine with the new to attempt a
mediation, and summoned the heads of both parties to the palace. Luca
Pitti appeared with many of his adherents; Piero de’ Medici, who was
ill in bed, sent his two sons with the most important of his party.
A mutual understanding followed; they embraced, and promised to lay
down arms. On the following day all the leaders of the Mountain party,
Niccolò Soderini among them, repaired to the Medici palace. Piero
received them in his bedroom; his speech was not without reproaches
for those who, having become great through his father, had turned
against him and filled the city with suspicion and dangers of war,
which they now sought to lay to his charge. Luca Pitti threw the blame
on misunderstandings and false representations, and expressed a hope
that harmony would remain undisturbed for the future. He is reported to
have been wavering again when Soderini reproached him with treason to
his party, but to have finally yielded to Lorenzo’s representations. It
would indeed have been madness to resort to arms.
On September 1, the new Signoria, with Roberto Leoni, the new
Gonfaloniere, at their head, entered upon office. From the moment when
the Medicean partisans were sure of the victory, the idea awoke within
them to render their most distinguished opponents harmless for ever.
Piero would not consent to violent measures, but he would have been
no Medici if he had despised so-called legal means. Already, on the
day after undertaking the office, the Signoria summoned a parliament,
at which Luca Pitti and Diotisalvi Neroni appeared. On September 6,
they announced their determination by the Balia elected by them: the
Signoria should for ten years be appointed not by casting lots, but
by nomination, and the heads of the Mountain, with the exception of
Luca Pitti, were to go into exile. Niccolò Soderini, it is said, by
the advice of Piero, who wished to protect an old adherent and the
brother of his best friend from violence, had already retired to his
villa, and from thence to Venice; there he was met by the decree which
banished him and his son Geri for twenty years to Provence, where his
father was born. Agnolo Acciaiuoli had quitted his house, and betaken
himself to the Milanese ambassador, with whom he was very intimate,
and who offered to intercede with Piero de’ Medici for him. Had he
waited for the result, says Vespasiano da Bisticci, referring to
Piero’s own words, no harm would have happened to him, for the latter
did not bear resentment against him as against the others. But, full
of anxiety, he hastened in the night to Certosa, the castle of his
ancestors, from whence he went to Barletta, which was assigned him as
his place of banishment. The real originator of the plot, Diotisalvi
Neroni, was condemned to exile, with all his family; and the Neroni
never again attained to power in Florence. The Archbishop left the city
voluntarily, and went to Rome. The exiles were to bring their country
into further grave troubles before they were forgotten by most, if
not by the Medici, in the rapid change of circumstances. Luca Pitti
met with a punishment of another kind. He remained in Florence, but
seldom has the ostracism of public opinion been more harshly exercised
towards a criminal. All turned their backs upon him; if he let himself
be seen, he was received with insults and accusations of violence and
covetousness. The workmen who were devoted to him in the days of his
power, deserted him; his immense buildings, the palace as well as the
villa, stood for generations unfinished, till they fell into other
hands—the palace to the grand-ducal line of the Medici, the villa to
the Usimbardi family, and then to the dukes of Urbino. Presents were
demanded back again, as though they had been loans. He died a despised
man—when is not known.[134]