_The People and the Petrucci_
After the expulsion of the Riformatori in March 1385, a new supreme
magistracy was instituted to rule the Republic. It was composed of ten
citizens--the "Signori Priori, Governatori della Città di Siena"--who
held office for two months. Four of these priors were of the Nine, four
of the Twelve, and two of the People. A new order--the _Monte del
Popolo_--was formed to include those plebeians, or Popolani of the
Greater Number, who had not shared in the government of the Riformatori;
and it gradually rose in importance, reinforced in later years by
families of nobles who became _popolani_ and by others of the lower
classes who had come to Siena from elsewhere.
A turbulent and unsettled period followed, of incessant plots against
the new government and of disastrous wars. In November 1385, Siena
joined in a league, offensive and defensive, with the Communes of
Bologna, Florence, Pisa and Lucca, against the wandering companies of
mercenaries. But presently that never-healed wound, the question of
Montepulciano, opened again, and a prolonged war with Florence followed
in consequence. Both Cortona and Montepulciano were lost to Siena. In
1389 the Sienese allied themselves for ten years with Giovanni Galeazzo
Visconti, who had dethroned his uncle Bernabò and was now manifestly
intending to conquer all northern and central Italy. A Sienese poet,
Simone di Ser Dino Forestani ("il Saviozzo") hailed him as the coming
deliverer of the Italian nation in a noted canzone, which Carducci has
called the last cry of Ghibellinism. A number of the Malavolti and
Tolomei, headed by Messer Orlando Malavolti, chose exile in the
following years rather than see their country fall into servitude.
Giovanni Galeazzo was created Duke of Milan by the Emperor Wenceslaus in
1395; and, when the end of the term of the alliance drew near, the
Sienese found themselves so exhausted with war, famine and pestilence
that in 1399 they formally surrendered the independence of their city,
with its contado and district, to the Duke and his successors, swore
obedience and fidelity to him in the persons of his ambassadors, and
hailed their new yoke with wild festivities. The Duke died in 1402; he
had just taken Bologna and intended, as soon as Florence fell into his
hands, to be crowned King of Italy. His newly acquired dominions fell to
pieces. In November 1403, the Salimbeni (who, in opposition to the
Malavolti and Tolomei, had been among the foremost in introducing the
ducal sovereignty into Siena) and the heads of the Dodicini, probably
instigated by the Florentines, called the Sienese to arms to recover
their liberty. The Noveschi and People opposed them. There was a
struggle in the Campo, an attempt to capture the Palazzo; but Francesco
Salimbeni was killed and the Dodicini expelled from the government. In
the following year the liberation of Siena was peaceably effected. Peace
was made with Florence in April, and, the ducal lieutenant having left
the city, the Sienese annulled the suzerainty and all the authority that
had been given to the Duke of Milan and his successors, and commanded
that his arms, wherever they had been set up in the dominions of the
Republic, should be completely obliterated. But Orlando Malavolti
returned to his native city only to die. On his way to salute the
Signoria he was treacherously murdered in the streets by the hirelings
of those who had seized upon his possessions, which they hoped thus to
keep in their hands.
[Illustration: THE MANGIA TOWER]
In the meantime the form of the chief magistracy had undergone various
alterations. Not only had the Dodicini been expelled, but the
Riformatori had been readmitted. It now consisted of nine Priors, three
of the Monte del Popolo, three of the Monte de' Nove, and three of the
Monte de' Riformatori; with a tenth, the Captain of the People and
Gonfaloniere of Justice, chosen from each Monte and from each terzo of
the city in turn. But throughout the period that follows, and indeed
down to the end of the Republic, we shall find the real authority vested
in what was known as the _Balìa_. This originally simply meant the power
or authority committed to certain citizens for some special purpose; but
it gradually became converted into an ordinary magistracy, distinct from
the Signoria or _Concistoro_. From 1455--when it was specially
instituted in this form to superintend a prolonged and dangerous
war--until the fall of the Republic, the _Collegio di Balìa_ had the
supreme control of the State, with authority over the laws and
government of Siena, although the outward appearances of supremacy were
left to the Signoria, the members of which (the _Signori_) were still,
nominally, the chief magistrates of the Republic.
The first three-quarters of the fifteenth century in the history of
Siena are a medley of somewhat inglorious wars with incessant faction.
We find Siena allied with Florence against King Ladislaus of Naples (the
son of Charles of Durazzo), then at war with Florence again, then allied
with Pope Calixtus III. against the great condottiere Jacopo Piccinino,
in a war more famous for the stern penalty that the Republic knew how to
exact from a treacherous general than for any action in the field.[48]
There were alarms and excursions from the _fuorusciti_ in the contado;
there were conspiracies within Siena itself, especially one most
formidable in 1456 to subject the Republic to King Alfonso of Naples
(who had substituted an Aragonese dynasty for the House of Anjou in that
kingdom), in which certain families of the Monte de' Nove--headed by
Antonio Petrucci, Ghino di Pietro Bellanti and Marino Bargagli--were
deeply involved. But, all the while, great personalities are moving
across the Sienese stage.
San Bernardino Albizzeschi, born of a noble family in 1380, the year of
St Catherine's death, may be said to have carried on, in part, her work
during the first half of this century. A zealous reformer of morals, for
forty years this Franciscan friar wandered over Italy from city to city,
preaching repentance, healing schisms, rebuking tyrants, stilling the
bloody tumults of political factions, reconciling peoples and princes.
"He converted and changed the minds and spirits of men marvellously,"
writes a contemporary, Vespasiano da Bisticci, "a wondrous power he had
in persuading men to lay aside their mortal hatreds." He has left his
mark upon almost every street of his native city, of which he refused
the bishopric. In a place where he had wrought many conversions, a maker
of dice represented to the saint that he and his fellow-craftsmen were
being reduced to beggary, by reason of his denunciation of gambling.
Bernardino bade him make tablets with the letters I.H.S. instead. This
devotion to the Divine Name grew apace, above all in Ferrara and Siena;
and when, worn out with his apostolic labours, Bernardino died in 1444
at Aquila, there was hardly a town through which he had passed that had
not placed upon its gates and palaces, no less than on the private
houses of its citizens, the sacred sign of the Name in which he had
overcome the world.
A young nobleman stood listening in the Campo when Bernardino preached
there in 1427. "He moved me so much," he wrote in after years, "that I,
too, very nearly entered his order." This was Enea Silvio Piccolomini,
who, born at Corsignano in 1405, was then a student in the city and a
rising poet. Two imperial visits during this epoch have left their mark
in Sienese art. Sigismund III. came to Siena in 1432, on his way to be
crowned in Rome, and stayed some while in the city that then, as ever,
professed unalterable loyalty to the Holy Roman Empire. Memorials of his
visit are the curious graffito picture of him enthroned, on the pavement
of the Duomo, and a most unedifying love story, _De Duobus Amantibus_,
describing an intrigue between one of his barons and a lady of
Siena--written a little later by this same Enea Silvio, who had left his
native city to seek his fortune elsewhere, and was now poet laureate.
Frederick III. came at the beginning of 1452 to meet his bride, Leonora
of Portugal. A fresco in the library of the Duomo and a pillar outside
the Porta Camollia still record the event; and "all the resources of
that festive art in which the Italy of the Renaissance so excelled were
displayed for the entertainment of the noble pair during their stay in
Siena."[49] Our poet laureate was now the Emperor's secretary and the
Bishop of Siena itself. Six years later Enea Silvio Piccolomini was
elected Pope in 1458, to succeed to Calixtus III., and took the title of
Pius II. "Shall we raise a poet to the Chair of St Peter?" asked a rival
cardinal, "and let the Church be governed on pagan principles?"
It will be better to speak of the character and deeds of Pope Pius II.
when we stand before the frescoed story of his life in the Duomo.
Suffice it now to say that there was great festivity and rejoicing when
the news of his elevation reached Siena, but coupled with some mistrust.
The Pope was suspected of being a partisan of the _gentiluomini_, who
were still rigorously excluded from the Signoria, the Balìa, the Council
of the People and all the chief offices of State. To please him, the
Piccolomini were qualified to enter the government (_messi nel
Reggimento_), by being distributed among the three ruling Monti; while
Nanni Todeschini, the
[Illustration:
_Alinari, Florence_
THE ELEVATION OF ENEA SILVIO PICCOLOMINI TO THE PAPACY AS PIUS II
(PINTURICCHIO)]
husband of the Pope's sister Laodamia, together with his four sons,
Antonio, Francesco, Andrea and Giacomo (to whom Pius had given the arms
and name of Piccolomini), was similarly qualified for the Signoria and
Council of the People, and received into the Monte del Popolo. The Pope,
however, demanded that all the nobles should be made eligible to all
posts in the government; he told the Sienese envoys that, unless his
request were granted, he would withhold the favours that he had intended
to confer upon his native city. In spite of the intervention of the Duke
of Milan, the Sienese remained obstinate, until the Pope threatened to
go to Florence without passing through Siena. Then the Balìa yielded in
part, and Pius came to the city in February 1459. He had a magnificent
reception from all orders in the State; but Malavolti tells us that on
the part of the chief men of the Republic the rejoicing was more
simulated than real, for that they bitterly resented his attempted
insertion of the nobles into the popular government of the city.
Nevertheless, during his stay Pius loaded the Sienese with favours, gave
the Golden Rose to the Commune, and raised the See to the rank of an
archbishopric. His attempts to allay the factions and to obtain the
admission of the nobles were only partly successful; and what little
share in the government had been granted to the latter was taken away
from them (exception being still made for the Piccolomini), after his
death in 1464. To this day Siena bears more of the stamp of Pius II.
than of any other single man. Everywhere in her streets the arms of the
Piccolomini are as much in evidence as the sacred monogram that San
Bernardino had set up. The Loggia that Pius raised to his family, the
palaces that his kinsfolk built, still stand, while the Library of the
Duomo gleams still with the gorgeous frescoed pageant of his life. And
away to the south, in the district of Montepulciano, the little village
of Corsignano, where he had been born in 1405, and was transformed by
him into a city, is still called from his name Pienza, and still bears
the imprint of his genial and splendid spirit in the noble buildings,
secular and religious alike, that his munificence reared.
A potentate of a very different character now for a while overshadows
the Republic--Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, son of King Ferrante of Naples.
The Duke meditated the acquisition of all Tuscany, and between 1468 and
1480 he made Siena the basis of his operations. The Republic joined the
King and Pope Sixtus IV. in the war against Lorenzo de' Medici, and had
the one real battle of the campaign of 1479 depicted in fresco in the
Palace of the Commune. Gorgeous pageants and dances greeted the visit of
any member of the Royal House to Siena. The Duke "became the centre of
the extravagant, pleasure-loving Sienese society; and the cruel,
passionate Alfonso, who recognised no scruples in matters human and
divine, became the popular godfather to the babies of the Republic."[50]
There was a strong party within the city itself that would gladly have
accepted him as their suzerain, and he still lingered at Buonconvento
after the peace had been made with Florence. On June 23rd, 1480, the
Noveschi and some of the Monte del Popolo, together with the mercenaries
left by the Duke in charge of the city, occupied the Campo early in the
morning, and expelled the Riformatori from the government. The Duke
returned to Siena the next day, and was received with enthusiasm at the
Porta Romana. There was a wild demonstration in the Campo, as the
people, all armed, with frantic cheering and deafening uproar, brought
him to the Palace. "When he got to the door of the Palace," says
Allegretto, "all the people rejoiced with such sounding of trumpets and
of bells that rang _a gloria_, and with such firing of guns and
shouting, that it was a jubilation." In the place of the suppressed
Monte of the Riformatori, a new Monte of the _Aggregati_ was
formed--composed partly of nobles, partly of those Noveschi who had been
excluded from the government for the conspiracy of 1456, partly of
popolani who had never held the priorate, and to these were added a few
of the Riformatori at the Duke's request. But the capture of Otranto by
the Turks, in August, recalled the Duke to his father's dominions, and
in the following year the decision of King Ferrante (_la iniqua
sentenza_, as Allegretto calls it), compelling the Sienese to surrender
certain towns and castles to the Florentines, destroyed the last
remnants of his popularity.
Seven years of tumult and faction followed the departure of the Duke of
Calabria. The annulling of the new Monte of the Aggregati, the
re-admission of the Riformatori and the Dodicini, were accompanied by a
series of furious battles in the streets. In July 1482 there was a
general rising of the people--Popolani, Dodicini, Riformatori--against
the Noveschi, who, headed by the Bellanti, Petrucci, and Borghesi,
assembled in arms in the Postierla. The Noveschi swept down the Via di
Città, but were hurled back to the Postierla, and their leaders forced
to take refuge in the palaces of the Pecci and Borghesi, which, after a
fierce contest of more than three hours with crossbows and guns and long
lances, surrendered, at the persuasion of the Cardinal Archbishop,
Francesco Piccolomini (the nephew of Pius II.), and the arms were laid
down for a while. It is on this occasion that the name of Pandolfo di
Bartolommeo Petrucci first appears prominently as a leader of the
Noveschi.
At the beginning of 1483 the Balìa was entirely composed of Popolani,
and the Noveschi were deprived "for ever" of any share in the
government. Luzio Bellanti, with a few daring spirits, occupied
Montereggioni, and held it for some weeks against the Republic--which
was made an excuse for arresting the leading Noveschi in Siena. The
Papal Legate, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Cibo (afterwards Innocent
VIII.), came from Rome as a peace-maker; and in March it was decided to
reduce the four Monti to one, "di far di tutto il Reggimento un Monte,"
which should be called the Monte del Popolo, and in which some Noveschi
were to be admitted. But on April 1st a furious mob burst into the
Palace, seized four of the imprisoned Noveschi--Agnolo Petrucci, Biagio
Turchi, and two others--with a plebeian of their faction, and hurled
them out of the windows, to be dashed to pieces on the pavement below.
Disgusted and disillusioned, the Legate at once left the city. The
Noveschi, headed by the Petrucci and Bellanti, together with others of
other orders, at length retired from the territory of the Republic, and
watched for the opportunity of recovering their state by force of arms;
while, on August 7th, the Council of the People carried unanimously a
resolution "that Siena should be given and presented to our Lady."
The exiles had not long to wait. New factions broke out in the city,
with plotting and counter-plotting, rioting and executions. Numbers of
each order were banished. The Noveschi, supported by the King of Naples
and the new Pope Innocent, collected troops under Giulio Orsini, and
threatened the contado. Their first attempts were unsuccessful; but at
length certain of the Riformatori and Dodicini, ousted from the
administration and oppressed by the government, opened negotiations with
the chosen representatives of the Noveschi--Niccolò Borghesi and Neri
Placidi in
[Illustration: VIA FONTEBRANDA]
Rome and Leonardo Bellanti in Pisa--probably with the knowledge of the
Cardinal Francesco, who, throughout these turbulent and blood-stained
years, had acted strenuously, though not always successfully, as
peace-maker. The Noveschi and other exiles assembled at Staggia, and,
with a small force of Florentine soldiers, arrived at the Porta
Fontebranda before dawn on July 22nd, 1487. Pandolfo Petrucci is said to
have been the first to scale the walls. Leaving a small guard to hold
the gate and secure their retreat if unsuccessful, they pressed up to
the Croce del Travaglio, and then rushed through the streets, shouting
"People and Nine! Liberty and Peace!" After a brief resistance, the
Captain of the People was forced to surrender the Palace, and there was
practically no opposition elsewhere. Camillo Venturini--a young man of
the Monte del Popolo--killed with a bill-hook a certain Messer
Cristoforo di Guidoccio to avenge his father, Lorenzo di Antonio
Venturini, who had been beheaded in the previous year, and the Captain
of the People was likewise put to death. But otherwise there was little
or no bloodshed, save by way of private vendetta in the first confusion.
Bartolommeo Sozzini, one of the Dodicini who had worked the scheme at
Pisa, where he held a chair, returned with a party of mounted
crossbowmen to share in the new regime. The two most honoured citizens
of Siena--the Cardinal Francesco and his brother Andrea
Piccolomini--came in, a day or two later, and the revolution was
complete.
The government was, of course, reformed in the interests of the
conquerors, but the other factions were not entirely excluded. There
were the inevitable tumults, conspiracies, executions and banishments,
accompanied by various changes in the constitution, but all tending to
the ultimate preponderance of the Monte de' Nove, whose government was
styled "the government devout and consecrated to the glorious Virgin
Mary, the patroness and defender of our Republic." On the last day of
1494, there was a solemn reconciliation between the Popolani and the
Noveschi. The former assembled in the Spedale, the latter in the
Vescovado, and then in the evening they went separately to the Duomo.
The Noveschi occupied the gospel side of the altar and choir, the
Popolani the epistle side, and the Cardinal in full pontifical vestments
came out of the sacristy and took his seat between the two parties in
front of the high altar. "This is the day which the Lord hath made,"
began his illustrious and most reverend Lordship, "let us rejoice and be
glad in it;" and he proceeded to deliver an impassioned oration in
favour of concord, expressing his conviction that the peace and quiet of
the city were at last secured. Then a notary stepped forward and read
the articles of the peace, with a most fearful string of curses and
excommunications against any who should offend against them or break any
of them--"in such wise," writes the diarist, "that I, Allegretto di
Nanni Allegretti, who was present at these things, do not believe that
there was ever made nor heard a more stupendous and a more horrible
swearing than this." It was already night, and beneath the flaming
torches the notaries on either side inscribed the names of the citizens,
who all swore upon the Crucifix of the Missal; and while they swore and
while they solemnly kissed each other, the bells rang and the choir with
the organ burst out into _Te Deum Laudamus_. "Now may it please God,"
continues Allegretto, "that this be the peace and the quiet of all the
citizens; but I doubt it."[51]
In the following March, it was decided that the government of the city
should be equally divided among three Monti; the Monte de' Nove; the
Monte del Popolo; the Monte of the Gentiluomini and Dodicini; and that
those of the Riformatori who were admitted should be distributed among
these three Monti. A number of exiles were recalled. Then the Signoria
with all the Council went to the Duomo, to return thanks to God and to
the Virgin Mary, the _Te Deum Laudamus_ was sung, the bells rang _a
gloria_, and they returned to the Palace. But the real authority was
still vested in the Balìa. A special magistracy called the _Consiglio
dei tre segreti_ had been instituted in 1492, the three being chosen
from the members of the Balìa, and wielding, up to a certain point, the
authority of the Balìa. By means of this special Council--suppressed at
intervals by the enemies of the Noveschi, but almost always soon
re-established--the Monte de' Nove swayed the State. The government was
rapidly becoming an oligarchy, in the hands of certain families of
Noveschi.
Writing of the factions of Siena, Machiavelli calls the Noveschi the
"nobili." They were in fact a kind of burgher nobility, risen out of
families of merchants in the course of the previous century. We find
their parallel in Florentine history in the _ottimati_, the _nobili
popolani_, whose prepotency had been overthrown by the Medici more than
half a century before. They were men of wealth and influence, munificent
patrons of art and letters; several of them must rank among the most
enlightened men of their day. Prominent among them, the heart and soul
of the new regime, are the Petrucci, Salvetti, Borghesi, Bichi and
Bellanti. The more violent spirits are Giacoppo and Pandolfo Petrucci,
Luzio and Leonardo Bellanti; but the noblest is Niccolò di Bartolommeo
Borghesi, an ardent patriot and a profound scholar, whom Professor
Zdekauer regards as the most important personality in the story of Siena
during the second half of the Quattrocento. Niccolò had taken a leading
part in the return of the _fuorusciti_ in 1487, and in the September of
that year he was appointed professor for five years at the Studio to
read "Opus Humanitatis ac moralem Phylosophiam," and at the same time
made Secretary of State "with the charge of writing the annals and the
deeds of the Sienese from the foundation of the City itself."[52] But he
showed more desire to make history than to write it, married his
daughter Aurelia to Pandolfo Petrucci and plunged into the turmoil of
the political conflict.
"Pandolfo Petrucci returned with other exiles to Siena," writes
Machiavelli in the famous chapter of his _Discorsi_ dealing with
conspiracies, "and the custody of the piazza was put into his charge, as
a mechanical thing and one which the others refused; nevertheless those
armed men in time gave him so great a reputation that, in a short while,
he became prince of the city." Pandolfo was born in 1452, and was
therefore still under forty when the Noveschi returned. He was a man of
little culture or education. At first he played the second part to his
brother Giacoppo, but it was in the general alarm and confusion that
accompanied the arrival in Italy of Charles VIII. of France that he
found his opportunity. A force of 300 mercenaries, _provvisionati_, was
brought to Siena in June 1494, to guard the city and maintain order, and
Pandolfo was placed in command. This is evidently what Machiavelli
meant. In October, Filippo Valori, one of the Florentine ambassadors to
the King, wrote to Piero de' Medici that His Majesty had been informed
that the said Pandolfo was a daring and most dangerous person, _persona
animosa e scandalosa da precipitare_. Nevertheless, when Niccolò
Borghesi was sent from the Balìa to greet the King at Pisa, he was
graciously received and returned with a letter making Pandolfo and Paolo
Salvetti knights for the royal service. Charles entered Siena on
December 2nd, with his bodyguard of 300 archers, 200 men-at-arms, and
100 mounted crossbowmen, "right graciously so that it seemed he were at
home," writes Allegretto--though his soldiery, especially the Swiss,
committed numberless excesses in the contado. He marched onwards on the
4th, and there was much passing to and fro through Siena of soldiers and
ambassadors in those months, stormy and disastrous for Italy, that
followed. In the general dissolution of the Florentine dominion,
Montepulciano rose in insurrection and declared that she would live and
die with Siena. Even the women and children shouted "Lupa! Lupa!" The
Sienese promptly dispatched Antonio Bichi as commissary with troops to
the spot. The French King sent letters bidding both cities let
Montepulciano alone, for he would judge the matter. The growing feeling
of the Popolani and especially the Riformatori against the presence of
the mercenaries--the outward sign of the prepotency of the Nove--came to
a head, and, on the approach of the French army on its return march
through Tuscany, the French ambassador forced the Balìa and Pandolfo to
send them away. The King stayed a few days in Siena in June 1495,
interviewed representatives of all factions, took the Republic under his
perpetual protection, "saving the rights of the Empire," and made a
number of knights, including the infant son of Pandolfo. He left a
captain with a French garrison behind him. Next month the Riformatori
and Popolani rose, headed by Giovanni Severini and Giacomo Buoninsegni,
drove Pietro Borghesi out of Siena, fought Niccolò Borghesi and Pandolfo
Petrucci with their followers in the Campo. But on July 28th, before
daybreak, Luzio Bellanti and Pietro Borghesi with all the dismissed
mercenaries and the soldiers from Montepulciano burst into Siena by the
Porta Tufi, drove an armed mob of Popolani and Riformatori in headlong
flight down the Via di Città, occupied the Campo and all the strong
places of the city. The Dodicini and the Gentiluomini made common cause
with them, but the intervention of the French captain and Messer Andrea
Piccolomini prevented a pitched battle in the Campo or a massacre in the
streets. Pandolfo and others made a pretence of retiring to
Buonconvento, but were recalled next day, and the French captain with
his garrison was peaceably and honourably sent about his business.
The events of the next few years confirmed the power of Pandolfo. In
revenge for the affair of Montepulciano and for the assistance that the
Balìa had given to Piero de' Medici, a Florentine army led by Piero
Capponi approached Siena in January 1496, and even penetrated so far as
the Palazzo de' Diavoli. With them were Lodovico Luti and a number of
other Sienese exiles. They were in secret understanding with the
disaffected within the walls, who hoped to introduce them together with
enough Florentine soldiers to change the government. But the Florentines
were in stronger force than had been anticipated, and the conspirators
shrank from betraying their country. "The city of Siena," writes
Machiavelli in the second book of the _Discorsi_, "has never changed
state with the favour of the Florentines, save when these favours have
been small and few. For when they have been many and strenuous, they
have merely united that city for the defence of the existing
government." And so it happened now. "We were all disposed," said
Allegretto, "to defend ourselves from our most cordial enemies the
Florentines. We wanted our exiled fellow citizens back, but in another
way." The Florentines retreated. Luzio Bellanti had deserved as much as
Pandolfo from the Monte de' Nove, but he now found himself ousted from
the command of the _provvisionati_. Possibly he had been in the plot
with the Florentines; at least he now plotted to admit them and the
_fuorusciti_ and to murder the two Petrucci, Neri Placidi, Antonio
Bichi, Niccolò Borghesi and others of their faction. A peculiar feature
of the conspiracy was that one of Luzio's agents pretended to have
visions of the Madonna who, he said, wished the Sienese to go in solemn
procession to a church beyond the Porta Tufi--the idea being to leave
the way clear for the entry of the exiles. The plot was discovered, and
Luzio Bellanti in September fled with a price upon his head.
Pandolfo Petrucci was now practically without a rival, and, in all but
the name, tyrant of Siena. Pandolfo Petrucci, wrote the Venetian diarist
Sanudo, _al presente in Siena è il tutto_. In the following year, 1497,
the Balìa largely increased the number of the mercenaries, who were
still under his command, and the death of his brother Giacoppo left him
alone at the head of his own family. In theory the Balìa was still
equally divided between the three Monti; but it was entirely controlled
by the Noveschi, and a number of hostile families were "admonished" and
for ever excluded. The Balìa of forty-five--fifteen from each
Monte--that was elected in November in this year, for five years, by
successive reappointments continued in power till 1516, and in it
Pandolfo sat to the end of his life. His strong personality, coupled
with his lavishness and backed by the mercenaries, secured the
compliance of the high and dazzled the low. While not openly interfering
with the republican forms of government, and merely taking the
comparatively humble title of "magnifico," which every petty noble used
in the aristocratic circles of Ferrara or Mantua, he kept in his own
hands the whole thread of Sienese policy. Allied to France and never
openly breaking with Florence, he plotted with Duke Lodovico Sforza of
Milan until the latter's fall, kept in touch with the exiled Medici, and
maintained intimate relations with the petty tyrants of Umbria and the
Patrimony. His chosen confidant was a Neopolitan of humble birth, who
had once held a chair at the University of Siena, a certain Antonio da
Venafro, exalted by Machiavelli as the typical secretary of a tyrant, "a
serviceable villain" in the Shakespearian sense, who stuck at no crime
for his patron's sake nor hesitated to whisper bloodier suggestions into
his ear.
Much use did Pandolfo make of secret assassinations. The exiled Lodovico
Luti was murdered by his emissaries in 1499. Luzio Bellanti, earning a
precarious living as a man of letters in Florence, lived in constant
apprehension. "The liberty of my country," he says at the end of a book
on astrology which he published in 1498, "is ever in my mind. Even
whilst I write, a messenger breaks in to warn me that assassins are at
hand to slay me; everywhere I find snares prepared, so that my friends
may call me Damocles or Dionysius. And although I am by now become
callous, nevertheless the pen drops from my wearied hand." A little
later his apprehensions were verified; but in the meanwhile Leonardo
Bellanti (Luzio's brother) and Niccolò Borghesi (Pandolfo's
father-in-law) showed signs of resenting the Petruccian supremacy, and
Antonio da Venafro urged his master to make away with Niccolò, who was
dreaming republican dreams. An alleged conspiracy against Pandolfo's own
life was the pretext--but, some months before this, he had communicated
to Lodovico Sforza, through his serviceable secretary, his intention of
freeing himself from the Bellanti and the Borghesi. In June 1500,
Niccolò Borghesi was set upon by six armed men in Pandolfo's pay, as he
was returning from Mass at the Duomo, and mortally wounded. He lingered
on for a few weeks, spending what of life remained to him in finishing
his life of St Catherine, in dictating a Latin epigram commending Siena
to her protection. Then he died, freely forgiving Pandolfo for his
death. On July 20th he was buried in the vaults of San Domenico.
Pandolfo professed the most sincere repentance, and sent a Franciscan
friar to the murdered man's son, Bernardino, to propose a conference at
the convent of the Osservanza. Leonardo Bellanti, who had fled from
Siena at the news of Niccolò's death, wrote a vigorous letter to
Bernardino urging him not to go. "The ground still runs with the blood
of thy excellent father, the father of our common country," he said; "I
know not how thou canst even think of having to speak to him who with
his own hands--nay, much more than with his own hands--so deliberately
and abominably, with such cruelty, hath killed thy father, and but
yesterday. Alas! Art thou not a rational man? Hast no spirit? Hast not
blood? Hast no heart or stomach? For, certes, the vilest of men would
not listen to his messengers, much less speak to this man who is devoid
of any faith or love, but most abounding in good words and tears."[53]
Nevertheless the Borghesi were reconciled to Pandolfo, and Leonardo
himself soon returned to the city.
A new danger now threatened Siena and Pandolfo alike. Cesare Borgia,
with the aid of his father, Pope Alexander VI., was building up a great
state for himself in central Italy. He had conquered the Romagna, added
Piombino to his dominions in September 1501, and was casting eyes upon
Siena. In the spring of 1502 the Pope invited Pandolfo to meet him at
Piombino; but the Magnifico, pleading excuses and delays, did not go. In
August Pandolfo purchased the protection of King Louis XII. of France,
with the moneys of the Republic. He sent ambassadors to congratulate
Cesare on his conquests, but plotted against him with the petty tyrants
who led his mercenaries and began to suspect that their own turns were
coming. In the autumn took place the famous meeting of the conspirators
at La Magione, to ally against Cesare--"for the salvation of all, and
not to be, one by one, devoured by the dragon," as their leading spirit,
Giampaolo Baglioni of Perugia, put it. Pandolfo was represented by
Antonio da Venafro and Guido Pecci, and hoped for Piombino as his share
of the spoils. At the same time he tried to treat with the Borgia, using
Antonio da Venafro as a go-between. "This man," said Cesare to
Machiavelli (who was with him as ambassador of Florence), "sends me
every day either letters or special envoys to make me understand his
great friendship towards me, but I know him." It is needless to repeat
the tale here of how Cesare--when his forces were temporarily defeated
at Fossombrone--waited until the time was ripe, and then crushed the
wretched conspirators at the famous _tradimento_ of Sinigaglia. Pandolfo
had kept out of the trap. Perugia surrendered on January 6th, 1503;
Giampaolo Baglioni fled with his followers to join his Sienese ally.
Siena now "felt the Hydra's fiery breath." "This Signore," wrote
Machiavelli of Cesare to the Signoria of Florence from Gualdo on January
6th, "is leaving here to-morrow with his army and is going to Assisi,
and thence he will advance upon Siena to make of that city a state to
his own liking." At Assisi the Sienese ambassadors met him. Cesare
assured them that he had no quarrel with the Republic, but was at war
only with his _inimico capitale_, Pandolfo. Let them send him away and
there would be peace. Otherwise he would come with his army, "impelled
by necessity and by a reasonable indignation against the man who, not
content with tyrannising over one of the first cities of Italy, wished
also by ruining others to be able to impose laws upon all his
neighbours." Machiavelli thought Pandolfo's position fairly strong,
seeing that he was "a man of much prudence in a state held by him with
great reputation, and without having external or internal enemies of
real importance, since he has either killed them or reconciled them, and
with a large force of good troops, if Giampaolo has taken refuge with
him, as they say, and not without money." The Balìa sent to assure the
Duke that he was mistaken about Pandolfo, who was no tyrant but had
always conducted himself as "a most modest citizen," and to remind him
that Siena was under the protection of France. "The master of the shop,
who is the King of France," quoth Cesare with pleasing frankness to
Machiavelli, "would not be content that I should take Siena for myself,
nor am I so daring that I should think of such a thing. That community
should trust me; I want nothing of theirs, but only to drive away
Pandolfo. And I would have thy Government bear witness to and publish
this intention of mine, which is only to assure myself of this tyrant. I
believe that that community of Siena will believe me; but in case it
should not, I shall march on and plant my artillery at the gates."
Pandolfo, he said, had been the _cervello_, the brain of the whole
conspiracy against him. He confidently appealed to the Florentines for
help in the business, "for as long as Pandolfo is in Siena, it will
always be a refuge and a support for all your enemies."[54]
The Sienese prepared for defence, while messenger after messenger was
sent to stay the Borgia's advance. At first all orders seemed united to
defend Pandolfo, "with such love and charity," wrote the Balìa, "as has
never been shown in any other occurrence in this city." The mob shouted
lustily for "Lupa, Libertà e Pandolfo." But Cesare came nearer and
nearer, sending an ultimatum before him, bidding the Sienese expel
Pandolfo, dismiss Giampaolo Baglioni and his men, and surrender their
artillery. Then the hearts of the Sienese began to sink; there were
countrymen of theirs in the hostile camp, and Leonardo Bellanti was
vigorously fanning the flames among the citizens. Pandolfo sent his
children to a place of safety. At length, on January 24th, the Balìa, in
Pandolfo's presence, decreed his exile, and appointed six citizens to
come to an agreement with Cesare. But already the people had risen in
tumult at the sight of the two Borgian envoys and the rumoured approach
of his cavalry, and Pandolfo still lingered. Then there came another
letter from Cesare from Pienza: "We swear to God that if, in whatever
hour you shall receive these presents, you shall not have already
expelled, or shall not immediately without further delay expel the said
Pandolfo, we shall reckon every one of you in the place of Pandolfo.
And without any intermission we shall move to the total extermination of
all your towns, subjects, and goods, and of your city and of your own
persons. Since you choose to be our enemies, you shall remain beaten
down and crushed in such wise that never again shall you be able to
offend us."[55] This settled it. On the evening of January 28th,
Pandolfo and Giampaolo took a solemn farewell of the government and left
Siena. As the Magnifico rode from the Palazzo his adherents crowded
round him, weeping and profuse in their anticipations of his speedy
return. But a woman shrieked at him from a window: "Crucify him! crucify
the traitor!" It was the mother of a certain Ildebrando Cerretani, who
had been secretly murdered at Pandolfo's bidding. He made his way in
disguise to Lucca, closely pursued by a band of Borgia's light-armed
cavalry, who (in spite of Cesare's safe conduct to Pandolfo) had orders
to cut both him and Giampaolo to pieces.
In the meanwhile Leonardo Bellanti, Andrea Piccolomini, Lorenzo
Beccafumi, and three other delegates were making terms for Siena with
Cesare. But the Pope called the Duke back to suppress the rising of the
Roman barons, and the intervention of the King of France protected Siena
from further molestation. To the demands of the King addressed to the
Balìa for the recall of Pandolfo, an evasive answer was returned, and
the Pope was assured that the Sienese did not want him back. Pandolfo,
however, had gained over the Florentines by undertaking to restore
Montepulciano, and he suddenly appeared with armed men at Poggibonsi. On
March 29th, the Balìa decreed his recall and restitution into the
Collegio; but they implored him not to bring Giampaolo Baglioni with
him, and to be content with a modest return with a small company, so
that he could "enjoy his sweet native land in peace with the others, as
is the common desire of all the citizens." Nevertheless, on the same
day, Pandolfo entered Siena in triumph accompanied by the French
ambassadors, with Giampaolo Baglioni and his cavalry, and the
condottiere Pochintesta da Bagnacavallo with a large force of infantry.
"And so," he wrote to the Florentines, "by the gift of God, accompanied
by the orators of the Most Christian King, and with a great multitude of
the citizens and Sienese nobles, peacefully and without tumult or any
disturbance, have I entered my sweet native land."[56]
Alexander VI. died in the following August, and was succeeded by the
Cardinal Francesco Piccolomini, who took the title of Pius III. in the
memory of his uncle. Andrea Piccolomini had left Siena on Pandolfo's
return, and the new Pope was probably not well disposed to the
re-establishment of this despotism in his native city. But his
pontificate only lasted twenty-six days--he was broken down already with
age and ill-health; and Pandolfo managed to establish friendly relations
with his successor, Julius II. Like his uncle, Pius III. has left his
mark upon Siena, and we shall return to him in the Duomo.
Henceforth Pandolfo was practically undisputed lord of Siena and her
dominion, though he never succeeded in getting the longed-for imperial
investiture. The citizens appear to have acquiesced in his supremacy.
The Balìa was in his hands; he disposed of the moneys of the State, and
appears to have been allowed to sell certain magistracies and offices to
his own profit. Ambassadors were sent to him and not to the Republic,
and business was transacted by the "Magnificent Pandolfo Petrucci,
Sienese Patrician, in the stead and in the name of the Magnificent
Commune of Siena." He meddled in all the political intrigues of the
early Cinquecento, with a considerable amount of success. "In the midst
of the new complications which now arose," writes Professor Villari, "he
shaped his course with the greatest wariness, and whilst he made a show
of friendship towards Florence, from which he could certainly receive
much damage, he strove also to draw near to her enemies, seeing that the
bad fortune of France was augmenting their power and ever rendering the
friends of Spain more potent."[57] He secretly assisted Pisa against
Florence in 1505, when Bartolommeo Alviano assailed the territory of the
latter Republic, and this was the occasion of the second legation of
Machiavelli to Siena in the July of that year.[58] Machiavelli found
Pandolfo a hard problem: "I can hardly judge," he wrote to the Signoria,
"whether he should be believed or not, because here I have seen no sign
whereby I can make a better conjecture than can your Lordships." And he
talked all day with Antonio da Venafro, without getting anything out of
him.
There was a last conspiracy against Pandolfo's life in 1508. He had
promised his daughter Sulpizia to Giulio, one of the sons of Leonardo
Bellanti, but married her to Sigismondo Chigi instead. Induced by this
slight and the desire of avenging Luzio, Leonardo and his sons with a
force of armed men lay in wait for Pandolfo, on his way to visit their
own kinsman, Petrino Bellanti, who lay sick. A boy that they had set to
watch gave the alarm too soon, and the Magnifico escaped. The Bellanti
at once fled through the Porta Camollia to Florence. They were summoned
to appear before the Balìa within three days, declared rebels, and their
goods confiscated.
Pandolfo had now assumed the pomp and state of a petty prince. He walked
through the streets and squares followed by a cortège of Noveschi and
Gentiluomini, while his splendid new palace near the Duomo seemed
destined to play the part in the story of Siena that the Palazzo
Riccardi was doing in that of Florence. He made and unmade marriages at
his pleasure. He separated Mariana Vignoli from her husband, and shut
her up in a convent, while he compelled Vittoria Piccolomini, the
daughter of the late Andrea, to become the wife of his own son Borghese.
The sumptuary laws of Siena touching the jewels and dresses of ladies
were abrogated in favour of the women of his family,[59] who are said to
have taken full advantage of this dispensation. He obtained possession
for himself of various castles and palaces in the contado, while by
humouring the nobles, giving the public funds and offices to his
friends, finding work for artisans and food for the poor, he contrived
to keep all classes more or less content. "How does the Magnifico rule
the Sienese?" asked one of the Popes of Antonio da Venafro. "With lies,
Holy Father," answered the astute secretary. But Luzio Bellanti and
Niccolò Borghesi were not alone in declining to give credit to these
_bugie_, and Pandolfo is said to have murdered some sixty persons in the
course of his reign. The more insignificant of these were thrown into
oubliettes or disused burial vaults, and left there to starve.
In 1511, Pope Julius created Pandolfo's second son Alfonso a Cardinal.
In the same year peace was finally made with Florence, and a
confederation established between the two Republics, Montepulciano being
restored and the prepotency of the Petrucci assured. The star of France
being on the wane in Italy, Pandolfo was now looking to Spain. His last
political act was to intervene for harmony between the Pope and
Florence. Gradually he was losing hold of things, absorbed in a vulgar,
senile passion for a certain Caterina, whom the Sienese called "the
two-handed sword," the young wife of an artisan in the Via di Salicotto.
In February 1512, he obtained from the Balìa that his son Borghese
should take his place in the Collegio, and in all other magistracies in
his absence. On May 21st he died at San Quirico. All the shops were
closed when his body was brought to the city; there was a state funeral
in the Duomo, after which it was carried in procession to San Francesco,
and thence quietly conveyed by the friars to the Osservanza.
Machiavelli, who came with the condolences of the Republic of Florence,
ranks Pandolfo in the second class of despots. He was undoubtedly not
among the worst tyrants of the epoch. Especially after his return from
his brief exile, his rule was beneficial to Siena, in that he secured
for the State a comparatively long period of respite from internal
factions and of external peace.
Pandolfo, writes an anonymous chronicler, at his death left Borghese his
son with the same authority, but not with the same prudence. The
machinations of Antonio da Venafro secured his peaceful accession to his
father's dignities, and an increased force of mercenaries was hired
under the command of Orazio Baglioni--Borghese's prospective
brother-in-law. But the young man was utterly without his father's
abilities, luxurious and dissolute, as well as cowardly and arrogant. So
superstitious was he that, at the advice of a Jew astrologer, he always
wore a bracelet with certain mysterious signs that should infallibly
protect him from all possible enemies. For some time he tried the
Medicean policy of dazzling the populace with festivities and
spectacular displays, while the Cardinal Alfonso amassed riches at Rome,
and plunged into the intrigues at the court of Leo X., which the papal
executioners cut short a few years later. While the brutalities of
Borghese's favourite, the condottiere Pochintesta, disgusted and
exasperated the Sienese, there was another Petrucci--Raffaello di
Giacoppo, Bishop of Grosseto and governor of the Castle of
Sant'Angelo--high in favour with the Pope and biding his time, in touch
with the Bellanti, Petroni, Tancredi, and other families that hated
Borghese. In December 1515, Borghese dismissed Antonio da Venafro. "I
go, Magnificence," said the old secretary, "but only to take rooms for
you." In the following March, with aid from Pope Leo X. and Florence,
Raffaello Petrucci appeared in Sienese territory at the head of a force
of mercenaries, accompanied by Leonardo Bellanti and other exiles, and
Borghese with his young brother Fabio ignominiously fled from the city,
leaving his wife and little daughters behind him.
Raffaello Petrucci entered Siena in triumph through the Porta Romana on
March 10th, 1516, harangued the Signoria--his words being few and
inelegant, says Pecci, because he was ignorant and more disposed to arms
than to letters--and was then conveyed in state to his father's palace,
which occupied the site of the present Palazzo Reale. The creation of
the new Balìa was put into his hands, the exiles were restored to their
honours, Borghese and Fabio declared rebels. A league--but with
reservation of the imperial rights over the city of Siena and its
state--was concluded with the younger Lorenzo de' Medici and the Pope,
who was desirous, says Guicciardini, "that that city, being placed
between the States of the Church and of the Florentines, should be
governed by a man in his confidence, and perchance all the more because
he hoped, when the opportunity of times should
[Illustration: THE PORTA ROMANA]
be propitious, to be able, by the consent of the Bishop himself, to
subject it either to his brother or his nephew." In the following year
the Cardinal Alfonso Petrucci plotted against the Pope's life in Rome,
was degraded from the Cardinalate, and strangled in prison. One of his
accomplices was the condottiere Pochintesta who, when examined, accused
the Bellanti of similarly intending to murder the Bishop Raffaello at
Siena. Raffaello summoned Giulio and Guidone Bellanti to his presence;
the first was butchered by Francesco di Camillo Petrucci in the street
outside, the second cut to pieces in the palace before Raffaello's eyes,
while he knelt and begged for mercy. Leonardo Bellanti, their old
father, was sent to a fortress in the Maremma and there beheaded.
Shortly afterwards, Raffaello was raised to the Cardinalate.
In spite of his personal immorality and cruelty, the tyranny of the
Cardinal Raffaello does not seem to have been utterly bad. He governed
with a firm hand, keeping Siena in peace and comparative prosperity for
six years. During his absence at the conclave after the death of Leo X.,
the exiles and anti-Mediceans prevailed upon the Duke of Urbino in
January, 1522, to invade the Sienese contado in favour of Lattanzio
Petrucci, also an ecclesiastic and a cousin of Borghese; but with no
result. And in March, after his return, another unsuccessful attempt led
by Renzo da Ceri, backed by France and secretly favoured by a party in
Siena itself, was made to overthrow his regime. The Cardinal died
suddenly in his villa on December 17th, 1522, in such a tempest "that it
seemed the mouth of Hell were opened." When his body was brought to
Siena to be buried in San Domenico, a howling mob assailed the funeral
procession, hurling stones and hooting, shouting that the dead man
should be thrown out into the place where the carrion was cast. The
friars all fled, leaving the bier alone in the midst of the police, who
with difficulty got it safe into the church. Raffaello left one
illegitimate son, Eustacchio, who held the command of the mercenaries in
the Campo.
Francesco di Camillo Petrucci, the son of a younger brother of Pandolfo,
who had been at the head of the government during the Cardinal's
absence, now seized the chief power; while part of the citizens looked
to the imperial agents in Rome for the restoration of their liberties,
and another part desired the recall of Pandolfo's youngest son
Fabio--Borghese having gone mad at Naples. Francesco's tyrannical
behaviour and his murder of Marcello Saracini disgusted all classes.
Pope Clement VII., who intended to marry Fabio Petrucci with the
daughter of Galeotto de' Medici, summoned Francesco to Rome and kept him
there, while Fabio, in December 1523, entered Siena. Fabio was a youth
of eighteen years of age, excessively handsome and winning in manners,
most incompetent and more dissolute than even Borghese had been. The
Sienese stood his mercenaries and his unsavoury amours for about nine
months. On September 18th, 1524, there was a general rising against him,
headed by Giovanni Martinozzi, Mario Bandini and Giovanni Battista
Piccolomini. Fabio's mercenaries occupied the Palazzo, while his few
remaining friends assembled in the house of Alessandro Bichi. There was
prolonged fighting in the Campo, in the Piazza Tolomei, at the Croce del
Travaglio, the adherents of Fabio raising the Florentine shout of
"Marzocco" only to be drowned by the swelling thunder of "Popolo e
Libertà!" Had Fabio held his ground for a couple of days more, aid would
have been forthcoming from the Florentines and the Pope; but his heart
failed him and, rejecting the compromise which the leaders of the
revolution offered him, he fled at nightfall through the Porta Tufi and
escaped to Florence. Thus ignominiously ended the tyranny of the
Petrucci in Siena.