POPE SIXTUS IV., KING FERRANTE, AND THE MEDICI.
POPE SIXTUS IV. was disposed most favourably towards the Medici at the
beginning of his reign. We have heard in Lorenzo’s own words how well
he was received in Rome in 1471. The friendly relation was strengthened
by concessions which afforded essential advantages to the Florentine
mercantile house. The Pope was ready moreover to fulfil a wish which
Lorenzo already cherished at that time; granting the cardinal’s purple
to Giuliano. From a letter addressed by him to Sixtus on November 21,
1472,[198] we see that he had already spoken to the Pope of the matter,
and that the latter had given him a promise. The whole plan gives us
an insight into Lorenzo’s thoughts. To have a member of the family in
the Sacred College was advantageous for a family which was on the road
to princely power, especially in a city and a State which stood in a
thousand connections with Rome; and what Lorenzo subsequently attained
through a son he wished now to effect for and by a brother. To withdraw
this brother from the circle of domestic and political affairs, to
guide the State without a partaker if not rival in power, this was the
principal thing. Giuliano was the born leader of the youth of Florence,
eighteen years old, strong, lively, and a friend to pleasure; the
matter might become serious, though hitherto, and indeed up to the
death of the younger brother, the best terms existed between the two,
as once between Cosimo and his brother Lorenzo.
The first creation of cardinals of Sixtus IV. took place on December
15, 1471, four months after his election; only his two relations were
elevated by it, Pietro Riario and Giuliano della Rovera. Lorenzo
waited nearly a year before he reminded the Pope of his promise, and
commissioned his uncle, Giovanni Tornabuoni with the affair, after
Sixtus had in the meantime given him a fresh proof of his friendly
feeling in the case of Volterra. On April 25, 1473, the cardinal of
Pavia, Jacopo Ammanati, who had maintained various connections with the
Medici and Tuscany in general from the days of Pope Pius II., wrote
to him that they would at all events receive a cardinal’s hat; but
he, Lorenzo, ought to consider whether he would not prefer to bestow
it on some one else, for instance, the Bishop of Pisa, instead of his
brother, who could not be immediately created one without passing
through certain preliminary ecclesiastical dignities. Immediately
afterwards, on May 7, ensued the second creation of eight cardinals,
including Italians, Frenchmen, and Spaniards. Eight days later
Ammanati, after having consulted with Giovanni Tornabuoni, wrote again
to Lorenzo. He gave him to consider that the entrance of his brother
into sacred orders, if it promised advantages on the one side, might,
on the other, greatly harm the position of the family and the party if
God should call him away, and he should leave four children of tender
age. If, however, he persisted in his intention, the matter could only
advance by degrees. ‘It would be first necessary to appoint Giuliano
as protonotary, and allow him to fill this office for at least a
month. For to raise a layman directly to the dignity of cardinal none
of us would consent. I would advise, however, that he should receive
no ecclesiastical consecration before our object is attained, so that
in case of failure he may return to his former position, as many have
done in my days, without exciting censure. His household must then
represent the half of a cardinal’s—that is to say, an escort of four
to six chaplains, and eight grooms. For though he might develop greater
splendour according to his position, a modest appearance here makes
a favourable impression. For the rest, Messer Gentile (Becchi) and I
would regard him as a son, and would so instruct him that he could
only obtain praise. His creation is certain to me if the Pope remains
alive, and I trust to be able to effect more than one. Be not offended
that several cardinals have been appointed in these last days, for
several must soon follow, for the Emperor and King Ferrante, for Rome
and Florence.’ At the same time he advised him to sound the views of
the Duke of Milan. From such a purely business point of view did even
a grave and pious man like Ammanati regard the nomination of a member
of the highest ecclesiastical senate; which indeed had long consisted
of two classes—the learned and spiritual members, and the great lords
and politicians. The Pope then promised the republic to appoint one of
their fellow-citizens on the first opportunity; while the Cardinal of
Pavia announced in his name that the granting of bishoprics in their
territory could only take place after an agreement beforehand with the
Signoria.
The relations between the Pope and the Medici were still undisturbed
when, after the death of Giovanni Neroni at Rome in 1473, the
former appointed his nephew, Cardinal Riario, to the archbishopric
of Florence. This young man suddenly became, from an obscure
Franciscan monk, the all-powerful favourite of the supreme pontiff,
and though not deficient in intellect and subtlety, was so devoid
of moderation and sense of fitness that he gave scope to his love
of luxury and extravagance, to a degree that was unusual even in
Rome, notwithstanding the wealth of such cardinals as Guillaume
d’Estouteville, Latino Orsini, Olivieri Carafa, &c. How far his foolish
extravagance was carried is seen by the festival which he gave in the
spring of 1473 at his palace near St. Apostoli to the newly-married
Duchess of Ferrara, Eleonore of Aragon, King Ferrante’s daughter, a
festival which excited great displeasure everywhere. Florence also
had to see something of the bridal procession of the Duchess. At the
end of April the duke’s brother, Sigismondo d’Este, who went to fetch
his future sister-in-law, arrived at the city with a suite which
required no less than four hundred horses and seventy-seven mules; he
stayed there two days, and then continued his journey towards Rome.
He rewarded Florentine hospitality by circulating false money bearing
the stamp of the Republic, and he was convicted of it, but allowed to
escape. On June 22, Eleonore, who had left Naples on May 26, arrived
at Florence. Duke Ercole, who had informed Lorenzo of his betrothal in
the preceding November, had announced the arrival of his consort to
him on June 4. She had passed the preceding night in San Casciano, on
the Sienese road, only eight miles distant from the city. Her suite,
consisting partly of Neapolitans and partly of Ferrarese, numbered no
fewer than 1,400 men on horseback. She rode towards the Piazza, where
the Signoria received her on the Ringhiera, she exchanged a few words
with the Gonfaloniere, and then proceeded to the Medicean palace,
where she lodged. Her whole suite was entertained at the cost of the
commune; the expenses in the city and territory were reckoned at about
ten thousand gold florins; ‘Money thrown away,’ Alamanna Rinuccini
adds. The journey was continued through Marradi and Faenza.[199]
Eleonore’s consort and father expressed their thanks for the reception.
‘Illustrious lord and beloved friend,’ wrote the king to Lorenzo on
July 7,[200] ‘through letters of our daughter, Duchess of Ferrara,
and our ambassador, we have heard of the reception she met with from
you, and of the proofs of friendship and festivals which you gave her
with equal kindness and magnificence. We must express our unbounded
gratitude for this; and, although the love we bore you seemed as if it
could have been little, if at all, increased, we assure you that it has
been augmented in such a manner that we shall ever be under obligation
to you. We shall endeavour in time to prove our gratitude for the
pleasure you have given us.’
Two months later Pietro Riario came to Florence. The ostensible aim
of the journey was to take possession of the archbishopric, but it
was more important to him and to the Pope to assure himself of the
intentions of the Duke of Milan; in which he succeeded so well, that
the story went that in Milan, where the Cardinal was in September,
they had made an agreement about the royal title of Lombardy, to which
the vain Sforza aspired, as the ambitious Visconti had done eighty
years before. Pietro Riario’s presence in Florence was a new cause
for festivals and expenses, at a time when the people were suffering
from dearth. The eulogistic verses, exaggerated to the most excessive
bombast and profanest idolatry, with which Angelo Poliziano (who was
then certainly very young and very needy) celebrates the unworthy
nephew of a pope, who was indulgent to culpable weakness towards his
relations, are one of the numerous proofs which afford an insight into
the public and moral conditions of the time. The early death of Pietro
Riario, which happened in the beginning of 1474, put an end to various
plans, and to a scandal which surpassed all that had been seen before.
That there was no lack at the time of half ironical observations
on the growing luxury in Florence, is shown by a letter addressed,
on January 22 in the year just mentioned, to Duke Ercole d’Este by
Niccolò Bendedei.[201] ‘There is nothing new here, except that in the
neighbourhood of Pisa, where the illustrious Lorenzo is hawking with
King Ferrante’s men, two of the ten falcons sent by His Majesty, and
those the best, are lost. Your Excellence must not wonder that I speak
of such things, for I only follow the example of others. Idleness has
so gained the upper hand in Italy that, if nothing new happens, we
shall have more to say about the slaughter of fowls and dogs than about
armies and deeds of war. For the rest, I am of opinion that those who
have to govern Italy in peace will not reap less fame than those who
kept her at war. For the object of war is, after all, peace, and the
only consideration is that it should be a permanent peace.’ But this
never entered the minds of those who were all too ready to lavish the
fruits of peace.
The first cause of mutual distrust between Sixtus IV. and Lorenzo seems
to have been the Pope’s endeavour to obtain estates for his relations
in Romagna, a matter in which the Florentines were not free from
blame. In contemplating the fate of this province, the family of the
Manfredi, their disunion among themselves, and their connections with
Florence, have already been mentioned (p. 207). From the proximity of
the territories of Imola and Faenza, it was by no means indifferent to
the Republic in whose hands they might be. After several changes and
family feuds, Imola had fallen, in 1473, into the hands of the Duke of
Milan, from whom the Florentines tried to obtain it. Their wishes were,
however, thwarted both by the King of Naples and the Pope, naturally
averse to the extension of the Florentine territory in Romagna, and at
last Sixtus IV. bought Imola for 40,000 ducats, and bestowed it upon
Girolamo Riario, the cardinal’s brother, to whom at the same time the
hand of Caterina Sforza, a natural daughter of Galeazzo Maria, was
promised.[202] The journey of the cardinal to Milan was undoubtedly
connected with this affair. After the death of the latter, Girolamo
took the first place in his uncle’s favour, and soon began to exercise
an influence on affairs which could only be injurious, on account
of his restless ambition and violent nature, while it was to be
foreseen that the constant dissensions, and often wild enmities in the
neighbouring families—the Manfredi of Faenza, as well as the Ordelaffi
of Forli—would afford material enough for new anxieties and troubles.
Almost immediately afterwards another circumstance disturbed the good
understanding even more seriously. Città di Castello, lying in the
Upper Tiber valley, on the frontier between Umbria and Tuscany, and
not wholly unimportant, shared the fate of all neighbouring towns
and localities, which became the nurseries of excellent condottieri
and soldiers, but at the same time the scenes of permanent civil
disturbances, and often of the bloodiest family feuds. In 1440,
Vitelozzo Vitelli, the head of a family frequently mentioned after
the end of the twelfth century, had received from Pope Eugene IV.
the vicegerency of his native town; but another family, that of
the Giustini, disputed the pre-eminence of the Vitelli, and in the
spring of 1468 occurred one of those scenes of horror which are by
no means rare in the history of Umbria. Niccolò Vitelli, who had
attained the upper hand after Vitellozzo’s death, managed to bring
about a reconciliation with Pope Paul II., who invested him with the
vicegerency in 1470; but in the beginning of Sixtus IV.’s reign,
his accusers, especially Lorenzo Giustini, the head of the opposing
party, influenced the Pope against him. As things were in Città di
Castello we cannot blame the latter if he wished to set bounds to the
violent state of things, which hindered every proper exercise of law
and administration, and always allowed one part of the citizens to be
oppressed by the other. But it was suspected that Sixtus IV.’s only
object was to transfer the supreme power to a nephew. Events in other
parts of Umbria followed. In Todi a violent feud had arisen between
the factions which still called themselves Ghibellines and Guelphs.
The inhabitants of Spoleto had joined in the dispute, and procured
the preponderance for the anti-papal party. Cardinal Giuliano della
Rovere had been sent with troops against both towns. He had pacified
Todi and forced Spoleto to yield; on which occasion the same thing
happened as at Volterra from want of discipline in the troops, all the
more unfortunate because an ecclesiastical prince was at the head.
Niccolò Vitelli was accused of having assisted the inhabitants of both
the rebellious towns; and now his turn was come. Giovanni Antonio
Campano, the statesman and historian, was sent to make terms with him;
he refused to retire from the administration, or even to re-admit the
exiles, well knowing that this would be the end of his own authority.
As treaties were fruitless, the siege of Città di Castello began.
Niccolò defended himself valiantly, and inflicted great injuries on
his opponents, who, about six thousand men strong, far exceeded his
forces. It was said that Florence and Milan had supported him in his
opposition. It was certainly the interest of Florence not to let a
State of doubtful proclivities rise up so immediately on her frontiers.
In the middle of July the determination was taken to enlist 3,000 horse
and as many foot for the protection of the territory, and to send Piero
Nasi as commissary to the neighbouring Borgo San Sepolcro. At the first
voting the resolution passed with a large majority. The Pope took the
demonstration very ill. At last the Vitelli saw themselves obliged to
come to an agreement, especially after Federigo of Montefeltro, on
whom Sixtus IV. bestowed the title of Duke of Urbino, threw his great
military authority into the scale in favour of the Pope, a movement to
which King Ferrante assented. The conditions were extremely favourable
to the town, but Niccolò Vitelli was obliged to quit it; and though
he was honourably received in Rome, and obtained from Feltrier, a no
less honourable position in Urbino, his power was at an end. An attempt
made in the following year to regain it by force made his situation
worse, as he was now obliged to flee, and his rival, Lorenzo Giustini,
it is true under a papal governor, assumed the highest rank among the
citizens.[203] The Cardinal della Rovera openly accused the Republic
of Florence[204] of having assisted the Vitelli against the Pope,
increased the vigour of his opposition, and thus led to a capitulation,
of which Cardinal Ammanati, notwithstanding his attachment to Florence
and the Medici, wrote that it was a disgrace for the victors, for not
they, but the vanquished, dictated the terms.
While Ammanati was at Siena, where Lorenzo de’ Medici visited him, he
said to the latter that, by his openly favouring the Vitelli, he had
himself made it impossible for the Pope to employ the mediation of the
Republic instead of the Duke of Urbino in composing the difference. The
Pope also complained in a brief addressed to Florence of the assistance
which had been given to Vitelli, and of his remaining in the territory
of the Republic, from whence a new attempt against Città di Castello
might be easily made. Lorenzo de’ Medici answered that all had been
done that was compatible with the freedom and honour of the State. With
Niccolò it had been agreed that he should take up his residence in the
neighbourhood of Pisa, and not seek to approach Città di Castello, and
his Holiness might be as much at peace respecting him as if he were in
the castle of St. Angelo. ‘Be assured, Holy Father,’ he added,’that I
am going to work with perfect honesty, and the intention of deserving
no just reproofs nor displeasure from you. I reckon the favour of your
Holiness among the greatest of my treasures, and I have no desire to
lose it for the sake of Messer Niccolò or anyone else.’[205] We shall
see, however, how, at the time when the breach was complete, Sixtus
IV. made their behaviour in these matters a crime on the part of the
Florentines, and how they could only faintly defend themselves from
such reproaches.
That Federigo of Montefeltro, on whom the Republic believed they
could rely, joined the Pope, was a heavy blow to them. Feltrier, a
man of spirit and culture, and a good master of his little state, was
too weak to pursue an independent policy, and followed the lead of
circumstances, while the condottiere-nature preponderated in him. He
had truly served the Republic in the Colleonic war, and opposed the
Pope in the Malatesta feud; he now passed to the other side. King
Ferrante, who well knew the military skill of Federigo, had attached
him to himself, Sixtus having aided him. During the siege of Città di
Castello, on August 23, 1474, the ducal dignity was conferred on him.
It did not end here; the new duke was entirely attached to the Papal
interest. By the acquisition of Imola, Sixtus IV. had begun to gain a
firm footing with his relations in Romagna. He now smoothed the way
for a connection with one of the oldest families in the province by
obtaining from Federigo the promise of the hand of his eldest daughter,
Giovanna, for his nephew, the brother of Cardinal Giuliano. The
importance of this connection was evident. The duke had by his recently
deceased wife, Battista Sforza of Pesaro, an only son, Guidubaldo, a
delicate child only two years old. If he should not survive his father,
the inheritance would pass to the daughters. Guidubaldo did survive
his father, but was always sickly; he died childless in the time of a
second Pope belonging to the Della Rovere family, and Montefeltro and
Urbino, as Sixtus IV. had secretly hoped, came into the possession of a
son of his sister who had married, in 1475, Giovanni della Rovere, on
whom his uncle bestowed the vicegerency of Senegallia with Mondavio,
and not long afterwards the dignity of a prefect of Rome. The Pope’s
nephews were on the high road to greatness.
Considering the intimacy between the King of Naples and the Medici,
it appears strange to find him thwarting their designs. The real
ground was the leaning of the Florentines towards the Venetians, who
were always mistrusted by the King, on account of their desire to
extend their dominions on the coasts of the Adriatic, and to obtain
complete possession of Cyprus, where Caterina Cornaro, the widow of
the last of the Lusignans, was a mere vassal of the Republic, whilst
the eyes of the Aragonese of Naples, as well as those of their Norman
and Angevin predecessors, were always turned towards the East. The
dangers Venice was threatened with on the Dalmatian side contributed
to keep up a sort of outward understanding; but suspicion was growing
on both sides, and the increasing friendship between the Pope and the
King found its counterpoise in the alliance of Florence and Venice.
On September 20, 1474, the alliance was proclaimed in Venice which
the Republic had concluded with Florence—for whom Tommaso Soderini
conducted the negotiations—and Milan. According to the form, it was a
renewal of that of Lodi in 1454, and was to last for five-and-twenty
years. Common defence against any attack whatever was the object; the
Pope and the King of Naples were given the option of joining, though
no one thought they would, and the Duke of Burgundy was summoned to
take a share in the Turkish war. On the 4th of November the news of the
alliance had already reached Florence, and was greeted with bonfires
and great festivities. After the ratification, the solemn proclamation
was made on the 20th amid banquetings and illuminations. The miraculous
picture of the Madonna of Sta. Maria dell’ Imprimeta was on this, as
on all occasions of joy or sorrow, brought into the city, and borne
in procession. The joy of the citizens was indeed damped by a new
tax. ‘They proceeded by such means,’ remarks Alamanno Rinuccini,[206]
‘in a violent manner, and the heads of the civic government excited
hatred enough; but as the people were enervated, they were obliged to
endure this and many other attacks that were worse.’ The Pope as well
as the King refused to accede to the alliance, and concluded a close
treaty with one another, under the promise to have the same friends
and foes. As Rome celebrated the jubilee in the following year, it
was a desirable opportunity for King Ferrante to draw the ties of
friendship tighter by a personal interview with the head of the Church.
On February 25, 1475, he entered Rome with a brilliant suite, where he
showed himself more liberal than it was his nature to be. He resided in
the palace of the Vatican, and had full time to discuss all political
affairs of the day with a Pope who, grown to manhood in a convent,
had been drawn, at the approach of old age, into a whirl of business
and difficulties which have given a most unenviable reputation to his
pontificate, otherwise not without its good sides. The history of the
city of Rome preserves the memory of this visit of Ferrante of Aragon,
who, by his observation to Sixtus IV. that he could not be master of
Rome so long as it was impossible to move freely in the streets, is
said to have induced the Pope to widen them by removing the balconies
and outbuildings, which had sometimes also served military purposes.
There were now two leagues, which divided Italy geographically into
two halves; but for the present they stood rather beside than opposed
to one another. The whole political state of the peninsula in the
fifteenth century had the characteristics of condottiere war in it,
in the motives as well as in the forms, in the rendezvous and the
evolutions, in the mutually dubious and bargaining demeanour to friends
as well as foes. They formed alliances to injure those with whom an old
alliance still existed; ambassadors were with those against whom they
went to war; private persons were attacked before the war had broken
out; the leaders were enticed away alternately by this party and by
that, even after they had taken pay. In November 1475 the ambassadors
of Venice, Florence, and Milan, went to Rome, summoned by the Pope, to
take part in the congress convened on account of the Turkish danger.
The imposing expedition of 1472, commanded in the Pope’s name by the
Cardinal Olivieri Carafa, had obtained but slender results. The loss of
Caffa, which had ensued in 1475, the ancient Genoese depôt on the Black
Sea, was not only heavy in itself, but also because the connection
with Persia, which alone still resisted, was threatened by it. The
negotiations lasted for months; what they effected is seen by the fact
that not long afterwards Turkish stragglers reached Friuli. While they
thus remained in continual connection with the Pope, the friendship
between the Medici and King Ferrante was outwardly undisturbed. In the
summer of 1477 it would still have been held to be complete. The king,
who had been for twelve years the widower of Isabella di Chiaromonte,
and long a grandfather, determined to marry again. The ground was of a
political nature. King Juan of Aragon and Sicily had never forgiven the
separation of Naples from his brother’s dominions. Alfonso of Aragon
had, indeed, thought he could proceed with Naples as with a conquered
country; but on the side of Spain it was objected that Naples and
Sicily were Hohenstaufen inheritance, and rightfully accruing to the
house of Aragon through Manfred’s daughter, although in consequence
of the Anjou usurpation it had long been lost to them. The mystery of
Ferrante’s birth, who was said by some to be the son of a barber’s
wife, and by others that of Alfonso’s sister-in-law, the consort of his
brother the Grand Master of San Jago, was opposed to this in the king’s
family. At the time we have mentioned, when the Neapolitan line of the
Aragonese seemed fully secured by children and grandchildren as well
as by investitures and alliances, new claims appeared, nevertheless,
in Spain. The means of resisting these was a union of the two lines:
Ferrante married his uncle’s daughter, Juana. On June 11, the Duke of
Calabria quitted Naples to fetch his future stepmother. Several of the
great barons of the empire accompanied him. Received at Rome with great
splendour, he landed on the 29th at Piombino, where a wooden mole had
been built, forty feet long, and covered with branches and flowers. On
July 1 he reached Pisa. Lorenzo de’ Medici, who towards the end of May
had received the Duchess of Ferrara at his house in this town—when
she was on her way to her father, and, passing through Lucca, arrived
here—and had splendidly entertained her till she embarked at
Leghorn,[207] had come down the Arno in two great barques to meet the
duke, and escorted him to a palace fitted up for him, where he resided
for three days as the guest of the Republic. Lorenzo failed not to
give rich presents on this as on all similar occasions. On July 9 the
duke was in Nice, on the 25th in Barcelona, from whence, on September
11, the new queen reached Naples, where Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, as
Papal legate, performed the marriage ceremony and the coronation.[208]
Bongianni Gianfigliazzi and Pierfilippo Pandolfini presented the
newly-married pair with the congratulations of the Republic. Not much
above a quarter of a century later this queen shared the complete ruin
of the house which she now entered, a ruin in which her own brother
aided by lending a hand to the successor of him with whom King Ferrante
had refused to ally himself, when he rejected the proposals made him by
Louis XI. to the disadvantage of his Spanish relations.