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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f79c340 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #50625 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50625) diff --git a/old/50625-0.txt b/old/50625-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index bacbad8..0000000 --- a/old/50625-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,17169 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lorenzo De' Medici, the Magnificent (vol. 2 -of 2), by Alfred von Reumont - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: Lorenzo De' Medici, the Magnificent (vol. 2 of 2) - -Author: Alfred von Reumont - -Translator: Robert Harrison - -Release Date: December 7, 2015 [EBook #50625] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LORENZO DE' MEDICI *** - - - - -Produced by Giovanni Fini, Hélène de Mink, Bryan Ness and -the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned -images of public domain material from the Google Books -project.) - - - - - - - - TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - -—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected. - -—Superscripts have been rendered as a^{b}. - - - - - LORENZO DE’ MEDICI - - VOL. II. - - - - - LORENZO DE’ MEDICI - - _THE MAGNIFICENT_ - - BY - - ALFRED VON REUMONT - - _TRANSLATED from THE GERMAN by ROBERT HARRISON_ - - IN TWO VOLUMES - - VOL. II. - - LONDON - SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE - 1876 - - [_All rights reserved_] - - - - -CONTENTS - -OF - -THE SECOND VOLUME. - -FOURTH BOOK—_continued_. - -SECOND PART. - -TIME OF LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT. - - - CHAPTER VI. - - LORENZO DE’ MEDICI AS A POET. PAGE - - Lorenzo’s Letter to Don Federigo of Aragon accompanying a - Collection of Old Italian Poems—Opinions on Italian Poetry—The - Poets of the Thirteenth Century—Dante and Successors—The Italian - Vulgar Tongue—Lorenzo’s Position in Literature—Influence of - Antiquity and the Dantesque Period—The Feeling for Nature in - Lorenzo’s Poetry—The Love Poems—Lucrezia Donati—The Nature - of Love—Lorenzo’s Sonnets—Idylls—‘Corinto’—‘La Nencia da - Barberino’—‘Ambra’—‘The Hawking Party’ and ‘I Beoni’—Prevalence - of the Burlesque—Dance and Carnaval Songs—Carnaval - Companies—Mystery-Play of St. John and St. Paul—Spiritual Songs 3 - - - CHAPTER VII. - - MARSILIO FICINO AND CRISTOFORO LANDINO. - - Platonism—Ficino’s Influence on Religion and Philosophy—The - Connection of Platonism with Christianity—Speculation and - Reality—Marsilio Ficino and Dante—Ficino’s Works—Book - on Christian Learning—Translation of Plato—‘Theologia - Platonica’—Translation of Plotinus and Dionysius the - Areopagite—Ficino’s Letters on Personal Relations—His Connection - with Learned Foreigners—His Manner of life—His Advice to Lorenzo - de’ Medici and to Cardinal Raffael Riario—His Picture of a Right - Way of Living—Lorenzo’s Connection with Ficino—Cristoforo - Landino’s Position and Labours—The Camaldulensian - Discussions—Leon Battista Alberti with the Medici Brothers and - their Friends in the Abbey of Camaldoli—Various Phases of the - Study of Dante—Dante and the Fifteenth Century Biographies of - Dante—First Edition of the ‘Divine Comedy’—Landino’s Edition, - with a Commentary—Study of Dante in Landino’s Time 20 - - - CHAPTER VIII. - - LUIGI PULCI AND ANGELO POLIZIANO. - - Matteo Palmieri and ‘The City of Life’—Burchiello and the - Burlesque—The Romantic Epos—Bernardo and Luca Pulci—The - ‘Ciriffo Calvaneo’ and the ‘Giostri’—Luigi Pulci and the - ‘Morgante Maggiore’—The Epopee and the Courts of Medici and - Este—Luigi Pulci’s Connection with Lorenzo de’ Medici—Angelo - Poliziano’s Family and Youth—His Homeric Studies—Translation - of the Iliad—Dedication to Lorenzo—Opinion of Cardinal - Ammannati—Interruptions in the Work—The Dramatic Piece - ‘Orfeo’—Tournament of Giuliano de’ Medici—The Stanzas—Small - Latin Poems—Poliziano as a Latin Poet—The ‘Sylvæ’—Description - of Lorenzo as a Poet—Description of Fiesole—Dedication of the - ‘Sylvæ’—Son of Lorenzo, Pier Francesco de’ Medici, Lorenzo - Tornabuoni, Antonio Pallavicino Gentile—Witches in an Academical - Lecture—Poliziano as a Popular Song Writer—Rispetti—Poliziano as - Translator and Letter Writer 41 - - - CHAPTER IX. - - POLIZIANO IN THE HOME OF THE MEDICI. SCALA AND RUCELLAI. - - Poliziano as a Poet and Tutor of the Medici—Poliziano and - Madonna Clarice—Winter Residence in Caffagiuolo—Ode to Gentile - Becchi—Poliziano’s Letter to Madonna Lucrezia—Dissension between - Madonna Clarice and Poliziano—Poliziano in Fiesole—Poliziano and - others as Teachers of Piero de’ Medici—Giorgio Benigno—Giovanni - Prato—Antonio Barberini—Piero de’ Medici in his Youth—Bartolommeo - Scala—Benedetto Accolti—Scala and Lorenzo de’ Medici—Quarrel of - Poliziano and Scala—Alessandra Scala—Poliziano’s Quarrel with - Marullus—Alamanno Rinuccini—Bernardo Rucellai and the Platonic - Academy 63 - - - CHAPTER X. - - ERMOLAO BARBARO AND PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA. - - Bernardo Bembo—Ermolao Barbaro—Barbaro’s Visit to Florence - and to Lorenzo de’ Medici at the Baths—Lorenzo’s Exertions in - favour of Barbaro—Giovanni Pico de’ Mirandola—Pico in Florence - and in the Medici Circle—The Cabbala—Pico’s Amorous Adventure - at Arezzo—Disputation at Rome and Opposition—Denunciation and - Apology—Lorenzo’s Interposition on behalf of Pico—Pico’s Country - Life and Studies—Lorenzo’s Defence of Pico against his Romish - Adversaries—Final Issue of the Difference—Pico’s Poetical and - Philosophical Works—Pico a Type of the Age—Stefano Porcaro and - Pandolfo Collenuccio 79 - - - CHAPTER XI. - - PISA UNIVERSITY. MANUSCRIPTS AND CRITICISM. PRINTING. PLATONIC - SYMPOSIA. - - Latin Poets—Ugolino Verino—Alessandro Bracci—G. B. - Contalicio—Tommaso Baldinotti—Pierio Riccio—Pisa and its - University before Lorenzo’s Time—Lorenzo de’ Medici and - Pisa—Restoration of the University—Filelfo’s Endeavours after a - Professorship—Difficulties of the New Establishment—Professors - of the University—Bartolommeo Sozzini—the Brothers - Decio—Waldo Bartolini—Francesco Accolti—Pierio Leoni—Lorenzo - Lippi—Bartolommeo von Pratovecchio—Francesco de’ - Massimi—Studies in Florence—Fontius and Chalcondylas—Johannes - Lascaris—The high Development of Greek Studies—Platina and - Pomponius Leti in connection with Lorenzo—Examination of - Manuscripts—Emendations—Poliziano’s Critical Works—Collation - of the Pandects—Translations—The Art of Printing—Bernardo - Cennini—First Printing in Florence—Increased Diffusion of - Literary Treasures—Manuscript Collectors in Florence—Lorenzo de’ - Medici as a Manuscript Collector—Poliziano in Venice—Cassandra - Fedele—Piero de’ Medici and the Medicean Collections—The - Books of Mathias Corvinus—Intercourse between the Learned of - Hungary and Florence—Collections of Inscriptions—The Academy at - Rome—Fra Giocondo of Verona—Lorenzo de’ Medici as the Centre of - the Learned World—Assemblies of the Platonic Academy—Platonic - Symposia—The Exact Sciences—Paolo Toscanelli—Amerigo Vespucci 96 - - - THIRD PART. - - THE FINE ARTS. - - - CHAPTER XII. - - COSIMO AND PIERO DE’ MEDICI AND ART. - - Revolution in the Direction of Art when Cosimo was - young—Architectural Questions—Brunelleschi—Re-building - of San Lorenzo—Abbey of Fiesole—Michelozzo—Church and - Convent of San Marco—Other Works of Michelozzo—Chapel - of the Annunziata—Tabernacle in San Miniato—Tornabuoni - Palace—Brunelleschi’s Buildings—Pazzi Chapel—Pitti Palace—Luca - Fancelli—Leon Batista Alberti—Rucellai Palace and Loggia—Holy - Sepulchre—The Annunziata Choir—Sculpture—Donatello and Cosimo - de’ Medici—Lorenzo Ghiberti—Glass Painting and the Jesuates—Luca - della Robbia—Works in Glazed Earth—Sepulchral Monuments—Noferi - Strozzi—Neri Capponi—Orlando de’ Medici—Splendour of the - Monuments—Desiderio da Settignano—Bernardo and Antonio - Rossellino—Chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal—Mino - da Fiesole—Ornamentation—Giuliano da Majano—Antonio - Filarete—Niello—Maso Finiguerra—Painting—Masaccio and Fra - Angelico of Fiesole—Benozzo Gozzoli—Paolo Uccello—Andrea dal - Castagno—Domenico Veneziano—Filippo Lippi—The Peselli—Flemish - in connection with Tuscan Art—Art-Treasures and Antiquities in - the House of the Medici—Personal Intercourse of the Medici with - Artists—Antonio Squarcialupi _degli Organi_—Domenico Veneziano to - Piero de’ Medici—Benozzo Gozzali to Piero de’ Medici—Fra Filippo - Lippi and the Medici—Beginnings of Art History—Cennini and - Ghiberti 120 - - - CHAPTER XIII. - - BUILDING IN THE DAYS OF LORENZO DE’ MEDICI. - - Lorenzo’s Knowledge of Architecture—Giuliano da Majano at Home - and Abroad—Benedetto da Majano—The Strozzi Palace—Giuliano - Giamberti da Sangallo—The Castle of Ostia and the Villa at Poggio - a Cajano—The Convent of San Gallo—The Gondi Palace—Antonio - da Sangallo—Plan for restoring the Façade of Sta. Maria del - Fiore—Façade of Sto. Spirito—Palace of the Signoria—Clock of - Lorenzo della Volpaia—Simone del Pollaiuolo called Cronaca—New - Buildings and Streets—Works of Art in Town Houses and Country - Villas 146 - - - CHAPTER XIV. - - SCULPTURE AND PAINTING. - - Andrea del Verocchio—Sepulchre of Piero and Giovanni de’ - Medici, and other Works—Antonio del Pollaiulo—Benedetto - da Majano—Monuments of Giotto and Squarcialupi—Chancel - of Sta. Croce, &c.—Mino da Fiesole—Monuments of Bernardo - Giugni and Marquis Hugo—Ornamentation—Sepulchres of the - Sassetti—Woodwork—The Art of the Goldsmith and Die-cutting—The - Dossale in the Baptistery—Antonio del Pollaiuolo—Bertoldo—Andrea - Guazzalotti—Gem-cutting—The Medici Collection of Gems—Giovanni - delle Corniuole—Painters—Verrochio—Pollainoli—Alesso - Baldovinetti—The Dante Picture in the Cathedral—Historical - Compositions—Sandro Botticelli—Filippino Lippi—Cosimo - Rosselli—Ghirlandajo—Mosaics—Baldinovetti and Ghirlandajo—Garden - and Casino of San Marco—Michel Angelo Buonarroti—Leonardo da - Vinci 163 - - - FIFTH BOOK. - - _DEVELOPMENT OF THE SUPREMACY OF THE MEDICI._ - - - CHAPTER I. - - CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES IN FLORENCE. - - Position of Lorenzo de’ Medici—Public and Private - Finance—Constitutional Reform—General and Select - Council—Council of Seventy and their Functions—Opinions of - Contemporaries—Alessandro de’ Pazzi on Lorenzo’s Financial - Position—The Taxation—Progressive Change of the Constitution—The - Magistracy—Signories, Collegia, Councils—The Podestà and his - Court—Magistracy of Eight—Guardians of the Law—The Council of - Ten for Peace and War—Capitani di Parte Guelfa—Officers of the - Customs and of the Public Debt—Officers of Trade—Guilds and - Philanthropic Institutions—New Conspiracy against Lorenzo de’ - Medici—Re-capture of Otranto 187 - - - CHAPTER II. - - THE WAR OF FERRARA. - - Dispute of Venice with Ferrara—The Allies of Both—Beginning - of the Campaign at the Po—Preparations in Rome—Sixtus IV.’s - Oppression—Proposals to Louis XI.—Battle of Campomorto—Danger of - Ferrara—Bad Management of the War—Threat of a General Council - against Sixtus IV.—Lorenzo de’ Medici’s Participation in the - same—The changed Policy of Sixtus IV.—Sixtus IV.’s Agreement with - his Adversaries—Lorenzo de’ Medici as Florentine Plenipotentiary - at the Peace Congress of Cremona—Opposition of Venice and - Continuation of the War—Ludovico il Moro and the Affairs of - Milan—Lorenzo do’ Medici and Ludovico il Moro—Ludovico il Moro - on Milan Affairs—Ludovico’s Negotiation with Venice—The Peace of - Bagnolo—Unfavourable Conditions for Ferrara—Death of Pope Sixtus - IV.—Confused State of Politics—Città di Castello and Siena—The - Sarzana Controversy—Occupation of Pietrasanta 197 - - - CHAPTER III. - - THE EARLY DAYS OF THE RULE OF INNOCENT VIII. LOUIS XI. AND FRANCE. - - State of Rome in the Last Days of Sixtus IV.—Girolamo - Riario—Confusion on the Death of the Pope—Pope Innocent - VIII.—The Cybò Family—Character of Innocent VIII.—Congratulatory - Embassies—Florentine Embassy—Piero de’ Medici—Lorenzo de’ - Medici’s Advice to his Son—Lorenzo on his Relations with the - Papal Chair—Latter Days of King Louis XI.—His Connection - with Florence—Louis XI. to Lorenzo de’ Medici—The Ring of - S. Zanobi—Extinction of the House of Anjou—Death of Louis - XI.—State of French Affairs after the King’s Death—Anne of - Beaujeu Regent for her Brother Charles VIII.—Opposition of the - Nobles—Anne de Beaujeu and Florence—Efforts of the French against - Maximilian of Austria at the Court of Innocent VIII.—Lorenzo’s - Foresight—Refusal of the Pope 213 - - - CHAPTER IV. - - POLITICAL TROUBLES. WAR OF THE BARONS. - - The Sarzana Dispute in Presence of Innocent VIII.—Lorenzo de’ - Medici in connection with Milan and Siena—Disturbances in - Siena—Political Balance—Political Situation of the Kingdom - of Naples—Ferrante of Arragon—Alfonso of Arragon, Duke of - Calabria—Alliance of the Barons—Capture of Aquila—Outbreak of the - War of the Barons—The Barons, the King, and the Pope—Innocent - VIII., Venice, and the Barons—Neapolitan Affairs and the People - of Florence—Unsettled Position of Affairs—Lorenzo de’ Medici in - Favour of King Ferrante—Lorenzo’s Counsel to the Arragonese 226 - - - CHAPTER V. - - EFFECTS OF THE WAR OF THE BARONS. FIGHTING ABOUT SARZANA. - - Florence and the Neapolitan Controversy—Archbishop Rinaldo - Orsini—Beginning of the Conflict—Alfonso of Arragon in the - Campagna—Alfonso of Arragon in Pitigliano—Progress of the - War—Battle at Campagnano—Differences of Opinion in Rome—Proposals - for a Treaty—Duke René of Lorraine—Peace between Innocent VIII. - and Naples—Slight Satisfaction of the People of Florence—Roberto - da Sanseverino King Ferrante and the Barons—Effect of the Barons’ - War upon the Fortunes of Naples—Lorenzo’s Difficulties and - Despondency—Connection with Naples and Ludovico il Moro—Attack on - Sarzana and Capture of the Town—Ludovico il Moro and Genoa 243 - - - CHAPTER VI. - - LORENZO DE’ MEDICI AS MEDIATOR BETWEEN ROME AND NAPLES. - - Lorenzo de’ Medici and Innocent VIII.—Affair of Osimo—Boccalino - de’ Guzzoni—Surrender of Osimo—Boccalino in Florence—Boccalino’s - End—House of Medici—Death of Madonna Lucrezia—Maddalena de’ - Medici and Franceschetto Cybò—Negotiations with King Ferrante - concerning the Marriage of Maddalena—Life and Character of - Franceschetto Cybò—Fresh Breach between Rome and Naples—Lorenzo - de’ Medici’s Despondency—Negotiations between Innocent VIII. - and King Ferrante—Lorenzo’s Opinion on the Relation of the - Pope to the King, and on the Political Situation—Weakness - of the Pope—Gian. Jac. Trivulzio in Florence—Mission of - Jacopo Gherardi to Florence and Milan—Lorenzo’s Exhortations - to Prudence—Lorenzo’s Instructions for the Negotiation with - Milan—Proposed Basis of Agreement—Illness of Lodovico il Moro 260 - - - CHAPTER VII. - - FAMILY EVENTS. MARRIAGES AND DEATHS. - - Clarice and Maddalena de’ Medici in Rome—Maddalena’s Marriage - Contract and Dowry—Lorenzo de’ Medici’s Opinion of his - Son-in-Law—Connections of the Medici in Rome—Piero de’ Medici’s - Journey to Rome, and his Marriage—Alfonsina Orsini—Rejoicings - in Florence on the Visit of Franceschetto Cybò—Illness of - Madonna Clarice—Maddalena Cybò in Florence—Death of Clarice - de’ Medici—Her Character—Lorenzo de’ Medici on the Loss of his - Wife—Maddalena Cybò’s Return to Rome—Death of Ippolita Maria, - Duchess of Calabria—The Marriage of Gian Galeazzo Sforza—Piero - de’ Medici in Milan 278 - - - CHAPTER VIII. - - DISTURBANCE IN THE ROMAGNA. TUSCAN AND UMBRIAN NEIGHBOURS. - - Girolamo Riario in Imola and Forlì—Death of Girolamo - Riario—Catarina Riario Sforza—Disturbances in Forlì—Forlì - remains in the Possession of the Riarii—Dispute about - Piancaldoli—Conflicting Interests in the Affairs of - Romagna—Dissatisfaction against Milan—Faenza and the - Manfredi—Murder of Galeotto Manfredi—Revolt in Faenza—Lorenzo - de’ Medici and Giovanni Bentivoglio, and the Disturbances in - Faenza—Caterina Riario Sforza—Unhappy State of Affairs in the - Romagna—Lorenzo de’ Medici and the Neighbouring States—Piombino - and Siena—State of Parties in Siena—Lorenzo de’ Medici and - Siena—Lorenzo de’ Medici and Lucca—The Connection of Città di - Castello and Perugia—Franceschetto Cybò in Perugia—Lorenzo de’ - Medici’s Opinion of Affairs in Perugia—Victory of the Baglioni - Faction in Perugia—Violence of the Factions—Affairs of Ascoli—The - Papal Authority and the Jealousy of Neighbouring States—The - Orsini in connection with the Pope and Naples—Gentil Virginio and - Niccolò Orsini 294 - - - SIXTH BOOK. - - _LATER YEARS OF LORENZO DE’ MEDICI’S LIFE._ - - - CHAPTER I. - - FLORENTINE STATE AFFAIRS. MATTERS PUBLIC AND FINANCIAL ABOUT 1490. - - The Ruling Party and Old Enemies—Albizzi, Soderini, - Pazzi—Francesco Guicciardini’s Description of Florentine - Affairs—Alessandro de’ Pazzi on the Position of Lorenzo de’ - Medici—Progressive Personal Authority—Supplications and - Recommendations—Alessandro Farnese—Requests and Compliments of - Foreign Princes—Friends and Dependants of the Medicis—Giovanni - Lanfredini—Lorenzo’s Behaviour towards his Dependants—The - Gonfalonier Neri Cambi—Weakness of the Administration—Committees - for the Choice of Magistrates and for Finance—Reform of the - Coinage and Currency—Finance of the Medicis—Losses of the - Banks—Employment of Public Moneys—Institution for the Dowry of - Daughters—Reduction of the Payments of the Institution—The Bank - in Lyons, and Philippe de Commines—Commines’ Last Letter to - Lorenzo de’ Medici 317 - - - CHAPTER II. - - LIFE IN FLORENCE. - - Benedetto Dei’s Comparison of Florence and Venice—Description of - Florence in the latter Part of the Fifteenth Century—Industry - and Trade—Interest on Money and Money-Lenders—Mode of Life - of the Higher Classes—Splendour of Festivities—Benedetto - Salutati’s Banquet at Naples—Life in Florence—Town and - Villa—Amusements—Athletic Exercises—Hunting—Plays—Religious - Representations and Processions—The Potenza and - its Growth—Carnavals and Parades—Reaction against - Carnavals—Historical and Mythological Processions—Bartolommeo - Benci’s Carnaval Procession—Buffoonery—Piovano Arlotto—The - Fat Carpenter—Good and Bad of the Social Condition—Benedetto - Varchi’s Description of the People of Florence—System of Family - Life—Distinguished Women—Knighthood—Cavalieri di Popolo—The - Embassies—Splendour of Embassies in the Fifteenth Century 338 - - - CHAPTER III. - - HOUSE AND FAMILY OF THE MEDICI. - - The Medici as Collectors and Art Patrons—Wealth of the House - of Medici—Traders and their Purchases—The Garden and Casino of - San Marco—The Villas of the Medici—Poggio a Cajano—Lorenzo de’ - Medici’s Mode of Life—Meal-times—Grandeur and Simplicity—Visit - of Count Eberhard of Würtemberg—Horses and Races—Hawking—Visits - to Pisa—Agnano and other Estates—Journeys to the Baths—The - Baths of San Filippo and Vignone—Love Affairs—Bartolommeo Nasi - Benci—Embassies and Presents of the Egyptian Sultan—Festal - Reception of Travellers—Companions and Friends at - Home—Lorenzo de’ Medici in Confidential Intercourse—Musical - Entertainments—Antonio degli Organi—Music and Poetry—Piero - and Alfonsina Orsini de’ Medici—Lorenzo’s Daughters—Homely - Appearance—Lorenzo in Jest and in Earnest 366 - - - CHAPTER IV. - - GIOVANNI DE’ MEDICI’S CARDINALSHIP. - - Innocent VIII. and Franceschetto Cybò—Lorenzo de’ Medici’s - Intercession for Franceschetto—Giovanni de’ Medici and Church - Benefices—The Abbeys of Passignano and Monte Cassino—The Dignity - of Cardinal—Giovanni Lanfredini—Lorenzo’s Impatience at the - Pope’s Hesitation—Giovanni de’ Medici created Cardinal—Rejoicings - in Florence—Lorenzo’s Thanksgiving—Impression made by the - Nomination—Death of Giovanni Lanfredini—Canonisation of - Archbishop Antoninus 394 - - - CHAPTER V. - - ISSUE OF THE CONTEST BETWEEN INNOCENT VIII. AND FERRANTE OF - ARAGON. - - King Ferrante’s Behaviour towards the Pope—Niccolò Orsini - as Papal Captain-General—Lorenzo de’ Medici on the Quarrel - between Pope and King—Position of Milan and Venice—The Pope’s - Proceedings against the King—Lorenzo de’ Medici’s Proposals—The - Pope on the Interference of Foreign Powers—Ferrante’s Opposition - to an Alliance—French Propositions to the Pope—Innocent - VIII.’s Complaints of the King—Innocent VIII. and Foreign - Countries—Giovanni Pentano on the Agreement of 1486—Neapolitan - Proposals for a Treaty—Peace between the Pope and Naples—French - Affairs—King Ferrante’s Family Troubles—Gian Galeazzo Sforza - and Ludovico il Moro—Breach between Alfonso of Arragon and il - Moro—Neapolitan Embassy to Milan 408 - - - CHAPTER VI. - - OPPOSITION TENDENCIES. FRA GIROLAMO SAVONAROLA. - - Lorenzo de’ Medici and the Clergy—Girolamo Savonarola in his - Youth—Savonarola’s first Residence in Florence—Fra Mariano - of Genazzano and the Monastery of San Gallo—Fra Mariano and - Lorenzo de’ Medici—Fra Mariano as Preacher—Savonarola’s - increasing Zeal for Teaching—Savonarola as Preacher—Francesco - Guicciardini on Savonarola’s Influence—The Philosophers and - the Monks—Representations of the Medici Circle concerning - Savonarola—Savonarola’s Excesses—Savonarola and Fra Mariano 425 - - - CHAPTER VII. - - THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF GIOVANNI DE’ MEDICI’S CARDINALSHIP. - - Giovanni de’ Medici in Pisa—Delayed Publication of the Brief - making him Cardinal—Doubtful State of Health of Innocent - VIII.—Publication of the Brief—Festival in the Abbey of Fiesole - and in Florence—Giovanni de’ Medici’s Journey to Rome—Reception - in Rome—Lorenzo’s Letter to his Son the Cardinal 440 - - - CHAPTER VIII. - - DEATH OF LORENZO DE’ MEDICI. - - Lorenzo de’ Medici’s Illness—Remedy for his Sufferings—Changes - between Better and Worse—Lorenzo’s Intention of transferring his - Affairs to his Son Piero—Political Position—Moral and Religious - Views—Lorenzo’s Advice to his Son—Lorenzo with Angelo Poliziano - and Pico—Savonarola at the Death-bed—Death of Lorenzo de’ - Medici—Prodigies and Obsequies—Decree concerning the Position - of Piero de’ Medici—Roman Obsequies—King Ferrante on Lorenzo’s - Death—Innocent VIII. and the House of Sforza—Entombment in San - Lorenzo—Elegy by Angelo Poliziano 453 - - - CONCLUSION. - - Lorenzo’s Characteristics—His Public Policy—His Tampering - with the Constitution—His Financial System—Progress - towards Monarchy—Lorenzo’s Son Piero—King Charles VIII. in - Florence—Fruits of Florentine Culture 469 - - - APPENDICES. - - I. Chronological Review 477 - - II. Pedigree of the Medici 483 - - ” ” Pazzi 484 - - ” ” Soderini 485 - - ” ” Visconti and Sforza 486 - - III. Last Hours of Lorenzo de’ Medici 487 - - - - -FOURTH BOOK—_continued_ - - - - -SECOND PART - -_TIME OF LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT._ - - - - -CHAPTER VI. - -LORENZO AS A POET. - - -IN April 1465, as already stated, Federigo of Aragon, Prince of Naples, -and Lorenzo de’ Medici, then seventeen years old, met at Pisa. A letter -addressed by the young Florentine to his royal friend, probably in -the following year, begins thus:[1] ‘When thou, illustrious Federigo, -didst visit the most ancient city of Pisa, thou didst turn our -conversation to the subject of those who have written poetry in the -Tuscan language, and didst manifest a laudable desire to see all their -works collected by my care. Endeavouring to fulfil thy wishes, I had a -diligent search made for all the old manuscripts, and chose from them -the least imperfect, which I now present to your Highness, arranged in -order in a book which I earnestly desire thee approvingly to accept, -as a token of especial goodwill. Let no one despise this Tuscan tongue -as poor and rude, for he who can rightly estimate its value will find -it rich and well cultivated. There is, indeed, nothing vigorous or -graceful, impressive or ingenious, witty, harmonious, or majestic, of -which examples may not be found in our two greatest poets, Dante and -Petrarca; and after them, by those whom thou, Prince, hast recalled to -life. - -‘Petrarca shows in one of his letters that the ancient Romans were -acquainted with rhyme which, after a long interval, revived in Sicily, -spread through France, and was restored to Italy, its original home. -The first who gave our modern poetry its peculiar form of verse were -Guittone of Arezzo and his Bolognese contemporary Guido Guinicello. -They were both well versed in philosophy, and wrote profoundly; but the -first is somewhat harsh and rude, deficient in ornament and eloquence. -The latter, who is far more clear and elegant, was called by Dante -“his father,” and the father of all who write sweet and graceful love -songs. He was unquestionably the first to impress on our beautiful -language that attractive colouring which the bard of Arezzo had but -faintly indicated. After these shone Guido Cavalcanti, one of the -keenest dialecticians and most admirable philosophers of his time. -He was handsome in person, and his writings are to me in the highest -degree attractive; his imagination is rich and wonderfully grand; his -reasoning is weighty; his tone extremely dignified. These qualities -are heightened by the rich charm of a style that sets them off like -a resplendent robe. He needed but a wider field to have attained the -highest honours. - -‘Bonagiunta of Lucca and the notary of Lentino must not be overlooked; -but though earnest and weighty writers, they were so destitute of -refined taste, that they must be content to find a place in this -collection of honoured names. Another contemporary of Guittone was -Pier delle Vigne, of whom Dante said that “he had both the keys of -Frederick’s heart.” Only a few short pieces by him remain, and they are -not wanting in depth or earnestness. - -‘And now come the two glorious suns that have illuminated our -language—Dante, and he who stands hardly below him, Francesco -Petrarca. In praise of them, silence, to use the words of Sallust -concerning Carthage, is better than halting speech. Greatly in need -of their polish stood Onesto, and the Sicilians who in order of time -preceded them, and who were not without spirit or purpose. Cino of -Pistoja, tender and full of feeling, deserves his reputation. He -was the first, in my opinion, who thoroughly surmounted the antique -roughness which Dante, so admirable in other respects, could not -entirely avoid. A host of writers follow, ranking far below those -I have named. All these of the past, and some of our own time, owe -lasting thanks to thee, O Prince, who hast bestowed on them life, and -light, and fame, acquiring for thyself a claim to greater renown than -that of the Athenian Peisistratos, who rescued from oblivion the lays -of Homer. He restored life to one; thou hast revived a whole host. At -the end of the book, as it seemed not unpleasing to thee, I have added -some sonnets and canzoni of my own, that when thou readest them, my -goodwill and affection may be vividly recalled to thy mind. Though in -themselves unworthy of a place beside the admirable works of the past, -it may be useful to set them side by side for a comparison which can -but enhance the perfections of the latter. Pray take then, O Prince, -not only into thine house, but into thy heart and mind, both them and -me, even as thou abidest a welcome guest in my heart and soul.’ - -Thus wrote Lorenzo de’ Medici apparently in 1466. On a subsequent -occasion, in a gloss on his own poems such as it was the custom then -for an author himself or some of his friends to write, he gave his -opinion on the much-disputed question of the value of the vulgar tongue -as the language of poetry. ‘If we want,’ he wrote, ‘to prove the -worth of our language, we need only apply this test: does it express -with ease all our thoughts and all our feelings? Nothing can be more -satisfactory than the answer given us by experience. Our countrymen -Dante, Petrarca, and Boccaccio, have in their verses and discourses, -whether grave or gay, proved clearly that every thought and feeling -finds easy and natural expression in this tongue of ours. Whoever reads -the “Commedia” sees various questions of theology and nature discussed -with as much skill as success. He finds there the three degrees of -style specified by orators—the simple, the florid, and the sublime, -nay, more—Dante in himself presents a union of all the qualities which -Greek and Latin writers display separately. Who again can deny the -warmth, tenderness, and gaiety of Boccaccio? In his love poems he shows -a mingled grace and fervour that neither Ovid, Tibullus, Propertius nor -Catullus have equalled. Dante’s pithy sonnets and canzoni are scarcely -surpassed by anything in prose or verse, and the readers of Boccaccio, -whose learning was as great as the polish of his style, must admit that -in him the faculty of invention contends with the variety and eloquence -of his language. Any one who examines his “Decameron” with its endless -diversity of subject, its descriptions of every conceivable situation -produced by love and hate, hope or fear; its exhibition of countless -intrigues and artifices; its characteristic representation of diverse -natures, and its expression of every passion, will be convinced that -for all this no language can be better adapted than our own. It is not -the language that has been unfavourable to writers, but there has -been a dearth of authors who could use it. To any one with a little -practice, it is full of power, harmony, and grace. It appears to me -richly endowed with all that constitutes the excellence of a language, -and I am persuaded that a knowledge of what has been written in it is -not only useful but necessary—more especially the works of Dante, -which are both solid and profound. The commentaries of learned men on -the “Commedia” bear witness to this no less than the allusions made -to the work from the pulpit. We may look forward to the appearance -of other excellent works in this language, which still preserves its -freshness and is growing in elegance and copiousness. A prospect of -still greater perfection is before it, should the dominion of Florence -be extended, a thing not merely to be hoped but to be striven for by -our gallant citizens with all their energies of body and mind. Though -such a consummation cannot positively be predicted, since it depends on -fate and the will of God, yet it is within the limits of possibility. -For the present the following conclusion is enough. Our native speech -has all the excellencies of a language in abundance, and we ought not -to be dissatisfied with it, nor ought any one to blame me for writing -in a tongue to which I was born and in which I was educated. Hebrew -and Latin originally were no more than vulgar tongues, yet those who -hold an honoured place in literature cultivated them to a degree of -perfection that was never attained by the mass of the people.’ - -These remarks, which are followed by others on the sonnet and on Tuscan -rhythm and metre, show that from his youth up Lorenzo de’ Medici -thought much of the nature and history of the language of his country. -His poems opened out no new path, but served with those of many among -his contemporaries to give more freedom and grace of movement to the -language, more facility for applying it to manifold aims and objects, -and a richer variety of idiomatic forms. His masterly handling of -the language was equalled by his command of versification. Harshness -he has, and that force which will not avoid a difficulty. Nor is he -wanting in archaic forms and illegitimate turns of expression, while -he has echoes of the artificial manner which in the poet’s youth -was regarded as modern classicism. We do not always meet with the -refinement of ear, accuracy of taste, and fulness of harmony, which -give such importance to his contemporary Poliziano, and mark him -as the true leader of the great literary movement of the fifteenth -century, a movement which, in its last decade, put an end to a state -of things in which it is hard to say whether stagnation or perverted -energy was the worst feature. Nevertheless, Lorenzo de’ Medici takes -a conspicuous and peculiar place in this movement. Had he been only a -literary man, he would have shone as such. As in his whole character, -so also as a poet, is he the true representative of his time, a time -that strove with pious care to restore the old, while it joyfully -if doubtfully anticipated the opening of new vistas and formed the -threshold between two great epochs, the blending of the sunset and -the dawn. Lorenzo de’ Medici, while rightly estimating the character -of the literature of Dante’s age, and perceiving that it and not the -pedantry of the humanistic poets contained life and hope for the -future, was, nevertheless, still influenced by the great fact of the -first half of his century, the revival of classical culture. Even -when he most nearly approaches the lyric poets who preceded him, it -is not in imitation, like Bembo’s imitation of Petrarca. Even when -Dante or Guido Cavalcanti, with their subtle dissection of feelings, -partaking somewhat of the character of scholasticism, and their habit -of treating even earthly things with a certain unearthly solemnity -of tone, have been most evidently his guiding lights—still, through -all, there pierces a spirit which could only have been aroused by the -contact of modes of thought derived from the antique with modern life -and experience, and by a direct knowledge of the creations of Hellenic -genius, which to the fathers of Italian poetry were sealed books, -whose very titles were unknown to most of them. - -Lorenzo de’ Medici is no imitator of Petrarca, although echoes of -Petrarca and even, through the latter, of the poetry of the Troubadours -occur frequently in his compositions. But, apart from other details, -he has one conspicuous trait in common with Petrarca—a quick sense of -the beauties of nature. The hermit of Vaucluse and Arquà is, of all -modern poets, the first to whom nature seems to have been especially -revealed in her inner life and in the impression which she makes on the -feelings; for in Dante it is rather the historical character of the -landscape and the plasticity of sharply defined individual phenomena -which come out most strongly. Like Petrarca, he who dwelt in the Tuscan -villas and among the wooded Apennines found in nature an inexhaustible -fountain whence flowed forth an ever-fresh stream of forms and images -clothed in the most varied and brilliant colours. The richness and -freshness of his treatment proves how quick were his eyes to receive -and his mind to realise such impressions. He delighted to consecrate -to the mental and moral refreshment of a residence in the country the -hours and days which he could steal from his varied and often vexatious -cares and occupations. If his poetic descriptions did not sufficiently -declare it, his whole life would furnish a proof that there was in him -not merely an active fancy, but an actual need, as well as a true and -quick apprehension of nature. He has shown in the ‘Selve d’amore,’ and -in the idyl of ‘Ambra,’ what were his powers of describing nature, -not merely in the illustration of thoughts and feelings, but as an -independent picture complete in itself. - -The greater part of his sonnets and canzoni consists, as may be -imagined, of love poems. But the individualising characteristics of his -poetry save them from the monotony usually inseparable from this style; -for where there is no variety of tone, there is a variety of situation -and colouring. The lover and poet is with Lorenzo always a disciple of -philosophy, and the subject of his poems, decked in all the brilliant -colours of fancy, retreats into the background infinitely more than -with the great poets of the Trecento. In reading Lorenzo’s poems, one -gives little more than a passing thought to Lucrezia Donati, whose name -even is revealed to us only by the poet’s friends. Beatrice and Madonna -Laura have been the objects of careful historical research—scarcely -any one has troubled himself about the fair Florentine, sprung from a -race whose name filled the history of the city when that of Medici was -still unknown. The reason is not merely that Lucrezia’s bard was no -Dante or Petrarca, and that his poetry, however fresh and genuine, and -however important as completing a character unique in its way, yet held -but a secondary place in the mind and life of Lorenzo de’ Medici; but -the ideal creation threatens to swallow up the personality. The story -connected with the beautiful girl lying on the bier, in which the poet -sets forth how he sought and found a worthy object for his affection, -sufficiently indicates that he rather transferred to this object what -had already assumed a living shape in his own mind than received his -impulse from it. To the greatest of Italy’s poets the angel-bride of -his early youth became the ideal in which all his thoughts and feelings -were wrapt up; the ideal stood before the eyes of Lorenzo de’ Medici -before he knew her whose form he clothed in the magic of spiritualised -desire. - -The disciple of the Platonic philosophy, giving a description of -his beloved one in the commentary on his sonnets,[2] thus declares -himself in his definition of the nature of love. ‘Whoever seeks the -true definition of love, will find that it consists in the desire -for beauty. This being so, whatever is ugly repels him who truly and -worthily loves. The beauty of the countenance and soul of our beloved -one impels us to seek beauty in other things; to rise to that virtue -which is beauty on earth as in heaven, and to reach at length the -highest beauty—the Divinity, our final goal and resting-place. The -necessary conditions of a true, worthy, and elevated love, appear to -me to be two: first, that the object shall be one, then that the love -shall be constant. It is not given to all to fulfil these conditions, -seeing that but few women possess the lofty power of attaching men -so entirely to themselves that they shall never offend against -the two conditions without which there is no true love.’ But his -philosophical view of life and human happiness is contained in a longer -poem in terza rima, (‘L’Altercazione’), in which Marsilio Ficino is -personally introduced as teacher, and decides between the poet and his -interlocutor. The former has left the tumult of the city, the confusion -of party politics, the throng of the market, to bring his soul to a -haven of rest, a life free and secure from anxiety, in the solitude -of the country. He describes what he seeks and hopes to find in this -retreat to the shepherd whom he meets; the latter points out to him the -toils and troubles of his humble lot, and how he drags on day after -day beneath ever-renewing cares. Then Marsilio comes to place in their -true light the worth and the worthlessness of sublunary things; to show -how happiness depends neither on the high position of the one nor the -lowly station of the other, but is to be found in the knowledge and -love of the Author of all things. As may be seen from this sketch of -its contents, the poem contains nothing original, but it is pleasing -from its life-like description of contrasts, and interesting as a token -of the earnest self-introspection of a richly and variously endowed -mind.[3] - -The three idyls which we possess of Lorenzo de’ Medici are so many -witnesses to the many-sidedness of his genius. The first, ‘Corinto’ -(the name of the shepherd who sings his love), resembles the eclogues -of the ancients, which were soon to become the models of so many -writers, and especially of Sannazaro. Following the precedent of -Boccaccio, it is in terza rima, a metre better suited to a series of -narratives and descriptions than to a subject in which the lyrical -element preponderates. ‘Nencia da Barberino’ is pure nature—in some -parts severe nature, with a rich vein of quaint humour and a charming -local colour. It is an idyl in eight-lined stanzas, redolent of Tuscan -soil, describing the Tuscan people, their manners and modes of speech, -with a succession of apostrophes, eulogies, and comparisons, including -some that are strange enough. Such are the so-called _rispetti_,—those -songs of the people, especially country people, which sometimes in -their fantastic flights soar up to the sun and stars, and sometimes -borrow their similes from the humblest things. Lorenzo has, in fact, -here put together a whole poem of _rispetti_, in which the serious -and the comic alternate, and through the mouth of a lover has applied -to one rustic beauty what would have sufficed for a whole bevy of -maidens. These _rispetti_ are evidently learned from the people, who -to this day produce thousands of these half-lyric, half-epigrammatic -songs, particularly in the hill-country of Pistoja, for, as an old -proverb says, ‘the mountaineers have thick shoes and fine brains.’[4] -They are to be heard also in other parts of the Florentine and Sienese -dominions, as far as the Maremma, from whence they extend into the -Roman Campagna. Some of the rustic verses are peculiar to the poet, who -exercises himself freely in a style that permits great variety, and who -rivals the people among whom he mingles in fantastic flights and quaint -similes, producing a somewhat motley but richly coloured and life-like -picture. Luigi Pulci has furnished a companion piece to ‘Nencia.’ -Poliziano, without confining himself to a special subject, has also -tried his hand at these little songs, which seem to flow spontaneously -from Tuscan pens, and form a branch of literature highly important in -its relation to the character of the people. - -While in ‘Nencia’ the popular and burlesque element prevails, the -third of these idyls, ‘Ambra,’ belongs to the province of mythology. -Its importance lies far less in the story itself—one of the oft-told -tales after the Ovidian pattern—than in the grand descriptions of -nature to which the fable gives rise. The scene is the villa of Poggio -a Cajano, on the decoration of which the princely owner bestowed so -much trouble and expense, the results of his work being repeatedly -destroyed by the overflow of the Ombrone in its descent from the -Pistojan mountains to the level ground around the low hill on which -Cajano stood. A small islet in the river bore the name of Ambra, -which was transferred to the villa itself. The dykes raised for its -defence did not fulfil Poliziano’s hope that the stream would spare the -flower-garden. In the poem, Ambra is the nymph beloved by the shepherd -Lauro. Her charms, seen when bathing, attract the river god, and she -only escapes from his wild pursuit by the help of Diana, who, at her -entreaty, changes her into a rock, on which the villa is then built. As -in ‘Nencia’ the ottava rima adapts itself to a burlesque and popular -subject, so here it developes a surprising power in descriptions of the -natural occurrences that caused the destruction of the pleasant rustic -dwelling, and of the events which are made to precede them. - -As ‘Ambra’ inclines to the descriptive, so does another little poem -in eight-line stanzas called ‘The Hawking Party’ (‘La Caccia con -Falcone’), a lively picture of a universally favourite pastime to -which our poet was almost passionately addicted. The fresh morning -on which the party sets out, the adventures and intermezzos on the -way, the rivalry and excitement of the huntsmen, the manœuvres of the -chase, with the birds and dogs, carefully trained, yet not always to -be relied on, the return in midday heat, and the cheerful meal, which -reconciles the tired disputants and brings the day to a close,—all -this is described with the most vivid reality, and with an amount of -detail that could only come from an initiated sportsman. We are in the -midst of the cheerful company that crowded around the gay and stately -young man. For the poem dates some time before the year 1478, as is -proved by the circumstance that Lorenzo’s brother-in-law, Guglielmo -de’ Pazzi, is one of the chief persons present, together with Luigi -Pulci, Foglia Amieri, Dionigi Pucci, and several others less easy to -distinguish by name. A whole stanza is taken up with the names of the -falcons, the number of which shows that this was indeed a princely -hunt, such as often took place at Pisa or Poggio a Cajano. - -The poem in terza rima which bears the name of ‘I Beoni’ (‘The -Drinkers’), or ‘Simposio,’ resembles the ‘Nencia’ and the ‘Hawking -Party’ in so far as it describes Florentine and Tuscan manners. In -rhythm, tone, and manner, it is very different from the others; for -although in ‘Nencia’ peasant life sometimes receives a burlesque -covering, the poem never becomes satire, nor sinks to that degree of -low comedy which degenerates into vulgarity. This, however, is the -case in the ‘Beoni,’ a series of chapters in which the poet describes -the manners and adventures of a company of jolly fellows, whom he -meets near Porta Faenza as he is returning from Careggi, at the moment -when they are setting out for Ponte a Rifredi, a little place about a -mile away from the town, and which takes its name from a bridge over -the little stream Terzolle. The business of the company is to taste -a cask of wine which they have heard highly praised. The poem is not -wanting in humour, and offers a lively picture of convivial rather -than social manners, such as long existed in Tuscany, and of which we -possess many literary monuments. Although unfinished, it is long, and -monotonous in spite of the variety of its situations; its dry comedy -often degenerates into downright coarseness, such as might lead to -very unfavourable conclusions with regard to the morals even of the -higher classes and the clergy, who in part are represented here. ‘I -Beoni’ makes an unpleasant impression from another point of view. -Not only is the metre that of the most sublime poems in the Italian -language; the outward arrangement of the poem, as well as a number of -particular turns, are burlesque imitations of the great poets. This is -a proof of keen observation, of wonderful and many-sided power; but -it has a darker side. If we are to recognise in this production the -beginning of Italian satire, we can all the more justly measure the -distance between these ‘chapters’ and those brilliant mirrors of the -time which immediately followed that of Lorenzo de’ Medici—the satires -of Lodovico Ariosto. - -Like the ‘Beoni,’ the dance-songs (‘Canzoni a ballo’) and the songs of -the carnival (‘Canti carnascialeschi’), especially the latter, often -pass the limits which separate social gaiety from burlesque and satire. -Yet the nature and object of these songs demand the predominance of the -lyrical element. The dance songs are explained by the old traditional -customs of the Tuscan people, and Lorenzo did but follow examples -furnished by the age of Dante; examples differing in character of all -degrees, from the grave and sententious to the popular and comic. The -musical accompaniment, in which popular old tunes alternate with later -compositions, naturally influences the form of these songs; but the -poet handles the form with the greatest ease, and knows how to give to -metre and rhyme a variety that corresponds with the changes of mood, -and prevents the monotony which the matter and subject might produce. -For the subject is love and its enjoyments, in which the sensual and -humorous preponderate. Here prevails the sway of that epicureanism -which sees in the material satisfaction of our desire for enjoyment the -solution of the problem of life, which regards as lost the time spent -on all else, snaps its fingers at a severe moral judgment, and ends -in outspoken nihilism, mocking even at love and happiness. The sum of -worldly wisdom here taught is—enjoy yourself as much as you can, and -lose no time about it; it is not the action that matters, but only -that it should not reach the ears of those who would be sure to give -it a bad name; ill-will and the conflict of interests bring blame, not -things in themselves. Even more clearly than in the dance-songs is this -cynicism seen in the ‘Lays of the Carnival,’ which, like the former, -are intended for choruses, mostly with alternate parts. - -The following pages, which treat of the manners of the time, will -describe the bacchanals, which were not new in Florence, but which -Lorenzo de’ Medici increased, and not merely for the humour of the -thing, to a degree that has cast on his memory a reflection which -an exact comparison of the poet’s circumstances with the past would -hardly justify. The abundant imagination and many-sided wit of these -gay compositions may be admired, but, even were the licence less, it -would be impossible to take real pleasure in them when once the purpose -underlying them is perceived. Such songs were traditional in Florence -and other places, as were also the people’s carnival societies, of -which Lorenzo made use for his popular festivals, and for which he -wrote even in the days of his highest authority—perhaps even more -especially then. To these songs the accomplished choir-master of San -Giovanni, the German Heinrich Isaak, commonly called Arrigo Tedesco, -composed melodies for three voices. Even before the event which -exercised so great and injurious an influence on life and morals—the -plague of 1348—songs were openly sung, the levity and revolting -coarseness of which contrasted strangely with the pious canticles which -resounded in the evening before the image of the Madonna and other -shrines. The ‘Decameron’ refers to them, and the Chronicles of Modena -give us the beginning of a drinking-song which bears witness to the -confusion of tongues that had arisen, probably among the mercenary -bands: ‘Trinche gote Malvasie—mi non biver oter vin.’ The poems -destined for singing increase in number from the fourteenth century -onwards.[5] Lorenzo only perfected in form, rendered more significant, -and finally turned to account for other purposes, what he found ready -in the life of the people. A greater contrast to these frivolous -productions than even his wanderings on the heights of speculation, -his effusions of philosophic poetry and tender aspiring sentiment, is -offered by the poems on religious subjects, of which Lorenzo found -examples in his own family. The mystery-play, ‘Rappresentazione dei -SS. Giovanni e Paolo,’ composed, according to the prologue spoken by -the angel of the Annunciation, for the brotherhood of San Giovanni, -is said to have been acted at the festivities which celebrated the -marriage of Maddalena de’ Medici. It is certain that Lorenzo’s son, -Giuliano, then just ten, and perhaps also Piero, took part with other -youths and boys of noble houses in the representation held by the said -company in 1489. The legend of Constantia, daughter of Constantine the -Great, who was said to have been cured of leprosy at the tomb of St. -Agnes on the Nomentan Way, and that of the martyrs John and Paul, who -suffered death in Rome on the Cœlian, are here blended with the story -of the division of the empire among Constantine’s sons, of the reign -of Julian the Apostate, and his death in the Parthian war, and formed -into a whole in which strange confusion and leaps from one subject to -another do not prevent much poetical beauty and moral and political -teaching. Like other earlier and contemporary pieces of this kind, it -is more lyric than dramatic; in particular it has no dramatic unity. -But if the dramatic element is weak, the historical character of one -of the two chief persons, the Emperor Julian, shows an accuracy of -conception which, with regard to this prince, must have been rare -at that period. In this respect Lorenzo’s drama commands an interest -far superior to that which we take in most productions of this class. -Since the statue of Victory was taken away from the Curia—so speaks -the Emperor—success no longer crowns the Roman arms, which once -subdued the world. Only by returning to our old gods can we recall -victory to our standards. But the object is not to be attained by this -alone, or by taking from the Christians wealth and goods which should -be forbidden them by the teachings of their own faith. The head of -the empire must again command the old reverence, and this cannot be -if the ruler hands over the cares of government to others, while he -heaps up treasure and thinks only of amusement. If he is rich, his -riches are but lent him to share with his people, and relieve necessity -wherever he finds it. Power and property belong not to him, but to the -community; he is the steward who has the satisfaction and the glory of -distributing to others what fate has placed in his hands. - -Julian is a man of energy, conscious of the extent and difficulty of -his task; Constantine in his old age is the representative of the -melancholy which overcomes him, who feels that the burden of government -has become too heavy for his shoulders. Who knows whether the poet is -not drawing from the experience of his own heart when he puts into -the mouth of his hero the description of the labours and dangers of -sovereignty, which wear out body and soul, while others see in it the -height of happiness, never reflecting that _they_ can sleep while one -is watching who holds the scales in his hand, to whom all eyes are -turned; who lives not for himself, but for others, who must be the -servant of servants: - - How often does the man that envies me - Not know that happier far than I is he. - -Strange contrasts of height and depth there were in this -man—contradictions in his life as well as in his poetry. Like his -mother, he tried his hand on spiritual songs, and his hymns of praise -display an individuality and fulness of conception wanting to other -compositions of this kind which perhaps surpass his in freshness and -simplicity. Besides songs in which the teachings of Platonism give a -peculiar colouring to the faith of the Church, we find others in which -the tone of the older hymns to Mary has been successfully adopted. -If these lauds have not the same ardently soaring strain as those of -Benivieni; still we can well imagine that they were sung alternately -with the latter when the opposition to the worldly spirit encouraged by -their author had gained the victory. This, too, is one of the contrasts -which abound in the history of Lorenzo de’ Medici. The lauds give us -a deep insight into his mind. They are, in some degree, the agonised -cry of a soul which, instead of finding satisfaction in the glory and -splendour, the wealth and enjoyments of the world, is repelled by its -emptiness, and feels driven further and further away from the highest -good, of which the love once kindled within it had grown cold amid the -cares and pleasures of this life: - - Thou seekest life where nought hath living breath; - Thou seekest joy where nought avails save death. - - - - -CHAPTER VII. - -MARSILIO FICINO AND CRISTOFORO LANDINO. - - -IN order to gain a complete view both of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s own -life and of his influence on the scientific progress of his time, it -is necessary to contemplate the circle in which he was placed in his -youth, and which, though greatly modified in the course of years, -preserved the same character in essentials to the end. The persons of -whom it was composed carry us back to the time of Cosimo. The first we -meet are Marsilio Ficino and Cristoforo Landino. Both owed their rise -to the house of Medici; both contributed to its glory. - -The last twenty-five years at least of Ficino’s life were occupied -with the endeavour to reconcile Platonism and Christianity, to make -the one expand within the other. At the end of 1473, when forty years -old, he entered holy orders, after seriously weighing the duties and -obligations of that sacred office, and after coming to the conclusion -that there is nothing on earth nobler than a good priest, nothing -more vile than an unworthy one. At the same time he held counsel with -his own mind as to the direction of his philosophical studies. The -example of St. Augustine, who, after he became a Christian, inclined -to the Platonics of the Christian era, decided him the more easily, -because it confirmed the direction of his whole previous life. When -he became aware how Platonism recognises Christian dogma on account -of the analogies which the latter presents to its own doctrines, he -thanked God, and felt himself confirmed in his Christian faith. He -did not, however, long remain free from a suspicion of the divergence -which Platonism had caused in the mediæval development of Christian -teaching from the Aristotelian system, which was the standing-ground of -scholasticism, in its efforts to reconcile the faith of the Church with -the researches of reason. He had started from the view that religion -and philosophy are sisters. As true philosophy, he says, is the loving -study of truth and wisdom—as God alone is truth and wisdom—so true -philosophy is nothing but genuine religion, and genuine religion -nothing but true philosophy. Religion is innate in every man; every -religion is good, in so far as it turns to God, but Christianity is -the only true one, inspired by the divine power which dwelt in its -Founder. For himself, he declares he needs nothing but the teaching of -Christ. He would rather believe divine things than know human ones; for -divine faith is more secure than human knowledge, and what proceeds -from it is confirmed by true science. But there are spirits for whom -the authority of the divine law is not enough, and who require the -arguments of reason. Divine Providence has ordained that the teachings -of Platonism should agree in many things with those of Christianity, -in order to bring such spirits to Christ; for, as Augustine said, with -the exception of a few things the Platonists were Christians. As Plato -always connects religion with philosophy, and does not merely disclose -to us the principles and order of natural things, like Aristotle, -but teaches us our duty towards Him who orders all things by number, -measure, and weight; so he himself has no other object than to make -this intimate connection clear, so far as his weak powers permit. - -Any one who puts together his numerous remarks on Christianity, dogma, -and morality, although he may deem some of his views peculiar, cannot -reproach him with constructing a Christianity of his own. Though he -found such an agreement between Moses and Plato that he saw in the -latter only a Moses writing in the Attic tongue, and though he compared -the life of Socrates with the life of Jesus, yet he acknowledged in -the Socratic doctrines only a confirmation of the Christian, and -guarded himself against seeing in the Greek philosopher a shadow of -the Saviour, and from interpreting the Christian mysteries by Platonic -writings. Strange was the position of the thinkers of that time, placed -as they were between Christianity and the strongly-reviving influences -of heathen antiquity, and we should do them great injustice did we not -consider the spirit which governed the whole of that period. Giovanni -Pico della Mirandola believed he had found in the Cabala the foundation -of the faith and the explanation of the Christian mysteries; both he -and Marsilio held confidential evening discussions with learned Jewish -doctors on the divine inspiration of the Prophecies, and plunged deep -into both ancient and mediæval Hebrew lore. By a gradual enlightenment -of his mind, filled with the fantastic images of the later Platonism -and the half rationalistic mysticism founded on it, Pico came back -to the pure Christian faith, which finds in Holy Scripture a living -heavenly force whose wonderful power raises man to the height of divine -love. Marsilio Ficino’s mysticism, increased by his strong tendency to -astrology, assumed in more than one of his writings a colouring which -made his friends uneasy. In 1489 he was even accused of magic before -Pope Innocent VIII., but was cleared of the charge partly by his own -apology, partly by his friends, Francesco Soderini, Ermolao Barbaro, -and the archbishop Rinaldo Orsini, who was then at Rome. - -Marsilio Ficino always keeps in view the connection between -Christianity and philosophy, both in his speculations and in the -practical application of his principles and their corollaries. If we -are astonished at the fantastic flights which seem to lead him far away -from the course he had traced out for himself, we yet gain a clear -and comprehensive development of the aim of his whole teaching, the -attainment of the highest happiness by the individual as well as by -the community, the end for which God created us. In the harmony between -the spirit of government and the divine law, whence the written law is -derived, he recognises the essential element of general well-being. -As regards forms of government, he decides that many are good, if -rightly administered—aristocracy, if its limits are not too narrow; -democracy, if it produces respect for law. Mob rule is a polypus, -all limbs and no head; tyranny has no legal ground and no legitimate -limits. Monarchy would be preferable, if it could be maintained -according to Plato’s ideal, by power and wisdom united. But the true -end of all forms of government and civil constitutions, both in theory -and practice, can be reached neither by the few nor by the many, but -only by the co-operation of the united forces of the human race, by -the maintaining and enforcing of uniform laws by a ruler who is raised -above all enmity, ambition, and envy, because he is acknowledged and -loved by all. The Christian Platonist, who lived to see the beginning -of the new era, the dawn of which had been heralded by the school to -which he attached himself, arrived at the summit of his philosophical -and political speculations exactly at the same standpoint which the -greatest poet of the middle ages had reached more than a century and -a half before him, amid the conflict of parties in the State. Wide as -was the difference between their positions and experiences of life, and -between the civil and political conditions both of their own immediate -home and of a large part of Italy, this is a remarkable circumstance, -which explains the interest felt by Marsilio Ficino in that book, -so diversely judged, in which Dante Alighieri developes his theory -of monarchy—a work well-nigh forgotten, despised by the learned on -account of its style, and sealed to the generality, till the Platonist -of the Medicean times made it accessible to his contemporaries by a -translation. - -Numerous works were composed by Marsilio Ficino, who occupied himself -not only with philosophy but with theology, medicine, and music, and -was wont to say that they belonged to each other like body, soul, -and spirit in nature. His book on Christian doctrine, begun after -his entrance into the priesthood, seems to have been finished in -the beginning of 1475, and appeared in the following year, with a -declaration that the author submitted himself in all things to the -judgment of the Church. He presented his work to Lorenzo de’ Medici. -Rather more than two years later he seems to have finished his -translation of Plato’s works from the manuscripts given him by Cosimo -and by Amerigo Benci. These he submitted to the revision of Demetrius -Chalcondylas, Antonio Vespucci, and Giovan Battista Buoninsegni, and -also sought advice from Angelo Poliziano, Landino and Bartolommeo -Scala. Filippo Valori bore the expenses of the printing, which seems -to have been completed at the end of 1482—a proof how men of high -Florentine families assumed the character of Mæcenas. Meanwhile, -the industrious writer had concluded his great work on the Platonic -doctrine of immortality (‘Theologia Platonica de immortalitate -animarum’), which came out at the same time with the translation of -the writings on which it was founded. The Laurentian library possesses -the parchment manuscript which was given to Lorenzo. It contains ideas -new and old blended together, and comprising the philosophic system of -its author and the defence of the supernatural against Materialism and -Pantheism, which at that time numbered many disciples, in opposition to -the Platonic school. The scientific value of this work, in which the -doctrines of Plato and the teachings of his most dissimilar scholars -in ancient and modern times are not easy to distinguish, must rest -on its own merits, as must the validity of Lorenzo’s remark that the -Materialists, for whom there is no life in the next world, are already -dead in this. But we cannot deny the importance of Ficino’s great work -in the history of civilisation, nor question its beneficial influence -on the time. - -Then followed a series of smaller writings on separate questions of -philosophy, translations connected with them, and a life of Plato. -Cosimo de’ Medici wished to see the works of Plotinus translated -by Ficino, an undertaking to which the latter only devoted himself -long after the death of its originator, and to which he was chiefly -encouraged by Pico della Mirandola. According to his own words, he -recognised in this new task a leading of Providence. As the Latin -nations had learned to know Plato, the collector of the traditions -of religious philosophy, so they should also learn to know Plotinus, -who first drew forth from darkness the theology of the ancients and -searched into its mysteries. This work was finished in 1486, and a -detailed commentary on it in the summer of 1491. Lorenzo had undertaken -to defray the cost of printing, and promised to do the same for a new -edition of Plato’s works, the former one being inadequate. But the -printing was only completed a month after the death of the generous -patron—‘magnifico sumptu Laurentii patriæ servatoris.’ After this came -a translation of the mystic theology of the writer calling himself -Dionysius the Areopagite. Lorenzo Valla, who surpassed most of his -contemporaries in keenness of criticism and knowledge of antiquity, -had already raised a doubt as to its genuineness, as had also other -writers. But this work, perhaps that of a Platonist of the fifth -century, fitted in with Marsilio’s system too well not to be accepted -by him as valid testimony; another example showing how, like the -Alexandrian school, these later disciples wandered from their original -models without knowing or intending it; with this difference, that the -Neoplatonism of old ran in sharp contradiction to Christianity, while -that of more modern times aimed at a union with it. - -The philosophic ‘Macrobioticon,’ an original work, was finished in -1490, and dedicated to Lorenzo de’ Medici and King Matthias Corvinus. -Far more interest attaches to Marsilio’s correspondence, which -embraces the twenty years between 1474 and 1494—the only product of -his literary activity that has a real value at the present time. In -these letters his opinions and motives are mirrored with life-like -originality, and they afford much information as to his life, his -occupations, his social relations, and his friends. The twelve books -(which he, following the example of many contemporaries, arranged -himself, because apocryphal writings were in circulation) are all -dedicated to men of high position or friends of the author: Giuliano -de’ Medici, Federigo of Montefeltro, Matthias Corvinus, Bernardo Bembo, -Filippo and Niccolò Valori, and others. - -Marsilio’s extraordinary literary activity, the more astonishing in a -man of delicate health, did not interfere with the performance of his -duties as a priest or as a secular teacher. He preached often, not -only in his own parish church at Nevoli, but also in Florence, at the -church of the Angeli and in the cathedral. His personal relations, -to which his correspondence bears witness, were very numerous. Paol’ -Antonio Soderini, Giovanni Cavalcanti, Carlo Marsuppini the younger, -Piero and Giovanni Guicciardini, Bernardo Canigiani, Bernardo Dovizj -of Bibiena, afterwards cardinal; Lorenzo’s nephew Cosimo de’ Pazzi, -Bernardo Rucellai, Pier Filippo Pandolfini, Francesco Sassetti, Ugolini -Verini, and many others, were his pupils and remained attached to him; -while from Leon Battista Alberti and Cristoforo Landino downwards, all -the learned men whom Florence or Italy possessed were in communication -with him. At an important moment of his life he called three of these, -namely, Piero Soderini (afterwards Gonfaloniere for life), Piero -del Nero, and Piero Guicciardini, his three brothers in the search -after truth; and on March 6, 1482, he stood sponsor to Guicciardini’s -son, afterwards the famous statesman and historian. Foreign lands as -well as Italy sent their sons to hear his lectures, and more than -one of these foreigners remained gratefully attached to him. Among -others he became acquainted with several Germans; Johannes Reuchlin -and Ludwig Wergenhans (Nauclerus), provost of Stuttgart, who with -Gabriel Biel, professor of scholastic philosophy at Tübingen, and the -learned theologian Peter Jacobi, of Arlon in Luxemburg, accompanied -Count Eberhard of Würtemberg when in the spring of 1482 he undertook -the expedition to Rome, which will be mentioned hereafter. Marsilio -maintained the most intimate personal relations with Martin Preninger, -chancellor of the bishopric of Constance, and afterwards professor of -canon law at Tübingen. This man was twice in Italy in the year 1492 -on business of Eberhard’s, and his correspondence with Marsilio bears -witness to a friendship and agreement of opinions rare to meet with. -Marsilio was wont to say that he possessed two friends, one in Germany, -the other in Italy, who represented the alliance between philosophy -and jurisprudence, namely, Martinus Uranius (Preninger’s literary -name) and Giovan Vittorio Soderini. He had Greek manuscripts copied -for his Swabian friend, and kept him informed of what was going on in -the field of science, as well as of what he was doing himself. Another -of his German correspondents was Georg Herwart of Augsburg, who made -his acquaintance in Florence; Reuchlin’s younger brother Dionysius -and Johann Strehler of Ulm also received introductions to him, when -being sent by the Count of Würtemberg to study in Italy they enjoyed -the notice of Lorenzo de’ Medici and were received into the house of -Giorgio Antonio Vespucci. Numerous princes, temporal and spiritual, -beginning with Matthias Corvinus, who tried vainly to attract him -to Ofen like Argyropulos, were in regular correspondence with him, -asked his advice on points of theology and philosophy, and sought his -criticism on various works. - -Amid all these unsought testimonies of honour and confidence, Marsilio -Ficino remained simple, unpretending, easily satisfied. His delicate -health compelled him to lead a quiet life, and suffices to explain the -melancholy humour that often stole over him when alone. Yet in company -which he liked, and which afforded food for his mind in unrestrained -intercourse, he was cheerful and sympathetic. His musical talents, -bringing change and refreshment from serious studies, helped to season -his conversation. With his plectrum, an instrument which he himself -perfected, he resembled the poet-sages of the mythic age. He was -seldom absent from Platonic banquets, and had been an habitual guest -of Lorenzo’s grandfather when the latter invited learned men to his -house. He loved a country life above all things, and passed a great -part of his time on the little estate of Montevecchio. In later years -he often went to see Pico della Mirandola and Poliziano, when they -were staying in his neighbourhood—the one at Querceto, the other at -Fiesole; and still oftener to Lorenzo, when he was living at Careggi. -He was received as a welcome guest at the villas of Valori, Canigiani, -Cavalcanti, and others. At Montevecchio he instituted a peculiar yearly -festival. On SS. Cosmo and Damian’s day he assembled the old tenants -(‘coloni’) of his first and greatest patron and entertained them with -music and singing. His independence of mind was in no way diminished -by intercourse with those who, through birth or a successful career, -held a higher position in life. He once wrote thus to Lorenzo de’ -Medici, whose fondness for pleasure in his earlier, perhaps also in -his later days, appeared to Ficino excessive, and caused him anxiety: -‘In the name of the eternal God I intreat thee, my dearest Prince, to -economise every moment of this brief life, lest there come over thee -vain remorse for dissipation and irreparable harm. The consciousness of -lost time drew deep sighs from the great Cosimo in my presence, when he -had reached the age of seventy. Trifling occupations and empty pastimes -rob thee of thy true self; they make thee a slave, who art born to be -a ruler. Free thyself while thou canst from this miserable servitude; -only to-day canst thou do so, for only to-day is thine own; to-morrow -it will be too late.’ - -When the young Raffaelle Riario was made a cardinal, he addressed to -him warnings and counsels similar to those given in a like case, -fourteen years later, by Lorenzo to his son, who was departing for -Rome. He reminded him that, since he owed his high rank not to his own -merits, he was the more bound to justify by his manner of life the -preference bestowed on him. His memorable appeal to Pope Sixtus IV. -during the war of 1478[6] shows how he could combine outspokenness with -reverence for the head of the Church, which the Bishop of Arezzo, a far -higher dignitary than he, and Francesco Filelfo made light of. His was -the frankness of a lover of truth whose soul was filled with grief for -the evils which had befallen the flock, and no less for the blots which -in an unhappily complicated affair had fallen on the reputation of a -supreme pastor who ought to be revered for his wisdom and goodness. - -Like a true philosopher, Marsilio Ficino never strove after outward -splendour. His income was most modest. Besides his little farm, he -received from Lorenzo two benefices of which the revenue was small, -as he was obliged to entrust them to curates, but which would have -sufficed for his modest requirements had he not been besieged in his -later years by a swarm of needy relatives. Without the aid of rich -friends, the publication of his works would have been impossible. Amid -the restlessness and discontent of the learned men of his time, who -were rushing breathlessly after wealth and honours; amid the greediness -for ecclesiastical benefices, even among those who were not priests -like himself, Marsilio Ficino, contented and devoted to science, is a -fine example of the realisation of those philosophic doctrines which in -the case of so many were only spiritual luxuries or a means of making -money. It is this that gives interest to his character and work, though -his writings have lost their value except in their connection with the -history of learning. Lorenzo’s attachment to him remained unchanged -till his last hour; it shows itself in his poems as vividly as in his -letters. ‘Write to me,’ he says in a letter addressed to him from -Pisa, about 1473,[7] ‘whatever occurs to your mind, for nothing ever -comes from you that is not good; you never have an unworthy thought, -so that you can never write me anything that will not be useful or -agreeable. What makes me long for your letters is that in them you -combine elegance of expression with solidity of contents, so that in -both respects they leave nothing to be desired.’ And in the philosophic -poem mentioned above, on the independence of happiness from outward -position, he thus describes Marsilio’s appearance, with a touch of the -warm feeling that inspired Dante on meeting his master Brunetto, at the -sight of the ‘dear, good, fatherly face:’ - - Marsilio is this, of Montevecchio, - Whom heaven has filled with its own special grace, - That to the world its mirror he may be? - This is that faithful follower of the Muses, - In whom are grace and wisdom aye united, - And never separated one from other; - From us and all worthy of highest honour.[8] - -Cristoforo Landino stands far below Marsilio Ficino in scientific -importance. But both as a professor and in the learned circle of the -Medici he held a peculiar position; and by one of his literary works -he opened out a path which hundreds trod after him without taking away -the relative value of his labours. His life was not like that of his -contemporary and friend, dedicated solely to literature. As Chancellor -of the Magistracy of the Guelphic party, and one of the secretaries -of the Republic, he was concerned in public affairs till a late period -of his life.[9] During the lifetime of Pope Eugene IV. he passed some -time in Rome, and studied those antiquities the decay of which made a -painful impression on him, as on other Florentines of his time. But -when complaining, like others, that the travertine of the amphitheatre -is broken up and burnt for chalk, and that the antique sculptures lie -about mutilated, he exaggerates strangely when he says:[10] - - Though round the mighty city thy gaze contemplative wanders, - Vainly around does it look for monuments vanished and gone. - -In January, 1458, he accepted the professorship of eloquence and poetry -at the University, and gathered round him a continually renewed circle -of hearers, his influence being equalled by that of no contemporary -save Ficino. In 1460 he began to lecture on the Italian poems of -Petrarca, being desirous to stem the tide of contempt for the vulgar -tongue which still existed in learned circles. Though in this respect -he deserves all praise, yet his remarks on contemporaries, on Bruni, -Alberti, Palmieri, show how he was himself still prejudiced in his view -of the philological treatment of the language. His labours in the field -of classical philology have no great weight. He wrote a commentary -on Horace and one on Virgil, the former of which he dedicated to -Guidobaldo of Montefeltro, and the latter to the young Piero de’ -Medici. He also translated Pliny’s ‘Natural History,’ and undertook -translations of modern Italian works, such as Giovanni Simonetta’s -Latin ‘History of Francesco Sforza,’ which was published at Milan -in 1490. He composed a letter-writer and a formulary for speeches, -which was printed two years later, with a dedication to Duke Ercole -d’Este. But the true centre of his activity and its importance lies -elsewhere—in his relation to and share in that intellectual movement -amid which the Medici lived, and in his position as a leader of the -revival of the study of Dante. In illustration of the first point, his -‘Disputationes Camaldulenses,’ which belong to the history of Lorenzo’s -youth, deserve especial consideration. - -Amidst the fir and beech woods which still cover the Casentino hills, -where they rise towards the Apennines, lies the convent which gave -its name to the order of St. Romuald. For nearly a thousand years -countless pilgrims and travellers have rested within the hospitable -walls of Camaldoli, which now seem threatened with abandonment and -desolation. The Medici had long kept up intimate relations with the -Order. Cosimo and his brother were frequent visitors to the monastery -of the Angeli; and here, in the mother-convent of the Casentino, -Madonna Contessina had built a chapel to the Baptist. The connection -lasted long. Lorenzo’s son Giovanni dedicated some peaceful days in -his youth to contemplation and prayer here, as did many before and -after him who sat on the chair of St. Peter or were reckoned by the -Church among her saints—Gregory IX., Eugene IV., Paul III., Francis -of Assisi, and Charles Borromeo. More than four centuries ago, there -assembled here a select society composed of elements the most diverse -and yet congenial. Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici came to exchange the -noise and glare of the city for the delicious freshness and solitude -of the woods. Piero and Donato Acciaiuoli, Alamanno Rinuccini, whose -youthful studies had been directed by Poggio Bracciolini, and who had -been one of the best pupils of Argyropulos, Marco Parenti, and Antonio -Canigiani, accompanied the youths. Cristoforo Landino and his brother -Piero came up from their home in the valley to the cooler height of the -convent, where they also met Leon Battista Alberti and Ficino. Thus -many of the most eminent men of the Medicean circle assembled round -Lorenzo and Giuliano, who, notwithstanding their youth, were already -accustomed to take part in serious discourse. The abbot, Mariotto -Allegri, as host, was the centre of the circle; but it was Alberti who, -with his many-sided knowledge and easy command of it, gave the tone to -the evening’s discourse. - -On the following morning, after the whole company had assisted at -mass in the church of the convent, they all moved along the pleasant -woodland path leading to the summit of the mountain ridge, past the -little group of dwellings and gardens, the place where, according to -the legend, the saint had a dream which led him to change his black -Benedictine robe for the white one which continued to be worn at -Camaldoli, as it is represented in Andrea Sacchi’s fine picture at the -Vatican. We know not whether the travellers reached the neighbouring -mountain ridge, the watershed of Italy, whence the eye looks down -on Romagna and takes in the wide sweep of the far-off Adriatic. The -narrator makes the company halt on the height near a spring, under the -shelter of a mighty beech; a tree which, defying the mountain storms, -overtops all other trees on the Apennines, whose brow it adorns here -in the midst of fine pasture lands. Here Leon Battista, again taking -the lead in the conversation, dilated on the good effects of retirement -and meditation on the mind of the statesman and the scholar, and showed -that only when the mind is set free from contact with the individual -does it become capable of embracing the whole. Then turning to the -two young men the speaker reminded them that their father’s failing -health would probably soon call them to the guidance of state affairs, -which, he said, were already in some degree entrusted to their care. -After a somewhat extravagant eulogium of Lorenzo’s qualities, his -courage, prudence, and moderation, Alberti continued to set forth how, -notwithstanding such qualities and the moderate bearing he had hitherto -displayed, quiet meditation or discourse held with a confidential -circle on the deepest questions of human nature could not but be -beneficial to the community. When the learned man thus adopted the -Platonic principle, according to which complete abstinence from worldly -pursuits brings our nature most surely to perfection, it would not -have been difficult for Lorenzo, who was already well acquainted with -this doctrine, to show that a man who practically applied and followed -this principle must necessarily be brought into contradiction with his -duties as a citizen; whereas the two phases of our nature—the active -and the contemplative life—not divided, but united and balancing each -other, lead to the true fulfilment of the purpose of existence. - -From the objection put into the mouth of the young man and directed -against Landino’s own teaching, as well as from the praises bestowed -on Lorenzo’s conduct, it is clear that the date of the conversation -is shortly before the death of Piero de’ Medici, when the Pitti -transactions had given evidence of the prudence and talents of his -son. The visit to Camaldoli may have taken place earlier, but the -‘disputations,’ which are the actual conversations expanded and -embellished, were certainly not composed before 1470. In the discourses -of the three following days Alberti again took the lead, and expounded -the connection of the ‘Æneid’ with Platonic philosophy. What is here -said of the character of Virgil’s poetry, of the ancient wisdom -therein, which has become common property, of the poet’s knowledge -and reverence for antiquity, of the relation between the poetical -garniture and the more solid contents of the work, was probably drawn -from Landino’s own Virgilian studies, for the author of the book speaks -through the mouths of those to whom he attributes the conversations -held in the woods of Camaldoli. He dedicated his work to Federigo -of Montefeltro. If, as it seems, this dedication to the valiant and -accomplished prince of Urbino was made in 1472, the book has a certain -connection with the sad occurrences at Volterra, in which Lorenzo -de’ Medici’s action belied only too strongly the Platonic theory of -wisdom.[11] - -If Cristoforo Landino is ever mentioned nowadays, it is only on -account of his studies of Dante, which constitute his only value in -the eyes of posterity. The study of the ‘Divine Comedy’ went through -the most varied phases in Florence as elsewhere. On the petition of -divers citizens (see above, vol. i. p. 80) in 1373, fifty-two years -after Dante’s death, the Republic decreed the establishment of public -lectures on his great poem.[12] On Sunday, October 3, in the church of -Sto. Stefano, Giovanni Boccaccio began the lectures, the interruption -of which by his death shortly after was lamented by Francesco -Sacchetti. Messer Antonio, priest of Vado, and Filippo Villani -succeeded him. A mass of commentaries were composed almost immediately -after the poet’s own time, partly by his own friends. Numerous copies -of the poem were in circulation; that which was formerly in the library -of the convent of Sta. Croce, and is now in the Laurentiana, was -attributed to Filippo Villani. Most of these copies were faulty. ‘I am -trying,’ wrote Coluccio Salutati to Niccolò of Todi, at the beginning -of the fifteenth century,[13] ‘to get a correct copy of the work of our -divine Dante. Believe me, we possess nothing more sublime than these -three poems, nothing more richly adorned, nothing more carefully worked -out, nothing which penetrates further into the depths of knowledge. -What only comes to others in part this one man has mastered as a whole. -His moral precepts are sublime; he throws light on natural history and -theology, and his masterly handling of language and rhetoric is such -that it would be difficult to find equal beauty of style even in the -greatest writers. With him the laws, manners, tongues, the history of -all nations, shine like stars in the firmament with such majesty that -no one can equal him in this respect, far less surpass him. Wherefore -do I say all this? That my eagerness to obtain a correct text may cause -thee less astonishment.’ - -This enthusiasm for Dante—an enthusiasm which one cannot but feel -was less for the poet than for the man who had mastered more than -any other all the learning of his time—was, however, by no means -shared by all the learned men of the fifteenth century, whose -threshold Coluccio barely crossed. Niccolò Niccoli, by his attacks -on his great countryman, exposed himself to obloquy from which he -never recovered; though it must not be forgotten that the words in -which Niccoli calls Dante’s book reading for cobblers and bakers are -only found in a writing of Leonardo Bruni, who was just as excitable -as Niccoli himself. Niccoli’s rage seems to have been especially -excited by the unclassical Latin in Dante’s letters; but the reproach -which he brings against Dante, that he knew nothing of classical -literature, and drew all his information from monkish compendiums—a -reproach which, strangely enough, he also applies to Petrarca and -Boccaccio[14]—resembles other tokens of the pride of the humanistic -school too strongly to be seriously examined. The lecture given at -the end of 1430 by Francesco Filelfo against the censurers of Dante, -and the controversial treatise composed for the same object by Cino -Rinuccini, father of Alamanno, are sufficiently clear proofs how false -was the judgment of many. Filelfo himself declared, more than forty -years later, that he undertook the public exposition of the ‘Divine -Comedy’ of his own accord, and in deference to a general wish.[15] -About the close of the fourteenth century Filippo Villani wrote a -short life of Dante; a longer biography came out in 1436 written by -Leonardo Bruni; twenty years later he was followed by Gianozzo Manetti. -Not long after the latter, Gian Maria Filelfo, Francesco’s son, who had -many opportunities of acquiring information from the poet’s descendants -living in Verona, wrote a new biography which he dedicated to Pietro -Alighieri, and which the latter sent, at the end of 1467, to Piero de’ -Medici and Tommaso Soderini.[16] The erection in Sta. Maria del Fiore -of a monument in the shape of the poet’s statue was decreed in 1465. -Ten years later, the picture painted by Domenico di Michelino was -placed in the north aisle of the church.[17] In literature the great -poet’s countrymen had wandered far away from the path which he had -pointed out; but they guarded his memory faithfully, and the beautiful -manuscripts which appeared about the middle of the fifteenth century, -shortly before the introduction of printing, prove how much his work -was held in honour. - -In 1472 a German named Johann Numeister (Neumeister), and a native -of Fuligno, printed the ‘Divine Comedy’ for the first time in that -Umbrian city.[18] Other impressions at Mantua, Jesi, and other -places were followed in 1477 by the first edition at Venice, with a -commentary of the fourteenth century. At last, after Florence had -allowed nine editions to take precedence of her, the first Florentine -edition appeared in the summer of 1481, with the glosses of Cristoforo -Landino. A Silesian named Nicolaus (Niccolò di Lorenzo della Magna) -had the honour of presenting to the poet’s native city the text of his -work, accompanied by the commentary in smaller type, in a form highly -creditable to his still youthful art. The Magliabecchian library -possesses the copy, printed on parchment, which Landino presented to -the Signoria, with a speech which also appeared in print.[19] Rich -miniatures at the beginning, arabesque borders, a medallion portrait -of Dante, and on the binding, striped with the Florentine colours, red -and white, niello-work representing the lion and Hercules, the seal of -the commonwealth, with the lily-shield and that of the red cross, show -with what pretensions this edition came forth. By a decree of somewhat -tardy justice the Republic reinstated the exile of 1301 in his civil -rights and honours, and placed his statue, crowned with laurel, in the -baptistery of San Giovanni. In a Latin address Ficino set forth the -rejoicings of Florence at the restoration of his honour by the hands -of one of his fellow-citizens; and Benivieni celebrated in harmonious -terza rima the fulfilment of the prophecy in which the exile predicted -his future fame, and his ultimate return to his ungrateful city: - - With other voice forthwith, with other fleece, - Poet will I return, and at my font - Baptismal will I take the laurel crown.[20] - -The Signoria showed itself grateful to Landino. It gave him a tower on -the ramparts of Borgo alia Collina, where he dwelt, and its possession -was confirmed to his descendants in 1563 by a sentence of the supreme -civil court of Florence, the Rota, when the magistrates of the Parte -Guelfa claimed it as public property. His work is not remarkable for -critical thoroughness and correctness, but for the commentary, which -had great influence on opinion at the time and long afterwards. Six if -not seven reissues in different places before the end of the century -show with what approval this edition was received. It encountered -formidable rivals, with respect to the text, in 1502, in the first -Aldine, and with respect to the commentary in 1544, in Alessandro -Vellutello’s work, which was soon followed by others; yet it retains -some value even now. While Landino was earning well-deserved fame -by this fruit of diligent study, the lectures in the cathedral on -the ‘Divine Comedy’ were entrusted, in 1483, to the preaching friar -Domenico da Corella, who had taken part in the council, and dedicated -his Latin poem on the life of the Virgin Theotokon to Piero de’ Medici -in 1468. Marsilio Ficino had long previously turned his attention to -Dante when he dedicated his translation of the ‘De Monarchia’ in 1467 -to his friends Bernardo del Nero and Antonio Manetti. The latter, who -occupied himself much with copying old codices, is remembered among -students of Dante by his dialogue (between himself and Benivieni) on -the position, form, and extent of hell. Marsilio’s dedication states -that he had held much discourse with the two men named on the questions -raised by this political treatise, and that they were thereby led to -discuss the ‘Divina Commedia.’ As Dante treated in his poem of the -kingdom of the blessed, of the regions of the wretched, and of the -place where departed souls abide waiting for redemption, so in his book -on monarchy he treated of the realms of those who are still waiting -and hoping in this world. The perception, imperfect though it be, of -the spiritual connection between the great poem and its author’s other -works, shows a progress in the appreciation of Dante remarkable at the -time, and to this Cristoforo Landino had practically contributed. - -Lorenzo’s great interest in the most sublime poet of the middle ages is -shown both by testimonies in his own writings and by a letter written -to him, April 13, 1476, by the above-named Antonio Manetti, then -governor of the small town of San Giovanni, in the Val d’Arno. This -letter[21] shows that Lorenzo had come to an understanding with the -Venetian ambassador, Bernardo Bembo, for the purpose of soliciting from -the senate of that Republic the return of Dante’s mortal remains from -Ravenna to Florence. ‘Magnificent Lord,’—thus the letter begins—‘I am -told that the Venetian ambassador has returned home. Remembering what -you once told me, as we returned from visiting him shortly after Matteo -Palmieri’s funeral, when we were near the house of Antonio Pucci, I -wish you would bring that matter to a conclusion. I know not what -greater pleasure I could have in my life than to witness the return of -those remains which the magnificent ambassador promised to obtain when -he went back to his own country; the more so as I am sure that, with -your greatness and magnanimity, you will do whatever is in your power -to give to the remains of such a man the reception they deserve, as to -sepulture and crown. Great acts are for the magnanimous; but what could -be greater than this? I commend myself to your Magnificence. May the -Lord be with you.’ - -Twice already, in 1396 and 1426, when the Polenta family, which had -offered hospitality to the exiled poet, was still reigning at Ravenna, -the Florentines had tried to get back his remains. But both times they -failed; and they had no better luck in 1476, nor again under the reign -of Leo X., when Michael Angelo offered to raise the monument to his -great countryman, whom he resembled in more respects than one. Seven -years after the date of Antonio Manetti’s letter, Bernardo Bembo, when -Podestà at Ravenna, caused Dante’s sepulchre to be restored. He had -been too rash in the promise given to Lorenzo de’ Medici, but he did -all that lay in his power to honour the memory of the father of Italian -poetry. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII. - -LUIGI PULCI AND ANGELO POLIZIANO. - - -AN influence hardly less important than that of the philosophers and -grammarians was exercised on Lorenzo and his epoch by the literary -innovators who, with some infusion of classic learning, were not so -pedantic as the early humanists, while they bore the impress of the -teaching of the preceding century. The Medici were to these men of -letters, just as much as they were to the philosophers, the centre to -which their several rays converged, and Lorenzo’s name is inseparable -from the names of several among them. One in this brilliant circle -holds a different position from the rest. He took as a poet the part -which Landino took as a critic in the revival of the study of Dante. -Matteo Palmieri holds a place by himself. The first glance into his -great poem, the ‘City of Life,’ (‘Città di Vita’) shows it to be an -imitation of the ‘Divine Comedy;’ but only in the outward form. It is -a philosophical work, the object of which is to describe and correct -the problems and abuses of citizen life. It contains no real poetry, -but has the merit of popularising the doctrines of moral philosophy in -language somewhat lifeless, indeed, yet expressive, comparatively pure, -and free from the philological follies of the age. The book became -known only within a narrow circle. Theological criticism discovered in -it the heretical doctrine of the transmigration of souls, which indeed -Alamanno Rinuccini avowed without scruple in his funeral oration on -the poet, and the work was suppressed. In later years the author wrote -an unfinished history of the world, and a life of the grand seneschal -Nicola Acciaiuolo. He had been a pupil of Traversari and Marsuppini, -had held important offices of state, and after fulfilling several -embassies with honour, died at a ripe age in 1475.[22] - -While this faint echo of Dante was addressing itself to the higher -classes, and proving how large was the retrogression from the beginning -of the fourteenth to the middle of the fifteenth century, the popular -poetry, of which the religious side has been already noticed, began to -sound a natural strain in a lighter style. Burlesque, which belonged -to the character of the people, was allowed considerable play. The -sonnets that came forth from the barber’s shop of Domenico, called -‘Burchiello,’ in the very heart of old Florence, the Calimala, and -the market, enjoy a reputation that must be taken on trust. They were -chiefly experiments in the Florentine vulgar tongue—full of allusions -and trivialities; but occasionally they take a flight which may serve -to throw light on social and political matters, if all the writings -attributed to this man, who died at Rome in 1448, are really by him. -Another burlesque poet, Matteo Franco, whom we shall meet again, -belonged to Lorenzo de’ Medici’s household, and used to hold with other -poets, particularly with Luigi Pulci, satirical and not always very -seemly sham-fights as a social pastime. But far more important for -this period was the rise of a new style which was destined to give to -the sixteenth century its special poetic character. Of the brothers -Pulci, scions of an old family somewhat reduced in circumstances, one, -Bernardo, tried his hand both as an original writer and a translator -of eclogues; the two others are among the cultivators of the poetry -of chivalry, which began its course as a branch of literature under -their auspices. Both Luca and Luigi belong to the immediate Medicean -circle. Luca Pulci, the eldest brother, born at Florence in 1431, is -commonly designated as the author of the poem on Lorenzo de’ Medici’s -tournament, which only retains a place in literature because it records -an event in the life of a celebrated man. But the assumption of this -authorship is by no means certain, for the first edition bears the name -of Luigi Pulci, whose literary fame it would not enhance. That Luca -was intimate with the young Medici is shown by the fact that at their -desire he began the poem ‘Ciriffo Calvaneo,’ which two generations -later was partially continued by Bernardo Giambullari for another -Lorenzo, grandson of the Magnificent. It is a poetical version of a -popular romance of chivalry, which in its Italian form bears the title -of the ‘Povero Avveduto,’ and relates the battles and adventures of the -time of King Louis d’Outre-mer of France, in 921-954.[23] Luca Pulci, -after some unlucky banking affairs at Rome and Florence, died in 1470, -in the debtors’ prison of the Stinche, and left to his brothers the -burden of a large family. He was, as we have said, the eldest of the -brothers; but it is probable that his ‘Ciriffo’ was preceded by Luigi’s -‘Morgante.’ We are led to assume this by the fact that Luigi chose a -far better subject.[24] His poem must have been written in and after -1460, and the cantos must have followed close upon each other. We learn -from the author himself that its original conception was due in part to -Lorenzo’s mother. In a letter addressed by him to Lorenzo from Fuligno, -December 4, 1470, he held out prospects of a new heroic poem.[25] That -a serious and pious woman like Madonna Lucrezia should be patroness -of a work more or less offensive in a religious point of view may be -matter of surprise. But after making allowance for the tendencies of -the time, which saw no harm in a mixture of religion and burlesque, -and, amid the strictest devotional practices, treated questions of -faith with incredible unceremoniousness, it must be remembered that -this lady was wont for the sake of genius to judge leniently many -things in literature and in life that were questionable. Thus she -remained a supporter of Angelo Poliziano after he had fallen into -disgrace with her daughter-in-law, and presented him with her religious -poems when the unfavourable rumours as to his faith and morals could be -no secret to her. But Luigi Pulci, the free-thinker and loose mocker, -who mixed up quotations from St. John’s Gospel with open expressions -of unbelief, found in her an active and zealous friend till her life’s -close. - -The ‘Morgante Maggiore’ was the beginning of the romantic epopee, -which successfully laid hold of the cycle of Carolingian legends that -had been rendered accessible to the Italian nation by the ‘Chronicle’ -of Turpin and the book of the ‘Reali di Francia.’ This choice of a -subject was all the happier because Florence attributed her restoration -to Charlemagne, as may be read carved in stone in the church of the -Apostles. The style of the work is original. Amid all its prodigies -the old knightly romance is serious and full of faith. Christianity -is always the foil to the chivalry which sprang from it, and which -is animated by its spirit. ‘Morgante’ (the story takes its name from -the giant who accomplishes his strange exploits) is not a satire on -chivalry, but it is so saturated with burlesque that it assumes a very -peculiar character. Neither is it a denial of Christianity, from which, -on the contrary, it derives here and there a deeply religious tone; -but it is Christianity struggling with scepticism and denial, so that -the faith of the Church and the people is driven into the background. -In this respect ‘Morgante’ is a true mirror of the time. With its -perfect command of the subject, bound down to no poetical rules or -precedents, it is a mixture of seriousness and irony, Christianity and -unbelief, Biblical texts and profane witticisms. It is full of the -most glaring contrasts of sound common-sense and folly, of elegance -and coarseness, of lofty intellectual flights and mere buffoonery. -There is in this poem more richness of imagination and spontaneity -than perhaps in any other work before the appearance of the ‘Orlando -Furioso;’ passages occur full of the deepest pathos, and showing a -feeling that belongs only to a real poet—passages too often followed -by a grotesqueness that tends to destroy their effect. The qualities -here united in very unequal degrees were developed and discriminated by -later poets. The importance of Luigi Pulci lies less in his poem, which -falls short of perfection in every way, than in the fact that his work -contains the germs of the romantic epopee in all its various branches. -In considering that the two parent poems of chivalry in Italian, the -‘Morgante’ and ‘Ciriffo,’ originated in the Medicean house, let it -be remembered how much this branch of poetry, up to the ‘Jerusalem -Delivered,’ with which it terminates, was connected with that Court -life which is so constantly represented in its varied productions. -From the household of Cosimo, Piero, and Lorenzo de’ Medici, who at -the highest pinnacle of their fame did not abandon the simplicity and -comfort of free citizen life, to the ceremonious Court of Alfonso of -Este, is certainly a very long step. Though the Pulci did not go so -far as to weave into their ottava rima a genealogy of their patrons -reaching back to demigods, still theirs was a kind of poetry destined -to enliven stately banquets. - -Luigi Pulci’s intimacy with Lorenzo is shown by his oft-quoted letters, -which throw some side-lights on the various relations between patron -and client, and on the commissions, rather political than literary, -entrusted to the latter. The author of ‘Morgante’ was sincerely -attached to his young patron. When the latter was going to Southern -Italy in 1466, before the Neroni and Pitti conspiracy, Pulci wrote to -him from the convent of Alverina:[26] ‘Dost thou really mean to leave -me buried in the snow among these woods, lonely and comfortless, while -thou goest to Rome? Is it really my fate that, whatever thou mayest -think of me, as the climax of my ill-luck, I must never mount a horse -by thy side? Am I to come to that only when I am an old man? How often -have we talked about Rome, and now shall I not accompany thee?—can it -be because I should increase the expenses of the journey? Let not that -trouble thee; amid all my troubles I will yet do thee credit. A horse -is all I ask of thee; for I shall find so many friends yonder, and -will manage so well, that I will not be a burthen to thee, as perhaps -thou fearest. Truly thou art wrong to pass me by, not to mention that -it would hurt me more than anything in this world. Do not treat me as -if I were old iron, for I shall soon be well if thou carest for me.’ -And Lorenzo really did care for him. Two years later Pulci wrote to -him from Pisa: ‘If thou dost not wish people to believe or know that -I am thy friend, and have some influence with thee, placard it on the -walls—at thine own expense, of course; as for some time past having -had no money to pay away, I have been paying with thy name instead. -Wherever I show myself people whisper, “That is Lorenzo’s great -friend.”’ That Pulci’s money matters were not in brilliant order we -have already seen. His brother’s business misfortunes brought him into -great difficulties. ‘Never yet have I made a plan,’ he wrote to Lorenzo -after Luca’s failure, ‘that Fate did not destroy in an hour what I had -taken a year to build up. I must have come into the world like hares -and other poor animals, doomed to be the prey of the huntsman. It is -my fate to love thee, and to be very little in thy company.’ That the -Medicean bank helped him out, but that the loans were very unimportant -and notorious besides, we learn from a petition dated from his estate -at Mugello, May 14, 1479, to the effect that Lorenzo would grant him -a longer delay for the repayment of a hundred gold florins. He was -evidently included in the measures which were rendered necessary by -the bad state of the Medicean finances at that time. Pulci, who among -others was very intimate with the Sanseverini, seems to have been -employed by Lorenzo especially at Naples, Bologna, and Milan, both -before and after this period. The last of the poet’s letters known to -us, written from Verona, August 28, 1484, shows him to us in the suite -of Roberto da Sanseverino and his son Fracasso, who were on their way -to Venice. He died in Padua shortly after, but nothing is known about -his death.[27] - -Luigi Pulci was about seventeen years older than his princely friend -Lorenzo de’ Medici, while the man who entered into the closest and -most productive intellectual relations with Lorenzo was a few years -his junior. In 1464 a boy of ten came to Florence to seek maintenance -and instruction in the house of some not very wealthy relatives. He -had been rendered fatherless by one of those tragedies which bring -to light and stigmatise the wild passions and party hatred that in -the Tuscan communes of the fifteenth century mocked at justice, and -which, though so fearful in punishment, was so powerless for the -protection of the citizens. Benedetto Ambrogini of Montepulciano, a -jurist of a not undistinguished family, who had held civil and judicial -offices at home and abroad, had in the previous year applied to Piero -de’ Medici[28] for protection against the bloodthirsty enmity of -fellow-citizens and neighbours, to which he soon after fell a victim, -leaving unprovided a widow with five children, of whom the above-named -boy was the eldest.[29] Angelo, who took from his birthplace the -name of Poliziano, early became acquainted with the serious side of -life; for although as a child he showed brilliant talents and made -rapid progress, he was in danger of being compelled to seek a living -as assistant in a shop, and of renouncing the studies to which he -was ardently devoted. At fifteen he expressed this tormenting dread -in a Latin poem addressed to the young but celebrated philologer, -Bartolommeo Fonte, who at that time assisted him with guidance and -encouragement.[30] In the year 1469-70 he studied at the Florentine -university, and at seventeen he wrote Greek epigrams. He had the -privilege of listening to the men who kept alive the traditions of -the university’s best days, Argyropulos and Andronikos Kallistos, -Landino and Ficino. That polite literature attracted him more than -philosophical lectures he declares himself, saying that he had done -with philosophy as dogs with the Nile: one drink, and then away! -‘Nature and youth drew me to Homer, and with all the zeal and industry -of which I was capable I set myself to translate him into Latin verse.’ -In one of the earliest, if not the very earliest, of his Latin poems, -the distichs addressed to Lorenzo de’ Medici in commendation of his -master Kallistos, he sets forth how the latter was reading the Trojan -war in Argive verse. In this poem he alludes to the time when he hopes -to sing the deeds of Lorenzo, then limited to youthful exercises, -and his adroit conduct in the matter of the Pitti conspiracy, which -Poliziano commemorates in a later elegy.[31] - -It must have been about 1470 that he began to translate the ‘Iliad.’ -Carlo Marsuppini had translated the first book; Angelo began with the -second. It was a great undertaking for a young man. A Latin Homer had -been the _in votis_ up to that time; and now the work was begun by -one who had but just entered the world and was still unknown, but who -displayed an ease and grace of diction, melodiousness and richness -of versification, that caused general surprise. This work and the -admiration it excited opened the Medicean house to the young poet. It -was probably Ficino who recommended the ‘Homeric youth’ to Lorenzo. -The young head of the house, who had only become independent the year -before, took him up; and whatever changes outward and inward occurred -in Lorenzo’s life, the man who owed his brilliant endowments to -Heaven, and their early and happy recognition to him kept faithful; -he stood beside his patron’s death-bed and ere long followed him to -the tomb. The dedication of the second book contains praises of the -generous protector—praises lavish according to custom, but not untrue -if the custom and the glory with which the young ruler of Florence -had surrounded himself be taken into consideration.[32] A troop of -panegyrists followed, Marsilio Ficino at their head. There was no lack -of exaggeration. The head of the Platonists raised a flattering doubt -whether any one could discover if the Greek or the Latin text of this -Iliad was the original; another asked who had the greatest merit, he -who had given occasion for the undertaking, or he who had accomplished -it. Meanwhile the translator went on with his work; and when, two years -after the completion of the second book, he presented the third to his -patron, he expressed a hope that after finishing the whole he might -begin an epic poem on a subject taken from Lorenzo’s own life, the -war of Volterra. The ‘Iliad’ was never finished, the epic was never -written. Lorenzo, who knew the world much better than did Angelo, -probably objected to the glorification of an expedition of questionable -prowess and of unquestionable barbarity. In like manner, when his son -Leo was raised to the cardinalate, he disapproved of the eulogium which -Poliziano addressed to the Pope. When Poliziano described the most -important and dramatic event of his patron’s life, the conspiracy of -the Pazzi, it was in prose. - -The man who had received the young poet into his house and enabled -him to give all his time to study was doubtless also the cause of -his sending a specimen of his work to Cardinal Ammanati, who kept up -such intimate relations with the Medici. Poliziano’s address to this -Prince of the Church[33] was modest. He wrote that he was doing like -the eagle, which carries its young as soon as they are out of the -shell into the light of the rising sun, that their eyes may become -accustomed to its splendour. The cardinal, in whom survived the -humanistic tradition of the days of Pius II., returns him phrase for -phrase without offending against truth. The verses were wonderfully -harmonious for so young a writer; the enterprise was useful as an -introduction to great things. But if Homer could be asked whether he -wished to be turned into Latin, he feared that the old poet, feeling -the impossibility of a perfect rendering, would prefer to remain a -citizen of Kolophon rather than become a Florentine, and would consider -the pallium a more suitable vesture than the toga. In 1473, our poet -had addressed some verses full of sonorous but very ordinary flattery -to the spendthrift Cardinal of San Sisto, Pietro Riario, on the -occasion of his appointment to the archbishopric of Florence. Instead -of the expected present, he was put off with fine speeches, and, after -the fashion of poor poets, complained bitterly.[34] - -About this time, also, he was rewarded with nothing but words by -another cardinal, a very different man from Riario. He must have said -to himself that the days of Nicholas V. were over, although Sixtus IV. -hardly yielded to him in his zeal for collecting books. He never seems -to have become acquainted with the Pope, and the disagreement which -gradually arose between the latter and Poliziano’s protector deprived -him of all opportunity of doing so. Four books of the translation -of Homer are in existence;[35] whether the work proceeded further -is uncertain. It was twice interrupted, and the second interruption -decided its fate. Poliziano may, in the progress of his studies, have -come round to the views of the Cardinal of Pavia, and have doubted -whether a Latinity which strove after the elegance of the Augustan age -was suited to the old Greek epic. - -The first short interruption was a journey to Mantua with Cardinal -Francesco da Gonzaga, in August 1472. The intimate relations between -the Gonzaga and the Medici, which corresponded to those between the -Marquis Lodovico and the city of Florence, have been already spoken -of. Francesco took the youthful poet with him from the Medici house. -Poliziano, then aged eighteen, had already given proof of uncommon -talent on the occasion of a visit to his native city, where his -arrival was celebrated with brilliant festivities. Here originated -the drama of ‘Orpheus,’ which made an epoch in literature, less by -its actual merit than as the first example of a profane drama in the -Italian tongue. Mysteries had long been popular; the modern drama, -even when treating modern historical subjects, still more when, as in -the works of Alberti and Gregorio Correr, it was directly modelled on -the antique, had always adhered to the Latin language. In a letter to -one of the cardinal’s suite, Messer Carlo Canale (who was, it may be -mentioned, the second or third husband of the mother of Cesare and -Lucrezia Borgia), the author states that ‘Orpheus’ was composed in two -days, amid constant noisy distractions, and that it was written in the -vulgar tongue in order to be more intelligible to the hearers—‘an -imperfect work, fitted to bring its father shame rather than honour, -and worthy of the fate prepared by the Lacedæmonians for children born -weakly or crippled.’ This ‘favola’ is not a drama; it is a succession -of lyrical pieces, with an ode inserted in Latin Sapphics, in praise -of the cardinal, which Baccio Ugolini, another member of the Medicean -circle and of Landino’s school, sang to the lyre in the character of -‘Orpheus.’[36] - -The Mantuan journey was a short episode. Some smaller Latin poems, -including the beautiful and pathetic elegy on the death of Albiera -degli Albizzi, the charming bride of Sigismondo della Stufa, in 1473, -kept Poliziano in the same mood, and cannot fairly be considered as -interruptions to his Homeric work. A longer interruption was caused by -Giuliano de’ Medici’s tournament, which was a challenge to Angelo to -write the fairest flower in his poetic garland.[37] He himself alludes -to this interruption in the seventh stanza of the ‘Giostra:’ - - E se qual fu la fama, il ver rimbomba, - Che d’Hecuba la figlia, o sacro Achille, - Poi che ‘l corpo lasciasti entro la tomba, - T’accenda ancor d’amorose faville, - Lascia un poco tacer tua maggior tromba, - Ch’io fo squillar per l’italice ville. - E tempra tu la cetra a’ nuovi carmi, - Mentr’io canto l’amor di Giulio e l’armi. - -The subject in itself is poor. The author must have felt this, even -had he not been warned by Luca Pulci’s verses on the tournament of -Lorenzo. The ‘Stanzas’—the title by which Poliziano’s poem is best -known—are counted among the gems of Italian literature. They were the -first of the kind expressing real melody without artificiality, being -remarkable for their artistic flow and carefulness of composition. But -for a few harsh and ignoble expressions, they have never since been -surpassed in point of form, though Ariosto may have more variety and -freedom of movement, and Tasso more harmony. But how do these beautiful -stanzas of ottava rima treat their subject? In the first book it is -left altogether out of sight. The tournament gives place to mythology, -the Piazza Sta. Croce to the gardens and palace of Venus. All the -flowers and trees of the most highly-favoured climates, all animals of -the chase and the peaceful park, the whole of Olympus, are introduced; -reminiscences of all the classic poets from Lucretius to Claudian, even -to the Christian singers, wanderings of an exuberant fancy through the -realms of beauty and love,—all these combine and disport themselves in -such perfect freedom, that it matters not whether they have anything -to do with the subject or not. At the beginning of the second book -the poet seems at last to bethink himself that he intended to sing -the praises of a Medici. He therefore makes Cupid relate to Venus the -glories of the Tuscan race, and begins with the preparations for great -deeds which such vast mythological machinery demands. The youth is -awakened and armed, but not without assistance from Olympus. The poem -breaks off abruptly, and in its closing stanzas there gleams a sad -presentiment of the cruel fate which was so soon to put an end to a -life apparently destined to glory and happiness, and with it to a work -already highly valued as a fragment, and which gave the tone to the -poetry of the age just beginning. Who shall say whether it was not well -for the poem that it remained a fragment? for the disproportion between -the unimportance of the subject and the pomp of the treatment might -have come out too strikingly had it been continued. This poem, intended -to celebrate the acts of Giuliano, is addressed to his brother. The -dedicatory stanza speaks of Lorenzo without circumlocution as the ruler -of Florence: - - High-born Lorenzo, laurel[38] in whose shade - Thy Florence rests nor fears the lowering storm, - Nor threatening signs in heaven’s high front displayed, - Nor Jove’s dread anger in its fiercest form; - O to the trembling Muse afford thine aid— - The Muse that courts thee timorous and forlorn, - Lives in the shadow of thy prosperous tree, - And bounds her every fond desire to thee.[39] - -Angelo Poliziano continued to write Latin verses. His epigrams, odes, -and elegies are valuable both as conveying a knowledge of the persons -and tendencies of a memorable period, and as proofs of a versatility -and classical spirit to be found in none of his contemporaries and in -few subsequent writers. The philologers of the fifteenth century wrote -Latin verses with ease; but the only poet among them is Poliziano. -His works abound in imitations of all kinds, as do those of the later -Roman poets. But Poliziano feels, thinks, and writes like a Roman; if -not like a poet of the Augustan age, at least like one of the time -of Statius, whom he resembles in more ways than one, having written -‘Sylvæ’ like him. He is more classical than some of those who are -included in the ranks of the poets of antiquity. - -A peculiar grace, fulness of thought, and great variety, give to his -poems a charm not often found in modern Latin verses, which seldom -display a living individuality. To descriptions of modern life and -modern localities, whose very names seem unsuitable to a classic -sphere, he can give a native classical colouring, without any apparent -effort, yet with the most consummate art. Most remarkable among his -writings, by its grace and naturalness and an intermingling of joy and -sadness, is the elegy on a bunch of violets given him by a beloved -hand; a poem which, in the sixteenth century and in our own, has been -an object of study to the choice spirits who wish to acquire pure -classic inspiration in a modern form.[40] Poliziano here challenges a -comparison with Lorenzo de’ Medici, who treated the same subject in -two of his loveliest sonnets. The ‘Sylvæ,’ poems of Angelo’s later -years, from 1482 to 1486, added to his reputation, though in happy -turns of thought and warmth of feeling they are inferior to many of -his smaller pieces. They are four poems in heroic metre, prolusions -to his philological lectures at the Florence University, to a chair -in which he was appointed on December 23, 1485, the degree of Doctor -of Common Law being conferred on him by Archbishop Rinaldo Orsini at -his palace, in the presence of Lorenzo’s son Piero.[41] The first of -these poems,[42] ‘Manto’ (the name of the Theban prophetess, which was -assumed by the Italian city founded by her son), treats of Virgil, his -works, his place in literature, his importance for all time. - -As the first of the ‘Sylvæ’ was intended as an introduction to Virgil’s -‘Bucolics,’ so the second, ‘Rusticus,’ was to serve the same purpose -for the ‘Georgics,’ and for the works and times of Hesiod. The third, -‘Ambra,’ took its name from the Medicean Poggio a Cajano, but the name -has little connection with the poem, which refers to localities only -at its close, and is devoted to an analysis of Homeric plays regarded -from a pseudo-Herodotean and pseudo-Plutarchian point of view. The last -and longest of the ‘Sylvæ,’ bearing the strange title of ‘Nutricia: -the Reward of the Nursing-mother,’ describes the origin, progress, and -influence of the poetry and the poetics of classical times, passes -on to the author of the ‘Divine Comedy,’ and ends by singing the -praises of Cosimo de’ Medici and his successors. The abundance and -versatility of Lorenzo’s talents were perhaps never more truly and -happily expressed than in the closing verses of this poem; and when the -praises of living and powerful men appear in such a setting as this, we -may accept them without complaining. After describing his labours in -the field of sentimental poetry, to which belong the greater part of -Lorenzo’s earlier poems, his other poetical productions and his whole -intellectual character are thus spoken of:— - - Non vacat argutosque sales, Satyraque bibaces - Descriptos memorare senes, non carmina festis - Excipienda choris, querulasve animantia chordas. - Idem etiam tacitæ referens pastoria vitæ - Otia, et urbanos thyrso extimulante labores, - Mox fugis in cœlum, non seu per lubrica nisus - Extremamque boni gaudes contingere metam. - Quodque alii studiumque vocant, durumque laborem, - Hic tibi ludus erit, fessus civilibus actis, - Huc is emeritas acuens ad carmina vires. - Felix ingenio, felix cui pectore tantas - Instaurare vices, cui fas tam magna capaci - Alternare animo, et varias ita nectere curas. - -Poliziano wrote the ‘Nutricia’ in October 1486, at the villa of -Fiesole. In the following verses he prophesied of the times to come and -the future greatness of his pupil, Piero, if the latter, fulfilling -the bright promise of his youth, should walk in the footsteps of his -father:— - - It jam pene prior, sic, ô sic pergat, et ipsum - Me superet majore gradu, longeque relinquat - Protinus, et dulci potius plaudatur alumno, - Bisque mei victor illo celebrentur honores. - -A merciful fate spared the poet from witnessing the failure of hopes -the fulfilment of which had already become very doubtful when he was -prematurely called away. Anyone versed in the history of those days who -may now climb the pleasant heights of Fiesole, which new buildings -and roads have altered but not transformed, will think with interest -of Angelo’s abode here in the country-house of the Medici, which he -describes in a letter to Marsilio Ficino. ‘If the summer heat oppress -thee at Careggi, the cooler air of Fiesole will be pleasant to thee. -We have plenty of water between the slopes of the hill, and while -gentle winds constantly refresh us, the glare of the sun troubles us -little. During the ascent to the villa it appears enclosed in trees, -but the spot, when reached, commands an extensive view as far as the -town. The neighbourhood is thickly inhabited, yet I find here the quiet -which suits me. But I will tempt thee with yet another attraction. -Pico sometimes wanders beyond the limits of his own grounds, breaks -in unexpectedly upon my solitude, and carries me away from my shady -gardens to his evening meal. You know how things are there; no -superfluities, but everything as it should be, and with the spice of -his conversation. But thou must be my guest; with me thou shalt find -as good a table and perhaps better wine, for Pico and I are rivals in -respect to wine.’[43] - -The ‘Sylvæ’ are dedicated to three young men belonging to the -Medicean circle and one who stood outside it. Lorenzo—the son of -Pier Francesco de’ Medici, grandson of Cosimo’s brother—whose name -stands at the beginning of ‘Manto,’ was at that time on friendly -terms with the members of the elder branch of his race. He afterwards -became estranged from them; a change the effects of which did not -cease when his posterity had entered upon the dominion of Florence, -and the last remaining descendant of Cosimo’s line sat on the throne -of France. Gifted with poetical talents, and no unworthy rival of -his more famous relatives, the younger Lorenzo was a friend of -Poliziano’s, who dedicated to him among other things a description -of the _villeggiatura_ at Poggio a Cajano. ‘Rusticus’ was intended -for Jacopo Salviati, who, when these verses were written, in 1483, -had been designated as Lorenzo’s son-in-law; so that Poliziano, who -had first sung the praises of the unlucky Archbishop of Pisa and then -openly insulted him with extravagant accusations, passed lightly over -the troublesome past. ‘Ambra’ was sent to Lorenzo Tornabuoni, son of -Giovanni, and for a time a pupil, together with Piero de’ Medici, of -our poet, who in one of his letters praised his intellectual gifts and -knowledge of classical literature. He was a faithful adherent of his -relatives, not only in prosperity but also in adversity, which fell on -him even more heavily than on them. In the days of Savonarola he was -accused of taking part in a conspiracy in favour of the exiles, and, -with Niccolò Ridolfi, the father of Lorenzo’s son-in-law, suffered on -the scaffold in 1497, at the age of thirty-two, a victim to mob-law. -The last of these poems, ‘Nutricia,’ was dedicated, in 1491, several -years after its composition, to the Cardinal of Sant’Anastasia, Antonio -Pallavicino Gentile of Genoa, who had great influence in state affairs -under Innocent VIII. and Alexander VI., and took much interest in -literature and literary men. At the close of the dedication Poliziano -gratefully alludes to the cardinal’s efforts to further his cause with -the Pope. - -As we have said, the ‘Sylvæ’ were prolegomena to lectures on -literature. To a cycle of another kind, to lectures given at Florence -in 1483 on the Aristotelian philosophy, Poliziano composed a prose -introduction, probably the strangest ever heard at any university.[44] -The very title—‘Lamia’ (the Witch)—sounds strange, and we almost -suspect a joke, but find that the author is in earnest. The beginning -of this address to his students is highly characteristic. ‘Have you -ever heard tell of witches? When I was a little boy my grandmother -used to tell me about the witches in the neighbouring wood, who eat up -naughty children. Fancy what an image of terror a witch was to me in -those days! In the neighbourhood of my little villa at Fiesole there is -a little brook, hidden by the shadow of the hill-side, and the women of -the place who go there to draw water say that it is a place of meeting -for the witches. But what is a witch? Plutarch of Chæronea, who was -as grave as he was learned, relates that the witches have artificial -eyes which they can put in and take out at their pleasure, just as -weak-sighted old people do with their spectacles, which they stick on -their noses when they want to look carefully at something and then put -back into the case; or as others do with their false teeth, which they -lay aside with their clothes when they go to bed;—not to mention your -helpmeets, ye married men, with their bought braids and curls. If a -witch desires to take a walk she puts in her eyes, and wanders through -streets and alleys, squares and markets, churches and offices, taverns -and baths, looks at everything, thrusts her nose into everything, -meddles with everything, let a man do what he may. She has the eyes -of an owl and a spy, like the old maid in Plautus. She can find out a -grain of sand, and bury herself in the narrowest cranny. When she gets -home, as soon as she reaches the threshold, she takes out her eyes and -puts them in her pocket. Out of doors she has eyes like a lynx, at home -she is blind. You ask what she does then? She sits spinning yarn, and -humming a little song from time to time. Have you Florentines never -known such witches, who know nothing of their own business, but are -always busy about other people’s? No? Yet there are many of them in all -cities, even here in yours. But they go about in disguise—you take -them for men and women, but they are witches. Once it befell that some -of them, happening to see me, stood still, and looked at me curiously, -as those desirous to buy are wont to do. They whispered to each other, -with uncouth gestures, “That is Poliziano—that is the rhymester who -has suddenly dressed himself up as a philosopher,” and then they -hurried away like wasps robbed of their sting. What they meant by their -discourse is not clear to me; whether it displeases them that a man -should be a philosopher, which, however, I am not, or that I venture -to play the philosopher without having the material to do so. Let us -now see what sort of a creature it is that men call a philosopher. You -will soon perceive that I do not belong to the species. I say this not -because I think that you believe it, but that no one may take it into -his head to believe it. Not that I should be ashamed of the name, if it -agreed with the facts, but because I prefer to keep free from titles -which are not due to me: - - Ne si forte suas repetitum venerit olim - Grex avium plumas, moveat cornicula risum. - -This therefore is the first point. The second is, whether the condition -of a philosopher is bad. When I have proved the contrary I will speak -to you briefly of myself and the subject of my lectures.’ After this -introduction follows a sketch of the course of Grecian philosophy, and -an exposition of the work of the later schools of thought. - -The man who raised to such a height the poetry of his native tongue, -and the idiom from which it sprang, was deeply interested in popular -poetry. He went hand in hand with his patron and friend in efforts -to bring back language and literature ‘from the constraint of false -rules to truth and nature.’ Both found the popular minstrelsy in the -peculiar shape it retains to the present day, and differing completely -in tone from the songs of other lands. In the _rispetti_ the ottava -rima predominates, treated freely as it was in Boccaccio’s days for -epic poetry. Even the sentimental pieces are epigrammatically pointed, -and full of antitheses, which give an impression of artificiality and -imitation of the antique, more especially in southern Tuscany and the -Roman district. They are not narratives, nor do they develope a state -of mind, but they vividly describe momentary emotion. Without making -up a whole history with such little songs, like Pulci and Lorenzo -de’ Medici, Poliziano composed a series of _rispetti_ describing joy -and sorrow, accepted and especially despised love. They are partly -in dialogue, frequently in a natural easy style, which reminds us of -improvisations, more tender in expression, more flexible in diction -than the two writers above mentioned, who not unfrequently betray that -they are mocking at their own work. Other similar songs, but without -internal connection, display a versatility resulting naturally from -the way in which they originated. These fugitive poems grew within the -Medicean circle, products of social intercourse in the villa and in -evening walks in the garden; or, like the dance-songs (_ballate_), of -which Poliziano wrote a great number, they were sung with music in the -public squares. In short, they belonged to the life of the people who -had furnished models for the rhymes composed for them by the poets of -quality, with greater refinement, and not always without a secondary -object in view. - -Poliziano’s versatility is wonderfully shown in the labours he -undertook in the field of classical philology while thus wandering -through the woods of poetry. He was one of the first to establish -the true principles of textual criticism; at the request of Innocent -VIII. he translated Herodian’s Roman history into Latin,[45] and made -the writings of Hippocrates and Galen accessible to those of his -countrymen who were not acquainted with Greek. On the latter occasion -he claimed the assistance of the learned doctor Pietro Leoni, who -was then lecturing in Padua, to secure the correct rendering of the -medical terms.[46] The most talented poet of the fifteenth century -was also the philologer who, while equal to others in knowledge of -antiquity, represents its spirit with more truth and originality. In -trying to rival the classical letter-writers, Poliziano followed a -fashion that had influenced statesmen and men of learning from Petrarca -downwards. He left a mass of epistolary testimony to the character -of his age, the value of which must not be lightly estimated, though -it may not always answer the expectations raised by the names. Like -Ficino and others, Poliziano had arranged his Latin correspondence for -publication, and wrote a dedication to Piero de’ Medici, when death -cut short his career.[47] More interesting to us than the generality -of these letters, which nevertheless contain valuable matter, are his -confidential letters in the vulgar tongue, not meant for publication. -Even this highly gifted man was not free from the bad habit of the -learned men of the fifteenth century—the intermixture of Latin phrases -with Italian when the subject gave no occasion for it. - - - - -CHAPTER IX. - -POLIZIANO IN THE MEDICEAN HOUSE. SCALA AND RUCELLAI. - - -FOR many of his contemporaries Lorenzo de’ Medici was the frequent -subject of verse, especially Latin verse, which the complimentary -art of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries preferred as the more -dignified, even after Italian poetry had secured a position by -considerable achievements. Many of these poetical productions have -been rescued from oblivion only to sink back again, unless they -contribute to the historical knowledge of the period. Their literary -worth consists merely in a talent for form which was surpassed by most -of the Latinists of the following century. Fortunately the court-poet -of the Medici was Poliziano. Many of his epigrams are addressed to -Lorenzo, and the elegance of the form as well as the warmth of feeling -which breathes through all he wrote about his patron, diminishes that -impression of servility which is inseparable from this kind of poetry. -Praise of his discretion and foresight, of his words and deeds—wishes -that he may attain the age of Nestor, as he already possesses his -wisdom—thanks for favour granted, and offers of future service, are -the themes of verse, as well as the merits of a swift runner, of a -Spanish hound, of a tree before the Medicean house, supposed to be -dead, but which had bloomed again, and of the brook of Ambra. During -Giuliano’s lifetime, the concord between the two brothers was the -object of praise; they were called Castor and Pollux, Agamemnon and -Menelaus. Angelo wrote an agreeable love-poem of some length on the -name of Giuliano. He thoroughly belonged to the Medicean household. He -was still young when Lorenzo entrusted to him the education of his son -Piero; but before the latter was eight years old dissensions occurred -which caused the poet-pedagogue many an hour of discomfort. - -In the summer of 1478, when war and sickness made a residence in -Florence undesirable, Lorenzo, as already stated, sent his wife and -children to Pistoja, where they were hospitably received in the house -of Andrea Panciatichi, the head of an influential family inclined to -the Medici. They were accompanied by Angelo Poliziano, other masters, -and a doctor. Here Piero, only seven years old, with his great-uncle -Giovanni Tornabuoni received Ercole d’Este, who was going to take -the command at Florence. In October they exchanged their residence -at Pistoja for the villa at Fiesole, where the family circle was -increased by the sons of Niccolò Orsini, Count of Pitigliano. And -here arose a difference between the mother and the tutor. Clarice was -a good and careful mother. Giovanni, who was not yet three, had soon -after his birth given occasion for anxiety, and been a great trouble -to her and to his grandmother, on account of his delicate health. -Concerning Giuliano, then a few months old, whose constitution always -remained feeble, she wrote later to her husband: ‘I will care for him -as a mother should, but I beseech you to take care of yourself for -the children’s sake and mine.’ Poliziano’s mode of bringing up did -not satisfy her. Not that she began with a prejudice against him; -the good terms on which they had once been are proved by the letters -which he addressed to her on several occasions when he was absent from -Florence with Lorenzo.[48] He bestowed great care on his young pupil, -of whose writing and composition he sent specimens to the father. ‘I -shall not fail,’ he wrote to Lorenzo from Pistoja, September 20, ‘in -attention and fidelity. I know what I owe to your Magnificence, and I -feel for Piero and your other children an affection equal to that of a -father. Should anything unpleasant occur, I will endeavour myself to -bear it, out of love to you, to whom I owe everything.’ These words -show that there was already something amiss. Four weeks previously he -had written: ‘I am busy with Piero, and encourage him to write, and I -think in a few days you will receive a letter which will astonish you. -We have a master here who teaches writing in a fortnight, so that it -seems quite a miracle. The children are particularly happy, and look -quite blooming. Piero never leaves my side. I would that I could serve -you in greater things; but this is my work, and I fulfil it with joy. -But I beg you to ensure, either by letter or by a messenger, that my -authority shall not be restricted, so that I may the more easily guide -the boy and fulfil my duty. Nevertheless, act therein according to your -pleasure. Whatever may happen, I will bear it with equanimity.’ And on -the same day: ‘We get on as well as we can, but I cannot escape a few -collisions.’ That he was dissatisfied, dull, and longing to be near -Lorenzo, is clear from all his letters at this time, both to Madonna -Lucrezia and to her son. - -To make matters worse, came the _villeggiatura_ at Caffaggiuolo, -whither Clarice went in November. This was, from position and climate, -a melancholy winter residence, where loneliness and bad weather seem to -have put the excitable man doubly out of humour, and all the more so -because Lorenzo’s old tutor, Gentile Becchi, who lived at the country -house with the family, grew very unsociable in consequence of the sad -circumstances of the time, which weighed heavily on the mind of this -vehement accuser of the Pope. Gentile had felt the events of the spring -deeply, and had been terribly cast down by the death of Giuliano. -Poliziano had tried to cheer him with an ode, which has acquired -historical importance from the testimony it bears to the hopes of -foreign aid which were cherished by the adherents of the Medici and -many of the Florentine people; hopes which were but very partially -fulfilled.[49] - - -AD GENTILEM EPISCOPUM. - - GENTILES animi maxima pars mei, - Communi nimium sorte quid angeris? - Quid curis animum lugubribus teris, - Et me discrucias simul? - - Passi digna quidem perpetuo sumus - Luctu, qui mediis (heu miseri) sacris - Illum, illum juvenem vidimus, O nefas! - Stratum sacrilega manu! - - At sunt attonito quæ dare pectori - Solamen valeant plurima, nam super - Est, qui vel gremio creverit in tuo, - Laurens Etruriæ caput. - - Laurens quem patriæ cœlicolum pater - Tutum terrifica gorgone præstitit; - Quem Tuscus pariter, quem Venetus Leo - Servant, et Draco pervigil. - - Illi bellipotens excubat Hercules; - Illi fatiferis militat arcubus; - Illi mittit equos Francia martios, - Felix Francia regibus. - - Circumstat populus murmure dissono; - Circumstant juvenem purpurei patres; - Causa vincimus et robore militum; - Hac stat Juppiter, hac favet. - - Quare, O cum misera quid tibi Nenia, - Si nil proficimus? quin potius gravis - Absterisse bono lætitiæ die - Audes nubila pectoris. - - Nam cum jam gelidos umbra reliquerit - Artus, non dolor hanc perpetuus retro - Mordacesve trahunt sollicitudines, - Mentis, curaque pervicax. - -Thus rendered by Roscoe:— - - O FRIEND, whose woes this bosom shares, - Why ceaseless mourn our mutual cares? - Ah! why thy days to grief resign, - With thy regrets recalling mine? - - Eternal o’er the atrocious deed, - ‘Tis true our kindred hearts may bleed, - When he, twin glory of our land, - Fell by a sacrilegious hand! - - But sure, my friend, there yet remains - Some solace for these piercing pains, - Whilst he, once nurtured at thy side, - Lorenzo lives, Etruria’s pride. - - Lorenzo, o’er whose favoured head - Jove his terrific gorgon spread; - Whose steps the lion-pair await, - Of Florence and Venetia’s state. - - For him his crest the dragon rears; - For him the Herculean band appears; - Her martial succour Gallia brings— - Gallia, that glories in her kings! - - See round the youth the purpled band - Of venerable fathers stand; - Exulting crowds around him throng, - And hail him as he moves along. - - Strong in our cause and in our friends, - Our righteous battle Jove defends; - Thy useless sorrows then represt, - Let joy once more dilate thy breast. - - To animate the clay-cold frame, - No sighs shall fan the vital flame; - Nor all the tears that love can shed - Recall to life the silent dead. - -The poem seems to have had little or no effect, and the poet himself -became infected with melancholy. ‘The news from this place,’ wrote -Poliziano to Madonna Lucrezia, on November 18, ‘is that it rains -violently and incessantly, so that it is impossible to leave the house, -and instead of hunting we have taken to playing ball, that the children -may have exercise. I sit by the fire in dressing-gown and slippers, -and if you saw me you would take me for melancholy incarnate; for -that is what I seem to myself. I do, see, hear nothing that cheers -me, so deeply have our misfortunes affected me. Sleeping or waking, I -have nothing in my head but these fancies. The day before yesterday -we were all in joyful excitement, because we heard that the sickness -had ceased. Now we are down again, as there is said to be some still -going about. In town we have at least some comfort, if it is only that -of seeing Lorenzo come home safe and well. Here, everything makes us -uneasy, and I assure you I am dying of melancholy, such a burthen is -loneliness to me. Monsignore (Becchi) shuts himself up in his own room, -with no company but his thoughts; and I find him so cast down and full -of care that his society only increases my own sadness. Ser Alberto del -Malerba (a priest who was then in the Medicean household) recites the -service all day long with the children. When I am tired of studying, -my fancy goes off on a chase through pestilence and war—grief for the -past, anxiety for the future. I have no one to turn my thoughts to him, -and am dying of weariness. And here I have not my Madonna Lucrezia to -whom I can vent my feelings.’ - -At last matters came to an open breach. On May 6, 1479, Poliziano -wrote to Lorenzo from Careggi: ‘I am here at Careggi, having left -Caffaggiuolo by command of Madonna Clarice. The grounds of my -departure, I desire, aye I earnestly entreat, to be allowed to explain -to you by word of mouth, for it is a prolix affair. I believe that, -when you have heard me, you will find that the wrong is not all on my -side. For decency’s sake, and in order not to go to Florence without -your orders, I came here, and am waiting till your Magnificence informs -me what I am to do. For I am yours, though the world itself should turn -upside down; and if fortune will not smile upon me in your service, -that will not prevent me from always faithfully devoting myself to that -service. I commend myself to your Magnificence, and am entirely at your -commands.’ What had moved Madonna Clarice to this strong measure is -clear. She could have nothing to say against the scholar; but the man -inspired her with very little confidence, although we cannot think that -she was influenced by the evil rumours which were afterwards spread as -to Poliziano’s moral conduct—rumours characteristic of a time that -delighted in the most dishonouring accusations. Men of letters were so -full of exaggerated self-importance, and so incapable of controlling -their tongues or their pens, that Lorenzo’s wife probably had right -on her side. She wanted to superintend her children’s education; the -tutor would not suffer it. ‘As for Giovanni,’ wrote he to Lorenzo from -Caffaggiuolo on April 6, when he enclosed a letter from Piero, ‘his -mother makes him read in the Psalter, which I cannot at all approve. -When she does not interfere with him his progress is surprising, so -that he can read without any help.’ To give the Psalter to a child of -three as a reading-book is certainly a strange proceeding. But if, as -we must suppose, it was the translation made for Clarice by Marsilio -Ficino, the scholar of the fifteenth century could not make the same -objection which was made in the next by another scholar, who received -the cardinalate—Pietro Bembo—to the reading of St. Paul’s Epistles: -that they spoilt one’s style. - -At this time Lorenzo was so much occupied with the crisis in public -affairs that strife in his own household must have been doubly -troublesome to him. He did not think of restoring to his post the -pedagogue who had been turned out of doors. He offered him the villa -at Fiesole, where Poliziano wrote Latin verses in praise of Lorenzo, -about the leisure he was himself enjoying, of the pleasant view towards -the city of the Muses, and of the winding Arno,[50] but evidently -put no bridle on his tongue. ‘I should like,’ wrote Madonna Clarice -to her husband on May 28 from Caffaggiuolo,[51] after affectionately -entreating him to take care of his health during the continued -sickness, ‘not to be put into a fable like Luigi Pulci in Matteo -Franco’s verses. I also wish that Messer Angelo shall not be able to -boast of remaining in the house in defiance of me, or of your having -offered him a home at Fiesole. You know I told you that if it was your -will that he should remain here, I would be content, and although I -have had to submit to his rudeness, I would bear it patiently if such -were your decision, though I cannot believe it possible.’ Clarice’s -remonstrances must have made some impression on Lorenzo. Although -Poliziano saw him frequently, he remained excluded from the house. -He repeatedly and urgently commended his cause to Madonna Lucrezia, -to whom he represented his difficult position, if the hopes set on -Piero came to nothing.[52] He begged her to try to fathom Lorenzo’s -intentions concerning him. The tutor of Giovanni Tornabuoni’s sons, -Martino della Comedia, gave lessons to Piero for a time, as did also -Bernardo Michelozzi (son of the architect), who actually educated -Giovanni, and was afterwards Bishop of Forlì. Poliziano’s impatience -and vexation are clearly shown. ‘I shall be much surprised,’ he wrote, -‘if they let Piero lose his time, and it really would be a pity. I -understand that Messer Bernardo is there, but I cannot quite see how he -is to go on with my work, unless he remains permanently. In this case, -indeed, it will be just as well that the shell has burst. But I do not -believe it, and therefore I beg you to find out Lorenzo’s intentions, -that I may judge whether to arm myself for the tourney or the battle. -I will always order myself according to Lorenzo’s wishes, for I am -certain that he sees deeper into things than I, and that he will guard -my honour as he always has done, and as my faithful services give me -some right to expect.’ - -When the reconciliation took place cannot be discovered from -Poliziano’s letters, which are missing for several years at this -period. The verses addressed to Lorenzo on his return from Naples, -show that at that time Poliziano had not returned to his house.[53] A -year after, in 1481, Piero was again entrusted to his guidance; for -the Latin dictation for him,[54] in which the siege of Otranto by the -Duke of Calabria is mentioned, is of this year. In these subjects for -translation, which sometimes treat of contemporary events, sometimes -allude to this or that occurrence of daily life, we vainly seek any -really healthy food for a youthful mind. Their want of connectedness -and gravity gives no brilliant testimony to the highly gifted man’s -powers of teaching. But Piero had other teachers besides Poliziano; -among them was the theologian Giorgio Cenigno, in whose learning and -conduct Lorenzo, who was often present at his lectures, had great -confidence, and to whose judgment he afterwards submitted the defence -of Pico della Mirandola. This is the same man who many years later -took so decided a part with Reuchlin against those who accused him of -heresy. Giovanni del Prato, afterwards Bishop of Aquila, and Antonio -Barberini, a professor of theology at Florence, were also called -in.[55] When Piero went to Rome, in 1484 and again in 1488, the first -time to welcome Pope Innocent VIII., the second time to be married, -Poliziano accompanied him, and he remained until his death a member of -the most intimate circle of the family. He never was a priest, though -he held a couple of ecclesiastical benefices. - -We can well understand that the choice of a man of such uncommon -intellectual gifts as a tutor, at a time when everything was expected -to give way to classical culture, found many eulogists; and the words -of Cristoforo Landino in his dedication of Virgil’s works to Piero de’ -Medici do not stand alone. Piero was wanting neither in understanding -nor the desire to learn, and the instruction he received was not wasted -so far as concerns the elegant culture which was fast superseding the -more practical education of older times. But the essential principle -of a serious moral view of the world Angelo Poliziano could not give -to his pupil, for he had it not himself. The father rejoiced in the -progress of the son, promoted as it was by the liberal, scientific, -artistic and social movement of which the house of Medici formed the -centre. Piero, like his father, entered life early, and was thus -prepared for the position he was in some degree destined to inherit. -He always showed interest in scientific matters. It was at his desire -that his tutor made the collection of letters above mentioned, which, -however, were not printed till after Poliziano’s death and Piero’s -banishment; a collection which, like many of the kind, contains much -that for the writer’s honour had better have remained unprinted. But -posterity has not confirmed Poliziano’s judgment on his pupil. It was -the judgment of a courtier. In Piero, thus he wrote to Pico della -Mirandola,[56] there lived again the spirit of his father, the virtue -of his grandfather, the humanity of his great-grandfather, the honesty, -piety, generosity, and high-mindedness of all his ancestors. - -If Lorenzo could not keep the peace in his own house between his wife -and a literary friend, still less could he keep it between the latter -and another member of his confidential circle. To this belonged, -like Poliziano, a man whose literary merits contributed nothing -to the celebrity of the age, but who attained to a higher and more -secure position than most of his compeers because he showed himself -a manageable and useful tool. Bartolommeo Scala,[57] born about 1430 -at Colle in the valley of the Elsa, has himself described his origin -and the commencement of his fortunes in a letter to Poliziano, and he -deserves at least some credit for avowing so openly what it is true -everybody already knew. ‘Deprived of all worldly goods, poor, and -born of parents of low degree, I came here, without means, without -claims, without protectors, without relations. Cosimo, the father of -the country, took me up, and I rose in the service of his family.’[58] -His father was a miller, and the youth’s first years in Florence -were passed in bitter want, as we know from the letters of Cardinal -Ammanati, who was there in not very brilliant circumstances. As in the -case of other _protégés_, Cosimo’s favour was continued by his heirs. -This only will account for the fact that, after the death of Benedetto -Accolti, Scala received the office of chancellor.[59] Although by -no means without cultivation and practice in business, Scala stood -far below those who had preceded him with so much distinction in the -chancellorship, since the days of Coluccio Salutati to the time of the -man whom he replaced. For Benedetto Accolti, who died in the prime of -manhood, did honour to the name which his family had already acquired -in the field of learning, and united sound knowledge of law with -unusual elegance of expression; while his eloquence and excellent -memory rendered him peculiarly fit for the various solemnities at -which addresses and replies had to be made without long preparation. -His Latin history of the first Crusade, founded on French materials, -and dedicated to Piero de’ Medici, is valuable as the source whence -Torquato Tasso drew the subject of his ‘Gerusalemme.’ - -Fortune continued to favour Bartolommeo Scala, and even in the great -commotion of 1494 he was not overthrown. Posts of honour, embassies, -knighthood, riches, fell to his share. He was Lorenzo’s confidant, and -in constant correspondence with him on civil and political affairs. -In the storms of 1478 and the following years he was of no small use -to him, and it was chiefly through him that Lorenzo always kept the -Signoria well in hand. Scala had a pretty villa—which afterwards -passed to the Guadagni[60]—on the slope of the hill at Fiesole, and -his town house (now belonging, with its beautiful gardens, to the Count -della Gherardesca) still bears on its walls the coat of arms which he -adopted in allusion to his name. As two of his predecessors had written -a history of Florence, he thought it needful to do the same. His work, -which comes down to Charles of Anjou, has no intrinsic value; and -his other writings are even more utterly forgotten than those of the -obscurest among his contemporaries. That he was most anxious to give no -ground of displeasure to foreign princes on whose relations to Florence -he was obliged to touch in his history is shown by his oft-repeated -request to the Ferrarese ambassador for information about the Este -family, ‘because he wished to write in praise of that illustrious -house.’[61] - -Bartolommeo Scala’s position made him boastful. His letters to -Poliziano are full of the most ridiculous conceit.[62] ‘Thou wilt -hardly venture to compete with my honours. The Florentine people have -raised me first to the Priorship, then to the Gonfaloniership, and now -to the rank of senator and knight, with such unanimity that many were -of opinion there had never been a more popular act; besides which I -have the brilliant testimony of Lorenzo de’ Medici that distinction was -never conferred on one more worthy.’ Whereupon Poliziano did not fail -to pay him back with an abusive answer. His boast of praise from Cosimo -and Lorenzo was a lie; the latter had often said that in advancing him -he was influenced by other considerations, not by his own opinion, and -had often given Poliziano Scala’s official papers to correct, as the -latter must have known very well. Lorenzo had prevented the former from -destroying the mocking iambics on Scala,[63] saying it was a pity to -sacrifice such good verses. Lorenzo de’ Medici was dead when the two -became involved in that violent strife which gave rise to accusations -as passionate, coarse, and spiteful as those flung about by Filelfo, -Poggio, and Valla. But in the lifetime of Lorenzo a quarrel broke out -between the two men, who emulated each other in abasing the moral -dignity of scholarship. - -There seems to have been another cause of strife besides literary -rivalry—Scala’s beautiful and accomplished daughter Alessandra. Like -many other women of her day, she devoted herself in her youth to the -study of Greek, and her teachers were Demetrius Chalcondylas and -Johannes Lascaris. That Poliziano was inspired with a violent passion -for her is shown by his Greek epigrams.[64] - - ‘Now at last have I found the object I long have been seeking, - Object of loving desire, present in all my dreams.’ - -But Alessandra, though she exchanged Greek verses with her admirer, and -sent him flowers and received small presents, seems to have been very -far from returning his affection. She tells him plainly that he has not -found what he sought; paying him at the same time compliments on his -learning and fame, which do not seem to have consoled him much. When -the disdainful beauty gave her hand to Michael Marullus Tarcagnota, a -Greek established in Italy early in life, jealousy made Poliziano pour -forth a torrent of abuse, which provoked corresponding replies. Time -had been when verses addressed by Poliziano to Lorenzo, son of Pier -Francesco de’ Medici, the patron of Marullus, overflowed with praises -of the Greek, who was pronounced superior to Catullus.[65] Now just -as immoderate in the opposite sense, Angelo’s invectives were most -extravagant against the man who had become his happy rival. Under the -name of Mabilius, he satirised his person and writings, heaping upon -him all the abuse that could be raked out of the poems of antiquity.[66] - -Personalities of every kind, moral and physical, are flung backwards -and forwards _usque ad nauseam_. Poliziano’s hooked nose and crooked -neck, and the supposed infidelity of both combatants are mutually held -up to contempt. Well-turned though the epigrams may be, they were -better absent from the works of a great poet. Alessandra, the innocent -cause of strife, having become a widow, withdrew to the convent of San -Pier Maggiore, and died there in 1506. - -Among those who rivalled the professed men of learning while taking -an active part in public affairs, Alamanno Rinuccini holds a foremost -place.[67] He was descended from an old noble family, whose castle -near San Donato alla Collina, on the road which leads from Florence -to Arezzo, along the left bank of the Arno, still keeps much of -its mediæval character. Born in 1419, he was a pupil of Poggio and -Argyropulos; in his translations from the Greek and his original -Latin writings he displayed a perfect command of both tongues, and -his house was a place where his friends met for learned discourse. He -rose to the highest offices in the city, and fulfilled with equal zeal -the chancellorship of the Universities of Florence and Pisa, various -diplomatic embassies, and a post in the war department conferred on him -in 1495, three years before his death. Like his father Filippo and his -brother Neri, he left valuable notes on contemporary events. Although -an old partisan of the Medici, he nevertheless, while fully admitting -Lorenzo’s intellectual gifts, passes on him a severe judgment, showing -how the spirit of independence still survived among the aristocracy, -and how hard it was for the Medici to secure their support, even by -raising them to office. At the same time the virulent attacks on -Lorenzo’s government throw a strange light on the character of the -writer, who never failed to profit by the favours bestowed on him. It -was much the same with Bernardo Rucellai, one of the most esteemed -members of the Medicean circle. He controlled his ambition during -the life of his brother-in-law Lorenzo; but when that firm hand was -gone and personal considerations no longer restrained him, he took -his own course. He had early distinguished himself in his classical -and philosophical studies, and while scarcely more than a youth was a -professor at the University of Pisa. Of his Latin historical writings, -that on the war of Pisa is founded on the narratives of Gino and -Neri Capponi; that on the wars of Charles VIII. of France possesses -some intrinsic value as the narrative and judgment of a contemporary -whose high position opened to him trustworthy sources of information. -Both display his command of style; and his topography of ancient -Rome shows how well versed he was in ancient literature.[68] The -first principle of this work is a mistake, because it rests on the -so-called _regionarii_, that arbitrarily interpolated version of the -old topographical texts; but Rucellai surpassed all his predecessors -in thoroughness of learning. At Lorenzo’s death he entered upon a new -phase, not merely in political life. It was he who, after the storms -which burst over Florence in 1494, received into his new house, with -its large and beautiful gardens in the Via della Scala, the Platonic -Academy, then in danger of sharing the ruin of the Medici. In these -‘Orti Oricellari’ the Academy was kept alive through the brilliant but -unquiet times that followed.[69] Here, where Bernardo Rucellai brought -together some of the sculptures scattered at the plundering of the -Medici palaces, Niccolò Machiavelli read his book on the art of war; -here in 1516 Leo X. was present at a representation of the tragedy of -‘Rosmonda,’ written by Bernardo’s son Giovanni; and here in 1522 was -laid the plot against Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici which put an end to -the Academy for ever. - - - - -CHAPTER X. - -ERMOLAO BARBARO AND PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA. - - -THE Florentines and other Tuscans gathered together at this period of -manifold intellectual activity were joined by men from other parts of -Italy, coming as transient visitors or permanent residents. Three of -these deserve especial consideration—Bernardo Bembo, Ermolao Barbaro, -and Pico della Mirandola. We have already seen Bembo as Venetian -ambassador, in the difficult state of affairs which followed on the -conspiracy of the Pazzi. He had received this honourable appointment -several years before, and held it until peace was restored. The -relations between Venice and Florence were not always pleasant and -confidential; but the Venetian ambassador knew how to make himself -agreeable and to inspire confidence. Poliziano praised his activity and -caution in affairs of state, his amiability in personal intercourse, -his interest in literature, his union of seriousness and gaiety.[70] -Ficino and Landino were on friendly terms with him, as their -correspondence and literary communications prove. Bembo was one of the -members of the Platonic Academy, and a banquet given to him by his -colleagues in 1480 is described by Marsilio in his book on Platonic -theology. He was an ardent lover of books, and wrote a beautiful hand; -the octavo form of the Aldine editions, the first variation from the -old folio or large quarto usual until then, is said to have been an -imitation of one of his manuscripts.[71] Bernardo’s son was with him -during his residence on the banks of the Arno, and the pure dialect to -which the boy’s ear became accustomed falling on good ground, led to -that scientific treatment of the Italian tongue which has given Pietro -Bembo a claim to be considered a distinguished master of the language -he handled with so much power and facility of expression. - -One of those who were in constant literary intercourse with Lorenzo, -and assisted him in collecting manuscripts, &c., was Ermolao Barbaro -the younger. Literary faculty was the heritage of his family. His -grandfather, Francesco Barbaro, held friendly intercourse with the -scholars of Rome and Florence and with Cosimo de’ Medici. He also made -at Venice the largest collection of books of that time, and devoted -himself zealously to studying the texts, as is proved by his copy of -Homer preserved in the library of St. Mark. Young Ermolao was brought -up by the care of a learned uncle of the same name, who was Bishop of -Treviso and for many years administered the bishopric of Verona. - -Francesco owed some of his accomplishments to Matteo Bosso, whom we -shall meet again in the abbey at Fiesole; and at Rome a classical turn -had been given to his studies by Pomponio Leto. He was a young man when -the Republic, which looked quite as much to the learned accomplishments -as to the political capacity and noble birth of her envoys, sent him to -the Emperor Frederic, to Lodovico il Moro, and to Innocent VIII. The -last embassy was not propitious to him. - -When in 1491 he accepted the Patriarchate of Aquileia from the Pope -without asking the consent of the Republic, this offence against -law and precedent was punished by the senate with deprivation and -banishment, and Barbaro died near Rome, of an infectious disease, in -the summer of 1493, at the early age of thirty-three.[72] Of his -many works, chiefly on Greek writers, none seem now to justify his -reputation. His studies on Pliny’s ‘Natural History’ hold an honourable -place among the critical investigations begun in his day, and his -lively wit shines forth in his letters. - -Ermolao came through Florence on his way to Rome in the spring of 1490. -As Lorenzo de’ Medici was then at the baths of Vignone, his eldest son -received the stranger with the honour due to his rank and the friendly -relations between the families. Piero’s letter to his father has some -literary as well as personal interest:[73] ‘Illustrious father,—By -a letter from you which reached Ser Piero yesterday morning I was -informed of your desires with respect to Messer Ermolao, who arrived -yesterday after dinner. His arrival was, so to say, unexpected, and I -only heard of it about an hour before. I went to meet him, as did four -or five others, and he had to go first to the hotel, as his quarters -were not yet ready, whither he afterwards came on foot. As soon as he -had arrived, I went to him, according to your desire, to invite him -to us, and to inquire how long he intended to stay. I invited him for -to-day, and heard that it was his intention to remain only the one day, -as he wants to travel to-morrow as far as Poggibonzi or some other -place, so that he may reach Siena before noon on the following day. -Whether he means to stay there I do not know. To-day he has been our -guest, and I cannot say how much pleasure this has given him. Besides -his suite, which consists of his brother (Luigi), a secretary of St. -Mark, and a doctor, we invited the persons whom he wished to see; they -were the Count della Mirandola, Messer Marsilio, and Messer Agnolo of -Montepulciano, to whom, as we wished to have an inhabitant of the city -and yet to keep within the circle of intimate friends and scholars, we -added Bernardo Rucellai. Whether we did right I know not. After dinner -I showed him the house, the coins, vases, sculptured stones—in short -everything, including the garden (near San Marco), which he especially -liked, though he does not seem to understand much about sculpture. -The value and age of the coins interested him greatly; they were all -astonished at the quantity of fine things. I cannot tell you much about -him, except that he speaks very elegantly, as far as I can judge, and -that he likes to show his reading by quoting the ancients, sometimes -in Latin. His appearance is on the whole very good; he is temperate in -all things, which is probably needful for him, as he seems to have a -very delicate constitution. He is said to be an adroit man of business, -which I rather doubt, as he seems to me somewhat ceremonious. He could -not display greater friendship for you than he does, and I believe he -means it. He received all the honour done him with much gratitude, not -at all after the Venetian fashion; and indeed nothing but his dress -shows him to be a Venetian. According to his own account, he has a -great desire to see you, and he says he will willingly go out of his -way to meet and salute you; which I think it my duty to mention, in -case it should meet your views. He also says that he is commissioned -by his Signoria to salute you. He has been honourably treated by the -citizens, and received compensation for having to alight at the hotel. -This morning, before he came to dinner, he presented himself to the -Signoria, with complimentary greetings.’ That the learned Venetian -fulfilled his intention of saluting Lorenzo on his way, we learn from -Lorenzo himself, who wrote to his agent at Siena on May 15 as follows: -‘Ermolao was here early this morning, and continued his journey after -staying a while with me.’[74] - -When Ermolao Barbaro fell into disgrace with his own government, -Lorenzo took his part warmly. Among other things he tried to persuade -the Pope to give him the red hat, probably hoping that such a -distinction would reconcile the Signoria to him. Ermolao’s father -gratefully acknowledged his friend’s efforts. ‘This morning,’ wrote -Poliziano to Lorenzo from Venice,[75] ‘I visited Messer Zaccheria -Barbaro, and when I spoke of your favour he answered weeping, and as it -seemed with a full heart. The sum of his discourse was this: he has no -hope save in you. He made it clear to me that he is aware how much he -owes you. Therefore carry out what you have planned, and keep a higher -object in view.’ Greek clay vases, given to Poliziano for Lorenzo, -were to prove the gratitude of the Procurator of St. Mark and the -ex-ambassador. But the Signoria evidently did not approve of a stranger -intermeddling in the affairs of one of their citizens; for when Luigi -Barbaro received from his brother’s successor orders to return from -Rome, he was told at the same time not to come through Florence.[76] - -All plans and calculations were overthrown the following year by the -death of Lorenzo and of the Pope, soon followed by that of Ermolao -himself. That the offer of the cardinalate would hardly have altered -the views of the senate as to the duty of an ambassador to receive -nothing from a foreign sovereign without special permission, is -shown by a parallel case which occurred in the next century, that of -Marc’Antonio da Mula (Cardinal Amulio). - -In the circle of Florentine scholars there was no brighter star than -Giovanni Pico della Mirandola; and yet not one of them has left so -little to justify the contemporary fame of this ‘Phœnix of spirits.’ -Yet he was something more than a specimen of the sciolism and abstruse -pedantry that sought to dazzle contemporaries without leaving -anything solid or useful to posterity. Giovanni Pico fought manfully -against the errors of his time, and promoted investigations on many -subjects; but the results of his labours are not discoverable in the -picture of the time as a whole, to which he contributed but a few -traits, instead of producing a work of durable value that would have -vividly represented the progress of science. Born and brought up in -the highest circles of society, it is remarkable that with his quick -and passionate temperament he devoted himself to scientific work, -ardently and perseveringly, without any external inducement to do so. -He comes forth like a meteor, in brilliant but momentary splendour. -He was a younger son of Gian Francesco Pico, Lord of Mirandola and -Count of Concordia, and Giulia Bojardo, daughter of Feltrino Count -Of Scandiano, whose grandson Matteo Maria made himself famous as the -author of ‘Orlando Innamorato.’ In his childhood Giovanni showed -unusual quickness of perception and desire to learn, which was observed -and encouraged by his mother. At fourteen he went to study canon law -at the University of Bologna, after which he pursued philosophy and -theology, languages and literature, at various universities, and soon -displayed a talent for disputation. He was intended for holy orders, -and while still almost a boy was seen, like Giovanni de’ Medici, in the -dress of an Apostolic protonotary. He was not much over twenty when he -came to Florence at the beginning of 1484. Recommended by his birth -and connections, as well as by Ercole d’Este, whose sister Bianca was -his sister-in-law, he became intimate with the Medici, and lived like -a great man; at the same time he pursued his studies diligently, and -formed friendships with Ficino, Landino, and Poliziano. The last has -described him graphically and with a fair amount of truth. ‘Nature,’ he -says, ‘appeared to have showered upon this man, or rather this hero, -all gifts of body and mind. He was slender and well made, and something -divine seemed to shine in his face. He was acute in perception, gifted -with an excellent memory, indefatigable in study, clear and eloquent -in expression. One doubted whether he shone most by his talents or his -moral qualities. Versed in every branch of philosophy, favoured by his -perfect knowledge of several languages, he showed himself sublime and -above all praise.’ - -What distinguished the young scholar from all the other members of the -Florentine circle except Marsilio Ficino—though it did not attract -much attention till it brought him into difficulties with Rome—was -his study of mediæval Jewish literature, to which he must have found -special incitement at Florence.[77] For it was here that he began to -study those Jewish mysteries which in Alexandria were first mixed up -with the doctrines of the Bible, like Neoplatonism with the wisdom -of the Athenians, and were developed under the name of Cabbalah into -a lasting tradition of revelation. Following in the steps of Ficino, -Giovanni Pico found the teachings of Christianity confirmed by those -of Platonism; while the Jewish doctrines furnished him with stronger -proofs, for what Ficino did not demonstrate from Platonism, Pico drew -from the Jewish mysteries. He was quite right in recognising analogies -not to be found in the Greek doctrines; but it is evident that he stood -on ground where investigation and the play of fancy might bring him -into danger; more especially as he included magic within the circle -of his researches. It was nothing more than the natural magic which -consists mainly in the contemplation of the powers of the heavenly -bodies, but he stated in plain words his opinion that no science could -afford us a clearer view of the divinity of Christ than magic and the -Cabbalah. - -It may easily be conceived what a sensation was made in Florence by a -distinguished young man of such appearance, talents, and tendencies. -His arrival occurred at a lucky moment. The end of the Ferrara war left -a clear field for other than political affairs, and the reputation -of Lorenzo de’ Medici had just then reached its zenith. The presence -of Giovanni Pico gave a new distinction to his whole circle. He -was one by himself. Ficino and Poliziano had shone by the early -maturity of their talents, but to them study was the necessary object -of their lives; while this youth of high rank, on whom everything -smiled, rivalled them in perseverance and success and surpassed them -in universality of knowledge. Soon after his arrival at Florence, -in a letter to Lorenzo, he spoke highly of the poems which the -latter wrote on Dante and Petrarca; but this does not prove that his -judgment was sound, and it may, perhaps, not have greatly impressed -Lorenzo himself, though it doubtless did him no harm in the Medicean -circle. In 1485 he went to continue his studies at Paris, returning -thence at the beginning of the next year. This year he was involved -in two troublesome affairs, one of which—though injurious to his -reputation—was only of a passing nature, but the other cast a shadow -over the whole of his after-life, and put an end to the gaiety of his -youth. - -The eloquent disciple of the Platonic Academy suddenly found himself -involved in a love adventure that was only too real. ‘Count Giovanni -della Mirandola,’ wrote the Ferrarese envoy Aldovrandino Guidoni on -May 12, 1486, to Duke Ercole,[78] ‘has been living for nearly two -years in such splendour and in the enjoyment of such universal esteem -as has hardly fallen to the lot of any one before in this city. A few -days ago he gave out that he was going to Rome, and sent forward all -his luggage. On his arrival at Arezzo, where resided a lady with whom -he had a love affair—the beautiful wife of one Giuliano de’ Medici, -engaged in the administration of taxes there—the said lady, according -to previous agreement, left her husband’s house. She pretended to be -going for a walk, but just outside the town she mounted behind the -count. He had about twenty people with him, some on horseback, some -on foot, besides two mounted bowmen. When the people saw the lady -surrounded by this train there was an uproar. The storm-bell was rung -and the count was followed in pursuit, which became so hot that the -count was obliged to give up his fugitive. Every one of his suite that -could be reached was killed and stripped in the _mêlée_, and many -of the citizens also were left dead. Thanks to their good horses, -the count and his chancellor got away to Marciano (in the valley of -the Chiana), where they were arrested. The Ten, before whom the case -was laid, at first gave orders to liberate the count and keep the -chancellor, but afterwards they commanded both to be kept under arrest. -Probably nothing will be done to him, but the chancellor—on whom the -chief blame is laid—may come off badly, the more so as the matter -concerns the wife of a Medici, who, though poor, is still one of the -family. In truth, the count’s mishap is much to be regretted, for he -used to be considered a saint as well as a man of learning, and now he -has lost greatly in public opinion, though, indeed, love has brought -many into like errors.’ Duke Ercole’s mediation was needless, as Pico -was at once set free, and the good easy husband received back into -his house the faithless wife, who pleaded forcible abduction. She was -a rich young widow of low degree when he married her shortly before. -Pico’s own remarks on the whole affair display his penitence. ‘His sin -grieves him,’ he said of himself, ‘and he does not defend his conduct. -He seems to deserve forgiveness just because he attempts no excuse. -Nothing is weaker than man, nothing is mightier than love!’ - -The Roman affair was not so easily disposed of. After the adventure -at Arezzo, Pico went to Rome, where, to establish the favourite -Florentine thesis of an agreement between Platonism and Christianity, -and the assistance to be derived from the former in combating heresy, -he announced a public disputation on 900 questions, to which, besides -philosophy and theology, law and natural science, magic and the -Cabbalah, Arabia and Chaldæa, had contributed their quota. Thus the -most brilliant intellects, sometimes even more than others, pay tribute -to pedantry. The fruitful seed that lay buried in these investigations -was in a great measure choked up with the dull rubbish from which -the age was unable to free itself. Many of the affirmations of the -young scholar (which might well seem questionable at that time) were -impeached as contrary to the faith, and the disputation was stopped. -On August 5, 1486, Innocent VIII. signed a brief against the theses -put forth by Giovanni Pico, denouncing their author in no sparing -terms. The long interval between the signature and the publication, -which did not take place till December 15, instead of helping to smooth -the difficulty, only increased it. The author of the controverted -propositions—so his opponents maintained—being secretly informed of -the papal decision, hastily wrote an apology for them, had it secretly -printed in Naples, and pre-dated it, so that he should not appear to be -defending assertions already condemned by the highest ecclesiastical -authority. The accused denied this, and declared that he had only -received the brief on January 6, 1487, on his journey to France. In any -case, his written defence furnished his opponents with a pretext by -which to set the Pope against him and cause him to receive a citation -to Rome. It was even determined to arrest him, as we see from a letter -addressed to the Pope from Siena, December 5, by the Bishop of Lucca, -excusing the non-fulfilment of the papal orders on account of his -absence from his see.[79] - -The ‘Apology,’ dated May 31, 1486, is dedicated to Lorenzo de’ Medici. -‘God is my witness,’ says the author in the introduction, ‘that I -dedicate this writing to thee, O Lorenzo, not as thinking it worthy of -such a man, but because I have long known that I owe all I possess to -thee. Whatever I am or may become is thine and will remain thine. I say -less than I would, and my words are too cold to express the love and -reverence which I have long felt and shall continue to feel for thee. -To these feelings I am moved by the numerous proofs of favour that -have proceeded rather from thy mind towards me than from thy position, -and which are as rare as they are characteristic of thee. Receive this -apology with kindness; the gift is small, but it is a testimony of -my lasting devotion. If thou shouldst turn to it from the important -affairs which claim thy attention, remember that it is a sketch rather -than a work carefully thought out, a task imposed on me by others -rather than chosen by myself, and that I present it to thee, not as a -proof of talents and learning to which I am a stranger, but as a token, -I repeat, of my entire devotion.’ - -Lorenzo, Ercole d’Este, and Pico’s relatives, took an active interest -in his troubles. All through 1487, while the accused was abroad, the -affair dragged on without result. The chief hope was in Lorenzo, whose -influence with the Pope was known to be great and increasing, and it -was not his fault that matters did not get on. He did not wait for -the entreaties of Pico’s brother Antonio, who came to Florence in -February 1488 to beg for his interposition at Rome. He had already, -on January 19, written to the ambassador Lanfredini, giving a warning -against extreme steps, since excommunication or the like against a -man so young and so learned might drive the most moderate beyond all -patience. The solution he suggested was that Pico should be allowed -to go free to Rome and justify himself to the Pope in person. The -envoy did not quite agree with Lorenzo’s view, being of opinion that -the count would do better to leave theology alone; nevertheless he -bestirred himself zealously on his behalf. ‘To my great satisfaction -and joy,’ writes Lorenzo to him on March 22, 1488,[80] ‘I have been -informed of the agreement made by you with the Holy Father concerning -the count. In pursuance of your intimation, I shall invite the count -here. I feel assured he will conduct himself so that his Holiness shall -be satisfied with him, for which object no efforts shall be wanting on -my part.’ So Giovanni Pico returned to Florence and Lorenzo continued -his intercession. But there were still grave difficulties in the way -of an adjustment, and the accused was very shy of appearing at Rome. -He lived sometimes in Florence, sometimes at the neighbouring villa -of Querceto and the abbey of Fiesole, where he pursued Hebrew and -Chaldee studies with great ardour, and worked out a commentary on -Genesis. In June 1489, Florence conferred the freedom of the city on -her illustrious guest, and gave him the right of acquiring property to -the value of 6,000 gold florins. It is evident that Lorenzo was anxious -to bind him more and more closely to himself and his home. ‘The Count -of Mirandola,’ he wrote on June 19 to Lanfredini,[81] ‘is staying -permanently with us, and lives as retired as a monk, continually -working at theology, and commenting on the Psalms, &c. He reads the -service as is usual for priests, strictly observes the fasts, and has -the most simple household that necessity permits. He appears to me a -pattern for others. But he desires to be cleared before the Holy Father -from the charges brought against him, and to receive a brief by which -he shall be re-admitted as a true son and a good Christian. I have -this much at heart too, for there are few men dearer to me or that I -esteem more highly. To my mind he is a true Christian, for he conducts -himself so that the whole city would be ready to stand surety for him. -Endeavour to obtain this brief in due form, that his conscience may be -set at rest. This will stand in the first rank among the many pleasures -you have procured me.’ - -The affair, however, made no progress. The intention at Rome seemed -to be to commission the Bishop of Vaison to receive the explanations -of Pico, who declared himself ready to submit simply and entirely to -the papal decision. About this time the publication of his commentary -on Genesis gave fresh scandal. A feeling hostile to him seemed to -be gaining ground. On August 17, Lanfredini wrote that Lorenzo had -better advise the count simply to beg for absolution and perform the -needful penance. On October 6 he declared that it was only out of -consideration for Lorenzo that the Pope was so lenient to the culprit; -to satisfy Lorenzo by giving the cardinalate to his son was quite -another thing—so his Holiness had said—from lending an ear to his -intercessions in a case where the faith was at stake. Finally Lorenzo -lost patience when he found that the Pope was in the hands of his -friend’s opponents. ‘I am greatly displeased,’ he wrote in October -1489, ‘at hearing of the censures on Mirandola’s work. If I were not -convinced that this persecution arises from envy and malice, I would -not speak of it. Various learned and God-fearing theologians here -have read the book, and all approve it as excellent and Christian. -I myself am not such a bad Christian that I would keep silence and -accept the book if I thought otherwise. If he only said the Credo, -these malicious spirits would smell heresy in it. If the pressure of -business did but permit his Holiness to take personal cognizance of -the matter and discover the truth, I am certain the whole thing would -fall to pieces and the truth would come to light. But the Pope has to -depend on others, and this poor man cannot defend himself. If he gives -his reasons, he is said to be speaking against the Holy Father! If he -had only to deal with his enemies unprotected by the papal authority -he would soon put them to silence. His misfortune is that he has to -deal with malicious ignorant foes who shield themselves behind the head -of the Church. I have already hinted to you my suspicion that they -are trying to drive him to despair, and thereby to some rash step -which might really be directed against his Holiness. For believe me, -Giovanni, this man has it in his power to work both good and evil. His -life and conduct prove the first; if he is forced to turn another way, -I personally shall lose little thereby, for whatever direction he may -take, he will be attached to me as I to him. I have never succeeded in -quite making you understand this. Without going into particulars now, -I will merely observe that an attempt has been made to persuade him -into a step which might have given great offence; but I have always -prevented it, so that he is come here, where he is leading a virtuous -life and is in peace. These devils tempt him with their persecutions, -and they are only too readily believed.’ - -This letter shows how deeply the writer was moved. His earnest -remonstrances succeeded at least so far that Pico, who, like Galileo -afterwards, had been relegated to a villa in the neighbourhood of -Florence, was left unmolested in the city. At this time occurred the -visit of Reuchlin, who came to Italy for the second time in 1490 in the -suite of a son of Duke Eberhard, and now became personally acquainted -with the man who had given the most decisive impulse to his studies, -which, like the Italian’s, aimed at harmonising the results of Jewish -and Greek wisdom with Christian faith and knowledge. These studies -entered in Germany upon a new sphere of influence stretching far beyond -the scope of Pico, but not more free from danger, and involving the -German in conflicts similar to those of the Italian. Pico’s Roman -troubles were augmented by others. The dispute between his brothers -Galeotto and Antonio put him into pecuniary straits, and obliged him -to seek the aid of the Duke of Ferrara.[82] Obstructions at Rome were -endless. Neither Lorenzo de’ Medici nor Innocent VIII. lived to see the -conclusion, which was brought about at last by a brief of Alexander -VI., June 18, 1493, in which Giovanni Pico was fully acquitted. The -trouble and anxiety caused by this affair made the deepest impression -on his mind. His nephew and biographer relates that he heard from his -own mouth how great a change it produced in his mind and life.[83] -Excepting a visit to Ferrara, where at the duke’s desire he was present -at a chapter of the Dominican order, he quitted Florence no more. We -have seen him in the country, in frequent intercourse with Ficino and -Poliziano. He lived entirely for science; and the wealth which enabled -him to collect a treasury of books was also freely bestowed on the -needy; in these good works he was assisted by his attached friend -Benivieni. He burned his Latin poems, which he had collected in five -books and given to Poliziano for correction. The latter had altered a -few things, as he said, after the example of him who found fault with -the sandals of the goddess of beauty because he could find none with -herself; and because a few verses seemed to him to be only of the rank -of a knight, while the rest were patrician and senatorial. Poliziano -lamented his friend’s resolve in a letter accompanied by a Greek -epigram. He could not remember, he said, ever to have read anything -more charming, elegant and polished. ‘Ye silly gods of love,’ thus ends -the epigram, ‘why did ye fly to Pico, who is the leader of the Muses?’ -Poliziano approved of his friend’s poetical attempts, and admired his -commentary on Benivieni’s _canzone_ on Platonic love, which the school -of Florentine literature reckons among its most important works, more -than his deeper studies, when in the rustic solitude of Querceto he -wrote an extensive treatise against astrology, destined to form part of -a great polemical work on sects hostile to Christianity.[84] Poliziano -thought it was lost time: - - ‘Pico, what hast thou to do with this? Thou’rt wasting thy powers: - Truly thy style is too good for this generation of jugglers.’ - -Savonarola, on the contrary, who was a friend of the author in his -later years, and read the unfinished work, expressed mingled pleasure -and regret over it; pleasure in the stand made by the work against -widespread errors, regret at the premature death of the gifted author. -We must not judge Pico della Mirandola by what he has left behind. -He paid a heavier tribute to the weaknesses of the time than many -others who were not equal to him in intellectual capacity. His whole -personality must be considered; it is a typical one. This scion of -a princely house, who quitted the world at two-and-thirty, who had -measured the heights and depths of the learning of his time, who, with -all his abstruse scholarship, preserved a simplicity and amiability of -character that drew all hearts to him, is by far the most brilliant -figure in that brilliant circle. After four centuries Pico della -Mirandola remains the highest representative of early maturity of -intellect. But he is something more; in conjunction with the man whose -friendship was so warmly expressed, he did more than any other to give -a value and importance to a period which, with all its defects, was -beneficent and noble. - -The sad fate of two other members of the Florentine literary circle -who were not Tuscans, as well as the circumstance that both filled -public offices in Florence, justifies us in mentioning them together, -though several decades separated them. They are Stefano Porcaro and -Pandolfo Collenuccio. The former, a Roman knight, was the friend and -correspondent of Poggio, Filelfo, Ciriaco, and Traversari, holding a -position of influence at home and abroad.[85] He was led into the fatal -conspiracy of 1453 against Nicolas V. rather by memories of antiquity -and of Cola Rienzi than by his Florentine connections. In the Podestà’s -palace may be seen, in what was formerly the chapel, a picture of -the Madonna painted on the wall, presented, in 1490, by Pandolfo -Collenuccio of Pesaro, then judge of the supreme court. Ficino, Pico, -Poliziano, admired the intellectual gifts and varied talents of -this learned man. It was wonderful, wrote the latter, what he was -capable of; he managed the affairs of princes with great sagacity, was -surpassed by none in the elegance of his prose and verse, and decided -intricate suits with a rare knowledge of law. He commanded the most -varied knowledge with such mastery that he made further discoveries -when others fancied they had found out everything. This sound judge of -classical literature was also a student of natural history, and one -of the first to apply the science of history to the vulgar tongue. He -made use of his connection with Germany, where he had been as envoy -from Duke Ercole d’Este to King Maximilian, to make large acquisitions -for the Florentine libraries. His execution in 1504, by command of -Giovanni Sforza of Pesaro, on pretext of high treason in the Borgia -disturbances, was one of those tragedies of which there was never any -lack in the petty courts of Italy.[86] - - - - -CHAPTER XI. - -THE UNIVERSITY OF PISA. MANUSCRIPTS AND CRITICISM. PRINTING. PLATONIC -SYMPOSIA. - - -THE circle of Florentine celebrities which, though its members were -continually changing, always retained its peculiar character, included -men of smaller importance than many of those already described, but -yet worthy of mention. Among these are the philologer-poets who, -in endeavouring to follow Poliziano, lost their individuality in -imitations of the Roman poets of the Flavian and following periods. -Their verses have but an historical and local interest for posterity, -and even the sixteenth century, so busy with Latin verse-making, passed -judgment upon them very freely.[87] Ugolino Vieri, who Latinised his -name into Verino, celebrated his native city and its famous men in -three books of a poem, ‘De Illustratione urbis Florentiæ,’ which spite -of a few happy characteristics, is barely more than a dry catalogue. -Naldo Naldi has acquired a more lasting reputation by his biographical -works than by his numerous verses. People sang each other’s praises -without end; and such laudations, though endurable from a Poliziano, -are tiresome from inferior hands. Alessandro Bracci, one of the -secretaries of state; Giovan Battista Cantalicio, afterwards Bishop of -Penne and Adria; Tommaso Baldinotti of Pistoja; Alessandro Cortesi, -the talented scion of a family of San Gemignano very intimate with the -Medici; Piero Riccio, known under the Latinised name of Crinitus, and -author of a history of the old Latin poets; these and many other pupils -of Ficino, Landino, and Poliziano, belong to the _dii minorum gentium_. -Verses by some of them have been printed, while heaps lie in manuscript -in the Laurentian library to testify to the intellectual activity of -the time.[88] The verses of the Roman Carlo de’ Massimi in praise of -Pisa University have some interest for the history of literature. -Literary productions of every kind were sent to Lorenzo from all -quarters; he was the great patron of authors. Much of what he received -he sent on to San Marco and to the Abbey of Fiesole, as may be seen by -the inscriptions in the volumes. - -All these men, small and great, found in Lorenzo their Mæcenas. But -he showed very early that he invested the position of patron with -more serious importance than his predecessors had done. When scarcely -three-and-twenty he brought about the restoration of the University -of Pisa, which was not only an act of justice, but, apart from its -literary importance, a token of ripe political insight that helped to -counterbalance in some degree the miseries inflicted on Volterra in the -same year (1472). The university, formed in the fourth decade of the -fourteenth century out of the existing public schools, and confirmed -in 1343 by Clement VI., fell into decay from political causes later in -the century, and finally succumbed to Florentine enmity. The mutual -animosity of the two cities is only to be paralleled in the history of -antiquity. Twenty-five years after the subjection of Pisa, the Ministry -of War at Florence wrote to Averardo de’ Medici, their commissioner -in the subject town:[89] ‘According to general opinion here, the most -effectual means of securing the town is to empty it entirely of Pisan -citizens and peasants, concerning which we have written to the Captain -of the People till we are tired. He answers that he is hindered by the -soldiery and officers. We now command thee to go to him and persuade -him to spare no harshness or severity, as we perceive that no other -remedy will avail. We have confidence in thee that thou wilt at once -set everything to work, for thou couldst do nothing more pleasing -to this whole people.’ The efficacious result was that the city was -ruined, the marshy neighbourhood left fallow to become the home of -fever, and the fleet vanished. So rooted was this hatred that when -Pisa had freed herself amid the confusion which followed on Lorenzo’s -death, Bernardo del Nero—a usually moderate man of the Medicean -party—declared that against the Pisans nothing availed save force; all -prisoners of war must be slain after the example of the Genoese, who -let the Pisan captives taken at Meloria languish to death in prison.[90] - -Lorenzo early perceived that the blind enmity which ruined Pisa was -overshooting the mark. As his family held considerable property in -the district he frequently had occasion to visit the city, whose -position made it a halting-place for many travellers between northern -and southern Italy. Pisa must not be allowed to give the Florentines -any more trouble, but neither should it be allowed to perish. Two -considerations in particular seem to have prompted the re-establishment -of the old university. The first was the quiet, which was more -favourable to study than the busy life of Florence; the second was the -number and cheapness of dwellings, which were in increasing danger -of falling to ruin since trade had departed from its old abodes, and -the inhabitants were nearly all poor people. Yet Lorenzo needed great -power and moral courage to set himself against rooted hatred and -stubborn prejudices. On December 19, 1472, was issued the decree by -which the university was restored to life.[91] A board of management -was appointed—the Officiales studii—consisting of five Florentine -citizens: Tommaso Ridolfi, Donato Acciaiuolo, Andrea Puccini, Alamanno -Rinuccini, and Lorenzo de’ Medici. The yearly endowment was to consist -of 6,000 gold florins, and the statutes of the University of Florence -were to be in force at that of Pisa. Members of the state were to -be entitled to academical honours and the authority to practise in -Pisa alone. To raise the salaries of the professors, Pope Sixtus IV. -consented to a tax on the clergy to the amount of 5,000 florins in five -years, a tax which was renewed by his successor in 1497 for another -five years, and drew complaints from Ficino, Poliziano, and others. -Only the philosophical and literary branches of study were to continue -at Florence. - -The credit of all this was justly given to Lorenzo. ‘I heard a few -days ago,’ wrote Antonio de’ Pazzi to him from Padua, January 29, -1473,[92] ‘that by your direction a new university is to be founded at -Pisa; at which not only we Florentine students, but foreign ones too, -are greatly delighted, seeing that Pisa is a city eminently suited -for it, and because the scheme proceeds from a man who will strive to -acquire honour by this as by all else that he undertakes.’ Scholars -came flocking from all parts, and first among them Francesco Filelfo. -He had found an asylum with the Sforza at Milan; but, dissatisfied and -restless, extravagant and in debt, he tried to change his position. -During the pontificate of Pius II. he made several attempts to this -end, but, failing in his hopes, he attacked the pontiff before -and after death with his usual invectives, and in consequence was -imprisoned for a time. In April 1473 he applied to Lorenzo. Some time -before he had managed to flatter Lorenzo’s father into forgetting -his offences against Cosimo so far as to hold one of his sons over -the font; and when in Florence in the autumn of 1469, shortly before -Piero’s death, he obtained a loan from Lorenzo.[93] The letter which -he now addressed to the latter[94] is curiously characteristic of the -man. He attacks those who had long been in their graves—Marsuppini, -Poggio, and their ‘synagogue.’ He begins by declaring that the Milanese -chancellor, Cecco Simonetta, had advised him to prefer Pisa to Rome, -where he was much wanted; and he ends with the artless assurance -that Lorenzo must know well he cannot find in all the world a second -Filelfo nor one more devoted to him. In another letter he remarks in -the same style: ‘You are aware that at the present time no one can -stand a comparison with me in my own branch.’ Simonetta, from Pavia, -seconded the appeal, and sang the vain man’s praises. Lorenzo answered -by asking what salary would be required, but the negotiation fell -through, which Medici probably did not much regret, as he must have -felt some hesitation in attaching the quarrelsome old man to his young -establishment. Besides, the sentence of banishment once passed on -Filelfo was still in force, and his services in the way of literary -invective after the conspiracy of the Pazzi had not yet smoothed -the way to his return. When he was at last summoned to Florence as -professor of eloquence and moral philosophy, he had scarcely time to -greet the city he had left for nearly half a century before he died, a -few days after his arrival, in the summer of 1481, in his eighty-third -year. - -The new-born university, which was opened in November 1473, soon -took its share in the working of many active forces in diverse -directions. In its very earliest years it would have risen to the -highly flourishing condition it afterwards attained had not various -unfavourable circumstances come in the way. The unhealthy air of -the city and neighbourhood had not been sufficiently taken into -consideration. War, desolation, poverty, made matters worse, just at -the time when Florence was also a prey to disease. For six years the -establishment kept moving from place to place. Professors and students -wandered away to Pistoja and Prato, and sometimes to Florence—even -Empoli and San Miniato were thought of—till the state of affairs was -improved, and the hitherto scattered lecturers were brought together -in a university building erected by the care of Lorenzo. There was -no lack of difficulties with the professors; the Sienese Bartolommeo -Sozzini and the Milanese brothers Decio, all professors of law, gave -Lorenzo a great deal of trouble by their unruly conduct. Among the best -professors at the outset were the jurists Baldo Bartolini of Perugia -and Francesco Accolti of Arezzo, brother of the Florentine chancellor, -and a pupil of Filelfo; Piero Leoni of Spoleto, already mentioned, -who afterwards, to his misfortune, became Lorenzo’s family doctor; -the humanists Lorenzo Lippi of Colle and Bartolommeo of Pratovecchio. -Special honours fell to the share of the Roman Francesco de’ Massimi, -who came to the university at its opening as professor of law, was made -Principal the next year, and gained such esteem both by his lectures -and by his endeavours to establish and maintain a better understanding -between the two hostile cities, that the rights of citizenship were -conferred on him and his descendants, and he was permitted to add the -arms of Pisa to his own.[95] The salaries of the professors were -mostly considerable, and Lorenzo repeatedly contributed to them out -of his own funds. The archbishop, Filippo de’ Medici, supported him -in his efforts to benefit the institution, which was conducive both -to the honour and advantage of the see. That pecuniary difficulties -could not be escaped, however, is clear from the fact that in 1485, in -consequence of the non-payment of the papal allowance, a retrenchment -of 2,000 florins was deemed needful. - -The philosophical and philological lectures continued, as has been -said, at Florence, and scholarly activity there seemed in nowise -diminished by the re-animation of the sister city. Among the native -professors, Bartolommeo della Fonte (Fontius) made a name equally -distinguished in Latin and Greek literature, and left Latin memoirs on -contemporary events from 1448 to 1493, the value of which is not to be -measured by their brevity.[96] His friendship with Poliziano became -clouded when he obtained the chair of eloquence vacant by Filelfo’s -death. He does not seem to have held it long, as he undertook the -superintendence of Matthias Corvinus’ library at Ofen. The study of -Greek flourished. The chair once occupied by Argyropulos and Theodoros -was filled by the Athenian Demetrios Chalcondylas, who kept it longer -than anyone else, and left a better reputation, both for learning and -morality, than many Greek grammarians. Poliziano, who is supposed -to have perfected his knowledge of the Hellenic tongue under him, -addressed him in several Greek epigrams, which give no hint of the -rivalry afterwards said to exist between them. A fine testimony to -his Homeric studies is the edition of the ‘Iliad’ and ‘Odyssey’ which -came out in 1488. Three years before, at the age of nearly seventy, -he left Florence for Milan, where he long continued to teach, having -been gladly welcomed by Lodovico Sforza, who rivalled the Medici in his -patronage of science and art. Chalcondylas’ place at Florence was taken -by Johannes Lascaris, who formed many fruitful connections with Milan, -France, and Rome, in the days of Lorenzo’s son. The knowledge of Greek -was, perhaps, never so widespread among high-born youths anywhere as in -those days in the Tuscan city to which, Poliziano said, Athens with its -native soil and all its possessions had transferred itself. In truth, -strangers eager to learn came from all quarters—England, Germany, -Portugal—just as of old everybody went to Athens. Here Alessandro -Farnese acquired that knowledge of the language and literature of -Greece which the greyhaired Pope Paul III. had not yet lost. Poliziano -thus addressed the hearers of Chalcondylas: - - Seek the Pierides not in their ancient home, O ye poets: - For in this city of ours dwells now the heavenly choir. - Where, do ye ask, have they chosen among us a place to abide in? - All the nine ye will find safe in Chalcondylas’ breast. - -Textual criticism was a work taken up less by foreigners than by -Italians: in Rome, especially by Lorenzo Valla and Pomponio Leto; in -Florence, by Landino, Poliziano, and Pico. Lorenzo not only encouraged -those personally intimate with him to this work, but urged others to -it, particularly the members of the Academy, which, having weathered -the storms of Paul II.’s reign, flourished with renewed vigour -under Sixtus IV., a Pope who felt no fear of the baptized heathens. -Bartolommeo Platina, writing to Lorenzo[97] to recommend the Milanese -sculptor Andrea Fusina, adds that the man felt assured of obtaining his -desire if he, Platina, interceded for him. ‘Farewell, and believe me, -thou hast few who love and honour thee like Platina.’ On March 30, -1488, Lorenzo wrote to Lanfredini on behalf of a friend of Pomponio -Leto:[98] ‘Doubtless you know, at least by name, Pomponio, one of the -most famous scholars in Rome, if not the very first, and a man much -attached to me and our whole house, so that I am greatly desirous of -doing him a favour.’ - -The art of studying manuscripts had first to be put on a sound basis. -The rich harvest of discoveries was now almost at an end, a few objects -of interest turning up only occasionally. Collectors had naturally -enough given themselves up to delight in the prizes thus gained, -without troubling themselves much about criticism. The necessity of -criticism became more strongly felt and exercised as continued study of -the old authors involved a stricter examination of the correctness of -the manuscripts. At first people had been too much inclined to believe -generally in their great age, and had been misled in individual cases -by the chronological notes at the end of the codices. Often, as in -the Medicean codex of the later books of the Annals of Tacitus, the -date was fixed in the fourth Christian century, when in reality the -parchments were written on by a later copyist. The corrupt state of -the manuscripts called for correction, but the correction was mostly -arbitrary. Coluccio Salutati, Leonardo Bruni, Francesco Barbaro, -and others, sought to supply what was needed, but of rules they -knew nothing. In this, above all, shines the transcendent merit of -Poliziano; though even he indulged largely in conjecture, when in his -youth he self-complacently fancied that his work on Catullus surpassed -everything of the kind. Nor did he stand alone in this respect. Ermolao -Barbaro in his edition of Pliny in 1492, Marullus in his critical works -on Lucretius, confess how often they had had recourse to emendations -of their own devising. But Poliziano thoroughly perceived that a -secure basis was only to be obtained by a comparison of MSS. where -more than one existed. When this was not the case he tried to get -a foundation for his conjectures from notes and parallel passages. -Many printed books from his library bear on their margins traces of -this comparison of MSS., to which he alludes in one of his letters to -Lorenzo.[99] The collection of critical studies which he published in -1489 under the title of ‘Miscellanea,’ at Lorenzo’s desire and with a -dedication to him, is a lasting memorial of his learning and acumen. A -painful impression is made by his dispute with Filelfo’s pupil Giorgio -Merula,[100] the editor of ‘Plautus.’ This man had been invited to -Milan by Ludovico il Moro, gave philosophical lectures there, and -though previously an admirer of Poliziano, now professed to find errors -and plagiarisms in his works. Sforza showed his good sense by trying to -calm the irritation of the Florentine when appealed to by him. - -Poliziano’s critical work on the correction of the text of Justinian’s -‘Corpus Juris’ holds an honourable place in the history of this -subject. This famous copy of the Pandects was avowedly acquired by Pisa -at the conquest of Amalfi, whither it had doubtless come as a gift from -some Greek emperor, and on the overthrow of Pisa it was transferred to -Florence. Poliziano’s views of its age and authorship may have been -exploded by later criticism, but for the foundations of a better text -than that of the later MSS., and the two editions printed from them, we -still owe him thanks.[101] - -While the Latin works of the humanists were being done into the -vulgar tongue, the practice of translating Greek works into Latin -was continued. Alamanno Rinuccini translated Plutarch’s ‘Lives’ and -moral writings, as well as Philostratos’ ‘Life of Apollonius of -Tyana,’ which excited special interest in an age much busied with the -theologising philosophy of the later Greeks. Alessandro Bracci did the -same for the histories of Appian, and Poliziano, as has been mentioned, -translated those of Herodian for Innocent VIII. The movement, begun in -Florence and Venice, had spread all over Italy. In the most palmy days -of these studies the invention of printing produced in the whole world -of letters a change, the possible extent of which was at once felt, -though it could not yet be measured. Books had hitherto been things -for the great and opulent, and not seldom were to be obtained only by -personal labour. There were difficulties even in the highest circles. -The spread of the new art produced not only a material increase of -literary productions, but led naturally to an immense increase of -criticism. In earlier times bitter complaints had been heard of the -corruption of the texts. The few attempts that had been made to attain -greater correctness now became a recognised branch of study. Every -corrector was not indeed a Poliziano, a Barbaro, or a Merula. The -last complains, in his edition of ‘Plautus’ of 1472, that learned and -unlearned alike busied themselves with correcting books; a circumstance -which limits the value of more than one _editio princeps_ to its mere -rarity, and explains the fact that many of the correctors of that -time rivalled their predecessors the copyists in the arbitrariness of -their proceedings. But even in the case of the learned the canons of -criticism were by no means fixed. - -It is remarkable that Florence, which, when printing was introduced -into Italy, stood at the head of all literary movement, is by no means -the first city that appears in the annals of typography. In 1465, three -years after the capture of Mainz by Adolf of Nassau had scattered to -the four winds the printers established there, two Germans set up the -first printing-press in the Benedictine monastery at Subiaco, whence -ere long it was removed to the house of the Massimi at Rome. Four years -later Venice followed, then the Umbrian and other cities. In November, -1471, appeared the first book printed in Florence, the commentary of -Servius on Virgil’s ‘Bucolics,’ which was followed in the following -January by the ‘Georgics,’ and in October, 1472, by the ‘Æneid.’ But if -the city fell behind many others in point of priority, this honour is -due to her, that one of her sons cut and founded his own types, without -needing the services of a foreigner. The goldsmith Bernardo Cennini was -the first Italian who set himself up as an independent artist in this -line.[102] Born in Florence, January, 1415, he was first a silk-weaver -and then a goldsmith, and was concerned in the bronze doors of the -Baptistery, and other great works. His art led him to manufacture -types for printing. The inscription in the book printed by him, with -the help of his sons Domenico and Pietro, the first as compositor, the -second as corrector of the press,[103] shows that he was proud of the -achievement: ‘To Florentine minds nought is arduous.’ The book shows -an artistic mind in its form and typographical arrangement, but the -round type is lacking in sharpness and evenness. The pecuniary result -can scarcely have been worth the trouble and outlay. When we find that -Cennini, after spending sixteen months on the production of the folio -volume, pledged his house for a loan of 120 florins, we can understand -why he returned to his old occupation, and why no other book printed by -him is forthcoming. In course of time Bernardo Cennini, whose sight had -suffered greatly, became consul of his guild, and died in 1483, twelve -years after the attempt which brought him a name and somewhat tardy -honours. - -Next a German who had established himself in Florence, Johannes, -son of Peter of Mainz, printed Boccaccio’s ‘Filocolo’ in 1472, and -afterwards joined the typographical society which took its name from -the Dominican nunnery at Ripoli.[104] Its local habitation is still -shown in one of the schoolrooms of the educational institute named -after the same in the Via della Scala. From this establishment, -founded by the spiritual directors of the convent and connected -with a type-foundry, issued first, in 1476, some lauds and prayers, -then the ‘Commentary of Donatus’ and the ‘Legend of S. Catherine of -Siena,’ which, both in the common form and in copies with illuminated -initials, obtained a great circulation. This printing establishment, -in which many both of the clergy and laity had a share, and in which -the nuns were employed as compositors, produced a great deal of work -during its short existence of eight years. In 1477 printing was begun -by Nicolaus of Breslau, already mentioned; in 1478 he brought out the -‘editio princeps’ of Celsus, and three years later Landino’s ‘Dante.’ -In 1481, Antonio Miscomini printed Savonarola’s ‘Triumphus Crucis,’ a -proof of the increasing notice attracted by the eloquent and learned -Dominican. Next came Ficino’s ‘Platonic Theology,’ and translation -of ‘Plotinus.’ In 1488 the series of Greek books issued in Florence -opened brilliantly with the ‘Homer,’ dedicated to Lorenzo’s eldest son. -Chalcondylas undertook the correction, the difficulty of which called -forth his remark, in the preface, that the text had been so corrupted -by the carelessness of copyists that it was, so to say, impossible to -find it entire in any codex, however old. The expenses were borne by -Bernardo and Neri, sons of Tanai de’ Nerli, a noble citizen. Lorenzo -Alopa of Venice is said to have printed the beautiful volume, which was -soon followed by numerous others. The most celebrated Florentine family -of typographers, that of the Giunta, did not begin their labours till -Lorenzo de’ Medici had long been in his grave. - -The extended use of typography had, however, as yet by no means -diminished the value of manuscripts or put an end to the work of -the copyists, while the need and difficulty of unearthing literary -treasures was as great as ever. The explanation of this is to be found -in the material perfection to which the art of the copyists had been -brought, a perfection of which the proud consciousness was expressed -in Vespasiano’s disdainful remark on printing. This branch of industry -went on flourishing for many years, to disappear at last and leave -scarcely a trace behind. One of the most brilliant, though not the -most important, of the treasures of the Laurentiana, the works of St. -Augustine in sixteen folio volumes full of miniatures and ornaments, -was begun in the time of Piero de’ Medici and finished shortly before -the death of Lorenzo (two of the volumes are dated 1491). It may -not have been completed till the time of his second son, unless the -escutcheon with the balls and the Triregnum points to Leo X. only as -the possessor of the work and not as concerned in its execution. - -In the diffusion of literary treasures, both of classical and modern -works, and in the relations of the latter to the general public, who -now for the first time became really acquainted with them, was brought -about that great change which gives to this period double importance -in the history of intellectual development. At Lorenzo’s death this -revolution had hardly reached its first stage; but his keen vision -perceived its growing importance when he observed that in the course of -twenty-eight years Italy had come to take a more prominent share than -other lands in the activity of the press. This showed, quite as much as -the previous rapid development of Greek literature, that the country -was ready to make an independent and profitable use of the gifts of -foreign countries. The invention of printing and the discovery of -America were in some degree the two great landmarks of Lorenzo’s life. -The first created actual publicity, the second opened a new horizon to -the world. - -Never were manuscripts more eagerly collected and copied than in those -days. The sum of the collections was not so great as in the days -of Poggio and Leonardo Bruni; still the libraries were increasing -everywhere. Greece, which had contributed so largely to enrich the -West in the first half of the century, and after the fall of the -Eastern empire, was still the principal mine. Witness the two journeys -of Johannes Lascaris, the second of which, like that of Bernardo -Michelozzi, was entirely devoted to searching the monastery of Mount -Athos. Its results, as already stated, reached Florence after Lorenzo’s -death. As early as 1472 Lorenzo had projected a building, probably near -the palace in the Via Larga, destined to contain the great number of -manuscripts collected by his grandfather, his father, and himself. This -appears from a letter addressed to him by Vespasiano da Bisticci, in -which the latter recalls their frequent conversations on the subject, -and adds that such an undertaking would do great honour to Lorenzo as -well as to the town; and that he had written about it to the Duke of -Calabria, the Count of Urbino, and Alessandro Sforza, Lord of Pesaro, -knowing how much pleasure it would give them. Doubtless the manifold -cares and disturbances which prevented Lorenzo from imitating his -grandfather in the number and splendour of his buildings hindered him -from executing this plan in good time. Consequently at his premature -death the library was but half finished. It is now impossible to make -out even the site of the building, since it is uncertain whether it -was the same chosen many years afterwards by his nephew Pope Clement -VII. for the existing Mediceo-Laurentian library. We still possess the -inventory of the private library of the Medici, drawn up in 1495, -when the books were made over to the convent of San Marco. There they -remained, through many vicissitudes, till 1508, when Cardinal Giovanni -de’ Medici bought them and transferred them to Rome; after his death -they returned to Florence, to form the chief part of the San Lorenzo -collection.[105] - -It may be imagined that many of Lorenzo’s fellow-citizens were his -rivals in book-collecting. A fine library had once been formed by -Piero de’ Pazzi, son of Andrea. Francesco and Angelo Gaddi followed -his example, and the great public library of their native city -contains many books once in their possession. Poliziano’s friend, the -accomplished merchant Filippo Sassetti the elder, also made a large -collection. The good custom of making special bequests to secure these -literary treasures from dispersion was kept up. Boccaccio had done -this, and Riccoli, Traversari, Cardinal Piero Corsini and others; and -in like manner Ugolini Guigni, Bishop of Volterra, left his books to -the Benedictine abbey at Florence.[106] In 1477, Jacopo Salvini, Bishop -of Cortona, bequeathed his collection to Lorenzo de’ Medici.[107] The -latter had literary correspondents everywhere. In 1476 we find him -corresponding with the Milanese Gio. Francesco della Torre, who, with -Maestro Bonaccorso of Pisa, had purchased the books of Andronikos -Kallistos, when the latter purposed returning from Lombardy to his own -home.[108] Giovanni Rossi of Candia, who had been employed by Cardinal -Bessarion, was also made use of by Lorenzo, apparently to look after -copies of manuscripts.[109] Among those more closely connected with him -in later years, Poliziano, Pico, and Ermolao Barbaro took charge of -the enrichment of his collection and that of the convent libraries of -San Marco, Fiesole, and San Gallo. Ho said once to Poliziano, he wished -that he and Pico could procure him so many books that his income would -not suffice to buy them, and he should be obliged to pawn his household -goods. He kept copyists in many places, especially at Padua, which, as -the residence of so many great scholars and from its connection with -the Levant through Venice, was a spot favourable to book collectors. - -The difficulty and expense of obtaining manuscripts in earlier times -has been already noticed. Even in Lorenzo’s latter years it was by no -means easy, and his correspondence shows that once, in the very height -of his glory, he had to apply in his own handwriting to a prince who -was probably under obligation to him, in order to obtain the loan -of Dion Cassius. ‘There is in your Excellency’s library,’ he wrote -on February 5, 1486, to Duke Ercole d’Este, ‘a historian, by name -Dio, _de Romanis historiis_, that I earnestly desire to see, both on -account of the enjoyment and consolation which history affords me, -and because my son Piero, who has some knowledge of Greek literature, -has begged me to help him to become acquainted with this author, who, -I understand, is very rare in Italy. Your Excellency can understand -how highly I shall prize the favour, if you will lend me the book -for a few days.’ Notwithstanding their intimacy, the Duke did not -send the original, but allowed a copy to be made by a copyist sent to -Ferrara for the purpose. Two years later he had Niccolò Leoniceno’s -translation copied for Lorenzo, on condition that it was neither to -be printed nor allowed to go any further.[110] In the spring of 1491 -Poliziano was, as we have seen, in Venice, where he bought for his -patron a quantity of manuscripts now in the Laurentiana. He was refused -permission to see Cardinal Bessarion’s collection of books, although -the Ferrarese ambassador used his influence with the Doge Agostino -Barbarigo—a strange token of petty mistrust.[111] ‘Your diligence in -having Greek works copied, and the favour you show to scholars,’ wrote -Poliziano to Lorenzo about this time, ‘procures for you such honour and -attachment as no one has enjoyed for many years past.’ He mentioned -at the same time the admiration for Lorenzo expressed by a Venetian -poetess honoured by all scholars and literary men, as well as by popes -and kings. ‘Last evening I visited Cassandra Fedele,[112] to whom I -presented your salutations, Lorenzo; she is really admirable, both in -Latin and in the vulgar tongue, withal very modest, and, in my opinion, -also beautiful. I left her astonished. She is devoted to you, and -speaks of you as if she knew all about you. Some day she will certainly -come to Florence to visit you, so prepare to do her honour.’ - -Lorenzo’s example did not fail to bring forth fruit in his own house. -Leo X. laboured all his life to follow it, with a zeal in collecting -which showed that his father’s spirit survived in him. Piero, with -his tutor Poliziano, superintended the arrangement and enrichment of -the library, sending reports about it to his father, when the latter -was ill at the baths. We learn from one of his letters[113] that the -Medici, in the interests of their library, took advantage of the -death of King Matthias Corvinus (April 4, 1490) to secure a number of -his copyists and agents who were then thrown out of employment. That -monarch vied with the book collectors of his time, and spent more than -30,000 gold florins yearly on the increase of his library at Ofen. In -1488 he sent an agent to Florence with full power to make purchases and -superintend the taking of copies. The efforts made by this active and -high-minded ruler of a people still half barbarous, however capable of -development, were always assisted by Lorenzo, as became his friendly -relations with Matthias. Long before the days of Matthias Corvinus -there had been a literary and artistic connection between Florence -and Hungary through Filippo Scolari, commonly called Pippo Spano by -his countrymen, from his title of Count Palatine (_Obergespann_) of -Temesvar; he held an influential position under Sigismund of Luxemburg. -The connection with the Italian literary world had been actively kept -up by the powerful Archbishop of Gran, Johann Vitez, who founded a high -school at Ofen; still more by his nephew, Janus Pannonius, Bishop of -Fünfkirchen, who studied at Padua under Guarino, and visited Cosimo de’ -Medici at Careggi. - -From his youth Lorenzo had extended his attention beyond what are -called literary treasures in the narrower sense. In another field, -bordering at once on the study of antiquity and on that of history, his -name must also be mentioned with distinction. The range of classical -studies was extended to ancient monuments. Rome, for centuries active -only in destruction, began to be ashamed of the bad name which such -barbarism had brought upon her. The time of Sixtus IV., with all -its sins, was the turning-point. Like his successor and namesake, -Sixtus V., the Pope did not entirely refrain from demolishing ancient -monuments; but works of art and inscriptions were safe. The Roman -Academy strove to wipe out the blot pointed at in an epigram by Pius II. - -The great increase in the collection of old inscriptions drew -attention to those valuable witnesses of old times. At the same time -the disappearance of these memorials through decay and careless -removal gave warning that their contents must be secured by copying. -What had been once undertaken by Nicola Signorini, Giovanni Dondi, -Poggio, Ciriaco, perhaps even before them by Cola di Rienzi, was now -continued under the guidance of Pomponio Leto and his friends, with the -sympathy of all Italy. Inscribed stones were diligently collected in -Rome, Naples, and northern Italy. Bernardo Rucellai copied a number -of epigraphs from the originals in Rome. One of the most valuable -of these collections of transcriptions was dedicated to Lorenzo de’ -Medici by its author, the Dominican Fra Giocondo of Verona. He was -one of those many-sided geniuses frequent at the time; versed in -classical literature and in knowledge of antiquity. His pupil, Julius -Cæsar Scaliger, called him a living library of ancient and modern -learning. He was an engineer and architect, active in many ways at -Rome, at Venice, and in France, and at an advanced age master-builder -of the Vatican Basilica, under Leo X. The copy of the collection of -inscriptions presented by Fra Giocondo to Lorenzo de’ Medici, who -came in contact with him through Alessandro Cortesi, has disappeared, -but other copies remain. The dedication of the work is an eloquent -lamentation over the state of ancient Rome, and over the dispersion -or destruction of stone and bronze tablets. It offers a warm tribute -to their value, and an acknowledgment of Lorenzo’s interest in these -studies. Poliziano and other friends made use of the careful work of -the energetic Veronese, who was in communication both with the future -Pope and his brother Giuliano, to whom he dedicated his commentary on -Cæsar’s ‘Gallic War,’ and the later edition of ‘Vitruvius.’[114] - -Such were the literary tendencies which, notwithstanding the rivalry -of other cities, had their chief centre and focus at Florence; such -was the circle of men which had gathered together in this city. Vacant -places were soon filled up again. Like Lorenzo himself, several of -the most prominent were in the prime of life, and younger men began -to make good their claims. Such were Marcello Virgilio Adriani, who, -after Scala’s death, restored the chancellorship to its pristine -glory, and Bernardo Dovizj, who grew up in the house of the Medici, -and afterwards gained a worldwide reputation as Cardinal of Bibiena. -Whatever personal divergences there might be in the group, Lorenzo held -them all together: all did homage to him, all acknowledged him as their -leader. It was no cringing homage to a mighty lord; many of those who -stood nearest to him gained little in worldly goods by their position, -and others were too high and independent to need his help. It was the -homage due to a richly endowed mind with noble aims and endeavours. -Regardless of all inequalities of rank and position, freedom and ease -reigned in this circle. When the meetings were academical, they were -free from the formality which afterwards crept into academical life. -Lorenzo de’ Medici, cheerful and sociable, maintained unconstrained -intercourse with his literary friends. He received them everywhere: in -the house in Via Larga, in the garden of San Marco, in the villas at -Careggi and Poggio a Cajano. The more intimate of them accompanied him -also when he went to the baths or to Pisa, or when he paced the convent -cloisters in serious discourse with the clergy. The Platonic Academy, -an inheritance from his grandfather, was only one manifestation of this -multiform social life. It was so strangely composed that it is not -surprising the Platonists sometimes fell into very un-Platonic ways. -There is something half comic about a letter of Landino’s dated 1464, -the year Cosimo died;[115] it is a petition on behalf of the herald of -the Priory Palace, who had been dismissed from his post for keeping a -girl hidden two days in his room. He solicits pardon upon the following -pleas: his wife was expecting her confinement, he had two little -daughters and an aged mother, and was a member of the Platonic Academy. - -Lorenzo sometimes took part in the meetings of the learned society, -which he was fond of summoning to Careggi, being less disturbed there -than in the city. In both places the Symposia were renewed which, -according to Alexandrian tradition, were to celebrate the day of -Plato’s birth and death (November 7). Marsilio Ficino has described -one of these banquets which took place under the presidency either -of Lorenzo or Francesco Bandini.[116] Among the guests were Marsilio -and his father, Landino, Antonio degli Agli Bishop of Fiesole, Carlo -and Cristoforo Marsuppini, Giovanni Cavalcanti, Bernardo Nuzzi, and -Tommaso Benci. The academical celebration or exercise succeeded the -repast. Plato’s ‘Symposion’—the book which treats of the tokens of -love at similar happy meetings, and a commentary on which Marsilio -furnished in his treatise on love—was used as a starting-point for -free disputation, the parts being divided among the persons present. -Giovanni Cavalcanti developed the ‘Phædro,’ and showed how the birth -of Eros from the conjunction of the earth with chaos, amid the throes -of creation and the struggle for light, signified the original motive -force of all that is good, noble, and beautiful in mankind. With this -discourse was connected the exposition, also allotted to Cavalcanti, -of the speech of Pausanias on the double Aphrodite, and Urania; on -the distinction and confusion between moral and physical affections, -their emanation, extension, stages of purification, and participation -in the manifold forces of nature. Landino undertook to explain the -speech of Aristophanes. According to this, love is the never-sleeping -longing of man for a return to his former state of oneness with the -Divine, from which Zeus, in wrath, had divided him by means of his -earthly form and by sin. To Carlo Marsuppini fell the discourse of -Agathon, which glorifies the qualities of the god who is at once so -various and yet blends all variety into unity. Tommaso Benci devoted -himself to pointing out the connection between the Christian view and -the supposed inspired words of the priestess Diotima, who disclosed to -Socrates the nature of a love that raises man to the highest good or -sinks him to the lowest depths of evil. Cristoforo Marsuppini undertook -to bring into harmony with the Socratic doctrine of Love the poems of -Guido Cavalcanti, to which, as an emanation of Greek philosophy in -the arena of the new-born Italian literature, great importance was -attached by contemporaries, especially by Lorenzo de’ Medici. Such were -the occupations of these famous assemblies. Their positive scientific -results were not great, yet they afford a brilliant testimony to the -cultivation which enabled the upper classes in Florence to take part in -the noblest intellectual efforts. - -While poetry and philosophy were thus flourishing, the exact sciences -were making considerable progress. It is doubtful whether Fra Luca -Paciolo, of Borgo San Sepolcro—who first recalled true geometry to -life by his exposition of Euclid, and who exercised so much influence -on Leonardo da Vinci—began his labours during the lifetime of -Lorenzo. But Paolo del Pozzo Toscanelli, the physician, philosopher, -naturalist, and mathematician, commenced his studies as early as the -days of Cosimo the Elder. In 1468 he laid down the famous meridian -in Sta. Maria del Fiore, primarily for the purpose of ascertaining -exactly the solstices in order to fix the festivals of the Church. -The importance of the work was appreciated by later generations, and -the task was performed more perfectly 300 years afterwards, at the -suggestion of La Condamine.[117] It is well known that Toscanelli, -who died in 1482, aged seventy-five, exerted great influence on the -mind of Christopher Columbus by his calculations of the longitudinal -extent of Eastern Asia, which, however, rested chiefly on Marco Polo’s -mistaken hypotheses. Long after Toscanelli’s death, Columbus—when -upon his first voyage—made use of the map, marked with the latitudes -and longitudes, which the former had once sent to Lisbon. It was in -the last years of Lorenzo’s life that a man whose name is more famous -than his deeds, and who has been the subject of renewed controversy in -our own times, left his home to seek a new one in Southern Spain.[118] -The family of Amerigo Vespucci, which reckoned among the navigator’s -near relatives men of both scientific and political importance, was -sometimes on friendly, sometimes on hostile terms with the Medici; -but we hear nothing of any personal relation between him and Lorenzo. -About the age of forty, Amerigo settled in Seville, where he joined the -banking and commercial house of his fellow-countryman Giovanni Berardi. -Well furnished with knowledge, to which his learned uncle Giorgio -Antonio had contributed not a little, he began a course of practical -preparations for the undertaking which led him to the Far West. Not -with the Florentines, but with a schoolman of Lorraine, originated the -name of the new continent which, as long as the world stands, will -recall Amerigo Vespucci. Still the Florentines rightly rejoiced in the -fame of their countryman. A later generation has seen the house of his -forefathers turned into a hospital, and has inscribed on it in homage -to his memory: ‘Ob repertam Americam sui et patriæ nominis illustratori -amplificatori orbis terrarum.’ When the news of his discoveries made in -the voyage of 1497 reached Florence, the Signoria had the above-named -house illuminated for three nights, a distinction they were wont to -bestow only on the most conspicuous merit. - - - - -THIRD PART. - -_THE FINE ARTS._ - - - - -CHAPTER XII. - -COSIMO AND PIERO DE’ MEDICI IN THEIR RELATION TO ART. - - -THE early years of Cosimo de’ Medici were passed during the great -revolution in art by which realism, united with reminiscences of the -antique, enforced its claims, and, superseding the Gothic and Pisan -styles in architecture and sculpture, restricted that of Giotto, in -painting, to a narrow circle of recognised types. Art had struck out -for itself these new paths before Cosimo became ruler of the whole -state; but he influenced its rapid development by his active sympathy -and by a liberality rarely equalled by private individuals or even -by princes. Independently of the encouragement he afforded to talent -in his princely capacity, he gave honourable commissions to artists -from his own resources. In personal intercourse with them he united -a thorough knowledge of art with a sympathetic affability which did -equal honour to them and to himself. His two favourite architects, -Brunelleschi and Michelozzo, have been already mentioned. The former -died eighteen years before him, the latter survived him about six -years. He justly valued their genius, and promoted a friendly -understanding between them while employing both on important works. -It was Brunelleschi who continued the building of the church of San -Lorenzo and the abbey of Fiesole. - -After the days of Giovanni di Bicci both branches of the Medici seem -to have been reunited. The church of San Lorenzo was the parish church -of Cosimo’s branch, and the burial-place of both. As early as 1415 -there had been a talk of enlarging this sacred edifice, which dated -from the earliest years of Christianity. Three years later a street -at the back, the Via de’ Preti—a name ill-suited to the occupations -of its inhabitants—was assigned to the Chapter for the purpose of -enlargement. They began to rebuild the choir in 1419.[119] With other -members of wealthy families, Giovanni de’ Bicci, having pledged himself -to build some chapels, undertook the sacristy, which, for harmony of -proportions, both in its cupola and ground-plan, and for the excellence -of its decorations, claims the highest admiration. What the father had -begun the son continued on a larger scale. On September 23, 1440—while -the building of the new church was proceeding under the direction of -Brunelleschi, the older one still being in use—Cosimo buried his -brother Lorenzo there. Upon this occasion Pope Eugene IV. sent the -cardinals and prelates of his court with the banner of the church and -his own, and 100 wax candles. Two years later Cosimo proceeded to -complete the choir and cupola on condition of gaining the right of -patronage for himself and his heirs, in return for which privilege he -gave the chapter a state bond for 40,000 florins towards the expenses -of the building. On May 15, 1457, the court of the Canonica was -begun; it was finished, as well as the high altar and those in the -transepts, four years after, and finally the high altar was consecrated -by Archbishop Orlando Bonarli on August 9, 1461. Two years before, -a college for young clergy had been opened near the church, which -retains its chapter to this day.[120] San Lorenzo is a basilica with -columns. It has arches resting on an entablature laid on the capitals, -a square end to the choir, a cupola, a flat roof, and chapels of no -great depth. A walk through the cloisters of the Canonica recalls times -long gone by. Two ranges of arcades enclose the quadrangle and lead to -the little dwellings of the canons and to the famous library, which, -in its present form, is a work of later days. The mighty dome of the -cathedral and the bell-tower of Giotto look down into these cloisters, -the stillness of which contrasts with the din of the busy streets -around; while its whole appearance reminds the spectator of the homely -simplicity, the frugality, and noble generosity which prevailed at the -time of its erection. - -The work said to have been executed for Cosimo at Fiesole by -Brunelleschi was scarcely less important. At the foot of the hill -there, in the valley of the Mugnone, lay the old abbey church, -believed to be the original cathedral of the Etruscan city. In 1439, -by command of Pope Eugene IV., it was handed over by the Benedictines -to the regular canons of St. Augustine; and Cosimo de’ Medici, who -was a friend of the Prior—Don Timoteo of Verona—began the new -building. The church still retains the middle compartment of its -original façade, belonging to the præ-Gothic period. Containing a -nave and chapels of considerable dimensions, the building is simple -and artistic. Doubts have been thrown on Vasari’s assertion that it -is really Brunelleschi’s, it being quite unlike his other works.[121] -The building of the convent presented many difficulties on account of -the slope of the ground, and was finished by Cosimo’s son in 1466. It -has long been diverted from its original use, but continued to be the -domicile of the founder and his family, whose arms were carved upon -it, at a later period. Here the Platonic Academy held its meetings, -and here a great-grandson of Cosimo donned the purple as cardinal, and -another—Giuliano, Duke of Nemours—drew his last breath. In later days -the church was enriched with many beautiful works of art; but in vain -do we look round the great building, which neither Brunelleschi nor -Cosimo lived to see completed, for the learned men and the collection -of books that were once in a double sense its best ornaments.[122] - -Brunelleschi’s work in the neighbourhood of the city was surpassed -in grandeur by a building of Michelozzo’s within the walls. In 1436 -the Medici brothers obtained from Pope Eugene IV. the cession of the -Silvestrine[123] convent of San Marco to the Dominicans of Fiesole, who -had just settled beside the little church of San Giorgio, on the left -bank of the Arno. In the following year the rebuilding of the convent -and restoration of the church was begun; not without difficulties -on the part of the former owners, who actually entered a protest at -the Council of Basle. The cost of reconstruction was borne mainly by -the Medici, with some assistance from the community. The church was -consecrated on the feast of the Epiphany, 1442, by Cardinal Acciapacci, -Archbishop of Capua, in presence of the Pope and his court.[124] A -considerable portion of the convent was finished in 1443; but the whole -was not completed till eight years later. The traces of Michelozzo’s -hand are no longer to be seen in the church; the choir and apse were -rebuilt two hundred years after him. - -It is impossible to walk through the great courts, the broad vaulted -corridors, the endless rows of cells opening into the passages, and -the noble library, without remembering that this convent was the scene -of many famous events in peace and war that influenced the fate of -the city, and left their mark in the history not of Italy only, but -of the human mind.[125] Cosimo was continually employing Michelozzo, -who, besides the family palace, built for him the Noviciate of Sta. -Croce and the adjoining chapel; remodelled the villas at Careggi, -Cafaggiuolo, and Trebbio, and executed other works, some of them beyond -the Tuscan border. Among the latter was the decoration of the palace -at Milan, entrusted to him by Francesco Sforza, for which purpose -Michelozzo visited that city. Here also he built for Pigello Portinari, -director of the Medicean bank, a chapel in Sant’ Eustorgio after the -model of that of the Pazzi in Sta. Croce. Cosimo’s sons employed him -likewise. He is commonly believed to have designed for Piero the -elegant chapel of the Annunziata, over whose altar hangs the thirteenth -century picture of the Annunciation, which gave rise to the building -of the church. This building, a quadrangular open chapel, with fluted -Corinthian columns of marble supporting a richly decorated entablature, -and enclosed by an elegant brass trellis, was executed by Pagno di -Lapo Partigiani, a sculptor of Fiesole, and consecrated by Cardinal -Guillaume d’Estouteville, Archbishop of Rouen, on Christmas day, -1452.[126] - -About the same time, Michelozzo executed for Piero the marble -tabernacle destined to contain a figure of Christ in the nave of the -basilica of San Miniato. It consists of a canopy supported on composite -marble columns and pilasters, the interior richly decorated with -rose-coloured ornaments of glazed earth in square panels. On the frieze -is the Medicean device, the three feathers with the diamond ring and -the motto _Semper_, on the arch the escutcheon of the Calimala guild, -in relief. Inside the tabernacle stands the altar with painting and -_predella_.[127] For Giovanni, Cosimo’s younger son, Michelozzo built -on the heights of Fiesole a villa, visible from a great distance, -which afterwards passed to the Mozzi family. The architect was also -employed by connections of the Medici. For Giovanni Tornabuoni he -built the great palace near Sta. Trinità, which still gives its name -to the street. To gain more space, it afterwards became necessary to -demolish the front part of this palace, which, with its ground floor of -rustic-work and its plain arched windows, had a somewhat sombre effect. - -While Michelozzo’s time was chiefly taken up by the Medici, -Brunelleschi was active in other quarters. The progress and final -completion of his great work, the dome of the cathedral, has already -been mentioned. On August 30, 1436, the roofing-in was celebrated by -the pealing of all the bells in the city and the chanting of a _Te -Deum_. Eight years later the scaffolding was raised for building the -lantern, which was begun in 1446, shortly before the death of the great -master, who was succeeded by Michelozzo.[128] His beautiful arcade at -the Foundling Hospital has been mentioned. The similar loggia of San -Paolo was placed opposite Sta. Maria Novella, at the southern end of -the piazza. He built a chapel for the Pazzi family in the front court -of the convent of Sta. Croce. Its walls are covered with Corinthian -pilasters, high niches, and terra-cotta alto-rilievos; the cupola rests -on two side-arches richly panelled and decorated with designs in glazed -earth; the pendants being ornamented with terra-cotta rilievos of the -Evangelists. Decoration and colour are here kept just within the limits -of good taste. Andrea de’ Pazzi began the building, which was finished -by his son Jacopo, so that Brunelleschi can hardly have lived to see -its completion.[129] The official residence of the Capitani di parte -Guelfa in the Via delle Terme, rebuilt by Brunelleschi, still exists, -though with many alterations. The architect saw only the beginnings -of his second greatest work, the palace of Luca Pitti. In Vasari’s -time, when Eleonora di Toledo, Duchess of Florence, purchased the -unfinished building—appropriately called, by an art-writer of those -days, _muraglia_—the original plan was no longer to be found. Many -alterations were made in succeeding centuries down to the present, when -the extensive wings, intended as halls, were built. But the façade has -kept its original stamp, and Vasari’s words remain true—that Tuscan -architecture has produced no richer or grander creation. This grandeur -is united with the greatest simplicity; and it is the absence of all -ornament upon the three stages of rustic-work, with their gigantic -bow-windows, crowned with galleries, which gives the building its -peculiar character. The palace is said to have been begun in 1440, long -before the time of Luca Pitti’s ephemeral greatness.[130] His villa -at Rusciano was begun about the time of Brunelleschi’s death, so that -the great artist saw little of the execution of his plan, which was -carried on by Luca Fancelli. While Brunelleschi here aimed at attaining -the whole effect by the majesty and harmony of the proportions, in the -palace of Jacopo de’ Pazzi he allowed more play to decoration. - -It is doubtful whether Cosimo de’ Medici employed the most learned -artist of the time, Leon Batista Alberti. His chief works in Florence, -with one exception, were executed for the Rucellai. Among them may be -mentioned the palace, the loggia, the upper part of the façade of Sta. -Maria Novella, finished in 1470; and the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre -at San Pancrazio, an imitation of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre -at Jerusalem.[131] The Rucellai palace, in which are retained the -bow-windows divided by small columns, points to the days of Bramante. -It exhibits a combination of flat decorative pilasters of various -orders with smooth rustic-work, antique ornaments on the rectangular -doors, and traces of the square form in the bow-windows. Alberti -also made designs for another work, which has given occasion to so -many objections that its defects have been attributed to alterations -by another hand. This is the choir of the Annunziata, commenced in -1451 by Lodovico Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, who, as victorious -commander-in-chief of the Republic, desired to found a memorial at -once of his piety and his thankfulness. A quarter of a century elapsed -before the building was finished by Luca Fancelli. The exterior is -octagonal, the interior round, with several chapels in irregular -order, and numerous windows round the base of the large cupola, which -is closed, and was ornamented in the seventeenth century with figures -in fresco. In our own day redecoration has given to the choir as -well as the rest of this dazzlingly-gilt church a thoroughly modern -appearance.[132] - -Sculpture, no less than architecture, was in full activity. Here -also we find in the foremost rank those artists whom the Medici had -attached to themselves; among whom Donatello stood first, while his -pupils benefited by the favour shown to him. The Medici mansion was -full of Donatello’s works. Over the arches in the front court are eight -medallions by him, with reliefs in marble; and he restored many of the -antique heads over the doors. His other works are all scattered. During -Cosimo’s exile, the bronze David with his foot on the head of Goliath -was taken away and set up in the palace-yard of the Signoria. The owner -seems to have been shy of reclaiming it, and finally, in May 1476, his -grandsons sold it to the municipality.[133] During the second exile -of the Medici, another work of Donatello’s was taken from their house -and placed at the great gate of the same palace, with an inscription -recalling the events of 1494.[134] This is the group of Judith and -Holofernes, full of expression, but forced and offending against the -rules of plastic composition. A loss to be regretted is that of the -bronze bust of Madonna Contessina, which Donatello executed for her -husband. - -San Lorenzo still contains many of his works, placed there by the -indefatigable benefactor of this church. Besides the decorations of the -sacristy, &c., there are the reliefs on the pulpits; artistically they -are in fault by their superabundance and want of repose, but the fault -is one of a man of talent. In point of technical execution, they show -a distinct retrogression when compared with contemporary works. It was -not only in works of this kind that Donatello displayed an extravagance -that belies the sense of beauty. He did so even in the dancing children -executed in marble relief for the organ at Sta. Maria del Fiore. - -Vespasiano da Bisticci describes Cosimo’s attachment to this man. ‘He -was,’ says he,[135] ‘a great friend of Donatello, and of all painters -and sculptors. Finding there was little work for the latter, and not -liking Donatello to remain inactive, he entrusted to him the pulpits -and the doors of the sacristy at San Lorenzo; giving orders that -whatever he needed for his own requirements and those of his four -assistants should be paid to him weekly from the Medici bank.’ As -Donatello did not dress to Cosimo’s liking, the latter presented him -with a cloak and hood, an upper garment to wear under the cloak, and -a whole suit, sending all this to him on the morning of a feast day. -Donatello put the new things on a few times only, declining to wear -them any longer, lest ‘people should think he had grown effeminate.’ -How thoroughly Donatello was regarded as belonging to the Medici -household is shown by the fact that the Marquis Ludovico Gonzaga once -asked Cosimo to send the artist to Mantua to execute a shrine modelled -in 1450, to be set up during the expected visit of Pope Pius II.[136] -Many other artists were on confidential terms with Cosimo and his -family. Michelozzo’s two sons belonged almost to the family circle. -In the last years of Cosimo, Donatello could no longer work, so his -generous patron maintained him, and recommended him to his son Piero. -The latter gave him a farm, as he said, ‘to provide him with bread -and wine.’ The artist, however, gave back the gift in legal form, not -wishing to embitter his life with household cares; whereupon Piero had -the value of the produce assigned to him at the bank. In 1462 Piero -granted him space for a vault in San Lorenzo, near the sacristy; and -here, where so many of his works are to be seen, he was buried in 1468, -not far from those who had so valued him during life.[137] - -After Donatello, most closely connected with the Medici, father and -son, were two masters who, while fairly admitting the claims of the -realistic principle, carried it out in a different spirit and in more -ideal forms. Lorenzo Ghiberti, who finished the second door of the -Baptistery in 1452, with the help of his son Vettorio, and in spite -of his seventy-two years, undertook the commission for a third. He -continued till the later years of Cosimo busily engaged on the rich -silver reredos, in which Michelozzo, Verocchio, Bernardo Cennini, -Antonio Pollaiuolo, and others, had a share. He also designed the great -rose-window of Sta. Maria del Fiore, at which Francesco di Domenico -Livi of Gambassi, who learned glass-painting in Germany, was working -in 1436, and Bernardo di Francesco in 1443. Glass-painting in the true -sense of the word was then just beginning to flourish; until that -time coloured windows had been produced by simply putting variously -tinted glass together in mosaic patterns. Many trod in the steps of -Francesco Livi: notably Ser Guasparre da Volterra, who worked in the -cathedral at Siena; while in Florence, Pisa, and Arezzo, the art was -practised by the Jesuates of the order of the B. Giovanni Colombini, -who were established in Florence in 1438, in the convent of San Giusto -before Porta Pinti, and there built the great church which was pulled -down in 1529. It was chiefly by them that Sta. Maria del Fiore, Sta. -Croce, San Michele, and other buildings, were glazed with coloured -windows.[138] - -In 1440 Ghiberti finished for the cathedral the shrine of St. Zanobi, -one of his finest works. To Piero de’ Medici he furnished goldsmith’s -work which brought him great admiration and commissions from Pope -Eugene IV. Besides this master, now growing old, the Medici employed -a younger one, Luca della Robbia. His style is graceful rather than -grand; full of tender and lively expression of feeling, and pleasing -execution in drapery and grouping. His works in the cathedral -show equal fertility of invention and technical skill. One is the -marble relief for the organ gallery, representing a boy and girl -playing and dancing, executed in 1438 as a companion-piece to that -of Donatello;[139] and the other, not so good, is the door of the -sacristy, finished in 1463, with its bronze reliefs of the Madonna, -the Evangelists, and the Fathers of the Church.[140] The monument to -Benozzo Federighi, Bishop of Fiesole[141] (who died in 1450), with the -figure lying on the bier, displays his capabilities in this direction. -But Luca della Robbia is less distinguished by his sculptures in marble -and brass than by the reliefs in glazed earth which, called after him, -were supplied by his descendants for 100 years. They still abound in -Florence and the whole of Tuscany, even to the mountain convents of the -Apennines and the modest churches of remote towns, while numbers of -them have wandered into foreign lands. Anyone taking a walk in Florence -may enjoy these charming creations: lunettes or groups above the doors -of churches and houses, medallions of infants on the portico of the -Foundling Hospital, heads of saints, tabernacles, heraldic escutcheons, -some plain white on a blue ground, some with a judicious mixture of -colours and a rich border of entwined leaves and fruit. These works -form an almost inexhaustible treasury, with a marked character of -graceful earnestness and truth to nature; a help to architecture as -long as the decorative element kept its place in the old manner, which -in the fourteenth century employed both glass and colour. But they were -invaluable for interior decoration, for which Brunelleschi used work in -‘Terra della Robbia’ in the Pazzi chapel. Luca himself decorated for -Cosimo de’ Medici a room in his palace and the buildings in Sta. Croce, -and for Piero the tabernacle in San Miniato; in the latter church he -also assisted in giving to the chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal the -charm of harmonious perfection. - -In the last years of Cosimo de’ Medici grew up a whole generation of -younger sculptors. Their most important works are sepulchral monuments, -which became richer and grander as time went on. Formerly people had, -as a rule, been content with sarcophagi more or less decorated, like -that of Noferi, the father of Palla Strozzi, who died in 1418 and -is buried in the sacristy of Sta. Trinità, beneath an arch resting -on elegant corbels, and on the edges of which are seen pretty genii -playing. Twenty or thirty years later these simple monuments were still -the most usual, even for men of importance. Neri Capponi lies in the -church of the Santo Spirito in a marble coffin bearing on the front -his portrait in relief between two genii; Orlando de’ Medici rests in -that of the SS. Annunziata in a sarcophagus ornamented with his coat of -arms, and occupying with rich architectural accessories the whole side -of a chapel. These were both works of Simone, whom tradition makes a -brother of Donatello.[142] But talented artists soon attempted greater -things. Desiderio da Settignano (so called after the pleasantly -situated little village, two miles east of the city, where Michel -Angelo was nursed by a stonemason’s wife) was a pupil of Donatello, -and thus came into contact with the Medici, who employed him in San -Lorenzo. In the Strozzi palace may be seen his fine thoughtful marble -bust of Marietta, daughter of Filippo Strozzi the elder and Fiammetta -Adimari. His masterpiece is the monument of Carlo Marsuppini in Sta. -Croce, a figure of the dead man resting on the sarcophagus in a niche -crowned by a lunette, with a Madonna in relief.[143] Notwithstanding -some overloading in the accessories, it shows what he might have -become had he not died in 1464, at the early age of thirty-six. The -sarcophagus, resting on lions’ claws and richly adorned with flowers, -leaves, and streaming ribands, is one of the most beautiful productions -of decorative sculpture. Desiderio had many emulators, to whom we owe -some of the finest monuments of this kind. Among them were the brothers -Bernardo and Antonio Rossellino. The former, who worked a good deal -out of Florence as architect to the Popes, does not seem to have been -employed by the Medici. The only thing he is said to have done for them -is a marble fountain, decorated with children and dolphins, in one of -the courts of their palace; and of its fate nothing is known. But the -city contains excellent works by both, exhibiting a similarity to Della -Robbia’s style. Two of Bernardo’s works are the graceful monument to -Beata Villana in Sta. Maria Novella, and that of Leonardo Bruni in -Sta. Croce.[144] The conception, proportions, and technical finish of -these works entitle them to rank among the best productions of a period -rich in monuments. The most perfect work of the kind, however, is that -by Antonio Rossellino to the Cardinal of Portugal, in San Miniato al -Monte. James of Portugal, nephew of King Alfonso V., had come in bad -health to Florence, where he died in 1459 aged twenty-six. In the -basilica, then belonging to the Olivetans, where he was buried, was -built a chapel, unrivalled in symmetry of form and beauty of detail. -The roof is set off with reliefs in glazed earth, the walls are inlaid -with marble, the altar, the bishop’s throne, and the floor of _opus -Alexandrinum_ are admirable. What was formerly the altar-piece—by -Pollaiuolo—is now in the Uffizi. The monument stands in a large niche, -with a curtain slightly drawn back. The sarcophagus is an imitation of -the coffer afterwards used for the tomb of Pope Clement XII. in the -Lateran. The figure of the departed, wearing his mitre, rests on a pall -held by two seated boys; an architectural wall-drapery is terminated by -a cornice, at each end of which is a kneeling angel bearing a crown and -a palm-branch; in the arch above are the Virgin and Child surrounded -by a rich garland and upheld by angels in relief. The figure of the -cardinal surpasses all else of its kind in grace, dignity, and beauty, -while in technical work it is perfection. The head and the folded hands -were modelled from nature.[145] A blessed peace seems diffused over -the whole figure, which realizes what Vespasiano da Bisticci says of -the departed, whom he had known in life: ‘He was outwardly handsome, -but his soul was more beautiful than his body; and by the holiness of -his life and conversation he was fitted to stand beside the saints of -old.’[146] - -To these artists must be added Mino da Fiesole, who, though a pupil -of Desiderio da Settignano—his senior only by a few years—seemed -to have formed himself more on the model of Donatello. His groups of -figures in relief, of which the chief are at Rome, are not always -happy; his monumental statues, of which the two most remarkable in -Florence are of later date, have great dignity and beauty. In his -portrait-heads there is a peculiar delicacy and truth, indicating -careful study of nature, and of which the bust of Bishop Leonardo -Salutati, in the cathedral of Fiesole, is an excellent example.[147] -In the Medici house were busts by him of Piero and his wife, the -former of which is now in the Uffizi. In ornamentation, particularly -in arabesque, Mino is inferior to none; and it is impossible to -mistake his influence in this respect at Rome, where, from the time -of Nicolas V., the number of monuments rapidly increased. The works -of Giuliano da Majano in Florence, where he was occupied in 1463-1465 -with inlaid woodwork for San Domenico, near Fiesole, and the sacristy -of Sta. Maria del Fiore, are of much less importance. Neither he nor -Antonio Filarete, founder of the great door of St. Peter’s, are known -to have done any work for the Medici. That the latter was one of their -_protégés_, however, may be seen not only by the dedication to Piero of -his treatise on architecture, but also by a letter addressed by him to -Piero from Milan, December 20, 1451, thanking him for a recommendation -to Francesco Sforza: ‘I am at your service for whatever I can do. -Dispose of me as you please. Commend me to his Excellency your father, -and your brother Giovanni. With God’s help, I hope to do honour here -both to myself and you; I say to you, because for your sake and in -consequence of your recommendation his Lordship shows me great favour. -He thinks of appointing me chief architect to the cathedral, which -naturally meets with opposition, I being a stranger; but I hope they -will yield to their lord’s desire.’[148] - -The goldsmith’s art, which in the preceding century had reached great -perfection in Tuscan cities and was closely connected with sculpture, -attained through niello-work to engraving on copperplate. The name of -Maso Finiguerra, who executed the celebrated pyx for the Baptistery in -1452, is inseparable from the history of the Medicean splendour. - -For painting, whether in its general development or its particular -productions, the period under consideration is less important than for -the sister arts, at least as far as the Medici are concerned. The two -greatest masters, in different lines, of the first half of the century, -Masaccio and Fra Angelico, continued to adorn Florence with their -works. The former, at his death in 1443, left unfinished the Brancacci -chapel in San Pietro del Carmine, the high school of all later works of -the kind. Unluckily, the fresco has perished in which he represented -the consecration of the church in 1422, with a group of remarkable men -of the time: Giovanni d’Averardo de’ Medici, Niccolò da Uzzano, Baccio -Valori, Lorenzo Ridolfi, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Masolino da Panicale, -and others. Fra Angelico decorated the chapter-house, corridors, -and cells of the convent of San Marco with his wall-pictures, which -represent religious art in its loveliest bloom, a free modification of -the principles of Giotto’s school. He was busy here till Eugene IV. -called him to Rome, where he painted the two chapels in the Vatican for -this Pope and his successor, Nicolas V. He died in 1455. His greatest -pupil, Benozzo Gozzoli, followed his master from Rome to Orvieto, and -in 1459 painted the private chapel of the Medici, his most pleasing -work. The ‘Adoration of the Angels’ is here represented amid a rich -landscape, with choirs of angels, numerous spectators, and festive -scenes, painted with a cheerful colouring that recalls Gentile da -Fabriano. Later, when painting in San Gemignano and at Pisa, Gozzoli -was still connected with the Medici, and in his first fresco in the -Campo Santo, the ‘Curse of Ham,’ a group in the foreground represents -the members of the family as he had known them in earlier years. - -The realistic tendency exhibited by Masaccio grew more prominent in -Paolo Uccello, who was evidently influenced by sculpture, especially by -Donatello. In some of his most important frescoes, those in Sta. Maria -Novella, representing the history of the Creation, and the figure of -John Hawkwood in Sta. Maria del Fiore,[149] the very colouring, grey -upon grey, aims at producing the effect of sculpture. This painter’s -study of perspective made him exaggerate that branch of his art. -The austerity of Andrea dal Castagno’s style is not softened by the -colouring. The repulsive expression of his group of St. John and St. -Francis in Sta. Croce supports the legend of the murder of Domenico -Veneziano, which has adhered to Andrea’s name till our own day, though -he died four years before his supposed victim.[150] The most important -works he has left are the figures of sibyls and of famous men, executed -in a hall of the villa formerly belonging to the Pandolfini at -Legnaia, but now removed to the National Museum at the Palace of the -Podestà. The characteristic figures, among whom are Nicola Acciaiuolo -and Pippo Spano, produce a great effect. Neither Andrea nor Uccello -seems to have been employed by the Medici, who did, however, engage -Domenico Veneziano, Andrea’s fellow-worker on the lost frescoes in Sta. -Maria Nuova, a painter much influenced by Fra Angelico. The repeated -occurrence of the Medici’s patron saints, Cosmo and Damian, in pictures -of which the origin cannot be clearly traced, points to the conclusion -that they were commissions from the family or their friends. But the -painter most highly favoured by Cosimo and his sons was Fra Filippo -Lippi, whose manners and conversation were as great a scandal to the -Carmelite order as Fra Angelico’s whole life was an ornament to that -of St. Dominic. Disorderly, loose in morals, always in difficulties -and need of money, he yet gained patrons by his undeniable talent, -which unites force and animation to Angelico’s intensity of feeling. -Lippi’s grouping and composition is various, free, and rich, showing -a realistic study of nature. He worked a great deal for the Medici, -who made presents of his pictures to the Pope and King Alfonso, and -procured him commissions abroad. His greatest work, the frescoes in the -chapel in the choir of the Collegiate Church of Prato, was finished -for the Provost Carlo de’ Medici, whose likeness may be seen in the -representation of the burial of St. Stephen. It was through Cosimo, -who had many connections in Umbria, that Fra Filippo went to Spoleto, -where he executed in the cathedral the scenes from the history of the -Madonna which were finished after his death in 1469 by his assistant -Fra Diamante. - -Among the painters employed by Cosimo and his sons were the two -Peselli, Giuliano d’Arrigo, and his grandson Pesellino; the former -followed the artistic tendencies represented by Giotto, the latter -was an earnest disciple of the realistic school. Much of the Medici -furniture was painted by them, according to a fashion of the time, -continued till the middle of the sixteenth century. Presses and coffers -(_cassoni_) were ornamented with compositions of small figures, taken -from history, sacred or profane, animals, hunting-scenes, &c. In the -Florentine collections are many paintings of this kind, even down to -Andrea del Sarto and his friends and pupils, the original destination -of which is shown by their form. They were not all Florentines who -painted for the Medici. A Veronese, Matteo de’ Pasti, wrote to Piero -in 1441, that he trusted to send him works such as he had never -before seen.[151] He probably alluded to the convex tablets (now in -the Uffizi collection) representing scenes from Petrarca’s triumphs, -which were doubtless intended to decorate a room. The various dealings -of the Medici with Flanders, from the time of Cosimo, contributed to -draw attention in Florence to the Van Eyck school of painting, which -influenced Italian art in the fifteenth century, particularly in point -of technicalities. It was through Tommaso Portinari, director of the -Medici bank at Bruges, that the church of the hospital of Sta. Maria -Nuova—an old foundation of the family—obtained the most important -work of the Flemish school to be found in Tuscany. This was the -masterpiece of Hugo van der Goes, the ‘Adoration of the Shepherds,’ -containing portraits of the members of the donor’s family.[152] The -Flemish pictures mentioned by Vasari as being in the possession of the -Medici (one of them, a portrait of Tommaso Portinari, is now in the -Pitti Palace), prove the interest awakened by these works, great as was -their difference in conception from Italian art. - -It is easy to imagine that other branches of artistic industry -were furthered by this artistically inclined family at a period of -such varied activity, and that their house kept constantly filling -with treasures of all kinds. For it was the pride of the princes -and rich citizens—and even of such as had to deny themselves many -of the comforts of life in order to satisfy a noble passion—to -surround themselves with ancient and modern works, to decorate -halls, staircases, and courts with marbles and other antiquities; to -collect old coins and intaglios; to deck their rooms with statues and -sculptures by living artists, with handsome furniture, silver plate, -rich silken hangings and carpets. - -Among the records of the Rinuccini family are notes of the cost of -goldsmiths’ work furnished by Finiguerra and Pollaiuolo.[153] Cosimo’s -love for these things was shared by his brother Lorenzo and both -his sons. An inventory of the antique coins, cameos, gems, mosaic -tablets; and enamels preserved in the house in the Via Larga, mentions -100 gold and 503 silver coins, a number of intaglios set as seals -and rings, Greek and Roman mosaic tablets, valuable vases, precious -stones to the value of more than thirty thousand gold florins.[154] -The silver plate here, as well as at the villas, was not reckoned -in. Mention has already been made of the travelling antiquaries who -carried about with them manuscripts and objects of art, and were -at once scholars and colporteurs. But purchases were also made for -the Medici abroad. Antiquities came from Rome, Naples, Viterbo, and -other places. Donatello was accustomed to restore injured antique -marbles, a custom which was later carried to extremes, and led to -mischief. Worked carpets (Arazzi) came from Flanders, where Bruges -was the chief emporium for works of art, though Antwerp fairs were -often visited.[155] A letter of Carlo de’ Medici to his half-brother -Giovanni, written from Rome, apparently in the autumn of 1451,[156] -shows that Cardinal Barbo, afterwards Pope Paul II., was in competition -with the Medici, and was not above a little gentle compulsion: ‘I -bought some time ago about thirty silver medals from an assistant cf -Pisanello, who is lately dead. I know not how Monsignore di San Marco -heard of it, but, meeting me accidentally in the church of the Santi -Apostoli, he took me by the hand, and would not let me go till he had -got me to his house and taken all I had about me—rings and coins to -the value of about twenty florins. There was no getting them back, and -in the end I have had to let him keep the things, after a vain appeal -to the Pope.’ The complaint is repeated in a letter of 1455. As we -shall see, however, such losses were more than made up to the Medici at -the death of Paul II. - -Such were the relations of Cosimo and his sons to art-life in Florence. -The great movement had begun before they took the helm of the state; -but they exercised great and beneficial influence on its development, -and always set a praiseworthy example to their fellow-citizens. In -this respect they thoroughly understood their time. The tone and -manner of their relations with artists is particularly attractive; it -was inspired by true refinement of feeling. Merchant princes as they -were, whose help was generally coveted, they kept up a confidential -intercourse with men of talent, as among friends and equals. In -the requests addressed to them there is no tone of servility; the -traditions of free citizenship continued in all social relations. So -it was also at a later period, when Cosimo’s grandson had attained -the position of a ruling prince; Lorenzo’s bearing was the same, -and contributed not a little to his powerful influence over his -fellow-men. In many cases, as with Antonio Squarcialupi, the musician -and organ-builder, he merely continued a connection begun by his -father, uncle, and grandfather. Antonio, who in his writings adopted -the pseudonym Degli Organi, belonged to an old family who had once been -‘Signori’ at Poggibonzi in the Elsa valley, and who on account of their -rank were long excluded from office. It was not till 1453 that Antonio -became a member of one of the smaller guilds, though before that time -he was intimate with the Medici household. After spending some time at -Naples with King Alfonso, in 1450, he wrote from Siena on November 26 -to Giovanni de’ Medici at Volterra, as follows:[157] ‘Dearest gossip, -dutiful greeting and salutation! As you doubtless know, it is now -about a month since I returned from Naples. Since then it has never -ceased raining, or I should have come to see you. The bad weather has -hindered me not only from coming, but also from writing, as I kept -waiting for the sky to clear. Now, God be thanked for all things. If -I were to tell you about Naples, and the majesty of the king and his -court, there would be so much to say that I must needs take all the -scriveners in Rome into my employ for five days. So for the present I -will say nothing about it, and will only tell you that Cardinal Sta. -Maria sets great store by his organ; wherein he is quite right, for -truly it deserves it. I promise you on your return the satisfaction of -hearing one which cannot fail to please you. It is destined for Antonio -di Migliorino, who I trust will not object to my letting you see and -hear it. Now I will trouble you no further. Commend me above all to -Madonna Contessina, Messer Piero, and all the rest.’ - -In the spring of 1438, Domenico Veneziano wrote from Perugia to Piero -as follows:[158] ‘Noble and honoured sir, greeting. I have to inform -you that by God’s grace I am in good health, and hope to see you well -and happy. I have made inquiries after you at various times, and never -received any news save through Manno Donati, who told me that you were -at Ferrara in very good health, which gave me great pleasure. Had I -known your place of abode sooner, I would have written to you, both -for my own satisfaction and as it is fitting. My position is in truth -far below yours, but my hearty attachment to you and all yours gives -me boldness to write to you, to whom I owe so much.’ One-and-twenty -years later this same Piero, then at Careggi, was thus addressed by -Benozzo Gozzoli, who was painting the chapel in the Medici house at -Florence:[159] ‘My dearest friend, I informed your Magnificence in a -previous letter that I am in need of forty florins, and begged you to -advance them to me; for now is the time to buy corn and many other -things that I want, whereby I shall save, and get rid of a heavy load -of care. I had resolved to ask nothing of you till you had seen my -work, but I now find myself compelled to ask this favour. Therefore, be -indulgent; God knows I am endeavouring to please you. I also reminded -you to send to Venice for some ultramarine, for in the course of -this week one wall will be finished, and for the other I shall need -ultramarine. The brocades and other things can then be finished as -well as the figures, or even sooner. I am working with all possible -diligence. I have nothing more to add save my salutations.’ - -These confidential relations between the Medici and the artists did -not prevent them from carefully settling minor details when giving -an order, such as the use of ultramarine and gold, and still smaller -matters. Even with regard to the actual composition remarks were not -spared, not merely concerning the saints to be placed in the Madonna -pictures and other votive tablets, but also as to other figures and -accessories. Piero de’ Medici was not satisfied with some angels that -Benozzo had introduced in the chapel; the painter defended them, but -added that he could put a cloud to cover them. Needless to say that all -matters of business—prices, instalments of payment and work, &c.—were -settled with scrupulous exactness. This belonged to the character of -the time, and to the Florentine love of order and mercantile habits; -a characteristic which never fails, and remained in the Medici nature -even in Cosimo’s magnificent grandson. Strict supervision was indeed -necessary in the case of these colossal undertakings. It was more -especially needful with a disorderly man like Filippo Lippi, who passed -his whole life in want of his own making; witness his letters to Piero -and Giovanni de’ Medici: ‘If there is a wretched monk in Florence, -it is I!’ His protectors pitied him and judged his sins leniently, -if we rightly understand the remark in one of Giovanni’s letters, to -the effect that they had a laugh over Fra Filippo’s error. It refers -presumably to the well-known story of the elopement of Spinetta Buti -from the convent at Prato, where she was being educated; a story the -details of which, as in other instances, are inaccurately given by -Vasari.[160] The interest taken by the Medici in this painter descended -to Lorenzo. On his return from Rome he wanted to have Fra Filippo’s -mortal remains brought from Spoleto to Florence, and when this was -refused, he assisted Filippo’s son in erecting a monument in Spoleto -Cathedral. - -It was in the time of Cosimo that the written history of art began -its first feeble efforts. Its forerunner was Cennino Cennini of Colle -in the Elsa valley, a pupil of Angelo Gaddi apparently at Padua, -where he was in the service of Francesco da Carrara. Towards the end -of the fourteenth century he wrote a book on painting, which is of -great value for the study of artistic practice before the victory of -oil-painting over tempera, as it is also for the history of modelling, -casting, plaster-work, gilding, &c.[161] This book treats merely of -technicalities; but in Lorenzo Ghiberti’s commentaries an unfinished -treatise on architecture and the proportion of figures is combined -with notices of ancient art and also of modern, from its re-awakening -in the second half of the thirteenth century down to the writer’s -own time and works.[162] The latter portion is the principal source -whence Giorgio Vasari drew his knowledge of past times. Ghiberti’s -contemporary Filarete has given many notices, valuable for the history -of art, referring to Medicean times, in his treatise on architecture, -which he dedicated—in styles differing according to the persons and -circumstances, to two patrons, Piero de’ Medici and Francesco Sforza, -in 1460.[163] These notices, as well as technical remarks, were also -made use of by Vasari, whose judgment on Filarete’s confused book is -just, though rather severely expressed. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII. - -BUILDING IN THE DAYS OF LORENZO DE’ MEDICI. - - -ARCHITECTURE was always a subject of great interest to Lorenzo de’ -Medici; he possessed an unusual knowledge of the art.[164] It was he -who made the plan for the façade of Sta. Maria del Fiore, which was -executed in wood by Jacopo Sansovino and painted in chiaroscuro by -Andrea del Sarto more than twenty years after the designer’s death, -when his son, Pope Leo X., made his public entry into Florence.[165] -We shall see what share he took in the project for the completion of -this façade. He was intimate with several of the chief architects of -the time. A letter, written to him from Rome by Alberti,[166] unluckily -not on the subject of art but about a proposed exchange of property, -shows on what good terms they were: ‘I am glad that thou dost address -me in confidence worthy of our old friendship; and as I am conscious of -my obligations, I am ready to do for thee and at thy desire anything -that can be agreeable to one who loves thee. If what thou askest of me -were not founded on reason, thou wouldest neither have consented to act -as mediator thyself, nor have sought out a third party to do so.’ The -brothers Da Majano and Sangallo enjoyed his interest and assistance -both in and outside of Florence, where a great deal of building was -carried on. Yet he built nothing more himself than a convent and a -villa. Of the convent not a trace is left, and the façades of the -cathedral and of the church of the Santo Spirito—in which he was so -much interested—still await completion, as does that of San Lorenzo, -though Pope Leo X. made preparations for the immediate execution of the -works. The finest building of Lorenzo’s time in Florence was erected, -not for him but for a family which, although connected with his, was -destined to maintain a long struggle with it—namely, the Strozzi. - -Considering how intimate Lorenzo was with the brothers Da Majano, it -seems strange that he employed them so little. There is no authentic -record of Giuliano having been employed in Florence except as a worker -in wood. He was engaged on the choir-stalls in Sta. Maria del Fiore in -1471 and the following years, and in the audience-chamber of the palace -of the Signoria (finished ten years later), where his younger brother -Benedetto executed the marble doors, and where he was associated with -Francesco di Giovanni, called Francione, master of Baccio Pontelli, -who did a great deal of work at Rome and Urbino.[167] Giuliano’s works -in Rome, where, according to Vasari, he built—under Paul III.—the -palace of San Marco and a galleried court, now no longer in existence, -are buried in impenetrable obscurity. It is certain that he was -there in the time of Sixtus IV., and also that he began the stalls -in the choir of Perugia Cathedral, which were finished in 1491 by -Domenico del Tasso, one of the Florentine family of wood-workers and -architects.[168] It is needless to repeat how the calling and labours -of architect and wood-worker (_magistri lignaminum_, _legnaiuoli_) -merged one into the other, even in the next century, like those of -sculptor and goldsmith. In his latter years Giuliano was more abroad -than at home. In 1478 he was at Recanati, in the States of the Church, -building a palace for Antonio Giacomo Venier, Cardinal of Cuença, -who appealed to Lorenzo that he might urge the dilatory artist to go -on with his work:[169] ‘As the said Master Giuliano is a most devoted -servant of your Magnificence and eulogist of your excellent qualities, -and apparently cannot be moved unless stirred up by you, we beg you -to address him on the subject, and to see that he goes to Recanati at -the appointed time to finish what he has begun.’ In the spring of 1481 -Giuliano was passing through Urbino, where the palace of Federigo of -Montefeltro made such an impression on him that he induced Lorenzo -to ask the duke for a drawing of it. This the duke had executed by -Baccio Pontelli, who continued the beautiful work of Luciano Lauranna. -‘My lord the duke,’ wrote Pontelli to Lorenzo,[170] ‘answered very -graciously that I was to make the drawing, but that he would prefer -sending your Magnificence the house itself, that you might rule in -it as in your own.’ It was doubtless Lorenzo’s doing that Giuliano -was summoned to Naples. This must, therefore, have happened after -the reconciliation in 1480. Notwithstanding the many commissions he -received there—for King Ferrante and his eldest son were both much -given to building, and after the expulsion of the Turks from Otranto -the kingdom enjoyed a few years’ peace—there is no need to suppose -that he took up his abode there permanently, for artists were generally -given to wandering. The famous triumphal arch of King Alfonso in -Castelnuovo—not finished till the sixteenth century—is probably in -no part his work; but certainly to him may be attributed the Porta -Capuana, excellent in point of architecture but disfigured by modern -additions.[171] Giuliano died at Naples in the autumn of 1490, and -Lorenzo’s expressions concerning his loss, in a letter to the Duke of -Calabria,[172] show how highly he esteemed him: ‘Your Excellency’s -letter informs me of the death of Giuliano da Majano, which causes me -sincere regret, both on account of our intimacy and because he was -engaged in your Excellency’s service, and his death will leave many -a work unfinished. As you contemplate continuing these, I hear that -you want me to procure you another architect, on which subject Paol’ -Antonio Soderini writes to me in detail. It will give me pleasure if -your Excellency will command my services and be satisfied with my -arrangements, as was the case with Giuliano; at whose death I have at -least the satisfaction that you have been pleased with the work of one -who entered your service on my recommendation.’ - -Giuliano’s brother Benedetto, ten years his junior, was not employed -as an architect by Lorenzo. His share—as wood-carver—in the works -at the palace of the Signoria has been already referred to. But his -masterpiece was a work of architecture executed in the last years -of Lorenzo’s life, and—if we except the Pitti Palace, which stands -alone—the most perfect specimen of palatial architecture that Florence -has to show. The story of the building begun by Filippo Strozzi the -elder in 1489 makes a curious study of manners and an interesting -chapter in the history of art. When Cosimo de’ Medici contemplated -building himself a house, he was afraid of rousing disapproval by too -much splendour; more than half a century later another rich citizen -felt the same anxiety. He saw the commonwealth and city in altered -circumstances, and had before his eyes the warning example of Luca -Pitti. Lorenzo Strozzi, who wrote a life of his father, tells of this -grand undertaking:[173] ‘When Filippo had made due provision for his -descendants—as he thought more of fame than of money, was fond of -building, and intelligent in the art—he decided, as the surest way -of handing down his name to posterity, to erect such a building as -should make a name for him and his throughout Italy and beyond it. He -found, however, one great hindrance in the way. The man who was at the -head of the Government might take it into his head that the reputation -of another would put his own into the shade, and Filippo was in great -dread of exciting envy. So he had it rumoured about the city that his -children were so numerous and his house so small that, now they were -grown up, he must provide an abode for them, which could be better -done in his lifetime than after his death. Then he began, with all -sorts of circumlocutions, to talk—first to master-masons and then -to architects—on the necessity of building a new house. At times he -spoke as though he would begin soon; then made a show of being still -undecided and unwilling to spend in a hurry the fruits of many years’ -labour. Thus artfully did he conceal the object he had in view in order -to attain it better. He used to repeat, a comfortable citizen-like -house was enough for him, good but not grand. Now the masons and -architects, after their kind, kept enlarging upon his plans, which was -just what pleased Filippo, though he pretended to the contrary, and -declared that they drove him to what he was neither willing nor able to -do. - -Now it happened that he who then governed the destinies of the city -desired to see it embellished in every way; his opinion being that if -he was responsible for good and evil, so would beauty or ugliness be -laid to his account. Deeming that so large and costly an undertaking -would be difficult to estimate and superintend, and might (as often -happens with merchants) either destroy the originator’s credit or ruin -him altogether, he began to meddle in the matter, and asked to see the -plans. When he had examined them, he suggested divers embellishments, -and advised the use of _opus rusticum_. But the more Filippo was -encouraged the more he pretended to draw back. He declared he would on -no account have _opus rusticum_, as it was unsuitable to the condition -of a citizen, and would entail heavy expense. He was building, he said, -with a view to his own comfort, and not for pomp; and thought of making -shops on the ground floor, to produce an income for his sons. To this -everybody objected, pointing out how ugly and inconvenient it would -be. Still Filippo continued his remonstrances, and said complainingly -to his friends that he had begun an undertaking which he only hoped -he might bring to a successful end; he wished he had never spoken of -it, rather than have got into such a labyrinth. The more he pretended -to be afraid of the cost, to conceal the greatness of his intentions -and the extent of his wealth, the more he was urged and encouraged to -the building. Thus by adroitness and caution, he managed what, had he -conducted himself otherwise, would either have been forbidden or have -brought him under no little suspicion. - -The first thing to be done was to gain space for the _casa grande_. -And space was limited. The Strozzi palace lies at the west end of the -old town, in a quarter now, perhaps, the liveliest in the city, and -doubtless animated even at that time, being close to the old market and -to the square named after the church of Sta. Trinità, whence may be -seen the bridge of the same name. Several distinguished families dwelt, -and some still dwell, in the immediate neighbourhood: the Buondelmonti, -Altoviti, Gianfigliazzi, Bartolini, Alamanni, Viviani, Tornabuoni, -Vacchietti, Antinori, and others. According to the original plan, the -building was to stand free, with a square and garden on the south, -extending as far as the Via Portarossa, where stand the houses of the -Davanzati and Torrigiani. But the plan was imperfectly executed. A -tolerably large square is on the eastern side, but on the south only a -narrow space, now bridged over, divides the palace from neighbouring -buildings; on the west the street (Via de’ Legnaiuoli) is of moderate -width, and on the north it is only since the front of the Tornabuoni -house was rebuilt a few years ago (see p. 125), that sufficient space -and light has been gained to get a view of the noble edifice, which on -this side was formerly quite hidden. - -On August (July?) 16, 1489, Filippo Strozzi laid his foundation-stone. -His memoirs contain a description of the important proceeding, -characteristic of the habits of the time. ‘At the moment when the sun -came up over the mountains, I laid the first stone of the foundations, -in the name of God, as a good beginning for myself, my successors, and -all who may have a share in the building. I caused a mass of the Holy -Ghost to be sung at the same hour by the brethren of San Marco, another -by the nuns of Murate, a third in my church, Sta. Maria di Lecceto, -and a fourth by the monks there (who are under some obligation to me), -with a prayer for a blessed beginning to the work. The time for laying -the foundation-stone was fixed by a horoscope by Messer Benedetto -Biliotti, Maestro Niccolò, and Messer Antonio Benevieni, doctors; also -Bishop Pagagnotti and Messer Marsilio (Ficino), who all confirmed -it as lucky. I sent twenty lire to the brethren of San Marco, to be -distributed in alms as they thought good, and as many to Murate. I -spent ten lire in smaller alms. To Benedetto Biliotti I gave four ells -of black damask, costing twenty lire. I had to breakfast Maestro Jacopo -the master-mason, Maestro Andrea the founder, Filippo Buondelmonti, -Marcuccio Strozzi, Pietro Parenti, Simone Ridolfi, Donato Bonsi, Ser -Agnolo, Lorenzo Fiorini, and other of my friends.’ - -The ground floor was not yet half built when Filippo died, on May 14, -1491. After him, the house was the abode of fortune and greatness; but -how many storms burst over it in the days of his youngest son and of -his grandchildren! - -The Strozzi Palace is a great square building, nearly a hundred feet -high, and a hundred and twenty feet wide; it displays rustic work -in its greatest perfection, and, notwithstanding the severity and -simplicity of its construction, is more attractive than any other -building of this style. The stories, of nearly equal elevation, are -divided by strongly defined string-courses, and are composed of great -blocks of ashlar (now blackened by nearly four centuries) of unequal -length, but in even horizontal lines—_opus rusticum_ throughout, -but more evenly hewn than in the houses of the Medici and the Pitti, -and other buildings. The ground floor has a grand arched doorway on -each of the three façades, and small square windows at a considerable -height above the stone parapet that runs round the whole. The two upper -stories have arched windows divided by small marble columns, with the -crescent of the family arms in the panels, and surmounted, like the -doors, with upright blocks of ashlar. The handsome but half-finished -cornice and the courtyard, both by Simone del Pollaiuolo called -Cronaca, and the famous iron lanterns, belong to a period later than -that now under consideration. The founder had thought he could complete -the building out of his income, without touching his capital; but, -owing to untoward circumstances and dissensions among the sons, the -work was not brought to its present state of relative completeness till -forty-two years after Filippo’s death. - -In Lorenzo’s letter to the Duke of Calabria, after the death of -Giuliano da Majano, he states that he was endeavouring to replace -the lost one. ‘On looking about among the master-builders here, I -find no one who, in my opinion, can be compared with Giuliano. I -have, therefore, written to Mantua, to a Florentine there, whose -capabilities and practice in building ought, I think, to qualify him -for the work to be done. If this should come to nothing, and we can -make no better choice, we shall be obliged to choose the least bad -one possible (_il manco reo che sarà possibile_) in this place.’[174] -These words sound strange from Lorenzo, when Benedetto da Majano -and Giuliano da Sangallo were both in Florence. The most probable -explanation is that present engagements prevented them from leaving -the city, and therefore, Lorenzo’s choice fell on Luca Fancelli, who -holds a subordinate place in the history of art. Benedetto must have -been already known at Naples, and Lorenzo himself had, in 1488, sent -to King Ferrante the plan of a palace, by Sangallo,[175] who, in -consequence, went to Naples. Giuliano, son of Francesco Giamberti, -had been from his childhood known to the Medici family, to whom in -Cosimo’s and Piero’s days his father furnished woodwork. He himself, -instructed by his father and Francione, acquired great skill in this -art, did some work in Sta. Maria del Fiore, in the palace of the -Signoria, and at Pisa, and even in later years continued to style -himself _Legnaiuolo_. The Giamberti family must have been intimately -connected with the Medici, for after the death of Giuliano de’ Medici -his little son Giulio was taken care of in their house in Borgo Pinti, -where the Panciatichi-Ximenes palace now stands. Giuliano Giamberti -afterwards followed two branches of architecture, fortification and -palace-building, with great success. In his latter years he was engaged -on Sta. Maria del Fiore and St. Peter’s at Rome. - -In the autumn of 1472, Giuliano, then twenty-nine, was at Rome, working -for Sixtus IV.[176] What he actually did there, where so many Tuscans -were employed, is unknown. That he made long and frequent sojourns -there is proved by his excellent studies of antique buildings, that -have been so useful to later investigators, and by his intimate -connection with Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere. The war of 1478 called -him home, where he served as an engineer in defending various places. -The restoration of peace enabled him to resume his works at Rome; one -of which, the castle of Ostia, begun probably for the above-named -cardinal, and finished in 1486, marks an important step in military -architecture, while its picturesque beauty indicates the eye of a true -artist.[177] Long before this castle was finished, Giuliano must have -begun at home the building which raised him highest in the esteem of -Lorenzo de’ Medici—the villa at Poggio a Cajano. Francione and others -had submitted plans; Lorenzo chose that of Giuliano. The situation is -favourable, on a hill of no great elevation, but with a clear view on -three sides. The house is reached by a broad flight of steps, and is of -the regular Tuscan type, which continued to later times. The portico -before the hall, with its gable decorated with a frieze in Terra della -Robbia, displays a tendency to the antique. The great hall has a -barrel-vault, the dimensions of which gave rise to a doubt as to the -possibility of its execution. - -At the time when Giuliano is supposed to have gone to Naples, a great -work begun by him in his native city can scarcely have been ready -for habitation. This was the convent of the Augustinian Friars in -front of the Porta San Gallo, the immediate occasion of which was -Lorenzo’s liking for the preacher Fra Mariano of Genazzano. The work -was important enough to give the artist a new name, under which the -whole family became famous. According to Vasari, it was Lorenzo who -first used the appellation, and on Giuliano’s playful remark that he -was taking a backward step in abandoning his old family name, Lorenzo -replied that it was better to make a name by one’s own merits than to -inherit one.[178] Only a part of the huge building was completed, and -this was totally destroyed in 1529. To Lorenzo is attributed the idea -of rebuilding the castle on the Poggio Imperiale near Pozzibonzi, -the importance of which had been but too clearly shown in the wars of -1478-79, and he obtained the commission for Giuliano. The work began -in 1488, was afterwards directed by Giuliano’s younger brother, but -finally sank into as complete ruin as the works of Henry of Luxemburg -on the same spot. Nothing is known of what Sangallo did in Milan, -whither he is believed to have gone on Lorenzo’s recommendation, with -the plan of a palace, for Lodovico il Moro, and where he met Leonardo -da Vinci. - -His great patron was no longer living when he began, for Giuliano -Gondi, on the Piazza San Firenze, the palace which, though unfinished, -still produces a pleasing effect with its fine proportions, its -artistic arrangement of rustic work on the first and second stories, -and its elegant arcade.[179] The court of the convent of Sta. Maria -Maddalena de’ Pazzi (Cestello), in the Via de’ Pinti, is one of -Giuliano’s earlier works, not wanting in character or grace. Nothing -is known of independent works by Antonio, Giuliano’s brother and -frequent assistant, during Lorenzo’s lifetime. His time of activity in -Tuscany and Rome, both as a military builder, and as an architect of -churches and palaces, began under Alexander VI. and lasted till only -a degenerate scion was left of the race of Lorenzo the Magnificent. -The Aretine art-historian rightly says that these two brothers left -architecture as an inheritance to their family. It was they who mainly -contributed to keep up in Tuscany a tradition which was never quite -false to the Quattrocento, even when the Renaissance had been overgrown -with a certain grotesqueness. - -Lorenzo was concerned in two great works, neither of which came to -perfection. The building and decoration of the façade of Sta. Maria del -Fiore went on till about the middle of the fifteenth century. Donatello -and his school contributed to it the marble facings and statues which -were carried up to the rose-windows over the side doors.[180] The -completion of the work was all the more to be desired as the gilt -cross had gleamed above the lantern of the dome since May 30, 1472. On -February 12, 1490, the following decree was issued by the consuls of -the wool-merchants’ guild:[181] ‘Forasmuch as of late several of the -chief citizens have repeatedly called to mind what a great dishonour it -is to this city that the front of the cathedral church should remain -in its present condition, to wit, unfinished, and also that the parts -already executed in nowise correspond to the rules of architecture, -and are bad in many ways, and that it would be highly praiseworthy to -come to some conclusion on the matter, the said consuls have resolved -and given authority to the present and future master-builders of the -church to regulate expenditure and arrange everything that shall seem -to them good and profitable for the said purpose now and hereafter.’ -This decree shows that in the minds of those concerned the fate of the -existing portions of the façade was as much decided as ninety-six years -later, when they were destroyed after very brief deliberation. - -On January 5, 1491, a commission met, under the presidency of the -two master-builders Maso degli Albizzi and Tommaso Minerbetti, to -pass judgment on the numerous models and designs (_modelli et designi -undique habiti et collecti_). Many who were not personally present had -sent in plans: Benedetto da Majano, Francesco di Giorgio, Filippino -Lippi, Andrea Verrocchio, Antonio Pollaiuolo. There were two designs -by Giuliano da Majano, then lately dead. No less than twenty-nine -artists had come forward, among whom were Cronaca, Benedetto da -Majano, Francione, Lorenzo di Credi, Domenico Ghirlandajo, Pietro -Perugino, Andrea Contucci of Montesansovino, Andrea della Robbia, -Sandro Botticelli, Alesso Baldovinetti, and others who, except in -this case, are known only as goldsmiths or painters. Lorenzo de’ -Medici himself had sent in a design. The meeting was held in the -portico and the loggia of the office of works (_Opera_), the arches -of which—now blocked up and containing a fine marble bust of the -first grand duke on the façade—may be seen behind the choir of the -cathedral. The models and designs having been examined, were reported -on by Tommaso Minerbetti, whereupon Carlo Benci—a canon and one -of the competitors—being asked his opinion, rose and said that he -held it advisable to take the opinion of Lorenzo de’ Medici, a man -so versed in architecture that if they followed him they would be -the least likely to fall into error. Bartolommeo Scala recommended -that a decision should be adjourned to give opportunity for further -deliberation. Others took the same view, but thought it better to wait -no longer than was absolutely needful. Then Lorenzo de’ Medici rose, -and said: ‘All who had sent in models or designs were deserving of -praise; but as the work in question was one of lasting importance, long -and grave deliberation was needful, and it was advisable to postpone a -decision in order to consider the matter further.’ Pietro Machiavelli -and Antonio Manetti, architects, supported him, the rest were silent. -Sixteen months later he who had started the whole affair lay in his -grave. Then came times when Florence had other things to think of than -the façade of her cathedral. For the latter, however, it was well that -the rebuilding was not begun at that time, for Giuliano da Majano and -Giuliano da San Gallo would have been just as incapable of producing -work corresponding with the main character of the building, as were -Buontalenti or Dosio under the Grand Duke Ferdinand I., or Baccio del -Bianco—a decorative painter rather than an architect—of whose façade -the foundation-stone was actually laid in 1636. The old unfinished -façade might not correspond with the mighty pile that had developed -under the hands of so many architects, but the new one would have -disfigured it for ever.[182] - -The church of the Santo Spirito, too, remained unfinished. Great damage -had been done by a fire on March 22, 1471, and three months after -contributions were voted out of the taxes for the restoration,[183] as -had been done before. In consideration of this the municipality made -it a condition that the escutcheon of the lilies and the cross should -be placed beside those of the guilds. There was some difference about -the doors, as appears from a decree of the master-builders in 1486, -and from a letter of Giuliano da Sangallo to Lorenzo,[184] which also -shows the want of agreement between the former and Giuliano da Majano. -Six architects were to deliberate on the matter, and Majano seems to -have carried the day, to the disgust of Sangallo, who expresses a hope -that Lorenzo on his return will not allow such a fine building to be -spoiled. Further information is wanting. It is to be regretted that the -exterior was not finished then, while the traditions of Brunelleschi’s -time were still in a great measure alive. On the other hand, a great -deal was done in the interior of the choir of Sta. Maria del Fiore. In -the palace of the Signoria also much work was accomplished in the first -and second stories—especially the latter—in the audience chamber, -and neighbouring apartments. It cannot be doubted that Lorenzo had a -share in all this. The Sala dell’Orologia in the palace took its name -from the curious clock made by Lorenzo della Volpaia for the Medici -house, and afterwards placed in this hall, whence it has strayed to the -Museum of Natural History. It is a handsome piece of work, after the -pattern of those made in the fourteenth century by the Paduan Giovanni -Dondi (degli Orologi), showing the courses of the planets, the signs -of the zodiacal and celestial phenomena, and it brought great fame to -its maker, who was appointed clockmaker to the city in 1500.[185] -Volpaia had a rival in one Dionisio da Viterbo, who, in June, 1477, was -recommended by the rich Sienese banker Ambrogio Spannocchi to Lorenzo -de’ Medici, to whom he wished to show an ornamental clock with numerous -figures that moved at the same time.[186] - -The great number of architects in Lorenzo’s latter years shows how -actively building was carried on. The works executed at that time by -Simone del Pollaiuolo Cronaca cannot be chronologically arranged. -But when it is considered that at Lorenzo’s death this talented -man was thirty-five years old, and was soon after fully engaged on -public works, it is easy to see that he must long have been in active -occupation.[187] The Servite convent of the Annunziata, the interior of -which was his work, has been entirely altered. On the foremost slope -of the hill of San Miniato he built the Franciscan church, for which a -rich citizen—Castello Quaratesi—had left to the guild of Calimala a -large sum in 1449.[188] This man had intended to decorate Sta. Croce -with a suitable façade, but the scheme came to nothing because he was -refused permission to place his coat of arms on the building. The -church of San Francesco recalls the abbey of Fiesole. Tradition relates -that Michel Angelo admired the simple grace of this church (_La bella -villanella_), in whose immediate neighbourhood he spent some time -when in difficulties. The sacristy of Sto. Spirito, a very elegant -octagon, was not finished till later; Cronaca’s cupola fell in when -the scaffolding was taken away.[189] A great deal of building went on -in the immediate neighbourhood of the city. The church of Montoliveto, -which, from its cypress-crowned hill on the left bank of the river, -overlooks city and country, was finished in 1472. Older conventual -buildings were enlarged and churches beautified. This was the case -above all with the before-mentioned Dominican nunnery of Annalena in -the quarter of Oltrarno, and the monastery of the Jesuates at San -Giusto, whose church contained numerous works of art. The building of -the façade of Sta. Croce was contemplated in 1476, as is proved by a -decree of the municipality, which assigned for the purpose a sum to be -collected from backward taxpayers. It was reserved for our own times -to witness the execution of the project, after a sketch said to be by -Cronaca. The court in front of the Servites’ church, and the colonnade -on the square in front of the church, opposite the Foundling Hospital -and imitating its portico, are both attributed to Antonio da Sangallo, -and, if not begun in Lorenzo’s lifetime, must at all events have been -built soon after his death. - -Lorenzo had obtained from Innocent VIII. leave to use the convent -gardens—where they were larger than necessary—for the construction -of new streets and squares, and the widening of old ones. Space there -was in plenty, for after all the building in the sixteenth century -the great number of convents was further increased in the days of the -later Medici by many new ones on a large scale. One of the new streets -of that time—behind the Servites’ church—bears the name of Via -Laura, after Lorenzo. Quieter times and increase of riches naturally -strengthened the taste for building, and fine houses with their -extensive courts and gardens called for adornment with antiquities -and works of art. The palace, the gardens, the villas of the Medici -were the richest; but they were not without rivals. The Strozzi, -Acciaiuoli, Soderini, Capponi, Tornabuoni, Sassetti, Benci, Ricci, -Valori, Alessandri, Pucci, Rucellai, Pandolfini, and many others -ordered works of painting and sculpture for their homes and villas -as well as for their chapels in the city churches. The house of the -Martelli, the garden of the Pazzi, the villa of the Valori at Majano, -and many others, were full of antique statues. In the palace of Niccolò -da Uzzano might be seen the antique porphyry lion which Lorenzo greatly -admired,[190] and which still adorns the staircase of the house. -Artists, too, had many fine things. In the house of the Ghiberti, for -example, was a precious sculptured marble vase which the famous artist -Lorenzo Ghiberti was said to have received from Greece. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV. - -SCULPTURE AND PAINTING. - - -THE first man to whom Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici gave a commission -for a great piece of sculpture, after they became independent, was -Andrea del Verrocchio. He was a disciple of Donatello, and had worked -with the master in San Lorenzo. This was of itself a recommendation -to the Medici, who found him also employed by their relatives, the -Tornabuoni. Vasari rightly observes that a certain severity is even -more prominent in his works than in those of his master, because he -lacked the creative versatility of the latter and tried to supply -by study what Nature had denied him. In bronze-casting he displays -a delicacy which recalls the goldsmith. The monument to Piero and -Giovanni de’ Medici was finished in 1472. Like Donatello, Verrocchio -restored damaged antique sculptures for the Medici house and garden, -and executed for Lorenzo some bronze busts which were sent to Matthias -Corvinus. For the palace of the Signoria he furnished a bronze statue -of David, now in the Podestà Museum, not very remarkable either in -conception or execution. His shortcomings, however, are amply atoned -for by the charming bronze group over the fountain in the courtyard, -representing a boy, half-fighting, half-playing with a dolphin, full -of easy grace that seems almost above this artist. It was a commission -from Lorenzo, and intended for the fountain in the court at Careggi, -but placed in its present position by Duke Cosimo. Verrocchio’s -capabilities in more serious work were shown in Florence by the group -of our Lord and the apostle St. Thomas, which in 1483 received the -most prominent place in front of the church of Or San Michele—and in -Venice, by his equestrian statue of Colleone. Though the former, with -its broken and angular drapery—recalling the Umbrian school—does not -exactly conform to the rules of plastic art, it is penetrated with a -depth of feeling that renders it highly attractive; and in the latter -the defiant self-conscious bearing of the old _condottiere_ brings his -position and character vividly before the eye. Among Andrea’s marble -works is a relievo, very naturalistic, representing the death (in her -confinement, September 24, 1477) of Francesca Pitti, wife of Giovanni -Tornabuoni; it was intended for her tomb, and is now to be seen in the -palace of the Podestà.[191] - -Equally intimate with the Medici, if not more so, was Antonio del -Pollaiuolo, whose family connections linked him to the school of -Ghiberti. In his sculptures the goldsmith is more closely discernible -than in those of Verrocchio. They both, while painting and sculpturing, -continued to work as goldsmiths, and Pollaiuolo was regarded in his -native city as the first master of this branch. ‘A man unique in his -art,’ wrote the Signoria, after his death, to the ambassador in Rome, -‘well deserving that we, who are wont to value praiseworthy qualities -of whatever nature, should honour his memory by supporting his -heirs.’[192] Lorenzo’s high esteem for him is shown by passages in his -letters to Giovanni Lanfredini. The silver helmet presented in 1472 to -the conqueror of Volterra was by Pollaiuolo; so was also the oft-copied -medal representing the criminal attempt of the Pazzi, more valuable -in a historical than in an artistic point of view. No great works of -sculpture by him are known in Florence, the labour of his latter years -being chiefly devoted to Rome, where his masterpiece is the tomb of -Pope Sixtus IV. in the chapel of the Holy Sacrament in St. Peter’s, and -where he died in 1498.[193] - -As Verocchio and Pollaiuolo passed from goldsmith’s work to -sculpture, without abandoning altogether their original occupation, -so Benedetto da Majano rose from artistic cabinet-work to sculpture -and architecture. The monument to Giotto in Sta. Maria del Fiore—a -marble bust in a richly ornamented circular frame—was, according -to the inscription, erected by the citizens in 1490.[194] The bust -of Antonio Squarcialupi, in the same church, is only ascribed to -Benedetto by a later tradition, which the merit of the work by no -means justifies.[195] The erection of both monuments was, doubtless, -due to Lorenzo. Benedetto’s greatest work was a pulpit, executed for -a Florentine citizen—Pietro Mellini—of whom he also made, in 1474, -a most natural and expressive marble bust, which he signed with his -name. The pulpit is decorated with reliefs, representing scenes in -the history of St. Francis of Assisi—the richest and finest work -of the kind since that of the Pisani. In imitation of Ghiberti, the -reliefs are freely handled; landscapes and backgrounds in perspective -are introduced, but with a careful subordination of the pictorial -elements which afterwards became too prominent.[196] In Sta. Maria -Novella is Benedetto’s monument to Filippo Strozzi. The artist who -built the palace, of which the owner lived to see only the beginning, -also erected in his beautiful family chapel this mausoleum, which was -begun before his death.[197] Above the black marble sarcophagus, in the -middle of a panel under an arch delicately carved in arabesques, is a -large medallion of the Virgin and Child, in white marble, surrounded -by a rich garland of flowers and foliage; at the sides are four angels -in adoration. The charm of expression and delicacy of treatment recall -Antonio Rossellino and Desiderio da Settignano. Filippo’s bust, -preserved by his descendants in the Strozzi Palace, shows the marked, -expressive features of the energetic man. Benedetto’s capabilities -in decorative sculpture are displayed in the marble doors of the -audience-chamber in the palace of the Signoria, where he worked, as has -been mentioned, with his brother. Time and ignorance have not spared -this fine work, and the statuette of the youthful Baptist, which once -adorned it, is now in the Uffizi collection. - -The two finest works of Mino da Fiesole which adorn the Benedictine -Abbey-Church, were executed about 1470; one represents the artist’s own -time, the other the earlier days of Florence. They are the monuments of -Bernardo Giugni, and of the Marquis Hugo. The former, and his services -to the State have been already mentioned. The figure of an elderly -man, in his long robe, with his hands crossed on his breast, lies on -the sarcophagus; between Ionian pilasters is a semi-circular niche, -in which is a figure of Justice in relief, and in the lunette is a -medallion profile of the deceased.[198] The other monument, finished in -1481, is richer, but very like the first in general arrangement. It is -a token of gratitude from the monks to their founder—the half-mythical -Marquis who, in Emperor Otto’s days, is said to have come from the -neighbourhood of the Elbe and the Havel—the ‘great Baron’ of the -‘Divine Comedy,’ whose arms are quartered on the armorial bearings of -the chief Florentine families.[199] His effigies rest on a low couch -on the top of the sarcophagus, two genii support shields at his head -and feet; there is a group in relief, representing Charity, and in -the lunette a medallion of the Virgin and Child. As in all Mino’s -sculpture, careful workmanship is manifest in the accessories. This -attention to detail and richness of ornamentation long remained a -characteristic of the Florentines, who carried it to Rome and Naples. -In the early decades of the following century, when the revolution in -monumental style, introduced chiefly by Michel Angelo, was beginning -to make its way, and ornamentation was compelled to take refuge in -painting, admirable works in the old manner were raised in Florence. -Such were the tombs of Oddo Altoviti, and Pier Soderini, both by -Benedetto da Rovezzano; also the monument to Cardinal Luigi de’ Rossi, -cousin of Leo X., said to be by Raffaello da Montelupo. With regard -to ornamentation, a distinct position is held by two monuments, -companions to each other, which tradition ascribes to Giuliano da -Sangallo—those of Francesco Sassetti and his wife, in their family -chapel in Sta. Trinità.[200] They consist of black marble sarcophagi, -decorated with rams’ heads, and standing beneath an arch adorned with -antique arabesques and medallions, and a frieze, in the middle of -which are medallion heads of the husband and wife, surrounded by small -figures representing ceremonies of heathen worship. They are clearly -the work of an artist well acquainted with classical antiquity; who, -in this case, has certainly made rather a strange use of his studies. -That Giuliano da Sangallo was expert in the use of the chisel and -thoroughly understood the working of the Fiesolian stone, employed in -this monument, is shown by his famous mantelpiece in the Gondi Palace, -which served as a model for that by Benedetto da Rovezzano in the -Casa Rosselli del Turco, near Sant’Apostolo.[201] Tuscan sculptors -of ornamental work, particularly those from Fiesole, Settignano, -Rovezzano, and the neighbourhood, found occupation all over Italy, -like the architects and sculptors from the Lake of Como, the _maestri -Comacini_, in the Middle Ages. In our own days the Tuscans still show -great ability in working both marble and _macigno_ (the greyish stone -of the neighbourhood of Florence) in which they produce objects of -beautifully delicate workmanship. - -Other arts at this time rose to a highly flourishing condition. The -connection between architecture and cabinet-making, and that between -sculpture and goldsmith’s work, have been repeatedly referred to. -The architect and cabinet-maker were often one, down to the middle -of the following century, when the Del Tasso family continued their -double occupation. But artistic cabinet-work was also connected with -sculpture and painting, as may be seen by the rich choir-stalls of -many churches; the ceilings and other woodwork of the palaces, with -their fine reliefs, elegant panelling, and wood-mosaic (_tarsia_), -much used to represent perspective as well as to imitate flowers and -foliage. Many of the artists mentioned furnished work of this kind -to the cathedral of Sta. Maria del Fiore, and to the palace of the -Signoria. The goldsmith’s art was in its glory, followed as it was by -great sculptors, who found excellent assistants in those who never rose -to the height of sculpture. The finest work of this kind in Florence -is the silver reredos for the Baptistery (mentioned at p. 130), which -was never quite finished. The growing taste for ornamental vessels and -other objects favoured this branch of art; as did also the custom of -presenting silver helmets or pieces of plate to commanders and others -who had deserved well of the Republic. As early as the summer of 1397, -436 florins were paid to the goldsmiths Piero, Matteo and Donato, for -silver gold and enamel, for dishes (_bacinetti_) intended for the -generals Paolo Orsini, Giovanni Colonna and Bernardin de Serre. Antonio -del Pollaiuolo made a large silver dish for the Signoria, and various -ornaments for rich families; and the churches were adorned with silver -crucifixes and elegant lamps. - -Die-cutting was only a branch of sculpture and the goldsmith’s art, -sure to be practised where these two arts flourished, and contemporary -history furnished a store of materials. But here the Tuscans do -not hold the foremost place, either in time or in excellence of -workmanship. Natives of Northern Italy, Lombards, and Venetians, came -before them in the great cast portrait-medallions, by which Vittore -Pisanello made a name in the fifteenth century. Donatello’s followers -strove to follow but never came up to him. Three of the Tuscan -medallists—Antonio Pollaiuolo, Bertoldo, and Andrea Guazzalotti of -Prato, had dealings with the Medici. Only the first is known to have -struck a medal referring to his country’s history, namely, one relating -to the Pazzi conspiracy. Guazzalotti, who was in correspondence with -Lorenzo and cast statues for him, commemorated the Pope and the Duke of -Calabria as victors over the Turks; the medals are characteristically -conceived, but lacking in delicacy of treatment. Medals of Cosimo and -of Filippo de’ Medici, Archbishop of Pisa, are attributed to Pisanello, -the latter probably incorrectly; a medallion with the head of Lorenzo -seems to be the work of a Florentine, Pietro di Niccolò.[202] - -Yet another branch of art reached a high perfection in Florence—that -of engraving precious stones. The taste for engraved gems, which -kept pace with the increasing knowledge of antiquity and the passion -for books and antique works of all kinds, revived the art of cutting -cameos and precious stones. A good example of the growth of this taste -is related by Vespasiano da Bisticci in the ‘Life of Niccoli,’[203] -whose house was full of antiquities. Passing along the street one -day, he saw a boy wearing round his neck a chalcedony with a figure -engraved, which the learned man thought he recognised as a work of -Polycletes. He inquired the name of the boy’s father, and sent to -ask him whether he would sell the stone. The man was willing to let -him have it for five florins, which he thought good payment. Now, in -the days of Pope Eugene, the future Cardinal Luigi Scarampi—who had -much taste for matters of this sort—being in Florence, asked Niccoli -to show him the stone, and offered him two hundred ducats for it. -Niccoli, who was not rich, accepted, and the chalcedony passed into the -hands of Scarampi, then to Paul II., and, after his death, to Lorenzo -de’ Medici. Lorenzo’s uncle, Giovanni, had collected many gems, of -which not the least famous was the carnelian representing Apollo and -Marsyas. It was supposed to be Nero’s seal, and was set in gold by -Lorenzo Ghiberti.[204] Lorenzo considerably increased the collection of -antique gems inherited from his father, and formed a treasury, of which -numerous remains still exist, after all the disasters that befell his -posterity. He and Paul II. inspired this branch of art with new life, -and enabled modern workers to enter the lists against the ancients. The -first modern gem of known date, is a portrait of Pope Paul in 1470, -now in the Uffizi collection. Giovanni delle Corniuole formed himself -on the models in the Medici collection, and attained the perfection -conspicuous in his famous head of Savonarola. He had a competitor in -the Milanese Domenico de’ Cammei, who worked chiefly for Lodovico il -Moro, and to whom is attributed the portrait of Lorenzo on an onyx of -three strata, placed with that of the great Dominican in the Uffizi -collection. Many other stones, with subjects taken from mythology, -sacred history, &c., are works of this period, when, also, much antique -work was copied. The name of Lorenzo de’ Medici, to be read on many -gems in Florence and elsewhere, recalls the former wealth told of in -Latin verses, and in the testimonies of contemporaries.[205] - -In painting we now witness the development of the tendencies which -first appeared in Masaccio, and were so actively reciprocated by the -sister-art of sculpture. Here the two branches of art frequently met, -and their reciprocal influence is discernible in the character of the -work. It was thus with Verrocchio, and the Pollaiuoli. The former, of -no great distinction as a painter, recalls his bronze works in his -picture of the Baptism of Christ.[206] The brothers Pollaiuoli, whose -grave, quiet faces may be seen together on their tomb in San Pietro in -Vincoli at Rome, cannot well be separated in their works; and, though -Piero occupied himself with painting more than Antonio, the inscription -by the latter on the monument of Pope Sixtus IV. shows his excellence -in gold and silver work, in painting, and bronze casting. Antonio -painted for Lorenzo the Labours of Hercules, of which some small -copies are still in existence. The picture of St. James was painted -for the chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal; that of the Martyrdom -of St. Sebastian,[207] the most famous work of these painters, was -executed in 1475, for the Pucci chapel in the entrance-court of the -Annunziata. In these works may be recognised the sculptor, and the -student of anatomy, to whom fidelity in representing the figure is -more important than the feeling for beauty. Alesso Baldovinetti, who -was probably a pupil of Uccello, and a fellow-worker of Andrea del -Castagno, experienced the influence of sculpture indirectly; and where -he might have learned from it, in regard to modelling, he has only -acquired a constrained, angular style, which is far from pleasing. An -example of this may be seen in his picture of the Madonna enthroned -with saints, painted for the villa at Caffaggiuolo, and now in the -Uffizi collection. More satisfactory is a work executed from a design -of his—the picture of Dante in Sta. Maria del Fiore which represents -the _altissimo Poeta_ in the attitude of speaking, with his open book -in his hand; on his right is hell, on his left the city of Florence, in -the background the Mount of Purgatory, above his head the firmament. -This picture was actually attributed to Orcagna, till the artist’s -name—Domenico di Michelino—and the date of execution, 1466, were -discovered.[208] - -Benozzo Gozzoli’s most important works—his Pisan frescoes—were -executed from 1469 onwards; they display great creative power, -though the harmony is defective and the masses and spaces are ill -distributed. It is observable in the works of Filippo Lippi, Gozzoli, -and Baldovinetti, a far inferior artist, that the custom was growing -in Florence of introducing into historical and religious compositions -portraits of spectators who had nothing to do with the subject. Nothing -remains of the frescoes painted by Baldovinetti for the Gianfigliazzi -in the choir of Sta. Trinità; they contained portraits of Lorenzo and -Giuliano de’ Medici, Bongianni and others of the Gianfigliazzi, Luigi -Guicciardini, Luca Pitti, Diotisalvi Neroni, Filippo Strozzi, Lorenzo -della Volpaia, and Paolo Toscanelli.[209] This branch of painting -reached its highest development in the hands of Baldovinetti’s famous -pupil, Domenico Ghirlandajo. Sandro Botticelli and Filippino Lippi -pursued the same branch of art. The former learned the goldsmith’s -trade in his youth, and shows traces of the influence of the -Pollaiuoli. He was the pupil of Fra Filippo and became the master of -his son, whom he survived, though Filippino was his junior by twenty -years. In the paintings of both there is a peculiar fantastic element, -attractive and interesting at first, but tiresome after a time. In -the faces it degenerates into a constantly recurring type, and in the -composition becomes mannerism. The way, too, in which both painters -employ allegory increases the appearance of affectation. Yet both were -men of great talent, with a fine and delicate sense of beauty when not -marred by superficiality and exaggeration. Both had much to do with -Lorenzo. None of the pictures painted for him by Botticelli are now -in existence, but his fine picture of the Epiphany must have been a -commission from the Medici, for in this work (formerly in Sta. Maria -Novella, and now in the Uffizi) the Three Kings have the features -of three members of the family—Cosimo the elder, his younger son -Giovanni, and his grandson Giuliano.[210] The colouring is more like -that of Ghirlandajo, to whom the picture was long attributed, than the -brighter, thinner tone of most of Botticelli’s works. Florence contains -many of his allegorical pictures, as well as Madonnas and saints; -among them the Coronation of the Virgin, painted for the church of San -Marco, as a commission for the Silk-workers’ Guild.[211] Botticelli not -only introduced likenesses into his historical pictures, he painted -separate portraits; among them those of Lorenzo’s mother and Giuliano’s -early lost love, the ‘bella Simonetta,’ very pleasing in the gentle -simplicity which characterises her expression, her attitude, and even -her dress. Both heads are in profile, the contour a little exaggerated, -in the manner of this artist.[212] Botticelli’s close connection with -the Medici is shown by the circumstance that after the conspiracy of -the Pazzi he undertook to paint the likenesses of the conspirators on -the wall of the palace of the Podestà.[213] - -Only one work of Filippino Lippi is mentioned as having been executed -for Lorenzo—the unfinished fresco, representing a sacrifice, in -the hall at Poggio a Cajano—but their intimacy is well known. The -commission given to Filippino by Cardinal Olivieri Caraffa for the -painting of his chapel in Sta. Maria sopra Minerva is said to have -been procured by Lorenzo, and so, probably, were those of Matthias -Corvinus. The influence exercised on the views and tendencies of the -son by his father’s works, especially those at Prato—where Filippino -passed most of his youth—was mingled with that of Botticelli. The -former comes out most in the earlier works, notably in the frescoes -of the Brancacci chapel at San Pietro in Carmine, painted about 1485; -the latter in the wall-paintings begun for Filippo Strozzi, but not -finished till long after, in the chapel in Sta. Maria Novella. The -immediate neighbourhood of Masaccio’s works had, no doubt, a beneficial -effect on the young artist in his earlier works, for Filippino, not -yet thirty, shows in the Brancacci frescoes infinitely more fidelity -to nature and feeling for historical composition than in the paintings -of the Caraffa and Strozzi chapels. The scenes in the last,[214] -from the Acts and legends of the Apostles, display undeniable tokens -of spirit and imagination, giving a vivid representation of the -passions. But there is affected mannerism, inharmonious colouring, -and an apparent delight in light tints playing into each other. Some -of these defects may be partly laid to the account of restoration. -The preference, noticeable in Botticelli, for antique accessories, -produces in Filippino an effect of artificial overloading. Among his -easel-pieces, the great Madonna with saints, painted in 1485 for the -council-chamber of the palace of the Signoria, is distinguished by -grace and earnest work.[215] Filippino, too, was fond of introducing -figures of contemporaries. In his frescoes at S. Pietro in Carmine may -be seen Tommaso Soderini, Piero Guicciardini (father of the historian), -Luigi Pulci, Antonio Pollaiuolo, Sandro Botticelli, Francesco Granacci, -and the painter himself. In an altar-piece (now in the Uffizi), -representing the Epiphany, are portraits of several members of the -younger branch of the Medici, doubtless benefactors of the convent -of San Donato, for which the picture was painted four years after -Lorenzo’s death. There are Pierfrancesco, grandson of Giovanni di -Bicci, his son Giovanni, father of the famous leader of the Black Bands -and grandfather of the first Grand-Duke, and the younger Pierfrancesco, -father of Lorenzino, the murderer of the first Duke of Florence.[216] -Other portraits, such as those of the Nerli family in Sto. Spirito, -represent donors. In Cosimo Rosselli’s greatest work, the Procession -with the Chalice in the church of Sant’Ambrogio, only one portrait is -named, that of Pico della Mirandola. In Lucca, where Rosselli painted -a good deal, he fell into the reigning fashion. He had formed himself -on the model, first of Fra Angelico, then of Benozzo Gozzoli, and with -moderate talents endeavoured to combine the conventional with the -naturalistic tendency.[217] - -The highest achievements of painting in Lorenzo’s days were those of -Domenico Ghirlandajo. He is a nobler Benozzo, guided by a refined -sense of symmetry. His power of drawing figures and groups is -combined with variety and animation. He has a strong feeling for -historical character, and makes a moderate use of architecture and -accessories that heighten the interest of his compositions without -seeming obtrusive. What he lacks in point of ideality is compensated -by his love of nature and that cultivated sense of form which makes -him select natural beauty and avoid whatever is repulsive in the -reality. His scenes from Scripture and the history of the Saints are -full of figures, and produce a grand, often a solemn, effect without -being at all forced or far-fetched. They transport us, undisturbed by -anything foreign or strange, into the Florence of his day. We seem -to stand in the middle of that gay and busy life, among the gallant -active citizens and the stately, beautiful women of that city, which, -according to the inscription—doubtless Poliziano’s—on the picture in -the choir of Sta. Maria Novella of the Angel appearing to Zacharias, -was rich in the spoils of victory and the treasures of art, in noble -buildings, in plenty, health, and peace.[218] Ghirlandajo’s frescoes -are a sort of monumental glorification of Lorenzo’s latter years. Among -the many portraits which give these works a value, independent of -their qualities as works of art, may be seen Lorenzo’s in the Sassetti -chapel in Sta. Trinità, which was decorated in 1485 with scenes from -the history of St. Francis of Assisi. The frescoes in the choir of -Sta. Maria Novella make quite a portrait gallery. They were begun in -1490 for Giovanni Tornabuoni, and after five years’ work were finished -four years before the death of the painter, who is here seen at his -best. Here are limned many members of the Tornabuoni and Tornaquinci -families (between whom there was a connection), as well as numerous -friends—Ficino, Landino, Poliziano, Gentile of Urbino, the most -distinguished scholars of the time. Baldovinetti, too, is there; David -Ghirlandajo, Domenico’s brother; his brother-in-law Bastiano Mainardi -and himself; Andrea de’ Medici, Federigo Sassetti, Gianfrancesco -Ridolfi—a partner in the Medicean bank—besides noble ladies and -matrons, among whom is Ginevra de’ Benci, a famous beauty also painted -by Leonardo da Vinci, and another pleasing face, that of Giovanna degli -Albizzi, who married Lorenzo Tornabuoni in 1486.[219] - -Like the Brancacci chapel, the choir of Sta. Maria Novella was a school -for painters in the palmy days of art; Andrea del Sarto, in particular, -received a great impulse from the compositions of Ghirlandajo. When -it is considered that the latter was taken away in the full strength -of manhood, at the age of forty-five, and that his development was not -rapid, it is hard to understand how he could have executed so many -works in Florence and elsewhere. The frescoes may have been done in -part by his pupils, but the easel-pieces—of which there are so many, -executed with the most careful technical perfection—must have come -chiefly from his own hand. Of those in Florence it will suffice to name -one, the fine Epiphany painted in 1488 for the church of the Foundling -Hospital. For Lorenzo, in 1488, he painted in the villa at Spedaletto -some mythological subjects of Vulcan and his comrades, of which little -now remains. For Giovanni de’ Medici he did two altar-pieces in the -abbey church of San Giusto near Volterra, of which one, ‘Christ in the -act of Blessing, with Saints,’ still exists. But Ghirlandajo’s chief -patrons were the Tornabuoni, family connections of the Medici. That he -and several other Tuscan artists were sent for to Rome to decorate the -Sixtine Chapel may safely be attributed to these two families. About -twenty years before the close of the century—when Sandro Botticelli, -Cosimo Rosselli, and his pupil Piero di Cosimo, were painting there -with and after Ghirlandajo—the Pope and Lorenzo were reconciled; and -as in Florence nothing was ever done in matters of art without him, he -and Giovanni Tornabuoni doubtless procured these commissions. - -The diplomatic, literary, and artistic intercourse between Florence and -Rome had never been so active and fertile as in those days when the -predominance of Florentine influence in Rome was openly acknowledged. -Almost all the remarkable works of the time of Sixtus IV. are due to -Florentine architects, sculptors, and painters. They may have commenced -even before the Pazzi conspiracy, for Baccio Pontelli began to build -the chapel in 1473, and Sixtus was urgent for its completion. Beside -the Florentine painters above named two other Tuscans were employed, -Don Bartolommeo della Gatta, abbot of a small Camaldulensian convent -at Arezzo, and perhaps a Florentine by birth, and Luca Signorelli -of Cortona, who by his connection with Piero della Francesca forms -a link between Tuscan and Umbrian art. His chief works belong to an -Umbrian city, Orvieto, where indeed Tuscan masters had long taken the -lead. Luca Signorelli also painted for Lorenzo. A Madonna, once in the -villa at Castello now in the Uffizi, and a mythological picture, the -‘Education of Pan,’ seem to have been offerings of the artist to his -patron. The last-named picture recalls the grandeur of conception and -strong feeling for form noticeable in the frescoes in the chapel of San -Brizio in Orvieto Cathedral.[220] - -The head of the Umbrian school in the latter decades of the century, -Pietro Perugino, made repeated and long visits to Florence, and was -considerably influenced by Florentine art, though with an admixture -of other elements. Thus was formed a style which, opposed on the one -hand to the naturalism of most of the Florentines, on the other to the -enthusiastic tendencies of some among them, gave expression to the -religious element which long remained dominant in the master’s own -country and beyond it. It is ascertained that Perugino was in Florence -in 1482 and in the beginning of 1491, but nothing is known of what -he did then. His chief works in Florence are of later date, as are -those of his school, first among which is the ‘Last Supper,’ in Sant’ -Onofrio, probably by Bernardino Pinturicchio. In 1496, Perugino had -thoughts of building a house in Florence, and in 1515—when his talent -was on the wane—he purchased a future resting-place in the Annunziata; -such tokens did he give of his attachment to the city which, spite of -the superhuman activity of Rome, was yet the focus of all artist-life -and work. Of paintings by Perugino for the Medici nothing is known. - -Miniature painting[221] rapidly approached its highest development. -Great illuminated church-books, antiphonaries, psalters, hours, -breviaries, &c., had come forth from Benedictine, Camaldulensian, -Dominican, and other convents, and were lodged in cathedrals -and churches. The art of illumination was extended by Dante’s -contemporaries, Oderigi of Gubbio and Franco of Bologna, to -prayer-books for private use and to works of profane literature, when -men of rank and citizens took to forming libraries and beautiful -manuscripts became objects of luxury. The field for representation was -correspondingly enlarged, and from figures of angels and saints the -artists of the fifteenth century passed to scenes from the classic -poets or the ‘Divine Comedy.’ In this century the Florentine churches -were filled with the finest works of this kind, most of which are now -in the National Library or that of San Marco. The Dominican order were -especially rich in miniature painters after Giovanni Dominici had given -an impulse to this branch of art. In Cosimo’s time, Fra Angelico and -Fra Benedetto worked in San Marco under the eyes of St. Antonine. Don -Bartolommeo della Gatta, Attavante degli Attavanti, Gherardo and Monti -di Giovanni, Zanobi Strozzi, Francesco Rosselli, brother of Cosimo, -and many others, distinguished themselves in this art, in which they -were emulated by foreigners connected with Florence: Liberale of -Verona, Girolamo of Cremona, several Sienese, and others. From the -middle of the century miniature painting underwent the influence of -the Van Eyck school. Many beautiful works found their way into the -Medici collections. Lorenzo’s tastes and traditions were inherited -by his son Giovanni, whom Raphael’s famous portrait represents with a -book adorned with miniatures, and a glass for looking at them lying -before him. Many miniatures went abroad, and foreign ones came to -Italy. Gherardo, Attavanti, and others worked for Matthias Corvinus; -and in the Burgundian Library at Brussels is preserved the mass-book -painted for the king by the last-named artist in 1485, and brought to -the Netherlands by Mary of Hungary, sister of Charles V. At Matthias’s -death Lorenzo acquired several of the manuscripts, probably ordered -at his own instigation, and some of which were still in hand. Lorenzo -was deeply interested in the revival of mosaic. Vasari’s statement -that Alesso Baldovinetti learned the long-forgotten principles of this -art from a German pilgrim going to Rome must rest on its own merits; -anyhow, the art was revived in Lorenzo’s latter years. In 1482-83, -Baldovinetti undertook to restore the mosaics in the Baptistery. About -1490, Gherardo di Giovanni and Domenico Ghirlandajo began for Lorenzo -the mosaic decoration of the chapel in the choir of the cathedral, -where stands the shrine of St. Zanobi. This work was never finished. -The same year Domenico executed the pleasing mosaic picture of the -‘Annunciation,’ over the side-door of the church, towards the Via de’ -Servi. Baldovinetti’s pupil Graffione, and Ghirlandajo’s brother David, -took part in these works; the latter, who busied himself with the -technicalities of glass-making at Montaione, in the Elsa valley—where -there are potteries and glass-houses to this day—afterwards worked -both in Florence and in the cathedrals of Siena and Orvieto.[222] - -Thus varied and fruitful was the development of art around Lorenzo, in -a great measure stimulated and shared in by him. Like his grandfather, -he was not content to profit by ripe talents and pluck the fruits, -he sowed for the future; he, more than any one else, contributed to -bring on the most brilliant period of art. He founded a nursery for -choice spirits in the collection of works of art of all kinds, ancient -and modern, which he laid out in his garden at San Marco and the -neighbouring casino, and the superintendence of which he confided to -Donatello’s pupil, Bertoldo. At a time when antique sculptures were -rare, and the means of study limited, and when young men of talent -had to remain for years in a dependent position which checked their -individual development, advantages like these, offered to youth, -were as unusual as they were invaluable. Lorenzo’s sound judgment -was no less useful here than his goodwill. ‘It is no small matter,’ -remarks Vasari in the ‘Life of Giovan Francesco Rustici,’[223] ‘that -distinction was attained by all those who went to school in the Medici -garden, and were assisted by the illustrious Lorenzo. This can only be -ascribed to the uncommon perspicacity of that noble gentleman, who was -a veritable Mæcenas, who knew how to recognise genius and merit, and to -encourage them by rewards.’ The painters Francesco Granacci, Lorenzo -di Credi, Niccolò Soggi; the sculptors Giovan Francesco Rustici, -Pietro Torrigiano, Baccio of Montelupo, Andrea Contucci of Monte San -Sovino—who on Lorenzo’s recommendation was summoned to Portugal, -where he executed works of architecture and sculpture for King John -II.—these, and others, came forth from the garden of San Marco. -The variety of their gifts and accomplishments bears witness to the -freedom they had there enjoyed in the development of the most diverse -intellectual powers. But the one who gave to the Medicean garden a -worldwide fame was Michelangelo Buonarotti. Before he was fifteen -he passed from the school of Ghirlandajo into this new world. His -sculptures soon disclosed the marvellous talent which his sympathetic -teacher had foreboded when he recommended him and Granacci to Lorenzo; -the latter having, as the story goes, expressed to his artist-friend a -regret that sculpture did not keep pace with painting. The youth came -of a good family, but without property.[224] During the few remaining -years of Lorenzo, he enjoyed a sympathy and kindness which had a -decided influence on his life up to the threshold of old age, although -the independent spirit of the free citizen often rebelled against the -attachment which, as artist, he continued to feel for the Medici. - -It has been generally believed that the greatest Florentine artist -of the second half of the fifteenth century—Leonardo da Vinci—was -a stranger to Lorenzo. The fact appeared the more strange because -Leonardo was the son of a chancellor or notary of the Republic, and a -pupil of Andrea del Verocchio, who was in constant intercourse with -the Medici. Newly discovered documents[225] show that Leonardo, if not -among those admitted to study in the San Marco gardens, was at least -acquainted with the Medici, and that it was Lorenzo who sent him, when -thirty years old, to Lodovico il Moro, in company with one Atalante -Migliorotti, famous for playing on the lyre. The date hitherto assigned -to his first visit to Milan—1482 or 1483—is confirmed; but there is -no explanation of the fact that his name is never mentioned during -the war of 1478-79. He was then twenty-six, and might have done good -service to his country by that knowledge of mechanics and hydraulics -which he afterwards turned to such good account in Lombardy. On January -1 of the fatal year 1478, the Signoria commissioned him to paint an -altar-piece for the chapel dedicated to St. Bernard in the palace. -This commission, like many of the same kind, was not executed, but was -transferred after Leonardo’s departure for Milan to Filippino Lippi, -whose beautiful Madonna (see p. 175) was placed not in the chapel, -but in the council chamber. Under the rule of the two Sforzas—Gian -Galeazzo and Lodovico il Moro—Leonardo founded at Milan a school of -painting which gave a new direction to Lombard art. When he returned to -Florence after the downfall of the Moro, Lorenzo had been seven years -in his grave, and his sons were in exile. - - - - -_FIFTH BOOK._ - -THE GROWTH OF THE MEDICEAN SUPREMACY. - - - - -CHAPTER I. - -CHANGE IN THE FLORENTINE CONSTITUTION. - - -THE events of two years had shown that Lorenzo was not quite so -secure of the direction of public affairs as he had seemed to be -immediately after the conspiracy of the Pazzi. The vicissitudes of -the war had produced an abrupt change in public feeling; it had -become clear that internal affairs were in a great measure subject to -external influences. Even when Lorenzo’s position was far stronger, a -diplomatist justly observed that his authority in the city depended on -the estimation in which he was held by the other Italian powers and -by foreign sovereigns.[226] The traditions of independence were too -fresh, party interests too various and too powerful, not to create -constant difficulties. The great art of the party leaders had always -consisted in excluding from office any but their own partisans. But it -was by no means easy to prevent internal divisions between sections -of the parties themselves. During the war, a college of magistrates -had to be dismissed, on account of the opposition they offered to a -measure which aimed at reducing their jurisdiction to its original -limits. Lorenzo’s standing difficulty was the necessity he was under of -controlling parties in the state, without altering constitutional forms -except in apparent agreement with the popular sentiment. The ostracism -known as the power of _ammonire_ had proved just as dangerous as the -excitement caused by the frequent summoning of parliaments. His only -plan therefore was, by creating a docile following, to exclude, without -the use of strong measures, all elements he could not rely upon, and -to accustom the multitude to the gradual extension of his influence -on home as well as foreign policy. Lorenzo had another motive. He had -not been fortunate in business matters. During his grandfather’s time -the State finances had become entangled with those of the family. -Cosimo, who was a financial genius, took care of his own interests -without letting those of the State suffer. With his grandson the case -was different. Cosimo had advanced money to the State; Lorenzo, on -the other hand, stood in need of public money for private objects. -The expenses of the war, sacrifices and losses of all kinds were the -ostensible cause of irregularity in the payment of interest on the -national debt, and in the settlement of marriage portions by the -establishment existing for that purpose. This state of things could -not last if the public bonds were to retain any value and the national -credit to be maintained. For further operations, rendered hazardous by -the embarrassment that already existed, men were needed who were both -familiar with business and willing to go hand in hand with the director -of the State. The embarrassment was already so publicly known, that it -was thought advisable to avow it with apparent frankness before taking -measures which really aimed at withdrawing the direction of the banks -from public control, although their object was made to appear a reform -for the general welfare. - -On April 8, 1480, scarcely a fortnight after peace was proclaimed, the -Signoria, who were all in Lorenzo’s confidence, proceeded, without -the intervention of a parliament, to make sweeping changes in the -constitution. They carried through the three legislative councils a -resolution empowering them to create a new college, in whose hands were -to be placed all the appointments to public offices. This college was -divided into a smaller and greater council: the former consisting of -thirty citizens capable of holding office, elected with the Signoria; -the latter containing 210 members not under thirty years of age, who -with the Signoria and first college filled up the required number of -offices. The presence of two-thirds of the members and a proportionate -majority of those present sufficed for the validity of the proceedings. -One-fourth of the councillors were to come from each quarter of the -city; if a family or _consorteria_ had sent but one representative -among the thirty, two of its members were eligible as councillors; -otherwise only one, except in the case of two houses to be named by -the Signoria and the thirty, for which there was to be no limit as -to number or age. The 210 then added to their body 48 other members, -and thus formed a great council of 288 members, which was to meet in -November for the elections. On April 11 the Signoria proceeded to -nominate the thirty. But a few days later a considerable modification -was made in the scheme, for on the 19th the smaller council of -thirty was increased by a resolution of the Signoria to seventy; the -additional members being chosen by those already nominated. The new -members were to be at least forty years old, and, if belonging to one -of the great guilds, must have held the office of Gonfaloniere. This -permanent senate of seventy, which now took the place of the former -electors to the offices (_accoppiatori_), was divided into two equal -parts, alternating every half year. When united, it had in fact the -direction of the whole state; the more so because it had the right of -filling up vacancies in its own body from among those who had held the -office of Gonfaloniere, provided they had done nothing to displease the -ruling party. To this senate no proposal or petition could be addressed -by private persons, but only by the Signoria. - -The Council of Seventy then appointed two committees of its own -members. The first, commonly called from its number the _Otto di -pratica_, took the place of the Magistracy of Ten. It sat only in time -of war, and assumed the control of political and military affairs, -which, after deliberation in full session, it submitted to the Seventy. -The other committee, consisting of twelve members, was entrusted -with all affairs concerning the national credit, and all matters of -jurisdiction. Both were nominated for a period of six months, and any -vacancies caused by death or an appointment to offices abroad were -to be filled up from the same college.[227] The existing magistracy, -called the _Otto di balia_, whose authority in both civil and criminal -affairs had almost extinguished that of the podestà but had lately been -reduced within narrower limits, was likewise chosen from among the -Seventy. - -However widely the opinions of contemporaries and posterity may differ -as to the character and scope of these institutions, which were -afterwards greatly modified in the direction of centralisation, all -agree that the measures just described contributed most effectively -to the establishment of personal government. ‘One must perceive,’ -observes Alamanno Rinuccini on the first resolution, ‘that all freedom -was taken from the people and they were made the servants of the -Thirty, as I, Alamanno Rinuccini, though a member of the Council -of the Two Hundred and Ten, testify in accordance with truth.’ And -further, on the completion of the scheme: ‘The decree contained many -things dishonourable and opposed to citizen-life and to the freedom -of the people; and, indeed, from that day their freedom seemed to -me dead and buried.’ The general opinion on the connection of the -administration with the financial affairs of the Medici is shown by -the remarks of both friends and foes. Giovanni Cambi remarks: ‘Lorenzo -was always thinking how he could increase his authority. After the -new reform had conferred on the electors a power formerly belonging -to the whole body of citizens, the former took into their own hands -the money matters that needed regulating. The state finances had been -used to support Lorenzo in his private affairs. More than a hundred -thousand gold florins went to Bruges alone, where Tommaso Portinari -was at the head of the Medici bank, then in danger of failure. The -unfortunate community had to pay it all, for the members of the new -elective body cared for nothing but to keep their own position, and -assented to everything. Thus a servile feeling gained ground; the -citizens sacrificed their freedom to obtain office. Yet what they did -obtain was not enough to satisfy them; for all looked enviously on the -inner council, to which each thought himself worthy to belong.’ The -voice that carries most weight is perhaps that of Alessandro de’ Pazzi, -who gives a sketch of his uncle in his disquisition on the Florentine -constitution of 1522. ‘As Lorenzo,’ he says,[228] ‘spent a great deal -of money on a thousand things, and was not a good man of business, his -fortune suffered considerably. Cosimo had spent large sums of money; -perhaps because he believed that the glory of building churches and -monuments would be of more advantage to his family than stores of -gold; and in this his example was followed by Piero and his sons. When -their credit fell, they would have been driven from their position -but for the events of 1478, which gained for the Medici new friends -and confirmed the attachment of old ones, and altogether strengthened -their power. The same events furnished Lorenzo with the means of using -both his private means and the moneys of the State, which before -he would not have dared to touch, to fulfil his own obligations, -and re-establish his political influence on a permanent basis while -rectifying his financial embarrassments.’ - -The altered constitution with respect to finance is thus described -by Niccolò Valori:[229] ‘Although no new taxes were imposed, the -revenues of the State increased so much after peace was assured, that -State-creditors had reason to be satisfied. The Republic has such -good resources that she can hold out long in time of war, and recover -rapidly in time of peace.’ This sounds very well; but, according to -Alamanno Rinuccini,[230] the public credit had to be supported in the -course of the very next year by a sale of State property. The bad -name which Lorenzo acquired by his arbitrary appropriation of public -moneys seems to have induced him to restrict his banking operations, -which depended for success on changes of fortune and on the skill of -agents, and to lay out his means in landed property rather than trust -to foreign speculations. - -If Niccolò Valori is to be believed, no new taxes were imposed in 1480. -But an examination of the proceedings of the board of taxation shows -how little this statement is to be relied on. The progressive scale of -1447, which originally produced the large sums laid out in supporting -Francesco Sforza, and which was to be in operation for three years -only, the tax being collected in small instalments as need arose, had -remained in force during the remaining years of Cosimo, and with some -modifications under Piero and his son. According to a calculation of -the payments in 1471-1480, the sum total amounted to 1,682,888, or on -an average 168,288 gold florins annually. In 1479 the tax had risen to -367,450 gold florins. The new law issued by the new finance committee -on May 18, 1480, and modified on the following January 30, introduced -a double progressive duty in place of the former one. The first, fixed -for seven years, was on immovable property, so that the lowest class, -with an income extending beyond the actual necessaries of life but -under fifty gold florins, was to pay seven per cent., and the highest, -having an income of 400 and over, twenty-two per cent. The second was -a personal tax, which, according to the same scale, amounted to one -gold florin and four-twentieths for the lowest class, four florins and -four-twentieths for the highest. This mode of taxation, whereby a quota -of the national debt could be discharged, lasted with some changes till -Lorenzo’s death; its real aim being to keep the lower orders in good -humour and weaken the great families; while those that governed always -found means to indemnify themselves and their friends, so that equality -of taxation was merely apparent. The taxes were collected according -to the needs of the Government. More than once they were paid seven -times in the year. The proceeds at one collection of the first of these -taxes had been estimated at about 30,000 gold florins, but only yielded -25,000; in 1487 it fell to 18,000; and in the following year to 15,000. -From 1481 to 1492 the sum of the tax payments amounted to 1,561,836 -gold florins, or, on an average, 130,153. The largest revenue was -that of the year 1483—that of the Ferrara war—viz. 164,665, and the -smallest those of the years of peace, from 1489 to 1492, viz. 105,000. -Under Lorenzo’s son the total annual amount was reduced to 90,000. On -calculating the various duties on both movable and immovable property, -appearing under manifold names, ever changing with circumstances, -alternately rising and falling, it becomes evident that the direct -tax, which by the old financial system of the Republic was limited to -25,000 or 30,000 gold florins, a light weight in the balance against -the duties estimated at 250,000 to 300,000, had increased twelvefold -in Lorenzo’s time. The taxpayers were indeed registered at the Monte, -and might discharge part of their payments in its bonds. But the -Monte more than once stopped paying interest altogether, often paid -only half, and sometimes only a fifth. The exchequer then took the -quotas of taxes in question not at the nominal value of the bonds, but -according to the rate of payment then current at the Monte. All these -manipulations, which made the artificial financial system of Florence -a perfect labyrinth of perplexity, could not but be injurious to the -interests of the community, while they deprived property of its secure -foundations.[231] - -At the same time, the repeated modifications in the constitution which -had been going on ever since Cosimo’s time had thrown it completely -off the balance. People had long been accustomed to see the exercise -of popular sovereignty by means of parliaments converted into a -mere party manœuvre. The men in power, in order to gain a formal -legal countenance for their measures, would have some extraordinary -authority conferred on them by the so-called people, i.e. by that -portion of the citizens who were either on their side or were coerced -into becoming so through fear. The constant change in the mode of -election to the offices, either by lot or by nomination, produced -in the end no great difference, for all were excluded who were not -thought to have been made sure of. In Lorenzo’s time, at least after -the restrictions subsequently imposed on the scheme introduced in 1480, -there was no more trouble in that respect. In defiance of democratic -forms, everything tended to a personal government. As if enough had -not already occurred to increase the power of the Medici, another -circumstance—unimportant in itself—occurred to raise Lorenzo’s -position. On the evening of June 2, Amoretto Baldovinetti, natural -son of a citizen of good family, was arrested, and on the following -morning Battista Frescobaldi, formerly consul at Constantinople. -Scarcely were they in custody when an attempt was made to seize the -brothers Francesco and Antonio Balducci, but only the latter was -captured. Immediately a report was spread of a conspiracy against -Lorenzo’s life. Frescobaldi had once greatly assisted in delivering -up Giovanni Bandini to justice, and seems to have thought himself -insufficiently rewarded for having spent some of his private means -in the affair. In Rome he met some Florentine emigrants who put him -in communication with Amoretto, just the man, he considered, for a -hazardous undertaking. Provided with weapons and poison, these two -came to Florence. Their efforts to gain supporters had little success; -even the brothers Balducci seem to have been undecided. Nevertheless -they resolved to attempt the assassination, and again in a church; -according to some it was to be in the cathedral, according to others -in S. Pietro in Carmine, where Lorenzo was expected on Ascension day. -The plot failed and the three conspirators were condemned to death. A -legal objection was raised against the sentence, as the case was only -that of a criminal project; but the Signoria and the Council of Seventy -pronounced it high treason, and enacted that in future every act by -which Lorenzo was injured or his life threatened was to be regarded -in the same light. ‘Lorenzo’s position and authority,’ remarks the -Ferrarese agent,[232] ‘was certainly heightened by this event, but -many are of opinion that it did him more harm than good, by increasing -the number of his enemies.’ When sentence was pronounced many citizens -went to console the prisoners; but they answered cheerfully that they -regretted not so much the sentence they had to undergo as the failure -of their scheme to free the city; they had tried to do what ought to be -the duty of every citizen, and if they had only had two hours more it -would have been seen of what they were capable. They met their doom on -the morning of the 6th, on the gallows in the palace of the Podestà. -Lorenzo took care to announce to the courts and to his noble friends -throughout Italy, either by private letters or through the ambassadors -of the Republic, the danger with which he had been threatened ‘by that -traitor Battista Frescobaldi and his companions.’ The consequence was -that the following of friends and clients which had served to protect -Lorenzo since the Pazzi conspiracy formed itself into a regular -body-guard, and the capital became accustomed to see him appear in -public with a suite differing from that of a tyrant only by the civil -character of its members. - -Three months after this Otranto was re-taken. In the beginning of the -year the plenipotentiaries of the Italian States had met at Rome to -consider an alliance in which foreign countries were invited to join -against the Infidels. Sixtus IV. bestirred himself actively. With help -from various quarters, King Ferrante made great exertions to meet the -danger that was threatening not only Apulia but all Italy. Alfonso of -Calabria besieged Otranto with a large force. As he could not succeed -in completely cutting off the approach by sea, the town might have held -out a long time, particularly as a new Turkish army was gathering on -the Albanian and Dalmatian coasts; but the death of the Grand Signor, -and the strife of his two sons for the throne, put an end to the -resistance of the place. On September 10, Otranto opened its gates, but -it never recovered from these heavy strokes of fate. The duke, whose -easy victory was commemorated by medals, did not keep to the conditions -of the surrender. A year later, Rome, so lately threatened by the -Turks, saw many of them within her walls, not as victors but as doubly -vanquished; they were those who had taken service in the Neapolitan -army, which thus once again—as in the days of Frederic II.—numbered -unbelievers in its ranks. - - - - -CHAPTER II. - -THE FERRARESE WAR. - - -THE Pazzi conspiracy was only a prelude to the events which caused a -Neapolitan army to stand as an enemy before the walls of Rome. The Pope -and the Venetians had had no time to give free course to their spite -against old enemies or former allies so long as the storm was hanging -over the Apulian coast. Sixtus IV. even showed himself friendly to the -Florentines, and Guid’Antonio Vespucci, who, towards the end of January -1481, returned to Rome as ambassador, endeavoured to strengthen this -good understanding. But no sooner had the imminent danger from the -East disappeared than the object of clearing the coast of Albania and -Western Greece of the Turks, which might have been more easily attained -then than at any previous period, passed out of sight. A dispute -between Venice and Ferrara furnished an occasion for fresh strife. -Ercole of Este refused to recognise any longer as valid certain old and -burdensome obligations which kept him in a sort of dependence on the -Republic with respect to the execution of justice in his capital by a -Venetian vicegerent, and the procuring of salt from Venetian saltworks. -The dispute rose to such a height that Venice threatened to take up -arms; she thought the moment favourable on account of her alliance -with the Pope. Sixtus IV. had sound reasons for avoiding everything -that could favour the interference of Venice in the affairs of Ferrara -and Romagna; but the requirements of prudent policy were driven into -the background by the selfish ambition of his nephew, who hoped to -strengthen his position in Romagna by Venetian influence. Duke Ercole -vainly tried through Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere to make the Pope -understand that it would be neither to the honour nor the advantage -of the Holy See to leave him to be crushed by the superior power of -Venice.[233] - -Girolamo Riario went to Venice, where he was most honourably received -and presented with the patriciate. War was decided on. King Ferrante -sided with his son-in-law, as did also Milan and Florence. The alliance -of Bologna and several of the lords of Romagna was secure; Siena and -Genoa adhered to the Pope and Venice. Most of the captains of the -Tuscan war undertook the leadership again, under somewhat altered -circumstances. Besides Roberto Malatesta, the Venetians gained Roberto -da Sanseverino, who had fallen out with Lodovico Sforza and given him a -great deal of trouble in his own territory. The command of the Milanese -troops was entrusted to the Duke of Urbino. The Florentines were led -by Costanzo Sforza, to whom the general’s _bâton_ had been solemnly -presented October 2, 1481.[234] In the spring of 1482 the struggle -began in several quarters at once.[235] - -A large Venetian fleet sailed up the Po, while two armies attacked the -Ferrarese territory—Sanseverino from the Lombard side and Malatesta -from that of Romagna. Rovigo and the whole Polesina fell into the -hands of the Venetians, whose commander-in-chief encamped, on May 28, -before Ficcarolo—a castle situated on the Po to the north-west of -Ferrara—intending to take it, and then to cross the river and attack -the capital, Malatesta co-operating with him from the south side. -But meanwhile the Duke of Urbino, with the Milanese troops, raised -his camp at Stellata, on the right bank, to assist the besieged and -cover Ferrara; and Malatesta was called away from the Po district to -meet a threatened danger in an opposite quarter. Alfonso of Calabria -had appeared at the Tronto, demanding a free pass to bring aid to his -brother-in-law. The Pope had not yet declared himself; the envoys of -Naples, Milan, Florence, and Ferrara were still in Rome. On the refusal -of the pass they left the city, and the duke entered the States of the -Church as an enemy. He met no serious resistance. Rome resounded with -the clang of arms; as an annalist says, ‘The city which had hitherto -been wont to produce only bulls and briefs now produced nothing but -arms.’[236] Girolamo Riario had the post of captain-general for the -Church, but his incapacity soon became apparent. The Neapolitans were -at Grottaferrata; their horsemen made excursions to the very gates of -the city; vineyards and fields were laid waste. This state of things -continued for weeks. At last the Pope saw himself compelled to appeal -for help to Venice, and she ordered Roberto Malatesta to go to the -assistance of her hard-pressed ally. Meanwhile, the Florentines had -made a diversion; Niccolò Vitelli, supported by Costanzo Sforza, had -taken Città di Castello on June 19, and the whole country around had -fallen into his hands. - -Thus far matters seemed to be going in favour of the Duke of Ferrara -and his allies. The Pope was angry as well as distressed, and in -his anger and distress he did not disdain the policy followed by -one Italian state after another, to the ruin of Italy, the policy -of seeking help from a foreign power. To Louis XI. he addressed the -bitterest complaints against Ferrante, seeking to stir up the French -king to an expedition against Naples, where the prevailing discontent -was in his favour, and he offered the Dauphin an opportunity of -becoming a standard-bearer of the Church.[237] Raimond Pérault, -afterwards Bishop of Saintes and Cardinal, was sent to the king with -positive proposals. Louis XI. was too practical to enter upon such -far-reaching and uncertain projects, but, as in all similar proposals, -the seed sown did not fall on barren soil. Meanwhile things had changed -in Italy. Ficcarolo surrendered after a siege of rather more than a -month, and the enemy crossed the Po unimpeded by the troops of the -Duke of Urbino, which were no match for the Venetians, especially -when their leader, having been seized with fever in the low unhealthy -neighbourhood of the river, had to be carried to Bologna. Ferrara was -threatened, and a Venetian fleet alarmed the coast of Apulia. But the -heaviest blow was yet to come. On August 21, at Campomorto, on the -road from Rome to Porto d’Anzo, Alfonso of Calabria was completely -defeated by Malatesta, with heavy loss of men and artillery.[238] -The victor died at Rome on September 8, of fever which he had caught -in the infected Campagna. At the same time the other side lost their -best general, Federigo da Montefeltro, who closed his eventful life -in Bologna. These two, opposed to each other on the battle-field, but -connected by the closest family ties, each ignorant of the other’s -mortal danger, commended in their last hour their states and families -to each other’s care. Girolamo Riario had tried to profit both by the -victory and the death of Malatesta, on the one hand to retake Città -di Castello, and on the other to get Rimini into his own power. Both -attempts were frustrated by the Florentines, who supported Vitelli and -enabled Roberto’s widow, Elisabetta di Montefeltro, to preserve for her -little step-son Pandolfo his paternal inheritance. Still the situation -was very serious. Roberto Sanseverino established himself on the right -bank of the Po, and raised strong fortifications at Pontelagoscuro, -close to Ferrara. The duke began seriously to think of abandoning his -capital and withdrawing to Modena, but the Florentine plenipotentiary, -Bongianni Gianfigliazzi, restrained him. Lodovico Sforza was kept in -check by a rising in the Parmesan territory. - -The way the war was carried on in the Duchy of Ferrara was regarded -in Florence as very unsatisfactory. The Duke of Urbino had in nowise -answered to the expectations formed of him. Jacopo Guicciardini -remarked to the Ferrarese ambassador that the league had no head. -Lorenzo de’ Medici was anxious, but said in reference to the Duke of -Ferrara, ‘I cannot imagine you will lose, unless you fail for want of -spirit. _Here_ all will be done that can be.’ The expedition against -Città di Castello, he observed, had been made with the object of giving -the duke breathing time. Ercole was always commending his interests to -the Republic. If Ferrara fell into the hands of the Venetians, Florence -would be likewise endangered. Military operations were not accounted -sufficient; the old threat of a council was renewed. But just at this -time the adventurous Archbishop of Carniola, whose character and -history have never been thoroughly investigated, made a feeble attempt -to revive the Synod of Basel, which had been dissolved for forty -years. This man, a Dominican, whose name seems to have been Andrea -Zuccalmaglio, was in Rome with commissions from the Emperor Frederic -about the time of the Pazzi conspiracy. There he enjoyed high favour -for a time, but afterwards he fell into such deep disgrace that he was -not only deposed from his ecclesiastical dignity but imprisoned in the -castle of St. Angelo, from whence the Emperor’s intercession liberated -him in the summer of 1481. He betook himself, _viâ_ Florence, first -to Bern and then to Basel, where, falsely giving himself out as still -Frederic’s messenger, and finally assuming the title of cardinal, he -proclaimed the opening of the great Assembly of the Church on the feast -of the Annunciation, 1482. The moment for this proclamation was not -badly chosen, for the Pope was just involving himself in a fresh war; -but measures being immediately taken in Rome to put on their guard both -foreign powers and the free city in which the fire threatened to kindle -once more, the wretched man—whose sanity had begun to be doubted, and -who was not joined by one single prelate from France or Germany—rushed -into extremities, and in the beginning of the summer launched the -wildest invectives against Francesco da Savona, who was no Pope but -a son of the devil, against whom he called Christ and the œcumenical -council to witness. - -Not long before, Lorenzo had found out that it is not safe to play -with spiritual weapons, however much they might be blunted by misuse -in temporal projects. It seems, therefore, hardly intelligible that he -could think of letting himself appear to take part in such a senseless -enterprise. Possibly he had seen the archbishop when the latter passed -through Florence, with his heart full of rancour against the Pope -and his nephew. In Lorenzo’s defence it may be urged that affairs in -Italy were in a sad plight while the Pope blindly allowed himself to -be led by the ambition of his kinsmen. In a letter written about this -time to Pier Capponi, ambassador at Naples,[239] Lorenzo says plainly -that the authority of religion itself is endangered by a mode of -government so unbecoming the supreme pastor. King Ferrante nominated -ambassadors to the council, and proposed that the Italian League should -be represented, as well as the individual states. He hoped to induce -the Kings of Hungary and Spain to favour the cause. But in vain. On -September 14, by Lorenzo’s orders, Baccio Ugolini arrived in Basel, in -company with a Milanese delegate—Bartolommeo, Archpriest of Piacenza. -They at once entered into communication with the _Pronunciator_ of the -Council, as Andrea called himself, but they soon became convinced of -the utter groundlessness and hopelessness of the whole proceeding. The -Florentine’s idea of proposing Pisa as a more suitable spot than Basel, -where matters were going wrong already, is interesting only as an echo -of the Council of 1409, and a foreshadowing of the _conciliabulum_ of -1511. On December 18, the two delegates, with Philip of Savoy, Lord of -Bresse, and other princes and nobles, were present at a solemn sitting -of the town-council of Basel, at which the case was decided against -the archbishop. Having avowed his obedience to the head of the Empire, -and his zeal for the good of the church, but declining to retract his -accusations against the Pope, he was arrested; he was then prosecuted, -but at the same time, the town council of Basel refused to deliver -him up to Rome. Legal proceedings were taken against the imperial -city, and were the cause of great trouble, until the dispute was ended -by a compromise arising out of the suicide of the rash man who had -originated this melancholy episode.[240] - -While Baccio Ugolini and his colleague were taking part in these -deliberations, a revolution was preparing in Italy which altered the -whole position of affairs and placed Florence and Milan in quite a -different attitude towards the Pope. Sixtus was influenced less by -distant apprehensions than by the consideration, to which he could not -shut his eyes, that he was helping to strengthen the very power which -threatened to become most dangerous to him by its constant endeavours -to obtain control over the cities on the Adriatic coast. Giuliano della -Rovere—who, twenty years after, as his uncle’s successor, opposed -in arms the power of this Republic, his uncle’s old ally—seems to -have been the means of finally inducing the Pope to break with Venice. -Girolamo Riario, the soul of the war party, might be gained over by a -prospect of the Malatesta fiefs. First, a truce was made with the Duke -of Calabria, who was still in the Campagna; then, on December 23, peace -was agreed upon between the Pope, Naples, Florence, and Milan, with -a proviso that Venice was to accede to it. The Florentines were not -satisfied with the conditions, and seem to have accused the Milanese of -lukewarmness both in regard to the war and to the negotiations. Yet, -considering the state of affairs and the losses already sustained, the -conditions were not unfavourable. The Duke of Ferrara, who was in the -utmost need, was to be reinstated in his possessions. The next point, -however, was to persuade or compel the Venetians to accede to the -treaty, and thus give reality to the peace, in commemoration of which -Sixtus built the church of Sta. Maria della Pace. A congress was to be -held at Cremona to regulate everything. - -There was no time to lose, for Ferrara was besieged and could not -hold out much longer; and the conduct of Costanzo Sforza, who had -strengthened the garrison with his own troops after being repeatedly -urged to do so by the Florentines, inspired but little confidence. -In spite of the unfavourable time of year, King Ferrante was not -behind hand. A thousand men, among whom were the Turks who bad fought -bravely at Campomorto, were sent by sea to Piombino, to march through -Sienese and Florentine territory; while the Duke of Calabria advanced -by way of Orvieto towards the valleys of the Chiana and the Arno. On -January 5, 1483, he was in Florence, where he abode in the house of -Giovanni Tornabuoni. At the end of three days he set out for Ferrara, -from whence he intended proceeding to Cremona. The Cardinal-Legate -Gonzaga also passed through Florence on his way to Cremona; and now -Lorenzo de’ Medici, who was to represent the Republic at the congress, -also set out on February 12. A week before he received the customary -instructions,[241] relating principally to the contingents of troops -and money for the prosecution of the war; in fact, he went as master -of the city and the State, to decide on war and peace according to his -own judgment. His brother-in-law Bernardo Rucellai was to accompany -him. Louis XI. warned him of possible danger. ‘As to the meeting about -Ferrara,’ he wrote on January 20, ‘at which you tell me you have agreed -to be present, I, who know neither the people nor the place, would have -advised you not to go, but to take care of your own safety. I would -have sent a messenger with excuses. Since, however, you have consented -to go, I must leave the rest to you and trust in God that all may go as -you wish.’[242] Even in Florence the matter seems to have been thought -somewhat serious. When Lorenzo, on January 30, announced to the Duke of -Ferrara[243] his intended departure, he added that he had to contend -with the general opposition of the citizens, who were unwilling to let -him go. At the same time he remarks that his presence cannot be of -much consequence at a meeting of so many mighty lords; but it is not -necessary to take him at his word. He announced his impending journey -to the French king on the same day. - -The lords who met at Cremona were, besides the Legate, the Duke of -Calabria and Lorenzo de’ Medici, Lodovico and Ascanio Sforza, Ercole -d’Este, Federigo Gonzaga Marquis of Mantua, Giovanni Bentivoglio, -Girolamo Riario,[244] and various envoys and plenipotentiaries. On the -last day of February, 1483, the treaty was settled, according to which -Venice was to be compelled by active prosecution of the war to cease -hostilities against Ferrara. At the end of the first week in March, -Lorenzo was back in Florence. The Venetians had no idea of yielding. -They had already begun negotiations with the Duke of Lorraine, that he -might alarm King Ferrante once more by raising the standard of Anjou, -while their fleet desolated the Apulian coast and took the important -post of Gallipoli. Their ambassador Francesco Diedo had quitted Rome -at the end of February. The Pope had refused to give him an audience; -Diedo complained that no Turk would be treated so, but he feared a -crusade would be preached against the Republic, and declared that in -that case they would never obtain peace—they might give themselves up -for lost.[245] In March, Ferrara seemed near its fall. All the country -within a mile round was in the enemy’s hands. The Venetian Chronicler -Marin Sanuto, who was in Sanseverino’s camp, gives a lively description -of the doings before the city-gates. ‘We eat with the most illustrious -Roberto, and then to horse. We were about five hundred horsemen and -many foot; we left the camp and rode to the park of Ferrara, where we -proceeded _more solito_ as far as a small canal, about a mile and a -half from the city. Sanseverino was wont to march into the park every -morning to escort the plundering bands. I saw the enemy’s troops under -the Duke of Calabria and the Count of Pitigliano; we advanced towards -them as far as the canal, but, _sic volente fato_, it did not come to a -fight. Only, to mock them, we let fly our falcons. The park comprises a -space of seven miles, full of game and fruit of all kinds; now it lies -open and deserted.’[246] Costanzo Sforza, who had thoughts of making -terms with Venice, evacuated Ferrara in defiance of orders. Giovanni -Bentivoglio and Galeotto Manfredi were hastily ordered thither; but -the most effectual help was the victory gained over the Venetians at -Argenta by Alfonso of Calabria, captain-general of the allies. From -thenceforth matters took a favourable turn for the latter, who were -also benefited by the interdict laid on Venice by the Pope. An attempt -made by Sanseverino to kindle a revolt in the Milanese roused Sforza -to serious proceedings. By autumn the whole country as far as the -Adige was in the hands of the Milanese; the Venetian fleet on the Po -sustained heavy loss, and René of Lorraine, called by the Republic to -its aid, was forced to retreat before the troops of Este. - -In the beginning of January 1484, at Milan, another congress was -held, at which Jacopo Guicciardini was present on behalf of Florence. -By actively prosecuting the war by land and sea, it was hoped that -Venice would soon be compelled to sue for peace—a consummation for -which all longed, as the expenses were becoming burdensome, and each -of the allies had its own separate interests. Peace did indeed come -to pass in the course of the summer; but it scarcely answered general -expectation. To obtain a little relief in their difficult predicament, -the Venetians, beside their alliance with the heir of Anjou, now tried -to stir up Louis XI. to an expedition against Naples, and the Duke -of Orleans to an expedition against Milan, while their enemies were -setting the Turks upon them.[247] At last they succeeded in detaching -Lodovico il Moro from the league, of which he was but a half-hearted -adherent. His own position and projects furnished them with a pretext, -and now began the complications which in ten years brought Italy to -ruin. In Milan things had drifted into a state that might easily have -been foreseen. The duchess-regent, who, _par sottise_, as Commines -unceremoniously expressed it, had put herself into Lodovico’s power, -now saw her truest counsellor dying in prison at Pavia, her own son -used as a tool, and her unworthy favourite driven out of Milan; and -when she tried to leave the country she was herself detained in the -castle of Abbiategrasso, a prisoner, though the word itself was not -uttered in her presence, and she was allowed to see her children -occasionally. There she closed her sorrowful career in 1494, so -completely forgotten that the exact date and manner of her death are -unknown. Lodovico once rid of his sister-in-law, ruled supreme in -Milan. His nephew was duke only in name; at sixteen he was still under -a guardianship which became daily more oppressive. Alfonso of Calabria, -to whose daughter the young duke was betrothed, was not inclined to -let this state of affairs continue; Lodovico, on the other hand, was -determined to make every possible effort to maintain his position. The -Marquis of Mantua had contrived to prevent the rupture which seemed -imminent when both princes were in Northern Italy; but his death put an -end to all chances of mediation. The reciprocal distrust of Lodovico -and the Medici was constantly increasing, and occasionally sharp words -passed between them. - -Venice profited in this state of affairs by employing Roberto da -Sanseverino, an old confidant of Lodovico’s and anxious to be -reconciled to him, to make him perceive that he was acting against -his own interest in taking part in this war, which, if it ended -unfavourably for the Republic, must strengthen the authority of the -Aragonese in Central and Northern Italy. Without troubling himself -about his allies, Lodovico entered into negotiations, in which Naples -and Florence participated, because they could not venture to carry -on the war without Milan. Pier Filippo Pandolfini took part in the -arrangements for peace, as Florentine plenipotentiary. Lorenzo de’ -Medici, who had need of Sforza, was full of distrust. ‘We shall -conquer,’ said he after the Congress of Cremona, ‘if Lodovico’s -words correspond to his thoughts.’[248] But he soon discovered that -his doubts were well founded. He could not help seeing how all the -advantages that had been gained were being given up, and that an -inadequate result of the long and costly war was all that Este could -obtain by the treaty. ‘Antonio,’ said he to the Ferrarese ambassador, -‘thou rememberest that I was once in the same position in which thy -lord is now—aye, and even worse. If I had not helped myself, I -should have been lost. Then, too, the fault lay with Milan. I do not -say that thy lord should do as I did.’ ‘My illustrious lord,’ adds -the ambassador in his report to the duke, ‘I think he meant that if -he was in your Excellency’s place he would come to an understanding -direct with Venice herself, and trust himself to his foes as he did at -Naples.’[249] - -The conditions of the peace signed at Bagnolo on August 8, 1484, were -dictated by Venice, who regained by the treaty the territory she had -lost in the war. That is to say the peace was highly disadvantageous -to Ferrara. Not only was Ercole compelled to admit the old demands of -the Republic; the Polesina and Rovigo remained in its hands. ‘When the -Venetians were getting the worst of it, and their funds were becoming -very much exhausted,’ says Commines,[250] ‘the lord Lodovico came to -the assistance of their honour and credit, and every man got his own -again except the poor Duke of Ferrara, who had gone into the war at -the instigation of his father-in-law and Lodovico, and now had to -yield to the Venetians the Polesina, which they still possess. It was -said that the transaction brought 60,000 ducats to my lord Lodovico; I -cannot tell how the truth may be, but I found such was the belief of -the Duke of Ferrara, to whose daughter, however, he was not yet married -in those days.’ Gallipoli and other places on the coast were restored -to Ferrante. Sixtus IV. having thus seen the war continued contrary to -his views, and ended without his participation, when he thought he had -the decision in his own hands, did not long survive the conclusion of -the peace, which made all his exertions useless and strengthened his -opponent. He had an attack of gout on August 2; on the 13th he died. -It was said that he, the restless one, had been killed by the peace. -Scarcely five months before, he had given the red hat to the brother of -the man who had since crossed all his plans—to Ascanio Maria Sforza, -who thus began under warlike auspices a cardinalate destined to be -devoid of peace. - -The Florentines felt all the shame of the treaty, but they made a show -of rejoicing after the war was over. There was indeed every reason to -wish for quiet in that quarter, for there was no lack of troubles of -all kinds. It was not long since a compromise had with great difficulty -been arrived at about Città di Castello. The Pope had tried both -arms and negotiations to regain possession of the town, and neither -had succeeded. Niccolò Vitelli held out till 1484, by the Florentine -assistance. Florence had indeed no intention of offending the Pope -for his sake, and thereby damaging the far more important cause of -Ferrara, and was inclined to let Sixtus have his will in the matter. -But he wanted to give the town and neighbouring places as a fief to his -nephew, and at the same time to enlarge the latter’s possessions in the -direction of Rimini and Cesena by a treaty with the Malatestas, neither -of which things suited the Florentines.[251] Amid this uncertainty -Vitelli resolved to imitate Lorenzo’s example. He went to Rome, came -to terms with the Pope, recognised the latter’s supremacy, agreed with -his rival Lorenzo Giustini, and accepted the office of a governor of -the Maritima and Campagna. Peace was restored in the valley of the -Upper Tiber, and Città di Castello was preserved to the Church; while -the Vitelli, who continued to govern through various changes of form -and destiny, maintained till their extinction their active relations -with Florence and the Medici. On June 14, 1483, an agreement was made -with Siena for the restoration of the places which Florence had been -compelled to yield to her in the treaty of peace of 1480.[252] But -another revolution in Siena, where the party raised to power by the -Duke of Calabria’s influence had been unable to maintain themselves, -had been required to produce this restoration and decide the Sienese to -form an alliance with Florence, to secure herself against the exiles -supposed to be favoured by Rome and Naples. The Florentine opinion of -the neighbouring state was still the same as that expressed nearly two -hundred years before by the poet of the ‘Divine Comedy,’[253] as may -be seen by a letter from the Signoria to Lorenzo during his stay at -Cremona. The treaty with the Sienese, say they, is a long process, and -no real confidence can be placed in them and their doings, because of -the changeableness of their nature.[254] - -The long feud about Sarzana had not yet come to an end; the siege -had dragged on all through the Ferrarese war. Things were in a bad -position. Agostino Fregoso, who held the town, had made it over to the -great commercial company of the Banco di San Giorgio, which formed in -Genoa a state within the State, and owned many places on the Ligurian -coast as well as in the far-off Crimea. Not only had the garrison of -Sarzana been strengthened, but also that of its neighbour Pietrasanta, -originally a Lucchese town, which cut off all communications while a -fleet attacked the coast of the Maremma. As at the peace of Naples -so at that of Bagnolo, to the great vexation of the Florentines, the -dispute about Sarzana was left unsettled. The honour of the Republic -urgently demanded a settlement. But instead of taking the place, a -Florentine corps escorting a transport of ammunition was defeated -near Pietrasanta. The necessity was now felt for rendering the castle -incapable of further harm, but it was not done without heavy losses. -The marshy atmosphere of the coast of the Lunigiana seized many -victims from the Florentine camp; Bongianni Gianfigliazzi and Antonio -Pucci, army commissaries, succumbed to the fever in Pisa. Then Lorenzo -resolved to go himself to the camp to spur on the troops. A few days -after his arrival, in the beginning of November, 1484, Pietrasanta -surrendered. An embassy from Lucca, demanding its restoration, was -deferred with a reference to the coming accommodation with Genoa; but -Florence was resolved beforehand to keep the place as an excellent -check upon Lucca. When the castle was taken, which was to remain a -boundary-mark on the Lunigiana side down to the dissolution of the -Tuscan autonomy, many things had occurred to claim the whole attention -of those who governed the Republic. - - - - -CHAPTER III. - -THE EARLY YEARS OF INNOCENT VIII. LOUIS XI. AND FRANCE. - -THE last years of Sixtus IV. were disturbed in Rome as well as -elsewhere. In both cases Girolamo Riario was the chief person to blame, -though it was a great pity that such a gifted and superior man as the -Pope should be led astray into crooked ways by a petty tyrant devoid -of talent, hesitating before no violence, and versed only in intrigue. -Sixtus could not be deceived as to the nature of his unworthy nephew; -all Rome was full of his wickedness, though the excesses committed by -the Florentines after the Pazzi conspiracy had damaged their cause -and would have added to the power of the Pope if he, too, had not -overstepped all bounds in his impetuosity. Of Riario’s part in the -matter there was but one opinion. Two years later a painful occurrence -took place in the Pope’s family. One of his numerous nephews, Antonio -Basso della Rovere, son of his sister Luchina and brother of Cardinal -Girolamo Basso, had been married only a year to Caterina Marzano, -daughter of the Prince of Rossano and granddaughter of King Ferrante, -when he was seized with a fever from which he never recovered. -Girolamo Riario was visiting his cousin when the latter (whether, -as the chronicler suggests, in the delirium of fever, or venting -long-restrained malice), instead of thanking him for his sympathy, -attacked him as if he were his bitterest enemy. ‘He vehemently -reproached him with various actions which were universally condemned, -and with his manner of life, which was a subject of general complaint, -and denounced against him the judgment of God, which no human favour -or power could enable him to escape. The sick man’s excitement was so -great that those who had been intimate with him for years could no -longer recognise his usual gentleness. The count, however, wisely bore -it all patiently as the words of one delirious with fever, and openly -expressed his compassion for his cousin’s state. All we who stood round -the bed blushed for shame, and several tried to leave the room.’[255] - -Since 1482 Rome had been constantly filled with the clang of arms. The -stronghold of the spiritual power was scarcely to be recognised. After -the immediate anxieties consequent on the Ferrarese war were ended by -the battle of Campomorto, and the Romans had stared to their hearts’ -content at the Duke of Calabria’s captive troopers and janissaries, -feverish excitement was again aroused by fresh disputes between the -Colonna and Orsini factions, in which many other families—the Savelli, -Santacroce, Tuttivilla, Della Valle, &c.—took part. The city was -divided into two hostile camps; palaces were besieged and destroyed; -the streets and the neighbourhood filled with armed bands. One Colonna -lost his life in defending the cause of his family. Girolamo Riario -was mixed up in all this, and through him the Pope also became a party -to it. Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, who favoured the Colonnas, -quarrelled so desperately with Girolamo that the latter threatened to -attack his palace. Even after a compact was agreed upon by the two -great families, peace was not restored. In the beginning of July, 1484, -the Pope’s nephew, with a considerable body of troops, attacked the -Colonna possessions, which surrounded Rome on the west like a girdle. -He took Capranica and Cave, and was laying siege to the stronghold -of Paliano when he was startled by the news of the Pope’s death. He -felt the ground give way under his feet. On the morning of August -13 the populace stormed and plundered his palace at Sant’Apollinare; -his magazine in the Campagna, that of his brother-in-law and of the -Genoese—hated by the people for their usury—the papal galleys at -Ostia, everything was sacked. His brave wife, Caterina Sforza, was safe -in the castle of St. Angelo. The siege of Paliano was raised at once; -the troops marched to Rome, but only to turn towards the north-west -to seek a junction with the Orsini, for from all sides, even from -the Abruzzi, armed auxiliaries were flocking to the Colonna, to whom -Florence and Siena also proffered assistance. Deifebo dell’ Anguillara -retook several castles; the city and neighbourhood were in complete -anarchy; every man was in arms, and the palaces were barricaded. At -last a compromise was arrived at, which, by the departure of the party -leaders and the surrender of the castle of St. Angelo to the College of -Cardinals, put an end to the worst disorder. On August 26 the conclave -met, and at the end of three days Giovan Battista Cybò was chosen Pope -under the title of Innocent VIII. - -Thus, amid all this confusion, ended the reign of a Pope who had -thought he could govern the policy of Italy, and, in a certain sense, -did control it better than anyone who had preceded him. He brought -together the finest library of his time, carried out legal reforms -for the benefit of the Roman Municipium, did more than anyone else to -transform Rome from a mediæval city into one more suited to modern -requirements, and enriched it with churches, palaces, bridges, and -beneficent establishments. Innocent VIII. was far from possessing -the striking qualities of his predecessor, but he was free from the -latter’s immoderate self-confidence. He sprang from a Genoese family -believed to be of Levantine origin and connected with the Tomacelli, -relatives of Boniface IX.[256] But the first Cybò known to history -is the Pope’s father Arano, who married into a Genoese patrician -house—that of the Mari—held important offices in Naples under René -of Anjou, and later on, though still leaning towards the Angevin -party, under Alfonso of Aragon, and in 1455 was a senator of Rome. -Giovan Battista Cybò studied in Padua and Rome, was appointed Bishop -of Savona by Paul II., and afterwards translated to Molfetta, from -whence he took his usual appellation after being created a cardinal -in May 1473. In the Pope’s absence, during the plague in the summer -of 1476, he acted as his representative. He was in his fifty-second -year. ‘The disposition of the new Pope,’ wrote Guid’Antonio Vespucci to -Lorenzo immediately after the election, ‘was, during his cardinalate, -benevolent and kind, and he was far more affable in society than he -whom you wot of. He is not versed in either matters of state or of -learning, but he is not wholly ignorant. He belonged completely to the -party of San Pietro in Vincola (Giuliano della Rovere), who procured -him his hat, and of whom it may be said that he is now practically -Pope, and will have far more power than under Sixtus if he only knows -how to manage his successor cleverly. The latter, as a cardinal, was -on bad terms with the count (Riario). He is of middle height, strongly -built, full in the face, has a brother and several grown-up natural -children, at any rate a son and a married daughter. He gives one the -impression of one who will let himself be counselled by others rather -than rule by himself.’[257] Luigi Lotti wrote: ‘If he governs and -proceeds according to his own judgment and not by that of others, I -think he will be a good quiet Pope, and keep clear of all strife of -arms. His court will resemble him, as the general opinion is that he -will show a gracious disposition.’ - -Lodovico il Moro had proposed that the allied states should send -their congratulatory embassies to Rome together. The Florentines -were all the more eager to offer their congratulations because they -wanted to secure the favour of a Genoese Pope in their differences -with Genoa. Immediately after his election Lorenzo heard, from his -brother-in-law the archbishop, that Innocent had expressed the most -friendly interest in his position and the affairs of Florence, and -declared his readiness to be of use to him; adding that all his hopes -were founded on Lorenzo’s wisdom, as there was no knowing whether the -end would correspond with the beginning.[258] At the close of November -the embassy started for Rome, where it arrived on December 8, and -was received, according to custom, by the papal court, the household -officers of the cardinals, and the foreign envoys. Its members were -Francesco Soderini, Antonio Canigiani, Bartolommeo Scala, Angelo -Niccolini, and Giovanni Tornabuoni, besides the resident ambassador -Guid’Antonio Vespucci.[259] In the ‘Instructions’ reference was made -to the earnest desire of the Republic to have a speedy ending put to -the strife in the Lunigiana. ‘Should the new Pope or anyone else turn -the discourse on the subject of the war, ye shall answer that your -commission deals solely with the duty of congratulation; but add, as -if from yourselves, in justification of late events, that we were -compelled to fight contrary to our intention and will; as indeed ye -very well know that our city is ever faithful to her natural desire for -peace, as far as is consistent with honour and fair advantage.’ - -Lorenzo had sent with the ambassadors his eldest son, a lad of -fourteen, as it was then customary for solemn embassies to be -accompanied by youths of high rank, who might contribute to the -splendour of processions and ceremonies. He gave the boy detailed -instructions, such as were usual in such cases on the part of wise -and careful fathers.[260] At Siena he was to proclaim the readiness -of both Lorenzo and the Government to be of use to the authorities -there. ‘Everywhere, when the other young companions of the envoys are -together with thee, behave thyself gravely and discreetly and with -politeness towards thine equals. Beware of taking precedence of anyone -older than thyself; for although thou art my son, yet thou art nothing -but a Florentine citizen like the rest. If Giovanni (Tornabuoni) thinks -fit to present thee to the Pope at a special audience, take care to -be previously well instructed in all the customary ceremonies; then, -when thou comest to his Holiness, kiss the credentials which I give -thee for the Holy Father and beg him to read them. After that, if thou -hast to speak, thou shalt commend me with reverence to his Holiness, -and say that I well know it was my duty to appear before him in person -as I did before his predecessor of blessed memory, but that I trust -he will be graciously pleased to excuse me; for at the time when I -went to Rome I could leave my brother at home, who was well able to -represent me, but now I should have no one to leave behind numbering -more years or possessing more authority than thyself. Therefore, I -think I should have pleased his Holiness less by coming than by sending -thee, whereby I express in the best way possible my desire to appear -in person. Moreover, I send thee in order that thou mayest have an -early opportunity of learning to know his Holiness as thy father and -lord, and of fostering for many years those feelings which, I hope, -will be shared by thy brothers, whom I would rather not have as sons -if it is not to be so. Hereupon thou shalt declare to his Holiness my -firm resolve not to swerve from his commands, for my innate devotion to -the Apostolic See is increased by that towards the person of the Holy -Father, to whom our house has long been under obligation. Moreover, I -have experienced what disadvantages were brought upon me by the loss of -the late Pope’s favour, although I believe I suffered many persecutions -without fault of my own, and more on account of the sins of others -than for misconduct towards him. But I leave this to the judgment of -others, and however this may be, my resolution is fixed, not only never -to offend his Holiness, but to meditate day and night on what may be -pleasing to him.’ Doubtless Lorenzo was as much in earnest in this as -in his sensible advice. It would have been well for Piero de’ Medici -had he never forgotten what Cosimo had impressed on his son and the -latter again on his, who, as a father, now repeated it to the boy—that -he was a Florentine citizen like all the rest. But this tradition came -to an end with Lorenzo. The further contents of the instructions will -be referred to again. Innocent VIII. afterwards said to Pier Filippo -Pandolfini, the new ambassador of the Republic, that after the Genoese -quarrel had been laid aside Lorenzo would perceive there had never -been a Pope who took the interests of his house so much to heart as he -did. ‘For as I have learned by experience how great is his honesty and -wisdom, I will most willingly be guided by his counsels.’[261] - -Lorenzo must have been the more anxious to obtain the lasting favour -of the head of the Church since a change had taken place abroad -which might possibly have an important influence on the political -circumstances of Italy. A year before the death of Sixtus IV. the -monarch was called away, who, amid all his dependence on the clergy and -his devotion—approaching to superstition, and heightened by suspicion -and torments of conscience—raised the most vehement opposition to the -Pope and the papacy. Louis XI. died at the age of sixty, at his castle -of Plessis-les-Tours, on the evening of August 30, 1483. Two years -before, when out hunting, he had had his first apoplectic fit, which -was repeated without destroying his clearness of intellect, though his -physical strength gradually sank. He had seen his approaching end with -a terror which prayers and sacraments could not soothe, which drove him -ceaselessly from pilgrimage to pilgrimage whenever he was not staying -at Plessis. There, tortured day and night by the consciousness of -hatred which his cold treacherous tyranny had excited in the breasts -of others, he shut himself in with a few confidants, surrounded by -double and triple guards of all kinds. To the end of his days the king -maintained friendly relations with Florence and the Medici; of all -his political connections, this was perhaps the only one in which he -never changed. In his instructions to the ambassadors sent to Rome in -November 1478,[262] he expressly mentioned that the Florentines had -always, time out of mind, shown themselves true and loyal friends to -France, had never done anything against the crown, and lived according -to the laws and customs given them by Charles the Great.[263] A few -weeks before his death, Louis wrote to Lorenzo. Not content with -having called to his bedside the holy hermit of Calabria, St. Francis -of Paola, and procured relics without end from Rome, he tried through -Lorenzo to obtain the episcopal ring of St. Zanobi, which was preserved -at Florence in the Girolami family, and believed to have the power of -curing skin-diseases. His wish was gratified. ‘Cousin and friend,’ -thus wrote the dying man on July 9, 1483, from Notre-Dame de Cléry -near Orleans, whither he had gone on a pilgrimage,[264] ‘I have seen -the ring which you sent to Monsieur de Soliers (Palamède de Fobrin, -governor of Provence). But I wish to know for certain whether it is -really that of the saint, and whether it works miracles; whether it -has cured anybody, and whom; and how it is to be worn. I beg you to -inform me of all this as quickly as you can, or to write about it in -detail to the general of Normandy; also whether you have out yonder any -particular cure which has the virtues of the said ring. If you can find -one, send it to the said general, I beg you, for the sake of all the -pleasure you can give me. Now farewell, cousin and friend.’ - -In the last years of Louis XI. the male line of the house of Anjou -became extinct. We have seen how the king obtained from the last of the -house, who could no longer escape from his powerful arm, the cession -of their French provinces and their Italian claims: of the former he -took immediate possession, the latter remained in abeyance waiting -for eventualities which did not fail to come, to the ruin of Italy, -whose old sins were expiated centuries later. René, a king of shadows -if ever there was one, saw his son Jean and his grandson Nicolas both -die before he himself was laid to rest at Angers on July 10, 1480. -His nephew Charles, Count of Maine, to whom his French possessions -passed with the consent of Louis XI., followed him to the grave -within seventeen months; and the sole heiress was now René’s daughter -Yolande, widow of Ferry, Count of Lorraine-Vaudemont. She too died in -the beginning of 1483, a few months before the king. Her marriage with -her cousin had been intended to reconcile the claims of the Vaudemont -branch to the Duchy of Lorraine with those of primogeniture in the -female line on behalf of which René, as the husband of the heiress -Isabelle, had fought unsuccessfully with Antoine de Vaudemont, father -of Ferry. Yolande’s son, René II., now succeeded to the dukedom of -Lorraine, as well as to the French fiefs of the Vaudemonts. It was he -who defeated Charles the Bold at Nancy, and was led by the Venetians -into the war with King Ferrante in Italy, where years after, in the war -against the Spaniards, his son revived the old family claims to the -Neapolitan crown—those claims which were to be practically made good -once more in the middle of the seventeenth century by a scion of the -French branch of the old house. - -Lorenzo could not fail to notice that in Louis XI. he lost both a -friend and a supporter. The political situation of France foreboded -the worst vicissitudes. A delicate illtrained boy of thirteen was -left heir to a kingdom which a long, skilful, and despotic reign had -considerably enlarged, but also filled more terribly than ever with -the elements of discord. The Queen-mother, Charlotte of Savoy, was an -invalid, and incapable of acting; according to Louis’ arrangements -his elder daughter Anne, wife of Pierre de Bourbon, Count of Beaujeu, -was to conduct the government for Charles VIII. without the title -of regent. Amid the opposition of the nobles, of whom one, Louis of -Orleans, was the next heir to the throne, this task was fulfilled -with no little skill by the Princess, then aged twenty-two, of whom -her father once said that ‘no woman was wise, but Anne was the least -foolish.’ It was she who thwarted all the plans of the restless nobles -and put down their attempts to arm. She paved the way for the union of -Brittany with the crown, by interfering with the views of Maximilian of -Austria who, after the early death of Mary of Burgundy, contemplated -extending the new possessions of the house of Habsburg into the very -heart of France by his marriage with the heiress of the great western -duchy. It is evident, however, that under all the circumstances there -was not much chance of French influence extending into Italy or -anywhere beyond the borders of the country itself. - -Immediately after the death of Louis, Florence despatched an embassy to -present to the young king good wishes on his accession, and to express -sincere regret for the loss of his father.[265] Gentile Becchi, Antonio -Canigiani, and Lorenzo de’ Medici the son of Pier Francesco, were the -members of this embassy, which was to visit the potentates of Northern -Italy on its way. Its chief object was the fulfilment of formalities. -If any intention should be shown on the French side of interfering -to restore peace in Italy, the envoys were instructed to take care -that this should appear to proceed from an independent resolve of the -French government, and not from the influence of the allies (for -at that time the war with Venice was still going on). This would be -the best way ‘to avoid dangerous conjunctures which might arise in -Italy from these obstinate dissensions,’ and at the same time remain -most honourable for the young king. But Anne de Beaujeu, who had just -summoned the States-General in order to checkmate the allied princes by -the same move which they had intended to make against her, had other -things to think of than Italian complications; and the Florentine -embassy, after all due ceremonies had been gone through, seems to have -had to deal merely with commercial and personal interests. - -Five years later the Regent of France remembered the old friendship -with the Medici, when she was looking about her on all sides for help -against the great feudatories who supported Maximilian in his alliance -with the mightiest of them all, the Duke of Brittany. On April 5, 1486, -Maximilian was crowned king of the Romans at Aachen; and in spite of -the great difficulties with which he had to contend in his Burgundian -provinces, his position was a very threatening one for France so long -as internal peace was not restored, and every addition to his power -was an addition to the cares of Anne de Beaujeu. The advanced age of -Frederic III. pointed to a speedy vacancy of the imperial throne. That -the idea occurred to France of trying to prevent Innocent VIII. from -confirming Maximilian’s election is, however, somewhat startling. The -Pope was on friendly terms with the emperor and the king; just before, -at the end of 1487, he had given proof of this by signing the treaty -which put an end to the long-standing war between Venice and Archduke -Sigismund of Tyrol. On February 8, 1488, a letter was sent in the -name of the young king Charles to Lorenzo de’ Medici, claiming his -friendship for the royal house of France and soliciting the employment -of his influence with the Pope, in order that Maximilian’s kingly -dignity, as injurious to the interests of France, should remain for a -time unconfirmed. ‘You may assure the Holy Father that if the matter -is delayed, we will so conduct ourselves that his Holiness and all who -have anything to do in the matter shall perceive the result.’[266] - -It is very clear that Lorenzo, with all his attachment to France, was -reluctant to mix himself with such an intrigue as this. ‘By the copy of -a letter from the King of France to me,’ he wrote on February 8 to the -ambassador at Rome, ‘you will see the king’s desire and the importance -of the affair. For practical reasons I do not think it fitting to -write to his Holiness; but I am for your informing him of it with your -usual adroitness as soon as you think good, and pointing out to him -its importance and possible consequences; for I am of opinion that -mature reflection and deliberation are needful, that the investiture in -question may not give occasion to embarrassment and offence. According -to my judgment, the Most Christian king is so powerful and has so much -influence in the affairs of Christendom, that it will always appear -to me advisable to keep in harmony and friendship with him. I shall -always order myself according to the wise judgment of his Holiness; but -wish first fully to express my own view. The rest I leave to you, and -I shall be glad if you can manage so that the king’s plenipotentiary -is pleased. But you will not neglect any precautions which may appear -needful, that we may not lose in one quarter what we gain in another.’ -Lorenzo was right in his caution. ‘The French envoys,’ reports the -Ferrarese ambassador at Florence to his duke on March 10,[267] ‘have -petitioned the Pope that he should not invest Maximilian with the -dignity of King of the Romans, declaring that, should he do so, their -king will set every influence to work at Naples to avenge the insult. -The Pope gave them a very sharp reply, saying that no request had as -yet been addressed to him in relation to this matter by Maximilian’s -orators; and, moreover, he thought that such a message as that just -delivered to him must have come not from the King of France, but from -his evil counsellors. If he had only the latter to deal with, he would -soon be able to make them understand how unworthy of a Pope was such a -message, and how his footstool deserved greater reverence.’ - - - - -CHAPTER IV. - -POLITICAL CARES. THE BARONS’ WAR. - - -AFTER the disturbance and unrest which ended the pontificate of Sixtus -IV., the reign of Innocent VIII. seemed destined to commence in peace -and tranquillity. The Pope’s desire to terminate the long dispute about -Sarzana, which had distracted the Lunigiana for years, and threatened -to assume dimensions greater than the worth of the cause, was very -honourable to him, especially as it did not arise from partiality -for his Genoese home. On September 17, only three weeks after his -election, the Pope summoned the ambassadors of Naples, Florence, -and Milan[268] to discuss the political situation. After the recent -conclusion of peace, he said he considered it a duty of his apostolic -office to ensure that peace, in order that all the Italian states might -really enjoy its fruits and recover from the heavy expenses which -had burthened the holy see with a debt of more than 250,000 ducats. -The dispute about Sarzana, complicated by the Florentine attack on -Pietrasanta, made him anxious in consideration of the disposition of -the Genoese; for the latter, where their honour was at stake, would -not scruple to set the world on fire, and had already, in times past, -called the foreigner into Italy. He knew that they were not only in -league with the Marquis of Saluzzo and Philip of Savoy, lord of Bresse, -but were trying to stir up the Duke of Orleans against Milan and -the Duke of Lorraine against Naples; in which they would get support -from France, as the regent was desirous to find occupation for these -princes, and sustenance for their numerous troops in a foreign land. -The commonwealth of Genoa had applied to him to bring the matter to a -legal conclusion. He knew that his predecessor had made an unsuccessful -attempt to do so; but as a native of Genoa, and being in a more -favourable position than Pope Sixtus, he hoped to attain his object, -as the Signoria would doubtless do all in their power to compose the -strife. - -The ambassadors of Naples and Milan kept to generalities, though the -former could not help owning that Sarzana had been taken from the -Florentines in time of truce; that the blame really lay with the son -of his king he naturally could not admit. Vespucci, however, went -thoroughly into the matter. Sarzana, said he, was sold to the Republic -by Lodovico Fregoso, the lord of the place. After we had held it for -several years, his son Agostino took it by surprise in time of truce, -and as he did not feel able to keep it, made it over to the bank of San -Giorgio. In defiance of law and custom, which forbid the acceptance -of an object in dispute, the bank received it just as if there were -no such place as Florence in the world. Florence has a perfect right -to make every effort to get back her own. She has equally a right -to attack Pietrasanta, because Pietrasanta is an obstacle and an -enemy to her. The Signoria, he added, has no thought of giving your -Holiness advice, which you do not need, and is willing to agree to -any reasonable compromise. But after all the unsuccessful efforts -of Pope Sixtus, there is not much to be hoped. As to the possible -introduction of foreigners by the Genoese, that is a matter not to be -deemed unworthy of consideration, but it is not a ground for anxiety. -The Dukes of Orleans and Lorraine personally are not in a condition to -begin such an undertaking; and in the exhausted state of France her -rulers will never think of giving them a sou towards it. The Genoese -alone would be utterly incapable of holding out long, even were they -differently inclined. The Ferrarese ambassador offered his Duke’s -mediation in case of a negotiation. The Pope had also consulted on the -matter with Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, and expressed his anxiety to him; -whereupon Lodovico il Moro declared that nothing but the voluntary -surrender of Sarzana on the part of Genoa could render a satisfactory -termination possible.[269] Innocent’s mediation came to nothing. The -Florentines took Pietrasanta, as has been already related, and the -contest went on amid numberless suggestions of compromise for fully -three years more. - -In vain the Pope honestly desired to make and to keep peace; -misunderstandings arose on all sides. In defiance of their ostensible -relations to each other, there was no true understanding and confidence -between Lorenzo de’ Medici and Lodovico Sforza. The Moro’s conduct was -always ambiguous; not only in the matter of Sarzana, where there was -much underhand work going forward, but also in the constant miserable -disturbances in Romagna, where Girolamo Riario, supported by him, -was operating against the Manfredi, they having given shelter to the -Florentine’s _protégé_, the claimant of Forlì, Antoniello Ordelaffi, -and being in alliance with the Bentivogli, who stood in equal fear of -Lodovico and the Pope’s nephew. Giovanni Bentivoglio was in Tuscany in -the beginning of 1485. He visited Siena, Pisa, Lucca, and in May he -came to Florence, where he stayed with the Medici. He spoke out his -mind unreservedly about the Moro’s intrigues.[270] Lorenzo was absent -at the time; gout, the hereditary disease of the family, obliged him -constantly to visit various baths, and just then he was at Bagno a -Morba. During his stay there he had to devote his attention to the -Sienese affairs, which were of some consequence to Florence. He had -perceived the mistake once committed in the Fortebracci affair, and -thenceforward strove to keep on good terms with the neighbouring -commonwealth. With regard to the frontier disputes, chiefly in the -Chiana valley, where the small places were always in a state of feud -one with the other, Florence showed herself disposed for an amicable -settlement. ‘God is my witness,’ wrote Lorenzo to the Signoria of Siena -on February 28, 1484,[271] ‘that my personal mediation and that of -others was little needed in the negotiations for the advantage of your -Republic, namely, in the matter of the frontiers; for the whole city -recognised, just as if acting in its own behalf, our common interest -in a close and friendly connection. As the thing has been settled now -with the agreement of all, so also in future we shall not fail to give -active proofs of our sincere friendship.’ - -This friendship was soon put to the proof. The party which had been -defeated on the departure of the Duke of Calabria from Siena could not -forget the mortification. In the beginning of April 1485, the Sienese -ambassador at Florence announced that a body of 2,000 men, under -the command of Giulio Orsini, was meditating an attack; whereupon a -considerable force under Ranuccio da Farnese was despatched to the -threatened ally.[272] It was believed that Perugia, Spoleto, and -Todi served as places of meeting for the discontented, and that the -Cardinal della Rovere had a hand in the undertaking. On May 4, Lorenzo -wrote from Bagno a Morba to Siena[273] that they must look to the -security of the frontiers. It was said that the Pope was inclined to -maintain peace, and had spoken to the ambassadors to that effect. By -the Florentines he had been urged to give practical proof of his good -intentions, and not to suffer his dominions to be a harbour for designs -against neighbouring States. ‘Your Lordships must know,’ he continues, -‘better than I who am at a distance, what is your internal state and -the mind of the citizens. If you are united, then, in my opinion, you -have nothing to fear: for Siena is not to be taken with 2,000 men, -and if the number of the aggressors increases, you will also receive -increased assistance. Of that you need not doubt. Therefore, if there -is among your citizens the amount of concord and love which is reckoned -upon, your affairs will take a favourable course. I do not believe that -this movement of the exiles can count on much support; for we hear from -Lombardy that all the chief powers are desirous of peace. Nevertheless -it is your and our duty to prepare for the worst and to have all -available means in readiness. Thereunto I desire to encourage your -Lordships, assuring you that we are of one mind with you, as events -will prove.’ - -A few days after this the exiles made a raid from Umbria into the -Arezzo territory and thence turned towards the valley of the Arbia, -where they attacked the castle of San Quirico, on the Roman road, but -were beaten back; whereupon the troop dispersed. ‘The Signoria here,’ -wrote the Ferrarese ambassador, ‘is delighted at the news and in -good spirits. But the Sienese must be more delighted still; now they -must be convinced that the number of participators is less than they -suspected.’ On May 14, Lorenzo wrote from Pisa to the Sienese Signoria -that Florence regarded their danger as her own; but he advised them -to look to their internal condition. ‘It would be best to prevent -the recurrence of such troubles by removing the occasion of your -distress and of reproach from others. It seems to me time to come to a -settlement of everything, provided that the origin of all this evil is -rooted out. If this is done the past must not be too strictly inquired -about. If such attempts against your Lordships are continued you will -not want for protection, but the most effectual protection will be -good and just government and true unity.’ More than two years later, -Lorenzo wrote on another occasion: ‘Your Lordships know what has always -been my conduct with respect to attempts at revolution and dangers -which have befallen your citizens, and that I regard your welfare even -as that of our own commonwealth. This seems to me to suit our friendly -and neighbourly relations, as well as my devotion to your Signoria.’ -Both by word and deed Lorenzo displayed his anxiety to maintain his -political principle that it was important for the Republic to make -herself secure by a good understanding with her neighbours, and to -surround herself with a circle of bulwarks by keeping friends with -Siena, Lucca, Bologna, Faenza, Perugia, and Città di Castello.[274] He -remained faithful to this principle, with a few trifling exceptions, -during the remainder of his life. - -His other principle was to do all he could to prevent any Italian state -from gaining such an increase of importance as to destroy the balance -of power. In the summer of that same year, 1485, a complication arose -which threatened the peace of Italy and put to the proof Lorenzo’s -political skill. It was a quarrel between Innocent VIII. and Ferrante -of Naples. The kingdom of Naples, the greatest territorial power in -Italy except Venice, was suffering from internal evils which both in -earlier and later times proved incurable, and brought about the ruin of -the fairest and richest portion of the peninsula. The political parties -were as old as the monarchy; they were connected with deep-seated -national divergences; and their differences were heightened and -embittered by repeated conquests and changes of dynasty, by the feudal -connection with the Holy See—dating from the time of the Normans—and -by the passionate temper and moral degradation that poisoned and -corrupted all civil and political relations in Southern Italy. The -crown was completely held in check by the higher nobility; it would -have been powerless had not the nobility been torn by factions. The -split between the Aragonese and Angevin parties was of very long -standing. The times of the second and of the first Joanna, the Sicilian -Vespers, the French conquest, were all steps of a ladder ascending up -to the Hohenstaufen Kaiser Henry VI. and the last of the Norman kings. -The wars were fresh in the memories of all. It was not much more than -twenty years since Ferrante had quelled the dangerous rising, the -calamitous consequences of which never gave him any peace. His policy -differed considerably from that of his father. King Alfonso’s hand had -borne heavily on the party who had so long disputed his sovereignty -over Naples, but when peace was restored he not only richly rewarded -his own adherents, but tried to win over to his side his opponents. -His son had a deep distrust of both parties, and his only aim was to -increase the royal power at the expense of feudalism. - -Ferrante was not lacking in kingly qualities. He was sagacious, -skilful, energetic, and a good financier according to the fiscal -principles of the day—principles which of themselves would have -sufficed to kindle rebellion among the nobles had political reasons -been wanting. Numerous and important improvements in all branches of -administration were due to him; increase of industry and commerce, -great works for the general good, constructions for the enlargement -and embellishment of the capital and other places, which assumed -quite a different appearance under him. The disposition to promote -the interests of science, art, and education he inherited from his -father; and under both kings the Neapolitan Court, adorned by graceful -and intellectual women, took a prominent place among the many Italian -princely houses which distinguished themselves in this respect. Alfonso -of Calabria equalled, if he did not surpass, his father in his love -of literature and art. Ferrante had some regard for the condition -of his people: ‘It is our will,’ he wrote, in November 1486, to the -superintendent of finances in Terra di Bari and Otranto,[275] ‘that -our subjects shall receive good treatment at the hands of all our -officers, and that they may not have to complain of oppression and -undue burthens.’ Again, to the governor of Castrovillari, an important -place in Calabria, and one which had been in the power of the enemies -of the crown: ‘You are to treat all well, and not suffer any to be -oppressed on account of the past. You are to bridle the passions which -create discord among the people, and to see that every one obeys the -laws.’ He formed a considerable military force, which enabled him to -take a fitting part in Italian affairs, and to preserve peace for many -years within his own dominions. - -But Ferrante’s good qualities were overshadowed by many bad ones. His -illegitimate birth placed him from childhood in a false position. As -a boy he learned to master his passions, and acquired a control over -his words and manner which too often degenerated into dissimulation -to secure his ends. Philippe de Commines (a contemporary somewhat -prejudiced, it is true, against the house of Aragon), says, when -speaking of Alfonso of Calabria, ‘The father was more dangerous -than the son, for nobody ever understood either the man or his real -thoughts. With an assumed smiling manner he would deceive and betray -people; there was neither grace nor mercy in his disposition, as even -his relatives and adherents acknowledged; he knew neither mercy nor -pity for his poor people where money was concerned.’ In trying to -promote trade and commerce he thought first of the interests of his -own exchequer, and burdened the people with socages, requisitions, and -duties which too often defeated his own object. From the very beginning -of his reign he had to contend with difficulties with his relatives, -with his subjects, with the Popes, till his natural distrustfulness -had deepened into gloomy suspicion. The remembrance of past (and by no -means always justifiable) opposition and the dread of fresh outbreaks, -increased by the frequent threats on the part of foreign countries to -revive the claims of Anjou, led him astray to unjust and cruel actions -whereby he undermined the throne, to strengthen which was his constant -and never-ceasing aim. The feudal arrangements of the kingdom not -only weakened Ferrante’s political power, but had the inconvenient -consequence of keeping him poor. It is difficult to believe that the -ruler of such a fertile country, though in great part uncultivated, -was in almost continual want of money, and was always obtaining drafts -on foreign, and especially Florentine, banks, to which, in his turn, -he had to give drafts on the current revenues. He once asked Lorenzo -for a loan of 10,000 gold florins, which Lorenzo cut down to half; -and Filippo Strozzi advanced him 20,000 on one occasion, besides -undertaking the expense of provisioning the capital. - -As Ferrante advanced in years his eldest son acquired a baleful -influence over him. Alfonso was by no means equal to his father. He was -considered a tolerably good soldier, and was certainly not wanting in -energy, nor apparently in personal valour; yet he never carried out any -campaign of real importance, though the recapture of Otranto was looked -upon as a brilliant success. He was not lacking in cultivation and -interest in learning, but his bad qualities outweighed his good ones. -He was haughty, violent, faithless, and cruel. He hated the barons -of the kingdom from a despot’s instinct, he hated the influential -servants of his father because their wealth excited his covetousness. -As he had not inherited Ferrante’s power of dissimulation, enough was -known of his sayings and projects to put others on their guard, and -his hatred was paid back in kind. He was not more successful in making -those beyond the kingdom favourably disposed to him. The quarrel with -Milan, of which, however, the blame did not rest with him, was already -beginning, though it did not come to an open rupture till after the -death of his wife Ippolita. In Tuscany there was a secret grudge -against him on account of the events of 1478—his intrigues at Siena -and the loss of Sarzana. He must have known how unpopular he was at -Florence, but he did nothing to regain the favour of the government -or the people. ‘On October 8,’ observes Alamanno Rinuccini, speaking -of the year 1484,[276] ‘the Duke of Calabria arrived in Florence on -his way back from Lombardy, where he had been captain of the league -against the Venetians. He was accompanied by about eight hundred -horsemen in bad condition. On his entry he did not go to the palace -to greet the Signoria as he had hitherto done, though the Signoria -had made preparations to receive him, and summoned many citizens for -the purpose of honouring him. This was considered a great piece of -insolence. Nevertheless, in pursuance of a shameful order, he was left -unmolested during his passage through our territory—to our shame, -considering what he had done five years before.’ Commines has drawn in -a few words a fearful picture of Alfonso: ‘Never,’ says he, ‘was seen a -more cruel, wicked, vicious, base man, or one more addicted to excess.’ -The Frenchman and the courtier of Charles VIII. speaks here, but the -portrait drawn by the Venetian, Marino Sanuto, is not at all more -flattering.[277] - -In the face of the Duke’s ill-will, now no longer doubtful, aggravated -by a suspicion of encroachments on the part of the king, the most -powerful of the Neapolitan barons had entered upon a league for -mutual protection, when the outbreak of hostilities was precipitated -by two distinct causes. Ferrante and his son, however pleased they -professed to be at the election of Innocent VIII. as Pope, were in -reality anything but satisfied, as they feared to find him an adherent -of Anjou. The Duke had even made an effort to get him excluded from -the list of candidates for the pontificate. The embassy sent to Rome -to present the congratulations of Naples was to try to procure the -remission of that everlasting apple of discord, the feudal tribute. The -Pope refused to remit it, the king held to his resolve not to pay, and -the coming strife might be the more clearly foreshadowed as Cardinal -della Rovere was opposed to the Aragonese claims. In the summer of 1485 -the rupture took place. The Duke of Calabria persuaded the king not to -allow the schemes of the discontented nobility to come to maturity, but -to nip them in the bud by a sudden attack. The way in which he set to -work furnished a new ground for heaping upon him accusations of fraud -and violence. On June 23, by treacherously imprisoning the Count of -Montorio, of the house of Cantelmo, the chief person in Aquila, and his -people, he obtained possession of that city, which was an independent -commonwealth under the suzerainty of the crown; shortly after, the -same was done at Nola by arresting several of the Orsini, to whom the -countship belonged. Many of the heads of the nobility were just then -assembled at Melfi, in the Basilicata, on the occasion of a wedding -in the Caracciolo family. In this manner a declaration of hostilities -was hastened, which, from the intensity of opposition, could indeed -hardly have been prevented under other circumstances, but which was now -encouraged by the disagreement between the Pope and the king. - -On August 10, 1485, the Duke of Calabria left Naples to begin the -war against the barons.[278] He did not find them unprepared; their -vassals were in arms, and they had formed an alliance with the Pope, -who was angry, not only at the refusal of the tribute, but also at the -incredibly arbitrary conduct of the king with regard to Church matters. -This monarch, nominally a vassal of Rome, not only subjected the clergy -to the most despotically imposed taxation, but treated the bestowal of -ecclesiastical offices as a financial speculation. Affairs soon became -complicated. On September 26 the inhabitants of Aquila rose against -their oppressors, hewed the leader in pieces, set up the standard of -the Church, and sent plenipotentiaries to Rome. Ferrante tried to avert -the storm by sending his son, the Cardinal of Aragon, to Rome; but he -died on October 16. On the 17th Ferrante caused a protest to be read in -the cathedral of Naples, announcing that he had no intention of making -war against the Pope. Next he tried to negotiate with the barons, -sent his son Don Federigo to the Sanseverini at Salerno, and caused -the Count of Montorio to be set at liberty. It was all in vain; no -one trusted him. The people of Salerno kept the prince as a prisoner, -and set up the standard of the Church on November 20; the king’s own -friends began to desert him, one of his natural sons went over to the -insurgents. Ferrante had long been accustomed to put no trust in his -own relatives. This time the crisis was rendered doubly serious by the -now openly declared conduct of Innocent VIII. - -The new Pope’s desire to maintain peace and heal the wounds inflicted -during the late pontificate gave way at the approach of the Neapolitan -troubles, the point of contention between the papal government and its -neighbours. Innocent can hardly have been drawn into the fight by the -secret motive of which he was accused—a preference for the interests -of his own family before the welfare and peace of the country; but he -may well have been influenced by his own and his predecessor’s repeated -unpleasant experience of the Aragonese. He made the quarrel of Aquila -and of the barons his own, accepted their tender of obedience, and -began to arm. He had to be quick, not to give the Duke of Calabria time -to scatter his opponents. While the king sought help from Florence and -Milan, the Pope and the barons turned to Venice. The propositions of -the nobles were very tempting to the Venetians, ever hankering after -the cities on the Apulian coast; but they had doubts about entering -upon such a hazardous undertaking after all the losses they had -sustained in the last war. They expressed regret for the oppression -under which the barons described themselves as suffering, but they -recommended a compromise through the mediation of the Pope; at the -same time they dissuaded Rome from violent proceedings. But when -Innocent, hurried on by the rapid progress of events, entered into -negotiations with Roberto da Sanseverino to obtain his services, they -contented themselves with half-measures. Roberto’s Venetian _condotta_ -had expired at the peace of Bagnolo. The Republic might easily have -restrained his ardour, for though his own people were deeply involved -in the rising, the _condottiere_, long a stranger to his own home, -would have preferred his own advantage to all other considerations. But -after a few indifferent remonstrances he was left free to go ‘according -to his own pleasure,’ as was announced to the Pope on October 7.[279] - -How disagreeable all these matters were to the Florentines, and above -all to Lorenzo, may be imagined. A dangerous flame was being kindled. -Towards the end of August the Neapolitan ambassador, Marino Tomacelli, -made to the Signoria, on behalf of the king, the first announcement -of the outbreak of internal hostilities, but without owning their -real importance. Before the middle of September it became known that -the Pope was causing troops to march over the border. On October 3 -the deliverance of Aquila from the garrison placed there by the Duke -of Calabria became known. Thereupon Ferrante sent his eldest son’s -confidant—Giovanni Albino—to Lorenzo, who had long been intimate -with this learned and accomplished man, at once a politician and -a historian:[280] ‘You shall tell Lorenzo,’ such were Ferrante’s -instructions,[281] ‘that we turn to him as the best friend we have -in Italy, and one for whom, in case of need, we would risk our State, -our children, and our own person. Beg him not to leave us in the -lurch; he and his house shall be rewarded for their services to us.’ -Then followed negotiations with Lodovico il Moro, to whom Albino -proceeded on leaving Florence. It was ill speaking of Lodovico at the -latter city, because his intrigues with Girolamo Riario kept up a -constant fear of disturbances in Romagna; nevertheless, in the present -conjuncture, it was necessary to try to keep at peace with him. The -Duke of Bari’s policy was evidently to put the Florentines forward -and watch the moment when he himself could most fittingly appear. He -proposed that the Florentines should hinder Sanseverino’s passage -through Umbria; but they answered that it would be far simpler for -_him_ to prevent his crossing the Po, whence he would doubtless skirt -the Adriatic coast and not turn inland at all. Next, Ercole d’Este gave -notice that by a brief of October 1 the Pope had commanded him to grant -a passage through the Duchy of Ferrara to Roberto da Sanseverino, who -was leading 600 men-at-arms to his Holiness, and who, added the Duke, -was expected to set out on the 10th from Cittadella, in the Paduan -territory, cross the Po at Ficcarolo, and take the road through Romagna -and the Marches—which showed that the Florentines were right in -their answer to Sforza. Soon after news came from Siena that the Pope -had asked that Republic for a body of 120 men-at-arms and 300 picked -mercenaries. - -The Florentines did all they could to prevent the Sienese from yielding -to the Pope’s demand. As the armed force of Florence was small, they -took the Count of Pitigliano into their service and decided to await -the course of events. But there was no real feeling of security, from -the impossibility of trusting to the little neighbouring state. ‘The -Sienese,’ wrote the Ferrarese ambassador,[282] ‘being by nature at -once frivolous and suspicious, and perpetually stirred up by the Pope, -are in a violent fever, lamenting over the danger to which they would -be exposed if the king got the victory over the Pope, as he would then -employ their natural enemies—the Orsini—to avenge himself for the -revolution of 1480. Their ambassador plagued the illustrious Lorenzo -for two hours to-day with this nonsense, and it will cost a great -deal of trouble to keep them neutral, for they are always getting -troublesome.’ On October 10, the day on which Sanseverino began his -march, Lodovico il Moro wrote to Lorenzo.[283] He represented to him -the danger that would threaten the king if the enemy appeared on the -frontiers of the already excited country. ‘As your Magnificence sees, -prompt proceedings are necessary. The best way to help the king will -be to break at once with the Church, as the Pope has done with the -king. It appears to me necessary that you should induce the Signoria -to consent to a declaration of war, that while awaiting reinforcements -from hence they may set their armed force in order and despatch it to -the frontier without minding the unfavourable season, which hinders -neither the Pope nor the lord Roberto. What the foes think their troops -capable of, ours can surely do. But there is no time to be lost in -coming to a decision.’ - -When this new complication arose, Lorenzo was at the baths of San -Filippo in the Siena territory. The Morba waters had greatly benefited -him in the spring, and in May the Anziani of Siena sent a special envoy -to congratulate him on his recovery;[284] but it was not lasting. -The position of affairs was such as to embarrass even as practised -a politician as Lorenzo. He thought it needful to support the king, -but he was too clear-sighted and knew his native city too well to -give way to illusions as to the feeling about Naples. The king and -the duke were hated; to enter on their behalf into a war, which would -entail certainly great expenses and possibly serious complications, -was pleasing to no one. When Lorenzo proposed to the Council to give -support to Ferrante of Naples he met with vehement opposition. ‘At -first,’ relates Niccolò Valori,[285] ‘the majority were decidedly -against the proposal. In the midst of this long-wished-for peace, said -they, did he want to kindle the flame of a fresh war? Had he forgotten -in what danger they had been placed by arms and the censures of the -Pope? What if Venice should take part in the contest? How were they -to help the king, hard-pressed at once by internal feuds and external -war? Let him beware of turning aside the war from Ferrante, and drawing -it upon his own home. Notwithstanding, Lorenzo urged the necessity -of taking a side with so much eloquence that those who doubted were -encouraged, and at last all were brought over to his view. I never -read anything more earnest and impressive or better put together than -this speech, which was taken down at the time.’ But while Lorenzo held -it a political necessity to side with Naples, he clearly perceived -the reason of this fresh disturbance of peace. The bad condition of -the Neapolitan finances and army was no secret from him. ‘I regret,’ -he wrote on November 3 to Albino,[286] after informing him of the -proposals made by the insurgents in case of the neutrality of Florence, -‘that the king is no longer reputed to have a rich treasury and a -good army as of old, when he was regarded as the arbiter of Italy. -That the contrary is now the case I regret on account of my devotion -to his Majesty; but, however matters may stand, I shall always fulfil -my obligations. I am most deeply grieved that my lord the duke is -denounced as cruel; though it be a false accusation, yet his Excellency -should do all in his power to rid himself of it, for it can only be to -his advantage to do so. If the taxes are hateful to the people let them -be abolished, and let the former contributions suffice; one carlino -willingly and gladly paid is better than ten gained by compulsion and -with ill-will; for no people willingly endures the imposition of fresh -burthens.’ He also recommended keeping the soldiers in good humour; -never had this been more needed. If the king had faith in himself he -would conquer; the Signoria would be true to him. Ferrante thanked -Lorenzo for his wise counsels, but remarked that he did not altogether -understand them. - - - - -CHAPTER V. - -REACTION AFTER THE BARONS’ WAR. THE STRUGGLE FOR SARZANA. - - -LORENZO’S position was anything but enviable. The Florentine merchants -at Naples complained that the Duke of Calabria did not fulfil his -obligations, and, moreover, treated them insolently, so that they found -themselves compelled to leave the city.[287] The Pope, who on November -1, 1485, had issued a bull enumerating all the charges of the Holy See -against the King of Naples, and threatening with excommunication all -who should support the latter, exerted himself to prevent the Republic -from taking part in the quarrel. The authority of the Medici even -might receive a blow, for the position of affairs in the kingdom was -considered bad in the extreme. Lorenzo was visibly full of cares. He -proceeded very slowly. Towards the end of November Innocent sent the -Archbishop of Florence to his cathedral city to try if he could change -the mind of his brother-in-law. Rinaldo Orsini was a prelate of a type -then but too common; from his youth up he had held benefices without -spiritual functions, and so he treated his archbishopric as a sort of -garrison, the revenue of which was sufficient for him. He was generally -in Rome; leaving his vicar to look after the church affairs. Being in -the habit of getting into debt, he afterwards tried to do a profitable -piece of business with his see. At last, when things in Florence were -altogether changed, and the powerful support of the Medici failed him, -the universal dissatisfaction reduced him to resign for a pension and -a title _in partibus_. Before this, during the persecutions that broke -out against his family in the time of the Borgias, his insignificance -as a mere man of pleasure had saved him from the tragic fate of his -cousin Cardinal Orsini, with whom he had been placed in the castle of -St. Angelo. It may easily be imagined that he was not the man to make -any impression on Lorenzo, more especially as the latter well knew -that he was entirely a creature of the Pope, in daily anticipation -of obtaining the cardinal’s hat. Rinaldo declared that Innocent was -determined on war. For months past he had been warning the king, -through the now deceased Cardinal of Aragon, through his brother Don -Francesco, even through the Florentine ambassador; but Ferrante only -went on more recklessly, and now at last allowed things to take their -own course.[288] - -Meanwhile, November 10, Sanseverino arrived at Rome, and was solemnly -received at the Porta del Popolo by the governor of the city, the -papal court, the ambassadors of the Kaiser and of King Maximilian, -and others. Twenty days after, in the Vatican basilica, he took the -oath to the Pope as gonfalonier of the Church.[289] Innocent showed -to the Florentine ambassador money and jewels to the value of 150,000 -ducats, all of which, he said, was to be spent in carrying out the war. -All recruiting and sales of horses in and around Rome, except for the -service of the Church, were forbidden. But in Naples it was resolved -not to await the attack. Alfonso of Calabria marched into the States -of the Church, and was soon on the nearer side of the Alban hills, -with the Campagna and the city lying before him; on the north-west the -Orsini were taking up arms in alliance with him; Florentine troops were -advancing under the Counts of Pitigliano and Marsciano and the lord of -Piombino, and 100 Milanese men-at-arms under the Count of Cajazzo—for -that was all Lodovico sent after all his assurances! Soon the -Neapolitans and the Papal troops attacked each other in the immediate -neighbourhood of Rome, by the bridges over the Anio. The whole city was -in tumult. Monte Giordano, the Orsini stronghold in the Campus Martius, -was burnt down; King Ferrante’s ambassador, who with his colleagues of -Florence and Milan had remained in Rome after the fighting began, had -his house plundered and wrecked, and fled to the Vatican. The greatest -distress and insecurity prevailed; cardinals and others brought their -valuables to the Pope’s palace and to the castle of St. Angelo for -safety. But the duke proved himself a wretched general. He could not -manage to effect a junction with the Orsini, and Sanseverino pressed -the latter hard, compelled some of them to accept a compromise, and -obstructed the road into Tuscany. Within the kingdom itself matters -were taking an unfavourable turn; Alfonso, seeing himself in danger -of being hemmed in within the Campagna, decided to make a diversion -against the Pope and gain breathing-time for himself by coming to a -personal understanding with Lorenzo and Lodovico. On January 17, 1486, -the news reached Florence that the heir to the Neapolitan throne had -left the army in a dangerous position, and with only 300 horsemen -taken the road through the lower part of the Viterbo territory. After -riding sixty miles a day, like a fugitive, he arrived at Pitigliano, -the little capital of the Orsini territory, on the west of the lake of -Bolsena; from thence he intended proceeding to Florence and Milan. - -The surprise in Florence was great. Negotiations had never ceased -between the Pope and Lorenzo. It was said that the latter was trying -to facilitate an accommodation; but there was a suspicion that he was -playing a double game, that he had no confidence in the Neapolitan -affairs, and that he had a hand in the defection of some of the Orsini, -which put the Duke of Calabria into difficulties; and that now he -wanted to hinder the Duke coming to Florence, in order to escape his -reproaches. The Signoria immediately sent a special messenger to the -Duke to prevent his coming to the city; Piero Capponi followed the -messenger, to have an explanation with Alfonso, and to remain with the -army as Florentine commissioner.[290] For some time past Lorenzo had -been suffering severely; an affection of the bladder was now added to -his old complaint the gout. He was not in a happy humour. He said he -would have nothing more to do with business, for everything was going -contrary to his desires and expectations; he meant to spend his time -more agreeably. He begged Ercole d’Este and the Marquis of Mantua -to send him falcons, and it was said that he was going to Pisa for -change of air. His ill humour was visible. Sometimes he was in the -city, sometimes at Careggi. The Duke of Calabria was urgent to see -him at Pitigliano, in Florence, anywhere he liked; but he was not to -be persuaded. Pier Filippo Pandolfini and Giovanni Serristori went in -January to Pitigliano to agree upon the necessary arrangements. - -Meanwhile the situation had somewhat improved. The troops, deserted by -the Duke whom all accused of cowardice and want of head, were guided by -Paolo Orsini to Vicovaro in the valley of the Anio, beyond Tivoli; from -thence the road into the kingdom was open to them. Gentile Virginio and -others of the Orsini remained faithful. Letters from Milan announced -an intention of abiding by this alliance. On February 3, Gian Jacopo -Trivulzio and Marsilio Torello arrived in Florence with men-at-arms -and archers, to join the Duke.[291] The latter came as far as -Montepulciano, and wanted to make an attempt upon Perugia, where there -was some understanding with a few of the Baglioni. But the Florentines -had no desire to see the fire kindled so near their own borders; and -as the Milanese were of the same mind, the plan was given up. The war -was again transferred to the Papal territory, where the union between -the Orsini and the duke was at last effected. But it was a feeble war, -which only served to display the decay of Italian military skill. -One single fight, however, in which the allies were victorious, and -which took place in the beginning of May near Campagnano, a place -belonging to the Orsini and situated twenty-one miles north-west of -Rome, deserves the name of a warlike achievement. The Florentine -commissioner, who was not a military man, but had seen a good deal of -fighting in his life, was very little edified by the proceedings. On -the papal side they were no better off. Innocent, ill and repeatedly in -danger of his life, saw his means disappearing, his capital disturbed -and discontented, almost besieged, and the neighbourhood devastated. -He had little confidence in Sanseverino, who failed to profit by the -favourable moment of the Duke’s absence, and whose chief aim seemed to -be to gain a red hat for one of his sons. This distrust was heightened -by letters from Piero Capponi, which, by a not over-honourable -artifice, raised doubts as to Sanseverino’s honesty, and were put into -the enemy’s hands. Through the Bishop of Treviso the Pope tried to -get help from Venice; through the Cardinal della Rovere, who went to -Genoa at the end of March, he set on foot a negotiation with the Duke -of Lorraine, who with the help of France was planning an expedition -against Naples. But everything remained too long in suspense. - -In the College of Cardinals the different opinions produced violent -disputes. As has been observed, Lorenzo remained in communication -with Innocent, although he was the very corner-stone of the league in -favour of Naples, and without Florentine money the king would long -ago have been unable to carry on the war. It was his representations -that chiefly contributed to induce the Pope to arrive at the needful -accommodation. Ferrante on his part saw very well that unless he made -peace abroad it was vain to think of restoring peace at home. Lodovico -il Moro, though now less scanty in his contributions of assistance, -was still more lavish of words than of deeds. His brother Ascanio -was urging the Pope to an accommodation. On March 6 he spoke very -strongly in the secret consistory in opposition to Cardinal La Balue, -who was charged by France with supporting the interests of the Duke -of Lorraine. The Pope, said Sforza, had a right to claim from King -Ferrante the fulfilment of his obligations to the Church; but it was -contrary to the duty of a cardinal to try and induce the Pope to drive -the king from his hereditary throne and put a stranger in his place. -He, Sforza, believed that he was not failing in his duty to the holy -father in defending the rights of his relative. The cardinal of Erlau, -the pious Franciscan Gabriel Rangoni, supported Ascanio, and said to -the Pope: ‘Your Holiness has threatened to go as far as the Acheron. If -the war continues, I fear those words will come true. May your wisdom -find means to prevent greater troubles!’[292] - -The Florentines were wearied with the whole affair. Ambassadors came -from René of Lorraine to argue against the alliance with Naples, and -to recall the old relations with France, and the old devotion of -Florence to the Holy See. They were answered that the league which had -existed for some time between the Republic, Naples, and Milan had for -its object the preservation of peace; the disturbance had come from -the Pope. The latter had never mentioned the Duke of Lorraine in his -negotiations with the city; and if he was now making use of his name to -help his own cause, they must first of all find out his real aims, and -then consult with the allies. The old obligations to France would be -remembered as far as was consistent with honour. The answer, remarks -Francesco Guicciardini,[293] was prudent, for ambassadors had arrived -not only from the duke but also from the King of France, and for the -sake of the merchants it was necessary to be cautious. The occurrence -caused a good deal of anxiety, so that Lorenzo, who well knew the -attachment of the citizens to the house of France and their hatred to -King Ferrante, was afraid of the burthen becoming too heavy for his -shoulders, particularly as the alliance with Ferrante was displeasing -to many of the chief citizens. He would, perhaps, have changed his -policy, although Venice, where his brother-in-law Bernardo Rucellai -was ambassador, and which did not like seeing foreigners in Italy, now -sided with the king; but suddenly peace put an end to all troubles. - -On the afternoon of August 11, 1486, this peace was signed at Rome -by the Spanish ambassador, the Count of Tendilla, the Archbishop of -Milan, and Gian Jacopo Trivulzio on behalf of Sforza, Cardinal Giovanni -Michiel on behalf of the Pope, and Gioviano Pontano on behalf of -Naples. King Ferrante was again formally to acknowledge the supremacy -of the Church; to pay the tribute; to retain Aquila on condition of -maintaining its liberties; not to oppress the barons who returned to -their allegiance, and to give them complete freedom as to their abode -and their family connections. These conditions were to be guaranteed -by Milan and Florence. The Orsini were to beg the Pope’s forgiveness, -and to be taken back into favour under guarantee of the said States; -all places taken on either side were to be restored. Sanseverino was -dismissed from the service of the Church. In Florence the conclusion -of peace was celebrated by ringing the bells; but Lorenzo was highly -displeased, not at the peace as such, but at the manner and the -conditions of it, on which he spoke sharply to the Milanese ambassador. -The conclusion had been arrived at without reference to him, and there -had been no mention of Sarzana. In reality this was better than what -had been originally intended, for Cardinal Sforza had exerted himself -to get his brother Lodovico appointed arbiter in the question; but this -scheme was foiled by the decided opposition of Capponi, who was then at -Bracciano.[294] The Republic had spent all her money for a cause not -her own.[295] And what a peace it was! Sanseverino had most decidedly -not proved himself a hero in the war, and his conduct had not deserved -any great confidence. But the way in which he was treated was almost -past belief. The gonfalonier of the Church, who as holder of one of the -highest dignities had handed the holy water to the Pope at a solemn -mass a little while before, suddenly found himself like an outlaw -chieftain compelled to use force against force. He was told he might -go where he liked, and a claim which he sent in for arrears of pay was -left unnoticed. Then, when he was about to take the road to Romagna, -to return to the Venetian territory, he found himself surrounded by -Neapolitan troops. To fight was certain ruin. He had nothing for it but -to dissolve his bands; many escaped to the Marches; others were taken, -plundered, slain; others again took service with the Duke of Calabria. -With about a hundred horsemen Roberto cut his way through, and after -many difficulties arrived as a fugitive, on the Venetian frontier which -less than a year before he had crossed at the head of a powerful army. -The Republic took him back into her service, and he showed himself -not ungrateful and far less selfish than was the usual fashion of -_condottieri_. A year after the conclusion of a peace so fatal to him, -he met his death fighting gallantly in the neighbourhood of Roveredo, -in the war stirred up by the frontier disputes between Venice and -Archduke Sigismund of Austria-Tyrol. The Sanseverino affair, however, -disappeared before what happened in Naples. - -Two days after the conclusion of the treaty, at Castelnuovo, on the -occasion of a marriage arranged by the king between Marco Coppola, son -of the Count of Sarno, chief counsellor of the crown, and a daughter -of Antonio Piccolomini Duke of Amalfi, granddaughter of Ferrante, the -count and his family were arrested, as well as Antonello Petrucci the -other private secretary of the king, the Count of Burello, formerly -ambassador to Rome, and many of their relatives and friends, all -distinguished and influential persons. They had been in communication -with the insurgent barons, and as far back as October of the previous -year Lodovico il Moro had given the king proofs of their guilt; but -the latter had secured them and then waited till the conclusion of -peace to draw in the net. Only a fortnight before he had called the -Count of Sarno ‘our best-beloved counsellor.’ Three months later the -culprits were condemned to death and executed; and the shuddering city -beheld the bleeding limbs of the Count of Carinola, son of Antonello -Petrucci, quartered by the executioner’s hand. All their property -was confiscated; not only were their possessions within the country -sequestrated, but Ferrante at once sent one of the superior officers -of the chamber of accounts to take possession of sums deposited in -the banks in Rome, Florence, Genoa, and Milan. A million in gold is -said to have thus passed into his hands. Horrified at this fearful -vengeance, warned by the fate of Aquila, which lost all its liberties, -and putting no trust in the stipulated guarantee of Florence and Milan, -the barons were long undecided if they should trust themselves to the -mercy of the king. Ferrante himself did not believe they would. At -last, however, they submitted, besought pardon, and promised fidelity -and obedience. ‘All the princes and lords who formerly rebelled against -us,’ wrote the king on February 17, 1487, to Giovanni Nauclero,[296] -his ambassador to Ferdinand the Catholic, ‘are now with us at Naples. -They enjoy greater security for their persons and possessions, and -greater contentment and tranquillity than before the war; for they -have their revenues as heretofore, and while we know that we are safe -with them because their castles are in our hands, they are safe with -us, and, thank God, we live together without suspicion. The past has -vanished from our memory, and we treat them as dear sons. We hope it -will last, for we are resolved to give them daily greater occasion to -remain in this mind. Thus we keep all parts of our kingdom in peace and -quiet.’ Within three months came the confiscation of the principality -of Salerno, whose lord—Antonello da Sanseverino—was absent from the -country; and, later on, the arrest of those ‘dear sons’ the barons, who -one after another disappeared and left no trace behind. - -The complications which arose from this interpretation of the -conditions of peace between the king and the Pope, and the sentiments -it awakened in Florence, will be mentioned later on. There can be -little difference of opinion as to this melancholy episode and its -influence on the destinies of Naples. But the whole blame must not be -laid on Ferrante. A nobility so powerful and warlike, so rebellious, -and among some of whom disaffection was an inheritance, rendered -government impossible. Defection had penetrated the king’s own privy -council, nay even his own family. How little unity there was in the -latter is shown by the fact that the barons hoped and attempted to -gain over to their side Don Federigo, who was as much beloved as his -brother Alfonso was hated and feared. At Salerno they offered him the -crown, which he refused. Ferrante conquered by prudence and force of -arms, but he abused his victory by cunning, avarice, and cruelty. In -the use of foul means he outdid his old enemy Louis XI.; but while the -latter, who personally was not a bit better, strengthened the royal -power, Ferrante overshot the mark and cut the ground from under his -own feet. Other men of the time were not more honest, yet they never -enacted such horrible tragedies as those witnessed at Naples in 1486 -and 1487. Ferrante’s reign lasted seven years longer, externally more -quiet than before, more prosperous, more unlimited, less disturbed; -but all his sagacity could not save him from the phantoms called up by -the consciousness of past crimes and the fear of new dangers. In his -strivings after despotic power, and in the interests of the latter, he -made havoc of the old nobility. He could not destroy it so completely -as to prevent its remaining one of the factors in all great political -changes, or the enmity of a large portion of it from becoming fatal to -his house, but he diminished the strength of the country, which was -founded on the old feudal order of things. He hoped to find support -from the people, but could not really raise them because his system of -monopolies and finance oppressed them no less than the outgrowths of -the feudal state, and he had not time to carry out the change in public -matters which he might possibly have projected. The people, who had not -forgotten old grievances, were bound by no ties of affection to their -sovereign and his heir-apparent, who had come out of the Barons’ war -with a greatly diminished reputation for military capacity and a yet -more greatly increased reputation for faithlessness and cruelty.[297] - -Like the peace of 1484, that of 1486 did not take into consideration -the Florentine desires and demands in the vexed question of Sarzana. - -Lorenzo was ill and out of humour. Repeated attacks of gout either -laid him up at home, as in July 1486, or compelled him to go to -Bagno a Morba, where he passed the September of the same year. He -often sojourned at Careggi for a time or at the villa at Poggio a -Cajano, where he sought refreshment and relaxation from the exciting -affairs which never left him free. He was at no pains to conceal his -irritation. One ally compromised him by faithlessness and severity, -the other endangered his policy by double-dealing and the pursuit -of selfish aims. The more lavish were the assurances of friendship, -the nearer treachery was lurking. As to the treaty of peace and -Trivulzio’s part in it, he declared the proceedings of Milan were -downright disgraceful. When Ferrante began to meddle with the barons -whose safety had been guaranteed by Florence and Milan, and it became -evident that he aimed at their destruction and the confiscation of -their property, Lorenzo remarked that from a political point of view -the king was becoming too powerful. If he went on thus he would soon -be master in Italy, in which case Florence and Milan would fare badly, -as the predominance of his influence had repeatedly been injurious to -them. From the Duke of Calabria the worst must be expected, as he was -of a malicious and vindictive temper setting aside that, when once his -object was attained he regarded neither friendship nor past services. -Lorenzo saw that he must bring the Sarzana affair to a conclusion if -he did not wish to endanger his own position. The thing could not be -done in the year which ended the Barons’ war, but the next must not be -allowed to pass without profit. There was not much to be expected from -the allies. King Ferrante well knew how much he was indebted to Lorenzo -and to Florence, and remarked that one good turn deserved another; but -added that where an alliance was so sure and the will so entirely the -same on both sides, conduct must be measured, not by the extent of the -obligation, but by the power to serve. Then came the usual references -to the exhaustion of the treasury, difficulties with the Pope, and the -danger from the Turks, all of which Bernardo Rucellai, the ambassador -at Naples, likewise had to listen to.[298] To Lutozzo Nasi, another -Florentine diplomatist, Ferrante said: ‘Lorenzo knows that I really -love him and his city, for I have had practical proof of his attachment -to me and mine. But for him, they and I would no longer be in this -kingdom. He has conferred on us a benefit which we and our posterity -never will or can forget, and we will always display our gratitude to -him and the Signoria.’ But all this was mere talk. It was not of much -use that Ferrante occasionally condescended to flatter the Signoria, -as, for instance, when in the autumn of 1486 he appointed a house in -Naples for their embassy, as King Ladislaus had once done for Venice; -or when he sent back trophies of the war of 1478, declaring that he did -not wish to preserve memorials of past strife when nothing should be -thought of but reciprocal friendship.[299] - -In Lodovico il Moro Lorenzo had still less confidence, but on account -of the situation in Northern Italy, and especially on account of the -Venetians, he was yet more anxious to keep on the best terms possible -with Milan. Lodovico was jealous of the close relations between his -allies; so, in order not to increase this jealousy, Lorenzo found it -convenient to point out the common interest of Florence and Milan in -preventing the king from becoming too powerful. Moreover, the Sarzana -affair still prevented the conclusion of a good understanding. Lodovico -was always thinking of regaining Genoa, and was the more unwilling to -turn the Genoese against him for the sake of a quarrel which kept them -in continual suspense, because they had applied to Venice herself for -aid against the Florentines. Innocent VIII. had made an attempt at -mediation, whereby the Bank of San Giorgio was to give up Pietrasanta -and receive Sarzana in exchange; but the matter fell through, -nominally on account of disagreements between the Pope and his native -city, but no doubt also because, after all the sacrifices that had been -made, public opinion in Florence would have been in nowise satisfied -with such a settlement. A trifling occasion, the occupation by the -Florentines of a small castle beyond the Magra, sufficed to cause -high words between Lorenzo and Lodovico. The former had sent Baccio -Ugolini to the Duke of Calabria in 1486, and Sforza took it amiss -that he had not been informed of the fact. ‘Milan and Lord Lodovico,’ -returned Lorenzo, ‘seem to forget that this city calls herself a city -of freedom, and that she would be in a sorry plight if she could not -even send a man on an unofficial mission to the Neapolitan prince -without taking advice from Milan about it.’ In Florence, he continued, -nothing had been said when Lord Lodovico, without asking anybody’s -opinion, made his agreement with Venice. Such things were tokens of -disaffection, and should it ever befall that Milan was in need of -Florence it would be impossible to incline the people in her favour if -they had been previously driven to extremities. Such were the relations -in which these Italian States, calling themselves allies, stood to each -other! Then fine words followed again, and assurances of friendship, -which kept up appearances and deceived nobody as to the real state of -the case. To Lorenzo’s honour it must be said that he did all in his -power to support the tottering edifice of concord. - -At the beginning of 1487 the Florentines were firmly resolved to make -an end of the Sarzana affair, which was really becoming a disgrace to -the Republic. But the Genoese were beforehand with them. On a hill to -the east of the town of Sarzana lies the fort of Sarzanello, begun -by the brave Ghibelin leader Castruccio Castracani when he extended -the Lucchese territory as far as the Magra. It was a hill-fort, still -worthy of notice for its construction, and it had always been held -by the Florentines. In March 1487 the commandant of Sarzana, Gian -Luigi Fiesco of Lavagna, made a sudden attack on Sarzanello, took -the outworks, and began to fire on the fortress. The famous Sienese -architect Francesco di Giorgio, who, together with Giuliano da -Sangallo, did more than anyone else for the military architecture of -the time, was serving as an engineer in the Genoese camp, and he seems -to have first adopted the mining system against Sarzanello. Florence -saw there was no time to lose. The Count of Pitigliano and the lords of -Piombino, Faenza, and Mirandola commanded the troops, to which Naples -and Milan sent scanty contingents. On April 15 the besiegers of the -fort were completely beaten, and their leader, Obietto Fiesco, fell -into the hands of the victors. But the fight for the town of Sarzana -dragged on, though the troops were better than some of their leaders. -The place was in increasing misery, yet the defenders held out amid the -distress and ruin of the inhabitants. - -In the beginning of June Lorenzo went to Pisa to be nearer the scene of -action. On the 8th he was in the camp and ordered the town to be more -closely surrounded. An attempt to relieve it failed. On the 21st it was -decided to storm it, but a white flag was hoisted on the walls, and the -next morning the gates were opened. The inhabitants were spared, the -garrison remained prisoners of war. Two days before midsummer Lorenzo -returned to Florence. ‘Never,’ writes the Ferrarese ambassador, ‘was -he received with such acclamations by the people, who attribute the -recapture of Sarzana to him before all others.’[300] It was not the -importance of the place itself that Florence cared for; she regarded -its seizure as an insult. ‘After you have saluted in our name the -illustrious Signoria, my lords the Eight, and the illustrious lord -Lorenzo,’ thus ran Ferrante’s instructions[301] of July 27 to Antonio -Sperandeo, whom he was sending to Florence, ‘you shall express to -them our joy at the recovery of Sarzana; a joy which beseems true and -sincere friends on such a happy occasion, and is meet for a connection -which makes the advantage and welfare of the one the advantage and -welfare of the other. Therefore we rejoice at the conclusion of this -affair as at a piece of good fortune to ourselves, and pray God that He -may further the interests and well-being of us both, and lead us from -good to better through a continuance of our reciprocal friendship.’ How -much of these assurances of friendship should be laid to the account of -the complications at home, may be left undecided. - -Lodovico il Moro took no trouble to hide his ill-humour, and -immediately recalled his troops from the Florentine camp on the -Magra, whereat the Florentines were highly indignant. Lorenzo said he -supposed the Duke of Bari thought Genoa and the Castelletto would be -given up to him next. But it actually came to pass. The Cardinal-Doge, -Paolo Fregoso, perceived that he could not hold his ground amidst -his many enemies, even if the Florentines—as they were certainly -disposed to do—did not advance further towards the Riviera, where the -neighbourhood of the gulf of Spezia was almost unprotected. While he -began negotiating with Sforza the Adorni party were negotiating with -France. Lodovico was quicker than the counsellors of the young king, -and, after much debating in one form and another, the matter ended -in Genoa once more acknowledging the Duke of Milan as her superior; -whereupon the doge was pensioned and went to end his much-disturbed -days at Rome. The Florentines were not destined long to enjoy the -possession of Sarzana, which had cost them so much blood and still -more money. During Charles VIII.’s campaign against Naples, both the -town and the fortress passed into the hands of the French, who, when -Florentine troops and commissioners came to demand their restoration, -sold them to that same bank of San Giorgio with which the Republic had -fought so long for their possession. - - - - -CHAPTER VI. - -LORENZO AS MEDIATOR BETWEEN ROME AND NAPLES. - - -FOR a long time past there could have been no question as to Lorenzo’s -earnest desire to arrive at a good understanding with Innocent VIII. -Immediately after the latter’s election circumstances appeared -favourable, and the Florentines had reasonable hopes of putting an end -to the contest for Sarzana. Unfortunately, the dispute between the Pope -and the King of Naples interfered to retard the good understanding, -but, though Florence took the king’s side, no declarations of war were -published, and the negotiations with the Pope were never broken off. -Lorenzo always remained in communication with Innocent. It was through -him that at the peace of 1486, the Orsini, who were left unprotected, -were reconciled with the Pope. He attached great importance to the -latter’s friendship on both public and private grounds. He fully -understood the instability of the Italian league and the extent of the -influence of the States of the Church on those at home. With regard -to family affairs he had to take into consideration not only money -matters relative to an advantageous marriage for his eldest son and -his daughters, who were now growing up, but also of preferment for his -second son, who, by his father’s wish, was early to enter on the career -once designed for his uncle. All these various interests were fully -developed in Lorenzo’s conduct during the year 1487. - -In April 1486 a distinguished and warlike citizen of Osimo in the -Marches of Ancona, by name Boccalino de’ Guzzoni, having acquired -great influence over the people, profited by the Pope’s hour of -difficulty to take forcible possession of that town, which, like many -other Papal possessions, was somewhat inclined to be rebellious. He -pleaded in extenuation of his proceedings that there was a certain sum -owing to him from the Apostolic Chamber.[302] Lodovico immediately -remarked that if the man was inclined to join the league against -the Pope he should have help, as the matter had fallen out very -seasonably.[303] But Boccalino had no intention of accepting the -foreign aid, which he would not trust, without first trying his own -powers. The peace between Naples and the Pope at first turned to his -advantage, as many of Sanseverino’s dispersed soldiers entered his -service; but he very soon saw that he was lost, and, yielding to the -remonstrances addressed to him in the name of the young Duke of Urbino, -he came to terms with the Pope. The accommodation, however, did not -last long; Boccalino again set up the standard of revolt, whereupon it -was decided to besiege Osimo. Boccalino then conceived the adventurous -idea of applying to Constantinople and stirring up Sultan Bajazet to an -attack on the Marches, which he himself would administer as a vassal of -the Turkish empire. The messenger who was to carry this proposition, a -nephew of Boccalino, was arrested at Lecce, and the letters fell into -King Ferrante’s hands. He disclosed the story to Trivulzio, who had -been in the kingdom with Milanese troops ever since the Barons’ war, -and to the ambassadors of Florence and Milan, through whom it reached -the ears of the Pope. Rome determined to prevent the rebellion from -spreading further. On March 2, Cardinal della Rovere was appointed -legate for the Marches,[304] and Giulio Cesare Varano, lord of -Camerino, commander of the troops. Both proceeded to Osimo, but failed -in their object, for Boccalino managed to blind the cardinal with the -eloquence of his speech; so the Pope addressed Lodovico il Moro with a -request that he would lend him Trivulzio and some of his troops. The -Duke of Bari acceded to the request; on May 8, Gian Jacopo reached -Rome, and on the 31st he was in the camp before Osimo. - -For a long time this gallant soldier accomplished nothing; he lacked -money, artillery, and ammunition. Part of the Milanese troops deserted -and left the camp because their pay was in arrears; the papal -contingent was quite useless; Boccalino kept on negotiating with the -cardinal and with Francesco Gaddi, whom Lorenzo, through the Bishop of -Arezzo, had sent to arrange an accommodation with Boccalino.[305] At -last Rome grew weary. Cardinal La Balue, the deep intriguer who had -reason to congratulate himself that Louis XI. had done no worse than -shut him up in an iron cage, but who was not wanting in capacity and -had gained some influence at the papal court, was sent in the latter -half of June, with money and fresh troops, to relieve Della Rovere. -When he arrived, Trivulzio had fortified a height which overhung the -town, and had thus rendered further resistance impossible. On July 12 -the inhabitants offered to capitulate. The Florentine envoy helped to -arrange the terms: Boccalino agreed, on payment of 8,000 ducats, to -leave the town and settle at Florence. ‘This evening,’ wrote Trivulzio -to Milan on August 1, ‘I have caused 200 foot soldiers and a squadron -of men-at-arms to march into Osimo. Early to-morrow morning Messer -Boccalino will leave the city, and then my lord the legate will hold -his solemn entry. The matter could not have been more happily or -honourably settled.’ More happily or honourably! For sixteen months a -town by no means strong had held out in rebellion against the lord of -the land, and after a five months’ siege it had surrendered for money -and pardon. It was fortunate for the inhabitants, but it showed the -deplorable condition of military affairs. - -Boccalino de’ Guzzoni betook himself to Florence, where he was -honourably received, and Lorenzo was commissioned to pay him the -greater part of the sum allotted to him, of which he had received 1,000 -ducats on his departure. But there were other difficulties to contend -with, and Lorenzo’s letters to Giovanni Lanfredini, the ambassador at -Rome, show how indignant he was at the delay in fulfilling the promises -made him from thence, and how he feared to be compromised by this -delay. As the promised money did not arrive and Boccalino pressed for -payment, Lorenzo advanced him 500 ducats and charged the ambassador to -see to the settlement of the matter. ‘I do not believe,’ he wrote to -Lanfredini,’[306] that the Pope is by nature spiteful or quarrelsome. -But even if he were so, which I have never observed, he ought not to -be so towards me. Try to arrange the matter, for I should regret the -least stain on my honour more than life or all else that is dear to me -on earth. Make no secret of it that, if no regard is paid to my honour, -I shall make no scruple of showing my displeasure. I cannot believe -it, but shall act according to experience.’ The Florentines seemed to -expect that Boccalino would settle among them and claim the freedom of -the city, in which they were willing to help him; they also offered -him a military post in their service. After staying awhile, however, -he went to Milan, whence Lodovico, who disliked having him in his -neighbourhood, got rid of him by force. - -When Lorenzo performed this service for the Pope, a family alliance -had already been sealed between them. The course of political events -has caused us to lose sight of the mi pare mettere una gran parte -dello honore e fede mia.’ Medici family since the complications -and conflicts which sprang from the Pazzi conspiracy. The house in -the Via Larga was full of children; besides the three sons, Piero, -Giovanni, and Giuliano, there were four blooming daughters, Lucrezia, -Maddalena, Luigia, and Contessina. Lucrezia, the eldest of all, was -early betrothed to Jacopo Salviati, for the sake of blotting out the -memories of 1478. Luigia, the third daughter, was the bride of Giovanni -de’ Medici, the younger grandson of Cosimo the Elder’s brother Lorenzo. -When the eldest daughter’s marriage took place in 1487, her grandmother -was dead. Lucrezia Tornabuoni died on the Feast of the Annunciation, -1482. The loss of his excellent mother was deeply felt by Lorenzo. ‘My -reverence for your Excellency,’ he wrote on the same day to the Duchess -of Ferrara, Eleonora d’Aragona d’Este,[307] ‘commands me to announce -to you the sad and overwhelming event which has this day befallen me, -the death of my dearest mother Madonna Lucrezia. It has plunged me in -a grief which your Excellency can imagine, for I have lost, not only -my mother, but my only refuge amid my many cares and difficulties, the -only helper who could aid and counsel me in my many troubles. It is -true that we must submit with patience to the will of God, but I have -not enough strength of mind to bear such a calamity with calmness. I -pray God to send me more composure and comfort, and to grant peace and -blessedness to her soul. Your Excellency, towards whom I give free -course to my sorrow, will understand the state of mind of your faithful -servant, who commends himself to you as heartily as he can.’ - -It is self-evident that Lorenzo had to consider his peculiar position -in planning the future connections of his children as they grew up. -He strove to reconcile the political needs of this position with the -traditions of the country, which were against foreign marriages. -The family alliance which he formed between the Medici and the Cybò -has this peculiarity, that in this case, for the first time, the son -of a Pope was in some degree recognised and brought on the political -stage, the sad beginning of a grievous error in the history of the -Popedom. Before the middle of March, 1487, Giovanni Lanfredini went -to Rome to arrange preliminaries for a contract of marriage between -Lorenzo’s second daughter, Maddalena, and Franceschetto Cybò, son -of Innocent VIII.[308] On the 22nd Lorenzo publicly announced ‘the -family connection concluded with me by his Holiness.’ The allies, -Naples and Milan, had been informed of the negotiations in question. -Lorenzo attached especial importance to the king’s approval, because -there had once been a project of marriage between Franceschetto and -a daughter of Ferrante, and it was not till he had made sure of the -latter’s agreement that he formally concluded the contract with Rome, -or even discussed the matter with the Florentine magistrates, to whom -he submitted it for approval. ‘Our opinion of the illustrious Lorenzo,’ -so run Ferrante’s instructions addressed, on May 1, to Trojano de’ -Bottuni, who was going as ambassador to Rome, Florence, and Milan,[309] -‘is so firmly established that the whole world could produce no change -in us. Wish him joy of the new connection, which, in my opinion, is -likely to be no less useful to us than to him; for his influence on the -Pope will operate favourably to smooth the misunderstandings between -his Holiness and ourselves, and we only regret not having known of -the plan earlier that we might immediately have given it our full -agreement.’ - -‘Now may God guide all for the best,’ wrote Lorenzo to the Florentine -ambassador at Naples,[310] ‘and give me grace that the thing may -benefit ourselves and others, and be for our personal and the general -advantage. Such things are wont to be judged by their results more -than by the rules of reason.’ And he adds these honourable words: -‘As the king wishes that the new connection shall have no disturbing -influence on our alliance, I give my word that this connection shall -not make me other than I was; for I have never been so exclusively -and passionately interested in my own private affairs as to forget -public honour or that which beseems a straightforward and honest man. I -believe the king considers me as such, and he may be sure that if the -Pope should intend anything that might disturb peace I should be the -first to resist him. I know where to seek the foundation of things, and -what difficulties arise from the daily events which go on gradually -evolving themselves. I think I have with no little trouble, care, and -expense proved my devotion to the king, and he may be sure that I shall -not sacrifice a substance to a shadow.’ - -Franceschetto Cybò has left no brilliant name in the history of his -father’s pontificate. He is supposed to have been born in 1449 at -Naples, where Giambattista Cybò—then only seventeen—was living with -his father Arano before taking holy orders. When the father became -Pope, Franceschetto had a sister, Teodorina, who married into the -Usodimare family of Genoa. The mother’s name and rank are unknown, -and of Franceschetto himself nothing is known till the time when he -made this sudden appearance on the world’s stage. He naturally was -in no want of external honours. He was made governor of Rome and -captain-general of the Church; his brother-in-law, Leo X., afterwards -gave him the government of Spoleto, and he was made a count of the -Empire by the Emperor Frederic. Fiefs were added to his titles. -But he was without talent, at once greedy of gain and a careless -spendthrift. One night, when taking part in the disorderly doings of -some young nobles, he lost 14,000 ducats at play to Cardinal Raffaelle -Riario. When the Pope lay in a seemingly hopeless condition, struck -by apoplexy, his son tried to get possession of his treasures; the -result of which attempt was that the cardinals made an inventory of -them and entrusted one of their own college with the care of them, -though it was said that Franceschetto had already managed to convey -a portion safely to Florence. His bride was still so young that the -marriage was put off. In the interval many things happened which might -have tempted Lorenzo to change his mind, but for his earnest desire to -gain a hold on Rome and his hope of dominating the weak Pope, which was -strengthened by the events of 1487. - -Only a few weeks after the conclusion of the treaty disputes again -arose between the Church and Naples, when Aquila was subdued, the papal -governor put to death, and the papal banner torn down. An outbreak of -persecution against the barons increased the disagreement, and then the -king broke his word to the Pope by denying that either he or his son -had consented to pay the actual tribute. The management of benefices -went on in the usual arbitrary manner. Innocent saw himself and his -authority openly set at naught. In January 1487, the Prince of Salerno, -who had quitted the kingdom before the net could be drawn tight round -him, arrived at Rome, where he was received with all honours.[311] His -report of the proceedings added fuel to the flame. Lodovico il Moro, -who was always playing a double game, declared himself unreservedly in -opposition to the king—with whom he was nevertheless at that moment -treating for the marriage of his nephew Gian Galeazzo—and held out -a threat of Venice taking part with the Pope, all of which did not -dispose Innocent to regard Ferrante’s conduct calmly. The king soon -discovered that his position was one of some danger. On May 1, he sent -Trojano de’ Bottuni as envoy-extraordinary to Rome, Florence, and -Milan.[312] He was to make the most of the undecided affair of Osimo -and the services therein rendered to the Pope; to put prominently -forward the danger from the Turks; to explain the king’s financial -difficulties caused by the long-continued wars; and to appeal to -Lorenzo and Lodovico for support in case of invasion. All this was -mere show. If the Pope proved obstinate the ambassador was instructed -to explain that the tribute was a formality rather than a contribution -of money. The king did not hold himself bound to the Pope, and he had -never ratified the consent given to the treaty of peace. Moreover, the -conditions of this peace had not been fulfilled by his barons, and -after the Pope had brought him into endless difficulties and dangers, -he was in nowise minded to weaken his own forces still further in order -to elevate his Holiness. As for the Duke of Bari’s threat about Venice, -the ambassador might take the opinions of the Florentine Signoria and -Lorenzo, and try if possible to obtain a written promise of help. The -conduct of the barons had required renewed and severer measures; their -discontent greatly astonished the king, as it would only bring trouble -on the Pope and the Venetians, and perhaps occasion a more troublesome -disaffection than the last. He relied entirely on Florence and Lorenzo; -the whole world should not be able to change his opinion of the latter. -Gioviano Pontano, the same man who had made the treaty with the Pope, -drew up by the king’s orders instructions which repudiated all the -obligations undertaken at the peace. - -Ferrante was not mistaken in his expectation that Lorenzo would -do all in his power to prevent another conflagration; but he was -very much mistaken if he believed, as he pretended to believe, that -Lorenzo approved of his proceedings. On his return from Sarzana, free -at last from that care, Lorenzo spoke out unreservedly his opinion -respecting his allies. He must have been angry indeed when he, the -true representative of Italian national policy, in his delight at -the progress of the French arms against Maximilian in Flanders went -so far as to declare that he still hoped to see the king of France -lord of all Italy.[313] ‘This shows,’ adds the Ferrarese ambassador, -‘how greatly his Magnificence is put out; may God turn his heart to -the best.’ ‘The arrest of the barons,’ reports the same writer, July -11, ‘has greatly displeased not only the illustrious Lorenzo but also -the whole city, and it is spoken of to the king’s dishonour.’ The -annexation of Genoa to Milan, and the losses of Venice in the war with -Archduke Sigismund (so thought the ambassador), would probably incline -the Signoria to extreme caution, but Lorenzo’s expressions against -Lodovico, whom he regarded as the real disturber of peace, were most -violent. If the Duke of Bari continued his crooked policy, Lorenzo -believed the end would be that the King of Naples would lay down the -law for both Florence and the Pope. If they both acted reasonably they -would keep together like their fathers before them and not plunge Italy -into danger. Lorenzo said he wished he could go and bury himself for -six months in some place where no rumour of Italian affairs could reach -his ears. - -Lorenzo’s ill-humour and anxiety is displayed in the many letters -written by him at this time to Lanfredini. It was necessary, he wrote -on July 17,[314] that the Pope should make sure of the attitude of -Venice, but at the same time take up a firm position, that he might not -be suspected of believing the king’s assurances that his proceedings -against the barons had been occasioned by their conduct since the -peace; for that suspicion would deprive him of all firm security. -Ten days after, he expressed his irritation at the double-dealing of -Sforza, who, pressed by the Neapolitan envoy, wrote at the same time -letters to his brother the cardinal in favour of the king, and others -to his agent in Rome in agreement with the Papal views. The object of -Sforza’s apparent partisanship with Ferrante was probably to hinder -the latter from forming an alliance with Venice if he saw Florence and -Milan arrayed against him. But the first thing to be done was for all -the Italian States to stand fast by the Pope and show no wavering. -‘Certainly all desire peace, but I think no one will suffer the Pope to -be insulted and oppressed.’ - -The king’s defence of his proceedings convinced nobody. In the latter -half of July, Innocent held a consistory on the condition of affairs -in Naples. The whole college of Cardinals agreed with him that the -honour of the Holy See no longer permitted him to look on unmoved. -Letters were to be written concerning the breach of the treaty to -the King of Spain, to Milan and Florence, who had guaranteed its -fulfilment. A nuncio was to be sent to Naples to protest, and, in -case the barons had recently failed in their duty, to move for proper -legal proceedings against them, with the participation of the Pope. -Instructions to this effect were drawn up on July 24 for Pietro -Vicentino, bishop of Cesena.[315] But the king treated the nuncio in -the most unworthy manner.[316] He refused him an audience; and when -the bishop, having watched the moment when Ferrante was starting for -the chase, stopped him in the doorway and compelled him to listen to -his demands, he gained nothing by it. He demanded in the Pope’s name -three things; payment of the tribute, abstinence from all unlawful -meddling in spiritual affairs, and the cessation of proceedings against -the barons. To the first point Ferrante answered that he had no money, -having spent everything on the war begun against him by the Pope, so -that the latter must still be patient for a few years. To the second, -that _he_ knew what persons in the kingdom were fit for benefices, -but the Curia did not, and it was sufficient for the Pope to confirm -those appointed by the King. Lastly, as to the third point; as the -Pope had upon treasonable practices imprisoned Cardinals Colonna and -Savelli, and set them free again at his own will and pleasure, so the -king had a right to arrest traitorous subjects and let them go again -just as he thought good. Thereupon he caused the horns to be blown and -rode away to the chase, without even turning to salute the bishop. -‘If I have lately been silent as to the Neapolitan business,’ wrote -Lorenzo to Lanfredini on August 10,[317] ‘the reason is not that I have -changed my mind, but that I will take no more trouble for nothing. -If his Holiness has confidence in me, as you say, it is my duty to -regard only his Holiness’s honour. The more I think over the matter, -the more I am confirmed in my view, that the Pope must neither yield -his rights to the king nor make war upon him. The way to avoid both -extremes seems to me to be this: that the Pope should without delay -take every measure to maintain his rights as to the question of homage, -but on the other hand avoid everything that might lead to a passage -of arms or to an interdict. We are not in a fit condition for making -war, and the circumstances of Italy in general, as well as those of -the States of the Church in especial, will not sustain a shock. An -interdict unsupported by arms produces little effect; therefore I -think for the present the matter is best left alone. But this would -not be the case if the Pope gave in about the tribute, whether by -diminishing or remitting the debt; for at this moment it would do -no good, and be a clear loss. If the king attaches to this affair -the importance he seems to do, then, should a concession be needed, -a time more favourable to the Pope’s interests could be found. I do -not in the least fear that because the Papal rights are upheld, the -king will proceed to a hostile demonstration. He would stand without -justification, and others would not support him. This is my opinion, -expressed only for the Pope himself; for it is better for our object -that I should appear to be persuading him to come to terms with the -king. My lord Lodovico and many others hold the same view. If the Pope -agrees, he must manage so as not to get me and others into trouble, -but wait for time and opportunity.’ The attitude of Venice confirmed -Lorenzo still more in his view that Rome must not push matters to an -extremity. ‘The Venetians’ answer,’ he wrote on August 31, ‘seems to -me to be very vague and gives little response to the confidence placed -in the Republic by his Holiness. I think it would be well if the Pope -showed some little vexation at it, without exactly taking the thing -really amiss, particularly with regard to their war with the Germans, -and the defeat and death of my lord Roberto [Sanseverino]. In any -case, however, they must be impressed with the king’s power, and the -ease with which he could damage the States of the Church, so as to get -their views in case of such an event, and find out how far they may be -reckoned on. It would at the same time be an opportunity for urging -them to peace with the Germans; for, in truth, all sorts of evil fruits -arise from their being busy in that quarter; and I think the Pope would -do well to exhort the Venetians to make peace, and to support them, -that they may regain freedom of action.’ - -Thus did Lorenzo look to the distant as well as the immediate prospect. -But Innocent VIII. was not the man to take up a firm position; he let -himself be ruled by momentary impulses. On September 3, Gian Jacopo -Trivulzio, loaded with honours by the Pope after the settlement of the -Osimo affair, on his return to Milan came to Florence; here he was -splendidly received by the foreign ambassadors and many distinguished -citizens, with Piero de’ Medici at their head, and lodged in the -convent of Sta. Croce. The cardinal of S. Peter in Vinculis was with -him. Lorenzo was at Pisa. Trivulzio was commissioned by the Pope to -tell him that he trusted entirely to him, and would be guided by him; -but if he guided him amiss it would be the ruin of both. And hereupon -the Pope broke into violent complaints against the king. But the -Milanese captain’s account of Innocent was not such as to strengthen -the confidence of the Republic in him. ‘Messer Gian Jacopo,’ wrote the -Ferrarese ambassador, ‘tells of the Pope’s faint-heartedness and want -of head and spirit, and that he acts after the fashion of an utter -simpleton;’ and adds that ‘if somebody does not put a little spirit -into him and keep him alive, he will come to a most pitiful end.’ On -the 6th the news reached Florence that the king had appealed to the -council. Though Innocent regarded the appeal as null, and declared it -contrary to Ferrante’s own agreements with his predecessor, still it -was believed that the threat would frighten him.[318] This, however, -proved a mistake. - -About the beginning of the second week in September Lorenzo went from -Pisa to the hill-country of Volterra, where he had an estate on the -heights that slope down towards the lower part of the Era valley; a -district beautifully cultivated, but less fertile than the valley -of the Arno. This estate had been during the thirteenth century a -settlement of the Hospitaliers of Altopascio, and had thence taken the -name of Spedaletto.[319] Here Lorenzo was wont to take the waters of -Morba, brought to him daily by messengers on horseback; for Spedaletto -was more healthily situated and more convenient for communication. -Hither, on September 10, just as he had despatched Francesco Valori -with commissions to Naples, recommending him to consult with Lanfredini -at Rome, there arrived at his residence a Papal secretary who had -vainly sought for him at Pisa. This was Jacopo Gherardi of Volterra, -sent by Innocent with secret commissions to Lorenzo and Lodovico.[320] -The object of the interview was to draw both, together with Venice, -into a formal league against King Ferrante. Lorenzo’s reception of the -Pope’s proposals shows that he, who, notwithstanding his friendship -and connection with Innocent, had anything but a high opinion of the -latter’s political tact and firmness, was anxious not to risk the peace -of Italy, attained with so much difficulty. However much he might be -angered by Ferrante’s faithlessness and violence, yet the weakness of -the Pope, the trickery of Sforza, and the ambition of Venice caused -him such grave anxiety that he determined to ward off a new conflict -as much as possible. He held to the views expressed to Lanfredini, and -warned the Pope against using either his spiritual or temporal power in -arms. The Papal treasury was exhausted, the armed force slight, there -was no good leader at hand equal to the responsibility, nor would it -be easy to find one; the king was prepared, the inhabitants of the -States of the Church were not at unity among themselves, and many were -discontented. Neither was there harmony in the College of Cardinals. -The circumstances of the Pope and his State were not such that he -ought to enter on a fresh war; the interests of all the other Italian -States demanded peace. As for honour, which in Innocent’s opinion was -endangered by the conduct of the king, Lorenzo thought that a Pope’s -honour could never be endangered through his defending his rights by -means of just protestations, without disturbing the peace of Italy. - -Lorenzo’s advice was that the Papal envoy should not proceed to Milan. -But the Pope insisted, and Lorenzo, with his permission, drew up -for Gherardi’s benefit fresh instructions which would prevent any -real engagement, however much Sforza might wish to meddle. These -negotiations continued till the end of the first week in October. Who -would believe that while the bow was so tightly strung and the danger -of a rupture was hovering nearer and nearer, the king, who was openly -defying the Pope and seeking to defend his own conduct by embassies to -all the allied courts, proposed to this same Pope a special alliance, -which was to put an end to all differences? Yet so it was, and the -Bishop of Carinola came to Rome with such a proposition. The Pope -informed the Florentine ambassador of it, and gave him a copy of the -bishop’s instructions. Lorenzo already knew of the matter, but was -in doubt as to the views of Innocent. He spoke out plainly, in his -answer to Lanfredini, intended for communication to the Pope,[321] -his own opinion—that the king only intended to mislead the Pope and -keep him occupied, while he himself kept to the course he had begun; -and all the more so, because the instructions contained nothing but -generalities. Secondly, Ferrante might be trying to separate the Pope -from him, Lorenzo, well knowing that then he could do as he pleased -with the former. Lastly, his object was to make sure whether the Pope -stood firm to his resolves and counted on foreign support. ‘As for -me,’ he continued, ‘you know I will never advise his Holiness to do -anything unworthy of him, or which may disturb the peace of Italy. But -as I warned the holy father through you, only a little while ago, not -to build on hopes of foreign help, so I am now of opinion that he must -not let himself be turned by what seems to me fair words and figures of -speech from a design which he considers reasonable. If his Holiness is -minded to come to terms with the king, in order to put out this spark -which may light a great fire, then I think it can be done by means of -a general Italian alliance. From such I should expect three results. -First, a vindication of the agreement between the Pope and the king, -so that the first would appear to postpone his own interest to the -general good and the tranquillity of Italy. Secondly, greater security -for the king’s fidelity to the treaty, which the Pope must require -after the experience he has had. Thirdly, a confirmation of the good -understanding with the other Italian powers, particularly with Venice; -which understanding would be endangered if the Pope should close -with the king alone.’ The whole despatch is a clear proof how little -confidence the writer felt, on the one hand, in the Pope’s firmness, -and on the other in Ferrante’s honour, and how his own desire to -preserve peace outweighed everything else. He requested the ambassador -to do all he could with Innocent, at whose court there was no lack of -intrigues and counter-intrigues, that the king might not be led to -suspect him, Lorenzo, of opposing an accommodation, which suspicion -would damage his own position with Ferrante; but this was the fruit of -oft-repeated experience. That he should try to keep in the Pope’s good -graces was only natural. ‘My first desire,’ he wrote, ‘is to agree with -the views of the holy father. This is my duty, rather than to give him -advice. For I believe the Pope to be more conversant with the things -of this world than the king’s instructions seem to assume; and he has -reigned long enough not to need directions from the king as to his -bearing towards us and others.’ - -During all this negotiating backwards and forwards, Lodovico il Moro, -who was a person to be considered in the matter, had fallen seriously -ill. In August 1487, he was seized with such an alarming disorder of -the stomach that the Duke of Ferrara expressed a wish that Lorenzo -would send to Milan his own physician, Piero Leone, who was considered -the most skilful man of his time. In November, Sforza’s condition -was so much worse that the friends of the family summoned his only -living brother, the Cardinal Ascanio, in order to be prepared to -take his place if he died. On November 18, the Cardinal came through -Florence incognito, with a few horsemen, and in such haste that he -changed horses at every post. Lorenzo and he had not always agreed -well together; but now he said that he would, in case of need, support -him, and try to go hand in hand with him and the Pope. The danger in -which Lodovico lay passed slowly by. The Papal affair made no progress -at all. Venice, having made peace with Sigismund, threatened war -against Naples; Milan let King Ferrante know that he must not reckon -on her alliance if he did not alter his conduct towards Rome; the king -persisted in his defiance and in his measures against the barons; -the Pope tried to make money, and threatened him with an interdict. -Lorenzo, highly displeased at the whole state of affairs, did all -in his power to restrain Innocent from taking the extreme steps he -meditated. - - - - -CHAPTER VII. - -FAMILY EVENTS. MARRIAGES AND DEATHS. - - -THE marriage of Maddalena de’ Medici with Franceschetto Cybò took -place about this time. When her journey to Rome was partially decided -on, Lorenzo wrote to Lanfredini,[322] without making any positive -statement on the subject: ‘Clarice, my wife, is partly minded to visit -her relations there, and at the same time to try the effect of the -Roman air, as you know that of our neighbourhood does not suit her in -winter. You formerly mentioned a desire that Maddalena should go to -Rome. If this is still the case, she might conveniently accompany her -mother. These are our own present plans, which you can communicate to -the Pope and Signor Francesco. If they are pleased with them, the thing -shall take place, but not otherwise.’ On November 4, 1487, Madonna -Clarice set out for Rome with her daughter the bride, her eldest son, -the Bishop of Arezzo, Jacopo Salviati, and a numerous suite. Lorenzo -did not omit to give his daughter on her departure from home precepts -and advice such as he knew how to give wisely and well. He reminded -her of her own descent and family, as well as of the position she was -about to take; of the consideration due both to the Roman people and -to the Pope, with whom she was to be so nearly connected; of her duty -towards her husband; of the precepts of honour and obedience, and of -respect to her elders and superiors in rank. On arriving near the city -the travellers were met by the bridegroom, with some prelates of the -Pope’s household, several ambassadors and members of the Florentine -colony at Rome, amid whom they were conducted to the Leonine city. -Here Franceschetto dwelt in a house built by his uncle Maurigio, -near that in which Charlotte de Lusignan, queen of Cyprus, had died -after a long exile, on June 12 of that same year. The servants of the -prelates and those of the ambassadors and the Medici rode foremost. On -Franceschetto’s right rode his future brother-in-law, Piero, on his -left, Jacopo Salviati, with whom he was to be similarly connected. The -bride rode between the Archbishop of Cosenza and the Bishop of Oria, -her mother between the Milanese ambassador (the Bishop of Roveredo) -and the Bishop of Volterra. Prelates, jurists, ladies and others -followed.[323] On the Sunday before the 24th, the day on which the -Venetian envoys Sebastiano Badoer and Bernardo Bembo were received in -a secret consistory, the Pope gave a banquet at his palace to Clarice -and her daughter, at which the bridegroom, the Florentine ambassador, -and several prelates were present. To the bride he presented jewels -to the value of about eight thousand ducats, to Franceschetto, one -of two thousand.[324] On January 20, 1488, the marriage contract was -signed.[325] Franceschetto was in his thirty-ninth year; his bride -was yet in her girlhood, gentle and bashful. One of those sent by her -father to accompany her always calls her _la fanciulla_. Her dowry does -not seem to have been large; four thousand ducats, part in cash, part -in state bonds. From a letter of Lorenzo to Lanfredini,[326] it appears -that this sum was not ready at the time of the wedding. ‘You know how -many holes I have to fill up.’ But Franceschetto was no loser. In the -days of Paul II. the countship of Anguillara had been taken from its -ancient lords, on account of their repeated rebellions, and given to -the Apostolic Chamber. The relatives of Everso of Anguillara had never -ceased to protest, and we have already pointed out that after the death -of Sixtus IV. Deifebo regained possession of the castles. Lorenzo made -terms with the claimants by means of a considerable sum, and offered -the county to Cybò as an addition to Maddalena’s dowry; whereupon, -on February 21, 1490, Innocent VIII. conferred on Franceschetto the -fief of Anguillara, without mentioning the transaction, so as not to -call in question the rights of the Chamber. In 1487 Franceschetto had -bought of Bartolommeo della Rovere the Roman castles of Cerveteri and -Sta. Severa.[327] These places, alienated after the Pope’s death to -the Orsini of Bracciano, were, at the beginning of Alexander VI.’s -reign, near kindling a war which threatened to set all Italy on fire. -This was not all the wealth that the Cybò gained by their connection -with the Medici. In Tuscany they acquired property. The palace of -Jacopo de’ Pazzi passed to Lorenzo’s son-in-law, whose descendants long -possessed both it and the country-house of the Pazzi at Montughi.[328] -The Medici’s estate in the Volterra district, which also passed to -the Cybò, has been already mentioned. The intended acquisition of the -unfinished Pitti Palace came to nothing. - -Lorenzo, who always knew how to combine his love of splendour with -useful aims, and judged others from the same point of view, had no -very high opinion of his son-in-law. ‘As you have before heard from -me,’ he wrote to Lanfredini before the marriage on November 4, 1487, -when Franceschetto had got himself made captain-general,[329] ‘I -think Signor Francesco should not pursue mere smoke; things without -moderation do not suit me. A captain ought to have seen service and -made himself a reputation. I wish he had rather sought to secure a -maintenance, and I wonder it does not strike him that the day after -the Pope dies he will be the poorest man on earth, and I shall have to -provide for him and his wife. Endeavour to make this clear to him if -you see that he hankers after titles and vanities; I must speak to him -freely and then help him, however he may take it. I hear he keeps aloof -from frivolous people and those of evil report, and that he avoids -play. We must support him as much as possible, and lovingly point -out to him what is becoming, if we are to fulfil our duty.’ Lorenzo -did not wish his son to remain in Rome longer than was absolutely -necessary. On December 9, he wrote to his wife desiring that Piero -should return with the bishop and Jacopo Salviati as soon as he had -despatched certain business of his own, of which more will be said -hereafter. Piero returned to Florence, the bishop remained. Lorenzo -wrote repeatedly to Clarice leaving the length of her stay to her own -decision, but expressing a wish, towards the end of the winter, that -she might stay somewhat longer.[330] Everything did not go according to -Lorenzo’s wishes. The elevation of his son Giovanni to the cardinalate, -undoubtedly one of the motives for the match, was delayed; Clarice was -ill; and the home arrangements of the Cybò seem not to have suited -Florentine and Medicean ideas. ‘I have received,’ wrote Lorenzo to -Lanfredini on April 11, 1488,[331] ‘your information about Clarice, and -am grieved at it, though her ill-health is nothing new to me. I have -informed her of the cause which will somewhat delay Piero’s departure -from here, but let her not trouble herself about it if she wishes to -return here sooner, though I should be glad if she could wait for -Alfonsina [Piero’s bride]. I wish Maddalena might come with her, for -the latter is still quite a child, and Signor Francesco’s household is -badly managed; and, besides, she would be a comfort to Clarice. But -I should wish this to be done with the full consent and without the -slightest dissatisfaction of his Holiness or Signor Francesco, and -I should take it as a favour.’ And after recurring to the insecure -position of his son-in-law, he adds: ‘His Holiness seems to me to go -to work with great lukewarmness in all these things. Independently of -Signor Francesco I also regret that my daughter should find herself in -unfavourable circumstances, and I am in a kind of despair over this and -other matters when I hear of the slowness and carelessness yonder.’ - -Madonna Clarice stayed in Rome till May 1488, when her son Piero came -with Giovanni Tornabuoni to fetch her back. From a letter written to -Lorenzo by their companion Poliziano, on May 2,[332] it appears that -on that day Piero set out from Acquapendente to Viterbo, and that the -travellers were all in good health and spirits and did not forget to -celebrate the merry month of May with songs and various amusements -on their journey. Piero’s expedition had also another object, he -was going to bring home his own bride. On April 16 Lorenzo wrote to -Lanfredini:[333] ‘My Piero starts in a few days to go and fetch his -wife, and also to help Clarice. If the latter is able to travel I shall -be very glad.’ As well as an unknown son-in-law Lorenzo had chosen -an unknown daughter-in-law; but she came of a family which had long -been intimately associated with his and had many relations with the -Republic, at the same time enjoying the special favour of the ruling -house of Naples. Alfonsina Orsini was the daughter of a man who had -preserved and displayed his loyalty to the house of Aragon when most of -his own people were in the enemy’s camp. Roberto Orsini was a younger -son of that Carlo from whom sprang the line of Bracciano, afterwards -the principal branch of this wide-spreading race. He had fought for -King Ferrante against the Angevins, and for the Florentines against -Bartolommeo Colleone, and died of sickness at Siena in 1476. One of -his children by his second marriage with Caterina da Sanseverino was -Alfonsina, thus named in honour of Aragon. She was married by proxy at -Castelnuovo towards the end of February 1487, in presence of the royal -pair and other members of the reigning family. Ferrante laid aside his -family mourning on this day, and after supper there was a festival -and a ball. The bridegroom was represented by Bernardo Rucellai; the -bride’s next of kin by her cousin Gentil Virginio, lord of Bracciano. -Alfonsina brought a dowry of 12,000 ducats, which popular belief -magnified to 30,000.[334] A whole year passed before Piero brought -her home. Her entry into Florence was to have taken place on May 22, -1488, but the Medici family were in mourning for the death of the third -daughter, Luigia; so, instead of coming to the city, the young couple -went to Careggi. About ten days afterwards Lorenzo gave, in honour of -his daughter-in-law and her suite, a grand banquet, at which the chief -men of the city and the foreign ambassadors were present.[335] - -There was no lack of festivities in Florence, and the Medici -contributed not a little to their splendour. Maddalena Cybò came with -her mother and sister-in-law; Franceschetto followed her on June 22. -He was accompanied by Giorgio Santacroce of an old Roman family, -Girolamo Tuttavilla, son of Cardinal d’Estouteville, and many others. -‘We received him,’ wrote Lorenzo to Lanfredini two days after,[336] -‘heartily rather than splendidly. Yesterday he made a visit to the -Signoria; his appearance, bearing, and mode of speech give general -satisfaction. As yet I have been little alone with him. I will -endeavour to fulfil the Pope’s wishes; you will then report to me -what he thinks of us on this first meeting. I will take care that he -finds occasion to come to us often.’ The Florentines helped Lorenzo -in this. In honour of his son-in-law’s presence numerous diversions -for the people and magnificent spectacles were arranged. It was long -since Florence had beheld such triumphal processions, such improvised -buildings, arches, and other decorations, though they had long been -customary there. Franceschetto, who had been presented with the freedom -of the city, did all he could to make himself popular, and succeeded. -When he rode through the streets on the feast of St. John the children -shouted, ‘Cybò and Palle!’ From the piazza of the Signoria to that -of the cathedral there was such a throng that great wax candles and -other consecrated gifts could not be carried to the Baptistery; and -when the street officials tried to clear a space, the people cried -out that they wanted to see Lorenzo’s son-in-law, the Pope’s son. -Franceschetto occupied the place of honour next to the Gonfalonier at -the public banquet given by the Signoria to the distinguished nobles -who were in the city and the foreign ambassadors, among whom, besides -those of the friendly Italian powers, the Turkish envoy was present. -Giovanni Tornabuoni, Bernardo Rucellai, Lorenzo, son of Pier-Francesco -de’ Medici, and others, gave banquets and festivities; the latter gave -one at his villa at Castello, situated to the west of the city on a -gentle slope overlooking the valley of the Arno where it spreads out -into a beautiful plain. Lorenzo saw his daughter and son-in-law daily. -But throughout all the rejoicings of which his house was the centre, -he was not free from cares of all kinds. The bad state of affairs in -Romagna will be mentioned presently; in his own home there were other -causes for discomfort and anxiety. - -Lorenzo himself was ill and overwhelmed with business. Ser Piero da -Bibiena wrote to Lanfredini on June 26:[337] ‘Lorenzo has ridden -out to Monte Paldi [a factory now belonging to the Corsini, in the -neighbourhood of San Casciano] to get a little air and freedom from -this mass of business. For two months he had not left the city; he -intends to be back on Saturday.’ A few days before this the Ferrarese -ambassador wrote that Lorenzo positively must go to the baths, but it -was very difficult for him to get away. His own health was not his -only trouble; for a long time past Clarice had been ill. It was hoped -that native air would do her good, but not only did her condition not -improve, but, even before her return from Rome, it became such as -to cause anxiety; and the interior of the household must have been -little suited to the festivities occasioned by the presence of two -newly-married couples. The mother could not bear the thought of parting -from her daughter. ‘Signor Francesco,’ wrote Lorenzo to Lanfredini on -June 30,[338] ‘thinks of setting out in a week, and, as I understand, -taking Maddalena with him. I have not yet spoken of it to him, but I -should be glad if you would mention the matter to his Holiness and get -it arranged that she should remain here the rest of the summer and -autumn. I have two chief motives for this wish. First, Clarice is very -ill, so much so that the doctors are doubtful whether the disease will -soon end fatally or whether it will drag on and the immediate danger -pass over; secondly, the air yonder is unhealthy, and Maddalena is not -used to it. For these reasons, and also because I have never yet had -time to see my daughter comfortably, I earnestly beg his Holiness that -of his kindness he will let me have her a few more months and write to -Signor Francesco accordingly, so that the occasion may not appear to -have come from us.’ - -Lorenzo’s desire was fulfilled. On July 4, he received from Rome -the news that the Pope had determined to entrust Franceschetto -with a mission to Perugia, and to leave his wife in Florence for a -time. It may easily be imagined how pleasing this last arrangement -was to Lorenzo; the former seemed rather questionable to the -experienced politician. ‘This Perugian affair,’ he wrote at once to -Lanfredini,[339] ‘seems to me very grave, and such as may create -embarrassment; all the more so as Signor Francesco has had no practice -in such things, and has no one near him to whom anything important can -be entrusted.’ Then, after relating how he dined the day before with -his son-in-law at Careggi, and they had visited the Petraja and other -places, which he had much liked, he continues: ‘Maddalena will remain -here, to which Signor Francesco seems quite agreed. Clarice could not -be worse than she is now, and I fear we shall soon lose her. You can -imagine what comfort she finds in the presence of her daughter, who -has always seemed to me to be the apple of her eye (_l’occhio del capo -suo_); so we are both very grateful to his Holiness. Of myself I say -nothing, for you know how I love my children, especially in the present -case.’ - -On July 6, Franceschetto Cybò left Florence. His experiences at Perugia -will be mentioned hereafter. Lorenzo, though much in need of the -baths, was detained in the city by the weak state of Clarice and the -pressure of business. At last, on the morning of July 21, he set out -for Filetta in the Merse Vale in the Sienese territory. It is a small -village consisting of only a few houses, in a valley surrounded with -woods; the waters of the neighbouring sulphur-springs of Macereto have -been brought thither, and it lies lonely and deserted on the road -leading from Siena to Grosseto and the Maremma. In the summer of 1813 -Emperor Henry of Luxemburg was carried thither, with the hand of death -upon him; in 1459 Pope Pius II., who repeatedly visited the waters of -his native land, sought relief from his inveterate enemy the gout in -these springs. Scarcely had Lorenzo arrived at Filetta when the fatal -news reached him—Clarice died on the afternoon of July 30. The day -before, Ser Piero had written to Lanfredini:[340] ‘I know not what to -tell you of Madonna Clarice; she gets better for a day or two, and then -gets worse again, so that she is slowly approaching dissolution.’ The -dissolution came much quicker than was expected, yet it hardly looks -well that Lorenzo should leave the city when her state was so critical, -and that he did not return on hearing that she was worse. ‘If you -should hear Lorenzo blamed for not being present at his wife’s death,’ -wrote Ser Piero to Lanfredini on July 31, ‘excuse him. Leoni (the -physician) considered it necessary for his health for him to go to the -baths, and no one thought death was so near.’ The Ferrarese ambassador -confirms the statement that, according to the doctors’ advice, -Lorenzo’s stay at the baths was absolutely necessary, and all his -friends had entreated him not to return till the cure was completed. -On the evening after her death Clarice de’ Medici was entombed without -pomp in San Lorenzo, and on the following morning all the ambassadors -present in Florence went to Piero to offer their condolences. The -solemn obsequies, at which the whole city was present, took place -on August 1.[341] Lorenzo’s wife was not quite forty. No notice is -to be found in his writings of the woman who shared the lights and -shadows of life with him for nineteen years; an idea of their conjugal -relations can be formed only from a few words of his in earlier days, -and the inadequate testimony of contemporaries, which seems to indicate -that their views and inclinations did not always agree. Clarice’s -disagreement with such a celebrated man as Poliziano has tended to -bias the judgment of her contemporaries against her. Nevertheless, -this daughter of an old Roman baronial house, obliged, when young and -inexperienced, to enter a strange world as the wife of a man for whom -she had no affection, displayed in all things tact and sound judgment; -without putting herself forward she did honour to her position and her -husband, and she brought up her children tenderly and carefully. Her -feelings and her relations to Lorenzo are indicated, amongst others, -by the following letter, written to her husband from Caffaggiuolo on -December 13 of the year they were so long separated, 1478, on behalf of -a servant who had been dismissed for some misconduct.[342] ‘Illustrious -husband,’ she wrote; ‘Andrea your messenger has been up here for two -days, and earnestly begged me to put in a good word for him as he is -deeply grieved for his fault. I therefore beg you to keep him with -you or procure him another situation; for, as he has formerly shown -his fidelity, you would be acting contrary to your nature if you did -not forgive him his error, besides being responsible for his falling -into worse ways; also you might inadvertently by this means discourage -others who are faithful to you. He has a mother who was delighted at -his position in your service, and is now in like measure distressed, -fearing that her son may, if you dismiss him, go astray and bring her -to sorrow. He has already expiated his fault by grief and shame; for, -since you sent him away, he has been like one beside himself and has -never had a moment’s happiness. I think he is especially touched on the -point of honour, which is a good sign and should have weight with you. -I beg you therefore to be indulgent to him, whether for the sake of his -proved fidelity, or from pity for his mother, or because he shows right -feeling, or, lastly, for the sake of my intercession, either by taking -him back or by providing for him in some other way.’ - -A letter written to Innocent VIII. the day after Clarice’s death[343] -displays a warmth of feeling which, after the passages that have been -mentioned, one would hardly have expected from Lorenzo, and which give -a favourable impression of him: ‘I am too often obliged to trouble -your Holiness with what is daily sent me by fate and prepared for me -by the will of God, against which all striving is vain, and to which -everyone must bow with patience and humility, accepting His ways as -tokens of goodness and love. But the recent death of my sweet and -beloved companion Clarice is for numberless reasons such a grief and -loss to me that it has conquered my resignation and endurance amid -the trials and persecutions of fate, against which I thought myself -proof. Bereaved of the pleasant society to which I was accustomed, I -feel the limit is passed, and I can find no comfort or rest for my deep -sorrow. As I do not cease to pray the Lord God to give me peace, I -trust that of His goodness He will put an end to this sorrow and spare -me any more such trials as have visited me lately. I humbly and from -my inmost heart beseech your Holiness to pray for me, for I know your -prayers will do me good. Filetta, July 31.’ August 6, Lorenzo returned -to Florence, from whence he wrote to the ambassador at Rome on behalf -of an Englishman who was going thither to procure a Papal brief and had -been specially recommended to him by the Queen, Elizabeth of York. Two -days later, he apologised to Lanfredini for not having answered some -business questions:[344] ‘You know the cause; when my mind is entirely -occupied with one thing, it cannot think of anything else.’ - -Clarice’s death obliged Lorenzo to seek a companion for his daughter to -take her back to Rome. He chose a distant relative, Maria de’ Medici, -widow of Galeazzo Malatesta. ‘Maddalena,’ he wrote to Lanfredini on -September 3,[345] ‘starts to-morrow for Rome. She will be accompanied -by my Piero and my uncle Giovanni, who will take her as far as -Acquapendente, as arranged by Signor Francesco. I have chosen for -her companion one Madonna Maria de’ Medici, widow of Signor Galeazzo -Malatesta and daughter of Madonna Ciulla. She is a very well-bred and -truly venerable lady over fifty, who since her widowhood has lived the -retired life of a nun. I think that the more Signor Francesco thinks -over this choice of mine, the better pleased he will be.’ Maddalena -remained with her husband in Rome, whence she wrote to her father, -September 1 of the next year, that she was about to become a mother. -The young wife’s days seem not to have been very cheerful ones. When -she went to Rome with her mother, Lorenzo sent with her a man whom he -trusted and who was faithfully attached to his house—the same Ser -Matteo Franco whose name holds a place in the history of burlesque -poetry. He was Maddalena’s adviser and confidant, her man of business -and, perhaps, her house-chaplain; and his many letters to members of -the Medicean household display a sympathy and warmth of feeling doubly -pleasing in such a jovial man. Franceschetto neglected his young -wife, who fretted continually, while he passed the nights in play and -feasting. With no one to keep her company, she soon languished and lost -her health, thinking regretfully of her father’s house and the pleasant -villas around Florence, where she had passed her happy childhood.[346] - -A few days after the loss of Clarice, another death took place which -did not affect the Medici family personally, but whose consequences -had no little influence on the family relations which were closely -connected with later political events. On August 19, at the castle -of Capuano near Naples, died at the age of forty-two Ippolita Maria, -Duchess of Calabria.[347] Her death broke the ties which bound together -the Houses of Aragon and the Sforza. This was probably not perceived -at the moment, for not only did the alliance continue which seemed to -unite the two states, but the death caused no change in the plans for -the new connection long decided on between the two families, whereby -their interests were to be yet more closely and firmly linked together. -But the death of this clever and accomplished woman dissolved the -union between Ippolita’s husband and brother, two men who were willing -and accustomed to sacrifice every consideration and every scruple to -their ambition, greed and hatred, and who, since the Ferrarese war, -had regarded each other with ever-increasing distrust and ill-will. -The longer Lodovico il Moro held the reins of government in Milan, the -less disposed he was to surrender them to his nephew, who, although -now nineteen years old, was still duke only in title. Whether the -accusation is true that Lodovico had neglected the youth’s education -to such an extent that, delicate as he had been from childhood, he -was unfit to govern, must be left an open question. At all events, -Gian-Galeazzo took no part in public affairs, and though everything -was done in the name of the Duke of Milan, it all went through the -hands of the Duke of Bari. From early childhood Gian-Galeazzo had been -betrothed to his cousin Isabella. Alfonso of Calabria had already often -pressed for the completion of the marriage; and as the bride was now -eighteen, Lodovico at last had to yield. The mourning for the Duchess -was not yet over, when, on December 11, Hermes Sforza, Gian-Galeazzo’s -younger brother, arrived in the bay of Naples with six galleys, and -with a brilliant suite landed to fetch his future sister-in-law, whose -father came to meet him and conducted him to the king and queen at -Castelnuovo. On the 21st of the same month Hermes, in his brother’s -name, placed the wedding-ring on Isabella’s finger. The court mourning -prevented all festivities. A gloomy shadow seemed to hang over this -marriage, which was destined to bring nothing but suffering and misery -to the contracting parties. - -Its early days, however, were not lacking in splendour. On December 30 -the young Duchess of Milan embarked, accompanied as far as the Molo -by her father, her grandparents and their court. Many distinguished -Milanese and Genoese had come with Hermes Sforza; among them Vitaliano -Borromeo, Gasparo Visconti, Ambrosio del Maino, and Giovan Francesco -da Sanseverino Count of Cajazzo (son of Roberto). Ten galleys were -filled by these and the Neapolitan suite, the Duke and Duchess of -Melfi, the Countess of Terranuova, the Counts of Potenza and Consa, -and others. They touched at Civitavecchia, Piombino, and Livorno. At -the first-named port the bride was received by the Cardinals Sforza, -Riario, and de Foix, with the Senator of Rome; at Piombino by Jacopo -IV. Appiani. At Livorno, Lorenzo, again confined at home by the -gout, was represented by his son Piero, accompanied by Pier Antonio -Carnesecchi and Alessandro Nasi. The Republic sent Jacopo Guicciardini, -Pier Filippo Pandolfini, and Paol’Antonio Soderini as envoys to -welcome the Duchess; but Lorenzo’s son put them all in the shade by -his princely appearance. It was the same at Milan, whither Piero went -towards the end of January 1489, to be present at Isabella’s triumphal -entry and the final marriage, which took place on Candlemas day. On -reaching the Milanese frontier, Piero was received by several nobles -sent by il Moro to form his train. At the wedding in the cathedral, -where the ceremony was performed by Federigo Sanseverino (another son -of Roberto, and afterwards a Cardinal), Piero outshone everybody; -though the splendour was such that, as a reporter wrote to Lorenzo, -the very cooks were in velvet and silk. After the ceremony the Ducal -couple sent to Piero to fetch his attire and admire it again. Lodovico -exhausted himself in attentions towards the son of the man in whose -hands were the destinies of Florence. ‘It seems a perfect marvel,’ -wrote the Florentine ambassador, Piero Alamanni, on January 31, 1489, -‘to all these Lombards, as well as to the ambassadors, that young as -he [Piero] is, he maintains such a dignified bearing and discourses on -everything with so much readiness. Yesterday morning my lord Lodovico -spoke for half an hour in his praise before the ambassadors, and -assigned to him a place of honour next Messer Galeotto della Mirandola, -Rodolfo Gonzaga, and Annibale Bentivoglio.’ After the nuptial ceremony -Alamanni was knighted by the young Duke and presented with a splendid -robe of brocade, and his spurs were fastened on by Galeazzo and Gian -Francesco da Sanseverino. The splendour of the festivities was such as -the Milanese court had been wont to display since the days of Galeazzo -Maria.[348] - - - - -CHAPTER VIII. - -TROUBLES IN ROMAGNA. TUSCAN AND UMBRIAN NEIGHBOURS. - - -THE same year 1488, which brought to Lorenzo’s family festivals and -family mourning, involved him in political complications with the -Republic of a very serious character. The territory on the side nearest -Romagna was threatened, and the amicable relations of Florence with her -allies, and especially with Milan, was thereby greatly endangered. - -After the death of Sixtus IV. Girolamo Riario retired within his own -little state, and for a time his grand political schemes remained in -abeyance. He had forcible reason to congratulate himself on being -able to retain possession of his territories, hemmed in on one side -by the Pope, Venice and Florence, and on the other weakened by the -dominion of Faenza, which divided them asunder. At the beginning of -his reign Innocent VIII. showed himself very unfavourable to Riario. -When Lorenzo, through Guid’Antonio Vespucci, confidentially suggested -a project for an undertaking against him, the Pope appeared to have -no objection, but to prefer to keep aloof himself and let others act -for him. The execution of the project was delayed, partly on account -of its difficulty, for Girolamo was on his guard, and there was a -fear of encroachment from Venice; and also because of the doubt as to -who should be enfeoffed with the two cities. Later on, the Pope and -Florence being in difficulties, the project was entirely given up.[349] -When it is remembered that in the lifetime of Sixtus, Lorenzo had -made use of Girolamo’s mediation to procure tokens of favour and even -benefices for his young son,[350] this intrigue throws no favourable -light on his character. - -During the four following years the lord of Forlì kept on tolerably -terms with the Florentines. The latter had not forgotten their old -grudge against him for the events of 1478 and 1479; and the Count had -but one genuine ally—Lodovico il Moro, who upheld him, first, on -account of the ties of blood between them; and, secondly, because of -his constant dread of the extension of Florentine sway on the north -side of the Apennines. Confined within a narrow circle, Girolamo -pressed the more heavily on his subjects. Indulging in splendour and -expense when the inexhaustible funds of Rome were at his command, he -still endeavoured to continue living in the same way; he embellished -his two cities, Forlì and Imola, with many fine buildings, and kept -up a military force far too oppressive for such a small state; and -to cover the expenses of all this he was obliged to have recourse to -levies and imposts, thereby strengthening the disaffection towards -himself, already nourished by the old attachment to the Ordelaffi, -which was not yet extinct in Forlì, and increased by his harsh -arbitrary rule and cruel punishments. Under such circumstances, it -was not difficult for a people accustomed to deeds of violence and -to taking the law into their own hands, to form a conspiracy. At its -head was Cecco dell’Orso, the captain of the guard, who was at enmity -with the Count on account of arrears of pay and other private matters, -and having been threatened by him, resolved to be beforehand with -him. On April 14, Cecco, with two accomplices, entered the chamber -of the unsuspecting Riario, and a few minutes afterwards, before -the eyes of his own attendants, threw him from the window into the -street below, a naked, bleeding, still quivering corpse. That was the -signal for a rising. While the people, shouting for liberty, dragged -the corpse through the streets, the murderers struck down the chief -of the municipality as he was hurrying to the spot, took possession -of the wife and three sons of the Count, and hastened with their -followers to the citadel to take immediate possession of it. But the -commandant declared he would surrender to no one but the Countess, -and not even to her if she were a prisoner. Thus repulsed at this -important point, the heads of the conspiracy could not attain their -object in the city either; for as a security against betrayal, they had -admitted only a few to share in their secrets. The new ruling family -had not many adherents; some favoured the old dynasty; the majority -desired the direct government of the Church. The Papal governor of -Cesena, Monsignor Savelli, was called upon to take possession of the -city. Without the fortress this possession was incomplete, and as the -negotiations fell to the ground, Riario’s widow took advantage of the -difficulty and made herself mistress of the situation. Urged by the -prelate and the insurgents to come forward as mediatrix, she promised, -on condition of receiving compensation, to induce the castellan to -surrender if she was allowed to speak to him. Her sons remained as -hostages in the hands of the citizens. The gates were opened to her, -and she raised the standard of the Sforza. A threat to kill the boys -if she did not surrender was received with a defiant answer. The brave -woman reckoned that every hour’s delay was in her favour, while the -disunion among the opponents strengthened her hope that they would -not proceed to extremities against her helpless children. She was not -mistaken. On all sides there was a stir. Lodovico il Moro wrote to -Florence, appealing to the Republic to guard the endangered rights of -the sons of Riario. At the same time, without consulting the allies, -he despatched Galeazzo da Sanseverino with horse and foot, while -Giovanni Bentivoglio and Galeotto Pico della Mirandola set out towards -Forlì with numerous troops. The Florentines, as soon as they heard -of these military movements, sent part of the troops which they still -kept in the Lunigiana to the frontiers of Romagna, under the Count of -Pitigliano and Ranuccio Farnese. In Forlì no one knew what to do. The -enemies of Riario hoped for active support from the Pope; but Innocent, -though he caused a few troops to advance from Cesena, was either -unwilling or unable to take part in their favour. - -The heads of the movement turned their eyes to Florence, well knowing -the inward dislike in that city between the Medici and the Riari. -The Ferrarese ambassador wrote that in Florence nothing had been -known of the conspiracy; but the people rejoiced at the misfortune -which had befallen the Count, and, mindful of the past, were not in a -frame of mind to grieve if in the course of events his family should -be destroyed root and branch. A letter addressed to Lorenzo by the -perpetrators of the deed, four days later, sets forth their motives -and proceedings, as well as the resolve of the citizens no longer to -submit to a single ruler, but to give themselves up to the Church, -on whose assistance they reckoned. Lorenzo, the letter added, must -rejoice at an event which freed him and the Republic from a crafty foe, -and avenged his innocent brother’s blood; and therefore the citizens -hoped for active support from Florence. There was nothing, however, to -indicate a previous understanding. Lorenzo sent to Forlì a confidential -agent, Stefano da Castrocaro, who described the circumstances and -state of the city, its confidence in Florentine help, and its idea -of remaining under the direct government of the Church.[351] From -expressions afterwards used by Lorenzo about this matter, it is clear -that this very inclination of the majority of the people would have -cooled his ardour to help them against the Riario party, if, indeed, -he had ever felt any. Moreover, the progress of events was more rapid -than was probably expected in Florence. Before the twisted threads of -propositions and negotiations could be disentangled, the advance of the -Milanese and Bolognese troops settled the matter. Those who were most -deeply compromised betook themselves to the neighbouring Florentine -territory, and on April 29, Girolamo’s little son Ottaviano Riario was -proclaimed lord of Forlì and Imola. Caterina Sforza, who assumed the -regency, took bloody vengeance on those within reach of her hand, for -the murder of her husband and the danger of her children. This affair, -however, brought upon Florence a difficulty which shows how uncertain -were her relations both legal and political. In a rugged part of the -Apennines, north-east of the road from Florence to Bologna, lies -Piancaldoli, now a village of less than a thousand inhabitants. In the -war of 1478, Girolamo Riario took possession of it, and the Florentines -had never been able to make him give it up. Now they thought the time -had arrived to obtain justice and avenge the insult. Their troops -marching towards Romagna, in the direction of Imola, received orders -to secure Piancaldoli. At this Lodovico became highly excited, not so -much for the sake of the unimportant town as because he suspected that -it might be the commencement of greater acquisitions. Giovan Pietro -Bergomino, his commissioner with the troops sent against Forlì, came -to high words with the Florentine commissioner Averardo de’ Medici. -Both sides grew so excited that Ercole d’Este thought it necessary to -step between them. Lorenzo showed not the slightest disposition to -yield. He told the Ferrarese ambassador that things must be bad indeed -if the Republic could not seek to recover her own property by means -of her own people without asking leave of Milan, which at that very -moment had sent her troops against Forlì without any agreement with -Florence, this being an expedition of far more importance than that -against Piancaldoli, and one which ought to have been carried out only -in alliance with the Republic. - -Lorenzo’s conversations with the ambassador show the ill-will and -distrust on all sides. He avoided stating plainly whether the Republic -aimed at extending her dominions on the Romagna side, though it was -observed to him that she would thereby become involved in a disastrous -conflict with Sforza, who regarded the Forlì affairs as his own and -thought his honour at stake in them. Lorenzo only promised to wait and -see how events would develop themselves. He thought the Pope had the -best prospect, as he considered it impossible that Forlì would again -submit to the Riari; but he did not conceal the fact that a family -dynasty, whether of Riari or any other, seemed to him a less evil than -direct Papal government or an increase of the influence of the Sforza. -Still, the aggrandisement of the latter would be less injurious than -that of the Church, as they would probably be more willing to confer -fiefs in Romagna on family dynasties, than the Church, which had long -treated her barons with increasing disfavour and would not give up -what she had once secured within her own grasp. The Church, he once -observed, was at present more to be feared than even Venice, and this -had chiefly induced him to support King Ferrante against the Pope.[352] -Such were Lorenzo’s views at that time, when his chief care was to -keep on good terms with the Pope—views which were always shared by -the Neapolitan king. Piancaldoli was taken by the Florentines two -days before Forlì came to terms with the Riari. But a few years after -Lorenzo’s death an event happened to which he was most averse; all the -small lordships of Romagna, whose interests were bound up with those of -the Republic, came to a violent end. - -The ill-feeling against Milan remained even after this vexed question -was settled and after Florence, from consideration for Lodovico, had -refused to receive Riario’s murderers, who thereupon applied to Rome. -Lorenzo declared that if the Duke of Bari’s demands were reasonable, -Florence would always be willing to please him, but he must not come -upon her with anything against the honour of the state; he also begged -the Duke of Ferrara not to support such demands. About this time, -towards the middle of May, he went to the baths, and his representative -in politics, Pier Filippo Pandolfini, replied to Lodovico’s urgent -demands for the restitution of Piancaldoli that it was in vain to -ask for anything against their honour; Florence was no Pavia or -Cremona, where the Duke of Milan could command. Scarcely had these -first vexations passed off when a similar case occurred in which the -Republic became still more deeply involved. The cause of the dispute -this time was Faenza, the only state yet left to the Manfredi, and to -which, as has been previously described, Florence stood in the relation -of a protecting power. Galeotto Manfredi was married to Francesca -Bentivoglio, one of the many daughters of the lord of Bologna; and in -arranging this marriage Lorenzo had had a considerable share.[353] -Her husband’s unfaithfulness excited the passionate woman to such a -pitch of revenge that on May 31, 1488, she had him killed in their -sleeping-chamber by hired assassins. She then, with her two sons, of -whom the eldest was only three years old, hastened to the citadel -and informed her father of what had been done. Giovanni Bentivoglio -lost not a moment. He set out with the troops collected at the Forlì -disturbances, and sent to Bergomino, the Milanese commissioner who was -still in the latter town, directions to join him. At first all went -well. The lord of Bologna and his troops were peaceably received in -Faenza, and it seemed as if the proclamation of little Astorre Manfredi -would settle everything; but some disagreement between the inhabitants -and the rude mountaineers of the Lamone valley who had rushed into the -town, caused a riot in which the Milanese commissioner and more than -fifty of his men lost their lives, and Giovanni Bentivoglio saved his -own with difficulty. When the worst of the tumult was put down, Astorre -was proclaimed under the protection of the Republic of Florence, to -whose commissioner Antonio Boscoli the more reasonable of the two -parties had at once applied for mediation and support. - -The news from Faenza caused great excitement in Florence. There was -a suspicion abroad that the Milanese and Bolognese intrigues were -at the bottom of the whole affair, and it was at once resolved to -grant the desired protection both to the people of Faenza and to the -young Manfredi, and to send the desired troops; measures which, in -consideration of the old protecting relation of Florence to Faenza, -could not justly be taken amiss by anyone. Faenza was occupied; -Bentivoglio taken prisoner and transported to Modigliana, the -neighbouring capital of Tuscan Romagna; Madonna Francesca was sent to -her mother at Bologna; and a regency was established consisting of -certain inhabitants of Faenza and of the Lamone valley. Bentivoglio, -who had only the Florentines to thank for not having escaped unhurt -from the mountaineers, thought it hard that he was kept in confinement -on Florentine ground. Lodovico Sforza, King Ferrante, and Ercole d’Este -all interceded for his release; his wife was loud in her lamentations, -Bolognese troops assembled on the frontier, and the city of Bologna -sent an embassy to Florence. But Lorenzo, knowing that the frontiers -were sufficiently secured, replied that Messer Giovanni must have -patience till things were settled in Faenza. - -At last the commissioner at Modigliana, Dionigi Pucci, received orders -to release the prisoner and send him to Cafaggiuolo, where Lorenzo -awaited him; this was on June 14. Lorenzo declared himself perfectly -satisfied with his interview with Giovanni, and appeared to believe -in a re-establishment of their former good understanding. But after -a while the lord of Bologna sought to obtain the consent of Florence -for his daughter’s return to Faenza, and at the same time offered the -hand of another daughter for Giuliano de’ Medici. Both propositions -were decisively refused, at which Bentivoglio was so angry that the -Florentines began to consider Lorenzo’s residence at Poggio a Cajano -unsafe, as the villa lay exposed to a raid from Bologna. Lorenzo -himself was uneasy though he tried to hide it. When Giovanni appealed -to him to procure the Pope’s absolution for Madonna Francesca that she -might either marry again or enter a convent, he fulfilled the request -in the hope of making friends again. His letter to Innocent VIII.[354] -reminding him of the willingness he had displayed, proves that he was -anxious about the matter. He ‘most earnestly besought,’ he said, ‘these -tokens of favour.’ - -A good understanding was soon established with Caterina Riario Sforza; -Lorenzo endeavoured not only to thwart the attempts of the Ordelaffi -and their party against her, but also to arrange a betrothal between -her daughter and the young Manfredi, whom the Republic regarded and -treated as a ward of its own.[355] So bad was the state of affairs in -Romagna, especially in Faenza; so great was the insecurity caused by -the enmity between families and individuals, and increased by political -disturbances; and so powerless to secure lasting quiet were the efforts -to procure peace and reconciliation made on the part of the Church, -after the precedent of S. Bernardino of Siena and others before and -after him, that the Florentine influence was doubly needed in these -small states as a softening element for a people difficult to control, -and as a support for their rulers. It was Lorenzo who protected the -interests of Astorre Manfredi when Cotignola, the home and countship -of the Sforza, tried to extend its little territory at the expense of -Faenza. At the end of 1489 Giovanni Bentivoglio made another attempt to -procure his daughter’s return to the last-named city. ‘I have never,’ -he wrote to Lorenzo,[356] ‘striven for this return, nor do I strive for -it now, without the approval of your Magnificence; for in this, as in -all my affairs, I wish only to act in accordance with your benevolent -and wise counsels, as beseems our old friendship and brotherhood.’ -That Francesca should return and undertake the guidance of her son he -considered the only means of putting an end to the confusion, but he -would do nothing without Lorenzo. - -These disturbances in Romagna were the last during Lorenzo’s lifetime -in which there occurred political and military interference in the -affairs of neighbouring states, and which threatened to create -complications with other powers. But the southern side of the Apennines -was not altogether quiet. It is a strange but undeniable fact that -the man whose efforts in general were directed to preserve peace and -secure political equilibrium could not always resist the temptation of -forging intrigues against little neighbouring states, and employing -restless, discontented parties for this purpose. He must have been -urged on by that thirst for aggrandisement which was an inheritance of -the Republic and the Medici as well as of Venice and of the Visconti. -The fine words about union and brotherhood were belied in action. -Lorenzo was, indeed, too prudent and cautious to be easily caught by -foreign bait; but he only kept out of a thing when it seemed to him -unprofitable or dangerous to himself. In March 1488, Franceschetto -Cybò tried to draw him into an attempt against Jacopo IV. Appiani, who -had long been quarrelling with Rome; in this attempt he hoped also to -gain the support of Ferrante, thinking that the latter would gladly -seize an opportunity of reconciliation with the Pope. Lorenzo showed -no disposition for the undertaking. If Piombino could not be won for -Florence, he naturally preferred to see it in the hands of a petty -native lord rather than in those of the Pope, even if the latter was -willing to give it to his son, which was not certain; and he did not -at all want to push the King of Naples into Tuscan affairs. He well -remembered having heard how the king’s father had said in 1448 that if -he took Piombino he hoped to get possession of all Tuscany; words which -he recalled to the remembrance of the Sienese, who held the little -state under their protection, when he sought to inspire them with a -good opinion of his friendly and neighbourly views.[357] But towards -Siena herself his policy was anything but straightforward. Internal -disquietude had never ceased in that city, and was paving the way for a -government similar to that of Florence, only that the rising families -of Siena—the Petrucci and Piccolomini—could not succeed in gaining a -firm footing like the Medici, and the fickleness of the people and the -nobility, violently at strife among themselves, far outdid that of the -Florentines. The party among the nobility once supported by Alfonso of -Calabria returned from exile in 1487, and brought about an apparently -sweeping change in the constitution; raising the old classes, or Monti, -long degenerated into hostile and exclusive parties, and extending -eligibility for office to all sections of the community. This change in -the constitution was hailed and joyously celebrated as the restoration -of harmony; but it was not long before the reforming faction, who had -hitherto ruled, discovered that they were getting the worst of it at -the elections, and that all the authority was passing into the hands -of their opponents. Dissatisfied with this, they secretly applied to -Lorenzo; and he, who not long before had assured the sister-Republic -of his warm interest in the preservation of peace, now showed himself -disposed to help the malcontents to regain their former position. In -March 1488 he caused troops to advance towards Arezzo and the Chiana -valley, and himself proceeded to the former place. But the Sienese got -scent of the affair, arrested a number of suspected persons, banished -those most deeply compromised, and sent Messer Niccolò Borghese -to Arezzo to demand an explanation from Lorenzo. The latter, thus -learning that the project was discovered, found out at the same time -that the Pope, on whose aid he had seemingly reckoned, had no mind -to be mixed up in the scheme, and had prevented his son from going -to see his father-in-law. Naples, however, was ready to support her -old friends at Siena. Altogether, Lorenzo thought it best openly to -avow his intention of helping the reforming party to regain their -rightful position. The ruling party in the city, excited by repeated -disturbances in the district, caused by the Orsini of Pitigliano and -by the exiles, fortified their frontiers and pressed harder than ever -on their opponents. A rupture with Florence was, however, avoided. -Lorenzo did not attain his object, but it is clear from his conduct -that he was anxious to keep on good terms with his neighbours. In this -he succeeded. His envoys were well received at Siena, and whenever -he himself came to the city, or within its dominions, he was always -most honourably received and loaded with presents. He was probably of -the same mind as Franceschetto Cybò, who once wrote to him that Siena -was a very rich morsel.[358] The state of friendly and neighbourly -relations between them may be judged from the fact that, on account of -a frontier dispute, the Florentine Signoria once had thoughts of making -the high road through Siena to Rome practically impassable by imposing -an utterly preposterous frontier-toll of one gold florin for every -foot-passenger, two for every horseman, and five for every mule.[359] - -Little more than a year after these matters Lorenzo was again, -outwardly at least, on such good terms with the Sienese Signoria that -he could appeal to them for mercy on one of their imprisoned and -condemned rebels: ‘I know well, my Lords,’ are his words, ‘how serious -a matter for the state is a crime like that in question; but, on the -other hand, I consider what merit before God and praise from man is -gained by those who show mercy and pity towards such delinquents, -provided the common weal is not thereby endangered. I would earnestly -beg your Lordships, now that the safety of the state seems ensured, to -show mercy to Messer Maurizio.’ When Lorenzo wrote thus he apparently -forgot that five months before he had acted in a manner not exactly -in accordance with these words and sentiments. A young man had killed -an official of the Eight in a quarrel, fled to Siena, was from thence -delivered up, and condemned to death. When he was led to the place of -execution the people pitied him and shouted: ‘Fly! fly!’ and tried to -free him from the attendant officers. Lorenzo was then in the palace. -The foreign ambassadors and several of the youth’s relations begged him -to procure the prisoner’s pardon. He put them off with words, caused -the culprit to be hung at a window of the Palace of Justice, and four -of the rioters to be seized, scourged, and banished from the city for -several years. He did not return home till the tumult was completely -put down;[360] he feared the slightest attempt to create disorder -in the city, being perfectly aware of the inflammable material it -contained. - -The Florentine policy was ambiguous towards the Sienese, as also in -relation to Lucca. Reciprocal distrust and ill-will showed itself in -many ways, and no blame can be attached to the far weaker Lucchese -that they were on their guard. The dispute about Pietrasanta was never -really settled, and when a money-compensation to Lucca came to be -discussed the two parties could not agree as to the amount. At the end -of March 1490, a plot was discovered whose only possible object was to -betray Lucca into the hands of the Florentines, and in it a factor of -the Medici appeared to be concerned. This occasioned a correspondence -between the Anziani and Lorenzo, in which, despite all formal -politeness and caution, the want of confidence was but too clearly -shown. The Lucchese opinion of Florentine friendship was expressed, far -more truly than in letters and embassies, by the trenches and ramparts -with which they surrounded their unfortified places.[361] - -In Umbria and the Marches, too, Florentine interests were at stake, and -Soderini, the ambassador to King Ferrante, was right in pointing out -how anxious the Republic was to prevent any disturbance of the existing -circumstances in Bologna, Perugia, Città di Castello, Faenza, or Siena, -just as much as in her own state, and what large sums of money she -expended with this object. Franceschetto Cybò, who was always on the -look-out for something, would fain have made himself master of Città di -Castello, and represented to Lorenzo that this was desired by both the -factions—the Vitelli and the Giustini—who kept each other in check -under a Papal governor. But Lorenzo was evidently not disposed to allow -his son-in-law to have his will. Perugia was in constant excitement -from the restless character of its citizens, culminating in a perpetual -strife between the two most powerful families—the Baglioni and the -Oddi—which filled the chief city of Umbria with tumults; day after day -scenes of bloodshed occurred, and first one party and then the other -was driven into exile. The Pope’s brother, Maurizio Cybò, a brave and -sensible man, to whom the government was entrusted in February 1488, -vainly attempted to restore peace and order between the disputants. A -citation of the heads of the parties to Rome had no better success; -several positively refused to go, and though a reconciliation did take -place in consequence of the citation, it was not lasting. Quiet was -restored for a time by a general prohibition of the use of arms, but -the strife soon broke out again. - -When Franceschetto Cybò was in Perugia in July 1488, with a Papal -commission to act as peacemaker,[362] many citizens came to him with -complaints of the intolerable state of the city. They declared that -right and justice had lost all power, and begged him to give his -assistance in putting an end to the evil. Franceschetto was not lacking -in goodwill; but to cure such a moral cancer required a different sort -of man, and the result justified the opinion expressed by Lorenzo in a -letter to Lanfredini when this difficult mission was conferred by the -Pope on his son. Franceschetto’s deliberations with the representatives -of the great families, and the remonstrances made in Rome to divers -noble Perugians, were all equally vain. At the end of October there -was a bloody fight in and around the square before the palace of the -Priori; small artillery was actually employed, houses were set on fire, -the cathedral of San Lorenzo was used as a fortress, and barricades -were constructed. Throughout the next day the street-fighting -continued, with plundering and burning, and the prisons were broken -open. The governor, who came back when the tumult was at its height, -was received with shouts of ‘Church! Church!’ and notwithstanding all -he could do his influence was powerless to quell the disturbance. At -last the Oddi were beaten and forced to leave the city and flee to -Castiglione del Lago (on Trasimene), where they and their numerous -adherents set up a camp. The fight threatened to spread over the -whole neighbouring country, as most of the fortresses belonged to the -nobility; Spello, Fuligno, and other important places were already in -arms and at open war with each other, the Vitelli, Orsini, and others -taking part in the contest. - -From the time of the Pazzi disturbances Lorenzo had had so much to do -with Perugia, and so clearly recognised the importance of that city -to Florence, that he was most anxious to put an end to this boundless -disorder, the result of which would tend to weaken even the victorious -party. He sided with the Baglioni, who had, moreover, sent one of their -number to him. Maurizio Cybò declined to stay any longer at Perugia, -whereupon Innocent appointed Francesco Todeschini Piccolomini, Cardinal -of Siena, to be legate. On his arrival on November 16, 1488, Lorenzo -tried to persuade him to declare for the Baglioni party and to further -their interests; not merely with the object of securing their supremacy -in Perugia with the Pope’s consent, but also to keep them from forming -a closer connection with Ferrante. They were already in communication -with that king, to the displeasure of Lorenzo, who hated all Neapolitan -meddling in the affairs of central Italy. ‘The Baglioni,’ he wrote -to Lanfredini, ‘would give themselves not merely to the king, but to -the devil. Therefore I hold that all possible efforts must be made to -extinguish this flame. Believe me, if the Pope uses this opportunity he -will bring over the Baglioni completely to his own side, and be able to -make them serviceable for his own ends. It would be well to tell the -legate to deal with the exiles as he thinks good; I will then endeavour -myself to induce the Baglioni to submit to the legate’s will. At all -events, some cure for this wound is necessary.’ The Count of Pitigliano -had already headed some Florentine troops against the Oddi. Cardinal -Piccolomini was apparently not clearly convinced which party was right -and which was wrong, and he was not inclined to be the tool of either. -For a long time he withstood repeated persuasions to pronounce sentence -of banishment on the exiles, urged upon him by the Baglioni in unison -with the commissioners of Florence and Urbino, of the Orsini and the -Vitelli; Lorenzo had sent Messer Niccolò Vettori. At last the legate -saw things could no longer remain in suspense; so he caused the heads -of the ruling party to swear on the Gospels that they would keep the -city in obedience to the Pope, lay down their arms, not hinder the -course of justice, and hand over to his people the places they occupied -in the district. Then on January 22, 1489, he confirmed the privileges -of the city and issued a decree of banishment against the exiles, -confining them for the next five years to various places in Tuscany, -Romagna, and the Marches, under pain of outlawry if they left these -appointed places. - -All this was done with the participation of the commissioners, who -thereupon took leave, after a state dinner given them by the Signoria. -The next thing was the election of the magistrates; the troops of the -legate, two hundred and fifty men, occupied the city and its environs; -the decree of banishment was posted up at the Cathedral and the palace -of the Podestà, and the chief persons concerned were informed of it -by an executor of the commonwealth. When this official came to one -of the heads of the Oddi party, Agamemnone della Penna, who was at -Castiglioncello on the Urbino frontier, he closed the doors, drew his -dagger and said to the messenger: ‘Take your choice; either swallow the -decree, or I will kill you.’ The man did not take long to consider. -Agamemnone took from him the papers destined for the other exiles, -most of whom were at Gubbio, close by, and sent him back with this -pleasant intelligence to Perugia. The feud, in which the Florentines -were not idle, began again in the district; but neither the fighting -nor the efforts at mediation repeatedly made by the legate, who kept -wandering from one place to another, brought about a decision. In the -city, except for a few occasional disturbances, peace was in some -degree restored, while all power was in the hands of the Baglioni, who -for a long time refused to let any foreign mediation persuade them to a -reconciliation with their adversaries. In June 1491 however an attack -on the city and fresh scenes of bloodshed obliged them to come to -terms as soon as possible. Lorenzo, who had greatly contributed to the -victory of the Baglioni through Lanfredini’s negotiations with the Pope -and Vettori’s mediation in Perugia, and who was anxious that the Holy -See should keep only a nominal authority in the latter city, could not -help perceiving how difficult it was to restore to even the smallest -degree of legal order a city torn by such wild passions and suffering -under such unfortunate circumstances.[363] - -Of less importance to the Florentines than the affairs of Perugia -were the disturbances at Ascoli near the Neapolitan frontier. On -account of its position, commanding the high road from the valley of -the Tronto towards Umbria, the state of this town was not a matter of -indifference to the Republic. The quarrels in which from 1484 onwards -it was involved with Fermo and other neighbouring places attracted -considerable attention from the fact that on one side the Pope, and -on the other King Ferrante, were drawn into them, and the lords of -Urbino and Camerino found themselves obliged to interfere both for the -sake of their own states and on account of their relations with Rome. -These quarrels, which with short intervals of peace were perpetually -recommencing, and did frightful damage to the smaller places and the -unprotected country, had been profitable to some, amongst whom was -Boccalino of Osimo, who had many connections in the Marches of Fermo. -In 1487 Cardinal della Rovere vainly tried to make peace between Ascoli -and Fermo. The strife was so furious that in an attack made by the -Ascolani in April of that year on the fortress of Acquaviva, sixty men -who had entered a building by treachery were burnt in it, and those -who hurried to their assistance were slaughtered in the moat. Not long -after this the Ascolans attacked Offida, which lay between them and -the sea, drove out the vice-legate of the March, plundered, burned -and murdered all and whomsoever came in their way, and repulsed the -troops of Urbino which had marched to the rescue. Rome saw the need -of putting an end to this anarchy, and entered into negotiations with -the lords of Urbino and Camerino to overcome the resistance of Ascoli. -But the Florentines, and still more the King of Naples, although they -earnestly wished for peace on the Adriatic shores, were not willing -that the Pope’s authority should be strengthened in that quarter. ‘The -king,’ wrote Piero Nasi, Florentine ambassador at Naples, to Lorenzo, -‘is very anxious that the Pope should not get possession of Ascoli; for -he sees that should this occur, the connection between himself and us -will be for ever cut off. As we have managed to prevent the Pope from -making himself lord of Perugia, so his Majesty’s power should suffice -to compass the same at Ascoli.’ - -Thus, in this so-called time of peace, there was strife and disorder, -mistrust and selfishness, on all sides. Ferrante thought little enough -of Florentine interests, in his unwillingness to let Innocent gain -a firm footing on his own border. Even in Lorenzo’s last year of -rule these disputes in the Marches were not settled. It was Cesare -Borgia who first made peace here, as he did in Romagna, after his own -fashion.[364] Cares and troubles overtook De’ Medici from another -quarter. He was bound to the Orsini by other chains than family ties; -the attitude taken by this old and powerful family towards the Popes, -Naples, Siena, and Florence claimed his attention. The Orsini flattered -themselves they were sovereign lords. So great was the number and -importance of their possessions in the neighbourhood of Rome that -they might well cause uneasiness to a stronger government than that -of most of the Popes; and the only thing that tended to neutralise -their power was their almost ceaseless strife with the Colonna, who, -however, at this present time were no match for them. Their numerous -fiefs in the kingdom of Naples brought them into close connection -with its rulers. Since the beginning of the fourteenth century they -had held, through inheritance from a branch of the Teutonic dynasty -of the Aldobrandeschi, the county of Sorano-Pitigliano, between the -Patrimonium Petri and the Sienese territory; and they kept their -neighbours in constant uneasiness by the disordered state of affairs -there, caused by the constant disagreement between the members of the -family, not likely by any means to be softened by the protectorate -(_accomandigia_) of Siena, herself in a state of great unrest. - -We have pointed out how much depended on the attitude of the Orsini in -the days of the quarrel between Innocent and Ferrante. The relations of -the most powerful of the family, Gentil Virginio, lord of Bracciano, -with the Pope and the king, gave Lorenzo constant occupation, as is -testified by his correspondence with the ambassadors in Rome and -Naples. ‘Should his Holiness proceed in the manner suggested,’ he -wrote to Lanfredini on March 24, 1489,[365] when Innocent for a moment -thought of arresting Gentil Virginio for his suspicious conduct amid -the Neapolitan troubles—‘he would thereby gain nothing, save that -the whole family would unite and be a prize for the king. If the Pope -answers that this will happen in any case, I reply that it is far -better that it should happen without our having a hand in it, than -that we should give them ground for laying the blame on us. The minds -and wills of these lords Orsini never agree. They cannot keep together -well, and you will see when the king most needs them they will serve -him worst, for they are ambitious and greedy, and except when need -compels them there is no constancy in them.’ In later days Ferrante -once remarked that lord Virginio was naturally very obstinate when -he had made up his mind to a thing, especially if he thought himself -in the right;[366] it may therefore be imagined how much trouble -Lorenzo had in controlling a man whom his position in Rome, his rank -as Neapolitan general, his experience in warfare, and his great landed -property rendered more powerful than many princes. He always remained -on good terms with the Medici personally. Niccolò, Count of Pitigliano -and Nola, was, as has been seen, closely connected with the Republic. -But even with this naturally prudent man there arose some difficulties -whenever his interests or inclinations as chief of a family clashed -with his position as general of a greater state. He too, like all -the warriors of the time, though his personal valour and honour are -unstained, contributed to display the corruption of the military -science of the time, and the incompatibility of the prevalent mercenary -system with the advantage and security of the state. - - - - -_SIXTH BOOK_ - -THE LAST YEARS OF LORENZO DE’ MEDICI - - - - -CHAPTER I. - -THE FLORENTINE STATE; PUBLIC AFFAIRS AND FINANCES ABOUT 1490. - - -THE reform in the constitution made in the summer of 1480, whereby -the decisive part in the affairs of the State was concentrated in the -Council of Seventy, had now held its ground for ten years. These ten -years, added to the fifty during which the house of Medici had risen -to the head of the State, necessarily excluded all families which -maintained not only a hostile, but even an independent position. -Amongst the ruling portion of the aristocracy, including many popular -but not therefore liberal elements, there were men who, in their -hearts, detested both the system and its most illustrious supporter; -but the majority were attached to it both from interest or from -necessity. Others silently accepted what they could not alter without -resorting to a great revolution and outward shock which, doubtless, -few desired. The lower classes were so much influenced by the arts of -those in power, and the governments preceding that of the Medici had -oppressed them to such an extent, popular revolutions had been of so -tumultuous a character, and had always so speedily paved the way for -despotism, that there could be no serious thought of change. The upper -class of citizens, who had a share in the government in the wider -sense, who were represented in the councils and admitted to office, -contented themselves with the measure and appearance of authority, -influence, and other advantages given them by the constitution. All -the hostile families of rank were ruined by exile, confiscation, and -taxes; their old chiefs were either dead or in banishment, they had -completely lost their influence and were no longer to be feared; or -they had allowed themselves to be gained over in one way or another, -and now acted in concert with their former opponents. - -According to the time of their fall these families may be divided -into three groups: the Albizzi and their adherents fell in 1434, the -partisans of Diotisalvi Neroni in 1466, the Pazzi in 1478. Lorenzo had -no need to trouble himself about any of them. In the first part of -this history we pointed out the extent of the misery into which the -Albizzi of Messer Rinaldo’s line had sunk. Forty-four years after their -banishment the rights of citizenship were restored to Alessandro, a -great-grandson of the former head of the Republic, for having, when -far away from Florence during the war which broke out after the Pazzi -conspiracy, discovered to the Signoria a plot whereby the town of -Pistoja was to be betrayed into the hands of the Duke of Urbino.[367] -The descendants of Rinaldo’s brothers remained friendly to the Medici. -The Neroni party were become powerless since the Colleone affair. Piero -de’ Medici himself had some idea of becoming reconciled with Agnolo -Acciaiuolo, more than one of whose relatives were among his own warmest -adherents; so the disunion was not likely to continue between their -posterity. But for the Pazzi affair Agnolo’s descendants, favoured by -the Aragonese, would doubtless have been taken back into favour long -before 1482. The enmity between the Medici and the Soderini ended -with the death of Niccolò Soderini in 1474, though it came to life -again later under different circumstances in the sons of that Tommaso -who was so closely connected with Piero and Lorenzo. The Pazzi were -thoroughly put out of the way; the scaffold and the prison of Volterra -swallowed up both guilty and guiltless; and even when, in consequence -of agreements with the Pope and Naples, the survivors were set free in -1482, they were still subjected to many restraints which lasted till -the revolution of 1494. Lorenzo’s brother-in-law, Guglielmo, after -a long confinement in a house in the country, was sent to Faenza, -where Galeotto Manfredi kept him in custody at Lorenzo’s disposal, -as is shown by a letter of Galeotto’s dated February 25, 1483. Three -days later he received orders for the liberation of his prisoner, -and this decision was announced by Lorenzo to his sister Bianca, who -had remained in Florence, and to his brother-in-law himself. In the -autumn of the following year Guglielmo was in Rome, and in friendly -intercourse with the Medici and Bernardo Rucellai.[368] After the -revolution of 1494 he was re-admitted to political offices; but he -showed little capacity for the work, and his son Alessandro (eleven -years old when his uncle Lorenzo died), notwithstanding his sagacity -and experience, was better fitted for scholarly work than for public -life. Of the other families who arrayed themselves against the Medici -in the attack before referred to, some never again played any important -part in politics; others let themselves be chained to the victor’s -chariot. Thus it was with the Peruzzi, the Gianfigliazzi, the Pitti, -and others. The first-named—old, rich, and illustrious—were excluded -from office after the return of Cosimo de’ Medici. The two branches -of the Strozzi, whose influence had formerly been considerable, were -now in some degree estranged, and the most famous of the two was just -rising to the height of its splendour. - -Lorenzo, as he looked around him, had no need to fear the recurrence -of such opposition as had endangered the authority of his grandfather -and father. There seemed no room for even attempts at violence, and -the tendencies which sprang forth after his death were at this time -hardly perceptible even in the germ. Francesco Guicciardini described -the situation in a few sentences: ‘The city was in perfect peace. The -citizens in whose hands was the administration held firmly together; -the government, carried on and supported by them, was so powerful that -no one dared contradict it. The people were daily entertained with -festivals, spectacles, and novelties; to their profit the city abounded -in everything; trade and business were at the height of prosperity. Men -of talent found their proper place in the great liberality with which -the arts and sciences were promoted and those who practised them were -honoured. This city, quiet and peaceful at home, enjoyed also high -esteem and great consideration abroad, because she had a government -whose head had full authority; because her dominions had lately been -extended; because the deliverance of Ferrara and that of King Ferrante -were mainly owing to her; because she had complete sway over Pope -Innocent; and because, in alliance with Naples and Milan, she in some -measure kept all Italy in equilibrium.’ - -Amid this happy state of things, however, symptoms showed themselves -which decidedly pointed out something insecure in the foundations. -From a moral point of view there were drawbacks whose influence on the -general development and final determination of affairs was inevitable. -Anyone who looked below the glittering surface must have felt yearly -increasing care about the political situation. Putting aside foreign -politics, the home affairs gave extra cause for anxiety. It was -becoming more and more evident that everything, present and future, -depended on one man alone. It could hardly therefore go unperceived -that the necessary consequences of this man’s position and career -furnished a prospect, perhaps not a distant one, of a radical change in -the constitution. - -Alessandro de’ Pazzi graphically described the difficulties of his -uncle’s position:[369] ‘When Lorenzo came to the head of the party -after Piero’s death he found a serious task before him, and, young as -he was, he had need of great prudence to keep together and govern this -party; so much the more because the citizens who were then powerful -thought they could retain their commanding position, without allowing -Lorenzo to usurp the same authority that his grandfather and father -had enjoyed. In my opinion this was a mistake; discord would soon have -parted them. But his exertions were great, and it was owing to him that -no division occurred at that time. His patience with his adherents -deserves as much praise as his prudence, activity, and liberality; and -I know from my mother that in these first years he thought day and -night of nothing but gaining over his friends for his own objects.’ - -Again, after referring to the dangers and consequences of the years -1478-1480, he says: ‘By dint of skill and luck, without which nothing -is to be attained in human affairs, he consolidated his position -and maintained it all his life long, not merely as his grandfather -had done, but a step higher and with fuller powers. He was in -more danger than Cosimo, but he stood so high that the danger was -outweighed. Nevertheless, with all his good fortune and the favour -of circumstances, with his superhuman intellect and his great number -of trustworthy friends, he gave himself an immense deal of trouble. -He went to work with the greatest caution, with many arts and secret -allies who knew nothing of each other, with inexhaustible patience and -endurance. He was assisted, moreover, by his wonderfully acute judgment -of foreign affairs, which he understood how to direct and balance -better than any other living man in Italy. Herein also fortune favoured -him, that he lived at a time when forces were more equally divided -than usual, and there was little danger of foreign interference. -Above all it was a happy circumstance that Cosimo had preceded him -as founder of the position of the family, and for many years past -no other and in some sense no more popular form of government had -been known in Florence. His merits, however, were his own; vigilance, -patience, perseverance, splendour combined with elegance, whereby he -made himself a great name among the Italian princes and in other lands, -while at home he attracted and gained over all to himself. This also -is to be highly esteemed in him, that he influenced his friends into -moderation and kept their hands clean, so that it may be said that, -with a few exceptions, there occurred no cases of rapine. In truth he -directed the State and his party in the best manner possible under the -circumstances. With all his good fortune and his uncommon qualities, -however, it cost him great exertions, for he never spared himself, but -took a personal share in all that occurred, whether in the square or in -the palace.’ - -Although business was transacted not in the house of Medici but in -the palace of the Signoria, where Lorenzo passed many hours as a -member of councils and committees, still the government was becoming -more and more a personal one. The constant change in the members of -the Signoria, intended to prevent the authority of individuals from -increasing, necessarily promoted this personal government; so much -the more as a regular and consistent treatment became necessary for -the direction of foreign affairs, ever increasing in continuity and -importance. Only in this manner could Florence maintain her position -against the larger Italian and foreign states—all monarchic except -Venice, who preserved her constitution almost unchanged. Naturally, -however, such a personal government had the grave defects of all -political arrangements where legal right and hereditary prescription -are not the fundamental principles, and whose internal nature is a -negation of their external form. This State, apparently constituted on -a broad basis, was in reality ruled by a comparatively small party with -a recognised chief at their head. Lorenzo’s contemporaries said that -he had greater authority and more personal power than any despotic -ruler.[370] Nothing was done without his initiative and approval. -Popes, kings, and princes applied to him; ambassadors corresponded -with him; thousands besieged him with petitions for offices, posts of -honour, favours, remission of taxes and imposts, and personal interests -of all kinds both at home and in the neighbouring states. Each found -him willing to listen; the letters he wrote were innumerable, many of -them written by his own hand, to different parties of high and low -rank, some personally known to him, others quite strangers. He would -willingly help merchants, stewards, farmers, countrymen, and people -of all sorts and positions in life. Besides the countless clients of -the family there were those recommended by them—as he called them, -‘my good old friends.’ He applied to the Duke of Ferrara on behalf -of the money-changers in the Prato, ‘these Jews, my friends.’[371] -His correspondence contains the strangest medley of subjects, events, -and persons; contraventions of the toll-regulations at the passage -of the flocks coming down for the winter from the Casentino and the -Pistojan hills to the Sienese Maremma; frauds by merchants; thefts -from Florentine subjects; differences with the administration of salt; -deeds of violence and murder, are all mixed up with recommendations for -judicial offices, especially the office of Podestà, judge of the court -of appeal, capitano, &c., and for spiritual dignities and benefices; -settlement of boundary disputes; concessions about the corn trade; -mediation on the passage of troops; and the affairs of the petty -dynasties seated around the Siena district, the Sforzas of Santafiora, -the Orsini of Pitigliano, and many others. His constant desire was -to oblige as many as possible at home and abroad, and to have the -influence of his personal position felt and understood on all sides. - -This position was becoming year by year very glaringly exceptional, -not only to the eyes of foreign sovereigns but to those of Italian -princes as well. The authority which Lorenzo was believed to possess -with Innocent VIII., ‘because,’ as he wrote to Lanfredini on August -26, 1489, ‘I am extremely devoted to his Holiness and obliged to -him for many favours,’ caused him to be applied to by all parties -whenever a petition to Rome was to be presented. Almost simultaneously -Guid’Antonio Arcimboldo begged his recommendation to obtain the -archbishopric of Milan, and the Duke of Britanny sent a messenger to -request his support for the nomination of one of the Duke’s secretaries -to the see of Nantes. Lodovico il Moro applied to him to procure the -Sienese bishopric of Pienza, and Charles, Duke of Savoy, to have his -uncle—that Francis so well known in connection with the episcopal -troubles at Geneva—advanced to the cardinalate. When Federigo -Sanseverino, Monsignor de’ Grassi, the Archbishop of Auch, and others -desired the cardinal’s hat, he was asked to help them to procure it. -It was he who recommended to the Pope the young Alessandro Farnese, -who in 1489 was studying at Pisa and sought to obtain one of the posts -of Apostolic Secretary created by Innocent at the end of 1487. ‘I wish -you to know,’ wrote Lorenzo to Lanfredini on April 10,[372] ‘that this -gentleman, besides coming of such a noble family (_oltre allo esser -nato della casa che è_) has many distinguished qualities, among them -unusual learning and excellent morals, being at once very accomplished -and a model of virtuous conduct. For these reasons, the weight of -which with me you know, I recommend him to you as if he were my own -son, and beg you to present him to his Holiness, for which I shall be -very grateful.’ This is perhaps the first testimony, and certainly a -most honourable one, on behalf of Pomponio Leto’s former pupil, then -one-and-twenty, and destined forty-five years later to succeed a -Medici on the Papal throne. When the Duke of Ferrara and the lord of -Camerino wanted help at Rome, they applied to Lorenzo; when the Duke -of Savoy sent an ambassador thither, he recommended him to Lorenzo. -King John of Portugal wrote from Santarem, Charles VIII. from Amboise, -the Duchess Blanche from Savoy, Anne de Beaujeu and her husband Pierre -de Bourbon from Moulins, to the ‘Seigneur Laurens.’ His friendly -relations with Matthias Corvinus have been repeatedly mentioned; they -seem to have been none the worse for the fact that Matthias was for a -long time on bad terms with the Sforza, having, for the sake of his -brother-in-law Don Federigo of Aragon, accepted among the conditions -of the treaty with Kaiser Frederic in 1477 the proceedings against -the ruling house of Milan, which was not recognised by the Empire. To -the Pope Lorenzo often commended his own subjects, as, for instance, -Giovanni Savelli, ‘to whom I have especial goodwill because he is in -the service of our army, and to whom I am bound by a friendship of many -years’ standing,’ and the distinguished priest Francesco de’ Massimi. -Everyone considered a matter secured in Rome if once Lorenzo took it in -hand; and perhaps the secret of his great success in many things arose -from the shrewdness of his calculation as to what lay within the limits -of possibility. - -Lorenzo was surrounded by numerous friends and adherents, some of whom -had inherited distinction, while others had been raised by him. It was -only by their help that he could maintain his position at home and -keep up his connections abroad. He was well and skilfully supported -by the Acciaiuoli, the Pandolfini, the Vespucci, the Soderini, the -Pucci, the Guicciardini, the Capponi, the Vettori, the Lanfredini, the -Alamanni, the Ridolfi, the Gaddi, &c. They and their families had a -corresponding share in the administration, in honours and privileges, -and held a prominent position; the consequence of which was that -when circumstances were altered there remained a powerful Medicean -party which at last gained the victory through external political -circumstances; for the family which had risen to greatness with their -support naturally seized the lion’s share. But Lorenzo, while advancing -his adherents in power, never allowed them to become too independent -of him. For this purpose the means he chiefly employed was that of -placing on the same level with citizens who had long been great others -who had risen solely by help of the Medici; in matters which required -entire devotion to his interests he rather gave a preference to the -latter. The most active and influential of the Florentine diplomatists, -Giovanni Lanfredini, sprung from a family originally Roman and which -became extinct in the last century in the person of a cardinal, had -become a business-partner of the Medici as early as Cosimo’s time. -Lorenzo’s policy was to let one person keep another in check. He was -probably suspicious by nature, a quality which developed as years -went on, for he often employed the chancery-officers who accompanied -the ambassadors to Rome, Naples, and Milan to send him special -reports,[373] while his creatures in Florence, especially Ser Piero -of Bibiena and Piero Michelozzi, kept up a correspondence in various -other quarters. We have remarked before that Bartolommeo Scala, the -chancellor of the Signoria, was in very intimate relations with him. -The chancellors of the other government offices, the only really stable -officials in whom the traditions of business survived, were all in -his interest, most of them having attained their influential posts -through him. Thus he let no family and no individual gain an influence -inconvenient to himself, and kept his eyes on all. He even meddled in -family affairs: hindered marriages if they seemed to him dangerous, -furthered them if he thought them likely to prove useful. Those whom -some special circumstances had unusually elevated, even when he himself -profited thereby, he always kept in check; as exemplified in the case -of Tommaso Soderini, and, after the Pazzi conspiracy, Girolamo Morelli. -Of the former, indeed, there is nothing more to add, save that he was -a member of the Council of Seventy and died as Capitano at Pisa in -1485. Lorenzo overlooked many things in his adherents, but he kept -them under his control and took care that they should feel that their -position and advantages were derived from him. A man who was, indeed, -ill-disposed towards him on account of an event which concerned his -family, remarked:[374] ‘The great citizens raised and supported Lorenzo -in his youth; in later years he would not have as companions, but used -as servants, those who had been like fathers to him.’ - -The event alluded to is characteristic of the political power and -position of Lorenzo with regard to the official representatives of the -State. It made no difference to him if the man on whom his resentment -fell[375] had his cause defended by others in power. When Neri Cambi -degli Opportuni was Gonfaloniere in 1488, and at the end of the year -the Signoria were to be elected for the following January and February, -it was found that the legal number of members of the colleges was not -complete, many having absented themselves without leave and gone to the -chase. To the great irritation of the people assembled in the square -the election could not take place till one of the missing members was -fetched from his country-house, from whence he came booted and spurred -to the palace, and the election then proceeded. Indignant at what had -occurred, the outgoing Signoria determined to punish the delinquents, -and condemned four of them to exclusion from office for four years. -Lorenzo was in Pisa at the time. ‘To him,’ says Guicciardini, ‘and to -all the heads of the party it was a very disagreeable affair; for it -seemed to them that if a Signoria could use the right of _ammonire_ -without previous deliberation with those in power, their own -government was hanging in the air by a thread (_lo stato loro fussi a -cavallo in su uno baleno_), and they might one fine morning be driven -out of Florence by only six beans (votes). So, after that Signoria -had gone out of office, the matter was again brought up before the -Magistracy of Eight and the Council of Seventy; the decree against the -four citizens was revoked, and Neri Cambi was declared ineligible for -office for the rest of his life. The council was by no means unanimous, -but Lorenzo’s will carried the day.’ - -This was a pretty clear token of how matters stood with regard to the -powers of the supreme court. But this was not all; participation in the -government was to be yet further restricted. In the summer of 1490 a -measure was carried which concentrated the actual direction of affairs -in the hands of a small body. The Council of Seventy was to remain as a -council of State; but the elections to the Signoria were transferred, -as under the old system, to _accoppiatori_, named by a committee of -seventeen, of whom Lorenzo was one. The members of this committee -were chosen arbitrarily, and only one of them belonged to the minor -guilds. On them was dependent every branch of the administration, more -especially finances and the national debt. - -The new committee’s first measure concerned the coinage. In appearance -it was sensible enough. The city and country were overwhelmed with -small and base foreign coin; Sienese, Lucchese, Bolognese, &c. August -28, 1490, a decree was issued forbidding the circulation of foreign -coins on and after September 8. As Alamanno Rinuccini remarked, it was -not the first decree of the kind, and it was no more observed this time -than heretofore. Indeed, it was practically impossible to distinguish -the foreign _quattrini_ from the Florentine, outwardly very like them. -So on May 1, 1491, a radical reform was undertaken. The old native -small coin, the so-called black quattrino, was called in, and replaced -by a new coin containing two ounces of silver to the pound of copper, -and reckoned as equivalent to five danari, while the old one was called -in at the rate of four danari. The public treasuries were in future -to receive only the new white quattrini. The people were pleased, -hoping to get rid of the confusion. Their rejoicing did not last long. -Instead of melting down the old money, it was stealthily brought into -circulation again, and the old quattrino remained in use side by side -with the new one. Out of this confusion arose endless difficulties; and -the people found that in taxes, duties, purchases of salt, everything -where produce went into the treasury, they were the chief sufferers. -The consequence was general discontent, directed principally against -the heads of the government, as their limited number made them the more -conspicuous.[376] - -The evil was great, but it had not yet reached its worst height. The -increasingly demoralised condition of the administration of finance -displayed itself in another way, which must have utterly ruined the -credit of the State at the first serious political crisis. This was -connected with the Medici finances. Lorenzo’s pecuniary difficulties -had been in no wise removed by the precautionary measures of 1480. -His manner of life, establishments, purchases, the provisions for his -children, his by no means disinterested liberality, the bribes in money -paid for his influence abroad, required large sums. To try to meet -these requirements with the produce of his personal property (because -he considered this more secure and honourable),[377] would have -been chimerical. He had limited his banking-business and commercial -speculations; and to draw upon them never entered his head. During his -very last years he did a great deal of business in Rome. Innocent VIII. -was financially still more dependent on him than on his own Genoese -fellow-countrymen, and he allowed him corresponding advantages. In -1489 he sold him 30,000 hundredweight of alum at a very low price, in -compensation for losses sustained in the days of his predecessor; and -the alum trade passed almost entirely into Lorenzo’s private hands. -The farm-rent paid by him for the works of Tolfa amounted to 100,000 -florins. In May of the same year Lorenzo furnished the Pope with a -loan to the same amount for one year; one-third of the sum in cash, -the other two-thirds in silk and woollen stuffs. For the repayment, -two-tenths, amounting to 60,000 florins, were referred to the -Florentine clergy, the rest to the revenues of Città di Castello.[378] -In 1490 Lorenzo redeemed from the Centurioni of Genoa a valuable tiara -which had been pledged to them.[379] Cosimo Sassetti, one of the -partners in the Medici bank at Lyons, was also a papal collector in -1490. In the case of smaller loans, princes sent valuables as pledges; -the Marquis of Mantua gave a precious stone for the sum of 4,000 gold -florins, and when at a marriage-feast he wanted to have it back, his -brother-in-law, Ercole d’Este, offered the salt-office of Modena for -security in its place. These transactions went on under Lorenzo’s -eldest son and even later.[380] But the profits were uncertain, for -all the parties concerned were not skilful and prudent. Even supposing -that Lorenzo drew an income of 15,000 to 20,000 gold florins from -the old family estate, and about 10,000 from the newly-acquired and -gradually increasing one in the Pisan territory, still it was terribly -insufficient for his outlay. He was driven to all kinds of shifts, at -times even somewhat mean ones, such as must have been sometimes very -unpleasant to him; as, for instance, in 1484, when he had to take a -loan of 4,000 ducats from Lodovico Sforza, or sell for the same price -the house given by Duke Francesco to his grandfather.[381] During the -difficulties of 1478 he had been compelled to borrow from his cousins, -the other Medici, 60,000 gold florins, for the repayment of which he -gave security on his possessions in Mugello. There were Florentine -business houses which paid him a yearly sum for lending them his name. - -This mixing up of his private money-matters with those of the State -brought about most unhappy consequences. In the war of 1478, the pay -of the troops was furnished by the bank of the Bartolini, in which -Lorenzo had a share. They deducted eight per cent., in return for -which the commanders did not furnish the troops agreed upon, and the -community had to make up the deficit. The wretched mismanagement of -the military arrangements was all of a piece with this. Yet Lorenzo -still thought himself entitled to venture on further operations of the -same kind. The chief financial posts were held by his minions. From -the treasurers (_camarlinghi_) of the offices of the national debt, -of the customs, of salt, of judicial contracts, &c., he raised the -needful sums, which they handed over to him without difficulty, first -because they could refuse him nothing, and next because they thought -their own responsibility covered and their personal security safe; for -every newly appointed official had to recover the sum lent out by his -predecessor; and as this process went on unchecked for years, it may -easily be imagined what a deficit there was at last, after all the -sham repayments one towards the other. The office of the national debt -suffered most. The supreme provveditore, Antonio di Bernardo Miniati, -had risen from the condition of an artisan by the favour of Lorenzo, -who had actually made him a member of the Committee of Seventeen; -and he proceeded quite arbitrarily, to oblige his patron and at once -facilitate and hush up disgraceful embezzlement. During the revolution -of 1494 the great book of the Monte was missing; nevertheless, there -was an exposure of how many sums had gone to the numerous protégés -and hangers-on of the Medici in and out of Florence. There was also -another means by which to enrich them; and that was the furnishing -of supplies, among which the supplying of cloth to the troops, in -particular, brought great gain.[382] But all possible manœuvres -and skill could not prevent the bad condition of this unprincipled -finance from becoming known. How should they when, to mention only one -instance, the Cardinalate of Giovanni de’ Medici cost the State an -expenditure of 50,000 gold florins, independently of the sums which -found their way secretly into Rome, and were reckoned at 200,000 -more?[383] The State-creditors suffered most, from the reduction in the -rate of interest caused by the drafts deposited in the Monte, and from -the arrears of interest. These bills, together with the extraordinary -additional taxes constantly repeated under various names, reduced the -national debt. What offended the citizens most and damaged Lorenzo’s -reputation with posterity more than anything else was the plundering -of the before-mentioned _Monte delle doti_, the establishment intended -for the dowries of maidens, and in which all citizens, great and small, -were wont to make investments.[384] It was a sort of bank of deposit, -somewhat on the plan of modern insurance-offices, and its usefulness -was increased by the changes of fortune only too sudden in Florence. -This establishment took its rise in 1424, when it was decreed that -for the liquidation of the shares in the national debt dating from -1325 to 1336, and originally bringing in eighteen per cent. interest, -the creditors should be at liberty to convert a quota of what was due -to them into a dowry for their sons and daughters; from 1468 it was -limited to daughters. The conditions were very liberal. Whosoever -paid or gave security for the amount of 104 gold florins, and had it -put down to one of his children, received at the end of fifteen years -the sum of a thousand florins in cash, or could, if he pleased, let -it remain at five per cent. interest. If the child in whose name the -money stood died, half the sum to which he would have had a claim, -according to the time that had elapsed, was paid back to the father, -and the other half went to the bank. The so-called reform of the _Monte -delle doti_, which, like all such establishments, certainly needed -improvement in its administration, was one of the avowed objects of -the change made in the constitution in 1480; but it opened a door to -the misappropriation of its funds. In 1485 a decree was issued whereby -only a fifth of the dowry, i.e. two hundred florins in the case above -described, was to be paid in cash; the rest was to be entered in a -register called _libro non ito_, the unpaid book, and to bear an -interest of seven per cent. This was not all. Six years later, the -rate of interest was lowered to three per cent.[385] This came very -near to bankruptcy, and this bankruptcy touched the citizens to the -quick, while it brought the State into discredit. Hitherto the dower -paid through the Monte had in most cases been sufficient; now the -necessary additions to it became serious, and quite unattainable for -many families. So the number of marriages diminished; that the consent -of the head of the State had to be secured before they could take -place would sound incredible, did it not belong to the system of such -party-government.[386] ‘For many years,’ says Rinuccini,[387] ‘Lorenzo -de’ Medici was doing his best, by a series of laws and decrees, to ruin -the great bank of the commonwealth, for the purpose of getting rid of -its obligations for the payment of annuities and dowries, and obtaining -arbitrary control over the State finances. For this work he selected -in particular two helpers, Antonio di Bernardo and Ser Giovanni of -Pratovecchio (chancellor of the Riformagioni), worthless fellows, who -pointed out to him day by day the way to attain his object.’ - -Though the position of the Medici was secured for a time, their -finances could not be set right. The banks of Lyons and Bruges, -directed by Leonetti de’ Rossi, Francesco and Cosimo Sassetti, Tommaso -Portinari, and others, only saved themselves by compounding with their -creditors. Lorenzo’s correspondence shows what a vast deal of trouble -these pecuniary embarrassments gave him, notwithstanding his levity in -money-matters. As early as 1484 he had to write to de’ Rossi to insist -on withdrawing the name of Medici from the Lyons firm before next -Easter. Eighteen months after, he ordered the balance of the Bruges -bank to be sent to him, in consequence of Portinari’s bad management. -On one day, April 21, 1488, he despatched to the King of France, the -Cardinal de Bourbon, the Duke and Duchess of Bourbon, the Seigneur du -Bouchage, the Bishop of Valence, and others, no less than seventeen -letters relating to the Lyons bank and Francesco Sassetti, after whose -death in 1490 Lorenzo Spinelli took the direction of the Medici’s -financial interests in France.[388] It was inevitable that there should -be a vehement outcry against this disorder. Many foreigners who had -placed their money in the banks sustained heavy losses, and on the -violent overthrow of the Medici, when their palace was plundered at -the entry of Charles VIII., the king’s quarter-master, the seigneur de -Balassat, who had given the signal for the plundering, defended himself -on the plea that the Medici bank of Lyons owed him large sums.[389] -One of the sufferers by these shameful money-dealings was a man who -had done much for Lorenzo, and who, on his side, was influenced in his -relations with him and his business agents by a consideration of the -advantages which Lorenzo’s political position might give him. This was -Philippe de Commines, who, at one of the most critical moments of his -life, was greatly injured by the pecuniary difficulties of the Medici -and their unwillingness or inability to meet their obligations. After -the death of Louis XI., Commines, who had been an instrument of the -king’s tyranny and enriched by his confiscations, was first sent away -from court for taking part in the intrigues of the Princes against -the Regent, Anne de Beaujeu; then shut up in one of the iron cages at -Loches; and, in the spring of 1488, sentenced by the Parliament to -lose a fourth part of his property, and find security for ten thousand -crowns. He found it impossible to realise his demands on the Medici -bank and liquidate the sums which he had deposited there since 1478 -through Louis’ confidant Du Bouchage, and part of which had been -employed in 1486 to support the opposition against the Regent.[390] -Even when Commines, set free from his worst embarrassments, was again -on the way to political influence, these difficulties remained, and -a letter from Lorenzo to him[391] gives a glimpse into the financial -troubles of the Medici. - -‘Illustrious Sir,’ so runs the letter, ‘I have received your lordship’s -letter, and my mind is penetrated with grief at learning into what a -state of irritation Cosimo Sassetti’s last statement of accounts has -put you. My regret would be still greater could I imagine that you -doubt the sentiments of my house towards you, whereas I am for many -reasons so deeply indebted to you that I should deserve to be called -the most ungrateful of men if I paid you now in any coin but such as I -owe you for the numerous benefits received from you in good and evil -days. When in my inmost mind I examine my obligations, I can assure -your lordship that neither by me nor by any of mine shall anything be -done which might indispose you towards me or give you an unfavourable -opinion of me. If Cosimo Sassetti’s expressions with regard to your -lordship’s interests should produce such an unhappy effect, I should -be most deeply grieved, as it would be contrary to the true position -of affairs and my earnest intentions. I do indeed confess, and your -lordship knows it, that for some time past our Lyons house has suffered -such heavy losses that it was impossible to conceal them from my -present or former business friends, of whom your lordship is one, and -not to complain of them as Cosimo has done. This may have made a bad -impression on you; but you may rest assured that there is really no -occasion for difference between us, for you can always dispose, not -only of the sum in dispute between you and Cosimo, but of my whole -means as if they were your own. I therefore beg your lordship to put -faith in me, that this matter may be ended and leave no cloud between -us. For your lordship’s friendship, whether in prosperity or adversity, -is of more value to me than any sum of money.’ - -In spite of all these assurances, Commines’ demands were discharged -in what he considered a very inadequate manner (_apointement bien -mègre_).[392] Nothing but the high value which he set on the friendship -of the Medici induced him to keep quiet. ‘I believe,’ wrote Lorenzo -Spinelli to Lorenzo at the close of 1491,[393] ‘the Sieur d’Argenton -will remain our friend. In order not to make him angry, I have always -told him that if God gives us grace to do well in business and make up -some of the losses we sustained in Leonetto’s time, you will give him -his share. I am of opinion that this hope will induce him to further -your interests, if he puts faith in my words.’ Spinelli was right. -Commines’ humour was likewise influenced by the favourable turn which -his affairs took after the agreement between the young king Charles -VIII. and the Princes, in the beginning of September 1491. His last -letter to Lorenzo,[394] dated January 13, 1492, and signed ‘more than -entirely yours’ (_plus que tout vostre_), treats not of money-matters, -but of Charles’ marriage with the heiress of Britanny, of the -differences with Maximilian and England, and of the Duke of Lorraine’s -attempt on Metz, which it had been hoped might be gained by treachery -and surprise; a prelude to the treachery and surprise in which a French -king succeeded but too well little more than a century later. - - - - -CHAPTER II. - -LIFE IN FLORENCE. - - -IN 1472 certain Venetians addressed to Lorenzo de’ Medici and Niccolò -Ardinghelli a pamphlet wherein they extolled the advantages of their -city and its inhabitants, and abused Florence, her constitution, -her policy, her commerce and society, and the house of Medici. The -challenge was accepted by Benedetto Dei, a scion of an ancient family, -a man of much experience in affairs of state and of commerce, and -who had been for many years Florentine ambassador in Constantinople, -from whence he went to Damascus on a commission for the Sultan. He -defended his native city in a lengthy and rather warm reply; a curious -testimony to the deep-seated differences between two states which were -often bitter enemies and scarcely ever real friends.[395] ‘Florence,’ -says the irritated patriot, who seems not to have been acquainted with -the brilliant picture of the industry and commerce of Venice drawn in -the Great Council in 1420 by the Doge Tommaso Mocenigo,[396] ‘is more -beautiful and 540 years older than your Venice. We spring from triply -noble blood. We are one-third Roman, one-third Frankish, and one-third -Fiesolan. Compare with this, I pray you, the elements of which you -are composed! First of all you are Slavonians, secondly Paduans of -Antenor’s dirty traitor-brood, thirdly fisher-people from Malamocco -and Chioggia. We hold by the Gospel of S. John, you by that of S. -Mark, in which there is as much difference as between fine French wool -and that with which mattresses are stuffed. We have round about us -thirty thousand estates, owned by noblemen and merchants, citizens and -craftsmen, yielding us yearly bread and meat, wine and oil, vegetables -and cheese, hay and wood, to the value of 900,000 ducats in cash, -as you Venetians and Genoese, Chians and Rhodians, who come to buy -them, know well enough. We have two trades greater than four of yours -in Venice put together—wool and silk. Witness the Roman court and -that of the king of Naples, the Marches and Sicily, Constantinople -and Pera, Broussa and Adrianople, Salonika and Gallipoli, Chios and -Rhodes, where to your envy and disgust there are Florentine consuls -and merchants, churches and houses, banks and offices, and whither go -more Florentine wares of all kinds, especially silken stuffs and gold -and silver brocades, than from Venice, Genoa and Lucca put together. -Ask your own merchants who visit Marseilles, Avignon, Lyons, and the -whole of Provence, Bruges, Antwerp, London, and other cities, where -there are great banks and royal warehouses, fine dwellings, and stately -churches; ask them who should know, as they go to the fairs every -year, whether they have seen the banks of the Medici, the Pazzi, the -Capponi, the Buondelmonti, the Corsini, the Falconieri, the Portinari, -and the Ghini, the bank of the Medici and their partners at Milan, -and a hundred others which I will not name, because to do so I should -need at least a ream of paper. You say we are bankrupt since Cosimo’s -death. If we have had losses, it is owing to your dishonesty and the -wickedness of your Levant merchants, who have made us lose hundreds of -thousands—people with well-known names who have filled Constantinople -and Pera with failures, whereof our great houses could tell many a -tale. But though Cosimo is dead and buried, he did not take his gold -florins and the rest of his money and bonds with him into the other -world; nor his banks and store-houses, nor his woollen and silken -cloths, nor his plate and jewellery; but he left them all to his worthy -sons and grandsons, who take pains to keep them and to add to them, to -the vexation of the Venetians and other envious foes, whose tongues are -more malicious and slanderous than if they were Sienese.’ Such was the -Florentine’s retort to the attacks of the Venetians, whom he bitterly -attacked in his turn, when in 1479 they concluded the disadvantageous -treaty by which they ceded Negroponte and other of their Levantine -possessions to the Turks. - -‘Our beautiful Florence,’ says the same chronicler, ‘contains within -the city in this present year 1472, 270 shops belonging to the -wool-merchants’ guild, from whence their wares are sent to Rome and -the Marches, Naples and Sicily, Constantinople and Pera, Adrianople, -Broussa and the whole of Turkey. It contains also eighty-three rich and -splendid warehouses of the silk-merchants’ guild, and furnishes gold -and silver stuffs, velvet, brocade, damask, taffeta, and satin, to Rome -and Naples, Catalonia and the whole of Spain, especially Seville, and -to Turkey and Barbary. The principal fairs to which these wares go are -those of Genoa, the Marches, Ferrara, Mantua, and the whole of Italy; -Lyons, Avignon, Montpelier, Antwerp, and London.’ The number of the -great banks amounted to thirty-three, that of the cloth-warehouses, -which also retailed woollen cloths of all kinds (_tagliare_), to -thirty-two; the shops of the cabinet-makers, whose business was -carving and inlaid work (_tarsia_), to eighty-four, and the workshops -of the stone-cutters and marble-workers in the city and its immediate -neighbourhood to fifty-four. There were forty-four goldsmiths’ and -jewellers’ shops, thirty gold-beaters, silver-wire drawers, and -wax-figure makers; the last being in those days a productive branch -of industry, as it was the custom to consecrate in the churches and -chapels wax-figures of all kinds (_voti_), chiefly images. ‘Go through -all the cities of the world,’ adds the chronicler, ‘nowhere will you -find, nor will you ever be able to find, artists in wax equal to -those we have now in Florence, and to whom the figures in the Nunziata -(the Servite Church) can bear witness.’ Another flourishing branch -of industry was the making of the light and elegant gold and silver -wreaths and garlands which were worn by young maidens of high degree, -and gave their name to the artist-family of Ghirlandajo. Sixty-six -was the number of the apothecaries’ and grocers’ shops; seventy that -of the butchers, besides eight large shops in which were sold fowls -of all kinds, as well as game, and also the native wines which were -considered best with game, particularly the pungent white wine, called -Trebbiano, from San Giovanni in the upper Arno valley; it would wake -the dead, adds Dei, in its praise. The Florentine had a right to be -proud of his ‘beautiful’ city. From 1422, when Gino Capponi, the -conqueror of Pisa, introduced the art of gold-spinning (the gold thread -hitherto used having been procured from Cöln and from Cyprus),[397] -down to the time of Lorenzo, was the most brilliant period of the -silk manufacture which brought great wealth to the city. The Emperor -Sigismund’s ill-famed consort, Barbara von Cilly, once sent one of her -people with 1,200 gold florins and three bars of gold to buy silken -stuffs. In 1422 the first armed galley was equipped for the voyage to -Alexandria, and when she was launched there was a solemn procession to -implore the protection of Heaven. Thus Florence began to do without -the help of Venetian and Genoese vessels; and the two latter states -never got over their vexation at this. The Florentines, however, never -became famous sailors. Meanwhile the home-produce kept pace with this -freer connection with transmarine lands. There seem to have been no -silk-worms reared in Florence before 1423; this branch of industry was -much older in other parts of Tuscany: in Modigliana, Pistoja, Pescia, -Lucca, &c. In Lorenzo’s days the artisans began to emigrate, and -transplanted their art to foreign lands. The restrictions of emigration -by statute proved at first useless and afterwards injurious. The extent -of the intercourse between Florence and other lands is shown by the -list of commercial firms established in various countries in 1469; in -France there were twenty-four; in the kingdom of Naples thirty-seven; -in Turkey no less than fifty, which were under the protection of the -consul Mainardo Ubaldini, whose general relations with the Turkish -government became so much the better, as those of the Venetians, whose -political and commercial interests too often clashed, grew less secure. -Long afterwards it was known that the Florentines held in their hands -the whole commerce of France; and in 1521, when war broke out between -Charles V. and Francis I., and the Florentine merchant-colony at Lyons -found itself in danger, a memorial requesting letters of safe-conduct -was addressed to the treasurer Robertet, by no less than thirty houses, -including the Albizzi, Guadagni, Panciatichi, Salviati, Bartolini, -Strozzi, Gondi, Manetti, Antinori, Dei, Ridolfi, Pitti, Tedaldi, and -other familiar names.[398] Many of these families married and settled -in France. - -In a city where prosperity was so general, it strikes one as remarkable -that the rate of interest on money remained so high. When it is -remembered that about 1420 the usurers were forbidden to take more than -20 per cent., and that about ten years later the hitherto excluded -Jews were admitted in the hope of thereby finding a protection against -the greediness of the Christians, it may be easily perceived how -shocking the evil was. The complaints about compulsory loans are quite -intelligible with such a high rate of interest. That the intended -remedy proved fruitless, and Jews and Christians sucked the blood of -their neighbours all alike, may be imagined. More than once there was -some idea of a public loan establishment. This was the case in 1488, -when the popular orator Bernardino da Feltre, of the Minorite order, -was preaching in Sta. Croce. He tried to obtain Lorenzo’s support for -the erection of a Monte di Pietà, but his efforts proved unsuccessful. -It was an universally known fact that the execution of the project -was prevented because the Signoria was bribed by a rich Jewish -money-changer in Pisa, where this trade had found a special nest.[399] -Not till three years after Lorenzo’s death a temporary exclusion of -the Jews took place, whose gains in Florence alone were reckoned at -50,000,000 gold florins, and the erection by voluntary contributions of -the public loan establishment, which, together with that founded by St. -Antonine, and other similar ones, was in the course of years exposed to -many vicissitudes. - -It was natural that the wealth of the merchants should greatly -influence their manner of life. The new aristocracy, which had risen -in a great measure by trade and commerce, continued, after the pattern -of the family at the head of the State, to combine politics with other -business, and liked to display a splendour corresponding to their -means, not only in buildings, pious foundations, and works of art, -but also in the festive occasions of domestic life. Their houses were -richly furnished. The numerous cabinet-makers and marble-workers, -chiefly engaged on decorative works, were not solely occupied with -churches and public buildings; both they, and painters and sculptors -of a higher order, vied with each other in the decoration of -dwelling-houses. Pictures were interspersed and relieved with marble -and terra-cotta busts. At festive banquets fine table-linen, in keeping -with the elegance of the plate, was always used. Up to this time there -was little exaggerated luxury; the majority were too cautious for that; -and if they wanted to honour a distinguished guest or celebrate a -wedding, friends lent each other their plate, following the example of -the Medici with the Alamanni, Della Stufa, Lanfredini, Nasi, Sassetti, -Davanzati, and others.[400] The same thing occurred at a banquet given -by Messer Antonio Ridolfi, ex-ambassador at Naples, to the Duke of -Calabria, who had stood godfather to his child. On great occasions -similar loans, to which all the wealthy citizens contributed, were made -to the Signoria. For ordinary occasions people often used, besides -silver spoons and forks, gifts of the community or of friends, chiefly -brazen table-plate, dishes, cans, salvers, with silver centres and -enamelled or niello edges, with the owner’s arms and frequently also -those of his wife.[401] Fine crystal was considered necessary for a -well-furnished table. Venice provided most of this article, but Tuscany -furnished many glass-factories. - -The festivals, which increased in frequency in the days of Lorenzo and -Giuliano de’ Medici and the oft-repeated visits of princes, necessarily -contributed to the increase of splendour and gaiety. More than once -the cost exceeded the amount of supply. If Luca Pitti far outran his -means it was, at least, the indulgence of a noble passion—that of -building—which tempted him to such extravagance, and a miscalculation -in politics which overthrew him. But others were ruined by senseless -luxury. A striking example of this is Benedetto Salutati, who, it will -be remembered, took part in Lorenzo’s tournament. He was a grandson -of the celebrated chancellor; his father had acquired a considerable -fortune in business, in which the son succeeded him. Benedetto, we -read,[402] had made himself a fine position and was highly esteemed; -but he was far from being able to enter the lists with many others as -far as the age and nobility of his family were concerned, nor did his -fortune put him in a position to maintain a lasting rivalry with them. -Nevertheless, he did vie with them. When he rode to that tournament at -five-and-twenty, the housings and trappings of his horse were adorned -with 168 pounds of fine silver at sixteen ducats a pound, and the cost -of the work was reckoned at 8,000_l._ That he united love for art -with love for spending is proved by the fact that his silver helmet -was wrought by Antonio del Pollaiuolo.[403] But the immoderate luxury -into which he launched may be learned from the description of the -banquet which he and his fellow-merchants gave, February 16, 1476, to -the sons of King Ferrante at Naples, where the Salutati, like so many -of their fellow-countrymen, had settled, and had intercourse with the -royal house through their connection with the above-mentioned Antonio -Ridolfi, whose daughter was Benedetto’s wife. It was as if a Florentine -merchant had tried to vie with the splendour shown by Cardinal Pietro -Riario when Ercole d’Este’s bride was in Rome. The very arrangement -of the house gave a foretaste of what was to come. The staircase was -hung with tapestry and wreaths of yew; the great hall was decorated -with richly-worked carpets; and from the ceiling, covered with cloth -of the Aragonese colours ornamented with the Duke of Calabria’s arms, -hung two great chandeliers of carved and gilt wood bearing wax candles. -Opposite the principal entrance, on a dais covered with carpets, -stood the dining-table, spread with the finest lace over a worked -cover. One side of the hall was occupied by a large sideboard, on -which stood about eighty ornamental pieces of plate—salvers, basins, -fruit-baskets, tankards—mostly silver, some gold, besides the silver -table-service, consisting of about three hundred plates of various -kinds, bowls, beakers, and dishes. Adjoining the hall were two rooms -opening into each other, hung with woollen stuff representing foliage, -and handsomely carpeted. Here the company assembled before and after -dinner, and divers musicians contributed to the liveliness of the meal. -The guests took their seats amid a flourish of trumpets and fifes. At -one end of the table sat the Count of Altavilla, next to him Don Pietro -of Aragon, the Duke of Calabria’s younger son, a boy of four years old; -then came the four sons of the king—Don Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, -Don Federigo, Count of Altamura, Don Giovanni, and Don Arrigo.[404] -Next to the latter sat the Count of Belcastro, then came the Count of -Ventimiglia and Messer Carlo da Toralto. The Florentine consul, Tommaso -Ginori, and Lorenzo Strozzi sat one on each side of Marino Caracciolo; -next to them came Francesco Nori (one of the victims of the Pazzi -conspiracy) and Andrea Spanocchi of Siena. The seats at the other end -of the table were occupied by the Commander de Requesens, Ferrante -di Gennaro, and Messer Federigo Carvajal, Commander of Rimini. The -outer side of the long table was left for the sewers and cup-bearers, -who served the guests and tasted the dishes before presenting them to -the princes. Besides these, courtiers stood around the table, partly -in attendance partly joining in the conversation. The order of the -dinner was as follows: First the introductory course; to each guest was -presented a little dish of gilt cakes made of pine-apple kernels, and -a little majolica cup containing a beverage made of milk and called -Natta (_guincata_). This was followed by eight silver dishes decorated -with coats of arms and mottoes, and containing jelly made from the -breast of capons; the dish intended for the duke had, in the middle, -a fountain which threw up a shower of orange-flower water. The first -part of the meal consisted of twelve courses of different kinds of -meat, game, veal, ham, pheasants, partridges, capons, chickens, and -blanc-mange; at the end there was placed before the duke a large silver -dish, from which, when the cover was taken off, a number of birds flew -out. On two large salvers were brought two peacocks, apparently alive, -with their tails spread, burning perfumes issuing from their bills, -and on their breasts, attached to a silken ribbon, the duke’s arms -and the motto _Modus et ordo_. The second part of the entertainment -consisted of nine courses of sweets of various kinds, tarts, light and -delicate pastry, with hippocras. The wines, mostly native—Italian or -Sicilian—were numerous, and between every two guests was placed a list -of the fifteen different kinds, of which the lighter found most favour. -At the end of the banquet scented water was offered to everyone in -which to dip his hands; then the table-cloth was removed, and on the -table was placed a great dish containing a mountain of green boughs -with precious essences whose perfume spread through the hall. - -In the middle of the banquet some mumming[405] was announced. Eight -youths entered dressed as huntsmen, with horns, hounds, and slain -game; they were musicians of the chapel royal, and took leave after -entertaining the company with some pleasing music. After dinner the -guests went to the next room, where they entered into lively discourse -and listened to music and singing. The duke and the Count of Belcastro -conversed with the Florentine merchants and spoke of scarcely anything -but Florence and the prince’s stay in Tuscany. After about an hour the -sewers brought the dessert; for each person a silver dish of various -kinds of sweets, with covers made of wax and sugar; those for the -princes and knights adorned with coloured coats of arms and mottoes, -those for the merchants with escutcheons and trade-marks. Cup-bearers -also brought wine in gold and silver goblets. Towards the fifth hour -of the night the guests departed, having stayed about four hours. The -whole house was full of the courtiers and servants of the princes -and nobles. All praised the excellency of the dishes; never, it was -said, had a more splendid banquet been known. Salutati’s love of show, -however, brought its own punishment; unless indeed he was ruined by the -heavy troubles brought upon his home by these same Neapolitan princes -and nobles not long after. Four or five years after this banquet, -according to his own declaration to the registrars, he had returned -to his native city a penniless man, intending to give up his business -altogether, as, under the sad circumstances of the time and the heavy -burdens of the community, he was working at a clear loss. About this -time he changed his residence to Rome, where he was engaged in banking -business in 1491.[406] - -Such doings as these, however, were exceptional; generally, the mode -of life in Florence, as throughout Italy, was simple. In describing -the English plenipotentiary who spent some time with Pope Eugene, -Vespasiano da Bisticci remarks that he had given up his native custom -of sitting four hours at table and adopted the Italian fashion of -having but one dish, from which the whole household dined together. -Even in the noblest houses there was no extravagance; they had only the -produce of the immediate neighbourhood and, in particular, of their -own estates. Thus it was that an increase of rural industry was doubly -desirable. In later days it was wont to be related of Filippo Strozzi -the Elder that he introduced the cultivation of the artichoke and -that of a new species of fig, and both Cosimo and Lorenzo de’ Medici -carefully followed the progress of agriculture. At parties there was -no lack of intellectual enjoyments, such as music and improvisation. -Politian gives, in a letter to Pico della Mirandola, an account of -a dinner at the house of Paolo Orsini, who was in the service of -the Republic; on this occasion Orsini’s son, a boy of eleven, stood -up and sang some verses of his own composition. Banquets given for -entertainment, as well as for learned discourse, chiefly took place -at the villas. The richer and more distinguished Florentines divided -their time between the city and the country. It has been seen how the -pleasant, healthy, fertile neighbourhood of Florence, especially the -hills easily attainable for both pedestrians and horsemen, became -covered with villas. These gradually spread further out in all -directions, up and down the valley of the Arno, beyond Fiesole and -Ponte a Sieve to Mugello, better suited for a real summer residence; -along the line of hills towards Prato and the valley of the Bisenzio; -on the left bank of the Arno through the valleys of the Ema, the Pesa, -and the Elsa, and the rich grape-country of Chianti, to the Sienese -border. In proportion to the number and beauty of the city residences -the number and richness of the country-houses increased also. Hither -came princes, kings, and popes; here they enjoyed hospitality at once -grand, cordial, and cheerful. The country-life contributed not a -little to arouse and maintain liveliness, freshness, fertility, and -elasticity of mind in those who were overwhelmed with grave business of -all kinds. The villas, far more than the town-houses, were the places -where men met for social intercourse, partly because there they could -keep themselves more free from business, partly because they were there -not troubled with the want of space which was an inconvenience in the -city. The villa-life of the _literati_ has been already mentioned. The -remarks concerning country-residences and country-life made by Leon -Battista Alberti, about the time now under consideration, in his book -‘The Father of the Family,’[407] throw light on an important side of -the condition of the citizens, and give a glimpse into the temperament -and tastes of the classes who held the direction of the commonwealth. -These men did not give themselves up to idle pastimes, but to gaining -and keeping a clear survey of personal and civil relations, and to -increasing their own prosperity, and with it that of others, by a wise -culture which looked beyond the limits of ordinary domestic economy. - -There was a darker side to this country-life, and among its shadows was -that of the gaming-table. As far back as 1285 a decree had been found -necessary forbidding the use of dice and other games of chance,[408] -and in the year before the Pazzi conspiracy another similar decree -was issued.[409] These prohibitions, however, shared the fate of -the sumptuary laws, and no doubt the relations with Naples in the -fourteenth century did no good in this respect. Still the Florentines -never went such lengths as disgraced the society of cardinals and -great lords at Rome in the latter half of the fifteenth century in the -days of Sixtus IV. and Innocent VIII. Alberti, who in another of his -writings[410] describes gaming and its attendant ruin arising from -either loss or gain and the bad company inseparable from it, probably -witnessed these corruptions more in Rome than in his native land. But -while in the city, where they were more exposed to view, men proceeded -more cautiously and chess was the game chiefly played, the villas -were too often scenes of gambling. That this habit was by no means -rooted out in the city is shown by the history of St. Antonine. After -the holy archbishop had been preaching one day in the church of Sto. -Stefano he passed, with the cross carried before him, through the Borgo -Sant’Apostolo. As he was passing the Loggia of the Buondelmonti and saw -a company at play, he entered and overthrew the tables; the gamblers, -ashamed, threw themselves at his feet and begged for pardon.[411] - -The games which were also bodily exercises, and lived on in another -form, as the _giuoco del pallone_, have already been mentioned. They -were not without danger; in 1487 a son of Ugolino Verino lost his -life by a blow from a ball while engaged in the game of _Maglio_. -During the uncommonly sharp winter of 1491 these games took place -on the frozen surface of the Arno. Hunting of all kinds had always -been a favourite pastime; in many country-houses may be seen places -prepared for decoying birds. Hawking stood first of all in the lists -of amusements. For graver exercises of the chase there was a better -field in the woods of Mugello, the low country round Pisa, the -Volterra country, and the bordering Maremma, than in the well-built -and thickly-inhabited environs of the city. As for the stage, profane -drama, as is shown by the remarks of Poliziano, was just in the dawn of -its existence, and in its present antiquated form only suited for the -higher circles. This last was also the condition of the Latin dramas, -of which a great number had been composed since the beginning of the -fourteenth century. Classical comedies were performed by students. May -12, 1488, the ‘Menæchmi’ of Plautus, a favourite and oft-copied piece, -was acted under the direction of Messer Paolo Comparini, probably one -of the professors at the university. Poliziano wrote the Latin prologue -for this performance, at which Lorenzo was present.[412] The sacred -plays continued to attract high and low; and, besides the customary -representations on feast-days, they never failed to be performed for -the edification of foreign princes and potentates who came to the city. -The Florentines seem to have been especially skilled in these dramatic -representations, for their companies acted in other places outside -their own city, for example, at Rome. Famous artists, like Brunelleschi -and the engineer Cecca, who met his death in the Faenza campaign of -1488, invented the apparatus for these mystery-plays and also for -the processions in the open air, on which occasions mass was said on -the _ringhiera_ of the palace of the Signoria before the people who -thronged the square. The most solemn procession of all was that on -the eve of St. John; the scene was the precincts of the cathedral and -the baptistery, where a gigantic machinery of clouds, with saints and -angels, was built up under a lofty canopy of linen.[413] The feasts -of the Church were many and splendid; most chiefly that of St. John, -which was connected with the history of the city and the State. On -the eve of this day and on the day itself the shops of the merchants -and artificers made a display of their finest goods; Lorenzo lent his -most valuable show-pieces to his friends; and in the Baptistery was -exhibited the great silver reredos with its statuettes and reliefs. -The splendour was heightened by the participation of the numerous -clerical and lay societies, and by the influence of the festivals on -the patriotism of the multitude through their connection with glorious -events, the memory of which was kept alive among the people by these -reciprocal relations. These historical reminiscences went back to the -very earliest mythical times of the city. Mystery-plays, shows, and -similar festivals were not confined to the churches, companies, and -public occasions and places, but also took place in the houses of -distinguished citizens, and artists constantly took part in them.[414] -When it is considered that at the beginning of the next century the -number of the civil companies or brotherhoods for religious exercises -amounted to 370,[415] partly for children and partly for adults, it may -easily be understood how closely domestic life was intertwined with -that of the Church. - -Some of these societies, called Standard-companies (Compagnie -di Stendardo) did not approve of social cheerfulness. But the -unions of the lower classes for the purpose of festivities, shows, -games, and merrymakings were those called potenze. Their origin is -commonly referred to the time of the Duke of Athens; it was probably -contemporary with the development of the democratic element in the -commonwealth. These societies, whose festivals and performances -strongly resembled a carnaval, were also intended for spiritual -exercises. Their number differed greatly at different times; their -names are mostly fantastically derived from the occupation or residence -of the parties concerned; there was an emperor of the Prato of -Ognisanti, a king of the wool-carders of Orsanmichele, and various -others with similar titles derived from localities in Camaldoli; -monarchs of Sant’Ambrogio and Terrarossa, dukes of the Via Guelfa, of -the Arno, of Camporeggi, of the moon, the dove, the owl; princes of -the apple and of the standard-carriage, grand signors of the Pitti and -of the dyers, lords of the chain, the swallow, the kitchen-range, the -sword, the scourge, the elm, and suchlike names. They all bore coats -of arms on their banners; thus the emperor of the Prato displayed an -eagle; the grand signor of the dyers, a caldron standing on the fire; -the duke of the Arno, a pillar of the Rubaconte bridge, with himself -majestically seated thereon, surrounded by players. These societies had -for their chief object carnaval-amusements, with games and pastimes -which degenerated into wild orgies, till in the sixteenth century the -license became so great, the waste of time and money and the annoyance -to the other citizens so disgraceful, that, after restrictions had been -tried in vain, the whole thing was put an end to.[416] Lorenzo has been -reproached with having encouraged shows and entertainments in order to -keep the people occupied and well-disposed towards himself. He probably -acted with this view just as much as the Duke of Athens; and when the -Medici came back in 1512 from their long exile, his son Giuliano and -his grandson Lorenzo employed these same means, companies and pastimes, -chiefly, as a historian of the Medicean party, Filippo de’ Nerli, -confesses, in order to keep the citizens and common people in good -humour with triumphs, festivals, and public shows, and to gather the -young nobles around themselves.[417] But the inclinations and habits -of the people made the attainment of Lorenzo’s object easy to him. The -widespread feeling for art, which gave a special charm to all public -displays, contributed not a little thereto. - -Lorenzo revolutionised and developed the songs of the carnaval. The -romance writer Lasca relates[418] the state in which he found the -carnaval and what he made of it. Youths and men were wont to walk -about the streets in women’s clothes and mimick the girls and women -on May-day. The songs they sang were all much the same; the variety -introduced into their form and substance by Lorenzo was enhanced by -the melodies of Heinrich Isaak. The first masquerade of this kind was -that of the glass-blowers and pastrycooks, with a three-part choir. -The Triumphs (_trionfi_) were great mythological or allegorical -performances; the Chariots (_carri_), representations of works, &c. -Richly dressed horsemen, to the number of 300, rode beside these -chariots, which came out in the afternoon and often enlivened the -streets till far into the night, accompanied by men on foot carrying -white wax torches. There was also instrumental music and singing -in four or eight parts, sometimes even fifteen parts. According to -the style and contents of the songs, so the nature of these popular -amusements was varied. In several of Lorenzo’s carnaval-songs -the license of the day is but too evident; they were downright -Roman saturnalia. Later on, when reaction took place against this -worldliness, the first thing attacked was the carnaval. It will be -seen hereafter that this opposition had begun long before men’s minds -were biassed in a new direction in consequence of a revolution in the -political circumstances of Italy and the foreboding of evil to come. -The sobering change which followed this license is shown by a satirical -dialogue in verse on the carnaval, which was forbidden the houses and -streets; a popular production of historical value on this account, -that it expresses a foreboding of the many evils which were to befall -Rome—Rome, the home of the saturnalia, which threatened to swallow up -all life and effort as in a whirlpool:[419] - - Questo è stato carnasciale - C’ha ’l cervel nelle scarpette, - Con suo certe gente grette - C’ han giocato il capitale: - Hanno avuto certe strette - Tu Fiorenza le lor mercíe - Stazonate brutte e lercíe - Sì che han perso ogni lor fede. - Poi che vai, cammina presto - Per l’Italia tutta quanta, - Et a Roma tua ch’è santa, - Tu farai questo protesto: - Che tempesta a lei vien tanta, - Che stupisce il cielo e ’l mondo: - Lancie, spade e squadre a tondo - Chiariran la sua gran fede. - -Amid the coarse sensual doings of the time there were yet some -festivals in which, although accompanied by immoderate display, poetic -feeling found room for expression. During one carnaval Lorenzo got up -a brilliant procession representing the triumph of Paulus Æmilius; it -was on this occasion that the young painter Francesco Granacci gave -the first proofs of his remarkable talent for decoration. In another -procession of the same kind the planets were personified and easily -recognised by their emblems, and were drawn through the streets in -seven chariots amid the sound of music and songs composed for the -occasion.[420] Allegorical representations of this sort were common. -Twenty or thirty years later Raphael gave them the highest consecration -of art in his pictures of the planets, and the multitude was not -lacking in a sense of allegory. These gay scenes were rivalled by the -carnaval procession got up by Bartolommeo Benci in honour of Marietta -Strozzi Giachinotti, a granddaughter of Palla.[421] Eight young men -of distinguished families—Pucci, Altoviti, Vespucci, Girolami, and -others—took part in it. On the evening of the carnaval they all went -together to the house of the Benci, whose name is still borne by a -street in the Sta. Croce quarter. They were all dressed in vests -of silver and crimson brocade, and mounted on horses with silken -housings, each accompanied by eight grooms and thirty torch-bearers. -After supper the whole party proceeded to the lady’s house, followed -by four men carrying a stage twenty ells high, made of branches of -laurel, yew, cypress, and other evergreens, and adorned with a number -of allegorical representations of the triumph of love, with the -escutcheons of the lady and the author of the festival, surmounted by -a bleeding and burning heart from which rockets flew up. Round about -were pipers and mounted pages dressed in green. Bartolommeo Benci, -with gilt wings fastened to his shoulders, came riding on a handsome -and richly caparisoned horse, surrounded by fifteen youths of good -family dressed in crimson, and 150 torch-bearers wearing his colours. -Amerigo and Francesco Benci and the lady’s brothers Nanni and Strozza -Strozzi joined the party. The gentlemen, with gilt spears in their -hands, showed off their horses before the windows; then Bartolommeo -took the wings from off his shoulders and threw them on the triumphal -stage, which at once burst into flames, while a number of rockets flew -up from it, some high in the air, some towards the house. When the -fireworks were over the party retired, the giver of the entertainment -making his horse step backwards till he was out of the square. They -then went round to the houses of the lady-loves of all the gentlemen, -and finished with an aubade (_mattinata_) before the house of Marietta, -who during the whole scene remained at the window, between four wax -torches, ‘with such a stately grace as Lucretia herself would not -have needed to be ashamed of.’ The show ended at dawn of day with a -breakfast at Bartolommeo’s house. All the Signoria’s servants, who had -kept order during the night, received stockings of the Benci colours. - -The people always preserved their unwearied gaiety, which Ariosto -called ‘lo spirito bizarro fiorentino.’ They were always wide awake, -ready for a jest, keen in perception, quick at a repartee, disposed to -give merit its due, but with the eyes of a lynx for every weakness. The -merry meetings with their stories, not inventions of the Decamerone -but the links that connected it with the prevailing manners, easily -degenerated into buffoonery, as many examples remain to show. As the -Florentines went round as jesters to the courts of princes, so they -had in the herald or knight of the Signoria a sort of official buffoon -who was, however, employed in earnest as well as in jest. The best -known jesters belong to the fifteenth century; of these, the barber -Burchiello represents the literary type, while the chief example of the -ordinary jester with his verbal witticisms is the Piovano Arlotto or -Arlotto Mainardi, vicar of a little place in the diocese of Fiesole, -who is mentioned in Lorenzo’s ‘Beoni,’ a true mirror of the somewhat -coarse-grained wit of these revels. Besides the tales of Francesco -Sacchetti, written at its commencement, which are satirical in their -plot as well as in their too often licentious phraseology, the two best -known examples of buffoonery overstepping the acknowledged limits of -fiction, both in the form of romances, belong to the fifteenth century. -The one story is that of the fat cabinet-maker, Manetto Ammanatini, -a jest which is said to have driven its victim, a master of artistic -cabinet-making and tarsia-work, away to Hungary. It originated with -Brunelleschi and his artist-friends, and the actual authorship of the -tale has been attributed to him. The other story treats of Bianco -Alfani, who was made to believe that he had been chosen Podestà of -Norcia, and had to suffer for the delusion.[422] The species of humour -which distinguishes these compositions was long preserved in the -_villeggiature_. Lorenzo was no stranger to it, and Leo X., in the -story of Baraballo, gave himself up to it in a manner little becoming -his dignity. - -As regards moral weakness and defects this period was certainly not -better than its neighbours; and there can be no hesitation in accusing -it of having, by gradually accustoming people to the powers that then -were, paved the way for the destruction of the commonwealth in favour -of one man, who was not a Lorenzo. The lamentations over the corruption -of the times were very frequent. ‘O city of Florence!’ cried the -honest Vespasiano da Bisticci in 1480, ‘thou art full of usury and -dishonest gain! The one devours the other; greed has made thy people -foes one towards the other. Evil-doing has become so habitual that no -one is ashamed of it. In these latter days thou hast witnessed such -unheard-of doings among thy citizens, such disorders and failures, -and dost not yet perceive that it is a judgment from God, and thus -thou continuest in thy hardness of heart. There is no hope for thee, -for thou thinkest of nought but money-making; and yet thou seest how -the wealth of thy citizens passeth away like smoke as soon as they -have closed their eyes.’ Whatever might be the state of affairs, -however, such words as these are not to be taken literally. There was -an immense amount of good sterling material left in the people who -had outstripped others on the road to intellectual knowledge, civil -order, and industrial development. The peculiar relation between the -different classes, which, in the ultimate development of democracy, -in some measure neutralised its evils, struck root so deeply that it -was never completely destroyed by the predominance of Spanish manners -which undermined and strove against it for centuries. The Tuscan -countryman, raised by the old colony-system, which formed a sort of -joint possession, assumed an attitude of freedom towards his lord; the -hard and fast lines by which classes were divided in other lands were -never known here. The Florentine nobility never forgot that by far the -greater part of their number had risen from the ranks of the people in -times which were not remote enough to be buried in the night of ages; -and in their persons the people felt themselves to a certain extent -ennobled. Feudalism never attained its full force here; even when its -tendencies prevailed throughout all the rest of Italy except Venice, -in Florence it had little more than a formal existence. Down to the -extinction of the Medici race, with a few exceptions, they never cast -off the traditions of the citizen element. Thus in Florence there were -never, as elsewhere, violent conflicts aroused by the sharpness of -social contrasts. Conflicts of another kind were avoided by the fact -that, since the strengthening of the commonwealths, the higher orders -of clergy, notwithstanding their considerable possessions, exercised no -real territorial power and almost always kept on good terms with the -commonwealths. In the appointment of bishops, too, the popular element -on the whole prevailed, though sometimes, and indeed repeatedly during -the fifteenth century, single appointments were made from a purely -papal point of view. The reaction which set in so soon after Lorenzo’s -death against the laxity of morals which is laid to his charge, and -the heroic perseverance with which these Florentines defended their -independence for nearly forty years, prove most clearly what wholesome -qualities were hidden within the nature of this genuine, pliant, -powerful citizen-people. - -The picture of the Florentines in the last days of the Republic, -sketched by an historian of the following century,[423] is equally true -of Lorenzo’s time: ‘I do not share the opinion of those who refuse -to admit that the Florentines can be noble-minded and consider them -low and plebeian because they are merchants. I have often secretly -wondered how people who from their childhood have been accustomed to -handle bales of wool and silken threads, or to work like slaves all -day and part of the night at the loom or the dye-cauldron, often, when -needed, display such loftiness of heart and greatness of soul that -they speak and act surpassingly well. The air, a medium between the -keen atmosphere of Arezzo and the heavy air of Pisa, doubtless has -some influence on this peculiarity. Whosoever considers deeply the -nature and manners of the Florentines must arrive at the conclusion -that they are more fitted to command than to obey. I do not deny -that there are among them haughty, covetous, and violent men, such -as are to be found elsewhere. Nay, they are even worse here than in -other places; for as talent and merit are more brilliant there than -elsewhere, so also evil qualities are more conspicuous—so hard is it -for them to preserve moderation. Their manner of life is simple and -thrifty, but distinguished by cleanliness such as is not met with -elsewhere. It may be said that in this respect artisans and people who -live by daily labour are a pattern to the citizens of higher position; -for whereas the latter are easily led away to the taverns if they -hear that good wine is to be had there, and give themselves a day of -pleasure, the former stay at home with the thriftiness of tradespeople -who work seeking for their enjoyment in advance, and with the modesty -of citizens who understand moderation, rules, and discipline, and will -not quit the safe path. Of course there are families which have a great -household and a rich table, such as would become noblemen. People call -each other by their Christian names, also by their family names, and -usually say ‘thou’ unless there is a great difference of rank or age. -The knights, doctors, prebendaries, and canons are entitled Messere, -the professors Maestro, and the monks Padre.’ - -Leon Battista Alberti and the pious Fra Giovanni Dominici speak in -similar terms of the respect for parents and superiors.[424] ‘My -father,’ Alberti describes his cousin Francesco as saying, ‘never -sat down on public occasions when his brother, who had received the -honour of knighthood, was present; and he pronounced it as his opinion -that one ought not to sit down in the presence of one’s father or the -head of the family. Your Romans,’ he added, turning to Leon Battista, -‘who are now ill-conducted in all things (_in ogni cosa mal corretti -oggi_), have likewise fallen into great error in this respect: they -honour their parents less than their neighbours, and thus grow up in -disorder and vice.’ Fra Giovanni recommends Madonna Bartolommea degli -Obizzi to teach her children before all things to reverence their -parents, and thus secure earthly happiness. We have before remarked how -Lorenzo impressed on his son the duty of showing proper respect for his -elders; on this point he was always consistent. The good old habits of -strictness were also kept up by many distinguished women. In Lorenzo’s -time there are no such charming portraits as those sketched in his -grandfather’s days by the good Vespasiano;[425] but Alessandra de’ -Bardi, wife of Lorenzo Strozzi; Francesca Giacomini Tebalducci, wife of -Donato Acciaiuolo; Nanna Valori, wife of Giannozzo Pandolfini; Caterina -Strozzi Ardinghelli; Saracina Giacomini Acciaiuolo, and others, could -not fail to have worthy successors; and the beautiful and dignified -female portraits which give such a peculiar charm to Ghirlandajo’s -frescoes in Sta. Maria Novella would alone be enough to prove that -the generation had not died out. Times had become more settled and -peaceful, and since 1478 there had been no sudden overthrow or turn -of fortune such as had hitherto rapidly succeeded each other. In the -undisturbed peace of their homes good women found ample scope for the -practice of the Christian virtues which had distinguished their mothers -and grandmothers, often widowed or homeless in early youth, amid the -stormy days of trouble. - -Knighthood has been frequently alluded to in this work. While nobility -of birth was attended by civil disadvantages, personal nobility, or -knighthood, had a peculiar value of its own. This distinction was -a relic of the romantic days of Charles the Great. In imitation of -kings and emperors the commonwealth claimed the power of granting it, -and in 1288 the first example is said to have occurred in the war -against Pisa. Knighthood was a necessary qualification for the office -of Podestà, and was conferred on those appointed if they had not -previously received it. Knights of this sort were called _Cavalieri -di popolo_. Two cases of strangely conferred knighthood occurred in -the fourteenth century. After the rising of the lower classes on July -20, 1378, more than sixty citizens, with Salvestro de’ Medici at their -head, were knighted at the request of the multitude. When quiet was in -some degree restored these knights of the Ciompi, as they were called, -were summoned to declare whether they wished to keep the dignity -thus tumultuously conferred on them; in which case they were to be -knighted over again by a syndic of the commonwealth who had himself -attained that honour. Thirty-one accepted the offer. On October 15 -they assembled in the church of the Annunziata and thence proceeded, -in knightly attire, to the great square; and there, in presence of the -Signoria, the Podestà—a Venetian nobleman—completed the ceremony as -syndic of the commonwealth, whereupon they took the oaths of allegiance -and received from the Gonfalonier their lances, standards, and shields -with the arms of the people.[426] On April 26, 1389, two members of the -Panciatichi family, one a child not much more than four years old, were -made knights of the people. Great honour was shown them, and like Cola -Rienzi in Rome of old, they, with many of their relations and friends, -spent the night in the Baptistery, where seven great beds were set up; -and the next day a banquet took place in the convent of Sta. Maria -Novella[427] at which 250 citizens were present. - -The knights of the people were divided into two classes-the _cavalieri -di corredo_, knighted for civil services, and the _cavalieri di scudo_ -for military ones; the former named from the banquet which they gave -after the ceremony, the latter from the shield; like the _noblesse -de robe_ and _noblesse d’épée_ in France. Both classes bore on their -breasts, or on their helmets, shields, &c., the arms of the people, -usually with the red lily of the Republic on a round, white escutcheon, -sometimes also with the arms of the Guelf party. Besides these there -were other knights who had received their dignity from Popes or foreign -sovereigns, especially the kings of France, on embassies and suchlike -occasions; and others who had been knighted on the battle-field by a -commander-in-chief, as a reward for their bravery. These last were -entitled _cavalieri d’arme_, to distinguish them from the _cavalieri di -scudo_. The wearing of the golden spurs, afterwards so much abused, was -the prerogative of these military knights. - -Embassies had always been important to the Florentines in a political -point of view, as well as a means of obtaining personal distinction. -In the first jubilee year, when twelve of them appeared before Pope -Boniface VIII. as the representatives of various states, he called -them the fifth element. They always preserved their reputation as good -diplomatists. Not only did clergy, statesmen, and scholars take an -active part in diplomacy, it was a career open even to the Grandi, the -real nobility who were excluded from all the offices of state. In the -fifteenth century the splendour with which the embassies were conducted -corresponded with the importance of the state and the personal rank -of the ambassadors. Their posts, however, were not lucrative; for -if, as was the case in 1483, each ambassador received about ten gold -florins a day, the expenses in excess of those which he could charge -for were very heavy. Besides the solemn embassies on special occasions, -there were resident envoys at Naples, Rome, Milan, and Venice. The -former were numerous and brilliant, and comprised, besides the actual -ambassadors, younger men (who, according to a later regulation, were -not to be under the age of twenty-four), who went to learn the business -of diplomacy and see foreign lands; there was also a chancellor and -other officials. Only two examples need be referred to for the high -honour in which Florentine embassies were held—Neri Capponi’s famous -embassy to Venice during the war of the Visconti, and that to Louis -XI. on his accession. ‘Never,’ says Macchiavelli, ‘did that Signoria -receive a prince with so much honour as they did Neri.’ King Louis, -with the Duke of Britanny and a suite of about forty horsemen, advanced -two leagues from Tours to meet Monsignor Filippo de’ Medici, Piero de’ -Pazzi, and Buonaccorso Pitti (Luca’s son), envoys of the Republic, -and kept his hat in his hand because the first-named would not be -covered.[428] Travelling was slow; the embassy had left Florence on -October 27, and reached Tours on December 23. With what splendour Piero -de’ Pazzi returned home has been mentioned already. - - - - -CHAPTER III. - -THE HOUSE AND FAMILY OF THE MEDICI. - - -THE house of the Medici had not its equal in Florence, probably not in -all Italy. Its inner arrangements corresponded with its outward stately -and beautiful architecture. Three generations, with the whole world -open before them, of highly-cultivated, art-loving owners had ruled -in it. No other family ever existed in which the love of collecting, -combined with a hearty appreciation of the value and importance of the -most various objects, retained its ardour and thoroughness through -so many centuries, as in the case of these Florentine merchants, who -gradually developed and grew into a princely house, and intermarried -with the royal houses of Hapsburg, Lorraine, Wittelsbach, and Bourbon. -As in other great historical families, the same traits were noticeable -in all the Medici. Even in the days when several members of the house -fell victims to the curse that eventually destroyed many of the ruling -families of Italy, when the Medici as a distinct family were fast -perishing, though mourned for by thousands—even then the surviving -members of the race preserved the many brilliant qualities which had -made their ancestors famous. In every direction they had relations -with grand-dukes and princes; beautiful, curious, and rare objects of -art were sent to them from all quarters of the globe by their agents, -diplomatists, scholars, artists, and merchants; and in their own -country they constantly employed those who displayed talent, learning, -or skill. The colossal wealth of the Florentine collections, chiefly -inheritances from the Medici, proves this; and the sudden bankruptcy -which occurred in all these things at their extinction gives a striking -example of the contrast which was brought about by years. - -The history of art and literature from Cosimo’s days shows what a -treasury of paintings, sculptures, coins, engraved stones, manuscripts, -gems, and antiquities of all kinds were collected together in that -house in the Via Larga. Commines, describing the shameless plunder of -the Medici’s houses begun in November 1494 by the French and continued -by the Florentines,[429] estimates the value of the objects destroyed -in one day at 100,000 crowns;—‘the most beautiful rings, specimens -of agate, admirable cameos, and near three thousand gold and silver -medals, such as no other collection in Italy could equal.’ Galeazzo -Maria Sforza once said that he, too, could show treasures; but the -finest things in all the world were collected in the house of a -private man—Lorenzo. And what a quantity had been gathered together -there since the visit of the Milanese Duke! ‘Lorenzo,’ says Niccolò -Valori,[430] ‘took the liveliest interest in all things antique. I -have heard from Marsilio that on receiving from Girolamo Rossi of -Pistoja a bust of Plato, found amid the ruins of the Athenian Academy, -his delight was exceeding great, and he always held that bust in high -honour. Those who wished to do this great man a pleasure vied with -each other in bringing him coins and bronze works distinguished by -their value and workmanship, and antiquities of all sorts, from all -parts of the world. When I came home from Naples I sent him busts of -the Empress Faustina and Africanus and several beautifully chiselled -marbles. I cannot describe the manner in which he received them. What -he had collected from all quarters he carefully preserved in his house. -He did not show them to just anybody, but only to those who understood -them, and at festive banquets he adorned his table with works of art -to do honour to his guests. When the excellent Duke Federigo of Urbino -saw these treasures of Lorenzo, he admired not only the materials and -skilful workmanship, but also the almost incredible number of the -objects. He is said to have thus addressed Lorenzo: ‘How much can love -and perseverance accomplish! I behold, here, a royal treasure-house; -yet one such as no king is able to gather together, either by money, or -power, or rapine.’ - -These treasures were collected in the most various ways. Sellers of -antiques brought them to Florence or sent them from a distance. When -Paul III.’s rich collection of engraved and precious stones was sold -after his death, a considerable part of it passed into the hands -of the Medici for a moderate sum, by means of Giovanni Tornabuoni. -Lorenzo himself in his memoirs mentions the marble busts of Augustus -and Agrippa, gifts of Sixtus IV., and the vases of chalcedony and -engraved stones bought in Rome. In 1484, 1488, and 1490, Luigi Lotti -of Barberino, Giovan Antonio of Arezzo, and Andrea of Fojano were -commissioned to make purchases in Rome and Siena.[431] On Giuliano -da Sangallo’s return from Naples, King Ferrante gave him a bust of -Hadrian, a nude female statue and a sleeping Cupid, for Lorenzo, who -had sent him to the king.[432] Messer Zaccaria Barbaro, grateful for -the sympathy shown to his son, sent a precious Greek vase. Carlo de’ -Medici bought antiquities, coins, &c., in Rome. Besides the manuscripts -and objects of art, there were a quantity of curiosities and handsome -household furniture of all sorts, porcelain and majolica, given by the -Malatesta, and, as Lorenzo wrote,[433] more highly prized by him than -if they were of silver, because they were excellent, rare, and, till -then, unknown in Florence. Much of what now adorns the great Uffizi -collection came to Florence in those days. Most of the sculptures -and larger works of art, however, were not placed in the house in the -Via Larga, where there was no space for them, but in the neighbouring -garden of San Marco. Opposite the left aisle, near to where the long -street joins the large conventual and other gardens, the Medici had a -casino, to which were attached grounds and plantations extending as -far as the Via San Gallo. Casinos of this kind, intended for social -purposes and walks, were usual among the great Florentine families even -down to the last century. The whole place has been altered; a century -after Lorenzo’s time, Bernardo Buontalenti built a grand but heavy -palace, which has been lately used for various purposes, and after the -extinction of the Medici, part of the ground was cleared for the pretty -house called Casino della Livia, after a favourite of the Grand-Duke -Leopold I. About the same time the appearance of the adjoining Piazza -San Marco was completely changed by the new façade of the church, the -new front of the convent, and the building of the Academy of Arts on -the site of Lemmo Balducci’s hospital.[434] Here, in the alleys of -trees, were set up the antique sculptures, and in the house were kept -the cartoons and pictures which had been collected in the course of -years; here young artists studied from old and new models. Lorenzo, -most eager of collectors, knew how to appreciate love of art in others. -Not only to allied princes did he give great assistance in this -respect. When Commines returned from his embassy in 1478, he brought -home several beautiful medals of which the ‘Seigneur Laurens’ had made -him a present.[435] - -The Medici did not confine their splendour to their town houses. -Lorenzo divided his time between the city and the country. His -appreciation of the beauties of nature made a sojourn at his villas -particularly agreeable to him; and following the example of his father -and grandfather, he frequently went to stay at Careggi, whose nearness -to the city facilitated the transaction of business; in the hot season -he went up to the more retired and cooler Cafaggiuolo or Trebbio. After -Careggi, however, his favourite abode was Poggio a Cajano. Half way -between Florence and Pistoja, ten miles from either city, on a low -hill, the last on the north-eastern slope of the Monte Albano, which -separates the plain of Pistoja from the valley of the Nievole and the -lower part of that of the Arno, stands Sangallo’s handsome building, -overlooking the green and fruitful valley watered by the Ombrone, and -made famous by Lorenzo’s poem of ‘Ambra.’ Travellers may now wander -through the well-cultivated grounds of the farm, and the park, twenty -or thirty years ago still full of gold pheasants, the descendants of -those procured by Lorenzo from Sicily; or cross the stream by means -of a suspension-bridge. The beauty of the place, and the admirable -arrangements made for purposes of husbandry by the owner of the villa, -were described by Poliziano at the end of his ‘Ambra’ (composed in -1485), and by Michele Verino in a letter to Simone Canigiani. An -aqueduct brought water from the neighbouring height of Bonistallo. -Besides the vegetable and fruit gardens there were large mulberry -plantations for rearing silk-worms, still a profitable business in -that district. On the low uplands were large stalls, paved with stone -for the sake of cleanliness, and with their four turrets resembling -little fortresses; here was kept a whole herd of fine cows which fed on -the rich pasture-lands and supplied the city of Florence with cheese, -an article which hitherto had had to be fetched from Lombardy. There -were plenty of calves and sheep; a breed of uncommonly large pigs had -been got from Calabria, and a breed of rabbits from Spain. Birds of -all kinds abounded, particularly water-fowl and quails. The quantity -of water made the soil fruitful, but there was ample provision for -manure.[436] It is interesting to see the statesman and patron of -literature and art occupied with agricultural interests, a liking -for which he had inherited from his grandfather, and to which he was -specially attracted by his strong feeling for nature. - -Down to our own time the villa of Poggio a Cajano has kept up these -traditions side by side with its historic reminiscences. The very -ancient and noble family of the Cadolingi of Fucecchio had property -here which passed to the powerful Pistojan family of the Cancellieri, -and in 1420, by sale, to Palla Strozzi.[437] How and when the Medici -came into possession of it is unknown. That it should have changed -hands twice in a century is nothing astonishing, considering the -vicissitudes of families in those eventful times. Nowhere is one -so vividly reminded as here of Lorenzo il Magnifico, who actually -built the place as it is now. When his second son had mounted the -Papal chair, he caused the great hall to be decorated with frescoes -representing scenes from the old Roman world, and containing allusions -to home events. Paolo Giovio, a client of the Pope and of Cardinal -Giulio de’ Medici, chose the subjects; the animals bringing tribute -to Cæsar were painted by Andrea del Sarto; the triumph of Cicero, -which Poggio Bracciolini had compared to the return of Cosimo, by -Franciabigo; and some mythological representations by Jacopo da -Pontormo. Leo’s death interrupted the work, which was completed in 1580 -by Alessandro Allori. In a Pietà forming the altar-piece of the village -church Giorgio Vasari placed the two patron saints of the Medici beside -the dead Saviour.[438] - -In these stately and beautiful localities, both in the city and -country, active, energetic, comfortable, and cheerful life went on its -way in spite of a few natural troubles. Lorenzo never gave himself up -to senseless luxury such as many princes and cardinals indulged in; -but he was always a grand gentleman in the true sense of the words. He -never forgot that he was a Florentine citizen, as he loved to describe -himself; his correspondents adopted the same idea of him, and he -impressed the fact strongly upon his sons. At the same time he never -forgot that at home all eyes were fixed on him, and that abroad it was -he who represented the State. In his house and his villas there was -perpetual movement. Everybody and everything went to and fro in the -house of the man who stood at the head of all. Besides politics, he was -constantly engaged with family affairs and intercourse with scholars -and artists. He had many relations, and made good use of some of them. -Numerous families were intimately connected with his. Many were made -great by him; others, great already, he tried to attach more and more -to himself. He stood godfather to his own countrymen as well as to -foreign princes. When in 1490, Duke Alfonso of Calabria consented to be -sponsor for the son of Giuliano Gondi, a business friend of the Medici, -he asked Lorenzo to act as proxy for him. - -The Medici in some degree kept open house. We learn from the life of -Michelangelo that whosoever was present at the beginning of the dinner -took his seat after the master of the house, each according to his -rank; and the arrangement of the table was not altered for those who -came later, even though they were of higher rank. All the inmates of -the house who were not servants dined together; the young Buonarotti, -then in the earliest days of his apprenticeship, was a constant guest -at his patron’s table.[439] Besides the Academic and other learned -symposia, banquets were frequently given, both in the city and at -Careggi, in honour of distinguished foreigners or ambassadors, and -on festive occasions. Cristoforo Landino has left an account of a -banquet which was something between a dinner of scholars and a feast, -and was given by Lorenzo in his young days, when a noble Greek named -Philotimos, who traced his pedigree up to the time of Constantine -and prided himself greatly thereon, came to Florence accompanied by -an Athenian philosopher named Aretophilos, to condole with the young -Medici on the death of his father. Lorenzo rode out four miles to meet -his guests, and conducted them to his house, where he had assembled -the most distinguished literary men and the friends of the family. -Among the company were Gentile Becchi, Antonio degli Agli, Giorgio -Antonio Vespucci, Leon Battista Alberti, Ficino, Landino, Poliziano, -Argyropulos, his pupils Piero and Donato Acciaiuolo, and Alamanno -Rinuccini. The discourse at table and the claims of the proud Greek -furnished Landino with the materials for his treatise on true nobility, -which he dedicated to Lorenzo.[440] On these and suchlike occasions the -hospitality was on a grand and brilliant scale; but on ordinary days -Lorenzo kept his table within the modest limits befitting a citizen. -So Franceschetto Cybò discovered when he came on a visit in June 1488. -Roman lords and a number of other people accompanied the Pope’s son; -they wished to see the splendour of the house of Medici, of which all -the world spoke so much. Franceschetto stayed in his father-in-law’s -house; a fine palace was assigned to his companions. After a few days -passed in festivities, the visitor found a simple table. He wondered; -and when the dinner and supper were served in the same style, he began -to suspect that his companions might be treated in the same way. The -suspicion troubled him, knowing as he did with what expectations they -had come to Florence. He was therefore delighted to learn that they -continued to be most sumptuously entertained. Talking confidentially -with his father-in-law he mentioned the circumstance, whereupon Lorenzo -quietly answered that he had received him into his house as a son and -was treating him as such; to act otherwise would be to make a stranger -of him. The noble lords who had come with him to celebrate his marriage -were strangers; Lorenzo was treating them accordingly, as became his -position and theirs. - -At the end of 1482 an illustrious German guest came to the Medici -house: Eberhard the Bearded Count of Würtemberg, son-in-law of Lodovico -Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, a connection which formed a natural -introduction to friendly relations with the Medici.[441] The count’s -learned companions have been already mentioned. Eberhard surveyed the -riches of the house, the handsome halls filled with plate and other -valuables, the library, the terrace with its evergreen fruit-trees -and the stables. What he saw here must have been a source of great -enjoyment to this highly accomplished prince, who combined a love of -native literature with a knowledge of antiquity, possessed a fine -library, and four years before had conferred a lasting benefit on -his admiring country by founding the university of Tübingen. He saw -the whole family, Lorenzo and his sons, Clarice and her daughters, -still all together in those days. He openly expressed his pleasure at -everything, both the house and its inhabitants. When he admired the -collection of books, greatly increased and with much discrimination -since Cosimo’s days, Lorenzo, with a play on the words _libri_ and -_liberi_, answered that his children were his greatest treasures. From -Florence Eberhard went to Rome, where Sixtus IV. presented him with the -golden rose.[442] - -The German prince admired Lorenzo’s stud, and no doubt with justice. -Lorenzo had a passion for riding-horses, hunters, and racers. Presents, -purchases, and borrowing of horses occur over and over again in his -correspondence. In October 1488 he bought twenty mares at Naples, and -only a short time before his death horses for him were on their way -from Egypt and the coast of Barbary.[443] The taste of the Florentines -for horse-racing, with or without riders, and for which even in those -days there were regular horse-lenders, has been preserved down to our -own time; in the house of the Alessandri is shown a room whose walls -are entirely covered with brocades won as prizes by a horse belonging -to the family. Lorenzo always kept race-horses; one in particular, -called Morello from its dark colour, always came off victorious, and -was so attached to its master that it showed signs of illness when -he did not feed it with his own hand, and testified its joy at his -approach by stamping and loud neighing.[444] In his young days a -handsome Sicilian horse was presented to him, and its value was outdone -by that of the presents he gave in return. He himself made presents -of horses. In November 1479, when he was particularly anxious to keep -on good terms with Lodovico il Moro, he sent to Roberto Sanseverino, -who was at that time a confidant of the Moro, a fine horse and a -falcon.[445] Letters about their horses passed between Lorenzo and -King Ferrante, the Este family, the Sforzas of Pesaro, and others. In -January 1473 the king thanked Lorenzo for the gift of a horse about -which his ambassador, Marino Tomacelli, had written to him. Four -years after he announced that he was sending Lorenzo two racers, a -Sicilian and another, from his own stud, and two hunters, as tokens of -his attachment. Horses of the king’s, lent for the Florentine races, -were on their way at the time of the Pazzi catastrophe.[446] It was, -moreover, the custom to send horses to allied nobles and cities, to -keep them for the races; those of the Medici went to both Ferrara -and Lucca. When Giovanni Sforza of Pesaro was going to be married to -Maddalena Gonzaga at the end of the summer of 1489, he begged Lorenzo -to lend him one of his horses for the tournament to be held on the -occasion. In Lorenzo’s latter years his eldest son had the direction of -the stables.[447] - -Lorenzo has left in his pretty and cheerful description of the -hawking-party a graceful memorial of his love of the sport. Hawking was -an old pastime always in great favour with princes and nobles. Dante’s -master, Brunetto Latini, mentions in his ‘Treasury’ seven species of -falcons which served for the chase. Two contemporaries of Lorenzo paid -special attention to the training of these birds: the King of Naples, -who imported the best falcons from Rhodes with the permission of the -grand-master of the Hospitallers, and Ercole d’Este, to whom Lorenzo -gave leave to catch the birds on his estates in the Pisan territory. In -return for this the duke sent to Lorenzo some of his own well-trained -falcons for the purpose of the chase or to help in training his wild -ones, and the king several times made him presents of hawks, as he -did also to Maximilian of Austria, Ferdinand of Castile, Galeazzo -Maria Sforza, and others.[448] The wide, well-wooded and watered plain -of Pisa, and the lowlands and hills round Poggio a Cajano, were the -scenes of the chase. On December 1, 1475, Angelo Poliziano, who was -seldom absent from either studies or sports, wrote from Pisa to Madonna -Clarice, then expecting her confinement (the child was afterwards -Pope Leo):[449] ‘Yesterday we went hawking. It was windy and we were -unlucky, for we lost Pilato’s falcon called Mantovano. To-day we tried -again, and again the wind was contrary; yet we had some fine flights, -for Maestro Giorgio let loose his falcon, which returned obediently -at a given signal. Lorenzo is quite in love with the bird, and not -without justice, for Maestro Giorgio says he has never seen one larger -or finer, and he hopes to make him the best falcon in the world. While -we were in the field Pilato returned from the shore with the truant -of yesterday, which redoubled Lorenzo’s pleasure. We are hawking from -morning till night, and do nothing else. On Monday I hear our sport is -to be varied by a deer-hunt.’ - -Independently of hunting, Lorenzo liked being in Pisa, and it was -not his fault that the unfortunate city’s relations with Florence -did not improve, and that she could not accustom herself to bear the -position of a subject city. Even when not called there by business, -he frequently stayed there. From his youth up he was in the habit of -leaving Florence to meet friends for change, for hunting or to see -after his great estate at Agnano. This place, first a fortress and then -a villa round which had gathered a population of a few hundreds, lies -on the western slope of the Monte San Giuliano, four miles from Pisa, -near marshes which Valori says Lorenzo would have drained if he had -lived longer, and which mostly are drained now. A large pine-wood forms -part of the estate, which in Lorenzo’s days furnished a considerable -quantity of corn and oil, and with other possessions in the Maremma of -Pisa, at Colle Salvetti (now one of the stations on the railway which -passes through the plain to Civita Vecchia), at Colmezzano, and other -places, formed a most important part of the Medici landed property. -Lorenzo’s letters bear testimony to the great care he took in the -improvement of husbandry in this hitherto sadly neglected part. Like -Spedaletto, Agnano passed to Maddalena Cybò; her son Lorenzo, who was -not on very good terms with his wife—Ricciarda Malaspina, heiress of -Massa and Carrara—ended his days there in 1549.[450] After Lorenzo -had re-established the University of Pisa, its interests frequently -called him to the city. During the disastrous fight for Sarzana he made -Pisa a sort of head-quarters. The house then inhabited by the Medici, -now belonging to the Pieracchi family, stands not far from the upper -bridge over the Arno—the Ponte della Fortezza—on the right bank, -near the church of San Matteo. Here is said to have occurred, seventy -years after Lorenzo’s death, that domestic tragedy which has never been -cleared up, and which casts a dark shadow over the history of the first -Medicean grand-duke. - -In Lorenzo’s days the house was more cheerful. Here, probably, was the -scene of his discourse with Federigo of Aragon on Italian poetry; here -he passed some pleasant days in April 1476. He came by San Miniato, -where a halt was always made, with six-and-twenty horses. ‘We rode -along,’ wrote Poliziano to Clarice,[451] ‘singing, and sometimes -talking theology in order not to forget this season of fasting; Lorenzo -was triumphant. At San Miniato we tried to read some of St. Augustine, -but the reading was soon exchanged for music and for polishing up -a figure of a dancer which we found there.’ There was no lack of -merriment and jesting wherever Lorenzo went; the Pisan students found -him a ready supporter of their carnaval gaieties, at which they were -permitted to take away the instruction-books from the professors and to -spend on festivities the money paid to ransom them. The attribution to -Lorenzo of the combat on the middle bridge over the Arno (_Giuoco del -Ponte_), at which the ground was disputed between armed bands on either -side, and which was forbidden by the Grand-Duke Leopold I. on account -of its fatal episodes, is a mistake; traces of it may be found in much -earlier times. - -It was in Pisa, at the end of May 1477, that Lorenzo received Eleonora -of Aragon, wife of Duke Ercole of Ferrara; she had come by way of Lucca -to attend her father’s marriage at Naples, whither she was conveyed by -a royal fleet which had anchored at Livorno.[452] As long as Filippo -de’ Medici was Archbishop of Pisa, and his brother Tanai dwelt there, -there was no lack of grand hospitality; Luigi Pulci mentions the -festivities during the presence of the Duke of Calabria in the war of -Colleone.[453] Other than cheerful purposes called Lorenzo to Pisa. -He sought in its mild air relief from physical sufferings; as in the -autumn of 1474, after being cured of fever by the waters of Porretta. -He stopped at Pisa, at a critical moment of his life, before embarking -for Naples. In the little church of Sta. Maria della Spina, whose -spires and pinnacles are seen adjoining the quay on the south shore, -in 1485 he ordered for the victims of the Sarzana struggle requiems to -be sung, at which he was present together with the widow of Bongianni -Gianfigliazzi, who had met his death in the unhealthy air of the -Lunigiana coast.[454] - -Lorenzo’s visits to the baths played a great part in his life, though -they never took him beyond the borders of Tuscany. Gout was hereditary -in his family; his grandfather, his father, and his uncle all suffered -from it, and his mother too was not exempt. When only twenty-six he -was obliged to take the waters of Porretta, which still attract so -many invalids to the valley of the Reno in the Apennines, on the road -between Pistoja and Bologna. His most frequent resort was Bagno a -Morba, where Madonna Lucrezia had a house and stayed frequently, and -in his latter years he had the water sent to Spedaletto. Most of the -Tuscan baths were anything but inviting; some are not more so now. -In the Roman territory they are still worse; Ser Matteo Franco, -describing the baths of Stigliano near the lake of Bracciano, remarks -that in comparison with this place Bagno a Morba was a Careggi. Lorenzo -tried other medicinal waters. In the autumn of 1484, after the taking -of Pietrasanta, he went to the baths of San Filippo in the Sienese -country. These remarkable thermal springs are reached by turning out -of the old Roman high-road at the little village of Ricorsi, at the -foot of the inhospitable height of Radicofani, and proceeding through -the valley of the Orcia towards the stately group of Mont’Amiata, -covered throughout its 5,000 feet of height with chestnuts and -beeches, and surrounded with a girdle of villages. The springs lie in -a deep ravine encircled with woods; a precipitate of carbonic acid -and lime forms a marble-like crust, and the waters are an efficacious -remedy for arthritic disorders as well as for skin-diseases. It is a -desolate place, with only a few houses destined for the reception of -invalids, in the narrow valley where oppressive heat alternates with -a damp cold atmosphere. In autumn of the following year, and several -times afterwards, Lorenzo came again. In the spring of 1490 he spent -some time at the baths of Vignone in the same valley of the Orcia, a -little southwards of San Quirico. Powerful thermal springs, similar -to those mentioned above, issue from a travertine hill in the middle -of the village, and fill a large basin; they were known in Roman -times. Here Ermolao Barbaro visited Lorenzo, and Franceschetto Cybò -and his wife kept him company; at that season the place was safe, but -in summer the air can hardly be borne even by natives. Lorenzo’s stay -at Filetto in the valley of the Merse has already been mentioned. All -these water-cures only gave temporary relief to his malady, and the -short time he usually devoted to them would have prevented any lasting -result even if his maladies had been less rooted and less complicated. -Besides, even after his health had suffered considerably, his mode of -life was not exactly regular. He not only exerted himself too much in -attending to business of all kinds, public and private, which poured -in upon him surrounded as he was by many cares, but he was always -involved in love intrigues. Bartolommea de’ Nasi, the wife of Donato -Benci, held him in her chains for years; she was neither young nor -beautiful, but graceful and attractive. Even in winter he would ride -out in the evening to her villa to be back in the city before daybreak. -Two confidants, Luigi della Stufa and Andrea de’ Medici, were his -usual companions. They got tired of it, and their remarks came to the -ears of the lady; whereupon she managed to have them punished by being -sent off on diplomatic errands, the one to Cairo and the other to -Constantinople—an old and well-worn contrivance which, in this case, -caused a sensation of a nature not very favourable to the great man, -‘who behaved himself like an inexperienced youth.’[455] - -The princely dignity which Lorenzo enjoyed was as apparent in his -relations with foreign rulers as in his position in his own country, -in his own house, and in his journeys. The former have been repeatedly -mentioned. Everyone made use of him; everyone applied to him; everyone -gave him thanks and presents, from antiquities down to sweet-smelling -essences, which the Duchess of Calabria sent him. He sent his friends -and acquaintances presents of books, works of art, horses, wine, and -other things. In June 1489 he presented a vase full of balm to Anne -de Beaujeu, ‘Madama di Belgiù.’ Venison and fish seem to have been -favourite gifts on the part of communities and individuals; on one day -five wild boars were taken to Lorenzo’s house. - -A great event, which has left its trace in the history of art by a -representation in a fresco at Poggio a Cajano, was an embassy from -Abu Nasr Kaitbei, Sultan of Egypt, or of Babylonia as he was called, -which arrived at Florence on November 11, 1487, and was honourably -and joyfully received by the foreign ambassadors and many of the -citizens.[456] It was a fortunate time for the Republic, which had a -few months before got rid of the dreary affair of Sarzana, and had -now entered on a period of comparative peace which was not disturbed -till the revolution of 1494. Italian affairs were of considerable -importance to the Egyptian sultan, not only on account of commerce -but also politically, on account of his relations with Naples and -Venice; difficulties with this latter state might easily have been -created by the sultan’s claims to the suzerainty of Cyprus, where -Caterina Cornaro continued to reign as a queen of shadows till 1489, -under the protection of Venice. The sultan’s eyes often turned towards -the west as the progress of the Osmanli threatened an attack on the -loosely connected empire of the Mamelukes, which, indeed, fell before -their better-compacted power within less than thirty years. After the -subjection of Pisa, Florence had frequent commercial relations with -Egypt, and a desire to enlarge and secure its privileges gave rise to -negotiations for which an Egyptian ambassador named Malphet came to -Florence in 1487, and in the following year a Florentine, the aforesaid -Luigi della Stufa, went to Cairo.[457] The former was sent at once to -the Signoria of the Republic and to the ‘Hakim’ (lord) Lorenzo de’ -Medici, and brought rich presents for both. On Sunday, November 18, -he had a solemn audience of the Signoria in presence of many of the -chief citizens. He had led before him a giraffe and a tame lion, gifts -from the sultan. The giraffe was no novelty to the Florentines, for -one had been already seen at the festivals with which the visit of -Pius II. was celebrated; and the lion, the emblem of the commonwealth, -was always carefully kept here, alive as well as in effigy. A street -behind the palace of the Signoria took its name from the lion-cage, -afterwards removed to the square of San Marco. A Sicilian interpreter -translated the conversation, which turned on the privileges offered -to the Florentines in Egypt and Syria. For Lorenzo the ambassador -brought gifts of various kinds: an Arabian horse, rare animals, among -which were rams and sheep of various colours, with long hanging ears -and tails; several horns of civet, a lamp with balsam, a quantity of -aloe-wood, beautiful many coloured porcelain such as had never before -been seen, vases of preserves, and rich and finely woven silk and linen -stuffs.[458] There was a great festival in the Medici household when -all these rarities were brought home; Madonna Clarice was absent, being -then at Rome with Maddalena. Among Lorenzo’s gifts to the sultan is -mentioned a bed, carried by a special messenger. - -Whenever Lorenzo went to the baths or left home for any purpose, he -was everywhere received like a prince. The municipalities within the -Florentine dominions were accustomed to send yearly presents to the -capital on certain feasts, and they did not neglect to send offerings -to the head of the Republic. After the fashion of the times these gifts -usually consisted of provisions and goods for the house. When Lorenzo -was expected, early in 1485, at San Gemignano, on his way to Bagno a -Morba, but took another route, the municipality, which had voted 100 -lire for his reception, sent to Morba a load of Greek wine, capons, -marchpane and wax.[459] The Signoria of Siena, though they had not -a few complaints against Lorenzo, honoured him in a similar manner -when he was in their territory. During his stay at Vignone they sent -ample provisions for his table.[460] His suite was unusually numerous. -A list of the persons he once took with him to Morba[461] names the -following: a chaplain, Filippo (Ubaldini) da Gagliano, Francesco degli -Organi (Squarcialupi), a house-steward, two chancellors (secretaries), -two singers, Bertoldo the sculptor, a barber, two valets, a butler, -five crossbowmen, ten grooms, an equerry, a cook, a kitchen-boy, and -a coachman. For these thirty-two persons fourteen beds were required. -His family, too, when they travelled without him, were everywhere -received in the most distinguished manner possible. A letter of their -faithful, cheerful friend, Matteo Franco, gives a lively sketch of a -journey on horseback made by Clarice in May 1485, from Morba, where she -had been with her husband, through the Volterra district and the Elsa -valley to Florence. At all the places where she stopped, especially at -Colle, where the first halt for sleeping was made (the second was at -Passignano, where stood the great abbey given to Giovanni de’ Medici), -everybody was astir; yet friendly intercourse was combined with a -ceremonious reception. - -Whether in town, in the country, or on a journey, Lorenzo was always -surrounded by friends, whose names are inseparable from his. Most -of them have become known in the course of this history; various -characters, of whom more than one may be differently judged, according -to whether we view them in private life and in their confidential -relations, or as public men, authors or otherwise. First come those -who were the guides of his youth or whom he knew in his father’s -house; Gentile Becchi, who remained a member of the Medicean household -even after his appointment to the see of Arezzo, as bishops were not -required to reside too strictly; Ficino, Landino, and Poliziano. Then -those who, having been friends of his parents, attached themselves to -him in his youth and manhood; or those who first came in contact with -him in his mature years; Luigi Pulci, Matteo Franco, Bartolommeo Scala, -Pico della Mirandola—besides those who were drawn to him by political -and allied interests, and who zealously served him and, in his sense of -the word, the State, without forgetting themselves. On each and all -Lorenzo had a deep and lasting influence; he was the centre around -which all revolved, the link that bound all together, however much -a few of the disaffected ones might try to fight against it. Their -attachment to him was not forced or selfish; the affection expressed -in Pulci’s letters and Poliziano’s verses had nothing artificial about -it. Lorenzo was a genial man, cordial and kind, a born prince, simple -and natural. In his intercourse with the scholars and artists who were -in some sense dependent on him, the relation of patron and client was -forgotten. Their letters to him, grave and gay, are proofs of their -confidence and intimacy. If they address him as ‘Magnifico,’ they soon -follow it up with a plain ‘Lorenzo.’ In the midst of the war-troubles -of 1479, Donatello’s pupil Bertoldo wrote Lorenzo a letter full of -fun, to the effect that it was more profitable to be a cook than an -artist;[462] and the famous Niccolò Grosso, called Caparra, in reality -a blacksmith, but who executed works of art, would not fulfil Lorenzo’s -orders till he had executed others he had received first.[463] How -entirely constraint was banished in intercourse with him is shown -by his conversation with the mosaic-worker Graffione, a pupil of -Baldovinetti. Lorenzo once said he would like to adorn the inside of -the dome of the Cathedral with mosaics. ‘For that you could not get -masters,’ replied Graffione. ‘We have money enough to get masters,’ -was the probably half-jesting answer. ‘Eh, Lorenzo,’ exclaimed the -artist, ‘it is not the money that procures the masters, but the masters -who procure the money!’ He bore with their humours and oddities; he -honoured them living and dead, feeling that their fame would add to -his own. Had he done nothing for art beyond the cordial and almost -fatherly reception which he, a powerful and much-envied man of mature -years, gave to Michelangelo when the latter was almost in his boyhood, -that alone would make his memory illustrious. On his death-bed he -desired once more to see the friends in whose society he had passed his -happiest hours, and whose attachment followed him beyond the grave. - -Notwithstanding many disturbances caused by political events, -increasing bad health, and several deaths in the family, still life was -cheerful in the Medici household. Music was a daily pleasure. Lorenzo’s -poetical talents attached him to this art, and his unmusical voice -did not hinder him from taking a part in singing. Marsilio relates -that he did so at a social gathering which apparently took its name of -_La Mammola_ (the Violet) from a still existing hostelry. Thus, too, -one evening, when he was singing the mysteries of love, he originated -a discussion as to whether subjects in which mourning occurred were -appropriate, which Ficino decided in the affirmative.[464] In his -poetical productions he reckoned much on musical effect, a necessary -condition of songs for dancing and for the carnaval. As long as his -health permitted he was never absent from the merry processions at -which popular melodies alternated with those of Heinrich Isaak; and on -journeys, at the May-festivals and other times of gaiety there was no -lack of musical accompaniments to the verses of Poliziano and other -friends. Although from Guido Aretino down to the father of Galileo, -Tuscany produced no remarkable composer or writer on music, yet the -people were always musical. Ficino was doubly welcome when he appeared -with his plectrum, after the pattern of the earliest half-deified -apostles of Greek culture, to secure a better reception for ancient -philosophy by his strains delighting the ear and winning the heart. As -in Poliziano’s ‘Orpheus,’ Baccio Ugolini accompanied on the lyre the -ode in praise of Cardinal Gonzaga, so did Marsilio when extemporising, -in which art he was a master. - -One of Lorenzo’s protégés was the organ-builder Antonio Squarcialupi, -who, as a precentor, had been a familiar of the house in Piero’s -time. His life and conversation seem not to have been blameless; but -Lorenzo took him under his protection for the sake of his uncommon -talent. ‘If you knew,’ he said once to those who blamed him, ‘what it -is to attain perfection in anything, you would judge him more gently -and modestly.’[465] Squarcialupi set to music many of the songs of his -patron, who, it is said, composed the inscription for his tomb. To -the friendship of the Medici he owed the epigram in which Poliziano -called upon Florence to honour with a marble monument him who had long -been the voice of her temple.[466] The man really must have possessed -rare artistic merits; for a son of the Count of Altavilla—one of the -guests at the Salutati banquet—came to Florence with an introduction -from King Ferrante to Lorenzo, to study the organ and other instruments -under Squarcialupi; and ten years later a clergyman named Stephen came -from Ofen, with a recommendation from Matthias Corvinus, to learn -organ-building.[467] In 1477 a lute-player of Lodovico Sforza’s suite -came to Florence to be heard by the famous master.[468] Organ-building, -as well as organ-playing, was a somewhat rare art. The difficulty of -finding good masters is shown by the trouble and loss of time caused -in Cosimo’s days to the committee entrusted with the building of the -Cathedral, through the untrustworthiness of Matteo da Prato, who had -undertaken to furnish the new organs, to be decorated by Donatello -and Luca della Robbia. Lorenzo took great interest in this branch of -music. Many of his letters relate to organists recommended by him to -various Tuscan towns, or sent from one place to another. At his death -there were in his house no less than five organs; one large one with -a finely-carved wooden case, the rest smaller, partly metal, partly -paste-board, which was then used for these instruments.[469] Musicians -were included among the servants; and in the evenings there was singing -and playing on the lute. Michelangelo in his later years used to tell -of a man who was called the _Cardiere_, and who was a great favourite -with Lorenzo on account of his wonderful talent for improvising songs -to an instrumental accompaniment.[470] Lorenzo also looked after the -musical education of his children. ‘The evening before last,’ wrote -Poliziano to him at Bagno a Morba on June 5, 1490,[471] ‘I unexpectedly -heard our Piero sing, and then he and his companions came to my room. -He pleased me exceedingly, especially in the motetts and answers to -the strophes, and also by his charms of articulation. I felt as if I -were listening to your Magnificence.’ Leo X. had through life a true -passion for music and improvisation. As a cardinal, his palace near -Sant’Eustachio (Palazzo Madama) continually resounded with instruments -and singing; and in the Vatican music and poetry vied with each other, -and both improvisers and musicians made their fortunes with the Pope. - -It is needless to repeat how closely poetry was intertwined with the -life of the Medici. The taste for it was hereditary. Cosimo the elder, -Lorenzo, his brother Giuliano, all wrote poetry; so did the younger -Piero and others of the family. As a child Lorenzo’s daughter Lucrezia -knew by heart the spiritual songs of her grandmother;[472] and the -songs of the ‘Morgante’ were first heard in the Medici house when -Lucrezia Tornabuoni took part in them. Many of Poliziano’s poems were -evidently intended to be recited to his patron; and when he relates -in a letter[473] how one asked him for sermons for the brotherhoods, -another for carnaval songs, one wanted sentimental songs for the viola, -another gay serenades, it is probable that he referred to members of -the society he met in the house of the Medici. One can fancy Pulci -and Matteo Franco sending satirical shafts in the form of sonnets at -each other across the table. In the ‘Beoni’ and ‘Nencia,’ evidently -intended for gay meetings, Lorenzo himself gave the signal for poetical -entertainments and contests; Pulci once answered him with the ‘Beca -da Dicomano.’ The poetic gifts of his eldest son are displayed in the -latter’s productions; the verses written by him in exile show more -depth of feeling than one would have given him credit for. In his -youth, at least, his contemporaries seem to have judged him favourably. -In a sonnet of Antonio da Pistoja on the poets of the time, both Piero -and his father are mentioned, and the praise bestowed on them gains -weight from the fact that Poliziano alone is placed above them:— - - Who among Tuscans doth in verse excel? - In vulgar tongue? Aye, and in Latin speech. - Lorenzo and his son write passing well, - But neither can Politian’s glory reach.[474] - -Piero’s letters to his father, on literary and other subjects, display -sound judgment, information, and lively interest. His boyish letters, -indeed, are of little consequence; and when, as a lad of fourteen, he -writes from the villa to his father at San Filippo, giving an account -of his own studies and those of his brother Giovanni, with whom he -was reading Virgil’s Bucolics, thereby, as he said, gaining double -profit,[475] his master’s hand is clearly traceable. But there are -other letters worthy of consideration, such as that on the visit of -Ermolao Barbaro. Although Poliziano’s descriptions of his pupil and -of the young Cardinal Giovanni lose much of their effect and even -spoil their subjects by exaggeration, yet it cannot be disputed that -Lorenzo’s eldest son, though he did not possess his father’s prudence -and calculation (a want which may perhaps be explained and excused by -the degree of splendour, fortune, and grandeur at which Lorenzo left -the personal government in his hands), yet did possess many of his -intellectual qualities. The time during which he continued to hold -the government was too short and too much disturbed by preludes of -the coming storm to furnish premisses for a decisive judgment of him; -neither can such a judgment be fairly founded on his conduct in exile, -which may be mistaken even by the keenest eye. - -Piero’s wife can hardly have had a good influence on him. Alfonsina -Orsini was infinitely less fitted than her mother-in-law for Florentine -life and manners. In her nature the pride of the Roman barons seems to -have been combined with covetousness and hardness, whereby she made -herself very much disliked in later years, when her brother-in-law -was Pope and she was a great deal in Rome, where she died in 1520. -Her husband’s three sisters, Lucrezia, Maddalena, and Contessina, -the wife of Piero Ridolfi, were frequently at their father’s house. -Maddalena, whose daughter Lucrezia was born at Rome early in 1490, -became at Florence, on August 24 of the following year, the mother -of a son who was christened Innocenzo after the Pope, received the -red hat from Leo X., and, with his cousins Cardinals Salviati and -Ridolfi, played some part in Florence after the murder of the first -duke. All three sisters afterwards attached themselves to the court -of Leo X. in a way which threw no favourable light on his financial -arrangements; and the influence of Lucrezia, doubtless the most highly -gifted of the three, lasted beyond her brother’s lifetime throughout -the whole reign of her cousin Clement VII., with whom her husband, -Jacopo Salviati (father of the cardinal), was very intimate, till the -Pope’s proceedings in 1529 against the city of his fathers estranged -the relatives. In one of Ariosto’s satires, invaluable for a study -of the manners and general circumstances of the early years of the -sixteenth century, he introduces Lorenzo’s posterity and their friends -rejoicing at the elevation of Leo X.,—a rejoicing destined to be of -short duration.[476] There were numerous other members of the family, -rich and poor, nearly and distantly connected. The nearest branch was, -of course, that descended from Cosimo’s brother Lorenzo, whose chief -representative at this time was the oft-mentioned Lorenzo, son of Pier -Francesco. One of those admitted to the closest intimacy was a distant -cousin, Andrea. As long as the daughters remained at home Lorenzo -insisted on their dressing modestly and simply, in conformity to the -sumptuary laws. Certain materials he never would allow them, because -they resembled the forbidden crimson cloth, although many other grand -ladies wore them without scruple. He himself was never distinguished -from other citizens in outward apparel. In winter he wore a violet -mantle with a hood, and in summer the _lucco_: the long red robe of the -upper class of citizens, still the usual dress of the magistrates. It -is mentioned that he got Venetian silk for his dress. To elderly people -he always offered his hand and gave the place of honour, and what he -taught his sons he first followed himself. - -Lorenzo’s observations generally were very pointed without falling into -the sarcasm of his grandfather. When the Sienese jurist Bartolommeo -Sozzini repeated the old reproach against the air of Florence that it -was bad for the sight (‘An ancient saying calls her people blind’) -before Lorenzo, who suffered from weak eyes, Lorenzo replied that the -air of Siena was worse still; it was bad for the brains. When the same -man, having broken his plighted word in leaving Pisa secretly, on being -caught and imprisoned complained of the punishment as unbecoming his -position, Lorenzo answered that the dishonour was not in the punishment -but in the unworthy action. He said of those who built recklessly that -they were buying repentance dear; and when his cousin Pier Francesco, -having begun at Majano a building which he kept on altering as the -work proceeded, complained that the expense far exceeded the estimate, -he exclaimed: ‘No wonder; others build according to their plans, you -make your plans after the building.’ When Carlo de’ Medici, who seems -not to have been over-nice in his methods of getting money, boasted -of the quantity of water round his villa, Lorenzo remarked that he -would have to keep his hands all the cleaner. That he also had a turn -for practical joking, which, as has been seen, was an ingredient in -Florentine life, is shown by the history of the troublesome parasitical -doctor Maestro Manente, whom he caused to be taken one evening, when -drunk, by two men in disguise, and shut up in a place unknown to him -outside the city, and given out for dead. When the supposed dead man at -last got home, his wife, who took him for a ghost, would not let him in -till the enchantment of which he was supposed to have been the victim -was cleared up by the intervention of others.[477] This trick evidently -recalls the story of the fat cabinet-maker. - -In a letter to Lodovico Odasio, Poliziano has left a description of -his patron and friend in graver conversation.[478] ‘Think not that -any one of our learned brethren, even those whose very life’s work -is study, can surpass Lorenzo de’ Medici in acuteness of disputation -and in formulating a conclusion; or that he is inferior to anyone in -the easy, graceful, and varied expression of his ideas. Historical -examples occur to him as readily as to the most accomplished of his -companions; and whenever the subject of the discourse admits of it, -his conversation is richly seasoned with the salt of the ocean from -which Venus rose.’ Poliziano, the confidential friend of the house, -who was never absent either from the literary symposia or from the -narrower circle of friends, in time of joy or in time of mourning, -understood Lorenzo thoroughly, and his judgment may be accepted. -Many of Lorenzo’s sayings have been preserved which bear witness to -the soundness of his judgment, or in some way reflect credit on him. -He said once: ‘As a healthy body resists the influence of a storm, so -a state can brave dangers when the citizens are of one mind.’ When -Filippo Valori (brother of his biographer) was desirous but yet afraid -to try to reconcile Lorenzo with Antonio Tebalducci, against whom the -latter had grounds for complaint, Lorenzo said to him: ‘To recommend a -friend to me would be no merit, but for making an opponent my friend -I thank thee, and I beg thee to do it again in the like case.[479] -Only he who knows how to forgive knows how to conquer,’ he added.[480] -The combination of prince and citizen, statesman and man of letters; -the mixture of gravity and gaiety, of lofty intellect and cheerful -participation in everyday life, of grandeur and simplicity in his -household and family, of sagacious calculation and hearty unfeigned -good nature,—all this makes Lorenzo de’ Medici an unusual figure, very -attractive in its individuality, and accounts for the impression he -made on all; especially, and most lastingly, on those who were intimate -at his house and had the opportunity of observing him in private. - - - - -CHAPTER IV. - -THE CARDINALATE OF GIOVANNI DE’ MEDICI. - - -BOTH contemporary and later writers have passed an unfavourable -judgment on Pope Innocent VIII. ‘Though the life of Innocent VIII. was -useless for the general good,’ remarks Guicciardini at the beginning -of his great history, ‘at least it was useful thus far, in that, -frightened at his unsuccessful attempt to meddle in the Barons’ War, -during the remainder of his pontificate he directed his attention to -trifles instead of planning for himself and his belongings things which -might have disturbed the peace of Italy.’ This negative praise is not -without truth, but it gives little insight into the character and aims -of the Pope. His greatest faults were weakness and inconsistency: -hence the sorry part which he played as a ruler, although he had no -tendency towards nepotism and was gifted with sound judgment. It was -his weakness which made him abandon the affairs of Aquila and of the -Barons, and caused his ever-wavering conduct towards the King of -Naples. The latter alternately lured and contemptuously defied him, -rendered the treatment of his own restless feudatories uncertain, and -provoked disturbances in Rome which led to the robbing of the papal -treasury by the Pope’s own son. Yet that son, compared with the nephews -of the last Pope—not to mention the one who followed—was but very -modestly provided for; so barely indeed that, but for the resources of -the Medici, Franceschetto Cybò, at the Pope’s death, would have been, -for one in his position, a poor man. It was long before Innocent -made up his mind to do anything serious for him; and considering the -traditions of all the Papal ‘nephews,’ the Colonna, Piccolomini, Della -Rovere, and Riari, it may be well imagined that Franceschetto became -impatient; more so, perhaps, as the Pope’s health was failing owing to -the two apoplectic attacks he had had in January 1485, and in February -of the following year, during which he had been given up for dead. -‘These occurrences,’ remarks his biographer,[481] ‘made his family -anxious to secure their position for the future, and they begged the -Pope to make provision for this while it was yet time.’ - -But they gained little, and not till after Franceschetto’s marriage did -his circumstances begin really to improve. Lorenzo was not behindhand -with his persuasions: ‘It is not without a blush,’ he wrote on February -26, 1488,[482] ‘that I commend to your Holiness the affairs of -Signor Francesco; for it seems to me unreasonable to commend to your -Holiness that which for natural reasons must be nearer your heart than -anything else. My letters and intercession cannot in reason have more -weight than the natural relationship between your Holiness and Signor -Francesco; but as I see that his affairs proceed very slowly, I feel I -ought not to refuse him my recommendation and every other support. As -he is, he tells me, very happy in possessing Maddalena, this should be -to your Holiness an occasion for treating him so as to please me too. -This will be the case if his position becomes such as shall befit the -dignity of your Holiness and set my mind at rest. I never had any idea -that your Holiness should take anything from others, or give offence -to any, in order to make him great. As this would be dishonourable -and contrary to the nature of your Holiness, so, on the other hand, I -think that it would not be in accordance with your natural kindness and -goodness if your Holiness did not provide for him, as he can easily -be portioned in a manner befitting his rank without any injury to -others. I humbly beg your Holiness to relieve yourself as well as me -of this trouble, and establish him so that further importunity shall -be needless. Thus your Holiness will be doing a work worthy of your -goodness, not only sensible and pious, but necessary, and greatly -desired by me, as a good example for all those who set their hopes on -your Holiness.’ - -Still the Pope was far too slow for Franceschetto’s impatience, and -seems to have had no great opinion of the latter’s judgment. The -son-in-law’s letters to his father-in-law are full of complaints which -really display Innocent in a more honourable light than those by whom -he was thus beset. ‘Like the ox, he needs the goad.’ This was a son -writing of his father, and that father the Pope! Lorenzo was not much -behind his son-in-law. One of his letters to the Pope[483] is but too -glaring an example of the profane tone in which this man, who could -display such a refined sense of decorum in other things, addressed -with the utmost coolness the very head of the Church. Innocent had had -another of his attacks of illness, and Lorenzo was getting anxious: -‘As St. Francis, by means of the stigmata, experienced in his own -body the Passion of Christ, so do I feel in and about myself all the -sufferings of your Holiness; for, putting aside other reasons, I have -the situation of our dear Signor Francesco and of many servants of your -Holiness very much at heart. Owing to your Holiness’ conscientious -holding back, all these remain almost empty-handed and have no part -of the fortune and favour which God has given your Holiness for your -merits; so that, should your Holiness be called away, which God -forbid, they would sink likewise into the grave. More especially, -however, am I moved, as must be the case with your Holiness also, by -the position of poor Signor Francesco, who, after five years of your -pontificate, is only just beginning to have something he can call his -own. Your Holiness knows better than I what supporters he has in the -Sacred College. The history of the Popes shows how few have reigned -much beyond five years, and how many have not waited so long before -showing themselves as Popes, without giving way to such scruples and -forbearance, justifiable no doubt before God and man, but which, if -they last long, may be misconstrued. Perhaps I seem too bold; but zeal -and conscience impose upon me the duty of speaking freely and reminding -you that men are not immortal, that a Pope is what he chooses to be, -that he cannot leave his pontificate to his heirs, and can call nothing -his own but honour and glory and what he does for his relatives. -Instead of depending on health and luck, your Holiness should not put -off doing what you project, and for which later there might perhaps -be no opportunity. Above all I commend to you your and my dear Signor -Francesco and Maddalena, who pray God to grant your Holiness a long -life that you may set their affairs in order. It is now about time to -release these holy fathers from Limbo, that their fate may not be like -that of the Jews waiting for the Messiah.’ - -While the Pope was thus plagued about secular matters, it was much the -same with ecclesiastical ones. In both cases the object was one and -the same—increase of riches and power. Everything was regarded and -treated from this point of view; of anything beyond, politicians—even -highly-gifted ones like Lorenzo—had no conception. Lorenzo was -impatient to get property for Franceschetto Cybò, he was still more -impatient to get the red hat for his own son. Giovanni was born on -December 11, 1475, and was consequently in his ninth year when Innocent -became Pope.[484] Some preparations had been made even then: ‘Cousin,’ -wrote Louis XI. from Plessis-les-Tours on February 3, 1483, in reply to -Lorenzo who had applied to him on the death of Cardinal d’Estouteville, -‘I have seen what you wrote to me concerning the benefices of the -Cardinal of Rouen, and much regret not to have known thereof sooner; -for I should be very pleased if your son should obtain a good provision -and benefice in my kingdom.’ - -The king was as good as his word; that same spring he conferred on the -child not only the abbacy of Font Doulce in the diocese of Saintes, -but also the archbishopric of Aix, which was supposed to be vacant. -‘On May 19, 1483,’ says Lorenzo in his memoirs,[485] ‘news came that -the King of France, of his own free will, had conferred the abbacy -of Font Doulce on our Giovanni; and on the 31st we heard from Rome -that the Pope (Sixtus IV.) had confirmed the appointment, declared -him capable of holding benefices at the age of seven, and appointed -him a protonotary.[486] On June 1, Giovanni, accompanied by me, came -from Poggio (a Cajano) to Florence, whereupon he was confirmed and -tonsured by the Lord Bishop of Arezzo, and was thenceforth called -Messer Giovanni. The aforesaid ceremonies took place in our private -chapel, and in the evening we returned to Poggio. On the morning of -June 8, Jacopino the courier came with a letter from the French king, -whereof the contents were that he had conferred on our Messer Giovanni -the archbishopric of Aix in Provence. In the evening he went on to -Rome with letters from the king to the Pope and the Cardinal of Maçon -(Philibert Hugonet), and at the same time a courier was sent to Forlì -with a letter for Count Girolamo. On the 11th the courier came back -from Forlì with letters from the count for the Pope and San Giorgio -(Cardinal Riario), which were forwarded to Rome by the Milanese post. -May God direct all for good. On the same day, after mass, all the -children, except Messer Giovanni, were confirmed in the chapel. On -the 15th, about the sixth hour of the evening, intelligence came from -Rome that the Pope raised difficulties about the appointment to the -archbishopric on account of Messer Giovanni’s youth; of which news the -king was at once informed by the same messenger. On the 20th came from -Lionetto (de’ Rossi) the announcement that the archbishop was still -alive! On March 1, 1484 (1485), the Abbot of Passignano died, and an -express was sent to Messer Giovan Antonio Vespucci, envoy at Rome, to -beg the abbey from the Pope (Innocent VIII.) for our Messer Giovanni. -On the 2nd, in pursuance of an ordinance of the Signoria, possession -was taken of it, in virtue of the reservation made in Messer Giovanni’s -favour by Pope Sixtus and confirmed by Pope Innocent when our Piero -went to Rome to do him homage.’ These details show but too plainly how -benefices were dealt with, and how at the mere rumour of a prelate’s -death temporal sovereigns disposed of a high spiritual office in favour -of a child. A few years after this, King Matthias Corvinus conferred -on a boy of seven—his nephew Ippolito of Este—the primatial see of -Hungary, the archbishopric of Gran. Like Sixtus IV., Innocent VIII. at -first refused to confirm the appointment, but he ended by yielding. - -The abbey of Passignano, belonging to the monks of Vallombrosa, was -one of the richest in Tuscany. The young abbot continued to enjoy its -possession till 1499, when he gave it up to the General of the Order -for a pension of 2,000 scudi. The grand fortress-like building, which -remained in the possession of the Order down to our own day, stands in -the valley of the Pesa, sixteen miles south of Florence, on the left -of the Roman military road; its church is adorned with paintings by -Domenico Cresti, who was somewhat of the Caracci school, and was called -by the name of his birthplace, Passignano. Everything in the shape -of benefices of all kinds, commanderies, rectorships, and so forth, -that came within reach of the Medici, fell to Lorenzo’s son; in 1486 -he actually obtained, as a commandery, the abbey of Monte Cassino; -King Ferrante having, in order to conciliate the Pope, given him free -disposal of the famous convent of S. Benedict.[487] How anxious the -king was to appease the Medicean hunger after benefices is shown by his -letter of August 23, 1486, in answer to Lorenzo’s thanks.[488] ‘Thanks -from you were needless, for God knows we are ready and willing to do -anything in the world to prove to you our gratitude for what you have -continually done for our good and that of our state, on which you may -reckon as on your own property. Our obligations to you demand this; -and we can never do enough in favour of you and your house to satisfy -the thousandth part of our desire, as we hope you will perceive more -clearly every day.’ Lodovico il Moro answered in the same strain when -Lorenzo thanked him for giving his son the abbacy of Miramondo.[489] - -All this, however, was but the prelude. There is something very -repulsive in the impatience with which Lorenzo looked forward to -his son’s cardinalate, and pressed the Pope to confer it. For the -ambassadors of the Republic there seemed to be nothing more important -than this. Lorenzo always took special good care that men who were in -his own deepest confidence should be sent to the Popes. In the spring -of 1487 Innocent wished that Pier Filippo Pandolfini, who had formerly -been in Rome, should be appointed to the vacant post of ambassador; -but he could not leave Florence, and the place was taken by Giovanni -Lanfredini, whose capabilities had lately been tested at Naples. -‘I have used my influence with the Signoria,’ wrote Lorenzo to the -Pope on May 6,[490] ‘to procure the appointment of a man with whom -your Holiness will be perfectly satisfied. For besides that Giovanni -Lanfredini (he who is destined for Rome) is an excellent honest man and -conversant with business, he also possesses my heart (_il core mio_), -as I am much attached to him on account of his merits.’ To Lanfredini -himself Lorenzo wrote on June 16 of the following year:[491] ‘I have -heard what his Holiness said to you about the creation of cardinals. -I think the Pope should not put off the nomination any longer than is -absolutely necessary. According to my view his Holiness will be quite -another Pope after it. For whereas hitherto he has been a head without -members, he must get some; whereas he has been the creature of others, -now others must be the creatures of him. Therefore persuade him, -yea, urge him, to take the needful decision; the sooner the better. -_Periculum est in mora_; as much as he gains by acting he loses by -hesitating. Use all your influence to procure this blessed promotion -as soon as possible. As the matter is before the Sacred College, it -cannot be delayed without great damage to the holy father’s dignity and -power. As to the persons to be nominated, I approve of all the names -which are marked; they are those of which you have spoken to me. If he -can do us that pleasure, let him do it. If the promotion were to be put -off on our account, tell him he may act according to his judgment. If -he thinks it well to begin with a single one to show that it is in his -power, he can nominate more by degrees till everybody is satisfied.’ - -Months passed away; the Pope’s indecision was unconquerable, and -Lorenzo’s impatience increased. ‘As I understand from our ambassador,’ -he wrote to Innocent on October 1, 1488,[492] ‘that your Holiness -intends shortly to create some cardinals, I should think myself -deserving of grave censure did I not put you in mind of the honour -of this city and my own, though I am sure that your Holiness in your -goodness remembers both. I do not believe that in the whole course -of your pontificate you could do anything that would deserve more -gratitude from the city; and as the dignity of a cardinal is lofty and -much sought after, this city would feel it deeply should her hopes -not be fulfilled.’ It concerned the honour of Florence that a son of -Lorenzo—a mere boy—should be received into the senate of the Church! -Meantime, while Lorenzo thus unceasingly urged his claim, he was taking -equal trouble to prevent the same dignity from being conferred on -some fellow-countryman for whom he had no predilection. ‘The Pope,’ -he wrote to the ambassador,[493] ‘does not know our people’s ways (_i -polli nostri_) as we do. Not only the cardinalate, but any increase -of position and dignity, would be dangerous if it came otherwise -than in the right way.’ Who can tell whether the chief cause of this -long delay in the only promotion undertaken by this Pope was not -really a scruple, struggling with political considerations? Innocent -himself had decided that no one under thirty should be admitted to the -cardinalate, and Giovanni de’ Medici was not yet fourteen. Lorenzo -never ceased writing,[494] Lanfredini never ceased talking. Cardinals -Sforza, Borgia, La Balue, and Zeno, were pressed into the service. -‘The services daily rendered us by Monsignor Ascanio,’ says Lorenzo -in a letter to the ambassador, February 21, 1489, ‘deserve better -thanks than words. My obligations to him could not be greater if I were -recalled from death to life.’ The story current in Florence—perhaps -exaggerated—of the sums spent on the occasion furnishes a commentary -on these words. - -At last, on March 9, 1489, the promotion took place.[495] It resulted -in five cardinals, among whom were the Pope’s relative Lorenzo de’ -Mari, who took the name of Cybò, and the Grand Master of the Knights -of St. John, the heroic defender of Rhodes, Pierre d’Aubusson. But -besides these five, at the same consistory, Innocent conferred the -same dignity on three others, without publishing their names—what is -now called a reservation _in petto_. One of these was Maffeo Gherardi, -a Camaldulensian, patriarch of Venice; the second was Federigo -Sanseverino, son of Roberto; the third was Giovanni de’ Medici. - -It was quite clear that the Pope was ashamed of himself. In the -worst days of the Church no child had yet been made a cardinal. The -nomination was to be kept secret for three years; whosoever divulged it -was to be excommunicated. It was very soon seen how this was observed. -On the day of the promotion, cardinals Sforza and La Balue, the Bishop -of Cortona, prefect of the Apostolic Chamber, and the ambassador, -announced to Lorenzo that his son had been made cardinal-deacon of -Sta. Maria in Domenica.[496] ‘God be thanked,’ wrote Lorenzo to the -last-mentioned,[497] ‘for the good news received yesterday about -Messer Giovanni; news which gave me all the greater pleasure, because -I expected it the less on account of the importance of the matter -and its difficulty bordering on impossibility, besides which it far -exceeds my deserts.... I know not whether the Pope is displeased at -the rejoicings which have taken place here on all sides, and in such -a degree as I never saw before; there would have been a yet more -brilliant expression of general joy, had I not interfered. To prevent -the demonstration was out of my power. As Messer Giovanni’s promotion -is secret, these festivities certainly seem out of place. But you at -Rome have let the thing become so well known that it could not be -otherwise here; and it would have been impossible for me to keep aloof -from the congratulations of whole cities, small and great. If it is -wrong, it cannot be helped. Now I want to know how we are to behave -ourselves in future, and how Messer Giovanni’s mode of life, dress, -and servants are to be arranged; for I would not reward so great a -benefit by not making a proper display according to the manner most -likely to please the Pope. Messer Giovanni keeps at home; the house is -full of people. (The foreign ambassadors had immediately come to offer -their congratulations.) I wait to hear from you whether I shall, as I -proposed to you, send Piero to Rome. Perhaps it would be more befitting -the importance of the favour that I should go there myself.’ Poliziano -had written a letter to the Pope, taking occasion of the nomination to -praise Innocent and describe the lad as worthy of his new distinction. -He wanted to have it read out in the Consistory; but Lorenzo had too -much tact to join in such an absurdity, and sent the letter to the -ambassador, not concealing his own adverse opinion, and leaving it to -Lanfredini to do with it what he thought fit.[498] - -On the same day, March 4, Lorenzo addressed to the Pope the following -letter of thanks.[499] ‘I have received with the utmost reverence your -Holiness’s brief of the 9th instant, concerning the promotion of Messer -Giovanni. As this news had already reached me through our ambassador, -I at once wrote to your Holiness, more to put into words my inability -to thank you fittingly, than to give expression to my gratitude. That -God alone can do, not I. This only can I say in reference to this -undying benefit, that through what your Holiness has done for my son -you have at the same time elevated me; and this increase of authority, -as well as whatever more may accrue to me, I place at the disposal of -your Holiness, to whom it belongs rather than to me.’ Then comes an -apology for the publication of the news, which had originated not with -Lorenzo but in Rome. The Italian princes by no means undervalued this -new proof of Lorenzo’s influence over the Pope. The Duke of Calabria -said to Vettori, the ambassador,[500] that one could see how great was -Lorenzo’s power, and that the Florentine ambassador ruled Innocent. He -wished he could be together with Lorenzo and Sforza to talk over the -strife with Rome. He believed it would not be difficult for him to make -the alliance of the three states such as should be apparent in their -whole conduct. One could see how much the Pope did for Lorenzo, and how -he had made his son a cardinal at an unheard-of age; so that one might -conclude that everything could be arranged if he chose to do all he -could. - -The man who had contributed most to overcome the Pope’s scruples, -Giovanni Lanfredini, only survived his success a few months. In -November 1488, he had lost at Rome his eldest son, Orsino, a youth of -sixteen.[501] ‘It is with much regret,’ wrote Lorenzo,[502] ‘that I -have heard of your son’s death; the news was the more painful to me -as I had not known of his illness. If I did not know your strength -of mind, and how accustomed you are to both good and evil, I should -use more words of consolation than I do, and represent to you my own -heavy losses, which are but too well known to you. Resign yourself to -the decree of God; the more so as your son is far rather to be envied -than pitied. You and yours will never want for friends who regard your -concerns as their own. As for me, on account of the sympathy I feel for -you and for the sake of your old and tried attachment, I shall always -conduct myself towards you as your sentiments and actions, and my duty -and gratitude, require. Be comforted, Giovanni; take courage, trust -in God, and reckon on your friends.’ Another letter[503] is expressed -in equally cordial terms. But the loss of the son broke the father’s -heart. ‘Giovanni Lanfredini,’ wrote the Ferrarese ambassador on March -16, 1489,[504] ‘is at Rome confined to his bed; and as business -presses, the Signoria has ordered Pier Filippo Pandolfini, who is now -at Pitigliano, to proceed thither immediately. Lanfredini has asked for -leave of absence. He seems to have had quite enough of his post, and I -think he feels he can now give it up with honour, after helping the son -of the illustrious Lorenzo to attain the dignity of cardinal.’ As soon -as the promotion took place, Lorenzo had expressed his strong sense -of what he owed to Lanfredini.[505] ‘I recognise the duty of always -remembering him who has directed the whole affair, and of putting those -who shall come after me in mind of it. For no greater event has ever -befallen our house, and I owe more than three quarters of it to your -zeal and attachment.’ Lanfredini’s condition improved so that he could -resume his duties; but this did not last. He died on January 5, 1490, -in the house of the Acciaiuoli in the Leonine city.[506] - -The Bishop of Rimini wrote to Lorenzo:[507] ‘The man is dead who -kept this court at your service. Henceforth things may take another -turn; and they have already gone so far that it has been said you -will no longer have everything your own way.’ It seems, indeed, that -the weak-minded Pope had allowed some suspicious remarks to escape -him, to the effect that he could not safely trust to Florence, where -individual interests were in the ascendant. These expressions induced -Lorenzo to send Bernardo Dovizi to Rome to consult with Pandolfini. -The instructions drawn up by Lorenzo[508] show his irritation at the -changeableness of the Pope. ‘Such as neither know me personally nor -have seen me put faith in my word; and now I am met with want of -confidence after all my trouble and exertions, and the experience there -has been of my sentiments.’ The ill-feeling, however, seems to have -soon passed away. - -One of the last affairs in which Lanfredini had to act was the -canonisation of the Archbishop Antonine, in which the Emperor Frederic -III. was also interested. Lorenzo proposed that the Bishop of Arezzo -and Volterra should undertake the cause. Lanfredini’s successor -Pandolfini continued the negotiations; but it was not till 1523 that -the reverence of the Florentine people for this worthy and pious man -received the sanction of the Church from Pope Hadrian VI. - - - - -CHAPTER V. - -SETTLEMENT OF THE DISPUTE BETWEEN INNOCENT VIII. AND FERRANTE OF NAPLES. - - -DURING all this time the quarrel between the Pope and the king was -assuming serious dimensions. One could hardly expect otherwise when -the characters of the two men are taken into consideration. The one -combined a full conception of lofty dignity with the consciousness of -very little real power, was very excitable, wanting in perseverance, -and continually going from one extreme to another; the other was slily -calculating, practised in all the arts of unprincipled cunning, and -disposed to undervalue his opponent when the tide seemed to have turned -in his own favour. When the king thought he had rid himself of all -enemies and suspicious persons in his own country, he did not hesitate -to disregard the stipulations agreed upon in August 1486, and defy -the Pope. The dispute went on through 1488 even to the proclamation -of ecclesiastical censures. This was unpleasant to Lorenzo for many -reasons: ‘I fear,’ he wrote to Lanfredini, September 3,[509] ‘people -will think it is meal out of my tub, though you know that the Pope -has acted not only without me but against my advice. Not only is the -king ready and inclined to attempt aggression, but the Pope is utterly -unprepared; in fact, his affairs are in such disorder that a most -disastrous war may arise out of this.’ Lorenzo’s son-in-law begged him -to go to Rome in the autumn, but he refused, waiting to see whether -the Pope and the king would come to terms. In the spring of 1489 the -Spanish court made an effort at mediation through ambassadors in Rome. -Ferrante’s object seemed to be to increase the Pope’s anger by personal -attacks on him and his, so as to produce an immediate rupture. This -conduct can be explained only on one of two suppositions: he either -thought that he could treat his adversary as he chose without danger -to himself, or he was determined to let things come to a pass which -might, indeed, easily bring him to the gates of Rome, but might also -just as easily call other nations to the rescue. All the misfortunes -that befell Ferrante’s family and dynasty in 1495 were provoked by -his self-will of six years before. It was no thanks to him nor to -his son, who was worse than he, nor to the Pope, that they were not -overtaken then by the misfortune of which both parties—the one in his -ambitious, tyrannical stubbornness, the other in his inconsiderate -weakness—seemed to have no foreboding. That it was avoided for a time -was chiefly owing to Lorenzo de’ Medici, a fact the merit of which -ought to cover many of his sins. - -After the fruitless Spanish attempt at mediation, and while Ferrante -was doing all he could to stir up the King of the Romans against -the Pope, the latter resolved to act. On June 27, 1489, Niccolò -Orsini, Count of Pitigliano, arrived in Rome. A dispute between this -excellent soldier and the Republic of Siena had, in the previous April, -resulted in his dismissal from the Florentine service; whereupon the -Pope offered him the post of Captain-General of the Church. As the -astrologers pronounced the constellations favourable, on the very -day of the count’s arrival the Pope presented him with his insignia -of office, tunic, hat, sword, and commander’s staff, and blessed the -two standards, while Orsini knelt before him. On the following Sunday -the new captain-general made his triumphal entry into Rome from Monte -Mario. He was then forty-eight years of age, but can be best imagined -as he is represented on his monument in SS. Giovanni e Paolo at -Venice, erected twenty years later, when he had fallen a victim to his -exertions during the war of the League of Cambrai. He appears there -as a fine-looking stately horseman with waving plume and rich scarf; -his head is slightly bent as if in thought, and turned towards the -right; he holds in his hand the commander’s staff, and stands between -allegorical statues of Prudence and Faith. On the 30th, after high -mass, the citation of the King of Naples took place. He was allowed -three months’ grace to fulfil his duty as a vassal; that he would -submit was not to be expected. The most zealous preparations were made -for the war which seemed inevitable. Cardinal Sforza, on behalf of -Lodovico, and Lanfredini, who was ill, sought to restrain the Pope from -taking an extreme step. On the part of the Florentines, at least, this -mediation was honestly meant. - -Lorenzo went in July to the baths, whence, according to the new -Ferrarese ambassador Manfredo Manfredi,[510] he came back refreshed -and well on August 6. Scarcely was he home when he set to work at -the Roman affair. ‘As to the deliberations yonder,’ he wrote on the -8th to Lanfredini,[511] ‘I am of opinion that in considering my Lord -Lodovico’s proposals you must always keep in view that he can be a -turncoat on occasion and may very likely have private aims, as the -quarrel between the Pope and the king may be very convenient to him -in many respects. Considering his nature, therefore, we must not rely -on him too much, but must follow his example in profiting by his -proceedings when they answer our purposes, but keeping the upper hand -if he takes it into his head to change. First of all I wish the Holy -Father to let the Venetians know that both Lord Lodovico and ourselves -have induced him to conceal from the Republic nothing that concerns his -relations with the king. This I say because in any case it seems to me -important that the Pope should at least keep the Venetians in their -present mind until we all see our way clearer. There is no real trust -to be placed in those people, but their authority is useful; and it is -quite possible to keep on tolerable terms with them without causing -my Lord Lodovico to take fright. But above all I wish to be assured -whether the Pope is determined to abide by the conditions already -settled, or whether he thinks of agreeing to some modifications. As to -the tribute-money, I think a compromise possible; as for the barons, -I see no means, as the king has gone too far to be able to draw back. -With regard to spiritual matters an arrangement will be easy, for -the king will hardly raise difficulties where he has only to give -promises. When it comes to keeping them they must just wink at each -other, as all popes and all kings have done. The point therefore is to -know exactly what we have to abide by before taking a decision which, -according to my view, must depend on what the Pope really intends; and -his will cannot be forced, particularly if peace is established in -France. Endeavour therefore to give me sure information if possible. -In any case it is my fixed opinion that the Pope’s honour must be -kept unstained, if my Lord Lodovico agrees with me, who, however, as -before said, is not much to be trusted. A good understanding must be -maintained with the Venetians, for the sake of having something to -fall back upon. I think you must decline with thanks his Holiness’ -proposal to confide the negotiations in question to me. It would be a -distinction for me, but would scarcely answer his Holiness’ purposes. -I, however, prefer his Holiness’ advantage to that which would be -an honour to me personally. In any future agreement with the king, -the conditions of the last peace will have to be modified in some -particulars, and stronger shoulders than mine will be needed to bear -that burthen. I shall consider myself honoured enough if the interests -of his Holiness are secured with honour.’ Lorenzo’s unwillingness to -take part in negotiations between the Pope and Venice was partly -founded on the knowledge that the latter power was anything but -well-disposed towards him. Two years after this his friend Guidoni, -the Ferrarese ambassador, who had exchanged his post at Florence for -the more difficult one in the city of the lagoons, wrote to him: ‘The -Venetians detest your name more than Satan does the Cross.’ - -As Ferrante showed no sign of returning from his ways, Innocent -continued to proceed against him. On September 11, 1489, in presence -of the Neapolitan ambassador Antonio d’Alessandri, the kingdom of -Naples was solemnly declared to have lapsed to the Holy See through -non-fulfilment of homage.[512] The ambassador protested and appealed -to the Council. The next day he appeared in the Sixtine Chapel with -the other ambassadors, to celebrate the anniversary of the Pope’s -coronation, just as if nothing had happened. But he was startled on the -13th, when a French envoy, Guillaume de Poitiers, of the family of the -Counts of St. Vallier, arrived with great pomp at the Vatican.[513] -For a long time past the Pope had been negotiating with France, and -the French showed their desire for a good understanding with Rome by -delivering up the Turkish Prince Dschem to Innocent at the end of the -winter. It was already suspected that as soon as affairs were settled -in Brittany, where resistance was already broken, whose last duke was -dead, and where union with the crown was in progress, the French king, -now nineteen, would turn his eyes towards Italy. Rome, conscious of her -own weakness, reckoned on foreign aid, thinking she had two strings to -her bow—France and Spain—both of whom were supposed to be displeased -with Ferrante. But the prospect of war in Italy and interference from -abroad, no matter whence it came or what the result might be, was -highly displeasing to Lorenzo, and he renewed his efforts to change the -mind of the Pope. - -‘From your despatch of October 13,’ thus he begins a letter to -Lanfredini four days later,[514] ‘I perceive that his Holiness has -taken some little offence at my remonstrances against proceeding with -the citations. Any offence to the Holy Father grieves me; but it -would grieve me very much if he thought my counsel and actions were -determined by anything but zeal for his good. I repeat, the Pope must -make up his mind about three things. Either he must get justice from -the king by force; or he must make as good terms as he can with him; -or, lastly, if this cannot be done with honour, he must temporise and -wait for more favourable circumstances. The first would be the most -honourable plan; but I consider it dangerous and expensive, and think -it cannot be executed without calling in a foreign power to Naples. -Thereto three things are needful: first, the consent of Venice and -Milan; secondly, sufficient independent means, both in men and money, -on the part of the said power; and thirdly, very great expenditure on -the part of the Pope. For the point is to over-match the king, whom -Milan may perhaps assist should Venice declare against him; so that -Milan, too, must be kept in check. An understanding with the barons -and those of similar rank would be useful in such a case. Now I may -be mistaken, but I cannot see the possibility of realising all these -presuppositions, and therefore I have dissuaded his Holiness. Of the -foreign powers only Spain and France can be taken into consideration. -Spain seems to me at this moment incapable of either acting or -paying,[515] and how France is to be relied upon I do not see. -Supposing, however, that she changed her nature, I would agree with his -Holiness, provided that in an expedition against Naples the person to -be benefited should be the Duke of Lorraine (as heir of Anjou), which -would be the least dangerous thing; for the Duke of Lorraine is not -King of France, and his relationship to the royal house is of no great -importance. Naples and Spain are much nearer relatives, and yet not -friends; and when a man is once King of Naples he will go his own way. - -‘All these reasons, it seems to me, ought to dissuade the Pope from -any undertaking of the kind. In such circumstances it is of no use -exasperating the king by citations and suchlike. Nay, even if one -was armed and ready, I should still think it advisable to let such -challenges alone, in order to avoid the danger of the king’s proceeding -from words to deeds—a danger not to be under-rated. Better arm in -silence than excite others to the attack by expressing hostility. As -for the second case, that of an accommodation, I am perhaps, speaking -without an exact knowledge of the state of affairs; and possibly -conditions are being fixed in consequence of which the citation may -be an useful measure. But from what I know, I believe that such a -proceeding, instead of facilitating an accommodation, only serves to -irritate, and will lead to a rupture. As for temporising, I will say -nothing, because an immediate agreement on the most honourable terms -possible seems to me far more to the purpose than waiting for some -favourable conjuncture; the more so that, as you know better than -I, the king has plenty of means of doing harm. I can say no more at -present, not being sufficiently conversant with the details. If the -Pope’s fearlessness rests on any secure ground, take care to let me -know it, that I may be relieved from this anxiety. For though I am not -exactly faint-hearted, yet, from the confidence placed in me by the -Pope, his affairs cause me more anxiety than my own. So long as I know -of no better foundation for his security, I cannot possibly be easy. On -the subject of my lord Lodovico and his nature, I have spoken my mind -freely. I am conscious that I am walking uprightly, and have only the -Pope’s interest in view. So I repeat what I have said often before: -I think an honourable accommodation better than a successful war. If -that is impossible, he must temporise, provided the supposed possible -favourable conditions do not exist. But if this should be the case, the -king too would show himself more yielding, for he knows very well where -he can be touched.’ - -Lorenzo’s remonstrances were not entirely ineffectual. Innocent, -who had been informed that the Neapolitan exiles, especially the -Sanseverini, had been well received at the French court, and that the -young king had promised to restore them to their homes, went cautiously -to work at least with regard to foreign allies. Without making any -engagements, he tried to keep on good terms with France and Spain. -Remonstrances were also made on the part of France, through special -ambassadors, to King Ferrante; but he never ceased defending at foreign -courts what he called the justice of his cause, and calculating that -the French had their hands full, he showed no disposition to yield. -Letters from the Duke of Saxony, King Maximilian, and the Emperor, -produced just as little effect.[516] The Duke of Calabria told the -Florentine ambassador that his father would accede to reasonable -demands from the Pope, but not to things that were against his honour. -He would send the palfrey as a token of the feudal relation; but not -one soldo of tribute would he pay, and not one guilty baron would -he pardon.[517] So the matter dragged on. In May 1490, Florence was -visited by a Neapolitan ambassador on his way to Milan, Messer Camillo -Seruciati.[518] The king instructed him to inform the Signoria and -Lorenzo that he had hitherto endured many wrongs and insults from the -Pope. If, however, the latter persisted in his wrongful obstinacy -and hostility and did not leave off his threats of citation and -excommunication, his majesty was not minded to endure such offences any -longer. Without wasting any more words, the king meant to appear in -Rome, with lance in rest, and answer the Pope in such a way as to make -him see his error. The Neapolitan ambassador, being refused admission -to the Pope’s chapel on Whitsun-eve, threatened to make his way in by -force. To avoid scandal it was arranged that none of the diplomatic -body should appear on that day.[519] But the affair seems to have been -rather more seriously taken into consideration by France than Ferrante -expected. On June 8, the Pope said to Lanfredini’s successor[520] that -if he were not peaceable by nature and a good Italian, he held in his -hand the means of avenging himself on the king; for months ago Madame -de Beaujeu had caused a proposal to be made to him for conferring -Naples as a fief on the Duke of Lorraine, in exchange for which the -latter should cede his claims to Provence and other territories to -her husband, the Duke of Bourbon,[521] the King of France in return -assisting him to obtain Naples. This proposal had recently been -renewed; he, the Pope, had said but little in reply, in order not to -draw down the French into Italy. He wished that Lorenzo should be -informed of the matter. - -The situation was growing worse every day. There were already some -hostile dealings on the frontiers. Papal couriers, carrying briefs -that were never answered, were searched and roughly treated; people -sent by the Pope to Benevento, and inhabitants of Pontecorvo going to -Montecassino to perform their devotions, were seized.[522] Innocent -complained that the indulgence he had shown towards the king on account -of the representations of the other Italian powers had only made the -former more insolent; and the powers stood and looked on while he was -being insulted. If the Italians cared so little about his honour, -he must turn to foreigners. Pandolfini adds that he had never seen -the Pope so excited. The ambassador did what he could to soothe -him, representing to him that the moderation shown towards the king -had benefited his cause, and that he could depend on the support of -Florence, Milan, and Venice. The Pope cut him short. He was always put -off with fine speeches. Real support was to be expected from Florence -alone. On account of Sforza’s changeableness, Milan was not to be -reckoned on; and Venice never proceeded to action. He was determined to -make an end of it. He would excommunicate the king, declare him guilty -of heresy, and lay the kingdom under interdict. He had a perfect right -to do so. He would give notice of everything to the allied States. -If the king, in pursuance of his threat, made war upon him, and no -assistance was afforded him, he would go abroad, where he would be -received with open arms and helped to get back his own again, to the -shame and loss of others. He could not remain in Italy otherwise than -with the dignity befitting a Pope; if they all left him in the lurch, -resistance to the king was impossible, on account of the Church’s -want of military power and the untrustworthiness of the barons, who -would only rejoice at his embarrassment. He considered himself fully -justified in going abroad if the honour of the Holy See could not be -saved otherwise. Other popes had done it, and had come back with honour -and glory. - -‘I saw,’ says Pandolfini, ‘that he had thoroughly considered the -matter, and was not talking merely to get something out of me, as he -could have no doubt of our attachment and fidelity. I pointed out to -him that he should deliberate well, and not take a resolution which -might bring discredit upon him, perhaps without serving his purpose. -Foreign lands were full of strife, and the relations of Church and -State were all very different from what they had been in the times -of Innocent IV. and other popes, who had sought refuge beyond the -mountains.’ But the Pope was not to be persuaded. He announced that he -should summon the ambassadors of all the powers, declare his resolve -and the grounds which compelled him to it, and proceed against the -king. The Neapolitan ambassador was sent away. The Pope said also to -Pandolfini: ‘If I go with the court to France, of all the Italian -powers you will get the most advantage thereby, not only for your -trade, but because I shall have all possible regard to you, and shall -consult over everything with Lorenzo. Tell him these my words.’ - -It might have been thought that a conclusion was imminent. But after -the lapse of a year matters were at exactly the same point. At the -feast of SS. Peter and Paul, 1491, the king’s ambassador again -presented the palfrey by way of tribute, was again sent away, and -again protested.[523] Shortly after, the Florentine ambassador at -Naples, Piero Nasi, had an interview with Giovanni Pontano, who was at -that time Ferrante’s chief counsellor in political affairs, and had -concluded the treaty with Rome in August 1486.[524] Pontano certainly -must have felt that he was personally concerned, especially if, as is -said, Innocent, having during his negotiations with him been warned -of the king’s faithlessness, answered, ‘How can I be distrustful in -dealing with a man who has never broken his word?’ ‘Ambassador,’ said -Pontano to Nasi, ‘I most earnestly desire the termination of this -strife, both for the sake of your Signoria and for my own sake. If the -matter worries you in Florence, it worries me twice as much. Blame -is laid on me which I do not deserve. What I promised in those days -at Rome I had a right to promise; and it would have been kept; but -no sooner was I away (would to God I had not gone in such a hurry!) -than Cardinal della Rovere arrived from Genoa, and thereupon they -re-arranged the conditions according to their pleasure. I certainly -promised payment of the tribute, but the Pope himself gave me to -understand that he would not insist upon it, and said: “I will come to -an understanding with the king on that point.” But Ascanio (Sforza) -and the other cardinals laughed and said I might promise off-hand, -nothing would be kept.’ Pontano then went on to the affair of the -barons, whose misfortunes he attributed to their own want of head. The -king, he said, had not thought of taking them prisoners, after he had -made them harmless by occupying their strongholds, and taken into his -own hands the administration of justice within their territories. But -they themselves had compelled him to proceed against them. For after -the Prince of Salerno had gone to Rome and deluded the Pope with many -things, he drew the barons into the plot, all of which became known to -the king. Notwithstanding, the latter gave them plenty of time to place -themselves in safety; but they were determined to wait for the end, and -so it went ill with them at the last. The very man from whom proceeded -this apology for the king, afterwards himself accused Ferrante and -Alfonso of cruelty and covetousness![525] Nasi thought the Pope cared -far more about this affair than for the money question. King Alfonso -had once paid 30,000 ducats to Pope Pius II. It was indeed maintained -that this was not tribute-money; but yet such another sum would surely -be granted. For the investiture to be extended to the Duke of Calabria -they would be willing to pay 50,000. The Pope could then confirm -the bull of Sixtus IV. and content himself during the rest of his -pontificate with the gaily adorned palfrey. Lorenzo should carefully -consider the matter. - -In the autumn of 1491 Pontano was sent to Rome to arrange a compromise. -The hint that Naples was willing to pay seems to have had its effect. -On reflection it is easy to see in what financial difficulties Innocent -had placed himself. Lorenzo had to lend him money and redeem his -pawned valuables; as Lanfredini had said, he was applying to all the -sovereigns for tithes, and had made debts to the amount of 300,000 -ducats.[526] But further hindrances kept cropping up, chiefly through -the double-dealing of Ferrante, whom no one dared trust even when he, -perhaps, really did mean honestly. It was said both at Rome and at -Florence that he was stirring up troubles for the Pope in the States -of the Church, and confirming the inhabitants of Ascoli in their -rebellion against the Holy See, for which purpose he kept a numerous -body of troops on the Tronto.[527] Lorenzo never ceased advising a -reconciliation. Many things were done by the soldiers, he wrote to -Innocent, which it was not becoming a wise prince and thoughtful Pope -to leave unhindered, and the peace of all Italy would be in danger if -an end were not put to the quarrel.[528] In the middle of November the -king expressed his sense of obligation to Lorenzo, who was showing -himself a true friend and mediator in these differences. He hoped, he -said, soon to arrive at a settlement.[529] In the beginning of December -they did arrive at one; and two months later peace was announced in -the Consistory.[530] In the investiture to be given to the Duke of -Calabria, for which the sum before mentioned was to be paid, his son, -the Prince of Capua, was included. The new treaty was to be the only -one in force. To the barons released from prison the king promised to -pay a certain sum yearly. ‘How much,’ adds the Ferrarese ambassador, -‘is not known; and it is supposed to have been agreed upon merely for -the sake of the Pope’s honour. Whether it will be kept, the future will -show.’ The future, and no very distant one, brought on the Neapolitan -king far other troubles than those caused by his quarrel with the Pope. -Scarcely was that quarrel ended, scarcely was the settlement effected -for which Pontano went to Rome,[531] when the king exhausted himself in -demonstrations of gratitude and friendship towards the Pope, to whose -blessing he attributed his own prosperity and that of all belonging -to him, to whom he sent hippocras and twenty-four casks of choice -Neapolitan wines, and with whom he formed a connection by betrothing -his grandson, the Marquis of Gerace, to Battistina Usodimare, -daughter of Teodorina Cybò.[532] Ferrante must have felt that the -time was pressing for a reconciliation. French affairs gave him -subjects for consideration. Charles VIII. had not only—thanks to his -sister—overcome a dangerous opposition, but had reconciled the Duke -of Orleans to himself and his house, and won Britanny, whose heiress -gave him her hand on December 4, 1491. A double Papal dispensation was -needed; for Charles was betrothed to Margaret of Austria, and Anne of -Britanny already bore the title of Queen of the Romans as the bride of -Margaret’s brother Maximilian; besides which the newly-married couple -were near relations. Doubtless with a view to what was coming, a French -embassy consisting of ten persons, headed by Jean de Villiers et La -Groslaye, Bishop of Lombes and Abbot of St. Denis (afterwards highly -influential at Rome), had been sent to Rome and received there on -November 16. On December 3, a courier brought tidings of the marriage, -which gave great offence, but for which the dispensations were given -afterwards.[533] Another struggle with Maximilian was inevitable. But -France was united and peaceful within, the last great fief was joined -to the crown, and the work begun by Louis XI. was accomplished. Italy -had reason to fear that the young king, whose ambition was greater -than his intellectual capacity, would again take up claims which had -never been really set at rest. In the very same year which closed with -the agreement between Innocent and Ferrante the declaration of Charles -VIII.’s rights to the crown worn by the latter was formulated. Five -years before, the Duke of Orleans had put forward the claims to Milan -which he afterwards enforced as king.[534] - -If it was to the interest of France to stand well with the Pope, -Ferrante had more than one motive for doing so. His daughter Beatrice, -the widow of Matthias Corvinus, was threatened with dissolution of -marriage by her second husband, the Polish Prince Ladislas, to whose -elevation to the throne of Hungary she had greatly contributed; and -it cost her father much trouble and anxiety to avert a decision which -touched his own honour and that of his house. But the king, now growing -old, was occupied with another family matter. The marriage of his -granddaughter with the young Duke of Milan was the immediate, if not -the principal, cause of a disagreement which sowed the seeds of ruin -far beyond palaces and dynasties. The ambassador, whose arrival at -Florence in the beginning of May 1490 has already been mentioned, was -to go to Milan ‘to find out in what relation the lady duchess stood -towards her most illustrious consort.’[535] The bad reports of Gian -Galeazzo’s state of health proved unfounded, and Isabella soon after -had hopes of becoming a mother. But matters remained unchanged. Gian -Galeazzo at one and twenty was duke only in name. The government was -still as it always had been, in the hands of his uncle, who had filled -up all state-offices and military commands with confidants of his -own. Connected with this last fact was the circumstance that in June -1488, Gian Jacopo Trivulzio, being apparently suspected by the Moro of -taking Gian Galeazzo’s part, left the Milanese service and accepted a -_condotta_ offered him by King Ferrante.[536] - -The case became worse when, in January 18, 1491, Lodovico married. His -bride, Beatrice of Este, was a near relative of Isabella of Aragon, -for her mother was the sister of Isabella’s father; but the relations -between the two young wives soon became unbearable. Beatrice, the -younger by five years, handsome, clever, ambitious, and proud, soon -acquired great influence over her husband, now a man of forty; she -went hand-in-hand with him in all his far-reaching plans, and induced -him to yield to her desires with regard to outward position more than -the cunning reserved man perhaps at first intended. She and Isabella -soon came to open strife. The Duchess of Milan very naturally claimed -the first place; the Duchess of Bari had no intention of contenting -herself with the second. Lodovico’s authority made it easy for her to -satisfy her passion for ruling. Isabella bore with growing impatience -daily insults to herself and the unworthy position of her husband; of -him too little is known to furnish grounds for a decided judgment of -his character and capabilities. At last she appealed to her father, -representing to him her position and begging for his intervention.[537] - -There had been no love lost between Alfonso and Lodovico ever since the -Ferrara war. Although in the disputes between the Pope and the king, -the Sforza had not furthered the views of France against Ferrante, -still the Moro’s attitude had been questionable. If the Duke of -Calabria had had his way, at the time when the treaty was concluded -with the Pope, Italy would have been in flames; for his counsel was -to cross the Tronto with an army and force Lodovico to lay down his -usurped power. But the old king was afraid of a step which threatened -to bring incalculable consequences; particularly as the Moro’s intimate -relations with France—relations whose first fruits were the complete -abandonment in favour of Milan of the French claims to Genoa—and -certain events in Florence which will be mentioned presently, gave him -every motive for extreme caution. Instead of arms he tried negotiation. -A Neapolitan embassy was sent to Milan,[538] but it had no answer but -empty phrases. Lodovico replied that his nephew was Duke and enjoyed -all the privileges of his rank. He himself had for years only borne the -burthen of affairs, which he would lay down as soon as circumstances -permitted. The only result of the application was that the good -understanding between the house of Naples and the Sforza, already -much endangered, notwithstanding the continued ostensible alliance, -received a very severe shock. There was, indeed, no lack of friendly -protestations on either side; and on February 8, 1492,[539] not long -before the departure of the embassy above-mentioned, Ferrante wrote to -his ambassador in Milan that he regarded the Duke of Bari as his own -son (it is true the latter married his granddaughter) and his interests -as his own, and congratulated him on his good understanding with -France. Lodovico, to secure the maintenance of a power which he knew he -was in danger of losing sooner or later, used all the means supplied -by his versatile and inventive genius, and deluded himself with the -increasing consciousness of his superiority over all other Italian -rulers, only to involve himself irretrievably in the machinations which -brought to ruin the edifice of Italian polity. - - - - -CHAPTER VI. - -OPPOSITION TENDENCIES. FRA GIROLAMO SAVONAROLA. - - -THE Medici had always counted on the clergy for support. It would be -unjust to attribute this entirely to selfish motives; they had other -and nobler aims than merely that of more easily ruling the multitude -in union with its spiritual directors. Other motives besides scruples -of conscience actuated them in the building of churches and convents. -The clergy, especially the regular clergy, were, with a portion of the -nobility, still the chief representatives of the higher scientific -and literary culture. Cosimo’s grandson as well as himself found -instruction, entertainment, and intellectual animation in the society -of Camaldulensians, Dominicans, Augustinians, and Servites. But as -Lorenzo endeavoured to keep under his own control the bishoprics of -the district, he made use of the monastic orders in the same way. He -employed them privately to discover and direct the stream of popular -opinion and popular inclination. Owing to their constitution, their -varied composition, their connection with all classes, and their -comparative independence, they were at once more trustworthy and abler -instruments than the lay communities of various kinds which he ruled -by means of his confidants, high and low. These latter societies might -prove dangerous to him through party-spirit and secret machinations; -a danger which indeed afterwards became apparent, and was vigorously -opposed by the rulers of Tuscany. The religious orders, when they -devoted themselves to furthering the aims of the Medici, had -another advantage over the companies. The many little jealousies and -enmities which divided them from each other gave better security for -secresy; and the fact that very much depended upon this may afford an -explanation of the great liberality of the Medici towards the convents. -In the annals of the Monastery of the Angeli, where Cosimo was wont -to visit Ambrogio Traversari, and where Lorenzo’s sons went to hear -philosophical lectures and to be present at sacred representations, -it is recorded that besides the usual yearly gifts of money, Lorenzo -used on certain festivals to send to the monks, who were by no means -rich, fish, cheese, and fruit; and also that he procured for them the -bounty of the Signoria. ‘We owe everything to God, through Lorenzo His -instrument.’ Don Guido, formerly a Cistercian monk, who became prior of -the Angeli in 1484, was Lorenzo’s confessor.[540] - -But it would be a mistake to suppose that even when his relations with -the Papacy were most intimate, Lorenzo could reckon unconditionally -upon the clergy. Those same disputes between the religious orders came -in the way, as well as the democratic spirit prevalent among the monks, -which saw through the tendencies of the existing government even when -it seemed to be favouring popular objects. This internal opposition -naturally developed more strongly as a more serious way of thinking -gained ground; such a temper as had been fostered by the pious chief -pastors Antonine and Orlando Bonarli, though their successors, under -whom the diocese of Florence was chiefly administered by vicars, did -nothing to maintain it. About the year 1490 it became apparent that -the general life of pleasure and worldliness was about to take a turn -in an opposite direction. No one could then foresee the ultimate scope -and results of this opposition; but it showed itself in a manner which -necessarily attracted the attention of him who was accustomed to -direct all things, and who had too much tact and too much practice in -judging of moral and intellectual tendencies not to recognise the first -symptoms of a turn of the tide. Its importance was the more apparent -to him because it showed itself in a field, of which, as of those of -politics and literature, he thought himself the ruler; but which was -withdrawn from his influence as soon as the prevalent materialistic -tendencies were combated by inward moral impulses and views. This -resistance was in the highest degree dangerous to the Medici, because -its chief strength lay in the moral consciousness of the people, -hitherto artificially suppressed or put to sleep, but now awakened to -new life; and it was this which enabled it to hold out so firmly long -after it appeared to be conquered. It was the fate of the Medici that -opposition sprang from ground which they had long been accustomed to -regard as their own, and to treat in the light of an heirloom. - -In 1482, there entered the convent of San Marco a brother of the -order, who had been driven from his native city of Ferrara by the -storms of war raging around it, in order to seek a more peaceful -sphere of activity beyond the Apennines, little suspecting what other -storms he would have to encounter there. The Porta Savonarola at Padua -recalls to mind the neighbouring residence of that noble family; and -in the Prato della Valle stands a statue of Antonio Savonarola, who -manfully defended his native city in the middle of the thirteenth -century. In 1440 Michele Savonarola was called to Ferrara, where he -was presented with the rights of citizenship by the Marquis Lionello -d’Este, and acquired a great reputation as physician in ordinary to the -Marquis, as professor at the university, and also as an author.[541] -His son Niccolò married Elena Bonacossi, and her masculine spirit -was inherited by her son Girolamo, who has made the name of his race -famous throughout the world. At the age of three-and-twenty this son, -without consulting the wishes of his parents, entered the Predicant -order at Bologna in the spring of 1475. In a letter to his father he -pleaded, in explanation and justification of the step, his soul’s cry -of anguish against the worldliness to which he beheld Italy fallen a -prey. ‘I could no longer look upon the deep corruption of the blinded -people, the oppression of virtue, the exaltation of vice; it was an -unspeakable torment to me, and I prayed daily to God that He might -take me out of this pit of destruction. Now, in His infinite goodness, -He has vouchsafed this grace to me, notwithstanding my unworthiness.’ -But it was not the worldliness of the laity alone that shocked him; -the corruption in the Church stood before the eyes of his soul in yet -more glaring colours. He lamented it in his poems—highly imaginative -and lofty outpourings of a soul brightened with the fire of love, -penetrated with the consciousness of the need for a higher development, -tortured by a foreboding of approaching judgment.[542] His first -intention was to devote himself to teaching rather than to preaching; -but in the seventh year after his entrance into the order, he was sent -to his native city, where he lived as a stranger, rarely saw even his -nearest relatives, and was not much appreciated as a speaker. Yet -he cannot have been lacking in eloquence; for one day when he was -travelling from Ferrara to Mantua his reproofs made such an impression -on the soldiers who were in the boat playing and swearing, that they -penitently fell upon their knees before him. - -Fra Girolamo’s reception in Florence was not encouraging. The man and -the city could not be attractive to each other; the one was leaning -more and more towards asceticism, and the other towards immoderate -pleasure. The one cared for nothing but Holy Scripture, and developed -its doctrines in lofty, unvarnished speech, whose rough careless form -was not softened by his Lombard accent, his hoarse voice, and vehement -delivery; the other, sharing the common plight, knew little of the -Bible, and was accustomed to preachers whose artistic phraseology -recalled the elegant tone of the literary palæstra. In his own convent -the stranger found little sympathy. A philosophising tone prevailed in -conversation; and the adoption of classical learning might well raise -some scruples in the mind of the Ferrarese, whose early education had -also been of a philosophical kind. This double discord left decided -marks in its train. At Savonarola’s Lenten sermons in San Lorenzo in -1483, the number of listeners was extremely small. He himself was -perfectly aware of the defects of his delivery: ‘Those who knew me in -those days,’ he said ten years later, ‘know that I had neither voice -nor lungs, nor understood anything about preaching, so that I was a -bore to everybody.’ He needed a longer apprenticeship. For two years he -preached during Lent at San Gemignano. Then he was summoned to Brescia, -where in 1486 he preached the sermons on the Apocalypse which first -extended his reputation, the prophecies in which of divine judgment and -the exhortations to repentance recurred vividly to the souls of the -people six-and-twenty years later, when the French army was committing -that plunder whose horrors have rarely been equalled in Christian -times. A chapter of the order held at Reggio brought Savonarola in -contact with Giovanni Pico, who took such an interest in the bold and -enthusiastic preacher that he got him sent back to Florence, through -the intervention of Lorenzo de’ Medici. In 1490 Savonarola returned to -San Marco, there to begin the work which left deep and broad traces on -the ecclesiastical and political history of Italy; which led to hard -fighting, not without fault on his side, but which at last led him to -martyrdom, and encircled his brow with a glory that no contradiction -and no change of times and views have been able to deprive of its -radiance. - -Savonarola found in Florence a rival who was his exact opposite in -delivery and in opinions. Fra Mariano of Genazzano came from a place -situated on the slope of the Aequian and Hernican mountains, and made -important by the great palace of the Colonna. He belonged to the -order of the Augustinian Hermits, and dwelt in the convent of Sto. -Spirito, until Lorenzo, with whom he had managed to get into favour, -built a grand convent at the gate of San Gallo, where there was an -old church with a decayed hospital and a foundling establishment. -This building was razed to the ground in 1524, when the Emperor and a -Medicean Pope were sending their troops against Florence; not a trace -of it is left, and its place is occupied by the rows of trees and -groves of the walk called the Parterre, and the little church of the -Madonna della Tosse, which looks like a shrine left standing amid the -general destruction.[543] The convent must have been finished about -1488. Lorenzo provided it with a choice library, visited it frequently -with intimate friends, and was fond of discussing philosophical and -theological questions with Fra Mariano. Naturally, the Augustinian was -wont to say that among men of such high position he had never known -one so God-fearing as Lorenzo. As a preacher Fra Mariano was just the -man for the people, as well as for scholars. He was little of stature, -but his voice was full and melodious, and his utterance agreeable; he -terrified and comforted, and made his hearers weep and laugh. Poliziano -describes the impression made on him by Mariano’s bearing, manner, -gestures, and whole appearance, his sonorous voice, his well-chosen -expressions, his majestic sentences, the artistic construction of his -phrases, the harmoniousness of his cadences, the richness of his -imagery, the clearness and force of his contrasts, the grace of his -narrations, and his easy changes of subject, preventing all monotony. -The picture Poliziano gives of the mode of life and conversation -of this spiritual orator, in whom he celebrates only the qualities -desirable in a temporal one, shows that Mariano was just the man to -sail round the rocks which threatened to wreck Girolamo. ‘I have met -him repeatedly at the villa and entered into confidential talk with -him. I never knew a man at once more attractive and more cautious. He -neither repels by immoderate severity nor deceives and leads astray -by exaggerated indulgence. Many preachers think themselves masters of -men’s life and death. While they abuse their power, they always look -gloomy, and weary men by constantly setting up for judges of morals. -But here is a man of moderation. In the pulpit he is a severe censor; -but when he descends, he indulges in winning, friendly discourse. -Therefore, I and my excellent friend Pico have much intercourse with -him, and nothing refreshes us after our literary labours so much as -his conversation. Lorenzo de’ Medici, who understands men so well, -shows how highly he esteems him, not only in that he has built him a -splendid convent, but also in that he often visits him, preferring a -conversation with him while walking to any other recreation.’[544] - -Savonarola’s biographer Fra Pacifico Burlamacchi is no doubt quite -right in praising Fra Mariano’s eloquence rather than his doctrine, -in his account of the orator’s little artifice to impress the people. -But this man’s mastery of his art must have been considerable, to make -Girolamo Benivieni once say to the Ferrarese preacher, ‘Father, no one -can deny the truth, the usefulness, and needfulness of your teaching. -But your delivery lacks attraction, especially when one is daily led to -make a comparison with Fra Mariano.’ To which the other answered that -elegance of expression must give way to the simple preaching of sound -doctrine.[545] But it was long before Savonarola made his way. His -reputation, indeed, increased rapidly, but admirers still flocked round -Fra Mariano; princes and commonwealth applied to Lorenzo, begging him -to give the Augustinian, who seemed to be regarded as belonging to his -household, leave to come and preach to them. Lodovico il Moro begged -for this not merely as a personal favour, but because the city and all -the people longed for the fulfilment of Lorenzo’s promise; and the -consuls of the Sabine town of Norcia—the home of S. Benedict—called -Fra Mariano in their letter ‘God’s angel upon earth.’ - -It seems that Fra Girolamo was discouraged by his former failures in -this field, and the growing success of the Augustinian, and thought -at first of limiting his efforts to the philosophical and theological -instruction of the novices. His short philosophic compendia are only -valuable in the present day for their display of a spirit of justice -and sense of the need of investigation in human knowledge, and of -analytical progress from the known to the unknown, instead of belief by -authority; these, as well as his smaller ascetic and moral treatises, -mostly date from the first years after his return to Florence. In them -may be seen the mystic enthusiasm which soon became more and more -prominent in his sermons, expositions of the Bible, his poems, and -other important works. Combined with this mysticism was a striving to -clothe his views and prophecies of the future with the authority of -Holy Scripture, with which he was perhaps better acquainted than anyone -else at the time; but he interpreted it with a freedom, perfectly -honest on his part, which necessarily aroused scruples, for it opened -out a boundless field, where an excited fancy or secondary objects -might easily lead him astray; and this danger was the greater when he -turned his attention especially to the Apocalypse. In the summer of -1490 divers citizens sought admission to the lectures for the novices. -The convent-rooms being too small, Savonarola continued his lectures at -first in the court; then, as the number of hearers rapidly increased, -he transferred them on August 1 to the church. A rosebush still marks -the spot where Fra Girolamo taught in the courtyard of the convent; -and in these latter days it has been resolved to raise a statue to him -there, and a bust has been placed in what was once his cell. He needs -no such monuments where all around recalls his memory; but they are -tokens of the veneration paid to him by posterity in spite of all his -weaknesses and mistakes. - -The direction Savonarola had taken soon led him further than he -calculated upon or perhaps intended. The effect produced by his -discourses is quite intelligible when one compares their character with -that of the ordinary preaching of the day, and takes the prevailing -temper into consideration. In both cases one meets with strange -contrasts. Artificial, wordy discourses, that people were accustomed to -hear in the sermons of the followers of Bernardino of Siena; besides -the simple, often impressive moral, there was a mixture of abstruse -scholasticism, asceticism, and anecdotes intended for the multitude, -on whom, however, part of their meaning was lost, and who laughed -and cried by turns, and were confirmed in their views of devotional -practices and works, in which too much stress was apt to be laid on -externals. Still the supremacy gained over the people by the moral and -political tendencies favoured by the Medici was by no means so complete -as to leave no room for opposing views, whose inward strength was only -increased by the outward resistance they encountered. The Dominican’s -subject-matter, his mode of demonstration, his whole manner, were such -as to make an impression upon opponents. To most preachers as well -as hearers, the Bible was a sealed book. When it was opened its word -became a living well springing up into a mighty fertilising stream, -and disclosing that wondrous power which has never failed wherever it -has been heard. Savonarola well knew that power. If he failed it was -from a defect exactly contrary to those of the others. They lacked -the true perception and feeling for that which alone could give their -teachings a meaning true, deep, and sound for all time. He lacked -moderation and the power to control his perceptions, his acquirements, -and himself. This was the rock on which he was ultimately wrecked. -Guicciardini, who was ten years old at Lorenzo’s death, whose youth -was passed in the midst of Fra Girolamo’s most strenuous activity, -and whose eyes were early open to all that went on around him, speaks -of the natural unstudied elegance of the sermons he heard and read, -and remarks that never had there been seen a man so versed in Holy -Scripture, never had such abundant discourse been united with such a -lasting impression.[546] In after years, when Savonarola’s attacks on -the corruption in the Church sought and found a personal object in that -Church’s unworthy head, he encountered in the enmity of other religious -societies a stumbling-block which contributed not a little to his fall. -But even in these earlier days he had long ago roused opposition, some -of which, proceeding from purely inward grounds, was unavoidable; but -a nature less rugged in its enthusiasm might have broken the force of -some of it. - -Fra Girolamo’s great day was yet far distant. But this activity -and the effects produced on moral life by his preaching, by his -instructions in the convent, and by his and his pupils’ influence on -all classes, were already beginning to strike root that year when he -gathered around him the more serious-minded men and youths in San -Marco, and set himself to counteract the dominant pursuit of sensual -enjoyment which threatened to paralyse the energies of the people. -This activity and influence, when its chief source and originator had -personally succumbed, though his work was only apparently destroyed, -was described in glowing words by the great historian, though he is -not quite consistent in his views of Savonarola’s character. ‘What -he did for the amendment of morals was wonderful and holy. Never did -such order and such fear of God reign in Florence as in his time; and -the deterioration which set in after his death proves how entirely -everything was his work and the fruit of his labours. There was no more -gaming in public, people only played with trepidation and in private; -the taverns, the accustomed scenes of the wild doings of degenerate -youth, were closed; the worst vices were suppressed in consequence -of the abhorrence excited against them. Most women laid aside their -objectionable garments; the young people were rescued from their -wild ways and led back to a moral life, and visited the churches in -companies. Gamesters, blasphemers, and dissolute women were in danger -of being pursued and stoned. At the Carnaval, playing-cards, dice, -indecent pictures and books were collected and burnt on the square -of the Signoria; and on the day formerly given up to all kinds of -excesses, a great church procession took place. The elder people took -up a religious life, went diligently to mass, vespers, and sermons, -received the sacraments and distinguished themselves by doing good. -Many youths of the first families and some men of riper years entered -the Predicant Order. In all Italy was never seen a convent like that of -San Marco, where the excellent instruction given in the Latin, Greek, -and Hebrew languages and literature promised to furnish fresh ornaments -to the Order.’ - -This activity, which produced such a change and passed sentence of -condemnation on a system that had been carried out for years with -equal skill and perseverance, was only beginning in the last years -of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s life; but its very beginnings could not -fail to furnish matter for reflection to that keen thinker. Even -before 1490 similar symptoms had shown themselves, whether connected -with Savonarola’s earliest labours is not certain, but it is highly -probable. Poliziano’s prologue to the Menæchmi of Plautus, written in -May 1488, contains a vehement diatribe against the opponents of these -scenic representations—those who protested against the employment -of young people in reciting the too often objectionable verses of -classical plays.[547] Monks are the objects of the poet’s attack; monks -who were not like his friend Mariano. - - Sed qui nos damnant, histriones sunt maxumi, - Nam Curios simulant, vivunt bacchanalia. - Hi sunt præcipuè, quidam clamosi, leves, - Cucullati, lignipedes, cincti funibus, - Superciliosum, in curvi cervicum pecus. - Qui quòd ab aliis et habitu et cultu dissentiunt, - Tristesque vultu vendunt sanctimonias, - Censuram sibi quandam et tyrranidem occupant. - Pavidamque plebem territant minaciis. - -These lines, recited in Lorenzo’s presence, are witnesses to the -existence of the opposition which increased in strength every year, -and from whose influence many, even of those who sided with the ruling -party, seem not to have been free. In Lent 1491 Fra Girolamo began to -preach in Sta. Maria del Fiore, the crowd having now become too great -for the conventual church; the number of hearers increased daily, -the impression made by his predictions of the punishment and evil to -come became more vivid, till Lorenzo thought it advisable to try to -stem the tide of growing excitement which threatened to endanger his -work and his influence. For these prophecies of approaching judgment -contained something more than indirect attacks on the present state of -affairs, and the serious turn of mind encouraged by the preacher most -necessarily deprive of their force many of the means which served to -maintain that state of affairs. - -Five chief citizens of the dominant party—men who all, with one -exception, later on personally fell under the mighty influence of -Savonarola—Domenico Bonsi, Guid’Antonio Vespucci, Paol’Antonio -Soderini, Bernardo Rucellai, and Francesco Valori, went to San Marco -to exhort the preacher to moderation. He answered that they had better -exhort Lorenzo, who had sent them, to repent of his sins: God would -spare no one. To the warning that he might be exiled, he replied that -Lorenzo was a Florentine citizen and he a stranger; but the former -would go and he would remain. He predicted the speedy death of Lorenzo, -the Pope, and King Ferrante. The increasing and very intelligible -discontent among the Medicean partisans, of which he could not but -be aware, led him, however, to try and moderate his too frequent and -exciting prophecies and confine himself more to moral and theological -lectures. But his restless spirit carried him away. It would have been -well for him could he have known moderation. But as his imagery, at -once brilliant and irregular, is confusing and bewildering rather than -elevating; as the terrors of his curse are weakened by repetition; as -his precepts for Christian life rise to a pitch of asceticism, whose -very exaggeration contains its own contradiction; as his teaching, so -truly that of the Gospel in its principles and right application, loses -its impressive force by straying to unsuitable ground; even so was it -with his conduct in life. He irritated needlessly and aimlessly. The -benefactions of the Medici to the convent and to the whole order had -founded a relation of clientship, in which there was nothing offensive -so long as both parties observed the moderation which had once been -guaranteed by Cosimo’s cautiousness and was continued by Lorenzo’s tact -and discretion. It was customary that when a new prior was appointed he -should make a visit to the head of the family. Fra Girolamo, on being -chosen prior in July 1491, refused to do this. ‘I hold my election -from God alone,’ said he; ‘to Him alone I owe obedience.’ It may easily -be conceived that Lorenzo took this amiss, and, in his turn, spoke out -freely. ‘A stranger has come into my house, and does not deign to visit -me.’ However, he made no change in his conduct towards the convent; he -sent gifts and money as before. Once some gold florins were found in -the alms-box of the church. Fra Girolamo, who had previously made some -personal remarks from the pulpit, caused the money to be given to the -Buonuomini of San Martino, saying that silver and copper was enough for -the convent. When Lorenzo came to walk in the convent garden, according -to his custom, the prior never showed himself. His admirers praise -his conduct towards a man from whom he was separated by a deep inward -gulf. If, instead of trying to work upon that man and so introduce a -different state of things, he intended to cause a violent conflict, he -acted rightly. - -Lorenzo’s own conduct towards Savonarola was always prudent. The -Dominican’s biographers relate that the great man, being repulsed -by him, incited Fra Mariano to attack him from the pulpit; but such -incitement was probably not needed. The breach between the two -preachers was older than themselves; the antagonism of the two orders -was but personified in these men, so radically different from each -other. In a sermon preached on Ascension-Day, on the text: ‘It is not -for you to know the times or the seasons,’ the Augustinian accused -the prior of San Marco of being a false prophet, an instigator of -sedition among the people, a stirrer-up of strife and disorder. It is -said that his vehemence and exaggerated personalities gave offence -to his numerous hearers, and ruined his fame as an orator. Seven -years later, when the Roman court was in the greatest excitement on -account of events in Florence, when Savonarola lay under the ban of -the Church, when his safety and his very life depended only on the -momentary preponderance of one party or another in the excited city, -already stained with the blood of noble citizens—then this same Fra -Mariano preached in Sant’Agostino at Rome in such immoderate terms, -and applied to his hated rival such coarse expressions, that even to -unlearned hearers his gifts of eloquence seemed to have been swallowed -up by party-spirit; and the cardinals who were present turned their -backs upon him. They had expected a refutation of the Dominican’s -teaching, and they heard nothing but raging accusations accompanied by -vulgar gestures.[548] ‘If you want to understand a monk, ask a monk -about him,’ so said the Augustinian. After his personal attack at -Florence, it is said that Fra Mariano, apparently regardless of his -discomfiture, invited his rival to San Gallo, where they celebrated a -solemn mass together and exchanged civilities; but the story does not -agree with Savonarola’s character and the frankness so much praised by -his biographers in his relations with Lorenzo. - - - - -CHAPTER VII. - -PROCLAMATION OF THE CARDINALATE OF GIOVANNI DE’ MEDICI. - - -IT was a wise decision of Lorenzo to fix on Pisa as a residence for -his son Giovanni. His efforts to raise that unfortunate city and to -bridge over as much as he could the gulf between it and Florence had -been unwearying. Moreover, Pisa not only offered to the youth, in the -persons of its learned men, ample means of scientific cultivation, -it also gave the needful quiet which, while his elevation to a great -dignity was an open secret, he could not find in his father’s house, -constantly filled with friends and clients. Philosophy, law, and -polite literature seem to have been Giovanni’s chief studies; his -whole after-life shows that he was not much taken up with theology. -Filippo Decio and Bartolommeo Sozzini were his chief instructors in -civil and ecclesiastical law. With his quick mind his studies were -a pleasure; and the uncommon capacity which he always displayed in -literary matters, independently of the accurate taste he inherited -from his father, and his perfect mastery of the Latin tongue, suffice -to show that he no more lost his time at Pisa than he had done in -the villa or the house at Florence. He always attached great weight -to Latin scholarship, as he proved by his choice of secretaries when -he became Pope. In a brief of 1517, he speaks of the enrichment of -the Latin tongue, doubtless alluding both to the increased publicity -of its master-pieces, and to the efforts made, in accordance with -Poliziano’s views, to apply that language to the purposes of modern -science and modern life, instead of confining it to mere imitation, -yet without offending against the severity of the classical. His tutor -Bernardo Michelozzi has already been mentioned. Chalkondylas and Peter -of Ægina are named as his instructors in Greek. His constant companion -was Bernardo Dovizj, in whom he placed as much confidence as Lorenzo -had given to his father, and, indeed, also gave to the son. Another -of Giovanni’s companions was Silvio Passerini, who belonged to the -Cortona branch of a good Florentine family, and whose father was one -of the stanchest adherents of the Medici. Lorenzo caused the boy to -be brought up with his second son; and Silvio, who was five years -older than Giovanni, followed him faithfully through prosperity and -adversity. In later days he enjoyed the revived glory of the family, -and was raised to the highest ecclesiastical dignities, and also to -civil power in Florence; but he showed himself unequal to the situation -when another storm overthrew the Medicean authority.[549] The degree -of doctor of canon law had already been conferred on Giovanni. Towards -the end of his stay at Pisa he had a strange fellow-student—the -Cardinal vice-chancellor Rodrigo Borgia’s son Cesare, who was studying -jurisprudence under the future Cardinals Vera and Romolino, and -attended the lectures of Filippo Decio.[550] - -Naturally Giovanni held a prominent position, and his influence was -reckoned on in favour of the city and university, as well as for -private persons. His letters to his father, mostly short, are written -in the tone of respect and obedience which at that time universally -characterised the relation of children to their parents, and in a -great degree does so still. He occasionally retired to the solitude -of Camaldoli for the purpose of meditation and of indulging in the -spiritual exercises usual to one in his circumstances. In the -beginning of August 1491, he was residing in the abbey of Passignano -with his cousin Giulio. Lorenzo had not ceased interceding for -benefices for his son. When a Tuscan abbot was dying in May 1489, he -wrote to the ambassador at Rome: ‘Induce the Pope to give the benefice -to his Messer Giovanni. I say _his_, because he is far more his servant -than my son. On account of the importance of the benefice, his Holiness -should confer it only on one of our people (Florentines), and if it is -given to one of ours, it can come to no one who will be more thankful -for it.’[551] - -The Pope’s stipulation for delay in proclaiming Giovanni cardinal -did not at all suit Lorenzo, and he took no pains to conceal the -fact. Within a year from the nomination he was urgent to have it -published immediately; but Innocent was not to be moved. ‘I thanked his -Holiness,’ wrote on January 8, 1490, Piero Alamanni,[552] temporarily -replacing Lanfredini, who had died three days before, ‘for Messer -Giovanni’s preferment, and declared how gratifying it was to our whole -people, and how grateful they are to the Holy Father; at the same time -I hinted, in the most suitable words I could command, that a shortening -of the appointed delay was greatly desired. In his detailed reply, the -Pope remarked first that what he did was all for the best, and for the -reasons and grounds which he had communicated to you through M. Pier -Filippo (Pandolfini). Then he turned the conversation to M. Giovanni, -and spoke of him in such a way as if he were his own son. He said he -had been informed what progress he was making in his studies at Pisa, -and how he had distinguished himself in several disputations; at which -he showed extreme pleasure. At last he spoke as follows: “Leave me to -care for Messer Giovanni’s interests, for I regard him as my son, and -shall of my own accord take in hand his proclamation when you are least -thinking of it. I have yet other views for his honour and advantage.“‘ -This was all very fine, but it was the less calculated to soothe -Lorenzo’s impatience, as the Pope’s state of health gave good cause for -the gravest anxiety. On September 23, Innocent was seized with another -apoplectic fit. All Rome was in the most intense excitement; the Pope’s -death was reported; all shops were closed, and all persons working in -the fields and vineyards hurried home. Franceschetto Cybò tried to -get possession both of the church treasury and of Prince Dschem, in -consequence of which, on the following day, while Innocent still lay -unconscious, the cardinals took precautionary measures; not, however, -it was said, till part of the treasure had been sent to Florence.[553] -The invalid came to himself, and on May 27 Pandolfini wrote that he -was getting better and hopeful of recovery. It is related that he said -to Cardinal Savelli and his colleagues, who came to the palace in the -moment of danger to secure the treasure, ‘he hoped yet to bury them -all.’ But there was great alarm at Florence. As soon as the news of -the Pope’s critical condition arrived, Guid’Antonio Vespucci and Piero -Guicciardini were commissioned to go to Rome to demand, in the name -of the city, the admission of Giovanni de’ Medici to the approaching -Conclave. More favourable news made the embassy needless,[554] but -Lorenzo determined to make every effort not to let his success be -spoiled. His brother-in-law, the archbishop, was then in Florence, -and went to Rome at his request. Through Franceschetto’s mediation he -obtained admission to the Pope, whom he found suffering from quartan -fever, and in a state which did not at all inspire confidence. His -mission had no success with the influential cardinals; his letter -to Lorenzo[555] shows how slightingly he was treated. All he gained -was the assurance that the family, and especially Lorenzo, should be -treated with consideration and not offended. When he became more urgent -on the subject of the Conclave, he was told that matters had not got -so far as that yet; the Pope was well, and should anything fatal happen -to him, they would proceed with due consideration. Pandolfini, too, -obtained nothing. On the part of the cardinals, he wrote,[556] there -would be no serious difficulty; it lay with the Pope, who was afraid -of publication in this individual case, lest it should offend others. -‘Do not think that to speak of the matter at the present moment would -lead to the attainment of the object. Everyone is warned to speak to -him only of cheerful things, and that only in the presence of others. -If one tried to obtain an interview without witnesses, one would expose -oneself to the suspicion that it was for something of importance. -For more than a month not a cardinal has spoken with him, save those -belonging to the palace; and of the prelates, only those who cheer him -up are admitted.’ - -The Pope’s health really became stronger; and as he remained firm, -Lorenzo had to wait patiently till the three years’ delay was over. -When the moment arrived, neither Innocent nor the young cardinal’s -father could hope to live much longer. On the afternoon of March 8, -1492, Giovanni, who had in the meantime left Pisa, proceeded with a -small retinue to the abbey of Fiesole. That convent and church, where -everything recalled the munificence of the Medici, had been chosen -to witness the conferring of the highest honours upon a scion of the -family. The next morning Pico della Mirandola and Jacopo Salviati -arrived with the notary Simone Staza, and at the sixth hour they -accompanied the youth to the church. The office of the Madonna was -solemnly sung and was followed by the sacrifice of the mass, the -celebrant, the Prior Matteo Bosso, giving the Host to Giovanni as he -knelt on the altar-steps. He then blessed the cardinal’s robes, took in -his hands the Pope’s bull and brief and said: ‘May it be for the good -of God’s church, of our country, and of thy house! This day, Giovanni -Medici, the three years’ delay appointed by the bull and this brief -for thy dignity as cardinal is expired. Whosoever will read, let him -read; all is fulfilled. Do thou, Simone, make a public record of it.’ -He then presented to the kneeling youth his insignia, the pallium, -biretta, hat, and ring, and the choir sang the _Veni Creator_. After -proclaiming the indulgences to which he was now competent, the cardinal -returned to the convent with the rest. After dinner Piero de’ Medici -arrived mounted on a handsome horse adorned with gilded trappings, and -accompanied by some friends of the family; and the whole party mounted -on horseback to proceed to the city. - -In spite of the rainy weather thousands had crowded to the Porta San -Gallo to see the procession. To avoid a press a regulation had been -made that no one should cross the bridge over the Mugnone; so the -whole space before the gate and the convent was filled with people. -When the cardinal and his companions rode up, they found the whole of -the clergy, protonotaries and prelates, the chief citizens, and the -foreign ambassadors. On reaching the city the procession entered the -Servite Church, where Giovanni prayed in the chapel of the Annunziata, -and thence to Sta. Maria del Fiore. After this the cardinal paid a -visit to the Signoria, and then, accompanied by the ambassadors, -rode to his father’s house, where Lorenzo received his son. The -streets through which the procession passed were gaily decorated, and -the windows and roofs filled with people. The whole population was -astir. At night the houses and numerous towers were brilliant with -illuminations; bonfires were lighted in the squares, so that it was as -bright as daylight, and shouts of rejoicing and the sound of musical -instruments continued so long that sleep seemed forgotten. The next -morning, Sunday, March 10, the grand ecclesiastical celebration took -place in Sta. Maria del Fiore, whither the cardinal was accompanied by -the ambassadors and chief citizens. The church was full; the Signoria -were present: eight bishops sang the Mass of the Holy Ghost. It -was not fourteen years since the blood of a Medici had been shed on -that spot, in the presence of another youthful cardinal. After Mass, -Giovanni took leave of the Signoria and returned home, where a grand -banquet was prepared in his honour. Sixty covers were laid; the guests -were the foreign diplomatists and the foremost men of the city. For -several days preparations had been made and provisions procured ‘for -the solemnity of our Monsignore.’[557] Lorenzo was so ill on his son’s -day of triumph that he could not take part either in the service at -church or at the banquet. He had himself carried into the hall to see -the brilliant company at table; that was all he could do. Before the -end of the banquet the Signoria presented to the new Prince of the -Church a gift of honour, consisting of silver plate of the finest -workmanship and more than a thousand pounds in weight; its value was -estimated at 10,000 gold florins at the least. After Giovanni had -withdrawn to his own apartments with the ambassadors and Signori, the -various communities of the State, and the Jews of Florence, sent him -presents of handsome silver plate; all of which, as also gifts from -private persons, except his own relatives, he immediately returned with -thanks.[558] - -Little more than two years and a half after this day of triumph, he -whom Florence now greeted with acclamations left his desolate home in -the habit of a Franciscan monk; the convent of St. Mark, built by his -family, closed its gates against him, and the terrified fugitive turned -towards the Apennines; thus beginning an exile destined to last for -eighteen years, to be followed later on by a period of yet greater, -and, in its way, unequalled splendour. - -Giovanni stayed but one day more in his native city. He had to go to -Rome to express his thanks to the Pope and take his place in the Sacred -College. On Tuesday, March 12, he took leave of his sick father and set -off on horseback, accompanied by his suite. Among the latter was the -general of the Camaldulensians, Pietro Delfino, descended from a noble -Venetian family; he had been formerly in the monastery of San Michele -di Murano, was elected general of his Order in 1480, and was a great -friend of Lorenzo and other distinguished Florentines; no one could -be better fitted to direct the first steps of a youth raised to such -high honours. A letter written by him from Rome to Guido, prior of the -monastery of the Angeli, gives an account of the journey and reception. -For two miles from the Porta Romana, as far as the Carthusian convent, -the departing cardinal was escorted by a number of distinguished -citizens; they then returned to Florence, and he rode on to his abbey -of Passignano. The greater part of his suite went to pass the night -at Poggibonzi, and on the following morning reached Siena, where the -cardinal arrived in the afternoon, and was triumphantly and joyfully -received by the people. March 16 the party resumed their journey, and -dined at Buonconvento; they passed that night at San Quirico and the -next at Acquapendente. Throughout the Sienese territory they were -entertained at the public expense. Several prelates came to meet the -cardinal at Acquapendente, and he was saluted on the way to Viterbo -by several of the Orsini whose territories near the lake of Bolsena -bordered on those of Siena.[559] - -At Viterbo Franceschetto Cybò received his brother-in-law, and all -rode together to Bracciano, whose lord, Gentil Virginio Orsini, had -gone eight miles, up to the foot of the Viterbo mountains, to meet -the welcome guest. They were all housed in the gigantic pentagonal -fortress, impregnable in those days, and even now startling in its -gloomy grandeur as it towers above the slumbering depths of the -lake below. The travellers spent a whole day with the powerful lord -of Bracciano, who in a few years was ruined by the same storm that -overthrew the Medici. On the following day, March 22, the Pope -announced to the cardinals and envoys the approaching arrival of the -new member of the Sacred College. It took place in the afternoon amid -pouring rain. Giovanni dismounted at Sta. Maria del Popolo, prayed -in the church and slept in the convent, and the next morning his -colleagues and the ambassadors came to fetch him. Francesco Piccolomini -and Raffael Riario headed the procession; Giovanni himself rode between -the cardinal-deacons Giovan Battista Savelli and Giovanni Colonna. The -new cardinal-deacon of Sta. Maria in Dominica was received by the Pope -in the Consistory. After the ceremony they all escorted him back to -his dwelling in the Campo di Fiore, and the rain was unceasing. Pietro -Delfino reports that the youth’s bearing and conduct made a favourable -impression on all, and he was thought more mature in mind than was to -be expected from his age; which may be accounted for by considering -what great care his father, who himself had been early brought into -public life, had bestowed upon his son’s education, and what a lasting -impression was left on that son by the father’s example. - -The letter addressed by Lorenzo to Giovanni[560] is an honourable -proof not merely of political wisdom and consummate knowledge of human -affairs, but also of a genuine sense of propriety and a moral feeling -which seems to have been strengthened by the experience of advancing -years and his own personal circumstances. ‘Messer Giovanni,’ thus runs -the letter, ‘you, and we for your sake owe sincere thankfulness to our -Lord God. For over and above many benefits and honours conferred on our -house, He has granted to it in your person the highest dignity to which -it has ever risen. The matter, already great in itself, is made yet far -greater by the circumstances, namely, your youth and our position. My -earnest exhortation to you, therefore, is that you endeavour yourself -to be thankful to God; for it is not your deserts nor your prudence -and foresight that have made you a cardinal, but the wondrous grace of -God. This you must recognise, and prove your recognition of it by an -honest, exemplary, virtuous life. To this you are all the more bound, -as in your youth you have already given an impression of yourself which -furnishes reason to expect riper fruits. It would be a shame for you -and a sad disappointment for me, if you forgot your good beginnings at -an age when others are wont to arrive at discretion and a regular life. -You must, therefore, be careful to lighten the burden of the dignity -conferred on you by a moral course of life, and perseverance in the -studies befitting your vocation. Last year it was a great comfort to -me to hear that, without being exhorted by others, you went frequently -to confession and to the Lord’s Table; and I believe that there is -no better means of continuing in the grace of God than constant -perseverance in this practice. It seems to me that I can give no more -useful and suitable exhortation than this. As you are going to Rome, -the very pit of all evil, the difficulty of doing what I recommend -naturally increases; for not only does example have its influence, but -you personally will have no lack of evil counsellors and tempters. As -you can understand for yourself, your elevation to the cardinalate -excites great envy, on account both of your youth and of the other -circumstances to which I have alluded. Those who were unable to hinder -that elevation will endeavour artfully to diminish its value, by trying -to make your manner of life appear in an unfavourable light, and to -drag you down into the pit into which they themselves are fallen. They -trust that your youth will make this easier to them. You must take the -more pains to frustrate these hopes, as there is the less virtue to -be found now in the College [‘quanto nel Collegio hora si vede manco -virtù’]. I remember seeing that College full of learned and virtuous -men; be advised to follow their example; for the more your course of -life differs from that of others, the more you will be sure of being -loved and esteemed. But you must flee the reproach of hypocrisy as well -as that of an evil reputation, like Scylla and Charybdis. You must -endeavour to cultivate moderation, and both in your conduct and speech -avoid everything which might offend others, and not make a display of -austerity and strictness. These are things which you will understand -with time, and learn to act up to my meaning better than I can explain -it to you now. - -‘You will have no difficulty in perceiving how much depends on the -individuality and example of a Cardinal. If the Cardinals were what -they should be, the world would be the better for it; for they would -always choose a good Pope and thus secure the peace of Christendom. -Endeavour therefore to so comport yourself, that others in resembling -you will promote the general well being of all. As there is nothing -in the world more difficult than to converse fittingly with people of -different sorts, I can give you no minute instruction on this point. -But in all cases you must take care to be respectful and unpretending -in your intercourse with the Cardinals and others of high rank, and -measure things with a calm judgment and not according to the passions -of others; for many violate reason in aiming at that which is unlawful. -Keep your own conscience at peace by giving no place in your discourse -to offensive matters. This seems to me in your case the first and most -important precept; for if anyone should let himself be led into enmity -by passion, the return is easy with such as have no sound reason for -disagreement. During this your first stay in Rome, I think you will do -well to use your ears more than your tongue. - -‘This day I have given you up wholly to God and the holy Church. -Therefore you must become a good priest and convince everyone that -you prefer the good and honour of the Church and of the Apostolic -See to all the things of this world, and all private considerations -and interests. If you keep this before your eyes you will not lack -opportunities of being useful to this city and our house. For the -alliance with the Church is advantageous to the city; you must form the -link between the two; and the house goes with the city. And although -the future cannot be foreseen, yet I have a general belief that we -shall not lack means on both sides if you hold firmly to this most -important resolution that I urge on you of placing the Church before -all else. - -‘You are the youngest member of the College; not only at the present -time, but of all that have ever hitherto been created. Therefore you -must be attentive and respectful when you meet the other Cardinals, and -never make people wait for you at chapel, in the Consistory, or at a -deputation. You will soon discover which of your colleagues are most, -and which are least commendable. You will have to avoid confidential -intercourse with those of irregular lives, not only on account of the -thing itself, but also on account of public opinion. Let your discourse -with all men turn as much as possible on indifferent subjects. When you -have to appear in public or solemn occasions, it seems to me advisable -rather to moderate your outward enthusiasm than to overstep it. I would -prefer a well-filled stable, and well-ordered cleanly servants, to pomp -and riches. Try to live regularly, and gradually to introduce fixed -order, which is unattainable at present, while master and household -are alike unknown to each other. Silk and jewels suit your position on -certain occasions only; far more suitable are a few good antiquities -and fine books, and respectable and learned, rather than numerous -society. Rather invite people frequently to you than go to many -entertainments; but herein also you must proceed with moderation. Have -for your own use simple food, and take a great deal of exercise, for -in your present position you might easily be overcome by some illness -for want of prudence. This position is no less secure than lofty; so -that it often happens that those who have attained it become negligent, -saying to themselves that they have reached a lofty goal, and thinking -that they can keep it without much effort; thereby often bringing -injury to their position as well as to their health. With respect to -the latter I advise you to be as careful as possible, and to have -rather too little than too much confidence in your strength. - -‘One rule of life I commend to you before all others: get up early -every morning. Putting aside the benefit to health, it gives time -for attending to all the business of the day, and you will find it a -great assistance in fulfilling your various duties, as you have to -read your service, to study, to give audiences and do various other -things. Another thing is very useful for one in your position: always, -and particularly now at first, consider in the evening what you have -to do the next day, that business may not find you unprepared. As for -speaking in the Consistory, I am of opinion that in all cases which -may occur it will, on account of your youth and inexperience, be most -praiseworthy and befitting the circumstances that you should always -follow the Holy Father and his wise judgment. Without doubt you will -often be urged to speak to his Holiness about particular matters -and use your influence. Be careful now at first to ask as little as -possible and not trouble the Holy Father; for he is naturally inclined -to grant the most to him who dins least into his ears. I think it -salutary to take care not to weary him, but to lay before him pleasant -things; and a request modestly preferred corresponds better with his -nature and will put him in a more favourable disposition. Fare you -well.’ - - - - -CHAPTER VIII. - -DEATH OF LORENZO. - - -WHEN Lorenzo wrote that letter to his son his condition might be called -hopeless. From his youth up he had suffered from hereditary physical -ailments. The attacks had increased with age, till they weakened his -originally strong constitution. Gout made its appearance in various -forms, and the waters, tried frequently and one after another, failed -to give lasting relief, partly because he never gave them time to -produce their full effect. He often joked about his sufferings. ‘Pain -in my feet,’ he wrote to Lanfredini in August 1489, ‘has hindered my -correspondence with you. Feet and tongue are indeed far apart, yet they -interfere with each other.’ Towards the end of August 1491, he was -so ill that he had to be carried to Spedaletto in a litter.[561] The -waters of Morba had only a passing soothing effect; and at the end of -the autumn a slow fever set in with grave symptoms. His whole system -seemed attacked at once—bowels, limbs, and nerves. To the arthritic -pains were added pains in the bones, which robbed him of rest by night -and day; gout had attacked the higher organs: the physicians were at -their wits’ end. When the year 1492 opened, he could see no one; all -grave political business had to be set aside; a Milanese ambassador -waited more than a fortnight for an audience. An improvement permitted -him to leave the house again, but it was not lasting. ‘The illustrious -Lorenzo,’ wrote the Ferrarese ambassador on February 11,[562] ‘has been -again for some days greatly tormented with pains which attack the whole -of his body except his head. At times he suffers so acutely that it -is hard to understand how he can hold out. The doctors do not indeed -consider the illness mortal; but his condition is getting very bad, -because he enjoys very little rest. God grant him health again; for the -accounts of his state are really such as to excite sympathy.’ On the -8th of the same month, King Ferrante wrote to his ambassador, Marino -Tomacelli:[563] ‘We have received many letters from you, but now we -only reply concerning the long-continued sufferings of the illustrious -Lorenzo, which have grieved and do grieve us to the depths of our soul. -Would God we could procure him recovery, or even alleviation! Exhort -his Magnificence to arm himself with patience and thus overcome the -evil; more especially as we may now expect better weather, after these -last days which have indeed been bad. Inform his Magnificence also that -we congratulate him on the settlement of the dispute with his Holiness, -which must be as pleasing to him as to ourself, he having had so great -a share in it, as is known to us and all. May he, by God’s help, the -advice of good doctors and prudence on his own part, recover his -health, so that we may both enjoy peace, and especially peace of mind.’ - -The king was not deceived in his estimate of how much depended on -Lorenzo’s life and activity. In the middle of February an improvement -set in, but again it was but transitory. The weather continued bad, and -at the beginning of March the pains returned; no one was admitted to -the invalid with the exception of his family and a very few intimate -friends. We remarked before that he was unable to take part in the -solemnities attending the proclamation of his son’s cardinalate; his -most ardent wish was now fulfilled, and his life was on the wane. He -seems to have been aware of his condition, when the young Cardinal -set out on March 12. He spoke thus to Filippo Valori, brother of his -biographer, and Andrea Carubini, the former of whom was to accompany -Giovanni to Rome, and the latter was attached to his household: ‘I -entrust my son’s youth to you; me you will never see again.’ Who can -tell what were his feelings as he wrote that beautiful letter!—There -was again a slight improvement; but it was the last. The disease made -rapid progress. On the 21st the invalid was taken to Careggi, his -favourite abode, where he had planned and done so much, and where he -could get more air and sunshine than in the city. Towards the end of -March a physician was expected from Naples. At the beginning of April, -Duke Ercole of Ferrara came to Florence[564] on his journey to Rome, -whither he was going ostensibly for purposes of devotion, in reality -for political objects, and to try to obtain the cardinalate for his son -Ippolito. The boy was only thirteen, but he had already been Archbishop -of Gran for six years; and if a Medici had won the purple at fourteen, -why not an Este, a scion of one of the oldest families of Italy? If -Innocent VIII. had lived longer he would have been unable to avoid -giving this nomination also. The duke could not see Lorenzo, but the -latter had already promised him his son’s vote in the future Consistory. - -The sufferer’s days were numbered. He made himself ready for the -worst, set his house in order, and made what arrangements he could -to secure for his son the position he had himself held. But he was -too clear-sighted not to perceive the dangers which the old love of -freedom and impatience under the long and ever-strengthening supremacy -of a single family, together with Piero’s inexperience and haughty -character, must bring upon him. Poliziano indeed relates that Lorenzo -had cherished an intention of retiring, and handing over the direction -of affairs to his son. ‘About two years before his death,’ he says, ‘I -was sitting with him in his bed-chamber, and we were talking, as usual, -of philosophy and literature. He then said that he intended passing -the rest of his days with Ficino, Pico, and myself, in study, far from -the bustle of the city. To my objection that this would be impossible, -as the citizens needed his counsel and authority more and more every -day, he answered smiling: “I shall provide a substitute in the person -of thy pupil, and entrust the burden to his shoulders.“‘ Then on -Poliziano’s expressing a doubt whether Piero’s age was sufficient to -render him competent, he praised his son’s mind and bearing, and the -good foundations which Poliziano had laid. The story may be true, -notwithstanding the writer’s visible tendency to over-rate his friend’s -actions and sayings. But doubtless Lorenzo’s sole object was to hear -what would be said to such an intention. He can hardly have had serious -thoughts of retiring from public life, least of all at such a time. - -Looking back upon his own short but eventful career, he could see more -clearly than ever what unceasing care and trouble, what knowledge of -characters and calculation of humours and circumstances, had been -necessary to govern parties, keep down opponents without driving them -to extremity, and make use of and direct adherents without letting -them outgrow his control. He knew but too well that a single false -step might upset everything. In the depths of his own mind he felt -the discords that ran through the general tone of thought and feeling -in the state. He measured the force of the hardly-concealed moral -and religious currents that were threatening to break forth. When -he, the experienced statesman, looked around him and surveyed the -political condition of Italy, he was alarmed at the weak foundations -of the edifice which it had cost him so much exertion to support by -his counsels and actions. But just now he had put an end to the long -and dangerous strife between the Pope and the King; and who was to -answer for the future? And when the unstable Pope and the unprincipled -King were gone, who could predict the former’s successor—who dared -flatter himself with the hope that the latter’s heir, in every respect -worse than himself, would keep even his own disaffected land at peace, -and not foster the seeds, sown long ago, of dissensions with other -countries? Perhaps Lorenzo’s death-bed was haunted even more by the -consciousness of the preponderance of evil elements in the College, -by the thoughts of Alfonso of Naples, of Lodovico il Moro, and of the -hostility of Venice, than even by the dread of attempts at a change in -Florence. - -In his religious views and his mode of expressing them Lorenzo had -always been a true child of the age, which combined a secular temper -with a tinge of unfeigned religious feeling, and amid all its grave -intellectual errors was not without moral consciousness. That Lorenzo -possessed this moral consciousness is proved by many of his expressions -through his latter years. He had gained from his excellent and pious -mother something more than a literary acquaintance with religious -matters. He had inherited from his forefathers the traditions of -a close and active connection with ecclesiastical foundations and -ecclesiastical interests, which he furthered in a manner that cannot -be attributed solely to political motives. His sensuous temperament, -his early elevation to such authority as perhaps no private man has -ever enjoyed in a city so full of genuine life, led him into many moral -errors. But as he was at the same time the author of the lays of the -Carnaval and the poet of philosophical and spiritual songs, even so, -amid all his errors and notwithstanding the great influence exercised -over him from his youth up by antique philosophy, he still adhered -to the faith of Christianity practised and taught by his teacher -Ficino and his friend Pico della Mirandola. All his life he had been -attentive to the observance of religious ordinances; and he continued -so when that life was near its close. His sister Bianca de’ Pazzi had -accompanied him to Careggi; and it was she who told him of his imminent -danger. ‘Brother,’ said she, ‘thou hast lived as a man of lofty mind; -thou must quit this life not only bravely but piously. Know that all -hope is over.’[565] He seemed somewhat distressed that hope had been -encouraged too long; then he asked for the aid of the Church. It was -late when the priest who was summoned from San Lorenzo reached the -villa. The dying man would not receive him in bed: in spite of the -remonstrances of those about him, he got up and had himself dressed: -then, supported by his attendants, he entered the room, where he sank -on his knees before the ciborium. Seeing how weak he was, the priest -insisted that he should lie down again; and he was with difficulty -induced to do so. He then received the viaticum with a devoutness which -made an impression on all present.[566] - -His eldest son, his sister, and Angelo Poliziano were almost constantly -near him. After the religious ceremony Piero remained alone by his -bedside. Lorenzo comforted him, and gave him warnings and good advice -as to his conduct in the city and the state when he himself should have -departed. ‘The citizens,’ said he, ‘will, I believe, acknowledge thee, -my son, as worthy to fill the position which I have occupied; and I -doubt not that thou wilt have the same authority in the commonwealth -as I have enjoyed until now. But as this commonwealth is, according to -the common expression, a body with many heads, and it is impossible -to please them all, remember that in all the varied circumstances of -life the way to be kept is that which appears most honourable; and -always prefer the general good to personal and party interests.’ Wise -counsel this; if he who gave it had but followed it more strictly, -it would have saved him from much bitter and but too well-founded -reproach! He charged Piero to take a father’s place towards his young -brother Giuliano; to the Cardinal he commended his nephew Giulio, -then aged fourteen, and for whom he seems already to have had visions -of an ecclesiastical career. He also spoke to his son about his -funeral, ordering that it should be arranged after the pattern of his -grandfather’s, and that the limits usual in the interment of a private -man should not be overstepped. - -Meanwhile a famous Lombard doctor, Lazaro of Pavia, sent by Lodovico -il Moro, had arrived at Careggi. The invalid asked the attendants -what he was doing, and on being told that he was composing a draught -of pulverised pearls, precious stones, and other costly substances, -he exclaimed with eager voice and cheerful look to Poliziano, who was -standing near the bed: ‘Dost thou hear, Angelo, dost thou hear?’ Then, -stretching out his enfeebled arms, he seized his friend by both hands -and held him fast, while the latter sought to turn away to hide the -rising tears; at last Lorenzo, seeing his emotion, let him go, and -he rushed to his own rooms to let his grief take its course. When he -came back, Lorenzo asked why Pico did not come to see him; and being -answered that probably Pico feared to trouble him, he remarked that -he rather feared it was the distance from the villa to the city that -troubled Pico. The latter, thus called for, came; and the invalid -received him with the old cordiality. He begged him to excuse the -trouble he was giving him, adding that it must be attributed to his -affection, for he should die more content after having seen him once -more. Then he spoke on many subjects, both general and particular, and -said, looking at the two: ‘I would that death had spared me till I had -been able to complete your libraries.’ Poliziano knelt down beside the -bed to catch the words, which were already becoming indistinct. - -Scarcely had Pico left Careggi when another man entered the chamber -of death.[567] If Lorenzo summoned Girolamo Savonarola to him, it -must have been because he was not easy in his conscience. The several -versions of the interview, as related by those who were connected -either with Lorenzo or the Dominican Prior, differ so widely as to -the circumstances that only greater or less probability can decide -between them. This is Poliziano’s story: Fra Girolamo of Ferrara, a man -distinguished by his learning and godliness, and an excellent preacher -of the Divine Word, entered the room, and admonished the invalid to -hold fast to the Faith; to which Lorenzo replied that he continued -immovable therein. Hereupon he exhorted him thenceforth to lead a -virtuous life; to which the reply was that he would endeavour himself -so to do. Thirdly, he recommended him to meet death, if it needs must -be, with firmness. ‘Nothing,’ replied the invalid, ‘is sweeter to -me, if it be God’s will.’ The monk was departing, when Lorenzo said -to him: ‘Give me thy blessing, father, before thou partest from me.’ -And with bowed head, and in the attitude of religious earnestness, he -responded correctly, and with full consciousness to Savonarola’s words -and prayers, undisturbed by the no longer concealed mourning of the -household. - -So reports the friend of many years—he who knew the dying man better -perhaps than anyone else. But another story stands in opposition -to his. According to this version, Lorenzo wished to make one last -confession to the Dominican. He accused himself of three things: the -sack of Volterra, the squandering of the dower-moneys, and the blood -shed at the time of the Pazzi conspiracy. The dying man’s agitation -was distressing. ‘God is gracious, God is merciful,’ said the monk -to soothe him. Then, when he had done, Savonarola spoke. ‘You have -need of three things. First, true and lively confidence in the Divine -grace.’ To this the invalid replied, ‘I am penetrated therewith.’ -‘Secondly, you must restore what you have wrongfully appropriated, and -make restitution a duty for your sons.’ Lorenzo reflected a moment, -then assented by a movement of the head. ‘Lastly, you must restore to -the people of Florence their freedom.’ The invalid turned away his head -without answering, and the monk left him unabsolved. - -Lorenzo’s death—to resume Poliziano’s report—was peaceful. It seemed -that it was not he who was about to undergo the fate of all mortals, -but rather those who stood around his bed. He did not refuse what the -doctors prescribed, though he expected no effect from it. Even his old -cheerfulness had not altogether deserted him. When after taking some -food he was asked how he relished it, he answered: ‘Like a dying man.’ -He embraced his relatives and friends and begged them to forgive him -if he had offended them or shown impatience during his long illness. -When he asked to have read to him from the Gospel the history of the -Passion and Death of our Lord, at first he repeated the words of -Scripture, then, getting weaker, only moved his lips and at last his -fingers, in token that he still followed the sense. When death drew -near, a crucifix was held out to him; he opened his eyes, kissed it and -departed. This was on Sunday, April 8, 1492, about the fifth hour of -the night. - -What a strange abundant variety of cares and pleasures, of labour and -enjoyment, of thought and action, of poetry and realism, of danger and -success, of evil and good, had been crowded together into that life of -barely forty-three years! - -The tidings of his death naturally put all Florence in commotion. -Almost simultaneously with it came the news that the physician Piero -Leoni had thrown himself into a well at Francesco Martelli’s villa at -San Gervasio by the Porta Pinti, whither he had been secretly taken -because his life was threatened at Careggi, as he was suspected of an -intent to poison. It was not known whether the unhappy man really -perished by his own resolve or by another’s hand.[568] As usual, -prodigies were believed to have presaged the event with which all -minds were occupied. In Sta. Maria Novella a woman had started up in -the middle of the sermon, crying out that she saw a raging bull, with -burning horns, overthrowing the church. Three days before Lorenzo’s -death a flash of lightning had struck the lantern of the Cathedral and -hurled down some heavy blocks of marble on the north-west, the side -towards the Medici’s dwelling; one fell in through the roof, another -crushed the house of Luca Rinieri. On the night of the death a meteor -was said to have been seen to shine over Careggi and then vanish.[569] -Three hours after death the body was taken from Careggi to San Marco; -there it remained in the chapel of a lay-brotherhood till the following -evening, when the clergy of San Lorenzo came in solemn procession -to fetch it away and carry it to the sacristy of the Basilica. The -ceremony at church was simple, as he had wished it. The mourning was -general. The upper ranks, almost entirely attached to the Medicean -interest, felt deeply the loss of the man whose firm and practised hand -had guided the helm for so long, and whose vices had been outweighed -by his brilliant qualities. Who should tell them what might happen -now? On April 10, wrote Bartolommeo Cerretani, the whole city went -to Piero. The people lamented the loss of him who, at whatever cost, -had procured them peace and comfort.[570] There were indeed some who -rejoiced at his death and expected good from it; there is no lack of -testimony to such feelings in memoirs not intended for the eyes of -strangers. ‘As I know,’ writes Alamanno Rinuccini, when describing -the merits and demerits of the Medici, ‘that many falsehoods about -him have been spread, in eye-service and deceit, by flatterers and -perverters of the truth, mostly bought and corrupted by him by means of -honours and enrichment at the public expense. I intend to give a brief -account of his life and manners, with both of which I was intimately -acquainted: not by way of detraction, nor from hatred towards him, from -whom I have received divers marks of distinction, to which I had no -claim, but in compliance with truth. The multitude regarded the signs -before his death as prognostics of great evils; they would have been -prognostics of great good, had the citizens known how to use their -opportunity.’[571] - -On April 13, three days after the funeral, the assembled councils and -the people, in conjunction with the Signoria, issued the following -decree:[572] ‘Whereas the foremost man of all this city, the lately -deceased Lorenzo de’ Medici, did during his whole life neglect no -opportunity of protecting, increasing, adorning, and raising this city, -but was always ready with counsel, authority, and painstaking, in -thought and deed; subordinated his personal interest to the advantage -and benefit of the community; shrank from neither trouble nor dangers -for the good of the State and its freedom; and devoted to that object -all his thoughts and powers, securing public order by excellent laws; -by his presence brought a dangerous war to a conclusion; regained the -places lost in battle and took those belonging to the enemies;—whereas -he furthermore, after the rare examples furnished by antiquity, for -the safety of his fellow-citizens and the freedom of his country gave -himself up into his enemies’ power, and, filled with love for his -house, averted the general danger by drawing it all upon his own head; -whereas, finally, he omitted nothing which could tend to raise our -reputation and enlarge our borders; it hath seemed good to the Senate -and people of Florence, on the motion of the chief magistrate, to -establish a public testimonial of gratitude to the memory of such a -man, in order that virtue may not be unhonoured among the Florentines, -and that in days to come other citizens may be incited to serve the -commonwealth with might and wisdom. But whereas the memory of Lorenzo -needs no outward adornments, as it has struck deep root, and blooms -fresher every day, it hath been determined to transfer to Piero, -the eldest son of the deceased, the heir of his father’s dignity -and successor to his fame, the public honour due to his father and -his ancestors. So much the more, as Piero has already in his youth -displayed the endowments of his father and is in some degree his image, -and has already shown himself such that we may hope he will, by God’s -assistance, tread in his father’s steps.’ - -On April 10, before break of day, a special messenger brought to the -Cardinal the fatal tidings which had been expected for several days. -Giovanni, his attendants and servants, at once put on mourning, the -house was hung with black, and all the Cardinals, headed by Francesco -Piccolomini, paid visits of condolence to their youthful colleague. -Four days after, a Requiem was sung in Sta. Maria sopra Minerva; -Franceschetto Cybò and the Count of Pitigliano were present in coarse -black mantles reaching to the ground, and also Onofrio Tornabuoni, the -Medicean agent at the Roman Curia, and many prelates and gentlemen. -The next day Innocent proclaimed the appointment of Giovanni de’ -Medici to be legate in Tuscany, whither the boy wished to return -in consequence of his father’s death, that he might consult on the -condition of affairs with his brother, to whom he had already written -many letters. The young Cardinal was so much moved that he had to -retire for a while during mass.[573] Nothing is known of the remarks -made by the Pope (who sent an orator to Florence) on the loss of the -man with whom he was so intimate, although throughout his pontificate -he had never personally seen him. The case is otherwise with regard -to King Ferrante. On the morning of April 11, being then in the -neighbourhood of Palma, he learned from a letter of Marino Tomacelli -that all hope was abandoned. He thereupon wrote to Gioviano Pontano -at Rome that he should offer the Pope all the means at his command to -prevent a disturbance of the peace of Italy, and place at his disposal -the troops commanded by Virginio Orsini. To Virginio he wrote the same -evening, after receiving news of the death (‘which has grieved us to -the depths of our soul’), charging him to act without further orders -from him according to the disposition of the Pope, in case the latter -should have need of him.[574] To those around him the King is said -to have thus spoken: ‘That man’s life has been long enough for his -own deathless fame, but too short for Italy. God grant that now he is -dead, that may not be attempted which was not ventured on during his -life.’[575] - -That Innocent was entirely of one mind with Ferrante in considering -the maintenance of the house of Medici in the position it had hitherto -occupied as necessary for the preservation of the existing political -system, may be judged from the answer addressed to the Pope, from -Vigevano on April 20, by Lodovico il Moro in the name of his nephew -Gian Galeazzo.[576] Whatever might be the real feeling of Sforza, who -had already two months ago drawn up the instructions for that embassy -to Charles VIII. which was the first step towards the ruin of Italy—at -all events, his letter throws a favourable light on the Pope’s views of -the matter: ‘Your Holiness could have written me nothing more welcome -than what you have lately communicated to me as to your desire to -keep Italy in peace, and maintain the sons of Lorenzo de’ Medici in -their position. For I have nothing more at heart than the preservation -of the peace of Italy, for which I have not shrunk from subjecting -myself to intolerable burdens and struggles; and between me and the -Medici family there is a bond of friendship both public and private. My -memory recalls how the illustrious prince my grandfather (Francesco), -aided by the pecuniary means of Cosimo de’ Medici, regained the state -of our forefathers, which after his father-in-law’s death had been, -so to say, lost. I likewise remember how since then Florence and the -house of Medici have never been in a position to need our help without -our placing arms and money at their disposal. I am therefore glad that -amid the deep mourning occasioned by the death of the illustrious -Lorenzo, your Holiness’s letter calls upon me to do that to which my -own inclination prompted me, and which is as interesting to me as if -it concerned my own personal welfare. For not only your Holiness, to -whom my attachment to the Medici family is known, but all who know -anything of Italian affairs must be convinced that I shall continue -to act towards the sons of Lorenzo as my predecessors acted towards -his father and grandfather. No one can imagine that I shall not tread -as heretofore in the footsteps of my ancestors; for this friendship -with the Medici has always been cultivated and confirmed by practical -proofs on both sides, up to the present hour, and has not only never -experienced a disturbance, but has been constantly strengthened, to the -advantage and pleasure of both parties. Perseverance in this mind is -made doubly my duty, by old and new relations with the Medici, and by -the circumstance that I shall thereby suit the views of your Holiness.’ - -Lorenzo de’ Medici was buried in the sacristy of San Lorenzo, the -resting-place of his father, uncle, brother, grandparents, and other -relatives. When Giovanni, who left Rome on May 11, 1492, to return -home, stood here at his father’s grave, he little thought that more -than twenty-three years later, on Advent Sunday, 1515, he was destined -to kneel there in tears as the spiritual head of Christendom.[577] -Amid all the splendour and greatness to which the Medici afterwards -rose, not one of them seems to have thought of raising a monument to -the most famous man of the family, though the greatest sculptor of the -age helped to immortalise on their monuments two of its insignificant -members. In 1559 Duke Cosimo I. caused the mortal remains of Lorenzo -and his brother Giuliano to be laid in the porphyry sarcophagus which -they had erected for their father and uncle.[578] - -The following poem,[579] set to music by Heinrich Isaak, was written by -Angelo Poliziano on the death of the man to whom he had been through -life so deeply attached:— - - -MONODIA IN LAURENTIUM MEDICEM. - - Quis dabit capiti meo - Aquam? quis oculis meis - Fontem lachrymarum dabit? - Ut nocte fleam, - Ut luce fleam. - Sic turtur viduus solet; - Sic cygnus moriens solet, - Sic luscinia conqueri. - Heu miser, miser; - O dolor, dolor! - - Laurus impetu fulminis - Illa illa jacet subito; - Laurus omnium celebris - Musarum choris, - Nympharum choris, - Sub cujus patula coma, - Et Phœbi lyra blandius - Et vox dulcius insonat. - Nunc muta omnia, - Nunc surda omnia. - - Quis dabit capiti meo - Aquam? quis oculis meis - Fontem lachrymarum dabit? - Ut nocte fleam, - Ut luce fleam. - Sic turtur viduus solet; - Sic cygnus moriens solet, - Sic luscinia conqueri. - Heu miser, miser; - O dolor, dolor! - - - - -CONCLUSION. - - -AT the age of forty-three Lorenzo was called away. His span of life -had been but a short one for such manifold activity and such lasting -fame. A remarkable man, he was the most brilliant representative of -a remarkable time; in no one else were its qualities and excellences -united in such a harmonious whole. Energetic in action, and earnest in -his endeavours to watch the phases of progress in the establishment -of a new order of things; endowed with the liveliest susceptibilities -and the quickest perceptions, combined with the earnestness and -thoroughness of a student; with a strongly sympathetic feeling for -art, yet capable of immediate application to the business of life; -he united imaginative power with clear common sense, the capacity -for lofty projects with that for patient calculation; he had all the -qualities of poet and statesman, connoisseur and patron of learning, -citizen and prince. He was indefatigable and persevering in the endless -business thrown upon him by his position as the leader of a peculiarly -constituted state; with a quick and unerring eye he was able to grasp -the whole and yet observe its smallest detail; in his riper years he -was cautious and prudent, keeping his object immovably in view without -blind self-confidence or presumption, though fully alive to his own -position and that of the state which he represented. He passed with -wonderful ease from practical to speculative politics, from science to -poetry. Few could equal him in comprehensive, manifold, creative gifts, -or in the most delicate sense of beauty, and the most active interest, -with the deepest insight, into the character and purposes of art. In -his home and family relations he was kindly, sociable, cheerful, even -amid physical sufferings; not free from errors which even in earlier -years and afterwards far more decidedly loosened the bond between him -and his wife, yet still unaffectedly attached to all his family; to the -admirable mother, many of whose qualities he had inherited, to the wife -who was not of his own choosing, to the children to whom he was a wise -and prudent counsellor, and a tender but not a weak father. Moreover he -was a warm, attentive, and constant friend, attracting and attaching to -himself the most different natures, ever ready to help in counsel and -action, interposing and interceding for high and low with equal zeal -amid a thousand occupations. He was gifted with a delicate sense of -propriety, though he could not keep himself free from the Epicureanism -of the time, which exacted a sacrifice even from him; and vividly -conscious of the power of culture in the field of the Church, though -a frivolous materialism threatened to weaken that power and lead him -seriously astray in his views of life. - -He was not without the weaknesses and vices of his time. They cramped -his policy, though it still stood far higher than that of most princes -and statesmen of the age, both Italian and others. He was superior too -in honesty and consistency, and, at least during the last ten years of -his life, in unalterable adherence to the preservation of peace and -unity, and to a feeling of nationality such as answered to the ideas of -the time, from which it is not fair to demand conceptions unfamiliar to -it. His home policy has called forth severe blame both on account of -his progressive violations of the constitution to increase his personal -authority, and of the corruption he employed in order to obtain -undisturbed control of the finances. With regard to the latter, it is -hard to see how, had he lived longer, he could have avoided national -bankruptcy, unless indeed he and the state had contrived by the -preservation of peace to restore an internal equilibrium, for which in -his last years he had begun to lay some slight foundation. As to the -former, many of his contemporaries expressed the opinion that he aimed -at becoming a recognised prince, and was only waiting for a favourable -opportunity—such as his entrance on the office of Gonfalonier, as soon -as that dignity should fall to him on his reaching the legal age. And -yet he, who had everything in his power, could not have lacked means -and opportunities, if this had been his object. But he knew the city -and the people too well to be blind to the obstacles and dangers which -threatened to impede that path. - -Perhaps the worst evil of Lorenzo’s government lay in the increasing -incongruity between the outward form and the real power, and in the -displacement of authority from its legal centre, whereby both law -and moderation were called in question. Personal influence decided -everything in politics, in administration, in finance, even in the -dispensation of justice. The more clear-sighted among Lorenzo’s -contemporaries did not fail to perceive this radical evil, and -expressed their opinion of it in the bitterest terms. Nevertheless -not merely did Florence escape such excesses as occurred in all other -Italian states, almost without an exception, but Lorenzo’s government -was on the whole free from the violence which had characterised that -of Cosimo. Doubtless the greater tranquillity of the time, the more -secure position of the Medici, the fact that the people had been -longer accustomed to their rule, contributed to this result; but so -also did the character of the man himself. Lorenzo was ambitious to -rule, but he was no tyrant. On the one hand he was too keen-sighted, -and had calculated too accurately the character and traditions of the -people; on the other hand his own nature was too grand, too open, too -high-minded, too warm-hearted, and also too fond of enjoyment; finally, -he was too much of a Florentine citizen, and that not merely in name -but in his appearance, his dress and his bearing. He would have had -nothing to distinguish him from the rest of the community, had there -not been permitted or granted to him, ever since the Pazzi conspiracy, -a suite consisting at first of four of his own confidants, afterwards -of twelve men paid by the Signoria. It is true that this was a grave -offence against civil equality. This citizen-character was not kept up -by Lorenzo’s sons—it was said of Piero that he was not a Florentine -by nature—and its outward signs vanished altogether in some others of -the race. In his own family Lorenzo maintained simplicity; in public -affairs, however completely he held the real direction of them, he -tried to keep up fair appearances; though indeed he could not prevent a -complaint that Ser Piero da Bibiena brought into his court of chancery -matters which rightly belonged to the police-jurisdiction of the Eight. -On important occasions he liked to consult with many persons, but with -each one separately; and then he formed his own decision independently. - -On his arbitrary proceedings in money matters there were very divided -opinions even in his own time. If he had not used the money of the -state he would have been ruined; and it was said that his ruin would -have entailed that of everybody else; that all he took to save his -credit and to lead a showy life was nothing in comparison of the losses -to which a state would be exposed by incapable administration; that one -single unskilful or ill-timed measure might cost a state dearer than -Lorenzo’s whole course of government; that the ultimate and highest -object of the Medici, for which they calculated everything they did or -left undone, was indeed their own benefit; but they were and always -had been Florentine citizens, and in most cases their interest and -that of the state was one and the same. So said the favourable party -after Lorenzo’s death and Piero’s fall. To this it was answered that -the ultimate object of the Medici was not supremacy like that of the -Albizzi in a state becoming more and more aristocratic in form, but -simply autocracy, which they had sought to attain under the form -of democracy, by removing the influence of the noble families and -favouring many members of the lower classes. A cunning tyranny like -that of Cosimo, or one softened by affability and generosity like -that of Lorenzo, was all the worse because it spread poison among the -people, preparing the way for the endurance of something harder. The -truth of this view was proved at no very distant time. - -For good or for evil the Medici’s influence struck deep root in -Florence. They made the lasting existence of the Republic impossible. -‘We are suffering’—such are the words placed by Francesco Guicciardini -in the mouth of a man frequently named in this history—Paol’Antonio -Soderini—after their expulsion in 1494—‘from two mortal wounds: the -Pisan war, and the exile of the Medici. With their numerous friends -in the city and country, and the greatness of their name abroad, they -will give us a great deal of trouble.’ He was right. The Medicean party -would have given the death-blow to the Republic of 1495 as well as to -that of 1527, even if external circumstances had not come to their -assistance. The work was made easier for them because here, as in many -other republics, the relation of the ruling commonwealth to her subject -towns and districts was an unnatural and very oppressive one; these -subjects, influenced by the traditions of their old freedom, obeyed -only on compulsion; and endured a personal government such as was -permanently established forty years after Lorenzo’s death, more easily -than their former position—perhaps because their old masters now had -to bow their necks to the same yoke. - -In the ninth chapter of his Florentine history, the great writer just -mentioned sums up at the close, in a few words, his masterly picture of -Lorenzo de’ Medici’s influence on his native city. The city, he says, -was not free under him; but it could not have found a more endurable -and better master. For while there proceeded from him much good, owing -to his natural goodness and amiable disposition, the evils, so far as -they proceeded from the nature of the tyranny itself, were slight and -limited to absolute necessity, and infinitely slighter still where his -own will was concerned. Therefore, although many might rejoice at his -death, yet it grieved those who had a share in the government, and even -those who had some ground of complaint against him, for no one knew -whither the change might lead. - -This was soon discovered. Lorenzo the Magnificent had been scarcely -two years and a half in his grave, and his sons had not yet found -time to raise a monument to his memory, when the stately edifice of -which Giovanni d’Averardo had laid the foundation-stone, which Cosimo -had built up, and Piero and Lorenzo enlarged and adorned, crumbled to -pieces. On November 9, 1494, Luca Corsini, one of the Priori, shut the -gate of the palace of the Signoria in the face of Piero de’ Medici, on -his return from the French camp at Sarzana, and thus gave the signal -for a great change in the destinies of the commonwealth. Lorenzo’s son -and successor had neither his father’s sagacity and experience, nor -his father’s authority with the great men nor the attachment of the -people, to help him. In the long-threatened division which brought -down France to interfere in the dynastic troubles of Italy, he first -made common cause with the house of Aragon against the Moro and the -French king, and then, as soon as the latter, having crossed the Alps -without obstacle, was threatening Florence, the young man lost his -head and his courage, and without a shadow of right delivered up the -fortresses of the state, Sarzana, Pietrasanta, Pisa, Livorno, to the -foreigner. As soon as the old cry of ‘People and liberty!’ was raised -in a burst of anger at this unheard-of proceeding, Piero mounted his -horse and was glad when he found himself safe on the road to Bologna, -whither he was followed by his brothers and those of his adherents who -were most deeply compromised, while the mob was sacking the Medici -palace and the houses of the most detested tools of their financial -administration. Thus in a moment a revolution was accomplished which -created a new popular state, under the eyes of a foreign sovereign. -That same November 9 Charles VIII. entered Pisa, where the rising -against Florence began, and a week later he was in the palace in the -Via Larga. This state lasted, amid the greatest internal and external -difficulties, for nearly eighteen years, and then gave way to a new -Medicean supremacy, which after another three years’ interruption, -brought about by similar extraneous circumstances, formed itself into -an hereditary autocracy, lasting till, after the lapse of two full -centuries, the altered family died out in the altered country, and was -mourned even then, when but little was left of the qualities which had -lent it so much splendour. - -Lorenzo’s friends and adherents met with various fates. Of the heads -of the party, now left to their own resources, some attained influence -and power in the new commonwealth; others came to a bloody end. Of the -friends who stood round his death-bed, one, Angelo Poliziano, did not -live to see the catastrophe that befell the once splendid house. He was -taken away on September 24, 1494; and the evil reports which his life, -notwithstanding all his high intellectual gifts, had in some measure -called forth, did not spare him even in death. Giovanni Pico della -Mirandola died on the day of the French king’s entry, and the comforter -of his last moments was the man whom Lorenzo, too, had summoned in the -hour of death—the Predicant monk of Ferrara who was destined to stir -Florence to her deepest depths, and to die amid the flames lighted by -his own hand. Marsilio Ficino and Cristoforo Landino were doomed to -witness the misfortunes of the family to whom they owed everything and -were attached by hereditary affection, and to survive the execution -of many friends, and the dispersion of the rich treasures of art and -learning which adorned the house in which they had been born and grown -up. Of the younger members of the circle, some spent eighteen years in -exile and vicissitude, to come back at last and sun themselves in the -splendour, brilliant indeed but fleeting, of the pontificate of Leo -X. Then the seeds of literature and art sown in the days of Lorenzo, -sprang up in the works of Ariosto and Machiavelli, of Raphael and -Michelangelo; but the political edifice, whose chief pillar he had -been, and the national polity were irrecoverably destroyed; Italy had -become the whole world’s battle-field; Lombardy was subject to the -French, Naples to the Spaniards; the crowd of dynasties in Romagna had -been swept away by the flood; while of those who had once held in their -control the weal and woe of the peninsula, Ferrante and Alfonso of -Aragon had died in distress and remorse, and Lodovico il Moro had ended -his days in a French prison. - - - - -APPENDICES. - - -APPENDIX I. - -CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.[580] - - 1115. Death of the Countess Matilda. Increased independence of the - Tuscan towns. - - 1188. Frederic Barbarossa in Florence. - - 1201. Chiarissimo de’ Medici member of the council of the Florentine - Commonwealth. - - 1207. Election of the first Podestà. - - 1215. Beginning of civil feuds. - - 1250. First constitution of the Florentine commonalty of citizens in - opposition to the nobility. The _Capitano del Popolo_. - - 1260. Battle of Montaperti. Victory of the Ghibelline party. - - 1266. Charles of Anjou. The Ghibellines leave Florence. - - 1282. Origin of the political constitution of the guilds (_Priori - delle Arti_). - - 1293. Reform of the constitution of the guilds. _Gonfalonieri di - giustizia._ Penal laws against the nobility. - - 1294. Building of the Palace of the Commonwealth (_Palazzo dei - Priori_), and of the new Cathedral begun. - - 1312. Siege of Florence by the Emperor Henry VII. - - 1320. Beginning of the war against Castruccio, Lord of Lucca. - - 1336. War against Martino della Scala, Lord of Verona. - - 1342-43. Tyrannical government of Gautier de Brienne, Duke of Athens. - Complete downfall of the ancient nobility. - - 1346. Great losses of the Florentine banks. - - 1351. Beginning of the wars against the Visconti of Milan. - - 1362. War with Pisa. - - 1371. Factions of the Albizzi and Ricci. Exclusion of many citizens - from office. - - 1375. Beginning of enmity between the Florentines and Pope Gregory XI. - (1377, return of the Pope from Avignon to Rome.) - - 1378. Gonfaloniership of Salvestro de’ Medici. Rising and government - of the lowest classes (_Tumulto dei Ciompi_). - - Ambrogio Traversari born (d. 1439). - - 1379. Execution of Piero degli Albizzi. - - Filippo Brunelleschi b. (d. 1446). - - 1380. Poggio Bracciolini b. (d. 1459). - - 1381? Lorenzo Ghiberti b. (d. 1455). - - 1382. End of the popular government. Rise of the power of the Albizzi. - - 1386. Donatello b. (d. 1466). - - 1387. Exile of Benedetto degli Alberti and his family. Fra Giovanni of - Fiesole b. (d. 1455). - - 1388. Salvestro de’ Medici d. - - 1389. Cosimo de’ Medici b. (d. 1464). - - 1391. Neri Capponi, son of Gino, b. (d. 1457). Michelozzo Michelozzi - b. (d. 1472). - - 1393. Tyranny of Maso degli Albizzi. Vieri de’ Medici. - - 1394. Luigi Marsigli d. - - 1396. Emmanuel Chrysoloras called to Florence (d. 1415). Giannozzo - Manetti b. (d. 1459). - - 1399. Pilgrimages of the White Penitents. Great mortality. Carlo - Marsuppini b. (d. 1453). - - 1400. War with Gian-Galeazzo Visconti (d. 1402). Alliance with King - Ruprecht of the Pfalz. Luca della Robbia b. (d. 1482). - - 1401. Masaccio b., at San Giovanni in Val d’Arno (d. 1428). - - 1403. League with Pope Boniface IX. and others against the Visconti. - - L. Ghiberti receives the commission for the first door of the - Baptistery. - - 1404. Beginning of the enterprise against Pisa. - - 1405. Fight for Pisa. Gino Capponi. - - Matteo Palmieri b. (d. 1475). L. B. Alberti b. (d. 1472). - - 1406. Capture of Pisa. - - Coluccio Salutati d. (b. 1330). - - 1408. Efforts to restore the unity of the Church. - - 1409. Council of Pisa. (P. Alexander V.) - - Bernardo Rossellino b. (d. 1464). - - 1410. League with Pope John XXIII. [Baldassar Cossa]. Feo Belcari b. - (d. 1484). - - 1411. Treaty with K. Ladislas of Naples. Purchase of Cortona. - Establishment of the Council of Two Hundred. - - 1412? Fra Filippo Lippi b. (d. 1469). - - 1414. New treaty with K. Ladislas, and after his death, with his - sister Queen Joanna II. Cosimo de’ Medici and John XXII. at - Constance. - - 1415. Benedetto Accolti b. (d. 1466). - - 1416. Plague at Florence. - - Piero de’ Medici b. (d. 1469). - - 1417. Maso degli Albizzi d. His son Rinaldo and Niccolò da Uzzano at - the head of the Commonwealth. - - 1419. Pope Martin V. in Florence. Reconciliation and death of John - XXII. - - Archbishopric of Florence. Amerigo Corsini. - - 1420. Filippo Brunelleschi architect of the dome of the Cathedral. - - Benozzo Gozzoli b. (d. 1498). - - 1421. Purchase of Livorno. Gino Capponi d. - - 1422. Flourishing state of commerce. Relations with the Levant. - - 1423. Beginning of the war with Filippo Maria Visconti. - - 1424. Defeat at Zagonara. - - Cristoforo Landino b. (d. 1504). - - 1425. Defeat at Anghiari. - - Lorenzo Ghiberti receives the commission for the second door of - the Baptistery. - - 1426. Disputes about taxes and war-imposts. The Albizzi and Giovanni - de’ Medici. - - 1427. First register of lands. - - Antonio Rossellino b. (d. 1478). - - 1428. Peace with F. M. Visconti. - - Reform of the University. Palla Strozzi. - - 1429. Giovanni de’ Medici d. Revolt of Volterra on account of the - introduction of the land-register. - - Francesco Filelfo in Florence. - - Antonio Pollaiuolo b. (d. 1498). - - 1430. War with Lucca. The Jews in Florence. - - Bartolommeo Scala b. (d. 1495). - - 1431. Pope Eugene IV. - - Luigi Pulci b. (d. 1486). - - Mino da Fiesole b. (d. 1484). - - 1432. Giuliano da Majano b. (d. 1490.) - - Niccolò da Uzzano d. - - K. Sigismund in Italy. (Crowned Emperor 1433). - - 1433. War with Lucca ended by a treaty with Milan. - - Exile of Cosimo de’ Medici. - - Marsilio Ficino b. (d. 1499). - - 1434. Recall of Cosimo de’ Medici. Exile of Rinaldo degli Albizzi, - Palla Strozzi and their friends. Pope Eugene IV. in Florence. - Completion of the dome of the Cathedral. - - 1435. Cosimo de’ Medici Gonfalonier. - - Andrea del Verrocchio b. (d. 1488). - - 1436. Consecration of the Cathedral by Pope Eugene IV. Convent and - library of San Marco. Medici palace. - - 1439. Florentine Council of Union. The Greeks in Florence. - - 1440. War of the Visconti. Battle of Anghiari. End of the dominion of - the Guidi in the Casentino. - - 1441. Death of Baldaccio da Anghiari. - - Pietro Pollaiuolo b. (d. 1489?). - - ? Luca Signorelli b. (d. 1523). - - 1442. Benedetto da Majano b. (d. 1498?). - - Rinaldo degli Albizzi d., at Ancona. - - 1445. Giuliano Giamberti da Sangallo b. (d. 1516). - - 1446. S. Antonine Archbishop (d. 1459). - - 1447. War in the Chiana valley with Alfonso of Aragon, King of Naples. - Pope Nicholas V. - - 1449. (January 1) Lorenzo de’ Medici b. (d. 1492). - - Bernardo Rucellai b. (d. 1514). - - Domenico Ghirlandajo b. (d. 1494). - - 1450. Dispute with Venice. Francesco Sforza Duke of Milan. - - 1451. Amerigo Vespucci b. (d. 1512). - - 1452. Emperor Frederic III. in Florence. The Neapolitans in the Chiana - valley. Leonardo da Vinci b. (d. 1519). - - 1453. Giuliano de’ Medici b. (d. 1478). - - Girolamo Benevieni b. (d. 1542). - - 1454. Peace of Lodi, between Florence, Milan, Venice, and Naples. - - Angelo Ambrogio Poliziano b. (d. 1494). - - 1455. Intrigues against Cosimo de’ Medici. Luca Pitti. Pope Calixtus - III. - - 1456. Johannes Argyropulos called to Florence. - - 1457. Simone Pollaiuolo Cronaca b. (d. 1508). - - Filippino Lippi b. (d. 1504). - - 1458. Changes in the Constitution by Luca Pitti. Pope Pius II. - - 1459. Pope Pius II. in Florence. - - Benozzo Gozzoli paints the chapel of the Medici palace. - - 1461. Piero de’ Medici Gonfalonier. - - 1463. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola b. (d. 1494). - - 1464. Cosimo de’ Medici, ‘Pater Patriæ,’ d. Pope Paul II. - - Marcello Virgilio Adriani b. (d. 1521). - - 1465. Beginning of the Pitti disturbances. - - 1466. Conspiracy of Diotisalvi Neroni, Luca Pitti, and their friends - against Piero de’ Medici. - - 1467. War of Colleone. - - 1468. Peace with Venice. Purchase of Sarzana. Tournament and marriage - of Lorenzo de’ Medici. - - 1469. Piero de’ Medici d. Authority of Lorenzo. Tommaso Soderini. - - 1470. Attempted revolt at Prato. - - Bernardo Dovizj of Bibiena b. (d. 1520). - - 1471. Galeazzo Maria Sforza in Florence. Lorenzo de’ Medici at Rome - with Pope Sixtus IV. Piero de’ Medici b. (d. 1503). Bernardo - Cennini, first Florentine printer. - - 1472. Revolt and conquest of Volterra. - - 1473. Re-opening of the University of Pisa. - - 1474. King Christian of Denmark in Florence. - - 1475. Giovanni de’ Medici [Pope Leo X.] b. (d. 1521). Michelangelo - Buonarotti b. (d. 1564). Murder of Galeazzo M. Sforza. Regency - of Bona of Savoy. - - 1478. Conspiracy of the Pazzi. Death of Giuliano de’ Medici. War with - Rome and Naples. Giulio de’ Medici [Pope Clement VII.] b. - - 1479. Defeat at Poggibonzi. Lorenzo de’ Medici in Naples. Lodovico il - Moro regent of Milan. - - 1480. Peace between Florence, Naples, and the Pope. Establishment of - the Council of Seventy. - - 1481. Cristoforo Landino’s edition of Dante. - - 1482. Ferrarese war. Francesco Guicciardini b. (d. 1540). - - 1483. Fra Girolamo Savonarola in Florence. King Louis XI. of France d. - Charles VIII. king. - - 1484. Peace of Bagnolo. Pope Sixtus IV. d. Innocent VIII. Pope. - - 1485. The Florentines in the Neapolitan barons’ war against the Pope. - - 1486. Peace between the Pope and King Ferrante. - - 1487. Re-capture of Sarzana by the Florentines. - - 1488. Family alliance between the Medici and Innocent VIII. Clarice - de’ Medici d. Homer’s works first printed. Convent of San - Gallo. - - Murder of Girolamo Riario and Galeotto Manfredi. - - 1489. Cardinalate of Giovanni de’ Medici. - - Fra Girolamo Savonarola again at San Marco. - - Building of the Strozzi palace begun. - - Benedetto da Majano. - - 1490. New constitutional reform. Lorenzo de’ Medici mediator between - Pope Innocent and King Ferrante. - - Cathedral. Choir of Sta. Maria Novella by Ghirlandajo. - Negotiations for completion of the Cathedral façade. - - 1491. Reconciliation between the Pope and Naples. - - 1492. Proclamation of the Cardinalate of Giovanni de’ Medici. - - Lorenzo de’ Medici d., April 8. - - -APPENDIX II. - -MEDICI. - - - Giovanni de’ Averardo=Piccarda Bueri. - b. 1360, d. 1429. │ - ┌──────────────────┴────────────────────+ - │ │ - Cosimo = Contessina de’ Bardi Lorenzo = Ginevra - ‘pater │ d. 1473 b. 1395 │ Cavalcanti. - patriæ’│ d. 1440 │ - b. 1389│ │ - d. 1464│ Grand─Ducal line, - │ extinct 1737. - ┌───┴─────────────┬──────+ - │ │ │ - Piero = Lucrezia │ Carlo - b. 1416 │ Tornabuoni │ (nat) - d. 1469 │ d. 1482. │ d. 1492. - │ │ - │ Giovanni=Ginevra - │ d. 1463 degli - │ Albizzi. - ├──────────────┬───────────┬────────────┬────────+ - │ │ │ │ │ - Lorenzo ‘il=Clarice │ Bianca=Guglielmo │ Maria = Lionetto - magnifico’ │Orsini │ de’ Pazzi. │ (nat.) de’ Rossi. - b. 1449 │d. 1488 │ │ - d. 1492. │ │ Nannina=Bernardo - │ │ Rucellai. - │ Giuliano b. 1453 - │ d. 1478. - │ │ - │ Giulio - │ b. 1478 - │ d. 1534 - │ (Pope Clement - │ VII.) - │ - ┌─────┴─────┬──────────┬──────────┬─────┬──────┬─────┐ - │ │ │ │ │ │ │ - Piero = Alfonsina │ Giuliano=Filiberta │ Luisa │Contessina= - b. 1471 │ Orsini │ Duke of │of Savoy. │ betrothed │Piero Ridolfi. - d. 1503 │ d. 1520 │ Nemours │ │ to Giovanni│ - │ │ b. 1479 │ │ de’ Medici.│ - │ │ d. 1516 │ │ │ - │ │ │ │ Maddalena= - │ Giovanni │ Lucrezia=Jacopo Franceschetto - │ b. 1475 │ Salviati. Cybò. - │ d. 1521 │ - │ (Pope └──────────────────────────────┐ - │ Leo X.) │ - │ Ippolito (nat.) - ├───────────────────────────┐ Cardinal - │ │ d. 1535. - Lorenzo = Madeleine Clarice = Filippo Strozzi - Duke of │ de la Tour d. 1528. the younger. - Urbino, │ d’Auvergne - b. 1492 │ d. 1519 - d. 1519 │ - │ - ├─────────────────────────────────────────┐ - │ │ - Caterina=Henri II. King of France. Alessandro (nat.), - b. 1519 first Duke of Florence - d. 1589 d. 1537 - - -PAZZI. - - GUIDOTTO DE’ PAZZI - fought at Montecatini 1315, exiled after the time of - the Duke of Athens, - d. 1348. - │ - Guglielmo = Costanza de’ Bardi. - condemned 1345, afterwards in │ - offices of State, Camarlingo │ - 1374, d. 1377. │ - ┌──────┘ - │ - Andrea = Caterina Salviati. - b. 1372, Capitano di parte Guelfa │ - 1413, made eligible to municipal │ - offices by Cosimo de’ Medici 1434, │ - knighted by René of Anjou 1442, │ - d. 1445. │ - ┌──────────────────┬─────┴─────────────────┐ - │ │ │ - Jacopo = Maddalena Piero =Fiammetta Antonio=Cosa - Gonfalonier │ Serristori. ambassador│Giugni. │degli - 1469, │ at Naples,│ │Alessandri. - d. 1478. │ aid to │ │ - │ Louis XI. │ │ - │ in 1461. │ │ - Caterina, b. 1463, │ │ - Abbess of Sta. Maria di │ │ - Monticelli, d. 1490. │ │ - │ │ - ┌───────┬─────────┬─────────┬───────┴─┐ │ - │ │ │ │ │ │ - Renato. Andrea. Niccolò. Leonardo. Galeotto. │ - 1478. │ - ┌─────────────────────┬──────────────────┴─────┐ - │ │ │ - Guglielmo = Bianca Giovanni = Beatrice Francesco - d. 1516. │ de Medici. d. 1481. Borromeo. d. 1478. - │ - ├─────────────────────┐ - │ │ - Cosimo Alessandro - Archbishop of Florence d. 1530. - d. 1513. - - -SODERINI. - - TOMMASO SODERINI. - Capitano di parte Guelfa 1377─78, then banished, returned 1381, - Gonfalonier 1395, d. 1402. - │ - ┌─────────┴─────────────────────┐ - │ │ - Lorenzo = Ghilla Cambi. Francesco = Margherita - (nat., legitimatized), │ of Elisabetta Altoviti, dau. of - knighted by K. Charles V. │ b. 1376, member of the Palla - 1397, d. 1405. │ magistracy of Eight 1433. Strozzi - │ - ┌─────────┴────────────────────────────────┐ - │ │ - Niccolò Tommaso=Dianora - b. 1401, Gonfalonier 1451 and 1465, b. 1403. several times│Tornabuoni - exiled in consequence of the ambassador and five │ - conspiracy of Diotisalvi Neroni, times Gonfalonier, │ - d. at Ravenna 1474. d. 1485. │ - │ - ┌────────────────┬───────────────┬──────────┬────────┴───┐ - │ │ │ │ │ - Francesco Piero Paol’Antonio Tommaso Gian Vittorio - b. 1453. made several times knighted Rector of - Cardinal─Bishop Gonfalonier ambassador, by Leo X. Pisa and - of Volterra, for life d. 1499. ambassador. - d. 1524. in 1502, - d. 1522. - - -VISCONTI AND SFORZA. - - GIAN GALEAZZO VISCONTI = Isabelle of France. - Duke of Milan, d. 1402. │ - ┌───────┬────────┴─────┐ Muzio Attendolo - │ │ │ of Cotignola, - │ Giovanni Filippo │ called Sforza d. 1424. - │ Maria Maria │ ┌─────┬────┬───────┐ - │ d. 1412. d. 1447. │ │ │ │ │ - │ Bianca=Francesco │ Bosio │ - Valentina = Louis, Maria │b. 1401, │ Count of │ - │ Duke of (nat.)│ Duke of │ Sta. Fiora,│ - │ Orleans. │Milan 1450,│ d. 1476. │ - │ │ d. 1466. │ │ - Charles, Duke of Orleans. │ │ ┌──┘ - │ │ │ │ - │ │ Alessandro Lisa=Leonetto - Louis XII., King of France. │ Lord of │da - │ Pesaro, │San - │ d. 1473. │Severino. - │ │ │ - │ Costanzo Roberto - │ d. 1483. da San - │ Severino. - │ - ┌────────────┬───────┬─────────┴────────┬────┬────┐ - │ │ │ │ │ │ - Galeazzo=Bona of │ Lodovico = Beatrice │ Ascanio │ - Maria │Savoy. │ ‘il Moro’ d’Este │ Maria │ - d. 1476.│ │ Duke of dau. of │ Cardinal│ - │ │ Bari and Duke Ercole │ 1484, │ - │ │ of Milan, and Eleonora│ d. 1505│ - │ Sforza d. 1510. of Aragon. │ │ - │ Duke of │ │ - │ Bari, Ottaviano Ippolita - │ d. 1479. d. 1477. Maria - │ d. 1488.=Alfonso - │ │of - │ │Aragon, - │ │afterwards - │ │King of - │ │Naples. - │ │ - │ ┌──────────────────────────────────┘ - │ │ - Giovanni Galeazzo = Isabella - Duke of Milan, - d. 1495. - - -APPENDIX III. - -LORENZO’S LAST HOURS. - -_Book VI. Chapter VIII._ - -THE interview of Savonarola and Lorenzo de’ Medici has given rise to a -controversy which has never been definitively settled. The account of -the monk’s biographers, Giovan Francesco Pico and Pacifico Burlamachi, -cannot be reconciled with that given in Politian’s letter above -referred to. This last has the air of containing a mitigated version -of the facts, intended to efface the bad impression made by current -reports of the matter; and the third exhortation put into the monk’s -mouth by Politian—‘that he should endure death with patience’—sounds -almost like a commonplace, considering the gravity of the moment and -the characters of the interlocutors. C. F. Meier, in his History -of Savonarola (p. 52, &c.), and Villari, in ‘La Storia di Girolamo -Savonarola’ (i. 136), accept the version given by the Ferrarese monk’s -earliest biographers, and Villari tries to establish it by a long note -(p. 155-158). But this version contains great improbabilities. How -should the dying man, who had just received the viaticum, make another -confession? And what could Savonarola have meant by his famous third -demand—what practical use or effect could he expect from it, or from -the possible assent of the dying man? The story looks like an invention -of the after-days of excitement. The doubts as to the authenticity -of the books of Burlamachi and Pico, which, it is suspected, were -fabricated in the convent of San Marco and adorned with these authors’ -names, are of little consequence in this connection, as in any case the -tradition was doubtless current among Savonarola’s contemporaries. - -Bartolommeo Cerretani gives, in the third book of his MS. chronicle, -the following account of Lorenzo’s last hours:—‘April 7, about the -fifth hour, Lorenzo received the Lord’s Supper. As his illness was -making such rapid progress, Messer Pier Leoni, otherwise an excellent -physician, lost heart; other doctors were at once sent for, but it -was too late. Feeling his end approaching, the sick man sent for his -eldest son Piero, gave him divers exhortations, and then sent him away. -About the twentieth hour he began to cry out: “I am dying and there is -none to help me!” All hastened to him. He said he wanted to get up a -little, and had himself lifted out of bed, but only to be laid down -immediately. The pains were so violent that he lost consciousness. -Those standing round him began to weep, for they thought he was dead. -A Camaldulensian who was present took off his spectacles, and holding -them to his mouth perceived that he still breathed. A restorative was -given him and he came to himself. Then he called for his son again and -spoke to him softly, so that none of the others heard. After that his -condition rapidly grew worse, so that he gave up the ghost on the 8th, -about the fourth hour of the evening, in the arms of a valet.’ - -The doctor who, though a learned man, certainly seems to have blundered -in his judgment as to Lorenzo’s illness, put an end to his life next -morning as has been related above (p. 461), by jumping into the well at -the Martelli villa at San Gervasio before Porta Pinti. - -Sannazzaro’s poem in terza rima (in Roscoe, Ap. lxxviii.) on the death -of Piero Leoni attributes it to the instigation of Piero de’ Medici. -The fragment beginning: ‘Fu trovato essere stato gettato in un pozzo’ -&c., published in Fabroni (l. c. ii. 397) as being from some anonymous -author in the Magliabecchiana, is borrowed from the Ricordi of Alamanno -Rinuccini (p. cxlvi). Petrus Crinitus and Valerianus (De literatorum -infelicitate) take it for granted that the doctor in his agitation took -his own life; and Cerretani certainly indicates that Leoni, who a short -time before had been in good hopes, lost his head. He states, moreover, -that the Medici’s grooms threatened the life of the physician, who was, -therefore, taken to San Gervasio, and that the report of his death -by the violence of others was immediately spread, but was unfounded. -Burcard in his defective report (p. 175) alludes to Piero de’ Medici’s -complaint by saying that the fatal termination of the illness was to be -attributed to wrong medical treatment, and raises a supposition that at -Rome there was believed to have been a murder. - -In May, Demetrius Chalcondylas wrote from Milan to Marcello Virgilio -Adriani: ‘Thou hast announced to me two sad events; the flash of -lightning which has struck the principal church of the city, occasioned -so much ruin, and presaged so great evils; and the death of Lorenzo, -the most famous man of our time, who was distinguished in so many -ways. His decease causes me deep sorrow, not merely on account of the -loss, which touches us all in no slight degree, but also on account -of what I personally lose, who have always found him a kind patron. -And to all this is added the sad and fearful death of Piero Leoni, -which has shocked me more than anything for a long time past. Believe -me, Marcello, this end casts a shadow over Lorenzo’s death, and is -a dishonour to the family and to the whole city. For although thou, -like others, writest that he threw himself into the well, yet it is -difficult to convince thoughtful people that such a wise and learned -man, who, as thou thyself also tellest me, treated Lorenzo in his -illness with so much care, could have been seized with such madness as -to choose so shameful a death.’ (Bandini, Collectio, &c., p. 22). - -In Fabroni, l. c., and Roscoe, ‘Life of Leo X.’ (Ap. No. xxii.) will -be found the letters written by Cardinal Giovanni to his brother after -their father’s death. The first may be given here. The original is in -the curious mixture of Latin and Italian sentences which was then still -in vogue. - -‘My beloved brother, now the only support of our house. What shall I -write to thee, when only tears are left me? For when I consider that -our father of blessed memory is taken from us, I am nearer weeping than -speaking. What a father! None was kinder than he to his children; of -this facts are witness. Therefore it is no wonder that I lament and can -find no rest; and my only consolation is that I have thee, my brother, -in our father’s place. It is for thee to command, for me to obey, -and thy commands will always give me the greatest pleasure. Try me; -nothing shall find me backward. But I beg thee, my Piero, be towards -all, especially towards thine own people, as I wish thee, beneficent, -kind, courteous, gracious; thereby all is obtained, all is preserved. -Not because I mistrust thee do I remind thee of this, but because it -is my duty. I am consoled and sustained by the concourse of mourners -to our house, the universal sympathy, the mourning of the whole city, -and other things which help to alleviate sorrow. But what consoles me -above all is that I have thee, whom I trust more than my words are able -to express. As to what thou wishest arranged with his Holiness, nothing -has been done, as it seemed better to take another way, on which the -ambassador will report to thee, and which seems as if it must lead more -easily to the object. Rome, April 12, 1492.’ - - -THE END. - - - LONDON: PRINTED BY - SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. NEW-STREET SQUARE - AND PARLIAMENT STREET - - - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[1] The collection of Italian poetry made by Lorenzo de’ Medici for Don -Federigo is to be found—not, indeed, in the original, which was lost -probably during the French invasion of Naples in 1495—but in a copy -made either at the end of the fifteenth or in the sixteenth century, -and now in the Florentine National Library (Magliabecchi), to which it -passed with the Palatine MSS. (Fr. Palermo, _I manoscritti Palatini di -Firenze_, Flor. 1853 _seq._; i. 353 _seq._). This MS. belonged to Marco -Foscarini, with whose library it went in 1800 to Vienna, and later -to the Archduke, afterwards Grand Duke, Leopold, when he collected -and published the poems of Lorenzo (_Opere di Lorenzo de’ Medici_, -Florence, 1825, 4 vols. i. p. xxvi., where occur also Apostolo Zeno’s -remarks on the MS. in question). On the MSS. and printed copies of -Lorenzo’s poems, compare the same edition, i. p. xiii.-xlv., and Gamba, -_Testi di Lingua_, pp. 648-660. For a complete critically revised text -much is still wanting, even after the splendid edition of 1825, which -came out under the auspices of the della Crusca Academy. A large and -well-arranged selection, _Poesie di Lorenzo de’ Medici_, Flor. 1859, -has an introduction by Giosuè Carducci, which has been a guide to much -of what is said here of Lorenzo as a poet. - -The letter of Lorenzo to Don Federigo, from which extracts are given -above, is among the Riccardi MSS., No. 2723, under the name of -Poliziano, and was published under that name in the edition of the -_Rime_ by V. Manucci and L. Ciampolini, Flor. 1814. The mistake is -palpable; Poliziano’s age and the agreement with Lorenzo’s views in -the commentary on his poems, show it as clearly as do the historical -allusions. - -[2] Cf. Carducci’s edition of the _Poesie di Lor. de’ Med._, p. 54 -_seq._, and Fabroni, _supra_, p. 10. - -[3] Herr von Reumont here gives two or three specimens of Lorenzo’s -sonnets translated into German verse. It is not attempted to -retranslate these, but the English reader in search of examples of the -poet’s style is referred to Roscoe’s _Lorenzo de’ Medici_, ii., iii., -v.—_Note by Translator._ - -[4] ‘Il montanino ha scarpe grosse e cervello fino.’ The fullest -collection of _rispetti_ and other Tuscan popular songs is that of -G. Tigri, _Canti popolari Toscani_, first published at Florence in -1856, and reprinted several times since. The reproach against the -‘Wunderhorn’ has been repeated in this case, and indeed not without -reason. - -[5] Tommaso Lancillotto’s _Chronicle_ in the _Cronache inedite -Modenesi_, pp. 8, 9. _Poesie musicali dei secoli XIV, XV, XVI, tratte -da vari codici per cura di Ant. Cappelli_, Bologna 1869. Cf. the last -story of the fifth day of the _Decameron_. - -[6] _Oratio christiani gregis ad pastorem Xistum_, Epist. 1. vi. 1. Cf. -_supra_, i. 440. - -[7] _Lettere di Marsilio Ficino_, i. 66 _seq._ - -[8] Inscription on the monument in Sta. Maria del Fiore: - - EN HOSPES HIC EST MARSILIUS SOPHIÆ PATER, - PLATONICUM QUI DOGMA CULPA TEMPORUM - SITU OBRUTUM ILLUSTRANS, ET ATTICUM DECUS - SERVANS, LATIO DEDIT FORES PRIMUS SACRAS, - DIVINO APERIENS MENTIS ACTUS NUMINE. - VIXIT BEATUS ANTE COSMI MUNERE - LAURIQUE MEDICI NUNC REVIXIT PUBLICO. - S. P. Q. F. - ANNO MXDXI. - -[9] See a remarkable letter to Lorenzo, dated 1475, in which he speaks -of the neglected muses, in Bandini, _Collectio veterum monumentorum_, -p. 1. - -[10] In his poem of _Xandra_, book ii. Cf. Bandini, _Specimen litt._, -i. 124. - -[11] The copy of _Christophori Landini Florentini ad illustrem -Fridericim principem Urbinatem Disputationum Camaldulensiam libri IV._, -now in the Laurentian library, was written by Pietro Cennini, son of -Bernardo, the first Florentine printer, finished at the end of spring, -and collated with the original. Cf. Bandini, l. c. ii. 188 _seq._ (see -also p. 3 _seq._ as to the meeting and the persons present). The first -edition is said (_ibid._ p. 192) to have been printed in 1475(?) and a -second at Strasburg in 1508. It was translated into Italian by Antonio -Cambini, a literary man much employed by Lorenzo and also in the -service of his son the Cardinal. He was also in communication with the -Este family, and afterwards attached himself to Savonarola, at whose -fall his house was burnt down. (Cf. Cappelli, l. c. p. 309; Villari, -_Storia di G. Savonarola_, ii. 388.) - -[12] Manni, _Istoria del Decamerone_, pt. i. chap. xxix. - -[13] Mehus, _Traversari_, p. 178. - -[14] Mehus, l. c. p. 176. - -[15] ‘Che ‘l Dante io leggeva per mio piacere e per fare cosa grata -alla vostra inclyta città.’ Milan, May 29, 1473, in Fabroni, _Laur. -Med. Vita_, ii. 76. - -[16] On the various editions of the old biographies of Dante, see G. -C. Galletti in _Phil. Villani liber_, &c., where Villani, Leon. Bruni, -and Giann. Manetti are printed, the last with Melius’ notes for his -edition, Flor. 1747. The MS. of G. M. Filelfo in the Laurentiana was -published by D. Morini, Flor. 1826. - -[17] Vide section iii. chap. iii. - -[18] For the numerous bibliographical works on the history of Dante and -his writings, we can only give a general reference to the _Bibliografia -Dantesca_ of Colomb de Batines and the _Enciclopedia Dantesca_ of -Ferrazzi. - -[19] According to the colophon, the printing was finished on August -30, 1481. Cf. Bandini, l. c. ii. 131, 140-143; Colomb de Batines, l. -c. vol. i. pt. ii. p. 43; Marsilio’s Address, Bandini, pp. 132-134; -Batines, pp. 43, 44. The Magliabecchian copy has been lately rebound, -and not in very good taste. - -[20] _Paradiso_, xxv. 7. Girol. Benivieni, _Cantico in laude di Dante -Alighieri_, in _Works_, Venice 1522. Cf. Bandini, ii. 134-136. The -latter part of the poem, from the line ‘La patria, che a me madre, a Te -noverca,’ refers to the above-quoted lines of Dante. The restoration of -citizen rights to the poet’s great-great-grandson, who bore his name, -and who was a friend of Poliziano (_Letter to Lorenzo_, Flor. June 5, -1490, in the _Prose volgari_, &c., p. 76), did not take place till -1496, and was paid for! (Gaye, l. c. p. 584.) - -[21] Isidoro del Lungo, _Un documento Dantesco, Arch. Stor. Ital._, -series iii. vol. xix. p. 4. - -[22] Vespasiano da Bisticci, l. c. p. 499 _seq._ Palmieri’s Latin -biography of the grand seneschal was translated into Italian by a -relative of the latter, Donato Acciaiuolo. - -[23] On the _Giostra_, see above, i. 264 _seq._, and Salvator Bongi’s -oft-mentioned edition of the _Lettere di Luigi Pulci_. A new edition of -_Ciriffo Calvaneo_, with full bibliographical references by S. L. G. -Audin, appeared at Florence in 1834. - -[24] L. Ranke’s academical treatise, _Zur Geschichte der italienischen -Poesie_, Berlin, 1837, contains an excellent account of the elements -and the development of the romantic epopee. The last edition of -_Morgante_, which was first printed at Venice in 1481 and at Florence -in the following year (Gamba, _Testi di Lingua_, p. 241 _seq._) is -that by P. Sermolli, published at Florence a few years ago. The oldest -impression of the _Reali di Francia_ is that published at Modena in -1491, ten years after Pulci’s poem. - -[25] L. Pulci, _Lettere_, p. 38. Cf. _supra_, i. 313. - -[26] February 1, 1468. L. Pulci, _Lettere_, p. 8. - -[27] A petition of his widow, July 14, 1485, states that he had been -dead more than eight months. Cf. _Lettere_, pp. 10, 102, 114. - -[28] Fabroni, l. c. ii. 98. - -[29] Isidoro del Lungo, _La patria e gli antenati d’Angelo Poliziano_ -in _Arch. Stor. Ital._, series iii. vol. xi. p. 9 _seq._ Id. _Uno -Scolare dello studio fiorentino nel sec. XV_, in the _Nuova Antologia_, -x. 215, _seq._ Fr. Otto Mencke’s _Historia Vitæ, etc. Ang. Pol._, -Leipzig, 1736, will always be valuable as a careful collection of -literary and critical materials. _Opera Ang. Politiani_, Flor. 1499. -_Le Stanze, l’Orfeo e le Rime di Messer Ang. Ambrogini Pol., illustrate -da Giosuè Carducci_, Flor. 1863. _Prose volgari e Poesie latine e -greche di A. A. P. raccolte da Isidoro del Lungo_, Flor. 1867. - -[30] _Prose volgari_, p. 109. - -[31] Ibid. p. 248. - -[32] See _Prose volgare_, p. 481: ‘O cui tyrrheni florentia signa -leonis.’ - -[33] _Epistolæ_, viii. 6, 7. - -[34] See the poems addressed to Cardinal Riario in the _Prose volgare_, -pp. 111-114. Cf. _supra_, i. 346. - -[35] These four books were printed by Cardinal Angelo Mai in the second -volume of the _Spicilegium Romanum_, from two MSS. in the Vatican, -and thence in the _Prose volgare_, pp. 431-523. The MSS. came to the -Vatican from Fulvio Orsini. The one on parchment, with the Medici -arms on a red leather binding, is the copy of books ii. and iii., -presented by the author to Lorenzo. The other contains books iv. and -v., apparently in Poliziano’s handwriting and without a dedication. - -[36] There has been much question as to the relation between the -original ‘Orfeo,’ which the author wanted to destroy, and the later -one, which was turned into a tragedy in several acts. The latter -was published in 1776 by Ireneo Affò, with a detailed introduction -and _excursus_; and in 1812 Vincenzo Ranucci wrote some extensive -philological observations upon it which were reprinted in the Carducci -edition, pp. 113-188. The question which has lately been raised as to -Poliziano’s authorship of this second version must be left for decision -to the poet’s biographers. There is a prospect of a detailed account of -his life by I. del Lungo. - -[37] It has been shown in vol. i. p. 299, that Poliziano did not begin -this poem so early as has been imagined, from an idea that Giuliano’s -tournament was held at the same time as that of his brother. That he -was at work upon it in 1476 is proved by the allusion to the death of -Simonetta, the young beauty to whom Giuliano’s heart was given, an -event which Poliziano sang also in Latin, _Prose volgare_, p. 149. [In -Simonettam, ‘Dum pulchra effertur nigro Simonetta pheretro.’] - -[38] Laurus, the poetical name by which the poets of the time -distinguished Lorenzo. - -[39] Roscoe’s translation. - -[40] ‘In violas a Venere mea dono acceptas,’ in _Prose volgare_, p. -238; Carducci, p. cviii. Agnolo Firenzuola and Giulio Perticari have -translated this elegy in very different styles. Cf. _supra_, p. 15. - -[41] The diploma (with a wrong date) was printed from the -archiepiscopal archives of Florence in Bandini, l. c. i. 188. - -[42] _Prose volgare_, pp. 285-427. - -[43] _Epist._ l. x. 14. - -[44] _Prælectio in Priora Aristotelis analytica cui titulus Lamia. La -Strega, prelezione alle Priora d’Aristotile nello studio Fiorentino -l’anno 1483 per Ang. Ambr. Poliziano volgar. da Isidori del Lungo_, -Flor. 1864. The immediate neighbourhood of Fiesole, where Poliziano -was so thoroughly at home, still recalls the witch-traditions of the -middle ages. The subterranean chambers of the Roman theatre (unhappily -in great part destroyed) on the northern slope of the hill are called -by the people the Witches’ grottos—(Buche delle Fate); they are not far -from the stone grotto on the eastern slope, the Fonte Soterra, which is -always full of cool water, and the Latomie, which Brunelleschi opened -for the purposes of his wonderful buildings (Fr. Inghirami, _Memorie -storiche per servire di guida all’Osservatore in Fiesole_, Fiesole -1839), p. 60 _seq._ - -[45] The translation appeared at Rome in 1493. The dedication to the -Pope and his Brief are in book viii. of the _Epistolæ_. The poem -‘Herodianus in laudem traductoris sui,’ is in _Prose volgare_, etc., p. -264. - -[46] _Letter to Lorenzo de’ Medici_, June 5, 1490, _ibid._ p. 76. - -[47] _Letter to Piero de’ Medici_, Florence, May 23, 1494, _ibid._ p. -84. - -[48] Poliziano’s _Letters to Madonna Clarice_ (cf. vol. ii. book vi. -ch. iii.) are in I. del Lungo, _Prose volgare_, p. 45 _seq._, and also -his letters from Pistoja, Caffagiuolo, Careggi, and Fiesole, to Lorenzo -and his mother, some of which had already been printed by Fabroni. - -[49] Poliziano afterwards sent the ode also to Lorenzo. - -[50] The graceful description of the view of Florence and its -neighbourhood from Fiesole (‘Talia Fœsuleo lentus meditabar in antro -Rure suburbano Medicum) stands at the end of the poem of Rusticus, -which bears the date 1483, but its origin is probably connected with -the time referred to above. - -[51] Fabroni, l. c. ii. 288. - -[52] Fiesole, May 21 and July 18, 1479, in _Prose volgari_, pp. 71-74. -Several Latin epigrams to Lorenzo (_ibid._ pp. 123, 124) are of this -period. - -[53] _Prose volgari_, p. 127 (‘O ego quam cupio reducis contingere -dextram’). - -[54] Latini dettati a Piero de’ Medici, 1481, _ibid._ pp. 17-41. - -[55] Fabroni, l. c. ii. 280. - -[56] _Epist._ xii. 7. - -[57] D. M. Manni, _Bartholomei Scalæ Collensis vita_, Flor. 1768. -Scala’s _Florentine History_, now completely forgotten, appeared at -Rome in 1677. The Laurentiana contains a MS. collection of letters, -poems, &c., by him, to and on Cosimo the elder, and dedicated to -Lorenzo (cf. Moreni, _Bibliographia_, ii. 321). - -[58] Ang. Pol. _Epist._ xii. 17. - -[59] Accolti (on whom cf. Vespasiano da Bisticci, l. c. p. 442 _seq._) -died in 1466, aged 51; the seals were not delivered to Scala till March -1473, so they must have been put into commission (Manni, l. c. 15). -Accolti’s dialogue, _De præstantia virorum sui ævi_, which, in spite of -the many reservations made by the author from personal motives, will -deserve regard as the work of a man in high position, was first printed -by Ben. Bacchini, Parma, 1689, and later by Galletti in _Philippi -Villani Liber_, p. 97 _seq._ - -[60] A. M. Bandini, _Lettere Fiesolane_, Flor. 1776, p. 30. - -[61] A. Guidoni to Duke Ercole II., April 1486, in Cappelli, l. c. p. -281. - -[62] Ang. Pol. _Epist._ xii. 17-19. - -[63] ‘Ad Bartholomæum Scalam’ in the _Prose volgari_, p. 273. - -[64] In the _Epigrammata Græca_. Cf. _Prose volgari_, p. 199 _seq._ - -[65] ‘Quæris quid mihi de tuo Marullo,’ in the _Prose volgari_, p. 124; -‘Quod plura Venerem tuus Marullus, _ibid._ p. 125. - -[66] ‘Invectiva in Mabilium,’ _ibid._ p. 131 _seq._ The poems of -Marullus were printed at Florence in 1497. - -[67] F. Fossi, _Monumenta ad Alamanni Rinuccini vitam contexandam_, -&c., Flor. 1791. G. Aiazzi, in _Ricordi storici di Filippo Rinuccini_, -p. 139 _seq._ - -[68] Anton. Francesco Gori has added to a MS. commentary on Rucellai’s -treatise _De Urbe Roma_ (in the Marucelliana at Florence) a life of the -author. Cf. L. Passerini, _Genealogia ec. della Famiglia Rucellai_, p. -122 _seq._ Bernardo was born 1488, died 1514. - -[69] L. Passerini, _Degli Orti Oricellarj_, in the _Curiosità_, p. 56 -_seq._ The house, built on the ground bought from Nannina de’ Medici -in 1482, was begun about the end of the century. It passed, with the -beautiful gardens, to Bianca Cappello; it now, after many changes, -belongs to a Countess Orloff. - -[70] ‘Bernardo Bembo veneto oratori viro undecumque elegantissimo.’ In -the _Prose volgari_, p. 251. The copy of Landino’s _Xandra_, once sent -by him to Bembo, is in the Vatican library. Cf. Bandini, l. c. ii. 164 -_seq._ - -[71] Foscarini, l. c. 267. - -[72] Inscription on his tomb in Sta. Maria del Popolo: - - BARBARIEM HERMOLEOS LATIO QUI DEPULIT OMNEM - BARBARUS HIC SITUS EST UTRAQUE LINGUA OEMIT - URBS VENETUM VITAM MORTEM DEDIT INCLYTA ROMA - NON POTUIT NASCI NOBILIUSQUE MORI. - -[73] Florence, May 10, 1490. Fabroni, l. c. ii. 377. - -[74] Gaye, l. c. i. 294. - -[75] Fabroni, l. c. ii. 284; also in _Prose volgari_, p. 78 _seq._ - -[76] Piero Alamanni to Lorenzo, Rome, May 14, 1491; in Fabroni, l. c. -p. 379. - -[77] L. Geiger, _Johann Reuchlin_ (Leipzig, 1871), p. 163 _seq._ - -[78] In A. Cappelli, l. c. p. 282. Domenico Berti, _Cenni e -documenti intorno a Giovanni Pico della Mirandola_, in the _Rivista -contemporanea_, vol. xvi., Turin, 1859. The reports sent to Lorenzo -during his stay at the baths, quoted here from the Medicean archives, -agree substantially with the accounts given by Guidoni. - -[79] In Cappelli, l. c. p. 303. The date of the _Apology_ seems to be -really wrong. In the register of Lorenzo’s correspondence (_Ricordi -di lettere scripti per Lor. de’ Med._) in the Florentine archives, we -find notice of a letter written as late as February 12, 1488, ‘al conte -della Mirandola, ringraziandolo dell’Apologia mandate,’ letter enclosed -to Lorenzo Spinelli, one of the Medicean agents in France. - -[80] _Med. Arch._, Filza 57. - -[81] Fabroni, l. c. ii. 291. Some of the following extracts are in the -same; some, unpublished, in the _Med. Arch._ - -[82] A. Guidoni, Flor. September 25, 1488, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 303. - -[83] _Epist._ lib. i. 4. _Epigramm. Græca_, lib. iii. in _Prose -volgari_, p. 218. - -[84] _Disputationum de Astrologia_, lib. xii. _Epigramm. Græca_, xlix. -l. c. p. 214. - -[85] Speech on accepting the office of Capitano del popolo, from L. B. -Alberti’s papers, in Bonucci, _Opere di L. B. A._, vol. i. p. xlii. - -[86] G. Perticaro, _Intorno la morte di Pandolfo Collenuccio_, in his -_Opere_, Bologna, 1839, ii. 52 _seq._ - -[87] Cf. Ben. Varchi’s remarks upon Naldi in _Prose volgari inedite_, -p. 122. - -[88] It is not intended in the present work to go into the details of -these mostly uninteresting poetical productions. Bandini has noticed -many of them in the catalogue of the Laurentiana; Roscoe has filled -many pages with quotations and bibliographical notices; to add to them -would be easy but useless. - -[89] The _Dieci di Balia_, Florence, January 14, 1432, in Fabroni, -_Cosmi Med. Vita_, ii. 8. - -[90] Guicciardini, _Del reggimento di Firenze_, p. 209. - -[91] Fabroni, _Historia Academiæ Pisanæ_, i. 109 _seq._; _Laur. Med. -Vita_, i. 49. Many other references to the University, _ibid._ ii. 74 -_seq._ Carlo de’ Massimi, _Carmen heroicum ad Laurentium Medicem de -studio per eumden Pisis innovato_, from a Laurentian MS., in Bandini, -_Laur. Cat._, vol. iii., and Roscoe, iii. 237 _seq._ (No. lviii.) - -[92] Fabroni, _Laur. Med. Vita_, ii. 77. - -[93] Rosmini, _Vita di Fr. Filelfo_, ii 191. - -[94] Fabroni, l. c. ii. 75, 76. - -[95] Camillo Massimo, _Sopra una inedita medaglia di Francesco Massimo -dottore in legge e cavaliere_, Rome, 1860. Francesco Massimo was -elected Podestà of Siena in 1477, but could not assume the office owing -to the death of his father. That he was in Florence in 1488-89, engaged -in affairs of state, is shown by the following letter from Lorenzo to -Giovanni Lanfredini at Rome: ‘Messer Francesco Massimi is going back, -having gained the approval of the whole city as well as my own. He -has in truth conducted himself so well that I have thought good to -recommend him to his Holiness and to the Cardinal Giovanni Colonna. I -do the same to you, and beg you to bear witness that his conduct could -not have been more praiseworthy. In consideration of his good offices I -shall be glad if you will introduce him wherever it may be agreeable to -him.’ Florence, March 13, 1489 (_Med. Arch._ Filza 59). - -[96] The _Annales suorum temporum_ were printed by Gio. Lami in the -_Catalogus codd. MSS. bibl. Riccard._, Livorno, 1756; and again by -Galletti, in _Phil. Villani liber_, &c., p. 151 _seq._ According to a -letter of Fonti to Lorenzo, he once intended writing a history of the -Medici. He praised the chief scholars of his time in a pretty epigram, -_ibid._ p. 153. - -[97] Gaye, l. c. i. 273. - -[98] _Med. Arch._, Filza 59. - -[99] Venice, June 20, 1491, in _Prose volgari_, p. 78. - -[100] The letters are in Poliziano’s _Epistolæ_, book xi. - -[101] A. M. Bandini, _Ragionamento istorico sulle collazione delle -Pandette, ec._, Livorno 1762, The copy of the Pandects marked with -Poliziano’s collations is preserved in the Laurentianæ. Bandini also -speaks of it in the fourth volume of the _Catalogue of Latin MSS._ See -Th. Mommsen’s introduction to his critical edition of the _Digestum_. - -[102] F. Fantozzi, _Notizie biografiche di Bernardo Cennini_, Florence, -1839. G. Ottino, _Di Bernardo Cennini e dell’arte della stampa in -Firenze_, Florence, 1871. When the first Florentine printer had been -almost forgotten for 400 years, the present generation, on occasion of -the fourth centenary of his work, has raised a monument to him in San -Lorenzo—where he lies buried—placed a memorial tablet on the site of -his workshop, and given his name to a street. - -[103] ‘Ad lectorem. Florentiæ, VII. Idus Novembres, MCCCCLXXI. -Bernardus Cennnius (_sic_) aurifer omnium iudicio præstantissimus: et -Dominicus eius F. egregiæ indolis adolescens: expressis ante calibe -caracteribus et deinde fusis literis volumen hoc primum impresserunt. -Petrus Cenninus Bernardi eiusdem F. quanta potuit cura et diligentia -emendavit ut cernis. Florentinis ingeniis nil ardui est.’ - -[104] P. Vinc. Fineschi, _Notizie istoriche sopra la stamperia di [S. -Jacopo di] Ripoli_, Flor. 1761. D. Moreni in the _Novelle letterarie -Fiorentine_ of 1791, and F. Fossi in the _Catalogo delle antiche -edizioni della B. Magliabechiana_, vol. iii., have collected other -information concerning the works of this printing establishment -amounting to eighty-six in number, among which, curiously enough, a -_Decameron_ is included. - -[105] Enea Piccolomini, _Delle condizioni e delle vicende della -libreria Medicea privata_, in the _Arch. Star. Ital._, series iii. -vols. xix. and xx. N. Anziani, _Della Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana_, -Flor. 1872. - -[106] Targioni-Tozzetti, _Notizie sulla storia delle scienze fisiche in -Toscana_ (ed. by Fr. Palermo), Flor. 1853, pp. 60, 61. - -[107] _Med. Arch._ - -[108] Fabroni, l. c. i. 153; ii. 286. - -[109] _Ibid._ i. 163. - -[110] Cappelli, l. c. The MS. was by Battista Guarino. The translation -was first printed at Venice in 1532, the original at Paris in 1548. - -[111] _Prose volgari_, p. 78. - -[112] This poetess, of a Milanese family, was born at Venice about -1465, and is supposed to have died in 1558. Politian (_Epist._ l. iii. -17) addresses her: ‘O decus Italiæ virgo.’ - -[113] Florence, May 8, 1490, in Fabroni, l. c. ii. 287. - -[114] Vasari’s _Life of Fra Giocondo_ (ix. 155 _seq._) is very -imperfect and leaves room for further study. On Giocondo’s works in his -own city see G. Orti Manara, _Dei lavori architettonici di Fra Giocondo -in Verona_, Ver., 1853. On his collection of inscriptions see G. B. de -Rossi, _I Fasti municipali di Venosa restituite alla sincera lezione_, -Rome 1853. (From vol. cxxxiii. of the _Giornale Arcadico_.) According -to the _Novelle letterarie di Firenze_ for the year 1771, p. 725, the -Medicean copy was sent to Pope Clement XIV., but has never been seen -either in the Vatican archives or the library. On the other copies, -and the second collection, differing from the first in some respects, -less numerous, and dedicated to Ludovico de Agnellis, Archbishop of -Cosenza, cf. De Rossi, p. 7 _seq._ The dedication—‘Laurentio Medici Fr. -Io. Jucundus S. P. D.’—is in Fabroni, ii. 279 _seq._ It ends: ‘Vale -feliciter humani generis amor et deliciæ.’ - -[115] _Med. Arch._ - -[116] Epist. ad J. Bracciolini, l. i. Prolegom. ad Platonis convivium. - -[117] The work of the Sicilian Jesuit, P. Leonardo Ximenes, _Del -vecchio e nuovo Gnomone fiorentino_, Flor. 1757, contains the history -and explanation of the scientific value of the famous meridian, and of -the more ancient mathematical and astronomical works in Tuscany. - -[118] This controversy has never rested from the time of Angelo Maria -Bandini, who published in 1755 the _Vita e Lettere di Amerigo Vespucci -gentiluomo fiorentino_, down to our own days, which have witnessed -a new defence of the Florentine’s claims by the Brazilian, F. A. de -Varnhagen. It will be sufficient here to refer the reader to the facts -published by Oscar Peschel in the _Zeitalter der Entdeckungen_, p. 305 -_seq._, and in an essay on Amerigo in the periodical _Das Ausland_ (No. -32, 1858). Vespucci’s well-known work on his second journey (Bandini, -p. 64) is addressed to Lorenzo de’ Medici, the son of Pier Francesco. - -[119] Cianfogni, _Memorie istoriche della basilica di S. Lorenzo_ -(Flor. 1804), p. 228. On Brunelleschi, cf. i. 71 _seq._ - -[120] D. Moreni, _Continuazione delle Memorie della basilica di San -Lorenzo_ (Flor. 1816), i. 6 _seq._ - -[121] The dedication (to Piero de’ Medici) of a treatise on -Architecture by Antonio Averlino, called Filarete (see below, p. 135), -shows that the Church had not been rebuilt in 1460: ‘Resta ancora la -chiesa a rinovare.’ The resemblance of its architecture to that of the -chapel of the Madonna de’ Voti, afterwards dell’Incoronata, in the -cathedral of Mantua, always regarded as a work of Leon Bat. Alberti, -awakens a suspicion that he may have been concerned in the building -at Fiesole. Cf. Gaye, l. c. i. 200 _seq._; 263. Vasari, _Life of -Filarete_, iii. 290. - -[122] D. Moreni, _Notizie istoriche dei Contorni di Firenze_, iii. 93 -_seq._ Cf. i. 576 _seq._ - -[123] The Silvestrine was a branch of the Vallombrosan order, named -after its founder Silvestro Gozzolini. - -[124] Cf. i. 574-576. - -[125] Vasari, _Life of Michelozzo_, iii. 277-279. V. Marchese, _Memorie -dei Pittori ec. Domenicani_, i. 278 _seq._ _Id._, _San Marco convento -dei Frati Predicatori_ (Flor. 1853), p. 75 _seq._ The inscription in -the church, dated 1442, which speaks of ‘magnificis sumptibus v. cl. -Cosmi Medicis,’ &c., is in Vasari, p. 279. - -[126] A. Zobi, _Memorie storico-artistiche relative alla Cappella della -SS. Annunziata_ (Flor. 1837), p. 14 _seq._ Fr. Bocchi, _Della immagine -miracolosa della SS. Nunziata_ (Flor. 1592, new ed. 1852). Inscription: -‘Petrus Med. Cosmi Joann. filius sacellum marmoreum voto suscepto animo -libens d. d. Anno 1448. Idib. Martii.’ Another inscription on the -cornice: ‘Piero di Cosimo de Medici fece fare questa hopera et Pagno -di Lapo di Fiesole fu el maestro chella fè MCCCCLII.’ From this it -certainly looks questionable whether Michelozzo furnished the designs, -as Pagno also executed larger works. Inscription relating to the -consecration: ‘Mariæ glorioss. virg. Guilelmus Cardinalis Rotomagensis -cum superni in terris nuntii munere fungeretur legati ratus officium -et innumeris miraculis locique religione motus hanc Annunciatæ aram -summa cum celebritate ac solenni pompa sacravit MCCCCLII., VIII. Kalen. -Januar.’ - -[127] Berti, _Cenni storico-artistici di S. Miniato al Monte_ (Flor. -1850), p. 54 _seq._ On June 10, 1448, Piero de’ Medici was allowed to -place his arms on the tabernacle on condition that those of the Guild -should have the highest place. - -[128] C. Guasti, l. c. Doc. 290, p. 201. Brunelleschi was buried in -the cathedral. The epitaph is by Carlo Marsuppini: ‘D. S. Quantum -Philippus architectus arte Dædalea valuerit cum huius celeberrimi -templi mira testudo tum plures aliæ divino ingenio ab eo adiuventæ -machinæ documento esse possunt quapropter ob eximias sui animi dotes -singularesque virtutes XV. Kal. Maias anno MCCCCXLVI. eius b. m. corpus -in hac humo supposita grata patria sepeliri iussit.’ - -[129] Round the altar is the following inscription: ‘Ædem hanc -sanctissime Andrea tibi Pactii dedicarunt ut cum te immortalis Deus -hominum constituerit piscatorem locus sit in quem suos Franciscus ad -tua possit retia convocare.’ By Franciscus is doubtless meant the -saint to whose order the convent belonged, and not, as Richa and Moisè -suppose, Francesco de’ Pazzi, Andrea’s grandson. A letter of indulgence -from Card. Pietro Riario, October 8, 1473, speaks of Jacopo de’ Pazzi -as the founder. - -[130] The history of the building of the Pitti palace has never been -thoroughly cleared up. - -[131] Inscription: - - JOHANNES RUCELLARIUS PAULI FILIUS INDE - SALUTEM SUAM PRECARETUR UNDE OMNIUM - CUM CHRISTO FACTA EST RESURRECTIO SACELLUM - HOC AD INSTAR HYEROSOLIMITANI SEPULCRI - FACIUNDUM CURAVIT MCCCCLXVII. - -[132] Documents on the building (1471), in Gaye, l. c. p. 225 _seq._ -Vasari, iv. 59. - -[133] The price was 150 gold florins; Gaye, l. c. p. 572. The statue -was removed when Duke Cosimo erected the fountain adorned with -Verrocchio’s Boy, and is now in the national museum in the Palace of -the Podestà. - -[134] ‘Exemplum sal. pub. cives posuere MCCCCXCV.’ This inscription can -have nothing to do with the driving out of the Duke of Athens, as Moisè -(_Palazzo de’ Priori_, p. 166) imagines. The group occupied the place -which was assigned in 1504 to Michel Angelo’s ‘David,’ and has stood -since then on the side of the Loggia de’ Lanzi towards the Uffizi. -Vasari (l. c. p. 251) wrongly thinks it was executed for the Signoria. - -[135] L. c. p. 250. - -[136] Mantua, November 7, 1458. Cf. Braghirolli, in the _Giornale di -erudizione artistica_ (of Perugia), ii. 4 _seq._ - -[137] Vasari, l. c. pp. 264, 266. Fabroni, l. c. p. 159. According -to Vasari, Donatello died on December 13, 1466; according to the -contemporary M. Palmieri (_De Temporibus_), in 1468. In the crypt -of S. Lorenzo, near the tombs of the Medici, is the following later -inscription: ‘Donatellus restituta antiqua sculpendi cælandiq. arte -celeberrimus Mediceis principibus summis bonarum artium patronis -apprime carus qui ut vivum suspexere mortuo etiam sepulcrum loco sibi -proximiore constituerunt obiit idibus Decembris an. sal. MCCCCLXIV. æt. -suæ LXXXIII.’ - -[138] On Francesco Livi, cf. Gaye, l. c. ii. 441 _seq._ On Ser -Guasparre, see Rumohr, _Ital. Forschungen_, ii. 377 _seq._; G. -Milanesi, _Documenti dell’arte Sanese_, ii. 194 _seq._ On the Jesuates, -cf. i. 596, 597, and L. Fanfani, _Memorie di Sta. Maria del Pontenuovo_ -(Pisa 1871), p. 124 _seq._ - -[139] These basso-rilievos, removed from the cathedral when the organs -were modernised, are now in the museum of the Palazzo del Podestà. - -[140] _Metropolitana Fiorentina_, tables xxxiii.-xxxvi. - -[141] Transferred from San Pancrazio to the church of San Francesco di -Paola before the Porta Romana; _Monuments sépulcraux_, plate lvii. - -[142] _Monuments sépulcraux_, plates lvi., xli., xxi. - -[143] _Monuments sépulcraux_, plate xxxvi. Inscription: - - SISTE VIDES MAGNUM QUÆ SERVANT MARMORA VATEM - INGENIO CUIUS NON SATIS ORBIS ERAT - QUÆ NATURA POLUS QUÆ MOS FERAT OMNIA NOVIT - KAROLUS ÆTATIS GLORIA MAGNA SUÆ - AUSONLÆ ET GRAJÆ CRINES NUNC SOLVITE MUSÆ - OCCIDIT HEU VESTRI FAMA DECUSQUE CHORI. - -[144] _Monuments sépulcraux_, plates l., xxxi. Inscription: - -POSTQUAM LEONARDUS E VITA MIGRAVIT HISTORIA LUGET -ELOQUENTIA MUTA EST FERTURQUE MUSAS TUM -GRAIAS TUM LATINAS LACRIMAS TENERE NON POTUISSE. - -[145] Vespasiano da Bisticci, l. c. p. 157. Vasari mentions the -modelling in Verrocchio, v. 152. Brunelleschi’s cast is in the -building-office of Sta. Maria del Fiore (_Opera del Duomo_). - -[146] _Monuments sépulcraux_, plate lvi. Vasari, vol. iv. p. 218. -Berti, p. 70. - -[147] _Monuments sépulcraux_, plate lv. - -[148] C. Pini, _La Scrittura di artisti Italiani_, cf. _supra_, p. 163. - -[149] Executed in 1436; a pendant to the equestrian figure of Niccolò -Maruzzi of Tolentino (d. 1434) by Andrea dal Castagno. The improper -introduction of these equestrian figures into churches paved the way -for similar monuments in marble, such as may be seen especially in -Venice. In the cathedral of Florence was a complete figure of Piero -Farnese on a mule, as he rode to a fight with the Pisans in 1363. - -[150] In this place, where we are concerned chiefly with the position -of the Medici in connection with the development of art, we cannot -refer in detail to the literature, which has been much enriched of -late years by Gastano Milanesi’s researches among the archives, on the -Tuscan painters of the early quattrocento (_Giornale storico degli -Archivi Toscani_, vols. iv. and vi., and reprinted in _Sulla storia -dell’arte Toscana_, Siena 1873), made use of by Crowe and Cavalcaselle -in their _History of Painting in Italy_. - -[151] C. Pini, _Scrittura di Artisti_. - -[152] This is not the place to refer in detail to the confused notices -in the Italian art-historians. Vasari mentions these works, among -others, in his Introduction, l. c. i. 63. - -[153] Rinuccini, _Ricordi_, p. 251. - -[154] Fabroni, l. c. ii. 231. It is doubtful whether the sums given at -the end of the inventory are to be added up together, or whether the -last represents the sum total. - -[155] Letter to Giovanni de’ Medici, Bruges, June 22, 1488; in Gaye, l. -c. p. 158. - -[156] Gaye, l. c. p. 163. - -[157] Gaye, l. c. p. 160. - -[158] Gaye, l. c. p. 136. - -[159] _Ibid._ p. 192. - -[160] Gaye, l. c. pp. 141, 175, 180. Cf. Crowe and Cavalcaselle, iii. -64, 65. - -[161] Complete edition by Gaetano and Carlo Milanese, _Il Libro -dell’arte o Trattato della Pittura_ (Flor. 1859). There is a German -translation, _Das Buch von der Kunst_, &c., by Albert Ilg (Vienna, -1871). The general supposition, from Baldinucci down to Tambroni, the -first editor of the treatise (Rome, 1821), viz., that Cennini wrote -it in 1437 in the Stinche prison, is derived from a gloss to the -Laurentian MS. which proceeds from the copyist instead of referring to -the author. The same postil gave rise to the statement that a fresco -in Giotto’s style, representing the driving out of the Duke of Athens, -and brought to light at the demolition of the prison, was painted by -Cennini. (Fr. Bacchi, _Illustratore Fiorentino_, pt. v., Flor. 1839). - -[162] The second commentary, with the notices of modern art, is printed -in Cicognara’s _Storia della Scultura_, vol. iv., and more readably, -together with some extracts from the third, in Lemonnier’s edition of -_Vasari_, vol. i. pp. v.-xxxv. - -[163] On Filarete’s treatise and the two dedications, cf. Vasari, iii. -290, 291, and Gaye, i. 200-206, where will be found the dedication to -Fr. Sforza. (Cf. _supra_, p. 122.) Filarete gives us a foretaste of the -art-phraseology of Federigo Zuccaro. For the rest, he says to Sforza: -‘If my book is not elegant, take it as the work, not of an orator nor -of a Vitruvius, but of thy master-builder who cast the doors of St. -Peter’s.’ - -[164] N. Valori, l. c. p. 176. - -[165] Vasari, viii. 267. On the design of Andrea, see Waagen, -_Kunstwerk und Künstler in England_, i. 244. Cf. _posf_, p. 197 _seq._ - -[166] Pini, _Scrittura d’Artisti_. Cf. A. v. Zahn, _Jahrbücher für -Kunstwissenschaft_, iv. 367. - -[167] Vasari, _Life of Giuliano_, iv. 1 _seq._ Gaye, l. c. in annis -1478, 1480, 1481. - -[168] A. Rossi, in the _Giornale di erudiz. artist._, 1872, p. 97. -Inscription: ‘Opus Juliani Maiani et Dominici Taxi, Florentini, -MCCCCLXXXXI.’ - -[169] C. Milanesi, in the _Giorn. stor. degli Arch. Tosc._, iii. -233, 234. Letters dated Rome, February 1-20, 1478. In consequence of -the Cardinal’s death in the summer of 1479, the building remained -unfinished. - -[170] Urbino, June 18, 1481. Gaye, l. c. p. 274. - -[171] S. Volpicelli, _Descrizione storica di alcuni principali edificii -della città di Napoli_ (Naples 1850), p. 1 _seq._ - -[172] Gaye, l. c. p. 300 (undated). - -[173] _Vita di Fil. Strozzi il vecchio_, p. 22 _seq._ (Cf. i. 395.) -Cf. also, Gaye, l. c. p. 354 _seq._, where are also notices by Luca -Landucci, an apothecary, on the beginning and progress of the work, and -Filippo’s will. Vasari treats at length of the palace and of the smith -Caparri in his _Life of Cronaca_, viii. 116 _seq._ - -[174] Gaye, l. c. _ibid._ A letter from Lorenzo, December 16, 1490, -to Francesco Gonzaga, in which he asks for leave of absence for Luca -Fancelli. Whether the latter went to Naples is uncertain; Francesco di -Giorgio was there for some time between February and May 1491. - -[175] Among Sangallo’s drawings in the Barberiniana at Rome. Gaye, l. -c. p. 301. Vasari, vii. 212, 213. - -[176] A. v. Zahn, _Notizie artistiche tratte dall’Archivio segreto -Vaticano, Arch. stor. Ital._, ser. iii. vi. 171. - -[177] A. Guglielmotti, _Della rocca d’Ostia e delle condizioni -dell’architettura militare in Italia prima della calata di Carlo VIII._ -(Rome 1862). C. Ravioli, _Notizie sopra i lavori di architettura -militare dei nove da Sangallo_ (Rome 1863). - -[178] The circumstance that the name Sangallo is to be found as early -as 1485 (notes to Vasari, l. c. p. 214) hardly tells against the truth -of this story, as the building was probably begun long before. The -appearance of the name in the collection of the Barberini drawings, -begun in 1465, dates from a later time. - -[179] The Gondi Palace was finished in 1874, if not after the original -design, at least in the style of the part previously existing. - -[180] From a drawing of Bernardino Poccetti and other documents in the -_Metropolitana Fior. Illustr._, plate xiv. - -[181] In the commentary on Vasari, vii. 243. Francesco Albertini -mentions in his _Memoriale_ (see Crowe and Cavalcaselle, ii. 436) -Lorenzo’s intention of finishing the façade (‘la quale Lorenzo de’ -Medici voleva levare e riducerla a perfectione’) and his plan. - -[182] The façade now displays the naked rough brick wall. - -[183] Richa, ix. 11, _et seq._ Gaye, l. c., p. 570. Cf. i. 319. - -[184] Gaye, l. c. ii. 450. Pini, _Scrittura d’Artisti_. - -[185] Description by Poliziano in a letter to Francesco della Casa, -_Epist._ l. iv. ep. 8. D. M. Manni, _De Florentinis inventis_ (Ferrara, -1730), c. 29. Cancellieri, _Le nuove Campane di Campidoglio_ (Rome, -1806), p. 8. Albertini mentions the clock in the Palace of the Signoria -in 1510; it was probably taken there in 1495. - -[186] Gaye, l. c. p. 254. - -[187] There is great confusion in Vasari, viii. 115, _et seq._ The -commentary begins its continuous dates only in 1495, chiefly from Gaye. - -[188] Moreni, _Contorni di Firenze_, v. 6, _et seq._ The chronology -here is very confused; it is no better in Moisè’s _Sta. Croce_, p. 90. -The bells of San Marco were hung in the belfry in 1498. - -[189] Diary of Luca Landini, in Vasari, l. c. p. 121. - -[190] Fr. Albertini, l. c., p. 442. - -[191] Cf. A. v. Zahn’s _Jahrbücher_, vi. p. 136. - -[192] Florence, February 13, 1498, in Gaye, l. c., p. 340. - -[193] The monument of Sixtus IV. was finished in 1493 for Card. -Giuliano della Rovere (Julius II.). That of Innocent VIII. must not be -judged from its present mutilated condition. - -[194] _Monuments sépulcraux_, plate iv. Inscription (by Poliziano): - -ILLE EGO SUM PER QUEM PICTURA EXTINCTA REVIXIT CUI QUAM RECTA MANUS -TAM FUIT ET FACILIS NATURÆ DEERAT NOSTRÆ QUOD DEFUIT ARTI PLUS LICUIT -NULLI PINGERE NEC MELIUS MIRARIS TURREM EGREGIAM SACRO ÆRE SONANTEM HÆC -QUOQUE DE MODULO CREVIT AD ASTRA MEO DENIQUE SUM IOCTUS QUID OPUS FUIT -ILLA REFERRE HOC NOMEN LONGI CARMINIS INSTAR ERAT OB. AN. MCCCXXXVI. -CIVES POS. B. M. MCCCCLXXXX. - - -[195] Del Migliore, l. c., p. 36. Richa, vi. 121. _Monuments -sépulcraux_, plate vi. Inscription (attributed to Lorenzo): - -MULTUM PROFECTO DEBET MUSICA ANTONIO SQUARCIALUPO ORGANISTE IS ENIM ITA -ARTI GRATIAM CONIUNXIT UT QUARTAM SIBI VID ERENTUR CHARITES MUSICAM -ASCIVISSE SO ROREM FLORENTINA CIVITAS ORATI ANIMI OFFICIUM RATA EIUS -MEMORIAM PROPAGARE CUIUS MANUS SEPE MORTALES IN DULCEM AD MIRATIONEM -ADDUXERAT CIVI SUO MONU MENTUM POSUIT. - - -[196] Engraved in seven plates by G. P. Lasinio (Flor. 1823). Mellini’s -bust is in the Uffizi collection. - -[197] _Monuments sépulcraux_, plate liii. - -[198] _Monuments sépulcraux_, plate xxiv. Inscription: ‘Bernardo Junio -eq^{ti} Flor^{no} pu^{aes} concordiæ. semper. auctori. et. civi. vere. -populari. pii. fratres. fratri. de. se. deq. rep^{ea} opt^{o} merito. -posuerunt.—Vixit ann. LXVIIII. men. VI. di. XII. Obiit ann. MCCCCLXVI. -Opus Mini.—Cf. i. 145. - -[199] _Paradiso_, xvi. 127. _Monuments sépulcraux_, plate xxiv. - -[200] _Monuments sépulcraux_, plate xlv. Cf. Crowe and Cavalcaselle, -iii. 230. - -[201] Represented in Cicognara, vol. ii. plate xv. - -[202] Plates and details in Cicognara, Litta, and Colas’ _Trésor de -Numismatique et de Glyptique_. See Vasari’s _Life of Pisanello_, ii. -152, _et seq._ On Guazzalotti, see Julius Friedländer (Berlin, 1857), -trans. by Cesare Guasti (Prato, 1862), with notes and documents, among -which is a letter from Guazzalotti to Lorenzo, dated September 11, 1478. - -[203] V. da Bisticci, l. c., p. 476. - -[204] Vasari, l. c., iii. 112. On the Medicean treasures. Cf. _ante_, -p. 132. - -[205] Vasari, _Life of Valerio Vicentino_, ix. 236, _et seq._ G. Pelli, -in his _Saggio istorico della R. Galeria di Firenze_ (Flor. 1779), -i. 8, _et seq._, ii. 9, _et seq._, gives some account of the Medici -collections. In the Museum of Naples alone (formerly in the palace of -Capodimonte) are preserved more than twenty cameos with Lorenzo’s name, -and a great number of gems set as rings. They came from a Bourbon-Parma -inheritance, many of the family treasures having passed, through -Margaret of Austria, wife of Duke Alessandro de’ Medici, to her son -by her second marriage, Alessandro Farnese, and, at the extinction of -the Farnese family, to the Spanish Bourbons. The question whether all -the stones marked with Lorenzo’s name or with the initials L. M. are -modern, or whether the name or initials were also engraved on antique -gems to indicate the owner, cannot be discussed here. The epigram: - -COELATUM ARGENTO VEL FULVO QUIDQUID IN AURO EST ÆDIBUS HOC LAURENS -VIDIMUS ESSE TUIS, &C. - -is in Bandini’s Catalogue of the Laurentian MSS., iii. 545. - -[206] Perfetti, _Galeria dell’Accad. delle b. Arti_ (Flor. 1845). The -collection in the Academy contains many important works of this period. - -[207] Now in the English National Gallery. Outline in Crowe and -Cavalcaselle, iii. 132. - -[208] Cf. _ante_, p. 40. Engraving in the _Metropolitana fior. -illustr._, plate xxxvii. Remarks in Gaye, l. c., ii. 5. Cf. _ibid._, i. -563. - -[209] Vasari, iv. 102, 103. - -[210] Vasari, v. 115. - -[211] _Galeria dell Acc. delle B. A._, engraved by F. Livy. - -[212] Lucrezia Tornabuoni Medici, in the Berlin Museum (No. 81), -wrongly described as the wife of Lorenzo, a mistake repeated in -Crowe and Cavalcaselle (l. c., p. 173) from Vasari, but corrected in -Lemonnier’s edition, l. c, p. 121. The Bella Simonetta is in the Pitti -Palace; there is an engraving by L. Calamatta in his work on the Bardi -gallery. - -[213] Cf. i. 405. G. Milanesi, _Sulla Storia dell’Arte Toscana_, p. -292. Crowe and Cavalcaselle (iii. 159) strangely see in this commission -a proof of the estimation in which Botticelli was held as an artist. -These pictures of shame, with which tardy debtors were also punished, -_e.g._ Ranuccio Farnese in 1425 (Gaye, l. c., i. 550) were not much -relished by artists, and seem to have been only executed at a high -price; in this case it was forty florins. Andrea del Castagno, to whom -Vasari erroneously attributed these paintings, which were executed more -than forty years after his death, received from a similar commission in -1445 the surname ‘degli Impiccati,’ which poor Andrea del Sarto seems -to have likewise dreaded during the siege in 1530. - -[214] Contract dated April 21, 1487 (remarkable for the reservations -on the part of the employer), in Lorenzo Strozzi’s _Vita di Filippo -Strozzi il Vecchio_, p. 60, _et seq._ - -[215] Now in the Uffizi. Gaye, in the _Kunstblatt_, 1836, No. 90, and -Carteggio, i. 579-581. - -[216] Engraved in Litta, _Fam. Medici_. - -[217] The fresco in Sant’Ambrogio is dated, not 1465, as it was read -by Rumohr (_Ital. Forsch._, ii. 262), on the picture, which is much -blackened and varnished, but 1486, according to G. Milanesi, in Crowe -and Cavalcaselle, l. c., p. 291. - -[218] An. MCCCCLXXXX., quo pulcherrima civitas opibus victoriis artibus -ædificiisque nobilis copia salubritate pace perfruebatur. - -[219] Father Della Valle gave the various names in a note to Vasari -(also in Lemonnier’s edition, v. 76) from documents in the Tornabuoni -family. On the female portraits, cf. Palmerini, _Opere d’intaglio del -cav. Raff. Morghen_ (Pisa, 1824), p. 108 _et seq._ - -[220] The ‘Education of Pan’, formerly in the Corsi Palace, is now in -the Berlin Museum. Sketch in Crowe and Cavalcaselle, iv. 5. - -[221] Miniature painting can only be treated of very briefly here. The -editors of Lemonnier’s _Vasari_ have added much information to the -biographies of Fra Angelico (iv. 25, _et seq._), Don Bartolommeo (v. -44, _et seq._ [on Attavante, _see_ p. 55]), Gherardo (_ibid._ p. 60, -_et seq._), &c., and furnished materials valuable for a history of -Florentine and Sienese art, in a detailed commentary (vi. 159-351). -On the Dominicans, cf. V. Marchese, _Memorie_, i. 171-210. In the -same author’s work on San Marco are drawings of two miniatures by Fra -Benedetto. The passages referring to the treasures of Urbino, Upper -Italy, &c., may be passed over here. - -[222] Vasari, iv. 105; v. 60, 83; vi. 167; xi. 286. - -[223] xii. 11. Cf. _Life of Torrigiano_, vii. 204, and of Michel -Angelo, xii. 157. - -[224] The old tradition which has come down to our own days, which -derives the Buonarotti Simoni from the Counts of Canossa (and which -was believed in the family itself in Michelangelo’s days, as must be -concluded from Ascanio Condivi’s words in his biography, published -during the artist’s lifetime), rests on no historical foundation. Cf. -G. Campori, _Catalogo degli artisti sc. negli Stati Estensi_ (Modena -1855), p. 100 _et seq._ The noble family of Buonarotti has of late -years become extinct in Florence. Lodovico, Michelangelo’s father, was -already connected with the Medici when holding an official post in the -Casentino, where his son was born within view of the great mountain of -Alvernia—the _crudo sasso_ of the _Divine Comedy_. - -[225] G. Milanesi, _Documenti inediti riguardanti Leonardo da Vinci_, -in the _Arch. stor. Ital._, ser. iii. xvi. 219. - -[226] Ant. Montecatino to Ercole d’Este (Flor., December 17, 1482), in -Cappelli, l. c. p. 265. - -[227] Provisioni della Republica fiorentina dei 10 e 19 Aprile 1480, -per la formazione dell’ordine dei Settanta, in the Appendix to Jacopo -Pitti, l. c. p. 313 _et seq._, with Gino Capponi’s introduction. Cf. -Cambia, l. c. ii. 1 _et seq._, for the names of the Signori, the -colleges, the original thirty and the two hundred and ten citizens -entrusted with the election business. A. Rinuccini, _Ricordi_, p. cxxi. -_et seq._; J. Pitti, p. 25; Fr. Guicciardini, p. 61. - -[228] Cf. _ante_, vol. i. bk. ii. ch. 4. - -[229] L. c. p. 174. - -[230] _Ricordi_, l. c. p. cxxxv. - -[231] Canestrini, l. c. p. 237 _et seq._ - -[232] Bartolommeo Signippi, chancellor of the Ferrarese embassy, to -Ant. Montecatino, Flor. June 3 and 6; Montecatino to Ercole d’Este, -June 9, 1481, in Cappelli, l. c. pp. 253-255. - -[233] Ercole d’Este to Ant. Montecatino, Ferrara, January 10, 1482, in -Cappelli, l. c. p. 259. - -[234] For a detailed account of the ceremony, see Ant. Montecatino to -Ercole d’Este, Flor., October 2, 3, 8, 1481, in Cappelli, l. c. pp. -255-258. - -[235] Marin Sanuto, _Commentarii della guerra di Ferrara nel 1482_. -(Venice 1829, ed. by Leonardo Manin). Sanuto was an eye-witness of the -events of the war. Many details are given by Malipiero, who took part -in the naval war. Romanin, book xi. ch. 4 (iv. 401 _et seq._). - -[236] Fac. Volaterr., l. c. col. 173. - -[237] Godefroy, _Histoire de Charles VIII._ (Paris 1684). Documents, p. -312. C. de Cherrier, _Histoire de Charles VIII._ (Par. 1868), i. 32. -U. Legeay, _Histoire de Louis XI._ (Paris 1874), ii. 444. [Very meagre -with regard to Louis’ Italian transactions]. - -[238] For details of the battle of Campomorto (S. Pietro in Formis), -see the Roman diaries and Montecatino’s reports to Ercole d’Este in -Cappelli, l. c. p. 260 _et seq._ - -[239] Gino Capponi, _Storia della Republica Fiorentina_ (Flor. 1874), -ii. 149. - -[240] Coleti, in Farlati’s _Illyricum sacrum_, vii. 438 _et seq._ -Jacopo Volterrano, Stefano Infessura, and the unpublished histories -of Sigismondo de’ Conti and Rinaldus, give many details. Jacob -Burckhardt’s _Andreas Erzbischof von Krain_ (Basel, 1852) gives an -authentic account of the proceedings at Basel. Cf. _Arch. stor. Ital._, -N. S., vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 249 _et seq._ Ugolini’s letter to Lorenzo, -in Fabroni, l. c. ii. 227-233. - -[241] Instruction of February 5, 1483, in Fabroni, l. c. ii. 241-243. - -[242] Fabroni, l. c. ii. 243. - -[243] Cappelli, l. c. p. 245. - -[244] Fr. Guicciardini, l. c. p. 66, is doubtful as to the presence -of Riario; he is not mentioned in Ant. Campo, _Cremona fedelissima -città_ (Milan, 1582), p. 133. He is named as one of those present by -Malevolti, l. c. pt. iii. p. 90. - -[245] Ant. Montecatino to Ercole d’Este, Flor. February 28, 1483, in -Cappelli, l. c. p. 265. - -[246] _Itinerario di Marin Sanuto per la Terraferma Veneziana nell’anno -1483_ (ed. by Rawdon Browne, Padua, 1847), p. 51. - -[247] Despatches to the envoy Antonio Loredano, January to February -1484. Cf. Romanin, iv. 415. Montecatino to Ercole d’Este, Flor. April -8, 1483, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 266. - -[248] Nic. Valori, l. c. p. 175. - -[249] Ant. Montecatino to Ercole d’Este, Flor. July 23, 1484, in -Cappelli, l. c. p. 269. - -[250] _Mémoires_, l. vii. ch. 2. - -[251] Guid’Antonio Vespucci to Lorenzo de’ Medici, Rome, October 23 and -November 3, 1483, in Fabroni, l. c. ii. 243-252. Ant. Montecatino to -Ercole d’Este, Flor., May 25, 1484, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 268. - -[252] Malevolti, l. c. pt. iii. p. 87. - -[253] _Inferno_, xxix. 122. _Purgatorio_, xiii. 151. - -[254] Letter of February 26, 1483, in Fabroni, l. c. ii. 243. - -[255] Jac. Volterrano, _Diarium Romanum_ for 1480. Muratori, l. c. col. -109. - -[256] G. Viani, _Memorie della famiglia Cybò_, Pisa, 1808. - -[257] Rome, August 29, 1484, in Fabroni, l. c. ii. 256, 259. - -[258] Fabroni, l. c. ii. 262. - -[259] _Johannis Burchardi Diarium_, ed. A. Generelli (Flor. 1854), p. -57. _Ibid._ Instructions, from the Florentine Archives. - -[260] Fabroni, l. c. ii. 263. Doc. of November 26, 1484. - -[261] Fabroni, l. c. ii. 263. - -[262] Desjardins, l. c. p. 175. - -[263] ‘Les Florentins se sont tousjours monstrés et exhibés, de tel -et si ancien temps que ne est mémoire du contraire, vrays et loyaulx -Françoys ... et si trouvent les lois et coustumes qui leurs furent -baillés par Monseigneur Saint Charlemagne.’ - -[264] Desjardins, l. c. p. 191. - -[265] Instructions of November 8, 1483, and other documents relating to -the embassy, in Desjardins, l. c. p. 193 _et seq._ - -[266] _Med. Arch._, f. 56. Printed in A. Gelli; rev. by De Cherrier, -_Arch. stor. Ital._, ser. iii. vol. xv. 289. - -[267] Cappelli, l. c. p. 298. The expression is: ‘Che non voglia -investire Massimiliano de l’Imperio de’ Romani.’ - -[268] Report of Guid’Ant. Vespucci, Rome, September 18, in Burchard, -_Diarium_, p. 51. - -[269] Letter of Pier Filippo Pandolfini, Milan, September 24, 1484, l. -c. p. 51. - -[270] Reports of the Ferrarese ambassador, A. Guidoni, Flor. April -1485, &c., in Cappelli, l. c. p. 269 _et seq._ - -[271] Archives of the Riformagioni at Siena. - -[272] A. Guidoni to Ercole d’Este, Flor. April 6, in Cappelli, l. c. p. -269. Ranuccio was first cousin to Pope Paul III. - -[273] Archives at Siena. - -[274] N. Valori, l. c. p. 175. - -[275] _Regis Ferdinandi primi Instructionum liber_, 1486-87 (ed. by -Scipione Vopicella, Naples, 1861), p. 87 _et seq._ - -[276] _Ricordi_, p. cxl. - -[277] Commines, _Mémoires_, l. vii. ch. 11. M. Sanuto, _Chron. Ven._ -(_Comment. de Bello Gallico_), _R. Ital. Ser._, xxiv. pp. 12-16. -Alfonso was called ‘the idol of the flesh’ (_dio della carne_). - -[278] _Cronaca di Notar-Giacomo_, p. 156. - -[279] Romanin, l. c. pp. 421, 422. - -[280] On G. Albino, the historian of his time, cf. C. Minieri Riccio, -_Memorie storiche degli scrittori nati nel Regno di Napoli_. - -[281] Fabroni, l. c. ii. 268. - -[282] A. Guidoni to E. d’Este, Flor., November 11, 1485, in Cappelli, -l. c. p. 273. The Ferrarese despatches contain many details of all -these affairs. Scipione Ammirato, in his twenty-fifth book, is a -trustworthy guide. - -[283] Fabroni, l. c. ii. 269. - -[284] Letter of the Anziani, May 15, 1485, Lucca archives. - -[285] L. c. p. 177. - -[286] Fabroni, l. c. ii. 268. - -[287] Lorenzo to Albino, l. c. - -[288] A. Guidoni, November 28 and 30, 1485, l. c. p. 274. - -[289] Burcard, l. c. p. 72, 73. - -[290] Vinc. Acciaiuolo, _Vita di Piero Capponi_, l. c. p. 20 _et seq._ - -[291] Trivulzio’s letters to the Duke of Milan from Florence, -Montepulciano, Cortona, Pitigliano, and afterwards from the camp of the -League, from February 21, 1486, onwards, are in Rosmini, l. c. ii. 130 -_et seq._, with the despatches addressed to him from Milan. - -[292] Letter of A. Sforza to his nephew the Duke of Milan, March -6, 1486, copies of which were sent on the same day to the Duke of -Calabria, and by P. Capponi to Lorenzo. Appendix to the life of P. -Capponi, _Arch. Stor. Ital._, vol. iv. pt. 2, p. 66-71. - -[293] _Storia fiorentina_, ch. viii. The Ferrarese reports in Cappelli, -p. 274-286, contain much that gives an insight into the position of -affairs. - -[294] V. Acciaiuolo, l. c. p. 24. - -[295] A. Guidoni, Flor., August 13, 1486, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 285. G. -J. Trivulzio to the Duke of Milan, from the camp at Ponzano, August 12, -in Rosmini, ii. 150. Rinuccini, _Ricordi_, p. cxlii.: _poi per manco -male si accettò_. - -[296] _R. Ferdinandi Instruct._ L., p. 153. The Duke of Calabria had -written to the same effect to Filippo Strozzi, on November 27, 1486, -from the camp. _Vita di Fil. Strozzi il vecchio_, p. 36. - -[297] Camillo Porgio’s masterly account, _La Congiura dei Baroni del -Regno di Napoli contra il Re Ferdinando I._ (first printed at Rome -in 1565) contains many illustrations and corrections from the _Regis -Ferdinandi Instructionum Liber_ (unfortunately not printed complete), -and from the two suits against the king’s private secretaries and -barons, which were printed in 1487 and 1488 by Ferrante’s command and -sent to the foreign courts, and reprinted with notes by Stanislao -d’Aloe as an appendix to his edition of Porgio (Naples, 1859). - -[298] The King to Lorenzo, Castelnuovo, June 3, 1487. Fabroni, l. c. -ii. 275. - -[299] Giov. Lanfredini to the Signoria, Naples, September 27, 1486, in -Bandini, _Collectio_, &c. p. 10. - -[300] Guidoni’s reports (in Cappelli) contain a number of notices and -hints from which Lorenzo’s state of mind at the time of the treaty of -1486 and his relations with the allies may be clearly made out. On -Sarzanello, see Carlo Promis, _Storia del forte di Sarzanello_ (Turin, -1888). From one of Guidoni’s reports it appears that the Florentines -also used mines: ‘sperasi _per certe cave fatte_ ... che S. Francesco -si acquisterà fra due dì.’ - -[301] R. Ferdinandi Instr. L., p. 245. - -[302] The fullest detailed account of Boccalino de’ Guzzoni is given -by Bernardino Baldi in the second book of his history of Guidubaldo -of Montefeltro (Milan, 1821). Cf. Ugolini, _Storia dei conti e duchi -d’Urbino_, ii. 49, _et seq._ - -[303] Lodovico to G. J. Trivulzio, Milan, April 29, 1486, in Rosmini, -ii. 158. _Ibid._ other documents relating to this affair. - -[304] Burcard, _Diarium_. p. 88. - -[305] The Medicean Archives, F. 57, contain numerous documents relating -to Osimo and Boccalino. - -[306] Florence, August 8, 1487. _Med. Arch._ F. 57. In a letter of -November 24, referring to Boccalino’s nephew, who was kept in prison -at Rome, and afterwards executed, he expresses himself still more -strongly. ‘Stimo questa coss ... quanto la vita propria, perchè - -[307] Cappelli, l. c. p. 244. _Ibid._, letter, same date (March 25, -1482), to the Duke. In the register of Lorenzo’s letters are no less -than 27 despatched on the same day to princes and ambassadors to -announce Lucrezia’s death. - -[308] A. Guidoni, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 292. - -[309] R. Ferd. Instr. L., p. 222. - -[310] Fabroni, l. c. ii. 313. - -[311] Burcard, _Diarium_, p. 87. - -[312] R. Ferd. Instr. L., p. 217 _et seq._ Cf. supra p. 265. - -[313] A. Guidoni, Flor., July 7, 1487, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 295. - -[314] _Med. Arch._, fol. 57. There are a number of despatches of this -and a somewhat later time relating to this affair. - -[315] Rainaldi, _Ann. eccl._ in anno 1487, Doc. x. - -[316] Stef. Infessura, _Diarium_, in Muratori _R. It. Scr._ t. iii. pt. -2, p. 1218, 1219. - -[317] _Med. Arch._, l. c. - -[318] Stefano Taverna to the Duke of Milan, Flor., September 14, -1487, in Rosmini, ii. 188. A. Guidoni, Flor., September 6 and 12, in -Cappelli, p. 296. - -[319] Spedaletto, which passed after Lorenzo’s death to Maddalena Cybò -and later to the Corsini family, to whom it still belongs, was visited -in November 1654 by Cardinal de Retz, coming from Spain by sea, before -he proceeded to the Grandduke Ferdinand II. at the Ambrogiana near -Empoli, and thence to Rome. He knew that the villa, which he calls -L’Hospitalità, had belonged to Lorenzo de’ Medici, but he wrongly -places here the scene of the battle in which Catiline fell. _Mèmoires -du Card. de Retz_, pt. iii. ch. i. Ed. by Champollion-Figeac (1866), -iv. 246. - -[320] _Lettere di Jacopo da Volterra a P. Innocenzo VIII._, published -with a commentary by M. Tabarrini in the _Arch. Stor. Ital._, s. iii. -vol. viii. pt. ii. p. 3, _et seq._ Jacopo Gherardi had been formerly in -the service of Cardinal Ammanati. His writings passed into the Venetian -archives after the sack of Rome in 1527. The Medicean archives contain -a series of despatches relating to this mission. Lorenzo writes from -Spedaletto on September 11-19; on the 21st he was in Florence; on -October 2-10, at Spedaletto again. He says once: ‘I am here according -to my custom, for the care of my health.’ - -[321] Despatch of October 22, 1487, in Desjardins, l. c. p. 214. - -[322] October 22, 1487, in Desjardins, l. c. p. 219. - -[323] A. Guidoni, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 296. Burcard, p. 95; the date -is wrong. On the house of the Cybò in the Borgo, see P. Adinolfi, _La -Portica di San Pietro_ (Rome, 1859), p. 119 _et seq._ - -[324] A. Guidoni, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 297. - -[325] F. Gregorovius, _Das Archiv der Notare des Capitols in Rom und -das Protocollbuch des Notars Camillus de Beneimbene_; _Sitzungsberichte -d. kk. Acad. d. Wissenschaften in München_, 1872, p. 503. - -[326] Flor., August 8, 1488, in Fabroni, ii. 312. Cf. i. 405. - -[327] Gregorovius, l. c. [purchase of Cerveteri, June 14, 1487]. -Lorenzo to Lanfredini (1490), in Fabroni, ii. 388. Nibby, _Diutorni di -Roma_ (Rome, 1848), i. 348. - -[328] The palace (afterwards called Quaratesi) and the villa (for -a time Catalani-Valabrègue, now Lavaggi) passed after the death of -Franceschetto’s son Lorenzo, to the latter’s natural son, Ottavio, with -a reservation of the usufruct to Lorenzo’s sister Caterina, the widowed -Duchess of Camerino. The villa belonged for a time to Eleonora Cybò, -daughter of Lorenzo, and wife of Gian Luigi Fiesco, Count of Lavagna, -the hero of the conspiracy of 1547. - -[329] _Med. Arch._, fol. 57. The bull of Innocent VIII. is dated -December 5, 1487. - -[330] Letters of December 9 and 10, 1487, February 23, March 9, April -14, 1488, in the above-mentioned _Ricordi di lettere_. - -[331] _Med. Arch._, fol. 59. Cf. Isid. del Lungo, _Una Lettera di Ser -Matteo Franco_, in _Arch. Stor. Ital._, s. iii. ix. 32 _et seq._ - -[332] Poliziano, _Prose volgari inedite_, p. 74. - -[333] _Med. Arch._, fol. 59. - -[334] A. Guidoni in Cappelli, l. c. p. 292. Fabroni, l. c. i. 172, 173; -ii. 316. On Roberto Orsini, see Litta, _Fam. Orsini_, table 23. - -[335] A. Guidoni in Cappelli, l. c. p. 301. - -[336] _Med. Arch._, fol. 57. - -[337] Fabroni, l. c. ii. 386. - -[338] _Med. Arch._, fol. 57. - -[339] _Med. Arch._, fol. 57. Cf. _post_, p. 380 _et seq._ - -[340] _Med. Arch._, fol. 57. - -[341] Fabroni, l. c. ii. 384. A. Guidoni, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 302, -303. - -[342] From the _Med. Arch._, in A. Gelli, Lorenzo de’ Medici, in the -_Arch. Stor. Ital._, s. iii. xvii. 431. - -[343] _Lettere di Lorenzo il Magnifico al S. P. Innocenzo VIII._ [ed. -by D. Moreni, Flor. 1830], p. 18. - -[344] _Med. Arch._, fol. 57. - -[345] _Med. Arch._, fol. 57. On Maria [not Maddalena] de’ Medici, cf. -Litta, _Fam. Medici_, table 7, and Passerini, _Fam. Malatesta_, table 7. - -[346] Del Lungo, _Lettere di Ser Matteo Franco_, l. c. - -[347] _Cronaca di Notar Giacomo_, p. 167. - -[348] _Cronaca di Notar Giacomo_, p. 169. Tristani Calchi, _Nuptiæ -Mediolanens. Ducum_; cf. Ratti, _Della Famiglia Sforza_, ii. 54-60. -Fabroni, l. c. i. 168, ii. 295-298. Several letters of Alamanni -relating to these festivities are in the _Med. Arch._ - -[349] G. A. Vespucci to Lorenzo, Rome, September 25 and December 14, -1584, in Fabroni, l. c. ii. 316-318. - -[350] _Ricordi di Lorenzo_, in Fabroni, l. c. ii. 299. - -[351] Letters of Lodovico and Cecco dell’Orso, April 19, and of Stefano -da Castrocaro, April 21, in Fabroni, ii. 318-325. - -[352] A. Guidoni, in Cappelli, p. 298-301. The date of the despatch at -p. 298 is wrong; it should probably be April 23 instead of 3. - -[353] Letter of Lorenzo to Giovanni Bentivoglio, Cafaggiuolo, July 1, -1481, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 242. Galeotto Manfredi had been with him at -the villa, and the matter had been arranged there. - -[354] Florence, March 29, 1489, in Moreni, _Lettere_, _ec._, p. 21. - -[355] Letters of Piero Nasi and Dionigi Pucci, in Fabroni, ii. 325-328. -To this project refers a letter of Giovanni Bentivoglio to Lorenzo, -September 7, 1489 (_Med. Arch._), and one of Caterina Riario Sforza, -January 21, 1490 (_ibid._). The latter begs for a decisive answer, ‘cum -un bel si o cum bel non.’ - -[356] Bologna, December 19, 1489. _Med. Arch._ - -[357] Letter of Franceschetto, Rome, March 10, 1488, in Fabroni, ii. -334-337, Lorenzo to Andrea da Fojano, _ibid._ p. 334. - -[358] Pecci, _Memorie ec. della Città di Siena che servono alla vita -civile di Pandolfo Petrucci_ (Siena, 1755), p. 64 _et seq._ Letter of -Fr. Cybò, l. c. Andrea da Fojano to Lorenzo, Siena, October 19, 1489, -_ibid._ p. 331-334. - -[359] A. Rinuccini, _Ricordi_, in anno 1470, Fabroni, l. c. p. cxiii. - -[360] Lorenzo de’ Medici to the Signoria of Siena, Flor. June 27, -1489, MS. in the Sienese Arch. A. Guidoni, Flor., January 19, 1489, in -Cappelli, l. c. p. 305. - -[361] Tommasi, l. c. p. 341. Mazzarosa, _Storia di Lucca_, ii. 25. -Documents, June 3 to July 18, 1490, in the Lucchese State Archives. Cf. -Bongi, _Inventario del R. Archivio di Stato in Lucca_, i. 164. - -[362] Brief addressed by the Pope to the Priori, July 9, 1488. - -[363] _Cronaca del Graziani_, in anno 1488 _et seq._, in _Cronache e -Storie della Città di Perugia_, i. 677 _et seq._ Lorenzo de’ Medici to -G. Lanfredini, 1489, in Fabroni, i. 329, 330. - -[364] _Cronache della Città di Fermo_ (Flor. 1870) p. 215 _et seq._ -Ugolini, _Storia dei Conti e Duchi d’Urbino_, ii. 60, 65. Reposati, -_Zecca di Gubbio_, i. 291. Fabroni, l. c. ii. 330. - -[365] Fabroni, l. c. ii. 359. - -[366] Ferrante to Ant. di Gennaro, April 24, 1493, in Trinchera, -_Codice Aragon._ vol. ii pt. i. p. 381. - -[367] _Commissioni di Rinaldo degli Albizzi_, iii. 681. - -[368] _Med. Arch._—_Ricordi di lettere_, February 28, March 2 and 6, -1483. Lorenzo’s instructions to his son Piero, 1484, in Fabroni, l. c. -ii. 268. - -[369] Cf. i. 288, and _ante_, p. 238. - -[370] G. Cambi l. c. ii. 65. - -[371] Cappelli, l.c. p. 248. - -[372] Fabroni, vol. ii. p. 376. In another letter on the same subject -preserved in the _Med. Arch._ fol. 51, he says: ‘Alexandro da Farnese, -il quale dà opera alle lettere Greche et è persona dotta e molto -gentile.’ - -[373] Guicciardini, _Del reggimento di Firenze_, p. 44; _Storia -fiorentina_, cap. 9. - -[374] G. Cambi, l. c. p. 68. - -[375] G. Cambi (son of Neri), l.c. p. 41. A. Rinuccini, _Ricordi_, p. -cxliv (very hostile to the Gonfaloniere). F. Guicciardini, _Storia -fior._, ch. viii. - -[376] Cambi, l. c. p. 60. Pagnini, _Delia Decima_, i. 162 _et seq._ -contains details on the relative value of the coins. - -[377] N. Valori, l. c. p. 174. ‘Proventus certiores et justiores, nec -principe viro indigni.’ On his finances see _ante_, Bk. 5, ch. 1. - -[378] Cappelli, l. c. p. 315, 316. In his correspondence with -Lanfredini in Rome the alum-farming plays a great part. - -[379] Gaye, l. c. p. 583. - -[380] Contracts and receipts of the Medici-Sassetti and -Medici-Tornabuoni bank, Lyons, for 1478, 1485, 1494, in (Molini’s) -_Documenti di Storia Ital._, i. 13-16. - -[381] Guicciardini, l. c. ch. ix. - -[382] Guicciardini, l. c. ch. ix. J. Nardi, _Istorie di Firenze_, book -i. (ed. by L. Arbib, Flor. 1842), i. 26. - -[383] Rinuccini, l. c. p. cxlviii. - -[384] Cf. _ante_, p. 193. - -[385] Varchi, book xiii., conclusion (iii. 37 _et seq._). - -[386] Canestrini, l. c. p. 163. Cambi, l. c. p. 55. - -[387] _Ricordi_, p. cxlvi. - -[388] _Ricordi di lettere_, for the said years. - -[389] Commines, _Mémoires_, book vii. ch. ix. - -[390] Molini, l. c. i. 13. Kervyn de Lettenhove, l. c. vol. ii. - -[391] Kervyn de Lettenhove, l. c. p. 70. Date, end of 1489, or -beginning of 1490. - -[392] Kervyn de Lettenhove, l. c. ii. 71. - -[393] In Desjardins, _Négociations_, i. 417, there is a letter of -Commines to this Spinelli, dated Vienne, August 6, 1494, relating to -the affairs of Piero de’ Medici. Spinelli, whom Commines (_Mémoires_, -book vii. ch. vii.) calls _homme de bien en son estat et assey nourri -en France_, had just then been sent out of France at the beginning of -the war. Piero sent him to negotiate with Charles VIII. on his approach. - -[394] Kervyn de Lettenhove, l. c. ii. 83. The Metz affair was the -unsuccessful and fearfully punished treachery of Jean de Laudremont, -one of the provosts of the city; see Philippe de Vigneulles, in the -book of _Memorials of Metz_ edited by H. Michelant, p. 115 _et seq._ - -[395] From the _Cronaca di Benedetto Dei_, 1470-1492; MS. in the -Magliabecchianæ, printed in Pagnini, l. c. ii. 135 _et seq._ - -[396] Daru, _Histoire de Venise_, ii. 295 _et seq._ - -[397] Scip. Ammirato, book xviii. ii. 998. Pagnini, l. c. ii. 124. - -[398] Pagnini, l. c. ii. 203 _et seq._ (Molini) _Documenti di Storia -Italiana_, i. 101 _et seq._ - -[399] Wadding, _Annales Minorum_, vii. 323. - -[400] L. Cibrario, _Legione sopra alcuni vocaboli usati nei registri -della guardaroba Medicea, in Arch. stor. Ital._, third series, vi. 152 -_et seq._ _Ricordi di ariente ed altre cose prestate, Arch. Med._ fol. -lxii. - -[401] Borghini, _Discorsi_ (Flor. 1755), ii. 164. - -[402] Borghini, l. c. p. 166. - -[403] _Ricordi d’una giostra_, etc., (cf. i. 267). Borghini, l. c. On -the Salutati family cf. Mazzuchelli, in the notes to Filippo Villani, -_Vite d’uomini illustri Fiorentini_ (ed. Flor. 1826) p. 83 _et seq._, -and G. Palagi, in _Il Convito fatto ai figliuoli del Re di Napoli da -Benedetto Salutati e compagni mercanti fiorentini il 16 Febbrajo del -1476_ (Flor. 1873). - -[404] Pietro of Aragon died in 1491, aged nineteen. Giovanni was made a -cardinal in 1477, and died in 1483. Arrigo, Ferrante’s eldest natural -son, died in 1478. - -[405] The Italian account has the expression _mummeria_, which -corresponds with the German, English, and French words, but is not -admitted by Della Crusca. Annibal Caro uses the word _mommeare_. - -[406] _Giorn. stor. degli arch. tosc._, i. 96. _Arch. stor. ital._ -third series, xx. 187. - -[407] _Il Padre di Famiglia_, ed. 1872, p. 67 _et seq._ On the -villa-life cf. i. 508. - -[408] Gaye, l. c. i. 417. - -[409] Rinuccini, _Ricordi_, p. cxxv. - -[410] Cena di famiglia, in the _Opere volgari_, vol. i. - -[411] V. da Bisticci, l. c. p. 176. - -[412] Cappelli, l. c. p. 301. _Prolog. in Plauti comædiam Menæchmos_, -in _Prose volg._ p. 281 _et seq._ Politian indulges in a side hit at -the modern authors who write in prose. - -[413] Vasari, iii. 232, v. 36 _et seq._ - -[414] L. Cibrario, l. c. p. 153. - -[415] Varchi, l. c. ii. 107. - -[416] A. M. Biscioni, notes to Lorenzo Lippi’s _Malmantile racquistato_ -(Flor. 1831), canto iii. stanza 8. - -[417] _I Capitoli della Compagnia del Broncone, pubblicati per cura -di Giuseppe Palagi_ (Flor. 1872). [Cf. I. del Lungo in the _Arch. -stor. Ital._, s. iii. vol. xvii. p. 147 _et seq._] Lorenzo the younger -was the head of the Compagnia del Broncone, and Giuliano that of the -Compagnia del Diamante. There are still to be seen in Florence, in -the Church of St. Ambrogio, in the Canto alia Mela, and the Canto di -Monteloro, some inscribed tablets recalling the Potenze; but they are -of rather late date. - -[418] _Tutti i Trionfi, Carri, Canti carnascialeschi, etc._ (Flor. -1550; also _Cosmopoli_, 1750). The shows themselves were called _Canti_ -from these songs. Cf. _ante_, p. 22, 23. In 1475 the Florentines at -Naples represented the triumph of Petrarch. - -[419] _Canzona d’un Piagnone pel bruciamento delle vanità nel carnevale -del 1498, aggiuntavi la descrizione del bruciamento fatta da Girolamo -Benvieni_ (ed. by I. del Lungo, Flor. 1864). [’_Canzona che fa uno -Fiorentino a carnasciale, trovandolo fuggirsi con un asinello carico di -sue masserizie e col fardello in spalla._’] Carnaval complains that his -idols are broken, the red Cross and the Name of Christ have conquered, -and he must yield to a mightier king. - -[420] Vasari, ix. 218. Naldo Naldi, _Carmina_, vi. 436. - -[421] From the MS. in the Miscellanea Uguccione Strozzi, vol. cvi. in -the Flor. Archives; printed by P. Fanfani in the Borghini, ii. 542 _et -seq._ - -[422] On the Piovano Arlotto, who died in 1483, see D. M. Manni, -_Veglie Piacevoli_ (3rd ed., Flor. 1816), where are many details of -the jests and buffooneries. The _Novella del Grasso Legnaiuolo_ has -been often printed and imitated; there is an edition with introduction -by D. Moreni (Flor. 1820). Gaye (l. c. i. 169) has produced some -original documents which cast some doubt on the accounts of the ‘fat -cabinet-maker’ collected by Manni; the claims of Antonio Manetti, known -from his connection with the Dante-literature (cf. _ante_, p. 51), to -the authorship of the story have been lately vindicated. Cf. Papanti, -_Catalogo dei Novellieri_ (Livorno, 1871), vol. ii. 11. The story of -Bianco Alfani is in Manni’s edition of the _Cento novelle anticke_ -(Flor. 1782), i. 211 _et seq._ - -[423] B. Varchi, l. c., book ix. (ii. 122 _et seq._). - -[424] _Cena di Famiglia_, l. c. p. 173, 174. G. Dominici, _Regola del -governo, etc._, p. 164. Cf., _ante_, i. 483. - -[425] _Notizie di illustre donne_, in the _Arch. stor. Ital._, iv. 439 -et seq. _Vite d’uomini illustri_, p. 525 _et seq._ - -[426] The names are copied from a Strozzi document in the -Magliabecchiana, in E. Branchi’s treatise _Della croce vermiglia in -campo bianco, insegna dei Cavalieri di popolo_, in the _Periodico di -numismatico e sfragista_, iv. 75 _et seq._ (Flor. 1872.) This treatise -contains numerous quotations from chronicles and histories relating to -knighthood in the commonwealth, particularly in 1378. - -[427] _Memorie storiche di Ser Naldo da Montecatini_ (in the _Delizie -degli Eruditi toscani_, xviii. 99). - -[428] _Il viaggio degli Ambasciatori fiorentini al Re di Francia nel -1461_, in the _Arch. stor. Ital._, s. iii. vol. i. p. 7 _et seq._ Cf. -_ante_, i. 173. - -[429] _Mémoires_, vol. vii. ch. 9. B. Rucellai, who was as much at home -in that house as in his own, describes in his Commentary _De Bello -Italico_ (p. 52), the plundering of books and other valuables, ‘quorum -pars a Gallis, pars a paucis e nostris, rem turpissimam, honesta specie -praetendentibus, furacissime subrepta sunt, intimis abditisque locis -ædium, ubi illi reconditi fuerant, perscrutatis.’ - -[430] L. c. p. 168. - -[431] Gaye, l. c. i. 285, 286, 290. - -[432] Vasari, _Life of Giuliano_, vii. 213. - -[433] Gaye, l. c. p. 304. - -[434] Cf. _ante_, p. 228. The earlier appearance of the square may be -seen in Richa, vii. 113. - -[435] Kervyn de Lettenhove, ii. 279. - -[436] Description of ‘Ambra mei Laurentis amor’ in the third Sylva, -lines 594 _et seq._; _Prose volgari_, p, 365. G. Fargioni Fozzetti, -_Viaggi per la Toscana_ (Flor. 1773 _et seq._), v. 56 _et seq._, where -also is Verino’s letter. Cf. _ante_, p. 13. - -[437] Repetti, l. c. i. 380. Palla Strozzi paid 7,390 gold florins -for Poggio a Cajano; and his beautiful villa of Petraja, which he had -bought of the Brunelleschi, served as security for the purchase. In -the next century, after the attempt of the Strozzi and their friends -against Duke Cosimo had failed, Petraja was confiscated and became -state property. Angiullesi’s _Notizie storiche dei palazzi e ville -appartenenti alla R. Corona di Toscana_ (Pisa, 1815) contain no notice -of the earlier history of Poggio a Cajano. - -[438] Vasari, _Life of Sarto_, viii. 276; of _Franciabigo_, ix. 101; of -_Pontormo_, xi. 46. The compositions of the former are engraved in the -work on the frescoes of the grand-ducal palaces (Flor. 1751). - -[439] A. Condivi, in the biography prefixed to the _Rime e lettere di -M. A. Buonarotti_ (Flor. 1858), p. 26. - -[440] Bandini, _Specimen_, ii. 105 _et seq._ The names of the two -Greeks sound like _noms de guerre_. - -[441] Borghini, l. c. ii. 167. - -[442] Reuchlin, dedication of the _De arte cabalistica_ (1517) to Leo -X. Manlius, _Locorum communium collectanea_ (Bautzen, 1565), p. 271. -Stälin, _Wirtemberg_. _Geschichte_, iii. 591. Cf. _ante_, p. 27. - -[443] _Ricordi di Lettere, etc._ - -[444] From Poliziano’s account, in Valori, p. 177. - -[445] A. Montecatino, in Cappelli, l.c. p. 252. - -[446] _Med. Arch._, passim. Gaye, _Carteggio_, i. 302. - -[447] Cappelli, l.c. p. 303. (A.D. 1490). Letter of the Anziani of -Lucca, September 16, 1490; Lucch. Arch. - -[448] Lorenzo to Ercole, February 11, 1481, January 9, 1482, in -Cappelli, p. 242, 243, with notes. Ferrante to Lorenzo, June 5, 1477, -in Gaye, l. c. i. 302. The same to the Knights of St. John, Ferrante -Ribadeneira, Juan Gasco, and others, December 27, 1467. In Trinchera, -Cod. Aragonese, i. 373; in this work are many letters relating to the -_falconi_ and _girifalchi_. - -[449] Prose _volgari_, p. 45. Cf. _ante_, p. 14. - -[450] Valori, l. c. p. 174. Viani, l. c. p. 24. In Fabroni, ii. 73, is -a list of the Medici estates in the Pisa territory, with an estimate of -their revenues. - -[451] April 8. _Prose volgari_, p. 47. - -[452] Piero, _Parenti’s Chronicle_. Cf. Poliziano, l. c. p. 49. Cf. -_Cronaca di Notar. Giacomo_, p. 134 (June 1, 1477). - -[453] Pulci, _Lettere_, p. 28, 31. - -[454] L. Fanfani, _Notizie inedite di Sta. Maria del Pontenovo_, p. -148. Cf. _ante_, p. 257. - -[455] Guicciardini, l. c. ch. ix. - -[456] Rinuccini, _Ricordi_, p. cxliii. Cappelli, l. c. p. 297. - -[457] M. Amari, _I Diplomi Arabi del R. Archivio fiorentino_ (Flor. -1863), lx, lxxxvi, and the original Arabic and Italian documents, p. -181, 184, 363, 372, 374, 382. Cf. Pagnini, l. c. ii. 205 _et seq._ -Bandini, _Collectio veterum monumentorum_, p. 12 _et seq._ - -[458] Ser Piero Dovizj to Madonna Clarice, Fabroni, ii. 337. - -[459] Pecori, _Storia di San Gemignano_, p. 285. - -[460] _Med. Arch._ Such supplies were needed at these places. - -[461] From the Med. Arch. fol. 88, in Del Lungo, _Un viaggio di Clarice -Orsini de Medici nel 1485 descritto da Ser Matteo Franco_ (Bologna, -1868). - -[462] Gualandi, _Nuova Raccolta di lettere sulla pittura, ec._ -(Bologna, 1844), i. 14. - -[463] Vasari, _Life of Simone Pollaiuolo_, viii. 119. - -[464] Ficino, _Epist._ x. 37. - -[465] Valori, l. c. p. 176. - -[466] ‘ ... Diu templi vox fuit ille tui.’ _Prose volgari_, p. 155. Cf. -_ante_, p. 140, 165. - -[467] _Med. Arch._ February 5, 1473, August 20, 1483. - -[468] Poliziano to Lorenzo, October 17, 1477. _Prose volgari_, p. 54. - -[469] C. Guasti, _Di un maestro d’organi del sec._ XV. in _Belle Arti -ec._, p. 229 _et seq._ _Ricordi di lettere, etc._ - -[470] Condivi, l. c., p. 30. It was this ‘Cardiere’ (from _cardatore_, -wool-comber) who was said to have seen an apparition of the dead -Lorenzo. - -[471] _Prose volgari_, p. 78. - -[472] Poliziano to M. Lucrezia, Fiesole, July 18, 1479. _Prose -volgari_, p. 72. - -[473] Epist. l. ii. ep. 13. - -[474] Carducci, Introduction to Poliziano’s poems, p. cxxxii. The -remarkable political sonnets published by O. Fargioni-Tozzetti -(Livorno, 1863) are by this Antonio Cammelli. - -[475] Poggio a Cajano, September 11, 1485, in Fabroni, l. c. ii. 298. - -[476] Satire VI. ‘Quella famiglia d’allegrezza piena.’ - -[477] Lasca, _Le Cene_, iii. 10. - -[478] Epist. l. iii. 6. - -[479] Valori, l. c. p. 167. - -[480] Fabroni, l. c. i. 22. - -[481] Fr. Serdonati, _Vita di P. Innocenzo VIII._ (Milan, 1829) p. 75. - -[482] Moreni, _Lettere_, p. 5. - -[483] Fabroni, l. c. ii. 389-391. - -[484] Desjardins, l. c. p. 189. _Ibid._ another letter of Louis, dated -February 17; also in Fabroni, l. c. ii. 298. - -[485] Fabroni, l. c. ii. 299. - -[486] A letter to G. Lanfredini, February 16, 1489, recommending an -Archdeacon, Mario of Osimo (_Med. Arch._ F. 57), is signed _Johannes -Laurentii de Medicis prothonotarius apostolicus_. - -[487] Fabroni, l. c. ii. 374; _Vita Leonis X. P. M._, p. 245. Fosti, -_Storia della Badia di Monte Cassino_, iii. 199. It is but too well -known how greatly the convent went to ruin through the misdoings of its -commanders. - -[488] Desjardins, l. c. p. 214. - -[489] Fabroni, l. c. ii. 374. - -[490] Moreni, _Lettere_, p. 8. Cf. _ante_, p. 326. - -[491] Roscoe, _Life and Pontificate of Leo X._ Ap. II. (iii. 385.) - -[492] _Ibid._, Ap. III. p. 387. - -[493] Fabroni, l. c. ii. 374. - -[494] Letters, from the _Med. Arch._, in Fabroni, _Vita Leonis X._, and -Roscoe, l. c., App. IV. V. VI. VII. - -[495] Burcard, l. c. 110-112. He names the five publicly nominated -Cardinals. Giacconio, _Vitæ Pontif._, vol. iii. col. 124-144, where -all the eight are mentioned. On March 9, the Ferrarese ambassador at -Florence announced the signature by the Cardinals of the bull for -Giovanni, and thought its publication would follow with that of the -others. - -[496] Letters in _Med. Arch._: that of La Balue (_Andegavensis_—Bishop -of Angers) in Roscoe, l. c., Ap. VIII. - -[497] Fabroni, _Laur. Med. Vita_, ii. 300. - -[498] A. Politiani _Epist._ l. viii. ep. 5. Lorenzo to Lanfredini, -March 14, 1489, in Roscoe, l. c., Ap. XI. - -[499] Moreni, _Lettere_, p. 14. (Dated wrong and placed out of right -order). - -[500] Desjardins, l. c. p. 215. - -[501] Burcard, l. c. p. 110. The hints given as to the cause of death -are a nice specimen of the town-talk recorded by a Papal master of the -ceremonies. - -[502] Roscoe, iv. 318 (wrongly dated). - -[503] January 21, 1489. _Med. Arch._ - -[504] Cappelli, l. c. p. 307. - -[505] Roscoe, l. c. Ap. X. - -[506] Burcard, l. c. p. 133. Adinolfi, _Portica di S. Pietro_, does not -mention the house of the Acciaiuoli. - -[507] Fabroni, l. c. p. 375. - -[508] _Med. Arch._ F. 72. Fabroni, l. c. - -[509] _Med. Arch._ F. 59. - -[510] August 11, 1489, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 307. - -[511] Fabroni, l. c. ii. p. 361. The letter goes on to treat of many -other things. - -[512] Bull in Fabroni, l. c. ii. 340. - -[513] Burcard, p. 126, 127. The details of these events may be -completed from Infessura. - -[514] Fabroni, l. c. p. 365. - -[515] The war with Granada had begun. - -[516] January, 1490. Burcard, p. 135, 136. [’Portavit (heraldus) -literas regi, a quo penitus nihil habuit, neque bonum verbum.’] - -[517] January 29, 1490, in De Cherrier, i. 341. - -[518] M. Manfredi, Flor. May 4, 1490, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 307, 308. - -[519] Burcard, l. c. p. 143. - -[520] P. F. Pandolfini. Fabroni, l. c. p. 352. - -[521] Pierre de Beaujeu had been Duke of Bourbon since the death of his -brother, Jean II., in 1488. - -[522] Pandolfini, Rome, June 28, 1490, l. c. p. 353. - -[523] Manfredi, July 3, 1491, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 309. - -[524] Nasi, Naples, July 7, 1491, in Fabroni, l. c. p. 350. - -[525] Letter to K. Ferrante II. (Ferrandino), February 9, 1495, in -Colangelo, _Vita del Sannazzaro_ (2nd edit. Naples, 1819). - -[526] Fabroni, l. c. ii. 350. - -[527] K. Ferrante to Pontano, October 2, 1491, and other letters -relating to these disturbances, in _Codice Arag._ vol. ii. part i. p. 1 -_et seq._ Cf. _ante_, p. 311. - -[528] October 5, 1491. Bandini, _Coll. vet. mon._, p. 20. - -[529] P. Nasi to Lorenzo, Naples, November 18, 1491, in Fabroni, l. c. -ii. 363. - -[530] Burcard, l. c. p. 157. M. Manfredi, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 310. - -[531] How, in the face of this long disagreement, Giannone (_Storia -civile_, book xxviii.) could say that after the peace of 1486, Innocent -VIII. remained the king’s friend during his remaining years, is -incomprehensible. - -[532] _Codice Aragon._, vol. ii. part i. p. 43-46, 49, 52-54. - -[533] Burcard, p. 154, 155. - -[534] _Traité des droits du Roy Charles VIII aux royaumes de Naples, -Sicile et Aragon, mis par escript en 1491 du commandement du Roy par -Léonard Barounet, maistre des comptes_; in Godefroy, _Histoire de -Charles VIII, preuves_, p. 675.—Ascanio Sforza to the Duke of Milan, -Rome, March 6, 1486, _Arch. stor. Ital._, vol. iv. part ii. p. 70. - -[535] Manfredi, Flor. May 4, 1490, in Cappelli, p. 307, 308. - -[536] Rosmini, l. c. p. 189, ii. 190. - -[537] In Giovio, Corio, and also in more recent authors (Ratti, _Fam. -Sforza_, ii. 63; Niccolini, _Lodovico Sforza, Trag. Opere_, i. 242) -will be found Isabella’s letter to her father. The two copies, Italian -and Latin, differ somewhat; but the rhetorical form of both gives them -the air of imitated documents. - -[538] Sc. Ammirato, book xxvii. (ii. 187.) - -[539] _Cod. Aragon._, l. c. p. 38. - -[540] Farcelli, _Storia del monastero degli Angioli_ (Lucca, 1710), p. -66 _et seq._ _Libretto MS. nel quale D. Guido priore nota i possessi -ec._, in the collection of G. Palagi. Florence. - -[541] N. L. Cittadella, _La nobile Famiglia Savonarola in Padova ed -in Ferrara_ (Ferrara, 1867); _La Casa di Fra Girolamo Savonarola in -Ferrara_ (_ibid._ 1873). [The house in which Girolamo was born was -afterwards thrown into a house of the Strozzi, now belonging to the -municipality]. P. Villari, _La Storia di Girolamo_ Savonarola (Flor. -1850-61). The Paduan branch of the family became extinct about 1816, -the Ferrarese in 1844. - -[542] Among the _Poesie di Fra Girolamo Savonarola_, published by -Cesare Guasti (Flor. 1862) from the autographs in the house of the -Borromeo at Milan, see especially the canzonet (written about 1475) -_De ruina Ecclesiae_ (‘Vergine casta, benchè indegno figlio—Pur son di -membri dell’eterno Sposo.’) - -[543] Moreni, _Con torni di Firenze_, iii. 34 _et seq._ Cf. _ante_, p. -135. - -[544] Poliziano to Tristano Calco, Flor. April 22, 1489. (Fra Mariano -was then preaching in Milan.) Poliziano had previously, as he mentions -in this letter, praised the Augustinian’s learning, eloquence, and -morals in the introduction to his Miscellanies. N. Valori speaks of -him, l. c. p. 76. Cf. Tiraboschi, ix. (vi. 3), 1677-1685. - -[545] Baluz, _Miscellan._ ed. Mansi, i. 530. [’A sua posta (Fra -Mariano) aveva le lagrime, le quali cadendogli dagli occhi per il -viso, le raccoglieva tal volta e gittavale al popolo.’] Benivieni on -Savonarola’s teachings and prophecies, in a letter to Clement VII. -(Villari, i. 70). - -[546] The _Storia fiorentina_, ch. xii.-xvii. contains many remarks on -Savonarola, specially valuable on account of the author’s position and -corresponding views. - -[547] Prose volgare inedite p. 283. Cf. _ante_ p. 351. - -[548] Lettera di un Anonimo circa alcune prediche fatte da Fra Mariano -da Genazzano in Roma, in Villari, ii. clxxvi. - -[549] L. Passerini, _Storia e Genealogia delle famiglie Passerini e -Rilli_ (Flor. 1874), p. 24. - -[550] Letter of C. Borgia to Piero de’ Medici, written after the -accession of Alexander VI., from Spoleto, October 5, 1492, printed from -_Med. Arch._ in _Arch. stor. Ital._, s. iii. vol. xvii. p. 510. - -[551] _Med. Arch._ F. 51. - -[552] Fabroni, l. c. i. 301. - -[553] Cf. _ante_, p. 331. - -[554] Guicciardini, l. c. ch. viii. - -[555] Rome, October 5, 1490, in Roscoe’s Leo X., Ap. XIII. - -[556] Rome, October 19, 1490, in Fabroni, l. c. p. 302. - -[557] Ricordi di Lettere. - -[558] Matteo Bosso to the Canon Arcangelo of Vicenza, Fiesole, March -14, 1492, in the _Recuperationes Fezulanae_, Ep. cx., and in Roscoe’s -_Lor. de Med._, Ap. No. XXV. Pietro Delfino to Giovanni, the Superior -of the Hermitage of Camaldoli, Flor. March 11, 1492, in Fabroni, l. c. -ii. 305. M. Manfredi, Flor., March 13, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 311. - -[559] Rome, April 7, 1492, in Fabroni, l. c. ii. 306 _et seq._; also -in Roscoe, Leo X., and Gennarelli’s Burcard. On the reception at Rome -and the solemnities there, see Burcard, p. 166 _et seq._ Letter from -Giovanni to his father, Rome, March 25, in Roscoe, l. c. Ap. XVII. - -[560] Fabroni, l. c. ii. 308 _et seq._ - -[561] M. Manfredi, Flor. August 31, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 309. - -[562] Cappelli, l. c. p. 316. Manfredi’s reports give the most details, -but unfortunately there is a blank in the last days of Lorenzo. - -[563] Cod. Aragonese, l. c. p. 39. - -[564] M. Manfredi to the Duchess of Ferrara, Flor., April 5, 1492, in -Cappelli, l. c. p. 312. Ercole arrived at Rome on April 13. Burcard, l. -c. p. 177. - -[565] Valori, l.c. p. 181. - -[566] The story of Lorenzo’s last days may be read in the long letter -written by Poliziano from the villa at Fiesole on May 18, 1492, to -Jacopo Antiquario of Perugia, _Pol. Epist._ 1. iv. ep. 2, in Fabroni, -l. c. i. 199-212, and in Roscoe, Ap. No. LXXVII. Cf. G. B. Vermiglioli, -_Memoire di Jacopo Antiquario_ (Perugia, 1813). Politian’s letter is a -rhetorical composition full of unctuous phrases, but highly valuable as -containing the testimony of an eye-witness. - -[567] See Appendix III. p. 487. - -[568] See Appendix III. p. 488. - -[569] On the prodigies see Politian’s letter, also Rinuccini, l. c., -and Cambi, p. 63, where are given details of the disastrous effects of -the lightning. See also Burcard, p. 175. - -[570] Guicciardini, l. c. ch. ix. - -[571] Ricordi, p. cxlvi. - -[572] Fabroni, l. c. ii. 398. Cerretani reports that of the whole -number in the Council 483 voted Aye and 63 No. ‘Herein was seen a token -of harmony and secure hope for the future; but it all came from the -popularity of Lorenzo, who was lamented not only by his fellow-citizens -and the people, but by all Italy.’ - -[573] Burcard, p. 171-178. On the appointment as legate cf. Stefano -da Castrocaro’s letter to Piero, Rome, April 15, 1402; Fabroni, _Vita -Leonis X._ p. 13, and note 10; Roscoe, _Leo X._ Ap. xxiv. - -[574] _Cod. Aragon._, l. c. p. 74, 75. - -[575] Fabroni, l. c. ii. 396. - -[576] Fabroni, _Laur. Med. Vita_, i. 212. There is no better warrant -for this speech than for that on the election of Pope Alexander VI. - -[577] Diary of Paris de’ Grassi, in Fabroni, _Vita Leonis X._, p. 95. - -[578] Moreni, _Descrizione istorico-critica delle tre Cappelle Medicee -in S. Lorenzo_ (Flor. 1813), p. 103. At the revolution of 1494 the -party hostile to the Medici did not entirely spare even the monuments, -for the inscription on the tomb of Cosimo the elder was removed on -account of the ‘_Pater patriæ_’; in 1497, during the Savonarola -excitement, all the Medici coats of arms were taken away or covered, -and replaced by the red cross of the people. The reappearance of the -ball-escutcheon after the revolution of 1512 was referred to in an -epigram by the father of Benvenuto Cellini, wherein he prophesies the -attainment of the Papal dignity by one of the family:— - - ‘Quest’arme, che sepolta è stata tanta, - Sotta la croce mansueta, - Mostra hor la faccia gloriosa e lieta, - Aspettando di Pietro il sacro ammanto.’ - -[579] This curious monody, so unlike Politian’s other Latin -compositions, stands at the end of his works in the edition of 1498. -[In _Del Lungo_, p. 274.] The poem in terza rima, on Lorenzo’s death, -printed in the edition of his Italian poems published at Florence in -1814, from a Riccardi MS. (in Carducci’s ed. p. 382 _et seq._) is -unquestionably not Politian’s. - -[580] The object of this table is simply to facilitate a survey of the -chronological sequence of the different parts of the work. - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lorenzo De' Medici, the Magnificent -(vol. 2 of 2), by Alfred von Reumont - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LORENZO DE' MEDICI *** - -***** This file should be named 50625-0.txt or 50625-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/0/6/2/50625/ - -Produced by Giovanni Fini, Hélène de Mink, Bryan Ness and -the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned -images of public domain material from the Google Books -project.) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: Lorenzo De' Medici, the Magnificent (vol. 2 of 2) - -Author: Alfred von Reumont - -Translator: Robert Harrison - -Release Date: December 7, 2015 [EBook #50625] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LORENZO DE' MEDICI *** - - - - -Produced by Giovanni Fini, Hélène de Mink, Bryan Ness and -the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned -images of public domain material from the Google Books -project.) - - - - - - -</pre> - -<div class="limit"> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<div class="transnote p4"> -<p class="pc large">TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:</p> -<p class="ptn">—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.</p> -<p class="ptn">—The transcriber of this project created the book cover image using -the front cover of the original book. The image -is placed in the public domain.</p> -</div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[i]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p class="pc4 xlarge">LORENZO DE’ MEDICI</p> - -<p class="pc2 mid">VOL. II.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[ii]</a><br /><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p> - -<h1 class="p4">LORENZO DE’ MEDICI</h1> -<p class="pc2 large"><i>THE MAGNIFICENT</i></p> -<p class="pc4">BY</p> -<p class="pc large">ALFRED VON REUMONT</p> -<p class="pc4 lmid"><i>TRANSLATED from THE GERMAN by ROBERT HARRISON</i></p> -<p class="pc4">IN TWO VOLUMES<br /> -VOL. II.</p> - -<p class="pc4 mid">LONDON -SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE -1876</p> - -<p class="pc4">[<i>All rights reserved</i>]</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="p4">CONTENTS</h2> -<p class="pc1">OF</p> -<p class="pc1 large">THE SECOND VOLUME.</p> - -<hr class="d1" /> - -<p class="pc4 large">FOURTH BOOK—<i>continued</i>.</p> -<p class="pc1 lmid"><span class="smcap">Second Part.</span></p> -<p class="pc1 mid">TIME OF LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT.</p> - -<table id="toc1" summary="cont1"> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdch">CHAPTER VI.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdsh">LORENZO DE’ MEDICI AS A POET.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdrl"><span class="small">PAGE</span></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdt">Lorenzo’s Letter to Don Federigo of Aragon accompanying a Collection of -Old Italian Poems—Opinions on Italian Poetry—The Poets of the Thirteenth -Century—Dante and Successors—The Italian Vulgar Tongue—Lorenzo’s -Position in Literature—Influence of Antiquity and the Dantesque -Period—The Feeling for Nature in Lorenzo’s Poetry—The Love Poems—Lucrezia -Donati—The Nature of Love—Lorenzo’s Sonnets—Idylls—‘Corinto’—‘La -Nencia da Barberino’—‘Ambra’—‘The Hawking Party’ -and ‘I Beoni’—Prevalence of the Burlesque—Dance and Carnaval Songs—Carnaval -Companies—Mystery-Play of St. John and St. Paul—Spiritual -Songs</td> - <td class="tdrl"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdch">CHAPTER VII.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdsh">MARSILIO FICINO AND CRISTOFORO LANDINO.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdt">Platonism—Ficino’s Influence on Religion and Philosophy—The Connection -of Platonism with Christianity—Speculation and Reality—Marsilio Ficino -and Dante—Ficino’s Works—Book on Christian Learning—Translation -of Plato—‘Theologia Platonica’—Translation of Plotinus and Dionysius -the Areopagite—Ficino’s Letters on Personal Relations—His Connection -with Learned Foreigners—His Manner of life—His Advice to Lorenzo -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span>de’ Medici and to Cardinal Raffael Riario—His Picture of a Right Way -of Living—Lorenzo’s Connection with Ficino—Cristoforo Landino’s Position -and Labours—The Camaldulensian Discussions—Leon Battista Alberti -with the Medici Brothers and their Friends in the Abbey of Camaldoli—Various -Phases of the Study of Dante—Dante and the Fifteenth Century -Biographies of Dante—First Edition of the ‘Divine Comedy’—Landino’s -Edition, with a Commentary—Study of Dante in Landino’s Time</td> - <td class="tdrl"><a href="#Page_20">20</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdch">CHAPTER VIII.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdsh">LUIGI PULCI AND ANGELO POLIZIANO.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdt">Matteo Palmieri and ‘The City of Life’—Burchiello and the Burlesque—The -Romantic Epos—Bernardo and Luca Pulci—The ‘Ciriffo Calvaneo’ and -the ‘Giostri’—Luigi Pulci and the ‘Morgante Maggiore’—The Epopee -and the Courts of Medici and Este—Luigi Pulci’s Connection with -Lorenzo de’ Medici—Angelo Poliziano’s Family and Youth—His Homeric -Studies—Translation of the Iliad—Dedication to Lorenzo—Opinion of -Cardinal Ammannati—Interruptions in the Work—The Dramatic Piece -‘Orfeo’—Tournament of Giuliano de’ Medici—The Stanzas—Small Latin -Poems—Poliziano as a Latin Poet—The ‘Sylvæ’—Description of Lorenzo -as a Poet—Description of Fiesole—Dedication of the ‘Sylvæ’—Son of -Lorenzo, Pier Francesco de’ Medici, Lorenzo Tornabuoni, Antonio Pallavicino -Gentile—Witches in an Academical Lecture—Poliziano as a -Popular Song Writer—Rispetti—Poliziano as Translator and Letter -Writer</td> - <td class="tdrl"><a href="#Page_41">41</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdch">CHAPTER IX.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdsh">POLIZIANO IN THE HOME OF THE MEDICI. SCALA AND RUCELLAI.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdt">Poliziano as a Poet and Tutor of the Medici—Poliziano and Madonna Clarice—Winter -Residence in Caffagiuolo—Ode to Gentile Becchi—Poliziano’s -Letter to Madonna Lucrezia—Dissension between Madonna Clarice and -Poliziano—Poliziano in Fiesole—Poliziano and others as Teachers of Piero -de’ Medici—Giorgio Benigno—Giovanni Prato—Antonio Barberini—Piero -de’ Medici in his Youth—Bartolommeo Scala—Benedetto Accolti—Scala -and Lorenzo de’ Medici—Quarrel of Poliziano and Scala—Alessandra -Scala—Poliziano’s Quarrel with Marullus—Alamanno Rinuccini—Bernardo -Rucellai and the Platonic Academy</td> - <td class="tdrl"><a href="#Page_63">63</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdch">CHAPTER X.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdsh">ERMOLAO BARBARO AND PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdt">Bernardo Bembo—Ermolao Barbaro—Barbaro’s Visit to Florence and to -Lorenzo de’ Medici at the Baths—Lorenzo’s Exertions in favour of -Barbaro—Giovanni Pico de’ Mirandola—Pico in Florence and in the -Medici Circle—The Cabbala—Pico’s Amorous Adventure at Arezzo—Disputation -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span>at Rome and Opposition—Denunciation and Apology—Lorenzo’s -Interposition on behalf of Pico—Pico’s Country Life and Studies—Lorenzo’s -Defence of Pico against his Romish Adversaries—Final Issue of -the Difference—Pico’s Poetical and Philosophical Works—Pico a Type of -the Age—Stefano Porcaro and Pandolfo Collenuccio</td> - <td class="tdrl"><a href="#Page_79">79</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdch">CHAPTER XI.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdsh">PISA UNIVERSITY. MANUSCRIPTS AND CRITICISM. PRINTING. -PLATONIC SYMPOSIA.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdt">Latin Poets—Ugolino Verino—Alessandro Bracci—G. B. Contalicio—Tommaso -Baldinotti—Pierio Riccio—Pisa and its University before Lorenzo’s -Time—Lorenzo de’ Medici and Pisa—Restoration of the University—Filelfo’s -Endeavours after a Professorship—Difficulties of the New Establishment—Professors -of the University—Bartolommeo Sozzini—the -Brothers Decio—Waldo Bartolini—Francesco Accolti—Pierio Leoni—Lorenzo -Lippi—Bartolommeo von Pratovecchio—Francesco de’ Massimi—Studies -in Florence—Fontius and Chalcondylas—Johannes Lascaris—The -high Development of Greek Studies—Platina and Pomponius Leti in -connection with Lorenzo—Examination of Manuscripts—Emendations—Poliziano’s -Critical Works—Collation of the Pandects—Translations—The -Art of Printing—Bernardo Cennini—First Printing in Florence—Increased -Diffusion of Literary Treasures—Manuscript Collectors in -Florence—Lorenzo de’ Medici as a Manuscript Collector—Poliziano in -Venice—Cassandra Fedele—Piero de’ Medici and the Medicean Collections—The -Books of Mathias Corvinus—Intercourse between the Learned -of Hungary and Florence—Collections of Inscriptions—The Academy at -Rome—Fra Giocondo of Verona—Lorenzo de’ Medici as the Centre of the -Learned World—Assemblies of the Platonic Academy—Platonic Symposia—The -Exact Sciences—Paolo Toscanelli—Amerigo Vespucci</td> - <td class="tdrl"><a href="#Page_96">96</a></td> - </tr> - -</table> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="pc4 large"><span class="smcap">Third Part.</span></p> -<p class="pc1 mid">THE FINE ARTS.</p> - -<table id="toc2" summary="cont2"> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdch">CHAPTER XII.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdsh">COSIMO AND PIERO DE’ MEDICI AND ART.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdt">Revolution in the Direction of Art when Cosimo was young—Architectural -Questions—Brunelleschi—Re-building of San Lorenzo—Abbey of Fiesole—Michelozzo—Church -and Convent of San Marco—Other Works of -Michelozzo—Chapel of the Annunziata—Tabernacle in San Miniato—Tornabuoni -Palace—Brunelleschi’s Buildings—Pazzi Chapel—Pitti Palace—Luca -Fancelli—Leon Batista Alberti—Rucellai Palace and Loggia—Holy -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span>Sepulchre—The Annunziata Choir—Sculpture—Donatello and -Cosimo de’ Medici—Lorenzo Ghiberti—Glass Painting and the Jesuates—Luca -della Robbia—Works in Glazed Earth—Sepulchral Monuments—Noferi -Strozzi—Neri Capponi—Orlando de’ Medici—Splendour of the -Monuments—Desiderio da Settignano—Bernardo and Antonio Rossellino—Chapel -of the Cardinal of Portugal—Mino da Fiesole—Ornamentation—Giuliano -da Majano—Antonio Filarete—Niello—Maso Finiguerra—Painting—Masaccio -and Fra Angelico of Fiesole—Benozzo Gozzoli—Paolo -Uccello—Andrea dal Castagno—Domenico Veneziano—Filippo Lippi—The -Peselli—Flemish in connection with Tuscan Art—Art-Treasures and -Antiquities in the House of the Medici—Personal Intercourse of the -Medici with Artists—Antonio Squarcialupi <i>degli Organi</i>—Domenico -Veneziano to Piero de’ Medici—Benozzo Gozzali to Piero de’ Medici—Fra -Filippo Lippi and the Medici—Beginnings of Art History—Cennini and -Ghiberti</td> - <td class="tdrl"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdch">CHAPTER XIII.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdsh">BUILDING IN THE DAYS OF LORENZO DE’ MEDICI.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdt">Lorenzo’s Knowledge of Architecture—Giuliano da Majano at Home and -Abroad—Benedetto da Majano—The Strozzi Palace—Giuliano Giamberti -da Sangallo—The Castle of Ostia and the Villa at Poggio a Cajano—The -Convent of San Gallo—The Gondi Palace—Antonio da Sangallo—Plan -for restoring the Façade of Sta. Maria del Fiore—Façade of Sto. Spirito—Palace -of the Signoria—Clock of Lorenzo della Volpaia—Simone del -Pollaiuolo called Cronaca—New Buildings and Streets—Works of Art in -Town Houses and Country Villas</td> - <td class="tdrl"><a href="#Page_146">146</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdch">CHAPTER XIV.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdsh">SCULPTURE AND PAINTING.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdt">Andrea del Verocchio—Sepulchre of Piero and Giovanni de’ Medici, and -other Works—Antonio del Pollaiulo—Benedetto da Majano—Monuments -of Giotto and Squarcialupi—Chancel of Sta. Croce, &c.—Mino da Fiesole—Monuments -of Bernardo Giugni and Marquis Hugo—Ornamentation—Sepulchres -of the Sassetti—Woodwork—The Art of the Goldsmith and -Die-cutting—The Dossale in the Baptistery—Antonio del Pollaiuolo—Bertoldo—Andrea -Guazzalotti—Gem-cutting—The Medici Collection of -Gems—Giovanni delle Corniuole—Painters—Verrochio—Pollainoli—Alesso -Baldovinetti—The Dante Picture in the Cathedral—Historical -Compositions—Sandro Botticelli—Filippino Lippi—Cosimo Rosselli—Ghirlandajo—Mosaics—Baldinovetti -and Ghirlandajo—Garden and Casino -of San Marco—Michel Angelo Buonarroti—Leonardo da Vinci</td> - <td class="tdrl"><a href="#Page_163">163</a></td> - </tr> - -</table> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="pc4 large">FIFTH BOOK.</p> -<p class="pc1 mid"><i>DEVELOPMENT OF THE SUPREMACY OF THE MEDICI.</i></p> - - -<table id="toc3" summary="cont3"> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdch">CHAPTER I.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdsh">CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES IN FLORENCE.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdt">Position of Lorenzo de’ Medici—Public and Private Finance—Constitutional -Reform—General and Select Council—Council of Seventy and their -Functions—Opinions of Contemporaries—Alessandro de’ Pazzi on Lorenzo’s -Financial Position—The Taxation—Progressive Change of the Constitution—The -Magistracy—Signories, Collegia, Councils—The Podestà and his -Court—Magistracy of Eight—Guardians of the Law—The Council of Ten -for Peace and War—Capitani di Parte Guelfa—Officers of the Customs and -of the Public Debt—Officers of Trade—Guilds and Philanthropic Institutions—New -Conspiracy against Lorenzo de’ Medici—Re-capture of Otranto</td> - <td class="tdrl"><a href="#Page_187">187</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdch">CHAPTER II.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdsh">THE WAR OF FERRARA.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdt">Dispute of Venice with Ferrara—The Allies of Both—Beginning of the Campaign -at the Po—Preparations in Rome—Sixtus IV.’s Oppression—Proposals -to Louis XI.—Battle of Campomorto—Danger of Ferrara—Bad -Management of the War—Threat of a General Council against Sixtus IV.—Lorenzo -de’ Medici’s Participation in the same—The changed Policy of -Sixtus IV.—Sixtus IV.’s Agreement with his Adversaries—Lorenzo de’ -Medici as Florentine Plenipotentiary at the Peace Congress of Cremona—Opposition -of Venice and Continuation of the War—Ludovico il Moro -and the Affairs of Milan—Lorenzo do’ Medici and Ludovico il Moro—Ludovico -il Moro on Milan Affairs—Ludovico’s Negotiation with Venice—The -Peace of Bagnolo—Unfavourable Conditions for Ferrara—Death of -Pope Sixtus IV.—Confused State of Politics—Città di Castello and Siena—The -Sarzana Controversy—Occupation of Pietrasanta</td> - <td class="tdrl"><a href="#Page_197">197</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdch">CHAPTER III.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdsh">THE EARLY DAYS OF THE RULE OF INNOCENT VIII. LOUIS XI. -AND FRANCE.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdt">State of Rome in the Last Days of Sixtus IV.—Girolamo Riario—Confusion -on the Death of the Pope—Pope Innocent VIII.—The Cybò Family—Character -of Innocent VIII.—Congratulatory Embassies—Florentine -Embassy—Piero de’ Medici—Lorenzo de’ Medici’s Advice to his Son—Lorenzo -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span>on his Relations with the Papal Chair—Latter Days of King -Louis XI.—His Connection with Florence—Louis XI. to Lorenzo de’ -Medici—The Ring of S. Zanobi—Extinction of the House of Anjou—Death -of Louis XI.—State of French Affairs after the King’s Death—Anne -of Beaujeu Regent for her Brother Charles VIII.—Opposition of -the Nobles—Anne de Beaujeu and Florence—Efforts of the French against -Maximilian of Austria at the Court of Innocent VIII.—Lorenzo’s Foresight—Refusal -of the Pope</td> - <td class="tdrl"><a href="#Page_213">213</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdch">CHAPTER IV.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdsh">POLITICAL TROUBLES. WAR OF THE BARONS.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdt">The Sarzana Dispute in Presence of Innocent VIII.—Lorenzo de’ Medici in -connection with Milan and Siena—Disturbances in Siena—Political -Balance—Political Situation of the Kingdom of Naples—Ferrante of -Arragon—Alfonso of Arragon, Duke of Calabria—Alliance of the Barons—Capture -of Aquila—Outbreak of the War of the Barons—The Barons, -the King, and the Pope—Innocent VIII., Venice, and the Barons—Neapolitan -Affairs and the People of Florence—Unsettled Position of -Affairs—Lorenzo de’ Medici in Favour of King Ferrante—Lorenzo’s -Counsel to the Arragonese</td> - <td class="tdrl"><a href="#Page_226">226</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdch">CHAPTER V.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdsh">EFFECTS OF THE WAR OF THE BARONS. FIGHTING ABOUT -SARZANA.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdt">Florence and the Neapolitan Controversy—Archbishop Rinaldo Orsini—Beginning -of the Conflict—Alfonso of Arragon in the Campagna—Alfonso -of Arragon in Pitigliano—Progress of the War—Battle at Campagnano—Differences -of Opinion in Rome—Proposals for a Treaty—Duke René of -Lorraine—Peace between Innocent VIII. and Naples—Slight Satisfaction -of the People of Florence—Roberto da Sanseverino King Ferrante and the -Barons—Effect of the Barons’ War upon the Fortunes of Naples—Lorenzo’s -Difficulties and Despondency—Connection with Naples and Ludovico il -Moro—Attack on Sarzana and Capture of the Town—Ludovico il Moro -and Genoa</td> - <td class="tdrl"><a href="#Page_243">243</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdch">CHAPTER VI.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdsh">LORENZO DE’ MEDICI AS MEDIATOR BETWEEN ROME AND NAPLES.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdt">Lorenzo de’ Medici and Innocent VIII.—Affair of Osimo—Boccalino de’ -Guzzoni—Surrender of Osimo—Boccalino in Florence—Boccalino’s End—House -of Medici—Death of Madonna Lucrezia—Maddalena de’ Medici -and Franceschetto Cybò—Negotiations with King Ferrante concerning -the Marriage of Maddalena—Life and Character of Franceschetto Cybò—Fresh -Breach between Rome and Naples—Lorenzo de’ Medici’s Despondency—Negotiations -between Innocent VIII. and King Ferrante—Lorenzo’s -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span>Opinion on the Relation of the Pope to the King, and on the Political -Situation—Weakness of the Pope—Gian. Jac. Trivulzio in Florence—Mission -of Jacopo Gherardi to Florence and Milan—Lorenzo’s Exhortations -to Prudence—Lorenzo’s Instructions for the Negotiation with Milan—Proposed -Basis of Agreement—Illness of Lodovico il Moro</td> - <td class="tdrl"><a href="#Page_260">260</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdch">CHAPTER VII.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdsh">FAMILY EVENTS. MARRIAGES AND DEATHS.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdt">Clarice and Maddalena de’ Medici in Rome—Maddalena’s Marriage Contract -and Dowry—Lorenzo de’ Medici’s Opinion of his Son-in-Law—Connections -of the Medici in Rome—Piero de’ Medici’s Journey to Rome, and his -Marriage—Alfonsina Orsini—Rejoicings in Florence on the Visit of -Franceschetto Cybò—Illness of Madonna Clarice—Maddalena Cybò in -Florence—Death of Clarice de’ Medici—Her Character—Lorenzo de’ -Medici on the Loss of his Wife—Maddalena Cybò’s Return to Rome—Death -of Ippolita Maria, Duchess of Calabria—The Marriage of Gian -Galeazzo Sforza—Piero de’ Medici in Milan</td> - <td class="tdrl"><a href="#Page_278">278</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdch">CHAPTER VIII.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdsh">DISTURBANCE IN THE ROMAGNA. TUSCAN AND UMBRIAN -NEIGHBOURS.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdt">Girolamo Riario in Imola and Forlì—Death of Girolamo Riario—Catarina -Riario Sforza—Disturbances in Forlì—Forlì remains in the Possession of -the Riarii—Dispute about Piancaldoli—Conflicting Interests in the Affairs -of Romagna—Dissatisfaction against Milan—Faenza and the Manfredi—Murder -of Galeotto Manfredi—Revolt in Faenza—Lorenzo de’ Medici -and Giovanni Bentivoglio, and the Disturbances in Faenza—Caterina -Riario Sforza—Unhappy State of Affairs in the Romagna—Lorenzo de’ -Medici and the Neighbouring States—Piombino and Siena—State of -Parties in Siena—Lorenzo de’ Medici and Siena—Lorenzo de’ Medici and -Lucca—The Connection of Città di Castello and Perugia—Franceschetto -Cybò in Perugia—Lorenzo de’ Medici’s Opinion of Affairs in Perugia—Victory -of the Baglioni Faction in Perugia—Violence of the Factions—Affairs -of Ascoli—The Papal Authority and the Jealousy of Neighbouring -States—The Orsini in connection with the Pope and Naples—Gentil -Virginio and Niccolò Orsini</td> - <td class="tdrl"><a href="#Page_294">294</a></td> - </tr> - -</table> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[xii]</a></span></p> - -<p class="pc4 large">SIXTH BOOK.</p> - -<p class="pc1 mid"><i>LATER YEARS OF LORENZO DE’ MEDICI’S LIFE.</i></p> - -<table id="toc4" summary="cont4"> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdch">CHAPTER I.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdsh">FLORENTINE STATE AFFAIRS. MATTERS PUBLIC AND FINANCIAL -ABOUT 1490.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdt">The Ruling Party and Old Enemies—Albizzi, Soderini, Pazzi—Francesco -Guicciardini’s Description of Florentine Affairs—Alessandro de’ Pazzi on -the Position of Lorenzo de’ Medici—Progressive Personal Authority—Supplications -and Recommendations—Alessandro Farnese—Requests and -Compliments of Foreign Princes—Friends and Dependants of the Medicis—Giovanni -Lanfredini—Lorenzo’s Behaviour towards his Dependants—The -Gonfalonier Neri Cambi—Weakness of the Administration—Committees -for the Choice of Magistrates and for Finance—Reform of the -Coinage and Currency—Finance of the Medicis—Losses of the Banks—Employment -of Public Moneys—Institution for the Dowry of Daughters—Reduction -of the Payments of the Institution—The Bank in Lyons, and -Philippe de Commines—Commines’ Last Letter to Lorenzo de’ Medici</td> - <td class="tdrl"><a href="#Page_317">317</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdch">CHAPTER II.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdsh">LIFE IN FLORENCE.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdt">Benedetto Dei’s Comparison of Florence and Venice—Description of Florence -in the latter Part of the Fifteenth Century—Industry and Trade—Interest -on Money and Money-Lenders—Mode of Life of the Higher -Classes—Splendour of Festivities—Benedetto Salutati’s Banquet at Naples—Life -in Florence—Town and Villa—Amusements—Athletic Exercises—Hunting—Plays—Religious -Representations and Processions—The Potenza -and its Growth—Carnavals and Parades—Reaction against Carnavals—Historical -and Mythological Processions—Bartolommeo Benci’s Carnaval -Procession—Buffoonery—Piovano Arlotto—The Fat Carpenter—Good and -Bad of the Social Condition—Benedetto Varchi’s Description of the People -of Florence—System of Family Life—Distinguished Women—Knighthood—Cavalieri -di Popolo—The Embassies—Splendour of Embassies in the -Fifteenth Century</td> - <td class="tdrl"><a href="#Page_338">338</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdch">CHAPTER III.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdsh">HOUSE AND FAMILY OF THE MEDICI.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdt">The Medici as Collectors and Art Patrons—Wealth of the House of Medici—Traders -and their Purchases—The Garden and Casino of San Marco—The -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</a></span>Villas of the Medici—Poggio a Cajano—Lorenzo de’ Medici’s Mode -of Life—Meal-times—Grandeur and Simplicity—Visit of Count Eberhard -of Würtemberg—Horses and Races—Hawking—Visits to Pisa—Agnano -and other Estates—Journeys to the Baths—The Baths of San Filippo and -Vignone—Love Affairs—Bartolommeo Nasi Benci—Embassies and Presents -of the Egyptian Sultan—Festal Reception of Travellers—Companions -and Friends at Home—Lorenzo de’ Medici in Confidential Intercourse—Musical -Entertainments—Antonio degli Organi—Music and Poetry—Piero -and Alfonsina Orsini de’ Medici—Lorenzo’s Daughters—Homely -Appearance—Lorenzo in Jest and in Earnest</td> - <td class="tdrl"><a href="#Page_366">366</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdch">CHAPTER IV.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdsh">GIOVANNI DE’ MEDICI’S CARDINALSHIP.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdt">Innocent VIII. and Franceschetto Cybò—Lorenzo de’ Medici’s Intercession for -Franceschetto—Giovanni de’ Medici and Church Benefices—The Abbeys of -Passignano and Monte Cassino—The Dignity of Cardinal—Giovanni -Lanfredini—Lorenzo’s Impatience at the Pope’s Hesitation—Giovanni de’ -Medici created Cardinal—Rejoicings in Florence—Lorenzo’s Thanksgiving—Impression -made by the Nomination—Death of Giovanni Lanfredini—Canonisation -of Archbishop Antoninus</td> - <td class="tdrl"><a href="#Page_394">394</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdch">CHAPTER V.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdsh">ISSUE OF THE CONTEST BETWEEN INNOCENT VIII. AND -FERRANTE OF ARAGON.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdt">King Ferrante’s Behaviour towards the Pope—Niccolò Orsini as Papal -Captain-General—Lorenzo de’ Medici on the Quarrel between Pope and -King—Position of Milan and Venice—The Pope’s Proceedings against the -King—Lorenzo de’ Medici’s Proposals—The Pope on the Interference of -Foreign Powers—Ferrante’s Opposition to an Alliance—French Propositions -to the Pope—Innocent VIII.’s Complaints of the King—Innocent -VIII. and Foreign Countries—Giovanni Pentano on the Agreement of 1486—Neapolitan -Proposals for a Treaty—Peace between the Pope and Naples—French -Affairs—King Ferrante’s Family Troubles—Gian Galeazzo -Sforza and Ludovico il Moro—Breach between Alfonso of Arragon and il -Moro—Neapolitan Embassy to Milan</td> - <td class="tdrl"><a href="#Page_408">408</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdch">CHAPTER VI.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdsh">OPPOSITION TENDENCIES. FRA GIROLAMO SAVONAROLA.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdt">Lorenzo de’ Medici and the Clergy—Girolamo Savonarola in his Youth—Savonarola’s -first Residence in Florence—Fra Mariano of Genazzano -and the Monastery of San Gallo—Fra Mariano and Lorenzo de’ Medici—Fra -Mariano as Preacher—Savonarola’s increasing Zeal for Teaching—Savonarola -as Preacher—Francesco Guicciardini on Savonarola’s Influence—The -Philosophers and the Monks—Representations of the Medici -Circle concerning Savonarola—Savonarola’s Excesses—Savonarola and Fra -Mariano</td> - <td class="tdrl"><a href="#Page_425">425</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdch">CHAPTER VII.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv"><span class="small">[xiv]</span></a></span></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdsh">THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF GIOVANNI DE’ MEDICI’S CARDINALSHIP.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdt">Giovanni de’ Medici in Pisa—Delayed Publication of the Brief making him -Cardinal—Doubtful State of Health of Innocent VIII.—Publication of the -Brief—Festival in the Abbey of Fiesole and in Florence—Giovanni de’ -Medici’s Journey to Rome—Reception in Rome—Lorenzo’s Letter to his -Son the Cardinal</td> - <td class="tdrl"><a href="#Page_440">440</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdch">CHAPTER VIII.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdsh">DEATH OF LORENZO DE’ MEDICI.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdt">Lorenzo de’ Medici’s Illness—Remedy for his Sufferings—Changes between -Better and Worse—Lorenzo’s Intention of transferring his Affairs to his -Son Piero—Political Position—Moral and Religious Views—Lorenzo’s -Advice to his Son—Lorenzo with Angelo Poliziano and Pico—Savonarola -at the Death-bed—Death of Lorenzo de’ Medici—Prodigies and Obsequies—Decree -concerning the Position of Piero de’ Medici—Roman Obsequies—King -Ferrante on Lorenzo’s Death—Innocent VIII. and the House of -Sforza—Entombment in San Lorenzo—Elegy by Angelo Poliziano</td> - <td class="tdrl"><a href="#Page_453">453</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdsh">CONCLUSION.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdt">Lorenzo’s Characteristics—His Public Policy—His Tampering with the Constitution—His -Financial System—Progress towards Monarchy—Lorenzo’s Son Piero—King -Charles VIII. in Florence—Fruits of Florentine Culture</td> - <td class="tdrl"><a href="#Page_469">469</a></td> - </tr> - -</table> - -<table id="toc5" summary="cont5"> - - <tr> - <td colspan="5" class="tdsh">APPENDICES.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdr1">I.</td> - <td colspan="3" class="tdl1">Chronological Review</td> - <td class="tdrl"><a href="#Page_477">477</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdr1">II.</td> - <td class="tdc1">Pedigree of</td> - <td class="tdc2">the</td> - <td class="tdl1">Medici</td> - <td class="tdrl"><a href="#Page_483">483</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td rowspan="3"> </td> - <td class="tdc1">”</td> - <td class="tdc2">”</td> - <td class="tdl1">Pazzi</td> - <td class="tdrl"><a href="#Page_484">484</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdc1">”</td> - <td class="tdc2">”</td> - <td class="tdl1">Soderini</td> - <td class="tdrl"><a href="#Page_485">485</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdc1">”</td> - <td class="tdc2">”</td> - <td class="tdl1">Visconti and Sforza</td> - <td class="tdrl"><a href="#Page_486">486</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdr1">III.</td> - <td colspan="3" class="tdl1">Last Hours of Lorenzo de’ Medici</td> - <td class="tdrl"><a href="#Page_487">487</a></td> - </tr> - -</table> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p class="pc4 elarge">FOURTH BOOK—<i>continued</i></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a><br /><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p> - -<p class="pc4 large">SECOND PART</p> - -<p class="pc large"><i>TIME OF LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT.</i></p> - -<hr class="d1" /> - -<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER VI.</h2> - -<p class="pch">LORENZO AS A POET.</p> - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">In</span> April 1465, as already stated, Federigo of Aragon, Prince -of Naples, and Lorenzo de’ Medici, then seventeen years old, -met at Pisa. A letter addressed by the young Florentine to -his royal friend, probably in the following year, begins -thus:<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> ‘When thou, illustrious Federigo, didst visit the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> -most ancient city of Pisa, thou didst turn our conversation -to the subject of those who have written poetry in the -Tuscan language, and didst manifest a laudable desire to see -all their works collected by my care. Endeavouring to fulfil -thy wishes, I had a diligent search made for all the old -manuscripts, and chose from them the least imperfect, which -I now present to your Highness, arranged in order in a book -which I earnestly desire thee approvingly to accept, as a -token of especial goodwill. Let no one despise this Tuscan -tongue as poor and rude, for he who can rightly estimate its -value will find it rich and well cultivated. There is, indeed, -nothing vigorous or graceful, impressive or ingenious, witty, -harmonious, or majestic, of which examples may not be -found in our two greatest poets, Dante and Petrarca; and -after them, by those whom thou, Prince, hast recalled to -life.</p> - -<p>‘Petrarca shows in one of his letters that the ancient -Romans were acquainted with rhyme which, after a long interval, -revived in Sicily, spread through France, and was -restored to Italy, its original home. The first who gave our -modern poetry its peculiar form of verse were Guittone of -Arezzo and his Bolognese contemporary Guido Guinicello. -They were both well versed in philosophy, and wrote profoundly; -but the first is somewhat harsh and rude, deficient -in ornament and eloquence. The latter, who is far more -clear and elegant, was called by Dante “his father,” and -the father of all who write sweet and graceful love songs. -He was unquestionably the first to impress on our beautiful -language that attractive colouring which the bard of Arezzo -had but faintly indicated. After these shone Guido Cavalcanti, -one of the keenest dialecticians and most admirable -philosophers of his time. He was handsome in person, and -his writings are to me in the highest degree attractive; his -imagination is rich and wonderfully grand; his reasoning is -weighty; his tone extremely dignified. These qualities are -heightened by the rich charm of a style that sets them off<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> -like a resplendent robe. He needed but a wider field to have -attained the highest honours.</p> - -<p>‘Bonagiunta of Lucca and the notary of Lentino must -not be overlooked; but though earnest and weighty writers, -they were so destitute of refined taste, that they must be -content to find a place in this collection of honoured names. -Another contemporary of Guittone was Pier delle Vigne, of -whom Dante said that “he had both the keys of Frederick’s -heart.” Only a few short pieces by him remain, and they are -not wanting in depth or earnestness.</p> - -<p>‘And now come the two glorious suns that have illuminated -our language—Dante, and he who stands hardly -below him, Francesco Petrarca. In praise of them, silence, -to use the words of Sallust concerning Carthage, is better -than halting speech. Greatly in need of their polish stood -Onesto, and the Sicilians who in order of time preceded -them, and who were not without spirit or purpose. Cino of -Pistoja, tender and full of feeling, deserves his reputation. -He was the first, in my opinion, who thoroughly surmounted -the antique roughness which Dante, so admirable in other -respects, could not entirely avoid. A host of writers follow, -ranking far below those I have named. All these of the -past, and some of our own time, owe lasting thanks to thee, -O Prince, who hast bestowed on them life, and light, and -fame, acquiring for thyself a claim to greater renown than -that of the Athenian Peisistratos, who rescued from oblivion -the lays of Homer. He restored life to one; thou hast -revived a whole host. At the end of the book, as it -seemed not unpleasing to thee, I have added some sonnets -and canzoni of my own, that when thou readest them, my -goodwill and affection may be vividly recalled to thy mind. -Though in themselves unworthy of a place beside the admirable -works of the past, it may be useful to set them -side by side for a comparison which can but enhance the -perfections of the latter. Pray take then, O Prince, not -only into thine house, but into thy heart and mind, both<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> -them and me, even as thou abidest a welcome guest in my -heart and soul.’</p> - -<p>Thus wrote Lorenzo de’ Medici apparently in 1466. On -a subsequent occasion, in a gloss on his own poems such as -it was the custom then for an author himself or some of his -friends to write, he gave his opinion on the much-disputed -question of the value of the vulgar tongue as the language of -poetry. ‘If we want,’ he wrote, ‘to prove the worth of our -language, we need only apply this test: does it express with -ease all our thoughts and all our feelings? Nothing can be -more satisfactory than the answer given us by experience. -Our countrymen Dante, Petrarca, and Boccaccio, have in their -verses and discourses, whether grave or gay, proved clearly -that every thought and feeling finds easy and natural expression -in this tongue of ours. Whoever reads the “Commedia” -sees various questions of theology and nature discussed -with as much skill as success. He finds there the three -degrees of style specified by orators—the simple, the florid, -and the sublime, nay, more—Dante in himself presents a -union of all the qualities which Greek and Latin writers -display separately. Who again can deny the warmth, tenderness, -and gaiety of Boccaccio? In his love poems he -shows a mingled grace and fervour that neither Ovid, Tibullus, -Propertius nor Catullus have equalled. Dante’s pithy sonnets -and canzoni are scarcely surpassed by anything in prose or -verse, and the readers of Boccaccio, whose learning was as -great as the polish of his style, must admit that in him the -faculty of invention contends with the variety and eloquence -of his language. Any one who examines his “Decameron” -with its endless diversity of subject, its descriptions of every -conceivable situation produced by love and hate, hope or -fear; its exhibition of countless intrigues and artifices; its -characteristic representation of diverse natures, and its expression -of every passion, will be convinced that for all this -no language can be better adapted than our own. It is not -the language that has been unfavourable to writers, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> -there has been a dearth of authors who could use it. To -any one with a little practice, it is full of power, harmony, -and grace. It appears to me richly endowed with all that -constitutes the excellence of a language, and I am persuaded -that a knowledge of what has been written in it is not only -useful but necessary—more especially the works of Dante, -which are both solid and profound. The commentaries of -learned men on the “Commedia” bear witness to this no less -than the allusions made to the work from the pulpit. We -may look forward to the appearance of other excellent works -in this language, which still preserves its freshness and is -growing in elegance and copiousness. A prospect of still -greater perfection is before it, should the dominion of Florence -be extended, a thing not merely to be hoped but to be -striven for by our gallant citizens with all their energies of -body and mind. Though such a consummation cannot -positively be predicted, since it depends on fate and the will -of God, yet it is within the limits of possibility. For the -present the following conclusion is enough. Our native -speech has all the excellencies of a language in abundance, -and we ought not to be dissatisfied with it, nor ought any -one to blame me for writing in a tongue to which I was born -and in which I was educated. Hebrew and Latin originally -were no more than vulgar tongues, yet those who hold an -honoured place in literature cultivated them to a degree of -perfection that was never attained by the mass of the people.’</p> - -<p>These remarks, which are followed by others on the -sonnet and on Tuscan rhythm and metre, show that from -his youth up Lorenzo de’ Medici thought much of the nature -and history of the language of his country. His poems -opened out no new path, but served with those of many -among his contemporaries to give more freedom and grace -of movement to the language, more facility for applying it -to manifold aims and objects, and a richer variety of idiomatic -forms. His masterly handling of the language was equalled -by his command of versification. Harshness he has, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> -that force which will not avoid a difficulty. Nor is he wanting -in archaic forms and illegitimate turns of expression, -while he has echoes of the artificial manner which in the -poet’s youth was regarded as modern classicism. We do -not always meet with the refinement of ear, accuracy of -taste, and fulness of harmony, which give such importance -to his contemporary Poliziano, and mark him as the true -leader of the great literary movement of the fifteenth century, -a movement which, in its last decade, put an end to a state -of things in which it is hard to say whether stagnation -or perverted energy was the worst feature. Nevertheless, -Lorenzo de’ Medici takes a conspicuous and peculiar place -in this movement. Had he been only a literary man, he -would have shone as such. As in his whole character, so -also as a poet, is he the true representative of his time, a -time that strove with pious care to restore the old, while it -joyfully if doubtfully anticipated the opening of new vistas -and formed the threshold between two great epochs, the -blending of the sunset and the dawn. Lorenzo de’ Medici, -while rightly estimating the character of the literature of -Dante’s age, and perceiving that it and not the pedantry of -the humanistic poets contained life and hope for the future, -was, nevertheless, still influenced by the great fact of the -first half of his century, the revival of classical culture. -Even when he most nearly approaches the lyric poets who -preceded him, it is not in imitation, like Bembo’s imitation -of Petrarca. Even when Dante or Guido Cavalcanti, with -their subtle dissection of feelings, partaking somewhat of -the character of scholasticism, and their habit of treating -even earthly things with a certain unearthly solemnity of -tone, have been most evidently his guiding lights—still, -through all, there pierces a spirit which could only have -been aroused by the contact of modes of thought derived -from the antique with modern life and experience, and by a -direct knowledge of the creations of Hellenic genius, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> -to the fathers of Italian poetry were sealed books, whose -very titles were unknown to most of them.</p> - -<p>Lorenzo de’ Medici is no imitator of Petrarca, although -echoes of Petrarca and even, through the latter, of the poetry -of the Troubadours occur frequently in his compositions. -But, apart from other details, he has one conspicuous trait -in common with Petrarca—a quick sense of the beauties of -nature. The hermit of Vaucluse and Arquà is, of all modern -poets, the first to whom nature seems to have been especially -revealed in her inner life and in the impression which she -makes on the feelings; for in Dante it is rather the historical -character of the landscape and the plasticity of sharply defined -individual phenomena which come out most strongly. -Like Petrarca, he who dwelt in the Tuscan villas and among -the wooded Apennines found in nature an inexhaustible -fountain whence flowed forth an ever-fresh stream of forms -and images clothed in the most varied and brilliant colours. -The richness and freshness of his treatment proves how quick -were his eyes to receive and his mind to realise such impressions. -He delighted to consecrate to the mental and moral -refreshment of a residence in the country the hours and -days which he could steal from his varied and often vexatious -cares and occupations. If his poetic descriptions did not -sufficiently declare it, his whole life would furnish a proof -that there was in him not merely an active fancy, but an -actual need, as well as a true and quick apprehension of -nature. He has shown in the ‘Selve d’amore,’ and in the -idyl of ‘Ambra,’ what were his powers of describing nature, -not merely in the illustration of thoughts and feelings, but -as an independent picture complete in itself.</p> - -<p>The greater part of his sonnets and canzoni consists, as -may be imagined, of love poems. But the individualising -characteristics of his poetry save them from the monotony -usually inseparable from this style; for where there is no -variety of tone, there is a variety of situation and colouring. -The lover and poet is with Lorenzo always a disciple of philosophy,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> -and the subject of his poems, decked in all the -brilliant colours of fancy, retreats into the background infinitely -more than with the great poets of the Trecento. In -reading Lorenzo’s poems, one gives little more than a passing -thought to Lucrezia Donati, whose name even is revealed -to us only by the poet’s friends. Beatrice and Madonna -Laura have been the objects of careful historical research—scarcely -any one has troubled himself about the fair Florentine, -sprung from a race whose name filled the history of the -city when that of Medici was still unknown. The reason is -not merely that Lucrezia’s bard was no Dante or Petrarca, -and that his poetry, however fresh and genuine, and however -important as completing a character unique in its way, yet -held but a secondary place in the mind and life of Lorenzo -de’ Medici; but the ideal creation threatens to swallow up -the personality. The story connected with the beautiful -girl lying on the bier, in which the poet sets forth how he -sought and found a worthy object for his affection, sufficiently -indicates that he rather transferred to this object what had -already assumed a living shape in his own mind than received -his impulse from it. To the greatest of Italy’s poets -the angel-bride of his early youth became the ideal in which -all his thoughts and feelings were wrapt up; the ideal -stood before the eyes of Lorenzo de’ Medici before he knew -her whose form he clothed in the magic of spiritualised -desire.</p> - -<p>The disciple of the Platonic philosophy, giving a description -of his beloved one in the commentary on his sonnets,<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> -thus declares himself in his definition of the nature of love. -‘Whoever seeks the true definition of love, will find that it -consists in the desire for beauty. This being so, whatever -is ugly repels him who truly and worthily loves. The beauty -of the countenance and soul of our beloved one impels us to -seek beauty in other things; to rise to that virtue which is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> -beauty on earth as in heaven, and to reach at length the -highest beauty—the Divinity, our final goal and resting-place. -The necessary conditions of a true, worthy, and -elevated love, appear to me to be two: first, that the object -shall be one, then that the love shall be constant. It is not -given to all to fulfil these conditions, seeing that but few -women possess the lofty power of attaching men so entirely -to themselves that they shall never offend against the two -conditions without which there is no true love.’ But his -philosophical view of life and human happiness is contained -in a longer poem in terza rima, (‘L’Altercazione’), in which -Marsilio Ficino is personally introduced as teacher, and decides -between the poet and his interlocutor. The former -has left the tumult of the city, the confusion of party politics, -the throng of the market, to bring his soul to a haven of rest, -a life free and secure from anxiety, in the solitude of the -country. He describes what he seeks and hopes to find in -this retreat to the shepherd whom he meets; the latter -points out to him the toils and troubles of his humble lot, -and how he drags on day after day beneath ever-renewing -cares. Then Marsilio comes to place in their true light the -worth and the worthlessness of sublunary things; to show -how happiness depends neither on the high position of the -one nor the lowly station of the other, but is to be found in -the knowledge and love of the Author of all things. As may -be seen from this sketch of its contents, the poem contains -nothing original, but it is pleasing from its life-like description -of contrasts, and interesting as a token of the earnest -self-introspection of a richly and variously endowed mind.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> - -<p>The three idyls which we possess of Lorenzo de’ Medici -are so many witnesses to the many-sidedness of his genius. -The first, ‘Corinto’ (the name of the shepherd who sings his -love), resembles the eclogues of the ancients, which were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> -soon to become the models of so many writers, and especially -of Sannazaro. Following the precedent of Boccaccio, it is -in terza rima, a metre better suited to a series of narratives -and descriptions than to a subject in which the lyrical element -preponderates. ‘Nencia da Barberino’ is pure nature—in -some parts severe nature, with a rich vein of quaint -humour and a charming local colour. It is an idyl in eight-lined -stanzas, redolent of Tuscan soil, describing the Tuscan -people, their manners and modes of speech, with a succession -of apostrophes, eulogies, and comparisons, including some -that are strange enough. Such are the so-called <i>rispetti</i>,—those -songs of the people, especially country people, which -sometimes in their fantastic flights soar up to the sun and -stars, and sometimes borrow their similes from the humblest -things. Lorenzo has, in fact, here put together a whole -poem of <i>rispetti</i>, in which the serious and the comic alternate, -and through the mouth of a lover has applied to one -rustic beauty what would have sufficed for a whole bevy of -maidens. These <i>rispetti</i> are evidently learned from the -people, who to this day produce thousands of these half-lyric, -half-epigrammatic songs, particularly in the hill-country -of Pistoja, for, as an old proverb says, ‘the mountaineers -have thick shoes and fine brains.’<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> They are to be heard -also in other parts of the Florentine and Sienese dominions, -as far as the Maremma, from whence they extend into the -Roman Campagna. Some of the rustic verses are peculiar -to the poet, who exercises himself freely in a style that -permits great variety, and who rivals the people among whom -he mingles in fantastic flights and quaint similes, producing -a somewhat motley but richly coloured and life-like picture. -Luigi Pulci has furnished a companion piece to ‘Nencia.’ -Poliziano, without confining himself to a special subject, has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> -also tried his hand at these little songs, which seem to flow -spontaneously from Tuscan pens, and form a branch of literature -highly important in its relation to the character of -the people.</p> - -<p>While in ‘Nencia’ the popular and burlesque element -prevails, the third of these idyls, ‘Ambra,’ belongs to the -province of mythology. Its importance lies far less in the -story itself—one of the oft-told tales after the Ovidian pattern—than -in the grand descriptions of nature to which the -fable gives rise. The scene is the villa of Poggio a Cajano, -on the decoration of which the princely owner bestowed so -much trouble and expense, the results of his work being -repeatedly destroyed by the overflow of the Ombrone in its -descent from the Pistojan mountains to the level ground -around the low hill on which Cajano stood. A small islet in -the river bore the name of Ambra, which was transferred to -the villa itself. The dykes raised for its defence did not -fulfil Poliziano’s hope that the stream would spare the -flower-garden. In the poem, Ambra is the nymph beloved by -the shepherd Lauro. Her charms, seen when bathing, -attract the river god, and she only escapes from his wild -pursuit by the help of Diana, who, at her entreaty, changes -her into a rock, on which the villa is then built. As in -‘Nencia’ the ottava rima adapts itself to a burlesque and -popular subject, so here it developes a surprising power in -descriptions of the natural occurrences that caused the -destruction of the pleasant rustic dwelling, and of the events -which are made to precede them.</p> - -<p>As ‘Ambra’ inclines to the descriptive, so does another -little poem in eight-line stanzas called ‘The Hawking Party’ -(‘La Caccia con Falcone’), a lively picture of a universally -favourite pastime to which our poet was almost passionately -addicted. The fresh morning on which the party sets out, -the adventures and intermezzos on the way, the rivalry and -excitement of the huntsmen, the manœuvres of the chase, -with the birds and dogs, carefully trained, yet not always to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> -be relied on, the return in midday heat, and the cheerful -meal, which reconciles the tired disputants and brings the -day to a close,—all this is described with the most vivid -reality, and with an amount of detail that could only come -from an initiated sportsman. We are in the midst of the -cheerful company that crowded around the gay and stately -young man. For the poem dates some time before the year -1478, as is proved by the circumstance that Lorenzo’s -brother-in-law, Guglielmo de’ Pazzi, is one of the chief -persons present, together with Luigi Pulci, Foglia Amieri, -Dionigi Pucci, and several others less easy to distinguish by -name. A whole stanza is taken up with the names of the -falcons, the number of which shows that this was indeed a -princely hunt, such as often took place at Pisa or Poggio a -Cajano.</p> - -<p>The poem in terza rima which bears the name of ‘I -Beoni’ (‘The Drinkers’), or ‘Simposio,’ resembles the ‘Nencia’ -and the ‘Hawking Party’ in so far as it describes Florentine -and Tuscan manners. In rhythm, tone, and manner, it is -very different from the others; for although in ‘Nencia’ -peasant life sometimes receives a burlesque covering, the -poem never becomes satire, nor sinks to that degree of low -comedy which degenerates into vulgarity. This, however, is -the case in the ‘Beoni,’ a series of chapters in which the poet -describes the manners and adventures of a company of jolly -fellows, whom he meets near Porta Faenza as he is returning -from Careggi, at the moment when they are setting out for -Ponte a Rifredi, a little place about a mile away from the -town, and which takes its name from a bridge over the little -stream Terzolle. The business of the company is to taste a -cask of wine which they have heard highly praised. The -poem is not wanting in humour, and offers a lively picture of -convivial rather than social manners, such as long existed in -Tuscany, and of which we possess many literary monuments. -Although unfinished, it is long, and monotonous in spite of -the variety of its situations; its dry comedy often degenerates<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> -into downright coarseness, such as might lead to very unfavourable -conclusions with regard to the morals even of the -higher classes and the clergy, who in part are represented -here. ‘I Beoni’ makes an unpleasant impression from -another point of view. Not only is the metre that of the -most sublime poems in the Italian language; the outward -arrangement of the poem, as well as a number of particular -turns, are burlesque imitations of the great poets. This is a -proof of keen observation, of wonderful and many-sided -power; but it has a darker side. If we are to recognise in -this production the beginning of Italian satire, we can all the -more justly measure the distance between these ‘chapters’ -and those brilliant mirrors of the time which immediately -followed that of Lorenzo de’ Medici—the satires of Lodovico -Ariosto.</p> - -<p>Like the ‘Beoni,’ the dance-songs (‘Canzoni a ballo’) -and the songs of the carnival (‘Canti carnascialeschi’), -especially the latter, often pass the limits which separate -social gaiety from burlesque and satire. Yet the nature and -object of these songs demand the predominance of the lyrical -element. The dance songs are explained by the old traditional -customs of the Tuscan people, and Lorenzo did but -follow examples furnished by the age of Dante; examples -differing in character of all degrees, from the grave and -sententious to the popular and comic. The musical accompaniment, -in which popular old tunes alternate with later -compositions, naturally influences the form of these songs; -but the poet handles the form with the greatest ease, and -knows how to give to metre and rhyme a variety that corresponds -with the changes of mood, and prevents the -monotony which the matter and subject might produce. For -the subject is love and its enjoyments, in which the sensual -and humorous preponderate. Here prevails the sway of that -epicureanism which sees in the material satisfaction of our -desire for enjoyment the solution of the problem of life, which -regards as lost the time spent on all else, snaps its fingers at a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> -severe moral judgment, and ends in outspoken nihilism, mocking -even at love and happiness. The sum of worldly wisdom -here taught is—enjoy yourself as much as you can, and lose -no time about it; it is not the action that matters, but only -that it should not reach the ears of those who would be sure -to give it a bad name; ill-will and the conflict of interests -bring blame, not things in themselves. Even more clearly -than in the dance-songs is this cynicism seen in the ‘Lays -of the Carnival,’ which, like the former, are intended for -choruses, mostly with alternate parts.</p> - -<p>The following pages, which treat of the manners of the -time, will describe the bacchanals, which were not new in -Florence, but which Lorenzo de’ Medici increased, and not -merely for the humour of the thing, to a degree that -has cast on his memory a reflection which an exact comparison -of the poet’s circumstances with the past would -hardly justify. The abundant imagination and many-sided -wit of these gay compositions may be admired, but, even -were the licence less, it would be impossible to take real -pleasure in them when once the purpose underlying them is -perceived. Such songs were traditional in Florence and -other places, as were also the people’s carnival societies, of -which Lorenzo made use for his popular festivals, and for -which he wrote even in the days of his highest authority—perhaps -even more especially then. To these songs the -accomplished choir-master of San Giovanni, the German -Heinrich Isaak, commonly called Arrigo Tedesco, composed -melodies for three voices. Even before the event which -exercised so great and injurious an influence on life and -morals—the plague of 1348—songs were openly sung, the -levity and revolting coarseness of which contrasted strangely -with the pious canticles which resounded in the evening -before the image of the Madonna and other shrines. The -‘Decameron’ refers to them, and the Chronicles of Modena -give us the beginning of a drinking-song which bears witness -to the confusion of tongues that had arisen, probably<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> -among the mercenary bands: ‘Trinche gote Malvasie—mi -non biver oter vin.’ The poems destined for singing -increase in number from the fourteenth century onwards.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> -Lorenzo only perfected in form, rendered more significant, -and finally turned to account for other purposes, what he -found ready in the life of the people. A greater contrast to -these frivolous productions than even his wanderings on the -heights of speculation, his effusions of philosophic poetry -and tender aspiring sentiment, is offered by the poems on -religious subjects, of which Lorenzo found examples in his -own family. The mystery-play, ‘Rappresentazione dei SS. -Giovanni e Paolo,’ composed, according to the prologue -spoken by the angel of the Annunciation, for the brotherhood -of San Giovanni, is said to have been acted at the -festivities which celebrated the marriage of Maddalena de’ -Medici. It is certain that Lorenzo’s son, Giuliano, then just -ten, and perhaps also Piero, took part with other youths and -boys of noble houses in the representation held by the said -company in 1489. The legend of Constantia, daughter of -Constantine the Great, who was said to have been cured of -leprosy at the tomb of St. Agnes on the Nomentan Way, and -that of the martyrs John and Paul, who suffered death in -Rome on the Cœlian, are here blended with the story of the -division of the empire among Constantine’s sons, of the reign -of Julian the Apostate, and his death in the Parthian war, -and formed into a whole in which strange confusion and -leaps from one subject to another do not prevent much -poetical beauty and moral and political teaching. Like -other earlier and contemporary pieces of this kind, it is more -lyric than dramatic; in particular it has no dramatic unity. -But if the dramatic element is weak, the historical character -of one of the two chief persons, the Emperor Julian, shows -an accuracy of conception which, with regard to this prince,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> -must have been rare at that period. In this respect -Lorenzo’s drama commands an interest far superior to that -which we take in most productions of this class. Since the -statue of Victory was taken away from the Curia—so speaks -the Emperor—success no longer crowns the Roman arms, -which once subdued the world. Only by returning to our -old gods can we recall victory to our standards. But the -object is not to be attained by this alone, or by taking from -the Christians wealth and goods which should be forbidden -them by the teachings of their own faith. The head of the -empire must again command the old reverence, and this -cannot be if the ruler hands over the cares of government to -others, while he heaps up treasure and thinks only of amusement. -If he is rich, his riches are but lent him to share with -his people, and relieve necessity wherever he finds it. Power -and property belong not to him, but to the community; he -is the steward who has the satisfaction and the glory of distributing -to others what fate has placed in his hands.</p> - -<p>Julian is a man of energy, conscious of the extent and -difficulty of his task; Constantine in his old age is the representative -of the melancholy which overcomes him, who feels -that the burden of government has become too heavy for his -shoulders. Who knows whether the poet is not drawing -from the experience of his own heart when he puts into the -mouth of his hero the description of the labours and dangers -of sovereignty, which wear out body and soul, while others -see in it the height of happiness, never reflecting that <i>they</i> -can sleep while one is watching who holds the scales in his -hand, to whom all eyes are turned; who lives not for himself, -but for others, who must be the servant of servants:</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">How often does the man that envies me<br /> -Not know that happier far than I is he.</p> - -<p class="p1">Strange contrasts of height and depth there were in this -man—contradictions in his life as well as in his poetry. Like -his mother, he tried his hand on spiritual songs, and his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> -hymns of praise display an individuality and fulness of conception -wanting to other compositions of this kind which -perhaps surpass his in freshness and simplicity. Besides -songs in which the teachings of Platonism give a peculiar -colouring to the faith of the Church, we find others in which -the tone of the older hymns to Mary has been successfully -adopted. If these lauds have not the same ardently soaring -strain as those of Benivieni; still we can well imagine that -they were sung alternately with the latter when the opposition -to the worldly spirit encouraged by their author had -gained the victory. This, too, is one of the contrasts which -abound in the history of Lorenzo de’ Medici. The lauds -give us a deep insight into his mind. They are, in some -degree, the agonised cry of a soul which, instead of finding -satisfaction in the glory and splendour, the wealth and -enjoyments of the world, is repelled by its emptiness, and -feels driven further and further away from the highest good, -of which the love once kindled within it had grown cold -amid the cares and pleasures of this life:</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">Thou seekest life where nought hath living breath;<br /> -Thou seekest joy where nought avails save death.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER VII.</h2> - -<p class="pch">MARSILIO FICINO AND CRISTOFORO LANDINO.</p> - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">In</span> order to gain a complete view both of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s -own life and of his influence on the scientific progress of his -time, it is necessary to contemplate the circle in which he -was placed in his youth, and which, though greatly modified -in the course of years, preserved the same character in -essentials to the end. The persons of whom it was composed -carry us back to the time of Cosimo. The first we -meet are Marsilio Ficino and Cristoforo Landino. Both -owed their rise to the house of Medici; both contributed to -its glory.</p> - -<p>The last twenty-five years at least of Ficino’s life were -occupied with the endeavour to reconcile Platonism and -Christianity, to make the one expand within the other. At -the end of 1473, when forty years old, he entered holy orders, -after seriously weighing the duties and obligations of that -sacred office, and after coming to the conclusion that there is -nothing on earth nobler than a good priest, nothing more -vile than an unworthy one. At the same time he held -counsel with his own mind as to the direction of his philosophical -studies. The example of St. Augustine, who, after -he became a Christian, inclined to the Platonics of the Christian -era, decided him the more easily, because it confirmed -the direction of his whole previous life. When he became -aware how Platonism recognises Christian dogma on account -of the analogies which the latter presents to its own -doctrines, he thanked God, and felt himself confirmed in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> -Christian faith. He did not, however, long remain free from -a suspicion of the divergence which Platonism had caused -in the mediæval development of Christian teaching from the -Aristotelian system, which was the standing-ground of -scholasticism, in its efforts to reconcile the faith of the -Church with the researches of reason. He had started from -the view that religion and philosophy are sisters. As true -philosophy, he says, is the loving study of truth and wisdom—as -God alone is truth and wisdom—so true philosophy is -nothing but genuine religion, and genuine religion nothing -but true philosophy. Religion is innate in every man; -every religion is good, in so far as it turns to God, but -Christianity is the only true one, inspired by the divine -power which dwelt in its Founder. For himself, he declares -he needs nothing but the teaching of Christ. He would -rather believe divine things than know human ones; for -divine faith is more secure than human knowledge, and what -proceeds from it is confirmed by true science. But there are -spirits for whom the authority of the divine law is not -enough, and who require the arguments of reason. Divine -Providence has ordained that the teachings of Platonism -should agree in many things with those of Christianity, in -order to bring such spirits to Christ; for, as Augustine said, -with the exception of a few things the Platonists were -Christians. As Plato always connects religion with philosophy, -and does not merely disclose to us the principles and -order of natural things, like Aristotle, but teaches us our -duty towards Him who orders all things by number, measure, -and weight; so he himself has no other object than to make -this intimate connection clear, so far as his weak powers -permit.</p> - -<p>Any one who puts together his numerous remarks on -Christianity, dogma, and morality, although he may deem -some of his views peculiar, cannot reproach him with constructing -a Christianity of his own. Though he found such -an agreement between Moses and Plato that he saw in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> -latter only a Moses writing in the Attic tongue, and though -he compared the life of Socrates with the life of Jesus, yet -he acknowledged in the Socratic doctrines only a confirmation -of the Christian, and guarded himself against seeing in -the Greek philosopher a shadow of the Saviour, and from -interpreting the Christian mysteries by Platonic writings. -Strange was the position of the thinkers of that time, placed -as they were between Christianity and the strongly-reviving -influences of heathen antiquity, and we should do them great -injustice did we not consider the spirit which governed the -whole of that period. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola believed -he had found in the Cabala the foundation of the faith and -the explanation of the Christian mysteries; both he and -Marsilio held confidential evening discussions with learned -Jewish doctors on the divine inspiration of the Prophecies, -and plunged deep into both ancient and mediæval Hebrew -lore. By a gradual enlightenment of his mind, filled with -the fantastic images of the later Platonism and the half -rationalistic mysticism founded on it, Pico came back to the -pure Christian faith, which finds in Holy Scripture a living -heavenly force whose wonderful power raises man to the -height of divine love. Marsilio Ficino’s mysticism, increased -by his strong tendency to astrology, assumed in -more than one of his writings a colouring which made his -friends uneasy. In 1489 he was even accused of magic -before Pope Innocent VIII., but was cleared of the charge -partly by his own apology, partly by his friends, Francesco -Soderini, Ermolao Barbaro, and the archbishop Rinaldo -Orsini, who was then at Rome.</p> - -<p>Marsilio Ficino always keeps in view the connection between -Christianity and philosophy, both in his speculations -and in the practical application of his principles and their -corollaries. If we are astonished at the fantastic flights -which seem to lead him far away from the course he had -traced out for himself, we yet gain a clear and comprehensive -development of the aim of his whole teaching, the attainment<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> -of the highest happiness by the individual as well -as by the community, the end for which God created us. In -the harmony between the spirit of government and the divine -law, whence the written law is derived, he recognises the -essential element of general well-being. As regards forms of -government, he decides that many are good, if rightly administered—aristocracy, -if its limits are not too narrow; -democracy, if it produces respect for law. Mob rule is a -polypus, all limbs and no head; tyranny has no legal ground -and no legitimate limits. Monarchy would be preferable, if -it could be maintained according to Plato’s ideal, by power -and wisdom united. But the true end of all forms of government -and civil constitutions, both in theory and practice, can -be reached neither by the few nor by the many, but only by -the co-operation of the united forces of the human race, -by the maintaining and enforcing of uniform laws by a -ruler who is raised above all enmity, ambition, and envy, -because he is acknowledged and loved by all. The Christian -Platonist, who lived to see the beginning of the new era, the -dawn of which had been heralded by the school to which he -attached himself, arrived at the summit of his philosophical -and political speculations exactly at the same standpoint -which the greatest poet of the middle ages had reached more -than a century and a half before him, amid the conflict of -parties in the State. Wide as was the difference between -their positions and experiences of life, and between the civil -and political conditions both of their own immediate home -and of a large part of Italy, this is a remarkable circumstance, -which explains the interest felt by Marsilio Ficino in -that book, so diversely judged, in which Dante Alighieri -developes his theory of monarchy—a -work well-nigh forgotten, despised by the learned on account of its style, and -sealed to the generality, till the Platonist of the Medicean -times made it accessible to his contemporaries by a translation.</p> - -<p>Numerous works were composed by Marsilio Ficino, who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> -occupied himself not only with philosophy but with theology, -medicine, and music, and was wont to say that they belonged -to each other like body, soul, and spirit in nature. His book -on Christian doctrine, begun after his entrance into the -priesthood, seems to have been finished in the beginning of -1475, and appeared in the following year, with a declaration -that the author submitted himself in all things to the judgment -of the Church. He presented his work to Lorenzo de’ -Medici. Rather more than two years later he seems to have -finished his translation of Plato’s works from the manuscripts -given him by Cosimo and by Amerigo Benci. These he -submitted to the revision of Demetrius Chalcondylas, Antonio -Vespucci, and Giovan Battista Buoninsegni, and also sought -advice from Angelo Poliziano, Landino and Bartolommeo -Scala. Filippo Valori bore the expenses of the printing, -which seems to have been completed at the end of 1482—a -proof how men of high Florentine families assumed the -character of Mæcenas. Meanwhile, the industrious writer -had concluded his great work on the Platonic doctrine of -immortality (‘Theologia Platonica de immortalitate animarum’), -which came out at the same time with the translation -of the writings on which it was founded. The Laurentian -library possesses the parchment manuscript which was given -to Lorenzo. It contains ideas new and old blended together, -and comprising the philosophic system of its author and -the defence of the supernatural against Materialism and -Pantheism, which at that time numbered many disciples, in -opposition to the Platonic school. The scientific value of -this work, in which the doctrines of Plato and the teachings -of his most dissimilar scholars in ancient and modern times -are not easy to distinguish, must rest on its own merits, as -must the validity of Lorenzo’s remark that the Materialists, -for whom there is no life in the next world, are already dead -in this. But we cannot deny the importance of Ficino’s -great work in the history of civilisation, nor question its -beneficial influence on the time.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span></p> - -<p>Then followed a series of smaller writings on separate -questions of philosophy, translations connected with them, -and a life of Plato. Cosimo de’ Medici wished to see the -works of Plotinus translated by Ficino, an undertaking to -which the latter only devoted himself long after the death -of its originator, and to which he was chiefly encouraged by -Pico della Mirandola. According to his own words, he recognised -in this new task a leading of Providence. As the -Latin nations had learned to know Plato, the collector of the -traditions of religious philosophy, so they should also learn -to know Plotinus, who first drew forth from darkness the -theology of the ancients and searched into its mysteries. -This work was finished in 1486, and a detailed commentary -on it in the summer of 1491. Lorenzo had undertaken to -defray the cost of printing, and promised to do the same for -a new edition of Plato’s works, the former one being inadequate. -But the printing was only completed a month -after the death of the generous patron—‘magnifico sumptu -Laurentii patriæ servatoris.’ After this came a translation -of the mystic theology of the writer calling himself Dionysius -the Areopagite. Lorenzo Valla, who surpassed most -of his contemporaries in keenness of criticism and knowledge -of antiquity, had already raised a doubt as to its genuineness, -as had also other writers. But this work, perhaps that of a -Platonist of the fifth century, fitted in with Marsilio’s system -too well not to be accepted by him as valid testimony; another -example showing how, like the Alexandrian school, these -later disciples wandered from their original models without -knowing or intending it; with this difference, that the -Neoplatonism of old ran in sharp contradiction to Christianity, -while that of more modern times aimed at a union -with it.</p> - -<p>The philosophic ‘Macrobioticon,’ an original work, was -finished in 1490, and dedicated to Lorenzo de’ Medici and -King Matthias Corvinus. Far more interest attaches to -Marsilio’s correspondence, which embraces the twenty years<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> -between 1474 and 1494—the only product of his literary -activity that has a real value at the present time. In these -letters his opinions and motives are mirrored with life-like -originality, and they afford much information as to his life, -his occupations, his social relations, and his friends. The -twelve books (which he, following the example of many contemporaries, -arranged himself, because apocryphal writings -were in circulation) are all dedicated to men of high position -or friends of the author: Giuliano de’ Medici, Federigo of -Montefeltro, Matthias Corvinus, Bernardo Bembo, Filippo -and Niccolò Valori, and others.</p> - -<p>Marsilio’s extraordinary literary activity, the more astonishing -in a man of delicate health, did not interfere with the -performance of his duties as a priest or as a secular teacher. -He preached often, not only in his own parish church at -Nevoli, but also in Florence, at the church of the Angeli and -in the cathedral. His personal relations, to which his -correspondence bears witness, were very numerous. Paol’ -Antonio Soderini, Giovanni Cavalcanti, Carlo Marsuppini -the younger, Piero and Giovanni Guicciardini, Bernardo -Canigiani, Bernardo Dovizj of Bibiena, afterwards cardinal; -Lorenzo’s nephew Cosimo de’ Pazzi, Bernardo Rucellai, Pier -Filippo Pandolfini, Francesco Sassetti, Ugolini Verini, and -many others, were his pupils and remained attached to him; -while from Leon Battista Alberti and Cristoforo Landino -downwards, all the learned men whom Florence or Italy possessed -were in communication with him. At an important -moment of his life he called three of these, namely, Piero -Soderini (afterwards Gonfaloniere for life), Piero del Nero, and -Piero Guicciardini, his three brothers in the search after truth; -and on March 6, 1482, he stood sponsor to Guicciardini’s son, -afterwards the famous statesman and historian. Foreign -lands as well as Italy sent their sons to hear his lectures, -and more than one of these foreigners remained gratefully -attached to him. Among others he became acquainted with -several Germans; Johannes Reuchlin and Ludwig Wergenhans<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> -(Nauclerus), provost of Stuttgart, who with Gabriel -Biel, professor of scholastic philosophy at Tübingen, and the -learned theologian Peter Jacobi, of Arlon in Luxemburg, -accompanied Count Eberhard of Würtemberg when in the -spring of 1482 he undertook the expedition to Rome, which -will be mentioned hereafter. Marsilio maintained the most -intimate personal relations with Martin Preninger, chancellor -of the bishopric of Constance, and afterwards professor of -canon law at Tübingen. This man was twice in Italy in -the year 1492 on business of Eberhard’s, and his correspondence -with Marsilio bears witness to a friendship and agreement -of opinions rare to meet with. Marsilio was wont to -say that he possessed two friends, one in Germany, the other -in Italy, who represented the alliance between philosophy -and jurisprudence, namely, Martinus Uranius (Preninger’s -literary name) and Giovan Vittorio Soderini. He had Greek -manuscripts copied for his Swabian friend, and kept him -informed of what was going on in the field of science, as well -as of what he was doing himself. Another of his German -correspondents was Georg Herwart of Augsburg, who made -his acquaintance in Florence; Reuchlin’s younger brother -Dionysius and Johann Strehler of Ulm also received introductions -to him, when being sent by the Count of Würtemberg -to study in Italy they enjoyed the notice of Lorenzo de’ -Medici and were received into the house of Giorgio Antonio -Vespucci. Numerous princes, temporal and spiritual, beginning -with Matthias Corvinus, who tried vainly to attract -him to Ofen like Argyropulos, were in regular correspondence -with him, asked his advice on points of theology and -philosophy, and sought his criticism on various works.</p> - -<p>Amid all these unsought testimonies of honour and confidence, -Marsilio Ficino remained simple, unpretending, -easily satisfied. His delicate health compelled him to lead -a quiet life, and suffices to explain the melancholy humour -that often stole over him when alone. Yet in company -which he liked, and which afforded food for his mind in unrestrained<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> -intercourse, he was cheerful and sympathetic. -His musical talents, bringing change and refreshment from -serious studies, helped to season his conversation. With his -plectrum, an instrument which he himself perfected, he resembled -the poet-sages of the mythic age. He was seldom -absent from Platonic banquets, and had been an habitual -guest of Lorenzo’s grandfather when the latter invited -learned men to his house. He loved a country life above all -things, and passed a great part of his time on the little -estate of Montevecchio. In later years he often went to see -Pico della Mirandola and Poliziano, when they were staying -in his neighbourhood—the one at Querceto, the other at -Fiesole; and still oftener to Lorenzo, when he was living at -Careggi. He was received as a welcome guest at the villas -of Valori, Canigiani, Cavalcanti, and others. At Montevecchio -he instituted a peculiar yearly festival. On SS. -Cosmo and Damian’s day he assembled the old tenants -(‘coloni’) of his first and greatest patron and entertained -them with music and singing. His independence of mind -was in no way diminished by intercourse with those who, -through birth or a successful career, held a higher position -in life. He once wrote thus to Lorenzo de’ Medici, whose -fondness for pleasure in his earlier, perhaps also in his later -days, appeared to Ficino excessive, and caused him anxiety: -‘In the name of the eternal God I intreat thee, my dearest -Prince, to economise every moment of this brief life, lest -there come over thee vain remorse for dissipation and irreparable -harm. The consciousness of lost time drew deep -sighs from the great Cosimo in my presence, when he had -reached the age of seventy. Trifling occupations and empty -pastimes rob thee of thy true self; they make thee a slave, -who art born to be a ruler. Free thyself while thou canst -from this miserable servitude; only to-day canst thou do so, -for only to-day is thine own; to-morrow it will be too late.’</p> - -<p>When the young Raffaelle Riario was made a cardinal, -he addressed to him warnings and counsels similar to those<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> -given in a like case, fourteen years later, by Lorenzo to his -son, who was departing for Rome. He reminded him that, -since he owed his high rank not to his own merits, he was -the more bound to justify by his manner of life the preference -bestowed on him. His memorable appeal to Pope -Sixtus IV. during the war of 1478<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> shows how he could -combine outspokenness with reverence for the head of the -Church, which the Bishop of Arezzo, a far higher dignitary -than he, and Francesco Filelfo made light of. His was the -frankness of a lover of truth whose soul was filled with grief -for the evils which had befallen the flock, and no less for the -blots which in an unhappily complicated affair had fallen on -the reputation of a supreme pastor who ought to be revered -for his wisdom and goodness.</p> - -<p>Like a true philosopher, Marsilio Ficino never strove -after outward splendour. His income was most modest. -Besides his little farm, he received from Lorenzo two benefices -of which the revenue was small, as he was obliged to entrust -them to curates, but which would have sufficed for his -modest requirements had he not been besieged in his later -years by a swarm of needy relatives. Without the aid of -rich friends, the publication of his works would have been -impossible. Amid the restlessness and discontent of the -learned men of his time, who were rushing breathlessly after -wealth and honours; amid the greediness for ecclesiastical -benefices, even among those who were not priests like himself, -Marsilio Ficino, contented and devoted to science, is a -fine example of the realisation of those philosophic doctrines -which in the case of so many were only spiritual luxuries or -a means of making money. It is this that gives interest to -his character and work, though his writings have lost their -value except in their connection with the history of learning. -Lorenzo’s attachment to him remained unchanged till his -last hour; it shows itself in his poems as vividly as in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> -letters. ‘Write to me,’ he says in a letter addressed to him -from Pisa, about 1473,<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> ‘whatever occurs to your mind, for -nothing ever comes from you that is not good; you never -have an unworthy thought, so that you can never write me -anything that will not be useful or agreeable. What makes -me long for your letters is that in them you combine elegance -of expression with solidity of contents, so that in both respects -they leave nothing to be desired.’ And in the philosophic -poem mentioned above, on the independence of happiness -from outward position, he thus describes Marsilio’s appearance, -with a touch of the warm feeling that inspired -Dante on meeting his master Brunetto, at the sight of the -‘dear, good, fatherly face:’</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">Marsilio is this, of Montevecchio,<br /> -Whom heaven has filled with its own special grace,<br /> -That to the world its mirror he may be?</p> -<p class="pp6">This is that faithful follower of the Muses,</p> -<p class="pp4">In whom are grace and wisdom aye united,<br /> -And never separated one from other;</p> -<p class="pp6">From us and all worthy of highest honour.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> - -<p class="p1">Cristoforo Landino stands far below Marsilio Ficino in -scientific importance. But both as a professor and in the -learned circle of the Medici he held a peculiar position; and -by one of his literary works he opened out a path which -hundreds trod after him without taking away the relative -value of his labours. His life was not like that of his contemporary -and friend, dedicated solely to literature. As -Chancellor of the Magistracy of the Guelphic party, and one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> -of the secretaries of the Republic, he was concerned in public -affairs till a late period of his life.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> During the lifetime of -Pope Eugene IV. he passed some time in Rome, and studied -those antiquities the decay of which made a painful impression -on him, as on other Florentines of his time. But when -complaining, like others, that the travertine of the amphitheatre -is broken up and burnt for chalk, and that the -antique sculptures lie about mutilated, he exaggerates -strangely when he says:<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">Though round the mighty city thy gaze contemplative wanders,<br /> -Vainly around does it look for monuments vanished and gone.</p> - -<p class="p1">In January, 1458, he accepted the professorship of -eloquence and poetry at the University, and gathered round -him a continually renewed circle of hearers, his influence -being equalled by that of no contemporary save Ficino. In -1460 he began to lecture on the Italian poems of Petrarca, -being desirous to stem the tide of contempt for the vulgar -tongue which still existed in learned circles. Though in -this respect he deserves all praise, yet his remarks on contemporaries, -on Bruni, Alberti, Palmieri, show how he was -himself still prejudiced in his view of the philological treatment -of the language. His labours in the field of classical -philology have no great weight. He wrote a commentary -on Horace and one on Virgil, the former of which he dedicated -to Guidobaldo of Montefeltro, and the latter to the -young Piero de’ Medici. He also translated Pliny’s ‘Natural -History,’ and undertook translations of modern Italian -works, such as Giovanni Simonetta’s Latin ‘History of Francesco -Sforza,’ which was published at Milan in 1490. He -composed a letter-writer and a formulary for speeches, which -was printed two years later, with a dedication to Duke -Ercole d’Este. But the true centre of his activity and its -importance lies elsewhere—in his relation to and share in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> -that intellectual movement amid which the Medici lived, and -in his position as a leader of the revival of the study of -Dante. In illustration of the first point, his ‘Disputationes -Camaldulenses,’ which belong to the history of Lorenzo’s -youth, deserve especial consideration.</p> - -<p>Amidst the fir and beech woods which still cover the -Casentino hills, where they rise towards the Apennines, lies -the convent which gave its name to the order of St. Romuald. -For nearly a thousand years countless pilgrims and travellers -have rested within the hospitable walls of Camaldoli, which -now seem threatened with abandonment and desolation. The -Medici had long kept up intimate relations with the Order. -Cosimo and his brother were frequent visitors to the monastery -of the Angeli; and here, in the mother-convent of the -Casentino, Madonna Contessina had built a chapel to the -Baptist. The connection lasted long. Lorenzo’s son -Giovanni dedicated some peaceful days in his youth to contemplation -and prayer here, as did many before and after -him who sat on the chair of St. Peter or were reckoned by -the Church among her saints—Gregory IX., Eugene IV., -Paul III., Francis of Assisi, and Charles Borromeo. More -than four centuries ago, there assembled here a select society -composed of elements the most diverse and yet congenial. -Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici came to exchange the noise -and glare of the city for the delicious freshness and solitude -of the woods. Piero and Donato Acciaiuoli, Alamanno -Rinuccini, whose youthful studies had been directed by -Poggio Bracciolini, and who had been one of the best pupils -of Argyropulos, Marco Parenti, and Antonio Canigiani, -accompanied the youths. Cristoforo Landino and his -brother Piero came up from their home in the valley to the -cooler height of the convent, where they also met Leon -Battista Alberti and Ficino. Thus many of the most -eminent men of the Medicean circle assembled round -Lorenzo and Giuliano, who, notwithstanding their youth, -were already accustomed to take part in serious discourse.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> -The abbot, Mariotto Allegri, as host, was the centre of the -circle; but it was Alberti who, with his many-sided knowledge -and easy command of it, gave the tone to the evening’s -discourse.</p> - -<p>On the following morning, after the whole company had -assisted at mass in the church of the convent, they all moved -along the pleasant woodland path leading to the summit of -the mountain ridge, past the little group of dwellings and -gardens, the place where, according to the legend, the saint -had a dream which led him to change his black Benedictine -robe for the white one which continued to be worn at -Camaldoli, as it is represented in Andrea Sacchi’s fine picture -at the Vatican. We know not whether the travellers -reached the neighbouring mountain ridge, the watershed of -Italy, whence the eye looks down on Romagna and takes in -the wide sweep of the far-off Adriatic. The narrator makes -the company halt on the height near a spring, under the -shelter of a mighty beech; a tree which, defying the -mountain storms, overtops all other trees on the Apennines, -whose brow it adorns here in the midst of fine pasture lands. -Here Leon Battista, again taking the lead in the conversation, -dilated on the good effects of retirement and meditation -on the mind of the statesman and the scholar, and -showed that only when the mind is set free from contact -with the individual does it become capable of embracing the -whole. Then turning to the two young men the speaker -reminded them that their father’s failing health would -probably soon call them to the guidance of state affairs, which, -he said, were already in some degree entrusted to their -care. After a somewhat extravagant eulogium of Lorenzo’s -qualities, his courage, prudence, and moderation, Alberti -continued to set forth how, notwithstanding such qualities -and the moderate bearing he had hitherto displayed, quiet -meditation or discourse held with a confidential circle on the -deepest questions of human nature could not but be beneficial -to the community. When the learned man thus adopted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> -the Platonic principle, according to which complete abstinence -from worldly pursuits brings our nature most surely -to perfection, it would not have been difficult for Lorenzo, -who was already well acquainted with this doctrine, to show -that a man who practically applied and followed this principle -must necessarily be brought into contradiction with his -duties as a citizen; whereas the two phases of our nature—the -active and the contemplative life—not divided, but united -and balancing each other, lead to the true fulfilment of the -purpose of existence.</p> - -<p>From the objection put into the mouth of the young man -and directed against Landino’s own teaching, as well as from -the praises bestowed on Lorenzo’s conduct, it is clear that -the date of the conversation is shortly before the death of -Piero de’ Medici, when the Pitti transactions had given -evidence of the prudence and talents of his son. The visit -to Camaldoli may have taken place earlier, but the ‘disputations,’ -which are the actual conversations expanded and -embellished, were certainly not composed before 1470. In -the discourses of the three following days Alberti again took -the lead, and expounded the connection of the ‘Æneid’ with -Platonic philosophy. What is here said of the character of -Virgil’s poetry, of the ancient wisdom therein, which has -become common property, of the poet’s knowledge and -reverence for antiquity, of the relation between the poetical -garniture and the more solid contents of the work, was -probably drawn from Landino’s own Virgilian studies, for the -author of the book speaks through the mouths of those to -whom he attributes the conversations held in the woods of -Camaldoli. He dedicated his work to Federigo of Montefeltro. -If, as it seems, this dedication to the valiant and -accomplished prince of Urbino was made in 1472, the book -has a certain connection with the sad occurrences at Volterra, -in which Lorenzo de’ Medici’s action belied only too -strongly the Platonic theory of wisdom.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span></p> - -<p>If Cristoforo Landino is ever mentioned nowadays, it is -only on account of his studies of Dante, which constitute his -only value in the eyes of posterity. The study of the ‘Divine -Comedy’ went through the most varied phases in Florence as -elsewhere. On the petition of divers citizens (see above, -vol. i. p. 80) in 1373, fifty-two years after Dante’s death, -the Republic decreed the establishment of public lectures on -his great poem.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> On Sunday, October 3, in the church of -Sto. Stefano, Giovanni Boccaccio began the lectures, the -interruption of which by his death shortly after was lamented -by Francesco Sacchetti. Messer Antonio, priest of -Vado, and Filippo Villani succeeded him. A mass of commentaries -were composed almost immediately after the poet’s -own time, partly by his own friends. Numerous copies of -the poem were in circulation; that which was formerly in the -library of the convent of Sta. Croce, and is now in the -Laurentiana, was attributed to Filippo Villani. Most of -these copies were faulty. ‘I am trying,’ wrote Coluccio -Salutati to Niccolò of Todi, at the beginning of the fifteenth -century,<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> ‘to get a correct copy of the work of our divine -Dante. Believe me, we possess nothing more sublime than -these three poems, nothing more richly adorned, nothing -more carefully worked out, nothing which penetrates further -into the depths of knowledge. What only comes to others -in part this one man has mastered as a whole. His moral -precepts are sublime; he throws light on natural history and -theology, and his masterly handling of language and rhetoric<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> -is such that it would be difficult to find equal beauty of style -even in the greatest writers. With him the laws, manners, -tongues, the history of all nations, shine like stars in the firmament -with such majesty that no one can equal him in this -respect, far less surpass him. Wherefore do I say all this? -That my eagerness to obtain a correct text may cause thee -less astonishment.’</p> - -<p>This enthusiasm for Dante—an enthusiasm which one -cannot but feel was less for the poet than for the man who -had mastered more than any other all the learning of his -time—was, however, by no means shared by all the learned -men of the fifteenth century, whose threshold Coluccio barely -crossed. Niccolò Niccoli, by his attacks on his great countryman, -exposed himself to obloquy from which he never -recovered; though it must not be forgotten that the words -in which Niccoli calls Dante’s book reading for cobblers and -bakers are only found in a writing of Leonardo Bruni, who -was just as excitable as Niccoli himself. Niccoli’s rage seems -to have been especially excited by the unclassical Latin in -Dante’s letters; but the reproach which he brings against -Dante, that he knew nothing of classical literature, and drew -all his information from monkish compendiums—a reproach -which, strangely enough, he also applies to Petrarca and -Boccaccio<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a>—resembles other tokens of the pride of the humanistic -school too strongly to be seriously examined. The -lecture given at the end of 1430 by Francesco Filelfo against -the censurers of Dante, and the controversial treatise composed -for the same object by Cino Rinuccini, father of -Alamanno, are sufficiently clear proofs how false was the -judgment of many. Filelfo himself declared, more than -forty years later, that he undertook the public exposition of -the ‘Divine Comedy’ of his own accord, and in deference to a -general wish.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> About the close of the fourteenth century<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> -Filippo Villani wrote a short life of Dante; a longer -biography came out in 1436 written by Leonardo Bruni; -twenty years later he was followed by Gianozzo Manetti. -Not long after the latter, Gian Maria Filelfo, Francesco’s -son, who had many opportunities of acquiring information -from the poet’s descendants living in Verona, wrote a new -biography which he dedicated to Pietro Alighieri, and which -the latter sent, at the end of 1467, to Piero de’ Medici and -Tommaso Soderini.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> The erection in Sta. Maria del Fiore of a -monument in the shape of the poet’s statue was decreed in -1465. Ten years later, the picture painted by Domenico di -Michelino was placed in the north aisle of the church.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> In -literature the great poet’s countrymen had wandered far -away from the path which he had pointed out; but they -guarded his memory faithfully, and the beautiful manuscripts -which appeared about the middle of the fifteenth century, -shortly before the introduction of printing, prove how much -his work was held in honour.</p> - -<p>In 1472 a German named Johann Numeister (Neumeister), -and a native of Fuligno, printed the ‘Divine Comedy’ for -the first time in that Umbrian city.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> Other impressions at -Mantua, Jesi, and other places were followed in 1477 by the -first edition at Venice, with a commentary of the fourteenth -century. At last, after Florence had allowed nine editions -to take precedence of her, the first Florentine edition -appeared in the summer of 1481, with the glosses of Cristoforo -Landino. A Silesian named Nicolaus (Niccolò di Lorenzo -della Magna) had the honour of presenting to the poet’s -native city the text of his work, accompanied by the commentary -in smaller type, in a form highly creditable to his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> -still youthful art. The Magliabecchian library possesses the -copy, printed on parchment, which Landino presented to -the Signoria, with a speech which also appeared in print.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> -Rich miniatures at the beginning, arabesque borders, a -medallion portrait of Dante, and on the binding, striped with -the Florentine colours, red and white, niello-work representing -the lion and Hercules, the seal of the commonwealth, -with the lily-shield and that of the red cross, show with what -pretensions this edition came forth. By a decree of somewhat -tardy justice the Republic reinstated the exile of 1301 -in his civil rights and honours, and placed his statue, -crowned with laurel, in the baptistery of San Giovanni. In -a Latin address Ficino set forth the rejoicings of Florence at -the restoration of his honour by the hands of one of his -fellow-citizens; and Benivieni celebrated in harmonious terza -rima the fulfilment of the prophecy in which the exile predicted -his future fame, and his ultimate return to his ungrateful -city:</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">With other voice forthwith, with other fleece,<br /> -Poet will I return, and at my font<br /> -Baptismal will I take the laurel crown.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p> - -<p class="p1">The Signoria showed itself grateful to Landino. It gave -him a tower on the ramparts of Borgo alia Collina, where he -dwelt, and its possession was confirmed to his descendants -in 1563 by a sentence of the supreme civil court of Florence, -the Rota, when the magistrates of the Parte Guelfa claimed -it as public property. His work is not remarkable for critical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> -thoroughness and correctness, but for the commentary, which -had great influence on opinion at the time and long afterwards. -Six if not seven reissues in different places before the end of -the century show with what approval this edition was -received. It encountered formidable rivals, with respect to -the text, in 1502, in the first Aldine, and with respect to the -commentary in 1544, in Alessandro Vellutello’s work, which -was soon followed by others; yet it retains some value even -now. While Landino was earning well-deserved fame by -this fruit of diligent study, the lectures in the cathedral on -the ‘Divine Comedy’ were entrusted, in 1483, to the preaching -friar Domenico da Corella, who had taken part in the -council, and dedicated his Latin poem on the life of the -Virgin Theotokon to Piero de’ Medici in 1468. Marsilio -Ficino had long previously turned his attention to Dante -when he dedicated his translation of the ‘De Monarchia’ in -1467 to his friends Bernardo del Nero and Antonio Manetti. -The latter, who occupied himself much with copying old -codices, is remembered among students of Dante by his -dialogue (between himself and Benivieni) on the position, -form, and extent of hell. Marsilio’s dedication states that -he had held much discourse with the two men named on the -questions raised by this political treatise, and that they were -thereby led to discuss the ‘Divina Commedia.’ As Dante -treated in his poem of the kingdom of the blessed, of the -regions of the wretched, and of the place where departed -souls abide waiting for redemption, so in his book on -monarchy he treated of the realms of those who are still -waiting and hoping in this world. The perception, imperfect -though it be, of the spiritual connection between the great -poem and its author’s other works, shows a progress in the -appreciation of Dante remarkable at the time, and to this -Cristoforo Landino had practically contributed.</p> - -<p>Lorenzo’s great interest in the most sublime poet of the -middle ages is shown both by testimonies in his own writings -and by a letter written to him, April 13, 1476, by the above-named<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> -Antonio Manetti, then governor of the small town of -San Giovanni, in the Val d’Arno. This letter<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> shows that -Lorenzo had come to an understanding with the Venetian -ambassador, Bernardo Bembo, for the purpose of soliciting -from the senate of that Republic the return of Dante’s mortal -remains from Ravenna to Florence. ‘Magnificent Lord,’—thus -the letter begins—‘I am told that the Venetian ambassador -has returned home. Remembering what you once -told me, as we returned from visiting him shortly after -Matteo Palmieri’s funeral, when we were near the house of -Antonio Pucci, I wish you would bring that matter to a -conclusion. I know not what greater pleasure I could have -in my life than to witness the return of those remains which -the magnificent ambassador promised to obtain when he -went back to his own country; the more so as I am sure -that, with your greatness and magnanimity, you will do whatever -is in your power to give to the remains of such a man -the reception they deserve, as to sepulture and crown. Great -acts are for the magnanimous; but what could be greater -than this? I commend myself to your Magnificence. May -the Lord be with you.’</p> - -<p>Twice already, in 1396 and 1426, when the Polenta -family, which had offered hospitality to the exiled poet, was -still reigning at Ravenna, the Florentines had tried to get -back his remains. But both times they failed; and they -had no better luck in 1476, nor again under the reign of -Leo X., when Michael Angelo offered to raise the monument -to his great countryman, whom he resembled in more -respects than one. Seven years after the date of Antonio -Manetti’s letter, Bernardo Bembo, when Podestà at Ravenna, -caused Dante’s sepulchre to be restored. He had been too -rash in the promise given to Lorenzo de’ Medici, but he did -all that lay in his power to honour the memory of the father -of Italian poetry.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER VIII.</h2> - -<p class="pch">LUIGI PULCI AND ANGELO POLIZIANO.</p> - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">An</span> influence hardly less important than that of the philosophers -and grammarians was exercised on Lorenzo and his -epoch by the literary innovators who, with some infusion of -classic learning, were not so pedantic as the early humanists, -while they bore the impress of the teaching of the preceding -century. The Medici were to these men of letters, just as -much as they were to the philosophers, the centre to which -their several rays converged, and Lorenzo’s name is inseparable -from the names of several among them. One in -this brilliant circle holds a different position from the rest. -He took as a poet the part which Landino took as a critic -in the revival of the study of Dante. Matteo Palmieri holds -a place by himself. The first glance into his great poem, -the ‘City of Life,’ (‘Città di Vita’) shows it to be an imitation -of the ‘Divine Comedy;’ but only in the outward form. -It is a philosophical work, the object of which is to describe -and correct the problems and abuses of citizen life. It contains -no real poetry, but has the merit of popularising the -doctrines of moral philosophy in language somewhat lifeless, -indeed, yet expressive, comparatively pure, and free from -the philological follies of the age. The book became known -only within a narrow circle. Theological criticism discovered -in it the heretical doctrine of the transmigration of souls, -which indeed Alamanno Rinuccini avowed without scruple -in his funeral oration on the poet, and the work was suppressed. -In later years the author wrote an unfinished history<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> -of the world, and a life of the grand seneschal Nicola -Acciaiuolo. He had been a pupil of Traversari and Marsuppini, -had held important offices of state, and after fulfilling -several embassies with honour, died at a ripe age in -1475.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p> - -<p>While this faint echo of Dante was addressing itself to -the higher classes, and proving how large was the retrogression -from the beginning of the fourteenth to the middle of the -fifteenth century, the popular poetry, of which the religious -side has been already noticed, began to sound a natural strain -in a lighter style. Burlesque, which belonged to the character -of the people, was allowed considerable play. The sonnets -that came forth from the barber’s shop of Domenico, called -‘Burchiello,’ in the very heart of old Florence, the Calimala, -and the market, enjoy a reputation that must be taken on -trust. They were chiefly experiments in the Florentine -vulgar tongue—full of allusions and trivialities; but occasionally -they take a flight which may serve to throw light on -social and political matters, if all the writings attributed to -this man, who died at Rome in 1448, are really by him. -Another burlesque poet, Matteo Franco, whom we shall -meet again, belonged to Lorenzo de’ Medici’s household, and -used to hold with other poets, particularly with Luigi Pulci, -satirical and not always very seemly sham-fights as a social -pastime. But far more important for this period was the -rise of a new style which was destined to give to the sixteenth -century its special poetic character. Of the brothers -Pulci, scions of an old family somewhat reduced in circumstances, -one, Bernardo, tried his hand both as an original -writer and a translator of eclogues; the two others are among -the cultivators of the poetry of chivalry, which began its -course as a branch of literature under their auspices. Both -Luca and Luigi belong to the immediate Medicean circle.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> -Luca Pulci, the eldest brother, born at Florence in 1431, is -commonly designated as the author of the poem on Lorenzo -de’ Medici’s tournament, which only retains a place in -literature because it records an event in the life of a celebrated -man. But the assumption of this authorship is by -no means certain, for the first edition bears the name of -Luigi Pulci, whose literary fame it would not enhance. That -Luca was intimate with the young Medici is shown by the -fact that at their desire he began the poem ‘Ciriffo Calvaneo,’ -which two generations later was partially continued by -Bernardo Giambullari for another Lorenzo, grandson of -the Magnificent. It is a poetical version of a popular -romance of chivalry, which in its Italian form bears the title -of the ‘Povero Avveduto,’ and relates the battles and adventures -of the time of King Louis d’Outre-mer of France, in -921-954.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> Luca Pulci, after some unlucky banking affairs at -Rome and Florence, died in 1470, in the debtors’ prison of -the Stinche, and left to his brothers the burden of a large -family. He was, as we have said, the eldest of the brothers; -but it is probable that his ‘Ciriffo’ was preceded by Luigi’s -‘Morgante.’ We are led to assume this by the fact that -Luigi chose a far better subject.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> His poem must have been -written in and after 1460, and the cantos must have followed -close upon each other. We learn from the author himself that -its original conception was due in part to Lorenzo’s mother. -In a letter addressed by him to Lorenzo from Fuligno, December -4, 1470, he held out prospects of a new heroic poem.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> That<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> -a serious and pious woman like Madonna Lucrezia should be -patroness of a work more or less offensive in a religious -point of view may be matter of surprise. But after making -allowance for the tendencies of the time, which saw no harm -in a mixture of religion and burlesque, and, amid the strictest -devotional practices, treated questions of faith with incredible -unceremoniousness, it must be remembered that this lady -was wont for the sake of genius to judge leniently many -things in literature and in life that were questionable. Thus -she remained a supporter of Angelo Poliziano after he had -fallen into disgrace with her daughter-in-law, and presented -him with her religious poems when the unfavourable -rumours as to his faith and morals could be no secret to -her. But Luigi Pulci, the free-thinker and loose mocker, -who mixed up quotations from St. John’s Gospel with open -expressions of unbelief, found in her an active and zealous -friend till her life’s close.</p> - -<p>The ‘Morgante Maggiore’ was the beginning of the -romantic epopee, which successfully laid hold of the cycle of -Carolingian legends that had been rendered accessible to -the Italian nation by the ‘Chronicle’ of Turpin and the book -of the ‘Reali di Francia.’ This choice of a subject was all the -happier because Florence attributed her restoration to Charlemagne, -as may be read carved in stone in the church of the -Apostles. The style of the work is original. Amid all its -prodigies the old knightly romance is serious and full of -faith. Christianity is always the foil to the chivalry which -sprang from it, and which is animated by its spirit. ‘Morgante’ -(the story takes its name from the giant who accomplishes -his strange exploits) is not a satire on chivalry, but -it is so saturated with burlesque that it assumes a very -peculiar character. Neither is it a denial of Christianity, -from which, on the contrary, it derives here and there a -deeply religious tone; but it is Christianity struggling with -scepticism and denial, so that the faith of the Church and -the people is driven into the background. In this respect<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> -‘Morgante’ is a true mirror of the time. With its perfect -command of the subject, bound down to no poetical rules or -precedents, it is a mixture of seriousness and irony, Christianity -and unbelief, Biblical texts and profane witticisms. -It is full of the most glaring contrasts of sound common-sense -and folly, of elegance and coarseness, of lofty intellectual -flights and mere buffoonery. There is in this poem -more richness of imagination and spontaneity than perhaps -in any other work before the appearance of the ‘Orlando -Furioso;’ passages occur full of the deepest pathos, and -showing a feeling that belongs only to a real poet—passages -too often followed by a grotesqueness that tends to destroy -their effect. The qualities here united in very unequal -degrees were developed and discriminated by later poets. -The importance of Luigi Pulci lies less in his poem, which -falls short of perfection in every way, than in the fact that -his work contains the germs of the romantic epopee in all -its various branches. In considering that the two parent -poems of chivalry in Italian, the ‘Morgante’ and ‘Ciriffo,’ -originated in the Medicean house, let it be remembered how -much this branch of poetry, up to the ‘Jerusalem Delivered,’ -with which it terminates, was connected with that Court life -which is so constantly represented in its varied productions. -From the household of Cosimo, Piero, and Lorenzo de’ Medici, -who at the highest pinnacle of their fame did not abandon -the simplicity and comfort of free citizen life, to the ceremonious -Court of Alfonso of Este, is certainly a very long -step. Though the Pulci did not go so far as to weave into their -ottava rima a genealogy of their patrons reaching back to -demigods, still theirs was a kind of poetry destined to -enliven stately banquets.</p> - -<p>Luigi Pulci’s intimacy with Lorenzo is shown by his oft-quoted -letters, which throw some side-lights on the various -relations between patron and client, and on the commissions, -rather political than literary, entrusted to the latter. The -author of ‘Morgante’ was sincerely attached to his young<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> -patron. When the latter was going to Southern Italy in -1466, before the Neroni and Pitti conspiracy, Pulci wrote to -him from the convent of Alverina:<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> ‘Dost thou really mean -to leave me buried in the snow among these woods, lonely -and comfortless, while thou goest to Rome? Is it really my -fate that, whatever thou mayest think of me, as the climax of -my ill-luck, I must never mount a horse by thy side? Am I -to come to that only when I am an old man? How often -have we talked about Rome, and now shall I not accompany -thee?—can it be because I should increase the expenses of -the journey? Let not that trouble thee; amid all my -troubles I will yet do thee credit. A horse is all I ask of -thee; for I shall find so many friends yonder, and will -manage so well, that I will not be a burthen to thee, as perhaps -thou fearest. Truly thou art wrong to pass me by, not -to mention that it would hurt me more than anything in -this world. Do not treat me as if I were old iron, for I shall -soon be well if thou carest for me.’ And Lorenzo really did -care for him. Two years later Pulci wrote to him from -Pisa: ‘If thou dost not wish people to believe or know that -I am thy friend, and have some influence with thee, placard -it on the walls—at thine own expense, of course; as for -some time past having had no money to pay away, I have -been paying with thy name instead. Wherever I show -myself people whisper, “That is Lorenzo’s great friend.”’ -That Pulci’s money matters were not in brilliant order we -have already seen. His brother’s business misfortunes -brought him into great difficulties. ‘Never yet have I made -a plan,’ he wrote to Lorenzo after Luca’s failure, ‘that Fate -did not destroy in an hour what I had taken a year to build -up. I must have come into the world like hares and other -poor animals, doomed to be the prey of the huntsman. It is -my fate to love thee, and to be very little in thy company.’ -That the Medicean bank helped him out, but that the loans<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> -were very unimportant and notorious besides, we learn -from a petition dated from his estate at Mugello, May 14, -1479, to the effect that Lorenzo would grant him a longer -delay for the repayment of a hundred gold florins. He was -evidently included in the measures which were rendered -necessary by the bad state of the Medicean finances at that -time. Pulci, who among others was very intimate with the -Sanseverini, seems to have been employed by Lorenzo -especially at Naples, Bologna, and Milan, both before and -after this period. The last of the poet’s letters known to -us, written from Verona, August 28, 1484, shows him to us -in the suite of Roberto da Sanseverino and his son Fracasso, -who were on their way to Venice. He died in Padua -shortly after, but nothing is known about his death.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p> - -<p>Luigi Pulci was about seventeen years older than his -princely friend Lorenzo de’ Medici, while the man who -entered into the closest and most productive intellectual -relations with Lorenzo was a few years his junior. In 1464 -a boy of ten came to Florence to seek maintenance and instruction -in the house of some not very wealthy relatives. -He had been rendered fatherless by one of those tragedies -which bring to light and stigmatise the wild passions and -party hatred that in the Tuscan communes of the fifteenth -century mocked at justice, and which, though so fearful in -punishment, was so powerless for the protection of the citizens. -Benedetto Ambrogini of Montepulciano, a jurist of a not -undistinguished family, who had held civil and judicial -offices at home and abroad, had in the previous year applied -to Piero de’ Medici<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> for protection against the bloodthirsty -enmity of fellow-citizens and neighbours, to which he soon -after fell a victim, leaving unprovided a widow with five -children, of whom the above-named boy was the eldest.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> -Angelo, who took from his birthplace the name of Poliziano, -early became acquainted with the serious side of life; for -although as a child he showed brilliant talents and made -rapid progress, he was in danger of being compelled to seek -a living as assistant in a shop, and of renouncing the studies -to which he was ardently devoted. At fifteen he expressed -this tormenting dread in a Latin poem addressed to the -young but celebrated philologer, Bartolommeo Fonte, who at -that time assisted him with guidance and encouragement.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> -In the year 1469-70 he studied at the Florentine university, -and at seventeen he wrote Greek epigrams. He had the -privilege of listening to the men who kept alive the traditions -of the university’s best days, Argyropulos and Andronikos -Kallistos, Landino and Ficino. That polite literature -attracted him more than philosophical lectures he declares -himself, saying that he had done with philosophy as dogs -with the Nile: one drink, and then away! ‘Nature and -youth drew me to Homer, and with all the zeal and industry -of which I was capable I set myself to translate him into -Latin verse.’ In one of the earliest, if not the very earliest, -of his Latin poems, the distichs addressed to Lorenzo de’ -Medici in commendation of his master Kallistos, he sets -forth how the latter was reading the Trojan war in Argive -verse. In this poem he alludes to the time when he hopes -to sing the deeds of Lorenzo, then limited to youthful -exercises, and his adroit conduct in the matter of the Pitti -conspiracy, which Poliziano commemorates in a later elegy.<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a></p> - -<p>It must have been about 1470 that he began to translate -the ‘Iliad.’ Carlo Marsuppini had translated the first book; -Angelo began with the second. It was a great undertaking -for a young man. A Latin Homer had been the <i>in votis</i> up<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> -to that time; and now the work was begun by one who had -but just entered the world and was still unknown, but who -displayed an ease and grace of diction, melodiousness and -richness of versification, that caused general surprise. This -work and the admiration it excited opened the Medicean -house to the young poet. It was probably Ficino who recommended -the ‘Homeric youth’ to Lorenzo. The young -head of the house, who had only become independent the -year before, took him up; and whatever changes outward -and inward occurred in Lorenzo’s life, the man who owed his -brilliant endowments to Heaven, and their early and happy recognition -to him kept faithful; he stood beside his patron’s -death-bed and ere long followed him to the tomb. The dedication -of the second book contains praises of the generous protector—praises -lavish according to custom, but not untrue if -the custom and the glory with which the young ruler of -Florence had surrounded himself be taken into consideration.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> -A troop of panegyrists followed, Marsilio Ficino at their head. -There was no lack of exaggeration. The head of the Platonists -raised a flattering doubt whether any one could discover -if the Greek or the Latin text of this Iliad was the original; -another asked who had the greatest merit, he who had given -occasion for the undertaking, or he who had accomplished it. -Meanwhile the translator went on with his work; and when, -two years after the completion of the second book, he presented -the third to his patron, he expressed a hope that after -finishing the whole he might begin an epic poem on a subject -taken from Lorenzo’s own life, the war of Volterra. The -‘Iliad’ was never finished, the epic was never written. -Lorenzo, who knew the world much better than did Angelo, -probably objected to the glorification of an expedition of -questionable prowess and of unquestionable barbarity. In -like manner, when his son Leo was raised to the cardinalate, -he disapproved of the eulogium which Poliziano addressed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> -to the Pope. When Poliziano described the most important -and dramatic event of his patron’s life, the conspiracy of the -Pazzi, it was in prose.</p> - -<p>The man who had received the young poet into his house -and enabled him to give all his time to study was doubtless -also the cause of his sending a specimen of his work to Cardinal -Ammanati, who kept up such intimate relations with -the Medici. Poliziano’s address to this Prince of the Church<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> -was modest. He wrote that he was doing like the eagle, -which carries its young as soon as they are out of the shell -into the light of the rising sun, that their eyes may become -accustomed to its splendour. The cardinal, in whom survived -the humanistic tradition of the days of Pius II., returns him -phrase for phrase without offending against truth. The -verses were wonderfully harmonious for so young a writer; -the enterprise was useful as an introduction to great things. -But if Homer could be asked whether he wished to be turned -into Latin, he feared that the old poet, feeling the impossibility -of a perfect rendering, would prefer to remain a citizen -of Kolophon rather than become a Florentine, and would -consider the pallium a more suitable vesture than the toga. -In 1473, our poet had addressed some verses full of sonorous -but very ordinary flattery to the spendthrift Cardinal of San -Sisto, Pietro Riario, on the occasion of his appointment to -the archbishopric of Florence. Instead of the expected present, -he was put off with fine speeches, and, after the fashion of -poor poets, complained bitterly.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a></p> - -<p>About this time, also, he was rewarded with nothing -but words by another cardinal, a very different man from -Riario. He must have said to himself that the days of -Nicholas V. were over, although Sixtus IV. hardly yielded -to him in his zeal for collecting books. He never seems to -have become acquainted with the Pope, and the disagreement<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> -which gradually arose between the latter and Poliziano’s -protector deprived him of all opportunity of doing so. Four -books of the translation of Homer are in existence;<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> whether -the work proceeded further is uncertain. It was twice interrupted, -and the second interruption decided its fate. Poliziano -may, in the progress of his studies, have come round to -the views of the Cardinal of Pavia, and have doubted whether -a Latinity which strove after the elegance of the Augustan -age was suited to the old Greek epic.</p> - -<p>The first short interruption was a journey to Mantua with -Cardinal Francesco da Gonzaga, in August 1472. The intimate -relations between the Gonzaga and the Medici, which -corresponded to those between the Marquis Lodovico and the -city of Florence, have been already spoken of. Francesco -took the youthful poet with him from the Medici house. -Poliziano, then aged eighteen, had already given proof of -uncommon talent on the occasion of a visit to his native city, -where his arrival was celebrated with brilliant festivities. -Here originated the drama of ‘Orpheus,’ which made an epoch -in literature, less by its actual merit than as the first example -of a profane drama in the Italian tongue. Mysteries had -long been popular; the modern drama, even when treating -modern historical subjects, still more when, as in the works -of Alberti and Gregorio Correr, it was directly modelled on -the antique, had always adhered to the Latin language. In -a letter to one of the cardinal’s suite, Messer Carlo Canale -(who was, it may be mentioned, the second or third husband -of the mother of Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia), the author -states that ‘Orpheus’ was composed in two days, amid constant -noisy distractions, and that it was written in the vulgar -tongue in order to be more intelligible to the hearers—‘an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> -imperfect work, fitted to bring its father shame rather than -honour, and worthy of the fate prepared by the Lacedæmonians -for children born weakly or crippled.’ This ‘favola’ is -not a drama; it is a succession of lyrical pieces, with an ode -inserted in Latin Sapphics, in praise of the cardinal, which -Baccio Ugolini, another member of the Medicean circle and -of Landino’s school, sang to the lyre in the character of -‘Orpheus.’<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a></p> - -<p>The Mantuan journey was a short episode. Some smaller -Latin poems, including the beautiful and pathetic elegy on -the death of Albiera degli Albizzi, the charming bride of -Sigismondo della Stufa, in 1473, kept Poliziano in the same -mood, and cannot fairly be considered as interruptions to his -Homeric work. A longer interruption was caused by Giuliano -de’ Medici’s tournament, which was a challenge to Angelo -to write the fairest flower in his poetic garland.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> He himself -alludes to this interruption in the seventh stanza of the -‘Giostra:’</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">E se qual fu la fama, il ver rimbomba,</p> -<p class="pp6">Che d’Hecuba la figlia, o sacro Achille,<br /> -Poi che ‘l corpo lasciasti entro la tomba,<br /> -T’accenda ancor d’amorose faville,<br /> -Lascia un poco tacer tua maggior tromba,<br /> -Ch’io fo squillar per l’italice ville.<br /> -E tempra tu la cetra a’ nuovi carmi,<br /> -Mentr’io canto l’amor di Giulio e l’armi.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p> - -<p class="p1">The subject in itself is poor. The author must have felt -this, even had he not been warned by Luca Pulci’s verses on -the tournament of Lorenzo. The ‘Stanzas’—the title by which -Poliziano’s poem is best known—are counted among the -gems of Italian literature. They were the first of the kind -expressing real melody without artificiality, being remarkable -for their artistic flow and carefulness of composition. -But for a few harsh and ignoble expressions, they have never -since been surpassed in point of form, though Ariosto may -have more variety and freedom of movement, and Tasso more -harmony. But how do these beautiful stanzas of ottava rima -treat their subject? In the first book it is left altogether -out of sight. The tournament gives place to mythology, the -Piazza Sta. Croce to the gardens and palace of Venus. All -the flowers and trees of the most highly-favoured climates, -all animals of the chase and the peaceful park, the whole of -Olympus, are introduced; reminiscences of all the classic -poets from Lucretius to Claudian, even to the Christian -singers, wanderings of an exuberant fancy through the -realms of beauty and love,—all these combine and disport -themselves in such perfect freedom, that it matters not -whether they have anything to do with the subject or not. -At the beginning of the second book the poet seems at last -to bethink himself that he intended to sing the praises of a -Medici. He therefore makes Cupid relate to Venus the glories -of the Tuscan race, and begins with the preparations for great -deeds which such vast mythological machinery demands. The -youth is awakened and armed, but not without assistance from -Olympus. The poem breaks off abruptly, and in its closing -stanzas there gleams a sad presentiment of the cruel fate -which was so soon to put an end to a life apparently destined to -glory and happiness, and with it to a work already highly -valued as a fragment, and which gave the tone to the poetry -of the age just beginning. Who shall say whether it was -not well for the poem that it remained a fragment? for the -disproportion between the unimportance of the subject and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> -the pomp of the treatment might have come out too strikingly -had it been continued. This poem, intended to celebrate -the acts of Giuliano, is addressed to his brother. The -dedicatory stanza speaks of Lorenzo without circumlocution -as the ruler of Florence:</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">High-born Lorenzo, laurel<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> in whose shade<br /> -Thy Florence rests nor fears the lowering storm,<br /> -Nor threatening signs in heaven’s high front displayed,<br /> -Nor Jove’s dread anger in its fiercest form;<br /> -O to the trembling Muse afford thine aid—<br /> -The Muse that courts thee timorous and forlorn,<br /> -Lives in the shadow of thy prosperous tree,<br /> -And bounds her every fond desire to thee.<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a></p> - -<p class="p1">Angelo Poliziano continued to write Latin verses. His -epigrams, odes, and elegies are valuable both as conveying -a knowledge of the persons and tendencies of a memorable -period, and as proofs of a versatility and classical spirit to -be found in none of his contemporaries and in few subsequent -writers. The philologers of the fifteenth century wrote Latin -verses with ease; but the only poet among them is Poliziano. -His works abound in imitations of all kinds, as do those of -the later Roman poets. But Poliziano feels, thinks, and -writes like a Roman; if not like a poet of the Augustan age, -at least like one of the time of Statius, whom he resembles -in more ways than one, having written ‘Sylvæ’ like him. He -is more classical than some of those who are included in the -ranks of the poets of antiquity.</p> - -<p>A peculiar grace, fulness of thought, and great variety, -give to his poems a charm not often found in modern Latin -verses, which seldom display a living individuality. To -descriptions of modern life and modern localities, whose very -names seem unsuitable to a classic sphere, he can give a -native classical colouring, without any apparent effort, yet -with the most consummate art. Most remarkable among<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> -his writings, by its grace and naturalness and an intermingling -of joy and sadness, is the elegy on a bunch of -violets given him by a beloved hand; a poem which, in the -sixteenth century and in our own, has been an object of study -to the choice spirits who wish to acquire pure classic inspiration -in a modern form.<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> Poliziano here challenges a comparison -with Lorenzo de’ Medici, who treated the same -subject in two of his loveliest sonnets. The ‘Sylvæ,’ poems -of Angelo’s later years, from 1482 to 1486, added to his -reputation, though in happy turns of thought and warmth -of feeling they are inferior to many of his smaller pieces. -They are four poems in heroic metre, prolusions to his philological -lectures at the Florence University, to a chair in -which he was appointed on December 23, 1485, the degree -of Doctor of Common Law being conferred on him by -Archbishop Rinaldo Orsini at his palace, in the presence of -Lorenzo’s son Piero.<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> The first of these poems,<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> ‘Manto’ -(the name of the Theban prophetess, which was assumed by -the Italian city founded by her son), treats of Virgil, his -works, his place in literature, his importance for all time.</p> - -<p>As the first of the ‘Sylvæ’ was intended as an introduction -to Virgil’s ‘Bucolics,’ so the second, ‘Rusticus,’ was to -serve the same purpose for the ‘Georgics,’ and for the works -and times of Hesiod. The third, ‘Ambra,’ took its name -from the Medicean Poggio a Cajano, but the name has little -connection with the poem, which refers to localities only at -its close, and is devoted to an analysis of Homeric plays regarded -from a pseudo-Herodotean and pseudo-Plutarchian point of -view. The last and longest of the ‘Sylvæ,’ bearing the strange -title of ‘Nutricia: the Reward of the Nursing-mother,’ -describes the origin, progress, and influence of the poetry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> -and the poetics of classical times, passes on to the author of -the ‘Divine Comedy,’ and ends by singing the praises of -Cosimo de’ Medici and his successors. The abundance and -versatility of Lorenzo’s talents were perhaps never more -truly and happily expressed than in the closing verses of this -poem; and when the praises of living and powerful men -appear in such a setting as this, we may accept them without -complaining. After describing his labours in the field of -sentimental poetry, to which belong the greater part of -Lorenzo’s earlier poems, his other poetical productions and -his whole intellectual character are thus spoken of:—</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">Non vacat argutosque sales, Satyraque bibaces<br /> -Descriptos memorare senes, non carmina festis<br /> -Excipienda choris, querulasve animantia chordas.<br /> -Idem etiam tacitæ referens pastoria vitæ<br /> -Otia, et urbanos thyrso extimulante labores,<br /> -Mox fugis in cœlum, non seu per lubrica nisus<br /> -Extremamque boni gaudes contingere metam.<br /> -Quodque alii studiumque vocant, durumque laborem,<br /> -Hic tibi ludus erit, fessus civilibus actis,<br /> -Huc is emeritas acuens ad carmina vires.<br /> -Felix ingenio, felix cui pectore tantas<br /> -Instaurare vices, cui fas tam magna capaci<br /> -Alternare animo, et varias ita nectere curas.</p> - -<p class="p1">Poliziano wrote the ‘Nutricia’ in October 1486, at the villa -of Fiesole. In the following verses he prophesied of the -times to come and the future greatness of his pupil, Piero, -if the latter, fulfilling the bright promise of his youth, should -walk in the footsteps of his father:—</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">It jam pene prior, sic, ô sic pergat, et ipsum<br /> -Me superet majore gradu, longeque relinquat<br /> -Protinus, et dulci potius plaudatur alumno,<br /> -Bisque mei victor illo celebrentur honores.</p> - -<p class="p1">A merciful fate spared the poet from witnessing the -failure of hopes the fulfilment of which had already become -very doubtful when he was prematurely called away. Anyone -versed in the history of those days who may now climb<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> -the pleasant heights of Fiesole, which new buildings and -roads have altered but not transformed, will think with -interest of Angelo’s abode here in the country-house of the -Medici, which he describes in a letter to Marsilio Ficino. -‘If the summer heat oppress thee at Careggi, the cooler air of -Fiesole will be pleasant to thee. We have plenty of water -between the slopes of the hill, and while gentle winds constantly -refresh us, the glare of the sun troubles us little. -During the ascent to the villa it appears enclosed in trees, -but the spot, when reached, commands an extensive view as -far as the town. The neighbourhood is thickly inhabited, -yet I find here the quiet which suits me. But I will tempt -thee with yet another attraction. Pico sometimes wanders -beyond the limits of his own grounds, breaks in unexpectedly -upon my solitude, and carries me away from my shady -gardens to his evening meal. You know how things are -there; no superfluities, but everything as it should be, and -with the spice of his conversation. But thou must be my -guest; with me thou shalt find as good a table and perhaps -better wine, for Pico and I are rivals in respect to wine.’<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a></p> - -<p>The ‘Sylvæ’ are dedicated to three young men belonging -to the Medicean circle and one who stood outside it. Lorenzo—the -son of Pier Francesco de’ Medici, grandson of Cosimo’s -brother—whose name stands at the beginning of ‘Manto,’ was -at that time on friendly terms with the members of the elder -branch of his race. He afterwards became estranged from -them; a change the effects of which did not cease when his -posterity had entered upon the dominion of Florence, and the -last remaining descendant of Cosimo’s line sat on the throne -of France. Gifted with poetical talents, and no unworthy -rival of his more famous relatives, the younger Lorenzo was -a friend of Poliziano’s, who dedicated to him among other -things a description of the <i>villeggiatura</i> at Poggio a Cajano. -‘Rusticus’ was intended for Jacopo Salviati, who, when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> -these verses were written, in 1483, had been designated as -Lorenzo’s son-in-law; so that Poliziano, who had first sung -the praises of the unlucky Archbishop of Pisa and then -openly insulted him with extravagant accusations, passed -lightly over the troublesome past. ‘Ambra’ was sent to -Lorenzo Tornabuoni, son of Giovanni, and for a time a pupil, -together with Piero de’ Medici, of our poet, who in one of -his letters praised his intellectual gifts and knowledge of -classical literature. He was a faithful adherent of his relatives, -not only in prosperity but also in adversity, which fell -on him even more heavily than on them. In the days of -Savonarola he was accused of taking part in a conspiracy in -favour of the exiles, and, with Niccolò Ridolfi, the father of -Lorenzo’s son-in-law, suffered on the scaffold in 1497, at the -age of thirty-two, a victim to mob-law. The last of these -poems, ‘Nutricia,’ was dedicated, in 1491, several years after -its composition, to the Cardinal of Sant’Anastasia, Antonio -Pallavicino Gentile of Genoa, who had great influence in state -affairs under Innocent VIII. and Alexander VI., and took -much interest in literature and literary men. At the close -of the dedication Poliziano gratefully alludes to the cardinal’s -efforts to further his cause with the Pope.</p> - -<p>As we have said, the ‘Sylvæ’ were prolegomena to lectures -on literature. To a cycle of another kind, to lectures -given at Florence in 1483 on the Aristotelian philosophy, -Poliziano composed a prose introduction, probably the -strangest ever heard at any university.<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> The very title—‘Lamia’ -(the Witch)—sounds strange, and we almost<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> -suspect a joke, but find that the author is in earnest. The -beginning of this address to his students is highly characteristic. -‘Have you ever heard tell of witches? When I was -a little boy my grandmother used to tell me about the witches -in the neighbouring wood, who eat up naughty children. -Fancy what an image of terror a witch was to me in those -days! In the neighbourhood of my little villa at Fiesole -there is a little brook, hidden by the shadow of the hill-side, -and the women of the place who go there to draw water say -that it is a place of meeting for the witches. But what is a -witch? Plutarch of Chæronea, who was as grave as he was -learned, relates that the witches have artificial eyes which -they can put in and take out at their pleasure, just as weak-sighted -old people do with their spectacles, which they stick -on their noses when they want to look carefully at something -and then put back into the case; or as others do with their -false teeth, which they lay aside with their clothes when -they go to bed;—not to mention your helpmeets, ye married -men, with their bought braids and curls. If a witch desires -to take a walk she puts in her eyes, and wanders through -streets and alleys, squares and markets, churches and offices, -taverns and baths, looks at everything, thrusts her nose into -everything, meddles with everything, let a man do what he -may. She has the eyes of an owl and a spy, like the old -maid in Plautus. She can find out a grain of sand, and bury -herself in the narrowest cranny. When she gets home, as -soon as she reaches the threshold, she takes out her eyes and -puts them in her pocket. Out of doors she has eyes like a -lynx, at home she is blind. You ask what she does then? -She sits spinning yarn, and humming a little song from time -to time. Have you Florentines never known such witches, -who know nothing of their own business, but are always busy -about other people’s? No? Yet there are many of them in -all cities, even here in yours. But they go about in disguise—you -take them for men and women, but they are witches. -Once it befell that some of them, happening to see me, stood<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> -still, and looked at me curiously, as those desirous to buy are -wont to do. They whispered to each other, with uncouth -gestures, “That is Poliziano—that is the rhymester who has -suddenly dressed himself up as a philosopher,” and then they -hurried away like wasps robbed of their sting. What they -meant by their discourse is not clear to me; whether it displeases -them that a man should be a philosopher, which, -however, I am not, or that I venture to play the philosopher -without having the material to do so. Let us now see what -sort of a creature it is that men call a philosopher. You -will soon perceive that I do not belong to the species. I say -this not because I think that you believe it, but that no one -may take it into his head to believe it. Not that I should -be ashamed of the name, if it agreed with the facts, but -because I prefer to keep free from titles which are not due -to me:</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">Ne si forte suas repetitum venerit olim<br /> -Grex avium plumas, moveat cornicula risum.</p> - -<p class="p1">This therefore is the first point. The second is, whether the -condition of a philosopher is bad. When I have proved the -contrary I will speak to you briefly of myself and the subject -of my lectures.’ After this introduction follows a sketch of -the course of Grecian philosophy, and an exposition of the -work of the later schools of thought.</p> - -<p>The man who raised to such a height the poetry of his -native tongue, and the idiom from which it sprang, was -deeply interested in popular poetry. He went hand in -hand with his patron and friend in efforts to bring back -language and literature ‘from the constraint of false rules to -truth and nature.’ Both found the popular minstrelsy in the -peculiar shape it retains to the present day, and differing -completely in tone from the songs of other lands. In the -<i>rispetti</i> the ottava rima predominates, treated freely as it -was in Boccaccio’s days for epic poetry. Even the sentimental -pieces are epigrammatically pointed, and full of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> -antitheses, which give an impression of artificiality and -imitation of the antique, more especially in southern -Tuscany and the Roman district. They are not narratives, -nor do they develope a state of mind, but they vividly describe -momentary emotion. Without making up a whole history with -such little songs, like Pulci and Lorenzo de’ Medici, Poliziano -composed a series of <i>rispetti</i> describing joy and sorrow, -accepted and especially despised love. They are partly in -dialogue, frequently in a natural easy style, which reminds -us of improvisations, more tender in expression, more flexible -in diction than the two writers above mentioned, who not -unfrequently betray that they are mocking at their own -work. Other similar songs, but without internal connection, -display a versatility resulting naturally from the way in -which they originated. These fugitive poems grew within -the Medicean circle, products of social intercourse in the -villa and in evening walks in the garden; or, like the dance-songs -(<i>ballate</i>), of which Poliziano wrote a great number, -they were sung with music in the public squares. In short, -they belonged to the life of the people who had furnished -models for the rhymes composed for them by the poets of -quality, with greater refinement, and not always without a -secondary object in view.</p> - -<p>Poliziano’s versatility is wonderfully shown in the labours -he undertook in the field of classical philology while thus -wandering through the woods of poetry. He was one of the -first to establish the true principles of textual criticism; at -the request of Innocent VIII. he translated Herodian’s -Roman history into Latin,<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> and made the writings of -Hippocrates and Galen accessible to those of his countrymen -who were not acquainted with Greek. On the latter -occasion he claimed the assistance of the learned doctor -Pietro Leoni, who was then lecturing in Padua, to secure<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> -the correct rendering of the medical terms.<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> The most -talented poet of the fifteenth century was also the philologer -who, while equal to others in knowledge of antiquity, represents -its spirit with more truth and originality. In trying to rival -the classical letter-writers, Poliziano followed a fashion that -had influenced statesmen and men of learning from Petrarca -downwards. He left a mass of epistolary testimony to the -character of his age, the value of which must not be lightly -estimated, though it may not always answer the expectations -raised by the names. Like Ficino and others, Poliziano had -arranged his Latin correspondence for publication, and wrote -a dedication to Piero de’ Medici, when death cut short his -career.<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> More interesting to us than the generality of these -letters, which nevertheless contain valuable matter, are his -confidential letters in the vulgar tongue, not meant for publication. -Even this highly gifted man was not free from the -bad habit of the learned men of the fifteenth century—the -intermixture of Latin phrases with Italian when the subject -gave no occasion for it.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER IX.</h2> - -<p class="pch">POLIZIANO IN THE MEDICEAN HOUSE. SCALA AND RUCELLAI.</p> - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">For</span> many of his contemporaries Lorenzo de’ Medici was the -frequent subject of verse, especially Latin verse, which the -complimentary art of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries -preferred as the more dignified, even after Italian poetry -had secured a position by considerable achievements. Many -of these poetical productions have been rescued from oblivion -only to sink back again, unless they contribute to the historical -knowledge of the period. Their literary worth consists -merely in a talent for form which was surpassed by most of -the Latinists of the following century. Fortunately the -court-poet of the Medici was Poliziano. Many of his epigrams -are addressed to Lorenzo, and the elegance of the -form as well as the warmth of feeling which breathes -through all he wrote about his patron, diminishes that impression -of servility which is inseparable from this kind of -poetry. Praise of his discretion and foresight, of his words -and deeds—wishes that he may attain the age of Nestor, as -he already possesses his wisdom—thanks for favour granted, -and offers of future service, are the themes of verse, as well -as the merits of a swift runner, of a Spanish hound, of a tree -before the Medicean house, supposed to be dead, but which -had bloomed again, and of the brook of Ambra. During -Giuliano’s lifetime, the concord between the two brothers -was the object of praise; they were called Castor and Pollux, -Agamemnon and Menelaus. Angelo wrote an agreeable -love-poem of some length on the name of Giuliano. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> -thoroughly belonged to the Medicean household. He was -still young when Lorenzo entrusted to him the education of -his son Piero; but before the latter was eight years old -dissensions occurred which caused the poet-pedagogue many -an hour of discomfort.</p> - -<p>In the summer of 1478, when war and sickness made a -residence in Florence undesirable, Lorenzo, as already stated, -sent his wife and children to Pistoja, where they were hospitably -received in the house of Andrea Panciatichi, the -head of an influential family inclined to the Medici. They -were accompanied by Angelo Poliziano, other masters, and -a doctor. Here Piero, only seven years old, with his great-uncle -Giovanni Tornabuoni received Ercole d’Este, who was -going to take the command at Florence. In October they -exchanged their residence at Pistoja for the villa at Fiesole, -where the family circle was increased by the sons of Niccolò -Orsini, Count of Pitigliano. And here arose a difference -between the mother and the tutor. Clarice was a good and -careful mother. Giovanni, who was not yet three, had soon -after his birth given occasion for anxiety, and been a great -trouble to her and to his grandmother, on account of his -delicate health. Concerning Giuliano, then a few months -old, whose constitution always remained feeble, she wrote -later to her husband: ‘I will care for him as a mother -should, but I beseech you to take care of yourself for the -children’s sake and mine.’ Poliziano’s mode of bringing up -did not satisfy her. Not that she began with a prejudice -against him; the good terms on which they had once been -are proved by the letters which he addressed to her on -several occasions when he was absent from Florence with -Lorenzo.<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> He bestowed great care on his young pupil, of -whose writing and composition he sent specimens to the -father. ‘I shall not fail,’ he wrote to Lorenzo from Pistoja,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> -September 20, ‘in attention and fidelity. I know what I -owe to your Magnificence, and I feel for Piero and your other -children an affection equal to that of a father. Should anything -unpleasant occur, I will endeavour myself to bear it, -out of love to you, to whom I owe everything.’ These words -show that there was already something amiss. Four weeks -previously he had written: ‘I am busy with Piero, and encourage -him to write, and I think in a few days you will -receive a letter which will astonish you. We have a master -here who teaches writing in a fortnight, so that it seems -quite a miracle. The children are particularly happy, and -look quite blooming. Piero never leaves my side. I would -that I could serve you in greater things; but this is my -work, and I fulfil it with joy. But I beg you to ensure, -either by letter or by a messenger, that my authority shall -not be restricted, so that I may the more easily guide the -boy and fulfil my duty. Nevertheless, act therein according -to your pleasure. Whatever may happen, I will bear it with -equanimity.’ And on the same day: ‘We get on as well as -we can, but I cannot escape a few collisions.’ That he was -dissatisfied, dull, and longing to be near Lorenzo, is clear -from all his letters at this time, both to Madonna Lucrezia -and to her son.</p> - -<p>To make matters worse, came the <i>villeggiatura</i> at -Caffaggiuolo, whither Clarice went in November. This -was, from position and climate, a melancholy winter residence, -where loneliness and bad weather seem to have put -the excitable man doubly out of humour, and all the more so -because Lorenzo’s old tutor, Gentile Becchi, who lived at the -country house with the family, grew very unsociable in consequence -of the sad circumstances of the time, which weighed -heavily on the mind of this vehement accuser of the Pope. -Gentile had felt the events of the spring deeply, and had -been terribly cast down by the death of Giuliano. Poliziano -had tried to cheer him with an ode, which has acquired historical -importance from the testimony it bears to the hopes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> -of foreign aid which were cherished by the adherents of the -Medici and many of the Florentine people; hopes which -were but very partially fulfilled.<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a></p> - -<p class="pc1 lmid">AD GENTILEM EPISCOPUM.</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1"><span class="smcap">Gentiles</span> animi maxima pars mei,</p> -<p class="pp6">Communi nimium sorte quid angeris?<br /> -Quid curis animum lugubribus teris,</p> -<p class="pp8">Et me discrucias simul?</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">Passi digna quidem perpetuo sumus</p> -<p class="pp6">Luctu, qui mediis (heu miseri) sacris<br /> -Illum, illum juvenem vidimus, O nefas!</p> -<p class="pp8">Stratum sacrilega manu!</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">At sunt attonito quæ dare pectori</p> -<p class="pp6">Solamen valeant plurima, nam super<br /> -Est, qui vel gremio creverit in tuo,</p> -<p class="pp8">Laurens Etruriæ caput.</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">Laurens quem patriæ cœlicolum pater</p> -<p class="pp6">Tutum terrifica gorgone præstitit;<br /> -Quem Tuscus pariter, quem Venetus Leo</p> -<p class="pp8">Servant, et Draco pervigil.</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">Illi bellipotens excubat Hercules;</p> -<p class="pp6">Illi fatiferis militat arcubus;<br /> -Illi mittit equos Francia martios,</p> -<p class="pp8">Felix Francia regibus.</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">Circumstat populus murmure dissono;</p> -<p class="pp6">Circumstant juvenem purpurei patres;<br /> -Causa vincimus et robore militum;</p> -<p class="pp8">Hac stat Juppiter, hac favet.</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">Quare, O cum misera quid tibi Nenia,</p> -<p class="pp6">Si nil proficimus? quin potius gravis<br /> -Absterisse bono lætitiæ die</p> -<p class="pp8">Audes nubila pectoris.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span></p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">Nam cum jam gelidos umbra reliquerit</p> -<p class="pp6">Artus, non dolor hanc perpetuus retro<br /> -Mordacesve trahunt sollicitudines,</p> -<p class="pp8">Mentis, curaque pervicax.</p> - -<p class="p1">Thus rendered by Roscoe:—</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">O <span class="smcap">Friend</span>, whose woes this bosom shares,<br /> -Why ceaseless mourn our mutual cares?<br /> -Ah! why thy days to grief resign,<br /> -With thy regrets recalling mine?</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">Eternal o’er the atrocious deed,<br /> -‘Tis true our kindred hearts may bleed,<br /> -When he, twin glory of our land,<br /> -Fell by a sacrilegious hand!</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">But sure, my friend, there yet remains<br /> -Some solace for these piercing pains,<br /> -Whilst he, once nurtured at thy side,<br /> -Lorenzo lives, Etruria’s pride.</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">Lorenzo, o’er whose favoured head<br /> -Jove his terrific gorgon spread;<br /> -Whose steps the lion-pair await,<br /> -Of Florence and Venetia’s state.</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">For him his crest the dragon rears;<br /> -For him the Herculean band appears;<br /> -Her martial succour Gallia brings—<br /> -Gallia, that glories in her kings!</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">See round the youth the purpled band<br /> -Of venerable fathers stand;<br /> -Exulting crowds around him throng,<br /> -And hail him as he moves along.</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">Strong in our cause and in our friends,<br /> -Our righteous battle Jove defends;<br /> -Thy useless sorrows then represt,<br /> -Let joy once more dilate thy breast.</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">To animate the clay-cold frame,<br /> -No sighs shall fan the vital flame;<br /> -Nor all the tears that love can shed<br /> -Recall to life the silent dead.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span></p> - -<p class="p1">The poem seems to have had little or no effect, and the -poet himself became infected with melancholy. ‘The news -from this place,’ wrote Poliziano to Madonna Lucrezia, on -November 18, ‘is that it rains violently and incessantly, so -that it is impossible to leave the house, and instead of hunting -we have taken to playing ball, that the children may -have exercise. I sit by the fire in dressing-gown and slippers, -and if you saw me you would take me for melancholy incarnate; -for that is what I seem to myself. I do, see, hear -nothing that cheers me, so deeply have our misfortunes -affected me. Sleeping or waking, I have nothing in my -head but these fancies. The day before yesterday we were -all in joyful excitement, because we heard that the sickness -had ceased. Now we are down again, as there is said to -be some still going about. In town we have at least -some comfort, if it is only that of seeing Lorenzo come home -safe and well. Here, everything makes us uneasy, and I -assure you I am dying of melancholy, such a burthen is -loneliness to me. Monsignore (Becchi) shuts himself up in -his own room, with no company but his thoughts; and I find -him so cast down and full of care that his society only increases -my own sadness. Ser Alberto del Malerba (a priest -who was then in the Medicean household) recites the service -all day long with the children. When I am tired of studying, -my fancy goes off on a chase through pestilence and -war—grief for the past, anxiety for the future. I have no -one to turn my thoughts to him, and am dying of weariness. -And here I have not my Madonna Lucrezia to whom I can -vent my feelings.’</p> - -<p>At last matters came to an open breach. On May 6, -1479, Poliziano wrote to Lorenzo from Careggi: ‘I am here -at Careggi, having left Caffaggiuolo by command of Madonna -Clarice. The grounds of my departure, I desire, aye I -earnestly entreat, to be allowed to explain to you by word of -mouth, for it is a prolix affair. I believe that, when you -have heard me, you will find that the wrong is not all on my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> -side. For decency’s sake, and in order not to go to Florence -without your orders, I came here, and am waiting till your -Magnificence informs me what I am to do. For I am yours, -though the world itself should turn upside down; and if -fortune will not smile upon me in your service, that will not -prevent me from always faithfully devoting myself to that -service. I commend myself to your Magnificence, and am -entirely at your commands.’ What had moved Madonna -Clarice to this strong measure is clear. She could have -nothing to say against the scholar; but the man inspired -her with very little confidence, although we cannot think -that she was influenced by the evil rumours which were -afterwards spread as to Poliziano’s moral conduct—rumours -characteristic of a time that delighted in the most dishonouring -accusations. Men of letters were so full of exaggerated -self-importance, and so incapable of controlling -their tongues or their pens, that Lorenzo’s wife probably had -right on her side. She wanted to superintend her children’s -education; the tutor would not suffer it. ‘As for Giovanni,’ -wrote he to Lorenzo from Caffaggiuolo on April 6, when he enclosed -a letter from Piero, ‘his mother makes him read in the -Psalter, which I cannot at all approve. When she does not interfere -with him his progress is surprising, so that he can read -without any help.’ To give the Psalter to a child of three as -a reading-book is certainly a strange proceeding. But if, as -we must suppose, it was the translation made for Clarice by -Marsilio Ficino, the scholar of the fifteenth century could -not make the same objection which was made in the next -by another scholar, who received the cardinalate—Pietro -Bembo—to the reading of St. Paul’s Epistles: that they -spoilt one’s style.</p> - -<p>At this time Lorenzo was so much occupied with the -crisis in public affairs that strife in his own household must -have been doubly troublesome to him. He did not think of -restoring to his post the pedagogue who had been turned out -of doors. He offered him the villa at Fiesole, where Poliziano<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> -wrote Latin verses in praise of Lorenzo, about the leisure he -was himself enjoying, of the pleasant view towards the city -of the Muses, and of the winding Arno,<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> but evidently put -no bridle on his tongue. ‘I should like,’ wrote Madonna -Clarice to her husband on May 28 from Caffaggiuolo,<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> after -affectionately entreating him to take care of his health during -the continued sickness, ‘not to be put into a fable like -Luigi Pulci in Matteo Franco’s verses. I also wish that -Messer Angelo shall not be able to boast of remaining in the -house in defiance of me, or of your having offered him a -home at Fiesole. You know I told you that if it was your -will that he should remain here, I would be content, and -although I have had to submit to his rudeness, I would bear -it patiently if such were your decision, though I cannot -believe it possible.’ Clarice’s remonstrances must have -made some impression on Lorenzo. Although Poliziano -saw him frequently, he remained excluded from the house. -He repeatedly and urgently commended his cause to Madonna -Lucrezia, to whom he represented his difficult position, -if the hopes set on Piero came to nothing.<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> He begged her -to try to fathom Lorenzo’s intentions concerning him. The -tutor of Giovanni Tornabuoni’s sons, Martino della Comedia, -gave lessons to Piero for a time, as did also Bernardo Michelozzi -(son of the architect), who actually educated Giovanni, -and was afterwards Bishop of Forlì. Poliziano’s impatience -and vexation are clearly shown. ‘I shall be much surprised,’ -he wrote, ‘if they let Piero lose his time, and it really would -be a pity. I understand that Messer Bernardo is there, but -I cannot quite see how he is to go on with my work, unless -he remains permanently. In this case, indeed, it will be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> -just as well that the shell has burst. But I do not believe it, -and therefore I beg you to find out Lorenzo’s intentions, that -I may judge whether to arm myself for the tourney or the -battle. I will always order myself according to Lorenzo’s -wishes, for I am certain that he sees deeper into things than -I, and that he will guard my honour as he always has done, -and as my faithful services give me some right to expect.’</p> - -<p>When the reconciliation took place cannot be discovered -from Poliziano’s letters, which are missing for several years -at this period. The verses addressed to Lorenzo on his return -from Naples, show that at that time Poliziano had not returned -to his house.<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> A year after, in 1481, Piero was again -entrusted to his guidance; for the Latin dictation for him,<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> -in which the siege of Otranto by the Duke of Calabria is -mentioned, is of this year. In these subjects for translation, -which sometimes treat of contemporary events, sometimes -allude to this or that occurrence of daily life, we vainly seek -any really healthy food for a youthful mind. Their want of -connectedness and gravity gives no brilliant testimony to the -highly gifted man’s powers of teaching. But Piero had -other teachers besides Poliziano; among them was the theologian -Giorgio Cenigno, in whose learning and conduct -Lorenzo, who was often present at his lectures, had great -confidence, and to whose judgment he afterwards submitted -the defence of Pico della Mirandola. This is the same man -who many years later took so decided a part with Reuchlin -against those who accused him of heresy. Giovanni del Prato, -afterwards Bishop of Aquila, and Antonio Barberini, a professor -of theology at Florence, were also called in.<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> When -Piero went to Rome, in 1484 and again in 1488, the first -time to welcome Pope Innocent VIII., the second time to be -married, Poliziano accompanied him, and he remained until -his death a member of the most intimate circle of the family.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> -He never was a priest, though he held a couple of ecclesiastical -benefices.</p> - -<p>We can well understand that the choice of a man of such -uncommon intellectual gifts as a tutor, at a time when everything -was expected to give way to classical culture, found -many eulogists; and the words of Cristoforo Landino in -his dedication of Virgil’s works to Piero de’ Medici do not -stand alone. Piero was wanting neither in understanding -nor the desire to learn, and the instruction he received was -not wasted so far as concerns the elegant culture which was -fast superseding the more practical education of older times. -But the essential principle of a serious moral view of the -world Angelo Poliziano could not give to his pupil, for he -had it not himself. The father rejoiced in the progress of -the son, promoted as it was by the liberal, scientific, artistic -and social movement of which the house of Medici formed -the centre. Piero, like his father, entered life early, and was -thus prepared for the position he was in some degree destined -to inherit. He always showed interest in scientific -matters. It was at his desire that his tutor made the collection -of letters above mentioned, which, however, were not -printed till after Poliziano’s death and Piero’s banishment; -a collection which, like many of the kind, contains much -that for the writer’s honour had better have remained unprinted. -But posterity has not confirmed Poliziano’s judgment -on his pupil. It was the judgment of a courtier. In -Piero, thus he wrote to Pico della Mirandola,<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> there lived -again the spirit of his father, the virtue of his grandfather, -the humanity of his great-grandfather, the honesty, piety, -generosity, and high-mindedness of all his ancestors.</p> - -<p>If Lorenzo could not keep the peace in his own house -between his wife and a literary friend, still less could he keep -it between the latter and another member of his confidential -circle. To this belonged, like Poliziano, a man whose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> -literary merits contributed nothing to the celebrity of the -age, but who attained to a higher and more secure position -than most of his compeers because he showed himself a -manageable and useful tool. Bartolommeo Scala,<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> born -about 1430 at Colle in the valley of the Elsa, has himself -described his origin and the commencement of his fortunes -in a letter to Poliziano, and he deserves at least some credit -for avowing so openly what it is true everybody already knew. -‘Deprived of all worldly goods, poor, and born of parents of -low degree, I came here, without means, without claims, -without protectors, without relations. Cosimo, the father of -the country, took me up, and I rose in the service of his -family.’<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> His father was a miller, and the youth’s first -years in Florence were passed in bitter want, as we know -from the letters of Cardinal Ammanati, who was there in not -very brilliant circumstances. As in the case of other -<i>protégés</i>, Cosimo’s favour was continued by his heirs. This -only will account for the fact that, after the death of Benedetto -Accolti, Scala received the office of chancellor.<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> Although -by no means without cultivation and practice in -business, Scala stood far below those who had preceded him -with so much distinction in the chancellorship, since the -days of Coluccio Salutati to the time of the man whom he replaced. -For Benedetto Accolti, who died in the prime of -manhood, did honour to the name which his family had -already acquired in the field of learning, and united sound -knowledge of law with unusual elegance of expression; while<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> -his eloquence and excellent memory rendered him peculiarly -fit for the various solemnities at which addresses and replies -had to be made without long preparation. His Latin history -of the first Crusade, founded on French materials, and -dedicated to Piero de’ Medici, is valuable as the source -whence Torquato Tasso drew the subject of his ‘Gerusalemme.’</p> - -<p>Fortune continued to favour Bartolommeo Scala, and -even in the great commotion of 1494 he was not overthrown. -Posts of honour, embassies, knighthood, riches, fell to his -share. He was Lorenzo’s confidant, and in constant correspondence -with him on civil and political affairs. In the -storms of 1478 and the following years he was of no small -use to him, and it was chiefly through him that Lorenzo -always kept the Signoria well in hand. Scala had a pretty -villa—which afterwards passed to the Guadagni<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a>—on the -slope of the hill at Fiesole, and his town house (now belonging, -with its beautiful gardens, to the Count della Gherardesca) -still bears on its walls the coat of arms which he -adopted in allusion to his name. As two of his predecessors -had written a history of Florence, he thought it needful to do -the same. His work, which comes down to Charles of -Anjou, has no intrinsic value; and his other writings are -even more utterly forgotten than those of the obscurest -among his contemporaries. That he was most anxious to -give no ground of displeasure to foreign princes on whose -relations to Florence he was obliged to touch in his history -is shown by his oft-repeated request to the Ferrarese ambassador -for information about the Este family, ‘because he -wished to write in praise of that illustrious house.’<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a></p> - -<p>Bartolommeo Scala’s position made him boastful. His -letters to Poliziano are full of the most ridiculous conceit.<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> -‘Thou wilt hardly venture to compete with my honours.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> -The Florentine people have raised me first to the Priorship, -then to the Gonfaloniership, and now to the rank of senator -and knight, with such unanimity that many were of opinion -there had never been a more popular act; besides which I -have the brilliant testimony of Lorenzo de’ Medici that distinction -was never conferred on one more worthy.’ Whereupon -Poliziano did not fail to pay him back with an abusive -answer. His boast of praise from Cosimo and Lorenzo was -a lie; the latter had often said that in advancing him he -was influenced by other considerations, not by his own -opinion, and had often given Poliziano Scala’s official papers -to correct, as the latter must have known very well. Lorenzo -had prevented the former from destroying the mocking -iambics on Scala,<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> saying it was a pity to sacrifice such good -verses. Lorenzo de’ Medici was dead when the two became -involved in that violent strife which gave rise to accusations -as passionate, coarse, and spiteful as those flung about by -Filelfo, Poggio, and Valla. But in the lifetime of Lorenzo -a quarrel broke out between the two men, who emulated each -other in abasing the moral dignity of scholarship.</p> - -<p>There seems to have been another cause of strife besides -literary rivalry—Scala’s beautiful and accomplished daughter -Alessandra. Like many other women of her day, she devoted -herself in her youth to the study of Greek, and her -teachers were Demetrius Chalcondylas and Johannes -Lascaris. That Poliziano was inspired with a violent -passion for her is shown by his Greek epigrams.<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a></p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">‘Now at last have I found the object I long have been seeking,</p> -<p class="pp6">Object of loving desire, present in all my dreams.’</p> - -<p class="p1">But Alessandra, though she exchanged Greek verses with -her admirer, and sent him flowers and received small presents, -seems to have been very far from returning his affection. -She tells him plainly that he has not found what he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> -sought; paying him at the same time compliments on his -learning and fame, which do not seem to have consoled him -much. When the disdainful beauty gave her hand to -Michael Marullus Tarcagnota, a Greek established in Italy -early in life, jealousy made Poliziano pour forth a torrent of -abuse, which provoked corresponding replies. Time had -been when verses addressed by Poliziano to Lorenzo, son of -Pier Francesco de’ Medici, the patron of Marullus, overflowed -with praises of the Greek, who was pronounced -superior to Catullus.<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> Now just as immoderate in the -opposite sense, Angelo’s invectives were most extravagant -against the man who had become his happy rival. Under -the name of Mabilius, he satirised his person and writings, -heaping upon him all the abuse that could be raked out -of the poems of antiquity.<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a></p> - -<p>Personalities of every kind, moral and physical, are flung -backwards and forwards <i>usque ad nauseam</i>. Poliziano’s -hooked nose and crooked neck, and the supposed infidelity -of both combatants are mutually held up to contempt. Well-turned -though the epigrams may be, they were better absent -from the works of a great poet. Alessandra, the innocent -cause of strife, having become a widow, withdrew to the -convent of San Pier Maggiore, and died there in 1506.</p> - -<p>Among those who rivalled the professed men of learning -while taking an active part in public affairs, Alamanno -Rinuccini holds a foremost place.<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> He was descended from -an old noble family, whose castle near San Donato alla -Collina, on the road which leads from Florence to Arezzo, -along the left bank of the Arno, still keeps much of its -mediæval character. Born in 1419, he was a pupil of Poggio -and Argyropulos; in his translations from the Greek and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> -his original Latin writings he displayed a perfect command -of both tongues, and his house was a place where his friends -met for learned discourse. He rose to the highest offices in -the city, and fulfilled with equal zeal the chancellorship of -the Universities of Florence and Pisa, various diplomatic -embassies, and a post in the war department conferred on him -in 1495, three years before his death. Like his father Filippo -and his brother Neri, he left valuable notes on contemporary -events. Although an old partisan of the Medici, he nevertheless, -while fully admitting Lorenzo’s intellectual gifts, passes -on him a severe judgment, showing how the spirit of independence -still survived among the aristocracy, and how hard -it was for the Medici to secure their support, even by raising -them to office. At the same time the virulent attacks on -Lorenzo’s government throw a strange light on the character -of the writer, who never failed to profit by the favours bestowed -on him. It was much the same with Bernardo -Rucellai, one of the most esteemed members of the Medicean -circle. He controlled his ambition during the life of his -brother-in-law Lorenzo; but when that firm hand was gone -and personal considerations no longer restrained him, he -took his own course. He had early distinguished himself in -his classical and philosophical studies, and while scarcely -more than a youth was a professor at the University of Pisa. -Of his Latin historical writings, that on the war of Pisa is -founded on the narratives of Gino and Neri Capponi; that -on the wars of Charles VIII. of France possesses some intrinsic -value as the narrative and judgment of a contemporary -whose high position opened to him trustworthy sources -of information. Both display his command of style; and -his topography of ancient Rome shows how well versed he -was in ancient literature.<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> The first principle of this work is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> -a mistake, because it rests on the so-called <i>regionarii</i>, that -arbitrarily interpolated version of the old topographical -texts; but Rucellai surpassed all his predecessors in -thoroughness of learning. At Lorenzo’s death he entered -upon a new phase, not merely in political life. It was he -who, after the storms which burst over Florence in 1494, -received into his new house, with its large and beautiful -gardens in the Via della Scala, the Platonic Academy, then -in danger of sharing the ruin of the Medici. In these -‘Orti Oricellari’ the Academy was kept alive through the -brilliant but unquiet times that followed.<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> Here, where Bernardo -Rucellai brought together some of the sculptures -scattered at the plundering of the Medici palaces, Niccolò -Machiavelli read his book on the art of war; here in 1516 -Leo X. was present at a representation of the tragedy of -‘Rosmonda,’ written by Bernardo’s son Giovanni; and here -in 1522 was laid the plot against Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici -which put an end to the Academy for ever.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER X.</h2> - -<p class="pch">ERMOLAO BARBARO AND PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA.</p> - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">The</span> Florentines and other Tuscans gathered together at -this period of manifold intellectual activity were joined by -men from other parts of Italy, coming as transient visitors -or permanent residents. Three of these deserve especial -consideration—Bernardo Bembo, Ermolao Barbaro, and Pico -della Mirandola. We have already seen Bembo as Venetian -ambassador, in the difficult state of affairs which followed on -the conspiracy of the Pazzi. He had received this honourable -appointment several years before, and held it until peace -was restored. The relations between Venice and Florence -were not always pleasant and confidential; but the Venetian -ambassador knew how to make himself agreeable and to -inspire confidence. Poliziano praised his activity and caution -in affairs of state, his amiability in personal intercourse, his -interest in literature, his union of seriousness and gaiety.<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> -Ficino and Landino were on friendly terms with him, as -their correspondence and literary communications prove. -Bembo was one of the members of the Platonic Academy, -and a banquet given to him by his colleagues in 1480 is described -by Marsilio in his book on Platonic theology. He -was an ardent lover of books, and wrote a beautiful hand; -the octavo form of the Aldine editions, the first variation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> -from the old folio or large quarto usual until then, is said to -have been an imitation of one of his manuscripts.<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> Bernardo’s -son was with him during his residence on the banks -of the Arno, and the pure dialect to which the boy’s ear -became accustomed falling on good ground, led to that -scientific treatment of the Italian tongue which has given -Pietro Bembo a claim to be considered a distinguished master -of the language he handled with so much power and facility -of expression.</p> - -<p>One of those who were in constant literary intercourse -with Lorenzo, and assisted him in collecting manuscripts, &c., -was Ermolao Barbaro the younger. Literary faculty was -the heritage of his family. His grandfather, Francesco Barbaro, -held friendly intercourse with the scholars of Rome -and Florence and with Cosimo de’ Medici. He also made -at Venice the largest collection of books of that time, and -devoted himself zealously to studying the texts, as is proved -by his copy of Homer preserved in the library of St. Mark. -Young Ermolao was brought up by the care of a learned -uncle of the same name, who was Bishop of Treviso and for -many years administered the bishopric of Verona.</p> - -<p>Francesco owed some of his accomplishments to Matteo -Bosso, whom we shall meet again in the abbey at Fiesole; -and at Rome a classical turn had been given to his studies -by Pomponio Leto. He was a young man when the Republic, -which looked quite as much to the learned accomplishments as -to the political capacity and noble birth of her envoys, sent -him to the Emperor Frederic, to Lodovico il Moro, and to Innocent -VIII. The last embassy was not propitious to him.</p> - -<p>When in 1491 he accepted the Patriarchate of Aquileia -from the Pope without asking the consent of the Republic, -this offence against law and precedent was punished by the -senate with deprivation and banishment, and Barbaro died -near Rome, of an infectious disease, in the summer of 1493,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> -at the early age of thirty-three.<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> Of his many works, chiefly -on Greek writers, none seem now to justify his reputation. -His studies on Pliny’s ‘Natural History’ hold an honourable -place among the critical investigations begun in his day, and -his lively wit shines forth in his letters.</p> - -<p>Ermolao came through Florence on his way to Rome in -the spring of 1490. As Lorenzo de’ Medici was then at the -baths of Vignone, his eldest son received the stranger with -the honour due to his rank and the friendly relations between -the families. Piero’s letter to his father has some -literary as well as personal interest:<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> ‘Illustrious father,—By -a letter from you which reached Ser Piero yesterday morning -I was informed of your desires with respect to Messer -Ermolao, who arrived yesterday after dinner. His arrival -was, so to say, unexpected, and I only heard of it about an -hour before. I went to meet him, as did four or five others, -and he had to go first to the hotel, as his quarters were not -yet ready, whither he afterwards came on foot. As soon as -he had arrived, I went to him, according to your desire, to -invite him to us, and to inquire how long he intended to -stay. I invited him for to-day, and heard that it was his -intention to remain only the one day, as he wants to travel -to-morrow as far as Poggibonzi or some other place, so that -he may reach Siena before noon on the following day. -Whether he means to stay there I do not know. To-day he -has been our guest, and I cannot say how much pleasure -this has given him. Besides his suite, which consists of his -brother (Luigi), a secretary of St. Mark, and a doctor, we -invited the persons whom he wished to see; they were the -Count della Mirandola, Messer Marsilio, and Messer Agnolo -of Montepulciano, to whom, as we wished to have an inhabitant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> -of the city and yet to keep within the circle of intimate -friends and scholars, we added Bernardo Rucellai. Whether -we did right I know not. After dinner I showed him the -house, the coins, vases, sculptured stones—in short everything, -including the garden (near San Marco), which he -especially liked, though he does not seem to understand -much about sculpture. The value and age of the coins interested -him greatly; they were all astonished at the quantity -of fine things. I cannot tell you much about him, -except that he speaks very elegantly, as far as I can judge, -and that he likes to show his reading by quoting the ancients, -sometimes in Latin. His appearance is on the whole very -good; he is temperate in all things, which is probably needful -for him, as he seems to have a very delicate constitution. -He is said to be an adroit man of business, which I rather -doubt, as he seems to me somewhat ceremonious. He could -not display greater friendship for you than he does, and I -believe he means it. He received all the honour done him -with much gratitude, not at all after the Venetian fashion; -and indeed nothing but his dress shows him to be a Venetian. -According to his own account, he has a great desire to see -you, and he says he will willingly go out of his way to meet -and salute you; which I think it my duty to mention, in -case it should meet your views. He also says that he is -commissioned by his Signoria to salute you. He has been -honourably treated by the citizens, and received compensation -for having to alight at the hotel. This morning, before -he came to dinner, he presented himself to the Signoria, -with complimentary greetings.’ That the learned Venetian -fulfilled his intention of saluting Lorenzo on his way, we -learn from Lorenzo himself, who wrote to his agent at Siena -on May 15 as follows: ‘Ermolao was here early this morning, -and continued his journey after staying a while with -me.’<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a></p> - -<p>When Ermolao Barbaro fell into disgrace with his own<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> -government, Lorenzo took his part warmly. Among other -things he tried to persuade the Pope to give him the red -hat, probably hoping that such a distinction would reconcile -the Signoria to him. Ermolao’s father gratefully acknowledged -his friend’s efforts. ‘This morning,’ wrote Poliziano -to Lorenzo from Venice,<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> ‘I visited Messer Zaccheria Barbaro, -and when I spoke of your favour he answered weeping, -and as it seemed with a full heart. The sum of his discourse -was this: he has no hope save in you. He made it clear to -me that he is aware how much he owes you. Therefore -carry out what you have planned, and keep a higher object -in view.’ Greek clay vases, given to Poliziano for Lorenzo, -were to prove the gratitude of the Procurator of St. Mark -and the ex-ambassador. But the Signoria evidently did not -approve of a stranger intermeddling in the affairs of one of -their citizens; for when Luigi Barbaro received from his -brother’s successor orders to return from Rome, he was told -at the same time not to come through Florence.<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a></p> - -<p>All plans and calculations were overthrown the following -year by the death of Lorenzo and of the Pope, soon followed -by that of Ermolao himself. That the offer of the cardinalate -would hardly have altered the views of the senate as to the -duty of an ambassador to receive nothing from a foreign -sovereign without special permission, is shown by a parallel -case which occurred in the next century, that of Marc’Antonio -da Mula (Cardinal Amulio).</p> - -<p>In the circle of Florentine scholars there was no brighter -star than Giovanni Pico della Mirandola; and yet not one -of them has left so little to justify the contemporary fame of -this ‘Phœnix of spirits.’ Yet he was something more than -a specimen of the sciolism and abstruse pedantry that sought -to dazzle contemporaries without leaving anything solid or -useful to posterity. Giovanni Pico fought manfully against -the errors of his time, and promoted investigations on many<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> -subjects; but the results of his labours are not discoverable in -the picture of the time as a whole, to which he contributed but -a few traits, instead of producing a work of durable value -that would have vividly represented the progress of science. -Born and brought up in the highest circles of society, it is -remarkable that with his quick and passionate temperament -he devoted himself to scientific work, ardently and perseveringly, -without any external inducement to do so. He -comes forth like a meteor, in brilliant but momentary splendour. -He was a younger son of Gian Francesco Pico, Lord -of Mirandola and Count of Concordia, and Giulia Bojardo, -daughter of Feltrino Count Of Scandiano, whose grandson -Matteo Maria made himself famous as the author of ‘Orlando -Innamorato.’ In his childhood Giovanni showed -unusual quickness of perception and desire to learn, which -was observed and encouraged by his mother. At fourteen -he went to study canon law at the University of Bologna, -after which he pursued philosophy and theology, languages -and literature, at various universities, and soon displayed a -talent for disputation. He was intended for holy orders, and -while still almost a boy was seen, like Giovanni de’ Medici, -in the dress of an Apostolic protonotary. He was not much -over twenty when he came to Florence at the beginning of -1484. Recommended by his birth and connections, as well -as by Ercole d’Este, whose sister Bianca was his sister-in-law, -he became intimate with the Medici, and lived like a great -man; at the same time he pursued his studies diligently, -and formed friendships with Ficino, Landino, and Poliziano. -The last has described him graphically and with a fair -amount of truth. ‘Nature,’ he says, ‘appeared to have -showered upon this man, or rather this hero, all gifts of -body and mind. He was slender and well made, and something -divine seemed to shine in his face. He was acute in -perception, gifted with an excellent memory, indefatigable -in study, clear and eloquent in expression. One doubted -whether he shone most by his talents or his moral qualities.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> -Versed in every branch of philosophy, favoured by his perfect -knowledge of several languages, he showed himself -sublime and above all praise.’</p> - -<p>What distinguished the young scholar from all the other -members of the Florentine circle except Marsilio Ficino—though -it did not attract much attention till it brought him -into difficulties with Rome—was his study of mediæval -Jewish literature, to which he must have found special incitement -at Florence.<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a> For it was here that he began to -study those Jewish mysteries which in Alexandria were first -mixed up with the doctrines of the Bible, like Neoplatonism -with the wisdom of the Athenians, and were developed under -the name of Cabbalah into a lasting tradition of revelation. -Following in the steps of Ficino, Giovanni Pico found the -teachings of Christianity confirmed by those of Platonism; -while the Jewish doctrines furnished him with stronger -proofs, for what Ficino did not demonstrate from Platonism, -Pico drew from the Jewish mysteries. He was quite right -in recognising analogies not to be found in the Greek doctrines; -but it is evident that he stood on ground where -investigation and the play of fancy might bring him into -danger; more especially as he included magic within the -circle of his researches. It was nothing more than the -natural magic which consists mainly in the contemplation of -the powers of the heavenly bodies, but he stated in plain -words his opinion that no science could afford us a clearer -view of the divinity of Christ than magic and the Cabbalah.</p> - -<p>It may easily be conceived what a sensation was made -in Florence by a distinguished young man of such appearance, -talents, and tendencies. His arrival occurred at a -lucky moment. The end of the Ferrara war left a clear field -for other than political affairs, and the reputation of Lorenzo -de’ Medici had just then reached its zenith. The presence -of Giovanni Pico gave a new distinction to his whole circle.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> -He was one by himself. Ficino and Poliziano had shone by -the early maturity of their talents, but to them study was -the necessary object of their lives; while this youth of high -rank, on whom everything smiled, rivalled them in perseverance -and success and surpassed them in universality of -knowledge. Soon after his arrival at Florence, in a letter -to Lorenzo, he spoke highly of the poems which the latter -wrote on Dante and Petrarca; but this does not prove that -his judgment was sound, and it may, perhaps, not have -greatly impressed Lorenzo himself, though it doubtless did -him no harm in the Medicean circle. In 1485 he went to -continue his studies at Paris, returning thence at the beginning -of the next year. This year he was involved in two -troublesome affairs, one of which—though injurious to his -reputation—was only of a passing nature, but the other cast -a shadow over the whole of his after-life, and put an end to -the gaiety of his youth.</p> - -<p>The eloquent disciple of the Platonic Academy suddenly -found himself involved in a love adventure that was only too -real. ‘Count Giovanni della Mirandola,’ wrote the Ferrarese -envoy Aldovrandino Guidoni on May 12, 1486, to Duke -Ercole,<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> ‘has been living for nearly two years in such -splendour and in the enjoyment of such universal esteem as -has hardly fallen to the lot of any one before in this city. -A few days ago he gave out that he was going to Rome, and -sent forward all his luggage. On his arrival at Arezzo, -where resided a lady with whom he had a love affair—the -beautiful wife of one Giuliano de’ Medici, engaged in the -administration of taxes there—the said lady, according to -previous agreement, left her husband’s house. She pretended -to be going for a walk, but just outside the town she -mounted behind the count. He had about twenty people -with him, some on horseback, some on foot, besides two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> -mounted bowmen. When the people saw the lady surrounded -by this train there was an uproar. The storm-bell was rung -and the count was followed in pursuit, which became so hot -that the count was obliged to give up his fugitive. Every -one of his suite that could be reached was killed and stripped -in the <i>mêlée</i>, and many of the citizens also were left dead. -Thanks to their good horses, the count and his chancellor -got away to Marciano (in the valley of the Chiana), where -they were arrested. The Ten, before whom the case was -laid, at first gave orders to liberate the count and keep the -chancellor, but afterwards they commanded both to be kept -under arrest. Probably nothing will be done to him, but -the chancellor—on whom the chief blame is laid—may come -off badly, the more so as the matter concerns the wife of a -Medici, who, though poor, is still one of the family. In -truth, the count’s mishap is much to be regretted, for he -used to be considered a saint as well as a man of learning, -and now he has lost greatly in public opinion, though, -indeed, love has brought many into like errors.’ Duke -Ercole’s mediation was needless, as Pico was at once set -free, and the good easy husband received back into his house -the faithless wife, who pleaded forcible abduction. She was -a rich young widow of low degree when he married her -shortly before. Pico’s own remarks on the whole affair -display his penitence. ‘His sin grieves him,’ he said of -himself, ‘and he does not defend his conduct. He seems to -deserve forgiveness just because he attempts no excuse. -Nothing is weaker than man, nothing is mightier than -love!’</p> - -<p>The Roman affair was not so easily disposed of. After -the adventure at Arezzo, Pico went to Rome, where, to -establish the favourite Florentine thesis of an agreement -between Platonism and Christianity, and the assistance to -be derived from the former in combating heresy, he announced -a public disputation on 900 questions, to which, -besides philosophy and theology, law and natural science,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> -magic and the Cabbalah, Arabia and Chaldæa, had contributed -their quota. Thus the most brilliant intellects, -sometimes even more than others, pay tribute to pedantry. -The fruitful seed that lay buried in these investigations was -in a great measure choked up with the dull rubbish from -which the age was unable to free itself. Many of the affirmations -of the young scholar (which might well seem questionable -at that time) were impeached as contrary to the faith, -and the disputation was stopped. On August 5, 1486, -Innocent VIII. signed a brief against the theses put forth -by Giovanni Pico, denouncing their author in no sparing -terms. The long interval between the signature and the -publication, which did not take place till December 15, -instead of helping to smooth the difficulty, only increased it. -The author of the controverted propositions—so his opponents -maintained—being secretly informed of the papal -decision, hastily wrote an apology for them, had it secretly -printed in Naples, and pre-dated it, so that he should not -appear to be defending assertions already condemned by the -highest ecclesiastical authority. The accused denied this, -and declared that he had only received the brief on January -6, 1487, on his journey to France. In any case, his written -defence furnished his opponents with a pretext by which to -set the Pope against him and cause him to receive a citation -to Rome. It was even determined to arrest him, as we see -from a letter addressed to the Pope from Siena, December 5, -by the Bishop of Lucca, excusing the non-fulfilment of the -papal orders on account of his absence from his see.<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a></p> - -<p>The ‘Apology,’ dated May 31, 1486, is dedicated to -Lorenzo de’ Medici. ‘God is my witness,’ says the author -in the introduction, ‘that I dedicate this writing to thee, -O Lorenzo, not as thinking it worthy of such a man, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> -because I have long known that I owe all I possess to thee. -Whatever I am or may become is thine and will remain -thine. I say less than I would, and my words are too cold -to express the love and reverence which I have long felt and -shall continue to feel for thee. To these feelings I am moved -by the numerous proofs of favour that have proceeded rather -from thy mind towards me than from thy position, and -which are as rare as they are characteristic of thee. Receive -this apology with kindness; the gift is small, but it is a -testimony of my lasting devotion. If thou shouldst turn to -it from the important affairs which claim thy attention, -remember that it is a sketch rather than a work carefully -thought out, a task imposed on me by others rather than -chosen by myself, and that I present it to thee, not as a -proof of talents and learning to which I am a stranger, but -as a token, I repeat, of my entire devotion.’</p> - -<p>Lorenzo, Ercole d’Este, and Pico’s relatives, took an -active interest in his troubles. All through 1487, while the -accused was abroad, the affair dragged on without result. -The chief hope was in Lorenzo, whose influence with the -Pope was known to be great and increasing, and it was not -his fault that matters did not get on. He did not wait for -the entreaties of Pico’s brother Antonio, who came to -Florence in February 1488 to beg for his interposition at -Rome. He had already, on January 19, written to the -ambassador Lanfredini, giving a warning against extreme -steps, since excommunication or the like against a man so -young and so learned might drive the most moderate beyond -all patience. The solution he suggested was that Pico -should be allowed to go free to Rome and justify himself to -the Pope in person. The envoy did not quite agree with -Lorenzo’s view, being of opinion that the count would do -better to leave theology alone; nevertheless he bestirred -himself zealously on his behalf. ‘To my great satisfaction -and joy,’ writes Lorenzo to him on March 22, 1488,<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a> ‘I have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> -been informed of the agreement made by you with the Holy -Father concerning the count. In pursuance of your intimation, -I shall invite the count here. I feel assured he will -conduct himself so that his Holiness shall be satisfied with -him, for which object no efforts shall be wanting on my -part.’ So Giovanni Pico returned to Florence and Lorenzo -continued his intercession. But there were still grave difficulties -in the way of an adjustment, and the accused was -very shy of appearing at Rome. He lived sometimes in -Florence, sometimes at the neighbouring villa of Querceto -and the abbey of Fiesole, where he pursued Hebrew and -Chaldee studies with great ardour, and worked out a commentary -on Genesis. In June 1489, Florence conferred the -freedom of the city on her illustrious guest, and gave him -the right of acquiring property to the value of 6,000 gold -florins. It is evident that Lorenzo was anxious to bind him -more and more closely to himself and his home. ‘The -Count of Mirandola,’ he wrote on June 19 to Lanfredini,<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a> -‘is staying permanently with us, and lives as retired as a -monk, continually working at theology, and commenting on -the Psalms, &c. He reads the service as is usual for priests, -strictly observes the fasts, and has the most simple household -that necessity permits. He appears to me a pattern -for others. But he desires to be cleared before the Holy -Father from the charges brought against him, and to receive -a brief by which he shall be re-admitted as a true son and a -good Christian. I have this much at heart too, for there are -few men dearer to me or that I esteem more highly. To -my mind he is a true Christian, for he conducts himself so -that the whole city would be ready to stand surety for him. -Endeavour to obtain this brief in due form, that his conscience -may be set at rest. This will stand in the first rank -among the many pleasures you have procured me.’</p> - -<p>The affair, however, made no progress. The intention<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> -at Rome seemed to be to commission the Bishop of Vaison -to receive the explanations of Pico, who declared himself -ready to submit simply and entirely to the papal decision. -About this time the publication of his commentary on -Genesis gave fresh scandal. A feeling hostile to him seemed -to be gaining ground. On August 17, Lanfredini wrote that -Lorenzo had better advise the count simply to beg for absolution -and perform the needful penance. On October 6 he -declared that it was only out of consideration for Lorenzo -that the Pope was so lenient to the culprit; to satisfy -Lorenzo by giving the cardinalate to his son was quite -another thing—so his Holiness had said—from lending an -ear to his intercessions in a case where the faith was at -stake. Finally Lorenzo lost patience when he found that -the Pope was in the hands of his friend’s opponents. ‘I am -greatly displeased,’ he wrote in October 1489, ‘at hearing of -the censures on Mirandola’s work. If I were not convinced -that this persecution arises from envy and malice, I would -not speak of it. Various learned and God-fearing theologians -here have read the book, and all approve it as -excellent and Christian. I myself am not such a bad -Christian that I would keep silence and accept the book if I -thought otherwise. If he only said the Credo, these malicious -spirits would smell heresy in it. If the pressure of -business did but permit his Holiness to take personal cognizance -of the matter and discover the truth, I am certain the -whole thing would fall to pieces and the truth would come -to light. But the Pope has to depend on others, and this -poor man cannot defend himself. If he gives his reasons, he -is said to be speaking against the Holy Father! If he had -only to deal with his enemies unprotected by the papal -authority he would soon put them to silence. His misfortune -is that he has to deal with malicious ignorant foes -who shield themselves behind the head of the Church. I -have already hinted to you my suspicion that they are trying -to drive him to despair, and thereby to some rash step<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> -which might really be directed against his Holiness. For -believe me, Giovanni, this man has it in his power to work -both good and evil. His life and conduct prove the first; -if he is forced to turn another way, I personally shall lose -little thereby, for whatever direction he may take, he will be -attached to me as I to him. I have never succeeded in -quite making you understand this. Without going into -particulars now, I will merely observe that an attempt has -been made to persuade him into a step which might have -given great offence; but I have always prevented it, so that -he is come here, where he is leading a virtuous life and is -in peace. These devils tempt him with their persecutions, -and they are only too readily believed.’</p> - -<p>This letter shows how deeply the writer was moved. His -earnest remonstrances succeeded at least so far that Pico, -who, like Galileo afterwards, had been relegated to a villa in -the neighbourhood of Florence, was left unmolested in the -city. At this time occurred the visit of Reuchlin, who came -to Italy for the second time in 1490 in the suite of a son of -Duke Eberhard, and now became personally acquainted with -the man who had given the most decisive impulse to his -studies, which, like the Italian’s, aimed at harmonising the -results of Jewish and Greek wisdom with Christian faith and -knowledge. These studies entered in Germany upon a -new sphere of influence stretching far beyond the scope of -Pico, but not more free from danger, and involving the -German in conflicts similar to those of the Italian. Pico’s -Roman troubles were augmented by others. The dispute -between his brothers Galeotto and Antonio put him into -pecuniary straits, and obliged him to seek the aid of the -Duke of Ferrara.<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> Obstructions at Rome were endless. -Neither Lorenzo de’ Medici nor Innocent VIII. lived to see -the conclusion, which was brought about at last by a brief -of Alexander VI., June 18, 1493, in which Giovanni Pico<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> -was fully acquitted. The trouble and anxiety caused by this -affair made the deepest impression on his mind. His nephew -and biographer relates that he heard from his own mouth -how great a change it produced in his mind and life.<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> Excepting -a visit to Ferrara, where at the duke’s desire he was -present at a chapter of the Dominican order, he quitted -Florence no more. We have seen him in the country, in -frequent intercourse with Ficino and Poliziano. He lived -entirely for science; and the wealth which enabled him to -collect a treasury of books was also freely bestowed on the -needy; in these good works he was assisted by his attached -friend Benivieni. He burned his Latin poems, which he had -collected in five books and given to Poliziano for correction. -The latter had altered a few things, as he said, after the -example of him who found fault with the sandals of the -goddess of beauty because he could find none with herself; -and because a few verses seemed to him to be only of the -rank of a knight, while the rest were patrician and senatorial. -Poliziano lamented his friend’s resolve in a letter accompanied -by a Greek epigram. He could not remember, -he said, ever to have read anything more charming, elegant -and polished. ‘Ye silly gods of love,’ thus ends the epigram, -‘why did ye fly to Pico, who is the leader of the Muses?’ -Poliziano approved of his friend’s poetical attempts, and admired -his commentary on Benivieni’s <i>canzone</i> on Platonic -love, which the school of Florentine literature reckons among -its most important works, more than his deeper studies, -when in the rustic solitude of Querceto he wrote an extensive -treatise against astrology, destined to form part -of a great polemical work on sects hostile to Christianity.<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> -Poliziano thought it was lost time:</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">‘Pico, what hast thou to do with this? Thou’rt wasting thy powers:<br /> -Truly thy style is too good for this generation of jugglers.’</p> - -<p class="p1">Savonarola, on the contrary, who was a friend of the author<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> -in his later years, and read the unfinished work, expressed -mingled pleasure and regret over it; pleasure in the stand -made by the work against widespread errors, regret at the -premature death of the gifted author. We must not judge -Pico della Mirandola by what he has left behind. He paid -a heavier tribute to the weaknesses of the time than many -others who were not equal to him in intellectual capacity. -His whole personality must be considered; it is a typical -one. This scion of a princely house, who quitted the world -at two-and-thirty, who had measured the heights and depths -of the learning of his time, who, with all his abstruse scholarship, -preserved a simplicity and amiability of character that -drew all hearts to him, is by far the most brilliant figure in -that brilliant circle. After four centuries Pico della Mirandola -remains the highest representative of early maturity of -intellect. But he is something more; in conjunction with -the man whose friendship was so warmly expressed, he did -more than any other to give a value and importance to a -period which, with all its defects, was beneficent and noble.</p> - -<p>The sad fate of two other members of the Florentine literary -circle who were not Tuscans, as well as the circumstance -that both filled public offices in Florence, justifies us in mentioning -them together, though several decades separated them. -They are Stefano Porcaro and Pandolfo Collenuccio. The -former, a Roman knight, was the friend and correspondent -of Poggio, Filelfo, Ciriaco, and Traversari, holding a position -of influence at home and abroad.<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> He was led into the fatal -conspiracy of 1453 against Nicolas V. rather by memories of -antiquity and of Cola Rienzi than by his Florentine connections. -In the Podestà’s palace may be seen, in what was -formerly the chapel, a picture of the Madonna painted on -the wall, presented, in 1490, by Pandolfo Collenuccio of -Pesaro, then judge of the supreme court. Ficino, Pico, -Poliziano, admired the intellectual gifts and varied talents of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> -this learned man. It was wonderful, wrote the latter, what -he was capable of; he managed the affairs of princes with -great sagacity, was surpassed by none in the elegance of his -prose and verse, and decided intricate suits with a rare knowledge -of law. He commanded the most varied knowledge with -such mastery that he made further discoveries when others -fancied they had found out everything. This sound judge -of classical literature was also a student of natural history, -and one of the first to apply the science of history to the -vulgar tongue. He made use of his connection with -Germany, where he had been as envoy from Duke Ercole -d’Este to King Maximilian, to make large acquisitions for -the Florentine libraries. His execution in 1504, by command -of Giovanni Sforza of Pesaro, on pretext of high -treason in the Borgia disturbances, was one of those -tragedies of which there was never any lack in the petty -courts of Italy.<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER XI.</h2> - -<p class="pch">THE UNIVERSITY OF PISA. MANUSCRIPTS AND CRITICISM. -PRINTING. PLATONIC SYMPOSIA.</p> - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">The</span> circle of Florentine celebrities which, though its members -were continually changing, always retained its peculiar -character, included men of smaller importance than many -of those already described, but yet worthy of mention. -Among these are the philologer-poets who, in endeavouring -to follow Poliziano, lost their individuality in imitations of -the Roman poets of the Flavian and following periods. -Their verses have but an historical and local interest for -posterity, and even the sixteenth century, so busy with -Latin verse-making, passed judgment upon them very -freely.<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> Ugolino Vieri, who Latinised his name into Verino, -celebrated his native city and its famous men in three -books of a poem, ‘De Illustratione urbis Florentiæ,’ which -spite of a few happy characteristics, is barely more than a dry -catalogue. Naldo Naldi has acquired a more lasting reputation -by his biographical works than by his numerous verses. -People sang each other’s praises without end; and such -laudations, though endurable from a Poliziano, are tiresome -from inferior hands. Alessandro Bracci, one of the secretaries -of state; Giovan Battista Cantalicio, afterwards Bishop -of Penne and Adria; Tommaso Baldinotti of Pistoja; Alessandro -Cortesi, the talented scion of a family of San Gemignano -very intimate with the Medici; Piero Riccio, known<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> -under the Latinised name of Crinitus, and author of a -history of the old Latin poets; these and many other -pupils of Ficino, Landino, and Poliziano, belong to the <i>dii -minorum gentium</i>. Verses by some of them have been -printed, while heaps lie in manuscript in the Laurentian -library to testify to the intellectual activity of the time.<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> -The verses of the Roman Carlo de’ Massimi in praise of -Pisa University have some interest for the history of literature. -Literary productions of every kind were sent to -Lorenzo from all quarters; he was the great patron of -authors. Much of what he received he sent on to San -Marco and to the Abbey of Fiesole, as may be seen by the -inscriptions in the volumes.</p> - -<p>All these men, small and great, found in Lorenzo their -Mæcenas. But he showed very early that he invested the -position of patron with more serious importance than his -predecessors had done. When scarcely three-and-twenty -he brought about the restoration of the University of Pisa, -which was not only an act of justice, but, apart from its -literary importance, a token of ripe political insight that -helped to counterbalance in some degree the miseries inflicted -on Volterra in the same year (1472). The university, -formed in the fourth decade of the fourteenth century out -of the existing public schools, and confirmed in 1343 by -Clement VI., fell into decay from political causes later in -the century, and finally succumbed to Florentine enmity. -The mutual animosity of the two cities is only to be paralleled -in the history of antiquity. Twenty-five years after the -subjection of Pisa, the Ministry of War at Florence wrote to -Averardo de’ Medici, their commissioner in the subject -town:<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> ‘According to general opinion here, the most effectual<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> -means of securing the town is to empty it entirely of -Pisan citizens and peasants, concerning which we have -written to the Captain of the People till we are tired. He -answers that he is hindered by the soldiery and officers. -We now command thee to go to him and persuade him to -spare no harshness or severity, as we perceive that no other -remedy will avail. We have confidence in thee that thou -wilt at once set everything to work, for thou couldst do -nothing more pleasing to this whole people.’ The efficacious -result was that the city was ruined, the marshy neighbourhood -left fallow to become the home of fever, and the fleet -vanished. So rooted was this hatred that when Pisa had -freed herself amid the confusion which followed on Lorenzo’s -death, Bernardo del Nero—a usually moderate man of the -Medicean party—declared that against the Pisans nothing -availed save force; all prisoners of war must be slain after -the example of the Genoese, who let the Pisan captives -taken at Meloria languish to death in prison.<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a></p> - -<p>Lorenzo early perceived that the blind enmity which -ruined Pisa was overshooting the mark. As his family held -considerable property in the district he frequently had occasion -to visit the city, whose position made it a halting-place -for many travellers between northern and southern Italy. -Pisa must not be allowed to give the Florentines any more -trouble, but neither should it be allowed to perish. Two -considerations in particular seem to have prompted the re-establishment -of the old university. The first was the quiet, -which was more favourable to study than the busy life of -Florence; the second was the number and cheapness of -dwellings, which were in increasing danger of falling to ruin -since trade had departed from its old abodes, and the inhabitants -were nearly all poor people. Yet Lorenzo needed -great power and moral courage to set himself against rooted -hatred and stubborn prejudices. On December 19, 1472,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> -was issued the decree by which the university was restored -to life.<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a> A board of management was appointed—the Officiales -studii—consisting of five Florentine citizens: Tommaso -Ridolfi, Donato Acciaiuolo, Andrea Puccini, Alamanno -Rinuccini, and Lorenzo de’ Medici. The yearly endowment -was to consist of 6,000 gold florins, and the statutes of the -University of Florence were to be in force at that of Pisa. -Members of the state were to be entitled to academical -honours and the authority to practise in Pisa alone. To -raise the salaries of the professors, Pope Sixtus IV. consented -to a tax on the clergy to the amount of 5,000 florins in five -years, a tax which was renewed by his successor in 1497 -for another five years, and drew complaints from Ficino, -Poliziano, and others. Only the philosophical and literary -branches of study were to continue at Florence.</p> - -<p>The credit of all this was justly given to Lorenzo. ‘I -heard a few days ago,’ wrote Antonio de’ Pazzi to him from -Padua, January 29, 1473,<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> ‘that by your direction a new -university is to be founded at Pisa; at which not only we -Florentine students, but foreign ones too, are greatly delighted, -seeing that Pisa is a city eminently suited for it, -and because the scheme proceeds from a man who will strive -to acquire honour by this as by all else that he undertakes.’ -Scholars came flocking from all parts, and first among them -Francesco Filelfo. He had found an asylum with the Sforza -at Milan; but, dissatisfied and restless, extravagant and in -debt, he tried to change his position. During the pontificate -of Pius II. he made several attempts to this end, but, failing -in his hopes, he attacked the pontiff before and after death -with his usual invectives, and in consequence was imprisoned -for a time. In April 1473 he applied to Lorenzo. Some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> -time before he had managed to flatter Lorenzo’s father into -forgetting his offences against Cosimo so far as to hold one -of his sons over the font; and when in Florence in the -autumn of 1469, shortly before Piero’s death, he obtained a -loan from Lorenzo.<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> The letter which he now addressed to -the latter<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> is curiously characteristic of the man. He -attacks those who had long been in their graves—Marsuppini, -Poggio, and their ‘synagogue.’ He begins by declaring -that the Milanese chancellor, Cecco Simonetta, had -advised him to prefer Pisa to Rome, where he was much -wanted; and he ends with the artless assurance that -Lorenzo must know well he cannot find in all the world a -second Filelfo nor one more devoted to him. In another -letter he remarks in the same style: ‘You are aware that -at the present time no one can stand a comparison with me -in my own branch.’ Simonetta, from Pavia, seconded the -appeal, and sang the vain man’s praises. Lorenzo answered -by asking what salary would be required, but the negotiation -fell through, which Medici probably did not much regret, -as he must have felt some hesitation in attaching the quarrelsome -old man to his young establishment. Besides, the -sentence of banishment once passed on Filelfo was still in -force, and his services in the way of literary invective after -the conspiracy of the Pazzi had not yet smoothed the way to -his return. When he was at last summoned to Florence as -professor of eloquence and moral philosophy, he had scarcely -time to greet the city he had left for nearly half a century -before he died, a few days after his arrival, in the summer -of 1481, in his eighty-third year.</p> - -<p>The new-born university, which was opened in November -1473, soon took its share in the working of many active -forces in diverse directions. In its very earliest years it -would have risen to the highly flourishing condition it afterwards -attained had not various unfavourable circumstances<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> -come in the way. The unhealthy air of the city and neighbourhood -had not been sufficiently taken into consideration. -War, desolation, poverty, made matters worse, just at the -time when Florence was also a prey to disease. For six -years the establishment kept moving from place to place. -Professors and students wandered away to Pistoja and Prato, -and sometimes to Florence—even Empoli and San Miniato -were thought of—till the state of affairs was improved, and -the hitherto scattered lecturers were brought together in a -university building erected by the care of Lorenzo. There -was no lack of difficulties with the professors; the Sienese -Bartolommeo Sozzini and the Milanese brothers Decio, all -professors of law, gave Lorenzo a great deal of trouble by -their unruly conduct. Among the best professors at the -outset were the jurists Baldo Bartolini of Perugia and -Francesco Accolti of Arezzo, brother of the Florentine chancellor, -and a pupil of Filelfo; Piero Leoni of Spoleto, already -mentioned, who afterwards, to his misfortune, became -Lorenzo’s family doctor; the humanists Lorenzo Lippi of -Colle and Bartolommeo of Pratovecchio. Special honours -fell to the share of the Roman Francesco de’ Massimi, who -came to the university at its opening as professor of law, -was made Principal the next year, and gained such esteem -both by his lectures and by his endeavours to establish and -maintain a better understanding between the two hostile -cities, that the rights of citizenship were conferred on him -and his descendants, and he was permitted to add the arms -of Pisa to his own.<a name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a> The salaries of the professors were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> -mostly considerable, and Lorenzo repeatedly contributed to -them out of his own funds. The archbishop, Filippo de’ -Medici, supported him in his efforts to benefit the institution, -which was conducive both to the honour and advantage -of the see. That pecuniary difficulties could not be escaped, -however, is clear from the fact that in 1485, in consequence -of the non-payment of the papal allowance, a retrenchment -of 2,000 florins was deemed needful.</p> - -<p>The philosophical and philological lectures continued, as -has been said, at Florence, and scholarly activity there -seemed in nowise diminished by the re-animation of the -sister city. Among the native professors, Bartolommeo della -Fonte (Fontius) made a name equally distinguished in Latin -and Greek literature, and left Latin memoirs on contemporary -events from 1448 to 1493, the value of which is not -to be measured by their brevity.<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> His friendship with -Poliziano became clouded when he obtained the chair of -eloquence vacant by Filelfo’s death. He does not seem to -have held it long, as he undertook the superintendence of -Matthias Corvinus’ library at Ofen. The study of Greek -flourished. The chair once occupied by Argyropulos and -Theodoros was filled by the Athenian Demetrios Chalcondylas, -who kept it longer than anyone else, and left a better -reputation, both for learning and morality, than many Greek -grammarians. Poliziano, who is supposed to have perfected -his knowledge of the Hellenic tongue under him, addressed -him in several Greek epigrams, which give no hint of the -rivalry afterwards said to exist between them. A fine testimony -to his Homeric studies is the edition of the ‘Iliad’ -and ‘Odyssey’ which came out in 1488. Three years before,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> -at the age of nearly seventy, he left Florence for Milan, -where he long continued to teach, having been gladly welcomed -by Lodovico Sforza, who rivalled the Medici in his -patronage of science and art. Chalcondylas’ place at -Florence was taken by Johannes Lascaris, who formed many -fruitful connections with Milan, France, and Rome, in the -days of Lorenzo’s son. The knowledge of Greek was, perhaps, -never so widespread among high-born youths anywhere -as in those days in the Tuscan city to which, Poliziano said, -Athens with its native soil and all its possessions had transferred -itself. In truth, strangers eager to learn came from -all quarters—England, Germany, Portugal—just as of -old everybody went to Athens. Here Alessandro Farnese -acquired that knowledge of the language and literature -of Greece which the greyhaired Pope Paul III. had not -yet lost. Poliziano thus addressed the hearers of Chalcondylas:</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">Seek the Pierides not in their ancient home, O ye poets:</p> -<p class="pp6">For in this city of ours dwells now the heavenly choir.</p> -<p class="pp4">Where, do ye ask, have they chosen among us a place to abide in?</p> -<p class="pp6">All the nine ye will find safe in Chalcondylas’ breast.</p> - -<p class="p1">Textual criticism was a work taken up less by foreigners -than by Italians: in Rome, especially by Lorenzo Valla and -Pomponio Leto; in Florence, by Landino, Poliziano, and -Pico. Lorenzo not only encouraged those personally intimate -with him to this work, but urged others to it, particularly -the members of the Academy, which, having -weathered the storms of Paul II.’s reign, flourished with -renewed vigour under Sixtus IV., a Pope who felt no fear of -the baptized heathens. Bartolommeo Platina, writing to -Lorenzo<a name="FNanchor_97_97" id="FNanchor_97_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> to recommend the Milanese sculptor Andrea -Fusina, adds that the man felt assured of obtaining his -desire if he, Platina, interceded for him. ‘Farewell, and -believe me, thou hast few who love and honour thee like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> -Platina.’ On March 30, 1488, Lorenzo wrote to Lanfredini -on behalf of a friend of Pomponio Leto:<a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a> ‘Doubtless you -know, at least by name, Pomponio, one of the most famous -scholars in Rome, if not the very first, and a man much -attached to me and our whole house, so that I am greatly -desirous of doing him a favour.’</p> - -<p>The art of studying manuscripts had first to be put on a -sound basis. The rich harvest of discoveries was now almost at -an end, a few objects of interest turning up only occasionally. -Collectors had naturally enough given themselves up to -delight in the prizes thus gained, without troubling themselves -much about criticism. The necessity of criticism -became more strongly felt and exercised as continued study -of the old authors involved a stricter examination of the -correctness of the manuscripts. At first people had been too -much inclined to believe generally in their great age, and -had been misled in individual cases by the chronological -notes at the end of the codices. Often, as in the Medicean -codex of the later books of the Annals of Tacitus, the date -was fixed in the fourth Christian century, when in reality -the parchments were written on by a later copyist. The -corrupt state of the manuscripts called for correction, but -the correction was mostly arbitrary. Coluccio Salutati, -Leonardo Bruni, Francesco Barbaro, and others, sought to -supply what was needed, but of rules they knew nothing. -In this, above all, shines the transcendent merit of Poliziano; -though even he indulged largely in conjecture, when in his -youth he self-complacently fancied that his work on Catullus -surpassed everything of the kind. Nor did he stand alone in -this respect. Ermolao Barbaro in his edition of Pliny in -1492, Marullus in his critical works on Lucretius, confess -how often they had had recourse to emendations of their -own devising. But Poliziano thoroughly perceived that a -secure basis was only to be obtained by a comparison of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> -MSS. where more than one existed. When this was not the -case he tried to get a foundation for his conjectures from -notes and parallel passages. Many printed books from his -library bear on their margins traces of this comparison of -MSS., to which he alludes in one of his letters to Lorenzo.<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> -The collection of critical studies which he published in 1489 -under the title of ‘Miscellanea,’ at Lorenzo’s desire and with -a dedication to him, is a lasting memorial of his learning -and acumen. A painful impression is made by his dispute -with Filelfo’s pupil Giorgio Merula,<a name="FNanchor_100_100" id="FNanchor_100_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a> the editor of ‘Plautus.’ -This man had been invited to Milan by Ludovico il Moro, -gave philosophical lectures there, and though previously an -admirer of Poliziano, now professed to find errors and -plagiarisms in his works. Sforza showed his good sense by -trying to calm the irritation of the Florentine when appealed -to by him.</p> - -<p>Poliziano’s critical work on the correction of the text of -Justinian’s ‘Corpus Juris’ holds an honourable place in the -history of this subject. This famous copy of the Pandects -was avowedly acquired by Pisa at the conquest of Amalfi, -whither it had doubtless come as a gift from some Greek -emperor, and on the overthrow of Pisa it was transferred to -Florence. Poliziano’s views of its age and authorship may -have been exploded by later criticism, but for the foundations -of a better text than that of the later MSS., and the two -editions printed from them, we still owe him thanks.<a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a></p> - -<p>While the Latin works of the humanists were being done -into the vulgar tongue, the practice of translating Greek works -into Latin was continued. Alamanno Rinuccini translated -Plutarch’s ‘Lives’ and moral writings, as well as Philostratos<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>’ -‘Life of Apollonius of Tyana,’ which excited special interest -in an age much busied with the theologising philosophy of -the later Greeks. Alessandro Bracci did the same for the -histories of Appian, and Poliziano, as has been mentioned, -translated those of Herodian for Innocent VIII. The movement, -begun in Florence and Venice, had spread all over Italy. -In the most palmy days of these studies the invention of -printing produced in the whole world of letters a change, the -possible extent of which was at once felt, though it could not -yet be measured. Books had hitherto been things for the -great and opulent, and not seldom were to be obtained only -by personal labour. There were difficulties even in the -highest circles. The spread of the new art produced not -only a material increase of literary productions, but led -naturally to an immense increase of criticism. In earlier -times bitter complaints had been heard of the corruption of -the texts. The few attempts that had been made to attain -greater correctness now became a recognised branch of study. -Every corrector was not indeed a Poliziano, a Barbaro, or a -Merula. The last complains, in his edition of ‘Plautus’ of -1472, that learned and unlearned alike busied themselves -with correcting books; a circumstance which limits the -value of more than one <i>editio princeps</i> to its mere rarity, -and explains the fact that many of the correctors of that -time rivalled their predecessors the copyists in the arbitrariness -of their proceedings. But even in the case of the -learned the canons of criticism were by no means fixed.</p> - -<p>It is remarkable that Florence, which, when printing was -introduced into Italy, stood at the head of all literary movement, -is by no means the first city that appears in the annals -of typography. In 1465, three years after the capture of -Mainz by Adolf of Nassau had scattered to the four winds -the printers established there, two Germans set up the first -printing-press in the Benedictine monastery at Subiaco, -whence ere long it was removed to the house of the Massimi -at Rome. Four years later Venice followed, then the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> -Umbrian and other cities. In November, 1471, appeared the -first book printed in Florence, the commentary of Servius on -Virgil’s ‘Bucolics,’ which was followed in the following -January by the ‘Georgics,’ and in October, 1472, by the -‘Æneid.’ But if the city fell behind many others in point -of priority, this honour is due to her, that one of her sons -cut and founded his own types, without needing the services -of a foreigner. The goldsmith Bernardo Cennini was the -first Italian who set himself up as an independent artist in -this line.<a name="FNanchor_102_102" id="FNanchor_102_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a> Born in Florence, January, 1415, he was first a -silk-weaver and then a goldsmith, and was concerned in the -bronze doors of the Baptistery, and other great works. His -art led him to manufacture types for printing. The inscription -in the book printed by him, with the help of his sons -Domenico and Pietro, the first as compositor, the second as -corrector of the press,<a name="FNanchor_103_103" id="FNanchor_103_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> shows that he was proud of the -achievement: ‘To Florentine minds nought is arduous.’ -The book shows an artistic mind in its form and typographical -arrangement, but the round type is lacking in sharpness -and evenness. The pecuniary result can scarcely have been -worth the trouble and outlay. When we find that Cennini, -after spending sixteen months on the production of the folio -volume, pledged his house for a loan of 120 florins, we can -understand why he returned to his old occupation, and why -no other book printed by him is forthcoming. In course of -time Bernardo Cennini, whose sight had suffered greatly, -became consul of his guild, and died in 1483, twelve years<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> -after the attempt which brought him a name and somewhat -tardy honours.</p> - -<p>Next a German who had established himself in Florence, -Johannes, son of Peter of Mainz, printed Boccaccio’s ‘Filocolo’ -in 1472, and afterwards joined the typographical -society which took its name from the Dominican nunnery at -Ripoli.<a name="FNanchor_104_104" id="FNanchor_104_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a> Its local habitation is still shown in one of the -schoolrooms of the educational institute named after the -same in the Via della Scala. From this establishment, -founded by the spiritual directors of the convent and connected -with a type-foundry, issued first, in 1476, some lauds -and prayers, then the ‘Commentary of Donatus’ and the -‘Legend of S. Catherine of Siena,’ which, both in the -common form and in copies with illuminated initials, obtained -a great circulation. This printing establishment, in -which many both of the clergy and laity had a share, and in -which the nuns were employed as compositors, produced a -great deal of work during its short existence of eight years. -In 1477 printing was begun by Nicolaus of Breslau, already -mentioned; in 1478 he brought out the ‘editio princeps’ -of Celsus, and three years later Landino’s ‘Dante.’ In -1481, Antonio Miscomini printed Savonarola’s ‘Triumphus -Crucis,’ a proof of the increasing notice attracted by the -eloquent and learned Dominican. Next came Ficino’s -‘Platonic Theology,’ and translation of ‘Plotinus.’ In 1488 -the series of Greek books issued in Florence opened brilliantly -with the ‘Homer,’ dedicated to Lorenzo’s eldest son. -Chalcondylas undertook the correction, the difficulty of -which called forth his remark, in the preface, that the text -had been so corrupted by the carelessness of copyists that it -was, so to say, impossible to find it entire in any codex, -however old. The expenses were borne by Bernardo and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> -Neri, sons of Tanai de’ Nerli, a noble citizen. Lorenzo -Alopa of Venice is said to have printed the beautiful volume, -which was soon followed by numerous others. The most -celebrated Florentine family of typographers, that of the -Giunta, did not begin their labours till Lorenzo de’ Medici -had long been in his grave.</p> - -<p>The extended use of typography had, however, as yet by -no means diminished the value of manuscripts or put an end -to the work of the copyists, while the need and difficulty of -unearthing literary treasures was as great as ever. The explanation -of this is to be found in the material perfection to -which the art of the copyists had been brought, a perfection -of which the proud consciousness was expressed in Vespasiano’s -disdainful remark on printing. This branch of -industry went on flourishing for many years, to disappear at -last and leave scarcely a trace behind. One of the most -brilliant, though not the most important, of the treasures of -the Laurentiana, the works of St. Augustine in sixteen folio -volumes full of miniatures and ornaments, was begun in the -time of Piero de’ Medici and finished shortly before the -death of Lorenzo (two of the volumes are dated 1491). It -may not have been completed till the time of his second son, -unless the escutcheon with the balls and the Triregnum -points to Leo X. only as the possessor of the work and not -as concerned in its execution.</p> - -<p>In the diffusion of literary treasures, both of classical -and modern works, and in the relations of the latter to the -general public, who now for the first time became really -acquainted with them, was brought about that great change -which gives to this period double importance in the history -of intellectual development. At Lorenzo’s death this revolution -had hardly reached its first stage; but his keen vision -perceived its growing importance when he observed that in -the course of twenty-eight years Italy had come to take a -more prominent share than other lands in the activity of the -press. This showed, quite as much as the previous rapid<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> -development of Greek literature, that the country was ready -to make an independent and profitable use of the gifts of -foreign countries. The invention of printing and the discovery -of America were in some degree the two great landmarks -of Lorenzo’s life. The first created actual publicity, -the second opened a new horizon to the world.</p> - -<p>Never were manuscripts more eagerly collected and copied -than in those days. The sum of the collections was not so -great as in the days of Poggio and Leonardo Bruni; still -the libraries were increasing everywhere. Greece, which -had contributed so largely to enrich the West in the first -half of the century, and after the fall of the Eastern empire, -was still the principal mine. Witness the two journeys of -Johannes Lascaris, the second of which, like that of Bernardo -Michelozzi, was entirely devoted to searching the monastery -of Mount Athos. Its results, as already stated, reached -Florence after Lorenzo’s death. As early as 1472 Lorenzo -had projected a building, probably near the palace in the -Via Larga, destined to contain the great number of manuscripts -collected by his grandfather, his father, and himself. -This appears from a letter addressed to him by Vespasiano -da Bisticci, in which the latter recalls their frequent conversations -on the subject, and adds that such an undertaking -would do great honour to Lorenzo as well as to the town; -and that he had written about it to the Duke of Calabria, -the Count of Urbino, and Alessandro Sforza, Lord of Pesaro, -knowing how much pleasure it would give them. Doubtless -the manifold cares and disturbances which prevented Lorenzo -from imitating his grandfather in the number and -splendour of his buildings hindered him from executing this -plan in good time. Consequently at his premature death -the library was but half finished. It is now impossible to -make out even the site of the building, since it is uncertain -whether it was the same chosen many years afterwards by -his nephew Pope Clement VII. for the existing Mediceo-Laurentian -library. We still possess the inventory of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> -private library of the Medici, drawn up in 1495, when -the books were made over to the convent of San Marco. -There they remained, through many vicissitudes, till 1508, -when Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici bought them and transferred -them to Rome; after his death they returned to -Florence, to form the chief part of the San Lorenzo collection.<a name="FNanchor_105_105" id="FNanchor_105_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a></p> - -<p>It may be imagined that many of Lorenzo’s fellow-citizens -were his rivals in book-collecting. A fine library -had once been formed by Piero de’ Pazzi, son of Andrea. -Francesco and Angelo Gaddi followed his example, and the -great public library of their native city contains many books -once in their possession. Poliziano’s friend, the accomplished -merchant Filippo Sassetti the elder, also made a large collection. -The good custom of making special bequests to secure -these literary treasures from dispersion was kept up. -Boccaccio had done this, and Riccoli, Traversari, Cardinal -Piero Corsini and others; and in like manner Ugolini Guigni, -Bishop of Volterra, left his books to the Benedictine abbey -at Florence.<a name="FNanchor_106_106" id="FNanchor_106_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> In 1477, Jacopo Salvini, Bishop of Cortona, -bequeathed his collection to Lorenzo de’ Medici.<a name="FNanchor_107_107" id="FNanchor_107_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a> The latter -had literary correspondents everywhere. In 1476 we find -him corresponding with the Milanese Gio. Francesco della -Torre, who, with Maestro Bonaccorso of Pisa, had purchased -the books of Andronikos Kallistos, when the latter purposed -returning from Lombardy to his own home.<a name="FNanchor_108_108" id="FNanchor_108_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> Giovanni -Rossi of Candia, who had been employed by Cardinal Bessarion, -was also made use of by Lorenzo, apparently to look -after copies of manuscripts.<a name="FNanchor_109_109" id="FNanchor_109_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a> Among those more closely -connected with him in later years, Poliziano, Pico, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> -Ermolao Barbaro took charge of the enrichment of his collection -and that of the convent libraries of San Marco, -Fiesole, and San Gallo. Ho said once to Poliziano, he -wished that he and Pico could procure him so many books -that his income would not suffice to buy them, and he should -be obliged to pawn his household goods. He kept copyists -in many places, especially at Padua, which, as the residence -of so many great scholars and from its connection with the -Levant through Venice, was a spot favourable to book -collectors.</p> - -<p>The difficulty and expense of obtaining manuscripts in -earlier times has been already noticed. Even in Lorenzo’s -latter years it was by no means easy, and his correspondence -shows that once, in the very height of his glory, he had to -apply in his own handwriting to a prince who was probably -under obligation to him, in order to obtain the loan of Dion -Cassius. ‘There is in your Excellency’s library,’ he wrote -on February 5, 1486, to Duke Ercole d’Este, ‘a historian, -by name Dio, <i>de Romanis historiis</i>, that I earnestly desire to -see, both on account of the enjoyment and consolation which -history affords me, and because my son Piero, who has some -knowledge of Greek literature, has begged me to help him -to become acquainted with this author, who, I understand, -is very rare in Italy. Your Excellency can understand how -highly I shall prize the favour, if you will lend me the book -for a few days.’ Notwithstanding their intimacy, the Duke -did not send the original, but allowed a copy to be made by -a copyist sent to Ferrara for the purpose. Two years later -he had Niccolò Leoniceno’s translation copied for Lorenzo, -on condition that it was neither to be printed nor allowed to -go any further.<a name="FNanchor_110_110" id="FNanchor_110_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a> In the spring of 1491 Poliziano was, as -we have seen, in Venice, where he bought for his patron a -quantity of manuscripts now in the Laurentiana. He was -refused permission to see Cardinal Bessarion’s collection of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> -books, although the Ferrarese ambassador used his influence -with the Doge Agostino Barbarigo—a strange token of petty -mistrust.<a name="FNanchor_111_111" id="FNanchor_111_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a> ‘Your diligence in having Greek works copied, -and the favour you show to scholars,’ wrote Poliziano to -Lorenzo about this time, ‘procures for you such honour and -attachment as no one has enjoyed for many years past.’ He -mentioned at the same time the admiration for Lorenzo expressed -by a Venetian poetess honoured by all scholars and -literary men, as well as by popes and kings. ‘Last -evening I visited Cassandra Fedele,<a name="FNanchor_112_112" id="FNanchor_112_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a> to whom I presented -your salutations, Lorenzo; she is really admirable, both in -Latin and in the vulgar tongue, withal very modest, and, in -my opinion, also beautiful. I left her astonished. She is -devoted to you, and speaks of you as if she knew all about -you. Some day she will certainly come to Florence to visit -you, so prepare to do her honour.’</p> - -<p>Lorenzo’s example did not fail to bring forth fruit in his -own house. Leo X. laboured all his life to follow it, with a -zeal in collecting which showed that his father’s spirit survived -in him. Piero, with his tutor Poliziano, superintended the -arrangement and enrichment of the library, sending reports -about it to his father, when the latter was ill at the baths. We -learn from one of his letters<a name="FNanchor_113_113" id="FNanchor_113_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a> that the Medici, in the interests -of their library, took advantage of the death of King Matthias -Corvinus (April 4, 1490) to secure a number of his copyists -and agents who were then thrown out of employment. That -monarch vied with the book collectors of his time, and spent -more than 30,000 gold florins yearly on the increase of his -library at Ofen. In 1488 he sent an agent to Florence with -full power to make purchases and superintend the taking of -copies. The efforts made by this active and high-minded -ruler of a people still half barbarous, however capable of development,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> -were always assisted by Lorenzo, as became his -friendly relations with Matthias. Long before the days of -Matthias Corvinus there had been a literary and artistic -connection between Florence and Hungary through Filippo -Scolari, commonly called Pippo Spano by his countrymen, -from his title of Count Palatine (<i>Obergespann</i>) of Temesvar; -he held an influential position under Sigismund of Luxemburg. -The connection with the Italian literary world had -been actively kept up by the powerful Archbishop of Gran, -Johann Vitez, who founded a high school at Ofen; still -more by his nephew, Janus Pannonius, Bishop of Fünfkirchen, -who studied at Padua under Guarino, and visited -Cosimo de’ Medici at Careggi.</p> - -<p>From his youth Lorenzo had extended his attention beyond -what are called literary treasures in the narrower sense. -In another field, bordering at once on the study of antiquity -and on that of history, his name must also be mentioned -with distinction. The range of classical studies was extended -to ancient monuments. Rome, for centuries active only in -destruction, began to be ashamed of the bad name which -such barbarism had brought upon her. The time of Sixtus -IV., with all its sins, was the turning-point. Like his successor -and namesake, Sixtus V., the Pope did not entirely -refrain from demolishing ancient monuments; but works of -art and inscriptions were safe. The Roman Academy strove -to wipe out the blot pointed at in an epigram by Pius II.</p> - -<p>The great increase in the collection of old inscriptions drew -attention to those valuable witnesses of old times. At the -same time the disappearance of these memorials through -decay and careless removal gave warning that their contents -must be secured by copying. What had been once undertaken -by Nicola Signorini, Giovanni Dondi, Poggio, Ciriaco, -perhaps even before them by Cola di Rienzi, was now continued -under the guidance of Pomponio Leto and his friends, -with the sympathy of all Italy. Inscribed stones were diligently -collected in Rome, Naples, and northern Italy. Bernardo<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> -Rucellai copied a number of epigraphs from the originals -in Rome. One of the most valuable of these collections of -transcriptions was dedicated to Lorenzo de’ Medici by its -author, the Dominican Fra Giocondo of Verona. He was -one of those many-sided geniuses frequent at the time; -versed in classical literature and in knowledge of antiquity. -His pupil, Julius Cæsar Scaliger, called him a living library -of ancient and modern learning. He was an engineer and -architect, active in many ways at Rome, at Venice, and in -France, and at an advanced age master-builder of the Vatican -Basilica, under Leo X. The copy of the collection of inscriptions -presented by Fra Giocondo to Lorenzo de’ Medici, -who came in contact with him through Alessandro Cortesi, -has disappeared, but other copies remain. The dedication -of the work is an eloquent lamentation over the state of -ancient Rome, and over the dispersion or destruction of stone -and bronze tablets. It offers a warm tribute to their value, -and an acknowledgment of Lorenzo’s interest in these -studies. Poliziano and other friends made use of the careful -work of the energetic Veronese, who was in communication -both with the future Pope and his brother Giuliano, to -whom he dedicated his commentary on Cæsar’s ‘Gallic War,’ -and the later edition of ‘Vitruvius.’<a name="FNanchor_114_114" id="FNanchor_114_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a></p> - -<p>Such were the literary tendencies which, notwithstanding -the rivalry of other cities, had their chief centre and -focus at Florence; such was the circle of men which had -gathered together in this city. Vacant places were soon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> -filled up again. Like Lorenzo himself, several of the most -prominent were in the prime of life, and younger men began -to make good their claims. Such were Marcello Virgilio -Adriani, who, after Scala’s death, restored the chancellorship -to its pristine glory, and Bernardo Dovizj, who grew up -in the house of the Medici, and afterwards gained a worldwide -reputation as Cardinal of Bibiena. Whatever personal -divergences there might be in the group, Lorenzo held them -all together: all did homage to him, all acknowledged him -as their leader. It was no cringing homage to a mighty -lord; many of those who stood nearest to him gained little -in worldly goods by their position, and others were too high -and independent to need his help. It was the homage due -to a richly endowed mind with noble aims and endeavours. -Regardless of all inequalities of rank and position, freedom -and ease reigned in this circle. When the meetings were -academical, they were free from the formality which afterwards -crept into academical life. Lorenzo de’ Medici, cheerful -and sociable, maintained unconstrained intercourse with -his literary friends. He received them everywhere: in the -house in Via Larga, in the garden of San Marco, in the -villas at Careggi and Poggio a Cajano. The more intimate -of them accompanied him also when he went to the baths or -to Pisa, or when he paced the convent cloisters in serious -discourse with the clergy. The Platonic Academy, an inheritance -from his grandfather, was only one manifestation -of this multiform social life. It was so strangely composed -that it is not surprising the Platonists sometimes fell into -very un-Platonic ways. There is something half comic about -a letter of Landino’s dated 1464, the year Cosimo died;<a name="FNanchor_115_115" id="FNanchor_115_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a> it -is a petition on behalf of the herald of the Priory Palace, -who had been dismissed from his post for keeping a girl -hidden two days in his room. He solicits pardon upon the -following pleas: his wife was expecting her confinement,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> -he had two little daughters and an aged mother, and was a -member of the Platonic Academy.</p> - -<p>Lorenzo sometimes took part in the meetings of the -learned society, which he was fond of summoning to Careggi, -being less disturbed there than in the city. In both places -the Symposia were renewed which, according to Alexandrian -tradition, were to celebrate the day of Plato’s birth and -death (November 7). Marsilio Ficino has described one of -these banquets which took place under the presidency either -of Lorenzo or Francesco Bandini.<a name="FNanchor_116_116" id="FNanchor_116_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a> Among the guests were -Marsilio and his father, Landino, Antonio degli Agli Bishop -of Fiesole, Carlo and Cristoforo Marsuppini, Giovanni Cavalcanti, -Bernardo Nuzzi, and Tommaso Benci. The academical -celebration or exercise succeeded the repast. Plato’s -‘Symposion’—the book which treats of the tokens of love -at similar happy meetings, and a commentary on which -Marsilio furnished in his treatise on love—was used as a -starting-point for free disputation, the parts being divided -among the persons present. Giovanni Cavalcanti developed -the ‘Phædro,’ and showed how the birth of Eros from the -conjunction of the earth with chaos, amid the throes of -creation and the struggle for light, signified the original -motive force of all that is good, noble, and beautiful in mankind. -With this discourse was connected the exposition, -also allotted to Cavalcanti, of the speech of Pausanias on -the double Aphrodite, and Urania; on the distinction and -confusion between moral and physical affections, their emanation, -extension, stages of purification, and participation in -the manifold forces of nature. Landino undertook to explain -the speech of Aristophanes. According to this, love -is the never-sleeping longing of man for a return to his -former state of oneness with the Divine, from which Zeus, in -wrath, had divided him by means of his earthly form and by -sin. To Carlo Marsuppini fell the discourse of Agathon, -which glorifies the qualities of the god who is at once so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> -various and yet blends all variety into unity. Tommaso -Benci devoted himself to pointing out the connection between -the Christian view and the supposed inspired words of the -priestess Diotima, who disclosed to Socrates the nature of a -love that raises man to the highest good or sinks him to the -lowest depths of evil. Cristoforo Marsuppini undertook to -bring into harmony with the Socratic doctrine of Love the -poems of Guido Cavalcanti, to which, as an emanation of -Greek philosophy in the arena of the new-born Italian -literature, great importance was attached by contemporaries, -especially by Lorenzo de’ Medici. Such were the occupations -of these famous assemblies. Their positive scientific results -were not great, yet they afford a brilliant testimony to the -cultivation which enabled the upper classes in Florence to -take part in the noblest intellectual efforts.</p> - -<p>While poetry and philosophy were thus flourishing, the -exact sciences were making considerable progress. It is -doubtful whether Fra Luca Paciolo, of Borgo San Sepolcro—who -first recalled true geometry to life by his exposition of -Euclid, and who exercised so much influence on Leonardo -da Vinci—began his labours during the lifetime of Lorenzo. -But Paolo del Pozzo Toscanelli, the physician, philosopher, -naturalist, and mathematician, commenced his studies as -early as the days of Cosimo the Elder. In 1468 he laid -down the famous meridian in Sta. Maria del Fiore, primarily -for the purpose of ascertaining exactly the solstices in order -to fix the festivals of the Church. The importance of the -work was appreciated by later generations, and the task was -performed more perfectly 300 years afterwards, at the suggestion -of La Condamine.<a name="FNanchor_117_117" id="FNanchor_117_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_117_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a> It is well known that Toscanelli, -who died in 1482, aged seventy-five, exerted great influence -on the mind of Christopher Columbus by his calculations of -the longitudinal extent of Eastern Asia, which, however,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> -rested chiefly on Marco Polo’s mistaken hypotheses. Long -after Toscanelli’s death, Columbus—when upon his first -voyage—made use of the map, marked with the latitudes -and longitudes, which the former had once sent to Lisbon. -It was in the last years of Lorenzo’s life that a man whose -name is more famous than his deeds, and who has been the -subject of renewed controversy in our own times, left his -home to seek a new one in Southern Spain.<a name="FNanchor_118_118" id="FNanchor_118_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_118_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a> The family of -Amerigo Vespucci, which reckoned among the navigator’s -near relatives men of both scientific and political importance, -was sometimes on friendly, sometimes on hostile terms -with the Medici; but we hear nothing of any personal relation -between him and Lorenzo. About the age of forty, -Amerigo settled in Seville, where he joined the banking and -commercial house of his fellow-countryman Giovanni Berardi. -Well furnished with knowledge, to which his learned uncle -Giorgio Antonio had contributed not a little, he began a -course of practical preparations for the undertaking which -led him to the Far West. Not with the Florentines, but with -a schoolman of Lorraine, originated the name of the new -continent which, as long as the world stands, will recall -Amerigo Vespucci. Still the Florentines rightly rejoiced in -the fame of their countryman. A later generation has seen -the house of his forefathers turned into a hospital, and has -inscribed on it in homage to his memory: ‘Ob repertam -Americam sui et patriæ nominis illustratori amplificatori -orbis terrarum.’ When the news of his discoveries made in -the voyage of 1497 reached Florence, the Signoria had the -above-named house illuminated for three nights, a distinction -they were wont to bestow only on the most conspicuous merit.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p class="pc4 large">THIRD PART.</p> - -<p class="pc large"><i>THE FINE ARTS.</i></p> - -<hr class="d1" /> - -<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER XII.</h2> - -<p class="pch">COSIMO AND PIERO DE’ MEDICI IN THEIR RELATION TO ART.</p> - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">The</span> early years of Cosimo de’ Medici were passed during -the great revolution in art by which realism, united with -reminiscences of the antique, enforced its claims, and, superseding -the Gothic and Pisan styles in architecture and -sculpture, restricted that of Giotto, in painting, to a narrow -circle of recognised types. Art had struck out for itself -these new paths before Cosimo became ruler of the whole -state; but he influenced its rapid development by his active -sympathy and by a liberality rarely equalled by private individuals -or even by princes. Independently of the encouragement -he afforded to talent in his princely capacity, he gave -honourable commissions to artists from his own resources. -In personal intercourse with them he united a thorough -knowledge of art with a sympathetic affability which did -equal honour to them and to himself. His two favourite -architects, Brunelleschi and Michelozzo, have been already -mentioned. The former died eighteen years before him, -the latter survived him about six years. He justly valued -their genius, and promoted a friendly understanding between -them while employing both on important works. It was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> -Brunelleschi who continued the building of the church of -San Lorenzo and the abbey of Fiesole.</p> - -<p>After the days of Giovanni di Bicci both branches of the -Medici seem to have been reunited. The church of San -Lorenzo was the parish church of Cosimo’s branch, and the -burial-place of both. As early as 1415 there had been a -talk of enlarging this sacred edifice, which dated from the -earliest years of Christianity. Three years later a street at -the back, the Via de’ Preti—a name ill-suited to the occupations -of its inhabitants—was assigned to the Chapter for the -purpose of enlargement. They began to rebuild the choir -in 1419.<a name="FNanchor_119_119" id="FNanchor_119_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_119_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a> With other members of wealthy families, Giovanni -de’ Bicci, having pledged himself to build some chapels, -undertook the sacristy, which, for harmony of proportions, -both in its cupola and ground-plan, and for the excellence of -its decorations, claims the highest admiration. What the -father had begun the son continued on a larger scale. On -September 23, 1440—while the building of the new church -was proceeding under the direction of Brunelleschi, the -older one still being in use—Cosimo buried his brother -Lorenzo there. Upon this occasion Pope Eugene IV. sent -the cardinals and prelates of his court with the banner of -the church and his own, and 100 wax candles. Two years -later Cosimo proceeded to complete the choir and cupola on -condition of gaining the right of patronage for himself and -his heirs, in return for which privilege he gave the chapter -a state bond for 40,000 florins towards the expenses of the -building. On May 15, 1457, the court of the Canonica was -begun; it was finished, as well as the high altar and those -in the transepts, four years after, and finally the high altar -was consecrated by Archbishop Orlando Bonarli on August -9, 1461. Two years before, a college for young clergy had -been opened near the church, which retains its chapter to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> -this day.<a name="FNanchor_120_120" id="FNanchor_120_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_120_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a> San Lorenzo is a basilica with columns. It has -arches resting on an entablature laid on the capitals, a -square end to the choir, a cupola, a flat roof, and chapels -of no great depth. A walk through the cloisters of the -Canonica recalls times long gone by. Two ranges of arcades -enclose the quadrangle and lead to the little dwellings of the -canons and to the famous library, which, in its present form, -is a work of later days. The mighty dome of the cathedral -and the bell-tower of Giotto look down into these cloisters, -the stillness of which contrasts with the din of the busy -streets around; while its whole appearance reminds the -spectator of the homely simplicity, the frugality, and noble -generosity which prevailed at the time of its erection.</p> - -<p>The work said to have been executed for Cosimo at Fiesole -by Brunelleschi was scarcely less important. At the foot of -the hill there, in the valley of the Mugnone, lay the old abbey -church, believed to be the original cathedral of the Etruscan -city. In 1439, by command of Pope Eugene IV., it was -handed over by the Benedictines to the regular canons of -St. Augustine; and Cosimo de’ Medici, who was a friend of -the Prior—Don Timoteo of Verona—began the new building. -The church still retains the middle compartment of its -original façade, belonging to the præ-Gothic period. Containing -a nave and chapels of considerable dimensions, the -building is simple and artistic. Doubts have been thrown -on Vasari’s assertion that it is really Brunelleschi’s, it being -quite unlike his other works.<a name="FNanchor_121_121" id="FNanchor_121_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_121_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a> The building of the convent -presented many difficulties on account of the slope of the -ground, and was finished by Cosimo’s son in 1466. It has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> -long been diverted from its original use, but continued to be -the domicile of the founder and his family, whose arms were -carved upon it, at a later period. Here the Platonic Academy -held its meetings, and here a great-grandson of Cosimo -donned the purple as cardinal, and another—Giuliano, Duke -of Nemours—drew his last breath. In later days the church -was enriched with many beautiful works of art; but in vain -do we look round the great building, which neither Brunelleschi -nor Cosimo lived to see completed, for the learned -men and the collection of books that were once in a double -sense its best ornaments.<a name="FNanchor_122_122" id="FNanchor_122_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_122_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a></p> - -<p>Brunelleschi’s work in the neighbourhood of the city was -surpassed in grandeur by a building of Michelozzo’s within -the walls. In 1436 the Medici brothers obtained from Pope -Eugene IV. the cession of the Silvestrine<a name="FNanchor_123_123" id="FNanchor_123_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_123_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a> convent of San -Marco to the Dominicans of Fiesole, who had just settled -beside the little church of San Giorgio, on the left bank of -the Arno. In the following year the rebuilding of the convent -and restoration of the church was begun; not without -difficulties on the part of the former owners, who actually -entered a protest at the Council of Basle. The cost of reconstruction -was borne mainly by the Medici, with some assistance -from the community. The church was consecrated -on the feast of the Epiphany, 1442, by Cardinal Acciapacci, -Archbishop of Capua, in presence of the Pope and his court.<a name="FNanchor_124_124" id="FNanchor_124_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_124_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a> -A considerable portion of the convent was finished in 1443; -but the whole was not completed till eight years later. The -traces of Michelozzo’s hand are no longer to be seen in the -church; the choir and apse were rebuilt two hundred years -after him.</p> - -<p>It is impossible to walk through the great courts, the -broad vaulted corridors, the endless rows of cells opening<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> -into the passages, and the noble library, without remembering -that this convent was the scene of many famous events -in peace and war that influenced the fate of the city, and -left their mark in the history not of Italy only, but of the -human mind.<a name="FNanchor_125_125" id="FNanchor_125_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_125_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a> Cosimo was continually employing Michelozzo, -who, besides the family palace, built for him the Noviciate -of Sta. Croce and the adjoining chapel; remodelled the -villas at Careggi, Cafaggiuolo, and Trebbio, and executed -other works, some of them beyond the Tuscan border. -Among the latter was the decoration of the palace at Milan, -entrusted to him by Francesco Sforza, for which purpose -Michelozzo visited that city. Here also he built for Pigello -Portinari, director of the Medicean bank, a chapel in Sant’ -Eustorgio after the model of that of the Pazzi in Sta. Croce. -Cosimo’s sons employed him likewise. He is commonly believed -to have designed for Piero the elegant chapel of the -Annunziata, over whose altar hangs the thirteenth century -picture of the Annunciation, which gave rise to the building -of the church. This building, a quadrangular open chapel, -with fluted Corinthian columns of marble supporting a -richly decorated entablature, and enclosed by an elegant -brass trellis, was executed by Pagno di Lapo Partigiani, a -sculptor of Fiesole, and consecrated by Cardinal Guillaume -d’Estouteville, Archbishop of Rouen, on Christmas day, -1452.<a name="FNanchor_126_126" id="FNanchor_126_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_126_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span></p> - -<p>About the same time, Michelozzo executed for Piero the -marble tabernacle destined to contain a figure of Christ in -the nave of the basilica of San Miniato. It consists of a -canopy supported on composite marble columns and pilasters, -the interior richly decorated with rose-coloured ornaments of -glazed earth in square panels. On the frieze is the Medicean -device, the three feathers with the diamond ring and the -motto <i>Semper</i>, on the arch the escutcheon of the Calimala -guild, in relief. Inside the tabernacle stands the altar with -painting and <i>predella</i>.<a name="FNanchor_127_127" id="FNanchor_127_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_127_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a> For Giovanni, Cosimo’s younger -son, Michelozzo built on the heights of Fiesole a villa, visible -from a great distance, which afterwards passed to the Mozzi -family. The architect was also employed by connections of -the Medici. For Giovanni Tornabuoni he built the great -palace near Sta. Trinità, which still gives its name to the -street. To gain more space, it afterwards became necessary -to demolish the front part of this palace, which, with its -ground floor of rustic-work and its plain arched windows, had -a somewhat sombre effect.</p> - -<p>While Michelozzo’s time was chiefly taken up by the -Medici, Brunelleschi was active in other quarters. The progress -and final completion of his great work, the dome of -the cathedral, has already been mentioned. On August 30, -1436, the roofing-in was celebrated by the pealing of all the -bells in the city and the chanting of a <i>Te Deum</i>. Eight -years later the scaffolding was raised for building the lantern, -which was begun in 1446, shortly before the death of the -great master, who was succeeded by Michelozzo.<a name="FNanchor_128_128" id="FNanchor_128_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_128_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a> His -beautiful arcade at the Foundling Hospital has been mentioned.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> -The similar loggia of San Paolo was placed opposite -Sta. Maria Novella, at the southern end of the piazza. -He built a chapel for the Pazzi family in the front court of -the convent of Sta. Croce. Its walls are covered with -Corinthian pilasters, high niches, and terra-cotta alto-rilievos; -the cupola rests on two side-arches richly panelled and -decorated with designs in glazed earth; the pendants being -ornamented with terra-cotta rilievos of the Evangelists. -Decoration and colour are here kept just within the limits of -good taste. Andrea de’ Pazzi began the building, which -was finished by his son Jacopo, so that Brunelleschi can -hardly have lived to see its completion.<a name="FNanchor_129_129" id="FNanchor_129_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_129_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a> The official residence -of the Capitani di parte Guelfa in the Via delle Terme, -rebuilt by Brunelleschi, still exists, though with many alterations. -The architect saw only the beginnings of his second -greatest work, the palace of Luca Pitti. In Vasari’s time, -when Eleonora di Toledo, Duchess of Florence, purchased -the unfinished building—appropriately called, by an art-writer -of those days, <i>muraglia</i>—the original plan was no -longer to be found. Many alterations were made in succeeding -centuries down to the present, when the extensive wings, -intended as halls, were built. But the façade has kept its -original stamp, and Vasari’s words remain true—that Tuscan -architecture has produced no richer or grander creation. -This grandeur is united with the greatest simplicity; -and it is the absence of all ornament upon the three -stages of rustic-work, with their gigantic bow-windows, -crowned with galleries, which gives the building its peculiar -character. The palace is said to have been begun in 1440, -long before the time of Luca Pitti’s ephemeral greatness.<a name="FNanchor_130_130" id="FNanchor_130_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_130_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> -His villa at Rusciano was begun about the time of Brunelleschi’s -death, so that the great artist saw little of the execution -of his plan, which was carried on by Luca Fancelli. -While Brunelleschi here aimed at attaining the whole effect -by the majesty and harmony of the proportions, in the -palace of Jacopo de’ Pazzi he allowed more play to decoration.</p> - -<p>It is doubtful whether Cosimo de’ Medici employed the -most learned artist of the time, Leon Batista Alberti. His -chief works in Florence, with one exception, were executed -for the Rucellai. Among them may be mentioned the palace, -the loggia, the upper part of the façade of Sta. Maria Novella, -finished in 1470; and the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre -at San Pancrazio, an imitation of the Church of the Holy -Sepulchre at Jerusalem.<a name="FNanchor_131_131" id="FNanchor_131_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_131_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a> The Rucellai palace, in which are -retained the bow-windows divided by small columns, points -to the days of Bramante. It exhibits a combination of flat -decorative pilasters of various orders with smooth rustic-work, -antique ornaments on the rectangular doors, and traces -of the square form in the bow-windows. Alberti also made -designs for another work, which has given occasion to so -many objections that its defects have been attributed to -alterations by another hand. This is the choir of the Annunziata, -commenced in 1451 by Lodovico Gonzaga, Marquis -of Mantua, who, as victorious commander-in-chief of the -Republic, desired to found a memorial at once of his piety -and his thankfulness. A quarter of a century elapsed before -the building was finished by Luca Fancelli. The exterior is -octagonal, the interior round, with several chapels in irregular -order, and numerous windows round the base of the large -cupola, which is closed, and was ornamented in the seventeenth -century with figures in fresco. In our own day redecoration<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> -has given to the choir as well as the rest of this -dazzlingly-gilt church a thoroughly modern appearance.<a name="FNanchor_132_132" id="FNanchor_132_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_132_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a></p> - -<p>Sculpture, no less than architecture, was in full activity. -Here also we find in the foremost rank those artists whom -the Medici had attached to themselves; among whom -Donatello stood first, while his pupils benefited by the favour -shown to him. The Medici mansion was full of Donatello’s -works. Over the arches in the front court are eight medallions -by him, with reliefs in marble; and he restored -many of the antique heads over the doors. His other works -are all scattered. During Cosimo’s exile, the bronze David -with his foot on the head of Goliath was taken away and -set up in the palace-yard of the Signoria. The owner seems -to have been shy of reclaiming it, and finally, in May 1476, -his grandsons sold it to the municipality.<a name="FNanchor_133_133" id="FNanchor_133_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_133_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a> During the -second exile of the Medici, another work of Donatello’s was -taken from their house and placed at the great gate of the -same palace, with an inscription recalling the events of -1494.<a name="FNanchor_134_134" id="FNanchor_134_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_134_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a> This is the group of Judith and Holofernes, full of -expression, but forced and offending against the rules of -plastic composition. A loss to be regretted is that of the -bronze bust of Madonna Contessina, which Donatello executed -for her husband.</p> - -<p>San Lorenzo still contains many of his works, placed -there by the indefatigable benefactor of this church. Besides -the decorations of the sacristy, &c., there are the reliefs -on the pulpits; artistically they are in fault by their superabundance -and want of repose, but the fault is one of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> -man of talent. In point of technical execution, they show a -distinct retrogression when compared with contemporary -works. It was not only in works of this kind that Donatello -displayed an extravagance that belies the sense of beauty. -He did so even in the dancing children executed in marble -relief for the organ at Sta. Maria del Fiore.</p> - -<p>Vespasiano da Bisticci describes Cosimo’s attachment to -this man. ‘He was,’ says he,<a name="FNanchor_135_135" id="FNanchor_135_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_135_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a> ‘a great friend of Donatello, -and of all painters and sculptors. Finding there was little -work for the latter, and not liking Donatello to remain -inactive, he entrusted to him the pulpits and the doors of -the sacristy at San Lorenzo; giving orders that whatever he -needed for his own requirements and those of his four assistants -should be paid to him weekly from the Medici bank.’ -As Donatello did not dress to Cosimo’s liking, the latter presented -him with a cloak and hood, an upper garment to -wear under the cloak, and a whole suit, sending all this to -him on the morning of a feast day. Donatello put the new -things on a few times only, declining to wear them any -longer, lest ‘people should think he had grown effeminate.’ -How thoroughly Donatello was regarded as belonging to the -Medici household is shown by the fact that the Marquis -Ludovico Gonzaga once asked Cosimo to send the artist to -Mantua to execute a shrine modelled in 1450, to be set up -during the expected visit of Pope Pius II.<a name="FNanchor_136_136" id="FNanchor_136_136"></a><a href="#Footnote_136_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a> Many other -artists were on confidential terms with Cosimo and his -family. Michelozzo’s two sons belonged almost to the -family circle. In the last years of Cosimo, Donatello could -no longer work, so his generous patron maintained him, and -recommended him to his son Piero. The latter gave him a -farm, as he said, ‘to provide him with bread and wine.’ The -artist, however, gave back the gift in legal form, not wishing -to embitter his life with household cares; whereupon Piero<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> -had the value of the produce assigned to him at the bank. -In 1462 Piero granted him space for a vault in San Lorenzo, -near the sacristy; and here, where so many of his works -are to be seen, he was buried in 1468, not far from those -who had so valued him during life.<a name="FNanchor_137_137" id="FNanchor_137_137"></a><a href="#Footnote_137_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a></p> - -<p>After Donatello, most closely connected with the Medici, -father and son, were two masters who, while fairly admitting -the claims of the realistic principle, carried it out in a different -spirit and in more ideal forms. Lorenzo Ghiberti, -who finished the second door of the Baptistery in 1452, with -the help of his son Vettorio, and in spite of his seventy-two -years, undertook the commission for a third. He continued -till the later years of Cosimo busily engaged on the rich -silver reredos, in which Michelozzo, Verocchio, Bernardo -Cennini, Antonio Pollaiuolo, and others, had a share. He -also designed the great rose-window of Sta. Maria del Fiore, -at which Francesco di Domenico Livi of Gambassi, who -learned glass-painting in Germany, was working in 1436, -and Bernardo di Francesco in 1443. Glass-painting in the -true sense of the word was then just beginning to flourish; -until that time coloured windows had been produced by -simply putting variously tinted glass together in mosaic -patterns. Many trod in the steps of Francesco Livi: notably -Ser Guasparre da Volterra, who worked in the cathedral at -Siena; while in Florence, Pisa, and Arezzo, the art was -practised by the Jesuates of the order of the B. Giovanni -Colombini, who were established in Florence in 1438, in the -convent of San Giusto before Porta Pinti, and there built -the great church which was pulled down in 1529. It was -chiefly by them that Sta. Maria del Fiore, Sta. Croce,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> -San Michele, and other buildings, were glazed with coloured -windows.<a name="FNanchor_138_138" id="FNanchor_138_138"></a><a href="#Footnote_138_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a></p> - -<p>In 1440 Ghiberti finished for the cathedral the shrine of -St. Zanobi, one of his finest works. To Piero de’ Medici he -furnished goldsmith’s work which brought him great admiration -and commissions from Pope Eugene IV. Besides -this master, now growing old, the Medici employed a younger -one, Luca della Robbia. His style is graceful rather than -grand; full of tender and lively expression of feeling, and -pleasing execution in drapery and grouping. His works in -the cathedral show equal fertility of invention and technical -skill. One is the marble relief for the organ gallery, representing -a boy and girl playing and dancing, executed in -1438 as a companion-piece to that of Donatello;<a name="FNanchor_139_139" id="FNanchor_139_139"></a><a href="#Footnote_139_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a> and the -other, not so good, is the door of the sacristy, finished in -1463, with its bronze reliefs of the Madonna, the Evangelists, -and the Fathers of the Church.<a name="FNanchor_140_140" id="FNanchor_140_140"></a><a href="#Footnote_140_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a> The monument to Benozzo -Federighi, Bishop of Fiesole<a name="FNanchor_141_141" id="FNanchor_141_141"></a><a href="#Footnote_141_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a> (who died in 1450), with the -figure lying on the bier, displays his capabilities in this -direction. But Luca della Robbia is less distinguished by -his sculptures in marble and brass than by the reliefs in -glazed earth which, called after him, were supplied by his -descendants for 100 years. They still abound in Florence -and the whole of Tuscany, even to the mountain convents of -the Apennines and the modest churches of remote towns, -while numbers of them have wandered into foreign lands. -Anyone taking a walk in Florence may enjoy these charming -creations: lunettes or groups above the doors of churches -and houses, medallions of infants on the portico of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> -Foundling Hospital, heads of saints, tabernacles, heraldic -escutcheons, some plain white on a blue ground, some with -a judicious mixture of colours and a rich border of entwined -leaves and fruit. These works form an almost inexhaustible -treasury, with a marked character of graceful earnestness -and truth to nature; a help to architecture as long as the -decorative element kept its place in the old manner, which -in the fourteenth century employed both glass and colour. -But they were invaluable for interior decoration, for which -Brunelleschi used work in ‘Terra della Robbia’ in the Pazzi -chapel. Luca himself decorated for Cosimo de’ Medici a -room in his palace and the buildings in Sta. Croce, and for -Piero the tabernacle in San Miniato; in the latter church -he also assisted in giving to the chapel of the Cardinal of -Portugal the charm of harmonious perfection.</p> - -<p>In the last years of Cosimo de’ Medici grew up a whole -generation of younger sculptors. Their most important -works are sepulchral monuments, which became richer and -grander as time went on. Formerly people had, as a rule, -been content with sarcophagi more or less decorated, like -that of Noferi, the father of Palla Strozzi, who died in 1418 -and is buried in the sacristy of Sta. Trinità, beneath an arch -resting on elegant corbels, and on the edges of which are -seen pretty genii playing. Twenty or thirty years later -these simple monuments were still the most usual, even for -men of importance. Neri Capponi lies in the church of the -Santo Spirito in a marble coffin bearing on the front his -portrait in relief between two genii; Orlando de’ Medici -rests in that of the SS. Annunziata in a sarcophagus ornamented -with his coat of arms, and occupying with rich -architectural accessories the whole side of a chapel. These -were both works of Simone, whom tradition makes a brother -of Donatello.<a name="FNanchor_142_142" id="FNanchor_142_142"></a><a href="#Footnote_142_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a> But talented artists soon attempted greater -things. Desiderio da Settignano (so called after the pleasantly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> -situated little village, two miles east of the city, where -Michel Angelo was nursed by a stonemason’s wife) was a -pupil of Donatello, and thus came into contact with the -Medici, who employed him in San Lorenzo. In the Strozzi -palace may be seen his fine thoughtful marble bust of -Marietta, daughter of Filippo Strozzi the elder and Fiammetta -Adimari. His masterpiece is the monument of Carlo -Marsuppini in Sta. Croce, a figure of the dead man resting -on the sarcophagus in a niche crowned by a lunette, with a -Madonna in relief.<a name="FNanchor_143_143" id="FNanchor_143_143"></a><a href="#Footnote_143_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a> Notwithstanding some overloading in -the accessories, it shows what he might have become had he -not died in 1464, at the early age of thirty-six. The sarcophagus, -resting on lions’ claws and richly adorned with -flowers, leaves, and streaming ribands, is one of the most -beautiful productions of decorative sculpture. Desiderio -had many emulators, to whom we owe some of the finest -monuments of this kind. Among them were the brothers -Bernardo and Antonio Rossellino. The former, who worked -a good deal out of Florence as architect to the Popes, does -not seem to have been employed by the Medici. The only -thing he is said to have done for them is a marble fountain, -decorated with children and dolphins, in one of the courts of -their palace; and of its fate nothing is known. But the -city contains excellent works by both, exhibiting a similarity -to Della Robbia’s style. Two of Bernardo’s works are the -graceful monument to Beata Villana in Sta. Maria Novella, -and that of Leonardo Bruni in Sta. Croce.<a name="FNanchor_144_144" id="FNanchor_144_144"></a><a href="#Footnote_144_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a> The conception,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> -proportions, and technical finish of these works entitle them -to rank among the best productions of a period rich in -monuments. The most perfect work of the kind, however, -is that by Antonio Rossellino to the Cardinal of Portugal, in -San Miniato al Monte. James of Portugal, nephew of King -Alfonso V., had come in bad health to Florence, where he -died in 1459 aged twenty-six. In the basilica, then belonging -to the Olivetans, where he was buried, was built a -chapel, unrivalled in symmetry of form and beauty of detail. -The roof is set off with reliefs in glazed earth, the walls are -inlaid with marble, the altar, the bishop’s throne, and the -floor of <i>opus Alexandrinum</i> are admirable. What was formerly -the altar-piece—by Pollaiuolo—is now in the Uffizi. -The monument stands in a large niche, with a curtain -slightly drawn back. The sarcophagus is an imitation of -the coffer afterwards used for the tomb of Pope Clement XII. -in the Lateran. The figure of the departed, wearing his -mitre, rests on a pall held by two seated boys; an architectural -wall-drapery is terminated by a cornice, at each end of -which is a kneeling angel bearing a crown and a palm-branch; -in the arch above are the Virgin and Child surrounded -by a rich garland and upheld by angels in relief. -The figure of the cardinal surpasses all else of its kind in -grace, dignity, and beauty, while in technical work it is perfection. -The head and the folded hands were modelled from -nature.<a name="FNanchor_145_145" id="FNanchor_145_145"></a><a href="#Footnote_145_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a> A blessed peace seems diffused over the whole -figure, which realizes what Vespasiano da Bisticci says of -the departed, whom he had known in life: ‘He was outwardly -handsome, but his soul was more beautiful than his -body; and by the holiness of his life and conversation he -was fitted to stand beside the saints of old.’<a name="FNanchor_146_146" id="FNanchor_146_146"></a><a href="#Footnote_146_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a></p> - -<p>To these artists must be added Mino da Fiesole, who, -though a pupil of Desiderio da Settignano—his senior only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> -by a few years—seemed to have formed himself more on the -model of Donatello. His groups of figures in relief, of which -the chief are at Rome, are not always happy; his monumental -statues, of which the two most remarkable in Florence -are of later date, have great dignity and beauty. In his -portrait-heads there is a peculiar delicacy and truth, indicating -careful study of nature, and of which the bust of Bishop -Leonardo Salutati, in the cathedral of Fiesole, is an excellent -example.<a name="FNanchor_147_147" id="FNanchor_147_147"></a><a href="#Footnote_147_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a> In the Medici house were busts by him -of Piero and his wife, the former of which is now in the -Uffizi. In ornamentation, particularly in arabesque, Mino -is inferior to none; and it is impossible to mistake his influence -in this respect at Rome, where, from the time of -Nicolas V., the number of monuments rapidly increased. -The works of Giuliano da Majano in Florence, where he -was occupied in 1463-1465 with inlaid woodwork for San -Domenico, near Fiesole, and the sacristy of Sta. Maria del -Fiore, are of much less importance. Neither he nor Antonio -Filarete, founder of the great door of St. Peter’s, are known -to have done any work for the Medici. That the latter was -one of their <i>protégés</i>, however, may be seen not only by the -dedication to Piero of his treatise on architecture, but also -by a letter addressed by him to Piero from Milan, December -20, 1451, thanking him for a recommendation to Francesco -Sforza: ‘I am at your service for whatever I can do. Dispose -of me as you please. Commend me to his Excellency your -father, and your brother Giovanni. With God’s help, I hope -to do honour here both to myself and you; I say to you, -because for your sake and in consequence of your recommendation -his Lordship shows me great favour. He thinks -of appointing me chief architect to the cathedral, which -naturally meets with opposition, I being a stranger; but I -hope they will yield to their lord’s desire.’<a name="FNanchor_148_148" id="FNanchor_148_148"></a><a href="#Footnote_148_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a></p> - -<p>The goldsmith’s art, which in the preceding century had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> -reached great perfection in Tuscan cities and was closely -connected with sculpture, attained through niello-work to -engraving on copperplate. The name of Maso Finiguerra, -who executed the celebrated pyx for the Baptistery in 1452, -is inseparable from the history of the Medicean splendour.</p> - -<p>For painting, whether in its general development or its -particular productions, the period under consideration is -less important than for the sister arts, at least as far as the -Medici are concerned. The two greatest masters, in different -lines, of the first half of the century, Masaccio and Fra -Angelico, continued to adorn Florence with their works. -The former, at his death in 1443, left unfinished the Brancacci -chapel in San Pietro del Carmine, the high school of -all later works of the kind. Unluckily, the fresco has -perished in which he represented the consecration of the -church in 1422, with a group of remarkable men of the time: -Giovanni d’Averardo de’ Medici, Niccolò da Uzzano, Baccio -Valori, Lorenzo Ridolfi, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Masolino -da Panicale, and others. Fra Angelico decorated the -chapter-house, corridors, and cells of the convent of San -Marco with his wall-pictures, which represent religious art -in its loveliest bloom, a free modification of the principles of -Giotto’s school. He was busy here till Eugene IV. called -him to Rome, where he painted the two chapels in the -Vatican for this Pope and his successor, Nicolas V. He -died in 1455. His greatest pupil, Benozzo Gozzoli, followed -his master from Rome to Orvieto, and in 1459 painted the -private chapel of the Medici, his most pleasing work. The -‘Adoration of the Angels’ is here represented amid a rich -landscape, with choirs of angels, numerous spectators, and -festive scenes, painted with a cheerful colouring that recalls -Gentile da Fabriano. Later, when painting in San Gemignano -and at Pisa, Gozzoli was still connected with the Medici, -and in his first fresco in the Campo Santo, the ‘Curse of -Ham,’ a group in the foreground represents the members of -the family as he had known them in earlier years.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span></p> - -<p>The realistic tendency exhibited by Masaccio grew more -prominent in Paolo Uccello, who was evidently influenced -by sculpture, especially by Donatello. In some of his most -important frescoes, those in Sta. Maria Novella, representing -the history of the Creation, and the figure of John Hawkwood -in Sta. Maria del Fiore,<a name="FNanchor_149_149" id="FNanchor_149_149"></a><a href="#Footnote_149_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a> the very colouring, grey upon -grey, aims at producing the effect of sculpture. This -painter’s study of perspective made him exaggerate that -branch of his art. The austerity of Andrea dal Castagno’s -style is not softened by the colouring. The repulsive expression -of his group of St. John and St. Francis in Sta. -Croce supports the legend of the murder of Domenico Veneziano, -which has adhered to Andrea’s name till our own day, -though he died four years before his supposed victim.<a name="FNanchor_150_150" id="FNanchor_150_150"></a><a href="#Footnote_150_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a> The -most important works he has left are the figures of sibyls -and of famous men, executed in a hall of the villa formerly -belonging to the Pandolfini at Legnaia, but now removed to -the National Museum at the Palace of the Podestà. The -characteristic figures, among whom are Nicola Acciaiuolo and -Pippo Spano, produce a great effect. Neither Andrea nor -Uccello seems to have been employed by the Medici, who -did, however, engage Domenico Veneziano, Andrea’s fellow-worker -on the lost frescoes in Sta. Maria Nuova, a painter -much influenced by Fra Angelico. The repeated occurrence -of the Medici’s patron saints, Cosmo and Damian, in pictures -of which the origin cannot be clearly traced, points to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> -the conclusion that they were commissions from the family -or their friends. But the painter most highly favoured by -Cosimo and his sons was Fra Filippo Lippi, whose manners -and conversation were as great a scandal to the Carmelite -order as Fra Angelico’s whole life was an ornament to that -of St. Dominic. Disorderly, loose in morals, always in difficulties -and need of money, he yet gained patrons by his undeniable -talent, which unites force and animation to Angelico’s -intensity of feeling. Lippi’s grouping and composition -is various, free, and rich, showing a realistic study of -nature. He worked a great deal for the Medici, who made -presents of his pictures to the Pope and King Alfonso, and -procured him commissions abroad. His greatest work, the -frescoes in the chapel in the choir of the Collegiate Church -of Prato, was finished for the Provost Carlo de’ Medici, -whose likeness may be seen in the representation of the -burial of St. Stephen. It was through Cosimo, who had -many connections in Umbria, that Fra Filippo went to -Spoleto, where he executed in the cathedral the scenes -from the history of the Madonna which were finished after -his death in 1469 by his assistant Fra Diamante.</p> - -<p>Among the painters employed by Cosimo and his sons -were the two Peselli, Giuliano d’Arrigo, and his grandson -Pesellino; the former followed the artistic tendencies represented -by Giotto, the latter was an earnest disciple of the -realistic school. Much of the Medici furniture was painted -by them, according to a fashion of the time, continued -till the middle of the sixteenth century. Presses and coffers -(<i>cassoni</i>) were ornamented with compositions of small figures, -taken from history, sacred or profane, animals, hunting-scenes, -&c. In the Florentine collections are many paintings -of this kind, even down to Andrea del Sarto and his -friends and pupils, the original destination of which is shown -by their form. They were not all Florentines who painted -for the Medici. A Veronese, Matteo de’ Pasti, wrote to -Piero in 1441, that he trusted to send him works such as he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> -had never before seen.<a name="FNanchor_151_151" id="FNanchor_151_151"></a><a href="#Footnote_151_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a> He probably alluded to the convex -tablets (now in the Uffizi collection) representing scenes -from Petrarca’s triumphs, which were doubtless intended to -decorate a room. The various dealings of the Medici with -Flanders, from the time of Cosimo, contributed to draw attention -in Florence to the Van Eyck school of painting, -which influenced Italian art in the fifteenth century, particularly -in point of technicalities. It was through Tommaso -Portinari, director of the Medici bank at Bruges, that the -church of the hospital of Sta. Maria Nuova—an old foundation -of the family—obtained the most important work of the -Flemish school to be found in Tuscany. This was the -masterpiece of Hugo van der Goes, the ‘Adoration of the -Shepherds,’ containing portraits of the members of the -donor’s family.<a name="FNanchor_152_152" id="FNanchor_152_152"></a><a href="#Footnote_152_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a> The Flemish pictures mentioned by Vasari -as being in the possession of the Medici (one of them, a -portrait of Tommaso Portinari, is now in the Pitti Palace), -prove the interest awakened by these works, great as was -their difference in conception from Italian art.</p> - -<p>It is easy to imagine that other branches of artistic industry -were furthered by this artistically inclined family at -a period of such varied activity, and that their house kept -constantly filling with treasures of all kinds. For it was -the pride of the princes and rich citizens—and even of -such as had to deny themselves many of the comforts of life -in order to satisfy a noble passion—to surround themselves -with ancient and modern works, to decorate halls, staircases, -and courts with marbles and other antiquities; to collect -old coins and intaglios; to deck their rooms with statues and -sculptures by living artists, with handsome furniture, silver -plate, rich silken hangings and carpets.</p> - -<p>Among the records of the Rinuccini family are notes of -the cost of goldsmiths’ work furnished by Finiguerra and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> -Pollaiuolo.<a name="FNanchor_153_153" id="FNanchor_153_153"></a><a href="#Footnote_153_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a> Cosimo’s love for these things was shared by -his brother Lorenzo and both his sons. An inventory of the -antique coins, cameos, gems, mosaic tablets; and enamels -preserved in the house in the Via Larga, mentions 100 gold -and 503 silver coins, a number of intaglios set as seals and -rings, Greek and Roman mosaic tablets, valuable vases, -precious stones to the value of more than thirty thousand -gold florins.<a name="FNanchor_154_154" id="FNanchor_154_154"></a><a href="#Footnote_154_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a> The silver plate here, as well as at the villas, -was not reckoned in. Mention has already been made of -the travelling antiquaries who carried about with them -manuscripts and objects of art, and were at once scholars -and colporteurs. But purchases were also made for the -Medici abroad. Antiquities came from Rome, Naples, -Viterbo, and other places. Donatello was accustomed to -restore injured antique marbles, a custom which was later -carried to extremes, and led to mischief. Worked carpets -(Arazzi) came from Flanders, where Bruges was the chief -emporium for works of art, though Antwerp fairs were often -visited.<a name="FNanchor_155_155" id="FNanchor_155_155"></a><a href="#Footnote_155_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a> A letter of Carlo de’ Medici to his half-brother -Giovanni, written from Rome, apparently in the autumn of -1451,<a name="FNanchor_156_156" id="FNanchor_156_156"></a><a href="#Footnote_156_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a> shows that Cardinal Barbo, afterwards Pope Paul II., -was in competition with the Medici, and was not above a -little gentle compulsion: ‘I bought some time ago about -thirty silver medals from an assistant cf Pisanello, who is -lately dead. I know not how Monsignore di San Marco -heard of it, but, meeting me accidentally in the church of the -Santi Apostoli, he took me by the hand, and would not let -me go till he had got me to his house and taken all I had -about me—rings and coins to the value of about twenty -florins. There was no getting them back, and in the end I -have had to let him keep the things, after a vain appeal to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> -the Pope.’ The complaint is repeated in a letter of 1455. -As we shall see, however, such losses were more than made -up to the Medici at the death of Paul II.</p> - -<p>Such were the relations of Cosimo and his sons to art-life -in Florence. The great movement had begun before they -took the helm of the state; but they exercised great and -beneficial influence on its development, and always set a -praiseworthy example to their fellow-citizens. In this respect -they thoroughly understood their time. The tone and -manner of their relations with artists is particularly attractive; -it was inspired by true refinement of feeling. Merchant -princes as they were, whose help was generally coveted, they -kept up a confidential intercourse with men of talent, as -among friends and equals. In the requests addressed to them -there is no tone of servility; the traditions of free citizenship -continued in all social relations. So it was also at a later -period, when Cosimo’s grandson had attained the position of -a ruling prince; Lorenzo’s bearing was the same, and contributed -not a little to his powerful influence over his fellow-men. -In many cases, as with Antonio Squarcialupi, the -musician and organ-builder, he merely continued a connection -begun by his father, uncle, and grandfather. Antonio, -who in his writings adopted the pseudonym Degli Organi, -belonged to an old family who had once been ‘Signori’ -at Poggibonzi in the Elsa valley, and who on account of -their rank were long excluded from office. It was not till -1453 that Antonio became a member of one of the smaller -guilds, though before that time he was intimate with the -Medici household. After spending some time at Naples -with King Alfonso, in 1450, he wrote from Siena on November -26 to Giovanni de’ Medici at Volterra, as follows:<a name="FNanchor_157_157" id="FNanchor_157_157"></a><a href="#Footnote_157_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a> -‘Dearest gossip, dutiful greeting and salutation! As you -doubtless know, it is now about a month since I returned -from Naples. Since then it has never ceased raining, or I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> -should have come to see you. The bad weather has hindered -me not only from coming, but also from writing, as I kept -waiting for the sky to clear. Now, God be thanked for all -things. If I were to tell you about Naples, and the majesty -of the king and his court, there would be so much to say -that I must needs take all the scriveners in Rome into my -employ for five days. So for the present I will say nothing -about it, and will only tell you that Cardinal Sta. Maria sets -great store by his organ; wherein he is quite right, for truly -it deserves it. I promise you on your return the satisfaction -of hearing one which cannot fail to please you. It is destined -for Antonio di Migliorino, who I trust will not object to my -letting you see and hear it. Now I will trouble you no -further. Commend me above all to Madonna Contessina, -Messer Piero, and all the rest.’</p> - -<p>In the spring of 1438, Domenico Veneziano wrote from -Perugia to Piero as follows:<a name="FNanchor_158_158" id="FNanchor_158_158"></a><a href="#Footnote_158_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a> ‘Noble and honoured sir, -greeting. I have to inform you that by God’s grace I am -in good health, and hope to see you well and happy. I have -made inquiries after you at various times, and never received -any news save through Manno Donati, who told me that -you were at Ferrara in very good health, which gave me -great pleasure. Had I known your place of abode sooner, I -would have written to you, both for my own satisfaction and -as it is fitting. My position is in truth far below yours, but -my hearty attachment to you and all yours gives me boldness -to write to you, to whom I owe so much.’ One-and-twenty -years later this same Piero, then at Careggi, was -thus addressed by Benozzo Gozzoli, who was painting the -chapel in the Medici house at Florence:<a name="FNanchor_159_159" id="FNanchor_159_159"></a><a href="#Footnote_159_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a> ‘My dearest -friend, I informed your Magnificence in a previous letter -that I am in need of forty florins, and begged you to advance -them to me; for now is the time to buy corn and many -other things that I want, whereby I shall save, and get rid<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> -of a heavy load of care. I had resolved to ask nothing of -you till you had seen my work, but I now find myself compelled -to ask this favour. Therefore, be indulgent; God -knows I am endeavouring to please you. I also reminded -you to send to Venice for some ultramarine, for in the course -of this week one wall will be finished, and for the other I -shall need ultramarine. The brocades and other things can -then be finished as well as the figures, or even sooner. I -am working with all possible diligence. I have nothing -more to add save my salutations.’</p> - -<p>These confidential relations between the Medici and the -artists did not prevent them from carefully settling minor -details when giving an order, such as the use of ultramarine -and gold, and still smaller matters. Even with regard to -the actual composition remarks were not spared, not merely -concerning the saints to be placed in the Madonna pictures -and other votive tablets, but also as to other figures and -accessories. Piero de’ Medici was not satisfied with some -angels that Benozzo had introduced in the chapel; the -painter defended them, but added that he could put a cloud -to cover them. Needless to say that all matters of business—prices, -instalments of payment and work, &c.—were settled -with scrupulous exactness. This belonged to the character -of the time, and to the Florentine love of order and mercantile -habits; a characteristic which never fails, and remained -in the Medici nature even in Cosimo’s magnificent grandson. -Strict supervision was indeed necessary in the case of these -colossal undertakings. It was more especially needful with -a disorderly man like Filippo Lippi, who passed his whole life -in want of his own making; witness his letters to Piero and -Giovanni de’ Medici: ‘If there is a wretched monk in -Florence, it is I!’ His protectors pitied him and judged his -sins leniently, if we rightly understand the remark in one of -Giovanni’s letters, to the effect that they had a laugh over -Fra Filippo’s error. It refers presumably to the well-known -story of the elopement of Spinetta Buti from the convent at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> -Prato, where she was being educated; a story the details -of which, as in other instances, are inaccurately given by -Vasari.<a name="FNanchor_160_160" id="FNanchor_160_160"></a><a href="#Footnote_160_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a> The interest taken by the Medici in this painter -descended to Lorenzo. On his return from Rome he wanted -to have Fra Filippo’s mortal remains brought from Spoleto -to Florence, and when this was refused, he assisted Filippo’s -son in erecting a monument in Spoleto Cathedral.</p> - -<p>It was in the time of Cosimo that the written history of -art began its first feeble efforts. Its forerunner was Cennino -Cennini of Colle in the Elsa valley, a pupil of Angelo Gaddi -apparently at Padua, where he was in the service of Francesco -da Carrara. Towards the end of the fourteenth century -he wrote a book on painting, which is of great value -for the study of artistic practice before the victory of oil-painting -over tempera, as it is also for the history of modelling, -casting, plaster-work, gilding, &c.<a name="FNanchor_161_161" id="FNanchor_161_161"></a><a href="#Footnote_161_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a> This book treats -merely of technicalities; but in Lorenzo Ghiberti’s commentaries -an unfinished treatise on architecture and the proportion -of figures is combined with notices of ancient art -and also of modern, from its re-awakening in the second -half of the thirteenth century down to the writer’s own time -and works.<a name="FNanchor_162_162" id="FNanchor_162_162"></a><a href="#Footnote_162_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a> The latter portion is the principal source -whence Giorgio Vasari drew his knowledge of past times. -Ghiberti’s contemporary Filarete has given many notices, -valuable for the history of art, referring to Medicean times, -in his treatise on architecture, which he dedicated—in styles<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> -differing according to the persons and circumstances, to -two patrons, Piero de’ Medici and Francesco Sforza, in 1460.<a name="FNanchor_163_163" id="FNanchor_163_163"></a><a href="#Footnote_163_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a> -These notices, as well as technical remarks, were also made -use of by Vasari, whose judgment on Filarete’s confused -book is just, though rather severely expressed.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER XIII.</h2> - -<p class="pch">BUILDING IN THE DAYS OF LORENZO DE’ MEDICI.</p> - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">Architecture</span> was always a subject of great interest to -Lorenzo de’ Medici; he possessed an unusual knowledge of -the art.<a name="FNanchor_164_164" id="FNanchor_164_164"></a><a href="#Footnote_164_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a> It was he who made the plan for the façade of -Sta. Maria del Fiore, which was executed in wood by Jacopo -Sansovino and painted in chiaroscuro by Andrea del Sarto -more than twenty years after the designer’s death, when his -son, Pope Leo X., made his public entry into Florence.<a name="FNanchor_165_165" id="FNanchor_165_165"></a><a href="#Footnote_165_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a> -We shall see what share he took in the project for the completion -of this façade. He was intimate with several of the -chief architects of the time. A letter, written to him from -Rome by Alberti,<a name="FNanchor_166_166" id="FNanchor_166_166"></a><a href="#Footnote_166_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a> unluckily not on the subject of art but about -a proposed exchange of property, shows on what good terms -they were: ‘I am glad that thou dost address me in confidence -worthy of our old friendship; and as I am conscious -of my obligations, I am ready to do for thee and at thy -desire anything that can be agreeable to one who loves thee. -If what thou askest of me were not founded on reason, thou -wouldest neither have consented to act as mediator thyself, -nor have sought out a third party to do so.’ The brothers -Da Majano and Sangallo enjoyed his interest and assistance -both in and outside of Florence, where a great deal of building -was carried on. Yet he built nothing more himself than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> -a convent and a villa. Of the convent not a trace is left, -and the façades of the cathedral and of the church of the -Santo Spirito—in which he was so much interested—still -await completion, as does that of San Lorenzo, though -Pope Leo X. made preparations for the immediate execution -of the works. The finest building of Lorenzo’s time in -Florence was erected, not for him but for a family which, -although connected with his, was destined to maintain a -long struggle with it—namely, the Strozzi.</p> - -<p>Considering how intimate Lorenzo was with the brothers -Da Majano, it seems strange that he employed them so little. -There is no authentic record of Giuliano having been employed -in Florence except as a worker in wood. He was -engaged on the choir-stalls in Sta. Maria del Fiore in 1471 -and the following years, and in the audience-chamber of the -palace of the Signoria (finished ten years later), where his -younger brother Benedetto executed the marble doors, and -where he was associated with Francesco di Giovanni, called -Francione, master of Baccio Pontelli, who did a great deal -of work at Rome and Urbino.<a name="FNanchor_167_167" id="FNanchor_167_167"></a><a href="#Footnote_167_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a> Giuliano’s works in Rome, -where, according to Vasari, he built—under Paul III.—the -palace of San Marco and a galleried court, now no longer in -existence, are buried in impenetrable obscurity. It is certain -that he was there in the time of Sixtus IV., and also that -he began the stalls in the choir of Perugia Cathedral, which -were finished in 1491 by Domenico del Tasso, one of the -Florentine family of wood-workers and architects.<a name="FNanchor_168_168" id="FNanchor_168_168"></a><a href="#Footnote_168_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a> It is -needless to repeat how the calling and labours of architect -and wood-worker (<i>magistri lignaminum</i>, <i>legnaiuoli</i>) merged -one into the other, even in the next century, like those of -sculptor and goldsmith. In his latter years Giuliano was -more abroad than at home. In 1478 he was at Recanati, in -the States of the Church, building a palace for Antonio<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> -Giacomo Venier, Cardinal of Cuença, who appealed to -Lorenzo that he might urge the dilatory artist to go on with -his work:<a name="FNanchor_169_169" id="FNanchor_169_169"></a><a href="#Footnote_169_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a> ‘As the said Master Giuliano is a most devoted -servant of your Magnificence and eulogist of your excellent -qualities, and apparently cannot be moved unless stirred up -by you, we beg you to address him on the subject, and to -see that he goes to Recanati at the appointed time to finish -what he has begun.’ In the spring of 1481 Giuliano was -passing through Urbino, where the palace of Federigo of -Montefeltro made such an impression on him that he induced -Lorenzo to ask the duke for a drawing of it. This the duke -had executed by Baccio Pontelli, who continued the beautiful -work of Luciano Lauranna. ‘My lord the duke,’ wrote -Pontelli to Lorenzo,<a name="FNanchor_170_170" id="FNanchor_170_170"></a><a href="#Footnote_170_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a> ‘answered very graciously that I was -to make the drawing, but that he would prefer sending your -Magnificence the house itself, that you might rule in it as in -your own.’ It was doubtless Lorenzo’s doing that Giuliano -was summoned to Naples. This must, therefore, have happened -after the reconciliation in 1480. Notwithstanding -the many commissions he received there—for King Ferrante -and his eldest son were both much given to building, and -after the expulsion of the Turks from Otranto the kingdom -enjoyed a few years’ peace—there is no need to suppose that -he took up his abode there permanently, for artists were -generally given to wandering. The famous triumphal arch of -King Alfonso in Castelnuovo—not finished till the sixteenth -century—is probably in no part his work; but certainly to him -may be attributed the Porta Capuana, excellent in point of -architecture but disfigured by modern additions.<a name="FNanchor_171_171" id="FNanchor_171_171"></a><a href="#Footnote_171_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a> Giuliano -died at Naples in the autumn of 1490, and Lorenzo’s expressions -concerning his loss, in a letter to the Duke of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> -Calabria,<a name="FNanchor_172_172" id="FNanchor_172_172"></a><a href="#Footnote_172_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a> show how highly he esteemed him: ‘Your Excellency’s -letter informs me of the death of Giuliano da Majano, -which causes me sincere regret, both on account of our -intimacy and because he was engaged in your Excellency’s -service, and his death will leave many a work unfinished. -As you contemplate continuing these, I hear that you want -me to procure you another architect, on which subject Paol’ -Antonio Soderini writes to me in detail. It will give me -pleasure if your Excellency will command my services and -be satisfied with my arrangements, as was the case with -Giuliano; at whose death I have at least the satisfaction -that you have been pleased with the work of one who entered -your service on my recommendation.’</p> - -<p>Giuliano’s brother Benedetto, ten years his junior, was -not employed as an architect by Lorenzo. His share—as -wood-carver—in the works at the palace of the Signoria has -been already referred to. But his masterpiece was a work -of architecture executed in the last years of Lorenzo’s life, -and—if we except the Pitti Palace, which stands alone—the -most perfect specimen of palatial architecture that Florence -has to show. The story of the building begun by Filippo -Strozzi the elder in 1489 makes a curious study of manners -and an interesting chapter in the history of art. When -Cosimo de’ Medici contemplated building himself a house, -he was afraid of rousing disapproval by too much splendour; -more than half a century later another rich citizen felt the -same anxiety. He saw the commonwealth and city in -altered circumstances, and had before his eyes the warning -example of Luca Pitti. Lorenzo Strozzi, who wrote a life of -his father, tells of this grand undertaking:<a name="FNanchor_173_173" id="FNanchor_173_173"></a><a href="#Footnote_173_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a> ‘When Filippo -had made due provision for his descendants—as he thought -more of fame than of money, was fond of building, and intelligent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> -in the art—he decided, as the surest way of handing -down his name to posterity, to erect such a building as -should make a name for him and his throughout Italy and -beyond it. He found, however, one great hindrance in the -way. The man who was at the head of the Government -might take it into his head that the reputation of another -would put his own into the shade, and Filippo was in great -dread of exciting envy. So he had it rumoured about the -city that his children were so numerous and his house so -small that, now they were grown up, he must provide an -abode for them, which could be better done in his lifetime -than after his death. Then he began, with all sorts of circumlocutions, -to talk—first to master-masons and then to -architects—on the necessity of building a new house. At -times he spoke as though he would begin soon; then made -a show of being still undecided and unwilling to spend in a -hurry the fruits of many years’ labour. Thus artfully did he -conceal the object he had in view in order to attain it better. -He used to repeat, a comfortable citizen-like house was -enough for him, good but not grand. Now the masons and -architects, after their kind, kept enlarging upon his plans, -which was just what pleased Filippo, though he pretended -to the contrary, and declared that they drove him to what -he was neither willing nor able to do.</p> - -<p>Now it happened that he who then governed the destinies -of the city desired to see it embellished in every way; -his opinion being that if he was responsible for good and -evil, so would beauty or ugliness be laid to his account. -Deeming that so large and costly an undertaking would be -difficult to estimate and superintend, and might (as often -happens with merchants) either destroy the originator’s -credit or ruin him altogether, he began to meddle in the -matter, and asked to see the plans. When he had examined -them, he suggested divers embellishments, and advised the -use of <i>opus rusticum</i>. But the more Filippo was encouraged -the more he pretended to draw back. He declared he would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> -on no account have <i>opus rusticum</i>, as it was unsuitable to -the condition of a citizen, and would entail heavy expense. -He was building, he said, with a view to his own comfort, and -not for pomp; and thought of making shops on the ground -floor, to produce an income for his sons. To this everybody -objected, pointing out how ugly and inconvenient it -would be. Still Filippo continued his remonstrances, and -said complainingly to his friends that he had begun an undertaking -which he only hoped he might bring to a successful -end; he wished he had never spoken of it, rather than -have got into such a labyrinth. The more he pretended to -be afraid of the cost, to conceal the greatness of his intentions -and the extent of his wealth, the more he was urged -and encouraged to the building. Thus by adroitness and -caution, he managed what, had he conducted himself otherwise, -would either have been forbidden or have brought him -under no little suspicion.</p> - -<p>The first thing to be done was to gain space for the <i>casa -grande</i>. And space was limited. The Strozzi palace lies at -the west end of the old town, in a quarter now, perhaps, the -liveliest in the city, and doubtless animated even at that time, -being close to the old market and to the square named after -the church of Sta. Trinità, whence may be seen the bridge -of the same name. Several distinguished families dwelt, and -some still dwell, in the immediate neighbourhood: the -Buondelmonti, Altoviti, Gianfigliazzi, Bartolini, Alamanni, -Viviani, Tornabuoni, Vacchietti, Antinori, and others. According -to the original plan, the building was to stand free, -with a square and garden on the south, extending as far as -the Via Portarossa, where stand the houses of the Davanzati -and Torrigiani. But the plan was imperfectly executed. A -tolerably large square is on the eastern side, but on the -south only a narrow space, now bridged over, divides the -palace from neighbouring buildings; on the west the street -(Via de’ Legnaiuoli) is of moderate width, and on the north -it is only since the front of the Tornabuoni house was rebuilt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> -a few years ago (see p. 125), that sufficient space and light -has been gained to get a view of the noble edifice, which on -this side was formerly quite hidden.</p> - -<p>On August (July?) 16, 1489, Filippo Strozzi laid his -foundation-stone. His memoirs contain a description of the -important proceeding, characteristic of the habits of the -time. ‘At the moment when the sun came up over the -mountains, I laid the first stone of the foundations, in the -name of God, as a good beginning for myself, my successors, -and all who may have a share in the building. I caused a -mass of the Holy Ghost to be sung at the same hour by the -brethren of San Marco, another by the nuns of Murate, a -third in my church, Sta. Maria di Lecceto, and a fourth by -the monks there (who are under some obligation to me), -with a prayer for a blessed beginning to the work. The -time for laying the foundation-stone was fixed by a horoscope -by Messer Benedetto Biliotti, Maestro Niccolò, and -Messer Antonio Benevieni, doctors; also Bishop Pagagnotti -and Messer Marsilio (Ficino), who all confirmed it as lucky. -I sent twenty lire to the brethren of San Marco, to be distributed -in alms as they thought good, and as many to -Murate. I spent ten lire in smaller alms. To Benedetto -Biliotti I gave four ells of black damask, costing twenty lire. -I had to breakfast Maestro Jacopo the master-mason, -Maestro Andrea the founder, Filippo Buondelmonti, Marcuccio -Strozzi, Pietro Parenti, Simone Ridolfi, Donato Bonsi, -Ser Agnolo, Lorenzo Fiorini, and other of my friends.’</p> - -<p>The ground floor was not yet half built when Filippo -died, on May 14, 1491. After him, the house was the abode -of fortune and greatness; but how many storms burst over -it in the days of his youngest son and of his grandchildren!</p> - -<p>The Strozzi Palace is a great square building, nearly a -hundred feet high, and a hundred and twenty feet wide; it -displays rustic work in its greatest perfection, and, notwithstanding -the severity and simplicity of its construction, is -more attractive than any other building of this style. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> -stories, of nearly equal elevation, are divided by strongly -defined string-courses, and are composed of great blocks of -ashlar (now blackened by nearly four centuries) of unequal -length, but in even horizontal lines—<i>opus rusticum</i> throughout, -but more evenly hewn than in the houses of the Medici -and the Pitti, and other buildings. The ground floor has a -grand arched doorway on each of the three façades, and -small square windows at a considerable height above the -stone parapet that runs round the whole. The two upper -stories have arched windows divided by small marble columns, -with the crescent of the family arms in the panels, and surmounted, -like the doors, with upright blocks of ashlar. The -handsome but half-finished cornice and the courtyard, both -by Simone del Pollaiuolo called Cronaca, and the famous -iron lanterns, belong to a period later than that now under -consideration. The founder had thought he could complete -the building out of his income, without touching his capital; -but, owing to untoward circumstances and dissensions among -the sons, the work was not brought to its present state of -relative completeness till forty-two years after Filippo’s death.</p> - -<p>In Lorenzo’s letter to the Duke of Calabria, after the -death of Giuliano da Majano, he states that he was endeavouring -to replace the lost one. ‘On looking about among -the master-builders here, I find no one who, in my opinion, -can be compared with Giuliano. I have, therefore, written -to Mantua, to a Florentine there, whose capabilities and -practice in building ought, I think, to qualify him for the -work to be done. If this should come to nothing, and we -can make no better choice, we shall be obliged to choose the -least bad one possible (<i>il manco reo che sarà possibile</i>) in this -place.’<a name="FNanchor_174_174" id="FNanchor_174_174"></a><a href="#Footnote_174_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a> These words sound strange from Lorenzo, when -Benedetto da Majano and Giuliano da Sangallo were both -in Florence. The most probable explanation is that present<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> -engagements prevented them from leaving the city, and -therefore, Lorenzo’s choice fell on Luca Fancelli, who holds -a subordinate place in the history of art. Benedetto must -have been already known at Naples, and Lorenzo himself -had, in 1488, sent to King Ferrante the plan of a palace, by -Sangallo,<a name="FNanchor_175_175" id="FNanchor_175_175"></a><a href="#Footnote_175_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a> who, in consequence, went to Naples. Giuliano, -son of Francesco Giamberti, had been from his childhood -known to the Medici family, to whom in Cosimo’s and -Piero’s days his father furnished woodwork. He himself, -instructed by his father and Francione, acquired great skill -in this art, did some work in Sta. Maria del Fiore, in the -palace of the Signoria, and at Pisa, and even in later years -continued to style himself <i>Legnaiuolo</i>. The Giamberti -family must have been intimately connected with the Medici, -for after the death of Giuliano de’ Medici his little son -Giulio was taken care of in their house in Borgo Pinti, -where the Panciatichi-Ximenes palace now stands. Giuliano -Giamberti afterwards followed two branches of architecture, -fortification and palace-building, with great success. In his -latter years he was engaged on Sta. Maria del Fiore and St. -Peter’s at Rome.</p> - -<p>In the autumn of 1472, Giuliano, then twenty-nine, was -at Rome, working for Sixtus IV.<a name="FNanchor_176_176" id="FNanchor_176_176"></a><a href="#Footnote_176_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a> What he actually did -there, where so many Tuscans were employed, is unknown. -That he made long and frequent sojourns there is proved by -his excellent studies of antique buildings, that have been so -useful to later investigators, and by his intimate connection -with Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere. The war of 1478 -called him home, where he served as an engineer in defending -various places. The restoration of peace enabled him to -resume his works at Rome; one of which, the castle of -Ostia, begun probably for the above-named cardinal, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> -finished in 1486, marks an important step in military architecture, -while its picturesque beauty indicates the eye of a -true artist.<a name="FNanchor_177_177" id="FNanchor_177_177"></a><a href="#Footnote_177_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a> Long before this castle was finished, Giuliano -must have begun at home the building which raised him -highest in the esteem of Lorenzo de’ Medici—the villa at -Poggio a Cajano. Francione and others had submitted -plans; Lorenzo chose that of Giuliano. The situation is -favourable, on a hill of no great elevation, but with a clear -view on three sides. The house is reached by a broad flight -of steps, and is of the regular Tuscan type, which continued -to later times. The portico before the hall, with its gable -decorated with a frieze in Terra della Robbia, displays a tendency -to the antique. The great hall has a barrel-vault, -the dimensions of which gave rise to a doubt as to the possibility -of its execution.</p> - -<p>At the time when Giuliano is supposed to have gone to -Naples, a great work begun by him in his native city can -scarcely have been ready for habitation. This was the convent -of the Augustinian Friars in front of the Porta San -Gallo, the immediate occasion of which was Lorenzo’s liking -for the preacher Fra Mariano of Genazzano. The work -was important enough to give the artist a new name, under -which the whole family became famous. According to Vasari, -it was Lorenzo who first used the appellation, and on -Giuliano’s playful remark that he was taking a backward -step in abandoning his old family name, Lorenzo replied -that it was better to make a name by one’s own merits than -to inherit one.<a name="FNanchor_178_178" id="FNanchor_178_178"></a><a href="#Footnote_178_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a> Only a part of the huge building was completed, -and this was totally destroyed in 1529. To Lorenzo -is attributed the idea of rebuilding the castle on the Poggio<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> -Imperiale near Pozzibonzi, the importance of which had -been but too clearly shown in the wars of 1478-79, and he -obtained the commission for Giuliano. The work began in -1488, was afterwards directed by Giuliano’s younger brother, -but finally sank into as complete ruin as the works of Henry -of Luxemburg on the same spot. Nothing is known of -what Sangallo did in Milan, whither he is believed to have -gone on Lorenzo’s recommendation, with the plan of a palace, -for Lodovico il Moro, and where he met Leonardo da Vinci.</p> - -<p>His great patron was no longer living when he began, -for Giuliano Gondi, on the Piazza San Firenze, the palace -which, though unfinished, still produces a pleasing effect -with its fine proportions, its artistic arrangement of rustic -work on the first and second stories, and its elegant arcade.<a name="FNanchor_179_179" id="FNanchor_179_179"></a><a href="#Footnote_179_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a> -The court of the convent of Sta. Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi -(Cestello), in the Via de’ Pinti, is one of Giuliano’s earlier -works, not wanting in character or grace. Nothing is known -of independent works by Antonio, Giuliano’s brother and -frequent assistant, during Lorenzo’s lifetime. His time of -activity in Tuscany and Rome, both as a military builder, -and as an architect of churches and palaces, began under -Alexander VI. and lasted till only a degenerate scion was -left of the race of Lorenzo the Magnificent. The Aretine -art-historian rightly says that these two brothers left architecture -as an inheritance to their family. It was they who -mainly contributed to keep up in Tuscany a tradition which -was never quite false to the Quattrocento, even when the -Renaissance had been overgrown with a certain grotesqueness.</p> - -<p>Lorenzo was concerned in two great works, neither of -which came to perfection. The building and decoration of -the façade of Sta. Maria del Fiore went on till about the -middle of the fifteenth century. Donatello and his school -contributed to it the marble facings and statues which were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> -carried up to the rose-windows over the side doors.<a name="FNanchor_180_180" id="FNanchor_180_180"></a><a href="#Footnote_180_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a> The -completion of the work was all the more to be desired as the -gilt cross had gleamed above the lantern of the dome since -May 30, 1472. On February 12, 1490, the following decree -was issued by the consuls of the wool-merchants’ guild:<a name="FNanchor_181_181" id="FNanchor_181_181"></a><a href="#Footnote_181_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a> -‘Forasmuch as of late several of the chief citizens have repeatedly -called to mind what a great dishonour it is to this -city that the front of the cathedral church should remain in -its present condition, to wit, unfinished, and also that the -parts already executed in nowise correspond to the rules of -architecture, and are bad in many ways, and that it would -be highly praiseworthy to come to some conclusion on the -matter, the said consuls have resolved and given authority -to the present and future master-builders of the church to -regulate expenditure and arrange everything that shall seem -to them good and profitable for the said purpose now and -hereafter.’ This decree shows that in the minds of those -concerned the fate of the existing portions of the façade was -as much decided as ninety-six years later, when they were -destroyed after very brief deliberation.</p> - -<p>On January 5, 1491, a commission met, under the presidency -of the two master-builders Maso degli Albizzi and -Tommaso Minerbetti, to pass judgment on the numerous -models and designs (<i>modelli et designi undique habiti et -collecti</i>). Many who were not personally present had sent in -plans: Benedetto da Majano, Francesco di Giorgio, Filippino -Lippi, Andrea Verrocchio, Antonio Pollaiuolo. There -were two designs by Giuliano da Majano, then lately dead. -No less than twenty-nine artists had come forward, among -whom were Cronaca, Benedetto da Majano, Francione, -Lorenzo di Credi, Domenico Ghirlandajo, Pietro Perugino,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> -Andrea Contucci of Montesansovino, Andrea della Robbia, -Sandro Botticelli, Alesso Baldovinetti, and others who, -except in this case, are known only as goldsmiths or painters. -Lorenzo de’ Medici himself had sent in a design. The -meeting was held in the portico and the loggia of the office -of works (<i>Opera</i>), the arches of which—now blocked up and -containing a fine marble bust of the first grand duke on the -façade—may be seen behind the choir of the cathedral. The -models and designs having been examined, were reported on -by Tommaso Minerbetti, whereupon Carlo Benci—a canon -and one of the competitors—being asked his opinion, rose -and said that he held it advisable to take the opinion of -Lorenzo de’ Medici, a man so versed in architecture that if -they followed him they would be the least likely to fall into -error. Bartolommeo Scala recommended that a decision -should be adjourned to give opportunity for further deliberation. -Others took the same view, but thought it better to -wait no longer than was absolutely needful. Then Lorenzo -de’ Medici rose, and said: ‘All who had sent in models or -designs were deserving of praise; but as the work in question -was one of lasting importance, long and grave deliberation -was needful, and it was advisable to postpone a decision in -order to consider the matter further.’ Pietro Machiavelli -and Antonio Manetti, architects, supported him, the rest -were silent. Sixteen months later he who had started the -whole affair lay in his grave. Then came times when -Florence had other things to think of than the façade of her -cathedral. For the latter, however, it was well that the rebuilding -was not begun at that time, for Giuliano da Majano -and Giuliano da San Gallo would have been just as incapable -of producing work corresponding with the main character of -the building, as were Buontalenti or Dosio under the -Grand Duke Ferdinand I., or Baccio del Bianco—a decorative -painter rather than an architect—of whose façade the -foundation-stone was actually laid in 1636. The old unfinished -façade might not correspond with the mighty pile<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> -that had developed under the hands of so many architects, -but the new one would have disfigured it for ever.<a name="FNanchor_182_182" id="FNanchor_182_182"></a><a href="#Footnote_182_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a></p> - -<p>The church of the Santo Spirito, too, remained unfinished. -Great damage had been done by a fire on March 22, 1471, -and three months after contributions were voted out of the -taxes for the restoration,<a name="FNanchor_183_183" id="FNanchor_183_183"></a><a href="#Footnote_183_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a> as had been done before. In consideration -of this the municipality made it a condition that -the escutcheon of the lilies and the cross should be placed -beside those of the guilds. There was some difference about -the doors, as appears from a decree of the master-builders in -1486, and from a letter of Giuliano da Sangallo to Lorenzo,<a name="FNanchor_184_184" id="FNanchor_184_184"></a><a href="#Footnote_184_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a> -which also shows the want of agreement between the former -and Giuliano da Majano. Six architects were to deliberate -on the matter, and Majano seems to have carried the day, to -the disgust of Sangallo, who expresses a hope that Lorenzo -on his return will not allow such a fine building to be spoiled. -Further information is wanting. It is to be regretted that -the exterior was not finished then, while the traditions of -Brunelleschi’s time were still in a great measure alive. On -the other hand, a great deal was done in the interior of the -choir of Sta. Maria del Fiore. In the palace of the Signoria -also much work was accomplished in the first and second -stories—especially the latter—in the audience chamber, and -neighbouring apartments. It cannot be doubted that -Lorenzo had a share in all this. The Sala dell’Orologia in -the palace took its name from the curious clock made by -Lorenzo della Volpaia for the Medici house, and afterwards -placed in this hall, whence it has strayed to the Museum of -Natural History. It is a handsome piece of work, after the -pattern of those made in the fourteenth century by the -Paduan Giovanni Dondi (degli Orologi), showing the courses -of the planets, the signs of the zodiacal and celestial phenomena, -and it brought great fame to its maker, who was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> -appointed clockmaker to the city in 1500.<a name="FNanchor_185_185" id="FNanchor_185_185"></a><a href="#Footnote_185_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a> Volpaia had a -rival in one Dionisio da Viterbo, who, in June, 1477, was recommended -by the rich Sienese banker Ambrogio Spannocchi -to Lorenzo de’ Medici, to whom he wished to show -an ornamental clock with numerous figures that moved at -the same time.<a name="FNanchor_186_186" id="FNanchor_186_186"></a><a href="#Footnote_186_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a></p> - -<p>The great number of architects in Lorenzo’s latter years -shows how actively building was carried on. The works -executed at that time by Simone del Pollaiuolo Cronaca -cannot be chronologically arranged. But when it is considered -that at Lorenzo’s death this talented man was thirty-five -years old, and was soon after fully engaged on public -works, it is easy to see that he must long have been in active -occupation.<a name="FNanchor_187_187" id="FNanchor_187_187"></a><a href="#Footnote_187_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a> The Servite convent of the Annunziata, the -interior of which was his work, has been entirely altered. -On the foremost slope of the hill of San Miniato he built -the Franciscan church, for which a rich citizen—Castello -Quaratesi—had left to the guild of Calimala a large sum in -1449.<a name="FNanchor_188_188" id="FNanchor_188_188"></a><a href="#Footnote_188_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a> This man had intended to decorate Sta. Croce with -a suitable façade, but the scheme came to nothing because -he was refused permission to place his coat of arms on the -building. The church of San Francesco recalls the abbey of -Fiesole. Tradition relates that Michel Angelo admired the -simple grace of this church (<i>La bella villanella</i>), in whose -immediate neighbourhood he spent some time when in difficulties. -The sacristy of Sto. Spirito, a very elegant octagon, -was not finished till later; Cronaca’s cupola fell in when the -scaffolding was taken away.<a name="FNanchor_189_189" id="FNanchor_189_189"></a><a href="#Footnote_189_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a> A great deal of building went<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> -on in the immediate neighbourhood of the city. The church -of Montoliveto, which, from its cypress-crowned hill on the -left bank of the river, overlooks city and country, was finished -in 1472. Older conventual buildings were enlarged and -churches beautified. This was the case above all with the -before-mentioned Dominican nunnery of Annalena in the -quarter of Oltrarno, and the monastery of the Jesuates at -San Giusto, whose church contained numerous works of art. -The building of the façade of Sta. Croce was contemplated -in 1476, as is proved by a decree of the municipality, which -assigned for the purpose a sum to be collected from backward -taxpayers. It was reserved for our own times to witness -the execution of the project, after a sketch said to be by -Cronaca. The court in front of the Servites’ church, and -the colonnade on the square in front of the church, opposite -the Foundling Hospital and imitating its portico, are both -attributed to Antonio da Sangallo, and, if not begun in -Lorenzo’s lifetime, must at all events have been built soon -after his death.</p> - -<p>Lorenzo had obtained from Innocent VIII. leave to use -the convent gardens—where they were larger than necessary—for -the construction of new streets and squares, and the -widening of old ones. Space there was in plenty, for after -all the building in the sixteenth century the great number -of convents was further increased in the days of the later -Medici by many new ones on a large scale. One of the new -streets of that time—behind the Servites’ church—bears the -name of Via Laura, after Lorenzo. Quieter times and increase -of riches naturally strengthened the taste for building, -and fine houses with their extensive courts and gardens -called for adornment with antiquities and works of art. -The palace, the gardens, the villas of the Medici were the -richest; but they were not without rivals. The Strozzi, -Acciaiuoli, Soderini, Capponi, Tornabuoni, Sassetti, Benci, -Ricci, Valori, Alessandri, Pucci, Rucellai, Pandolfini, and -many others ordered works of painting and sculpture for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> -their homes and villas as well as for their chapels in the -city churches. The house of the Martelli, the garden of the -Pazzi, the villa of the Valori at Majano, and many others, -were full of antique statues. In the palace of Niccolò da -Uzzano might be seen the antique porphyry lion which -Lorenzo greatly admired,<a name="FNanchor_190_190" id="FNanchor_190_190"></a><a href="#Footnote_190_190" class="fnanchor">[190]</a> and which still adorns the staircase -of the house. Artists, too, had many fine things. In -the house of the Ghiberti, for example, was a precious -sculptured marble vase which the famous artist Lorenzo -Ghiberti was said to have received from Greece.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER XIV.</h2> - -<p class="pch">SCULPTURE AND PAINTING.</p> - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">The</span> first man to whom Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici -gave a commission for a great piece of sculpture, after they -became independent, was Andrea del Verrocchio. He was a -disciple of Donatello, and had worked with the master in -San Lorenzo. This was of itself a recommendation to the -Medici, who found him also employed by their relatives, the -Tornabuoni. Vasari rightly observes that a certain severity -is even more prominent in his works than in those of his -master, because he lacked the creative versatility of the -latter and tried to supply by study what Nature had denied -him. In bronze-casting he displays a delicacy which recalls -the goldsmith. The monument to Piero and Giovanni de’ -Medici was finished in 1472. Like Donatello, Verrocchio -restored damaged antique sculptures for the Medici house -and garden, and executed for Lorenzo some bronze busts -which were sent to Matthias Corvinus. For the palace of -the Signoria he furnished a bronze statue of David, now in -the Podestà Museum, not very remarkable either in conception -or execution. His shortcomings, however, are amply -atoned for by the charming bronze group over the fountain -in the courtyard, representing a boy, half-fighting, half-playing -with a dolphin, full of easy grace that seems almost -above this artist. It was a commission from Lorenzo, and -intended for the fountain in the court at Careggi, but placed -in its present position by Duke Cosimo. Verrocchio’s capabilities -in more serious work were shown in Florence by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> -group of our Lord and the apostle St. Thomas, which in -1483 received the most prominent place in front of the -church of Or San Michele—and in Venice, by his equestrian -statue of Colleone. Though the former, with its broken -and angular drapery—recalling the Umbrian school—does -not exactly conform to the rules of plastic art, it is penetrated -with a depth of feeling that renders it highly attractive; -and in the latter the defiant self-conscious bearing of the -old <i>condottiere</i> brings his position and character vividly -before the eye. Among Andrea’s marble works is a relievo, -very naturalistic, representing the death (in her confinement, -September 24, 1477) of Francesca Pitti, wife of Giovanni -Tornabuoni; it was intended for her tomb, and is now to be -seen in the palace of the Podestà.<a name="FNanchor_191_191" id="FNanchor_191_191"></a><a href="#Footnote_191_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a></p> - -<p>Equally intimate with the Medici, if not more so, was -Antonio del Pollaiuolo, whose family connections linked him -to the school of Ghiberti. In his sculptures the goldsmith -is more closely discernible than in those of Verrocchio. -They both, while painting and sculpturing, continued to -work as goldsmiths, and Pollaiuolo was regarded in his -native city as the first master of this branch. ‘A man -unique in his art,’ wrote the Signoria, after his death, to the -ambassador in Rome, ‘well deserving that we, who are wont -to value praiseworthy qualities of whatever nature, should -honour his memory by supporting his heirs.’<a name="FNanchor_192_192" id="FNanchor_192_192"></a><a href="#Footnote_192_192" class="fnanchor">[192]</a> Lorenzo’s -high esteem for him is shown by passages in his letters to -Giovanni Lanfredini. The silver helmet presented in 1472 -to the conqueror of Volterra was by Pollaiuolo; so was also -the oft-copied medal representing the criminal attempt of -the Pazzi, more valuable in a historical than in an artistic -point of view. No great works of sculpture by him are -known in Florence, the labour of his latter years being chiefly -devoted to Rome, where his masterpiece is the tomb of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> -Pope Sixtus IV. in the chapel of the Holy Sacrament in -St. Peter’s, and where he died in 1498.<a name="FNanchor_193_193" id="FNanchor_193_193"></a><a href="#Footnote_193_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a></p> - -<p>As Verocchio and Pollaiuolo passed from goldsmith’s -work to sculpture, without abandoning altogether their -original occupation, so Benedetto da Majano rose from -artistic cabinet-work to sculpture and architecture. The -monument to Giotto in Sta. Maria del Fiore—a marble bust -in a richly ornamented circular frame—was, according to the -inscription, erected by the citizens in 1490.<a name="FNanchor_194_194" id="FNanchor_194_194"></a><a href="#Footnote_194_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a> The bust of -Antonio Squarcialupi, in the same church, is only ascribed to -Benedetto by a later tradition, which the merit of the work -by no means justifies.<a name="FNanchor_195_195" id="FNanchor_195_195"></a><a href="#Footnote_195_195" class="fnanchor">[195]</a> The erection of both monuments -was, doubtless, due to Lorenzo. Benedetto’s greatest work -was a pulpit, executed for a Florentine citizen—Pietro Mellini—of -whom he also made, in 1474, a most natural and -expressive marble bust, which he signed with his name. The -pulpit is decorated with reliefs, representing scenes in the -history of St. Francis of Assisi—the richest and finest work<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> -of the kind since that of the Pisani. In imitation of -Ghiberti, the reliefs are freely handled; landscapes and -backgrounds in perspective are introduced, but with a careful -subordination of the pictorial elements which afterwards -became too prominent.<a name="FNanchor_196_196" id="FNanchor_196_196"></a><a href="#Footnote_196_196" class="fnanchor">[196]</a> In Sta. Maria Novella is Benedetto’s -monument to Filippo Strozzi. The artist who built the -palace, of which the owner lived to see only the beginning, -also erected in his beautiful family chapel this mausoleum, -which was begun before his death.<a name="FNanchor_197_197" id="FNanchor_197_197"></a><a href="#Footnote_197_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a> Above the black marble -sarcophagus, in the middle of a panel under an arch delicately -carved in arabesques, is a large medallion of the -Virgin and Child, in white marble, surrounded by a rich -garland of flowers and foliage; at the sides are four angels -in adoration. The charm of expression and delicacy of -treatment recall Antonio Rossellino and Desiderio da Settignano. -Filippo’s bust, preserved by his descendants in the -Strozzi Palace, shows the marked, expressive features of the -energetic man. Benedetto’s capabilities in decorative sculpture -are displayed in the marble doors of the audience-chamber -in the palace of the Signoria, where he worked, as -has been mentioned, with his brother. Time and ignorance -have not spared this fine work, and the statuette of the -youthful Baptist, which once adorned it, is now in the -Uffizi collection.</p> - -<p>The two finest works of Mino da Fiesole which adorn -the Benedictine Abbey-Church, were executed about 1470; -one represents the artist’s own time, the other the earlier -days of Florence. They are the monuments of Bernardo -Giugni, and of the Marquis Hugo. The former, and his -services to the State have been already mentioned. The -figure of an elderly man, in his long robe, with his hands -crossed on his breast, lies on the sarcophagus; between -Ionian pilasters is a semi-circular niche, in which is a figure<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> -of Justice in relief, and in the lunette is a medallion profile -of the deceased.<a name="FNanchor_198_198" id="FNanchor_198_198"></a><a href="#Footnote_198_198" class="fnanchor">[198]</a> The other monument, finished in 1481, is -richer, but very like the first in general arrangement. It is -a token of gratitude from the monks to their founder—the -half-mythical Marquis who, in Emperor Otto’s days, is said -to have come from the neighbourhood of the Elbe and the -Havel—the ‘great Baron’ of the ‘Divine Comedy,’ whose -arms are quartered on the armorial bearings of the chief -Florentine families.<a name="FNanchor_199_199" id="FNanchor_199_199"></a><a href="#Footnote_199_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a> His effigies rest on a low couch on the -top of the sarcophagus, two genii support shields at his head -and feet; there is a group in relief, representing Charity, -and in the lunette a medallion of the Virgin and Child. As -in all Mino’s sculpture, careful workmanship is manifest in -the accessories. This attention to detail and richness of -ornamentation long remained a characteristic of the Florentines, -who carried it to Rome and Naples. In the early -decades of the following century, when the revolution in -monumental style, introduced chiefly by Michel Angelo, was -beginning to make its way, and ornamentation was compelled -to take refuge in painting, admirable works in the old -manner were raised in Florence. Such were the tombs of -Oddo Altoviti, and Pier Soderini, both by Benedetto da -Rovezzano; also the monument to Cardinal Luigi de’ Rossi, -cousin of Leo X., said to be by Raffaello da Montelupo. -With regard to ornamentation, a distinct position is held by -two monuments, companions to each other, which tradition -ascribes to Giuliano da Sangallo—those of Francesco Sassetti -and his wife, in their family chapel in Sta. Trinità.<a name="FNanchor_200_200" id="FNanchor_200_200"></a><a href="#Footnote_200_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a> They -consist of black marble sarcophagi, decorated with rams’ -heads, and standing beneath an arch adorned with antique -arabesques and medallions, and a frieze, in the middle of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> -which are medallion heads of the husband and wife, surrounded -by small figures representing ceremonies of heathen -worship. They are clearly the work of an artist well acquainted -with classical antiquity; who, in this case, has -certainly made rather a strange use of his studies. That -Giuliano da Sangallo was expert in the use of the chisel and -thoroughly understood the working of the Fiesolian stone, -employed in this monument, is shown by his famous mantelpiece -in the Gondi Palace, which served as a model for that -by Benedetto da Rovezzano in the Casa Rosselli del Turco, -near Sant’Apostolo.<a name="FNanchor_201_201" id="FNanchor_201_201"></a><a href="#Footnote_201_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a> Tuscan sculptors of ornamental work, -particularly those from Fiesole, Settignano, Rovezzano, and -the neighbourhood, found occupation all over Italy, like the -architects and sculptors from the Lake of Como, the <i>maestri -Comacini</i>, in the Middle Ages. In our own days the Tuscans -still show great ability in working both marble and <i>macigno</i> -(the greyish stone of the neighbourhood of Florence) in -which they produce objects of beautifully delicate workmanship.</p> - -<p>Other arts at this time rose to a highly flourishing condition. -The connection between architecture and cabinet-making, -and that between sculpture and goldsmith’s work, -have been repeatedly referred to. The architect and cabinet-maker -were often one, down to the middle of the following -century, when the Del Tasso family continued their double -occupation. But artistic cabinet-work was also connected -with sculpture and painting, as may be seen by the rich -choir-stalls of many churches; the ceilings and other woodwork -of the palaces, with their fine reliefs, elegant panelling, -and wood-mosaic (<i>tarsia</i>), much used to represent perspective -as well as to imitate flowers and foliage. Many of the -artists mentioned furnished work of this kind to the -cathedral of Sta. Maria del Fiore, and to the palace of the -Signoria. The goldsmith’s art was in its glory, followed as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> -it was by great sculptors, who found excellent assistants in -those who never rose to the height of sculpture. The finest -work of this kind in Florence is the silver reredos for the -Baptistery (mentioned at p. 130), which was never quite -finished. The growing taste for ornamental vessels and -other objects favoured this branch of art; as did also the -custom of presenting silver helmets or pieces of plate to -commanders and others who had deserved well of the Republic. -As early as the summer of 1397, 436 florins were -paid to the goldsmiths Piero, Matteo and Donato, for silver -gold and enamel, for dishes (<i>bacinetti</i>) intended for the -generals Paolo Orsini, Giovanni Colonna and Bernardin de -Serre. Antonio del Pollaiuolo made a large silver dish for -the Signoria, and various ornaments for rich families; and -the churches were adorned with silver crucifixes and elegant -lamps.</p> - -<p>Die-cutting was only a branch of sculpture and the goldsmith’s -art, sure to be practised where these two arts -flourished, and contemporary history furnished a store of -materials. But here the Tuscans do not hold the foremost -place, either in time or in excellence of workmanship. Natives -of Northern Italy, Lombards, and Venetians, came before -them in the great cast portrait-medallions, by which Vittore -Pisanello made a name in the fifteenth century. Donatello’s -followers strove to follow but never came up to him. Three -of the Tuscan medallists—Antonio Pollaiuolo, Bertoldo, and -Andrea Guazzalotti of Prato, had dealings with the Medici. -Only the first is known to have struck a medal referring to -his country’s history, namely, one relating to the Pazzi conspiracy. -Guazzalotti, who was in correspondence with Lorenzo -and cast statues for him, commemorated the Pope and the -Duke of Calabria as victors over the Turks; the medals are -characteristically conceived, but lacking in delicacy of treatment. -Medals of Cosimo and of Filippo de’ Medici, Archbishop -of Pisa, are attributed to Pisanello, the latter probably<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> -incorrectly; a medallion with the head of Lorenzo seems to -be the work of a Florentine, Pietro di Niccolò.<a name="FNanchor_202_202" id="FNanchor_202_202"></a><a href="#Footnote_202_202" class="fnanchor">[202]</a></p> - -<p>Yet another branch of art reached a high perfection in -Florence—that of engraving precious stones. The taste for -engraved gems, which kept pace with the increasing knowledge -of antiquity and the passion for books and antique -works of all kinds, revived the art of cutting cameos and -precious stones. A good example of the growth of this taste -is related by Vespasiano da Bisticci in the ‘Life of Niccoli,’<a name="FNanchor_203_203" id="FNanchor_203_203"></a><a href="#Footnote_203_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a> -whose house was full of antiquities. Passing along the -street one day, he saw a boy wearing round his neck a -chalcedony with a figure engraved, which the learned man -thought he recognised as a work of Polycletes. He inquired -the name of the boy’s father, and sent to ask him whether he -would sell the stone. The man was willing to let him have -it for five florins, which he thought good payment. Now, in -the days of Pope Eugene, the future Cardinal Luigi Scarampi—who -had much taste for matters of this sort—being -in Florence, asked Niccoli to show him the stone, and offered -him two hundred ducats for it. Niccoli, who was not rich, -accepted, and the chalcedony passed into the hands of -Scarampi, then to Paul II., and, after his death, to Lorenzo -de’ Medici. Lorenzo’s uncle, Giovanni, had collected many -gems, of which not the least famous was the carnelian representing -Apollo and Marsyas. It was supposed to be Nero’s -seal, and was set in gold by Lorenzo Ghiberti.<a name="FNanchor_204_204" id="FNanchor_204_204"></a><a href="#Footnote_204_204" class="fnanchor">[204]</a> Lorenzo -considerably increased the collection of antique gems inherited -from his father, and formed a treasury, of which -numerous remains still exist, after all the disasters that befell -his posterity. He and Paul II. inspired this branch of art<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> -with new life, and enabled modern workers to enter the lists -against the ancients. The first modern gem of known date, -is a portrait of Pope Paul in 1470, now in the Uffizi collection. -Giovanni delle Corniuole formed himself on the -models in the Medici collection, and attained the perfection -conspicuous in his famous head of Savonarola. He had a -competitor in the Milanese Domenico de’ Cammei, who -worked chiefly for Lodovico il Moro, and to whom is attributed -the portrait of Lorenzo on an onyx of three strata, -placed with that of the great Dominican in the Uffizi collection. -Many other stones, with subjects taken from mythology, -sacred history, &c., are works of this period, when, also, -much antique work was copied. The name of Lorenzo de’ -Medici, to be read on many gems in Florence and elsewhere, -recalls the former wealth told of in Latin verses, and in the -testimonies of contemporaries.<a name="FNanchor_205_205" id="FNanchor_205_205"></a><a href="#Footnote_205_205" class="fnanchor">[205]</a></p> - -<p>In painting we now witness the development of the tendencies -which first appeared in Masaccio, and were so actively -reciprocated by the sister-art of sculpture. Here the -two branches of art frequently met, and their reciprocal -influence is discernible in the character of the work. It was -thus with Verrocchio, and the Pollaiuoli. The former, of no -great distinction as a painter, recalls his bronze works in his -picture of the Baptism of Christ.<a name="FNanchor_206_206" id="FNanchor_206_206"></a><a href="#Footnote_206_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a> The brothers Pollaiuoli,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> -whose grave, quiet faces may be seen together on their tomb -in San Pietro in Vincoli at Rome, cannot well be separated -in their works; and, though Piero occupied himself with -painting more than Antonio, the inscription by the latter on -the monument of Pope Sixtus IV. shows his excellence in -gold and silver work, in painting, and bronze casting. Antonio -painted for Lorenzo the Labours of Hercules, of which -some small copies are still in existence. The picture of St. -James was painted for the chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal; -that of the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian,<a name="FNanchor_207_207" id="FNanchor_207_207"></a><a href="#Footnote_207_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a> the most famous -work of these painters, was executed in 1475, for the Pucci -chapel in the entrance-court of the Annunziata. In these -works may be recognised the sculptor, and the student of -anatomy, to whom fidelity in representing the figure is more -important than the feeling for beauty. Alesso Baldovinetti, -who was probably a pupil of Uccello, and a fellow-worker of -Andrea del Castagno, experienced the influence of sculpture -indirectly; and where he might have learned from it, in -regard to modelling, he has only acquired a constrained, -angular style, which is far from pleasing. An example of -this may be seen in his picture of the Madonna enthroned -with saints, painted for the villa at Caffaggiuolo, and now in -the Uffizi collection. More satisfactory is a work executed -from a design of his—the picture of Dante in Sta. Maria del -Fiore which represents the <i>altissimo Poeta</i> in the attitude of -speaking, with his open book in his hand; on his right is -hell, on his left the city of Florence, in the background the -Mount of Purgatory, above his head the firmament. This -picture was actually attributed to Orcagna, till the artist’s -name—Domenico di Michelino—and the date of execution, -1466, were discovered.<a name="FNanchor_208_208" id="FNanchor_208_208"></a><a href="#Footnote_208_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a></p> - -<p>Benozzo Gozzoli’s most important works—his Pisan<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> -frescoes—were executed from 1469 onwards; they display -great creative power, though the harmony is defective and -the masses and spaces are ill distributed. It is observable -in the works of Filippo Lippi, Gozzoli, and Baldovinetti, a -far inferior artist, that the custom was growing in Florence -of introducing into historical and religious compositions portraits -of spectators who had nothing to do with the subject. -Nothing remains of the frescoes painted by Baldovinetti for -the Gianfigliazzi in the choir of Sta. Trinità; they contained -portraits of Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici, Bongianni and -others of the Gianfigliazzi, Luigi Guicciardini, Luca Pitti, -Diotisalvi Neroni, Filippo Strozzi, Lorenzo della Volpaia, -and Paolo Toscanelli.<a name="FNanchor_209_209" id="FNanchor_209_209"></a><a href="#Footnote_209_209" class="fnanchor">[209]</a> This branch of painting reached its -highest development in the hands of Baldovinetti’s famous -pupil, Domenico Ghirlandajo. Sandro Botticelli and Filippino -Lippi pursued the same branch of art. The former learned -the goldsmith’s trade in his youth, and shows traces of the -influence of the Pollaiuoli. He was the pupil of Fra Filippo -and became the master of his son, whom he survived, though -Filippino was his junior by twenty years. In the paintings -of both there is a peculiar fantastic element, attractive and -interesting at first, but tiresome after a time. In the faces -it degenerates into a constantly recurring type, and in the -composition becomes mannerism. The way, too, in which -both painters employ allegory increases the appearance of -affectation. Yet both were men of great talent, with a fine -and delicate sense of beauty when not marred by superficiality -and exaggeration. Both had much to do with -Lorenzo. None of the pictures painted for him by Botticelli -are now in existence, but his fine picture of the Epiphany -must have been a commission from the Medici, for in this -work (formerly in Sta. Maria Novella, and now in the Uffizi) -the Three Kings have the features of three members of the -family—Cosimo the elder, his younger son Giovanni, and his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> -grandson Giuliano.<a name="FNanchor_210_210" id="FNanchor_210_210"></a><a href="#Footnote_210_210" class="fnanchor">[210]</a> The colouring is more like that of -Ghirlandajo, to whom the picture was long attributed, than -the brighter, thinner tone of most of Botticelli’s works. -Florence contains many of his allegorical pictures, as well -as Madonnas and saints; among them the Coronation of -the Virgin, painted for the church of San Marco, as a commission -for the Silk-workers’ Guild.<a name="FNanchor_211_211" id="FNanchor_211_211"></a><a href="#Footnote_211_211" class="fnanchor">[211]</a> Botticelli not only -introduced likenesses into his historical pictures, he painted -separate portraits; among them those of Lorenzo’s mother -and Giuliano’s early lost love, the ‘bella Simonetta,’ very -pleasing in the gentle simplicity which characterises her -expression, her attitude, and even her dress. Both heads -are in profile, the contour a little exaggerated, in the manner -of this artist.<a name="FNanchor_212_212" id="FNanchor_212_212"></a><a href="#Footnote_212_212" class="fnanchor">[212]</a> Botticelli’s close connection with the Medici -is shown by the circumstance that after the conspiracy of -the Pazzi he undertook to paint the likenesses of the conspirators -on the wall of the palace of the Podestà.<a name="FNanchor_213_213" id="FNanchor_213_213"></a><a href="#Footnote_213_213" class="fnanchor">[213]</a></p> - -<p>Only one work of Filippino Lippi is mentioned as having -been executed for Lorenzo—the unfinished fresco, representing -a sacrifice, in the hall at Poggio a Cajano—but their -intimacy is well known. The commission given to Filippino -by Cardinal Olivieri Caraffa for the painting of his chapel in -Sta. Maria sopra Minerva is said to have been procured by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> -Lorenzo, and so, probably, were those of Matthias Corvinus. -The influence exercised on the views and tendencies of the -son by his father’s works, especially those at Prato—where -Filippino passed most of his youth—was mingled with that -of Botticelli. The former comes out most in the earlier -works, notably in the frescoes of the Brancacci chapel at -San Pietro in Carmine, painted about 1485; the latter in -the wall-paintings begun for Filippo Strozzi, but not finished -till long after, in the chapel in Sta. Maria Novella. The -immediate neighbourhood of Masaccio’s works had, no doubt, -a beneficial effect on the young artist in his earlier works, -for Filippino, not yet thirty, shows in the Brancacci frescoes -infinitely more fidelity to nature and feeling for historical -composition than in the paintings of the Caraffa and Strozzi -chapels. The scenes in the last,<a name="FNanchor_214_214" id="FNanchor_214_214"></a><a href="#Footnote_214_214" class="fnanchor">[214]</a> from the Acts and legends -of the Apostles, display undeniable tokens of spirit and -imagination, giving a vivid representation of the passions. -But there is affected mannerism, inharmonious colouring, -and an apparent delight in light tints playing into each -other. Some of these defects may be partly laid to the -account of restoration. The preference, noticeable in Botticelli, -for antique accessories, produces in Filippino an effect -of artificial overloading. Among his easel-pieces, the great -Madonna with saints, painted in 1485 for the council-chamber -of the palace of the Signoria, is distinguished by -grace and earnest work.<a name="FNanchor_215_215" id="FNanchor_215_215"></a><a href="#Footnote_215_215" class="fnanchor">[215]</a> Filippino, too, was fond of introducing -figures of contemporaries. In his frescoes at S. -Pietro in Carmine may be seen Tommaso Soderini, Piero -Guicciardini (father of the historian), Luigi Pulci, Antonio -Pollaiuolo, Sandro Botticelli, Francesco Granacci, and the -painter himself. In an altar-piece (now in the Uffizi), representing -the Epiphany, are portraits of several members<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> -of the younger branch of the Medici, doubtless benefactors -of the convent of San Donato, for which the picture was -painted four years after Lorenzo’s death. There are Pierfrancesco, -grandson of Giovanni di Bicci, his son Giovanni, -father of the famous leader of the Black Bands and grandfather -of the first Grand-Duke, and the younger Pierfrancesco, -father of Lorenzino, the murderer of the first Duke of -Florence.<a name="FNanchor_216_216" id="FNanchor_216_216"></a><a href="#Footnote_216_216" class="fnanchor">[216]</a> Other portraits, such as those of the Nerli family -in Sto. Spirito, represent donors. In Cosimo Rosselli’s -greatest work, the Procession with the Chalice in the church -of Sant’Ambrogio, only one portrait is named, that of Pico -della Mirandola. In Lucca, where Rosselli painted a good -deal, he fell into the reigning fashion. He had formed himself -on the model, first of Fra Angelico, then of Benozzo -Gozzoli, and with moderate talents endeavoured to combine -the conventional with the naturalistic tendency.<a name="FNanchor_217_217" id="FNanchor_217_217"></a><a href="#Footnote_217_217" class="fnanchor">[217]</a></p> - -<p>The highest achievements of painting in Lorenzo’s days -were those of Domenico Ghirlandajo. He is a nobler -Benozzo, guided by a refined sense of symmetry. His power -of drawing figures and groups is combined with variety and -animation. He has a strong feeling for historical character, -and makes a moderate use of architecture and accessories -that heighten the interest of his compositions without seeming -obtrusive. What he lacks in point of ideality is compensated -by his love of nature and that cultivated sense of -form which makes him select natural beauty and avoid -whatever is repulsive in the reality. His scenes from Scripture -and the history of the Saints are full of figures, and -produce a grand, often a solemn, effect without being at all -forced or far-fetched. They transport us, undisturbed by -anything foreign or strange, into the Florence of his day. -We seem to stand in the middle of that gay and busy life,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> -among the gallant active citizens and the stately, beautiful -women of that city, which, according to the inscription—doubtless -Poliziano’s—on the picture in the choir of Sta. -Maria Novella of the Angel appearing to Zacharias, was -rich in the spoils of victory and the treasures of art, in noble -buildings, in plenty, health, and peace.<a name="FNanchor_218_218" id="FNanchor_218_218"></a><a href="#Footnote_218_218" class="fnanchor">[218]</a> Ghirlandajo’s -frescoes are a sort of monumental glorification of Lorenzo’s -latter years. Among the many portraits which give these -works a value, independent of their qualities as works of -art, may be seen Lorenzo’s in the Sassetti chapel in Sta. -Trinità, which was decorated in 1485 with scenes from the -history of St. Francis of Assisi. The frescoes in the choir -of Sta. Maria Novella make quite a portrait gallery. They -were begun in 1490 for Giovanni Tornabuoni, and after five -years’ work were finished four years before the death of the -painter, who is here seen at his best. Here are limned -many members of the Tornabuoni and Tornaquinci families -(between whom there was a connection), as well as numerous -friends—Ficino, Landino, Poliziano, Gentile of Urbino, -the most distinguished scholars of the time. Baldovinetti, -too, is there; David Ghirlandajo, Domenico’s brother; his -brother-in-law Bastiano Mainardi and himself; Andrea de’ -Medici, Federigo Sassetti, Gianfrancesco Ridolfi—a partner -in the Medicean bank—besides noble ladies and matrons, -among whom is Ginevra de’ Benci, a famous beauty also -painted by Leonardo da Vinci, and another pleasing face, -that of Giovanna degli Albizzi, who married Lorenzo Tornabuoni -in 1486.<a name="FNanchor_219_219" id="FNanchor_219_219"></a><a href="#Footnote_219_219" class="fnanchor">[219]</a></p> - -<p>Like the Brancacci chapel, the choir of Sta. Maria -Novella was a school for painters in the palmy days of art; -Andrea del Sarto, in particular, received a great impulse<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> -from the compositions of Ghirlandajo. When it is considered -that the latter was taken away in the full strength -of manhood, at the age of forty-five, and that his development -was not rapid, it is hard to understand how he could -have executed so many works in Florence and elsewhere. -The frescoes may have been done in part by his pupils, but -the easel-pieces—of which there are so many, executed with -the most careful technical perfection—must have come chiefly -from his own hand. Of those in Florence it will suffice to -name one, the fine Epiphany painted in 1488 for the church -of the Foundling Hospital. For Lorenzo, in 1488, he painted -in the villa at Spedaletto some mythological subjects of -Vulcan and his comrades, of which little now remains. For -Giovanni de’ Medici he did two altar-pieces in the abbey -church of San Giusto near Volterra, of which one, ‘Christ in -the act of Blessing, with Saints,’ still exists. But Ghirlandajo’s -chief patrons were the Tornabuoni, family connections -of the Medici. That he and several other Tuscan artists -were sent for to Rome to decorate the Sixtine Chapel may -safely be attributed to these two families. About twenty -years before the close of the century—when Sandro Botticelli, -Cosimo Rosselli, and his pupil Piero di Cosimo, were -painting there with and after Ghirlandajo—the Pope and -Lorenzo were reconciled; and as in Florence nothing was -ever done in matters of art without him, he and Giovanni -Tornabuoni doubtless procured these commissions.</p> - -<p>The diplomatic, literary, and artistic intercourse between -Florence and Rome had never been so active and fertile as -in those days when the predominance of Florentine influence -in Rome was openly acknowledged. Almost all the remarkable -works of the time of Sixtus IV. are due to Florentine -architects, sculptors, and painters. They may have -commenced even before the Pazzi conspiracy, for Baccio -Pontelli began to build the chapel in 1473, and Sixtus was -urgent for its completion. Beside the Florentine painters -above named two other Tuscans were employed, Don Bartolommeo<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> -della Gatta, abbot of a small Camaldulensian -convent at Arezzo, and perhaps a Florentine by birth, and -Luca Signorelli of Cortona, who by his connection with -Piero della Francesca forms a link between Tuscan and -Umbrian art. His chief works belong to an Umbrian city, -Orvieto, where indeed Tuscan masters had long taken the -lead. Luca Signorelli also painted for Lorenzo. A Madonna, -once in the villa at Castello now in the Uffizi, and a mythological -picture, the ‘Education of Pan,’ seem to have been -offerings of the artist to his patron. The last-named picture -recalls the grandeur of conception and strong feeling for -form noticeable in the frescoes in the chapel of San Brizio -in Orvieto Cathedral.<a name="FNanchor_220_220" id="FNanchor_220_220"></a><a href="#Footnote_220_220" class="fnanchor">[220]</a></p> - -<p>The head of the Umbrian school in the latter decades of -the century, Pietro Perugino, made repeated and long visits -to Florence, and was considerably influenced by Florentine -art, though with an admixture of other elements. Thus -was formed a style which, opposed on the one hand to the -naturalism of most of the Florentines, on the other to the -enthusiastic tendencies of some among them, gave expression -to the religious element which long remained dominant -in the master’s own country and beyond it. It is ascertained -that Perugino was in Florence in 1482 and in the beginning -of 1491, but nothing is known of what he did then. His -chief works in Florence are of later date, as are those of his -school, first among which is the ‘Last Supper,’ in Sant’ -Onofrio, probably by Bernardino Pinturicchio. In 1496, -Perugino had thoughts of building a house in Florence, and -in 1515—when his talent was on the wane—he purchased a -future resting-place in the Annunziata; such tokens did he -give of his attachment to the city which, spite of the superhuman -activity of Rome, was yet the focus of all artist-life -and work. Of paintings by Perugino for the Medici nothing -is known.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span></p> - -<p>Miniature painting<a name="FNanchor_221_221" id="FNanchor_221_221"></a><a href="#Footnote_221_221" class="fnanchor">[221]</a> rapidly approached its highest development. -Great illuminated church-books, antiphonaries, -psalters, hours, breviaries, &c., had come forth from Benedictine, -Camaldulensian, Dominican, and other convents, -and were lodged in cathedrals and churches. The art of -illumination was extended by Dante’s contemporaries, Oderigi -of Gubbio and Franco of Bologna, to prayer-books for private -use and to works of profane literature, when men of rank -and citizens took to forming libraries and beautiful manuscripts -became objects of luxury. The field for representation -was correspondingly enlarged, and from figures of -angels and saints the artists of the fifteenth century passed -to scenes from the classic poets or the ‘Divine Comedy.’ -In this century the Florentine churches were filled with the -finest works of this kind, most of which are now in the -National Library or that of San Marco. The Dominican -order were especially rich in miniature painters after Giovanni -Dominici had given an impulse to this branch of -art. In Cosimo’s time, Fra Angelico and Fra Benedetto -worked in San Marco under the eyes of St. Antonine. Don -Bartolommeo della Gatta, Attavante degli Attavanti, Gherardo -and Monti di Giovanni, Zanobi Strozzi, Francesco -Rosselli, brother of Cosimo, and many others, distinguished -themselves in this art, in which they were emulated by -foreigners connected with Florence: Liberale of Verona, -Girolamo of Cremona, several Sienese, and others. From -the middle of the century miniature painting underwent the -influence of the Van Eyck school. Many beautiful works -found their way into the Medici collections. Lorenzo’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> -tastes and traditions were inherited by his son Giovanni, -whom Raphael’s famous portrait represents with a book -adorned with miniatures, and a glass for looking at them -lying before him. Many miniatures went abroad, and -foreign ones came to Italy. Gherardo, Attavanti, and -others worked for Matthias Corvinus; and in the Burgundian -Library at Brussels is preserved the mass-book painted for -the king by the last-named artist in 1485, and brought to -the Netherlands by Mary of Hungary, sister of Charles V. -At Matthias’s death Lorenzo acquired several of the manuscripts, -probably ordered at his own instigation, and some -of which were still in hand. Lorenzo was deeply interested -in the revival of mosaic. Vasari’s statement that Alesso -Baldovinetti learned the long-forgotten principles of this art -from a German pilgrim going to Rome must rest on its own -merits; anyhow, the art was revived in Lorenzo’s latter -years. In 1482-83, Baldovinetti undertook to restore the -mosaics in the Baptistery. About 1490, Gherardo di Giovanni -and Domenico Ghirlandajo began for Lorenzo the -mosaic decoration of the chapel in the choir of the cathedral, -where stands the shrine of St. Zanobi. This work was never -finished. The same year Domenico executed the pleasing -mosaic picture of the ‘Annunciation,’ over the side-door of -the church, towards the Via de’ Servi. Baldovinetti’s pupil -Graffione, and Ghirlandajo’s brother David, took part in -these works; the latter, who busied himself with the technicalities -of glass-making at Montaione, in the Elsa valley—where -there are potteries and glass-houses to this day—afterwards -worked both in Florence and in the cathedrals of -Siena and Orvieto.<a name="FNanchor_222_222" id="FNanchor_222_222"></a><a href="#Footnote_222_222" class="fnanchor">[222]</a></p> - -<p>Thus varied and fruitful was the development of art -around Lorenzo, in a great measure stimulated and shared -in by him. Like his grandfather, he was not content to -profit by ripe talents and pluck the fruits, he sowed for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> -future; he, more than any one else, contributed to bring on -the most brilliant period of art. He founded a nursery for -choice spirits in the collection of works of art of all kinds, -ancient and modern, which he laid out in his garden at San -Marco and the neighbouring casino, and the superintendence -of which he confided to Donatello’s pupil, Bertoldo. At a -time when antique sculptures were rare, and the means of -study limited, and when young men of talent had to remain -for years in a dependent position which checked their individual -development, advantages like these, offered to youth, -were as unusual as they were invaluable. Lorenzo’s sound -judgment was no less useful here than his goodwill. ‘It -is no small matter,’ remarks Vasari in the ‘Life of Giovan -Francesco Rustici,’<a name="FNanchor_223_223" id="FNanchor_223_223"></a><a href="#Footnote_223_223" class="fnanchor">[223]</a> ‘that distinction was attained by all -those who went to school in the Medici garden, and were -assisted by the illustrious Lorenzo. This can only be ascribed -to the uncommon perspicacity of that noble gentleman, -who was a veritable Mæcenas, who knew how to recognise -genius and merit, and to encourage them by rewards.’ -The painters Francesco Granacci, Lorenzo di Credi, Niccolò -Soggi; the sculptors Giovan Francesco Rustici, Pietro -Torrigiano, Baccio of Montelupo, Andrea Contucci of Monte -San Sovino—who on Lorenzo’s recommendation was summoned -to Portugal, where he executed works of architecture -and sculpture for King John II.—these, and others, came -forth from the garden of San Marco. The variety of their -gifts and accomplishments bears witness to the freedom they -had there enjoyed in the development of the most diverse -intellectual powers. But the one who gave to the Medicean -garden a worldwide fame was Michelangelo Buonarotti. -Before he was fifteen he passed from the school of Ghirlandajo -into this new world. His sculptures soon disclosed the -marvellous talent which his sympathetic teacher had foreboded -when he recommended him and Granacci to Lorenzo;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> -the latter having, as the story goes, expressed to his artist-friend -a regret that sculpture did not keep pace with painting. -The youth came of a good family, but without property.<a name="FNanchor_224_224" id="FNanchor_224_224"></a><a href="#Footnote_224_224" class="fnanchor">[224]</a> -During the few remaining years of Lorenzo, he enjoyed a -sympathy and kindness which had a decided influence on -his life up to the threshold of old age, although the independent -spirit of the free citizen often rebelled against the -attachment which, as artist, he continued to feel for the -Medici.</p> - -<p>It has been generally believed that the greatest Florentine -artist of the second half of the fifteenth century—Leonardo -da Vinci—was a stranger to Lorenzo. The fact -appeared the more strange because Leonardo was the son of -a chancellor or notary of the Republic, and a pupil of Andrea -del Verocchio, who was in constant intercourse with the -Medici. Newly discovered documents<a name="FNanchor_225_225" id="FNanchor_225_225"></a><a href="#Footnote_225_225" class="fnanchor">[225]</a> show that Leonardo, -if not among those admitted to study in the San Marco -gardens, was at least acquainted with the Medici, and that -it was Lorenzo who sent him, when thirty years old, to -Lodovico il Moro, in company with one Atalante Migliorotti, -famous for playing on the lyre. The date hitherto assigned -to his first visit to Milan—1482 or 1483—is confirmed; but -there is no explanation of the fact that his name is never -mentioned during the war of 1478-79. He was then twenty-six, -and might have done good service to his country by that -knowledge of mechanics and hydraulics which he afterwards -turned to such good account in Lombardy. On January 1 of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> -the fatal year 1478, the Signoria commissioned him to paint -an altar-piece for the chapel dedicated to St. Bernard in -the palace. This commission, like many of the same kind, -was not executed, but was transferred after Leonardo’s departure -for Milan to Filippino Lippi, whose beautiful -Madonna (see p. 175) was placed not in the chapel, but in -the council chamber. Under the rule of the two Sforzas—Gian -Galeazzo and Lodovico il Moro—Leonardo founded at -Milan a school of painting which gave a new direction to -Lombard art. When he returned to Florence after the -downfall of the Moro, Lorenzo had been seven years in his -grave, and his sons were in exile.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p class="pc4 elarge"><i>FIFTH BOOK.</i></p> - -<hr class="d1" /> - -<p class="pc large">THE GROWTH OF THE MEDICEAN SUPREMACY.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a><br /><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span></p> - -<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER I.</h2> - -<p class="pch">CHANGE IN THE FLORENTINE CONSTITUTION.</p> - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">The</span> events of two years had shown that Lorenzo was not -quite so secure of the direction of public affairs as he had -seemed to be immediately after the conspiracy of the Pazzi. -The vicissitudes of the war had produced an abrupt change -in public feeling; it had become clear that internal affairs -were in a great measure subject to external influences. Even -when Lorenzo’s position was far stronger, a diplomatist -justly observed that his authority in the city depended on -the estimation in which he was held by the other Italian -powers and by foreign sovereigns.<a name="FNanchor_226_226" id="FNanchor_226_226"></a><a href="#Footnote_226_226" class="fnanchor">[226]</a> The traditions of independence -were too fresh, party interests too various and too -powerful, not to create constant difficulties. The great art -of the party leaders had always consisted in excluding from -office any but their own partisans. But it was by no means -easy to prevent internal divisions between sections of the -parties themselves. During the war, a college of magistrates -had to be dismissed, on account of the opposition they -offered to a measure which aimed at reducing their jurisdiction -to its original limits. Lorenzo’s standing difficulty -was the necessity he was under of controlling parties in the -state, without altering constitutional forms except in apparent -agreement with the popular sentiment. The ostracism -known as the power of <i>ammonire</i> had proved just as dangerous -as the excitement caused by the frequent summoning<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> -of parliaments. His only plan therefore was, by creating a -docile following, to exclude, without the use of strong -measures, all elements he could not rely upon, and to accustom -the multitude to the gradual extension of his influence -on home as well as foreign policy. Lorenzo had another -motive. He had not been fortunate in business matters. -During his grandfather’s time the State finances had become -entangled with those of the family. Cosimo, who was a -financial genius, took care of his own interests without -letting those of the State suffer. With his grandson the -case was different. Cosimo had advanced money to the -State; Lorenzo, on the other hand, stood in need of public -money for private objects. The expenses of the war, -sacrifices and losses of all kinds were the ostensible cause of -irregularity in the payment of interest on the national debt, -and in the settlement of marriage portions by the establishment -existing for that purpose. This state of things could -not last if the public bonds were to retain any value and the -national credit to be maintained. For further operations, -rendered hazardous by the embarrassment that already existed, -men were needed who were both familiar with business -and willing to go hand in hand with the director of the -State. The embarrassment was already so publicly known, -that it was thought advisable to avow it with apparent -frankness before taking measures which really aimed at -withdrawing the direction of the banks from public control, -although their object was made to appear a reform for the -general welfare.</p> - -<p>On April 8, 1480, scarcely a fortnight after peace was -proclaimed, the Signoria, who were all in Lorenzo’s confidence, -proceeded, without the intervention of a parliament, -to make sweeping changes in the constitution. They carried -through the three legislative councils a resolution empowering -them to create a new college, in whose hands were to be -placed all the appointments to public offices. This college -was divided into a smaller and greater council: the former<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> -consisting of thirty citizens capable of holding office, elected -with the Signoria; the latter containing 210 members not -under thirty years of age, who with the Signoria and first -college filled up the required number of offices. The presence -of two-thirds of the members and a proportionate majority -of those present sufficed for the validity of the proceedings. -One-fourth of the councillors were to come from each quarter -of the city; if a family or <i>consorteria</i> had sent but one representative -among the thirty, two of its members were eligible -as councillors; otherwise only one, except in the case of two -houses to be named by the Signoria and the thirty, for -which there was to be no limit as to number or age. The -210 then added to their body 48 other members, and thus -formed a great council of 288 members, which was to meet -in November for the elections. On April 11 the Signoria -proceeded to nominate the thirty. But a few days later -a considerable modification was made in the scheme, for on -the 19th the smaller council of thirty was increased by a -resolution of the Signoria to seventy; the additional members -being chosen by those already nominated. The new -members were to be at least forty years old, and, if belonging -to one of the great guilds, must have held the office of -Gonfaloniere. This permanent senate of seventy, which now -took the place of the former electors to the offices (<i>accoppiatori</i>), -was divided into two equal parts, alternating every -half year. When united, it had in fact the direction of the -whole state; the more so because it had the right of filling -up vacancies in its own body from among those who had -held the office of Gonfaloniere, provided they had done -nothing to displease the ruling party. To this senate no -proposal or petition could be addressed by private persons, -but only by the Signoria.</p> - -<p>The Council of Seventy then appointed two committees -of its own members. The first, commonly called from its -number the <i>Otto di pratica</i>, took the place of the Magistracy -of Ten. It sat only in time of war, and assumed the control<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> -of political and military affairs, which, after deliberation in -full session, it submitted to the Seventy. The other committee, -consisting of twelve members, was entrusted with all -affairs concerning the national credit, and all matters of -jurisdiction. Both were nominated for a period of six -months, and any vacancies caused by death or an appointment -to offices abroad were to be filled up from the same -college.<a name="FNanchor_227_227" id="FNanchor_227_227"></a><a href="#Footnote_227_227" class="fnanchor">[227]</a> The existing magistracy, called the <i>Otto di balia</i>, -whose authority in both civil and criminal affairs had almost -extinguished that of the podestà but had lately been reduced -within narrower limits, was likewise chosen from -among the Seventy.</p> - -<p>However widely the opinions of contemporaries and posterity -may differ as to the character and scope of these institutions, -which were afterwards greatly modified in the direction -of centralisation, all agree that the measures just -described contributed most effectively to the establishment -of personal government. ‘One must perceive,’ observes -Alamanno Rinuccini on the first resolution, ‘that all freedom -was taken from the people and they were made the servants -of the Thirty, as I, Alamanno Rinuccini, though a member -of the Council of the Two Hundred and Ten, testify in accordance -with truth.’ And further, on the completion of the -scheme: ‘The decree contained many things dishonourable -and opposed to citizen-life and to the freedom of the people; -and, indeed, from that day their freedom seemed to me dead -and buried.’ The general opinion on the connection of the -administration with the financial affairs of the Medici is -shown by the remarks of both friends and foes. Giovanni -Cambi remarks: ‘Lorenzo was always thinking how he could -increase his authority. After the new reform had conferred<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> -on the electors a power formerly belonging to the whole body -of citizens, the former took into their own hands the money -matters that needed regulating. The state finances had -been used to support Lorenzo in his private affairs. More -than a hundred thousand gold florins went to Bruges alone, -where Tommaso Portinari was at the head of the Medici -bank, then in danger of failure. The unfortunate community -had to pay it all, for the members of the new elective body -cared for nothing but to keep their own position, and assented -to everything. Thus a servile feeling gained ground; -the citizens sacrificed their freedom to obtain office. Yet -what they did obtain was not enough to satisfy them; for all -looked enviously on the inner council, to which each thought -himself worthy to belong.’ The voice that carries most -weight is perhaps that of Alessandro de’ Pazzi, who gives a -sketch of his uncle in his disquisition on the Florentine constitution -of 1522. ‘As Lorenzo,’ he says,<a name="FNanchor_228_228" id="FNanchor_228_228"></a><a href="#Footnote_228_228" class="fnanchor">[228]</a> ‘spent a great -deal of money on a thousand things, and was not a good -man of business, his fortune suffered considerably. Cosimo -had spent large sums of money; perhaps because he believed -that the glory of building churches and monuments would -be of more advantage to his family than stores of gold; and -in this his example was followed by Piero and his sons. -When their credit fell, they would have been driven from -their position but for the events of 1478, which gained for -the Medici new friends and confirmed the attachment of old -ones, and altogether strengthened their power. The same -events furnished Lorenzo with the means of using both his -private means and the moneys of the State, which before he -would not have dared to touch, to fulfil his own obligations, -and re-establish his political influence on a permanent basis -while rectifying his financial embarrassments.’</p> - -<p>The altered constitution with respect to finance is thus -described by Niccolò Valori:<a name="FNanchor_229_229" id="FNanchor_229_229"></a><a href="#Footnote_229_229" class="fnanchor">[229]</a> ‘Although no new taxes were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> -imposed, the revenues of the State increased so much after -peace was assured, that State-creditors had reason to be -satisfied. The Republic has such good resources that she -can hold out long in time of war, and recover rapidly in -time of peace.’ This sounds very well; but, according to -Alamanno Rinuccini,<a name="FNanchor_230_230" id="FNanchor_230_230"></a><a href="#Footnote_230_230" class="fnanchor">[230]</a> the public credit had to be supported -in the course of the very next year by a sale of State property. -The bad name which Lorenzo acquired by his arbitrary appropriation -of public moneys seems to have induced him to -restrict his banking operations, which depended for success -on changes of fortune and on the skill of agents, and to lay -out his means in landed property rather than trust to foreign -speculations.</p> - -<p>If Niccolò Valori is to be believed, no new taxes were -imposed in 1480. But an examination of the proceedings of -the board of taxation shows how little this statement is to -be relied on. The progressive scale of 1447, which originally -produced the large sums laid out in supporting Francesco -Sforza, and which was to be in operation for three years only, -the tax being collected in small instalments as need arose, -had remained in force during the remaining years of Cosimo, -and with some modifications under Piero and his son. According -to a calculation of the payments in 1471-1480, the -sum total amounted to 1,682,888, or on an average 168,288 -gold florins annually. In 1479 the tax had risen to 367,450 -gold florins. The new law issued by the new finance committee -on May 18, 1480, and modified on the following -January 30, introduced a double progressive duty in place of -the former one. The first, fixed for seven years, was on -immovable property, so that the lowest class, with an income -extending beyond the actual necessaries of life but -under fifty gold florins, was to pay seven per cent., and the -highest, having an income of 400 and over, twenty-two per -cent. The second was a personal tax, which, according to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> -the same scale, amounted to one gold florin and four-twentieths -for the lowest class, four florins and four-twentieths -for the highest. This mode of taxation, whereby -a quota of the national debt could be discharged, lasted with -some changes till Lorenzo’s death; its real aim being to -keep the lower orders in good humour and weaken the -great families; while those that governed always found -means to indemnify themselves and their friends, so that -equality of taxation was merely apparent. The taxes were -collected according to the needs of the Government. More -than once they were paid seven times in the year. The -proceeds at one collection of the first of these taxes had been -estimated at about 30,000 gold florins, but only yielded -25,000; in 1487 it fell to 18,000; and in the following year -to 15,000. From 1481 to 1492 the sum of the tax payments -amounted to 1,561,836 gold florins, or, on an average, 130,153. -The largest revenue was that of the year 1483—that of the -Ferrara war—viz. 164,665, and the smallest those of the -years of peace, from 1489 to 1492, viz. 105,000. Under -Lorenzo’s son the total annual amount was reduced to 90,000. -On calculating the various duties on both movable and immovable -property, appearing under manifold names, ever -changing with circumstances, alternately rising and falling, -it becomes evident that the direct tax, which by the old -financial system of the Republic was limited to 25,000 or -30,000 gold florins, a light weight in the balance against the -duties estimated at 250,000 to 300,000, had increased twelvefold -in Lorenzo’s time. The taxpayers were indeed registered -at the Monte, and might discharge part of their payments in -its bonds. But the Monte more than once stopped paying -interest altogether, often paid only half, and sometimes only -a fifth. The exchequer then took the quotas of taxes in -question not at the nominal value of the bonds, but according -to the rate of payment then current at the Monte. All -these manipulations, which made the artificial financial -system of Florence a perfect labyrinth of perplexity, could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> -not but be injurious to the interests of the community, while -they deprived property of its secure foundations.<a name="FNanchor_231_231" id="FNanchor_231_231"></a><a href="#Footnote_231_231" class="fnanchor">[231]</a></p> - -<p>At the same time, the repeated modifications in the constitution -which had been going on ever since Cosimo’s time -had thrown it completely off the balance. People had long -been accustomed to see the exercise of popular sovereignty -by means of parliaments converted into a mere party -manœuvre. The men in power, in order to gain a formal -legal countenance for their measures, would have some extraordinary -authority conferred on them by the so-called people, -i.e. by that portion of the citizens who were either on their -side or were coerced into becoming so through fear. The -constant change in the mode of election to the offices, either -by lot or by nomination, produced in the end no great difference, -for all were excluded who were not thought to have -been made sure of. In Lorenzo’s time, at least after the -restrictions subsequently imposed on the scheme introduced -in 1480, there was no more trouble in that respect. In -defiance of democratic forms, everything tended to a personal -government. As if enough had not already occurred to increase -the power of the Medici, another circumstance—unimportant -in itself—occurred to raise Lorenzo’s position. -On the evening of June 2, Amoretto Baldovinetti, natural -son of a citizen of good family, was arrested, and on the -following morning Battista Frescobaldi, formerly consul at -Constantinople. Scarcely were they in custody when an -attempt was made to seize the brothers Francesco and -Antonio Balducci, but only the latter was captured. Immediately -a report was spread of a conspiracy against Lorenzo’s -life. Frescobaldi had once greatly assisted in delivering up -Giovanni Bandini to justice, and seems to have thought -himself insufficiently rewarded for having spent some of his -private means in the affair. In Rome he met some Florentine -emigrants who put him in communication with Amoretto,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> -just the man, he considered, for a hazardous undertaking. -Provided with weapons and poison, these two came to -Florence. Their efforts to gain supporters had little success; -even the brothers Balducci seem to have been undecided. -Nevertheless they resolved to attempt the assassination, -and again in a church; according to some it was to be -in the cathedral, according to others in S. Pietro in Carmine, -where Lorenzo was expected on Ascension day. The plot -failed and the three conspirators were condemned to death. -A legal objection was raised against the sentence, as the -case was only that of a criminal project; but the Signoria -and the Council of Seventy pronounced it high treason, and -enacted that in future every act by which Lorenzo was -injured or his life threatened was to be regarded in the -same light. ‘Lorenzo’s position and authority,’ remarks -the Ferrarese agent,<a name="FNanchor_232_232" id="FNanchor_232_232"></a><a href="#Footnote_232_232" class="fnanchor">[232]</a> ‘was certainly heightened by this -event, but many are of opinion that it did him more harm -than good, by increasing the number of his enemies.’ When -sentence was pronounced many citizens went to console the -prisoners; but they answered cheerfully that they regretted -not so much the sentence they had to undergo as the -failure of their scheme to free the city; they had tried to -do what ought to be the duty of every citizen, and if they -had only had two hours more it would have been seen of -what they were capable. They met their doom on the -morning of the 6th, on the gallows in the palace of the -Podestà. Lorenzo took care to announce to the courts and -to his noble friends throughout Italy, either by private -letters or through the ambassadors of the Republic, the -danger with which he had been threatened ‘by that traitor -Battista Frescobaldi and his companions.’ The consequence -was that the following of friends and clients which had -served to protect Lorenzo since the Pazzi conspiracy formed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> -itself into a regular body-guard, and the capital became -accustomed to see him appear in public with a suite differing -from that of a tyrant only by the civil character of its -members.</p> - -<p>Three months after this Otranto was re-taken. In the -beginning of the year the plenipotentiaries of the Italian -States had met at Rome to consider an alliance in which -foreign countries were invited to join against the Infidels. -Sixtus IV. bestirred himself actively. With help from various -quarters, King Ferrante made great exertions to meet the -danger that was threatening not only Apulia but all Italy. -Alfonso of Calabria besieged Otranto with a large force. As -he could not succeed in completely cutting off the approach -by sea, the town might have held out a long time, particularly -as a new Turkish army was gathering on the Albanian -and Dalmatian coasts; but the death of the Grand Signor, -and the strife of his two sons for the throne, put an end to -the resistance of the place. On September 10, Otranto -opened its gates, but it never recovered from these heavy -strokes of fate. The duke, whose easy victory was commemorated -by medals, did not keep to the conditions of the -surrender. A year later, Rome, so lately threatened by the -Turks, saw many of them within her walls, not as victors -but as doubly vanquished; they were those who had taken -service in the Neapolitan army, which thus once again—as -in the days of Frederic II.—numbered unbelievers in its -ranks.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER II.</h2> - -<p class="pch">THE FERRARESE WAR.</p> - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">The</span> Pazzi conspiracy was only a prelude to the events -which caused a Neapolitan army to stand as an enemy before -the walls of Rome. The Pope and the Venetians had had -no time to give free course to their spite against old enemies -or former allies so long as the storm was hanging over the -Apulian coast. Sixtus IV. even showed himself friendly to -the Florentines, and Guid’Antonio Vespucci, who, towards -the end of January 1481, returned to Rome as ambassador, -endeavoured to strengthen this good understanding. But -no sooner had the imminent danger from the East disappeared -than the object of clearing the coast of Albania -and Western Greece of the Turks, which might have been -more easily attained then than at any previous period, passed -out of sight. A dispute between Venice and Ferrara furnished -an occasion for fresh strife. Ercole of Este refused -to recognise any longer as valid certain old and burdensome -obligations which kept him in a sort of dependence on the -Republic with respect to the execution of justice in his -capital by a Venetian vicegerent, and the procuring of salt -from Venetian saltworks. The dispute rose to such a height -that Venice threatened to take up arms; she thought the -moment favourable on account of her alliance with the Pope. -Sixtus IV. had sound reasons for avoiding everything that -could favour the interference of Venice in the affairs of -Ferrara and Romagna; but the requirements of prudent -policy were driven into the background by the selfish ambition<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> -of his nephew, who hoped to strengthen his position -in Romagna by Venetian influence. Duke Ercole vainly -tried through Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere to make the -Pope understand that it would be neither to the honour nor -the advantage of the Holy See to leave him to be crushed -by the superior power of Venice.<a name="FNanchor_233_233" id="FNanchor_233_233"></a><a href="#Footnote_233_233" class="fnanchor">[233]</a></p> - -<p>Girolamo Riario went to Venice, where he was most -honourably received and presented with the patriciate. -War was decided on. King Ferrante sided with his son-in-law, -as did also Milan and Florence. The alliance of Bologna -and several of the lords of Romagna was secure; Siena and -Genoa adhered to the Pope and Venice. Most of the captains -of the Tuscan war undertook the leadership again, -under somewhat altered circumstances. Besides Roberto -Malatesta, the Venetians gained Roberto da Sanseverino, -who had fallen out with Lodovico Sforza and given him a -great deal of trouble in his own territory. The command of -the Milanese troops was entrusted to the Duke of Urbino. -The Florentines were led by Costanzo Sforza, to whom the -general’s <i>bâton</i> had been solemnly presented October 2, -1481.<a name="FNanchor_234_234" id="FNanchor_234_234"></a><a href="#Footnote_234_234" class="fnanchor">[234]</a> In the spring of 1482 the struggle began in several -quarters at once.<a name="FNanchor_235_235" id="FNanchor_235_235"></a><a href="#Footnote_235_235" class="fnanchor">[235]</a></p> - -<p>A large Venetian fleet sailed up the Po, while two armies -attacked the Ferrarese territory—Sanseverino from the -Lombard side and Malatesta from that of Romagna. Rovigo -and the whole Polesina fell into the hands of the Venetians, -whose commander-in-chief encamped, on May 28, before -Ficcarolo—a castle situated on the Po to the north-west of -Ferrara—intending to take it, and then to cross the river -and attack the capital, Malatesta co-operating with him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> -from the south side. But meanwhile the Duke of Urbino, -with the Milanese troops, raised his camp at Stellata, on the -right bank, to assist the besieged and cover Ferrara; and -Malatesta was called away from the Po district to meet a -threatened danger in an opposite quarter. Alfonso of Calabria -had appeared at the Tronto, demanding a free pass to -bring aid to his brother-in-law. The Pope had not yet declared -himself; the envoys of Naples, Milan, Florence, and -Ferrara were still in Rome. On the refusal of the pass they -left the city, and the duke entered the States of the Church -as an enemy. He met no serious resistance. Rome resounded -with the clang of arms; as an annalist says, ‘The -city which had hitherto been wont to produce only bulls and -briefs now produced nothing but arms.’<a name="FNanchor_236_236" id="FNanchor_236_236"></a><a href="#Footnote_236_236" class="fnanchor">[236]</a> Girolamo Riario -had the post of captain-general for the Church, but his incapacity -soon became apparent. The Neapolitans were at -Grottaferrata; their horsemen made excursions to the very -gates of the city; vineyards and fields were laid waste. This -state of things continued for weeks. At last the Pope saw -himself compelled to appeal for help to Venice, and she -ordered Roberto Malatesta to go to the assistance of her -hard-pressed ally. Meanwhile, the Florentines had made a -diversion; Niccolò Vitelli, supported by Costanzo Sforza, -had taken Città di Castello on June 19, and the whole -country around had fallen into his hands.</p> - -<p>Thus far matters seemed to be going in favour of the -Duke of Ferrara and his allies. The Pope was angry as -well as distressed, and in his anger and distress he did not -disdain the policy followed by one Italian state after another, -to the ruin of Italy, the policy of seeking help from a foreign -power. To Louis XI. he addressed the bitterest complaints -against Ferrante, seeking to stir up the French king to an -expedition against Naples, where the prevailing discontent -was in his favour, and he offered the Dauphin an opportunity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> -of becoming a standard-bearer of the Church.<a name="FNanchor_237_237" id="FNanchor_237_237"></a><a href="#Footnote_237_237" class="fnanchor">[237]</a> Raimond -Pérault, afterwards Bishop of Saintes and Cardinal, was -sent to the king with positive proposals. Louis XI. was -too practical to enter upon such far-reaching and uncertain -projects, but, as in all similar proposals, the seed sown did not -fall on barren soil. Meanwhile things had changed in Italy. -Ficcarolo surrendered after a siege of rather more than a -month, and the enemy crossed the Po unimpeded by the troops -of the Duke of Urbino, which were no match for the Venetians, -especially when their leader, having been seized with fever in -the low unhealthy neighbourhood of the river, had to be -carried to Bologna. Ferrara was threatened, and a Venetian -fleet alarmed the coast of Apulia. But the heaviest blow -was yet to come. On August 21, at Campomorto, on the -road from Rome to Porto d’Anzo, Alfonso of Calabria was -completely defeated by Malatesta, with heavy loss of men -and artillery.<a name="FNanchor_238_238" id="FNanchor_238_238"></a><a href="#Footnote_238_238" class="fnanchor">[238]</a> The victor died at Rome on September 8, -of fever which he had caught in the infected Campagna. -At the same time the other side lost their best general, -Federigo da Montefeltro, who closed his eventful life in -Bologna. These two, opposed to each other on the battle-field, -but connected by the closest family ties, each ignorant -of the other’s mortal danger, commended in their last hour -their states and families to each other’s care. Girolamo -Riario had tried to profit both by the victory and the death -of Malatesta, on the one hand to retake Città di Castello, -and on the other to get Rimini into his own power. Both -attempts were frustrated by the Florentines, who supported -Vitelli and enabled Roberto’s widow, Elisabetta di Montefeltro, -to preserve for her little step-son Pandolfo his paternal -inheritance. Still the situation was very serious.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> -Roberto Sanseverino established himself on the right bank -of the Po, and raised strong fortifications at Pontelagoscuro, -close to Ferrara. The duke began seriously to think of -abandoning his capital and withdrawing to Modena, but -the Florentine plenipotentiary, Bongianni Gianfigliazzi, restrained -him. Lodovico Sforza was kept in check by a -rising in the Parmesan territory.</p> - -<p>The way the war was carried on in the Duchy of Ferrara -was regarded in Florence as very unsatisfactory. The Duke -of Urbino had in nowise answered to the expectations formed -of him. Jacopo Guicciardini remarked to the Ferrarese -ambassador that the league had no head. Lorenzo de’ -Medici was anxious, but said in reference to the Duke of -Ferrara, ‘I cannot imagine you will lose, unless you fail for -want of spirit. <i>Here</i> all will be done that can be.’ The -expedition against Città di Castello, he observed, had been -made with the object of giving the duke breathing time. -Ercole was always commending his interests to the Republic. -If Ferrara fell into the hands of the Venetians, Florence -would be likewise endangered. Military operations were -not accounted sufficient; the old threat of a council was -renewed. But just at this time the adventurous Archbishop -of Carniola, whose character and history have never been -thoroughly investigated, made a feeble attempt to revive -the Synod of Basel, which had been dissolved for forty -years. This man, a Dominican, whose name seems to have -been Andrea Zuccalmaglio, was in Rome with commissions -from the Emperor Frederic about the time of the Pazzi -conspiracy. There he enjoyed high favour for a time, but -afterwards he fell into such deep disgrace that he was not -only deposed from his ecclesiastical dignity but imprisoned -in the castle of St. Angelo, from whence the Emperor’s -intercession liberated him in the summer of 1481. He -betook himself, <i>viâ</i> Florence, first to Bern and then to -Basel, where, falsely giving himself out as still Frederic’s -messenger, and finally assuming the title of cardinal, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> -proclaimed the opening of the great Assembly of the Church -on the feast of the Annunciation, 1482. The moment for -this proclamation was not badly chosen, for the Pope was -just involving himself in a fresh war; but measures being -immediately taken in Rome to put on their guard both -foreign powers and the free city in which the fire threatened -to kindle once more, the wretched man—whose sanity had -begun to be doubted, and who was not joined by one single -prelate from France or Germany—rushed into extremities, -and in the beginning of the summer launched the wildest -invectives against Francesco da Savona, who was no Pope -but a son of the devil, against whom he called Christ and -the œcumenical council to witness.</p> - -<p>Not long before, Lorenzo had found out that it is not -safe to play with spiritual weapons, however much they -might be blunted by misuse in temporal projects. It seems, -therefore, hardly intelligible that he could think of letting -himself appear to take part in such a senseless enterprise. -Possibly he had seen the archbishop when the latter passed -through Florence, with his heart full of rancour against the -Pope and his nephew. In Lorenzo’s defence it may be urged -that affairs in Italy were in a sad plight while the Pope -blindly allowed himself to be led by the ambition of his kinsmen. -In a letter written about this time to Pier Capponi, -ambassador at Naples,<a name="FNanchor_239_239" id="FNanchor_239_239"></a><a href="#Footnote_239_239" class="fnanchor">[239]</a> Lorenzo says plainly that the authority -of religion itself is endangered by a mode of government -so unbecoming the supreme pastor. King Ferrante nominated -ambassadors to the council, and proposed that the Italian -League should be represented, as well as the individual -states. He hoped to induce the Kings of Hungary and -Spain to favour the cause. But in vain. On September 14, -by Lorenzo’s orders, Baccio Ugolini arrived in Basel, in -company with a Milanese delegate—Bartolommeo, Archpriest -of Piacenza. They at once entered into communication<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> -with the <i>Pronunciator</i> of the Council, as Andrea called -himself, but they soon became convinced of the utter groundlessness -and hopelessness of the whole proceeding. The -Florentine’s idea of proposing Pisa as a more suitable spot -than Basel, where matters were going wrong already, is interesting -only as an echo of the Council of 1409, and a foreshadowing -of the <i>conciliabulum</i> of 1511. On December 18, -the two delegates, with Philip of Savoy, Lord of Bresse, and -other princes and nobles, were present at a solemn sitting of -the town-council of Basel, at which the case was decided -against the archbishop. Having avowed his obedience to -the head of the Empire, and his zeal for the good of the -church, but declining to retract his accusations against the -Pope, he was arrested; he was then prosecuted, but at the -same time, the town council of Basel refused to deliver -him up to Rome. Legal proceedings were taken against the -imperial city, and were the cause of great trouble, until the -dispute was ended by a compromise arising out of the suicide -of the rash man who had originated this melancholy episode.<a name="FNanchor_240_240" id="FNanchor_240_240"></a><a href="#Footnote_240_240" class="fnanchor">[240]</a></p> - -<p>While Baccio Ugolini and his colleague were taking part -in these deliberations, a revolution was preparing in Italy -which altered the whole position of affairs and placed Florence -and Milan in quite a different attitude towards the Pope. -Sixtus was influenced less by distant apprehensions than by -the consideration, to which he could not shut his eyes, -that he was helping to strengthen the very power which -threatened to become most dangerous to him by its constant -endeavours to obtain control over the cities on the Adriatic -coast. Giuliano della Rovere—who, twenty years after, as -his uncle’s successor, opposed in arms the power of this Republic,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> -his uncle’s old ally—seems to have been the means -of finally inducing the Pope to break with Venice. Girolamo -Riario, the soul of the war party, might be gained over by a -prospect of the Malatesta fiefs. First, a truce was made -with the Duke of Calabria, who was still in the Campagna; -then, on December 23, peace was agreed upon between the -Pope, Naples, Florence, and Milan, with a proviso that -Venice was to accede to it. The Florentines were not satisfied -with the conditions, and seem to have accused the -Milanese of lukewarmness both in regard to the war and to -the negotiations. Yet, considering the state of affairs and -the losses already sustained, the conditions were not unfavourable. -The Duke of Ferrara, who was in the utmost -need, was to be reinstated in his possessions. The next -point, however, was to persuade or compel the Venetians to -accede to the treaty, and thus give reality to the peace, in -commemoration of which Sixtus built the church of Sta. -Maria della Pace. A congress was to be held at Cremona -to regulate everything.</p> - -<p>There was no time to lose, for Ferrara was besieged and -could not hold out much longer; and the conduct of Costanzo -Sforza, who had strengthened the garrison with his -own troops after being repeatedly urged to do so by the -Florentines, inspired but little confidence. In spite of the -unfavourable time of year, King Ferrante was not behind -hand. A thousand men, among whom were the Turks who -bad fought bravely at Campomorto, were sent by sea to -Piombino, to march through Sienese and Florentine territory; -while the Duke of Calabria advanced by way of -Orvieto towards the valleys of the Chiana and the Arno. -On January 5, 1483, he was in Florence, where he abode in -the house of Giovanni Tornabuoni. At the end of three -days he set out for Ferrara, from whence he intended proceeding -to Cremona. The Cardinal-Legate Gonzaga also -passed through Florence on his way to Cremona; and now -Lorenzo de’ Medici, who was to represent the Republic at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> -the congress, also set out on February 12. A week before -he received the customary instructions,<a name="FNanchor_241_241" id="FNanchor_241_241"></a><a href="#Footnote_241_241" class="fnanchor">[241]</a> relating principally -to the contingents of troops and money for the prosecution -of the war; in fact, he went as master of the city and the -State, to decide on war and peace according to his own -judgment. His brother-in-law Bernardo Rucellai was to accompany -him. Louis XI. warned him of possible danger. -‘As to the meeting about Ferrara,’ he wrote on January 20, -‘at which you tell me you have agreed to be present, I, who -know neither the people nor the place, would have advised -you not to go, but to take care of your own safety. I would -have sent a messenger with excuses. Since, however, you -have consented to go, I must leave the rest to you and trust -in God that all may go as you wish.’<a name="FNanchor_242_242" id="FNanchor_242_242"></a><a href="#Footnote_242_242" class="fnanchor">[242]</a> Even in Florence the -matter seems to have been thought somewhat serious. -When Lorenzo, on January 30, announced to the Duke of -Ferrara<a name="FNanchor_243_243" id="FNanchor_243_243"></a><a href="#Footnote_243_243" class="fnanchor">[243]</a> his intended departure, he added that he had to -contend with the general opposition of the citizens, who -were unwilling to let him go. At the same time he remarks -that his presence cannot be of much consequence at a meeting -of so many mighty lords; but it is not necessary to take -him at his word. He announced his impending journey to -the French king on the same day.</p> - -<p>The lords who met at Cremona were, besides the Legate, -the Duke of Calabria and Lorenzo de’ Medici, Lodovico and -Ascanio Sforza, Ercole d’Este, Federigo Gonzaga Marquis of -Mantua, Giovanni Bentivoglio, Girolamo Riario,<a name="FNanchor_244_244" id="FNanchor_244_244"></a><a href="#Footnote_244_244" class="fnanchor">[244]</a> and various -envoys and plenipotentiaries. On the last day of February, -1483, the treaty was settled, according to which Venice was -to be compelled by active prosecution of the war to cease hostilities -against Ferrara. At the end of the first week in March,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> -Lorenzo was back in Florence. The Venetians had no idea -of yielding. They had already begun negotiations with the -Duke of Lorraine, that he might alarm King Ferrante once -more by raising the standard of Anjou, while their fleet -desolated the Apulian coast and took the important post of -Gallipoli. Their ambassador Francesco Diedo had quitted -Rome at the end of February. The Pope had refused to -give him an audience; Diedo complained that no Turk -would be treated so, but he feared a crusade would be -preached against the Republic, and declared that in that -case they would never obtain peace—they might give themselves -up for lost.<a name="FNanchor_245_245" id="FNanchor_245_245"></a><a href="#Footnote_245_245" class="fnanchor">[245]</a> In March, Ferrara seemed near its fall. -All the country within a mile round was in the enemy’s -hands. The Venetian Chronicler Marin Sanuto, who was in -Sanseverino’s camp, gives a lively description of the doings -before the city-gates. ‘We eat with the most illustrious -Roberto, and then to horse. We were about five hundred -horsemen and many foot; we left the camp and rode to the -park of Ferrara, where we proceeded <i>more solito</i> as far as a -small canal, about a mile and a half from the city. Sanseverino -was wont to march into the park every morning to -escort the plundering bands. I saw the enemy’s troops -under the Duke of Calabria and the Count of Pitigliano; -we advanced towards them as far as the canal, but, <i>sic -volente fato</i>, it did not come to a fight. Only, to mock them, -we let fly our falcons. The park comprises a space of seven -miles, full of game and fruit of all kinds; now it lies open -and deserted.’<a name="FNanchor_246_246" id="FNanchor_246_246"></a><a href="#Footnote_246_246" class="fnanchor">[246]</a> Costanzo Sforza, who had thoughts of -making terms with Venice, evacuated Ferrara in defiance of -orders. Giovanni Bentivoglio and Galeotto Manfredi were -hastily ordered thither; but the most effectual help was the -victory gained over the Venetians at Argenta by Alfonso of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> -Calabria, captain-general of the allies. From thenceforth -matters took a favourable turn for the latter, who were also -benefited by the interdict laid on Venice by the Pope. An -attempt made by Sanseverino to kindle a revolt in the -Milanese roused Sforza to serious proceedings. By autumn -the whole country as far as the Adige was in the hands of -the Milanese; the Venetian fleet on the Po sustained heavy -loss, and René of Lorraine, called by the Republic to its aid, -was forced to retreat before the troops of Este.</p> - -<p>In the beginning of January 1484, at Milan, another -congress was held, at which Jacopo Guicciardini was present -on behalf of Florence. By actively prosecuting the war by -land and sea, it was hoped that Venice would soon be compelled -to sue for peace—a consummation for which all -longed, as the expenses were becoming burdensome, and -each of the allies had its own separate interests. Peace did -indeed come to pass in the course of the summer; but it -scarcely answered general expectation. To obtain a little -relief in their difficult predicament, the Venetians, beside -their alliance with the heir of Anjou, now tried to stir up -Louis XI. to an expedition against Naples, and the Duke of -Orleans to an expedition against Milan, while their enemies -were setting the Turks upon them.<a name="FNanchor_247_247" id="FNanchor_247_247"></a><a href="#Footnote_247_247" class="fnanchor">[247]</a> At last they succeeded -in detaching Lodovico il Moro from the league, of which -he was but a half-hearted adherent. His own position and -projects furnished them with a pretext, and now began the -complications which in ten years brought Italy to ruin. In -Milan things had drifted into a state that might easily have -been foreseen. The duchess-regent, who, <i>par sottise</i>, as Commines -unceremoniously expressed it, had put herself into -Lodovico’s power, now saw her truest counsellor dying in -prison at Pavia, her own son used as a tool, and her unworthy -favourite driven out of Milan; and when she tried<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> -to leave the country she was herself detained in the castle of -Abbiategrasso, a prisoner, though the word itself was not -uttered in her presence, and she was allowed to see her -children occasionally. There she closed her sorrowful -career in 1494, so completely forgotten that the exact date -and manner of her death are unknown. Lodovico once rid -of his sister-in-law, ruled supreme in Milan. His nephew -was duke only in name; at sixteen he was still under a -guardianship which became daily more oppressive. Alfonso -of Calabria, to whose daughter the young duke was betrothed, -was not inclined to let this state of affairs continue; Lodovico, -on the other hand, was determined to make every -possible effort to maintain his position. The Marquis of -Mantua had contrived to prevent the rupture which seemed -imminent when both princes were in Northern Italy; but -his death put an end to all chances of mediation. The reciprocal -distrust of Lodovico and the Medici was constantly -increasing, and occasionally sharp words passed between -them.</p> - -<p>Venice profited in this state of affairs by employing -Roberto da Sanseverino, an old confidant of Lodovico’s and -anxious to be reconciled to him, to make him perceive that -he was acting against his own interest in taking part in this -war, which, if it ended unfavourably for the Republic, must -strengthen the authority of the Aragonese in Central and -Northern Italy. Without troubling himself about his allies, -Lodovico entered into negotiations, in which Naples and -Florence participated, because they could not venture to -carry on the war without Milan. Pier Filippo Pandolfini -took part in the arrangements for peace, as Florentine plenipotentiary. -Lorenzo de’ Medici, who had need of Sforza, was -full of distrust. ‘We shall conquer,’ said he after the Congress -of Cremona, ‘if Lodovico’s words correspond to his -thoughts.’<a name="FNanchor_248_248" id="FNanchor_248_248"></a><a href="#Footnote_248_248" class="fnanchor">[248]</a> But he soon discovered that his doubts were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> -well founded. He could not help seeing how all the advantages -that had been gained were being given up, and that -an inadequate result of the long and costly war was all that -Este could obtain by the treaty. ‘Antonio,’ said he to the -Ferrarese ambassador, ‘thou rememberest that I was once -in the same position in which thy lord is now—aye, and -even worse. If I had not helped myself, I should have been -lost. Then, too, the fault lay with Milan. I do not say -that thy lord should do as I did.’ ‘My illustrious lord,’ -adds the ambassador in his report to the duke, ‘I think he -meant that if he was in your Excellency’s place he would -come to an understanding direct with Venice herself, and -trust himself to his foes as he did at Naples.’<a name="FNanchor_249_249" id="FNanchor_249_249"></a><a href="#Footnote_249_249" class="fnanchor">[249]</a></p> - -<p>The conditions of the peace signed at Bagnolo on August -8, 1484, were dictated by Venice, who regained by the treaty -the territory she had lost in the war. That is to say -the peace was highly disadvantageous to Ferrara. Not only -was Ercole compelled to admit the old demands of the Republic; -the Polesina and Rovigo remained in its hands. -‘When the Venetians were getting the worst of it, and their -funds were becoming very much exhausted,’ says Commines,<a name="FNanchor_250_250" id="FNanchor_250_250"></a><a href="#Footnote_250_250" class="fnanchor">[250]</a> -‘the lord Lodovico came to the assistance of their -honour and credit, and every man got his own again except -the poor Duke of Ferrara, who had gone into the war at the -instigation of his father-in-law and Lodovico, and now had -to yield to the Venetians the Polesina, which they still possess. -It was said that the transaction brought 60,000 -ducats to my lord Lodovico; I cannot tell how the truth -may be, but I found such was the belief of the Duke of -Ferrara, to whose daughter, however, he was not yet married -in those days.’ Gallipoli and other places on the coast were -restored to Ferrante. Sixtus IV. having thus seen the war -continued contrary to his views, and ended without his participation,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> -when he thought he had the decision in his own -hands, did not long survive the conclusion of the peace, -which made all his exertions useless and strengthened his -opponent. He had an attack of gout on August 2; on the -13th he died. It was said that he, the restless one, had -been killed by the peace. Scarcely five months before, he -had given the red hat to the brother of the man who had since -crossed all his plans—to Ascanio Maria Sforza, who thus -began under warlike auspices a cardinalate destined to be -devoid of peace.</p> - -<p>The Florentines felt all the shame of the treaty, but they -made a show of rejoicing after the war was over. There was -indeed every reason to wish for quiet in that quarter, for -there was no lack of troubles of all kinds. It was not long -since a compromise had with great difficulty been arrived at -about Città di Castello. The Pope had tried both arms and -negotiations to regain possession of the town, and neither -had succeeded. Niccolò Vitelli held out till 1484, by the -Florentine assistance. Florence had indeed no intention of -offending the Pope for his sake, and thereby damaging the -far more important cause of Ferrara, and was inclined to let -Sixtus have his will in the matter. But he wanted to give -the town and neighbouring places as a fief to his nephew, -and at the same time to enlarge the latter’s possessions in -the direction of Rimini and Cesena by a treaty with the -Malatestas, neither of which things suited the Florentines.<a name="FNanchor_251_251" id="FNanchor_251_251"></a><a href="#Footnote_251_251" class="fnanchor">[251]</a> -Amid this uncertainty Vitelli resolved to imitate Lorenzo’s -example. He went to Rome, came to terms with the Pope, -recognised the latter’s supremacy, agreed with his rival -Lorenzo Giustini, and accepted the office of a governor of -the Maritima and Campagna. Peace was restored in the -valley of the Upper Tiber, and Città di Castello was preserved -to the Church; while the Vitelli, who continued to govern<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span> -through various changes of form and destiny, maintained -till their extinction their active relations with Florence and -the Medici. On June 14, 1483, an agreement was made with -Siena for the restoration of the places which Florence had -been compelled to yield to her in the treaty of peace of -1480.<a name="FNanchor_252_252" id="FNanchor_252_252"></a><a href="#Footnote_252_252" class="fnanchor">[252]</a> But another revolution in Siena, where the party -raised to power by the Duke of Calabria’s influence had been -unable to maintain themselves, had been required to produce -this restoration and decide the Sienese to form an alliance -with Florence, to secure herself against the exiles supposed -to be favoured by Rome and Naples. The Florentine opinion -of the neighbouring state was still the same as that expressed -nearly two hundred years before by the poet of the ‘Divine -Comedy,’<a name="FNanchor_253_253" id="FNanchor_253_253"></a><a href="#Footnote_253_253" class="fnanchor">[253]</a> as may be seen by a letter from the Signoria to -Lorenzo during his stay at Cremona. The treaty with the -Sienese, say they, is a long process, and no real confidence -can be placed in them and their doings, because of the -changeableness of their nature.<a name="FNanchor_254_254" id="FNanchor_254_254"></a><a href="#Footnote_254_254" class="fnanchor">[254]</a></p> - -<p>The long feud about Sarzana had not yet come to an -end; the siege had dragged on all through the Ferrarese -war. Things were in a bad position. Agostino Fregoso, -who held the town, had made it over to the great commercial -company of the Banco di San Giorgio, which formed in -Genoa a state within the State, and owned many places on the -Ligurian coast as well as in the far-off Crimea. Not only -had the garrison of Sarzana been strengthened, but also -that of its neighbour Pietrasanta, originally a Lucchese -town, which cut off all communications while a fleet attacked -the coast of the Maremma. As at the peace of Naples so -at that of Bagnolo, to the great vexation of the Florentines, -the dispute about Sarzana was left unsettled. The honour -of the Republic urgently demanded a settlement. But instead -of taking the place, a Florentine corps escorting a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> -transport of ammunition was defeated near Pietrasanta. -The necessity was now felt for rendering the castle incapable -of further harm, but it was not done without heavy losses. -The marshy atmosphere of the coast of the Lunigiana seized -many victims from the Florentine camp; Bongianni Gianfigliazzi -and Antonio Pucci, army commissaries, succumbed -to the fever in Pisa. Then Lorenzo resolved to go himself -to the camp to spur on the troops. A few days after his -arrival, in the beginning of November, 1484, Pietrasanta -surrendered. An embassy from Lucca, demanding its restoration, -was deferred with a reference to the coming -accommodation with Genoa; but Florence was resolved -beforehand to keep the place as an excellent check upon -Lucca. When the castle was taken, which was to remain -a boundary-mark on the Lunigiana side down to the dissolution -of the Tuscan autonomy, many things had occurred -to claim the whole attention of those who governed the -Republic.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER III.</h2> - -<p class="pch">THE EARLY YEARS OF INNOCENT VIII. LOUIS XI. AND FRANCE.</p> - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">The</span> last years of Sixtus IV. were disturbed in Rome as well -as elsewhere. In both cases Girolamo Riario was the chief -person to blame, though it was a great pity that such a -gifted and superior man as the Pope should be led astray -into crooked ways by a petty tyrant devoid of talent, hesitating -before no violence, and versed only in intrigue. Sixtus -could not be deceived as to the nature of his unworthy -nephew; all Rome was full of his wickedness, though -the excesses committed by the Florentines after the Pazzi -conspiracy had damaged their cause and would have added -to the power of the Pope if he, too, had not overstepped all -bounds in his impetuosity. Of Riario’s part in the matter -there was but one opinion. Two years later a painful occurrence -took place in the Pope’s family. One of his numerous -nephews, Antonio Basso della Rovere, son of his sister -Luchina and brother of Cardinal Girolamo Basso, had been -married only a year to Caterina Marzano, daughter of the -Prince of Rossano and granddaughter of King Ferrante, -when he was seized with a fever from which he never recovered. -Girolamo Riario was visiting his cousin when the -latter (whether, as the chronicler suggests, in the delirium -of fever, or venting long-restrained malice), instead of -thanking him for his sympathy, attacked him as if he were -his bitterest enemy. ‘He vehemently reproached him with -various actions which were universally condemned, and with -his manner of life, which was a subject of general complaint,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> -and denounced against him the judgment of God, which no -human favour or power could enable him to escape. The -sick man’s excitement was so great that those who had been -intimate with him for years could no longer recognise his -usual gentleness. The count, however, wisely bore it all -patiently as the words of one delirious with fever, and -openly expressed his compassion for his cousin’s state. All -we who stood round the bed blushed for shame, and several -tried to leave the room.’<a name="FNanchor_255_255" id="FNanchor_255_255"></a><a href="#Footnote_255_255" class="fnanchor">[255]</a></p> - -<p>Since 1482 Rome had been constantly filled with the -clang of arms. The stronghold of the spiritual power was -scarcely to be recognised. After the immediate anxieties -consequent on the Ferrarese war were ended by the battle -of Campomorto, and the Romans had stared to their hearts’ -content at the Duke of Calabria’s captive troopers and janissaries, -feverish excitement was again aroused by fresh disputes -between the Colonna and Orsini factions, in which -many other families—the Savelli, Santacroce, Tuttivilla, -Della Valle, &c.—took part. The city was divided into two -hostile camps; palaces were besieged and destroyed; the -streets and the neighbourhood filled with armed bands. One -Colonna lost his life in defending the cause of his family. -Girolamo Riario was mixed up in all this, and through -him the Pope also became a party to it. Cardinal Giuliano -della Rovere, who favoured the Colonnas, quarrelled so -desperately with Girolamo that the latter threatened to -attack his palace. Even after a compact was agreed upon -by the two great families, peace was not restored. In the -beginning of July, 1484, the Pope’s nephew, with a considerable -body of troops, attacked the Colonna possessions, which -surrounded Rome on the west like a girdle. He took -Capranica and Cave, and was laying siege to the stronghold -of Paliano when he was startled by the news of the Pope’s -death. He felt the ground give way under his feet. On<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> -the morning of August 13 the populace stormed and plundered -his palace at Sant’Apollinare; his magazine in the -Campagna, that of his brother-in-law and of the Genoese—hated -by the people for their usury—the papal galleys at -Ostia, everything was sacked. His brave wife, Caterina -Sforza, was safe in the castle of St. Angelo. The siege of -Paliano was raised at once; the troops marched to Rome, -but only to turn towards the north-west to seek a junction -with the Orsini, for from all sides, even from the Abruzzi, -armed auxiliaries were flocking to the Colonna, to whom -Florence and Siena also proffered assistance. Deifebo dell’ -Anguillara retook several castles; the city and neighbourhood -were in complete anarchy; every man was in arms, and -the palaces were barricaded. At last a compromise was -arrived at, which, by the departure of the party leaders and -the surrender of the castle of St. Angelo to the College of -Cardinals, put an end to the worst disorder. On August 26 -the conclave met, and at the end of three days Giovan -Battista Cybò was chosen Pope under the title of Innocent -VIII.</p> - -<p>Thus, amid all this confusion, ended the reign of a Pope -who had thought he could govern the policy of Italy, and, in -a certain sense, did control it better than anyone who had -preceded him. He brought together the finest library of -his time, carried out legal reforms for the benefit of the -Roman Municipium, did more than anyone else to transform -Rome from a mediæval city into one more suited to modern -requirements, and enriched it with churches, palaces, bridges, -and beneficent establishments. Innocent VIII. was far from -possessing the striking qualities of his predecessor, but he -was free from the latter’s immoderate self-confidence. He -sprang from a Genoese family believed to be of Levantine -origin and connected with the Tomacelli, relatives of Boniface -IX.<a name="FNanchor_256_256" id="FNanchor_256_256"></a><a href="#Footnote_256_256" class="fnanchor">[256]</a> But the first Cybò known to history is the Pope’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> -father Arano, who married into a Genoese patrician house—that -of the Mari—held important offices in Naples under -René of Anjou, and later on, though still leaning towards -the Angevin party, under Alfonso of Aragon, and in 1455 -was a senator of Rome. Giovan Battista Cybò studied in -Padua and Rome, was appointed Bishop of Savona by Paul -II., and afterwards translated to Molfetta, from whence he -took his usual appellation after being created a cardinal in -May 1473. In the Pope’s absence, during the plague in the -summer of 1476, he acted as his representative. He was in -his fifty-second year. ‘The disposition of the new Pope,’ -wrote Guid’Antonio Vespucci to Lorenzo immediately after -the election, ‘was, during his cardinalate, benevolent and -kind, and he was far more affable in society than he whom -you wot of. He is not versed in either matters of state or -of learning, but he is not wholly ignorant. He belonged -completely to the party of San Pietro in Vincola (Giuliano -della Rovere), who procured him his hat, and of whom it -may be said that he is now practically Pope, and will have -far more power than under Sixtus if he only knows how to -manage his successor cleverly. The latter, as a cardinal, -was on bad terms with the count (Riario). He is of middle -height, strongly built, full in the face, has a brother and -several grown-up natural children, at any rate a son and a -married daughter. He gives one the impression of one who -will let himself be counselled by others rather than rule by -himself.’<a name="FNanchor_257_257" id="FNanchor_257_257"></a><a href="#Footnote_257_257" class="fnanchor">[257]</a> Luigi Lotti wrote: ‘If he governs and proceeds -according to his own judgment and not by that of others, I -think he will be a good quiet Pope, and keep clear of all -strife of arms. His court will resemble him, as the general -opinion is that he will show a gracious disposition.’</p> - -<p>Lodovico il Moro had proposed that the allied states -should send their congratulatory embassies to Rome together. -The Florentines were all the more eager to offer their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> -congratulations because they wanted to secure the favour of -a Genoese Pope in their differences with Genoa. Immediately -after his election Lorenzo heard, from his brother-in-law -the archbishop, that Innocent had expressed the most -friendly interest in his position and the affairs of Florence, -and declared his readiness to be of use to him; adding that -all his hopes were founded on Lorenzo’s wisdom, as there -was no knowing whether the end would correspond with the -beginning.<a name="FNanchor_258_258" id="FNanchor_258_258"></a><a href="#Footnote_258_258" class="fnanchor">[258]</a> At the close of November the embassy started -for Rome, where it arrived on December 8, and was received, -according to custom, by the papal court, the household -officers of the cardinals, and the foreign envoys. Its members -were Francesco Soderini, Antonio Canigiani, Bartolommeo -Scala, Angelo Niccolini, and Giovanni Tornabuoni, -besides the resident ambassador Guid’Antonio Vespucci.<a name="FNanchor_259_259" id="FNanchor_259_259"></a><a href="#Footnote_259_259" class="fnanchor">[259]</a> -In the ‘Instructions’ reference was made to the earnest desire -of the Republic to have a speedy ending put to the strife in -the Lunigiana. ‘Should the new Pope or anyone else turn -the discourse on the subject of the war, ye shall answer that -your commission deals solely with the duty of congratulation; -but add, as if from yourselves, in justification of late -events, that we were compelled to fight contrary to our intention -and will; as indeed ye very well know that our city -is ever faithful to her natural desire for peace, as far as is -consistent with honour and fair advantage.’</p> - -<p>Lorenzo had sent with the ambassadors his eldest son, a -lad of fourteen, as it was then customary for solemn embassies -to be accompanied by youths of high rank, who -might contribute to the splendour of processions and ceremonies. -He gave the boy detailed instructions, such as -were usual in such cases on the part of wise and careful -fathers.<a name="FNanchor_260_260" id="FNanchor_260_260"></a><a href="#Footnote_260_260" class="fnanchor">[260]</a> At Siena he was to proclaim the readiness of both -Lorenzo and the Government to be of use to the authorities<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> -there. ‘Everywhere, when the other young companions of -the envoys are together with thee, behave thyself gravely -and discreetly and with politeness towards thine equals. -Beware of taking precedence of anyone older than thyself; -for although thou art my son, yet thou art nothing but a -Florentine citizen like the rest. If Giovanni (Tornabuoni) -thinks fit to present thee to the Pope at a special audience, -take care to be previously well instructed in all the customary -ceremonies; then, when thou comest to his Holiness, -kiss the credentials which I give thee for the Holy Father -and beg him to read them. After that, if thou hast to -speak, thou shalt commend me with reverence to his Holiness, -and say that I well know it was my duty to appear -before him in person as I did before his predecessor of -blessed memory, but that I trust he will be graciously -pleased to excuse me; for at the time when I went to Rome -I could leave my brother at home, who was well able to -represent me, but now I should have no one to leave behind -numbering more years or possessing more authority than -thyself. Therefore, I think I should have pleased his Holiness -less by coming than by sending thee, whereby I express -in the best way possible my desire to appear in person. -Moreover, I send thee in order that thou mayest have an -early opportunity of learning to know his Holiness as thy -father and lord, and of fostering for many years those feelings -which, I hope, will be shared by thy brothers, whom I -would rather not have as sons if it is not to be so. Hereupon -thou shalt declare to his Holiness my firm resolve not -to swerve from his commands, for my innate devotion to the -Apostolic See is increased by that towards the person of the -Holy Father, to whom our house has long been under obligation. -Moreover, I have experienced what disadvantages -were brought upon me by the loss of the late Pope’s favour, -although I believe I suffered many persecutions without -fault of my own, and more on account of the sins of others -than for misconduct towards him. But I leave this to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span> -judgment of others, and however this may be, my resolution -is fixed, not only never to offend his Holiness, but to meditate -day and night on what may be pleasing to him.’ Doubtless -Lorenzo was as much in earnest in this as in his sensible -advice. It would have been well for Piero de’ Medici had -he never forgotten what Cosimo had impressed on his son -and the latter again on his, who, as a father, now repeated it -to the boy—that he was a Florentine citizen like all the -rest. But this tradition came to an end with Lorenzo. The -further contents of the instructions will be referred to again. -Innocent VIII. afterwards said to Pier Filippo Pandolfini, -the new ambassador of the Republic, that after the Genoese -quarrel had been laid aside Lorenzo would perceive there -had never been a Pope who took the interests of his house -so much to heart as he did. ‘For as I have learned by experience -how great is his honesty and wisdom, I will most -willingly be guided by his counsels.’<a name="FNanchor_261_261" id="FNanchor_261_261"></a><a href="#Footnote_261_261" class="fnanchor">[261]</a></p> - -<p>Lorenzo must have been the more anxious to obtain the -lasting favour of the head of the Church since a change had -taken place abroad which might possibly have an important -influence on the political circumstances of Italy. A year -before the death of Sixtus IV. the monarch was called away, -who, amid all his dependence on the clergy and his devotion—approaching -to superstition, and heightened by suspicion -and torments of conscience—raised the most vehement -opposition to the Pope and the papacy. Louis XI. died at -the age of sixty, at his castle of Plessis-les-Tours, on the -evening of August 30, 1483. Two years before, when out -hunting, he had had his first apoplectic fit, which was repeated -without destroying his clearness of intellect, though -his physical strength gradually sank. He had seen his -approaching end with a terror which prayers and sacraments -could not soothe, which drove him ceaselessly from pilgrimage -to pilgrimage whenever he was not staying at Plessis.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> -There, tortured day and night by the consciousness of -hatred which his cold treacherous tyranny had excited in the -breasts of others, he shut himself in with a few confidants, -surrounded by double and triple guards of all kinds. To -the end of his days the king maintained friendly relations -with Florence and the Medici; of all his political connections, -this was perhaps the only one in which he never -changed. In his instructions to the ambassadors sent to -Rome in November 1478,<a name="FNanchor_262_262" id="FNanchor_262_262"></a><a href="#Footnote_262_262" class="fnanchor">[262]</a> he expressly mentioned that the -Florentines had always, time out of mind, shown themselves -true and loyal friends to France, had never done anything -against the crown, and lived according to the laws and -customs given them by Charles the Great.<a name="FNanchor_263_263" id="FNanchor_263_263"></a><a href="#Footnote_263_263" class="fnanchor">[263]</a> A few weeks -before his death, Louis wrote to Lorenzo. Not content with -having called to his bedside the holy hermit of Calabria, -St. Francis of Paola, and procured relics without end from -Rome, he tried through Lorenzo to obtain the episcopal -ring of St. Zanobi, which was preserved at Florence in the -Girolami family, and believed to have the power of curing -skin-diseases. His wish was gratified. ‘Cousin and friend,’ -thus wrote the dying man on July 9, 1483, from Notre-Dame -de Cléry near Orleans, whither he had gone on a pilgrimage,<a name="FNanchor_264_264" id="FNanchor_264_264"></a><a href="#Footnote_264_264" class="fnanchor">[264]</a> -‘I have seen the ring which you sent to Monsieur -de Soliers (Palamède de Fobrin, governor of Provence). -But I wish to know for certain whether it is really that of -the saint, and whether it works miracles; whether it has -cured anybody, and whom; and how it is to be worn. I -beg you to inform me of all this as quickly as you can, or to -write about it in detail to the general of Normandy; also -whether you have out yonder any particular cure which has -the virtues of the said ring. If you can find one, send it to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> -the said general, I beg you, for the sake of all the pleasure -you can give me. Now farewell, cousin and friend.’</p> - -<p>In the last years of Louis XI. the male line of the house -of Anjou became extinct. We have seen how the king obtained -from the last of the house, who could no longer -escape from his powerful arm, the cession of their French -provinces and their Italian claims: of the former he took -immediate possession, the latter remained in abeyance waiting -for eventualities which did not fail to come, to the ruin -of Italy, whose old sins were expiated centuries later. René, -a king of shadows if ever there was one, saw his son Jean -and his grandson Nicolas both die before he himself was -laid to rest at Angers on July 10, 1480. His nephew Charles, -Count of Maine, to whom his French possessions passed -with the consent of Louis XI., followed him to the grave -within seventeen months; and the sole heiress was now -René’s daughter Yolande, widow of Ferry, Count of Lorraine-Vaudemont. -She too died in the beginning of 1483, a few -months before the king. Her marriage with her cousin had -been intended to reconcile the claims of the Vaudemont -branch to the Duchy of Lorraine with those of primogeniture -in the female line on behalf of which René, as the husband -of the heiress Isabelle, had fought unsuccessfully with Antoine -de Vaudemont, father of Ferry. Yolande’s son, René II., -now succeeded to the dukedom of Lorraine, as well as to the -French fiefs of the Vaudemonts. It was he who defeated -Charles the Bold at Nancy, and was led by the Venetians -into the war with King Ferrante in Italy, where years after, -in the war against the Spaniards, his son revived the old -family claims to the Neapolitan crown—those claims which -were to be practically made good once more in the middle -of the seventeenth century by a scion of the French branch -of the old house.</p> - -<p>Lorenzo could not fail to notice that in Louis XI. he lost -both a friend and a supporter. The political situation of -France foreboded the worst vicissitudes. A delicate illtrained<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span> -boy of thirteen was left heir to a kingdom which -a long, skilful, and despotic reign had considerably enlarged, -but also filled more terribly than ever with the elements of -discord. The Queen-mother, Charlotte of Savoy, was an -invalid, and incapable of acting; according to Louis’ arrangements -his elder daughter Anne, wife of Pierre de Bourbon, -Count of Beaujeu, was to conduct the government for -Charles VIII. without the title of regent. Amid the opposition -of the nobles, of whom one, Louis of Orleans, was -the next heir to the throne, this task was fulfilled with no -little skill by the Princess, then aged twenty-two, of whom -her father once said that ‘no woman was wise, but Anne was -the least foolish.’ It was she who thwarted all the plans of -the restless nobles and put down their attempts to arm. She -paved the way for the union of Brittany with the crown, by -interfering with the views of Maximilian of Austria who, -after the early death of Mary of Burgundy, contemplated extending -the new possessions of the house of Habsburg into -the very heart of France by his marriage with the heiress of -the great western duchy. It is evident, however, that under -all the circumstances there was not much chance of French -influence extending into Italy or anywhere beyond the -borders of the country itself.</p> - -<p>Immediately after the death of Louis, Florence despatched -an embassy to present to the young king good -wishes on his accession, and to express sincere regret for the -loss of his father.<a name="FNanchor_265_265" id="FNanchor_265_265"></a><a href="#Footnote_265_265" class="fnanchor">[265]</a> Gentile Becchi, Antonio Canigiani, and -Lorenzo de’ Medici the son of Pier Francesco, were the -members of this embassy, which was to visit the potentates -of Northern Italy on its way. Its chief object was the fulfilment -of formalities. If any intention should be shown on -the French side of interfering to restore peace in Italy, the -envoys were instructed to take care that this should appear -to proceed from an independent resolve of the French<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> -government, and not from the influence of the allies (for at -that time the war with Venice was still going on). This -would be the best way ‘to avoid dangerous conjunctures which -might arise in Italy from these obstinate dissensions,’ and -at the same time remain most honourable for the young -king. But Anne de Beaujeu, who had just summoned the -States-General in order to checkmate the allied princes by -the same move which they had intended to make against her, -had other things to think of than Italian complications; and -the Florentine embassy, after all due ceremonies had been -gone through, seems to have had to deal merely with commercial -and personal interests.</p> - -<p>Five years later the Regent of France remembered the -old friendship with the Medici, when she was looking about -her on all sides for help against the great feudatories who -supported Maximilian in his alliance with the mightiest of -them all, the Duke of Brittany. On April 5, 1486, Maximilian -was crowned king of the Romans at Aachen; and in -spite of the great difficulties with which he had to contend -in his Burgundian provinces, his position was a very threatening -one for France so long as internal peace was not restored, -and every addition to his power was an addition to the -cares of Anne de Beaujeu. The advanced age of Frederic III. -pointed to a speedy vacancy of the imperial throne. That -the idea occurred to France of trying to prevent Innocent -VIII. from confirming Maximilian’s election is, however, -somewhat startling. The Pope was on friendly terms -with the emperor and the king; just before, at the end of -1487, he had given proof of this by signing the treaty which -put an end to the long-standing war between Venice and -Archduke Sigismund of Tyrol. On February 8, 1488, a -letter was sent in the name of the young king Charles to -Lorenzo de’ Medici, claiming his friendship for the royal -house of France and soliciting the employment of his influence -with the Pope, in order that Maximilian’s kingly -dignity, as injurious to the interests of France, should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> -remain for a time unconfirmed. ‘You may assure the Holy -Father that if the matter is delayed, we will so conduct ourselves -that his Holiness and all who have anything to do in -the matter shall perceive the result.’<a name="FNanchor_266_266" id="FNanchor_266_266"></a><a href="#Footnote_266_266" class="fnanchor">[266]</a></p> - -<p>It is very clear that Lorenzo, with all his attachment to -France, was reluctant to mix himself with such an intrigue -as this. ‘By the copy of a letter from the King of France -to me,’ he wrote on February 8 to the ambassador at Rome, -‘you will see the king’s desire and the importance of the -affair. For practical reasons I do not think it fitting to -write to his Holiness; but I am for your informing him of -it with your usual adroitness as soon as you think good, and -pointing out to him its importance and possible consequences; -for I am of opinion that mature reflection and deliberation -are needful, that the investiture in question may not give -occasion to embarrassment and offence. According to my -judgment, the Most Christian king is so powerful and has so -much influence in the affairs of Christendom, that it will -always appear to me advisable to keep in harmony and -friendship with him. I shall always order myself according -to the wise judgment of his Holiness; but wish first fully -to express my own view. The rest I leave to you, and I -shall be glad if you can manage so that the king’s plenipotentiary -is pleased. But you will not neglect any precautions -which may appear needful, that we may not lose in one -quarter what we gain in another.’ Lorenzo was right in -his caution. ‘The French envoys,’ reports the Ferrarese -ambassador at Florence to his duke on March 10,<a name="FNanchor_267_267" id="FNanchor_267_267"></a><a href="#Footnote_267_267" class="fnanchor">[267]</a> ‘have -petitioned the Pope that he should not invest Maximilian -with the dignity of King of the Romans, declaring that, -should he do so, their king will set every influence to work -at Naples to avenge the insult. The Pope gave them a very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span> -sharp reply, saying that no request had as yet been addressed -to him in relation to this matter by Maximilian’s -orators; and, moreover, he thought that such a message as -that just delivered to him must have come not from the -King of France, but from his evil counsellors. If he had -only the latter to deal with, he would soon be able to make -them understand how unworthy of a Pope was such a message, -and how his footstool deserved greater reverence.’</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER IV.</h2> - -<p class="pch">POLITICAL CARES. THE BARONS’ WAR.</p> - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">After</span> the disturbance and unrest which ended the pontificate -of Sixtus IV., the reign of Innocent VIII. seemed -destined to commence in peace and tranquillity. The -Pope’s desire to terminate the long dispute about Sarzana, -which had distracted the Lunigiana for years, and threatened -to assume dimensions greater than the worth of the -cause, was very honourable to him, especially as it did -not arise from partiality for his Genoese home. On September -17, only three weeks after his election, the Pope -summoned the ambassadors of Naples, Florence, and Milan<a name="FNanchor_268_268" id="FNanchor_268_268"></a><a href="#Footnote_268_268" class="fnanchor">[268]</a> -to discuss the political situation. After the recent conclusion -of peace, he said he considered it a duty of his apostolic -office to ensure that peace, in order that all the Italian states -might really enjoy its fruits and recover from the heavy expenses -which had burthened the holy see with a debt of -more than 250,000 ducats. The dispute about Sarzana, -complicated by the Florentine attack on Pietrasanta, made -him anxious in consideration of the disposition of the -Genoese; for the latter, where their honour was at stake, -would not scruple to set the world on fire, and had -already, in times past, called the foreigner into Italy. He -knew that they were not only in league with the Marquis of -Saluzzo and Philip of Savoy, lord of Bresse, but were trying<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> -to stir up the Duke of Orleans against Milan and the Duke -of Lorraine against Naples; in which they would get support -from France, as the regent was desirous to find occupation -for these princes, and sustenance for their numerous troops in -a foreign land. The commonwealth of Genoa had applied -to him to bring the matter to a legal conclusion. He knew -that his predecessor had made an unsuccessful attempt to do -so; but as a native of Genoa, and being in a more favourable -position than Pope Sixtus, he hoped to attain his object, as -the Signoria would doubtless do all in their power to compose -the strife.</p> - -<p>The ambassadors of Naples and Milan kept to generalities, -though the former could not help owning that Sarzana -had been taken from the Florentines in time of truce; that -the blame really lay with the son of his king he naturally -could not admit. Vespucci, however, went thoroughly into -the matter. Sarzana, said he, was sold to the Republic by -Lodovico Fregoso, the lord of the place. After we had held -it for several years, his son Agostino took it by surprise in -time of truce, and as he did not feel able to keep it, made it -over to the bank of San Giorgio. In defiance of law and -custom, which forbid the acceptance of an object in dispute, -the bank received it just as if there were no such place as -Florence in the world. Florence has a perfect right to make -every effort to get back her own. She has equally a right to -attack Pietrasanta, because Pietrasanta is an obstacle and -an enemy to her. The Signoria, he added, has no thought -of giving your Holiness advice, which you do not need, and -is willing to agree to any reasonable compromise. But after -all the unsuccessful efforts of Pope Sixtus, there is not much -to be hoped. As to the possible introduction of foreigners -by the Genoese, that is a matter not to be deemed unworthy -of consideration, but it is not a ground for anxiety. The -Dukes of Orleans and Lorraine personally are not in a condition -to begin such an undertaking; and in the exhausted -state of France her rulers will never think of giving them a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> -sou towards it. The Genoese alone would be utterly incapable -of holding out long, even were they differently inclined. -The Ferrarese ambassador offered his Duke’s -mediation in case of a negotiation. The Pope had also -consulted on the matter with Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, and -expressed his anxiety to him; whereupon Lodovico il Moro -declared that nothing but the voluntary surrender of Sarzana -on the part of Genoa could render a satisfactory termination -possible.<a name="FNanchor_269_269" id="FNanchor_269_269"></a><a href="#Footnote_269_269" class="fnanchor">[269]</a> Innocent’s mediation came to nothing. The -Florentines took Pietrasanta, as has been already related, -and the contest went on amid numberless suggestions of compromise -for fully three years more.</p> - -<p>In vain the Pope honestly desired to make and to keep -peace; misunderstandings arose on all sides. In defiance of -their ostensible relations to each other, there was no true -understanding and confidence between Lorenzo de’ Medici -and Lodovico Sforza. The Moro’s conduct was always ambiguous; -not only in the matter of Sarzana, where there -was much underhand work going forward, but also in the -constant miserable disturbances in Romagna, where Girolamo -Riario, supported by him, was operating against the -Manfredi, they having given shelter to the Florentine’s -<i>protégé</i>, the claimant of Forlì, Antoniello Ordelaffi, and being -in alliance with the Bentivogli, who stood in equal fear of -Lodovico and the Pope’s nephew. Giovanni Bentivoglio was -in Tuscany in the beginning of 1485. He visited Siena, -Pisa, Lucca, and in May he came to Florence, where he -stayed with the Medici. He spoke out his mind unreservedly -about the Moro’s intrigues.<a name="FNanchor_270_270" id="FNanchor_270_270"></a><a href="#Footnote_270_270" class="fnanchor">[270]</a> Lorenzo was absent at the -time; gout, the hereditary disease of the family, obliged him -constantly to visit various baths, and just then he was at -Bagno a Morba. During his stay there he had to devote his -attention to the Sienese affairs, which were of some consequence<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span> -to Florence. He had perceived the mistake once -committed in the Fortebracci affair, and thenceforward -strove to keep on good terms with the neighbouring commonwealth. -With regard to the frontier disputes, chiefly in -the Chiana valley, where the small places were always in a -state of feud one with the other, Florence showed herself -disposed for an amicable settlement. ‘God is my witness,’ -wrote Lorenzo to the Signoria of Siena on February 28, -1484,<a name="FNanchor_271_271" id="FNanchor_271_271"></a><a href="#Footnote_271_271" class="fnanchor">[271]</a> ‘that my personal mediation and that of others was -little needed in the negotiations for the advantage of your -Republic, namely, in the matter of the frontiers; for the -whole city recognised, just as if acting in its own behalf, our -common interest in a close and friendly connection. As -the thing has been settled now with the agreement of all, so -also in future we shall not fail to give active proofs of our -sincere friendship.’</p> - -<p>This friendship was soon put to the proof. The party -which had been defeated on the departure of the Duke of -Calabria from Siena could not forget the mortification. In -the beginning of April 1485, the Sienese ambassador at -Florence announced that a body of 2,000 men, under the -command of Giulio Orsini, was meditating an attack; -whereupon a considerable force under Ranuccio da Farnese -was despatched to the threatened ally.<a name="FNanchor_272_272" id="FNanchor_272_272"></a><a href="#Footnote_272_272" class="fnanchor">[272]</a> It was believed -that Perugia, Spoleto, and Todi served as places of meeting -for the discontented, and that the Cardinal della Rovere had -a hand in the undertaking. On May 4, Lorenzo wrote from -Bagno a Morba to Siena<a name="FNanchor_273_273" id="FNanchor_273_273"></a><a href="#Footnote_273_273" class="fnanchor">[273]</a> that they must look to the security -of the frontiers. It was said that the Pope was inclined -to maintain peace, and had spoken to the ambassadors to -that effect. By the Florentines he had been urged to give -practical proof of his good intentions, and not to suffer his -dominions to be a harbour for designs against neighbouring<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> -States. ‘Your Lordships must know,’ he continues, -‘better than I who am at a distance, what is your internal -state and the mind of the citizens. If you are united, then, -in my opinion, you have nothing to fear: for Siena is not to -be taken with 2,000 men, and if the number of the aggressors -increases, you will also receive increased assistance. Of that -you need not doubt. Therefore, if there is among your -citizens the amount of concord and love which is reckoned -upon, your affairs will take a favourable course. I do not -believe that this movement of the exiles can count on much -support; for we hear from Lombardy that all the chief -powers are desirous of peace. Nevertheless it is your and -our duty to prepare for the worst and to have all available -means in readiness. Thereunto I desire to encourage your -Lordships, assuring you that we are of one mind with you, -as events will prove.’</p> - -<p>A few days after this the exiles made a raid from -Umbria into the Arezzo territory and thence turned towards -the valley of the Arbia, where they attacked the castle of -San Quirico, on the Roman road, but were beaten back; -whereupon the troop dispersed. ‘The Signoria here,’ wrote -the Ferrarese ambassador, ‘is delighted at the news and in -good spirits. But the Sienese must be more delighted still; -now they must be convinced that the number of participators -is less than they suspected.’ On May 14, Lorenzo -wrote from Pisa to the Sienese Signoria that Florence regarded -their danger as her own; but he advised them to -look to their internal condition. ‘It would be best to prevent -the recurrence of such troubles by removing the occasion -of your distress and of reproach from others. It seems to -me time to come to a settlement of everything, provided that -the origin of all this evil is rooted out. If this is done the -past must not be too strictly inquired about. If such -attempts against your Lordships are continued you will not -want for protection, but the most effectual protection will -be good and just government and true unity.’ More than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> -two years later, Lorenzo wrote on another occasion: ‘Your -Lordships know what has always been my conduct with -respect to attempts at revolution and dangers which have -befallen your citizens, and that I regard your welfare even -as that of our own commonwealth. This seems to me to -suit our friendly and neighbourly relations, as well as my -devotion to your Signoria.’ Both by word and deed Lorenzo -displayed his anxiety to maintain his political principle that -it was important for the Republic to make herself secure by -a good understanding with her neighbours, and to surround -herself with a circle of bulwarks by keeping friends with -Siena, Lucca, Bologna, Faenza, Perugia, and Città di Castello.<a name="FNanchor_274_274" id="FNanchor_274_274"></a><a href="#Footnote_274_274" class="fnanchor">[274]</a> -He remained faithful to this principle, with a few -trifling exceptions, during the remainder of his life.</p> - -<p>His other principle was to do all he could to prevent any -Italian state from gaining such an increase of importance -as to destroy the balance of power. In the summer of that -same year, 1485, a complication arose which threatened the -peace of Italy and put to the proof Lorenzo’s political skill. -It was a quarrel between Innocent VIII. and Ferrante of -Naples. The kingdom of Naples, the greatest territorial -power in Italy except Venice, was suffering from internal -evils which both in earlier and later times proved incurable, -and brought about the ruin of the fairest and richest portion -of the peninsula. The political parties were as old as the -monarchy; they were connected with deep-seated national -divergences; and their differences were heightened and -embittered by repeated conquests and changes of dynasty, -by the feudal connection with the Holy See—dating from -the time of the Normans—and by the passionate temper and -moral degradation that poisoned and corrupted all civil and -political relations in Southern Italy. The crown was completely -held in check by the higher nobility; it would have -been powerless had not the nobility been torn by factions.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span> -The split between the Aragonese and Angevin parties was -of very long standing. The times of the second and of the -first Joanna, the Sicilian Vespers, the French conquest, -were all steps of a ladder ascending up to the Hohenstaufen -Kaiser Henry VI. and the last of the Norman kings. The -wars were fresh in the memories of all. It was not much -more than twenty years since Ferrante had quelled the -dangerous rising, the calamitous consequences of which -never gave him any peace. His policy differed considerably -from that of his father. King Alfonso’s hand had borne -heavily on the party who had so long disputed his sovereignty -over Naples, but when peace was restored he not -only richly rewarded his own adherents, but tried to win -over to his side his opponents. His son had a deep distrust -of both parties, and his only aim was to increase the royal -power at the expense of feudalism.</p> - -<p>Ferrante was not lacking in kingly qualities. He was -sagacious, skilful, energetic, and a good financier according -to the fiscal principles of the day—principles which of themselves -would have sufficed to kindle rebellion among the -nobles had political reasons been wanting. Numerous and -important improvements in all branches of administration -were due to him; increase of industry and commerce, great -works for the general good, constructions for the enlargement -and embellishment of the capital and other places, -which assumed quite a different appearance under him. -The disposition to promote the interests of science, art, and -education he inherited from his father; and under both -kings the Neapolitan Court, adorned by graceful and intellectual -women, took a prominent place among the many -Italian princely houses which distinguished themselves in -this respect. Alfonso of Calabria equalled, if he did not -surpass, his father in his love of literature and art. Ferrante -had some regard for the condition of his people: ‘It is our -will,’ he wrote, in November 1486, to the superintendent of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span> -finances in Terra di Bari and Otranto,<a name="FNanchor_275_275" id="FNanchor_275_275"></a><a href="#Footnote_275_275" class="fnanchor">[275]</a> ‘that our subjects -shall receive good treatment at the hands of all our officers, -and that they may not have to complain of oppression and -undue burthens.’ Again, to the governor of Castrovillari, -an important place in Calabria, and one which had been in -the power of the enemies of the crown: ‘You are to treat -all well, and not suffer any to be oppressed on account of -the past. You are to bridle the passions which create discord -among the people, and to see that every one obeys the -laws.’ He formed a considerable military force, which -enabled him to take a fitting part in Italian affairs, and to -preserve peace for many years within his own dominions.</p> - -<p>But Ferrante’s good qualities were overshadowed by -many bad ones. His illegitimate birth placed him from -childhood in a false position. As a boy he learned to master -his passions, and acquired a control over his words and -manner which too often degenerated into dissimulation to -secure his ends. Philippe de Commines (a contemporary somewhat -prejudiced, it is true, against the house of Aragon), -says, when speaking of Alfonso of Calabria, ‘The father -was more dangerous than the son, for nobody ever understood -either the man or his real thoughts. With an assumed -smiling manner he would deceive and betray people; there -was neither grace nor mercy in his disposition, as even his -relatives and adherents acknowledged; he knew neither -mercy nor pity for his poor people where money was concerned.’ -In trying to promote trade and commerce he -thought first of the interests of his own exchequer, and -burdened the people with socages, requisitions, and duties -which too often defeated his own object. From the very -beginning of his reign he had to contend with difficulties -with his relatives, with his subjects, with the Popes, till his -natural distrustfulness had deepened into gloomy suspicion. -The remembrance of past (and by no means always justifiable)<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> -opposition and the dread of fresh outbreaks, increased -by the frequent threats on the part of foreign countries to -revive the claims of Anjou, led him astray to unjust and cruel -actions whereby he undermined the throne, to strengthen -which was his constant and never-ceasing aim. The feudal -arrangements of the kingdom not only weakened Ferrante’s -political power, but had the inconvenient consequence -of keeping him poor. It is difficult to believe that the ruler -of such a fertile country, though in great part uncultivated, -was in almost continual want of money, and was always -obtaining drafts on foreign, and especially Florentine, banks, -to which, in his turn, he had to give drafts on the current -revenues. He once asked Lorenzo for a loan of 10,000 gold -florins, which Lorenzo cut down to half; and Filippo Strozzi -advanced him 20,000 on one occasion, besides undertaking -the expense of provisioning the capital.</p> - -<p>As Ferrante advanced in years his eldest son acquired a -baleful influence over him. Alfonso was by no means equal -to his father. He was considered a tolerably good soldier, -and was certainly not wanting in energy, nor apparently in -personal valour; yet he never carried out any campaign of -real importance, though the recapture of Otranto was looked -upon as a brilliant success. He was not lacking in cultivation -and interest in learning, but his bad qualities outweighed -his good ones. He was haughty, violent, faithless, -and cruel. He hated the barons of the kingdom from a -despot’s instinct, he hated the influential servants of his -father because their wealth excited his covetousness. As he -had not inherited Ferrante’s power of dissimulation, enough -was known of his sayings and projects to put others on their -guard, and his hatred was paid back in kind. He was not -more successful in making those beyond the kingdom favourably -disposed to him. The quarrel with Milan, of which, -however, the blame did not rest with him, was already -beginning, though it did not come to an open rupture till -after the death of his wife Ippolita. In Tuscany there was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span> -a secret grudge against him on account of the events of 1478—his -intrigues at Siena and the loss of Sarzana. He must -have known how unpopular he was at Florence, but he did -nothing to regain the favour of the government or the -people. ‘On October 8,’ observes Alamanno Rinuccini, -speaking of the year 1484,<a name="FNanchor_276_276" id="FNanchor_276_276"></a><a href="#Footnote_276_276" class="fnanchor">[276]</a> ‘the Duke of Calabria arrived in -Florence on his way back from Lombardy, where he had -been captain of the league against the Venetians. He was -accompanied by about eight hundred horsemen in bad condition. -On his entry he did not go to the palace to greet -the Signoria as he had hitherto done, though the Signoria -had made preparations to receive him, and summoned many -citizens for the purpose of honouring him. This was considered -a great piece of insolence. Nevertheless, in pursuance -of a shameful order, he was left unmolested during -his passage through our territory—to our shame, considering -what he had done five years before.’ Commines has drawn -in a few words a fearful picture of Alfonso: ‘Never,’ says -he, ‘was seen a more cruel, wicked, vicious, base man, or -one more addicted to excess.’ The Frenchman and the -courtier of Charles VIII. speaks here, but the portrait -drawn by the Venetian, Marino Sanuto, is not at all more -flattering.<a name="FNanchor_277_277" id="FNanchor_277_277"></a><a href="#Footnote_277_277" class="fnanchor">[277]</a></p> - -<p>In the face of the Duke’s ill-will, now no longer doubtful, -aggravated by a suspicion of encroachments on the part of -the king, the most powerful of the Neapolitan barons had -entered upon a league for mutual protection, when the outbreak -of hostilities was precipitated by two distinct causes. -Ferrante and his son, however pleased they professed to be -at the election of Innocent VIII. as Pope, were in reality -anything but satisfied, as they feared to find him an adherent -of Anjou. The Duke had even made an effort to get him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> -excluded from the list of candidates for the pontificate. -The embassy sent to Rome to present the congratulations of -Naples was to try to procure the remission of that everlasting -apple of discord, the feudal tribute. The Pope refused -to remit it, the king held to his resolve not to pay, and the -coming strife might be the more clearly foreshadowed as -Cardinal della Rovere was opposed to the Aragonese claims. -In the summer of 1485 the rupture took place. The Duke -of Calabria persuaded the king not to allow the schemes of -the discontented nobility to come to maturity, but to nip -them in the bud by a sudden attack. The way in which he -set to work furnished a new ground for heaping upon him -accusations of fraud and violence. On June 23, by treacherously -imprisoning the Count of Montorio, of the house of -Cantelmo, the chief person in Aquila, and his people, he -obtained possession of that city, which was an independent -commonwealth under the suzerainty of the crown; shortly -after, the same was done at Nola by arresting several of the -Orsini, to whom the countship belonged. Many of the heads -of the nobility were just then assembled at Melfi, in the -Basilicata, on the occasion of a wedding in the Caracciolo -family. In this manner a declaration of hostilities was -hastened, which, from the intensity of opposition, could -indeed hardly have been prevented under other circumstances, -but which was now encouraged by the disagreement -between the Pope and the king.</p> - -<p>On August 10, 1485, the Duke of Calabria left Naples -to begin the war against the barons.<a name="FNanchor_278_278" id="FNanchor_278_278"></a><a href="#Footnote_278_278" class="fnanchor">[278]</a> He did not find them -unprepared; their vassals were in arms, and they had formed -an alliance with the Pope, who was angry, not only at the -refusal of the tribute, but also at the incredibly arbitrary -conduct of the king with regard to Church matters. This -monarch, nominally a vassal of Rome, not only subjected -the clergy to the most despotically imposed taxation, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> -treated the bestowal of ecclesiastical offices as a financial -speculation. Affairs soon became complicated. On September -26 the inhabitants of Aquila rose against their oppressors, -hewed the leader in pieces, set up the standard of the Church, -and sent plenipotentiaries to Rome. Ferrante tried to avert -the storm by sending his son, the Cardinal of Aragon, to -Rome; but he died on October 16. On the 17th Ferrante -caused a protest to be read in the cathedral of Naples, -announcing that he had no intention of making war against -the Pope. Next he tried to negotiate with the barons, sent -his son Don Federigo to the Sanseverini at Salerno, and -caused the Count of Montorio to be set at liberty. It was -all in vain; no one trusted him. The people of Salerno -kept the prince as a prisoner, and set up the standard of the -Church on November 20; the king’s own friends began to -desert him, one of his natural sons went over to the insurgents. -Ferrante had long been accustomed to put no trust -in his own relatives. This time the crisis was rendered -doubly serious by the now openly declared conduct of Innocent -VIII.</p> - -<p>The new Pope’s desire to maintain peace and heal the -wounds inflicted during the late pontificate gave way at the -approach of the Neapolitan troubles, the point of contention -between the papal government and its neighbours. Innocent -can hardly have been drawn into the fight by the secret -motive of which he was accused—a preference for the interests -of his own family before the welfare and peace of the country; -but he may well have been influenced by his own and his -predecessor’s repeated unpleasant experience of the Aragonese. -He made the quarrel of Aquila and of the barons his -own, accepted their tender of obedience, and began to arm. -He had to be quick, not to give the Duke of Calabria time to -scatter his opponents. While the king sought help from -Florence and Milan, the Pope and the barons turned to -Venice. The propositions of the nobles were very tempting -to the Venetians, ever hankering after the cities on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span> -Apulian coast; but they had doubts about entering upon -such a hazardous undertaking after all the losses they had -sustained in the last war. They expressed regret for the -oppression under which the barons described themselves as -suffering, but they recommended a compromise through the -mediation of the Pope; at the same time they dissuaded -Rome from violent proceedings. But when Innocent, hurried -on by the rapid progress of events, entered into negotiations -with Roberto da Sanseverino to obtain his services, they -contented themselves with half-measures. Roberto’s Venetian -<i>condotta</i> had expired at the peace of Bagnolo. The -Republic might easily have restrained his ardour, for though -his own people were deeply involved in the rising, the <i>condottiere</i>, -long a stranger to his own home, would have preferred -his own advantage to all other considerations. But -after a few indifferent remonstrances he was left free to go -‘according to his own pleasure,’ as was announced to the -Pope on October 7.<a name="FNanchor_279_279" id="FNanchor_279_279"></a><a href="#Footnote_279_279" class="fnanchor">[279]</a></p> - -<p>How disagreeable all these matters were to the Florentines, -and above all to Lorenzo, may be imagined. A -dangerous flame was being kindled. Towards the end of -August the Neapolitan ambassador, Marino Tomacelli, made -to the Signoria, on behalf of the king, the first announcement -of the outbreak of internal hostilities, but without -owning their real importance. Before the middle of September -it became known that the Pope was causing troops to -march over the border. On October 3 the deliverance of -Aquila from the garrison placed there by the Duke of Calabria -became known. Thereupon Ferrante sent his eldest -son’s confidant—Giovanni Albino—to Lorenzo, who had -long been intimate with this learned and accomplished man, -at once a politician and a historian:<a name="FNanchor_280_280" id="FNanchor_280_280"></a><a href="#Footnote_280_280" class="fnanchor">[280]</a> ‘You shall tell Lorenzo,’ -such were Ferrante’s instructions,<a name="FNanchor_281_281" id="FNanchor_281_281"></a><a href="#Footnote_281_281" class="fnanchor">[281]</a> ‘that we turn to him as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> -the best friend we have in Italy, and one for whom, in case -of need, we would risk our State, our children, and our own -person. Beg him not to leave us in the lurch; he and his -house shall be rewarded for their services to us.’ Then -followed negotiations with Lodovico il Moro, to whom -Albino proceeded on leaving Florence. It was ill speaking -of Lodovico at the latter city, because his intrigues with -Girolamo Riario kept up a constant fear of disturbances in -Romagna; nevertheless, in the present conjuncture, it was -necessary to try to keep at peace with him. The Duke of -Bari’s policy was evidently to put the Florentines forward -and watch the moment when he himself could most fittingly -appear. He proposed that the Florentines should hinder -Sanseverino’s passage through Umbria; but they answered -that it would be far simpler for <i>him</i> to prevent his crossing -the Po, whence he would doubtless skirt the Adriatic coast -and not turn inland at all. Next, Ercole d’Este gave -notice that by a brief of October 1 the Pope had commanded -him to grant a passage through the Duchy of Ferrara to -Roberto da Sanseverino, who was leading 600 men-at-arms -to his Holiness, and who, added the Duke, was expected to -set out on the 10th from Cittadella, in the Paduan territory, -cross the Po at Ficcarolo, and take the road through -Romagna and the Marches—which showed that the Florentines -were right in their answer to Sforza. Soon after news -came from Siena that the Pope had asked that Republic for -a body of 120 men-at-arms and 300 picked mercenaries.</p> - -<p>The Florentines did all they could to prevent the Sienese -from yielding to the Pope’s demand. As the armed force of -Florence was small, they took the Count of Pitigliano into -their service and decided to await the course of events. -But there was no real feeling of security, from the impossibility -of trusting to the little neighbouring state. ‘The -Sienese,’ wrote the Ferrarese ambassador,<a name="FNanchor_282_282" id="FNanchor_282_282"></a><a href="#Footnote_282_282" class="fnanchor">[282]</a> ‘being by nature<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> -at once frivolous and suspicious, and perpetually stirred up -by the Pope, are in a violent fever, lamenting over the -danger to which they would be exposed if the king got the -victory over the Pope, as he would then employ their natural -enemies—the Orsini—to avenge himself for the revolution -of 1480. Their ambassador plagued the illustrious Lorenzo -for two hours to-day with this nonsense, and it will cost a -great deal of trouble to keep them neutral, for they are -always getting troublesome.’ On October 10, the day on -which Sanseverino began his march, Lodovico il Moro wrote -to Lorenzo.<a name="FNanchor_283_283" id="FNanchor_283_283"></a><a href="#Footnote_283_283" class="fnanchor">[283]</a> He represented to him the danger that would -threaten the king if the enemy appeared on the frontiers of -the already excited country. ‘As your Magnificence sees, -prompt proceedings are necessary. The best way to help -the king will be to break at once with the Church, as the -Pope has done with the king. It appears to me necessary -that you should induce the Signoria to consent to a declaration -of war, that while awaiting reinforcements from hence -they may set their armed force in order and despatch it to -the frontier without minding the unfavourable season, which -hinders neither the Pope nor the lord Roberto. What the -foes think their troops capable of, ours can surely do. But -there is no time to be lost in coming to a decision.’</p> - -<p>When this new complication arose, Lorenzo was at the -baths of San Filippo in the Siena territory. The Morba -waters had greatly benefited him in the spring, and in May -the Anziani of Siena sent a special envoy to congratulate -him on his recovery;<a name="FNanchor_284_284" id="FNanchor_284_284"></a><a href="#Footnote_284_284" class="fnanchor">[284]</a> but it was not lasting. The position -of affairs was such as to embarrass even as practised a politician -as Lorenzo. He thought it needful to support the -king, but he was too clear-sighted and knew his native city -too well to give way to illusions as to the feeling about -Naples. The king and the duke were hated; to enter on -their behalf into a war, which would entail certainly great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span> -expenses and possibly serious complications, was pleasing to -no one. When Lorenzo proposed to the Council to give -support to Ferrante of Naples he met with vehement opposition. -‘At first,’ relates Niccolò Valori,<a name="FNanchor_285_285" id="FNanchor_285_285"></a><a href="#Footnote_285_285" class="fnanchor">[285]</a> ‘the majority -were decidedly against the proposal. In the midst of this -long-wished-for peace, said they, did he want to kindle the -flame of a fresh war? Had he forgotten in what danger they -had been placed by arms and the censures of the Pope? -What if Venice should take part in the contest? How were -they to help the king, hard-pressed at once by internal feuds -and external war? Let him beware of turning aside the -war from Ferrante, and drawing it upon his own home. Notwithstanding, -Lorenzo urged the necessity of taking a side -with so much eloquence that those who doubted were encouraged, -and at last all were brought over to his view. I -never read anything more earnest and impressive or better -put together than this speech, which was taken down at the -time.’ But while Lorenzo held it a political necessity to -side with Naples, he clearly perceived the reason of this -fresh disturbance of peace. The bad condition of the -Neapolitan finances and army was no secret from him. ‘I -regret,’ he wrote on November 3 to Albino,<a name="FNanchor_286_286" id="FNanchor_286_286"></a><a href="#Footnote_286_286" class="fnanchor">[286]</a> after informing -him of the proposals made by the insurgents in case of the -neutrality of Florence, ‘that the king is no longer reputed -to have a rich treasury and a good army as of old, when he -was regarded as the arbiter of Italy. That the contrary is -now the case I regret on account of my devotion to his -Majesty; but, however matters may stand, I shall always -fulfil my obligations. I am most deeply grieved that my -lord the duke is denounced as cruel; though it be a false -accusation, yet his Excellency should do all in his power to -rid himself of it, for it can only be to his advantage to do -so. If the taxes are hateful to the people let them be -abolished, and let the former contributions suffice; one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span> -carlino willingly and gladly paid is better than ten gained -by compulsion and with ill-will; for no people willingly -endures the imposition of fresh burthens.’ He also recommended -keeping the soldiers in good humour; never had -this been more needed. If the king had faith in himself he -would conquer; the Signoria would be true to him. Ferrante -thanked Lorenzo for his wise counsels, but remarked that he -did not altogether understand them.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER V.</h2> - -<p class="pch">REACTION AFTER THE BARONS’ WAR. THE STRUGGLE FOR -SARZANA.</p> - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">Lorenzo’s</span> position was anything but enviable. The Florentine -merchants at Naples complained that the Duke of -Calabria did not fulfil his obligations, and, moreover, treated -them insolently, so that they found themselves compelled to -leave the city.<a name="FNanchor_287_287" id="FNanchor_287_287"></a><a href="#Footnote_287_287" class="fnanchor">[287]</a> The Pope, who on November 1, 1485, had -issued a bull enumerating all the charges of the Holy See -against the King of Naples, and threatening with excommunication -all who should support the latter, exerted himself -to prevent the Republic from taking part in the quarrel. -The authority of the Medici even might receive a blow, for -the position of affairs in the kingdom was considered bad in -the extreme. Lorenzo was visibly full of cares. He proceeded -very slowly. Towards the end of November Innocent -sent the Archbishop of Florence to his cathedral city to -try if he could change the mind of his brother-in-law. -Rinaldo Orsini was a prelate of a type then but too common; -from his youth up he had held benefices without spiritual -functions, and so he treated his archbishopric as a sort of -garrison, the revenue of which was sufficient for him. He -was generally in Rome; leaving his vicar to look after the -church affairs. Being in the habit of getting into debt, he -afterwards tried to do a profitable piece of business with his -see. At last, when things in Florence were altogether<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> -changed, and the powerful support of the Medici failed him, -the universal dissatisfaction reduced him to resign for a -pension and a title <i>in partibus</i>. Before this, during the persecutions -that broke out against his family in the time of -the Borgias, his insignificance as a mere man of pleasure -had saved him from the tragic fate of his cousin Cardinal -Orsini, with whom he had been placed in the castle of St. -Angelo. It may easily be imagined that he was not the man -to make any impression on Lorenzo, more especially as the -latter well knew that he was entirely a creature of the Pope, -in daily anticipation of obtaining the cardinal’s hat. Rinaldo -declared that Innocent was determined on war. For months -past he had been warning the king, through the now deceased -Cardinal of Aragon, through his brother Don Francesco, -even through the Florentine ambassador; but Ferrante -only went on more recklessly, and now at last allowed things -to take their own course.<a name="FNanchor_288_288" id="FNanchor_288_288"></a><a href="#Footnote_288_288" class="fnanchor">[288]</a></p> - -<p>Meanwhile, November 10, Sanseverino arrived at Rome, -and was solemnly received at the Porta del Popolo by the -governor of the city, the papal court, the ambassadors of the -Kaiser and of King Maximilian, and others. Twenty days -after, in the Vatican basilica, he took the oath to the Pope as -gonfalonier of the Church.<a name="FNanchor_289_289" id="FNanchor_289_289"></a><a href="#Footnote_289_289" class="fnanchor">[289]</a> Innocent showed to the Florentine -ambassador money and jewels to the value of 150,000 -ducats, all of which, he said, was to be spent in carrying -out the war. All recruiting and sales of horses in and -around Rome, except for the service of the Church, were forbidden. -But in Naples it was resolved not to await the -attack. Alfonso of Calabria marched into the States of the -Church, and was soon on the nearer side of the Alban hills, -with the Campagna and the city lying before him; on the -north-west the Orsini were taking up arms in alliance with -him; Florentine troops were advancing under the Counts of -Pitigliano and Marsciano and the lord of Piombino, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span> -100 Milanese men-at-arms under the Count of Cajazzo—for -that was all Lodovico sent after all his assurances! Soon -the Neapolitans and the Papal troops attacked each other in -the immediate neighbourhood of Rome, by the bridges over -the Anio. The whole city was in tumult. Monte Giordano, -the Orsini stronghold in the Campus Martius, was burnt -down; King Ferrante’s ambassador, who with his colleagues -of Florence and Milan had remained in Rome after the -fighting began, had his house plundered and wrecked, and -fled to the Vatican. The greatest distress and insecurity -prevailed; cardinals and others brought their valuables to -the Pope’s palace and to the castle of St. Angelo for safety. -But the duke proved himself a wretched general. He could -not manage to effect a junction with the Orsini, and Sanseverino -pressed the latter hard, compelled some of them to -accept a compromise, and obstructed the road into Tuscany. -Within the kingdom itself matters were taking an unfavourable -turn; Alfonso, seeing himself in danger of being -hemmed in within the Campagna, decided to make a diversion -against the Pope and gain breathing-time for himself -by coming to a personal understanding with Lorenzo and -Lodovico. On January 17, 1486, the news reached Florence -that the heir to the Neapolitan throne had left the army in -a dangerous position, and with only 300 horsemen taken the -road through the lower part of the Viterbo territory. After -riding sixty miles a day, like a fugitive, he arrived at Pitigliano, -the little capital of the Orsini territory, on the west -of the lake of Bolsena; from thence he intended proceeding -to Florence and Milan.</p> - -<p>The surprise in Florence was great. Negotiations had -never ceased between the Pope and Lorenzo. It was said -that the latter was trying to facilitate an accommodation; -but there was a suspicion that he was playing a double -game, that he had no confidence in the Neapolitan affairs, and -that he had a hand in the defection of some of the Orsini, -which put the Duke of Calabria into difficulties; and that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> -now he wanted to hinder the Duke coming to Florence, in -order to escape his reproaches. The Signoria immediately -sent a special messenger to the Duke to prevent his coming -to the city; Piero Capponi followed the messenger, to have -an explanation with Alfonso, and to remain with the army -as Florentine commissioner.<a name="FNanchor_290_290" id="FNanchor_290_290"></a><a href="#Footnote_290_290" class="fnanchor">[290]</a> For some time past Lorenzo -had been suffering severely; an affection of the bladder was -now added to his old complaint the gout. He was not in a -happy humour. He said he would have nothing more to do -with business, for everything was going contrary to his -desires and expectations; he meant to spend his time more -agreeably. He begged Ercole d’Este and the Marquis of -Mantua to send him falcons, and it was said that he was -going to Pisa for change of air. His ill humour was visible. -Sometimes he was in the city, sometimes at Careggi. The -Duke of Calabria was urgent to see him at Pitigliano, in -Florence, anywhere he liked; but he was not to be persuaded. -Pier Filippo Pandolfini and Giovanni Serristori went in -January to Pitigliano to agree upon the necessary arrangements.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile the situation had somewhat improved. The -troops, deserted by the Duke whom all accused of cowardice -and want of head, were guided by Paolo Orsini to Vicovaro -in the valley of the Anio, beyond Tivoli; from thence the road -into the kingdom was open to them. Gentile Virginio and -others of the Orsini remained faithful. Letters from Milan -announced an intention of abiding by this alliance. On -February 3, Gian Jacopo Trivulzio and Marsilio Torello -arrived in Florence with men-at-arms and archers, to join -the Duke.<a name="FNanchor_291_291" id="FNanchor_291_291"></a><a href="#Footnote_291_291" class="fnanchor">[291]</a> The latter came as far as Montepulciano, and -wanted to make an attempt upon Perugia, where there was -some understanding with a few of the Baglioni. But the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span> -Florentines had no desire to see the fire kindled so near -their own borders; and as the Milanese were of the same -mind, the plan was given up. The war was again transferred -to the Papal territory, where the union between the -Orsini and the duke was at last effected. But it was a feeble -war, which only served to display the decay of Italian -military skill. One single fight, however, in which the allies -were victorious, and which took place in the beginning of -May near Campagnano, a place belonging to the Orsini and -situated twenty-one miles north-west of Rome, deserves the -name of a warlike achievement. The Florentine commissioner, -who was not a military man, but had seen a good -deal of fighting in his life, was very little edified by the proceedings. -On the papal side they were no better off. Innocent, -ill and repeatedly in danger of his life, saw his means -disappearing, his capital disturbed and discontented, almost -besieged, and the neighbourhood devastated. He had little -confidence in Sanseverino, who failed to profit by the favourable -moment of the Duke’s absence, and whose chief aim -seemed to be to gain a red hat for one of his sons. This -distrust was heightened by letters from Piero Capponi, which, -by a not over-honourable artifice, raised doubts as to Sanseverino’s -honesty, and were put into the enemy’s hands. -Through the Bishop of Treviso the Pope tried to get help -from Venice; through the Cardinal della Rovere, who went -to Genoa at the end of March, he set on foot a negotiation -with the Duke of Lorraine, who with the help of France -was planning an expedition against Naples. But everything -remained too long in suspense.</p> - -<p>In the College of Cardinals the different opinions produced -violent disputes. As has been observed, Lorenzo remained -in communication with Innocent, although he was -the very corner-stone of the league in favour of Naples, and -without Florentine money the king would long ago have been -unable to carry on the war. It was his representations that -chiefly contributed to induce the Pope to arrive at the needful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span> -accommodation. Ferrante on his part saw very well that -unless he made peace abroad it was vain to think of restoring -peace at home. Lodovico il Moro, though now less scanty -in his contributions of assistance, was still more lavish of -words than of deeds. His brother Ascanio was urging the Pope -to an accommodation. On March 6 he spoke very strongly -in the secret consistory in opposition to Cardinal La Balue, -who was charged by France with supporting the interests of -the Duke of Lorraine. The Pope, said Sforza, had a right -to claim from King Ferrante the fulfilment of his obligations -to the Church; but it was contrary to the duty of a cardinal -to try and induce the Pope to drive the king from his hereditary -throne and put a stranger in his place. He, Sforza, -believed that he was not failing in his duty to the holy -father in defending the rights of his relative. The cardinal -of Erlau, the pious Franciscan Gabriel Rangoni, supported -Ascanio, and said to the Pope: ‘Your Holiness has -threatened to go as far as the Acheron. If the war continues, -I fear those words will come true. May your wisdom -find means to prevent greater troubles!’<a name="FNanchor_292_292" id="FNanchor_292_292"></a><a href="#Footnote_292_292" class="fnanchor">[292]</a></p> - -<p>The Florentines were wearied with the whole affair. -Ambassadors came from René of Lorraine to argue against -the alliance with Naples, and to recall the old relations with -France, and the old devotion of Florence to the Holy See. -They were answered that the league which had existed for -some time between the Republic, Naples, and Milan had for -its object the preservation of peace; the disturbance had -come from the Pope. The latter had never mentioned the -Duke of Lorraine in his negotiations with the city; and if -he was now making use of his name to help his own cause, -they must first of all find out his real aims, and then consult -with the allies. The old obligations to France would be remembered -as far as was consistent with honour. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span> -answer, remarks Francesco Guicciardini,<a name="FNanchor_293_293" id="FNanchor_293_293"></a><a href="#Footnote_293_293" class="fnanchor">[293]</a> was prudent, for -ambassadors had arrived not only from the duke but also -from the King of France, and for the sake of the merchants -it was necessary to be cautious. The occurrence caused a -good deal of anxiety, so that Lorenzo, who well knew the -attachment of the citizens to the house of France and their -hatred to King Ferrante, was afraid of the burthen becoming -too heavy for his shoulders, particularly as the alliance with -Ferrante was displeasing to many of the chief citizens. He -would, perhaps, have changed his policy, although Venice, -where his brother-in-law Bernardo Rucellai was ambassador, -and which did not like seeing foreigners in Italy, now sided -with the king; but suddenly peace put an end to all -troubles.</p> - -<p>On the afternoon of August 11, 1486, this peace was -signed at Rome by the Spanish ambassador, the Count of -Tendilla, the Archbishop of Milan, and Gian Jacopo Trivulzio -on behalf of Sforza, Cardinal Giovanni Michiel on behalf of -the Pope, and Gioviano Pontano on behalf of Naples. King -Ferrante was again formally to acknowledge the supremacy -of the Church; to pay the tribute; to retain Aquila on condition -of maintaining its liberties; not to oppress the barons -who returned to their allegiance, and to give them complete -freedom as to their abode and their family connections. -These conditions were to be guaranteed by Milan and Florence. -The Orsini were to beg the Pope’s forgiveness, and -to be taken back into favour under guarantee of the said -States; all places taken on either side were to be restored. -Sanseverino was dismissed from the service of the Church. -In Florence the conclusion of peace was celebrated by ringing -the bells; but Lorenzo was highly displeased, not at the -peace as such, but at the manner and the conditions of it, -on which he spoke sharply to the Milanese ambassador. -The conclusion had been arrived at without reference to him,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span> -and there had been no mention of Sarzana. In reality this -was better than what had been originally intended, for -Cardinal Sforza had exerted himself to get his brother Lodovico -appointed arbiter in the question; but this scheme -was foiled by the decided opposition of Capponi, who was -then at Bracciano.<a name="FNanchor_294_294" id="FNanchor_294_294"></a><a href="#Footnote_294_294" class="fnanchor">[294]</a> The Republic had spent all her money -for a cause not her own.<a name="FNanchor_295_295" id="FNanchor_295_295"></a><a href="#Footnote_295_295" class="fnanchor">[295]</a> And what a peace it was! Sanseverino -had most decidedly not proved himself a hero in -the war, and his conduct had not deserved any great confidence. -But the way in which he was treated was almost -past belief. The gonfalonier of the Church, who as holder -of one of the highest dignities had handed the holy water to -the Pope at a solemn mass a little while before, suddenly -found himself like an outlaw chieftain compelled to use force -against force. He was told he might go where he liked, and -a claim which he sent in for arrears of pay was left unnoticed. -Then, when he was about to take the road to -Romagna, to return to the Venetian territory, he found himself -surrounded by Neapolitan troops. To fight was certain -ruin. He had nothing for it but to dissolve his bands; many -escaped to the Marches; others were taken, plundered, -slain; others again took service with the Duke of Calabria. -With about a hundred horsemen Roberto cut his way through, -and after many difficulties arrived as a fugitive, on the Venetian -frontier which less than a year before he had crossed -at the head of a powerful army. The Republic took him -back into her service, and he showed himself not ungrateful -and far less selfish than was the usual fashion of <i>condottieri</i>. -A year after the conclusion of a peace so fatal to him, he -met his death fighting gallantly in the neighbourhood of -Roveredo, in the war stirred up by the frontier disputes -between Venice and Archduke Sigismund of Austria-Tyrol.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span> -The Sanseverino affair, however, disappeared before what -happened in Naples.</p> - -<p>Two days after the conclusion of the treaty, at Castelnuovo, -on the occasion of a marriage arranged by the king -between Marco Coppola, son of the Count of Sarno, chief -counsellor of the crown, and a daughter of Antonio Piccolomini -Duke of Amalfi, granddaughter of Ferrante, the count -and his family were arrested, as well as Antonello Petrucci -the other private secretary of the king, the Count of Burello, -formerly ambassador to Rome, and many of their relatives -and friends, all distinguished and influential persons. They -had been in communication with the insurgent barons, -and as far back as October of the previous year Lodovico il -Moro had given the king proofs of their guilt; but the latter -had secured them and then waited till the conclusion of -peace to draw in the net. Only a fortnight before he had -called the Count of Sarno ‘our best-beloved counsellor.’ -Three months later the culprits were condemned to death -and executed; and the shuddering city beheld the bleeding -limbs of the Count of Carinola, son of Antonello Petrucci, -quartered by the executioner’s hand. All their property -was confiscated; not only were their possessions within the -country sequestrated, but Ferrante at once sent one of the -superior officers of the chamber of accounts to take possession -of sums deposited in the banks in Rome, Florence, Genoa, -and Milan. A million in gold is said to have thus passed -into his hands. Horrified at this fearful vengeance, warned -by the fate of Aquila, which lost all its liberties, and putting -no trust in the stipulated guarantee of Florence and Milan, -the barons were long undecided if they should trust themselves -to the mercy of the king. Ferrante himself did not -believe they would. At last, however, they submitted, besought -pardon, and promised fidelity and obedience. ‘All -the princes and lords who formerly rebelled against us,’ -wrote the king on February 17, 1487, to Giovanni Nauclero,<a name="FNanchor_296_296" id="FNanchor_296_296"></a><a href="#Footnote_296_296" class="fnanchor">[296]</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span> -his ambassador to Ferdinand the Catholic, ‘are now with us -at Naples. They enjoy greater security for their persons -and possessions, and greater contentment and tranquillity -than before the war; for they have their revenues as heretofore, -and while we know that we are safe with them -because their castles are in our hands, they are safe with us, -and, thank God, we live together without suspicion. The -past has vanished from our memory, and we treat them as -dear sons. We hope it will last, for we are resolved to give -them daily greater occasion to remain in this mind. Thus -we keep all parts of our kingdom in peace and quiet.’ -Within three months came the confiscation of the principality -of Salerno, whose lord—Antonello da Sanseverino—was -absent from the country; and, later on, the arrest of -those ‘dear sons’ the barons, who one after another disappeared -and left no trace behind.</p> - -<p>The complications which arose from this interpretation -of the conditions of peace between the king and the Pope, -and the sentiments it awakened in Florence, will be mentioned -later on. There can be little difference of opinion as to -this melancholy episode and its influence on the destinies of -Naples. But the whole blame must not be laid on Ferrante. -A nobility so powerful and warlike, so rebellious, and among -some of whom disaffection was an inheritance, rendered -government impossible. Defection had penetrated the king’s -own privy council, nay even his own family. How little -unity there was in the latter is shown by the fact that the -barons hoped and attempted to gain over to their side Don -Federigo, who was as much beloved as his brother Alfonso -was hated and feared. At Salerno they offered him the -crown, which he refused. Ferrante conquered by prudence -and force of arms, but he abused his victory by cunning, -avarice, and cruelty. In the use of foul means he outdid -his old enemy Louis XI.; but while the latter, who personally<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span> -was not a bit better, strengthened the royal power, -Ferrante overshot the mark and cut the ground from under -his own feet. Other men of the time were not more honest, -yet they never enacted such horrible tragedies as those witnessed -at Naples in 1486 and 1487. Ferrante’s reign lasted -seven years longer, externally more quiet than before, more -prosperous, more unlimited, less disturbed; but all his -sagacity could not save him from the phantoms called up by -the consciousness of past crimes and the fear of new dangers. -In his strivings after despotic power, and in the interests of -the latter, he made havoc of the old nobility. He could not -destroy it so completely as to prevent its remaining one of -the factors in all great political changes, or the enmity of a -large portion of it from becoming fatal to his house, but he -diminished the strength of the country, which was founded -on the old feudal order of things. He hoped to find support -from the people, but could not really raise them because his -system of monopolies and finance oppressed them no less -than the outgrowths of the feudal state, and he had not -time to carry out the change in public matters which he -might possibly have projected. The people, who had not -forgotten old grievances, were bound by no ties of affection -to their sovereign and his heir-apparent, who had come out -of the Barons’ war with a greatly diminished reputation for -military capacity and a yet more greatly increased reputation -for faithlessness and cruelty.<a name="FNanchor_297_297" id="FNanchor_297_297"></a><a href="#Footnote_297_297" class="fnanchor">[297]</a></p> - -<p>Like the peace of 1484, that of 1486 did not take into -consideration the Florentine desires and demands in the -vexed question of Sarzana.</p> - -<p>Lorenzo was ill and out of humour. Repeated attacks<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span> -of gout either laid him up at home, as in July 1486, or compelled -him to go to Bagno a Morba, where he passed the -September of the same year. He often sojourned at Careggi -for a time or at the villa at Poggio a Cajano, where he -sought refreshment and relaxation from the exciting affairs -which never left him free. He was at no pains to conceal -his irritation. One ally compromised him by faithlessness -and severity, the other endangered his policy by double-dealing -and the pursuit of selfish aims. The more lavish -were the assurances of friendship, the nearer treachery was -lurking. As to the treaty of peace and Trivulzio’s part in -it, he declared the proceedings of Milan were downright -disgraceful. When Ferrante began to meddle with the -barons whose safety had been guaranteed by Florence and -Milan, and it became evident that he aimed at their destruction -and the confiscation of their property, Lorenzo remarked -that from a political point of view the king was becoming -too powerful. If he went on thus he would soon be master -in Italy, in which case Florence and Milan would fare badly, -as the predominance of his influence had repeatedly been -injurious to them. From the Duke of Calabria the worst -must be expected, as he was of a malicious and vindictive -temper setting aside that, when once his object was attained -he regarded neither friendship nor past services. Lorenzo -saw that he must bring the Sarzana affair to a conclusion if -he did not wish to endanger his own position. The thing -could not be done in the year which ended the Barons’ war, -but the next must not be allowed to pass without profit. -There was not much to be expected from the allies. King -Ferrante well knew how much he was indebted to Lorenzo -and to Florence, and remarked that one good turn deserved -another; but added that where an alliance was so sure and -the will so entirely the same on both sides, conduct must be -measured, not by the extent of the obligation, but by the -power to serve. Then came the usual references to the -exhaustion of the treasury, difficulties with the Pope, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span> -the danger from the Turks, all of which Bernardo Rucellai, -the ambassador at Naples, likewise had to listen to.<a name="FNanchor_298_298" id="FNanchor_298_298"></a><a href="#Footnote_298_298" class="fnanchor">[298]</a> To -Lutozzo Nasi, another Florentine diplomatist, Ferrante said: -‘Lorenzo knows that I really love him and his city, for I -have had practical proof of his attachment to me and mine. -But for him, they and I would no longer be in this kingdom. -He has conferred on us a benefit which we and our posterity -never will or can forget, and we will always display our -gratitude to him and the Signoria.’ But all this was mere -talk. It was not of much use that Ferrante occasionally -condescended to flatter the Signoria, as, for instance, when -in the autumn of 1486 he appointed a house in Naples -for their embassy, as King Ladislaus had once done for -Venice; or when he sent back trophies of the war of 1478, -declaring that he did not wish to preserve memorials of past -strife when nothing should be thought of but reciprocal -friendship.<a name="FNanchor_299_299" id="FNanchor_299_299"></a><a href="#Footnote_299_299" class="fnanchor">[299]</a></p> - -<p>In Lodovico il Moro Lorenzo had still less confidence, -but on account of the situation in Northern Italy, and especially -on account of the Venetians, he was yet more anxious -to keep on the best terms possible with Milan. Lodovico -was jealous of the close relations between his allies; so, in -order not to increase this jealousy, Lorenzo found it convenient -to point out the common interest of Florence and -Milan in preventing the king from becoming too powerful. -Moreover, the Sarzana affair still prevented the conclusion -of a good understanding. Lodovico was always thinking of -regaining Genoa, and was the more unwilling to turn the -Genoese against him for the sake of a quarrel which kept -them in continual suspense, because they had applied to -Venice herself for aid against the Florentines. Innocent VIII. -had made an attempt at mediation, whereby the Bank of -San Giorgio was to give up Pietrasanta and receive Sarzana<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span> -in exchange; but the matter fell through, nominally on -account of disagreements between the Pope and his native -city, but no doubt also because, after all the sacrifices that -had been made, public opinion in Florence would have been -in nowise satisfied with such a settlement. A trifling occasion, -the occupation by the Florentines of a small castle -beyond the Magra, sufficed to cause high words between -Lorenzo and Lodovico. The former had sent Baccio Ugolini -to the Duke of Calabria in 1486, and Sforza took it -amiss that he had not been informed of the fact. ‘Milan -and Lord Lodovico,’ returned Lorenzo, ‘seem to forget that -this city calls herself a city of freedom, and that she would -be in a sorry plight if she could not even send a man on an -unofficial mission to the Neapolitan prince without taking -advice from Milan about it.’ In Florence, he continued, -nothing had been said when Lord Lodovico, without asking -anybody’s opinion, made his agreement with Venice. Such -things were tokens of disaffection, and should it ever befall -that Milan was in need of Florence it would be impossible -to incline the people in her favour if they had been previously -driven to extremities. Such were the relations in -which these Italian States, calling themselves allies, stood -to each other! Then fine words followed again, and assurances -of friendship, which kept up appearances and deceived -nobody as to the real state of the case. To Lorenzo’s honour -it must be said that he did all in his power to support the -tottering edifice of concord.</p> - -<p>At the beginning of 1487 the Florentines were firmly -resolved to make an end of the Sarzana affair, which was -really becoming a disgrace to the Republic. But the Genoese -were beforehand with them. On a hill to the east of the -town of Sarzana lies the fort of Sarzanello, begun by the -brave Ghibelin leader Castruccio Castracani when he extended -the Lucchese territory as far as the Magra. It was -a hill-fort, still worthy of notice for its construction, and it -had always been held by the Florentines. In March 1487<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span> -the commandant of Sarzana, Gian Luigi Fiesco of Lavagna, -made a sudden attack on Sarzanello, took the outworks, and -began to fire on the fortress. The famous Sienese architect -Francesco di Giorgio, who, together with Giuliano da Sangallo, -did more than anyone else for the military architecture -of the time, was serving as an engineer in the Genoese camp, -and he seems to have first adopted the mining system against -Sarzanello. Florence saw there was no time to lose. The -Count of Pitigliano and the lords of Piombino, Faenza, and -Mirandola commanded the troops, to which Naples and -Milan sent scanty contingents. On April 15 the besiegers -of the fort were completely beaten, and their leader, Obietto -Fiesco, fell into the hands of the victors. But the fight for -the town of Sarzana dragged on, though the troops were -better than some of their leaders. The place was in increasing -misery, yet the defenders held out amid the distress -and ruin of the inhabitants.</p> - -<p>In the beginning of June Lorenzo went to Pisa to be -nearer the scene of action. On the 8th he was in the camp -and ordered the town to be more closely surrounded. An -attempt to relieve it failed. On the 21st it was decided to -storm it, but a white flag was hoisted on the walls, and the -next morning the gates were opened. The inhabitants were -spared, the garrison remained prisoners of war. Two days -before midsummer Lorenzo returned to Florence. ‘Never,’ -writes the Ferrarese ambassador, ‘was he received with such -acclamations by the people, who attribute the recapture of -Sarzana to him before all others.’<a name="FNanchor_300_300" id="FNanchor_300_300"></a><a href="#Footnote_300_300" class="fnanchor">[300]</a> It was not the importance -of the place itself that Florence cared for; she regarded -its seizure as an insult. ‘After you have saluted in our -name the illustrious Signoria, my lords the Eight, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span> -illustrious lord Lorenzo,’ thus ran Ferrante’s instructions<a name="FNanchor_301_301" id="FNanchor_301_301"></a><a href="#Footnote_301_301" class="fnanchor">[301]</a> -of July 27 to Antonio Sperandeo, whom he was sending to -Florence, ‘you shall express to them our joy at the recovery -of Sarzana; a joy which beseems true and sincere friends on -such a happy occasion, and is meet for a connection which -makes the advantage and welfare of the one the advantage -and welfare of the other. Therefore we rejoice at the conclusion -of this affair as at a piece of good fortune to ourselves, -and pray God that He may further the interests and -well-being of us both, and lead us from good to better -through a continuance of our reciprocal friendship.’ How -much of these assurances of friendship should be laid to the -account of the complications at home, may be left undecided.</p> - -<p>Lodovico il Moro took no trouble to hide his ill-humour, -and immediately recalled his troops from the Florentine -camp on the Magra, whereat the Florentines were highly -indignant. Lorenzo said he supposed the Duke of Bari -thought Genoa and the Castelletto would be given up to -him next. But it actually came to pass. The Cardinal-Doge, -Paolo Fregoso, perceived that he could not hold his -ground amidst his many enemies, even if the Florentines—as -they were certainly disposed to do—did not advance -further towards the Riviera, where the neighbourhood of the -gulf of Spezia was almost unprotected. While he began -negotiating with Sforza the Adorni party were negotiating -with France. Lodovico was quicker than the counsellors of -the young king, and, after much debating in one form and -another, the matter ended in Genoa once more acknowledging -the Duke of Milan as her superior; whereupon the -doge was pensioned and went to end his much-disturbed -days at Rome. The Florentines were not destined long to -enjoy the possession of Sarzana, which had cost them so -much blood and still more money. During Charles VIII.’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span> -campaign against Naples, both the town and the fortress -passed into the hands of the French, who, when Florentine -troops and commissioners came to demand their restoration, -sold them to that same bank of San Giorgio with which the -Republic had fought so long for their possession.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER VI.</h2> - -<p class="pch">LORENZO AS MEDIATOR BETWEEN ROME AND NAPLES.</p> - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">For</span> a long time past there could have been no question as -to Lorenzo’s earnest desire to arrive at a good understanding -with Innocent VIII. Immediately after the latter’s election -circumstances appeared favourable, and the Florentines had -reasonable hopes of putting an end to the contest for Sarzana. -Unfortunately, the dispute between the Pope and the -King of Naples interfered to retard the good understanding, -but, though Florence took the king’s side, no declarations of -war were published, and the negotiations with the Pope -were never broken off. Lorenzo always remained in communication -with Innocent. It was through him that at the -peace of 1486, the Orsini, who were left unprotected, were -reconciled with the Pope. He attached great importance -to the latter’s friendship on both public and private grounds. -He fully understood the instability of the Italian league -and the extent of the influence of the States of the Church -on those at home. With regard to family affairs he had to -take into consideration not only money matters relative to -an advantageous marriage for his eldest son and his daughters, -who were now growing up, but also of preferment for -his second son, who, by his father’s wish, was early to enter -on the career once designed for his uncle. All these various -interests were fully developed in Lorenzo’s conduct during -the year 1487.</p> - -<p>In April 1486 a distinguished and warlike citizen of -Osimo in the Marches of Ancona, by name Boccalino de<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span>’ -Guzzoni, having acquired great influence over the people, -profited by the Pope’s hour of difficulty to take forcible -possession of that town, which, like many other Papal possessions, -was somewhat inclined to be rebellious. He pleaded -in extenuation of his proceedings that there was a certain -sum owing to him from the Apostolic Chamber.<a name="FNanchor_302_302" id="FNanchor_302_302"></a><a href="#Footnote_302_302" class="fnanchor">[302]</a> Lodovico -immediately remarked that if the man was inclined to join -the league against the Pope he should have help, as the -matter had fallen out very seasonably.<a name="FNanchor_303_303" id="FNanchor_303_303"></a><a href="#Footnote_303_303" class="fnanchor">[303]</a> But Boccalino had -no intention of accepting the foreign aid, which he would -not trust, without first trying his own powers. The peace -between Naples and the Pope at first turned to his advantage, -as many of Sanseverino’s dispersed soldiers entered his -service; but he very soon saw that he was lost, and, yielding -to the remonstrances addressed to him in the name of -the young Duke of Urbino, he came to terms with the Pope. -The accommodation, however, did not last long; Boccalino -again set up the standard of revolt, whereupon it was -decided to besiege Osimo. Boccalino then conceived the -adventurous idea of applying to Constantinople and stirring -up Sultan Bajazet to an attack on the Marches, which he -himself would administer as a vassal of the Turkish empire. -The messenger who was to carry this proposition, a nephew -of Boccalino, was arrested at Lecce, and the letters fell into -King Ferrante’s hands. He disclosed the story to Trivulzio, -who had been in the kingdom with Milanese troops ever -since the Barons’ war, and to the ambassadors of Florence -and Milan, through whom it reached the ears of the Pope. -Rome determined to prevent the rebellion from spreading -further. On March 2, Cardinal della Rovere was appointed -legate for the Marches,<a name="FNanchor_304_304" id="FNanchor_304_304"></a><a href="#Footnote_304_304" class="fnanchor">[304]</a> and Giulio Cesare Varano, lord of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span> -Camerino, commander of the troops. Both proceeded to -Osimo, but failed in their object, for Boccalino managed to -blind the cardinal with the eloquence of his speech; so the -Pope addressed Lodovico il Moro with a request that he -would lend him Trivulzio and some of his troops. The -Duke of Bari acceded to the request; on May 8, Gian -Jacopo reached Rome, and on the 31st he was in the camp -before Osimo.</p> - -<p>For a long time this gallant soldier accomplished -nothing; he lacked money, artillery, and ammunition. -Part of the Milanese troops deserted and left the camp -because their pay was in arrears; the papal contingent was -quite useless; Boccalino kept on negotiating with the cardinal -and with Francesco Gaddi, whom Lorenzo, through -the Bishop of Arezzo, had sent to arrange an accommodation -with Boccalino.<a name="FNanchor_305_305" id="FNanchor_305_305"></a><a href="#Footnote_305_305" class="fnanchor">[305]</a> At last Rome grew weary. Cardinal -La Balue, the deep intriguer who had reason to congratulate -himself that Louis XI. had done no worse than shut him up -in an iron cage, but who was not wanting in capacity and -had gained some influence at the papal court, was sent in -the latter half of June, with money and fresh troops, to -relieve Della Rovere. When he arrived, Trivulzio had fortified -a height which overhung the town, and had thus rendered -further resistance impossible. On July 12 the inhabitants -offered to capitulate. The Florentine envoy helped -to arrange the terms: Boccalino agreed, on payment of 8,000 -ducats, to leave the town and settle at Florence. ‘This -evening,’ wrote Trivulzio to Milan on August 1, ‘I have -caused 200 foot soldiers and a squadron of men-at-arms to -march into Osimo. Early to-morrow morning Messer Boccalino -will leave the city, and then my lord the legate will hold -his solemn entry. The matter could not have been more -happily or honourably settled.’ More happily or honourably! -For sixteen months a town by no means strong had held<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span> -out in rebellion against the lord of the land, and after a five -months’ siege it had surrendered for money and pardon. -It was fortunate for the inhabitants, but it showed the -deplorable condition of military affairs.</p> - -<p>Boccalino de’ Guzzoni betook himself to Florence, where -he was honourably received, and Lorenzo was commissioned -to pay him the greater part of the sum allotted to him, of -which he had received 1,000 ducats on his departure. But -there were other difficulties to contend with, and Lorenzo’s -letters to Giovanni Lanfredini, the ambassador at Rome, -show how indignant he was at the delay in fulfilling the -promises made him from thence, and how he feared to be -compromised by this delay. As the promised money did -not arrive and Boccalino pressed for payment, Lorenzo advanced -him 500 ducats and charged the ambassador to see -to the settlement of the matter. ‘I do not believe,’ he -wrote to Lanfredini,’<a name="FNanchor_306_306" id="FNanchor_306_306"></a><a href="#Footnote_306_306" class="fnanchor">[306]</a> that the Pope is by nature spiteful or -quarrelsome. But even if he were so, which I have never -observed, he ought not to be so towards me. Try to arrange -the matter, for I should regret the least stain on my honour -more than life or all else that is dear to me on earth. Make -no secret of it that, if no regard is paid to my honour, I -shall make no scruple of showing my displeasure. I cannot -believe it, but shall act according to experience.’ The -Florentines seemed to expect that Boccalino would settle -among them and claim the freedom of the city, in which -they were willing to help him; they also offered him a -military post in their service. After staying awhile, however, -he went to Milan, whence Lodovico, who disliked -having him in his neighbourhood, got rid of him by force.</p> - -<p>When Lorenzo performed this service for the Pope, a -family alliance had already been sealed between them. The -course of political events has caused us to lose sight of the<br /> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span>mi pare mettere una gran parte dello honore e fede mia.’<br /> -Medici family since the complications and conflicts which -sprang from the Pazzi conspiracy. The house in the Via -Larga was full of children; besides the three sons, Piero, -Giovanni, and Giuliano, there were four blooming daughters, -Lucrezia, Maddalena, Luigia, and Contessina. Lucrezia, -the eldest of all, was early betrothed to Jacopo Salviati, for -the sake of blotting out the memories of 1478. Luigia, the -third daughter, was the bride of Giovanni de’ Medici, the -younger grandson of Cosimo the Elder’s brother Lorenzo. -When the eldest daughter’s marriage took place in 1487, -her grandmother was dead. Lucrezia Tornabuoni died on -the Feast of the Annunciation, 1482. The loss of his excellent -mother was deeply felt by Lorenzo. ‘My reverence for -your Excellency,’ he wrote on the same day to the Duchess -of Ferrara, Eleonora d’Aragona d’Este,<a name="FNanchor_307_307" id="FNanchor_307_307"></a><a href="#Footnote_307_307" class="fnanchor">[307]</a> ‘commands me to -announce to you the sad and overwhelming event which has -this day befallen me, the death of my dearest mother -Madonna Lucrezia. It has plunged me in a grief which -your Excellency can imagine, for I have lost, not only my -mother, but my only refuge amid my many cares and difficulties, -the only helper who could aid and counsel me in my -many troubles. It is true that we must submit with patience -to the will of God, but I have not enough strength of mind -to bear such a calamity with calmness. I pray God to send -me more composure and comfort, and to grant peace and -blessedness to her soul. Your Excellency, towards whom I -give free course to my sorrow, will understand the state of -mind of your faithful servant, who commends himself to you -as heartily as he can.’</p> - -<p>It is self-evident that Lorenzo had to consider his peculiar -position in planning the future connections of his children -as they grew up. He strove to reconcile the political needs -of this position with the traditions of the country, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span> -were against foreign marriages. The family alliance which -he formed between the Medici and the Cybò has this peculiarity, -that in this case, for the first time, the son of a Pope -was in some degree recognised and brought on the political -stage, the sad beginning of a grievous error in the history of -the Popedom. Before the middle of March, 1487, Giovanni -Lanfredini went to Rome to arrange preliminaries for a -contract of marriage between Lorenzo’s second daughter, -Maddalena, and Franceschetto Cybò, son of Innocent VIII.<a name="FNanchor_308_308" id="FNanchor_308_308"></a><a href="#Footnote_308_308" class="fnanchor">[308]</a> -On the 22nd Lorenzo publicly announced ‘the family connection -concluded with me by his Holiness.’ The allies, -Naples and Milan, had been informed of the negotiations in -question. Lorenzo attached especial importance to the -king’s approval, because there had once been a project of -marriage between Franceschetto and a daughter of Ferrante, -and it was not till he had made sure of the latter’s -agreement that he formally concluded the contract with -Rome, or even discussed the matter with the Florentine -magistrates, to whom he submitted it for approval. ‘Our -opinion of the illustrious Lorenzo,’ so run Ferrante’s instructions -addressed, on May 1, to Trojano de’ Bottuni, -who was going as ambassador to Rome, Florence, and -Milan,<a name="FNanchor_309_309" id="FNanchor_309_309"></a><a href="#Footnote_309_309" class="fnanchor">[309]</a> ‘is so firmly established that the whole world could -produce no change in us. Wish him joy of the new connection, -which, in my opinion, is likely to be no less useful -to us than to him; for his influence on the Pope will operate -favourably to smooth the misunderstandings between his -Holiness and ourselves, and we only regret not having -known of the plan earlier that we might immediately have -given it our full agreement.’</p> - -<p>‘Now may God guide all for the best,’ wrote Lorenzo -to the Florentine ambassador at Naples,<a name="FNanchor_310_310" id="FNanchor_310_310"></a><a href="#Footnote_310_310" class="fnanchor">[310]</a> ‘and give me -grace that the thing may benefit ourselves and others, and -be for our personal and the general advantage. Such things<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span> -are wont to be judged by their results more than by the rules -of reason.’ And he adds these honourable words: ‘As the -king wishes that the new connection shall have no disturbing -influence on our alliance, I give my word that this connection -shall not make me other than I was; for I have -never been so exclusively and passionately interested in my -own private affairs as to forget public honour or that which -beseems a straightforward and honest man. I believe the -king considers me as such, and he may be sure that if the -Pope should intend anything that might disturb peace I -should be the first to resist him. I know where to seek the -foundation of things, and what difficulties arise from the -daily events which go on gradually evolving themselves. I -think I have with no little trouble, care, and expense proved -my devotion to the king, and he may be sure that I shall -not sacrifice a substance to a shadow.’</p> - -<p>Franceschetto Cybò has left no brilliant name in the -history of his father’s pontificate. He is supposed to have -been born in 1449 at Naples, where Giambattista Cybò—then -only seventeen—was living with his father Arano before -taking holy orders. When the father became Pope, Franceschetto -had a sister, Teodorina, who married into the -Usodimare family of Genoa. The mother’s name and rank -are unknown, and of Franceschetto himself nothing is -known till the time when he made this sudden appearance -on the world’s stage. He naturally was in no want of external -honours. He was made governor of Rome and -captain-general of the Church; his brother-in-law, Leo X., -afterwards gave him the government of Spoleto, and he was -made a count of the Empire by the Emperor Frederic. -Fiefs were added to his titles. But he was without talent, -at once greedy of gain and a careless spendthrift. One -night, when taking part in the disorderly doings of some -young nobles, he lost 14,000 ducats at play to Cardinal -Raffaelle Riario. When the Pope lay in a seemingly hopeless -condition, struck by apoplexy, his son tried to get possession<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span> -of his treasures; the result of which attempt was -that the cardinals made an inventory of them and entrusted -one of their own college with the care of them, though it -was said that Franceschetto had already managed to convey -a portion safely to Florence. His bride was still so young -that the marriage was put off. In the interval many things -happened which might have tempted Lorenzo to change his -mind, but for his earnest desire to gain a hold on Rome and -his hope of dominating the weak Pope, which was strengthened -by the events of 1487.</p> - -<p>Only a few weeks after the conclusion of the treaty -disputes again arose between the Church and Naples, when -Aquila was subdued, the papal governor put to death, and -the papal banner torn down. An outbreak of persecution -against the barons increased the disagreement, and then the -king broke his word to the Pope by denying that either he -or his son had consented to pay the actual tribute. The -management of benefices went on in the usual arbitrary -manner. Innocent saw himself and his authority openly -set at naught. In January 1487, the Prince of Salerno, who -had quitted the kingdom before the net could be drawn tight -round him, arrived at Rome, where he was received with all -honours.<a name="FNanchor_311_311" id="FNanchor_311_311"></a><a href="#Footnote_311_311" class="fnanchor">[311]</a> His report of the proceedings added fuel to the -flame. Lodovico il Moro, who was always playing a double -game, declared himself unreservedly in opposition to the -king—with whom he was nevertheless at that moment treating -for the marriage of his nephew Gian Galeazzo—and held -out a threat of Venice taking part with the Pope, all of -which did not dispose Innocent to regard Ferrante’s conduct -calmly. The king soon discovered that his position was one -of some danger. On May 1, he sent Trojano de’ Bottuni as -envoy-extraordinary to Rome, Florence, and Milan.<a name="FNanchor_312_312" id="FNanchor_312_312"></a><a href="#Footnote_312_312" class="fnanchor">[312]</a> He -was to make the most of the undecided affair of Osimo and -the services therein rendered to the Pope; to put prominently<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span> -forward the danger from the Turks; to explain the king’s -financial difficulties caused by the long-continued wars; and -to appeal to Lorenzo and Lodovico for support in case of -invasion. All this was mere show. If the Pope proved -obstinate the ambassador was instructed to explain that the -tribute was a formality rather than a contribution of money. -The king did not hold himself bound to the Pope, and he -had never ratified the consent given to the treaty of peace. -Moreover, the conditions of this peace had not been fulfilled -by his barons, and after the Pope had brought him into -endless difficulties and dangers, he was in nowise minded to -weaken his own forces still further in order to elevate his -Holiness. As for the Duke of Bari’s threat about Venice, -the ambassador might take the opinions of the Florentine -Signoria and Lorenzo, and try if possible to obtain a written -promise of help. The conduct of the barons had required -renewed and severer measures; their discontent greatly -astonished the king, as it would only bring trouble on the -Pope and the Venetians, and perhaps occasion a more -troublesome disaffection than the last. He relied entirely -on Florence and Lorenzo; the whole world should -not be able to change his opinion of the latter. Gioviano -Pontano, the same man who had made the treaty -with the Pope, drew up by the king’s orders instructions -which repudiated all the obligations undertaken at the -peace.</p> - -<p>Ferrante was not mistaken in his expectation that -Lorenzo would do all in his power to prevent another conflagration; -but he was very much mistaken if he believed, -as he pretended to believe, that Lorenzo approved of his -proceedings. On his return from Sarzana, free at last from -that care, Lorenzo spoke out unreservedly his opinion respecting -his allies. He must have been angry indeed when -he, the true representative of Italian national policy, in his -delight at the progress of the French arms against Maximilian -in Flanders went so far as to declare that he still<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span> -hoped to see the king of France lord of all Italy.<a name="FNanchor_313_313" id="FNanchor_313_313"></a><a href="#Footnote_313_313" class="fnanchor">[313]</a> ‘This -shows,’ adds the Ferrarese ambassador, ‘how greatly his -Magnificence is put out; may God turn his heart to the -best.’ ‘The arrest of the barons,’ reports the same writer, -July 11, ‘has greatly displeased not only the illustrious -Lorenzo but also the whole city, and it is spoken of to the -king’s dishonour.’ The annexation of Genoa to Milan, and -the losses of Venice in the war with Archduke Sigismund -(so thought the ambassador), would probably incline the -Signoria to extreme caution, but Lorenzo’s expressions -against Lodovico, whom he regarded as the real disturber of -peace, were most violent. If the Duke of Bari continued -his crooked policy, Lorenzo believed the end would be that -the King of Naples would lay down the law for both Florence -and the Pope. If they both acted reasonably they would -keep together like their fathers before them and not plunge -Italy into danger. Lorenzo said he wished he could go and -bury himself for six months in some place where no rumour -of Italian affairs could reach his ears.</p> - -<p>Lorenzo’s ill-humour and anxiety is displayed in the -many letters written by him at this time to Lanfredini. It -was necessary, he wrote on July 17,<a name="FNanchor_314_314" id="FNanchor_314_314"></a><a href="#Footnote_314_314" class="fnanchor">[314]</a> that the Pope should -make sure of the attitude of Venice, but at the same time -take up a firm position, that he might not be suspected of -believing the king’s assurances that his proceedings against -the barons had been occasioned by their conduct since the -peace; for that suspicion would deprive him of all firm -security. Ten days after, he expressed his irritation at the -double-dealing of Sforza, who, pressed by the Neapolitan -envoy, wrote at the same time letters to his brother the -cardinal in favour of the king, and others to his agent in -Rome in agreement with the Papal views. The object of -Sforza’s apparent partisanship with Ferrante was probably<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span> -to hinder the latter from forming an alliance with Venice if -he saw Florence and Milan arrayed against him. But the -first thing to be done was for all the Italian States to stand -fast by the Pope and show no wavering. ‘Certainly all -desire peace, but I think no one will suffer the Pope to be -insulted and oppressed.’</p> - -<p>The king’s defence of his proceedings convinced nobody. -In the latter half of July, Innocent held a consistory on the -condition of affairs in Naples. The whole college of Cardinals -agreed with him that the honour of the Holy See no -longer permitted him to look on unmoved. Letters were to -be written concerning the breach of the treaty to the King -of Spain, to Milan and Florence, who had guaranteed its -fulfilment. A nuncio was to be sent to Naples to protest, -and, in case the barons had recently failed in their duty, to -move for proper legal proceedings against them, with the -participation of the Pope. Instructions to this effect were -drawn up on July 24 for Pietro Vicentino, bishop of Cesena.<a name="FNanchor_315_315" id="FNanchor_315_315"></a><a href="#Footnote_315_315" class="fnanchor">[315]</a> -But the king treated the nuncio in the most unworthy manner.<a name="FNanchor_316_316" id="FNanchor_316_316"></a><a href="#Footnote_316_316" class="fnanchor">[316]</a> -He refused him an audience; and when the bishop, -having watched the moment when Ferrante was starting for -the chase, stopped him in the doorway and compelled him -to listen to his demands, he gained nothing by it. He demanded -in the Pope’s name three things; payment of the -tribute, abstinence from all unlawful meddling in spiritual -affairs, and the cessation of proceedings against the barons. -To the first point Ferrante answered that he had no money, -having spent everything on the war begun against him by -the Pope, so that the latter must still be patient for a few -years. To the second, that <i>he</i> knew what persons in the -kingdom were fit for benefices, but the Curia did not, and it -was sufficient for the Pope to confirm those appointed by the -King. Lastly, as to the third point; as the Pope had upon -treasonable practices imprisoned Cardinals Colonna and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span> -Savelli, and set them free again at his own will and pleasure, -so the king had a right to arrest traitorous subjects and let -them go again just as he thought good. Thereupon he -caused the horns to be blown and rode away to the chase, -without even turning to salute the bishop. ‘If I have lately -been silent as to the Neapolitan business,’ wrote Lorenzo to -Lanfredini on August 10,<a name="FNanchor_317_317" id="FNanchor_317_317"></a><a href="#Footnote_317_317" class="fnanchor">[317]</a> ‘the reason is not that I have -changed my mind, but that I will take no more trouble -for nothing. If his Holiness has confidence in me, as you -say, it is my duty to regard only his Holiness’s honour. -The more I think over the matter, the more I am confirmed -in my view, that the Pope must neither yield his rights to -the king nor make war upon him. The way to avoid both -extremes seems to me to be this: that the Pope should -without delay take every measure to maintain his rights as -to the question of homage, but on the other hand avoid -everything that might lead to a passage of arms or to an -interdict. We are not in a fit condition for making war, -and the circumstances of Italy in general, as well as those of -the States of the Church in especial, will not sustain a shock. -An interdict unsupported by arms produces little effect; -therefore I think for the present the matter is best left -alone. But this would not be the case if the Pope gave in -about the tribute, whether by diminishing or remitting the -debt; for at this moment it would do no good, and be a -clear loss. If the king attaches to this affair the importance -he seems to do, then, should a concession be needed, a time -more favourable to the Pope’s interests could be found. I -do not in the least fear that because the Papal rights are -upheld, the king will proceed to a hostile demonstration. -He would stand without justification, and others would not -support him. This is my opinion, expressed only for the -Pope himself; for it is better for our object that I should -appear to be persuading him to come to terms with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span> -king. My lord Lodovico and many others hold the same -view. If the Pope agrees, he must manage so as not to get -me and others into trouble, but wait for time and opportunity.’ -The attitude of Venice confirmed Lorenzo still -more in his view that Rome must not push matters to an -extremity. ‘The Venetians’ answer,’ he wrote on August -31, ‘seems to me to be very vague and gives little response -to the confidence placed in the Republic by his Holiness. I -think it would be well if the Pope showed some little vexation -at it, without exactly taking the thing really amiss, -particularly with regard to their war with the Germans, and -the defeat and death of my lord Roberto [Sanseverino]. In -any case, however, they must be impressed with the king’s -power, and the ease with which he could damage the States -of the Church, so as to get their views in case of such an -event, and find out how far they may be reckoned on. It -would at the same time be an opportunity for urging them -to peace with the Germans; for, in truth, all sorts of evil -fruits arise from their being busy in that quarter; and I -think the Pope would do well to exhort the Venetians to -make peace, and to support them, that they may regain -freedom of action.’</p> - -<p>Thus did Lorenzo look to the distant as well as the immediate -prospect. But Innocent VIII. was not the man to -take up a firm position; he let himself be ruled by momentary -impulses. On September 3, Gian Jacopo Trivulzio, -loaded with honours by the Pope after the settlement of the -Osimo affair, on his return to Milan came to Florence; here -he was splendidly received by the foreign ambassadors and -many distinguished citizens, with Piero de’ Medici at their -head, and lodged in the convent of Sta. Croce. The cardinal -of S. Peter in Vinculis was with him. Lorenzo was at Pisa. -Trivulzio was commissioned by the Pope to tell him that he -trusted entirely to him, and would be guided by him; but if -he guided him amiss it would be the ruin of both. And -hereupon the Pope broke into violent complaints against the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span> -king. But the Milanese captain’s account of Innocent was -not such as to strengthen the confidence of the Republic in -him. ‘Messer Gian Jacopo,’ wrote the Ferrarese ambassador, -‘tells of the Pope’s faint-heartedness and want of -head and spirit, and that he acts after the fashion of an utter -simpleton;’ and adds that ‘if somebody does not put a little -spirit into him and keep him alive, he will come to a most -pitiful end.’ On the 6th the news reached Florence that -the king had appealed to the council. Though Innocent -regarded the appeal as null, and declared it contrary to -Ferrante’s own agreements with his predecessor, still it was -believed that the threat would frighten him.<a name="FNanchor_318_318" id="FNanchor_318_318"></a><a href="#Footnote_318_318" class="fnanchor">[318]</a> This, however, -proved a mistake.</p> - -<p>About the beginning of the second week in September -Lorenzo went from Pisa to the hill-country of Volterra, -where he had an estate on the heights that slope down towards -the lower part of the Era valley; a district beautifully -cultivated, but less fertile than the valley of the Arno. This -estate had been during the thirteenth century a settlement -of the Hospitaliers of Altopascio, and had thence taken the -name of Spedaletto.<a name="FNanchor_319_319" id="FNanchor_319_319"></a><a href="#Footnote_319_319" class="fnanchor">[319]</a> Here Lorenzo was wont to take the -waters of Morba, brought to him daily by messengers on -horseback; for Spedaletto was more healthily situated and -more convenient for communication. Hither, on September -10, just as he had despatched Francesco Valori with commissions -to Naples, recommending him to consult with -Lanfredini at Rome, there arrived at his residence a Papal -secretary who had vainly sought for him at Pisa. This was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span> -Jacopo Gherardi of Volterra, sent by Innocent with secret -commissions to Lorenzo and Lodovico.<a name="FNanchor_320_320" id="FNanchor_320_320"></a><a href="#Footnote_320_320" class="fnanchor">[320]</a> The object of the -interview was to draw both, together with Venice, into a -formal league against King Ferrante. Lorenzo’s reception -of the Pope’s proposals shows that he, who, notwithstanding -his friendship and connection with Innocent, had anything -but a high opinion of the latter’s political tact and firmness, -was anxious not to risk the peace of Italy, attained with so -much difficulty. However much he might be angered by -Ferrante’s faithlessness and violence, yet the weakness of -the Pope, the trickery of Sforza, and the ambition of Venice -caused him such grave anxiety that he determined to ward -off a new conflict as much as possible. He held to the views -expressed to Lanfredini, and warned the Pope against using -either his spiritual or temporal power in arms. The Papal -treasury was exhausted, the armed force slight, there was -no good leader at hand equal to the responsibility, nor -would it be easy to find one; the king was prepared, the inhabitants -of the States of the Church were not at unity -among themselves, and many were discontented. Neither -was there harmony in the College of Cardinals. The circumstances -of the Pope and his State were not such that -he ought to enter on a fresh war; the interests of all the -other Italian States demanded peace. As for honour, which -in Innocent’s opinion was endangered by the conduct of -the king, Lorenzo thought that a Pope’s honour could never -be endangered through his defending his rights by means of -just protestations, without disturbing the peace of Italy.</p> - -<p>Lorenzo’s advice was that the Papal envoy should not -proceed to Milan. But the Pope insisted, and Lorenzo, with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span> -his permission, drew up for Gherardi’s benefit fresh instructions -which would prevent any real engagement, however -much Sforza might wish to meddle. These negotiations -continued till the end of the first week in October. Who -would believe that while the bow was so tightly strung and -the danger of a rupture was hovering nearer and nearer, the -king, who was openly defying the Pope and seeking to defend -his own conduct by embassies to all the allied courts, -proposed to this same Pope a special alliance, which was to -put an end to all differences? Yet so it was, and the Bishop -of Carinola came to Rome with such a proposition. The -Pope informed the Florentine ambassador of it, and gave -him a copy of the bishop’s instructions. Lorenzo already -knew of the matter, but was in doubt as to the views of -Innocent. He spoke out plainly, in his answer to Lanfredini, -intended for communication to the Pope,<a name="FNanchor_321_321" id="FNanchor_321_321"></a><a href="#Footnote_321_321" class="fnanchor">[321]</a> his own -opinion—that the king only intended to mislead the Pope -and keep him occupied, while he himself kept to the course -he had begun; and all the more so, because the instructions -contained nothing but generalities. Secondly, Ferrante -might be trying to separate the Pope from him, Lorenzo, -well knowing that then he could do as he pleased with the -former. Lastly, his object was to make sure whether the -Pope stood firm to his resolves and counted on foreign support. -‘As for me,’ he continued, ‘you know I will never -advise his Holiness to do anything unworthy of him, or -which may disturb the peace of Italy. But as I warned the -holy father through you, only a little while ago, not to build -on hopes of foreign help, so I am now of opinion that he -must not let himself be turned by what seems to me fair -words and figures of speech from a design which he considers -reasonable. If his Holiness is minded to come to -terms with the king, in order to put out this spark which -may light a great fire, then I think it can be done by means<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span> -of a general Italian alliance. From such I should expect -three results. First, a vindication of the agreement between -the Pope and the king, so that the first would appear to -postpone his own interest to the general good and the -tranquillity of Italy. Secondly, greater security for the -king’s fidelity to the treaty, which the Pope must require -after the experience he has had. Thirdly, a confirmation of -the good understanding with the other Italian powers, particularly -with Venice; which understanding would be endangered -if the Pope should close with the king alone.’ The -whole despatch is a clear proof how little confidence the -writer felt, on the one hand, in the Pope’s firmness, and on -the other in Ferrante’s honour, and how his own desire to -preserve peace outweighed everything else. He requested -the ambassador to do all he could with Innocent, at whose -court there was no lack of intrigues and counter-intrigues, -that the king might not be led to suspect him, Lorenzo, of -opposing an accommodation, which suspicion would damage -his own position with Ferrante; but this was the fruit of -oft-repeated experience. That he should try to keep in the -Pope’s good graces was only natural. ‘My first desire,’ he -wrote, ‘is to agree with the views of the holy father. This -is my duty, rather than to give him advice. For I believe -the Pope to be more conversant with the things of this -world than the king’s instructions seem to assume; and he -has reigned long enough not to need directions from the -king as to his bearing towards us and others.’</p> - -<p>During all this negotiating backwards and forwards, Lodovico -il Moro, who was a person to be considered in the matter, -had fallen seriously ill. In August 1487, he was seized with -such an alarming disorder of the stomach that the Duke of -Ferrara expressed a wish that Lorenzo would send to Milan -his own physician, Piero Leone, who was considered the -most skilful man of his time. In November, Sforza’s condition -was so much worse that the friends of the family -summoned his only living brother, the Cardinal Ascanio, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span> -order to be prepared to take his place if he died. On -November 18, the Cardinal came through Florence incognito, -with a few horsemen, and in such haste that he changed -horses at every post. Lorenzo and he had not always -agreed well together; but now he said that he would, in -case of need, support him, and try to go hand in hand with -him and the Pope. The danger in which Lodovico lay -passed slowly by. The Papal affair made no progress at all. -Venice, having made peace with Sigismund, threatened war -against Naples; Milan let King Ferrante know that he -must not reckon on her alliance if he did not alter his conduct -towards Rome; the king persisted in his defiance and -in his measures against the barons; the Pope tried to make -money, and threatened him with an interdict. Lorenzo, -highly displeased at the whole state of affairs, did all in his -power to restrain Innocent from taking the extreme steps -he meditated.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER VII.</h2> - -<p class="pch">FAMILY EVENTS. MARRIAGES AND DEATHS.</p> - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">The</span> marriage of Maddalena de’ Medici with Franceschetto -Cybò took place about this time. When her journey to -Rome was partially decided on, Lorenzo wrote to Lanfredini,<a name="FNanchor_322_322" id="FNanchor_322_322"></a><a href="#Footnote_322_322" class="fnanchor">[322]</a> -without making any positive statement on the subject: -‘Clarice, my wife, is partly minded to visit her relations -there, and at the same time to try the effect of the Roman -air, as you know that of our neighbourhood does not suit -her in winter. You formerly mentioned a desire that -Maddalena should go to Rome. If this is still the case, she -might conveniently accompany her mother. These are our -own present plans, which you can communicate to the Pope -and Signor Francesco. If they are pleased with them, the -thing shall take place, but not otherwise.’ On November 4, -1487, Madonna Clarice set out for Rome with her daughter -the bride, her eldest son, the Bishop of Arezzo, Jacopo Salviati, -and a numerous suite. Lorenzo did not omit to give -his daughter on her departure from home precepts and advice -such as he knew how to give wisely and well. He reminded -her of her own descent and family, as well as of the -position she was about to take; of the consideration due -both to the Roman people and to the Pope, with whom -she was to be so nearly connected; of her duty towards her -husband; of the precepts of honour and obedience, and of -respect to her elders and superiors in rank. On arriving<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span> -near the city the travellers were met by the bridegroom, -with some prelates of the Pope’s household, several ambassadors -and members of the Florentine colony at Rome, amid -whom they were conducted to the Leonine city. Here -Franceschetto dwelt in a house built by his uncle Maurigio, -near that in which Charlotte de Lusignan, queen of Cyprus, -had died after a long exile, on June 12 of that same year. -The servants of the prelates and those of the ambassadors -and the Medici rode foremost. On Franceschetto’s right -rode his future brother-in-law, Piero, on his left, Jacopo -Salviati, with whom he was to be similarly connected. The -bride rode between the Archbishop of Cosenza and the -Bishop of Oria, her mother between the Milanese ambassador -(the Bishop of Roveredo) and the Bishop of Volterra. -Prelates, jurists, ladies and others followed.<a name="FNanchor_323_323" id="FNanchor_323_323"></a><a href="#Footnote_323_323" class="fnanchor">[323]</a> On the Sunday -before the 24th, the day on which the Venetian envoys -Sebastiano Badoer and Bernardo Bembo were received in a -secret consistory, the Pope gave a banquet at his palace to -Clarice and her daughter, at which the bridegroom, the -Florentine ambassador, and several prelates were present. -To the bride he presented jewels to the value of about eight -thousand ducats, to Franceschetto, one of two thousand.<a name="FNanchor_324_324" id="FNanchor_324_324"></a><a href="#Footnote_324_324" class="fnanchor">[324]</a> On -January 20, 1488, the marriage contract was signed.<a name="FNanchor_325_325" id="FNanchor_325_325"></a><a href="#Footnote_325_325" class="fnanchor">[325]</a> Franceschetto -was in his thirty-ninth year; his bride was yet in -her girlhood, gentle and bashful. One of those sent by her -father to accompany her always calls her <i>la fanciulla</i>. Her -dowry does not seem to have been large; four thousand -ducats, part in cash, part in state bonds. From a letter of -Lorenzo to Lanfredini,<a name="FNanchor_326_326" id="FNanchor_326_326"></a><a href="#Footnote_326_326" class="fnanchor">[326]</a> it appears that this sum was not -ready at the time of the wedding. ‘You know how many<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span> -holes I have to fill up.’ But Franceschetto was no loser. -In the days of Paul II. the countship of Anguillara had been -taken from its ancient lords, on account of their repeated -rebellions, and given to the Apostolic Chamber. The relatives -of Everso of Anguillara had never ceased to protest, -and we have already pointed out that after the death of -Sixtus IV. Deifebo regained possession of the castles. -Lorenzo made terms with the claimants by means of a considerable -sum, and offered the county to Cybò as an addition -to Maddalena’s dowry; whereupon, on February 21, -1490, Innocent VIII. conferred on Franceschetto the fief of -Anguillara, without mentioning the transaction, so as not -to call in question the rights of the Chamber. In 1487 -Franceschetto had bought of Bartolommeo della Rovere the -Roman castles of Cerveteri and Sta. Severa.<a name="FNanchor_327_327" id="FNanchor_327_327"></a><a href="#Footnote_327_327" class="fnanchor">[327]</a> These places, -alienated after the Pope’s death to the Orsini of Bracciano, -were, at the beginning of Alexander VI.’s reign, near kindling -a war which threatened to set all Italy on fire. This -was not all the wealth that the Cybò gained by their -connection with the Medici. In Tuscany they acquired -property. The palace of Jacopo de’ Pazzi passed to Lorenzo’s -son-in-law, whose descendants long possessed both it and -the country-house of the Pazzi at Montughi.<a name="FNanchor_328_328" id="FNanchor_328_328"></a><a href="#Footnote_328_328" class="fnanchor">[328]</a> The Medici’s -estate in the Volterra district, which also passed to the -Cybò, has been already mentioned. The intended acquisition -of the unfinished Pitti Palace came to nothing.</p> - -<p>Lorenzo, who always knew how to combine his love of -splendour with useful aims, and judged others from the -same point of view, had no very high opinion of his son-in-law.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span> -‘As you have before heard from me,’ he wrote to -Lanfredini before the marriage on November 4, 1487, when -Franceschetto had got himself made captain-general,<a name="FNanchor_329_329" id="FNanchor_329_329"></a><a href="#Footnote_329_329" class="fnanchor">[329]</a> ‘I -think Signor Francesco should not pursue mere smoke; -things without moderation do not suit me. A captain ought -to have seen service and made himself a reputation. I wish -he had rather sought to secure a maintenance, and I wonder -it does not strike him that the day after the Pope dies he -will be the poorest man on earth, and I shall have to provide -for him and his wife. Endeavour to make this clear to him -if you see that he hankers after titles and vanities; I must -speak to him freely and then help him, however he may take -it. I hear he keeps aloof from frivolous people and those of -evil report, and that he avoids play. We must support him -as much as possible, and lovingly point out to him what is -becoming, if we are to fulfil our duty.’ Lorenzo did not -wish his son to remain in Rome longer than was absolutely -necessary. On December 9, he wrote to his wife desiring -that Piero should return with the bishop and Jacopo Salviati -as soon as he had despatched certain business of his own, -of which more will be said hereafter. Piero returned to -Florence, the bishop remained. Lorenzo wrote repeatedly -to Clarice leaving the length of her stay to her own decision, -but expressing a wish, towards the end of the winter, that -she might stay somewhat longer.<a name="FNanchor_330_330" id="FNanchor_330_330"></a><a href="#Footnote_330_330" class="fnanchor">[330]</a> Everything did not go -according to Lorenzo’s wishes. The elevation of his son -Giovanni to the cardinalate, undoubtedly one of the motives -for the match, was delayed; Clarice was ill; and the home -arrangements of the Cybò seem not to have suited Florentine -and Medicean ideas. ‘I have received,’ wrote Lorenzo to -Lanfredini on April 11, 1488,<a name="FNanchor_331_331" id="FNanchor_331_331"></a><a href="#Footnote_331_331" class="fnanchor">[331]</a> ‘your information about -Clarice, and am grieved at it, though her ill-health is nothing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span> -new to me. I have informed her of the cause which -will somewhat delay Piero’s departure from here, but let her -not trouble herself about it if she wishes to return here -sooner, though I should be glad if she could wait for Alfonsina -[Piero’s bride]. I wish Maddalena might come with -her, for the latter is still quite a child, and Signor Francesco’s -household is badly managed; and, besides, she would be a -comfort to Clarice. But I should wish this to be done with -the full consent and without the slightest dissatisfaction of -his Holiness or Signor Francesco, and I should take it as a -favour.’ And after recurring to the insecure position of his -son-in-law, he adds: ‘His Holiness seems to me to go to -work with great lukewarmness in all these things. Independently -of Signor Francesco I also regret that my -daughter should find herself in unfavourable circumstances, -and I am in a kind of despair over this and other matters -when I hear of the slowness and carelessness yonder.’</p> - -<p>Madonna Clarice stayed in Rome till May 1488, when -her son Piero came with Giovanni Tornabuoni to fetch her -back. From a letter written to Lorenzo by their companion -Poliziano, on May 2,<a name="FNanchor_332_332" id="FNanchor_332_332"></a><a href="#Footnote_332_332" class="fnanchor">[332]</a> it appears that on that day Piero set -out from Acquapendente to Viterbo, and that the travellers -were all in good health and spirits and did not forget to -celebrate the merry month of May with songs and various -amusements on their journey. Piero’s expedition had also -another object, he was going to bring home his own bride. -On April 16 Lorenzo wrote to Lanfredini:<a name="FNanchor_333_333" id="FNanchor_333_333"></a><a href="#Footnote_333_333" class="fnanchor">[333]</a> ‘My Piero -starts in a few days to go and fetch his wife, and also to -help Clarice. If the latter is able to travel I shall be very -glad.’ As well as an unknown son-in-law Lorenzo had -chosen an unknown daughter-in-law; but she came of a -family which had long been intimately associated with his -and had many relations with the Republic, at the same time -enjoying the special favour of the ruling house of Naples.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span> -Alfonsina Orsini was the daughter of a man who had preserved -and displayed his loyalty to the house of Aragon -when most of his own people were in the enemy’s camp. -Roberto Orsini was a younger son of that Carlo from whom -sprang the line of Bracciano, afterwards the principal branch -of this wide-spreading race. He had fought for King -Ferrante against the Angevins, and for the Florentines -against Bartolommeo Colleone, and died of sickness at Siena -in 1476. One of his children by his second marriage with -Caterina da Sanseverino was Alfonsina, thus named in -honour of Aragon. She was married by proxy at Castelnuovo -towards the end of February 1487, in presence of the -royal pair and other members of the reigning family. Ferrante -laid aside his family mourning on this day, and after -supper there was a festival and a ball. The bridegroom was -represented by Bernardo Rucellai; the bride’s next of kin by -her cousin Gentil Virginio, lord of Bracciano. Alfonsina -brought a dowry of 12,000 ducats, which popular belief -magnified to 30,000.<a name="FNanchor_334_334" id="FNanchor_334_334"></a><a href="#Footnote_334_334" class="fnanchor">[334]</a> A whole year passed before Piero -brought her home. Her entry into Florence was to have -taken place on May 22, 1488, but the Medici family were -in mourning for the death of the third daughter, Luigia; so, -instead of coming to the city, the young couple went to -Careggi. About ten days afterwards Lorenzo gave, in -honour of his daughter-in-law and her suite, a grand -banquet, at which the chief men of the city and the foreign -ambassadors were present.<a name="FNanchor_335_335" id="FNanchor_335_335"></a><a href="#Footnote_335_335" class="fnanchor">[335]</a></p> - -<p>There was no lack of festivities in Florence, and the -Medici contributed not a little to their splendour. Maddalena -Cybò came with her mother and sister-in-law; Franceschetto -followed her on June 22. He was accompanied by -Giorgio Santacroce of an old Roman family, Girolamo -Tuttavilla, son of Cardinal d’Estouteville, and many others.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span> -‘We received him,’ wrote Lorenzo to Lanfredini two days -after,<a name="FNanchor_336_336" id="FNanchor_336_336"></a><a href="#Footnote_336_336" class="fnanchor">[336]</a> ‘heartily rather than splendidly. Yesterday he made -a visit to the Signoria; his appearance, bearing, and mode -of speech give general satisfaction. As yet I have been -little alone with him. I will endeavour to fulfil the Pope’s -wishes; you will then report to me what he thinks of us on -this first meeting. I will take care that he finds occasion to -come to us often.’ The Florentines helped Lorenzo in this. In -honour of his son-in-law’s presence numerous diversions for -the people and magnificent spectacles were arranged. It -was long since Florence had beheld such triumphal processions, -such improvised buildings, arches, and other decorations, -though they had long been customary there. Franceschetto, -who had been presented with the freedom of the city, -did all he could to make himself popular, and succeeded. -When he rode through the streets on the feast of St. John -the children shouted, ‘Cybò and Palle!’ From the piazza -of the Signoria to that of the cathedral there was such a -throng that great wax candles and other consecrated gifts -could not be carried to the Baptistery; and when the street -officials tried to clear a space, the people cried out that they -wanted to see Lorenzo’s son-in-law, the Pope’s son. Franceschetto -occupied the place of honour next to the Gonfalonier -at the public banquet given by the Signoria to the -distinguished nobles who were in the city and the foreign -ambassadors, among whom, besides those of the friendly -Italian powers, the Turkish envoy was present. Giovanni -Tornabuoni, Bernardo Rucellai, Lorenzo, son of Pier-Francesco -de’ Medici, and others, gave banquets and festivities; -the latter gave one at his villa at Castello, situated to -the west of the city on a gentle slope overlooking the valley -of the Arno where it spreads out into a beautiful plain. -Lorenzo saw his daughter and son-in-law daily. But throughout -all the rejoicings of which his house was the centre, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span> -was not free from cares of all kinds. The bad state of -affairs in Romagna will be mentioned presently; in his -own home there were other causes for discomfort and -anxiety.</p> - -<p>Lorenzo himself was ill and overwhelmed with business. -Ser Piero da Bibiena wrote to Lanfredini on June 26:<a name="FNanchor_337_337" id="FNanchor_337_337"></a><a href="#Footnote_337_337" class="fnanchor">[337]</a> -‘Lorenzo has ridden out to Monte Paldi [a factory now -belonging to the Corsini, in the neighbourhood of San -Casciano] to get a little air and freedom from this mass of -business. For two months he had not left the city; he -intends to be back on Saturday.’ A few days before this -the Ferrarese ambassador wrote that Lorenzo positively -must go to the baths, but it was very difficult for him to get -away. His own health was not his only trouble; for a long -time past Clarice had been ill. It was hoped that native air -would do her good, but not only did her condition not improve, -but, even before her return from Rome, it became -such as to cause anxiety; and the interior of the household -must have been little suited to the festivities occasioned by -the presence of two newly-married couples. The mother -could not bear the thought of parting from her daughter. -‘Signor Francesco,’ wrote Lorenzo to Lanfredini on June -30,<a name="FNanchor_338_338" id="FNanchor_338_338"></a><a href="#Footnote_338_338" class="fnanchor">[338]</a> ‘thinks of setting out in a week, and, as I understand, -taking Maddalena with him. I have not yet spoken of it to -him, but I should be glad if you would mention the matter -to his Holiness and get it arranged that she should remain -here the rest of the summer and autumn. I have two chief -motives for this wish. First, Clarice is very ill, so much so -that the doctors are doubtful whether the disease will soon -end fatally or whether it will drag on and the immediate -danger pass over; secondly, the air yonder is unhealthy, -and Maddalena is not used to it. For these reasons, and -also because I have never yet had time to see my daughter -comfortably, I earnestly beg his Holiness that of his kindness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span> -he will let me have her a few more months and write -to Signor Francesco accordingly, so that the occasion may -not appear to have come from us.’</p> - -<p>Lorenzo’s desire was fulfilled. On July 4, he received -from Rome the news that the Pope had determined to entrust -Franceschetto with a mission to Perugia, and to leave -his wife in Florence for a time. It may easily be imagined -how pleasing this last arrangement was to Lorenzo; the -former seemed rather questionable to the experienced politician. -‘This Perugian affair,’ he wrote at once to Lanfredini,<a name="FNanchor_339_339" id="FNanchor_339_339"></a><a href="#Footnote_339_339" class="fnanchor">[339]</a> -‘seems to me very grave, and such as may create -embarrassment; all the more so as Signor Francesco has had -no practice in such things, and has no one near him to whom -anything important can be entrusted.’ Then, after relating -how he dined the day before with his son-in-law at Careggi, -and they had visited the Petraja and other places, which he -had much liked, he continues: ‘Maddalena will remain here, -to which Signor Francesco seems quite agreed. Clarice -could not be worse than she is now, and I fear we shall soon -lose her. You can imagine what comfort she finds in the -presence of her daughter, who has always seemed to me to -be the apple of her eye (<i>l’occhio del capo suo</i>); so we are -both very grateful to his Holiness. Of myself I say nothing, -for you know how I love my children, especially in the present -case.’</p> - -<p>On July 6, Franceschetto Cybò left Florence. His experiences -at Perugia will be mentioned hereafter. Lorenzo, -though much in need of the baths, was detained in the city -by the weak state of Clarice and the pressure of business. -At last, on the morning of July 21, he set out for Filetta -in the Merse Vale in the Sienese territory. It is a small -village consisting of only a few houses, in a valley surrounded -with woods; the waters of the neighbouring sulphur-springs -of Macereto have been brought thither, and it lies lonely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span> -and deserted on the road leading from Siena to Grosseto -and the Maremma. In the summer of 1813 Emperor Henry -of Luxemburg was carried thither, with the hand of death -upon him; in 1459 Pope Pius II., who repeatedly visited -the waters of his native land, sought relief from his inveterate -enemy the gout in these springs. Scarcely had Lorenzo -arrived at Filetta when the fatal news reached him—Clarice -died on the afternoon of July 30. The day before, Ser Piero -had written to Lanfredini:<a name="FNanchor_340_340" id="FNanchor_340_340"></a><a href="#Footnote_340_340" class="fnanchor">[340]</a> ‘I know not what to tell you -of Madonna Clarice; she gets better for a day or two, and -then gets worse again, so that she is slowly approaching -dissolution.’ The dissolution came much quicker than was -expected, yet it hardly looks well that Lorenzo should leave -the city when her state was so critical, and that he did not -return on hearing that she was worse. ‘If you should hear -Lorenzo blamed for not being present at his wife’s death,’ -wrote Ser Piero to Lanfredini on July 31, ‘excuse him. -Leoni (the physician) considered it necessary for his health -for him to go to the baths, and no one thought death was so -near.’ The Ferrarese ambassador confirms the statement -that, according to the doctors’ advice, Lorenzo’s stay at the -baths was absolutely necessary, and all his friends had entreated -him not to return till the cure was completed. On -the evening after her death Clarice de’ Medici was entombed -without pomp in San Lorenzo, and on the following morning -all the ambassadors present in Florence went to Piero to -offer their condolences. The solemn obsequies, at which the -whole city was present, took place on August 1.<a name="FNanchor_341_341" id="FNanchor_341_341"></a><a href="#Footnote_341_341" class="fnanchor">[341]</a> Lorenzo’s -wife was not quite forty. No notice is to be found in his -writings of the woman who shared the lights and shadows -of life with him for nineteen years; an idea of their conjugal -relations can be formed only from a few words of his in -earlier days, and the inadequate testimony of contemporaries, -which seems to indicate that their views and inclinations<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span> -did not always agree. Clarice’s disagreement with such a -celebrated man as Poliziano has tended to bias the judgment -of her contemporaries against her. Nevertheless, this -daughter of an old Roman baronial house, obliged, when -young and inexperienced, to enter a strange world as the -wife of a man for whom she had no affection, displayed in -all things tact and sound judgment; without putting herself -forward she did honour to her position and her husband, -and she brought up her children tenderly and carefully. -Her feelings and her relations to Lorenzo are indicated, -amongst others, by the following letter, written to her husband -from Caffaggiuolo on December 13 of the year they -were so long separated, 1478, on behalf of a servant who -had been dismissed for some misconduct.<a name="FNanchor_342_342" id="FNanchor_342_342"></a><a href="#Footnote_342_342" class="fnanchor">[342]</a> ‘Illustrious husband,’ -she wrote; ‘Andrea your messenger has been up here -for two days, and earnestly begged me to put in a good word -for him as he is deeply grieved for his fault. I therefore -beg you to keep him with you or procure him another situation; -for, as he has formerly shown his fidelity, you would -be acting contrary to your nature if you did not forgive him -his error, besides being responsible for his falling into worse -ways; also you might inadvertently by this means discourage -others who are faithful to you. He has a mother -who was delighted at his position in your service, and is now -in like measure distressed, fearing that her son may, if you -dismiss him, go astray and bring her to sorrow. He has -already expiated his fault by grief and shame; for, since -you sent him away, he has been like one beside himself and -has never had a moment’s happiness. I think he is especially -touched on the point of honour, which is a good sign -and should have weight with you. I beg you therefore -to be indulgent to him, whether for the sake of his proved -fidelity, or from pity for his mother, or because he shows -right feeling, or, lastly, for the sake of my intercession,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span> -either by taking him back or by providing for him in some -other way.’</p> - -<p>A letter written to Innocent VIII. the day after Clarice’s -death<a name="FNanchor_343_343" id="FNanchor_343_343"></a><a href="#Footnote_343_343" class="fnanchor">[343]</a> displays a warmth of feeling which, after the passages -that have been mentioned, one would hardly have -expected from Lorenzo, and which give a favourable impression -of him: ‘I am too often obliged to trouble your -Holiness with what is daily sent me by fate and prepared -for me by the will of God, against which all striving is vain, -and to which everyone must bow with patience and humility, -accepting His ways as tokens of goodness and love. But -the recent death of my sweet and beloved companion Clarice -is for numberless reasons such a grief and loss to me that it -has conquered my resignation and endurance amid the trials -and persecutions of fate, against which I thought myself -proof. Bereaved of the pleasant society to which I was -accustomed, I feel the limit is passed, and I can find no -comfort or rest for my deep sorrow. As I do not cease to -pray the Lord God to give me peace, I trust that of His -goodness He will put an end to this sorrow and spare me -any more such trials as have visited me lately. I humbly -and from my inmost heart beseech your Holiness to pray for -me, for I know your prayers will do me good. Filetta, July -31.’ August 6, Lorenzo returned to Florence, from whence -he wrote to the ambassador at Rome on behalf of an Englishman -who was going thither to procure a Papal brief and -had been specially recommended to him by the Queen, -Elizabeth of York. Two days later, he apologised to Lanfredini -for not having answered some business questions:<a name="FNanchor_344_344" id="FNanchor_344_344"></a><a href="#Footnote_344_344" class="fnanchor">[344]</a> -‘You know the cause; when my mind is entirely occupied -with one thing, it cannot think of anything else.’</p> - -<p>Clarice’s death obliged Lorenzo to seek a companion for -his daughter to take her back to Rome. He chose a distant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span> -relative, Maria de’ Medici, widow of Galeazzo Malatesta. -‘Maddalena,’ he wrote to Lanfredini on September 3,<a name="FNanchor_345_345" id="FNanchor_345_345"></a><a href="#Footnote_345_345" class="fnanchor">[345]</a> -‘starts to-morrow for Rome. She will be accompanied by -my Piero and my uncle Giovanni, who will take her as far -as Acquapendente, as arranged by Signor Francesco. I -have chosen for her companion one Madonna Maria de’ -Medici, widow of Signor Galeazzo Malatesta and daughter -of Madonna Ciulla. She is a very well-bred and truly venerable -lady over fifty, who since her widowhood has lived the -retired life of a nun. I think that the more Signor Francesco -thinks over this choice of mine, the better pleased he -will be.’ Maddalena remained with her husband in Rome, -whence she wrote to her father, September 1 of the next -year, that she was about to become a mother. The young -wife’s days seem not to have been very cheerful ones. -When she went to Rome with her mother, Lorenzo sent -with her a man whom he trusted and who was faithfully -attached to his house—the same Ser Matteo Franco whose -name holds a place in the history of burlesque poetry. He -was Maddalena’s adviser and confidant, her man of business -and, perhaps, her house-chaplain; and his many letters to -members of the Medicean household display a sympathy and -warmth of feeling doubly pleasing in such a jovial man. -Franceschetto neglected his young wife, who fretted continually, -while he passed the nights in play and feasting. -With no one to keep her company, she soon languished and -lost her health, thinking regretfully of her father’s house -and the pleasant villas around Florence, where she had -passed her happy childhood.<a name="FNanchor_346_346" id="FNanchor_346_346"></a><a href="#Footnote_346_346" class="fnanchor">[346]</a></p> - -<p>A few days after the loss of Clarice, another death took -place which did not affect the Medici family personally, but -whose consequences had no little influence on the family -relations which were closely connected with later political<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span> -events. On August 19, at the castle of Capuano near -Naples, died at the age of forty-two Ippolita Maria, Duchess -of Calabria.<a name="FNanchor_347_347" id="FNanchor_347_347"></a><a href="#Footnote_347_347" class="fnanchor">[347]</a> Her death broke the ties which bound together -the Houses of Aragon and the Sforza. This was probably -not perceived at the moment, for not only did the alliance -continue which seemed to unite the two states, but the -death caused no change in the plans for the new connection -long decided on between the two families, whereby their -interests were to be yet more closely and firmly linked together. -But the death of this clever and accomplished -woman dissolved the union between Ippolita’s husband and -brother, two men who were willing and accustomed to sacrifice -every consideration and every scruple to their ambition, -greed and hatred, and who, since the Ferrarese war, had regarded -each other with ever-increasing distrust and ill-will. -The longer Lodovico il Moro held the reins of government in -Milan, the less disposed he was to surrender them to his -nephew, who, although now nineteen years old, was still -duke only in title. Whether the accusation is true that -Lodovico had neglected the youth’s education to such an -extent that, delicate as he had been from childhood, he was -unfit to govern, must be left an open question. At all -events, Gian-Galeazzo took no part in public affairs, and -though everything was done in the name of the Duke of -Milan, it all went through the hands of the Duke of Bari. -From early childhood Gian-Galeazzo had been betrothed to -his cousin Isabella. Alfonso of Calabria had already often -pressed for the completion of the marriage; and as the -bride was now eighteen, Lodovico at last had to yield. The -mourning for the Duchess was not yet over, when, on December -11, Hermes Sforza, Gian-Galeazzo’s younger brother, -arrived in the bay of Naples with six galleys, and with a -brilliant suite landed to fetch his future sister-in-law, whose -father came to meet him and conducted him to the king and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span> -queen at Castelnuovo. On the 21st of the same month -Hermes, in his brother’s name, placed the wedding-ring on -Isabella’s finger. The court mourning prevented all festivities. -A gloomy shadow seemed to hang over this marriage, -which was destined to bring nothing but suffering and -misery to the contracting parties.</p> - -<p>Its early days, however, were not lacking in splendour. -On December 30 the young Duchess of Milan embarked, -accompanied as far as the Molo by her father, her grandparents -and their court. Many distinguished Milanese and -Genoese had come with Hermes Sforza; among them Vitaliano -Borromeo, Gasparo Visconti, Ambrosio del Maino, -and Giovan Francesco da Sanseverino Count of Cajazzo (son -of Roberto). Ten galleys were filled by these and the Neapolitan -suite, the Duke and Duchess of Melfi, the Countess -of Terranuova, the Counts of Potenza and Consa, and others. -They touched at Civitavecchia, Piombino, and Livorno. At -the first-named port the bride was received by the Cardinals -Sforza, Riario, and de Foix, with the Senator of Rome; at -Piombino by Jacopo IV. Appiani. At Livorno, Lorenzo, -again confined at home by the gout, was represented by his -son Piero, accompanied by Pier Antonio Carnesecchi and -Alessandro Nasi. The Republic sent Jacopo Guicciardini, -Pier Filippo Pandolfini, and Paol’Antonio Soderini as envoys -to welcome the Duchess; but Lorenzo’s son put them -all in the shade by his princely appearance. It was the -same at Milan, whither Piero went towards the end of -January 1489, to be present at Isabella’s triumphal entry -and the final marriage, which took place on Candlemas day. -On reaching the Milanese frontier, Piero was received by -several nobles sent by il Moro to form his train. At the -wedding in the cathedral, where the ceremony was performed -by Federigo Sanseverino (another son of Roberto, -and afterwards a Cardinal), Piero outshone everybody; -though the splendour was such that, as a reporter wrote to -Lorenzo, the very cooks were in velvet and silk. After the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span> -ceremony the Ducal couple sent to Piero to fetch his attire -and admire it again. Lodovico exhausted himself in attentions -towards the son of the man in whose hands were the -destinies of Florence. ‘It seems a perfect marvel,’ wrote -the Florentine ambassador, Piero Alamanni, on January 31, -1489, ‘to all these Lombards, as well as to the ambassadors, -that young as he [Piero] is, he maintains such a dignified -bearing and discourses on everything with so much readiness. -Yesterday morning my lord Lodovico spoke for half -an hour in his praise before the ambassadors, and assigned -to him a place of honour next Messer Galeotto della Mirandola, -Rodolfo Gonzaga, and Annibale Bentivoglio.’ After -the nuptial ceremony Alamanni was knighted by the young -Duke and presented with a splendid robe of brocade, and his -spurs were fastened on by Galeazzo and Gian Francesco da -Sanseverino. The splendour of the festivities was such as -the Milanese court had been wont to display since the days -of Galeazzo Maria.<a name="FNanchor_348_348" id="FNanchor_348_348"></a><a href="#Footnote_348_348" class="fnanchor">[348]</a></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER VIII.</h2> - -<p class="pch">TROUBLES IN ROMAGNA. TUSCAN AND UMBRIAN NEIGHBOURS.</p> - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">The</span> same year 1488, which brought to Lorenzo’s family -festivals and family mourning, involved him in political -complications with the Republic of a very serious character. -The territory on the side nearest Romagna was threatened, -and the amicable relations of Florence with her allies, and -especially with Milan, was thereby greatly endangered.</p> - -<p>After the death of Sixtus IV. Girolamo Riario retired -within his own little state, and for a time his grand political -schemes remained in abeyance. He had forcible reason to -congratulate himself on being able to retain possession of his -territories, hemmed in on one side by the Pope, Venice and -Florence, and on the other weakened by the dominion of -Faenza, which divided them asunder. At the beginning of -his reign Innocent VIII. showed himself very unfavourable -to Riario. When Lorenzo, through Guid’Antonio Vespucci, -confidentially suggested a project for an undertaking against -him, the Pope appeared to have no objection, but to prefer -to keep aloof himself and let others act for him. The execution -of the project was delayed, partly on account of its -difficulty, for Girolamo was on his guard, and there was a -fear of encroachment from Venice; and also because of the -doubt as to who should be enfeoffed with the two cities. -Later on, the Pope and Florence being in difficulties, the -project was entirely given up.<a name="FNanchor_349_349" id="FNanchor_349_349"></a><a href="#Footnote_349_349" class="fnanchor">[349]</a> When it is remembered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span> -that in the lifetime of Sixtus, Lorenzo had made use of -Girolamo’s mediation to procure tokens of favour and even -benefices for his young son,<a name="FNanchor_350_350" id="FNanchor_350_350"></a><a href="#Footnote_350_350" class="fnanchor">[350]</a> this intrigue throws no favourable -light on his character.</p> - -<p>During the four following years the lord of Forlì kept on -tolerably terms with the Florentines. The latter had not -forgotten their old grudge against him for the events of -1478 and 1479; and the Count had but one genuine ally—Lodovico -il Moro, who upheld him, first, on account of the -ties of blood between them; and, secondly, because of his -constant dread of the extension of Florentine sway on the -north side of the Apennines. Confined within a narrow -circle, Girolamo pressed the more heavily on his subjects. -Indulging in splendour and expense when the inexhaustible -funds of Rome were at his command, he still endeavoured to -continue living in the same way; he embellished his two -cities, Forlì and Imola, with many fine buildings, and kept -up a military force far too oppressive for such a small state; -and to cover the expenses of all this he was obliged to have -recourse to levies and imposts, thereby strengthening the -disaffection towards himself, already nourished by the old -attachment to the Ordelaffi, which was not yet extinct in -Forlì, and increased by his harsh arbitrary rule and cruel -punishments. Under such circumstances, it was not difficult -for a people accustomed to deeds of violence and to taking -the law into their own hands, to form a conspiracy. At its -head was Cecco dell’Orso, the captain of the guard, who was -at enmity with the Count on account of arrears of pay and -other private matters, and having been threatened by him, -resolved to be beforehand with him. On April 14, Cecco, -with two accomplices, entered the chamber of the unsuspecting -Riario, and a few minutes afterwards, before the eyes of -his own attendants, threw him from the window into the street -below, a naked, bleeding, still quivering corpse. That was the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span> -signal for a rising. While the people, shouting for liberty, -dragged the corpse through the streets, the murderers -struck down the chief of the municipality as he was hurrying -to the spot, took possession of the wife and three sons -of the Count, and hastened with their followers to the -citadel to take immediate possession of it. But the commandant -declared he would surrender to no one but the -Countess, and not even to her if she were a prisoner. Thus -repulsed at this important point, the heads of the conspiracy -could not attain their object in the city either; for as a -security against betrayal, they had admitted only a few to -share in their secrets. The new ruling family had not many -adherents; some favoured the old dynasty; the majority desired -the direct government of the Church. The Papal -governor of Cesena, Monsignor Savelli, was called upon to -take possession of the city. Without the fortress this -possession was incomplete, and as the negotiations fell to -the ground, Riario’s widow took advantage of the difficulty -and made herself mistress of the situation. Urged by the -prelate and the insurgents to come forward as mediatrix, she -promised, on condition of receiving compensation, to induce -the castellan to surrender if she was allowed to speak to him. -Her sons remained as hostages in the hands of the citizens. -The gates were opened to her, and she raised the standard -of the Sforza. A threat to kill the boys if she did not surrender -was received with a defiant answer. The brave -woman reckoned that every hour’s delay was in her favour, -while the disunion among the opponents strengthened her -hope that they would not proceed to extremities against her -helpless children. She was not mistaken. On all sides -there was a stir. Lodovico il Moro wrote to Florence, appealing -to the Republic to guard the endangered rights of -the sons of Riario. At the same time, without consulting -the allies, he despatched Galeazzo da Sanseverino with horse -and foot, while Giovanni Bentivoglio and Galeotto Pico della -Mirandola set out towards Forlì with numerous troops. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span> -Florentines, as soon as they heard of these military movements, -sent part of the troops which they still kept in the -Lunigiana to the frontiers of Romagna, under the Count of -Pitigliano and Ranuccio Farnese. In Forlì no one knew -what to do. The enemies of Riario hoped for active support -from the Pope; but Innocent, though he caused a few troops -to advance from Cesena, was either unwilling or unable to -take part in their favour.</p> - -<p>The heads of the movement turned their eyes to Florence, -well knowing the inward dislike in that city between the -Medici and the Riari. The Ferrarese ambassador wrote -that in Florence nothing had been known of the conspiracy; -but the people rejoiced at the misfortune which had befallen -the Count, and, mindful of the past, were not in a frame of -mind to grieve if in the course of events his family should -be destroyed root and branch. A letter addressed to Lorenzo -by the perpetrators of the deed, four days later, sets forth -their motives and proceedings, as well as the resolve of the -citizens no longer to submit to a single ruler, but to give -themselves up to the Church, on whose assistance they -reckoned. Lorenzo, the letter added, must rejoice at an -event which freed him and the Republic from a crafty foe, -and avenged his innocent brother’s blood; and therefore the -citizens hoped for active support from Florence. There was -nothing, however, to indicate a previous understanding. -Lorenzo sent to Forlì a confidential agent, Stefano da Castrocaro, -who described the circumstances and state of the -city, its confidence in Florentine help, and its idea of remaining -under the direct government of the Church.<a name="FNanchor_351_351" id="FNanchor_351_351"></a><a href="#Footnote_351_351" class="fnanchor">[351]</a> From expressions -afterwards used by Lorenzo about this matter, it is -clear that this very inclination of the majority of the people -would have cooled his ardour to help them against the -Riario party, if, indeed, he had ever felt any. Moreover, -the progress of events was more rapid than was probably<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span> -expected in Florence. Before the twisted threads of propositions -and negotiations could be disentangled, the advance -of the Milanese and Bolognese troops settled the -matter. Those who were most deeply compromised betook -themselves to the neighbouring Florentine territory, and on -April 29, Girolamo’s little son Ottaviano Riario was proclaimed -lord of Forlì and Imola. Caterina Sforza, who assumed -the regency, took bloody vengeance on those -within reach of her hand, for the murder of her husband -and the danger of her children. This affair, however, -brought upon Florence a difficulty which shows how uncertain -were her relations both legal and political. In a -rugged part of the Apennines, north-east of the road from -Florence to Bologna, lies Piancaldoli, now a village of less -than a thousand inhabitants. In the war of 1478, Girolamo -Riario took possession of it, and the Florentines had never -been able to make him give it up. Now they thought the -time had arrived to obtain justice and avenge the insult. -Their troops marching towards Romagna, in the direction of -Imola, received orders to secure Piancaldoli. At this Lodovico -became highly excited, not so much for the sake of the -unimportant town as because he suspected that it might be -the commencement of greater acquisitions. Giovan Pietro -Bergomino, his commissioner with the troops sent against -Forlì, came to high words with the Florentine commissioner -Averardo de’ Medici. Both sides grew so excited -that Ercole d’Este thought it necessary to step between -them. Lorenzo showed not the slightest disposition -to yield. He told the Ferrarese ambassador that things -must be bad indeed if the Republic could not seek to recover -her own property by means of her own people without asking -leave of Milan, which at that very moment had sent her -troops against Forlì without any agreement with Florence, -this being an expedition of far more importance than that -against Piancaldoli, and one which ought to have been -carried out only in alliance with the Republic.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span></p> - -<p>Lorenzo’s conversations with the ambassador show the -ill-will and distrust on all sides. He avoided stating plainly -whether the Republic aimed at extending her dominions on -the Romagna side, though it was observed to him that she -would thereby become involved in a disastrous conflict with -Sforza, who regarded the Forlì affairs as his own and -thought his honour at stake in them. Lorenzo only promised -to wait and see how events would develop themselves. -He thought the Pope had the best prospect, as he considered -it impossible that Forlì would again submit to the Riari; -but he did not conceal the fact that a family dynasty, -whether of Riari or any other, seemed to him a less evil than -direct Papal government or an increase of the influence of -the Sforza. Still, the aggrandisement of the latter would -be less injurious than that of the Church, as they would -probably be more willing to confer fiefs in Romagna on -family dynasties, than the Church, which had long treated -her barons with increasing disfavour and would not give up -what she had once secured within her own grasp. The -Church, he once observed, was at present more to be feared -than even Venice, and this had chiefly induced him to support -King Ferrante against the Pope.<a name="FNanchor_352_352" id="FNanchor_352_352"></a><a href="#Footnote_352_352" class="fnanchor">[352]</a> Such were Lorenzo’s -views at that time, when his chief care was to keep on good -terms with the Pope—views which were always shared by -the Neapolitan king. Piancaldoli was taken by the Florentines -two days before Forlì came to terms with the Riari. -But a few years after Lorenzo’s death an event happened to -which he was most averse; all the small lordships of -Romagna, whose interests were bound up with those of the -Republic, came to a violent end.</p> - -<p>The ill-feeling against Milan remained even after this -vexed question was settled and after Florence, from consideration -for Lodovico, had refused to receive Riario’s -murderers, who thereupon applied to Rome. Lorenzo declared<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span> -that if the Duke of Bari’s demands were reasonable, -Florence would always be willing to please him, but he must -not come upon her with anything against the honour of the -state; he also begged the Duke of Ferrara not to support -such demands. About this time, towards the middle of -May, he went to the baths, and his representative in politics, -Pier Filippo Pandolfini, replied to Lodovico’s urgent demands -for the restitution of Piancaldoli that it was in vain to ask -for anything against their honour; Florence was no Pavia -or Cremona, where the Duke of Milan could command. -Scarcely had these first vexations passed off when a similar -case occurred in which the Republic became still more -deeply involved. The cause of the dispute this time was -Faenza, the only state yet left to the Manfredi, and to -which, as has been previously described, Florence stood in -the relation of a protecting power. Galeotto Manfredi was -married to Francesca Bentivoglio, one of the many daughters -of the lord of Bologna; and in arranging this marriage -Lorenzo had had a considerable share.<a name="FNanchor_353_353" id="FNanchor_353_353"></a><a href="#Footnote_353_353" class="fnanchor">[353]</a> Her husband’s unfaithfulness -excited the passionate woman to such a pitch of -revenge that on May 31, 1488, she had him killed in their -sleeping-chamber by hired assassins. She then, with her -two sons, of whom the eldest was only three years old, -hastened to the citadel and informed her father of what had -been done. Giovanni Bentivoglio lost not a moment. He -set out with the troops collected at the Forlì disturbances, -and sent to Bergomino, the Milanese commissioner who was -still in the latter town, directions to join him. At first all -went well. The lord of Bologna and his troops were peaceably -received in Faenza, and it seemed as if the proclamation -of little Astorre Manfredi would settle everything; -but some disagreement between the inhabitants and the -rude mountaineers of the Lamone valley who had rushed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span> -into the town, caused a riot in which the Milanese commissioner -and more than fifty of his men lost their lives, and -Giovanni Bentivoglio saved his own with difficulty. When the -worst of the tumult was put down, Astorre was proclaimed -under the protection of the Republic of Florence, to whose -commissioner Antonio Boscoli the more reasonable of the -two parties had at once applied for mediation and support.</p> - -<p>The news from Faenza caused great excitement in -Florence. There was a suspicion abroad that the Milanese -and Bolognese intrigues were at the bottom of the whole -affair, and it was at once resolved to grant the desired protection -both to the people of Faenza and to the young -Manfredi, and to send the desired troops; measures which, -in consideration of the old protecting relation of Florence -to Faenza, could not justly be taken amiss by anyone. -Faenza was occupied; Bentivoglio taken prisoner and transported -to Modigliana, the neighbouring capital of Tuscan -Romagna; Madonna Francesca was sent to her mother at -Bologna; and a regency was established consisting of certain -inhabitants of Faenza and of the Lamone valley. Bentivoglio, -who had only the Florentines to thank for not having -escaped unhurt from the mountaineers, thought it hard that -he was kept in confinement on Florentine ground. Lodovico -Sforza, King Ferrante, and Ercole d’Este all interceded for -his release; his wife was loud in her lamentations, Bolognese -troops assembled on the frontier, and the city of Bologna -sent an embassy to Florence. But Lorenzo, knowing that -the frontiers were sufficiently secured, replied that Messer -Giovanni must have patience till things were settled in -Faenza.</p> - -<p>At last the commissioner at Modigliana, Dionigi Pucci, -received orders to release the prisoner and send him to -Cafaggiuolo, where Lorenzo awaited him; this was on June -14. Lorenzo declared himself perfectly satisfied with his -interview with Giovanni, and appeared to believe in a re-establishment -of their former good understanding. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span> -after a while the lord of Bologna sought to obtain the consent -of Florence for his daughter’s return to Faenza, and at -the same time offered the hand of another daughter for -Giuliano de’ Medici. Both propositions were decisively -refused, at which Bentivoglio was so angry that the Florentines -began to consider Lorenzo’s residence at Poggio a -Cajano unsafe, as the villa lay exposed to a raid from -Bologna. Lorenzo himself was uneasy though he tried to -hide it. When Giovanni appealed to him to procure the -Pope’s absolution for Madonna Francesca that she might -either marry again or enter a convent, he fulfilled the request -in the hope of making friends again. His letter to Innocent -VIII.<a name="FNanchor_354_354" id="FNanchor_354_354"></a><a href="#Footnote_354_354" class="fnanchor">[354]</a> reminding him of the willingness he had displayed, -proves that he was anxious about the matter. He -‘most earnestly besought,’ he said, ‘these tokens of favour.’</p> - -<p>A good understanding was soon established with Caterina -Riario Sforza; Lorenzo endeavoured not only to thwart the -attempts of the Ordelaffi and their party against her, but -also to arrange a betrothal between her daughter and the -young Manfredi, whom the Republic regarded and treated -as a ward of its own.<a name="FNanchor_355_355" id="FNanchor_355_355"></a><a href="#Footnote_355_355" class="fnanchor">[355]</a> So bad was the state of affairs in -Romagna, especially in Faenza; so great was the insecurity -caused by the enmity between families and individuals, and -increased by political disturbances; and so powerless to -secure lasting quiet were the efforts to procure peace and -reconciliation made on the part of the Church, after the -precedent of S. Bernardino of Siena and others before and -after him, that the Florentine influence was doubly needed -in these small states as a softening element for a people -difficult to control, and as a support for their rulers. It -was Lorenzo who protected the interests of Astorre Manfredi -when Cotignola, the home and countship of the Sforza, tried<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span> -to extend its little territory at the expense of Faenza. At -the end of 1489 Giovanni Bentivoglio made another attempt -to procure his daughter’s return to the last-named city. ‘I -have never,’ he wrote to Lorenzo,<a name="FNanchor_356_356" id="FNanchor_356_356"></a><a href="#Footnote_356_356" class="fnanchor">[356]</a> ‘striven for this return, -nor do I strive for it now, without the approval of your -Magnificence; for in this, as in all my affairs, I wish only -to act in accordance with your benevolent and wise counsels, -as beseems our old friendship and brotherhood.’ That -Francesca should return and undertake the guidance of her -son he considered the only means of putting an end to the -confusion, but he would do nothing without Lorenzo.</p> - -<p>These disturbances in Romagna were the last during -Lorenzo’s lifetime in which there occurred political and -military interference in the affairs of neighbouring states, -and which threatened to create complications with other -powers. But the southern side of the Apennines was not -altogether quiet. It is a strange but undeniable fact that -the man whose efforts in general were directed to preserve -peace and secure political equilibrium could not always resist -the temptation of forging intrigues against little neighbouring -states, and employing restless, discontented parties for -this purpose. He must have been urged on by that thirst -for aggrandisement which was an inheritance of the Republic -and the Medici as well as of Venice and of the Visconti. -The fine words about union and brotherhood were belied in -action. Lorenzo was, indeed, too prudent and cautious to -be easily caught by foreign bait; but he only kept out of a -thing when it seemed to him unprofitable or dangerous to -himself. In March 1488, Franceschetto Cybò tried to draw -him into an attempt against Jacopo IV. Appiani, who had -long been quarrelling with Rome; in this attempt he hoped -also to gain the support of Ferrante, thinking that the latter -would gladly seize an opportunity of reconciliation with the -Pope. Lorenzo showed no disposition for the undertaking.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span> -If Piombino could not be won for Florence, he naturally preferred -to see it in the hands of a petty native lord rather -than in those of the Pope, even if the latter was willing to -give it to his son, which was not certain; and he did not at -all want to push the King of Naples into Tuscan affairs. -He well remembered having heard how the king’s father -had said in 1448 that if he took Piombino he hoped to get -possession of all Tuscany; words which he recalled to the -remembrance of the Sienese, who held the little state under -their protection, when he sought to inspire them with a -good opinion of his friendly and neighbourly views.<a name="FNanchor_357_357" id="FNanchor_357_357"></a><a href="#Footnote_357_357" class="fnanchor">[357]</a> But -towards Siena herself his policy was anything but straightforward. -Internal disquietude had never ceased in that -city, and was paving the way for a government similar to -that of Florence, only that the rising families of Siena—the -Petrucci and Piccolomini—could not succeed in gaining a -firm footing like the Medici, and the fickleness of the people -and the nobility, violently at strife among themselves, far -outdid that of the Florentines. The party among the -nobility once supported by Alfonso of Calabria returned from -exile in 1487, and brought about an apparently sweeping -change in the constitution; raising the old classes, or Monti, -long degenerated into hostile and exclusive parties, and -extending eligibility for office to all sections of the community. -This change in the constitution was hailed and -joyously celebrated as the restoration of harmony; but it -was not long before the reforming faction, who had hitherto -ruled, discovered that they were getting the worst of it at -the elections, and that all the authority was passing into the -hands of their opponents. Dissatisfied with this, they secretly -applied to Lorenzo; and he, who not long before had assured -the sister-Republic of his warm interest in the preservation of -peace, now showed himself disposed to help the malcontents -to regain their former position. In March 1488 he caused<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span> -troops to advance towards Arezzo and the Chiana valley, -and himself proceeded to the former place. But the Sienese -got scent of the affair, arrested a number of suspected persons, -banished those most deeply compromised, and sent -Messer Niccolò Borghese to Arezzo to demand an explanation -from Lorenzo. The latter, thus learning that the -project was discovered, found out at the same time that the -Pope, on whose aid he had seemingly reckoned, had no mind -to be mixed up in the scheme, and had prevented his son -from going to see his father-in-law. Naples, however, was -ready to support her old friends at Siena. Altogether, -Lorenzo thought it best openly to avow his intention of helping -the reforming party to regain their rightful position. -The ruling party in the city, excited by repeated disturbances -in the district, caused by the Orsini of Pitigliano and by the -exiles, fortified their frontiers and pressed harder than ever -on their opponents. A rupture with Florence was, however, -avoided. Lorenzo did not attain his object, but it is clear -from his conduct that he was anxious to keep on good terms -with his neighbours. In this he succeeded. His envoys -were well received at Siena, and whenever he himself came -to the city, or within its dominions, he was always most -honourably received and loaded with presents. He was probably -of the same mind as Franceschetto Cybò, who once -wrote to him that Siena was a very rich morsel.<a name="FNanchor_358_358" id="FNanchor_358_358"></a><a href="#Footnote_358_358" class="fnanchor">[358]</a> The state -of friendly and neighbourly relations between them may be -judged from the fact that, on account of a frontier dispute, -the Florentine Signoria once had thoughts of making the -high road through Siena to Rome practically impassable by -imposing an utterly preposterous frontier-toll of one gold -florin for every foot-passenger, two for every horseman, and -five for every mule.<a name="FNanchor_359_359" id="FNanchor_359_359"></a><a href="#Footnote_359_359" class="fnanchor">[359]</a></p> - -<p>Little more than a year after these matters Lorenzo was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span> -again, outwardly at least, on such good terms with the -Sienese Signoria that he could appeal to them for mercy on -one of their imprisoned and condemned rebels: ‘I know -well, my Lords,’ are his words, ‘how serious a matter for the -state is a crime like that in question; but, on the other -hand, I consider what merit before God and praise from -man is gained by those who show mercy and pity towards -such delinquents, provided the common weal is not thereby -endangered. I would earnestly beg your Lordships, now -that the safety of the state seems ensured, to show mercy to -Messer Maurizio.’ When Lorenzo wrote thus he apparently -forgot that five months before he had acted in a manner not -exactly in accordance with these words and sentiments. A -young man had killed an official of the Eight in a quarrel, -fled to Siena, was from thence delivered up, and condemned -to death. When he was led to the place of execution the -people pitied him and shouted: ‘Fly! fly!’ and tried to -free him from the attendant officers. Lorenzo was then in -the palace. The foreign ambassadors and several of the -youth’s relations begged him to procure the prisoner’s pardon. -He put them off with words, caused the culprit to be hung -at a window of the Palace of Justice, and four of the rioters -to be seized, scourged, and banished from the city for several -years. He did not return home till the tumult was completely -put down;<a name="FNanchor_360_360" id="FNanchor_360_360"></a><a href="#Footnote_360_360" class="fnanchor">[360]</a> he feared the slightest attempt to create -disorder in the city, being perfectly aware of the inflammable -material it contained.</p> - -<p>The Florentine policy was ambiguous towards the Sienese, -as also in relation to Lucca. Reciprocal distrust and ill-will -showed itself in many ways, and no blame can be attached -to the far weaker Lucchese that they were on their guard. -The dispute about Pietrasanta was never really settled, and -when a money-compensation to Lucca came to be discussed -the two parties could not agree as to the amount. At the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span> -end of March 1490, a plot was discovered whose only possible -object was to betray Lucca into the hands of the -Florentines, and in it a factor of the Medici appeared to be -concerned. This occasioned a correspondence between the -Anziani and Lorenzo, in which, despite all formal politeness -and caution, the want of confidence was but too clearly -shown. The Lucchese opinion of Florentine friendship was -expressed, far more truly than in letters and embassies, by -the trenches and ramparts with which they surrounded their -unfortified places.<a name="FNanchor_361_361" id="FNanchor_361_361"></a><a href="#Footnote_361_361" class="fnanchor">[361]</a></p> - -<p>In Umbria and the Marches, too, Florentine interests -were at stake, and Soderini, the ambassador to King Ferrante, -was right in pointing out how anxious the Republic -was to prevent any disturbance of the existing circumstances -in Bologna, Perugia, Città di Castello, Faenza, or Siena, -just as much as in her own state, and what large sums of -money she expended with this object. Franceschetto Cybò, -who was always on the look-out for something, would fain -have made himself master of Città di Castello, and represented -to Lorenzo that this was desired by both the factions—the -Vitelli and the Giustini—who kept each other in check -under a Papal governor. But Lorenzo was evidently not -disposed to allow his son-in-law to have his will. Perugia -was in constant excitement from the restless character of its -citizens, culminating in a perpetual strife between the two -most powerful families—the Baglioni and the Oddi—which -filled the chief city of Umbria with tumults; day after day -scenes of bloodshed occurred, and first one party and then -the other was driven into exile. The Pope’s brother, -Maurizio Cybò, a brave and sensible man, to whom the -government was entrusted in February 1488, vainly attempted -to restore peace and order between the disputants. A citation -of the heads of the parties to Rome had no better<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span> -success; several positively refused to go, and though a reconciliation -did take place in consequence of the citation, it -was not lasting. Quiet was restored for a time by a general -prohibition of the use of arms, but the strife soon broke out -again.</p> - -<p>When Franceschetto Cybò was in Perugia in July 1488, -with a Papal commission to act as peacemaker,<a name="FNanchor_362_362" id="FNanchor_362_362"></a><a href="#Footnote_362_362" class="fnanchor">[362]</a> many -citizens came to him with complaints of the intolerable state -of the city. They declared that right and justice had lost -all power, and begged him to give his assistance in putting -an end to the evil. Franceschetto was not lacking in goodwill; -but to cure such a moral cancer required a different -sort of man, and the result justified the opinion expressed -by Lorenzo in a letter to Lanfredini when this difficult -mission was conferred by the Pope on his son. Franceschetto’s -deliberations with the representatives of the great -families, and the remonstrances made in Rome to divers -noble Perugians, were all equally vain. At the end of -October there was a bloody fight in and around the square -before the palace of the Priori; small artillery was actually -employed, houses were set on fire, the cathedral of San -Lorenzo was used as a fortress, and barricades were constructed. -Throughout the next day the street-fighting -continued, with plundering and burning, and the prisons -were broken open. The governor, who came back when the -tumult was at its height, was received with shouts of -‘Church! Church!’ and notwithstanding all he could do -his influence was powerless to quell the disturbance. At -last the Oddi were beaten and forced to leave the city and -flee to Castiglione del Lago (on Trasimene), where they and -their numerous adherents set up a camp. The fight threatened -to spread over the whole neighbouring country, as most -of the fortresses belonged to the nobility; Spello, Fuligno, -and other important places were already in arms and at open<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span> -war with each other, the Vitelli, Orsini, and others taking -part in the contest.</p> - -<p>From the time of the Pazzi disturbances Lorenzo had -had so much to do with Perugia, and so clearly recognised -the importance of that city to Florence, that he was most -anxious to put an end to this boundless disorder, the result -of which would tend to weaken even the victorious party. -He sided with the Baglioni, who had, moreover, sent one of -their number to him. Maurizio Cybò declined to stay any -longer at Perugia, whereupon Innocent appointed Francesco -Todeschini Piccolomini, Cardinal of Siena, to be legate. On -his arrival on November 16, 1488, Lorenzo tried to persuade -him to declare for the Baglioni party and to further their -interests; not merely with the object of securing their supremacy -in Perugia with the Pope’s consent, but also to keep -them from forming a closer connection with Ferrante. They -were already in communication with that king, to the displeasure -of Lorenzo, who hated all Neapolitan meddling in -the affairs of central Italy. ‘The Baglioni,’ he wrote to -Lanfredini, ‘would give themselves not merely to the king, -but to the devil. Therefore I hold that all possible efforts -must be made to extinguish this flame. Believe me, if the -Pope uses this opportunity he will bring over the Baglioni -completely to his own side, and be able to make them serviceable -for his own ends. It would be well to tell the legate -to deal with the exiles as he thinks good; I will then endeavour -myself to induce the Baglioni to submit to the -legate’s will. At all events, some cure for this wound is -necessary.’ The Count of Pitigliano had already headed -some Florentine troops against the Oddi. Cardinal Piccolomini -was apparently not clearly convinced which party was -right and which was wrong, and he was not inclined to be -the tool of either. For a long time he withstood repeated -persuasions to pronounce sentence of banishment on the -exiles, urged upon him by the Baglioni in unison with the -commissioners of Florence and Urbino, of the Orsini and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span> -the Vitelli; Lorenzo had sent Messer Niccolò Vettori. At -last the legate saw things could no longer remain in suspense; -so he caused the heads of the ruling party to swear -on the Gospels that they would keep the city in obedience -to the Pope, lay down their arms, not hinder the course of -justice, and hand over to his people the places they occupied -in the district. Then on January 22, 1489, he confirmed -the privileges of the city and issued a decree of banishment -against the exiles, confining them for the next five years to -various places in Tuscany, Romagna, and the Marches, -under pain of outlawry if they left these appointed places.</p> - -<p>All this was done with the participation of the commissioners, -who thereupon took leave, after a state dinner given -them by the Signoria. The next thing was the election of -the magistrates; the troops of the legate, two hundred and -fifty men, occupied the city and its environs; the decree of -banishment was posted up at the Cathedral and the palace -of the Podestà, and the chief persons concerned were informed -of it by an executor of the commonwealth. When -this official came to one of the heads of the Oddi party, -Agamemnone della Penna, who was at Castiglioncello on -the Urbino frontier, he closed the doors, drew his dagger -and said to the messenger: ‘Take your choice; either -swallow the decree, or I will kill you.’ The man did not -take long to consider. Agamemnone took from him the -papers destined for the other exiles, most of whom were at -Gubbio, close by, and sent him back with this pleasant intelligence -to Perugia. The feud, in which the Florentines -were not idle, began again in the district; but neither the -fighting nor the efforts at mediation repeatedly made by the -legate, who kept wandering from one place to another, -brought about a decision. In the city, except for a few occasional -disturbances, peace was in some degree restored, -while all power was in the hands of the Baglioni, who for a -long time refused to let any foreign mediation persuade them -to a reconciliation with their adversaries. In June 1491<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span> -however an attack on the city and fresh scenes of bloodshed -obliged them to come to terms as soon as possible. Lorenzo, -who had greatly contributed to the victory of the Baglioni -through Lanfredini’s negotiations with the Pope and Vettori’s -mediation in Perugia, and who was anxious that the -Holy See should keep only a nominal authority in the latter -city, could not help perceiving how difficult it was to restore -to even the smallest degree of legal order a city torn by such -wild passions and suffering under such unfortunate circumstances.<a name="FNanchor_363_363" id="FNanchor_363_363"></a><a href="#Footnote_363_363" class="fnanchor">[363]</a></p> - -<p>Of less importance to the Florentines than the affairs of -Perugia were the disturbances at Ascoli near the Neapolitan -frontier. On account of its position, commanding the high -road from the valley of the Tronto towards Umbria, the state -of this town was not a matter of indifference to the Republic. -The quarrels in which from 1484 onwards it was involved -with Fermo and other neighbouring places attracted considerable -attention from the fact that on one side the Pope, -and on the other King Ferrante, were drawn into them, and -the lords of Urbino and Camerino found themselves obliged -to interfere both for the sake of their own states and on -account of their relations with Rome. These quarrels, -which with short intervals of peace were perpetually recommencing, -and did frightful damage to the smaller places -and the unprotected country, had been profitable to some, -amongst whom was Boccalino of Osimo, who had many connections -in the Marches of Fermo. In 1487 Cardinal della -Rovere vainly tried to make peace between Ascoli and -Fermo. The strife was so furious that in an attack made -by the Ascolani in April of that year on the fortress of -Acquaviva, sixty men who had entered a building by -treachery were burnt in it, and those who hurried to their -assistance were slaughtered in the moat. Not long after<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span> -this the Ascolans attacked Offida, which lay between them -and the sea, drove out the vice-legate of the March, plundered, -burned and murdered all and whomsoever came in -their way, and repulsed the troops of Urbino which had -marched to the rescue. Rome saw the need of putting an -end to this anarchy, and entered into negotiations with the -lords of Urbino and Camerino to overcome the resistance -of Ascoli. But the Florentines, and still more the King of -Naples, although they earnestly wished for peace on the -Adriatic shores, were not willing that the Pope’s authority -should be strengthened in that quarter. ‘The king,’ wrote -Piero Nasi, Florentine ambassador at Naples, to Lorenzo, -‘is very anxious that the Pope should not get possession of -Ascoli; for he sees that should this occur, the connection -between himself and us will be for ever cut off. As we have -managed to prevent the Pope from making himself lord of -Perugia, so his Majesty’s power should suffice to compass -the same at Ascoli.’</p> - -<p>Thus, in this so-called time of peace, there was strife and -disorder, mistrust and selfishness, on all sides. Ferrante -thought little enough of Florentine interests, in his unwillingness -to let Innocent gain a firm footing on his own -border. Even in Lorenzo’s last year of rule these disputes -in the Marches were not settled. It was Cesare Borgia who -first made peace here, as he did in Romagna, after his own -fashion.<a name="FNanchor_364_364" id="FNanchor_364_364"></a><a href="#Footnote_364_364" class="fnanchor">[364]</a> Cares and troubles overtook De’ Medici from -another quarter. He was bound to the Orsini by other -chains than family ties; the attitude taken by this old and -powerful family towards the Popes, Naples, Siena, and -Florence claimed his attention. The Orsini flattered themselves -they were sovereign lords. So great was the number -and importance of their possessions in the neighbourhood of -Rome that they might well cause uneasiness to a stronger<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span> -government than that of most of the Popes; and the only -thing that tended to neutralise their power was their almost -ceaseless strife with the Colonna, who, however, at this present -time were no match for them. Their numerous fiefs in -the kingdom of Naples brought them into close connection -with its rulers. Since the beginning of the fourteenth century -they had held, through inheritance from a branch of -the Teutonic dynasty of the Aldobrandeschi, the county of -Sorano-Pitigliano, between the Patrimonium Petri and the -Sienese territory; and they kept their neighbours in constant -uneasiness by the disordered state of affairs there, -caused by the constant disagreement between the members -of the family, not likely by any means to be softened by the -protectorate (<i>accomandigia</i>) of Siena, herself in a state of -great unrest.</p> - -<p>We have pointed out how much depended on the attitude -of the Orsini in the days of the quarrel between Innocent -and Ferrante. The relations of the most powerful of -the family, Gentil Virginio, lord of Bracciano, with the -Pope and the king, gave Lorenzo constant occupation, as is -testified by his correspondence with the ambassadors in -Rome and Naples. ‘Should his Holiness proceed in the -manner suggested,’ he wrote to Lanfredini on March 24, -1489,<a name="FNanchor_365_365" id="FNanchor_365_365"></a><a href="#Footnote_365_365" class="fnanchor">[365]</a> when Innocent for a moment thought of arresting -Gentil Virginio for his suspicious conduct amid the Neapolitan -troubles—‘he would thereby gain nothing, save that -the whole family would unite and be a prize for the king. -If the Pope answers that this will happen in any case, I -reply that it is far better that it should happen without our -having a hand in it, than that we should give them ground -for laying the blame on us. The minds and wills of these -lords Orsini never agree. They cannot keep together well, -and you will see when the king most needs them they will -serve him worst, for they are ambitious and greedy, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span> -except when need compels them there is no constancy in -them.’ In later days Ferrante once remarked that lord -Virginio was naturally very obstinate when he had made up -his mind to a thing, especially if he thought himself in the -right;<a name="FNanchor_366_366" id="FNanchor_366_366"></a><a href="#Footnote_366_366" class="fnanchor">[366]</a> it may therefore be imagined how much trouble -Lorenzo had in controlling a man whom his position in -Rome, his rank as Neapolitan general, his experience in warfare, -and his great landed property rendered more powerful -than many princes. He always remained on good terms -with the Medici personally. Niccolò, Count of Pitigliano -and Nola, was, as has been seen, closely connected with the -Republic. But even with this naturally prudent man there -arose some difficulties whenever his interests or inclinations -as chief of a family clashed with his position as general of a -greater state. He too, like all the warriors of the time, -though his personal valour and honour are unstained, contributed -to display the corruption of the military science of -the time, and the incompatibility of the prevalent mercenary -system with the advantage and security of the state.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p class="pc4 elarge"><i>SIXTH BOOK</i></p> - -<hr class="d1" /> - -<p class="pc large">THE LAST YEARS OF LORENZO DE’ MEDICI</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a><br /><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span></p> - -<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER I.</h2> - -<p class="pch">THE FLORENTINE STATE; PUBLIC AFFAIRS AND FINANCES -ABOUT 1490.</p> - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">The</span> reform in the constitution made in the summer of 1480, -whereby the decisive part in the affairs of the State was -concentrated in the Council of Seventy, had now held its -ground for ten years. These ten years, added to the fifty -during which the house of Medici had risen to the head of -the State, necessarily excluded all families which maintained -not only a hostile, but even an independent position. -Amongst the ruling portion of the aristocracy, including -many popular but not therefore liberal elements, there were -men who, in their hearts, detested both the system and its -most illustrious supporter; but the majority were attached -to it both from interest or from necessity. Others silently -accepted what they could not alter without resorting to a -great revolution and outward shock which, doubtless, few -desired. The lower classes were so much influenced by the -arts of those in power, and the governments preceding that -of the Medici had oppressed them to such an extent, popular -revolutions had been of so tumultuous a character, and had -always so speedily paved the way for despotism, that there -could be no serious thought of change. The upper class of -citizens, who had a share in the government in the wider -sense, who were represented in the councils and admitted -to office, contented themselves with the measure and appearance -of authority, influence, and other advantages given -them by the constitution. All the hostile families of rank<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span> -were ruined by exile, confiscation, and taxes; their old -chiefs were either dead or in banishment, they had completely -lost their influence and were no longer to be feared; -or they had allowed themselves to be gained over in one -way or another, and now acted in concert with their former -opponents.</p> - -<p>According to the time of their fall these families may be -divided into three groups: the Albizzi and their adherents -fell in 1434, the partisans of Diotisalvi Neroni in 1466, the -Pazzi in 1478. Lorenzo had no need to trouble himself -about any of them. In the first part of this history we -pointed out the extent of the misery into which the Albizzi -of Messer Rinaldo’s line had sunk. Forty-four years after -their banishment the rights of citizenship were restored to -Alessandro, a great-grandson of the former head of the -Republic, for having, when far away from Florence during -the war which broke out after the Pazzi conspiracy, discovered -to the Signoria a plot whereby the town of Pistoja -was to be betrayed into the hands of the Duke of Urbino.<a name="FNanchor_367_367" id="FNanchor_367_367"></a><a href="#Footnote_367_367" class="fnanchor">[367]</a> -The descendants of Rinaldo’s brothers remained friendly to -the Medici. The Neroni party were become powerless since -the Colleone affair. Piero de’ Medici himself had some idea -of becoming reconciled with Agnolo Acciaiuolo, more than -one of whose relatives were among his own warmest adherents; -so the disunion was not likely to continue between -their posterity. But for the Pazzi affair Agnolo’s descendants, -favoured by the Aragonese, would doubtless have been -taken back into favour long before 1482. The enmity -between the Medici and the Soderini ended with the death -of Niccolò Soderini in 1474, though it came to life again -later under different circumstances in the sons of that Tommaso -who was so closely connected with Piero and Lorenzo. -The Pazzi were thoroughly put out of the way; the scaffold -and the prison of Volterra swallowed up both guilty and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span> -guiltless; and even when, in consequence of agreements -with the Pope and Naples, the survivors were set free in -1482, they were still subjected to many restraints which -lasted till the revolution of 1494. Lorenzo’s brother-in-law, -Guglielmo, after a long confinement in a house in the -country, was sent to Faenza, where Galeotto Manfredi kept -him in custody at Lorenzo’s disposal, as is shown by a letter -of Galeotto’s dated February 25, 1483. Three days later he -received orders for the liberation of his prisoner, and this -decision was announced by Lorenzo to his sister Bianca, -who had remained in Florence, and to his brother-in-law -himself. In the autumn of the following year Guglielmo -was in Rome, and in friendly intercourse with the Medici -and Bernardo Rucellai.<a name="FNanchor_368_368" id="FNanchor_368_368"></a><a href="#Footnote_368_368" class="fnanchor">[368]</a> After the revolution of 1494 he -was re-admitted to political offices; but he showed little -capacity for the work, and his son Alessandro (eleven years -old when his uncle Lorenzo died), notwithstanding his -sagacity and experience, was better fitted for scholarly work -than for public life. Of the other families who arrayed -themselves against the Medici in the attack before referred -to, some never again played any important part in politics; -others let themselves be chained to the victor’s chariot. -Thus it was with the Peruzzi, the Gianfigliazzi, the Pitti, -and others. The first-named—old, rich, and illustrious—were -excluded from office after the return of Cosimo de’ -Medici. The two branches of the Strozzi, whose influence -had formerly been considerable, were now in some degree -estranged, and the most famous of the two was just rising -to the height of its splendour.</p> - -<p>Lorenzo, as he looked around him, had no need to fear -the recurrence of such opposition as had endangered the -authority of his grandfather and father. There seemed no -room for even attempts at violence, and the tendencies -which sprang forth after his death were at this time hardly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span> -perceptible even in the germ. Francesco Guicciardini described -the situation in a few sentences: ‘The city was in -perfect peace. The citizens in whose hands was the administration -held firmly together; the government, carried -on and supported by them, was so powerful that no one -dared contradict it. The people were daily entertained with -festivals, spectacles, and novelties; to their profit the city -abounded in everything; trade and business were at the -height of prosperity. Men of talent found their proper place -in the great liberality with which the arts and sciences were -promoted and those who practised them were honoured. -This city, quiet and peaceful at home, enjoyed also high -esteem and great consideration abroad, because she had a -government whose head had full authority; because her -dominions had lately been extended; because the deliverance -of Ferrara and that of King Ferrante were mainly -owing to her; because she had complete sway over Pope -Innocent; and because, in alliance with Naples and Milan, -she in some measure kept all Italy in equilibrium.’</p> - -<p>Amid this happy state of things, however, symptoms -showed themselves which decidedly pointed out something -insecure in the foundations. From a moral point of view -there were drawbacks whose influence on the general development -and final determination of affairs was inevitable. -Anyone who looked below the glittering surface must have -felt yearly increasing care about the political situation. -Putting aside foreign politics, the home affairs gave extra -cause for anxiety. It was becoming more and more evident -that everything, present and future, depended on one man -alone. It could hardly therefore go unperceived that the -necessary consequences of this man’s position and career -furnished a prospect, perhaps not a distant one, of a radical -change in the constitution.</p> - -<p>Alessandro de’ Pazzi graphically described the difficulties -of his uncle’s position:<a name="FNanchor_369_369" id="FNanchor_369_369"></a><a href="#Footnote_369_369" class="fnanchor">[369]</a> ‘When Lorenzo came to the head<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span> -of the party after Piero’s death he found a serious task -before him, and, young as he was, he had need of great -prudence to keep together and govern this party; so much -the more because the citizens who were then powerful -thought they could retain their commanding position, without -allowing Lorenzo to usurp the same authority that his -grandfather and father had enjoyed. In my opinion this -was a mistake; discord would soon have parted them. But -his exertions were great, and it was owing to him that no -division occurred at that time. His patience with his adherents -deserves as much praise as his prudence, activity, and -liberality; and I know from my mother that in these first -years he thought day and night of nothing but gaining over -his friends for his own objects.’</p> - -<p>Again, after referring to the dangers and consequences -of the years 1478-1480, he says: ‘By dint of skill and -luck, without which nothing is to be attained in human -affairs, he consolidated his position and maintained it all -his life long, not merely as his grandfather had done, -but a step higher and with fuller powers. He was in -more danger than Cosimo, but he stood so high that the -danger was outweighed. Nevertheless, with all his good -fortune and the favour of circumstances, with his superhuman -intellect and his great number of trustworthy -friends, he gave himself an immense deal of trouble. He -went to work with the greatest caution, with many arts and -secret allies who knew nothing of each other, with inexhaustible -patience and endurance. He was assisted, moreover, -by his wonderfully acute judgment of foreign affairs, -which he understood how to direct and balance better than -any other living man in Italy. Herein also fortune favoured -him, that he lived at a time when forces were more equally -divided than usual, and there was little danger of foreign -interference. Above all it was a happy circumstance that -Cosimo had preceded him as founder of the position of the -family, and for many years past no other and in some sense<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span> -no more popular form of government had been known in -Florence. His merits, however, were his own; vigilance, -patience, perseverance, splendour combined with elegance, -whereby he made himself a great name among the Italian -princes and in other lands, while at home he attracted and -gained over all to himself. This also is to be highly esteemed -in him, that he influenced his friends into moderation and -kept their hands clean, so that it may be said that, with a -few exceptions, there occurred no cases of rapine. In truth -he directed the State and his party in the best manner possible -under the circumstances. With all his good fortune -and his uncommon qualities, however, it cost him great -exertions, for he never spared himself, but took a personal -share in all that occurred, whether in the square or in the -palace.’</p> - -<p>Although business was transacted not in the house of -Medici but in the palace of the Signoria, where Lorenzo -passed many hours as a member of councils and committees, -still the government was becoming more and more a personal -one. The constant change in the members of the -Signoria, intended to prevent the authority of individuals -from increasing, necessarily promoted this personal government; -so much the more as a regular and consistent treatment -became necessary for the direction of foreign affairs, -ever increasing in continuity and importance. Only in this -manner could Florence maintain her position against the -larger Italian and foreign states—all monarchic except -Venice, who preserved her constitution almost unchanged. -Naturally, however, such a personal government had the -grave defects of all political arrangements where legal right -and hereditary prescription are not the fundamental principles, -and whose internal nature is a negation of their -external form. This State, apparently constituted on a -broad basis, was in reality ruled by a comparatively small -party with a recognised chief at their head. Lorenzo’s contemporaries -said that he had greater authority and more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span> -personal power than any despotic ruler.<a name="FNanchor_370_370" id="FNanchor_370_370"></a><a href="#Footnote_370_370" class="fnanchor">[370]</a> Nothing was done -without his initiative and approval. Popes, kings, and -princes applied to him; ambassadors corresponded with -him; thousands besieged him with petitions for offices, -posts of honour, favours, remission of taxes and imposts, -and personal interests of all kinds both at home and in the -neighbouring states. Each found him willing to listen; -the letters he wrote were innumerable, many of them written -by his own hand, to different parties of high and low rank, -some personally known to him, others quite strangers. He -would willingly help merchants, stewards, farmers, countrymen, -and people of all sorts and positions in life. Besides -the countless clients of the family there were those recommended -by them—as he called them, ‘my good old -friends.’ He applied to the Duke of Ferrara on behalf of -the money-changers in the Prato, ‘these Jews, my friends.’<a name="FNanchor_371_371" id="FNanchor_371_371"></a><a href="#Footnote_371_371" class="fnanchor">[371]</a> -His correspondence contains the strangest medley of subjects, -events, and persons; contraventions of the toll-regulations -at the passage of the flocks coming down for the -winter from the Casentino and the Pistojan hills to the -Sienese Maremma; frauds by merchants; thefts from -Florentine subjects; differences with the administration of -salt; deeds of violence and murder, are all mixed up with -recommendations for judicial offices, especially the office of -Podestà, judge of the court of appeal, capitano, &c., and for -spiritual dignities and benefices; settlement of boundary -disputes; concessions about the corn trade; mediation on -the passage of troops; and the affairs of the petty dynasties -seated around the Siena district, the Sforzas of Santafiora, -the Orsini of Pitigliano, and many others. His constant -desire was to oblige as many as possible at home and abroad, -and to have the influence of his personal position felt and -understood on all sides.</p> - -<p>This position was becoming year by year very glaringly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span> -exceptional, not only to the eyes of foreign sovereigns but to -those of Italian princes as well. The authority which -Lorenzo was believed to possess with Innocent VIII., -‘because,’ as he wrote to Lanfredini on August 26, 1489, -‘I am extremely devoted to his Holiness and obliged to him -for many favours,’ caused him to be applied to by all parties -whenever a petition to Rome was to be presented. Almost -simultaneously Guid’Antonio Arcimboldo begged his recommendation -to obtain the archbishopric of Milan, and the -Duke of Britanny sent a messenger to request his support -for the nomination of one of the Duke’s secretaries to the -see of Nantes. Lodovico il Moro applied to him to procure -the Sienese bishopric of Pienza, and Charles, Duke of Savoy, -to have his uncle—that Francis so well known in connection -with the episcopal troubles at Geneva—advanced to the -cardinalate. When Federigo Sanseverino, Monsignor de’ Grassi, -the Archbishop of Auch, and others desired the -cardinal’s hat, he was asked to help them to procure it. It -was he who recommended to the Pope the young Alessandro -Farnese, who in 1489 was studying at Pisa and sought to -obtain one of the posts of Apostolic Secretary created by -Innocent at the end of 1487. ‘I wish you to know,’ wrote -Lorenzo to Lanfredini on April 10,<a name="FNanchor_372_372" id="FNanchor_372_372"></a><a href="#Footnote_372_372" class="fnanchor">[372]</a> ‘that this gentleman, -besides coming of such a noble family (<i>oltre allo esser nato -della casa che è</i>) has many distinguished qualities, among -them unusual learning and excellent morals, being at once -very accomplished and a model of virtuous conduct. For -these reasons, the weight of which with me you know, I -recommend him to you as if he were my own son, and beg -you to present him to his Holiness, for which I shall be very -grateful.’ This is perhaps the first testimony, and certainly -a most honourable one, on behalf of Pomponio Leto’s former -pupil, then one-and-twenty, and destined forty-five years<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span> -later to succeed a Medici on the Papal throne. When the -Duke of Ferrara and the lord of Camerino wanted help at -Rome, they applied to Lorenzo; when the Duke of Savoy -sent an ambassador thither, he recommended him to Lorenzo. -King John of Portugal wrote from Santarem, Charles VIII. -from Amboise, the Duchess Blanche from Savoy, Anne de -Beaujeu and her husband Pierre de Bourbon from Moulins, -to the ‘Seigneur Laurens.’ His friendly relations with -Matthias Corvinus have been repeatedly mentioned; they -seem to have been none the worse for the fact that Matthias -was for a long time on bad terms with the Sforza, having, -for the sake of his brother-in-law Don Federigo of Aragon, -accepted among the conditions of the treaty with Kaiser -Frederic in 1477 the proceedings against the ruling house -of Milan, which was not recognised by the Empire. To the -Pope Lorenzo often commended his own subjects, as, for -instance, Giovanni Savelli, ‘to whom I have especial goodwill -because he is in the service of our army, and to whom I -am bound by a friendship of many years’ standing,’ and the -distinguished priest Francesco de’ Massimi. Everyone considered -a matter secured in Rome if once Lorenzo took it in -hand; and perhaps the secret of his great success in many -things arose from the shrewdness of his calculation as to -what lay within the limits of possibility.</p> - -<p>Lorenzo was surrounded by numerous friends and adherents, -some of whom had inherited distinction, while others -had been raised by him. It was only by their help that he -could maintain his position at home and keep up his connections -abroad. He was well and skilfully supported by -the Acciaiuoli, the Pandolfini, the Vespucci, the Soderini, -the Pucci, the Guicciardini, the Capponi, the Vettori, the -Lanfredini, the Alamanni, the Ridolfi, the Gaddi, &c. They -and their families had a corresponding share in the administration, -in honours and privileges, and held a prominent -position; the consequence of which was that when circumstances -were altered there remained a powerful Medicean<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span> -party which at last gained the victory through external -political circumstances; for the family which had risen -to greatness with their support naturally seized the lion’s -share. But Lorenzo, while advancing his adherents in -power, never allowed them to become too independent of him. -For this purpose the means he chiefly employed was that -of placing on the same level with citizens who had long been -great others who had risen solely by help of the Medici; -in matters which required entire devotion to his interests he -rather gave a preference to the latter. The most active and -influential of the Florentine diplomatists, Giovanni Lanfredini, -sprung from a family originally Roman and which -became extinct in the last century in the person of a cardinal, -had become a business-partner of the Medici as early as -Cosimo’s time. Lorenzo’s policy was to let one person keep -another in check. He was probably suspicious by nature, a -quality which developed as years went on, for he often employed -the chancery-officers who accompanied the ambassadors -to Rome, Naples, and Milan to send him special -reports,<a name="FNanchor_373_373" id="FNanchor_373_373"></a><a href="#Footnote_373_373" class="fnanchor">[373]</a> while his creatures in Florence, especially Ser -Piero of Bibiena and Piero Michelozzi, kept up a correspondence -in various other quarters. We have remarked before -that Bartolommeo Scala, the chancellor of the Signoria, was -in very intimate relations with him. The chancellors of the -other government offices, the only really stable officials in -whom the traditions of business survived, were all in his -interest, most of them having attained their influential posts -through him. Thus he let no family and no individual gain -an influence inconvenient to himself, and kept his eyes on all. -He even meddled in family affairs: hindered marriages if -they seemed to him dangerous, furthered them if he thought -them likely to prove useful. Those whom some special circumstances -had unusually elevated, even when he himself -profited thereby, he always kept in check; as exemplified in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span> -the case of Tommaso Soderini, and, after the Pazzi conspiracy, -Girolamo Morelli. Of the former, indeed, there is -nothing more to add, save that he was a member of the -Council of Seventy and died as Capitano at Pisa in 1485. -Lorenzo overlooked many things in his adherents, but he -kept them under his control and took care that they should -feel that their position and advantages were derived from -him. A man who was, indeed, ill-disposed towards him on -account of an event which concerned his family, remarked:<a name="FNanchor_374_374" id="FNanchor_374_374"></a><a href="#Footnote_374_374" class="fnanchor">[374]</a> -‘The great citizens raised and supported Lorenzo in his -youth; in later years he would not have as companions, but -used as servants, those who had been like fathers to him.’</p> - -<p>The event alluded to is characteristic of the political -power and position of Lorenzo with regard to the official -representatives of the State. It made no difference to him -if the man on whom his resentment fell<a name="FNanchor_375_375" id="FNanchor_375_375"></a><a href="#Footnote_375_375" class="fnanchor">[375]</a> had his cause defended -by others in power. When Neri Cambi degli Opportuni -was Gonfaloniere in 1488, and at the end of the year the -Signoria were to be elected for the following January and -February, it was found that the legal number of members -of the colleges was not complete, many having absented -themselves without leave and gone to the chase. To the -great irritation of the people assembled in the square the -election could not take place till one of the missing members -was fetched from his country-house, from whence he came -booted and spurred to the palace, and the election then proceeded. -Indignant at what had occurred, the outgoing -Signoria determined to punish the delinquents, and condemned -four of them to exclusion from office for four years. -Lorenzo was in Pisa at the time. ‘To him,’ says Guicciardini, -‘and to all the heads of the party it was a very disagreeable -affair; for it seemed to them that if a Signoria -could use the right of <i>ammonire</i> without previous deliberation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span> -with those in power, their own government was hanging -in the air by a thread (<i>lo stato loro fussi a cavallo in su uno -baleno</i>), and they might one fine morning be driven out of -Florence by only six beans (votes). So, after that Signoria -had gone out of office, the matter was again brought up -before the Magistracy of Eight and the Council of Seventy; -the decree against the four citizens was revoked, and Neri -Cambi was declared ineligible for office for the rest of his -life. The council was by no means unanimous, but Lorenzo’s -will carried the day.’</p> - -<p>This was a pretty clear token of how matters stood with -regard to the powers of the supreme court. But this was -not all; participation in the government was to be yet -further restricted. In the summer of 1490 a measure was -carried which concentrated the actual direction of affairs in -the hands of a small body. The Council of Seventy was to -remain as a council of State; but the elections to the Signoria -were transferred, as under the old system, to <i>accoppiatori</i>, -named by a committee of seventeen, of whom Lorenzo -was one. The members of this committee were chosen arbitrarily, -and only one of them belonged to the minor guilds. -On them was dependent every branch of the administration, -more especially finances and the national debt.</p> - -<p>The new committee’s first measure concerned the coinage. -In appearance it was sensible enough. The city and country -were overwhelmed with small and base foreign coin; -Sienese, Lucchese, Bolognese, &c. August 28, 1490, a -decree was issued forbidding the circulation of foreign coins -on and after September 8. As Alamanno Rinuccini remarked, -it was not the first decree of the kind, and it was -no more observed this time than heretofore. Indeed, it was -practically impossible to distinguish the foreign <i>quattrini</i> -from the Florentine, outwardly very like them. So on May 1, -1491, a radical reform was undertaken. The old native -small coin, the so-called black quattrino, was called in, and -replaced by a new coin containing two ounces of silver to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span> -the pound of copper, and reckoned as equivalent to five -danari, while the old one was called in at the rate of four -danari. The public treasuries were in future to receive only -the new white quattrini. The people were pleased, hoping -to get rid of the confusion. Their rejoicing did not last long. -Instead of melting down the old money, it was stealthily -brought into circulation again, and the old quattrino remained -in use side by side with the new one. Out of this -confusion arose endless difficulties; and the people found -that in taxes, duties, purchases of salt, everything where -produce went into the treasury, they were the chief sufferers. -The consequence was general discontent, directed principally -against the heads of the government, as their limited -number made them the more conspicuous.<a name="FNanchor_376_376" id="FNanchor_376_376"></a><a href="#Footnote_376_376" class="fnanchor">[376]</a></p> - -<p>The evil was great, but it had not yet reached its worst -height. The increasingly demoralised condition of the administration -of finance displayed itself in another way, -which must have utterly ruined the credit of the State at -the first serious political crisis. This was connected with the -Medici finances. Lorenzo’s pecuniary difficulties had been -in no wise removed by the precautionary measures of 1480. -His manner of life, establishments, purchases, the provisions -for his children, his by no means disinterested liberality, the -bribes in money paid for his influence abroad, required large -sums. To try to meet these requirements with the produce -of his personal property (because he considered this more -secure and honourable),<a name="FNanchor_377_377" id="FNanchor_377_377"></a><a href="#Footnote_377_377" class="fnanchor">[377]</a> would have been chimerical. He -had limited his banking-business and commercial speculations; -and to draw upon them never entered his head. During -his very last years he did a great deal of business in -Rome. Innocent VIII. was financially still more dependent -on him than on his own Genoese fellow-countrymen, and he -allowed him corresponding advantages. In 1489 he sold<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span> -him 30,000 hundredweight of alum at a very low price, in -compensation for losses sustained in the days of his predecessor; -and the alum trade passed almost entirely into -Lorenzo’s private hands. The farm-rent paid by him for -the works of Tolfa amounted to 100,000 florins. In May of -the same year Lorenzo furnished the Pope with a loan to -the same amount for one year; one-third of the sum in cash, -the other two-thirds in silk and woollen stuffs. For the -repayment, two-tenths, amounting to 60,000 florins, were -referred to the Florentine clergy, the rest to the revenues of -Città di Castello.<a name="FNanchor_378_378" id="FNanchor_378_378"></a><a href="#Footnote_378_378" class="fnanchor">[378]</a> In 1490 Lorenzo redeemed from the Centurioni -of Genoa a valuable tiara which had been pledged to -them.<a name="FNanchor_379_379" id="FNanchor_379_379"></a><a href="#Footnote_379_379" class="fnanchor">[379]</a> Cosimo Sassetti, one of the partners in the Medici -bank at Lyons, was also a papal collector in 1490. In the -case of smaller loans, princes sent valuables as pledges; the -Marquis of Mantua gave a precious stone for the sum of -4,000 gold florins, and when at a marriage-feast he wanted -to have it back, his brother-in-law, Ercole d’Este, offered -the salt-office of Modena for security in its place. These -transactions went on under Lorenzo’s eldest son and even -later.<a name="FNanchor_380_380" id="FNanchor_380_380"></a><a href="#Footnote_380_380" class="fnanchor">[380]</a> But the profits were uncertain, for all the parties -concerned were not skilful and prudent. Even supposing -that Lorenzo drew an income of 15,000 to 20,000 gold -florins from the old family estate, and about 10,000 from the -newly-acquired and gradually increasing one in the Pisan -territory, still it was terribly insufficient for his outlay. He -was driven to all kinds of shifts, at times even somewhat -mean ones, such as must have been sometimes very unpleasant -to him; as, for instance, in 1484, when he had to take -a loan of 4,000 ducats from Lodovico Sforza, or sell for the -same price the house given by Duke Francesco to his grandfather.<a name="FNanchor_381_381" id="FNanchor_381_381"></a><a href="#Footnote_381_381" class="fnanchor">[381]</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span> -During the difficulties of 1478 he had been compelled -to borrow from his cousins, the other Medici, 60,000 -gold florins, for the repayment of which he gave security on -his possessions in Mugello. There were Florentine business -houses which paid him a yearly sum for lending them his -name.</p> - -<p>This mixing up of his private money-matters with those -of the State brought about most unhappy consequences. -In the war of 1478, the pay of the troops was furnished -by the bank of the Bartolini, in which Lorenzo had a -share. They deducted eight per cent., in return for which -the commanders did not furnish the troops agreed upon, and -the community had to make up the deficit. The wretched -mismanagement of the military arrangements was all of a -piece with this. Yet Lorenzo still thought himself entitled -to venture on further operations of the same kind. The -chief financial posts were held by his minions. From the -treasurers (<i>camarlinghi</i>) of the offices of the national debt, of -the customs, of salt, of judicial contracts, &c., he raised the -needful sums, which they handed over to him without difficulty, -first because they could refuse him nothing, and next -because they thought their own responsibility covered and -their personal security safe; for every newly appointed official -had to recover the sum lent out by his predecessor; -and as this process went on unchecked for years, it may -easily be imagined what a deficit there was at last, after all -the sham repayments one towards the other. The office of -the national debt suffered most. The supreme provveditore, -Antonio di Bernardo Miniati, had risen from the condition -of an artisan by the favour of Lorenzo, who had actually -made him a member of the Committee of Seventeen; and he -proceeded quite arbitrarily, to oblige his patron and at once -facilitate and hush up disgraceful embezzlement. During -the revolution of 1494 the great book of the Monte was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span> -missing; nevertheless, there was an exposure of how many -sums had gone to the numerous protégés and hangers-on of -the Medici in and out of Florence. There was also another -means by which to enrich them; and that was the furnishing -of supplies, among which the supplying of cloth to the -troops, in particular, brought great gain.<a name="FNanchor_382_382" id="FNanchor_382_382"></a><a href="#Footnote_382_382" class="fnanchor">[382]</a> But all possible -manœuvres and skill could not prevent the bad condition of -this unprincipled finance from becoming known. How -should they when, to mention only one instance, the Cardinalate -of Giovanni de’ Medici cost the State an expenditure -of 50,000 gold florins, independently of the sums which -found their way secretly into Rome, and were reckoned at -200,000 more?<a name="FNanchor_383_383" id="FNanchor_383_383"></a><a href="#Footnote_383_383" class="fnanchor">[383]</a> The State-creditors suffered most, from the -reduction in the rate of interest caused by the drafts deposited -in the Monte, and from the arrears of interest. -These bills, together with the extraordinary additional taxes -constantly repeated under various names, reduced the -national debt. What offended the citizens most and -damaged Lorenzo’s reputation with posterity more than -anything else was the plundering of the before-mentioned -<i>Monte delle doti</i>, the establishment intended for the dowries -of maidens, and in which all citizens, great and small, were -wont to make investments.<a name="FNanchor_384_384" id="FNanchor_384_384"></a><a href="#Footnote_384_384" class="fnanchor">[384]</a> It was a sort of bank of deposit, -somewhat on the plan of modern insurance-offices, and -its usefulness was increased by the changes of fortune only -too sudden in Florence. This establishment took its rise in -1424, when it was decreed that for the liquidation of the -shares in the national debt dating from 1325 to 1336, and -originally bringing in eighteen per cent. interest, the -creditors should be at liberty to convert a quota of what was -due to them into a dowry for their sons and daughters; from -1468 it was limited to daughters. The conditions were very -liberal. Whosoever paid or gave security for the amount of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span> -104 gold florins, and had it put down to one of his children, -received at the end of fifteen years the sum of a thousand -florins in cash, or could, if he pleased, let it remain at five -per cent. interest. If the child in whose name the money -stood died, half the sum to which he would have had a -claim, according to the time that had elapsed, was paid back -to the father, and the other half went to the bank. The so-called -reform of the <i>Monte delle doti</i>, which, like all such -establishments, certainly needed improvement in its administration, -was one of the avowed objects of the change made in -the constitution in 1480; but it opened a door to the -misappropriation of its funds. In 1485 a decree was issued -whereby only a fifth of the dowry, i.e. two hundred florins in -the case above described, was to be paid in cash; the rest -was to be entered in a register called <i>libro non ito</i>, the unpaid -book, and to bear an interest of seven per cent. This -was not all. Six years later, the rate of interest was lowered -to three per cent.<a name="FNanchor_385_385" id="FNanchor_385_385"></a><a href="#Footnote_385_385" class="fnanchor">[385]</a> This came very near to bankruptcy, and -this bankruptcy touched the citizens to the quick, while it -brought the State into discredit. Hitherto the dower paid -through the Monte had in most cases been sufficient; now -the necessary additions to it became serious, and quite unattainable -for many families. So the number of marriages -diminished; that the consent of the head of the State had -to be secured before they could take place would sound incredible, -did it not belong to the system of such party-government.<a name="FNanchor_386_386" id="FNanchor_386_386"></a><a href="#Footnote_386_386" class="fnanchor">[386]</a> -‘For many years,’ says Rinuccini,<a name="FNanchor_387_387" id="FNanchor_387_387"></a><a href="#Footnote_387_387" class="fnanchor">[387]</a> ‘Lorenzo -de’ Medici was doing his best, by a series of laws and decrees, -to ruin the great bank of the commonwealth, for the -purpose of getting rid of its obligations for the payment of -annuities and dowries, and obtaining arbitrary control over -the State finances. For this work he selected in particular -two helpers, Antonio di Bernardo and Ser Giovanni of Pratovecchio -(chancellor of the Riformagioni), worthless fellows,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span> -who pointed out to him day by day the way to attain his -object.’</p> - -<p>Though the position of the Medici was secured for a -time, their finances could not be set right. The banks of -Lyons and Bruges, directed by Leonetti de’ Rossi, Francesco -and Cosimo Sassetti, Tommaso Portinari, and others, only -saved themselves by compounding with their creditors. -Lorenzo’s correspondence shows what a vast deal of trouble -these pecuniary embarrassments gave him, notwithstanding -his levity in money-matters. As early as 1484 he had to -write to de’ Rossi to insist on withdrawing the name of -Medici from the Lyons firm before next Easter. Eighteen -months after, he ordered the balance of the Bruges bank to -be sent to him, in consequence of Portinari’s bad management. -On one day, April 21, 1488, he despatched to the -King of France, the Cardinal de Bourbon, the Duke and -Duchess of Bourbon, the Seigneur du Bouchage, the Bishop -of Valence, and others, no less than seventeen letters relating -to the Lyons bank and Francesco Sassetti, after whose death -in 1490 Lorenzo Spinelli took the direction of the Medici’s -financial interests in France.<a name="FNanchor_388_388" id="FNanchor_388_388"></a><a href="#Footnote_388_388" class="fnanchor">[388]</a> It was inevitable that there -should be a vehement outcry against this disorder. Many -foreigners who had placed their money in the banks sustained -heavy losses, and on the violent overthrow of the Medici, -when their palace was plundered at the entry of Charles -VIII., the king’s quarter-master, the seigneur de Balassat, -who had given the signal for the plundering, defended himself -on the plea that the Medici bank of Lyons owed him -large sums.<a name="FNanchor_389_389" id="FNanchor_389_389"></a><a href="#Footnote_389_389" class="fnanchor">[389]</a> One of the sufferers by these shameful money-dealings -was a man who had done much for Lorenzo, and -who, on his side, was influenced in his relations with him -and his business agents by a consideration of the advantages -which Lorenzo’s political position might give him. This<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span> -was Philippe de Commines, who, at one of the most critical -moments of his life, was greatly injured by the pecuniary -difficulties of the Medici and their unwillingness or inability -to meet their obligations. After the death of Louis XI., -Commines, who had been an instrument of the king’s -tyranny and enriched by his confiscations, was first sent -away from court for taking part in the intrigues of the -Princes against the Regent, Anne de Beaujeu; then shut up -in one of the iron cages at Loches; and, in the spring of -1488, sentenced by the Parliament to lose a fourth part of -his property, and find security for ten thousand crowns. -He found it impossible to realise his demands on the Medici -bank and liquidate the sums which he had deposited there -since 1478 through Louis’ confidant Du Bouchage, and part -of which had been employed in 1486 to support the opposition -against the Regent.<a name="FNanchor_390_390" id="FNanchor_390_390"></a><a href="#Footnote_390_390" class="fnanchor">[390]</a> Even when Commines, set free -from his worst embarrassments, was again on the way to -political influence, these difficulties remained, and a letter -from Lorenzo to him<a name="FNanchor_391_391" id="FNanchor_391_391"></a><a href="#Footnote_391_391" class="fnanchor">[391]</a> gives a glimpse into the financial -troubles of the Medici.</p> - -<p>‘Illustrious Sir,’ so runs the letter, ‘I have received your -lordship’s letter, and my mind is penetrated with grief at -learning into what a state of irritation Cosimo Sassetti’s -last statement of accounts has put you. My regret would -be still greater could I imagine that you doubt the sentiments -of my house towards you, whereas I am for many -reasons so deeply indebted to you that I should deserve to -be called the most ungrateful of men if I paid you now in -any coin but such as I owe you for the numerous benefits -received from you in good and evil days. When in my inmost -mind I examine my obligations, I can assure your lordship -that neither by me nor by any of mine shall anything -be done which might indispose you towards me or give you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span> -an unfavourable opinion of me. If Cosimo Sassetti’s expressions -with regard to your lordship’s interests should produce -such an unhappy effect, I should be most deeply grieved, as -it would be contrary to the true position of affairs and my -earnest intentions. I do indeed confess, and your lordship -knows it, that for some time past our Lyons house has -suffered such heavy losses that it was impossible to conceal -them from my present or former business friends, of whom -your lordship is one, and not to complain of them as Cosimo -has done. This may have made a bad impression on you; -but you may rest assured that there is really no occasion for -difference between us, for you can always dispose, not only -of the sum in dispute between you and Cosimo, but of my -whole means as if they were your own. I therefore beg your -lordship to put faith in me, that this matter may be ended -and leave no cloud between us. For your lordship’s friendship, -whether in prosperity or adversity, is of more value to -me than any sum of money.’</p> - -<p>In spite of all these assurances, Commines’ demands were -discharged in what he considered a very inadequate manner -(<i>apointement bien mègre</i>).<a name="FNanchor_392_392" id="FNanchor_392_392"></a><a href="#Footnote_392_392" class="fnanchor">[392]</a> Nothing but the high value -which he set on the friendship of the Medici induced him -to keep quiet. ‘I believe,’ wrote Lorenzo Spinelli to -Lorenzo at the close of 1491,<a name="FNanchor_393_393" id="FNanchor_393_393"></a><a href="#Footnote_393_393" class="fnanchor">[393]</a> ‘the Sieur d’Argenton will -remain our friend. In order not to make him angry, I have -always told him that if God gives us grace to do well in -business and make up some of the losses we sustained in -Leonetto’s time, you will give him his share. I am of -opinion that this hope will induce him to further your interests, -if he puts faith in my words.’ Spinelli was right.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[337]</a></span> -Commines’ humour was likewise influenced by the favourable -turn which his affairs took after the agreement between -the young king Charles VIII. and the Princes, in the beginning -of September 1491. His last letter to Lorenzo,<a name="FNanchor_394_394" id="FNanchor_394_394"></a><a href="#Footnote_394_394" class="fnanchor">[394]</a> -dated January 13, 1492, and signed ‘more than entirely -yours’ (<i>plus que tout vostre</i>), treats not of money-matters, -but of Charles’ marriage with the heiress of Britanny, of the -differences with Maximilian and England, and of the Duke -of Lorraine’s attempt on Metz, which it had been hoped -might be gained by treachery and surprise; a prelude to the -treachery and surprise in which a French king succeeded -but too well little more than a century later.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[338]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER II.</h2> - -<p class="pch">LIFE IN FLORENCE.</p> - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">In</span> 1472 certain Venetians addressed to Lorenzo de’ Medici -and Niccolò Ardinghelli a pamphlet wherein they extolled -the advantages of their city and its inhabitants, and abused -Florence, her constitution, her policy, her commerce and -society, and the house of Medici. The challenge was accepted -by Benedetto Dei, a scion of an ancient family, a man -of much experience in affairs of state and of commerce, and -who had been for many years Florentine ambassador in -Constantinople, from whence he went to Damascus on a -commission for the Sultan. He defended his native city in -a lengthy and rather warm reply; a curious testimony to -the deep-seated differences between two states which were -often bitter enemies and scarcely ever real friends.<a name="FNanchor_395_395" id="FNanchor_395_395"></a><a href="#Footnote_395_395" class="fnanchor">[395]</a> -‘Florence,’ says the irritated patriot, who seems not to have -been acquainted with the brilliant picture of the industry -and commerce of Venice drawn in the Great Council in 1420 -by the Doge Tommaso Mocenigo,<a name="FNanchor_396_396" id="FNanchor_396_396"></a><a href="#Footnote_396_396" class="fnanchor">[396]</a> ‘is more beautiful and -540 years older than your Venice. We spring from triply -noble blood. We are one-third Roman, one-third Frankish, -and one-third Fiesolan. Compare with this, I pray you, the -elements of which you are composed! First of all you are -Slavonians, secondly Paduans of Antenor’s dirty traitor-brood, -thirdly fisher-people from Malamocco and Chioggia.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[339]</a></span> -We hold by the Gospel of S. John, you by that of S. Mark, -in which there is as much difference as between fine French -wool and that with which mattresses are stuffed. We have -round about us thirty thousand estates, owned by noblemen and -merchants, citizens and craftsmen, yielding us yearly bread -and meat, wine and oil, vegetables and cheese, hay and -wood, to the value of 900,000 ducats in cash, as you Venetians -and Genoese, Chians and Rhodians, who come to buy -them, know well enough. We have two trades greater than -four of yours in Venice put together—wool and silk. Witness -the Roman court and that of the king of Naples, the -Marches and Sicily, Constantinople and Pera, Broussa and -Adrianople, Salonika and Gallipoli, Chios and Rhodes, -where to your envy and disgust there are Florentine consuls -and merchants, churches and houses, banks and offices, and -whither go more Florentine wares of all kinds, especially -silken stuffs and gold and silver brocades, than from Venice, -Genoa and Lucca put together. Ask your own merchants -who visit Marseilles, Avignon, Lyons, and the whole of Provence, -Bruges, Antwerp, London, and other cities, where -there are great banks and royal warehouses, fine dwellings, -and stately churches; ask them who should know, as they -go to the fairs every year, whether they have seen the banks -of the Medici, the Pazzi, the Capponi, the Buondelmonti, the -Corsini, the Falconieri, the Portinari, and the Ghini, the -bank of the Medici and their partners at Milan, and a hundred -others which I will not name, because to do so I should -need at least a ream of paper. You say we are bankrupt -since Cosimo’s death. If we have had losses, it is owing to -your dishonesty and the wickedness of your Levant merchants, -who have made us lose hundreds of thousands—people -with well-known names who have filled Constantinople -and Pera with failures, whereof our great houses -could tell many a tale. But though Cosimo is dead and -buried, he did not take his gold florins and the rest of his -money and bonds with him into the other world; nor his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[340]</a></span> -banks and store-houses, nor his woollen and silken cloths, -nor his plate and jewellery; but he left them all to his -worthy sons and grandsons, who take pains to keep them -and to add to them, to the vexation of the Venetians and -other envious foes, whose tongues are more malicious and -slanderous than if they were Sienese.’ Such was the Florentine’s -retort to the attacks of the Venetians, whom he bitterly -attacked in his turn, when in 1479 they concluded the -disadvantageous treaty by which they ceded Negroponte and -other of their Levantine possessions to the Turks.</p> - -<p>‘Our beautiful Florence,’ says the same chronicler, ‘contains -within the city in this present year 1472, 270 shops -belonging to the wool-merchants’ guild, from whence their -wares are sent to Rome and the Marches, Naples and Sicily, -Constantinople and Pera, Adrianople, Broussa and the whole -of Turkey. It contains also eighty-three rich and splendid -warehouses of the silk-merchants’ guild, and furnishes gold -and silver stuffs, velvet, brocade, damask, taffeta, and satin, -to Rome and Naples, Catalonia and the whole of Spain, especially -Seville, and to Turkey and Barbary. The principal -fairs to which these wares go are those of Genoa, the -Marches, Ferrara, Mantua, and the whole of Italy; Lyons, -Avignon, Montpelier, Antwerp, and London.’ The number -of the great banks amounted to thirty-three, that of the -cloth-warehouses, which also retailed woollen cloths of all -kinds (<i>tagliare</i>), to thirty-two; the shops of the cabinet-makers, -whose business was carving and inlaid work (<i>tarsia</i>), -to eighty-four, and the workshops of the stone-cutters and -marble-workers in the city and its immediate neighbourhood -to fifty-four. There were forty-four goldsmiths’ and -jewellers’ shops, thirty gold-beaters, silver-wire drawers, and -wax-figure makers; the last being in those days a productive -branch of industry, as it was the custom to consecrate -in the churches and chapels wax-figures of all kinds (<i>voti</i>), -chiefly images. ‘Go through all the cities of the world,’ -adds the chronicler, ‘nowhere will you find, nor will you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[341]</a></span> -ever be able to find, artists in wax equal to those we have -now in Florence, and to whom the figures in the Nunziata -(the Servite Church) can bear witness.’ Another flourishing -branch of industry was the making of the light and elegant -gold and silver wreaths and garlands which were worn by -young maidens of high degree, and gave their name to the -artist-family of Ghirlandajo. Sixty-six was the number of -the apothecaries’ and grocers’ shops; seventy that of the -butchers, besides eight large shops in which were sold fowls -of all kinds, as well as game, and also the native wines -which were considered best with game, particularly the pungent -white wine, called Trebbiano, from San Giovanni in the -upper Arno valley; it would wake the dead, adds Dei, in its -praise. The Florentine had a right to be proud of his -‘beautiful’ city. From 1422, when Gino Capponi, the conqueror -of Pisa, introduced the art of gold-spinning (the gold -thread hitherto used having been procured from Cöln and -from Cyprus),<a name="FNanchor_397_397" id="FNanchor_397_397"></a><a href="#Footnote_397_397" class="fnanchor">[397]</a> down to the time of Lorenzo, was the most -brilliant period of the silk manufacture which brought great -wealth to the city. The Emperor Sigismund’s ill-famed consort, -Barbara von Cilly, once sent one of her people with -1,200 gold florins and three bars of gold to buy silken stuffs. -In 1422 the first armed galley was equipped for the voyage -to Alexandria, and when she was launched there was a -solemn procession to implore the protection of Heaven. Thus -Florence began to do without the help of Venetian and -Genoese vessels; and the two latter states never got over -their vexation at this. The Florentines, however, never -became famous sailors. Meanwhile the home-produce kept -pace with this freer connection with transmarine lands. -There seem to have been no silk-worms reared in Florence -before 1423; this branch of industry was much older in -other parts of Tuscany: in Modigliana, Pistoja, Pescia, -Lucca, &c. In Lorenzo’s days the artisans began to emigrate,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[342]</a></span> -and transplanted their art to foreign lands. The restrictions -of emigration by statute proved at first useless and -afterwards injurious. The extent of the intercourse between -Florence and other lands is shown by the list of commercial -firms established in various countries in 1469; in France -there were twenty-four; in the kingdom of Naples thirty-seven; -in Turkey no less than fifty, which were under the -protection of the consul Mainardo Ubaldini, whose general -relations with the Turkish government became so much the -better, as those of the Venetians, whose political and commercial -interests too often clashed, grew less secure. Long -afterwards it was known that the Florentines held in their -hands the whole commerce of France; and in 1521, when -war broke out between Charles V. and Francis I., and the -Florentine merchant-colony at Lyons found itself in danger, -a memorial requesting letters of safe-conduct was addressed -to the treasurer Robertet, by no less than thirty houses, including -the Albizzi, Guadagni, Panciatichi, Salviati, Bartolini, -Strozzi, Gondi, Manetti, Antinori, Dei, Ridolfi, Pitti, -Tedaldi, and other familiar names.<a name="FNanchor_398_398" id="FNanchor_398_398"></a><a href="#Footnote_398_398" class="fnanchor">[398]</a> Many of these families -married and settled in France.</p> - -<p>In a city where prosperity was so general, it strikes one -as remarkable that the rate of interest on money remained -so high. When it is remembered that about 1420 the -usurers were forbidden to take more than 20 per cent., and -that about ten years later the hitherto excluded Jews were -admitted in the hope of thereby finding a protection against -the greediness of the Christians, it may be easily perceived -how shocking the evil was. The complaints about compulsory -loans are quite intelligible with such a high rate of -interest. That the intended remedy proved fruitless, and -Jews and Christians sucked the blood of their neighbours all -alike, may be imagined. More than once there was some -idea of a public loan establishment. This was the case in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[343]</a></span> -1488, when the popular orator Bernardino da Feltre, of the -Minorite order, was preaching in Sta. Croce. He tried to -obtain Lorenzo’s support for the erection of a Monte di -Pietà, but his efforts proved unsuccessful. It was an universally -known fact that the execution of the project was -prevented because the Signoria was bribed by a rich Jewish -money-changer in Pisa, where this trade had found a special -nest.<a name="FNanchor_399_399" id="FNanchor_399_399"></a><a href="#Footnote_399_399" class="fnanchor">[399]</a> Not till three years after Lorenzo’s death a temporary -exclusion of the Jews took place, whose gains in Florence -alone were reckoned at 50,000,000 gold florins, and the -erection by voluntary contributions of the public loan establishment, -which, together with that founded by St. Antonine, -and other similar ones, was in the course of years exposed -to many vicissitudes.</p> - -<p>It was natural that the wealth of the merchants should -greatly influence their manner of life. The new aristocracy, -which had risen in a great measure by trade and commerce, -continued, after the pattern of the family at the head of the -State, to combine politics with other business, and liked to -display a splendour corresponding to their means, not only -in buildings, pious foundations, and works of art, but also in -the festive occasions of domestic life. Their houses were -richly furnished. The numerous cabinet-makers and marble-workers, -chiefly engaged on decorative works, were not -solely occupied with churches and public buildings; both they, -and painters and sculptors of a higher order, vied with each -other in the decoration of dwelling-houses. Pictures were interspersed -and relieved with marble and terra-cotta busts. At -festive banquets fine table-linen, in keeping with the elegance -of the plate, was always used. Up to this time there was -little exaggerated luxury; the majority were too cautious for -that; and if they wanted to honour a distinguished guest or -celebrate a wedding, friends lent each other their plate, -following the example of the Medici with the Alamanni,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[344]</a></span> -Della Stufa, Lanfredini, Nasi, Sassetti, Davanzati, and -others.<a name="FNanchor_400_400" id="FNanchor_400_400"></a><a href="#Footnote_400_400" class="fnanchor">[400]</a> The same thing occurred at a banquet given by -Messer Antonio Ridolfi, ex-ambassador at Naples, to the -Duke of Calabria, who had stood godfather to his child. -On great occasions similar loans, to which all the wealthy -citizens contributed, were made to the Signoria. For ordinary -occasions people often used, besides silver spoons and -forks, gifts of the community or of friends, chiefly brazen -table-plate, dishes, cans, salvers, with silver centres and -enamelled or niello edges, with the owner’s arms and frequently -also those of his wife.<a name="FNanchor_401_401" id="FNanchor_401_401"></a><a href="#Footnote_401_401" class="fnanchor">[401]</a> Fine crystal was considered -necessary for a well-furnished table. Venice provided most -of this article, but Tuscany furnished many glass-factories.</p> - -<p>The festivals, which increased in frequency in the days -of Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici and the oft-repeated -visits of princes, necessarily contributed to the increase of -splendour and gaiety. More than once the cost exceeded -the amount of supply. If Luca Pitti far outran his means -it was, at least, the indulgence of a noble passion—that of -building—which tempted him to such extravagance, and -a miscalculation in politics which overthrew him. But -others were ruined by senseless luxury. A striking example -of this is Benedetto Salutati, who, it will be remembered, -took part in Lorenzo’s tournament. He was a grandson of -the celebrated chancellor; his father had acquired a considerable -fortune in business, in which the son succeeded -him. Benedetto, we read,<a name="FNanchor_402_402" id="FNanchor_402_402"></a><a href="#Footnote_402_402" class="fnanchor">[402]</a> had made himself a fine position -and was highly esteemed; but he was far from being able -to enter the lists with many others as far as the age and -nobility of his family were concerned, nor did his fortune -put him in a position to maintain a lasting rivalry with -them. Nevertheless, he did vie with them. When he rode<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[345]</a></span> -to that tournament at five-and-twenty, the housings and -trappings of his horse were adorned with 168 pounds of fine -silver at sixteen ducats a pound, and the cost of the work -was reckoned at 8,000<i>l.</i> That he united love for art with -love for spending is proved by the fact that his silver helmet -was wrought by Antonio del Pollaiuolo.<a name="FNanchor_403_403" id="FNanchor_403_403"></a><a href="#Footnote_403_403" class="fnanchor">[403]</a> But the immoderate -luxury into which he launched may be learned -from the description of the banquet which he and his fellow-merchants -gave, February 16, 1476, to the sons of King -Ferrante at Naples, where the Salutati, like so many of their -fellow-countrymen, had settled, and had intercourse with -the royal house through their connection with the above-mentioned -Antonio Ridolfi, whose daughter was Benedetto’s -wife. It was as if a Florentine merchant had tried to vie -with the splendour shown by Cardinal Pietro Riario when -Ercole d’Este’s bride was in Rome. The very arrangement -of the house gave a foretaste of what was to come. The -staircase was hung with tapestry and wreaths of yew; the -great hall was decorated with richly-worked carpets; and -from the ceiling, covered with cloth of the Aragonese colours -ornamented with the Duke of Calabria’s arms, hung two -great chandeliers of carved and gilt wood bearing wax -candles. Opposite the principal entrance, on a dais covered -with carpets, stood the dining-table, spread with the finest -lace over a worked cover. One side of the hall was occupied -by a large sideboard, on which stood about eighty ornamental -pieces of plate—salvers, basins, fruit-baskets, -tankards—mostly silver, some gold, besides the silver table-service, -consisting of about three hundred plates of various -kinds, bowls, beakers, and dishes. Adjoining the hall were -two rooms opening into each other, hung with woollen stuff -representing foliage, and handsomely carpeted. Here the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[346]</a></span> -company assembled before and after dinner, and divers -musicians contributed to the liveliness of the meal. The -guests took their seats amid a flourish of trumpets and fifes. -At one end of the table sat the Count of Altavilla, next to -him Don Pietro of Aragon, the Duke of Calabria’s younger -son, a boy of four years old; then came the four sons of the -king—Don Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, Don Federigo, Count -of Altamura, Don Giovanni, and Don Arrigo.<a name="FNanchor_404_404" id="FNanchor_404_404"></a><a href="#Footnote_404_404" class="fnanchor">[404]</a> Next to the -latter sat the Count of Belcastro, then came the Count of -Ventimiglia and Messer Carlo da Toralto. The Florentine -consul, Tommaso Ginori, and Lorenzo Strozzi sat one on -each side of Marino Caracciolo; next to them came Francesco -Nori (one of the victims of the Pazzi conspiracy) and -Andrea Spanocchi of Siena. The seats at the other end of -the table were occupied by the Commander de Requesens, -Ferrante di Gennaro, and Messer Federigo Carvajal, Commander -of Rimini. The outer side of the long table was left -for the sewers and cup-bearers, who served the guests and -tasted the dishes before presenting them to the princes. -Besides these, courtiers stood around the table, partly in -attendance partly joining in the conversation. The order of -the dinner was as follows: First the introductory course; to -each guest was presented a little dish of gilt cakes made of -pine-apple kernels, and a little majolica cup containing a -beverage made of milk and called Natta (<i>guincata</i>). This -was followed by eight silver dishes decorated with coats of -arms and mottoes, and containing jelly made from the -breast of capons; the dish intended for the duke had, in the -middle, a fountain which threw up a shower of orange-flower -water. The first part of the meal consisted of twelve courses -of different kinds of meat, game, veal, ham, pheasants, partridges, -capons, chickens, and blanc-mange; at the end -there was placed before the duke a large silver dish, from -which, when the cover was taken off, a number of birds flew<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[347]</a></span> -out. On two large salvers were brought two peacocks, -apparently alive, with their tails spread, burning perfumes -issuing from their bills, and on their breasts, attached to a -silken ribbon, the duke’s arms and the motto <i>Modus et ordo</i>. -The second part of the entertainment consisted of nine -courses of sweets of various kinds, tarts, light and delicate -pastry, with hippocras. The wines, mostly native—Italian -or Sicilian—were numerous, and between every two guests -was placed a list of the fifteen different kinds, of which the -lighter found most favour. At the end of the banquet -scented water was offered to everyone in which to dip his -hands; then the table-cloth was removed, and on the table -was placed a great dish containing a mountain of green -boughs with precious essences whose perfume spread through -the hall.</p> - -<p>In the middle of the banquet some mumming<a name="FNanchor_405_405" id="FNanchor_405_405"></a><a href="#Footnote_405_405" class="fnanchor">[405]</a> was -announced. Eight youths entered dressed as huntsmen, -with horns, hounds, and slain game; they were musicians -of the chapel royal, and took leave after entertaining the -company with some pleasing music. After dinner the guests -went to the next room, where they entered into lively discourse -and listened to music and singing. The duke and -the Count of Belcastro conversed with the Florentine merchants -and spoke of scarcely anything but Florence and the -prince’s stay in Tuscany. After about an hour the sewers -brought the dessert; for each person a silver dish of various -kinds of sweets, with covers made of wax and sugar; those -for the princes and knights adorned with coloured coats of -arms and mottoes, those for the merchants with escutcheons -and trade-marks. Cup-bearers also brought wine in gold -and silver goblets. Towards the fifth hour of the night the -guests departed, having stayed about four hours. The whole -house was full of the courtiers and servants of the princes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[348]</a></span> -and nobles. All praised the excellency of the dishes; never, -it was said, had a more splendid banquet been known. -Salutati’s love of show, however, brought its own punishment; -unless indeed he was ruined by the heavy troubles -brought upon his home by these same Neapolitan princes -and nobles not long after. Four or five years after this -banquet, according to his own declaration to the registrars, -he had returned to his native city a penniless man, intending -to give up his business altogether, as, under the sad circumstances -of the time and the heavy burdens of the community, -he was working at a clear loss. About this time he changed -his residence to Rome, where he was engaged in banking -business in 1491.<a name="FNanchor_406_406" id="FNanchor_406_406"></a><a href="#Footnote_406_406" class="fnanchor">[406]</a></p> - -<p>Such doings as these, however, were exceptional; generally, -the mode of life in Florence, as throughout Italy, was -simple. In describing the English plenipotentiary who -spent some time with Pope Eugene, Vespasiano da Bisticci -remarks that he had given up his native custom of sitting -four hours at table and adopted the Italian fashion of having -but one dish, from which the whole household dined together. -Even in the noblest houses there was no extravagance; -they had only the produce of the immediate neighbourhood -and, in particular, of their own estates. Thus it was -that an increase of rural industry was doubly desirable. In -later days it was wont to be related of Filippo Strozzi the -Elder that he introduced the cultivation of the artichoke -and that of a new species of fig, and both Cosimo and -Lorenzo de’ Medici carefully followed the progress of agriculture. -At parties there was no lack of intellectual enjoyments, -such as music and improvisation. Politian gives, in -a letter to Pico della Mirandola, an account of a dinner at -the house of Paolo Orsini, who was in the service of the -Republic; on this occasion Orsini’s son, a boy of eleven, -stood up and sang some verses of his own composition.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[349]</a></span> -Banquets given for entertainment, as well as for learned -discourse, chiefly took place at the villas. The richer and -more distinguished Florentines divided their time between -the city and the country. It has been seen how the pleasant, -healthy, fertile neighbourhood of Florence, especially the -hills easily attainable for both pedestrians and horsemen, -became covered with villas. These gradually spread further -out in all directions, up and down the valley of the Arno, -beyond Fiesole and Ponte a Sieve to Mugello, better suited -for a real summer residence; along the line of hills towards -Prato and the valley of the Bisenzio; on the left bank of -the Arno through the valleys of the Ema, the Pesa, and the -Elsa, and the rich grape-country of Chianti, to the Sienese -border. In proportion to the number and beauty of the city -residences the number and richness of the country-houses -increased also. Hither came princes, kings, and popes; -here they enjoyed hospitality at once grand, cordial, and -cheerful. The country-life contributed not a little to arouse -and maintain liveliness, freshness, fertility, and elasticity of -mind in those who were overwhelmed with grave business of -all kinds. The villas, far more than the town-houses, were -the places where men met for social intercourse, partly -because there they could keep themselves more free from -business, partly because they were there not troubled with -the want of space which was an inconvenience in the city. -The villa-life of the <i>literati</i> has been already mentioned. -The remarks concerning country-residences and country-life -made by Leon Battista Alberti, about the time now -under consideration, in his book ‘The Father of the Family,’<a name="FNanchor_407_407" id="FNanchor_407_407"></a><a href="#Footnote_407_407" class="fnanchor">[407]</a> -throw light on an important side of the condition of the -citizens, and give a glimpse into the temperament and tastes -of the classes who held the direction of the commonwealth. -These men did not give themselves up to idle pastimes, but -to gaining and keeping a clear survey of personal and civil<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[350]</a></span> -relations, and to increasing their own prosperity, and with -it that of others, by a wise culture which looked beyond the -limits of ordinary domestic economy.</p> - -<p>There was a darker side to this country-life, and among -its shadows was that of the gaming-table. As far back as -1285 a decree had been found necessary forbidding the use -of dice and other games of chance,<a name="FNanchor_408_408" id="FNanchor_408_408"></a><a href="#Footnote_408_408" class="fnanchor">[408]</a> and in the year before -the Pazzi conspiracy another similar decree was issued.<a name="FNanchor_409_409" id="FNanchor_409_409"></a><a href="#Footnote_409_409" class="fnanchor">[409]</a> -These prohibitions, however, shared the fate of the sumptuary -laws, and no doubt the relations with Naples in the -fourteenth century did no good in this respect. Still the -Florentines never went such lengths as disgraced the society -of cardinals and great lords at Rome in the latter half of -the fifteenth century in the days of Sixtus IV. and Innocent -VIII. Alberti, who in another of his writings<a name="FNanchor_410_410" id="FNanchor_410_410"></a><a href="#Footnote_410_410" class="fnanchor">[410]</a> describes -gaming and its attendant ruin arising from either loss or -gain and the bad company inseparable from it, probably -witnessed these corruptions more in Rome than in his -native land. But while in the city, where they were more -exposed to view, men proceeded more cautiously and chess -was the game chiefly played, the villas were too often scenes -of gambling. That this habit was by no means rooted out -in the city is shown by the history of St. Antonine. After -the holy archbishop had been preaching one day in the -church of Sto. Stefano he passed, with the cross carried -before him, through the Borgo Sant’Apostolo. As he was -passing the Loggia of the Buondelmonti and saw a company -at play, he entered and overthrew the tables; the gamblers, -ashamed, threw themselves at his feet and begged for -pardon.<a name="FNanchor_411_411" id="FNanchor_411_411"></a><a href="#Footnote_411_411" class="fnanchor">[411]</a></p> - -<p>The games which were also bodily exercises, and lived on -in another form, as the <i>giuoco del pallone</i>, have already been -mentioned. They were not without danger; in 1487 a son<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[351]</a></span> -of Ugolino Verino lost his life by a blow from a ball while -engaged in the game of <i>Maglio</i>. During the uncommonly -sharp winter of 1491 these games took place on the frozen -surface of the Arno. Hunting of all kinds had always been -a favourite pastime; in many country-houses may be seen -places prepared for decoying birds. Hawking stood first of -all in the lists of amusements. For graver exercises of the -chase there was a better field in the woods of Mugello, the -low country round Pisa, the Volterra country, and the -bordering Maremma, than in the well-built and thickly-inhabited -environs of the city. As for the stage, profane -drama, as is shown by the remarks of Poliziano, was just in -the dawn of its existence, and in its present antiquated form -only suited for the higher circles. This last was also the -condition of the Latin dramas, of which a great number had -been composed since the beginning of the fourteenth century. -Classical comedies were performed by students. May 12, -1488, the ‘Menæchmi’ of Plautus, a favourite and oft-copied -piece, was acted under the direction of Messer Paolo -Comparini, probably one of the professors at the university. -Poliziano wrote the Latin prologue for this performance, at -which Lorenzo was present.<a name="FNanchor_412_412" id="FNanchor_412_412"></a><a href="#Footnote_412_412" class="fnanchor">[412]</a> The sacred plays continued to -attract high and low; and, besides the customary representations -on feast-days, they never failed to be performed for -the edification of foreign princes and potentates who came -to the city. The Florentines seem to have been especially -skilled in these dramatic representations, for their companies -acted in other places outside their own city, for example, at -Rome. Famous artists, like Brunelleschi and the engineer -Cecca, who met his death in the Faenza campaign of 1488, -invented the apparatus for these mystery-plays and also for -the processions in the open air, on which occasions mass -was said on the <i>ringhiera</i> of the palace of the Signoria before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[352]</a></span> -the people who thronged the square. The most solemn procession -of all was that on the eve of St. John; the scene -was the precincts of the cathedral and the baptistery, where -a gigantic machinery of clouds, with saints and angels, was -built up under a lofty canopy of linen.<a name="FNanchor_413_413" id="FNanchor_413_413"></a><a href="#Footnote_413_413" class="fnanchor">[413]</a> The feasts of the -Church were many and splendid; most chiefly that of -St. John, which was connected with the history of the city -and the State. On the eve of this day and on the day itself -the shops of the merchants and artificers made a display of -their finest goods; Lorenzo lent his most valuable show-pieces -to his friends; and in the Baptistery was exhibited -the great silver reredos with its statuettes and reliefs. The -splendour was heightened by the participation of the numerous -clerical and lay societies, and by the influence of the -festivals on the patriotism of the multitude through their -connection with glorious events, the memory of which was -kept alive among the people by these reciprocal relations. -These historical reminiscences went back to the very earliest -mythical times of the city. Mystery-plays, shows, and -similar festivals were not confined to the churches, companies, -and public occasions and places, but also took place -in the houses of distinguished citizens, and artists constantly -took part in them.<a name="FNanchor_414_414" id="FNanchor_414_414"></a><a href="#Footnote_414_414" class="fnanchor">[414]</a> When it is considered that at the -beginning of the next century the number of the civil companies -or brotherhoods for religious exercises amounted to -370,<a name="FNanchor_415_415" id="FNanchor_415_415"></a><a href="#Footnote_415_415" class="fnanchor">[415]</a> partly for children and partly for adults, it may easily -be understood how closely domestic life was intertwined with -that of the Church.</p> - -<p>Some of these societies, called Standard-companies (Compagnie -di Stendardo) did not approve of social cheerfulness. -But the unions of the lower classes for the purpose of festivities, -shows, games, and merrymakings were those called -potenze. Their origin is commonly referred to the time of -the Duke of Athens; it was probably contemporary with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[353]</a></span> -development of the democratic element in the commonwealth. -These societies, whose festivals and performances -strongly resembled a carnaval, were also intended for spiritual -exercises. Their number differed greatly at different -times; their names are mostly fantastically derived from -the occupation or residence of the parties concerned; there -was an emperor of the Prato of Ognisanti, a king of the -wool-carders of Orsanmichele, and various others with similar -titles derived from localities in Camaldoli; monarchs of -Sant’Ambrogio and Terrarossa, dukes of the Via Guelfa, of -the Arno, of Camporeggi, of the moon, the dove, the owl; -princes of the apple and of the standard-carriage, grand -signors of the Pitti and of the dyers, lords of the chain, the -swallow, the kitchen-range, the sword, the scourge, the elm, -and suchlike names. They all bore coats of arms on their -banners; thus the emperor of the Prato displayed an eagle; -the grand signor of the dyers, a caldron standing on the -fire; the duke of the Arno, a pillar of the Rubaconte bridge, -with himself majestically seated thereon, surrounded by -players. These societies had for their chief object carnaval-amusements, -with games and pastimes which degenerated into -wild orgies, till in the sixteenth century the license became -so great, the waste of time and money and the annoyance to -the other citizens so disgraceful, that, after restrictions had -been tried in vain, the whole thing was put an end to.<a name="FNanchor_416_416" id="FNanchor_416_416"></a><a href="#Footnote_416_416" class="fnanchor">[416]</a> -Lorenzo has been reproached with having encouraged shows -and entertainments in order to keep the people occupied and -well-disposed towards himself. He probably acted with -this view just as much as the Duke of Athens; and when -the Medici came back in 1512 from their long exile, -his son Giuliano and his grandson Lorenzo employed -these same means, companies and pastimes, chiefly, as a -historian of the Medicean party, Filippo de’ Nerli, confesses, -in order to keep the citizens and common people in good<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[354]</a></span> -humour with triumphs, festivals, and public shows, and to -gather the young nobles around themselves.<a name="FNanchor_417_417" id="FNanchor_417_417"></a><a href="#Footnote_417_417" class="fnanchor">[417]</a> But the -inclinations and habits of the people made the attainment of -Lorenzo’s object easy to him. The widespread feeling -for art, which gave a special charm to all public displays, -contributed not a little thereto.</p> - -<p>Lorenzo revolutionised and developed the songs of the -carnaval. The romance writer Lasca relates<a name="FNanchor_418_418" id="FNanchor_418_418"></a><a href="#Footnote_418_418" class="fnanchor">[418]</a> the state in -which he found the carnaval and what he made of it. Youths -and men were wont to walk about the streets in women’s clothes -and mimick the girls and women on May-day. The songs -they sang were all much the same; the variety introduced -into their form and substance by Lorenzo was enhanced by the -melodies of Heinrich Isaak. The first masquerade of this -kind was that of the glass-blowers and pastrycooks, with -a three-part choir. The Triumphs (<i>trionfi</i>) were great -mythological or allegorical performances; the Chariots -(<i>carri</i>), representations of works, &c. Richly dressed horsemen, -to the number of 300, rode beside these chariots, which -came out in the afternoon and often enlivened the streets -till far into the night, accompanied by men on foot carrying -white wax torches. There was also instrumental music and -singing in four or eight parts, sometimes even fifteen parts. -According to the style and contents of the songs, so the -nature of these popular amusements was varied. In several -of Lorenzo’s carnaval-songs the license of the day is but too -evident; they were downright Roman saturnalia. Later on, -when reaction took place against this worldliness, the first<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[355]</a></span> -thing attacked was the carnaval. It will be seen hereafter -that this opposition had begun long before men’s minds -were biassed in a new direction in consequence of a revolution -in the political circumstances of Italy and the foreboding of -evil to come. The sobering change which followed this -license is shown by a satirical dialogue in verse on the carnaval, -which was forbidden the houses and streets; a popular -production of historical value on this account, that it -expresses a foreboding of the many evils which were to -befall Rome—Rome, the home of the saturnalia, which -threatened to swallow up all life and effort as in a whirlpool:<a name="FNanchor_419_419" id="FNanchor_419_419"></a><a href="#Footnote_419_419" class="fnanchor">[419]</a></p> - -<p class="pp6 p1">Questo è stato carnasciale<br /> -C’ha ’l cervel nelle scarpette,<br /> -Con suo certe gente grette<br /> -C’ han giocato il capitale:<br /> -Hanno avuto certe strette<br /> -Tu Fiorenza le lor mercíe<br /> -Stazonate brutte e lercíe<br /> -Sì che han perso ogni lor fede.<br /> -Poi che vai, cammina presto<br /> -Per l’Italia tutta quanta,<br /> -Et a Roma tua ch’è santa,<br /> -Tu farai questo protesto:<br /> -Che tempesta a lei vien tanta,<br /> -Che stupisce il cielo e ’l mondo:<br /> -Lancie, spade e squadre a tondo<br /> -Chiariran la sua gran fede.</p> - -<p class="p1">Amid the coarse sensual doings of the time there were -yet some festivals in which, although accompanied by immoderate -display, poetic feeling found room for expression. -During one carnaval Lorenzo got up a brilliant procession -representing the triumph of Paulus Æmilius; it was on this -occasion that the young painter Francesco Granacci gave<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[356]</a></span> -the first proofs of his remarkable talent for decoration. In -another procession of the same kind the planets were personified -and easily recognised by their emblems, and were -drawn through the streets in seven chariots amid the sound -of music and songs composed for the occasion.<a name="FNanchor_420_420" id="FNanchor_420_420"></a><a href="#Footnote_420_420" class="fnanchor">[420]</a> Allegorical -representations of this sort were common. Twenty or thirty -years later Raphael gave them the highest consecration of -art in his pictures of the planets, and the multitude was not -lacking in a sense of allegory. These gay scenes were -rivalled by the carnaval procession got up by Bartolommeo -Benci in honour of Marietta Strozzi Giachinotti, a granddaughter -of Palla.<a name="FNanchor_421_421" id="FNanchor_421_421"></a><a href="#Footnote_421_421" class="fnanchor">[421]</a> Eight young men of distinguished -families—Pucci, Altoviti, Vespucci, Girolami, and others—took -part in it. On the evening of the carnaval they all -went together to the house of the Benci, whose name is still -borne by a street in the Sta. Croce quarter. They were all -dressed in vests of silver and crimson brocade, and mounted -on horses with silken housings, each accompanied by eight -grooms and thirty torch-bearers. After supper the whole -party proceeded to the lady’s house, followed by four men -carrying a stage twenty ells high, made of branches of -laurel, yew, cypress, and other evergreens, and adorned with -a number of allegorical representations of the triumph of -love, with the escutcheons of the lady and the author of the -festival, surmounted by a bleeding and burning heart from -which rockets flew up. Round about were pipers and -mounted pages dressed in green. Bartolommeo Benci, with -gilt wings fastened to his shoulders, came riding on a handsome -and richly caparisoned horse, surrounded by fifteen -youths of good family dressed in crimson, and 150 torch-bearers -wearing his colours. Amerigo and Francesco Benci -and the lady’s brothers Nanni and Strozza Strozzi joined the -party. The gentlemen, with gilt spears in their hands,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[357]</a></span> -showed off their horses before the windows; then Bartolommeo -took the wings from off his shoulders and threw -them on the triumphal stage, which at once burst into -flames, while a number of rockets flew up from it, some high -in the air, some towards the house. When the fireworks -were over the party retired, the giver of the entertainment -making his horse step backwards till he was out of the -square. They then went round to the houses of the lady-loves -of all the gentlemen, and finished with an aubade -(<i>mattinata</i>) before the house of Marietta, who during the -whole scene remained at the window, between four wax -torches, ‘with such a stately grace as Lucretia herself would -not have needed to be ashamed of.’ The show ended at -dawn of day with a breakfast at Bartolommeo’s house. All -the Signoria’s servants, who had kept order during the -night, received stockings of the Benci colours.</p> - -<p>The people always preserved their unwearied gaiety, -which Ariosto called ‘lo spirito bizarro fiorentino.’ They -were always wide awake, ready for a jest, keen in perception, -quick at a repartee, disposed to give merit its due, but -with the eyes of a lynx for every weakness. The merry -meetings with their stories, not inventions of the Decamerone -but the links that connected it with the prevailing manners, -easily degenerated into buffoonery, as many examples remain -to show. As the Florentines went round as jesters to the -courts of princes, so they had in the herald or knight of the -Signoria a sort of official buffoon who was, however, employed -in earnest as well as in jest. The best known jesters -belong to the fifteenth century; of these, the barber Burchiello -represents the literary type, while the chief example -of the ordinary jester with his verbal witticisms is the -Piovano Arlotto or Arlotto Mainardi, vicar of a little place in -the diocese of Fiesole, who is mentioned in Lorenzo’s -‘Beoni,’ a true mirror of the somewhat coarse-grained wit -of these revels. Besides the tales of Francesco Sacchetti, -written at its commencement, which are satirical in their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[358]</a></span> -plot as well as in their too often licentious phraseology, -the two best known examples of buffoonery overstepping the -acknowledged limits of fiction, both in the form of romances, -belong to the fifteenth century. The one story is that of -the fat cabinet-maker, Manetto Ammanatini, a jest which is -said to have driven its victim, a master of artistic cabinet-making -and tarsia-work, away to Hungary. It originated -with Brunelleschi and his artist-friends, and the actual -authorship of the tale has been attributed to him. The -other story treats of Bianco Alfani, who was made to believe -that he had been chosen Podestà of Norcia, and had -to suffer for the delusion.<a name="FNanchor_422_422" id="FNanchor_422_422"></a><a href="#Footnote_422_422" class="fnanchor">[422]</a> The species of humour which -distinguishes these compositions was long preserved in the -<i>villeggiature</i>. Lorenzo was no stranger to it, and Leo X., -in the story of Baraballo, gave himself up to it in a manner -little becoming his dignity.</p> - -<p>As regards moral weakness and defects this period was -certainly not better than its neighbours; and there can be -no hesitation in accusing it of having, by gradually accustoming -people to the powers that then were, paved the way -for the destruction of the commonwealth in favour of one -man, who was not a Lorenzo. The lamentations over the -corruption of the times were very frequent. ‘O city of -Florence!’ cried the honest Vespasiano da Bisticci in 1480, -‘thou art full of usury and dishonest gain! The one devours -the other; greed has made thy people foes one towards the -other. Evil-doing has become so habitual that no one is -ashamed of it. In these latter days thou hast witnessed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[359]</a></span> -such unheard-of doings among thy citizens, such disorders -and failures, and dost not yet perceive that it is a judgment -from God, and thus thou continuest in thy hardness of heart. -There is no hope for thee, for thou thinkest of nought but -money-making; and yet thou seest how the wealth of thy -citizens passeth away like smoke as soon as they have closed -their eyes.’ Whatever might be the state of affairs, however, -such words as these are not to be taken literally. -There was an immense amount of good sterling material left -in the people who had outstripped others on the road to -intellectual knowledge, civil order, and industrial development. -The peculiar relation between the different classes, -which, in the ultimate development of democracy, in some -measure neutralised its evils, struck root so deeply that it -was never completely destroyed by the predominance of -Spanish manners which undermined and strove against -it for centuries. The Tuscan countryman, raised by the -old colony-system, which formed a sort of joint possession, -assumed an attitude of freedom towards his lord; the hard -and fast lines by which classes were divided in other lands -were never known here. The Florentine nobility never -forgot that by far the greater part of their number had risen -from the ranks of the people in times which were not remote -enough to be buried in the night of ages; and in their persons -the people felt themselves to a certain extent ennobled. -Feudalism never attained its full force here; even when its -tendencies prevailed throughout all the rest of Italy except -Venice, in Florence it had little more than a formal existence. -Down to the extinction of the Medici race, with a -few exceptions, they never cast off the traditions of the -citizen element. Thus in Florence there were never, as -elsewhere, violent conflicts aroused by the sharpness of social -contrasts. Conflicts of another kind were avoided by the -fact that, since the strengthening of the commonwealths, -the higher orders of clergy, notwithstanding their considerable -possessions, exercised no real territorial power and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[360]</a></span> -almost always kept on good terms with the commonwealths. -In the appointment of bishops, too, the popular element on -the whole prevailed, though sometimes, and indeed repeatedly -during the fifteenth century, single appointments were -made from a purely papal point of view. The reaction -which set in so soon after Lorenzo’s death against the laxity -of morals which is laid to his charge, and the heroic perseverance -with which these Florentines defended their independence -for nearly forty years, prove most clearly what -wholesome qualities were hidden within the nature of this -genuine, pliant, powerful citizen-people.</p> - -<p>The picture of the Florentines in the last days of the -Republic, sketched by an historian of the following century,<a name="FNanchor_423_423" id="FNanchor_423_423"></a><a href="#Footnote_423_423" class="fnanchor">[423]</a> -is equally true of Lorenzo’s time: ‘I do not share the -opinion of those who refuse to admit that the Florentines -can be noble-minded and consider them low and plebeian -because they are merchants. I have often secretly wondered -how people who from their childhood have been accustomed -to handle bales of wool and silken threads, or to work like -slaves all day and part of the night at the loom or the dye-cauldron, -often, when needed, display such loftiness of heart -and greatness of soul that they speak and act surpassingly -well. The air, a medium between the keen atmosphere of -Arezzo and the heavy air of Pisa, doubtless has some influence -on this peculiarity. Whosoever considers deeply the -nature and manners of the Florentines must arrive at the -conclusion that they are more fitted to command than to -obey. I do not deny that there are among them haughty, -covetous, and violent men, such as are to be found elsewhere. -Nay, they are even worse here than in other places; -for as talent and merit are more brilliant there than elsewhere, -so also evil qualities are more conspicuous—so hard -is it for them to preserve moderation. Their manner of life -is simple and thrifty, but distinguished by cleanliness such<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[361]</a></span> -as is not met with elsewhere. It may be said that in this -respect artisans and people who live by daily labour are a -pattern to the citizens of higher position; for whereas the -latter are easily led away to the taverns if they hear that -good wine is to be had there, and give themselves a day of -pleasure, the former stay at home with the thriftiness of -tradespeople who work seeking for their enjoyment in -advance, and with the modesty of citizens who understand -moderation, rules, and discipline, and will not quit the safe -path. Of course there are families which have a great -household and a rich table, such as would become noblemen. -People call each other by their Christian names, also by -their family names, and usually say ‘thou’ unless there is a -great difference of rank or age. The knights, doctors, prebendaries, -and canons are entitled Messere, the professors -Maestro, and the monks Padre.’</p> - -<p>Leon Battista Alberti and the pious Fra Giovanni Dominici -speak in similar terms of the respect for parents and -superiors.<a name="FNanchor_424_424" id="FNanchor_424_424"></a><a href="#Footnote_424_424" class="fnanchor">[424]</a> ‘My father,’ Alberti describes his cousin Francesco -as saying, ‘never sat down on public occasions when -his brother, who had received the honour of knighthood, was -present; and he pronounced it as his opinion that one ought -not to sit down in the presence of one’s father or the head -of the family. Your Romans,’ he added, turning to Leon -Battista, ‘who are now ill-conducted in all things (<i>in ogni -cosa mal corretti oggi</i>), have likewise fallen into great error -in this respect: they honour their parents less than their -neighbours, and thus grow up in disorder and vice.’ Fra -Giovanni recommends Madonna Bartolommea degli Obizzi -to teach her children before all things to reverence their -parents, and thus secure earthly happiness. We have before -remarked how Lorenzo impressed on his son the duty of -showing proper respect for his elders; on this point he was -always consistent. The good old habits of strictness were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[362]</a></span> -also kept up by many distinguished women. In Lorenzo’s -time there are no such charming portraits as those sketched -in his grandfather’s days by the good Vespasiano;<a name="FNanchor_425_425" id="FNanchor_425_425"></a><a href="#Footnote_425_425" class="fnanchor">[425]</a> but -Alessandra de’ Bardi, wife of Lorenzo Strozzi; Francesca -Giacomini Tebalducci, wife of Donato Acciaiuolo; Nanna -Valori, wife of Giannozzo Pandolfini; Caterina Strozzi -Ardinghelli; Saracina Giacomini Acciaiuolo, and others, -could not fail to have worthy successors; and the beautiful -and dignified female portraits which give such a peculiar -charm to Ghirlandajo’s frescoes in Sta. Maria Novella would -alone be enough to prove that the generation had not died -out. Times had become more settled and peaceful, and -since 1478 there had been no sudden overthrow or turn of -fortune such as had hitherto rapidly succeeded each other. -In the undisturbed peace of their homes good women found -ample scope for the practice of the Christian virtues which -had distinguished their mothers and grandmothers, often -widowed or homeless in early youth, amid the stormy days of -trouble.</p> - -<p>Knighthood has been frequently alluded to in this work. -While nobility of birth was attended by civil disadvantages, -personal nobility, or knighthood, had a peculiar value of its -own. This distinction was a relic of the romantic days of -Charles the Great. In imitation of kings and emperors the -commonwealth claimed the power of granting it, and in -1288 the first example is said to have occurred in the war -against Pisa. Knighthood was a necessary qualification for -the office of Podestà, and was conferred on those appointed -if they had not previously received it. Knights of this sort -were called <i>Cavalieri di popolo</i>. Two cases of strangely -conferred knighthood occurred in the fourteenth century. -After the rising of the lower classes on July 20, 1378, more -than sixty citizens, with Salvestro de’ Medici at their head, -were knighted at the request of the multitude. When quiet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[363]</a></span> -was in some degree restored these knights of the Ciompi, as -they were called, were summoned to declare whether they -wished to keep the dignity thus tumultuously conferred on -them; in which case they were to be knighted over again -by a syndic of the commonwealth who had himself attained -that honour. Thirty-one accepted the offer. On October 15 -they assembled in the church of the Annunziata and thence -proceeded, in knightly attire, to the great square; and -there, in presence of the Signoria, the Podestà—a Venetian -nobleman—completed the ceremony as syndic of the commonwealth, -whereupon they took the oaths of allegiance and -received from the Gonfalonier their lances, standards, and -shields with the arms of the people.<a name="FNanchor_426_426" id="FNanchor_426_426"></a><a href="#Footnote_426_426" class="fnanchor">[426]</a> On April 26, 1389, -two members of the Panciatichi family, one a child not -much more than four years old, were made knights of the -people. Great honour was shown them, and like Cola -Rienzi in Rome of old, they, with many of their relations -and friends, spent the night in the Baptistery, where seven -great beds were set up; and the next day a banquet took -place in the convent of Sta. Maria Novella<a name="FNanchor_427_427" id="FNanchor_427_427"></a><a href="#Footnote_427_427" class="fnanchor">[427]</a> at which 250 -citizens were present.</p> - -<p>The knights of the people were divided into two classes-the -<i>cavalieri di corredo</i>, knighted for civil services, and the -<i>cavalieri di scudo</i> for military ones; the former named from -the banquet which they gave after the ceremony, the latter -from the shield; like the <i>noblesse de robe</i> and <i>noblesse d’épée</i> -in France. Both classes bore on their breasts, or on their -helmets, shields, &c., the arms of the people, usually with the -red lily of the Republic on a round, white escutcheon, sometimes -also with the arms of the Guelf party. Besides these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[364]</a></span> -there were other knights who had received their dignity -from Popes or foreign sovereigns, especially the kings of -France, on embassies and suchlike occasions; and others -who had been knighted on the battle-field by a commander-in-chief, -as a reward for their bravery. These last were entitled -<i>cavalieri d’arme</i>, to distinguish them from the <i>cavalieri -di scudo</i>. The wearing of the golden spurs, afterwards so -much abused, was the prerogative of these military knights.</p> - -<p>Embassies had always been important to the Florentines -in a political point of view, as well as a means of obtaining -personal distinction. In the first jubilee year, when twelve -of them appeared before Pope Boniface VIII. as the representatives -of various states, he called them the fifth element. -They always preserved their reputation as good diplomatists. -Not only did clergy, statesmen, and scholars take an active -part in diplomacy, it was a career open even to the Grandi, -the real nobility who were excluded from all the offices of -state. In the fifteenth century the splendour with which -the embassies were conducted corresponded with the importance -of the state and the personal rank of the ambassadors. -Their posts, however, were not lucrative; for if, as -was the case in 1483, each ambassador received about ten -gold florins a day, the expenses in excess of those which he -could charge for were very heavy. Besides the solemn -embassies on special occasions, there were resident envoys -at Naples, Rome, Milan, and Venice. The former were -numerous and brilliant, and comprised, besides the actual -ambassadors, younger men (who, according to a later regulation, -were not to be under the age of twenty-four), who went -to learn the business of diplomacy and see foreign lands; -there was also a chancellor and other officials. Only two -examples need be referred to for the high honour in which -Florentine embassies were held—Neri Capponi’s famous -embassy to Venice during the war of the Visconti, and that -to Louis XI. on his accession. ‘Never,’ says Macchiavelli, -‘did that Signoria receive a prince with so much honour as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[365]</a></span> -they did Neri.’ King Louis, with the Duke of Britanny -and a suite of about forty horsemen, advanced two leagues -from Tours to meet Monsignor Filippo de’ Medici, Piero de’ -Pazzi, and Buonaccorso Pitti (Luca’s son), envoys of the -Republic, and kept his hat in his hand because the first-named -would not be covered.<a name="FNanchor_428_428" id="FNanchor_428_428"></a><a href="#Footnote_428_428" class="fnanchor">[428]</a> Travelling was slow; the -embassy had left Florence on October 27, and reached Tours -on December 23. With what splendour Piero de’ Pazzi returned -home has been mentioned already.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[366]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER III.</h2> - -<p class="pch">THE HOUSE AND FAMILY OF THE MEDICI.</p> - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">The</span> house of the Medici had not its equal in Florence, probably -not in all Italy. Its inner arrangements corresponded -with its outward stately and beautiful architecture. Three -generations, with the whole world open before them, of -highly-cultivated, art-loving owners had ruled in it. No -other family ever existed in which the love of collecting, -combined with a hearty appreciation of the value and -importance of the most various objects, retained its ardour and -thoroughness through so many centuries, as in the case of -these Florentine merchants, who gradually developed and -grew into a princely house, and intermarried with the royal -houses of Hapsburg, Lorraine, Wittelsbach, and Bourbon. -As in other great historical families, the same traits were -noticeable in all the Medici. Even in the days when several -members of the house fell victims to the curse that eventually -destroyed many of the ruling families of Italy, when the -Medici as a distinct family were fast perishing, though -mourned for by thousands—even then the surviving members -of the race preserved the many brilliant qualities which had -made their ancestors famous. In every direction they had -relations with grand-dukes and princes; beautiful, curious, -and rare objects of art were sent to them from all quarters of -the globe by their agents, diplomatists, scholars, artists, and -merchants; and in their own country they constantly employed -those who displayed talent, learning, or skill. The -colossal wealth of the Florentine collections, chiefly inheritances<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[367]</a></span> -from the Medici, proves this; and the sudden bankruptcy -which occurred in all these things at their extinction -gives a striking example of the contrast which was brought -about by years.</p> - -<p>The history of art and literature from Cosimo’s days -shows what a treasury of paintings, sculptures, coins, engraved -stones, manuscripts, gems, and antiquities of all -kinds were collected together in that house in the Via Larga. -Commines, describing the shameless plunder of the Medici’s -houses begun in November 1494 by the French and continued -by the Florentines,<a name="FNanchor_429_429" id="FNanchor_429_429"></a><a href="#Footnote_429_429" class="fnanchor">[429]</a> estimates the value of the objects destroyed -in one day at 100,000 crowns;—‘the most beautiful rings, -specimens of agate, admirable cameos, and near three -thousand gold and silver medals, such as no other collection -in Italy could equal.’ Galeazzo Maria Sforza once said that -he, too, could show treasures; but the finest things in all -the world were collected in the house of a private man—Lorenzo. -And what a quantity had been gathered together -there since the visit of the Milanese Duke! ‘Lorenzo,’ says -Niccolò Valori,<a name="FNanchor_430_430" id="FNanchor_430_430"></a><a href="#Footnote_430_430" class="fnanchor">[430]</a> ‘took the liveliest interest in all things antique. -I have heard from Marsilio that on receiving from Girolamo -Rossi of Pistoja a bust of Plato, found amid the ruins of the -Athenian Academy, his delight was exceeding great, and -he always held that bust in high honour. Those who wished -to do this great man a pleasure vied with each other in -bringing him coins and bronze works distinguished by their -value and workmanship, and antiquities of all sorts, from all -parts of the world. When I came home from Naples I sent -him busts of the Empress Faustina and Africanus and several -beautifully chiselled marbles. I cannot describe the manner -in which he received them. What he had collected from all -quarters he carefully preserved in his house. He did not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[368]</a></span> -show them to just anybody, but only to those who understood -them, and at festive banquets he adorned his table with -works of art to do honour to his guests. When the excellent -Duke Federigo of Urbino saw these treasures of Lorenzo, -he admired not only the materials and skilful workmanship, -but also the almost incredible number of the objects. He is -said to have thus addressed Lorenzo: ‘How much can love -and perseverance accomplish! I behold, here, a royal -treasure-house; yet one such as no king is able to gather -together, either by money, or power, or rapine.’</p> - -<p>These treasures were collected in the most various ways. -Sellers of antiques brought them to Florence or sent them -from a distance. When Paul III.’s rich collection of engraved -and precious stones was sold after his death, a considerable -part of it passed into the hands of the Medici for a -moderate sum, by means of Giovanni Tornabuoni. Lorenzo -himself in his memoirs mentions the marble busts of Augustus -and Agrippa, gifts of Sixtus IV., and the vases of chalcedony -and engraved stones bought in Rome. In 1484, 1488, and -1490, Luigi Lotti of Barberino, Giovan Antonio of Arezzo, -and Andrea of Fojano were commissioned to make purchases -in Rome and Siena.<a name="FNanchor_431_431" id="FNanchor_431_431"></a><a href="#Footnote_431_431" class="fnanchor">[431]</a> On Giuliano da Sangallo’s return from -Naples, King Ferrante gave him a bust of Hadrian, a nude -female statue and a sleeping Cupid, for Lorenzo, who had -sent him to the king.<a name="FNanchor_432_432" id="FNanchor_432_432"></a><a href="#Footnote_432_432" class="fnanchor">[432]</a> Messer Zaccaria Barbaro, grateful for -the sympathy shown to his son, sent a precious Greek vase. -Carlo de’ Medici bought antiquities, coins, &c., in Rome. -Besides the manuscripts and objects of art, there were a -quantity of curiosities and handsome household furniture of -all sorts, porcelain and majolica, given by the Malatesta, and, -as Lorenzo wrote,<a name="FNanchor_433_433" id="FNanchor_433_433"></a><a href="#Footnote_433_433" class="fnanchor">[433]</a> more highly prized by him than if they -were of silver, because they were excellent, rare, and, till -then, unknown in Florence. Much of what now adorns the -great Uffizi collection came to Florence in those days. Most<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[369]</a></span> -of the sculptures and larger works of art, however, were not -placed in the house in the Via Larga, where there was no -space for them, but in the neighbouring garden of San Marco. -Opposite the left aisle, near to where the long street joins -the large conventual and other gardens, the Medici had a -casino, to which were attached grounds and plantations extending -as far as the Via San Gallo. Casinos of this kind, -intended for social purposes and walks, were usual among -the great Florentine families even down to the last century. -The whole place has been altered; a century after Lorenzo’s -time, Bernardo Buontalenti built a grand but heavy palace, -which has been lately used for various purposes, and after -the extinction of the Medici, part of the ground was cleared -for the pretty house called Casino della Livia, after a favourite -of the Grand-Duke Leopold I. About the same time the -appearance of the adjoining Piazza San Marco was completely -changed by the new façade of the church, the new front of -the convent, and the building of the Academy of Arts on the -site of Lemmo Balducci’s hospital.<a name="FNanchor_434_434" id="FNanchor_434_434"></a><a href="#Footnote_434_434" class="fnanchor">[434]</a> Here, in the alleys of -trees, were set up the antique sculptures, and in the house -were kept the cartoons and pictures which had been collected -in the course of years; here young artists studied from old -and new models. Lorenzo, most eager of collectors, knew -how to appreciate love of art in others. Not only to allied -princes did he give great assistance in this respect. When -Commines returned from his embassy in 1478, he brought -home several beautiful medals of which the ‘Seigneur -Laurens’ had made him a present.<a name="FNanchor_435_435" id="FNanchor_435_435"></a><a href="#Footnote_435_435" class="fnanchor">[435]</a></p> - -<p>The Medici did not confine their splendour to their town -houses. Lorenzo divided his time between the city and the -country. His appreciation of the beauties of nature made a -sojourn at his villas particularly agreeable to him; and -following the example of his father and grandfather, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[370]</a></span> -frequently went to stay at Careggi, whose nearness to the -city facilitated the transaction of business; in the hot season -he went up to the more retired and cooler Cafaggiuolo or -Trebbio. After Careggi, however, his favourite abode was -Poggio a Cajano. Half way between Florence and Pistoja, -ten miles from either city, on a low hill, the last on the -north-eastern slope of the Monte Albano, which separates -the plain of Pistoja from the valley of the Nievole and the -lower part of that of the Arno, stands Sangallo’s handsome -building, overlooking the green and fruitful valley watered -by the Ombrone, and made famous by Lorenzo’s poem of -‘Ambra.’ Travellers may now wander through the well-cultivated -grounds of the farm, and the park, twenty or -thirty years ago still full of gold pheasants, the descendants -of those procured by Lorenzo from Sicily; or cross the stream -by means of a suspension-bridge. The beauty of the place, -and the admirable arrangements made for purposes of husbandry -by the owner of the villa, were described by Poliziano -at the end of his ‘Ambra’ (composed in 1485), and by Michele -Verino in a letter to Simone Canigiani. An aqueduct brought -water from the neighbouring height of Bonistallo. Besides -the vegetable and fruit gardens there were large mulberry -plantations for rearing silk-worms, still a profitable business -in that district. On the low uplands were large stalls, paved -with stone for the sake of cleanliness, and with their four -turrets resembling little fortresses; here was kept a whole -herd of fine cows which fed on the rich pasture-lands and -supplied the city of Florence with cheese, an article which -hitherto had had to be fetched from Lombardy. There were -plenty of calves and sheep; a breed of uncommonly large -pigs had been got from Calabria, and a breed of rabbits from -Spain. Birds of all kinds abounded, particularly water-fowl -and quails. The quantity of water made the soil fruitful, -but there was ample provision for manure.<a name="FNanchor_436_436" id="FNanchor_436_436"></a><a href="#Footnote_436_436" class="fnanchor">[436]</a> It is interesting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[371]</a></span> -to see the statesman and patron of literature and art occupied -with agricultural interests, a liking for which he had inherited -from his grandfather, and to which he was specially attracted -by his strong feeling for nature.</p> - -<p>Down to our own time the villa of Poggio a Cajano has -kept up these traditions side by side with its historic reminiscences. -The very ancient and noble family of the Cadolingi -of Fucecchio had property here which passed to the powerful -Pistojan family of the Cancellieri, and in 1420, by sale, to -Palla Strozzi.<a name="FNanchor_437_437" id="FNanchor_437_437"></a><a href="#Footnote_437_437" class="fnanchor">[437]</a> How and when the Medici came into possession -of it is unknown. That it should have changed -hands twice in a century is nothing astonishing, considering -the vicissitudes of families in those eventful times. Nowhere -is one so vividly reminded as here of Lorenzo il Magnifico, -who actually built the place as it is now. When his second -son had mounted the Papal chair, he caused the great hall to -be decorated with frescoes representing scenes from the old -Roman world, and containing allusions to home events. -Paolo Giovio, a client of the Pope and of Cardinal Giulio -de’ Medici, chose the subjects; the animals bringing tribute -to Cæsar were painted by Andrea del Sarto; the triumph of -Cicero, which Poggio Bracciolini had compared to the return -of Cosimo, by Franciabigo; and some mythological representations -by Jacopo da Pontormo. Leo’s death interrupted -the work, which was completed in 1580 by Alessandro Allori. -In a Pietà forming the altar-piece of the village church -Giorgio Vasari placed the two patron saints of the Medici -beside the dead Saviour.<a name="FNanchor_438_438" id="FNanchor_438_438"></a><a href="#Footnote_438_438" class="fnanchor">[438]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[372]</a></span></p> - -<p>In these stately and beautiful localities, both in the city -and country, active, energetic, comfortable, and cheerful life -went on its way in spite of a few natural troubles. Lorenzo -never gave himself up to senseless luxury such as many -princes and cardinals indulged in; but he was always a -grand gentleman in the true sense of the words. He never -forgot that he was a Florentine citizen, as he loved to describe -himself; his correspondents adopted the same idea of -him, and he impressed the fact strongly upon his sons. -At the same time he never forgot that at home all eyes were -fixed on him, and that abroad it was he who represented the -State. In his house and his villas there was perpetual -movement. Everybody and everything went to and fro in -the house of the man who stood at the head of all. Besides -politics, he was constantly engaged with family affairs and -intercourse with scholars and artists. He had many relations, -and made good use of some of them. Numerous families -were intimately connected with his. Many were made great -by him; others, great already, he tried to attach more and -more to himself. He stood godfather to his own countrymen -as well as to foreign princes. When in 1490, Duke Alfonso -of Calabria consented to be sponsor for the son of Giuliano -Gondi, a business friend of the Medici, he asked Lorenzo to -act as proxy for him.</p> - -<p>The Medici in some degree kept open house. We learn -from the life of Michelangelo that whosoever was present -at the beginning of the dinner took his seat after the master -of the house, each according to his rank; and the arrangement -of the table was not altered for those who came later, -even though they were of higher rank. All the inmates of -the house who were not servants dined together; the young -Buonarotti, then in the earliest days of his apprenticeship, -was a constant guest at his patron’s table.<a name="FNanchor_439_439" id="FNanchor_439_439"></a><a href="#Footnote_439_439" class="fnanchor">[439]</a> Besides the -Academic and other learned symposia, banquets were frequently<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[373]</a></span> -given, both in the city and at Careggi, in honour of -distinguished foreigners or ambassadors, and on festive occasions. -Cristoforo Landino has left an account of a banquet -which was something between a dinner of scholars and a -feast, and was given by Lorenzo in his young days, when a -noble Greek named Philotimos, who traced his pedigree up -to the time of Constantine and prided himself greatly thereon, -came to Florence accompanied by an Athenian philosopher -named Aretophilos, to condole with the young Medici on the -death of his father. Lorenzo rode out four miles to meet -his guests, and conducted them to his house, where he had -assembled the most distinguished literary men and the friends -of the family. Among the company were Gentile Becchi, -Antonio degli Agli, Giorgio Antonio Vespucci, Leon Battista -Alberti, Ficino, Landino, Poliziano, Argyropulos, his pupils -Piero and Donato Acciaiuolo, and Alamanno Rinuccini. The -discourse at table and the claims of the proud Greek furnished -Landino with the materials for his treatise on true nobility, -which he dedicated to Lorenzo.<a name="FNanchor_440_440" id="FNanchor_440_440"></a><a href="#Footnote_440_440" class="fnanchor">[440]</a> On these and suchlike occasions -the hospitality was on a grand and brilliant scale; -but on ordinary days Lorenzo kept his table within the -modest limits befitting a citizen. So Franceschetto Cybò -discovered when he came on a visit in June 1488. Roman -lords and a number of other people accompanied the -Pope’s son; they wished to see the splendour of the house -of Medici, of which all the world spoke so much. Franceschetto -stayed in his father-in-law’s house; a fine palace was -assigned to his companions. After a few days passed in -festivities, the visitor found a simple table. He wondered; -and when the dinner and supper were served in the same -style, he began to suspect that his companions might be -treated in the same way. The suspicion troubled him, -knowing as he did with what expectations they had come -to Florence. He was therefore delighted to learn that they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[374]</a></span> -continued to be most sumptuously entertained. Talking -confidentially with his father-in-law he mentioned the circumstance, -whereupon Lorenzo quietly answered that he had -received him into his house as a son and was treating him -as such; to act otherwise would be to make a stranger of -him. The noble lords who had come with him to celebrate -his marriage were strangers; Lorenzo was treating them -accordingly, as became his position and theirs.</p> - -<p>At the end of 1482 an illustrious German guest came to -the Medici house: Eberhard the Bearded Count of Würtemberg, -son-in-law of Lodovico Gonzaga, Marquis of -Mantua, a connection which formed a natural introduction -to friendly relations with the Medici.<a name="FNanchor_441_441" id="FNanchor_441_441"></a><a href="#Footnote_441_441" class="fnanchor">[441]</a> The count’s learned -companions have been already mentioned. Eberhard surveyed -the riches of the house, the handsome halls filled with -plate and other valuables, the library, the terrace with its -evergreen fruit-trees and the stables. What he saw here -must have been a source of great enjoyment to this highly -accomplished prince, who combined a love of native literature -with a knowledge of antiquity, possessed a fine library, -and four years before had conferred a lasting benefit on his -admiring country by founding the university of Tübingen. -He saw the whole family, Lorenzo and his sons, Clarice and -her daughters, still all together in those days. He openly -expressed his pleasure at everything, both the house and its -inhabitants. When he admired the collection of books, -greatly increased and with much discrimination since -Cosimo’s days, Lorenzo, with a play on the words <i>libri</i> and -<i>liberi</i>, answered that his children were his greatest treasures. -From Florence Eberhard went to Rome, where Sixtus IV. -presented him with the golden rose.<a name="FNanchor_442_442" id="FNanchor_442_442"></a><a href="#Footnote_442_442" class="fnanchor">[442]</a></p> - -<p>The German prince admired Lorenzo’s stud, and no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[375]</a></span> -doubt with justice. Lorenzo had a passion for riding-horses, -hunters, and racers. Presents, purchases, and borrowing -of horses occur over and over again in his correspondence. -In October 1488 he bought twenty mares at -Naples, and only a short time before his death horses for -him were on their way from Egypt and the coast of Barbary.<a name="FNanchor_443_443" id="FNanchor_443_443"></a><a href="#Footnote_443_443" class="fnanchor">[443]</a> -The taste of the Florentines for horse-racing, with or without -riders, and for which even in those days there were -regular horse-lenders, has been preserved down to our own -time; in the house of the Alessandri is shown a room whose -walls are entirely covered with brocades won as prizes by a -horse belonging to the family. Lorenzo always kept race-horses; -one in particular, called Morello from its dark -colour, always came off victorious, and was so attached to -its master that it showed signs of illness when he did not -feed it with his own hand, and testified its joy at his approach -by stamping and loud neighing.<a name="FNanchor_444_444" id="FNanchor_444_444"></a><a href="#Footnote_444_444" class="fnanchor">[444]</a> In his young days a -handsome Sicilian horse was presented to him, and its value -was outdone by that of the presents he gave in return. He -himself made presents of horses. In November 1479, when -he was particularly anxious to keep on good terms with -Lodovico il Moro, he sent to Roberto Sanseverino, who was -at that time a confidant of the Moro, a fine horse and a -falcon.<a name="FNanchor_445_445" id="FNanchor_445_445"></a><a href="#Footnote_445_445" class="fnanchor">[445]</a> Letters about their horses passed between Lorenzo -and King Ferrante, the Este family, the Sforzas of Pesaro, -and others. In January 1473 the king thanked Lorenzo -for the gift of a horse about which his ambassador, Marino -Tomacelli, had written to him. Four years after he announced -that he was sending Lorenzo two racers, a Sicilian -and another, from his own stud, and two hunters, as tokens -of his attachment. Horses of the king’s, lent for the -Florentine races, were on their way at the time of the Pazzi -catastrophe.<a name="FNanchor_446_446" id="FNanchor_446_446"></a><a href="#Footnote_446_446" class="fnanchor">[446]</a> It was, moreover, the custom to send horses<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[376]</a></span> -to allied nobles and cities, to keep them for the races; -those of the Medici went to both Ferrara and Lucca. -When Giovanni Sforza of Pesaro was going to be married -to Maddalena Gonzaga at the end of the summer -of 1489, he begged Lorenzo to lend him one of his horses -for the tournament to be held on the occasion. In -Lorenzo’s latter years his eldest son had the direction of the -stables.<a name="FNanchor_447_447" id="FNanchor_447_447"></a><a href="#Footnote_447_447" class="fnanchor">[447]</a></p> - -<p>Lorenzo has left in his pretty and cheerful description -of the hawking-party a graceful memorial of his love of the -sport. Hawking was an old pastime always in great favour -with princes and nobles. Dante’s master, Brunetto Latini, -mentions in his ‘Treasury’ seven species of falcons which -served for the chase. Two contemporaries of Lorenzo paid -special attention to the training of these birds: the King of -Naples, who imported the best falcons from Rhodes with the -permission of the grand-master of the Hospitallers, and Ercole -d’Este, to whom Lorenzo gave leave to catch the birds on his -estates in the Pisan territory. In return for this the duke sent -to Lorenzo some of his own well-trained falcons for the purpose -of the chase or to help in training his wild ones, and the -king several times made him presents of hawks, as he did -also to Maximilian of Austria, Ferdinand of Castile, Galeazzo -Maria Sforza, and others.<a name="FNanchor_448_448" id="FNanchor_448_448"></a><a href="#Footnote_448_448" class="fnanchor">[448]</a> The wide, well-wooded and -watered plain of Pisa, and the lowlands and hills round -Poggio a Cajano, were the scenes of the chase. On December -1, 1475, Angelo Poliziano, who was seldom absent from -either studies or sports, wrote from Pisa to Madonna Clarice, -then expecting her confinement (the child was afterwards -Pope Leo):<a name="FNanchor_449_449" id="FNanchor_449_449"></a><a href="#Footnote_449_449" class="fnanchor">[449]</a> ‘Yesterday we went hawking. It was windy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[377]</a></span> -and we were unlucky, for we lost Pilato’s falcon called -Mantovano. To-day we tried again, and again the wind -was contrary; yet we had some fine flights, for Maestro -Giorgio let loose his falcon, which returned obediently at a -given signal. Lorenzo is quite in love with the bird, and -not without justice, for Maestro Giorgio says he has never -seen one larger or finer, and he hopes to make him the best -falcon in the world. While we were in the field Pilato returned -from the shore with the truant of yesterday, which -redoubled Lorenzo’s pleasure. We are hawking from morning -till night, and do nothing else. On Monday I hear our -sport is to be varied by a deer-hunt.’</p> - -<p>Independently of hunting, Lorenzo liked being in Pisa, -and it was not his fault that the unfortunate city’s relations -with Florence did not improve, and that she could not accustom -herself to bear the position of a subject city. Even -when not called there by business, he frequently stayed there. -From his youth up he was in the habit of leaving Florence -to meet friends for change, for hunting or to see after his -great estate at Agnano. This place, first a fortress and -then a villa round which had gathered a population of a few -hundreds, lies on the western slope of the Monte San Giuliano, -four miles from Pisa, near marshes which Valori says Lorenzo -would have drained if he had lived longer, and which mostly -are drained now. A large pine-wood forms part of the -estate, which in Lorenzo’s days furnished a considerable -quantity of corn and oil, and with other possessions in the -Maremma of Pisa, at Colle Salvetti (now one of the stations -on the railway which passes through the plain to Civita -Vecchia), at Colmezzano, and other places, formed a most -important part of the Medici landed property. Lorenzo’s -letters bear testimony to the great care he took in the improvement -of husbandry in this hitherto sadly neglected -part. Like Spedaletto, Agnano passed to Maddalena Cybò; -her son Lorenzo, who was not on very good terms with his -wife—Ricciarda Malaspina, heiress of Massa and Carrara—ended<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[378]</a></span> -his days there in 1549.<a name="FNanchor_450_450" id="FNanchor_450_450"></a><a href="#Footnote_450_450" class="fnanchor">[450]</a> After Lorenzo had re-established -the University of Pisa, its interests frequently -called him to the city. During the disastrous fight for -Sarzana he made Pisa a sort of head-quarters. The house -then inhabited by the Medici, now belonging to the Pieracchi -family, stands not far from the upper bridge over the Arno—the -Ponte della Fortezza—on the right bank, near the church -of San Matteo. Here is said to have occurred, seventy years -after Lorenzo’s death, that domestic tragedy which has -never been cleared up, and which casts a dark shadow over -the history of the first Medicean grand-duke.</p> - -<p>In Lorenzo’s days the house was more cheerful. Here, -probably, was the scene of his discourse with Federigo of -Aragon on Italian poetry; here he passed some pleasant -days in April 1476. He came by San Miniato, where a halt -was always made, with six-and-twenty horses. ‘We rode -along,’ wrote Poliziano to Clarice,<a name="FNanchor_451_451" id="FNanchor_451_451"></a><a href="#Footnote_451_451" class="fnanchor">[451]</a> ‘singing, and sometimes -talking theology in order not to forget this season of fasting; -Lorenzo was triumphant. At San Miniato we tried to read -some of St. Augustine, but the reading was soon exchanged -for music and for polishing up a figure of a dancer which -we found there.’ There was no lack of merriment and jesting -wherever Lorenzo went; the Pisan students found him -a ready supporter of their carnaval gaieties, at which they -were permitted to take away the instruction-books from the -professors and to spend on festivities the money paid to -ransom them. The attribution to Lorenzo of the combat on -the middle bridge over the Arno (<i>Giuoco del Ponte</i>), at which -the ground was disputed between armed bands on either -side, and which was forbidden by the Grand-Duke Leopold -I. on account of its fatal episodes, is a mistake; traces -of it may be found in much earlier times.</p> - -<p>It was in Pisa, at the end of May 1477, that Lorenzo<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[379]</a></span> -received Eleonora of Aragon, wife of Duke Ercole of Ferrara; -she had come by way of Lucca to attend her father’s marriage -at Naples, whither she was conveyed by a royal fleet -which had anchored at Livorno.<a name="FNanchor_452_452" id="FNanchor_452_452"></a><a href="#Footnote_452_452" class="fnanchor">[452]</a> As long as Filippo de’ Medici -was Archbishop of Pisa, and his brother Tanai dwelt -there, there was no lack of grand hospitality; Luigi Pulci -mentions the festivities during the presence of the Duke of -Calabria in the war of Colleone.<a name="FNanchor_453_453" id="FNanchor_453_453"></a><a href="#Footnote_453_453" class="fnanchor">[453]</a> Other than cheerful purposes -called Lorenzo to Pisa. He sought in its mild air -relief from physical sufferings; as in the autumn of 1474, -after being cured of fever by the waters of Porretta. He -stopped at Pisa, at a critical moment of his life, before embarking -for Naples. In the little church of Sta. Maria della -Spina, whose spires and pinnacles are seen adjoining the -quay on the south shore, in 1485 he ordered for the victims -of the Sarzana struggle requiems to be sung, at which he was -present together with the widow of Bongianni Gianfigliazzi, -who had met his death in the unhealthy air of the Lunigiana -coast.<a name="FNanchor_454_454" id="FNanchor_454_454"></a><a href="#Footnote_454_454" class="fnanchor">[454]</a></p> - -<p>Lorenzo’s visits to the baths played a great part in his -life, though they never took him beyond the borders of -Tuscany. Gout was hereditary in his family; his grandfather, -his father, and his uncle all suffered from it, and his -mother too was not exempt. When only twenty-six he was -obliged to take the waters of Porretta, which still attract so -many invalids to the valley of the Reno in the Apennines, -on the road between Pistoja and Bologna. His most frequent -resort was Bagno a Morba, where Madonna Lucrezia -had a house and stayed frequently, and in his latter years -he had the water sent to Spedaletto. Most of the Tuscan -baths were anything but inviting; some are not more so -now. In the Roman territory they are still worse; Ser<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[380]</a></span> -Matteo Franco, describing the baths of Stigliano near the -lake of Bracciano, remarks that in comparison with this -place Bagno a Morba was a Careggi. Lorenzo tried other -medicinal waters. In the autumn of 1484, after the taking -of Pietrasanta, he went to the baths of San Filippo in the -Sienese country. These remarkable thermal springs are -reached by turning out of the old Roman high-road at the -little village of Ricorsi, at the foot of the inhospitable height -of Radicofani, and proceeding through the valley of the -Orcia towards the stately group of Mont’Amiata, covered -throughout its 5,000 feet of height with chestnuts and -beeches, and surrounded with a girdle of villages. The -springs lie in a deep ravine encircled with woods; a precipitate -of carbonic acid and lime forms a marble-like crust, -and the waters are an efficacious remedy for arthritic disorders -as well as for skin-diseases. It is a desolate place, -with only a few houses destined for the reception of invalids, -in the narrow valley where oppressive heat alternates with a -damp cold atmosphere. In autumn of the following year, -and several times afterwards, Lorenzo came again. In the -spring of 1490 he spent some time at the baths of Vignone -in the same valley of the Orcia, a little southwards of San -Quirico. Powerful thermal springs, similar to those mentioned -above, issue from a travertine hill in the middle of -the village, and fill a large basin; they were known in -Roman times. Here Ermolao Barbaro visited Lorenzo, and -Franceschetto Cybò and his wife kept him company; at that -season the place was safe, but in summer the air can hardly -be borne even by natives. Lorenzo’s stay at Filetto in the -valley of the Merse has already been mentioned. All these -water-cures only gave temporary relief to his malady, and -the short time he usually devoted to them would have prevented -any lasting result even if his maladies had been less -rooted and less complicated. Besides, even after his health -had suffered considerably, his mode of life was not exactly -regular. He not only exerted himself too much in attending<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[381]</a></span> -to business of all kinds, public and private, which poured in -upon him surrounded as he was by many cares, but he was -always involved in love intrigues. Bartolommea de’ Nasi, -the wife of Donato Benci, held him in her chains for years; -she was neither young nor beautiful, but graceful and attractive. -Even in winter he would ride out in the evening to -her villa to be back in the city before daybreak. Two confidants, -Luigi della Stufa and Andrea de’ Medici, were his -usual companions. They got tired of it, and their remarks -came to the ears of the lady; whereupon she managed to -have them punished by being sent off on diplomatic errands, -the one to Cairo and the other to Constantinople—an old -and well-worn contrivance which, in this case, caused a sensation -of a nature not very favourable to the great man, -‘who behaved himself like an inexperienced youth.’<a name="FNanchor_455_455" id="FNanchor_455_455"></a><a href="#Footnote_455_455" class="fnanchor">[455]</a></p> - -<p>The princely dignity which Lorenzo enjoyed was as -apparent in his relations with foreign rulers as in his position -in his own country, in his own house, and in his journeys. -The former have been repeatedly mentioned. Everyone -made use of him; everyone applied to him; everyone -gave him thanks and presents, from antiquities down to -sweet-smelling essences, which the Duchess of Calabria sent -him. He sent his friends and acquaintances presents of -books, works of art, horses, wine, and other things. In -June 1489 he presented a vase full of balm to Anne de -Beaujeu, ‘Madama di Belgiù.’ Venison and fish seem to -have been favourite gifts on the part of communities and -individuals; on one day five wild boars were taken to -Lorenzo’s house.</p> - -<p>A great event, which has left its trace in the history of -art by a representation in a fresco at Poggio a Cajano, was -an embassy from Abu Nasr Kaitbei, Sultan of Egypt, or -of Babylonia as he was called, which arrived at Florence on -November 11, 1487, and was honourably and joyfully received<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[382]</a></span> -by the foreign ambassadors and many of the citizens.<a name="FNanchor_456_456" id="FNanchor_456_456"></a><a href="#Footnote_456_456" class="fnanchor">[456]</a> -It was a fortunate time for the Republic, which had a few -months before got rid of the dreary affair of Sarzana, and -had now entered on a period of comparative peace which -was not disturbed till the revolution of 1494. Italian affairs -were of considerable importance to the Egyptian sultan, not -only on account of commerce but also politically, on account -of his relations with Naples and Venice; difficulties with -this latter state might easily have been created by the -sultan’s claims to the suzerainty of Cyprus, where Caterina -Cornaro continued to reign as a queen of shadows till 1489, -under the protection of Venice. The sultan’s eyes often -turned towards the west as the progress of the Osmanli -threatened an attack on the loosely connected empire of the -Mamelukes, which, indeed, fell before their better-compacted -power within less than thirty years. After the subjection -of Pisa, Florence had frequent commercial relations with -Egypt, and a desire to enlarge and secure its privileges -gave rise to negotiations for which an Egyptian ambassador -named Malphet came to Florence in 1487, and in the following -year a Florentine, the aforesaid Luigi della Stufa, went -to Cairo.<a name="FNanchor_457_457" id="FNanchor_457_457"></a><a href="#Footnote_457_457" class="fnanchor">[457]</a> The former was sent at once to the Signoria of -the Republic and to the ‘Hakim’ (lord) Lorenzo de’ Medici, -and brought rich presents for both. On Sunday, November -18, he had a solemn audience of the Signoria in presence of -many of the chief citizens. He had led before him a giraffe -and a tame lion, gifts from the sultan. The giraffe was no -novelty to the Florentines, for one had been already seen at -the festivals with which the visit of Pius II. was celebrated; -and the lion, the emblem of the commonwealth, was always -carefully kept here, alive as well as in effigy. A street -behind the palace of the Signoria took its name from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[383]</a></span> -lion-cage, afterwards removed to the square of San Marco. -A Sicilian interpreter translated the conversation, which -turned on the privileges offered to the Florentines in Egypt -and Syria. For Lorenzo the ambassador brought gifts of -various kinds: an Arabian horse, rare animals, among -which were rams and sheep of various colours, with long -hanging ears and tails; several horns of civet, a lamp with -balsam, a quantity of aloe-wood, beautiful many coloured -porcelain such as had never before been seen, vases of preserves, -and rich and finely woven silk and linen stuffs.<a name="FNanchor_458_458" id="FNanchor_458_458"></a><a href="#Footnote_458_458" class="fnanchor">[458]</a> -There was a great festival in the Medici household when all -these rarities were brought home; Madonna Clarice was -absent, being then at Rome with Maddalena. Among -Lorenzo’s gifts to the sultan is mentioned a bed, carried by -a special messenger.</p> - -<p>Whenever Lorenzo went to the baths or left home for -any purpose, he was everywhere received like a prince. -The municipalities within the Florentine dominions were -accustomed to send yearly presents to the capital on certain -feasts, and they did not neglect to send offerings to the head -of the Republic. After the fashion of the times these gifts -usually consisted of provisions and goods for the house. -When Lorenzo was expected, early in 1485, at San Gemignano, -on his way to Bagno a Morba, but took another route, -the municipality, which had voted 100 lire for his reception, -sent to Morba a load of Greek wine, capons, marchpane and -wax.<a name="FNanchor_459_459" id="FNanchor_459_459"></a><a href="#Footnote_459_459" class="fnanchor">[459]</a> The Signoria of Siena, though they had not a few -complaints against Lorenzo, honoured him in a similar manner -when he was in their territory. During his stay at -Vignone they sent ample provisions for his table.<a name="FNanchor_460_460" id="FNanchor_460_460"></a><a href="#Footnote_460_460" class="fnanchor">[460]</a> His suite -was unusually numerous. A list of the persons he once -took with him to Morba<a name="FNanchor_461_461" id="FNanchor_461_461"></a><a href="#Footnote_461_461" class="fnanchor">[461]</a> names the following: a chaplain,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[384]</a></span> -Filippo (Ubaldini) da Gagliano, Francesco degli Organi -(Squarcialupi), a house-steward, two chancellors (secretaries), -two singers, Bertoldo the sculptor, a barber, two valets, a -butler, five crossbowmen, ten grooms, an equerry, a cook, a -kitchen-boy, and a coachman. For these thirty-two persons -fourteen beds were required. His family, too, when they -travelled without him, were everywhere received in the most -distinguished manner possible. A letter of their faithful, -cheerful friend, Matteo Franco, gives a lively sketch of a -journey on horseback made by Clarice in May 1485, from -Morba, where she had been with her husband, through the -Volterra district and the Elsa valley to Florence. At all the -places where she stopped, especially at Colle, where the first -halt for sleeping was made (the second was at Passignano, -where stood the great abbey given to Giovanni de’ Medici), -everybody was astir; yet friendly intercourse was combined -with a ceremonious reception.</p> - -<p>Whether in town, in the country, or on a journey, Lorenzo -was always surrounded by friends, whose names are inseparable -from his. Most of them have become known in the -course of this history; various characters, of whom more -than one may be differently judged, according to whether -we view them in private life and in their confidential relations, -or as public men, authors or otherwise. First come -those who were the guides of his youth or whom he knew in -his father’s house; Gentile Becchi, who remained a member -of the Medicean household even after his appointment to the -see of Arezzo, as bishops were not required to reside too -strictly; Ficino, Landino, and Poliziano. Then those who, -having been friends of his parents, attached themselves to -him in his youth and manhood; or those who first came in -contact with him in his mature years; Luigi Pulci, Matteo -Franco, Bartolommeo Scala, Pico della Mirandola—besides -those who were drawn to him by political and allied interests, -and who zealously served him and, in his sense of the word, -the State, without forgetting themselves. On each and all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[385]</a></span> -Lorenzo had a deep and lasting influence; he was the centre -around which all revolved, the link that bound all together, -however much a few of the disaffected ones might try to -fight against it. Their attachment to him was not forced -or selfish; the affection expressed in Pulci’s letters and -Poliziano’s verses had nothing artificial about it. Lorenzo -was a genial man, cordial and kind, a born prince, simple -and natural. In his intercourse with the scholars and artists -who were in some sense dependent on him, the relation of -patron and client was forgotten. Their letters to him, grave -and gay, are proofs of their confidence and intimacy. If they -address him as ‘Magnifico,’ they soon follow it up with a -plain ‘Lorenzo.’ In the midst of the war-troubles of 1479, -Donatello’s pupil Bertoldo wrote Lorenzo a letter full of fun, -to the effect that it was more profitable to be a cook than -an artist;<a name="FNanchor_462_462" id="FNanchor_462_462"></a><a href="#Footnote_462_462" class="fnanchor">[462]</a> and the famous Niccolò Grosso, called Caparra, -in reality a blacksmith, but who executed works of art, would -not fulfil Lorenzo’s orders till he had executed others he -had received first.<a name="FNanchor_463_463" id="FNanchor_463_463"></a><a href="#Footnote_463_463" class="fnanchor">[463]</a> How entirely constraint was banished -in intercourse with him is shown by his conversation with -the mosaic-worker Graffione, a pupil of Baldovinetti. Lorenzo -once said he would like to adorn the inside of the dome of -the Cathedral with mosaics. ‘For that you could not get -masters,’ replied Graffione. ‘We have money enough to -get masters,’ was the probably half-jesting answer. ‘Eh, -Lorenzo,’ exclaimed the artist, ‘it is not the money that -procures the masters, but the masters who procure the -money!’ He bore with their humours and oddities; he -honoured them living and dead, feeling that their fame -would add to his own. Had he done nothing for art beyond -the cordial and almost fatherly reception which he, a powerful -and much-envied man of mature years, gave to Michelangelo -when the latter was almost in his boyhood, that -alone would make his memory illustrious. On his death-bed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[386]</a></span> -he desired once more to see the friends in whose society he -had passed his happiest hours, and whose attachment followed -him beyond the grave.</p> - -<p>Notwithstanding many disturbances caused by political -events, increasing bad health, and several deaths in the -family, still life was cheerful in the Medici household. -Music was a daily pleasure. Lorenzo’s poetical talents attached -him to this art, and his unmusical voice did not hinder -him from taking a part in singing. Marsilio relates that he -did so at a social gathering which apparently took its name -of <i>La Mammola</i> (the Violet) from a still existing hostelry. -Thus, too, one evening, when he was singing the mysteries -of love, he originated a discussion as to whether subjects in -which mourning occurred were appropriate, which Ficino -decided in the affirmative.<a name="FNanchor_464_464" id="FNanchor_464_464"></a><a href="#Footnote_464_464" class="fnanchor">[464]</a> In his poetical productions he -reckoned much on musical effect, a necessary condition of -songs for dancing and for the carnaval. As long as his -health permitted he was never absent from the merry processions -at which popular melodies alternated with those of -Heinrich Isaak; and on journeys, at the May-festivals and -other times of gaiety there was no lack of musical accompaniments -to the verses of Poliziano and other friends. Although -from Guido Aretino down to the father of Galileo, Tuscany -produced no remarkable composer or writer on music, yet -the people were always musical. Ficino was doubly welcome -when he appeared with his plectrum, after the pattern of -the earliest half-deified apostles of Greek culture, to secure -a better reception for ancient philosophy by his strains delighting -the ear and winning the heart. As in Poliziano’s -‘Orpheus,’ Baccio Ugolini accompanied on the lyre the ode -in praise of Cardinal Gonzaga, so did Marsilio when extemporising, -in which art he was a master.</p> - -<p>One of Lorenzo’s protégés was the organ-builder Antonio -Squarcialupi, who, as a precentor, had been a familiar of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[387]</a></span> -house in Piero’s time. His life and conversation seem not -to have been blameless; but Lorenzo took him under his -protection for the sake of his uncommon talent. ‘If you -knew,’ he said once to those who blamed him, ‘what it is to -attain perfection in anything, you would judge him more -gently and modestly.’<a name="FNanchor_465_465" id="FNanchor_465_465"></a><a href="#Footnote_465_465" class="fnanchor">[465]</a> Squarcialupi set to music many of -the songs of his patron, who, it is said, composed the inscription -for his tomb. To the friendship of the Medici he owed -the epigram in which Poliziano called upon Florence to -honour with a marble monument him who had long been -the voice of her temple.<a name="FNanchor_466_466" id="FNanchor_466_466"></a><a href="#Footnote_466_466" class="fnanchor">[466]</a> The man really must have possessed -rare artistic merits; for a son of the Count of Altavilla—one -of the guests at the Salutati banquet—came to Florence -with an introduction from King Ferrante to Lorenzo, to -study the organ and other instruments under Squarcialupi; -and ten years later a clergyman named Stephen came from -Ofen, with a recommendation from Matthias Corvinus, to -learn organ-building.<a name="FNanchor_467_467" id="FNanchor_467_467"></a><a href="#Footnote_467_467" class="fnanchor">[467]</a> In 1477 a lute-player of Lodovico -Sforza’s suite came to Florence to be heard by the famous -master.<a name="FNanchor_468_468" id="FNanchor_468_468"></a><a href="#Footnote_468_468" class="fnanchor">[468]</a> Organ-building, as well as organ-playing, was a -somewhat rare art. The difficulty of finding good masters -is shown by the trouble and loss of time caused in Cosimo’s -days to the committee entrusted with the building of the -Cathedral, through the untrustworthiness of Matteo da Prato, -who had undertaken to furnish the new organs, to be decorated -by Donatello and Luca della Robbia. Lorenzo took -great interest in this branch of music. Many of his letters -relate to organists recommended by him to various Tuscan -towns, or sent from one place to another. At his death there -were in his house no less than five organs; one large one -with a finely-carved wooden case, the rest smaller, partly -metal, partly paste-board, which was then used for these instruments.<a name="FNanchor_469_469" id="FNanchor_469_469"></a><a href="#Footnote_469_469" class="fnanchor">[469]</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[388]</a></span> -Musicians were included among the servants; -and in the evenings there was singing and playing on the -lute. Michelangelo in his later years used to tell of a man -who was called the <i>Cardiere</i>, and who was a great favourite -with Lorenzo on account of his wonderful talent for improvising -songs to an instrumental accompaniment.<a name="FNanchor_470_470" id="FNanchor_470_470"></a><a href="#Footnote_470_470" class="fnanchor">[470]</a> Lorenzo -also looked after the musical education of his children. ‘The -evening before last,’ wrote Poliziano to him at Bagno a -Morba on June 5, 1490,<a name="FNanchor_471_471" id="FNanchor_471_471"></a><a href="#Footnote_471_471" class="fnanchor">[471]</a> ‘I unexpectedly heard our Piero -sing, and then he and his companions came to my room. -He pleased me exceedingly, especially in the motetts and -answers to the strophes, and also by his charms of articulation. -I felt as if I were listening to your Magnificence.’ -Leo X. had through life a true passion for music and improvisation. -As a cardinal, his palace near Sant’Eustachio -(Palazzo Madama) continually resounded with instruments -and singing; and in the Vatican music and poetry vied with -each other, and both improvisers and musicians made their -fortunes with the Pope.</p> - -<p>It is needless to repeat how closely poetry was intertwined -with the life of the Medici. The taste for it was hereditary. -Cosimo the elder, Lorenzo, his brother Giuliano, all wrote -poetry; so did the younger Piero and others of the family. -As a child Lorenzo’s daughter Lucrezia knew by heart -the spiritual songs of her grandmother;<a name="FNanchor_472_472" id="FNanchor_472_472"></a><a href="#Footnote_472_472" class="fnanchor">[472]</a> and the songs of -the ‘Morgante’ were first heard in the Medici house when -Lucrezia Tornabuoni took part in them. Many of Poliziano’s -poems were evidently intended to be recited to his patron; -and when he relates in a letter<a name="FNanchor_473_473" id="FNanchor_473_473"></a><a href="#Footnote_473_473" class="fnanchor">[473]</a> how one asked him for -sermons for the brotherhoods, another for carnaval songs, -one wanted sentimental songs for the viola, another gay<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[389]</a></span> -serenades, it is probable that he referred to members of the -society he met in the house of the Medici. One can fancy -Pulci and Matteo Franco sending satirical shafts in the form -of sonnets at each other across the table. In the ‘Beoni’ -and ‘Nencia,’ evidently intended for gay meetings, Lorenzo -himself gave the signal for poetical entertainments and contests; -Pulci once answered him with the ‘Beca da Dicomano.’ -The poetic gifts of his eldest son are displayed in the latter’s -productions; the verses written by him in exile show more -depth of feeling than one would have given him credit for. -In his youth, at least, his contemporaries seem to have judged -him favourably. In a sonnet of Antonio da Pistoja on the -poets of the time, both Piero and his father are mentioned, -and the praise bestowed on them gains weight from the fact -that Poliziano alone is placed above them:—</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">Who among Tuscans doth in verse excel?<br /> -In vulgar tongue? Aye, and in Latin speech.<br /> -Lorenzo and his son write passing well,<br /> -But neither can Politian’s glory reach.<a name="FNanchor_474_474" id="FNanchor_474_474"></a><a href="#Footnote_474_474" class="fnanchor">[474]</a></p> - -<p class="p1">Piero’s letters to his father, on literary and other subjects, -display sound judgment, information, and lively interest. -His boyish letters, indeed, are of little consequence; and -when, as a lad of fourteen, he writes from the villa to his -father at San Filippo, giving an account of his own studies -and those of his brother Giovanni, with whom he was reading -Virgil’s Bucolics, thereby, as he said, gaining double profit,<a name="FNanchor_475_475" id="FNanchor_475_475"></a><a href="#Footnote_475_475" class="fnanchor">[475]</a> -his master’s hand is clearly traceable. But there are other -letters worthy of consideration, such as that on the visit of -Ermolao Barbaro. Although Poliziano’s descriptions of his -pupil and of the young Cardinal Giovanni lose much of their -effect and even spoil their subjects by exaggeration, yet it cannot -be disputed that Lorenzo’s eldest son, though he did not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[390]</a></span> -possess his father’s prudence and calculation (a want which -may perhaps be explained and excused by the degree of -splendour, fortune, and grandeur at which Lorenzo left the -personal government in his hands), yet did possess many of -his intellectual qualities. The time during which he continued -to hold the government was too short and too much -disturbed by preludes of the coming storm to furnish -premisses for a decisive judgment of him; neither can -such a judgment be fairly founded on his conduct in exile, -which may be mistaken even by the keenest eye.</p> - -<p>Piero’s wife can hardly have had a good influence on him. -Alfonsina Orsini was infinitely less fitted than her mother-in-law -for Florentine life and manners. In her nature the -pride of the Roman barons seems to have been combined -with covetousness and hardness, whereby she made herself -very much disliked in later years, when her brother-in-law -was Pope and she was a great deal in Rome, where she died -in 1520. Her husband’s three sisters, Lucrezia, Maddalena, -and Contessina, the wife of Piero Ridolfi, were frequently at -their father’s house. Maddalena, whose daughter Lucrezia -was born at Rome early in 1490, became at Florence, on -August 24 of the following year, the mother of a son who -was christened Innocenzo after the Pope, received the red -hat from Leo X., and, with his cousins Cardinals Salviati -and Ridolfi, played some part in Florence after the murder -of the first duke. All three sisters afterwards attached -themselves to the court of Leo X. in a way which threw no -favourable light on his financial arrangements; and the influence -of Lucrezia, doubtless the most highly gifted of the -three, lasted beyond her brother’s lifetime throughout the -whole reign of her cousin Clement VII., with whom her -husband, Jacopo Salviati (father of the cardinal), was very -intimate, till the Pope’s proceedings in 1529 against the -city of his fathers estranged the relatives. In one of Ariosto’s -satires, invaluable for a study of the manners and general -circumstances of the early years of the sixteenth century, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[391]</a></span> -introduces Lorenzo’s posterity and their friends rejoicing at -the elevation of Leo X.,—a rejoicing destined to be of short -duration.<a name="FNanchor_476_476" id="FNanchor_476_476"></a><a href="#Footnote_476_476" class="fnanchor">[476]</a> There were numerous other members of the -family, rich and poor, nearly and distantly connected. The -nearest branch was, of course, that descended from Cosimo’s -brother Lorenzo, whose chief representative at this time was -the oft-mentioned Lorenzo, son of Pier Francesco. One of -those admitted to the closest intimacy was a distant cousin, -Andrea. As long as the daughters remained at home -Lorenzo insisted on their dressing modestly and simply, in -conformity to the sumptuary laws. Certain materials he -never would allow them, because they resembled the forbidden -crimson cloth, although many other grand ladies -wore them without scruple. He himself was never distinguished -from other citizens in outward apparel. In -winter he wore a violet mantle with a hood, and in summer -the <i>lucco</i>: the long red robe of the upper class of citizens, -still the usual dress of the magistrates. It is mentioned -that he got Venetian silk for his dress. To elderly people -he always offered his hand and gave the place of honour, -and what he taught his sons he first followed himself.</p> - -<p>Lorenzo’s observations generally were very pointed without -falling into the sarcasm of his grandfather. When the -Sienese jurist Bartolommeo Sozzini repeated the old reproach -against the air of Florence that it was bad for the sight (‘An -ancient saying calls her people blind’) before Lorenzo, who -suffered from weak eyes, Lorenzo replied that the air of -Siena was worse still; it was bad for the brains. When the -same man, having broken his plighted word in leaving Pisa -secretly, on being caught and imprisoned complained of -the punishment as unbecoming his position, Lorenzo answered -that the dishonour was not in the punishment but in -the unworthy action. He said of those who built recklessly -that they were buying repentance dear; and when his cousin<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[392]</a></span> -Pier Francesco, having begun at Majano a building which -he kept on altering as the work proceeded, complained that -the expense far exceeded the estimate, he exclaimed: ‘No -wonder; others build according to their plans, you make -your plans after the building.’ When Carlo de’ Medici, -who seems not to have been over-nice in his methods of getting -money, boasted of the quantity of water round his villa, -Lorenzo remarked that he would have to keep his hands -all the cleaner. That he also had a turn for practical -joking, which, as has been seen, was an ingredient in Florentine -life, is shown by the history of the troublesome parasitical -doctor Maestro Manente, whom he caused to be taken -one evening, when drunk, by two men in disguise, and shut -up in a place unknown to him outside the city, and given -out for dead. When the supposed dead man at last got -home, his wife, who took him for a ghost, would not let him -in till the enchantment of which he was supposed to have -been the victim was cleared up by the intervention of others.<a name="FNanchor_477_477" id="FNanchor_477_477"></a><a href="#Footnote_477_477" class="fnanchor">[477]</a> -This trick evidently recalls the story of the fat cabinet-maker.</p> - -<p>In a letter to Lodovico Odasio, Poliziano has left a -description of his patron and friend in graver conversation.<a name="FNanchor_478_478" id="FNanchor_478_478"></a><a href="#Footnote_478_478" class="fnanchor">[478]</a> -‘Think not that any one of our learned brethren, even those -whose very life’s work is study, can surpass Lorenzo de’ -Medici in acuteness of disputation and in formulating a conclusion; -or that he is inferior to anyone in the easy, graceful, -and varied expression of his ideas. Historical examples -occur to him as readily as to the most accomplished of his -companions; and whenever the subject of the discourse -admits of it, his conversation is richly seasoned with the salt -of the ocean from which Venus rose.’ Poliziano, the confidential -friend of the house, who was never absent either -from the literary symposia or from the narrower circle of -friends, in time of joy or in time of mourning, understood<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[393]</a></span> -Lorenzo thoroughly, and his judgment may be accepted. -Many of Lorenzo’s sayings have been preserved which bear -witness to the soundness of his judgment, or in some way -reflect credit on him. He said once: ‘As a healthy body -resists the influence of a storm, so a state can brave dangers -when the citizens are of one mind.’ When Filippo Valori -(brother of his biographer) was desirous but yet afraid to -try to reconcile Lorenzo with Antonio Tebalducci, against -whom the latter had grounds for complaint, Lorenzo said to -him: ‘To recommend a friend to me would be no merit, but -for making an opponent my friend I thank thee, and I beg -thee to do it again in the like case.<a name="FNanchor_479_479" id="FNanchor_479_479"></a><a href="#Footnote_479_479" class="fnanchor">[479]</a> Only he who knows -how to forgive knows how to conquer,’ he added.<a name="FNanchor_480_480" id="FNanchor_480_480"></a><a href="#Footnote_480_480" class="fnanchor">[480]</a> The -combination of prince and citizen, statesman and man of -letters; the mixture of gravity and gaiety, of lofty intellect -and cheerful participation in everyday life, of grandeur and -simplicity in his household and family, of sagacious calculation -and hearty unfeigned good nature,—all this makes -Lorenzo de’ Medici an unusual figure, very attractive in its -individuality, and accounts for the impression he made on -all; especially, and most lastingly, on those who were intimate -at his house and had the opportunity of observing -him in private.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[394]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER IV.</h2> - -<p class="pch">THE CARDINALATE OF GIOVANNI DE’ MEDICI.</p> - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">Both</span> contemporary and later writers have passed an unfavourable -judgment on Pope Innocent VIII. ‘Though the -life of Innocent VIII. was useless for the general good,’ -remarks Guicciardini at the beginning of his great history, -‘at least it was useful thus far, in that, frightened at his -unsuccessful attempt to meddle in the Barons’ War, during -the remainder of his pontificate he directed his attention to -trifles instead of planning for himself and his belongings -things which might have disturbed the peace of Italy.’ -This negative praise is not without truth, but it gives little -insight into the character and aims of the Pope. His -greatest faults were weakness and inconsistency: hence the -sorry part which he played as a ruler, although he had no -tendency towards nepotism and was gifted with sound judgment. -It was his weakness which made him abandon the -affairs of Aquila and of the Barons, and caused his ever-wavering -conduct towards the King of Naples. The latter -alternately lured and contemptuously defied him, rendered -the treatment of his own restless feudatories uncertain, -and provoked disturbances in Rome which led to the robbing -of the papal treasury by the Pope’s own son. Yet that son, -compared with the nephews of the last Pope—not to mention -the one who followed—was but very modestly provided -for; so barely indeed that, but for the resources of the Medici, -Franceschetto Cybò, at the Pope’s death, would have been, -for one in his position, a poor man. It was long before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[395]</a></span> -Innocent made up his mind to do anything serious for him; -and considering the traditions of all the Papal ‘nephews,’ -the Colonna, Piccolomini, Della Rovere, and Riari, it may -be well imagined that Franceschetto became impatient; -more so, perhaps, as the Pope’s health was failing owing to -the two apoplectic attacks he had had in January 1485, and -in February of the following year, during which he had -been given up for dead. ‘These occurrences,’ remarks his -biographer,<a name="FNanchor_481_481" id="FNanchor_481_481"></a><a href="#Footnote_481_481" class="fnanchor">[481]</a> ‘made his family anxious to secure their position -for the future, and they begged the Pope to make provision -for this while it was yet time.’</p> - -<p>But they gained little, and not till after Franceschetto’s -marriage did his circumstances begin really to improve. -Lorenzo was not behindhand with his persuasions: ‘It is -not without a blush,’ he wrote on February 26, 1488,<a name="FNanchor_482_482" id="FNanchor_482_482"></a><a href="#Footnote_482_482" class="fnanchor">[482]</a> ‘that -I commend to your Holiness the affairs of Signor Francesco; -for it seems to me unreasonable to commend to your Holiness -that which for natural reasons must be nearer your -heart than anything else. My letters and intercession cannot -in reason have more weight than the natural relationship -between your Holiness and Signor Francesco; but as I see -that his affairs proceed very slowly, I feel I ought not to -refuse him my recommendation and every other support. -As he is, he tells me, very happy in possessing Maddalena, -this should be to your Holiness an occasion for treating him -so as to please me too. This will be the case if his position -becomes such as shall befit the dignity of your Holiness and -set my mind at rest. I never had any idea that your Holiness -should take anything from others, or give offence to -any, in order to make him great. As this would be dishonourable -and contrary to the nature of your Holiness, so, -on the other hand, I think that it would not be in accordance -with your natural kindness and goodness if your Holiness -did not provide for him, as he can easily be portioned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[396]</a></span> -in a manner befitting his rank without any injury to others. -I humbly beg your Holiness to relieve yourself as well as me -of this trouble, and establish him so that further importunity -shall be needless. Thus your Holiness will be doing a work -worthy of your goodness, not only sensible and pious, but -necessary, and greatly desired by me, as a good example for -all those who set their hopes on your Holiness.’</p> - -<p>Still the Pope was far too slow for Franceschetto’s impatience, -and seems to have had no great opinion of the -latter’s judgment. The son-in-law’s letters to his father-in-law -are full of complaints which really display Innocent in a -more honourable light than those by whom he was thus -beset. ‘Like the ox, he needs the goad.’ This was a son -writing of his father, and that father the Pope! Lorenzo -was not much behind his son-in-law. One of his letters to -the Pope<a name="FNanchor_483_483" id="FNanchor_483_483"></a><a href="#Footnote_483_483" class="fnanchor">[483]</a> is but too glaring an example of the profane tone -in which this man, who could display such a refined sense of -decorum in other things, addressed with the utmost coolness -the very head of the Church. Innocent had had another of -his attacks of illness, and Lorenzo was getting anxious: -‘As St. Francis, by means of the stigmata, experienced in -his own body the Passion of Christ, so do I feel in and about -myself all the sufferings of your Holiness; for, putting aside -other reasons, I have the situation of our dear Signor Francesco -and of many servants of your Holiness very much at -heart. Owing to your Holiness’ conscientious holding back, -all these remain almost empty-handed and have no part of -the fortune and favour which God has given your Holiness -for your merits; so that, should your Holiness be called -away, which God forbid, they would sink likewise into the -grave. More especially, however, am I moved, as must be -the case with your Holiness also, by the position of poor -Signor Francesco, who, after five years of your pontificate, -is only just beginning to have something he can call his own.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[397]</a></span> -Your Holiness knows better than I what supporters he has -in the Sacred College. The history of the Popes shows how -few have reigned much beyond five years, and how many -have not waited so long before showing themselves as Popes, -without giving way to such scruples and forbearance, justifiable -no doubt before God and man, but which, if they last -long, may be misconstrued. Perhaps I seem too bold; but -zeal and conscience impose upon me the duty of speaking -freely and reminding you that men are not immortal, that a -Pope is what he chooses to be, that he cannot leave his -pontificate to his heirs, and can call nothing his own but -honour and glory and what he does for his relatives. Instead -of depending on health and luck, your Holiness should not -put off doing what you project, and for which later there -might perhaps be no opportunity. Above all I commend to -you your and my dear Signor Francesco and Maddalena, -who pray God to grant your Holiness a long life that you -may set their affairs in order. It is now about time to -release these holy fathers from Limbo, that their fate may -not be like that of the Jews waiting for the Messiah.’</p> - -<p>While the Pope was thus plagued about secular matters, -it was much the same with ecclesiastical ones. In both -cases the object was one and the same—increase of riches -and power. Everything was regarded and treated from this -point of view; of anything beyond, politicians—even highly-gifted -ones like Lorenzo—had no conception. Lorenzo was -impatient to get property for Franceschetto Cybò, he was -still more impatient to get the red hat for his own son. -Giovanni was born on December 11, 1475, and was consequently -in his ninth year when Innocent became Pope.<a name="FNanchor_484_484" id="FNanchor_484_484"></a><a href="#Footnote_484_484" class="fnanchor">[484]</a> -Some preparations had been made even then: ‘Cousin,’ -wrote Louis XI. from Plessis-les-Tours on February 3, 1483, -in reply to Lorenzo who had applied to him on the death of -Cardinal d’Estouteville, ‘I have seen what you wrote to me<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[398]</a></span> -concerning the benefices of the Cardinal of Rouen, and much -regret not to have known thereof sooner; for I should be -very pleased if your son should obtain a good provision and -benefice in my kingdom.’</p> - -<p>The king was as good as his word; that same spring -he conferred on the child not only the abbacy of Font -Doulce in the diocese of Saintes, but also the archbishopric -of Aix, which was supposed to be vacant. ‘On May 19, 1483,’ -says Lorenzo in his memoirs,<a name="FNanchor_485_485" id="FNanchor_485_485"></a><a href="#Footnote_485_485" class="fnanchor">[485]</a> ‘news came that the King of -France, of his own free will, had conferred the abbacy of -Font Doulce on our Giovanni; and on the 31st we heard -from Rome that the Pope (Sixtus IV.) had confirmed the -appointment, declared him capable of holding benefices at -the age of seven, and appointed him a protonotary.<a name="FNanchor_486_486" id="FNanchor_486_486"></a><a href="#Footnote_486_486" class="fnanchor">[486]</a> On June 1, -Giovanni, accompanied by me, came from Poggio (a Cajano) -to Florence, whereupon he was confirmed and tonsured by -the Lord Bishop of Arezzo, and was thenceforth called -Messer Giovanni. The aforesaid ceremonies took place in -our private chapel, and in the evening we returned to Poggio. -On the morning of June 8, Jacopino the courier came with -a letter from the French king, whereof the contents were that -he had conferred on our Messer Giovanni the archbishopric of -Aix in Provence. In the evening he went on to Rome with -letters from the king to the Pope and the Cardinal of Maçon -(Philibert Hugonet), and at the same time a courier was -sent to Forlì with a letter for Count Girolamo. On the 11th -the courier came back from Forlì with letters from the count -for the Pope and San Giorgio (Cardinal Riario), which were -forwarded to Rome by the Milanese post. May God direct -all for good. On the same day, after mass, all the children, -except Messer Giovanni, were confirmed in the chapel. On -the 15th, about the sixth hour of the evening, intelligence -came from Rome that the Pope raised difficulties about the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[399]</a></span> -appointment to the archbishopric on account of Messer -Giovanni’s youth; of which news the king was at once informed -by the same messenger. On the 20th came from -Lionetto (de’ Rossi) the announcement that the archbishop -was still alive! On March 1, 1484 (1485), the Abbot of -Passignano died, and an express was sent to Messer Giovan -Antonio Vespucci, envoy at Rome, to beg the abbey from -the Pope (Innocent VIII.) for our Messer Giovanni. On -the 2nd, in pursuance of an ordinance of the Signoria, possession -was taken of it, in virtue of the reservation made in -Messer Giovanni’s favour by Pope Sixtus and confirmed by -Pope Innocent when our Piero went to Rome to do him -homage.’ These details show but too plainly how benefices -were dealt with, and how at the mere rumour of a prelate’s -death temporal sovereigns disposed of a high spiritual office -in favour of a child. A few years after this, King Matthias -Corvinus conferred on a boy of seven—his nephew Ippolito -of Este—the primatial see of Hungary, the archbishopric of -Gran. Like Sixtus IV., Innocent VIII. at first refused to -confirm the appointment, but he ended by yielding.</p> - -<p>The abbey of Passignano, belonging to the monks of -Vallombrosa, was one of the richest in Tuscany. The young -abbot continued to enjoy its possession till 1499, when he -gave it up to the General of the Order for a pension of 2,000 -scudi. The grand fortress-like building, which remained in -the possession of the Order down to our own day, stands in the -valley of the Pesa, sixteen miles south of Florence, on the -left of the Roman military road; its church is adorned with -paintings by Domenico Cresti, who was somewhat of the -Caracci school, and was called by the name of his birthplace, -Passignano. Everything in the shape of benefices of all -kinds, commanderies, rectorships, and so forth, that came -within reach of the Medici, fell to Lorenzo’s son; in 1486 -he actually obtained, as a commandery, the abbey of Monte -Cassino; King Ferrante having, in order to conciliate the -Pope, given him free disposal of the famous convent of S.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[400]</a></span> -Benedict.<a name="FNanchor_487_487" id="FNanchor_487_487"></a><a href="#Footnote_487_487" class="fnanchor">[487]</a> How anxious the king was to appease the -Medicean hunger after benefices is shown by his letter of -August 23, 1486, in answer to Lorenzo’s thanks.<a name="FNanchor_488_488" id="FNanchor_488_488"></a><a href="#Footnote_488_488" class="fnanchor">[488]</a> ‘Thanks -from you were needless, for God knows we are ready and -willing to do anything in the world to prove to you our gratitude -for what you have continually done for our good and -that of our state, on which you may reckon as on your own -property. Our obligations to you demand this; and we can -never do enough in favour of you and your house to satisfy -the thousandth part of our desire, as we hope you will perceive -more clearly every day.’ Lodovico il Moro answered -in the same strain when Lorenzo thanked him for giving his -son the abbacy of Miramondo.<a name="FNanchor_489_489" id="FNanchor_489_489"></a><a href="#Footnote_489_489" class="fnanchor">[489]</a></p> - -<p>All this, however, was but the prelude. There is something -very repulsive in the impatience with which Lorenzo -looked forward to his son’s cardinalate, and pressed the Pope -to confer it. For the ambassadors of the Republic there -seemed to be nothing more important than this. Lorenzo -always took special good care that men who were in his own -deepest confidence should be sent to the Popes. In the -spring of 1487 Innocent wished that Pier Filippo Pandolfini, -who had formerly been in Rome, should be appointed to the -vacant post of ambassador; but he could not leave Florence, -and the place was taken by Giovanni Lanfredini, whose -capabilities had lately been tested at Naples. ‘I have used -my influence with the Signoria,’ wrote Lorenzo to the Pope -on May 6,<a name="FNanchor_490_490" id="FNanchor_490_490"></a><a href="#Footnote_490_490" class="fnanchor">[490]</a> ‘to procure the appointment of a man with whom -your Holiness will be perfectly satisfied. For besides that -Giovanni Lanfredini (he who is destined for Rome) is an excellent -honest man and conversant with business, he also -possesses my heart (<i>il core mio</i>), as I am much attached to -him on account of his merits.’ To Lanfredini himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[401]</a></span> -Lorenzo wrote on June 16 of the following year:<a name="FNanchor_491_491" id="FNanchor_491_491"></a><a href="#Footnote_491_491" class="fnanchor">[491]</a> ‘I have -heard what his Holiness said to you about the creation of -cardinals. I think the Pope should not put off the nomination -any longer than is absolutely necessary. According to -my view his Holiness will be quite another Pope after it. -For whereas hitherto he has been a head without members, -he must get some; whereas he has been the creature of -others, now others must be the creatures of him. Therefore -persuade him, yea, urge him, to take the needful decision; -the sooner the better. <i>Periculum est in mora</i>; as much as -he gains by acting he loses by hesitating. Use all your influence -to procure this blessed promotion as soon as possible. -As the matter is before the Sacred College, it cannot be delayed -without great damage to the holy father’s dignity and -power. As to the persons to be nominated, I approve of all -the names which are marked; they are those of which you -have spoken to me. If he can do us that pleasure, let him -do it. If the promotion were to be put off on our account, -tell him he may act according to his judgment. If he -thinks it well to begin with a single one to show that it is -in his power, he can nominate more by degrees till everybody -is satisfied.’</p> - -<p>Months passed away; the Pope’s indecision was unconquerable, -and Lorenzo’s impatience increased. ‘As I understand -from our ambassador,’ he wrote to Innocent on October -1, 1488,<a name="FNanchor_492_492" id="FNanchor_492_492"></a><a href="#Footnote_492_492" class="fnanchor">[492]</a> ‘that your Holiness intends shortly to create -some cardinals, I should think myself deserving of grave -censure did I not put you in mind of the honour of this city -and my own, though I am sure that your Holiness in your -goodness remembers both. I do not believe that in the -whole course of your pontificate you could do anything that -would deserve more gratitude from the city; and as the -dignity of a cardinal is lofty and much sought after, this -city would feel it deeply should her hopes not be fulfilled.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[402]</a></span>’ -It concerned the honour of Florence that a son of Lorenzo—a -mere boy—should be received into the senate of the Church! -Meantime, while Lorenzo thus unceasingly urged his claim, -he was taking equal trouble to prevent the same dignity from -being conferred on some fellow-countryman for whom he -had no predilection. ‘The Pope,’ he wrote to the ambassador,<a name="FNanchor_493_493" id="FNanchor_493_493"></a><a href="#Footnote_493_493" class="fnanchor">[493]</a> -‘does not know our people’s ways (<i>i polli nostri</i>) as we do. -Not only the cardinalate, but any increase of position and -dignity, would be dangerous if it came otherwise than in the -right way.’ Who can tell whether the chief cause of this -long delay in the only promotion undertaken by this Pope -was not really a scruple, struggling with political considerations? -Innocent himself had decided that no one under -thirty should be admitted to the cardinalate, and Giovanni -de’ Medici was not yet fourteen. Lorenzo never ceased -writing,<a name="FNanchor_494_494" id="FNanchor_494_494"></a><a href="#Footnote_494_494" class="fnanchor">[494]</a> Lanfredini never ceased talking. Cardinals Sforza, -Borgia, La Balue, and Zeno, were pressed into the service. -‘The services daily rendered us by Monsignor Ascanio,’ says -Lorenzo in a letter to the ambassador, February 21, 1489, -‘deserve better thanks than words. My obligations to him -could not be greater if I were recalled from death to life.’ -The story current in Florence—perhaps exaggerated—of the -sums spent on the occasion furnishes a commentary on these -words.</p> - -<p>At last, on March 9, 1489, the promotion took place.<a name="FNanchor_495_495" id="FNanchor_495_495"></a><a href="#Footnote_495_495" class="fnanchor">[495]</a> -It resulted in five cardinals, among whom were the Pope’s -relative Lorenzo de’ Mari, who took the name of Cybò, and -the Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, the heroic -defender of Rhodes, Pierre d’Aubusson. But besides these -five, at the same consistory, Innocent conferred the same<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[403]</a></span> -dignity on three others, without publishing their names—what -is now called a reservation <i>in petto</i>. One of these was -Maffeo Gherardi, a Camaldulensian, patriarch of Venice; -the second was Federigo Sanseverino, son of Roberto; the -third was Giovanni de’ Medici.</p> - -<p>It was quite clear that the Pope was ashamed of himself. -In the worst days of the Church no child had yet been made -a cardinal. The nomination was to be kept secret for three -years; whosoever divulged it was to be excommunicated. -It was very soon seen how this was observed. On the day -of the promotion, cardinals Sforza and La Balue, the Bishop -of Cortona, prefect of the Apostolic Chamber, and the ambassador, -announced to Lorenzo that his son had been made -cardinal-deacon of Sta. Maria in Domenica.<a name="FNanchor_496_496" id="FNanchor_496_496"></a><a href="#Footnote_496_496" class="fnanchor">[496]</a> ‘God be -thanked,’ wrote Lorenzo to the last-mentioned,<a name="FNanchor_497_497" id="FNanchor_497_497"></a><a href="#Footnote_497_497" class="fnanchor">[497]</a> ‘for the -good news received yesterday about Messer Giovanni; news -which gave me all the greater pleasure, because I expected -it the less on account of the importance of the matter and -its difficulty bordering on impossibility, besides which it far -exceeds my deserts.... I know not whether the Pope is displeased -at the rejoicings which have taken place here on all -sides, and in such a degree as I never saw before; there would -have been a yet more brilliant expression of general joy, had I -not interfered. To prevent the demonstration was out of my -power. As Messer Giovanni’s promotion is secret, these festivities -certainly seem out of place. But you at Rome have let the -thing become so well known that it could not be otherwise -here; and it would have been impossible for me to keep aloof -from the congratulations of whole cities, small and great. -If it is wrong, it cannot be helped. Now I want to know -how we are to behave ourselves in future, and how Messer -Giovanni’s mode of life, dress, and servants are to be arranged; -for I would not reward so great a benefit by not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[404]</a></span> -making a proper display according to the manner most -likely to please the Pope. Messer Giovanni keeps at home; -the house is full of people. (The foreign ambassadors had -immediately come to offer their congratulations.) I wait to -hear from you whether I shall, as I proposed to you, send -Piero to Rome. Perhaps it would be more befitting the importance -of the favour that I should go there myself.’ Poliziano -had written a letter to the Pope, taking occasion of -the nomination to praise Innocent and describe the lad as -worthy of his new distinction. He wanted to have it read -out in the Consistory; but Lorenzo had too much tact to -join in such an absurdity, and sent the letter to the ambassador, -not concealing his own adverse opinion, and leaving -it to Lanfredini to do with it what he thought fit.<a name="FNanchor_498_498" id="FNanchor_498_498"></a><a href="#Footnote_498_498" class="fnanchor">[498]</a></p> - -<p>On the same day, March 4, Lorenzo addressed to the -Pope the following letter of thanks.<a name="FNanchor_499_499" id="FNanchor_499_499"></a><a href="#Footnote_499_499" class="fnanchor">[499]</a> ‘I have received with -the utmost reverence your Holiness’s brief of the 9th instant, -concerning the promotion of Messer Giovanni. As this news -had already reached me through our ambassador, I at once -wrote to your Holiness, more to put into words my inability -to thank you fittingly, than to give expression to my gratitude. -That God alone can do, not I. This only can I say -in reference to this undying benefit, that through what your -Holiness has done for my son you have at the same time -elevated me; and this increase of authority, as well as whatever -more may accrue to me, I place at the disposal of your -Holiness, to whom it belongs rather than to me.’ Then -comes an apology for the publication of the news, which had -originated not with Lorenzo but in Rome. The Italian princes -by no means undervalued this new proof of Lorenzo’s influence -over the Pope. The Duke of Calabria said to Vettori, the -ambassador,<a name="FNanchor_500_500" id="FNanchor_500_500"></a><a href="#Footnote_500_500" class="fnanchor">[500]</a> that one could see how great was Lorenzo’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[405]</a></span> -power, and that the Florentine ambassador ruled Innocent. -He wished he could be together with Lorenzo and Sforza to -talk over the strife with Rome. He believed it would not -be difficult for him to make the alliance of the three states -such as should be apparent in their whole conduct. One -could see how much the Pope did for Lorenzo, and how he -had made his son a cardinal at an unheard-of age; so that -one might conclude that everything could be arranged if he -chose to do all he could.</p> - -<p>The man who had contributed most to overcome the -Pope’s scruples, Giovanni Lanfredini, only survived his -success a few months. In November 1488, he had lost at -Rome his eldest son, Orsino, a youth of sixteen.<a name="FNanchor_501_501" id="FNanchor_501_501"></a><a href="#Footnote_501_501" class="fnanchor">[501]</a> ‘It is with -much regret,’ wrote Lorenzo,<a name="FNanchor_502_502" id="FNanchor_502_502"></a><a href="#Footnote_502_502" class="fnanchor">[502]</a> ‘that I have heard of your -son’s death; the news was the more painful to me as I had -not known of his illness. If I did not know your strength -of mind, and how accustomed you are to both good and evil, -I should use more words of consolation than I do, and represent -to you my own heavy losses, which are but too well -known to you. Resign yourself to the decree of God; the -more so as your son is far rather to be envied than pitied. -You and yours will never want for friends who regard your -concerns as their own. As for me, on account of the sympathy -I feel for you and for the sake of your old and tried -attachment, I shall always conduct myself towards you as -your sentiments and actions, and my duty and gratitude, -require. Be comforted, Giovanni; take courage, trust in -God, and reckon on your friends.’ Another letter<a name="FNanchor_503_503" id="FNanchor_503_503"></a><a href="#Footnote_503_503" class="fnanchor">[503]</a> is expressed -in equally cordial terms. But the loss of the son -broke the father’s heart. ‘Giovanni Lanfredini,’ wrote the -Ferrarese ambassador on March 16, 1489,<a name="FNanchor_504_504" id="FNanchor_504_504"></a><a href="#Footnote_504_504" class="fnanchor">[504]</a> ‘is at Rome confined -to his bed; and as business presses, the Signoria has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[406]</a></span> -ordered Pier Filippo Pandolfini, who is now at Pitigliano, to -proceed thither immediately. Lanfredini has asked for leave -of absence. He seems to have had quite enough of his post, -and I think he feels he can now give it up with honour, -after helping the son of the illustrious Lorenzo to attain the -dignity of cardinal.’ As soon as the promotion took place, -Lorenzo had expressed his strong sense of what he owed to -Lanfredini.<a name="FNanchor_505_505" id="FNanchor_505_505"></a><a href="#Footnote_505_505" class="fnanchor">[505]</a> ‘I recognise the duty of always remembering -him who has directed the whole affair, and of putting those -who shall come after me in mind of it. For no greater event -has ever befallen our house, and I owe more than three -quarters of it to your zeal and attachment.’ Lanfredini’s -condition improved so that he could resume his duties; but -this did not last. He died on January 5, 1490, in the house -of the Acciaiuoli in the Leonine city.<a name="FNanchor_506_506" id="FNanchor_506_506"></a><a href="#Footnote_506_506" class="fnanchor">[506]</a></p> - -<p>The Bishop of Rimini wrote to Lorenzo:<a name="FNanchor_507_507" id="FNanchor_507_507"></a><a href="#Footnote_507_507" class="fnanchor">[507]</a> ‘The man is -dead who kept this court at your service. Henceforth -things may take another turn; and they have already gone -so far that it has been said you will no longer have everything -your own way.’ It seems, indeed, that the weak-minded -Pope had allowed some suspicious remarks to escape -him, to the effect that he could not safely trust to Florence, -where individual interests were in the ascendant. These -expressions induced Lorenzo to send Bernardo Dovizi to -Rome to consult with Pandolfini. The instructions drawn -up by Lorenzo<a name="FNanchor_508_508" id="FNanchor_508_508"></a><a href="#Footnote_508_508" class="fnanchor">[508]</a> show his irritation at the changeableness of -the Pope. ‘Such as neither know me personally nor have -seen me put faith in my word; and now I am met with want -of confidence after all my trouble and exertions, and the experience -there has been of my sentiments.’ The ill-feeling, -however, seems to have soon passed away.</p> - -<p>One of the last affairs in which Lanfredini had to act was -the canonisation of the Archbishop Antonine, in which the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[407]</a></span> -Emperor Frederic III. was also interested. Lorenzo proposed -that the Bishop of Arezzo and Volterra should undertake -the cause. Lanfredini’s successor Pandolfini continued -the negotiations; but it was not till 1523 that the reverence -of the Florentine people for this worthy and pious man received -the sanction of the Church from Pope Hadrian VI.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[408]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER V.</h2> - -<p class="pch">SETTLEMENT OF THE DISPUTE BETWEEN INNOCENT VIII. AND -FERRANTE OF NAPLES.</p> - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">During</span> all this time the quarrel between the Pope and the -king was assuming serious dimensions. One could hardly -expect otherwise when the characters of the two men are -taken into consideration. The one combined a full conception -of lofty dignity with the consciousness of very little real -power, was very excitable, wanting in perseverance, and -continually going from one extreme to another; the other -was slily calculating, practised in all the arts of unprincipled -cunning, and disposed to undervalue his opponent when the -tide seemed to have turned in his own favour. When the -king thought he had rid himself of all enemies and suspicious -persons in his own country, he did not hesitate to disregard -the stipulations agreed upon in August 1486, and defy the -Pope. The dispute went on through 1488 even to the proclamation -of ecclesiastical censures. This was unpleasant -to Lorenzo for many reasons: ‘I fear,’ he wrote to Lanfredini, -September 3,<a name="FNanchor_509_509" id="FNanchor_509_509"></a><a href="#Footnote_509_509" class="fnanchor">[509]</a> ‘people will think it is meal out of my -tub, though you know that the Pope has acted not only -without me but against my advice. Not only is the king -ready and inclined to attempt aggression, but the Pope is -utterly unprepared; in fact, his affairs are in such disorder -that a most disastrous war may arise out of this.’ Lorenzo’s -son-in-law begged him to go to Rome in the autumn, but he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[409]</a></span> -refused, waiting to see whether the Pope and the king would -come to terms. In the spring of 1489 the Spanish court made -an effort at mediation through ambassadors in Rome. Ferrante’s -object seemed to be to increase the Pope’s anger by personal -attacks on him and his, so as to produce an immediate -rupture. This conduct can be explained only on one of two -suppositions: he either thought that he could treat his -adversary as he chose without danger to himself, or he was -determined to let things come to a pass which might, indeed, -easily bring him to the gates of Rome, but might also just -as easily call other nations to the rescue. All the misfortunes -that befell Ferrante’s family and dynasty in 1495 -were provoked by his self-will of six years before. It was -no thanks to him nor to his son, who was worse than he, -nor to the Pope, that they were not overtaken then by the -misfortune of which both parties—the one in his ambitious, -tyrannical stubbornness, the other in his inconsiderate weakness—seemed -to have no foreboding. That it was avoided -for a time was chiefly owing to Lorenzo de’ Medici, a fact -the merit of which ought to cover many of his sins.</p> - -<p>After the fruitless Spanish attempt at mediation, and -while Ferrante was doing all he could to stir up the King of -the Romans against the Pope, the latter resolved to act. On -June 27, 1489, Niccolò Orsini, Count of Pitigliano, arrived -in Rome. A dispute between this excellent soldier and the -Republic of Siena had, in the previous April, resulted in his -dismissal from the Florentine service; whereupon the Pope -offered him the post of Captain-General of the Church. As -the astrologers pronounced the constellations favourable, on -the very day of the count’s arrival the Pope presented him -with his insignia of office, tunic, hat, sword, and commander’s -staff, and blessed the two standards, while Orsini knelt before -him. On the following Sunday the new captain-general -made his triumphal entry into Rome from Monte Mario. -He was then forty-eight years of age, but can be best -imagined as he is represented on his monument in SS. Giovanni<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[410]</a></span> -e Paolo at Venice, erected twenty years later, when he -had fallen a victim to his exertions during the war of the -League of Cambrai. He appears there as a fine-looking -stately horseman with waving plume and rich scarf; his -head is slightly bent as if in thought, and turned towards -the right; he holds in his hand the commander’s staff, and -stands between allegorical statues of Prudence and Faith. -On the 30th, after high mass, the citation of the King of -Naples took place. He was allowed three months’ grace to -fulfil his duty as a vassal; that he would submit was not to -be expected. The most zealous preparations were made for -the war which seemed inevitable. Cardinal Sforza, on -behalf of Lodovico, and Lanfredini, who was ill, sought to -restrain the Pope from taking an extreme step. On the -part of the Florentines, at least, this mediation was honestly -meant.</p> - -<p>Lorenzo went in July to the baths, whence, according -to the new Ferrarese ambassador Manfredo Manfredi,<a name="FNanchor_510_510" id="FNanchor_510_510"></a><a href="#Footnote_510_510" class="fnanchor">[510]</a> -he came back refreshed and well on August 6. Scarcely was -he home when he set to work at the Roman affair. ‘As to -the deliberations yonder,’ he wrote on the 8th to Lanfredini,<a name="FNanchor_511_511" id="FNanchor_511_511"></a><a href="#Footnote_511_511" class="fnanchor">[511]</a> -‘I am of opinion that in considering my Lord Lodovico’s -proposals you must always keep in view that he can be a -turncoat on occasion and may very likely have private aims, -as the quarrel between the Pope and the king may be very -convenient to him in many respects. Considering his nature, -therefore, we must not rely on him too much, but must -follow his example in profiting by his proceedings when they -answer our purposes, but keeping the upper hand if he takes -it into his head to change. First of all I wish the Holy -Father to let the Venetians know that both Lord Lodovico -and ourselves have induced him to conceal from the Republic -nothing that concerns his relations with the king. This I -say because in any case it seems to me important that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[411]</a></span> -Pope should at least keep the Venetians in their present -mind until we all see our way clearer. There is no real -trust to be placed in those people, but their authority is -useful; and it is quite possible to keep on tolerable terms -with them without causing my Lord Lodovico to take fright. -But above all I wish to be assured whether the Pope is determined -to abide by the conditions already settled, or -whether he thinks of agreeing to some modifications. As to -the tribute-money, I think a compromise possible; as for the -barons, I see no means, as the king has gone too far to be -able to draw back. With regard to spiritual matters an -arrangement will be easy, for the king will hardly raise -difficulties where he has only to give promises. When it -comes to keeping them they must just wink at each other, -as all popes and all kings have done. The point therefore -is to know exactly what we have to abide by before taking a -decision which, according to my view, must depend on what -the Pope really intends; and his will cannot be forced, particularly -if peace is established in France. Endeavour therefore -to give me sure information if possible. In any case it -is my fixed opinion that the Pope’s honour must be kept -unstained, if my Lord Lodovico agrees with me, who, however, -as before said, is not much to be trusted. A good -understanding must be maintained with the Venetians, for -the sake of having something to fall back upon. I think -you must decline with thanks his Holiness’ proposal to confide -the negotiations in question to me. It would be a distinction -for me, but would scarcely answer his Holiness’ -purposes. I, however, prefer his Holiness’ advantage to -that which would be an honour to me personally. In any -future agreement with the king, the conditions of the last -peace will have to be modified in some particulars, and -stronger shoulders than mine will be needed to bear that -burthen. I shall consider myself honoured enough if the -interests of his Holiness are secured with honour.’ Lorenzo’s -unwillingness to take part in negotiations between the Pope<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[412]</a></span> -and Venice was partly founded on the knowledge that the -latter power was anything but well-disposed towards him. Two -years after this his friend Guidoni, the Ferrarese ambassador, -who had exchanged his post at Florence for the more difficult -one in the city of the lagoons, wrote to him: ‘The -Venetians detest your name more than Satan does the -Cross.’</p> - -<p>As Ferrante showed no sign of returning from his ways, -Innocent continued to proceed against him. On September -11, 1489, in presence of the Neapolitan ambassador Antonio -d’Alessandri, the kingdom of Naples was solemnly declared -to have lapsed to the Holy See through non-fulfilment of -homage.<a name="FNanchor_512_512" id="FNanchor_512_512"></a><a href="#Footnote_512_512" class="fnanchor">[512]</a> The ambassador protested and appealed to the -Council. The next day he appeared in the Sixtine Chapel -with the other ambassadors, to celebrate the anniversary of -the Pope’s coronation, just as if nothing had happened. -But he was startled on the 13th, when a French envoy, -Guillaume de Poitiers, of the family of the Counts of -St. Vallier, arrived with great pomp at the Vatican.<a name="FNanchor_513_513" id="FNanchor_513_513"></a><a href="#Footnote_513_513" class="fnanchor">[513]</a> For a -long time past the Pope had been negotiating with France, -and the French showed their desire for a good understanding -with Rome by delivering up the Turkish Prince Dschem -to Innocent at the end of the winter. It was already suspected -that as soon as affairs were settled in Brittany, where -resistance was already broken, whose last duke was dead, -and where union with the crown was in progress, the French -king, now nineteen, would turn his eyes towards Italy. -Rome, conscious of her own weakness, reckoned on foreign -aid, thinking she had two strings to her bow—France and -Spain—both of whom were supposed to be displeased with -Ferrante. But the prospect of war in Italy and interference -from abroad, no matter whence it came or what the result<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[413]</a></span> -might be, was highly displeasing to Lorenzo, and he renewed -his efforts to change the mind of the Pope.</p> - -<p>‘From your despatch of October 13,’ thus he begins a -letter to Lanfredini four days later,<a name="FNanchor_514_514" id="FNanchor_514_514"></a><a href="#Footnote_514_514" class="fnanchor">[514]</a> ‘I perceive that his -Holiness has taken some little offence at my remonstrances -against proceeding with the citations. Any offence to the -Holy Father grieves me; but it would grieve me very much -if he thought my counsel and actions were determined by -anything but zeal for his good. I repeat, the Pope must -make up his mind about three things. Either he must get -justice from the king by force; or he must make as good -terms as he can with him; or, lastly, if this cannot be done -with honour, he must temporise and wait for more favourable -circumstances. The first would be the most honourable -plan; but I consider it dangerous and expensive, and think -it cannot be executed without calling in a foreign power to -Naples. Thereto three things are needful: first, the consent -of Venice and Milan; secondly, sufficient independent means, -both in men and money, on the part of the said power; and -thirdly, very great expenditure on the part of the Pope. For -the point is to over-match the king, whom Milan may perhaps -assist should Venice declare against him; so that Milan, too, -must be kept in check. An understanding with the barons -and those of similar rank would be useful in such a case. Now -I may be mistaken, but I cannot see the possibility of realising -all these presuppositions, and therefore I have dissuaded his -Holiness. Of the foreign powers only Spain and France can -be taken into consideration. Spain seems to me at this moment -incapable of either acting or paying,<a name="FNanchor_515_515" id="FNanchor_515_515"></a><a href="#Footnote_515_515" class="fnanchor">[515]</a> and how France is to -be relied upon I do not see. Supposing, however, that she -changed her nature, I would agree with his Holiness, provided -that in an expedition against Naples the person to be -benefited should be the Duke of Lorraine (as heir of Anjou), -which would be the least dangerous thing; for the Duke of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[414]</a></span> -Lorraine is not King of France, and his relationship to the -royal house is of no great importance. Naples and Spain -are much nearer relatives, and yet not friends; and when a -man is once King of Naples he will go his own way.</p> - -<p>‘All these reasons, it seems to me, ought to dissuade the -Pope from any undertaking of the kind. In such circumstances -it is of no use exasperating the king by citations -and suchlike. Nay, even if one was armed and ready, I -should still think it advisable to let such challenges alone, -in order to avoid the danger of the king’s proceeding from -words to deeds—a danger not to be under-rated. Better arm -in silence than excite others to the attack by expressing -hostility. As for the second case, that of an accommodation, -I am perhaps, speaking without an exact knowledge of -the state of affairs; and possibly conditions are being fixed -in consequence of which the citation may be an useful measure. -But from what I know, I believe that such a proceeding, -instead of facilitating an accommodation, only serves to -irritate, and will lead to a rupture. As for temporising, I -will say nothing, because an immediate agreement on the -most honourable terms possible seems to me far more to the -purpose than waiting for some favourable conjuncture; the -more so that, as you know better than I, the king has plenty -of means of doing harm. I can say no more at present, not -being sufficiently conversant with the details. If the Pope’s -fearlessness rests on any secure ground, take care to let me -know it, that I may be relieved from this anxiety. For -though I am not exactly faint-hearted, yet, from the confidence -placed in me by the Pope, his affairs cause me more -anxiety than my own. So long as I know of no better foundation -for his security, I cannot possibly be easy. On the -subject of my lord Lodovico and his nature, I have spoken -my mind freely. I am conscious that I am walking uprightly, -and have only the Pope’s interest in view. So I -repeat what I have said often before: I think an honourable -accommodation better than a successful war. If that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[415]</a></span> -is impossible, he must temporise, provided the supposed possible -favourable conditions do not exist. But if this should -be the case, the king too would show himself more yielding, -for he knows very well where he can be touched.’</p> - -<p>Lorenzo’s remonstrances were not entirely ineffectual. -Innocent, who had been informed that the Neapolitan exiles, -especially the Sanseverini, had been well received at the -French court, and that the young king had promised to -restore them to their homes, went cautiously to work at -least with regard to foreign allies. Without making any -engagements, he tried to keep on good terms with France -and Spain. Remonstrances were also made on the part of -France, through special ambassadors, to King Ferrante; -but he never ceased defending at foreign courts what he -called the justice of his cause, and calculating that the -French had their hands full, he showed no disposition to -yield. Letters from the Duke of Saxony, King Maximilian, -and the Emperor, produced just as little effect.<a name="FNanchor_516_516" id="FNanchor_516_516"></a><a href="#Footnote_516_516" class="fnanchor">[516]</a> The Duke -of Calabria told the Florentine ambassador that his father -would accede to reasonable demands from the Pope, but not -to things that were against his honour. He would send the -palfrey as a token of the feudal relation; but not one soldo -of tribute would he pay, and not one guilty baron would he -pardon.<a name="FNanchor_517_517" id="FNanchor_517_517"></a><a href="#Footnote_517_517" class="fnanchor">[517]</a> So the matter dragged on. In May 1490, Florence -was visited by a Neapolitan ambassador on his way to Milan, -Messer Camillo Seruciati.<a name="FNanchor_518_518" id="FNanchor_518_518"></a><a href="#Footnote_518_518" class="fnanchor">[518]</a> The king instructed him to inform -the Signoria and Lorenzo that he had hitherto endured -many wrongs and insults from the Pope. If, however, the -latter persisted in his wrongful obstinacy and hostility and -did not leave off his threats of citation and excommunication, -his majesty was not minded to endure such offences -any longer. Without wasting any more words, the king<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[416]</a></span> -meant to appear in Rome, with lance in rest, and answer the -Pope in such a way as to make him see his error. The -Neapolitan ambassador, being refused admission to the -Pope’s chapel on Whitsun-eve, threatened to make his way -in by force. To avoid scandal it was arranged that none -of the diplomatic body should appear on that day.<a name="FNanchor_519_519" id="FNanchor_519_519"></a><a href="#Footnote_519_519" class="fnanchor">[519]</a> But the -affair seems to have been rather more seriously taken into -consideration by France than Ferrante expected. On June -8, the Pope said to Lanfredini’s successor<a name="FNanchor_520_520" id="FNanchor_520_520"></a><a href="#Footnote_520_520" class="fnanchor">[520]</a> that if he were -not peaceable by nature and a good Italian, he held in his -hand the means of avenging himself on the king; for -months ago Madame de Beaujeu had caused a proposal to be -made to him for conferring Naples as a fief on the Duke of -Lorraine, in exchange for which the latter should cede his -claims to Provence and other territories to her husband, the -Duke of Bourbon,<a name="FNanchor_521_521" id="FNanchor_521_521"></a><a href="#Footnote_521_521" class="fnanchor">[521]</a> the King of France in return assisting -him to obtain Naples. This proposal had recently been renewed; -he, the Pope, had said but little in reply, in order -not to draw down the French into Italy. He wished that -Lorenzo should be informed of the matter.</p> - -<p>The situation was growing worse every day. There were -already some hostile dealings on the frontiers. Papal couriers, -carrying briefs that were never answered, were -searched and roughly treated; people sent by the Pope to -Benevento, and inhabitants of Pontecorvo going to Montecassino -to perform their devotions, were seized.<a name="FNanchor_522_522" id="FNanchor_522_522"></a><a href="#Footnote_522_522" class="fnanchor">[522]</a> Innocent -complained that the indulgence he had shown towards the -king on account of the representations of the other Italian -powers had only made the former more insolent; and the -powers stood and looked on while he was being insulted. If -the Italians cared so little about his honour, he must turn -to foreigners. Pandolfini adds that he had never seen the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[417]</a></span> -Pope so excited. The ambassador did what he could to -soothe him, representing to him that the moderation shown -towards the king had benefited his cause, and that he could -depend on the support of Florence, Milan, and Venice. The -Pope cut him short. He was always put off with fine -speeches. Real support was to be expected from Florence -alone. On account of Sforza’s changeableness, Milan was -not to be reckoned on; and Venice never proceeded to -action. He was determined to make an end of it. He -would excommunicate the king, declare him guilty of heresy, -and lay the kingdom under interdict. He had a perfect -right to do so. He would give notice of everything to the -allied States. If the king, in pursuance of his threat, made -war upon him, and no assistance was afforded him, he would -go abroad, where he would be received with open arms and -helped to get back his own again, to the shame and loss of -others. He could not remain in Italy otherwise than with -the dignity befitting a Pope; if they all left him in the -lurch, resistance to the king was impossible, on account of -the Church’s want of military power and the untrustworthiness -of the barons, who would only rejoice at his embarrassment. -He considered himself fully justified in going abroad -if the honour of the Holy See could not be saved otherwise. -Other popes had done it, and had come back with honour -and glory.</p> - -<p>‘I saw,’ says Pandolfini, ‘that he had thoroughly considered -the matter, and was not talking merely to get something -out of me, as he could have no doubt of our attachment -and fidelity. I pointed out to him that he should -deliberate well, and not take a resolution which might bring -discredit upon him, perhaps without serving his purpose. -Foreign lands were full of strife, and the relations of Church -and State were all very different from what they had been -in the times of Innocent IV. and other popes, who had -sought refuge beyond the mountains.’ But the Pope was -not to be persuaded. He announced that he should summon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[418]</a></span> -the ambassadors of all the powers, declare his resolve and -the grounds which compelled him to it, and proceed against -the king. The Neapolitan ambassador was sent away. The -Pope said also to Pandolfini: ‘If I go with the court to -France, of all the Italian powers you will get the most -advantage thereby, not only for your trade, but because I -shall have all possible regard to you, and shall consult -over everything with Lorenzo. Tell him these my words.’</p> - -<p>It might have been thought that a conclusion was imminent. -But after the lapse of a year matters were at -exactly the same point. At the feast of SS. Peter and Paul, -1491, the king’s ambassador again presented the palfrey by -way of tribute, was again sent away, and again protested.<a name="FNanchor_523_523" id="FNanchor_523_523"></a><a href="#Footnote_523_523" class="fnanchor">[523]</a> -Shortly after, the Florentine ambassador at Naples, Piero -Nasi, had an interview with Giovanni Pontano, who was at -that time Ferrante’s chief counsellor in political affairs, and -had concluded the treaty with Rome in August 1486.<a name="FNanchor_524_524" id="FNanchor_524_524"></a><a href="#Footnote_524_524" class="fnanchor">[524]</a> -Pontano certainly must have felt that he was personally -concerned, especially if, as is said, Innocent, having during -his negotiations with him been warned of the king’s faithlessness, -answered, ‘How can I be distrustful in dealing with -a man who has never broken his word?’ ‘Ambassador,’ -said Pontano to Nasi, ‘I most earnestly desire the termination -of this strife, both for the sake of your Signoria and for -my own sake. If the matter worries you in Florence, it -worries me twice as much. Blame is laid on me which I do -not deserve. What I promised in those days at Rome I -had a right to promise; and it would have been kept; but -no sooner was I away (would to God I had not gone in such -a hurry!) than Cardinal della Rovere arrived from Genoa, -and thereupon they re-arranged the conditions according to -their pleasure. I certainly promised payment of the tribute, -but the Pope himself gave me to understand that he would -not insist upon it, and said: “I will come to an understanding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[419]</a></span> -with the king on that point.” But Ascanio (Sforza) and -the other cardinals laughed and said I might promise off-hand, -nothing would be kept.’ Pontano then went on to the -affair of the barons, whose misfortunes he attributed to their -own want of head. The king, he said, had not thought of -taking them prisoners, after he had made them harmless by -occupying their strongholds, and taken into his own hands -the administration of justice within their territories. But -they themselves had compelled him to proceed against them. -For after the Prince of Salerno had gone to Rome and deluded -the Pope with many things, he drew the barons into the plot, -all of which became known to the king. Notwithstanding, -the latter gave them plenty of time to place themselves in -safety; but they were determined to wait for the end, and -so it went ill with them at the last. The very man from -whom proceeded this apology for the king, afterwards himself -accused Ferrante and Alfonso of cruelty and covetousness!<a name="FNanchor_525_525" id="FNanchor_525_525"></a><a href="#Footnote_525_525" class="fnanchor">[525]</a> -Nasi thought the Pope cared far more about this -affair than for the money question. King Alfonso had once -paid 30,000 ducats to Pope Pius II. It was indeed maintained -that this was not tribute-money; but yet such another -sum would surely be granted. For the investiture to be extended -to the Duke of Calabria they would be willing to pay -50,000. The Pope could then confirm the bull of Sixtus IV. -and content himself during the rest of his pontificate with -the gaily adorned palfrey. Lorenzo should carefully consider -the matter.</p> - -<p>In the autumn of 1491 Pontano was sent to Rome to -arrange a compromise. The hint that Naples was willing -to pay seems to have had its effect. On reflection it is easy -to see in what financial difficulties Innocent had placed himself. -Lorenzo had to lend him money and redeem his pawned -valuables; as Lanfredini had said, he was applying to all the -sovereigns for tithes, and had made debts to the amount of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[420]</a></span> -300,000 ducats.<a name="FNanchor_526_526" id="FNanchor_526_526"></a><a href="#Footnote_526_526" class="fnanchor">[526]</a> But further hindrances kept cropping up, -chiefly through the double-dealing of Ferrante, whom no -one dared trust even when he, perhaps, really did mean -honestly. It was said both at Rome and at Florence that -he was stirring up troubles for the Pope in the States of the -Church, and confirming the inhabitants of Ascoli in their -rebellion against the Holy See, for which purpose he kept a -numerous body of troops on the Tronto.<a name="FNanchor_527_527" id="FNanchor_527_527"></a><a href="#Footnote_527_527" class="fnanchor">[527]</a> Lorenzo never -ceased advising a reconciliation. Many things were done -by the soldiers, he wrote to Innocent, which it was not -becoming a wise prince and thoughtful Pope to leave unhindered, -and the peace of all Italy would be in danger if an -end were not put to the quarrel.<a name="FNanchor_528_528" id="FNanchor_528_528"></a><a href="#Footnote_528_528" class="fnanchor">[528]</a> In the middle of November -the king expressed his sense of obligation to Lorenzo, who -was showing himself a true friend and mediator in these -differences. He hoped, he said, soon to arrive at a settlement.<a name="FNanchor_529_529" id="FNanchor_529_529"></a><a href="#Footnote_529_529" class="fnanchor">[529]</a> -In the beginning of December they did arrive at one; and -two months later peace was announced in the Consistory.<a name="FNanchor_530_530" id="FNanchor_530_530"></a><a href="#Footnote_530_530" class="fnanchor">[530]</a> -In the investiture to be given to the Duke of Calabria, for -which the sum before mentioned was to be paid, his son, the -Prince of Capua, was included. The new treaty was to be -the only one in force. To the barons released from prison -the king promised to pay a certain sum yearly. ‘How much,’ -adds the Ferrarese ambassador, ‘is not known; and it is -supposed to have been agreed upon merely for the sake of -the Pope’s honour. Whether it will be kept, the future will -show.’ The future, and no very distant one, brought on the -Neapolitan king far other troubles than those caused by his -quarrel with the Pope. Scarcely was that quarrel ended, -scarcely was the settlement effected for which Pontano went -to Rome,<a name="FNanchor_531_531" id="FNanchor_531_531"></a><a href="#Footnote_531_531" class="fnanchor">[531]</a> when the king exhausted himself in demonstrations<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[421]</a></span> -of gratitude and friendship towards the Pope, to whose blessing -he attributed his own prosperity and that of all belonging -to him, to whom he sent hippocras and twenty-four casks -of choice Neapolitan wines, and with whom he formed a -connection by betrothing his grandson, the Marquis of Gerace, -to Battistina Usodimare, daughter of Teodorina Cybò.<a name="FNanchor_532_532" id="FNanchor_532_532"></a><a href="#Footnote_532_532" class="fnanchor">[532]</a> Ferrante -must have felt that the time was pressing for a reconciliation. -French affairs gave him subjects for consideration. -Charles VIII. had not only—thanks to his sister—overcome -a dangerous opposition, but had reconciled the Duke of -Orleans to himself and his house, and won Britanny, whose -heiress gave him her hand on December 4, 1491. A double -Papal dispensation was needed; for Charles was betrothed -to Margaret of Austria, and Anne of Britanny already bore -the title of Queen of the Romans as the bride of Margaret’s -brother Maximilian; besides which the newly-married couple -were near relations. Doubtless with a view to what was -coming, a French embassy consisting of ten persons, headed -by Jean de Villiers et La Groslaye, Bishop of Lombes and -Abbot of St. Denis (afterwards highly influential at Rome), -had been sent to Rome and received there on November 16. -On December 3, a courier brought tidings of the marriage, -which gave great offence, but for which the dispensations -were given afterwards.<a name="FNanchor_533_533" id="FNanchor_533_533"></a><a href="#Footnote_533_533" class="fnanchor">[533]</a> Another struggle with Maximilian -was inevitable. But France was united and peaceful within, -the last great fief was joined to the crown, and the work -begun by Louis XI. was accomplished. Italy had reason to -fear that the young king, whose ambition was greater than -his intellectual capacity, would again take up claims which -had never been really set at rest. In the very same year -which closed with the agreement between Innocent and -Ferrante the declaration of Charles VIII.’s rights to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[422]</a></span> -crown worn by the latter was formulated. Five years before, -the Duke of Orleans had put forward the claims to Milan -which he afterwards enforced as king.<a name="FNanchor_534_534" id="FNanchor_534_534"></a><a href="#Footnote_534_534" class="fnanchor">[534]</a></p> - -<p>If it was to the interest of France to stand well with -the Pope, Ferrante had more than one motive for doing so. -His daughter Beatrice, the widow of Matthias Corvinus, was -threatened with dissolution of marriage by her second husband, -the Polish Prince Ladislas, to whose elevation to the throne -of Hungary she had greatly contributed; and it cost her -father much trouble and anxiety to avert a decision which -touched his own honour and that of his house. But the -king, now growing old, was occupied with another family -matter. The marriage of his granddaughter with the young -Duke of Milan was the immediate, if not the principal, cause -of a disagreement which sowed the seeds of ruin far beyond -palaces and dynasties. The ambassador, whose arrival at -Florence in the beginning of May 1490 has already been -mentioned, was to go to Milan ‘to find out in what relation -the lady duchess stood towards her most illustrious consort.’<a name="FNanchor_535_535" id="FNanchor_535_535"></a><a href="#Footnote_535_535" class="fnanchor">[535]</a> -The bad reports of Gian Galeazzo’s state of health proved -unfounded, and Isabella soon after had hopes of becoming a -mother. But matters remained unchanged. Gian Galeazzo -at one and twenty was duke only in name. The government -was still as it always had been, in the hands of his uncle, -who had filled up all state-offices and military commands -with confidants of his own. Connected with this last fact -was the circumstance that in June 1488, Gian Jacopo Trivulzio, -being apparently suspected by the Moro of taking Gian -Galeazzo’s part, left the Milanese service and accepted a -<i>condotta</i> offered him by King Ferrante.<a name="FNanchor_536_536" id="FNanchor_536_536"></a><a href="#Footnote_536_536" class="fnanchor">[536]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[423]</a></span></p> - -<p>The case became worse when, in January 18, 1491, -Lodovico married. His bride, Beatrice of Este, was a near -relative of Isabella of Aragon, for her mother was the sister -of Isabella’s father; but the relations between the two young -wives soon became unbearable. Beatrice, the younger by -five years, handsome, clever, ambitious, and proud, soon -acquired great influence over her husband, now a man of -forty; she went hand-in-hand with him in all his far-reaching -plans, and induced him to yield to her desires with regard -to outward position more than the cunning reserved -man perhaps at first intended. She and Isabella soon came -to open strife. The Duchess of Milan very naturally claimed -the first place; the Duchess of Bari had no intention of contenting -herself with the second. Lodovico’s authority made -it easy for her to satisfy her passion for ruling. Isabella -bore with growing impatience daily insults to herself and -the unworthy position of her husband; of him too little is -known to furnish grounds for a decided judgment of his -character and capabilities. At last she appealed to her -father, representing to him her position and begging for his -intervention.<a name="FNanchor_537_537" id="FNanchor_537_537"></a><a href="#Footnote_537_537" class="fnanchor">[537]</a></p> - -<p>There had been no love lost between Alfonso and Lodovico -ever since the Ferrara war. Although in the disputes between -the Pope and the king, the Sforza had not furthered the -views of France against Ferrante, still the Moro’s attitude -had been questionable. If the Duke of Calabria had had his -way, at the time when the treaty was concluded with the -Pope, Italy would have been in flames; for his counsel was -to cross the Tronto with an army and force Lodovico to lay -down his usurped power. But the old king was afraid of a -step which threatened to bring incalculable consequences; -particularly as the Moro’s intimate relations with France—relations<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[424]</a></span> -whose first fruits were the complete abandonment -in favour of Milan of the French claims to Genoa—and certain -events in Florence which will be mentioned presently, gave -him every motive for extreme caution. Instead of arms he -tried negotiation. A Neapolitan embassy was sent to Milan,<a name="FNanchor_538_538" id="FNanchor_538_538"></a><a href="#Footnote_538_538" class="fnanchor">[538]</a> -but it had no answer but empty phrases. Lodovico replied -that his nephew was Duke and enjoyed all the privileges of -his rank. He himself had for years only borne the burthen -of affairs, which he would lay down as soon as circumstances -permitted. The only result of the application was that the -good understanding between the house of Naples and the -Sforza, already much endangered, notwithstanding the continued -ostensible alliance, received a very severe shock. -There was, indeed, no lack of friendly protestations on either -side; and on February 8, 1492,<a name="FNanchor_539_539" id="FNanchor_539_539"></a><a href="#Footnote_539_539" class="fnanchor">[539]</a> not long before the departure -of the embassy above-mentioned, Ferrante wrote to his -ambassador in Milan that he regarded the Duke of Bari as -his own son (it is true the latter married his granddaughter) -and his interests as his own, and congratulated him on his -good understanding with France. Lodovico, to secure the -maintenance of a power which he knew he was in danger of -losing sooner or later, used all the means supplied by his -versatile and inventive genius, and deluded himself with the -increasing consciousness of his superiority over all other -Italian rulers, only to involve himself irretrievably in the -machinations which brought to ruin the edifice of Italian -polity.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[425]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER VI.</h2> - -<p class="pch">OPPOSITION TENDENCIES. FRA GIROLAMO SAVONAROLA.</p> - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">The</span> Medici had always counted on the clergy for support. -It would be unjust to attribute this entirely to selfish -motives; they had other and nobler aims than merely that -of more easily ruling the multitude in union with its spiritual -directors. Other motives besides scruples of conscience -actuated them in the building of churches and convents. -The clergy, especially the regular clergy, were, with a portion -of the nobility, still the chief representatives of the -higher scientific and literary culture. Cosimo’s grandson as -well as himself found instruction, entertainment, and intellectual -animation in the society of Camaldulensians, Dominicans, -Augustinians, and Servites. But as Lorenzo endeavoured -to keep under his own control the bishoprics of the -district, he made use of the monastic orders in the same -way. He employed them privately to discover and direct -the stream of popular opinion and popular inclination. -Owing to their constitution, their varied composition, their -connection with all classes, and their comparative independence, -they were at once more trustworthy and abler instruments -than the lay communities of various kinds which he -ruled by means of his confidants, high and low. These -latter societies might prove dangerous to him through party-spirit -and secret machinations; a danger which indeed -afterwards became apparent, and was vigorously opposed by -the rulers of Tuscany. The religious orders, when they devoted -themselves to furthering the aims of the Medici, had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[426]</a></span> -another advantage over the companies. The many little -jealousies and enmities which divided them from each other -gave better security for secresy; and the fact that very much -depended upon this may afford an explanation of the great -liberality of the Medici towards the convents. In the -annals of the Monastery of the Angeli, where Cosimo was -wont to visit Ambrogio Traversari, and where Lorenzo’s sons -went to hear philosophical lectures and to be present at -sacred representations, it is recorded that besides the usual -yearly gifts of money, Lorenzo used on certain festivals to -send to the monks, who were by no means rich, fish, cheese, -and fruit; and also that he procured for them the bounty of -the Signoria. ‘We owe everything to God, through Lorenzo -His instrument.’ Don Guido, formerly a Cistercian monk, -who became prior of the Angeli in 1484, was Lorenzo’s confessor.<a name="FNanchor_540_540" id="FNanchor_540_540"></a><a href="#Footnote_540_540" class="fnanchor">[540]</a></p> - -<p>But it would be a mistake to suppose that even when his -relations with the Papacy were most intimate, Lorenzo could -reckon unconditionally upon the clergy. Those same disputes -between the religious orders came in the way, as well -as the democratic spirit prevalent among the monks, which -saw through the tendencies of the existing government even -when it seemed to be favouring popular objects. This internal -opposition naturally developed more strongly as a -more serious way of thinking gained ground; such a temper -as had been fostered by the pious chief pastors Antonine and -Orlando Bonarli, though their successors, under whom the -diocese of Florence was chiefly administered by vicars, did -nothing to maintain it. About the year 1490 it became apparent -that the general life of pleasure and worldliness was -about to take a turn in an opposite direction. No one could -then foresee the ultimate scope and results of this opposition; -but it showed itself in a manner which necessarily attracted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[427]</a></span> -the attention of him who was accustomed to direct all -things, and who had too much tact and too much practice -in judging of moral and intellectual tendencies not to recognise -the first symptoms of a turn of the tide. Its importance -was the more apparent to him because it showed itself -in a field, of which, as of those of politics and literature, he -thought himself the ruler; but which was withdrawn from -his influence as soon as the prevalent materialistic tendencies -were combated by inward moral impulses and views. This -resistance was in the highest degree dangerous to the -Medici, because its chief strength lay in the moral consciousness -of the people, hitherto artificially suppressed or put to -sleep, but now awakened to new life; and it was this which -enabled it to hold out so firmly long after it appeared to be -conquered. It was the fate of the Medici that opposition -sprang from ground which they had long been accustomed -to regard as their own, and to treat in the light of an heirloom.</p> - -<p>In 1482, there entered the convent of San Marco a -brother of the order, who had been driven from his native city -of Ferrara by the storms of war raging around it, in order to -seek a more peaceful sphere of activity beyond the Apennines, -little suspecting what other storms he would have to encounter -there. The Porta Savonarola at Padua recalls to -mind the neighbouring residence of that noble family; and -in the Prato della Valle stands a statue of Antonio Savonarola, -who manfully defended his native city in the middle of -the thirteenth century. In 1440 Michele Savonarola was -called to Ferrara, where he was presented with the rights of -citizenship by the Marquis Lionello d’Este, and acquired a -great reputation as physician in ordinary to the Marquis, as -professor at the university, and also as an author.<a name="FNanchor_541_541" id="FNanchor_541_541"></a><a href="#Footnote_541_541" class="fnanchor">[541]</a> His son<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[428]</a></span> -Niccolò married Elena Bonacossi, and her masculine spirit -was inherited by her son Girolamo, who has made the name -of his race famous throughout the world. At the age of -three-and-twenty this son, without consulting the wishes of -his parents, entered the Predicant order at Bologna in the -spring of 1475. In a letter to his father he pleaded, in explanation -and justification of the step, his soul’s cry of anguish -against the worldliness to which he beheld Italy fallen -a prey. ‘I could no longer look upon the deep corruption -of the blinded people, the oppression of virtue, the exaltation -of vice; it was an unspeakable torment to me, and I prayed -daily to God that He might take me out of this pit of destruction. -Now, in His infinite goodness, He has vouchsafed -this grace to me, notwithstanding my unworthiness.’ -But it was not the worldliness of the laity alone that shocked -him; the corruption in the Church stood before the eyes of -his soul in yet more glaring colours. He lamented it in his -poems—highly imaginative and lofty outpourings of a soul -brightened with the fire of love, penetrated with the consciousness -of the need for a higher development, tortured by -a foreboding of approaching judgment.<a name="FNanchor_542_542" id="FNanchor_542_542"></a><a href="#Footnote_542_542" class="fnanchor">[542]</a> His first intention -was to devote himself to teaching rather than to preaching; -but in the seventh year after his entrance into the order, he -was sent to his native city, where he lived as a stranger, rarely -saw even his nearest relatives, and was not much appreciated -as a speaker. Yet he cannot have been lacking in eloquence; -for one day when he was travelling from Ferrara to -Mantua his reproofs made such an impression on the soldiers -who were in the boat playing and swearing, that they penitently -fell upon their knees before him.</p> - -<p>Fra Girolamo’s reception in Florence was not encouraging.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[429]</a></span> -The man and the city could not be attractive to each -other; the one was leaning more and more towards asceticism, -and the other towards immoderate pleasure. The one -cared for nothing but Holy Scripture, and developed its -doctrines in lofty, unvarnished speech, whose rough careless -form was not softened by his Lombard accent, his hoarse -voice, and vehement delivery; the other, sharing the common -plight, knew little of the Bible, and was accustomed to -preachers whose artistic phraseology recalled the elegant -tone of the literary palæstra. In his own convent the -stranger found little sympathy. A philosophising tone prevailed -in conversation; and the adoption of classical learning -might well raise some scruples in the mind of the Ferrarese, -whose early education had also been of a philosophical -kind. This double discord left decided marks in its train. -At Savonarola’s Lenten sermons in San Lorenzo in 1483, the -number of listeners was extremely small. He himself was -perfectly aware of the defects of his delivery: ‘Those who -knew me in those days,’ he said ten years later, ‘know that -I had neither voice nor lungs, nor understood anything about -preaching, so that I was a bore to everybody.’ He needed a -longer apprenticeship. For two years he preached during -Lent at San Gemignano. Then he was summoned to -Brescia, where in 1486 he preached the sermons on the Apocalypse -which first extended his reputation, the prophecies -in which of divine judgment and the exhortations to repentance -recurred vividly to the souls of the people six-and-twenty -years later, when the French army was committing -that plunder whose horrors have rarely been equalled in -Christian times. A chapter of the order held at Reggio -brought Savonarola in contact with Giovanni Pico, who -took such an interest in the bold and enthusiastic preacher -that he got him sent back to Florence, through the intervention -of Lorenzo de’ Medici. In 1490 Savonarola returned -to San Marco, there to begin the work which left deep and -broad traces on the ecclesiastical and political history of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[430]</a></span> -Italy; which led to hard fighting, not without fault on his -side, but which at last led him to martyrdom, and encircled -his brow with a glory that no contradiction and no change -of times and views have been able to deprive of its radiance.</p> - -<p>Savonarola found in Florence a rival who was his exact -opposite in delivery and in opinions. Fra Mariano of Genazzano -came from a place situated on the slope of the -Aequian and Hernican mountains, and made important by -the great palace of the Colonna. He belonged to the order -of the Augustinian Hermits, and dwelt in the convent of -Sto. Spirito, until Lorenzo, with whom he had managed to -get into favour, built a grand convent at the gate of San -Gallo, where there was an old church with a decayed hospital -and a foundling establishment. This building was razed -to the ground in 1524, when the Emperor and a Medicean -Pope were sending their troops against Florence; not a -trace of it is left, and its place is occupied by the rows of -trees and groves of the walk called the Parterre, and the -little church of the Madonna della Tosse, which looks like a -shrine left standing amid the general destruction.<a name="FNanchor_543_543" id="FNanchor_543_543"></a><a href="#Footnote_543_543" class="fnanchor">[543]</a> The -convent must have been finished about 1488. Lorenzo provided -it with a choice library, visited it frequently with intimate -friends, and was fond of discussing philosophical and -theological questions with Fra Mariano. Naturally, the -Augustinian was wont to say that among men of such high -position he had never known one so God-fearing as Lorenzo. -As a preacher Fra Mariano was just the man for the people, -as well as for scholars. He was little of stature, but his -voice was full and melodious, and his utterance agreeable; -he terrified and comforted, and made his hearers weep and -laugh. Poliziano describes the impression made on him by -Mariano’s bearing, manner, gestures, and whole appearance, -his sonorous voice, his well-chosen expressions, his majestic -sentences, the artistic construction of his phrases, the harmoniousness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[431]</a></span> -of his cadences, the richness of his imagery, the -clearness and force of his contrasts, the grace of his narrations, -and his easy changes of subject, preventing all -monotony. The picture Poliziano gives of the mode of life -and conversation of this spiritual orator, in whom he celebrates -only the qualities desirable in a temporal one, shows -that Mariano was just the man to sail round the rocks which -threatened to wreck Girolamo. ‘I have met him repeatedly -at the villa and entered into confidential talk with him. I -never knew a man at once more attractive and more cautious. -He neither repels by immoderate severity nor deceives -and leads astray by exaggerated indulgence. Many -preachers think themselves masters of men’s life and death. -While they abuse their power, they always look gloomy, and -weary men by constantly setting up for judges of morals. -But here is a man of moderation. In the pulpit he is a -severe censor; but when he descends, he indulges in winning, -friendly discourse. Therefore, I and my excellent -friend Pico have much intercourse with him, and nothing -refreshes us after our literary labours so much as his conversation. -Lorenzo de’ Medici, who understands men so -well, shows how highly he esteems him, not only in that he -has built him a splendid convent, but also in that he often -visits him, preferring a conversation with him while walking -to any other recreation.’<a name="FNanchor_544_544" id="FNanchor_544_544"></a><a href="#Footnote_544_544" class="fnanchor">[544]</a></p> - -<p>Savonarola’s biographer Fra Pacifico Burlamacchi is no -doubt quite right in praising Fra Mariano’s eloquence rather -than his doctrine, in his account of the orator’s little artifice -to impress the people. But this man’s mastery of his art -must have been considerable, to make Girolamo Benivieni -once say to the Ferrarese preacher, ‘Father, no one can -deny the truth, the usefulness, and needfulness of your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[432]</a></span> -teaching. But your delivery lacks attraction, especially -when one is daily led to make a comparison with Fra -Mariano.’ To which the other answered that elegance of -expression must give way to the simple preaching of sound -doctrine.<a name="FNanchor_545_545" id="FNanchor_545_545"></a><a href="#Footnote_545_545" class="fnanchor">[545]</a> But it was long before Savonarola made his way. -His reputation, indeed, increased rapidly, but admirers still -flocked round Fra Mariano; princes and commonwealth -applied to Lorenzo, begging him to give the Augustinian, -who seemed to be regarded as belonging to his household, -leave to come and preach to them. Lodovico il Moro begged -for this not merely as a personal favour, but because the city -and all the people longed for the fulfilment of Lorenzo’s promise; -and the consuls of the Sabine town of Norcia—the -home of S. Benedict—called Fra Mariano in their letter -‘God’s angel upon earth.’</p> - -<p>It seems that Fra Girolamo was discouraged by his -former failures in this field, and the growing success of the -Augustinian, and thought at first of limiting his efforts to -the philosophical and theological instruction of the novices. -His short philosophic compendia are only valuable in the -present day for their display of a spirit of justice and sense -of the need of investigation in human knowledge, and of -analytical progress from the known to the unknown, instead -of belief by authority; these, as well as his smaller ascetic -and moral treatises, mostly date from the first years after -his return to Florence. In them may be seen the mystic -enthusiasm which soon became more and more prominent in -his sermons, expositions of the Bible, his poems, and other -important works. Combined with this mysticism was a -striving to clothe his views and prophecies of the future -with the authority of Holy Scripture, with which he was -perhaps better acquainted than anyone else at the time; but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[433]</a></span> -he interpreted it with a freedom, perfectly honest on his -part, which necessarily aroused scruples, for it opened out a -boundless field, where an excited fancy or secondary objects -might easily lead him astray; and this danger was the -greater when he turned his attention especially to the -Apocalypse. In the summer of 1490 divers citizens sought -admission to the lectures for the novices. The convent-rooms -being too small, Savonarola continued his lectures at -first in the court; then, as the number of hearers rapidly increased, -he transferred them on August 1 to the church. A -rosebush still marks the spot where Fra Girolamo taught in -the courtyard of the convent; and in these latter days it has -been resolved to raise a statue to him there, and a bust has -been placed in what was once his cell. He needs no such -monuments where all around recalls his memory; but they -are tokens of the veneration paid to him by posterity in -spite of all his weaknesses and mistakes.</p> - -<p>The direction Savonarola had taken soon led him further -than he calculated upon or perhaps intended. The effect -produced by his discourses is quite intelligible when one -compares their character with that of the ordinary preaching -of the day, and takes the prevailing temper into consideration. -In both cases one meets with strange contrasts. -Artificial, wordy discourses, that people were accustomed to -hear in the sermons of the followers of Bernardino of Siena; -besides the simple, often impressive moral, there was a mixture -of abstruse scholasticism, asceticism, and anecdotes intended -for the multitude, on whom, however, part of their -meaning was lost, and who laughed and cried by turns, and -were confirmed in their views of devotional practices and -works, in which too much stress was apt to be laid on externals. -Still the supremacy gained over the people by the -moral and political tendencies favoured by the Medici was -by no means so complete as to leave no room for opposing -views, whose inward strength was only increased by the -outward resistance they encountered. The Dominican’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[434]</a></span> -subject-matter, his mode of demonstration, his whole manner, -were such as to make an impression upon opponents. -To most preachers as well as hearers, the Bible was a sealed -book. When it was opened its word became a living well -springing up into a mighty fertilising stream, and disclosing -that wondrous power which has never failed wherever it has -been heard. Savonarola well knew that power. If he failed -it was from a defect exactly contrary to those of the others. -They lacked the true perception and feeling for that which -alone could give their teachings a meaning true, deep, and -sound for all time. He lacked moderation and the power -to control his perceptions, his acquirements, and himself. -This was the rock on which he was ultimately wrecked. -Guicciardini, who was ten years old at Lorenzo’s death, -whose youth was passed in the midst of Fra Girolamo’s most -strenuous activity, and whose eyes were early open to all -that went on around him, speaks of the natural unstudied -elegance of the sermons he heard and read, and remarks -that never had there been seen a man so versed in Holy -Scripture, never had such abundant discourse been united -with such a lasting impression.<a name="FNanchor_546_546" id="FNanchor_546_546"></a><a href="#Footnote_546_546" class="fnanchor">[546]</a> In after years, when -Savonarola’s attacks on the corruption in the Church sought -and found a personal object in that Church’s unworthy head, -he encountered in the enmity of other religious societies a -stumbling-block which contributed not a little to his fall. -But even in these earlier days he had long ago roused -opposition, some of which, proceeding from purely inward -grounds, was unavoidable; but a nature less rugged in its -enthusiasm might have broken the force of some of it.</p> - -<p>Fra Girolamo’s great day was yet far distant. But this -activity and the effects produced on moral life by his -preaching, by his instructions in the convent, and by his and -his pupils’ influence on all classes, were already beginning -to strike root that year when he gathered around him the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[435]</a></span> -more serious-minded men and youths in San Marco, and set -himself to counteract the dominant pursuit of sensual enjoyment -which threatened to paralyse the energies of the people. -This activity and influence, when its chief source and originator -had personally succumbed, though his work was only -apparently destroyed, was described in glowing words by the -great historian, though he is not quite consistent in his views -of Savonarola’s character. ‘What he did for the amendment -of morals was wonderful and holy. Never did such -order and such fear of God reign in Florence as in his time; -and the deterioration which set in after his death proves -how entirely everything was his work and the fruit of his -labours. There was no more gaming in public, people only -played with trepidation and in private; the taverns, the accustomed -scenes of the wild doings of degenerate youth, -were closed; the worst vices were suppressed in consequence -of the abhorrence excited against them. Most women laid -aside their objectionable garments; the young people were -rescued from their wild ways and led back to a moral life, -and visited the churches in companies. Gamesters, blasphemers, -and dissolute women were in danger of being pursued -and stoned. At the Carnaval, playing-cards, dice, -indecent pictures and books were collected and burnt on the -square of the Signoria; and on the day formerly given up to -all kinds of excesses, a great church procession took place. -The elder people took up a religious life, went diligently to -mass, vespers, and sermons, received the sacraments and distinguished -themselves by doing good. Many youths of the -first families and some men of riper years entered the Predicant -Order. In all Italy was never seen a convent like that -of San Marco, where the excellent instruction given in the -Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages and literature promised -to furnish fresh ornaments to the Order.’</p> - -<p>This activity, which produced such a change and passed -sentence of condemnation on a system that had been carried -out for years with equal skill and perseverance, was only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[436]</a></span> -beginning in the last years of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s life; but -its very beginnings could not fail to furnish matter for reflection -to that keen thinker. Even before 1490 similar -symptoms had shown themselves, whether connected with -Savonarola’s earliest labours is not certain, but it is highly -probable. Poliziano’s prologue to the Menæchmi of Plautus, -written in May 1488, contains a vehement diatribe against -the opponents of these scenic representations—those who -protested against the employment of young people in reciting -the too often objectionable verses of classical plays.<a name="FNanchor_547_547" id="FNanchor_547_547"></a><a href="#Footnote_547_547" class="fnanchor">[547]</a> -Monks are the objects of the poet’s attack; monks who were -not like his friend Mariano.</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">Sed qui nos damnant, histriones sunt maxumi,<br /> -Nam Curios simulant, vivunt bacchanalia.<br /> -Hi sunt præcipuè, quidam clamosi, leves,<br /> -Cucullati, lignipedes, cincti funibus,<br /> -Superciliosum, in curvi cervicum pecus.<br /> -Qui quòd ab aliis et habitu et cultu dissentiunt,<br /> -Tristesque vultu vendunt sanctimonias,<br /> -Censuram sibi quandam et tyrranidem occupant.<br /> -Pavidamque plebem territant minaciis.</p> - -<p class="p1">These lines, recited in Lorenzo’s presence, are witnesses -to the existence of the opposition which increased in strength -every year, and from whose influence many, even of those -who sided with the ruling party, seem not to have been free. -In Lent 1491 Fra Girolamo began to preach in Sta. Maria -del Fiore, the crowd having now become too great for the -conventual church; the number of hearers increased daily, -the impression made by his predictions of the punishment -and evil to come became more vivid, till Lorenzo thought it -advisable to try to stem the tide of growing excitement -which threatened to endanger his work and his influence. -For these prophecies of approaching judgment contained -something more than indirect attacks on the present state -of affairs, and the serious turn of mind encouraged by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[437]</a></span> -preacher most necessarily deprive of their force many of the -means which served to maintain that state of affairs.</p> - -<p>Five chief citizens of the dominant party—men who all, -with one exception, later on personally fell under the mighty -influence of Savonarola—Domenico Bonsi, Guid’Antonio -Vespucci, Paol’Antonio Soderini, Bernardo Rucellai, and -Francesco Valori, went to San Marco to exhort the preacher -to moderation. He answered that they had better exhort Lorenzo, -who had sent them, to repent of his sins: God would -spare no one. To the warning that he might be exiled, he replied -that Lorenzo was a Florentine citizen and he a stranger; -but the former would go and he would remain. He predicted -the speedy death of Lorenzo, the Pope, and King Ferrante. -The increasing and very intelligible discontent among the -Medicean partisans, of which he could not but be aware, led -him, however, to try and moderate his too frequent and exciting -prophecies and confine himself more to moral and -theological lectures. But his restless spirit carried him -away. It would have been well for him could he have -known moderation. But as his imagery, at once brilliant -and irregular, is confusing and bewildering rather than -elevating; as the terrors of his curse are weakened by repetition; -as his precepts for Christian life rise to a pitch of -asceticism, whose very exaggeration contains its own contradiction; -as his teaching, so truly that of the Gospel in its -principles and right application, loses its impressive force by -straying to unsuitable ground; even so was it with his conduct -in life. He irritated needlessly and aimlessly. The -benefactions of the Medici to the convent and to the whole -order had founded a relation of clientship, in which there -was nothing offensive so long as both parties observed the -moderation which had once been guaranteed by Cosimo’s -cautiousness and was continued by Lorenzo’s tact and discretion. -It was customary that when a new prior was appointed -he should make a visit to the head of the family. -Fra Girolamo, on being chosen prior in July 1491, refused<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[438]</a></span> -to do this. ‘I hold my election from God alone,’ said he; ‘to -Him alone I owe obedience.’ It may easily be conceived -that Lorenzo took this amiss, and, in his turn, spoke out -freely. ‘A stranger has come into my house, and does not -deign to visit me.’ However, he made no change in his -conduct towards the convent; he sent gifts and money as -before. Once some gold florins were found in the alms-box -of the church. Fra Girolamo, who had previously made -some personal remarks from the pulpit, caused the money to -be given to the Buonuomini of San Martino, saying that -silver and copper was enough for the convent. When Lorenzo -came to walk in the convent garden, according to his custom, -the prior never showed himself. His admirers praise his -conduct towards a man from whom he was separated by a -deep inward gulf. If, instead of trying to work upon that -man and so introduce a different state of things, he intended -to cause a violent conflict, he acted rightly.</p> - -<p>Lorenzo’s own conduct towards Savonarola was always -prudent. The Dominican’s biographers relate that the great -man, being repulsed by him, incited Fra Mariano to attack -him from the pulpit; but such incitement was probably not -needed. The breach between the two preachers was older -than themselves; the antagonism of the two orders was but -personified in these men, so radically different from each -other. In a sermon preached on Ascension-Day, on the -text: ‘It is not for you to know the times or the seasons,’ -the Augustinian accused the prior of San Marco of being a -false prophet, an instigator of sedition among the people, a -stirrer-up of strife and disorder. It is said that his vehemence -and exaggerated personalities gave offence to his numerous -hearers, and ruined his fame as an orator. Seven years -later, when the Roman court was in the greatest excitement -on account of events in Florence, when Savonarola lay under -the ban of the Church, when his safety and his very life depended -only on the momentary preponderance of one party -or another in the excited city, already stained with the blood<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[439]</a></span> -of noble citizens—then this same Fra Mariano preached in -Sant’Agostino at Rome in such immoderate terms, and -applied to his hated rival such coarse expressions, that even -to unlearned hearers his gifts of eloquence seemed to have -been swallowed up by party-spirit; and the cardinals who -were present turned their backs upon him. They had expected -a refutation of the Dominican’s teaching, and they -heard nothing but raging accusations accompanied by vulgar -gestures.<a name="FNanchor_548_548" id="FNanchor_548_548"></a><a href="#Footnote_548_548" class="fnanchor">[548]</a> ‘If you want to understand a monk, ask a monk -about him,’ so said the Augustinian. After his personal -attack at Florence, it is said that Fra Mariano, apparently -regardless of his discomfiture, invited his rival to San Gallo, -where they celebrated a solemn mass together and exchanged -civilities; but the story does not agree with Savonarola’s -character and the frankness so much praised by his biographers -in his relations with Lorenzo.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[440]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER VII.</h2> - -<p class="pch">PROCLAMATION OF THE CARDINALATE OF GIOVANNI -DE’ MEDICI.</p> - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">It</span> was a wise decision of Lorenzo to fix on Pisa as a residence -for his son Giovanni. His efforts to raise that unfortunate -city and to bridge over as much as he could the gulf -between it and Florence had been unwearying. Moreover, -Pisa not only offered to the youth, in the persons of its -learned men, ample means of scientific cultivation, it also -gave the needful quiet which, while his elevation to a great -dignity was an open secret, he could not find in his father’s -house, constantly filled with friends and clients. Philosophy, -law, and polite literature seem to have been Giovanni’s -chief studies; his whole after-life shows that he was -not much taken up with theology. Filippo Decio and Bartolommeo -Sozzini were his chief instructors in civil and -ecclesiastical law. With his quick mind his studies were a -pleasure; and the uncommon capacity which he always -displayed in literary matters, independently of the accurate -taste he inherited from his father, and his perfect mastery of -the Latin tongue, suffice to show that he no more lost his -time at Pisa than he had done in the villa or the house at -Florence. He always attached great weight to Latin -scholarship, as he proved by his choice of secretaries when -he became Pope. In a brief of 1517, he speaks of the enrichment -of the Latin tongue, doubtless alluding both to the -increased publicity of its master-pieces, and to the efforts -made, in accordance with Poliziano’s views, to apply that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[441]</a></span> -language to the purposes of modern science and modern life, -instead of confining it to mere imitation, yet without offending -against the severity of the classical. His tutor Bernardo -Michelozzi has already been mentioned. Chalkondylas and -Peter of Ægina are named as his instructors in Greek. His -constant companion was Bernardo Dovizj, in whom he -placed as much confidence as Lorenzo had given to his -father, and, indeed, also gave to the son. Another of Giovanni’s -companions was Silvio Passerini, who belonged to -the Cortona branch of a good Florentine family, and whose -father was one of the stanchest adherents of the Medici. -Lorenzo caused the boy to be brought up with his second -son; and Silvio, who was five years older than Giovanni, -followed him faithfully through prosperity and adversity. -In later days he enjoyed the revived glory of the family, and -was raised to the highest ecclesiastical dignities, and also to -civil power in Florence; but he showed himself unequal to -the situation when another storm overthrew the Medicean -authority.<a name="FNanchor_549_549" id="FNanchor_549_549"></a><a href="#Footnote_549_549" class="fnanchor">[549]</a> The degree of doctor of canon law had already -been conferred on Giovanni. Towards the end of his stay -at Pisa he had a strange fellow-student—the Cardinal vice-chancellor -Rodrigo Borgia’s son Cesare, who was studying -jurisprudence under the future Cardinals Vera and Romolino, -and attended the lectures of Filippo Decio.<a name="FNanchor_550_550" id="FNanchor_550_550"></a><a href="#Footnote_550_550" class="fnanchor">[550]</a></p> - -<p>Naturally Giovanni held a prominent position, and his -influence was reckoned on in favour of the city and university, -as well as for private persons. His letters to his father, -mostly short, are written in the tone of respect and obedience -which at that time universally characterised the relation of -children to their parents, and in a great degree does so still. -He occasionally retired to the solitude of Camaldoli for the -purpose of meditation and of indulging in the spiritual exercises<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[442]</a></span> -usual to one in his circumstances. In the beginning -of August 1491, he was residing in the abbey of Passignano -with his cousin Giulio. Lorenzo had not ceased interceding -for benefices for his son. When a Tuscan abbot was dying -in May 1489, he wrote to the ambassador at Rome: ‘Induce -the Pope to give the benefice to his Messer Giovanni. I -say <i>his</i>, because he is far more his servant than my son. -On account of the importance of the benefice, his Holiness -should confer it only on one of our people (Florentines), and -if it is given to one of ours, it can come to no one who will -be more thankful for it.’<a name="FNanchor_551_551" id="FNanchor_551_551"></a><a href="#Footnote_551_551" class="fnanchor">[551]</a></p> - -<p>The Pope’s stipulation for delay in proclaiming Giovanni -cardinal did not at all suit Lorenzo, and he took no pains to -conceal the fact. Within a year from the nomination he -was urgent to have it published immediately; but Innocent -was not to be moved. ‘I thanked his Holiness,’ wrote on -January 8, 1490, Piero Alamanni,<a name="FNanchor_552_552" id="FNanchor_552_552"></a><a href="#Footnote_552_552" class="fnanchor">[552]</a> temporarily replacing -Lanfredini, who had died three days before, ‘for Messer -Giovanni’s preferment, and declared how gratifying it was -to our whole people, and how grateful they are to the Holy -Father; at the same time I hinted, in the most suitable -words I could command, that a shortening of the appointed -delay was greatly desired. In his detailed reply, the Pope -remarked first that what he did was all for the best, and for -the reasons and grounds which he had communicated to you -through M. Pier Filippo (Pandolfini). Then he turned the -conversation to M. Giovanni, and spoke of him in such a -way as if he were his own son. He said he had been informed -what progress he was making in his studies at Pisa, -and how he had distinguished himself in several disputations; -at which he showed extreme pleasure. At last he spoke as -follows: “Leave me to care for Messer Giovanni’s interests, -for I regard him as my son, and shall of my own accord -take in hand his proclamation when you are least thinking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[443]</a></span> -of it. I have yet other views for his honour and advantage.“‘ -This was all very fine, but it was the less calculated to soothe -Lorenzo’s impatience, as the Pope’s state of health gave good -cause for the gravest anxiety. On September 23, Innocent -was seized with another apoplectic fit. All Rome was in the -most intense excitement; the Pope’s death was reported; -all shops were closed, and all persons working in the fields -and vineyards hurried home. Franceschetto Cybò tried to -get possession both of the church treasury and of Prince -Dschem, in consequence of which, on the following day, -while Innocent still lay unconscious, the cardinals took precautionary -measures; not, however, it was said, till part of -the treasure had been sent to Florence.<a name="FNanchor_553_553" id="FNanchor_553_553"></a><a href="#Footnote_553_553" class="fnanchor">[553]</a> The invalid came to -himself, and on May 27 Pandolfini wrote that he was getting -better and hopeful of recovery. It is related that he said to -Cardinal Savelli and his colleagues, who came to the palace -in the moment of danger to secure the treasure, ‘he hoped -yet to bury them all.’ But there was great alarm at Florence. -As soon as the news of the Pope’s critical condition arrived, -Guid’Antonio Vespucci and Piero Guicciardini were commissioned -to go to Rome to demand, in the name of the city, -the admission of Giovanni de’ Medici to the approaching -Conclave. More favourable news made the embassy needless,<a name="FNanchor_554_554" id="FNanchor_554_554"></a><a href="#Footnote_554_554" class="fnanchor">[554]</a> -but Lorenzo determined to make every effort not to let his -success be spoiled. His brother-in-law, the archbishop, was -then in Florence, and went to Rome at his request. Through -Franceschetto’s mediation he obtained admission to the Pope, -whom he found suffering from quartan fever, and in a state -which did not at all inspire confidence. His mission had no -success with the influential cardinals; his letter to Lorenzo<a name="FNanchor_555_555" id="FNanchor_555_555"></a><a href="#Footnote_555_555" class="fnanchor">[555]</a> -shows how slightingly he was treated. All he gained was -the assurance that the family, and especially Lorenzo, should -be treated with consideration and not offended. When he -became more urgent on the subject of the Conclave, he was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[444]</a></span> -told that matters had not got so far as that yet; the Pope -was well, and should anything fatal happen to him, they -would proceed with due consideration. Pandolfini, too, -obtained nothing. On the part of the cardinals, he wrote,<a name="FNanchor_556_556" id="FNanchor_556_556"></a><a href="#Footnote_556_556" class="fnanchor">[556]</a> -there would be no serious difficulty; it lay with the Pope, -who was afraid of publication in this individual case, lest it -should offend others. ‘Do not think that to speak of the -matter at the present moment would lead to the attainment -of the object. Everyone is warned to speak to him only of -cheerful things, and that only in the presence of others. If -one tried to obtain an interview without witnesses, one would -expose oneself to the suspicion that it was for something of -importance. For more than a month not a cardinal has -spoken with him, save those belonging to the palace; and of -the prelates, only those who cheer him up are admitted.’</p> - -<p>The Pope’s health really became stronger; and as he remained -firm, Lorenzo had to wait patiently till the three -years’ delay was over. When the moment arrived, neither -Innocent nor the young cardinal’s father could hope to live -much longer. On the afternoon of March 8, 1492, Giovanni, -who had in the meantime left Pisa, proceeded with a small -retinue to the abbey of Fiesole. That convent and church, -where everything recalled the munificence of the Medici, had -been chosen to witness the conferring of the highest honours -upon a scion of the family. The next morning Pico della -Mirandola and Jacopo Salviati arrived with the notary Simone -Staza, and at the sixth hour they accompanied the youth to -the church. The office of the Madonna was solemnly sung -and was followed by the sacrifice of the mass, the celebrant, -the Prior Matteo Bosso, giving the Host to Giovanni as he -knelt on the altar-steps. He then blessed the cardinal’s -robes, took in his hands the Pope’s bull and brief and said: -‘May it be for the good of God’s church, of our country, and -of thy house! This day, Giovanni Medici, the three years<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[445]</a></span>’ -delay appointed by the bull and this brief for thy dignity as -cardinal is expired. Whosoever will read, let him read; all -is fulfilled. Do thou, Simone, make a public record of it.’ -He then presented to the kneeling youth his insignia, the -pallium, biretta, hat, and ring, and the choir sang the <i>Veni -Creator</i>. After proclaiming the indulgences to which he was -now competent, the cardinal returned to the convent with -the rest. After dinner Piero de’ Medici arrived mounted on -a handsome horse adorned with gilded trappings, and accompanied -by some friends of the family; and the whole -party mounted on horseback to proceed to the city.</p> - -<p>In spite of the rainy weather thousands had crowded to -the Porta San Gallo to see the procession. To avoid a press -a regulation had been made that no one should cross the -bridge over the Mugnone; so the whole space before the -gate and the convent was filled with people. When the -cardinal and his companions rode up, they found the whole -of the clergy, protonotaries and prelates, the chief citizens, -and the foreign ambassadors. On reaching the city the procession -entered the Servite Church, where Giovanni prayed -in the chapel of the Annunziata, and thence to Sta. Maria -del Fiore. After this the cardinal paid a visit to the -Signoria, and then, accompanied by the ambassadors, rode -to his father’s house, where Lorenzo received his son. The -streets through which the procession passed were gaily -decorated, and the windows and roofs filled with people. -The whole population was astir. At night the houses and -numerous towers were brilliant with illuminations; bonfires -were lighted in the squares, so that it was as bright as daylight, -and shouts of rejoicing and the sound of musical instruments -continued so long that sleep seemed forgotten. -The next morning, Sunday, March 10, the grand ecclesiastical -celebration took place in Sta. Maria del Fiore, whither -the cardinal was accompanied by the ambassadors and chief -citizens. The church was full; the Signoria were present:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[446]</a></span> -eight bishops sang the Mass of the Holy Ghost. It was not -fourteen years since the blood of a Medici had been shed on -that spot, in the presence of another youthful cardinal. -After Mass, Giovanni took leave of the Signoria and returned -home, where a grand banquet was prepared in his honour. -Sixty covers were laid; the guests were the foreign diplomatists -and the foremost men of the city. For several days preparations -had been made and provisions procured ‘for the -solemnity of our Monsignore.’<a name="FNanchor_557_557" id="FNanchor_557_557"></a><a href="#Footnote_557_557" class="fnanchor">[557]</a> Lorenzo was so ill on his -son’s day of triumph that he could not take part either in -the service at church or at the banquet. He had himself -carried into the hall to see the brilliant company at table; -that was all he could do. Before the end of the banquet the -Signoria presented to the new Prince of the Church a gift -of honour, consisting of silver plate of the finest workmanship -and more than a thousand pounds in weight; its value -was estimated at 10,000 gold florins at the least. After -Giovanni had withdrawn to his own apartments with the -ambassadors and Signori, the various communities of the -State, and the Jews of Florence, sent him presents of handsome -silver plate; all of which, as also gifts from private -persons, except his own relatives, he immediately returned -with thanks.<a name="FNanchor_558_558" id="FNanchor_558_558"></a><a href="#Footnote_558_558" class="fnanchor">[558]</a></p> - -<p>Little more than two years and a half after this day of -triumph, he whom Florence now greeted with acclamations left -his desolate home in the habit of a Franciscan monk; the -convent of St. Mark, built by his family, closed its gates -against him, and the terrified fugitive turned towards the -Apennines; thus beginning an exile destined to last for -eighteen years, to be followed later on by a period of yet -greater, and, in its way, unequalled splendour.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[447]</a></span></p> - -<p>Giovanni stayed but one day more in his native city. -He had to go to Rome to express his thanks to the Pope -and take his place in the Sacred College. On Tuesday, -March 12, he took leave of his sick father and set off on -horseback, accompanied by his suite. Among the latter was -the general of the Camaldulensians, Pietro Delfino, descended -from a noble Venetian family; he had been formerly in the -monastery of San Michele di Murano, was elected general of -his Order in 1480, and was a great friend of Lorenzo and -other distinguished Florentines; no one could be better -fitted to direct the first steps of a youth raised to such high -honours. A letter written by him from Rome to Guido, -prior of the monastery of the Angeli, gives an account of -the journey and reception. For two miles from the Porta -Romana, as far as the Carthusian convent, the departing -cardinal was escorted by a number of distinguished citizens; -they then returned to Florence, and he rode on to his abbey -of Passignano. The greater part of his suite went to pass -the night at Poggibonzi, and on the following morning -reached Siena, where the cardinal arrived in the afternoon, -and was triumphantly and joyfully received by the people. -March 16 the party resumed their journey, and dined at -Buonconvento; they passed that night at San Quirico and -the next at Acquapendente. Throughout the Sienese territory -they were entertained at the public expense. Several -prelates came to meet the cardinal at Acquapendente, and -he was saluted on the way to Viterbo by several of the Orsini -whose territories near the lake of Bolsena bordered on those -of Siena.<a name="FNanchor_559_559" id="FNanchor_559_559"></a><a href="#Footnote_559_559" class="fnanchor">[559]</a></p> - -<p>At Viterbo Franceschetto Cybò received his brother-in-law, -and all rode together to Bracciano, whose lord, Gentil -Virginio Orsini, had gone eight miles, up to the foot of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[448]</a></span> -Viterbo mountains, to meet the welcome guest. They were -all housed in the gigantic pentagonal fortress, impregnable -in those days, and even now startling in its gloomy grandeur -as it towers above the slumbering depths of the lake below. -The travellers spent a whole day with the powerful lord of -Bracciano, who in a few years was ruined by the same storm -that overthrew the Medici. On the following day, March 22, -the Pope announced to the cardinals and envoys the approaching -arrival of the new member of the Sacred College. It -took place in the afternoon amid pouring rain. Giovanni -dismounted at Sta. Maria del Popolo, prayed in the church -and slept in the convent, and the next morning his colleagues -and the ambassadors came to fetch him. Francesco Piccolomini -and Raffael Riario headed the procession; Giovanni -himself rode between the cardinal-deacons Giovan Battista -Savelli and Giovanni Colonna. The new cardinal-deacon of -Sta. Maria in Dominica was received by the Pope in the Consistory. -After the ceremony they all escorted him back to -his dwelling in the Campo di Fiore, and the rain was unceasing. -Pietro Delfino reports that the youth’s bearing -and conduct made a favourable impression on all, and he -was thought more mature in mind than was to be expected -from his age; which may be accounted for by considering -what great care his father, who himself had been early brought -into public life, had bestowed upon his son’s education, and -what a lasting impression was left on that son by the father’s -example.</p> - -<p>The letter addressed by Lorenzo to Giovanni<a name="FNanchor_560_560" id="FNanchor_560_560"></a><a href="#Footnote_560_560" class="fnanchor">[560]</a> is an -honourable proof not merely of political wisdom and consummate -knowledge of human affairs, but also of a genuine -sense of propriety and a moral feeling which seems to have -been strengthened by the experience of advancing years and -his own personal circumstances. ‘Messer Giovanni,’ thus -runs the letter, ‘you, and we for your sake owe sincere<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[449]</a></span> -thankfulness to our Lord God. For over and above many -benefits and honours conferred on our house, He has granted -to it in your person the highest dignity to which it has ever -risen. The matter, already great in itself, is made yet far -greater by the circumstances, namely, your youth and our -position. My earnest exhortation to you, therefore, is that -you endeavour yourself to be thankful to God; for it is not -your deserts nor your prudence and foresight that have made -you a cardinal, but the wondrous grace of God. This you -must recognise, and prove your recognition of it by an -honest, exemplary, virtuous life. To this you are all the -more bound, as in your youth you have already given an impression -of yourself which furnishes reason to expect riper -fruits. It would be a shame for you and a sad disappointment -for me, if you forgot your good beginnings at an age -when others are wont to arrive at discretion and a regular -life. You must, therefore, be careful to lighten the burden -of the dignity conferred on you by a moral course of life, -and perseverance in the studies befitting your vocation. -Last year it was a great comfort to me to hear that, without -being exhorted by others, you went frequently to confession -and to the Lord’s Table; and I believe that there is no -better means of continuing in the grace of God than constant -perseverance in this practice. It seems to me that I -can give no more useful and suitable exhortation than this. -As you are going to Rome, the very pit of all evil, the difficulty -of doing what I recommend naturally increases; for -not only does example have its influence, but you personally -will have no lack of evil counsellors and tempters. As you -can understand for yourself, your elevation to the cardinalate -excites great envy, on account both of your youth and of the -other circumstances to which I have alluded. Those who -were unable to hinder that elevation will endeavour artfully -to diminish its value, by trying to make your manner of life -appear in an unfavourable light, and to drag you down into -the pit into which they themselves are fallen. They trust<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[450]</a></span> -that your youth will make this easier to them. You must -take the more pains to frustrate these hopes, as there is the -less virtue to be found now in the College [‘quanto nel -Collegio hora si vede manco virtù’]. I remember seeing -that College full of learned and virtuous men; be advised to -follow their example; for the more your course of life differs -from that of others, the more you will be sure of being loved -and esteemed. But you must flee the reproach of hypocrisy -as well as that of an evil reputation, like Scylla and Charybdis. -You must endeavour to cultivate moderation, and both -in your conduct and speech avoid everything which might -offend others, and not make a display of austerity and strictness. -These are things which you will understand with -time, and learn to act up to my meaning better than I can -explain it to you now.</p> - -<p>‘You will have no difficulty in perceiving how much depends -on the individuality and example of a Cardinal. If -the Cardinals were what they should be, the world would -be the better for it; for they would always choose a good -Pope and thus secure the peace of Christendom. Endeavour -therefore to so comport yourself, that others in resembling -you will promote the general well being of all. As there -is nothing in the world more difficult than to converse -fittingly with people of different sorts, I can give you no -minute instruction on this point. But in all cases you must -take care to be respectful and unpretending in your intercourse -with the Cardinals and others of high rank, and -measure things with a calm judgment and not according to -the passions of others; for many violate reason in aiming at -that which is unlawful. Keep your own conscience at peace -by giving no place in your discourse to offensive matters. -This seems to me in your case the first and most important -precept; for if anyone should let himself be led into enmity -by passion, the return is easy with such as have no sound -reason for disagreement. During this your first stay in -Rome, I think you will do well to use your ears more than -your tongue.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[451]</a></span></p> - -<p>‘This day I have given you up wholly to God and the -holy Church. Therefore you must become a good priest and -convince everyone that you prefer the good and honour of -the Church and of the Apostolic See to all the things of this -world, and all private considerations and interests. If you -keep this before your eyes you will not lack opportunities -of being useful to this city and our house. For the alliance -with the Church is advantageous to the city; you must -form the link between the two; and the house goes with the -city. And although the future cannot be foreseen, yet I -have a general belief that we shall not lack means on both -sides if you hold firmly to this most important resolution -that I urge on you of placing the Church before all else.</p> - -<p>‘You are the youngest member of the College; not only -at the present time, but of all that have ever hitherto been -created. Therefore you must be attentive and respectful -when you meet the other Cardinals, and never make people -wait for you at chapel, in the Consistory, or at a deputation. -You will soon discover which of your colleagues are most, -and which are least commendable. You will have to avoid -confidential intercourse with those of irregular lives, not -only on account of the thing itself, but also on account of -public opinion. Let your discourse with all men turn as -much as possible on indifferent subjects. When you have -to appear in public or solemn occasions, it seems to me -advisable rather to moderate your outward enthusiasm than -to overstep it. I would prefer a well-filled stable, and well-ordered -cleanly servants, to pomp and riches. Try to live -regularly, and gradually to introduce fixed order, which is -unattainable at present, while master and household are -alike unknown to each other. Silk and jewels suit your -position on certain occasions only; far more suitable are -a few good antiquities and fine books, and respectable and -learned, rather than numerous society. Rather invite -people frequently to you than go to many entertainments; -but herein also you must proceed with moderation. Have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[452]</a></span> -for your own use simple food, and take a great deal of -exercise, for in your present position you might easily be -overcome by some illness for want of prudence. This -position is no less secure than lofty; so that it often happens -that those who have attained it become negligent, saying -to themselves that they have reached a lofty goal, and thinking -that they can keep it without much effort; thereby often -bringing injury to their position as well as to their health. -With respect to the latter I advise you to be as careful as -possible, and to have rather too little than too much confidence -in your strength.</p> - -<p>‘One rule of life I commend to you before all others: -get up early every morning. Putting aside the benefit -to health, it gives time for attending to all the business -of the day, and you will find it a great assistance in fulfilling -your various duties, as you have to read your service, to -study, to give audiences and do various other things. -Another thing is very useful for one in your position: always, -and particularly now at first, consider in the evening -what you have to do the next day, that business may not -find you unprepared. As for speaking in the Consistory, I -am of opinion that in all cases which may occur it will, on -account of your youth and inexperience, be most praiseworthy -and befitting the circumstances that you should always -follow the Holy Father and his wise judgment. Without -doubt you will often be urged to speak to his Holiness -about particular matters and use your influence. Be careful -now at first to ask as little as possible and not trouble the -Holy Father; for he is naturally inclined to grant the most -to him who dins least into his ears. I think it salutary to -take care not to weary him, but to lay before him pleasant -things; and a request modestly preferred corresponds better -with his nature and will put him in a more favourable disposition. -Fare you well.’</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[453]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER VIII.</h2> - -<p class="pch">DEATH OF LORENZO.</p> - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">When</span> Lorenzo wrote that letter to his son his condition -might be called hopeless. From his youth up he had suffered -from hereditary physical ailments. The attacks had increased -with age, till they weakened his originally strong -constitution. Gout made its appearance in various forms, -and the waters, tried frequently and one after another, failed -to give lasting relief, partly because he never gave them -time to produce their full effect. He often joked about his -sufferings. ‘Pain in my feet,’ he wrote to Lanfredini in -August 1489, ‘has hindered my correspondence with you. -Feet and tongue are indeed far apart, yet they interfere with -each other.’ Towards the end of August 1491, he was so -ill that he had to be carried to Spedaletto in a litter.<a name="FNanchor_561_561" id="FNanchor_561_561"></a><a href="#Footnote_561_561" class="fnanchor">[561]</a> The -waters of Morba had only a passing soothing effect; and at -the end of the autumn a slow fever set in with grave symptoms. -His whole system seemed attacked at once—bowels, -limbs, and nerves. To the arthritic pains were added pains -in the bones, which robbed him of rest by night and day; -gout had attacked the higher organs: the physicians were -at their wits’ end. When the year 1492 opened, he could -see no one; all grave political business had to be set aside; -a Milanese ambassador waited more than a fortnight for an -audience. An improvement permitted him to leave the -house again, but it was not lasting. ‘The illustrious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[454]</a></span> -Lorenzo,’ wrote the Ferrarese ambassador on February 11,<a name="FNanchor_562_562" id="FNanchor_562_562"></a><a href="#Footnote_562_562" class="fnanchor">[562]</a> -‘has been again for some days greatly tormented with pains -which attack the whole of his body except his head. At -times he suffers so acutely that it is hard to understand -how he can hold out. The doctors do not indeed consider -the illness mortal; but his condition is getting very bad, -because he enjoys very little rest. God grant him health -again; for the accounts of his state are really such as to -excite sympathy.’ On the 8th of the same month, King -Ferrante wrote to his ambassador, Marino Tomacelli:<a name="FNanchor_563_563" id="FNanchor_563_563"></a><a href="#Footnote_563_563" class="fnanchor">[563]</a> ‘We -have received many letters from you, but now we only reply -concerning the long-continued sufferings of the illustrious -Lorenzo, which have grieved and do grieve us to the depths -of our soul. Would God we could procure him recovery, or -even alleviation! Exhort his Magnificence to arm himself -with patience and thus overcome the evil; more especially -as we may now expect better weather, after these last days -which have indeed been bad. Inform his Magnificence also -that we congratulate him on the settlement of the dispute -with his Holiness, which must be as pleasing to him as to -ourself, he having had so great a share in it, as is known to -us and all. May he, by God’s help, the advice of good -doctors and prudence on his own part, recover his health, -so that we may both enjoy peace, and especially peace of -mind.’</p> - -<p>The king was not deceived in his estimate of how much -depended on Lorenzo’s life and activity. In the middle of -February an improvement set in, but again it was but -transitory. The weather continued bad, and at the beginning -of March the pains returned; no one was admitted to -the invalid with the exception of his family and a very few intimate -friends. We remarked before that he was unable to take -part in the solemnities attending the proclamation of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[455]</a></span> -son’s cardinalate; his most ardent wish was now fulfilled, -and his life was on the wane. He seems to have been aware -of his condition, when the young Cardinal set out on March -12. He spoke thus to Filippo Valori, brother of his biographer, -and Andrea Carubini, the former of whom was to -accompany Giovanni to Rome, and the latter was attached -to his household: ‘I entrust my son’s youth to you; me -you will never see again.’ Who can tell what were his feelings -as he wrote that beautiful letter!—There was again a -slight improvement; but it was the last. The disease made -rapid progress. On the 21st the invalid was taken to -Careggi, his favourite abode, where he had planned and -done so much, and where he could get more air and sunshine -than in the city. Towards the end of March a physician -was expected from Naples. At the beginning of April, -Duke Ercole of Ferrara came to Florence<a name="FNanchor_564_564" id="FNanchor_564_564"></a><a href="#Footnote_564_564" class="fnanchor">[564]</a> on his journey -to Rome, whither he was going ostensibly for purposes of -devotion, in reality for political objects, and to try to obtain -the cardinalate for his son Ippolito. The boy was only -thirteen, but he had already been Archbishop of Gran for -six years; and if a Medici had won the purple at fourteen, why -not an Este, a scion of one of the oldest families of Italy? -If Innocent VIII. had lived longer he would have been unable -to avoid giving this nomination also. The duke could not -see Lorenzo, but the latter had already promised him his -son’s vote in the future Consistory.</p> - -<p>The sufferer’s days were numbered. He made himself -ready for the worst, set his house in order, and made what -arrangements he could to secure for his son the position he -had himself held. But he was too clear-sighted not to perceive -the dangers which the old love of freedom and impatience -under the long and ever-strengthening supremacy -of a single family, together with Piero’s inexperience and -haughty character, must bring upon him. Poliziano indeed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[456]</a></span> -relates that Lorenzo had cherished an intention of retiring, -and handing over the direction of affairs to his son. ‘About -two years before his death,’ he says, ‘I was sitting with him -in his bed-chamber, and we were talking, as usual, of philosophy -and literature. He then said that he intended passing -the rest of his days with Ficino, Pico, and myself, in study, -far from the bustle of the city. To my objection that this -would be impossible, as the citizens needed his counsel and -authority more and more every day, he answered smiling: -“I shall provide a substitute in the person of thy pupil, and -entrust the burden to his shoulders.“‘ Then on Poliziano’s -expressing a doubt whether Piero’s age was sufficient to -render him competent, he praised his son’s mind and bearing, -and the good foundations which Poliziano had laid. -The story may be true, notwithstanding the writer’s visible -tendency to over-rate his friend’s actions and sayings. But -doubtless Lorenzo’s sole object was to hear what would be -said to such an intention. He can hardly have had serious -thoughts of retiring from public life, least of all at such a -time.</p> - -<p>Looking back upon his own short but eventful career, he -could see more clearly than ever what unceasing care and -trouble, what knowledge of characters and calculation of -humours and circumstances, had been necessary to govern -parties, keep down opponents without driving them to extremity, -and make use of and direct adherents without letting -them outgrow his control. He knew but too well that a -single false step might upset everything. In the depths of -his own mind he felt the discords that ran through the -general tone of thought and feeling in the state. He measured -the force of the hardly-concealed moral and religious -currents that were threatening to break forth. When he, -the experienced statesman, looked around him and surveyed -the political condition of Italy, he was alarmed at the weak -foundations of the edifice which it had cost him so much -exertion to support by his counsels and actions. But just<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[457]</a></span> -now he had put an end to the long and dangerous strife between -the Pope and the King; and who was to answer for -the future? And when the unstable Pope and the unprincipled -King were gone, who could predict the former’s successor—who -dared flatter himself with the hope that the -latter’s heir, in every respect worse than himself, would keep -even his own disaffected land at peace, and not foster the -seeds, sown long ago, of dissensions with other countries? -Perhaps Lorenzo’s death-bed was haunted even more by the -consciousness of the preponderance of evil elements in the -College, by the thoughts of Alfonso of Naples, of Lodovico il -Moro, and of the hostility of Venice, than even by the dread -of attempts at a change in Florence.</p> - -<p>In his religious views and his mode of expressing them -Lorenzo had always been a true child of the age, which combined -a secular temper with a tinge of unfeigned religious -feeling, and amid all its grave intellectual errors was not -without moral consciousness. That Lorenzo possessed this -moral consciousness is proved by many of his expressions -through his latter years. He had gained from his excellent -and pious mother something more than a literary acquaintance -with religious matters. He had inherited from his -forefathers the traditions of a close and active connection -with ecclesiastical foundations and ecclesiastical interests, -which he furthered in a manner that cannot be attributed -solely to political motives. His sensuous temperament, his -early elevation to such authority as perhaps no private man -has ever enjoyed in a city so full of genuine life, led him into -many moral errors. But as he was at the same time the -author of the lays of the Carnaval and the poet of philosophical -and spiritual songs, even so, amid all his errors and notwithstanding -the great influence exercised over him from his -youth up by antique philosophy, he still adhered to the faith -of Christianity practised and taught by his teacher Ficino -and his friend Pico della Mirandola. All his life he had been -attentive to the observance of religious ordinances; and he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[458]</a></span> -continued so when that life was near its close. His sister -Bianca de’ Pazzi had accompanied him to Careggi; and it -was she who told him of his imminent danger. ‘Brother,’ -said she, ‘thou hast lived as a man of lofty mind; thou must -quit this life not only bravely but piously. Know that all -hope is over.’<a name="FNanchor_565_565" id="FNanchor_565_565"></a><a href="#Footnote_565_565" class="fnanchor">[565]</a> He seemed somewhat distressed that hope -had been encouraged too long; then he asked for the aid of -the Church. It was late when the priest who was summoned -from San Lorenzo reached the villa. The dying man would -not receive him in bed: in spite of the remonstrances of -those about him, he got up and had himself dressed: then, -supported by his attendants, he entered the room, where he -sank on his knees before the ciborium. Seeing how weak he -was, the priest insisted that he should lie down again; and -he was with difficulty induced to do so. He then received -the viaticum with a devoutness which made an impression on -all present.<a name="FNanchor_566_566" id="FNanchor_566_566"></a><a href="#Footnote_566_566" class="fnanchor">[566]</a></p> - -<p>His eldest son, his sister, and Angelo Poliziano were -almost constantly near him. After the religious ceremony -Piero remained alone by his bedside. Lorenzo comforted -him, and gave him warnings and good advice as to his conduct -in the city and the state when he himself should have -departed. ‘The citizens,’ said he, ‘will, I believe, acknowledge -thee, my son, as worthy to fill the position which I have -occupied; and I doubt not that thou wilt have the same -authority in the commonwealth as I have enjoyed until now. -But as this commonwealth is, according to the common expression, -a body with many heads, and it is impossible to -please them all, remember that in all the varied circumstances -of life the way to be kept is that which appears most<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[459]</a></span> -honourable; and always prefer the general good to personal -and party interests.’ Wise counsel this; if he who gave it -had but followed it more strictly, it would have saved him -from much bitter and but too well-founded reproach! He -charged Piero to take a father’s place towards his young -brother Giuliano; to the Cardinal he commended his nephew -Giulio, then aged fourteen, and for whom he seems already -to have had visions of an ecclesiastical career. He also spoke -to his son about his funeral, ordering that it should be -arranged after the pattern of his grandfather’s, and that the -limits usual in the interment of a private man should not be -overstepped.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile a famous Lombard doctor, Lazaro of Pavia, sent -by Lodovico il Moro, had arrived at Careggi. The invalid -asked the attendants what he was doing, and on being told -that he was composing a draught of pulverised pearls, precious -stones, and other costly substances, he exclaimed with eager -voice and cheerful look to Poliziano, who was standing near -the bed: ‘Dost thou hear, Angelo, dost thou hear?’ Then, -stretching out his enfeebled arms, he seized his friend by -both hands and held him fast, while the latter sought to -turn away to hide the rising tears; at last Lorenzo, seeing -his emotion, let him go, and he rushed to his own rooms to -let his grief take its course. When he came back, Lorenzo -asked why Pico did not come to see him; and being answered -that probably Pico feared to trouble him, he remarked that -he rather feared it was the distance from the villa to the city -that troubled Pico. The latter, thus called for, came; and -the invalid received him with the old cordiality. He begged -him to excuse the trouble he was giving him, adding that it -must be attributed to his affection, for he should die more -content after having seen him once more. Then he spoke on -many subjects, both general and particular, and said, looking -at the two: ‘I would that death had spared me till I had -been able to complete your libraries.’ Poliziano knelt down<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[460]</a></span> -beside the bed to catch the words, which were already becoming -indistinct.</p> - -<p>Scarcely had Pico left Careggi when another man entered -the chamber of death.<a name="FNanchor_567_567" id="FNanchor_567_567"></a><a href="#Footnote_567_567" class="fnanchor">[567]</a> If Lorenzo summoned Girolamo -Savonarola to him, it must have been because he was not -easy in his conscience. The several versions of the interview, -as related by those who were connected either with Lorenzo -or the Dominican Prior, differ so widely as to the circumstances -that only greater or less probability can decide -between them. This is Poliziano’s story: Fra Girolamo of -Ferrara, a man distinguished by his learning and godliness, -and an excellent preacher of the Divine Word, entered the -room, and admonished the invalid to hold fast to the Faith; -to which Lorenzo replied that he continued immovable -therein. Hereupon he exhorted him thenceforth to lead a -virtuous life; to which the reply was that he would endeavour -himself so to do. Thirdly, he recommended him to meet -death, if it needs must be, with firmness. ‘Nothing,’ replied -the invalid, ‘is sweeter to me, if it be God’s will.’ The monk -was departing, when Lorenzo said to him: ‘Give me thy -blessing, father, before thou partest from me.’ And with -bowed head, and in the attitude of religious earnestness, he -responded correctly, and with full consciousness to Savonarola’s -words and prayers, undisturbed by the no longer concealed -mourning of the household.</p> - -<p>So reports the friend of many years—he who knew the -dying man better perhaps than anyone else. But another -story stands in opposition to his. According to this version, -Lorenzo wished to make one last confession to the Dominican. -He accused himself of three things: the sack of Volterra, -the squandering of the dower-moneys, and the blood shed at -the time of the Pazzi conspiracy. The dying man’s agitation -was distressing. ‘God is gracious, God is merciful,’ said the -monk to soothe him. Then, when he had done, Savonarola<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[461]</a></span> -spoke. ‘You have need of three things. First, true and -lively confidence in the Divine grace.’ To this the invalid -replied, ‘I am penetrated therewith.’ ‘Secondly, you must -restore what you have wrongfully appropriated, and make -restitution a duty for your sons.’ Lorenzo reflected a moment, -then assented by a movement of the head. ‘Lastly, you -must restore to the people of Florence their freedom.’ The -invalid turned away his head without answering, and the -monk left him unabsolved.</p> - -<p>Lorenzo’s death—to resume Poliziano’s report—was -peaceful. It seemed that it was not he who was about to -undergo the fate of all mortals, but rather those who stood -around his bed. He did not refuse what the doctors prescribed, -though he expected no effect from it. Even his old -cheerfulness had not altogether deserted him. When after -taking some food he was asked how he relished it, he answered: -‘Like a dying man.’ He embraced his relatives -and friends and begged them to forgive him if he had offended -them or shown impatience during his long illness. When -he asked to have read to him from the Gospel the history of -the Passion and Death of our Lord, at first he repeated the -words of Scripture, then, getting weaker, only moved his lips -and at last his fingers, in token that he still followed the -sense. When death drew near, a crucifix was held out to -him; he opened his eyes, kissed it and departed. This was -on Sunday, April 8, 1492, about the fifth hour of the night.</p> - -<p>What a strange abundant variety of cares and pleasures, -of labour and enjoyment, of thought and action, of poetry -and realism, of danger and success, of evil and good, had been -crowded together into that life of barely forty-three years!</p> - -<p>The tidings of his death naturally put all Florence in -commotion. Almost simultaneously with it came the news -that the physician Piero Leoni had thrown himself into a well -at Francesco Martelli’s villa at San Gervasio by the Porta -Pinti, whither he had been secretly taken because his life -was threatened at Careggi, as he was suspected of an intent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[462]</a></span> -to poison. It was not known whether the unhappy man -really perished by his own resolve or by another’s hand.<a name="FNanchor_568_568" id="FNanchor_568_568"></a><a href="#Footnote_568_568" class="fnanchor">[568]</a> As -usual, prodigies were believed to have presaged the event with -which all minds were occupied. In Sta. Maria Novella a -woman had started up in the middle of the sermon, crying -out that she saw a raging bull, with burning horns, overthrowing -the church. Three days before Lorenzo’s death a -flash of lightning had struck the lantern of the Cathedral -and hurled down some heavy blocks of marble on the north-west, -the side towards the Medici’s dwelling; one fell in -through the roof, another crushed the house of Luca Rinieri. -On the night of the death a meteor was said to have been -seen to shine over Careggi and then vanish.<a name="FNanchor_569_569" id="FNanchor_569_569"></a><a href="#Footnote_569_569" class="fnanchor">[569]</a> Three hours -after death the body was taken from Careggi to San Marco; -there it remained in the chapel of a lay-brotherhood till -the following evening, when the clergy of San Lorenzo came -in solemn procession to fetch it away and carry it to the -sacristy of the Basilica. The ceremony at church was simple, -as he had wished it. The mourning was general. The -upper ranks, almost entirely attached to the Medicean -interest, felt deeply the loss of the man whose firm and practised -hand had guided the helm for so long, and whose -vices had been outweighed by his brilliant qualities. Who -should tell them what might happen now? On April 10, -wrote Bartolommeo Cerretani, the whole city went to Piero. -The people lamented the loss of him who, at whatever cost, -had procured them peace and comfort.<a name="FNanchor_570_570" id="FNanchor_570_570"></a><a href="#Footnote_570_570" class="fnanchor">[570]</a> There were indeed -some who rejoiced at his death and expected good from it; -there is no lack of testimony to such feelings in memoirs -not intended for the eyes of strangers. ‘As I know,’ writes -Alamanno Rinuccini, when describing the merits and -demerits of the Medici, ‘that many falsehoods about him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[463]</a></span> -have been spread, in eye-service and deceit, by flatterers and -perverters of the truth, mostly bought and corrupted by him -by means of honours and enrichment at the public expense. -I intend to give a brief account of his life and manners, with -both of which I was intimately acquainted: not by way of -detraction, nor from hatred towards him, from whom I have -received divers marks of distinction, to which I had no claim, -but in compliance with truth. The multitude regarded the -signs before his death as prognostics of great evils; they -would have been prognostics of great good, had the citizens -known how to use their opportunity.’<a name="FNanchor_571_571" id="FNanchor_571_571"></a><a href="#Footnote_571_571" class="fnanchor">[571]</a></p> - -<p>On April 13, three days after the funeral, the assembled -councils and the people, in conjunction with the Signoria, -issued the following decree:<a name="FNanchor_572_572" id="FNanchor_572_572"></a><a href="#Footnote_572_572" class="fnanchor">[572]</a> ‘Whereas the foremost man -of all this city, the lately deceased Lorenzo de’ Medici, did -during his whole life neglect no opportunity of protecting, -increasing, adorning, and raising this city, but was always -ready with counsel, authority, and painstaking, in thought -and deed; subordinated his personal interest to the advantage -and benefit of the community; shrank from neither trouble -nor dangers for the good of the State and its freedom; and -devoted to that object all his thoughts and powers, securing -public order by excellent laws; by his presence brought a -dangerous war to a conclusion; regained the places lost in -battle and took those belonging to the enemies;—whereas he -furthermore, after the rare examples furnished by antiquity, -for the safety of his fellow-citizens and the freedom of his -country gave himself up into his enemies’ power, and, filled -with love for his house, averted the general danger by drawing -it all upon his own head; whereas, finally, he omitted -nothing which could tend to raise our reputation and enlarge -our borders; it hath seemed good to the Senate and people<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">[464]</a></span> -of Florence, on the motion of the chief magistrate, to establish -a public testimonial of gratitude to the memory of such -a man, in order that virtue may not be unhonoured among -the Florentines, and that in days to come other citizens may -be incited to serve the commonwealth with might and wisdom. -But whereas the memory of Lorenzo needs no outward -adornments, as it has struck deep root, and blooms fresher -every day, it hath been determined to transfer to Piero, the -eldest son of the deceased, the heir of his father’s dignity -and successor to his fame, the public honour due to his father -and his ancestors. So much the more, as Piero has already -in his youth displayed the endowments of his father and is in -some degree his image, and has already shown himself such -that we may hope he will, by God’s assistance, tread in his -father’s steps.’</p> - -<p>On April 10, before break of day, a special messenger -brought to the Cardinal the fatal tidings which had been -expected for several days. Giovanni, his attendants and -servants, at once put on mourning, the house was hung -with black, and all the Cardinals, headed by Francesco -Piccolomini, paid visits of condolence to their youthful colleague. -Four days after, a Requiem was sung in Sta. Maria -sopra Minerva; Franceschetto Cybò and the Count of Pitigliano -were present in coarse black mantles reaching to the -ground, and also Onofrio Tornabuoni, the Medicean agent -at the Roman Curia, and many prelates and gentlemen. -The next day Innocent proclaimed the appointment of -Giovanni de’ Medici to be legate in Tuscany, whither the -boy wished to return in consequence of his father’s death, -that he might consult on the condition of affairs with his -brother, to whom he had already written many letters. The -young Cardinal was so much moved that he had to retire for a -while during mass.<a name="FNanchor_573_573" id="FNanchor_573_573"></a><a href="#Footnote_573_573" class="fnanchor">[573]</a> Nothing is known of the remarks made<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_465" id="Page_465">[465]</a></span> -by the Pope (who sent an orator to Florence) on the loss of -the man with whom he was so intimate, although throughout -his pontificate he had never personally seen him. The -case is otherwise with regard to King Ferrante. On the -morning of April 11, being then in the neighbourhood of -Palma, he learned from a letter of Marino Tomacelli that all -hope was abandoned. He thereupon wrote to Gioviano -Pontano at Rome that he should offer the Pope all the means -at his command to prevent a disturbance of the peace of -Italy, and place at his disposal the troops commanded by -Virginio Orsini. To Virginio he wrote the same evening, -after receiving news of the death (‘which has grieved us to -the depths of our soul’), charging him to act without further -orders from him according to the disposition of the Pope, in -case the latter should have need of him.<a name="FNanchor_574_574" id="FNanchor_574_574"></a><a href="#Footnote_574_574" class="fnanchor">[574]</a> To those around -him the King is said to have thus spoken: ‘That man’s -life has been long enough for his own deathless fame, but -too short for Italy. God grant that now he is dead, that -may not be attempted which was not ventured on during his -life.’<a name="FNanchor_575_575" id="FNanchor_575_575"></a><a href="#Footnote_575_575" class="fnanchor">[575]</a></p> - -<p>That Innocent was entirely of one mind with Ferrante -in considering the maintenance of the house of Medici in -the position it had hitherto occupied as necessary for the -preservation of the existing political system, may be judged -from the answer addressed to the Pope, from Vigevano on -April 20, by Lodovico il Moro in the name of his nephew -Gian Galeazzo.<a name="FNanchor_576_576" id="FNanchor_576_576"></a><a href="#Footnote_576_576" class="fnanchor">[576]</a> Whatever might be the real feeling of -Sforza, who had already two months ago drawn up the instructions -for that embassy to Charles VIII. which was the -first step towards the ruin of Italy—at all events, his letter -throws a favourable light on the Pope’s views of the matter: -‘Your Holiness could have written me nothing more welcome -than what you have lately communicated to me as to your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466">[466]</a></span> -desire to keep Italy in peace, and maintain the sons of -Lorenzo de’ Medici in their position. For I have nothing -more at heart than the preservation of the peace of Italy, -for which I have not shrunk from subjecting myself to intolerable -burdens and struggles; and between me and the -Medici family there is a bond of friendship both public and -private. My memory recalls how the illustrious prince -my grandfather (Francesco), aided by the pecuniary means -of Cosimo de’ Medici, regained the state of our forefathers, -which after his father-in-law’s death had been, so to say, -lost. I likewise remember how since then Florence and the -house of Medici have never been in a position to need our -help without our placing arms and money at their disposal. -I am therefore glad that amid the deep mourning occasioned -by the death of the illustrious Lorenzo, your Holiness’s letter -calls upon me to do that to which my own inclination -prompted me, and which is as interesting to me as if it -concerned my own personal welfare. For not only your -Holiness, to whom my attachment to the Medici family is -known, but all who know anything of Italian affairs must -be convinced that I shall continue to act towards the sons -of Lorenzo as my predecessors acted towards his father and -grandfather. No one can imagine that I shall not tread as -heretofore in the footsteps of my ancestors; for this friendship -with the Medici has always been cultivated and confirmed -by practical proofs on both sides, up to the present -hour, and has not only never experienced a disturbance, but -has been constantly strengthened, to the advantage and -pleasure of both parties. Perseverance in this mind is made -doubly my duty, by old and new relations with the Medici, -and by the circumstance that I shall thereby suit the views -of your Holiness.’</p> - -<p>Lorenzo de’ Medici was buried in the sacristy of San -Lorenzo, the resting-place of his father, uncle, brother, -grandparents, and other relatives. When Giovanni, who -left Rome on May 11, 1492, to return home, stood here at his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467">[467]</a></span> -father’s grave, he little thought that more than twenty-three -years later, on Advent Sunday, 1515, he was destined to kneel -there in tears as the spiritual head of Christendom.<a name="FNanchor_577_577" id="FNanchor_577_577"></a><a href="#Footnote_577_577" class="fnanchor">[577]</a> Amid -all the splendour and greatness to which the Medici afterwards -rose, not one of them seems to have thought of raising -a monument to the most famous man of the family, though -the greatest sculptor of the age helped to immortalise on -their monuments two of its insignificant members. In -1559 Duke Cosimo I. caused the mortal remains of Lorenzo -and his brother Giuliano to be laid in the porphyry sarcophagus -which they had erected for their father and uncle.<a name="FNanchor_578_578" id="FNanchor_578_578"></a><a href="#Footnote_578_578" class="fnanchor">[578]</a></p> - -<p>The following poem,<a name="FNanchor_579_579" id="FNanchor_579_579"></a><a href="#Footnote_579_579" class="fnanchor">[579]</a> set to music by Heinrich Isaak, -was written by Angelo Poliziano on the death of the man -to whom he had been through life so deeply attached:—</p> - -<p class="pc1 mid">MONODIA IN LAURENTIUM MEDICEM.</p> - -<p class="pp6 p1">Quis dabit capiti meo<br /> -Aquam? quis oculis meis<br /> -Fontem lachrymarum dabit?<br /> -Ut nocte fleam,<br /> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_468" id="Page_468">[468]</a></span>Ut luce fleam.<br /> -Sic turtur viduus solet;<br /> -Sic cygnus moriens solet,<br /> -Sic luscinia conqueri.<br /> -Heu miser, miser;<br /> -O dolor, dolor!</p> - -<p class="pp6 p1">Laurus impetu fulminis<br /> -Illa illa jacet subito;<br /> -Laurus omnium celebris<br /> -Musarum choris,<br /> -Nympharum choris,<br /> -Sub cujus patula coma,<br /> -Et Phœbi lyra blandius<br /> -Et vox dulcius insonat.<br /> -Nunc muta omnia,<br /> -Nunc surda omnia.</p> - -<p class="pp6 p1">Quis dabit capiti meo<br /> -Aquam? quis oculis meis<br /> -Fontem lachrymarum dabit?<br /> -Ut nocte fleam,<br /> -Ut luce fleam.<br /> -Sic turtur viduus solet;<br /> -Sic cygnus moriens solet,<br /> -Sic luscinia conqueri.<br /> -Heu miser, miser;<br /> -O dolor, dolor!</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_469" id="Page_469">[469]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="p4">CONCLUSION.</h2> - -<p class="pn1"><span class="smcap">At</span> the age of forty-three Lorenzo was called away. His -span of life had been but a short one for such manifold activity -and such lasting fame. A remarkable man, he was -the most brilliant representative of a remarkable time; in no -one else were its qualities and excellences united in such a -harmonious whole. Energetic in action, and earnest in his -endeavours to watch the phases of progress in the establishment -of a new order of things; endowed with the liveliest -susceptibilities and the quickest perceptions, combined with -the earnestness and thoroughness of a student; with a -strongly sympathetic feeling for art, yet capable of immediate -application to the business of life; he united imaginative power -with clear common sense, the capacity for lofty projects with -that for patient calculation; he had all the qualities of poet -and statesman, connoisseur and patron of learning, citizen -and prince. He was indefatigable and persevering in the -endless business thrown upon him by his position as the -leader of a peculiarly constituted state; with a quick and -unerring eye he was able to grasp the whole and yet observe -its smallest detail; in his riper years he was cautious and -prudent, keeping his object immovably in view without blind -self-confidence or presumption, though fully alive to his own -position and that of the state which he represented. He -passed with wonderful ease from practical to speculative politics, -from science to poetry. Few could equal him in comprehensive, -manifold, creative gifts, or in the most delicate sense -of beauty, and the most active interest, with the deepest insight,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_470" id="Page_470">[470]</a></span> -into the character and purposes of art. In his home -and family relations he was kindly, sociable, cheerful, even -amid physical sufferings; not free from errors which even in -earlier years and afterwards far more decidedly loosened the -bond between him and his wife, yet still unaffectedly attached -to all his family; to the admirable mother, many of whose -qualities he had inherited, to the wife who was not of his own -choosing, to the children to whom he was a wise and prudent -counsellor, and a tender but not a weak father. Moreover he -was a warm, attentive, and constant friend, attracting and -attaching to himself the most different natures, ever ready -to help in counsel and action, interposing and interceding for -high and low with equal zeal amid a thousand occupations. -He was gifted with a delicate sense of propriety, though he -could not keep himself free from the Epicureanism of the -time, which exacted a sacrifice even from him; and vividly -conscious of the power of culture in the field of the Church, -though a frivolous materialism threatened to weaken that -power and lead him seriously astray in his views of life.</p> - -<p>He was not without the weaknesses and vices of his time. -They cramped his policy, though it still stood far higher than -that of most princes and statesmen of the age, both Italian -and others. He was superior too in honesty and consistency, -and, at least during the last ten years of his life, in unalterable -adherence to the preservation of peace and unity, and -to a feeling of nationality such as answered to the ideas of -the time, from which it is not fair to demand conceptions -unfamiliar to it. His home policy has called forth severe -blame both on account of his progressive violations of the -constitution to increase his personal authority, and of the -corruption he employed in order to obtain undisturbed control -of the finances. With regard to the latter, it is -hard to see how, had he lived longer, he could have avoided -national bankruptcy, unless indeed he and the state had -contrived by the preservation of peace to restore an internal -equilibrium, for which in his last years he had begun to lay<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_471" id="Page_471">[471]</a></span> -some slight foundation. As to the former, many of his contemporaries -expressed the opinion that he aimed at becoming -a recognised prince, and was only waiting for a favourable -opportunity—such as his entrance on the office of Gonfalonier, -as soon as that dignity should fall to him on his reaching -the legal age. And yet he, who had everything in his power, -could not have lacked means and opportunities, if this had -been his object. But he knew the city and the people too -well to be blind to the obstacles and dangers which threatened -to impede that path.</p> - -<p>Perhaps the worst evil of Lorenzo’s government lay in -the increasing incongruity between the outward form and the -real power, and in the displacement of authority from its -legal centre, whereby both law and moderation were called -in question. Personal influence decided everything in politics, -in administration, in finance, even in the dispensation of -justice. The more clear-sighted among Lorenzo’s contemporaries -did not fail to perceive this radical evil, and expressed -their opinion of it in the bitterest terms. Nevertheless not -merely did Florence escape such excesses as occurred in all -other Italian states, almost without an exception, but Lorenzo’s -government was on the whole free from the violence which -had characterised that of Cosimo. Doubtless the greater tranquillity -of the time, the more secure position of the Medici, the -fact that the people had been longer accustomed to their rule, -contributed to this result; but so also did the character of -the man himself. Lorenzo was ambitious to rule, but he was -no tyrant. On the one hand he was too keen-sighted, and -had calculated too accurately the character and traditions of -the people; on the other hand his own nature was too grand, -too open, too high-minded, too warm-hearted, and also too -fond of enjoyment; finally, he was too much of a Florentine -citizen, and that not merely in name but in his appearance, -his dress and his bearing. He would have had nothing -to distinguish him from the rest of the community, had there -not been permitted or granted to him, ever since the Pazzi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_472" id="Page_472">[472]</a></span> -conspiracy, a suite consisting at first of four of his own confidants, -afterwards of twelve men paid by the Signoria. It -is true that this was a grave offence against civil equality. -This citizen-character was not kept up by Lorenzo’s sons—it -was said of Piero that he was not a Florentine by nature—and -its outward signs vanished altogether in some others of -the race. In his own family Lorenzo maintained simplicity; -in public affairs, however completely he held the real direction -of them, he tried to keep up fair appearances; though -indeed he could not prevent a complaint that Ser Piero da -Bibiena brought into his court of chancery matters which -rightly belonged to the police-jurisdiction of the Eight. On -important occasions he liked to consult with many persons, -but with each one separately; and then he formed his own -decision independently.</p> - -<p>On his arbitrary proceedings in money matters there were -very divided opinions even in his own time. If he had not -used the money of the state he would have been ruined; and -it was said that his ruin would have entailed that of everybody -else; that all he took to save his credit and to lead a -showy life was nothing in comparison of the losses to which -a state would be exposed by incapable administration; that -one single unskilful or ill-timed measure might cost a state -dearer than Lorenzo’s whole course of government; that the -ultimate and highest object of the Medici, for which they -calculated everything they did or left undone, was indeed -their own benefit; but they were and always had been Florentine -citizens, and in most cases their interest and that of the -state was one and the same. So said the favourable party -after Lorenzo’s death and Piero’s fall. To this it was answered -that the ultimate object of the Medici was not supremacy like -that of the Albizzi in a state becoming more and more aristocratic -in form, but simply autocracy, which they had sought -to attain under the form of democracy, by removing the influence -of the noble families and favouring many members of -the lower classes. A cunning tyranny like that of Cosimo,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_473" id="Page_473">[473]</a></span> -or one softened by affability and generosity like that of -Lorenzo, was all the worse because it spread poison among -the people, preparing the way for the endurance of something -harder. The truth of this view was proved at no very distant -time.</p> - -<p>For good or for evil the Medici’s influence struck deep -root in Florence. They made the lasting existence of the -Republic impossible. ‘We are suffering’—such are the -words placed by Francesco Guicciardini in the mouth of a -man frequently named in this history—Paol’Antonio Soderini—after -their expulsion in 1494—‘from two mortal wounds: -the Pisan war, and the exile of the Medici. With their -numerous friends in the city and country, and the greatness -of their name abroad, they will give us a great deal of trouble.’ -He was right. The Medicean party would have given the -death-blow to the Republic of 1495 as well as to that of -1527, even if external circumstances had not come to their -assistance. The work was made easier for them because -here, as in many other republics, the relation of the ruling -commonwealth to her subject towns and districts was an unnatural -and very oppressive one; these subjects, influenced -by the traditions of their old freedom, obeyed only on compulsion; -and endured a personal government such as was -permanently established forty years after Lorenzo’s death, -more easily than their former position—perhaps because -their old masters now had to bow their necks to the same -yoke.</p> - -<p>In the ninth chapter of his Florentine history, the great -writer just mentioned sums up at the close, in a few words, -his masterly picture of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s influence on his -native city. The city, he says, was not free under him; but -it could not have found a more endurable and better master. -For while there proceeded from him much good, owing to -his natural goodness and amiable disposition, the evils, so -far as they proceeded from the nature of the tyranny itself, -were slight and limited to absolute necessity, and infinitely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_474" id="Page_474">[474]</a></span> -slighter still where his own will was concerned. Therefore, -although many might rejoice at his death, yet it grieved -those who had a share in the government, and even those -who had some ground of complaint against him, for no one -knew whither the change might lead.</p> - -<p>This was soon discovered. Lorenzo the Magnificent had -been scarcely two years and a half in his grave, and his sons -had not yet found time to raise a monument to his memory, -when the stately edifice of which Giovanni d’Averardo had -laid the foundation-stone, which Cosimo had built up, and -Piero and Lorenzo enlarged and adorned, crumbled to pieces. -On November 9, 1494, Luca Corsini, one of the Priori, shut -the gate of the palace of the Signoria in the face of Piero de’ -Medici, on his return from the French camp at Sarzana, and -thus gave the signal for a great change in the destinies of -the commonwealth. Lorenzo’s son and successor had neither -his father’s sagacity and experience, nor his father’s authority -with the great men nor the attachment of the people, to help -him. In the long-threatened division which brought down -France to interfere in the dynastic troubles of Italy, he first -made common cause with the house of Aragon against the -Moro and the French king, and then, as soon as the latter, -having crossed the Alps without obstacle, was threatening -Florence, the young man lost his head and his courage, and -without a shadow of right delivered up the fortresses of the -state, Sarzana, Pietrasanta, Pisa, Livorno, to the foreigner. -As soon as the old cry of ‘People and liberty!’ was raised -in a burst of anger at this unheard-of proceeding, Piero -mounted his horse and was glad when he found himself safe -on the road to Bologna, whither he was followed by his -brothers and those of his adherents who were most deeply -compromised, while the mob was sacking the Medici palace -and the houses of the most detested tools of their financial -administration. Thus in a moment a revolution was accomplished -which created a new popular state, under the -eyes of a foreign sovereign. That same November 9 Charles<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_475" id="Page_475">[475]</a></span> -VIII. entered Pisa, where the rising against Florence began, -and a week later he was in the palace in the Via Larga. -This state lasted, amid the greatest internal and external -difficulties, for nearly eighteen years, and then gave way to -a new Medicean supremacy, which after another three years’ -interruption, brought about by similar extraneous circumstances, -formed itself into an hereditary autocracy, lasting -till, after the lapse of two full centuries, the altered family -died out in the altered country, and was mourned even then, -when but little was left of the qualities which had lent it so -much splendour.</p> - -<p>Lorenzo’s friends and adherents met with various fates. -Of the heads of the party, now left to their own resources, -some attained influence and power in the new commonwealth; -others came to a bloody end. Of the friends who stood round -his death-bed, one, Angelo Poliziano, did not live to see the -catastrophe that befell the once splendid house. He was -taken away on September 24, 1494; and the evil reports -which his life, notwithstanding all his high intellectual gifts, -had in some measure called forth, did not spare him even in -death. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola died on the day of -the French king’s entry, and the comforter of his last -moments was the man whom Lorenzo, too, had summoned -in the hour of death—the Predicant monk of Ferrara who -was destined to stir Florence to her deepest depths, and to -die amid the flames lighted by his own hand. Marsilio -Ficino and Cristoforo Landino were doomed to witness the -misfortunes of the family to whom they owed everything and -were attached by hereditary affection, and to survive the -execution of many friends, and the dispersion of the rich -treasures of art and learning which adorned the house in -which they had been born and grown up. Of the younger -members of the circle, some spent eighteen years in exile -and vicissitude, to come back at last and sun themselves in -the splendour, brilliant indeed but fleeting, of the pontificate -of Leo X. Then the seeds of literature and art sown in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_476" id="Page_476">[476]</a></span> -days of Lorenzo, sprang up in the works of Ariosto and -Machiavelli, of Raphael and Michelangelo; but the political -edifice, whose chief pillar he had been, and the national -polity were irrecoverably destroyed; Italy had become the -whole world’s battle-field; Lombardy was subject to the -French, Naples to the Spaniards; the crowd of dynasties in -Romagna had been swept away by the flood; while of those -who had once held in their control the weal and woe of the -peninsula, Ferrante and Alfonso of Aragon had died in distress -and remorse, and Lodovico il Moro had ended his days -in a French prison.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_477" id="Page_477">[477]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p class="pc4 elarge">APPENDICES.</p> - -<hr class="d1" /> - -<h2 class="p4">APPENDIX I.</h2> - -<p class="pch">CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.<a name="FNanchor_580_580" id="FNanchor_580_580"></a><a href="#Footnote_580_580" class="fnanchor"><span class="small">[580]</span></a></p> - -<table id="tct" summary="chron"> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1115.</td> - <td class="tdt">Death of the Countess Matilda. Increased independence of -the Tuscan towns.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1188.</td> - <td class="tdt">Frederic Barbarossa in Florence.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1201.</td> - <td class="tdt">Chiarissimo de’ Medici member of the council of the Florentine -Commonwealth.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1207.</td> - <td class="tdt">Election of the first Podestà.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1215.</td> - <td class="tdt">Beginning of civil feuds.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1250.</td> - <td class="tdt">First constitution of the Florentine commonalty of citizens -in opposition to the nobility. The <i>Capitano del Popolo</i>.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1260.</td> - <td class="tdt">Battle of Montaperti. Victory of the Ghibelline party.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1266.</td> - <td class="tdt">Charles of Anjou. The Ghibellines leave Florence.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1282.</td> - <td class="tdt">Origin of the political constitution of the guilds (<i>Priori delle -Arti</i>).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1293.</td> - <td class="tdt">Reform of the constitution of the guilds. <i>Gonfalonieri di -giustizia.</i> Penal laws against the nobility.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1294.</td> - <td class="tdt">Building of the Palace of the Commonwealth (<i>Palazzo dei -Priori</i>), and of the new Cathedral begun.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1312.</td> - <td class="tdt">Siege of Florence by the Emperor Henry VII.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1320.</td> - <td class="tdt">Beginning of the war against Castruccio, Lord of Lucca.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1336.</td> - <td class="tdt">War against Martino della Scala, Lord of Verona.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1342-43.</td> - <td class="tdt">Tyrannical government of Gautier de Brienne, Duke of -Athens. Complete downfall of the ancient nobility.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1346.</td> - <td class="tdt">Great losses of the Florentine banks.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1351.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_478" id="Page_478">[478]</a></span></td> - <td class="tdt">Beginning of the wars against the Visconti of Milan.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1362.</td> - <td class="tdt">War with Pisa.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1371.</td> - <td class="tdt">Factions of the Albizzi and Ricci. Exclusion of many -citizens from office.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1375.</td> - <td class="tdt">Beginning of enmity between the Florentines and Pope -Gregory XI. (1377, return of the Pope from Avignon -to Rome.)</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1378.</td> - <td class="tdt">Gonfaloniership of Salvestro de’ Medici. Rising and government -of the lowest classes (<i>Tumulto dei Ciompi</i>).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Ambrogio Traversari born (d. 1439).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1379.</td> - <td class="tdt">Execution of Piero degli Albizzi.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Filippo Brunelleschi b. (d. 1446).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1380.</td> - <td class="tdt">Poggio Bracciolini b. (d. 1459).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1381?</td> - <td class="tdt">Lorenzo Ghiberti b. (d. 1455).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1382.</td> - <td class="tdt">End of the popular government. Rise of the power of the -Albizzi.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1386.</td> - <td class="tdt">Donatello b. (d. 1466).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1387.</td> - <td class="tdt">Exile of Benedetto degli Alberti and his family. Fra -Giovanni of Fiesole b. (d. 1455).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1388.</td> - <td class="tdt">Salvestro de’ Medici d.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1389.</td> - <td class="tdt">Cosimo de’ Medici b. (d. 1464).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1391.</td> - <td class="tdt">Neri Capponi, son of Gino, b. (d. 1457). Michelozzo -Michelozzi b. (d. 1472).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1393.</td> - <td class="tdt">Tyranny of Maso degli Albizzi. Vieri de’ Medici.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1394.</td> - <td class="tdt">Luigi Marsigli d.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1396.</td> - <td class="tdt">Emmanuel Chrysoloras called to Florence (d. 1415). Giannozzo -Manetti b. (d. 1459).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1399.</td> - <td class="tdt">Pilgrimages of the White Penitents. Great mortality. -Carlo Marsuppini b. (d. 1453).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1400.</td> - <td class="tdt">War with Gian-Galeazzo Visconti (d. 1402). Alliance with -King Ruprecht of the Pfalz. Luca della Robbia b. -(d. 1482).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1401.</td> - <td class="tdt">Masaccio b., at San Giovanni in Val d’Arno (d. 1428).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1403.</td> - <td class="tdt">League with Pope Boniface IX. and others against the -Visconti.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">L. Ghiberti receives the commission for the first door of the -Baptistery.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1404.</td> - <td class="tdt">Beginning of the enterprise against Pisa.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1405.</td> - <td class="tdt">Fight for Pisa. Gino Capponi.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Matteo Palmieri b. (d. 1475). L. B. Alberti b. (d. 1472).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1406.</td> - <td class="tdt">Capture of Pisa.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Coluccio Salutati d. (b. 1330).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1408.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_479" id="Page_479">[479]</a></span></td> - <td class="tdt">Efforts to restore the unity of the Church.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1409.</td> - <td class="tdt">Council of Pisa. (P. Alexander V.)</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Bernardo Rossellino b. (d. 1464).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1410.</td> - <td class="tdt">League with Pope John XXIII. [Baldassar Cossa]. Feo -Belcari b. (d. 1484).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1411.</td> - <td class="tdt">Treaty with K. Ladislas of Naples. Purchase of Cortona. -Establishment of the Council of Two Hundred.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1412?</td> - <td class="tdt">Fra Filippo Lippi b. (d. 1469).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1414.</td> - <td class="tdt">New treaty with K. Ladislas, and after his death, with his -sister Queen Joanna II. Cosimo de’ Medici and John -XXII. at Constance.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1415.</td> - <td class="tdt">Benedetto Accolti b. (d. 1466).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1416.</td> - <td class="tdt">Plague at Florence.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Piero de’ Medici b. (d. 1469).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1417.</td> - <td class="tdt">Maso degli Albizzi d. His son Rinaldo and Niccolò da -Uzzano at the head of the Commonwealth.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1419.</td> - <td class="tdt">Pope Martin V. in Florence. Reconciliation and death of -John XXII.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Archbishopric of Florence. Amerigo Corsini.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1420.</td> - <td class="tdt">Filippo Brunelleschi architect of the dome of the Cathedral.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Benozzo Gozzoli b. (d. 1498).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1421.</td> - <td class="tdt">Purchase of Livorno. Gino Capponi d.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1422.</td> - <td class="tdt">Flourishing state of commerce. Relations with the Levant.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1423.</td> - <td class="tdt">Beginning of the war with Filippo Maria Visconti.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1424.</td> - <td class="tdt">Defeat at Zagonara.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Cristoforo Landino b. (d. 1504).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1425.</td> - <td class="tdt">Defeat at Anghiari.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Lorenzo Ghiberti receives the commission for the second -door of the Baptistery.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1426.</td> - <td class="tdt">Disputes about taxes and war-imposts. The Albizzi and -Giovanni de’ Medici.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1427.</td> - <td class="tdt">First register of lands.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Antonio Rossellino b. (d. 1478).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1428.</td> - <td class="tdt">Peace with F. M. Visconti.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Reform of the University. Palla Strozzi.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1429.</td> - <td class="tdt">Giovanni de’ Medici d. Revolt of Volterra on account of -the introduction of the land-register.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Francesco Filelfo in Florence.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Antonio Pollaiuolo b. (d. 1498).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1430.</td> - <td class="tdt">War with Lucca. The Jews in Florence.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Bartolommeo Scala b. (d. 1495).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1431.</td> - <td class="tdt">Pope Eugene IV.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_480" id="Page_480">[480]</a></span></td> - <td class="tdt">Luigi Pulci b. (d. 1486).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Mino da Fiesole b. (d. 1484).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1432.</td> - <td class="tdt">Giuliano da Majano b. (d. 1490.)</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Niccolò da Uzzano d.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">K. Sigismund in Italy. (Crowned Emperor 1433).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1433.</td> - <td class="tdt">War with Lucca ended by a treaty with Milan.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Exile of Cosimo de’ Medici.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Marsilio Ficino b. (d. 1499).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1434.</td> - <td class="tdt">Recall of Cosimo de’ Medici. Exile of Rinaldo degli Albizzi, -Palla Strozzi and their friends. Pope Eugene IV. in -Florence. Completion of the dome of the Cathedral.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1435.</td> - <td class="tdt">Cosimo de’ Medici Gonfalonier.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Andrea del Verrocchio b. (d. 1488).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1436.</td> - <td class="tdt">Consecration of the Cathedral by Pope Eugene IV. Convent -and library of San Marco. Medici palace.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1439.</td> - <td class="tdt">Florentine Council of Union. The Greeks in Florence.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1440.</td> - <td class="tdt">War of the Visconti. Battle of Anghiari. End of the -dominion of the Guidi in the Casentino.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1441.</td> - <td class="tdt">Death of Baldaccio da Anghiari.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Pietro Pollaiuolo b. (d. 1489?).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">? Luca Signorelli b. (d. 1523).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1442.</td> - <td class="tdt">Benedetto da Majano b. (d. 1498?).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Rinaldo degli Albizzi d., at Ancona.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1445.</td> - <td class="tdt">Giuliano Giamberti da Sangallo b. (d. 1516).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1446.</td> - <td class="tdt">S. Antonine Archbishop (d. 1459).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1447.</td> - <td class="tdt">War in the Chiana valley with Alfonso of Aragon, King of -Naples. Pope Nicholas V.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1449.</td> - <td class="tdt">(January 1) Lorenzo de’ Medici b. (d. 1492).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Bernardo Rucellai b. (d. 1514).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Domenico Ghirlandajo b. (d. 1494).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1450.</td> - <td class="tdt">Dispute with Venice. Francesco Sforza Duke of Milan.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1451.</td> - <td class="tdt">Amerigo Vespucci b. (d. 1512).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1452.</td> - <td class="tdt">Emperor Frederic III. in Florence. The Neapolitans in -the Chiana valley. Leonardo da Vinci b. (d. 1519).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1453.</td> - <td class="tdt">Giuliano de’ Medici b. (d. 1478).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Girolamo Benevieni b. (d. 1542).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1454.</td> - <td class="tdt">Peace of Lodi, between Florence, Milan, Venice, and Naples.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Angelo Ambrogio Poliziano b. (d. 1494).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1455.</td> - <td class="tdt">Intrigues against Cosimo de’ Medici. Luca Pitti. Pope -Calixtus III.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1456.</td> - <td class="tdt">Johannes Argyropulos called to Florence.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1457.</td> - <td class="tdt">Simone Pollaiuolo Cronaca b. (d. 1508).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_481" id="Page_481">[481]</a></span></td> - <td class="tdt">Filippino Lippi b. (d. 1504).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1458.</td> - <td class="tdt">Changes in the Constitution by Luca Pitti. Pope Pius II.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1459.</td> - <td class="tdt">Pope Pius II. in Florence.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Benozzo Gozzoli paints the chapel of the Medici palace.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1461.</td> - <td class="tdt">Piero de’ Medici Gonfalonier.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1463.</td> - <td class="tdt">Giovanni Pico della Mirandola b. (d. 1494).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1464.</td> - <td class="tdt">Cosimo de’ Medici, ‘Pater Patriæ,’ d. Pope Paul II.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Marcello Virgilio Adriani b. (d. 1521).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1465.</td> - <td class="tdt">Beginning of the Pitti disturbances.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1466.</td> - <td class="tdt">Conspiracy of Diotisalvi Neroni, Luca Pitti, and their friends -against Piero de’ Medici.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1467.</td> - <td class="tdt">War of Colleone.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1468.</td> - <td class="tdt">Peace with Venice. Purchase of Sarzana. Tournament -and marriage of Lorenzo de’ Medici.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1469.</td> - <td class="tdt">Piero de’ Medici d. Authority of Lorenzo. Tommaso -Soderini.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1470.</td> - <td class="tdt">Attempted revolt at Prato.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Bernardo Dovizj of Bibiena b. (d. 1520).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1471.</td> - <td class="tdt">Galeazzo Maria Sforza in Florence. Lorenzo de’ Medici at -Rome with Pope Sixtus IV. Piero de’ Medici b. (d. 1503). -Bernardo Cennini, first Florentine printer.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1472.</td> - <td class="tdt">Revolt and conquest of Volterra.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1473.</td> - <td class="tdt">Re-opening of the University of Pisa.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1474.</td> - <td class="tdt">King Christian of Denmark in Florence.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1475.</td> - <td class="tdt">Giovanni de’ Medici [Pope Leo X.] b. (d. 1521). Michelangelo -Buonarotti b. (d. 1564). Murder of Galeazzo M. -Sforza. Regency of Bona of Savoy.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1478.</td> - <td class="tdt">Conspiracy of the Pazzi. Death of Giuliano de’ Medici. -War with Rome and Naples. Giulio de’ Medici [Pope -Clement VII.] b.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1479.</td> - <td class="tdt">Defeat at Poggibonzi. Lorenzo de’ Medici in Naples. -Lodovico il Moro regent of Milan.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1480.</td> - <td class="tdt">Peace between Florence, Naples, and the Pope. Establishment -of the Council of Seventy.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1481.</td> - <td class="tdt">Cristoforo Landino’s edition of Dante.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1482.</td> - <td class="tdt">Ferrarese war. Francesco Guicciardini b. (d. 1540).</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1483.</td> - <td class="tdt">Fra Girolamo Savonarola in Florence. King Louis XI. of -France d. Charles VIII. king.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1484.</td> - <td class="tdt">Peace of Bagnolo. Pope Sixtus IV. d. Innocent VIII. Pope.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1485.</td> - <td class="tdt">The Florentines in the Neapolitan barons’ war against the -Pope.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1486.</td> - <td class="tdt">Peace between the Pope and King Ferrante.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1487.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_482" id="Page_482">[482]</a></span></td> - <td class="tdt">Re-capture of Sarzana by the Florentines.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1488.</td> - <td class="tdt">Family alliance between the Medici and Innocent VIII. -Clarice de’ Medici d. Homer’s works first printed. Convent -of San Gallo.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Murder of Girolamo Riario and Galeotto Manfredi.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1489.</td> - <td class="tdt">Cardinalate of Giovanni de’ Medici.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Fra Girolamo Savonarola again at San Marco.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Building of the Strozzi palace begun.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Benedetto da Majano.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1490.</td> - <td class="tdt">New constitutional reform. Lorenzo de’ Medici mediator -between Pope Innocent and King Ferrante.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Cathedral. Choir of Sta. Maria Novella by Ghirlandajo. -Negotiations for completion of the Cathedral façade.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1491.</td> - <td class="tdt">Reconciliation between the Pope and Naples.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll">1492.</td> - <td class="tdt">Proclamation of the Cardinalate of Giovanni de’ Medici.</td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdll"> </td> - <td class="tdt">Lorenzo de’ Medici d., April 8.</td> - </tr> - -</table> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_483" id="Page_483">[483]</a></span></p> - -<h2 class="p4">APPENDIX II.</h2> - -<p class="pc4 large">MEDICI.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/gt1.jpg" width="500" height="318" - alt="" - title="" /> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_484" id="Page_484">[484]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="pc4 large">PAZZI.</p> - - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/gt2.jpg" width="500" height="321" - alt="" - title="" /> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_485" id="Page_485">[485]</a></span></p> - -<p class="pc4 large">SODERINI.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/gt3.jpg" width="500" height="237" - alt="" - title="" /> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_486" id="Page_486">[486]</a></span></p> - -<p class="pc4 large"><a name="VISCONTI_and_SFORZA" id="VISCONTI_and_SFORZA">VISCONTI <span class="smcap">and</span> SFORZA.</a></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/gt4.jpg" width="500" height="267" - alt="" - title="" /> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_487" id="Page_487">[487]</a></span></p> - -<h2 class="p4">APPENDIX III.</h2> - -<p class="pch">LORENZO’S LAST HOURS.</p> - -<p class="pc"><i>Book VI. Chapter VIII.</i></p> - -<p class="pn1"><span class="smcap">The</span> interview of Savonarola and Lorenzo de’ Medici has given rise -to a controversy which has never been definitively settled. The account -of the monk’s biographers, Giovan Francesco Pico and Pacifico -Burlamachi, cannot be reconciled with that given in Politian’s letter -above referred to. This last has the air of containing a mitigated -version of the facts, intended to efface the bad impression made by -current reports of the matter; and the third exhortation put into -the monk’s mouth by Politian—‘that he should endure death with -patience’—sounds almost like a commonplace, considering the -gravity of the moment and the characters of the interlocutors. C. -F. Meier, in his History of Savonarola (p. 52, &c.), and Villari, in -‘La Storia di Girolamo Savonarola’ (i. 136), accept the version -given by the Ferrarese monk’s earliest biographers, and Villari -tries to establish it by a long note (p. 155-158). But this version -contains great improbabilities. How should the dying man, who -had just received the viaticum, make another confession? And -what could Savonarola have meant by his famous third demand—what -practical use or effect could he expect from it, or from the -possible assent of the dying man? The story looks like an invention -of the after-days of excitement. The doubts as to the authenticity -of the books of Burlamachi and Pico, which, it is suspected, -were fabricated in the convent of San Marco and adorned with these -authors’ names, are of little consequence in this connection, as in -any case the tradition was doubtless current among Savonarola’s -contemporaries.</p> - -<p>Bartolommeo Cerretani gives, in the third book of his MS. -chronicle, the following account of Lorenzo’s last hours:—‘April 7, -about the fifth hour, Lorenzo received the Lord’s Supper. As his -illness was making such rapid progress, Messer Pier Leoni, otherwise -an excellent physician, lost heart; other doctors were at once -sent for, but it was too late. Feeling his end approaching, the sick -man sent for his eldest son Piero, gave him divers exhortations, -and then sent him away. About the twentieth hour he began to -cry out: “I am dying and there is none to help me!” All hastened<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_488" id="Page_488">[488]</a></span> -to him. He said he wanted to get up a little, and had himself lifted -out of bed, but only to be laid down immediately. The pains were -so violent that he lost consciousness. Those standing round him -began to weep, for they thought he was dead. A Camaldulensian -who was present took off his spectacles, and holding them to his -mouth perceived that he still breathed. A restorative was given -him and he came to himself. Then he called for his son again and -spoke to him softly, so that none of the others heard. After that -his condition rapidly grew worse, so that he gave up the ghost on -the 8th, about the fourth hour of the evening, in the arms of a valet.’</p> - -<p>The doctor who, though a learned man, certainly seems to have -blundered in his judgment as to Lorenzo’s illness, put an end to his -life next morning as has been related above (p. 461), by jumping -into the well at the Martelli villa at San Gervasio before Porta -Pinti.</p> - -<p>Sannazzaro’s poem in terza rima (in Roscoe, Ap. lxxviii.) on -the death of Piero Leoni attributes it to the instigation of Piero -de’ Medici. The fragment beginning: ‘Fu trovato essere stato -gettato in un pozzo’ &c., published in Fabroni (l. c. ii. 397) as being -from some anonymous author in the Magliabecchiana, is borrowed -from the Ricordi of Alamanno Rinuccini (p. cxlvi). Petrus Crinitus -and Valerianus (De literatorum infelicitate) take it for granted that -the doctor in his agitation took his own life; and Cerretani certainly -indicates that Leoni, who a short time before had been in good hopes, -lost his head. He states, moreover, that the Medici’s grooms threatened -the life of the physician, who was, therefore, taken to San -Gervasio, and that the report of his death by the violence of others -was immediately spread, but was unfounded. Burcard in his defective -report (p. 175) alludes to Piero de’ Medici’s complaint by -saying that the fatal termination of the illness was to be attributed -to wrong medical treatment, and raises a supposition that at Rome -there was believed to have been a murder.</p> - -<p>In May, Demetrius Chalcondylas wrote from Milan to Marcello -Virgilio Adriani: ‘Thou hast announced to me two sad events; the -flash of lightning which has struck the principal church of the city, -occasioned so much ruin, and presaged so great evils; and the death -of Lorenzo, the most famous man of our time, who was distinguished -in so many ways. His decease causes me deep sorrow, not merely -on account of the loss, which touches us all in no slight degree, but -also on account of what I personally lose, who have always found -him a kind patron. And to all this is added the sad and fearful -death of Piero Leoni, which has shocked me more than anything<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_489" id="Page_489">[489]</a></span> -for a long time past. Believe me, Marcello, this end casts a shadow -over Lorenzo’s death, and is a dishonour to the family and to the -whole city. For although thou, like others, writest that he threw -himself into the well, yet it is difficult to convince thoughtful people -that such a wise and learned man, who, as thou thyself also tellest -me, treated Lorenzo in his illness with so much care, could have -been seized with such madness as to choose so shameful a death.’ -(Bandini, Collectio, &c., p. 22).</p> - -<p>In Fabroni, l. c., and Roscoe, ‘Life of Leo X.’ (Ap. No. xxii.) -will be found the letters written by Cardinal Giovanni to his brother -after their father’s death. The first may be given here. The -original is in the curious mixture of Latin and Italian sentences -which was then still in vogue.</p> - -<p>‘My beloved brother, now the only support of our house. What -shall I write to thee, when only tears are left me? For when -I consider that our father of blessed memory is taken from us, I am -nearer weeping than speaking. What a father! None was kinder -than he to his children; of this facts are witness. Therefore it is -no wonder that I lament and can find no rest; and my only consolation -is that I have thee, my brother, in our father’s place. It is -for thee to command, for me to obey, and thy commands will always -give me the greatest pleasure. Try me; nothing shall find me -backward. But I beg thee, my Piero, be towards all, especially -towards thine own people, as I wish thee, beneficent, kind, courteous, -gracious; thereby all is obtained, all is preserved. Not because I -mistrust thee do I remind thee of this, but because it is my duty. -I am consoled and sustained by the concourse of mourners to our -house, the universal sympathy, the mourning of the whole city, and -other things which help to alleviate sorrow. But what consoles me -above all is that I have thee, whom I trust more than my words -are able to express. As to what thou wishest arranged with his -Holiness, nothing has been done, as it seemed better to take another -way, on which the ambassador will report to thee, and which seems -as if it must lead more easily to the object. Rome, April 12, 1492.’</p> - -<p class="pc4 mid">THE END.</p> - -<p class="pc4 reduct">LONDON: PRINTED BY<br /> -SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. NEW-STREET SQUARE<br /> -AND PARLIAMENT STREET</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="p4">FOOTNOTES:</h2> - -<div class="footnotes"> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a></span> -The collection of Italian poetry made by Lorenzo de’ Medici for Don Federigo -is to be found—not, indeed, in the original, which was lost probably during the -French invasion of Naples in 1495—but in a copy made either at the end of the -fifteenth or in the sixteenth century, and now in the Florentine National Library -(Magliabecchi), to which it passed with the Palatine MSS. (Fr. Palermo, <i>I manoscritti -Palatini di Firenze</i>, Flor. 1853 <i>seq.</i>; i. 353 <i>seq.</i>). This MS. belonged to -Marco Foscarini, with whose library it went in 1800 to Vienna, and later to the -Archduke, afterwards Grand Duke, Leopold, when he collected and published the -poems of Lorenzo (<i>Opere di Lorenzo de’ Medici</i>, Florence, 1825, 4 vols. i. p. xxvi., -where occur also Apostolo Zeno’s remarks on the MS. in question). On the MSS. -and printed copies of Lorenzo’s poems, compare the same edition, i. p. xiii.-xlv., -and Gamba, <i>Testi di Lingua</i>, pp. 648-660. For a complete critically revised text -much is still wanting, even after the splendid edition of 1825, which came out -under the auspices of the della Crusca Academy. A large and well-arranged -selection, <i>Poesie di Lorenzo de’ Medici</i>, Flor. 1859, has an introduction by Giosuè -Carducci, which has been a guide to much of what is said here of Lorenzo as a poet.</p> -<p class="pfc4">The letter of Lorenzo to Don Federigo, from which extracts are given above, -is among the Riccardi MSS., No. 2723, under the name of Poliziano, and was published -under that name in the edition of the <i>Rime</i> by V. Manucci and L. Ciampolini, -Flor. 1814. The mistake is palpable; Poliziano’s age and the agreement -with Lorenzo’s views in the commentary on his poems, show it as clearly as do -the historical allusions.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a></span> -Cf. Carducci’s edition of the <i>Poesie di Lor. de’ Med.</i>, p. 54 <i>seq.</i>, and Fabroni, -<i>supra</i>, p. 10.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a></span> -Herr von Reumont here gives two or three specimens of Lorenzo’s sonnets -translated into German verse. It is not attempted to retranslate these, but the -English reader in search of examples of the poet’s style is referred to Roscoe’s -<i>Lorenzo de’ Medici</i>, ii., iii., v.—<i>Note by Translator.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a></span> -‘Il montanino ha scarpe grosse e cervello fino.’ The fullest collection of -<i>rispetti</i> and other Tuscan popular songs is that of G. Tigri, <i>Canti popolari Toscani</i>, -first published at Florence in 1856, and reprinted several times since. The reproach -against the ‘Wunderhorn’ has been repeated in this case, and indeed not without -reason.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a></span> -Tommaso Lancillotto’s <i>Chronicle</i> in the <i>Cronache inedite Modenesi</i>, pp. 8, 9. -<i>Poesie musicali dei secoli XIV, XV, XVI, tratte da vari codici per cura di Ant. -Cappelli</i>, Bologna 1869. Cf. the last story of the fifth day of the <i>Decameron</i>.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a></span> -<i>Oratio christiani gregis ad pastorem Xistum</i>, Epist. 1. vi. 1. Cf. <i>supra</i>, i. 440.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a></span> -<i>Lettere di Marsilio Ficino</i>, i. 66 <i>seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a></span> -Inscription on the monument in Sta. Maria del Fiore:</p> -<p class="pfe"> -EN HOSPES HIC EST MARSILIUS SOPHIÆ PATER,<br /> -PLATONICUM QUI DOGMA CULPA TEMPORUM<br /> -SITU OBRUTUM ILLUSTRANS, ET ATTICUM DECUS<br /> -SERVANS, LATIO DEDIT FORES PRIMUS SACRAS,<br /> -DIVINO APERIENS MENTIS ACTUS NUMINE.<br /> -VIXIT BEATUS ANTE COSMI MUNERE<br /> -LAURIQUE MEDICI NUNC REVIXIT PUBLICO.<br /> -S. P. Q. F.<br /> -ANNO MXDXI.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a></span> -See a remarkable letter to Lorenzo, dated 1475, in which he speaks of the -neglected muses, in Bandini, <i>Collectio veterum monumentorum</i>, p. 1.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a></span> -In his poem of <i>Xandra</i>, book ii. Cf. Bandini, <i>Specimen litt.</i>, i. 124.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a></span> -The copy of <i>Christophori Landini Florentini ad illustrem Fridericim principem -Urbinatem Disputationum Camaldulensiam libri IV.</i>, now in the Laurentian -library, was written by Pietro Cennini, son of Bernardo, the first Florentine -printer, finished at the end of spring, and collated with the original. Cf. Bandini, -l. c. ii. 188 <i>seq.</i> (see also p. 3 <i>seq.</i> as to the meeting and the persons present). The -first edition is said (<i>ibid.</i> p. 192) to have been printed in 1475(?) and a second at -Strasburg in 1508. It was translated into Italian by Antonio Cambini, a literary -man much employed by Lorenzo and also in the service of his son the Cardinal. -He was also in communication with the Este family, and afterwards attached -himself to Savonarola, at whose fall his house was burnt down. (Cf. Cappelli, l. c. -p. 309; Villari, <i>Storia di G. Savonarola</i>, ii. 388.)</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a></span> -Manni, <i>Istoria del Decamerone</i>, pt. i. chap. xxix.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a></span> -Mehus, <i>Traversari</i>, p. 178.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a></span> -Mehus, l. c. p. 176.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a></span> -‘Che ‘l Dante io leggeva per mio piacere e per fare cosa grata alla vostra -inclyta città.’ Milan, May 29, 1473, in Fabroni, <i>Laur. Med. Vita</i>, ii. 76.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a></span> -On the various editions of the old biographies of Dante, see G. C. Galletti -in <i>Phil. Villani liber</i>, &c., where Villani, Leon. Bruni, and Giann. Manetti are -printed, the last with Melius’ notes for his edition, Flor. 1747. The MS. of -G. M. Filelfo in the Laurentiana was published by D. Morini, Flor. 1826.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a></span> -Vide section iii. chap. iii.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a></span> -For the numerous bibliographical works on the history of Dante and his -writings, we can only give a general reference to the <i>Bibliografia Dantesca</i> of -Colomb de Batines and the <i>Enciclopedia Dantesca</i> of Ferrazzi.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a></span> -According to the colophon, the printing was finished on August 30, 1481. -Cf. Bandini, l. c. ii. 131, 140-143; Colomb de Batines, l. c. vol. i. pt. ii. p. 43; -Marsilio’s Address, Bandini, pp. 132-134; Batines, pp. 43, 44. The Magliabecchian -copy has been lately rebound, and not in very good taste.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a></span> -<i>Paradiso</i>, xxv. 7. Girol. Benivieni, <i>Cantico in laude di Dante Alighieri</i>, in -<i>Works</i>, Venice 1522. Cf. Bandini, ii. 134-136. The latter part of the poem, -from the line ‘La patria, che a me madre, a Te noverca,’ refers to the above-quoted -lines of Dante. The restoration of citizen rights to the poet’s great-great-grandson, -who bore his name, and who was a friend of Poliziano (<i>Letter to Lorenzo</i>, -Flor. June 5, 1490, in the <i>Prose volgari</i>, &c., p. 76), did not take place till 1496, -and was paid for! (Gaye, l. c. p. 584.)</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a></span> -Isidoro del Lungo, <i>Un documento Dantesco, Arch. Stor. Ital.</i>, series iii. vol. -xix. p. 4.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a></span> -Vespasiano da Bisticci, l. c. p. 499 <i>seq.</i> Palmieri’s Latin biography of the -grand seneschal was translated into Italian by a relative of the latter, Donato -Acciaiuolo.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a></span> -On the <i>Giostra</i>, see above, i. 264 <i>seq.</i>, and Salvator Bongi’s oft-mentioned -edition of the <i>Lettere di Luigi Pulci</i>. A new edition of <i>Ciriffo Calvaneo</i>, with full -bibliographical references by S. L. G. Audin, appeared at Florence in 1834.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a></span> -L. Ranke’s academical treatise, <i>Zur Geschichte der italienischen Poesie</i>, Berlin, -1837, contains an excellent account of the elements and the development of the -romantic epopee. The last edition of <i>Morgante</i>, which was first printed at Venice -in 1481 and at Florence in the following year (Gamba, <i>Testi di Lingua</i>, p. 241 <i>seq.</i>) -is that by P. Sermolli, published at Florence a few years ago. The oldest impression -of the <i>Reali di Francia</i> is that published at Modena in 1491, ten years -after Pulci’s poem.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a></span> -L. Pulci, <i>Lettere</i>, p. 38. Cf. <i>supra</i>, i. 313.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a></span> -February 1, 1468. L. Pulci, <i>Lettere</i>, p. 8.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a></span> -A petition of his widow, July 14, 1485, states that he had been dead more -than eight months. Cf. <i>Lettere</i>, pp. 10, 102, 114.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. ii. 98.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a></span> -Isidoro del Lungo, <i>La patria e gli antenati d’Angelo Poliziano</i> in <i>Arch. Stor. -Ital.</i>, series iii. vol. xi. p. 9 <i>seq.</i> Id. <i>Uno Scolare dello studio fiorentino nel sec. XV</i>, -in the <i>Nuova Antologia</i>, x. 215, <i>seq.</i> Fr. Otto Mencke’s <i>Historia Vitæ, etc. Ang. Pol.</i>, -Leipzig, 1736, will always be valuable as a careful collection of literary and critical -materials. <i>Opera Ang. Politiani</i>, Flor. 1499. <i>Le Stanze, l’Orfeo e le Rime di -Messer Ang. Ambrogini Pol., illustrate da Giosuè Carducci</i>, Flor. 1863. <i>Prose -volgari e Poesie latine e greche di A. A. P. raccolte da Isidoro del Lungo</i>, Flor. 1867.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a></span> -<i>Prose volgari</i>, p. 109.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a></span> -Ibid. p. 248.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a></span> -See <i>Prose volgare</i>, p. 481: ‘O cui tyrrheni florentia signa leonis.’</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a></span> -<i>Epistolæ</i>, viii. 6, 7.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a></span> -See the poems addressed to Cardinal Riario in the <i>Prose volgare</i>, pp. 111-114. -Cf. <i>supra</i>, i. 346.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a></span> -These four books were printed by Cardinal Angelo Mai in the second volume -of the <i>Spicilegium Romanum</i>, from two MSS. in the Vatican, and thence in the -<i>Prose volgare</i>, pp. 431-523. The MSS. came to the Vatican from Fulvio Orsini. -The one on parchment, with the Medici arms on a red leather binding, is the copy -of books ii. and iii., presented by the author to Lorenzo. The other contains books -iv. and v., apparently in Poliziano’s handwriting and without a dedication.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a></span> -There has been much question as to the relation between the original ‘Orfeo,’ -which the author wanted to destroy, and the later one, which was turned into a -tragedy in several acts. The latter was published in 1776 by Ireneo Affò, with a -detailed introduction and <i>excursus</i>; and in 1812 Vincenzo Ranucci wrote some -extensive philological observations upon it which were reprinted in the Carducci -edition, pp. 113-188. The question which has lately been raised as to Poliziano’s -authorship of this second version must be left for decision to the poet’s biographers. -There is a prospect of a detailed account of his life by I. del Lungo.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a></span> -It has been shown in vol. i. p. 299, that Poliziano did not begin this poem so -early as has been imagined, from an idea that Giuliano’s tournament was held at -the same time as that of his brother. That he was at work upon it in 1476 is -proved by the allusion to the death of Simonetta, the young beauty to whom -Giuliano’s heart was given, an event which Poliziano sang also in Latin, <i>Prose -volgare</i>, p. 149. [In Simonettam, ‘Dum pulchra effertur nigro Simonetta -pheretro.’]</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a></span> -Laurus, the poetical name by which the poets of the time distinguished -Lorenzo.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a></span> -Roscoe’s translation.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a></span> -‘In violas a Venere mea dono acceptas,’ in <i>Prose volgare</i>, p. 238; Carducci, -p. cviii. Agnolo Firenzuola and Giulio Perticari have translated this elegy -in very different styles. Cf. <i>supra</i>, p. 15.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a></span> -The diploma (with a wrong date) was printed from the archiepiscopal archives -of Florence in Bandini, l. c. i. 188.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a></span> -<i>Prose volgare</i>, pp. 285-427.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a></span> -<i>Epist.</i> l. x. 14.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a></span> -<i>Prælectio in Priora Aristotelis analytica cui titulus Lamia. La Strega, prelezione -alle Priora d’Aristotile nello studio Fiorentino l’anno 1483 per Ang. Ambr. -Poliziano volgar. da Isidori del Lungo</i>, Flor. 1864. The immediate neighbourhood -of Fiesole, where Poliziano was so thoroughly at home, still recalls the witch-traditions -of the middle ages. The subterranean chambers of the Roman theatre -(unhappily in great part destroyed) on the northern slope of the hill are called by -the people the Witches’ grottos—(Buche delle Fate); they are not far from the -stone grotto on the eastern slope, the Fonte Soterra, which is always full of cool -water, and the Latomie, which Brunelleschi opened for the purposes of his wonderful -buildings (Fr. Inghirami, <i>Memorie storiche per servire di guida all’Osservatore -in Fiesole</i>, Fiesole 1839), p. 60 <i>seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a></span> -The translation appeared at Rome in 1493. The dedication to the Pope and -his Brief are in book viii. of the <i>Epistolæ</i>. The poem ‘Herodianus in laudem -traductoris sui,’ is in <i>Prose volgare</i>, etc., p. 264.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a></span> -<i>Letter to Lorenzo de’ Medici</i>, June 5, 1490, <i>ibid.</i> p. 76.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a></span> -<i>Letter to Piero de’ Medici</i>, Florence, May 23, 1494, <i>ibid.</i> p. 84.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a></span> -Poliziano’s <i>Letters to Madonna Clarice</i> (cf. vol. ii. book vi. ch. iii.) are in -I. del Lungo, <i>Prose volgare</i>, p. 45 <i>seq.</i>, and also his letters from Pistoja, Caffagiuolo, -Careggi, and Fiesole, to Lorenzo and his mother, some of which had already been -printed by Fabroni.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a></span> -Poliziano afterwards sent the ode also to Lorenzo.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a></span> -The graceful description of the view of Florence and its neighbourhood from -Fiesole (‘Talia Fœsuleo lentus meditabar in antro Rure suburbano Medicum) -stands at the end of the poem of Rusticus, which bears the date 1483, but its origin -is probably connected with the time referred to above.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. ii. 288.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a></span> -Fiesole, May 21 and July 18, 1479, in <i>Prose volgari</i>, pp. 71-74. Several -Latin epigrams to Lorenzo (<i>ibid.</i> pp. 123, 124) are of this period.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a></span> -<i>Prose volgari</i>, p. 127 (‘O ego quam cupio reducis contingere dextram’).</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a></span> -Latini dettati a Piero de’ Medici, 1481, <i>ibid.</i> pp. 17-41.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. ii. 280.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a></span> -<i>Epist.</i> xii. 7.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a></span> -D. M. Manni, <i>Bartholomei Scalæ Collensis vita</i>, Flor. 1768. Scala’s <i>Florentine -History</i>, now completely forgotten, appeared at Rome in 1677. The Laurentiana -contains a MS. collection of letters, poems, &c., by him, to and on Cosimo -the elder, and dedicated to Lorenzo (cf. Moreni, <i>Bibliographia</i>, ii. 321).</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a></span> -Ang. Pol. <i>Epist.</i> xii. 17.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a></span> -Accolti (on whom cf. Vespasiano da Bisticci, l. c. p. 442 <i>seq.</i>) died in 1466, -aged 51; the seals were not delivered to Scala till March 1473, so they must -have been put into commission (Manni, l. c. 15). Accolti’s dialogue, <i>De præstantia -virorum sui ævi</i>, which, in spite of the many reservations made by the author from -personal motives, will deserve regard as the work of a man in high position, was -first printed by Ben. Bacchini, Parma, 1689, and later by Galletti in <i>Philippi -Villani Liber</i>, p. 97 <i>seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a></span> -A. M. Bandini, <i>Lettere Fiesolane</i>, Flor. 1776, p. 30.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a></span> -A. Guidoni to Duke Ercole II., April 1486, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 281.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a></span> -Ang. Pol. <i>Epist.</i> xii. 17-19.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a></span> -‘Ad Bartholomæum Scalam’ in the <i>Prose volgari</i>, p. 273.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a></span> -In the <i>Epigrammata Græca</i>. Cf. <i>Prose volgari</i>, p. 199 <i>seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a></span> -‘Quæris quid mihi de tuo Marullo,’ in the <i>Prose volgari</i>, p. 124; ‘Quod plura -Venerem tuus Marullus, <i>ibid.</i> p. 125.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a></span> -‘Invectiva in Mabilium,’ <i>ibid.</i> p. 131 <i>seq.</i> The poems of Marullus were printed -at Florence in 1497.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a></span> -F. Fossi, <i>Monumenta ad Alamanni Rinuccini vitam contexandam</i>, &c., Flor. -1791. G. Aiazzi, in <i>Ricordi storici di Filippo Rinuccini</i>, p. 139 <i>seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a></span> -Anton. Francesco Gori has added to a MS. commentary on Rucellai’s treatise -<i>De Urbe Roma</i> (in the Marucelliana at Florence) a life of the author. Cf. L. Passerini, -<i>Genealogia ec. della Famiglia Rucellai</i>, p. 122 <i>seq.</i> Bernardo was born -1488, died 1514.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a></span> -L. Passerini, <i>Degli Orti Oricellarj</i>, in the <i>Curiosità</i>, p. 56 <i>seq.</i> The -house, built on the ground bought from Nannina de’ Medici in 1482, was begun -about the end of the century. It passed, with the beautiful gardens, to Bianca -Cappello; it now, after many changes, belongs to a Countess Orloff.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a></span> -‘Bernardo Bembo veneto oratori viro undecumque elegantissimo.’ In the -<i>Prose volgari</i>, p. 251. The copy of Landino’s <i>Xandra</i>, once sent by him to Bembo, -is in the Vatican library. Cf. Bandini, l. c. ii. 164 <i>seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a></span> -Foscarini, l. c. 267.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a></span> -Inscription on his tomb in Sta. Maria del Popolo:</p> -<p class="pfe">BARBARIEM HERMOLEOS LATIO QUI DEPULIT OMNEM<br /> -BARBARUS HIC SITUS EST UTRAQUE LINGUA OEMIT<br /> -URBS VENETUM VITAM MORTEM DEDIT INCLYTA ROMA<br /> -NON POTUIT NASCI NOBILIUSQUE MORI.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a></span> -Florence, May 10, 1490. Fabroni, l. c. ii. 377.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a></span> -Gaye, l. c. i. 294.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. ii. 284; also in <i>Prose volgari</i>, p. 78 <i>seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a></span> -Piero Alamanni to Lorenzo, Rome, May 14, 1491; in Fabroni, l. c. p. 379.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a></span> -L. Geiger, <i>Johann Reuchlin</i> (Leipzig, 1871), p. 163 <i>seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a></span> -In A. Cappelli, l. c. p. 282. Domenico Berti, <i>Cenni e documenti intorno a -Giovanni Pico della Mirandola</i>, in the <i>Rivista contemporanea</i>, vol. xvi., Turin, 1859. -The reports sent to Lorenzo during his stay at the baths, quoted here from the -Medicean archives, agree substantially with the accounts given by Guidoni.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a></span> -In Cappelli, l. c. p. 303. The date of the <i>Apology</i> seems to be really wrong. -In the register of Lorenzo’s correspondence (<i>Ricordi di lettere scripti per Lor. de’ -Med.</i>) in the Florentine archives, we find notice of a letter written as late as -February 12, 1488, ‘al conte della Mirandola, ringraziandolo dell’Apologia mandate,’ -letter enclosed to Lorenzo Spinelli, one of the Medicean agents in France.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a></span> -<i>Med. Arch.</i>, Filza 57.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. ii. 291. Some of the following extracts are in the same; some, -unpublished, in the <i>Med. Arch.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a></span> -A. Guidoni, Flor. September 25, 1488, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 303.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a></span> -<i>Epist.</i> lib. i. 4. <i>Epigramm. Græca</i>, lib. iii. in <i>Prose volgari</i>, p. 218.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a></span> -<i>Disputationum de Astrologia</i>, lib. xii. <i>Epigramm. Græca</i>, xlix. l. c. p. 214.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a></span> -Speech on accepting the office of Capitano del popolo, from L. B. Alberti’s -papers, in Bonucci, <i>Opere di L. B. A.</i>, vol. i. p. xlii.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a></span> -G. Perticaro, <i>Intorno la morte di Pandolfo Collenuccio</i>, in his <i>Opere</i>, Bologna, -1839, ii. 52 <i>seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a></span> -Cf. Ben. Varchi’s remarks upon Naldi in <i>Prose volgari inedite</i>, p. 122.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a></span> -It is not intended in the present work to go into the details of these mostly -uninteresting poetical productions. Bandini has noticed many of them in the -catalogue of the Laurentiana; Roscoe has filled many pages with quotations and -bibliographical notices; to add to them would be easy but useless.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a></span> -The <i>Dieci di Balia</i>, Florence, January 14, 1432, in Fabroni, <i>Cosmi Med. Vita</i>, -ii. 8.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a></span> -Guicciardini, <i>Del reggimento di Firenze</i>, p. 209.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, <i>Historia Academiæ Pisanæ</i>, i. 109 <i>seq.</i>; <i>Laur. Med. Vita</i>, i. 49. -Many other references to the University, <i>ibid.</i> ii. 74 <i>seq.</i> Carlo de’ Massimi, -<i>Carmen heroicum ad Laurentium Medicem de studio per eumden Pisis innovato</i>, -from a Laurentian MS., in Bandini, <i>Laur. Cat.</i>, vol. iii., and Roscoe, iii. 237 <i>seq.</i> -(No. lviii.)</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, <i>Laur. Med. Vita</i>, ii. 77.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a></span> -Rosmini, <i>Vita di Fr. Filelfo</i>, ii 191.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. ii. 75, 76.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a></span> -Camillo Massimo, <i>Sopra una inedita medaglia di Francesco Massimo dottore in -legge e cavaliere</i>, Rome, 1860. Francesco Massimo was elected Podestà of Siena in -1477, but could not assume the office owing to the death of his father. That he -was in Florence in 1488-89, engaged in affairs of state, is shown by the following -letter from Lorenzo to Giovanni Lanfredini at Rome: ‘Messer Francesco Massimi -is going back, having gained the approval of the whole city as well as my own. -He has in truth conducted himself so well that I have thought good to recommend -him to his Holiness and to the Cardinal Giovanni Colonna. I do the same to you, -and beg you to bear witness that his conduct could not have been more praiseworthy. -In consideration of his good offices I shall be glad if you will introduce -him wherever it may be agreeable to him.’ Florence, March 13, 1489 (<i>Med. Arch.</i> -Filza 59).</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a></span> -The <i>Annales suorum temporum</i> were printed by Gio. Lami in the <i>Catalogus -codd. MSS. bibl. Riccard.</i>, Livorno, 1756; and again by Galletti, in <i>Phil. Villani -liber</i>, &c., p. 151 <i>seq.</i> According to a letter of Fonti to Lorenzo, he once intended -writing a history of the Medici. He praised the chief scholars of his time in a -pretty epigram, <i>ibid.</i> p. 153.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a></span> -Gaye, l. c. i. 273.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a></span> -<i>Med. Arch.</i>, Filza 59.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a></span> -Venice, June 20, 1491, in <i>Prose volgari</i>, p. 78.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a></span> -The letters are in Poliziano’s <i>Epistolæ</i>, book xi.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a></span> -A. M. Bandini, <i>Ragionamento istorico sulle collazione delle Pandette, ec.</i>, -Livorno 1762, The copy of the Pandects marked with Poliziano’s collations is -preserved in the Laurentianæ. Bandini also speaks of it in the fourth volume of -the <i>Catalogue of Latin MSS.</i> See Th. Mommsen’s introduction to his critical -edition of the <i>Digestum</i>.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_102_102" id="Footnote_102_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a></span> -F. Fantozzi, <i>Notizie biografiche di Bernardo Cennini</i>, Florence, 1839. G. Ottino, -<i>Di Bernardo Cennini e dell’arte della stampa in Firenze</i>, Florence, 1871. When -the first Florentine printer had been almost forgotten for 400 years, the present -generation, on occasion of the fourth centenary of his work, has raised a monument -to him in San Lorenzo—where he lies buried—placed a memorial tablet on the site -of his workshop, and given his name to a street.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_103_103" id="Footnote_103_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a></span> -‘Ad lectorem. Florentiæ, <span class="smcap">VII</span>. Idus Novembres, <span class="smcap">MCCCCLXXI</span>. Bernardus -Cennnius (<i>sic</i>) aurifer omnium iudicio præstantissimus: et Dominicus eius F. -egregiæ indolis adolescens: expressis ante calibe caracteribus et deinde fusis literis -volumen hoc primum impresserunt. Petrus Cenninus Bernardi eiusdem F. quanta -potuit cura et diligentia emendavit ut cernis. Florentinis ingeniis nil ardui est.’</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_104_104" id="Footnote_104_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a></span> -P. Vinc. Fineschi, <i>Notizie istoriche sopra la stamperia di [S. Jacopo di] Ripoli</i>, -Flor. 1761. D. Moreni in the <i>Novelle letterarie Fiorentine</i> of 1791, and F. Fossi in -the <i>Catalogo delle antiche edizioni della B. Magliabechiana</i>, vol. iii., have collected -other information concerning the works of this printing establishment amounting -to eighty-six in number, among which, curiously enough, a <i>Decameron</i> is included.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_105_105" id="Footnote_105_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a></span> -Enea Piccolomini, <i>Delle condizioni e delle vicende della libreria Medicea privata</i>, -in the <i>Arch. Star. Ital.</i>, series iii. vols. xix. and xx. N. Anziani, <i>Della Biblioteca -Medicea-Laurenziana</i>, Flor. 1872.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_106_106" id="Footnote_106_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a></span> -Targioni-Tozzetti, <i>Notizie sulla storia delle scienze fisiche in Toscana</i> (ed. by -Fr. Palermo), Flor. 1853, pp. 60, 61.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_107_107" id="Footnote_107_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a></span> -<i>Med. Arch.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_108_108" id="Footnote_108_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. i. 153; ii. 286.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_109_109" id="Footnote_109_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a></span> -<i>Ibid.</i> i. 163.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_110_110" id="Footnote_110_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110_110"><span class="label">[110]</span></a></span> -Cappelli, l. c. The MS. was by Battista Guarino. The translation was first -printed at Venice in 1532, the original at Paris in 1548.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_111_111" id="Footnote_111_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111_111"><span class="label">[111]</span></a></span> -<i>Prose volgari</i>, p. 78.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_112_112" id="Footnote_112_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112_112"><span class="label">[112]</span></a></span> -This poetess, of a Milanese family, was born at Venice about 1465, and is -supposed to have died in 1558. Politian (<i>Epist.</i> l. iii. 17) addresses her: ‘O decus -Italiæ virgo.’</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_113_113" id="Footnote_113_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113_113"><span class="label">[113]</span></a></span> -Florence, May 8, 1490, in Fabroni, l. c. ii. 287.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_114_114" id="Footnote_114_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114_114"><span class="label">[114]</span></a></span> -Vasari’s <i>Life of Fra Giocondo</i> (ix. 155 <i>seq.</i>) is very imperfect and leaves room -for further study. On Giocondo’s works in his own city see G. Orti Manara, <i>Dei -lavori architettonici di Fra Giocondo in Verona</i>, Ver., 1853. On his collection of -inscriptions see G. B. de Rossi, <i>I Fasti municipali di Venosa restituite alla sincera -lezione</i>, Rome 1853. (From vol. cxxxiii. of the <i>Giornale Arcadico</i>.) According to -the <i>Novelle letterarie di Firenze</i> for the year 1771, p. 725, the Medicean copy was -sent to Pope Clement XIV., but has never been seen either in the Vatican archives -or the library. On the other copies, and the second collection, differing from the -first in some respects, less numerous, and dedicated to Ludovico de Agnellis, -Archbishop of Cosenza, cf. De Rossi, p. 7 <i>seq.</i> The dedication—‘Laurentio Medici -Fr. Io. Jucundus S. P. D.’—is in Fabroni, ii. 279 <i>seq.</i> It ends: ‘Vale feliciter -humani generis amor et deliciæ.’</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_115_115" id="Footnote_115_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115_115"><span class="label">[115]</span></a></span> -<i>Med. Arch.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_116_116" id="Footnote_116_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116_116"><span class="label">[116]</span></a></span> -Epist. ad J. Bracciolini, l. i. Prolegom. ad Platonis convivium.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_117_117" id="Footnote_117_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117_117"><span class="label">[117]</span></a></span> -The work of the Sicilian Jesuit, P. Leonardo Ximenes, <i>Del vecchio e nuovo -Gnomone fiorentino</i>, Flor. 1757, contains the history and explanation of the scientific -value of the famous meridian, and of the more ancient mathematical and astronomical -works in Tuscany.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_118_118" id="Footnote_118_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118_118"><span class="label">[118]</span></a></span> -This controversy has never rested from the time of Angelo Maria Bandini, -who published in 1755 the <i>Vita e Lettere di Amerigo Vespucci gentiluomo fiorentino</i>, -down to our own days, which have witnessed a new defence of the Florentine’s -claims by the Brazilian, F. A. de Varnhagen. It will be sufficient here to refer -the reader to the facts published by Oscar Peschel in the <i>Zeitalter der Entdeckungen</i>, -p. 305 <i>seq.</i>, and in an essay on Amerigo in the periodical <i>Das Ausland</i> (No. 32, -1858). Vespucci’s well-known work on his second journey (Bandini, p. 64) is -addressed to Lorenzo de’ Medici, the son of Pier Francesco.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_119_119" id="Footnote_119_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119_119"><span class="label">[119]</span></a></span> -Cianfogni, <i>Memorie istoriche della basilica di S. Lorenzo</i> (Flor. 1804), p. 228. -On Brunelleschi, cf. i. 71 <i>seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_120_120" id="Footnote_120_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120_120"><span class="label">[120]</span></a></span> -D. Moreni, <i>Continuazione delle Memorie della basilica di San Lorenzo</i> (Flor. -1816), i. 6 <i>seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_121_121" id="Footnote_121_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121_121"><span class="label">[121]</span></a></span> -The dedication (to Piero de’ Medici) of a treatise on Architecture by Antonio -Averlino, called Filarete (see below, p. 135), shows that the Church had not been -rebuilt in 1460: ‘Resta ancora la chiesa a rinovare.’ The resemblance of its -architecture to that of the chapel of the Madonna de’ Voti, afterwards dell’Incoronata, -in the cathedral of Mantua, always regarded as a work of Leon Bat. -Alberti, awakens a suspicion that he may have been concerned in the building -at Fiesole. Cf. Gaye, l. c. i. 200 <i>seq.</i>; 263. Vasari, <i>Life of Filarete</i>, iii. 290.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_122_122" id="Footnote_122_122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_122_122"><span class="label">[122]</span></a></span> -D. Moreni, <i>Notizie istoriche dei Contorni di Firenze</i>, iii. 93 <i>seq.</i> Cf. i. 576 -<i>seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_123_123" id="Footnote_123_123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_123_123"><span class="label">[123]</span></a></span> -The Silvestrine was a branch of the Vallombrosan order, named after its -founder Silvestro Gozzolini.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_124_124" id="Footnote_124_124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124_124"><span class="label">[124]</span></a></span> -Cf. i. 574-576.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_125_125" id="Footnote_125_125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_125_125"><span class="label">[125]</span></a></span> -Vasari, <i>Life of Michelozzo</i>, iii. 277-279. V. Marchese, <i>Memorie dei Pittori -ec. Domenicani</i>, i. 278 <i>seq.</i> <i>Id.</i>, <i>San Marco convento dei Frati Predicatori</i> (Flor. -1853), p. 75 <i>seq.</i> The inscription in the church, dated 1442, which speaks of -‘magnificis sumptibus v. cl. Cosmi Medicis,’ &c., is in Vasari, p. 279.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_126_126" id="Footnote_126_126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126_126"><span class="label">[126]</span></a></span> -A. Zobi, <i>Memorie storico-artistiche relative alla Cappella della SS. Annunziata</i> -(Flor. 1837), p. 14 <i>seq.</i> Fr. Bocchi, <i>Della immagine miracolosa della SS. -Nunziata</i> (Flor. 1592, new ed. 1852). Inscription: ‘Petrus Med. Cosmi Joann. -filius sacellum marmoreum voto suscepto animo libens d. d. Anno 1448. Idib. -Martii.’ Another inscription on the cornice: ‘Piero di Cosimo de Medici fece fare -questa hopera et Pagno di Lapo di Fiesole fu el maestro chella fè <span class="smcap">mcccclii</span>.’ -From this it certainly looks questionable whether Michelozzo furnished the designs, -as Pagno also executed larger works. Inscription relating to the consecration: -‘Mariæ glorioss. virg. Guilelmus Cardinalis Rotomagensis cum superni in terris -nuntii munere fungeretur legati ratus officium et innumeris miraculis locique -religione motus hanc Annunciatæ aram summa cum celebritate ac solenni pompa -sacravit <span class="smcap">mcccclii</span>., <span class="smcap">viii</span>. Kalen. Januar.’</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_127_127" id="Footnote_127_127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127_127"><span class="label">[127]</span></a></span> -Berti, <i>Cenni storico-artistici di S. Miniato al Monte</i> (Flor. 1850), p. 54 <i>seq.</i> -On June 10, 1448, Piero de’ Medici was allowed to place his arms on the tabernacle -on condition that those of the Guild should have the highest place.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_128_128" id="Footnote_128_128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128_128"><span class="label">[128]</span></a></span> -C. Guasti, l. c. Doc. 290, p. 201. Brunelleschi was buried in the cathedral. -The epitaph is by Carlo Marsuppini: ‘D. S. Quantum Philippus architectus arte -Dædalea valuerit cum huius celeberrimi templi mira testudo tum plures aliæ -divino ingenio ab eo adiuventæ machinæ documento esse possunt quapropter ob -eximias sui animi dotes singularesque virtutes <span class="smcap">xv.</span> Kal. Maias anno <span class="smcap">mccccxlvi.</span> -eius b. m. corpus in hac humo supposita grata patria sepeliri iussit.’</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_129_129" id="Footnote_129_129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_129_129"><span class="label">[129]</span></a></span> -Round the altar is the following inscription: ‘Ædem hanc sanctissime -Andrea tibi Pactii dedicarunt ut cum te immortalis Deus hominum constituerit -piscatorem locus sit in quem suos Franciscus ad tua possit retia convocare.’ By -Franciscus is doubtless meant the saint to whose order the convent belonged, and -not, as Richa and Moisè suppose, Francesco de’ Pazzi, Andrea’s grandson. A -letter of indulgence from Card. Pietro Riario, October 8, 1473, speaks of Jacopo -de’ Pazzi as the founder.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_130_130" id="Footnote_130_130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130_130"><span class="label">[130]</span></a></span> -The history of the building of the Pitti palace has never been thoroughly -cleared up.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_131_131" id="Footnote_131_131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131_131"><span class="label">[131]</span></a></span> -Inscription:</p> -<p class="pfe">JOHANNES RUCELLARIUS PAULI FILIUS INDE<br /> -SALUTEM SUAM PRECARETUR UNDE OMNIUM<br /> -CUM CHRISTO FACTA EST RESURRECTIO SACELLUM<br /> -HOC AD INSTAR HYEROSOLIMITANI SEPULCRI<br /> -FACIUNDUM CURAVIT MCCCCLXVII.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_132_132" id="Footnote_132_132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132_132"><span class="label">[132]</span></a></span> -Documents on the building (1471), in Gaye, l. c. p. 225 <i>seq.</i> Vasari, iv. 59.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_133_133" id="Footnote_133_133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133_133"><span class="label">[133]</span></a></span> -The price was 150 gold florins; Gaye, l. c. p. 572. The statue was removed -when Duke Cosimo erected the fountain adorned with Verrocchio’s Boy, and is now -in the national museum in the Palace of the Podestà.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_134_134" id="Footnote_134_134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134_134"><span class="label">[134]</span></a></span> -‘Exemplum sal. pub. cives posuere <span class="smcap">MCCCCXCV</span>.’ This inscription can have -nothing to do with the driving out of the Duke of Athens, as Moisè (<i>Palazzo de’ -Priori</i>, p. 166) imagines. The group occupied the place which was assigned in -1504 to Michel Angelo’s ‘David,’ and has stood since then on the side of the Loggia -de’ Lanzi towards the Uffizi. Vasari (l. c. p. 251) wrongly thinks it was executed -for the Signoria.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_135_135" id="Footnote_135_135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135_135"><span class="label">[135]</span></a></span> -L. c. p. 250.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_136_136" id="Footnote_136_136"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136_136"><span class="label">[136]</span></a></span> -Mantua, November 7, 1458. Cf. Braghirolli, in the <i>Giornale di erudizione -artistica</i> (of Perugia), ii. 4 <i>seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_137_137" id="Footnote_137_137"></a><a href="#FNanchor_137_137"><span class="label">[137]</span></a></span> -Vasari, l. c. pp. 264, 266. Fabroni, l. c. p. 159. According to Vasari, Donatello -died on December 13, 1466; according to the contemporary M. Palmieri -(<i>De Temporibus</i>), in 1468. In the crypt of S. Lorenzo, near the tombs of the -Medici, is the following later inscription: ‘Donatellus restituta antiqua sculpendi -cælandiq. arte celeberrimus Mediceis principibus summis bonarum artium patronis -apprime carus qui ut vivum suspexere mortuo etiam sepulcrum loco sibi proximiore -constituerunt obiit idibus Decembris an. sal. <span class="smcap">MCCCCLXIV.</span> æt. suæ <span class="smcap">LXXXIII.</span>’</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_138_138" id="Footnote_138_138"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138_138"><span class="label">[138]</span></a></span> -On Francesco Livi, cf. Gaye, l. c. ii. 441 <i>seq.</i> On Ser Guasparre, see Rumohr, -<i>Ital. Forschungen</i>, ii. 377 <i>seq.</i>; G. Milanesi, <i>Documenti dell’arte Sanese</i>, ii. 194 <i>seq.</i> -On the Jesuates, cf. i. 596, 597, and L. Fanfani, <i>Memorie di Sta. Maria del Pontenuovo</i> -(Pisa 1871), p. 124 <i>seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_139_139" id="Footnote_139_139"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139_139"><span class="label">[139]</span></a></span> -These basso-rilievos, removed from the cathedral when the organs were -modernised, are now in the museum of the Palazzo del Podestà.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_140_140" id="Footnote_140_140"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140_140"><span class="label">[140]</span></a></span> -<i>Metropolitana Fiorentina</i>, tables xxxiii.-xxxvi.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_141_141" id="Footnote_141_141"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141_141"><span class="label">[141]</span></a></span> -Transferred from San Pancrazio to the church of San Francesco di Paola -before the Porta Romana; <i>Monuments sépulcraux</i>, plate lvii.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_142_142" id="Footnote_142_142"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142_142"><span class="label">[142]</span></a></span> -<i>Monuments sépulcraux</i>, plates lvi., xli., xxi.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_143_143" id="Footnote_143_143"></a><a href="#FNanchor_143_143"><span class="label">[143]</span></a></span> -<i>Monuments sépulcraux</i>, plate xxxvi. Inscription:</p> -<p class="pfe">SISTE VIDES MAGNUM QUÆ SERVANT MARMORA VATEM<br /> -INGENIO CUIUS NON SATIS ORBIS ERAT<br /> -QUÆ NATURA POLUS QUÆ MOS FERAT OMNIA NOVIT<br /> -KAROLUS ÆTATIS GLORIA MAGNA SUÆ<br /> -AUSONLÆ ET GRAJÆ CRINES NUNC SOLVITE MUSÆ<br /> -OCCIDIT HEU VESTRI FAMA DECUSQUE CHORI.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_144_144" id="Footnote_144_144"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144_144"><span class="label">[144]</span></a></span> -<i>Monuments sépulcraux</i>, plates l., xxxi. Inscription:</p> -<p class="pfe">POSTQUAM LEONARDUS E VITA MIGRAVIT HISTORIA LUGET<br /> -ELOQUENTIA MUTA EST FERTURQUE MUSAS TUM<br /> -GRAIAS TUM LATINAS LACRIMAS TENERE NON POTUISSE.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_145_145" id="Footnote_145_145"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145_145"><span class="label">[145]</span></a></span> -Vespasiano da Bisticci, l. c. p. 157. Vasari mentions the modelling in -Verrocchio, v. 152. Brunelleschi’s cast is in the building-office of Sta. Maria del -Fiore (<i>Opera del Duomo</i>).</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_146_146" id="Footnote_146_146"></a><a href="#FNanchor_146_146"><span class="label">[146]</span></a></span> -<i>Monuments sépulcraux</i>, plate lvi. Vasari, vol. iv. p. 218. Berti, p. 70.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_147_147" id="Footnote_147_147"></a><a href="#FNanchor_147_147"><span class="label">[147]</span></a></span> -<i>Monuments sépulcraux</i>, plate lv.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_148_148" id="Footnote_148_148"></a><a href="#FNanchor_148_148"><span class="label">[148]</span></a></span> -C. Pini, <i>La Scrittura di artisti Italiani</i>, cf. <i>supra</i>, p. 163.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_149_149" id="Footnote_149_149"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149_149"><span class="label">[149]</span></a></span> -Executed in 1436; a pendant to the equestrian figure of Niccolò Maruzzi of -Tolentino (d. 1434) by Andrea dal Castagno. The improper introduction of these -equestrian figures into churches paved the way for similar monuments in marble, -such as may be seen especially in Venice. In the cathedral of Florence was a -complete figure of Piero Farnese on a mule, as he rode to a fight with the Pisans -in 1363.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_150_150" id="Footnote_150_150"></a><a href="#FNanchor_150_150"><span class="label">[150]</span></a></span> -In this place, where we are concerned chiefly with the position of the Medici -in connection with the development of art, we cannot refer in detail to the literature, -which has been much enriched of late years by Gastano Milanesi’s researches among -the archives, on the Tuscan painters of the early quattrocento (<i>Giornale storico -degli Archivi Toscani</i>, vols. iv. and vi., and reprinted in <i>Sulla storia dell’arte Toscana</i>, -Siena 1873), made use of by Crowe and Cavalcaselle in their <i>History of Painting -in Italy</i>.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_151_151" id="Footnote_151_151"></a><a href="#FNanchor_151_151"><span class="label">[151]</span></a></span> -C. Pini, <i>Scrittura di Artisti</i>.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_152_152" id="Footnote_152_152"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152_152"><span class="label">[152]</span></a></span> -This is not the place to refer in detail to the confused notices in the Italian -art-historians. Vasari mentions these works, among others, in his Introduction, -l. c. i. 63.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_153_153" id="Footnote_153_153"></a><a href="#FNanchor_153_153"><span class="label">[153]</span></a></span> -Rinuccini, <i>Ricordi</i>, p. 251.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_154_154" id="Footnote_154_154"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154_154"><span class="label">[154]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. ii. 231. It is doubtful whether the sums given at the end of -the inventory are to be added up together, or whether the last represents the sum -total.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_155_155" id="Footnote_155_155"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155_155"><span class="label">[155]</span></a></span> -Letter to Giovanni de’ Medici, Bruges, June 22, 1488; in Gaye, l. c. p. 158.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_156_156" id="Footnote_156_156"></a><a href="#FNanchor_156_156"><span class="label">[156]</span></a></span> -Gaye, l. c. p. 163.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_157_157" id="Footnote_157_157"></a><a href="#FNanchor_157_157"><span class="label">[157]</span></a></span> -Gaye, l. c. p. 160.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_158_158" id="Footnote_158_158"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158_158"><span class="label">[158]</span></a></span> -Gaye, l. c. p. 136.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_159_159" id="Footnote_159_159"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159_159"><span class="label">[159]</span></a></span> -<i>Ibid.</i> p. 192.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_160_160" id="Footnote_160_160"></a><a href="#FNanchor_160_160"><span class="label">[160]</span></a></span> -Gaye, l. c. pp. 141, 175, 180. Cf. Crowe and Cavalcaselle, iii. 64, 65.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_161_161" id="Footnote_161_161"></a><a href="#FNanchor_161_161"><span class="label">[161]</span></a></span> -Complete edition by Gaetano and Carlo Milanese, <i>Il Libro dell’arte o Trattato -della Pittura</i> (Flor. 1859). There is a German translation, <i>Das Buch von der Kunst</i>, -&c., by Albert Ilg (Vienna, 1871). The general supposition, from Baldinucci down -to Tambroni, the first editor of the treatise (Rome, 1821), viz., that Cennini wrote -it in 1437 in the Stinche prison, is derived from a gloss to the Laurentian MS. -which proceeds from the copyist instead of referring to the author. The same -postil gave rise to the statement that a fresco in Giotto’s style, representing the -driving out of the Duke of Athens, and brought to light at the demolition of the -prison, was painted by Cennini. (Fr. Bacchi, <i>Illustratore Fiorentino</i>, pt. v., Flor. -1839).</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_162_162" id="Footnote_162_162"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162_162"><span class="label">[162]</span></a></span> -The second commentary, with the notices of modern art, is printed in Cicognara’s -<i>Storia della Scultura</i>, vol. iv., and more readably, together with some extracts -from the third, in Lemonnier’s edition of <i>Vasari</i>, vol. i. pp. v.-xxxv.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_163_163" id="Footnote_163_163"></a><a href="#FNanchor_163_163"><span class="label">[163]</span></a></span> -On Filarete’s treatise and the two dedications, cf. Vasari, iii. 290, 291, and -Gaye, i. 200-206, where will be found the dedication to Fr. Sforza. (Cf. <i>supra</i>, -p. 122.) Filarete gives us a foretaste of the art-phraseology of Federigo Zuccaro. -For the rest, he says to Sforza: ‘If my book is not elegant, take it as the work, -not of an orator nor of a Vitruvius, but of thy master-builder who cast the doors -of St. Peter’s.’</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_164_164" id="Footnote_164_164"></a><a href="#FNanchor_164_164"><span class="label">[164]</span></a></span> -N. Valori, l. c. p. 176.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_165_165" id="Footnote_165_165"></a><a href="#FNanchor_165_165"><span class="label">[165]</span></a></span> -Vasari, viii. 267. On the design of Andrea, see Waagen, <i>Kunstwerk und -Künstler in England</i>, i. 244. Cf. <i>posf</i>, p. 197 <i>seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_166_166" id="Footnote_166_166"></a><a href="#FNanchor_166_166"><span class="label">[166]</span></a></span> -Pini, <i>Scrittura d’Artisti</i>. Cf. A. v. Zahn, <i>Jahrbücher für Kunstwissenschaft</i>, -iv. 367.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_167_167" id="Footnote_167_167"></a><a href="#FNanchor_167_167"><span class="label">[167]</span></a></span> -Vasari, <i>Life of Giuliano</i>, iv. 1 <i>seq.</i> Gaye, l. c. in annis 1478, 1480, 1481.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_168_168" id="Footnote_168_168"></a><a href="#FNanchor_168_168"><span class="label">[168]</span></a></span> -A. Rossi, in the <i>Giornale di erudiz. artist.</i>, 1872, p. 97. Inscription: ‘Opus -Juliani Maiani et Dominici Taxi, Florentini, <span class="smcap">mcccclxxxxi</span>.’</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_169_169" id="Footnote_169_169"></a><a href="#FNanchor_169_169"><span class="label">[169]</span></a></span> -C. Milanesi, in the <i>Giorn. stor. degli Arch. Tosc.</i>, iii. 233, 234. Letters dated -Rome, February 1-20, 1478. In consequence of the Cardinal’s death in the summer -of 1479, the building remained unfinished.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_170_170" id="Footnote_170_170"></a><a href="#FNanchor_170_170"><span class="label">[170]</span></a></span> -Urbino, June 18, 1481. Gaye, l. c. p. 274.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_171_171" id="Footnote_171_171"></a><a href="#FNanchor_171_171"><span class="label">[171]</span></a></span> -S. Volpicelli, <i>Descrizione storica di alcuni principali edificii della città di -Napoli</i> (Naples 1850), p. 1 <i>seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_172_172" id="Footnote_172_172"></a><a href="#FNanchor_172_172"><span class="label">[172]</span></a></span> -Gaye, l. c. p. 300 (undated).</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_173_173" id="Footnote_173_173"></a><a href="#FNanchor_173_173"><span class="label">[173]</span></a></span> -<i>Vita di Fil. Strozzi il vecchio</i>, p. 22 <i>seq.</i> (Cf. i. 395.) Cf. also, Gaye, l. c. -p. 354 <i>seq.</i>, where are also notices by Luca Landucci, an apothecary, on the beginning -and progress of the work, and Filippo’s will. Vasari treats at length of the -palace and of the smith Caparri in his <i>Life of Cronaca</i>, viii. 116 <i>seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_174_174" id="Footnote_174_174"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174_174"><span class="label">[174]</span></a></span> -Gaye, l. c. <i>ibid.</i> A letter from Lorenzo, December 16, 1490, to Francesco -Gonzaga, in which he asks for leave of absence for Luca Fancelli. Whether the -latter went to Naples is uncertain; Francesco di Giorgio was there for some time -between February and May 1491.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_175_175" id="Footnote_175_175"></a><a href="#FNanchor_175_175"><span class="label">[175]</span></a></span> -Among Sangallo’s drawings in the Barberiniana at Rome. Gaye, l. c. p. 301. -Vasari, vii. 212, 213.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_176_176" id="Footnote_176_176"></a><a href="#FNanchor_176_176"><span class="label">[176]</span></a></span> -A. v. Zahn, <i>Notizie artistiche tratte dall’Archivio segreto Vaticano, Arch. -stor. Ital.</i>, ser. iii. vi. 171.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_177_177" id="Footnote_177_177"></a><a href="#FNanchor_177_177"><span class="label">[177]</span></a></span> -A. Guglielmotti, <i>Della rocca d’Ostia e delle condizioni dell’architettura -militare in Italia prima della calata di Carlo VIII.</i> (Rome 1862). C. Ravioli, -<i>Notizie sopra i lavori di architettura militare dei nove da Sangallo</i> (Rome 1863).</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_178_178" id="Footnote_178_178"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178_178"><span class="label">[178]</span></a></span> -The circumstance that the name Sangallo is to be found as early as 1485 -(notes to Vasari, l. c. p. 214) hardly tells against the truth of this story, as the -building was probably begun long before. The appearance of the name in the -collection of the Barberini drawings, begun in 1465, dates from a later time.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_179_179" id="Footnote_179_179"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179_179"><span class="label">[179]</span></a></span> -The Gondi Palace was finished in 1874, if not after the original design, at -least in the style of the part previously existing.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_180_180" id="Footnote_180_180"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180_180"><span class="label">[180]</span></a></span> -From a drawing of Bernardino Poccetti and other documents in the <i>Metropolitana -Fior. Illustr.</i>, plate xiv.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_181_181" id="Footnote_181_181"></a><a href="#FNanchor_181_181"><span class="label">[181]</span></a></span> -In the commentary on Vasari, vii. 243. Francesco Albertini mentions in his -<i>Memoriale</i> (see Crowe and Cavalcaselle, ii. 436) Lorenzo’s intention of finishing -the façade (‘la quale Lorenzo de’ Medici voleva levare e riducerla a perfectione’) -and his plan.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_182_182" id="Footnote_182_182"></a><a href="#FNanchor_182_182"><span class="label">[182]</span></a></span> -The façade now displays the naked rough brick wall.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_183_183" id="Footnote_183_183"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183_183"><span class="label">[183]</span></a></span> -Richa, ix. 11, <i>et seq.</i> Gaye, l. c., p. 570. Cf. i. 319.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_184_184" id="Footnote_184_184"></a><a href="#FNanchor_184_184"><span class="label">[184]</span></a></span> -Gaye, l. c. ii. 450. Pini, <i>Scrittura d’Artisti</i>.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_185_185" id="Footnote_185_185"></a><a href="#FNanchor_185_185"><span class="label">[185]</span></a></span> -Description by Poliziano in a letter to Francesco della Casa, <i>Epist.</i> l. iv. -ep. 8. D. M. Manni, <i>De Florentinis inventis</i> (Ferrara, 1730), c. 29. Cancellieri, -<i>Le nuove Campane di Campidoglio</i> (Rome, 1806), p. 8. Albertini mentions the -clock in the Palace of the Signoria in 1510; it was probably taken there in 1495.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_186_186" id="Footnote_186_186"></a><a href="#FNanchor_186_186"><span class="label">[186]</span></a></span> -Gaye, l. c. p. 254.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_187_187" id="Footnote_187_187"></a><a href="#FNanchor_187_187"><span class="label">[187]</span></a></span> -There is great confusion in Vasari, viii. 115, <i>et seq.</i> The commentary begins -its continuous dates only in 1495, chiefly from Gaye.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_188_188" id="Footnote_188_188"></a><a href="#FNanchor_188_188"><span class="label">[188]</span></a></span> -Moreni, <i>Contorni di Firenze</i>, v. 6, <i>et seq.</i> The chronology here is very confused; -it is no better in Moisè’s <i>Sta. Croce</i>, p. 90. The bells of San Marco were -hung in the belfry in 1498.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_189_189" id="Footnote_189_189"></a><a href="#FNanchor_189_189"><span class="label">[189]</span></a></span> -Diary of Luca Landini, in Vasari, l. c. p. 121.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_190_190" id="Footnote_190_190"></a><a href="#FNanchor_190_190"><span class="label">[190]</span></a></span> -Fr. Albertini, l. c., p. 442.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_191_191" id="Footnote_191_191"></a><a href="#FNanchor_191_191"><span class="label">[191]</span></a></span> -Cf. A. v. Zahn’s <i>Jahrbücher</i>, vi. p. 136.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_192_192" id="Footnote_192_192"></a><a href="#FNanchor_192_192"><span class="label">[192]</span></a></span> -Florence, February 13, 1498, in Gaye, l. c., p. 340.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_193_193" id="Footnote_193_193"></a><a href="#FNanchor_193_193"><span class="label">[193]</span></a></span> -The monument of Sixtus IV. was finished in 1493 for Card. Giuliano della -Rovere (Julius II.). That of Innocent VIII. must not be judged from its present -mutilated condition.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_194_194" id="Footnote_194_194"></a><a href="#FNanchor_194_194"><span class="label">[194]</span></a></span> -<i>Monuments sépulcraux</i>, plate iv. Inscription (by Poliziano):</p> -<p class="pfe">ILLE EGO SUM PER QUEM PICTURA EXTINCTA REVIXIT<br /> -CUI QUAM RECTA MANUS TAM FUIT ET FACILIS<br /> -NATURÆ DEERAT NOSTRÆ QUOD DEFUIT ARTI<br /> -PLUS LICUIT NULLI PINGERE NEC MELIUS<br /> -MIRARIS TURREM EGREGIAM SACRO ÆRE SONANTEM<br /> -HÆC QUOQUE DE MODULO CREVIT AD ASTRA MEO<br /> -DENIQUE SUM IOCTUS QUID OPUS FUIT ILLA REFERRE<br /> -HOC NOMEN LONGI CARMINIS INSTAR ERAT<br /> -OB. AN. MCCCXXXVI. CIVES POS. B. M. MCCCCLXXXX.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_195_195" id="Footnote_195_195"></a><a href="#FNanchor_195_195"><span class="label">[195]</span></a></span> -Del Migliore, l. c., p. 36. Richa, vi. 121. <i>Monuments sépulcraux</i>, plate vi. -Inscription (attributed to Lorenzo):</p> -<p class="pfe">MULTUM PROFECTO DEBET MUSICA ANTONIO<br /> -SQUARCIALUPO ORGANISTE IS ENIM ITA ARTI<br /> -GRATIAM CONIUNXIT UT QUARTAM SIBI VID<br /> -ERENTUR CHARITES MUSICAM ASCIVISSE SO<br /> -ROREM FLORENTINA CIVITAS ORATI ANIMI<br /> -OFFICIUM RATA EIUS MEMORIAM PROPAGARE<br /> -CUIUS MANUS SEPE MORTALES IN DULCEM AD<br /> -MIRATIONEM ADDUXERAT CIVI SUO MONU<br /> -MENTUM POSUIT.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_196_196" id="Footnote_196_196"></a><a href="#FNanchor_196_196"><span class="label">[196]</span></a></span> -Engraved in seven plates by G. P. Lasinio (Flor. 1823). Mellini’s bust is in -the Uffizi collection.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_197_197" id="Footnote_197_197"></a><a href="#FNanchor_197_197"><span class="label">[197]</span></a></span> -<i>Monuments sépulcraux</i>, plate liii.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_198_198" id="Footnote_198_198"></a><a href="#FNanchor_198_198"><span class="label">[198]</span></a></span> -<i>Monuments sépulcraux</i>, plate xxiv. Inscription: ‘Bernardo Junio eq<sup>ti</sup> Flor<sup>no</sup> -pu<sup>aes</sup> concordiæ. semper. auctori. et. civi. vere. populari. pii. fratres. fratri. -de. se. deq. rep<sup>ea</sup> opt<sup>o</sup> merito. posuerunt.—Vixit ann. LXVIIII. men. VI. di. XII. -Obiit ann. MCCCCLXVI. Opus Mini.—Cf. i. 145.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_199_199" id="Footnote_199_199"></a><a href="#FNanchor_199_199"><span class="label">[199]</span></a></span> -<i>Paradiso</i>, xvi. 127. <i>Monuments sépulcraux</i>, plate xxiv.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_200_200" id="Footnote_200_200"></a><a href="#FNanchor_200_200"><span class="label">[200]</span></a></span> -<i>Monuments sépulcraux</i>, plate xlv. Cf. Crowe and Cavalcaselle, iii. 230.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_201_201" id="Footnote_201_201"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201_201"><span class="label">[201]</span></a></span> -Represented in Cicognara, vol. ii. plate xv.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_202_202" id="Footnote_202_202"></a><a href="#FNanchor_202_202"><span class="label">[202]</span></a></span> -Plates and details in Cicognara, Litta, and Colas’ <i>Trésor de Numismatique et -de Glyptique</i>. See Vasari’s <i>Life of Pisanello</i>, ii. 152, <i>et seq.</i> On Guazzalotti, see -Julius Friedländer (Berlin, 1857), trans. by Cesare Guasti (Prato, 1862), with notes -and documents, among which is a letter from Guazzalotti to Lorenzo, dated September -11, 1478.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_203_203" id="Footnote_203_203"></a><a href="#FNanchor_203_203"><span class="label">[203]</span></a></span> -V. da Bisticci, l. c., p. 476.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_204_204" id="Footnote_204_204"></a><a href="#FNanchor_204_204"><span class="label">[204]</span></a></span> -Vasari, l. c., iii. 112. On the Medicean treasures. Cf. <i>ante</i>, p. 132.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_205_205" id="Footnote_205_205"></a><a href="#FNanchor_205_205"><span class="label">[205]</span></a></span> -Vasari, <i>Life of Valerio Vicentino</i>, ix. 236, <i>et seq.</i> G. Pelli, in his <i>Saggio -istorico della R. Galeria di Firenze</i> (Flor. 1779), i. 8, <i>et seq.</i>, ii. 9, <i>et seq.</i>, gives -some account of the Medici collections. In the Museum of Naples alone (formerly -in the palace of Capodimonte) are preserved more than twenty cameos with Lorenzo’s -name, and a great number of gems set as rings. They came from a Bourbon-Parma -inheritance, many of the family treasures having passed, through Margaret -of Austria, wife of Duke Alessandro de’ Medici, to her son by her second marriage, -Alessandro Farnese, and, at the extinction of the Farnese family, to the Spanish -Bourbons. The question whether all the stones marked with Lorenzo’s name or -with the initials L. M. are modern, or whether the name or initials were also engraved -on antique gems to indicate the owner, cannot be discussed here. The -epigram:</p> -<p class="pfe">COELATUM ARGENTO VEL FULVO QUIDQUID IN AURO EST<br /> -ÆDIBUS HOC LAURENS VIDIMUS ESSE TUIS, &C.</p> -<p class="pfn4">is in Bandini’s Catalogue of the Laurentian MSS., iii. 545.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_206_206" id="Footnote_206_206"></a><a href="#FNanchor_206_206"><span class="label">[206]</span></a></span> -Perfetti, <i>Galeria dell’Accad. delle b. Arti</i> (Flor. 1845). The collection in the -Academy contains many important works of this period.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_207_207" id="Footnote_207_207"></a><a href="#FNanchor_207_207"><span class="label">[207]</span></a></span> -Now in the English National Gallery. Outline in Crowe and Cavalcaselle, -iii. 132.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_208_208" id="Footnote_208_208"></a><a href="#FNanchor_208_208"><span class="label">[208]</span></a></span> -Cf. <i>ante</i>, p. 40. Engraving in the <i>Metropolitana fior. illustr.</i>, plate xxxvii. -Remarks in Gaye, l. c., ii. 5. Cf. <i>ibid.</i>, i. 563.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_209_209" id="Footnote_209_209"></a><a href="#FNanchor_209_209"><span class="label">[209]</span></a></span> -Vasari, iv. 102, 103.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_210_210" id="Footnote_210_210"></a><a href="#FNanchor_210_210"><span class="label">[210]</span></a></span> -Vasari, v. 115.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_211_211" id="Footnote_211_211"></a><a href="#FNanchor_211_211"><span class="label">[211]</span></a></span> -<i>Galeria dell Acc. delle B. A.</i>, engraved by F. Livy.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_212_212" id="Footnote_212_212"></a><a href="#FNanchor_212_212"><span class="label">[212]</span></a></span> -Lucrezia Tornabuoni Medici, in the Berlin Museum (No. 81), wrongly described -as the wife of Lorenzo, a mistake repeated in Crowe and Cavalcaselle (l. c., -p. 173) from Vasari, but corrected in Lemonnier’s edition, l. c, p. 121. The Bella -Simonetta is in the Pitti Palace; there is an engraving by L. Calamatta in his -work on the Bardi gallery.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_213_213" id="Footnote_213_213"></a><a href="#FNanchor_213_213"><span class="label">[213]</span></a></span> -Cf. i. 405. G. Milanesi, <i>Sulla Storia dell’Arte Toscana</i>, p. 292. Crowe and -Cavalcaselle (iii. 159) strangely see in this commission a proof of the estimation -in which Botticelli was held as an artist. These pictures of shame, with which -tardy debtors were also punished, <i>e.g.</i> Ranuccio Farnese in 1425 (Gaye, l. c., i. -550) were not much relished by artists, and seem to have been only executed at a -high price; in this case it was forty florins. Andrea del Castagno, to whom -Vasari erroneously attributed these paintings, which were executed more than -forty years after his death, received from a similar commission in 1445 the surname -‘degli Impiccati,’ which poor Andrea del Sarto seems to have likewise -dreaded during the siege in 1530.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_214_214" id="Footnote_214_214"></a><a href="#FNanchor_214_214"><span class="label">[214]</span></a></span> -Contract dated April 21, 1487 (remarkable for the reservations on the part -of the employer), in Lorenzo Strozzi’s <i>Vita di Filippo Strozzi il Vecchio</i>, p. 60, -<i>et seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_215_215" id="Footnote_215_215"></a><a href="#FNanchor_215_215"><span class="label">[215]</span></a></span> -Now in the Uffizi. Gaye, in the <i>Kunstblatt</i>, 1836, No. 90, and Carteggio, i. -579-581.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_216_216" id="Footnote_216_216"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216_216"><span class="label">[216]</span></a></span> -Engraved in Litta, <i>Fam. Medici</i>.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_217_217" id="Footnote_217_217"></a><a href="#FNanchor_217_217"><span class="label">[217]</span></a></span> -The fresco in Sant’Ambrogio is dated, not 1465, as it was read by Rumohr -(<i>Ital. Forsch.</i>, ii. 262), on the picture, which is much blackened and varnished, but -1486, according to G. Milanesi, in Crowe and Cavalcaselle, l. c., p. 291.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_218_218" id="Footnote_218_218"></a><a href="#FNanchor_218_218"><span class="label">[218]</span></a></span> -An. <span class="smcap">MCCCCLXXXX.</span>, quo pulcherrima civitas opibus victoriis artibus ædificiisque -nobilis copia salubritate pace perfruebatur.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_219_219" id="Footnote_219_219"></a><a href="#FNanchor_219_219"><span class="label">[219]</span></a></span> -Father Della Valle gave the various names in a note to Vasari (also in -Lemonnier’s edition, v. 76) from documents in the Tornabuoni family. On the -female portraits, cf. Palmerini, <i>Opere d’intaglio del cav. Raff. Morghen</i> (Pisa, 1824), -p. 108 <i>et seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_220_220" id="Footnote_220_220"></a><a href="#FNanchor_220_220"><span class="label">[220]</span></a></span> -The ‘Education of Pan’, formerly in the Corsi Palace, is now in the Berlin -Museum. Sketch in Crowe and Cavalcaselle, iv. 5.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_221_221" id="Footnote_221_221"></a><a href="#FNanchor_221_221"><span class="label">[221]</span></a></span> -Miniature painting can only be treated of very briefly here. The editors of -Lemonnier’s <i>Vasari</i> have added much information to the biographies of Fra -Angelico (iv. 25, <i>et seq.</i>), Don Bartolommeo (v. 44, <i>et seq.</i> [on Attavante, <i>see</i> -p. 55]), Gherardo (<i>ibid.</i> p. 60, <i>et seq.</i>), &c., and furnished materials valuable for a -history of Florentine and Sienese art, in a detailed commentary (vi. 159-351). -On the Dominicans, cf. V. Marchese, <i>Memorie</i>, i. 171-210. In the same author’s -work on San Marco are drawings of two miniatures by Fra Benedetto. The passages -referring to the treasures of Urbino, Upper Italy, &c., may be passed over -here.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_222_222" id="Footnote_222_222"></a><a href="#FNanchor_222_222"><span class="label">[222]</span></a></span> -Vasari, iv. 105; v. 60, 83; vi. 167; xi. 286.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_223_223" id="Footnote_223_223"></a><a href="#FNanchor_223_223"><span class="label">[223]</span></a></span> -xii. 11. Cf. <i>Life of Torrigiano</i>, vii. 204, and of Michel Angelo, xii. 157.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_224_224" id="Footnote_224_224"></a><a href="#FNanchor_224_224"><span class="label">[224]</span></a></span> -The old tradition which has come down to our own days, which derives the -Buonarotti Simoni from the Counts of Canossa (and which was believed in the -family itself in Michelangelo’s days, as must be concluded from Ascanio Condivi’s -words in his biography, published during the artist’s lifetime), rests on no historical -foundation. Cf. G. Campori, <i>Catalogo degli artisti sc. negli Stati Estensi</i> (Modena -1855), p. 100 <i>et seq.</i> The noble family of Buonarotti has of late years become extinct -in Florence. Lodovico, Michelangelo’s father, was already connected with -the Medici when holding an official post in the Casentino, where his son was born -within view of the great mountain of Alvernia—the <i>crudo sasso</i> of the <i>Divine -Comedy</i>.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_225_225" id="Footnote_225_225"></a><a href="#FNanchor_225_225"><span class="label">[225]</span></a></span> -G. Milanesi, <i>Documenti inediti riguardanti Leonardo da Vinci</i>, in the <i>Arch. -stor. Ital.</i>, ser. iii. xvi. 219.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_226_226" id="Footnote_226_226"></a><a href="#FNanchor_226_226"><span class="label">[226]</span></a></span> -Ant. Montecatino to Ercole d’Este (Flor., December 17, 1482), in Cappelli, -l. c. p. 265.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_227_227" id="Footnote_227_227"></a><a href="#FNanchor_227_227"><span class="label">[227]</span></a></span> -Provisioni della Republica fiorentina dei 10 e 19 Aprile 1480, per la formazione -dell’ordine dei Settanta, in the Appendix to Jacopo Pitti, l. c. p. 313 <i>et seq.</i>, with -Gino Capponi’s introduction. Cf. Cambia, l. c. ii. 1 <i>et seq.</i>, for the names of the -Signori, the colleges, the original thirty and the two hundred and ten citizens entrusted -with the election business. A. Rinuccini, <i>Ricordi</i>, p. cxxi. <i>et seq.</i>; J. Pitti, -p. 25; Fr. Guicciardini, p. 61.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_228_228" id="Footnote_228_228"></a><a href="#FNanchor_228_228"><span class="label">[228]</span></a></span> -Cf. <i>ante</i>, vol. i. bk. ii. ch. 4.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_229_229" id="Footnote_229_229"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229_229"><span class="label">[229]</span></a></span> -L. c. p. 174.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_230_230" id="Footnote_230_230"></a><a href="#FNanchor_230_230"><span class="label">[230]</span></a></span> -<i>Ricordi</i>, l. c. p. cxxxv.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_231_231" id="Footnote_231_231"></a><a href="#FNanchor_231_231"><span class="label">[231]</span></a></span> -Canestrini, l. c. p. 237 <i>et seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_232_232" id="Footnote_232_232"></a><a href="#FNanchor_232_232"><span class="label">[232]</span></a></span> -Bartolommeo Signippi, chancellor of the Ferrarese embassy, to Ant. Montecatino, -Flor. June 3 and 6; Montecatino to Ercole d’Este, June 9, 1481, in Cappelli, -l. c. pp. 253-255.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_233_233" id="Footnote_233_233"></a><a href="#FNanchor_233_233"><span class="label">[233]</span></a></span> -Ercole d’Este to Ant. Montecatino, Ferrara, January 10, 1482, in Cappelli, -l. c. p. 259.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_234_234" id="Footnote_234_234"></a><a href="#FNanchor_234_234"><span class="label">[234]</span></a></span> -For a detailed account of the ceremony, see Ant. Montecatino to Ercole d’Este, -Flor., October 2, 3, 8, 1481, in Cappelli, l. c. pp. 255-258.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_235_235" id="Footnote_235_235"></a><a href="#FNanchor_235_235"><span class="label">[235]</span></a></span> -Marin Sanuto, <i>Commentarii della guerra di Ferrara nel 1482</i>. (Venice 1829, -ed. by Leonardo Manin). Sanuto was an eye-witness of the events of the war. -Many details are given by Malipiero, who took part in the naval war. Romanin, -book xi. ch. 4 (iv. 401 <i>et seq.</i>).</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_236_236" id="Footnote_236_236"></a><a href="#FNanchor_236_236"><span class="label">[236]</span></a></span> -Fac. Volaterr., l. c. col. 173.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_237_237" id="Footnote_237_237"></a><a href="#FNanchor_237_237"><span class="label">[237]</span></a></span> -Godefroy, <i>Histoire de Charles VIII.</i> (Paris 1684). Documents, p. 312. C. -de Cherrier, <i>Histoire de Charles VIII.</i> (Par. 1868), i. 32. U. Legeay, <i>Histoire de -Louis XI.</i> (Paris 1874), ii. 444. [Very meagre with regard to Louis’ Italian -transactions].</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_238_238" id="Footnote_238_238"></a><a href="#FNanchor_238_238"><span class="label">[238]</span></a></span> -For details of the battle of Campomorto (S. Pietro in Formis), see the Roman -diaries and Montecatino’s reports to Ercole d’Este in Cappelli, l. c. p. 260 <i>et seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_239_239" id="Footnote_239_239"></a><a href="#FNanchor_239_239"><span class="label">[239]</span></a></span> -Gino Capponi, <i>Storia della Republica Fiorentina</i> (Flor. 1874), ii. 149.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_240_240" id="Footnote_240_240"></a><a href="#FNanchor_240_240"><span class="label">[240]</span></a></span> -Coleti, in Farlati’s <i>Illyricum sacrum</i>, vii. 438 <i>et seq.</i> Jacopo Volterrano, -Stefano Infessura, and the unpublished histories of Sigismondo de’ Conti and -Rinaldus, give many details. Jacob Burckhardt’s <i>Andreas Erzbischof von Krain</i> -(Basel, 1852) gives an authentic account of the proceedings at Basel. Cf. <i>Arch. -stor. Ital.</i>, N. S., vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 249 <i>et seq.</i> Ugolini’s letter to Lorenzo, in Fabroni, -l. c. ii. 227-233.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_241_241" id="Footnote_241_241"></a><a href="#FNanchor_241_241"><span class="label">[241]</span></a></span> -Instruction of February 5, 1483, in Fabroni, l. c. ii. 241-243.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_242_242" id="Footnote_242_242"></a><a href="#FNanchor_242_242"><span class="label">[242]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. ii. 243.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_243_243" id="Footnote_243_243"></a><a href="#FNanchor_243_243"><span class="label">[243]</span></a></span> -Cappelli, l. c. p. 245.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_244_244" id="Footnote_244_244"></a><a href="#FNanchor_244_244"><span class="label">[244]</span></a></span> -Fr. Guicciardini, l. c. p. 66, is doubtful as to the presence of Riario; he is -not mentioned in Ant. Campo, <i>Cremona fedelissima città</i> (Milan, 1582), p. 133. -He is named as one of those present by Malevolti, l. c. pt. iii. p. 90.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_245_245" id="Footnote_245_245"></a><a href="#FNanchor_245_245"><span class="label">[245]</span></a></span> -Ant. Montecatino to Ercole d’Este, Flor. February 28, 1483, in Cappelli, l. c. -p. 265.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_246_246" id="Footnote_246_246"></a><a href="#FNanchor_246_246"><span class="label">[246]</span></a></span> -<i>Itinerario di Marin Sanuto per la Terraferma Veneziana nell’anno 1483</i> -(ed. by Rawdon Browne, Padua, 1847), p. 51.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_247_247" id="Footnote_247_247"></a><a href="#FNanchor_247_247"><span class="label">[247]</span></a></span> -Despatches to the envoy Antonio Loredano, January to February 1484. Cf. -Romanin, iv. 415. Montecatino to Ercole d’Este, Flor. April 8, 1483, in Cappelli, -l. c. p. 266.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_248_248" id="Footnote_248_248"></a><a href="#FNanchor_248_248"><span class="label">[248]</span></a></span> -Nic. Valori, l. c. p. 175.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_249_249" id="Footnote_249_249"></a><a href="#FNanchor_249_249"><span class="label">[249]</span></a></span> -Ant. Montecatino to Ercole d’Este, Flor. July 23, 1484, in Cappelli, l. c. -p. 269.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_250_250" id="Footnote_250_250"></a><a href="#FNanchor_250_250"><span class="label">[250]</span></a></span> -<i>Mémoires</i>, l. vii. ch. 2.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_251_251" id="Footnote_251_251"></a><a href="#FNanchor_251_251"><span class="label">[251]</span></a></span> -Guid’Antonio Vespucci to Lorenzo de’ Medici, Rome, October 23 and -November 3, 1483, in Fabroni, l. c. ii. 243-252. Ant. Montecatino to Ercole -d’Este, Flor., May 25, 1484, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 268.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_252_252" id="Footnote_252_252"></a><a href="#FNanchor_252_252"><span class="label">[252]</span></a></span> -Malevolti, l. c. pt. iii. p. 87.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_253_253" id="Footnote_253_253"></a><a href="#FNanchor_253_253"><span class="label">[253]</span></a></span> -<i>Inferno</i>, xxix. 122. <i>Purgatorio</i>, xiii. 151.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_254_254" id="Footnote_254_254"></a><a href="#FNanchor_254_254"><span class="label">[254]</span></a></span> -Letter of February 26, 1483, in Fabroni, l. c. ii. 243.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_255_255" id="Footnote_255_255"></a><a href="#FNanchor_255_255"><span class="label">[255]</span></a></span> -Jac. Volterrano, <i>Diarium Romanum</i> for 1480. Muratori, l. c. col. 109.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_256_256" id="Footnote_256_256"></a><a href="#FNanchor_256_256"><span class="label">[256]</span></a></span> -G. Viani, <i>Memorie della famiglia Cybò</i>, Pisa, 1808.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_257_257" id="Footnote_257_257"></a><a href="#FNanchor_257_257"><span class="label">[257]</span></a></span> -Rome, August 29, 1484, in Fabroni, l. c. ii. 256, 259.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_258_258" id="Footnote_258_258"></a><a href="#FNanchor_258_258"><span class="label">[258]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. ii. 262.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_259_259" id="Footnote_259_259"></a><a href="#FNanchor_259_259"><span class="label">[259]</span></a></span> -<i>Johannis Burchardi Diarium</i>, ed. A. Generelli (Flor. 1854), p. 57. <i>Ibid.</i> Instructions, -from the Florentine Archives.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_260_260" id="Footnote_260_260"></a><a href="#FNanchor_260_260"><span class="label">[260]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. ii. 263. Doc. of November 26, 1484.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_261_261" id="Footnote_261_261"></a><a href="#FNanchor_261_261"><span class="label">[261]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. ii. 263.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_262_262" id="Footnote_262_262"></a><a href="#FNanchor_262_262"><span class="label">[262]</span></a></span> -Desjardins, l. c. p. 175.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_263_263" id="Footnote_263_263"></a><a href="#FNanchor_263_263"><span class="label">[263]</span></a></span> -‘Les Florentins se sont tousjours monstrés et exhibés, de tel et si ancien -temps que ne est mémoire du contraire, vrays et loyaulx Françoys ... et si -trouvent les lois et coustumes qui leurs furent baillés par Monseigneur Saint -Charlemagne.’</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_264_264" id="Footnote_264_264"></a><a href="#FNanchor_264_264"><span class="label">[264]</span></a></span> -Desjardins, l. c. p. 191.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_265_265" id="Footnote_265_265"></a><a href="#FNanchor_265_265"><span class="label">[265]</span></a></span> -Instructions of November 8, 1483, and other documents relating to the -embassy, in Desjardins, l. c. p. 193 <i>et seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_266_266" id="Footnote_266_266"></a><a href="#FNanchor_266_266"><span class="label">[266]</span></a></span> -<i>Med. Arch.</i>, f. 56. Printed in A. Gelli; rev. by De Cherrier, <i>Arch. stor. -Ital.</i>, ser. iii. vol. xv. 289.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_267_267" id="Footnote_267_267"></a><a href="#FNanchor_267_267"><span class="label">[267]</span></a></span> -Cappelli, l. c. p. 298. The expression is: ‘Che non voglia investire Massimiliano -de l’Imperio de’ Romani.’</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_268_268" id="Footnote_268_268"></a><a href="#FNanchor_268_268"><span class="label">[268]</span></a></span> -Report of Guid’Ant. Vespucci, Rome, September 18, in Burchard, <i>Diarium</i>, -p. 51.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_269_269" id="Footnote_269_269"></a><a href="#FNanchor_269_269"><span class="label">[269]</span></a></span> -Letter of Pier Filippo Pandolfini, Milan, September 24, 1484, l. c. p. 51.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_270_270" id="Footnote_270_270"></a><a href="#FNanchor_270_270"><span class="label">[270]</span></a></span> -Reports of the Ferrarese ambassador, A. Guidoni, Flor. April 1485, &c., in -Cappelli, l. c. p. 269 <i>et seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_271_271" id="Footnote_271_271"></a><a href="#FNanchor_271_271"><span class="label">[271]</span></a></span> -Archives of the Riformagioni at Siena.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_272_272" id="Footnote_272_272"></a><a href="#FNanchor_272_272"><span class="label">[272]</span></a></span> -A. Guidoni to Ercole d’Este, Flor. April 6, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 269. Ranuccio -was first cousin to Pope Paul III.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_273_273" id="Footnote_273_273"></a><a href="#FNanchor_273_273"><span class="label">[273]</span></a></span> -Archives at Siena.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_274_274" id="Footnote_274_274"></a><a href="#FNanchor_274_274"><span class="label">[274]</span></a></span> -N. Valori, l. c. p. 175.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_275_275" id="Footnote_275_275"></a><a href="#FNanchor_275_275"><span class="label">[275]</span></a></span> -<i>Regis Ferdinandi primi Instructionum liber</i>, 1486-87 (ed. by Scipione -Vopicella, Naples, 1861), p. 87 <i>et seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_276_276" id="Footnote_276_276"></a><a href="#FNanchor_276_276"><span class="label">[276]</span></a></span> -<i>Ricordi</i>, p. cxl.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_277_277" id="Footnote_277_277"></a><a href="#FNanchor_277_277"><span class="label">[277]</span></a></span> -Commines, <i>Mémoires</i>, l. vii. ch. 11. M. Sanuto, <i>Chron. Ven.</i> (<i>Comment. de -Bello Gallico</i>), <i>R. Ital. Ser.</i>, xxiv. pp. 12-16. Alfonso was called ‘the idol of the -flesh’ (<i>dio della carne</i>).</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_278_278" id="Footnote_278_278"></a><a href="#FNanchor_278_278"><span class="label">[278]</span></a></span> -<i>Cronaca di Notar-Giacomo</i>, p. 156.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_279_279" id="Footnote_279_279"></a><a href="#FNanchor_279_279"><span class="label">[279]</span></a></span> -Romanin, l. c. pp. 421, 422.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_280_280" id="Footnote_280_280"></a><a href="#FNanchor_280_280"><span class="label">[280]</span></a></span> -On G. Albino, the historian of his time, cf. C. Minieri Riccio, <i>Memorie -storiche degli scrittori nati nel Regno di Napoli</i>.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_281_281" id="Footnote_281_281"></a><a href="#FNanchor_281_281"><span class="label">[281]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. ii. 268.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_282_282" id="Footnote_282_282"></a><a href="#FNanchor_282_282"><span class="label">[282]</span></a></span> -A. Guidoni to E. d’Este, Flor., November 11, 1485, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 273. -The Ferrarese despatches contain many details of all these affairs. Scipione -Ammirato, in his twenty-fifth book, is a trustworthy guide.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_283_283" id="Footnote_283_283"></a><a href="#FNanchor_283_283"><span class="label">[283]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. ii. 269.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_284_284" id="Footnote_284_284"></a><a href="#FNanchor_284_284"><span class="label">[284]</span></a></span> -Letter of the Anziani, May 15, 1485, Lucca archives.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_285_285" id="Footnote_285_285"></a><a href="#FNanchor_285_285"><span class="label">[285]</span></a></span> -L. c. p. 177.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_286_286" id="Footnote_286_286"></a><a href="#FNanchor_286_286"><span class="label">[286]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. ii. 268.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_287_287" id="Footnote_287_287"></a><a href="#FNanchor_287_287"><span class="label">[287]</span></a></span> -Lorenzo to Albino, l. c.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_288_288" id="Footnote_288_288"></a><a href="#FNanchor_288_288"><span class="label">[288]</span></a></span> -A. Guidoni, November 28 and 30, 1485, l. c. p. 274.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_289_289" id="Footnote_289_289"></a><a href="#FNanchor_289_289"><span class="label">[289]</span></a></span> -Burcard, l. c. p. 72, 73.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_290_290" id="Footnote_290_290"></a><a href="#FNanchor_290_290"><span class="label">[290]</span></a></span> -Vinc. Acciaiuolo, <i>Vita di Piero Capponi</i>, l. c. p. 20 <i>et seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_291_291" id="Footnote_291_291"></a><a href="#FNanchor_291_291"><span class="label">[291]</span></a></span> -Trivulzio’s letters to the Duke of Milan from Florence, Montepulciano, -Cortona, Pitigliano, and afterwards from the camp of the League, from February 21, -1486, onwards, are in Rosmini, l. c. ii. 130 <i>et seq.</i>, with the despatches addressed to -him from Milan.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_292_292" id="Footnote_292_292"></a><a href="#FNanchor_292_292"><span class="label">[292]</span></a></span> -Letter of A. Sforza to his nephew the Duke of Milan, March 6, 1486, copies -of which were sent on the same day to the Duke of Calabria, and by P. Capponi -to Lorenzo. Appendix to the life of P. Capponi, <i>Arch. Stor. Ital.</i>, vol. iv. pt. 2, -p. 66-71.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_293_293" id="Footnote_293_293"></a><a href="#FNanchor_293_293"><span class="label">[293]</span></a></span> -<i>Storia fiorentina</i>, ch. viii. The Ferrarese reports in Cappelli, p. 274-286, contain -much that gives an insight into the position of affairs.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_294_294" id="Footnote_294_294"></a><a href="#FNanchor_294_294"><span class="label">[294]</span></a></span> -V. Acciaiuolo, l. c. p. 24.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_295_295" id="Footnote_295_295"></a><a href="#FNanchor_295_295"><span class="label">[295]</span></a></span> -A. Guidoni, Flor., August 13, 1486, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 285. G. J. Trivulzio -to the Duke of Milan, from the camp at Ponzano, August 12, in Rosmini, ii. 150. -Rinuccini, <i>Ricordi</i>, p. cxlii.: <i>poi per manco male si accettò</i>.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_296_296" id="Footnote_296_296"></a><a href="#FNanchor_296_296"><span class="label">[296]</span></a></span> -<i>R. Ferdinandi Instruct.</i> L., p. 153. The Duke of Calabria had written to -the same effect to Filippo Strozzi, on November 27, 1486, from the camp. <i>Vita -di Fil. Strozzi il vecchio</i>, p. 36.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_297_297" id="Footnote_297_297"></a><a href="#FNanchor_297_297"><span class="label">[297]</span></a></span> -Camillo Porgio’s masterly account, <i>La Congiura dei Baroni del Regno di -Napoli contra il Re Ferdinando I.</i> (first printed at Rome in 1565) contains many -illustrations and corrections from the <i>Regis Ferdinandi Instructionum Liber</i> (unfortunately -not printed complete), and from the two suits against the king’s private -secretaries and barons, which were printed in 1487 and 1488 by Ferrante’s command -and sent to the foreign courts, and reprinted with notes by Stanislao d’Aloe -as an appendix to his edition of Porgio (Naples, 1859).</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_298_298" id="Footnote_298_298"></a><a href="#FNanchor_298_298"><span class="label">[298]</span></a></span> -The King to Lorenzo, Castelnuovo, June 3, 1487. Fabroni, l. c. ii. 275.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_299_299" id="Footnote_299_299"></a><a href="#FNanchor_299_299"><span class="label">[299]</span></a></span> -Giov. Lanfredini to the Signoria, Naples, September 27, 1486, in Bandini, -<i>Collectio</i>, &c. p. 10.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_300_300" id="Footnote_300_300"></a><a href="#FNanchor_300_300"><span class="label">[300]</span></a></span> -Guidoni’s reports (in Cappelli) contain a number of notices and hints from -which Lorenzo’s state of mind at the time of the treaty of 1486 and his relations -with the allies may be clearly made out. On Sarzanello, see Carlo Promis, <i>Storia -del forte di Sarzanello</i> (Turin, 1888). From one of Guidoni’s reports it appears -that the Florentines also used mines: ‘sperasi <i>per certe cave fatte</i> ... che S. Francesco -si acquisterà fra due dì.’</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_301_301" id="Footnote_301_301"></a><a href="#FNanchor_301_301"><span class="label">[301]</span></a></span> -R. Ferdinandi Instr. L., p. 245.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_302_302" id="Footnote_302_302"></a><a href="#FNanchor_302_302"><span class="label">[302]</span></a></span> -The fullest detailed account of Boccalino de’ Guzzoni is given by Bernardino -Baldi in the second book of his history of Guidubaldo of Montefeltro (Milan, 1821). -Cf. Ugolini, <i>Storia dei conti e duchi d’Urbino</i>, ii. 49, <i>et seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_303_303" id="Footnote_303_303"></a><a href="#FNanchor_303_303"><span class="label">[303]</span></a></span> -Lodovico to G. J. Trivulzio, Milan, April 29, 1486, in Rosmini, ii. 158. -<i>Ibid.</i> other documents relating to this affair.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_304_304" id="Footnote_304_304"></a><a href="#FNanchor_304_304"><span class="label">[304]</span></a></span> -Burcard, <i>Diarium</i>. p. 88.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_305_305" id="Footnote_305_305"></a><a href="#FNanchor_305_305"><span class="label">[305]</span></a></span> -The Medicean Archives, F. 57, contain numerous documents relating to Osimo -and Boccalino.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_306_306" id="Footnote_306_306"></a><a href="#FNanchor_306_306"><span class="label">[306]</span></a></span> -Florence, August 8, 1487. <i>Med. Arch.</i> F. 57. In a letter of November 24, -referring to Boccalino’s nephew, who was kept in prison at Rome, and afterwards -executed, he expresses himself still more strongly. ‘Stimo questa coss ... quanto -la vita propria, perchè</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_307_307" id="Footnote_307_307"></a><a href="#FNanchor_307_307"><span class="label">[307]</span></a></span> -Cappelli, l. c. p. 244. <i>Ibid.</i>, letter, same date (March 25, 1482), to the Duke. -In the register of Lorenzo’s letters are no less than 27 despatched on the same -day to princes and ambassadors to announce Lucrezia’s death.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_308_308" id="Footnote_308_308"></a><a href="#FNanchor_308_308"><span class="label">[308]</span></a></span> -A. Guidoni, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 292.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_309_309" id="Footnote_309_309"></a><a href="#FNanchor_309_309"><span class="label">[309]</span></a></span> -R. Ferd. Instr. L., p. 222.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_310_310" id="Footnote_310_310"></a><a href="#FNanchor_310_310"><span class="label">[310]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. ii. 313.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_311_311" id="Footnote_311_311"></a><a href="#FNanchor_311_311"><span class="label">[311]</span></a></span> -Burcard, <i>Diarium</i>, p. 87.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_312_312" id="Footnote_312_312"></a><a href="#FNanchor_312_312"><span class="label">[312]</span></a></span> -R. Ferd. Instr. L., p. 217 <i>et seq.</i> Cf. supra p. 265.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_313_313" id="Footnote_313_313"></a><a href="#FNanchor_313_313"><span class="label">[313]</span></a></span> -A. Guidoni, Flor., July 7, 1487, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 295.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_314_314" id="Footnote_314_314"></a><a href="#FNanchor_314_314"><span class="label">[314]</span></a></span> -<i>Med. Arch.</i>, fol. 57. There are a number of despatches of this and a somewhat -later time relating to this affair.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_315_315" id="Footnote_315_315"></a><a href="#FNanchor_315_315"><span class="label">[315]</span></a></span> -Rainaldi, <i>Ann. eccl.</i> in anno 1487, Doc. x.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_316_316" id="Footnote_316_316"></a><a href="#FNanchor_316_316"><span class="label">[316]</span></a></span> -Stef. Infessura, <i>Diarium</i>, in Muratori <i>R. It. Scr.</i> t. iii. pt. 2, p. 1218, 1219.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_317_317" id="Footnote_317_317"></a><a href="#FNanchor_317_317"><span class="label">[317]</span></a></span> -<i>Med. Arch.</i>, l. c.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_318_318" id="Footnote_318_318"></a><a href="#FNanchor_318_318"><span class="label">[318]</span></a></span> -Stefano Taverna to the Duke of Milan, Flor., September 14, 1487, in Rosmini, -ii. 188. A. Guidoni, Flor., September 6 and 12, in Cappelli, p. 296.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_319_319" id="Footnote_319_319"></a><a href="#FNanchor_319_319"><span class="label">[319]</span></a></span> -Spedaletto, which passed after Lorenzo’s death to Maddalena Cybò and later -to the Corsini family, to whom it still belongs, was visited in November 1654 by -Cardinal de Retz, coming from Spain by sea, before he proceeded to the Grandduke -Ferdinand II. at the Ambrogiana near Empoli, and thence to Rome. He -knew that the villa, which he calls L’Hospitalità, had belonged to Lorenzo de’ -Medici, but he wrongly places here the scene of the battle in which Catiline fell. -<i>Mèmoires du Card. de Retz</i>, pt. iii. ch. i. Ed. by Champollion-Figeac (1866), -iv. 246.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_320_320" id="Footnote_320_320"></a><a href="#FNanchor_320_320"><span class="label">[320]</span></a></span> -<i>Lettere di Jacopo da Volterra a P. Innocenzo VIII.</i>, published with a commentary -by M. Tabarrini in the <i>Arch. Stor. Ital.</i>, s. iii. vol. viii. pt. ii. p. 3, <i>et seq.</i> -Jacopo Gherardi had been formerly in the service of Cardinal Ammanati. His -writings passed into the Venetian archives after the sack of Rome in 1527. The -Medicean archives contain a series of despatches relating to this mission. Lorenzo -writes from Spedaletto on September 11-19; on the 21st he was in Florence; on -October 2-10, at Spedaletto again. He says once: ‘I am here according to my -custom, for the care of my health.’</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_321_321" id="Footnote_321_321"></a><a href="#FNanchor_321_321"><span class="label">[321]</span></a></span> -Despatch of October 22, 1487, in Desjardins, l. c. p. 214.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_322_322" id="Footnote_322_322"></a><a href="#FNanchor_322_322"><span class="label">[322]</span></a></span> -October 22, 1487, in Desjardins, l. c. p. 219.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_323_323" id="Footnote_323_323"></a><a href="#FNanchor_323_323"><span class="label">[323]</span></a></span> -A. Guidoni, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 296. Burcard, p. 95; the date is wrong. -On the house of the Cybò in the Borgo, see P. Adinolfi, <i>La Portica di San Pietro</i> -(Rome, 1859), p. 119 <i>et seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_324_324" id="Footnote_324_324"></a><a href="#FNanchor_324_324"><span class="label">[324]</span></a></span> -A. Guidoni, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 297.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_325_325" id="Footnote_325_325"></a><a href="#FNanchor_325_325"><span class="label">[325]</span></a></span> -F. Gregorovius, <i>Das Archiv der Notare des Capitols in Rom und das Protocollbuch -des Notars Camillus de Beneimbene</i>; <i>Sitzungsberichte d. kk. Acad. d. Wissenschaften -in München</i>, 1872, p. 503.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_326_326" id="Footnote_326_326"></a><a href="#FNanchor_326_326"><span class="label">[326]</span></a></span> -Flor., August 8, 1488, in Fabroni, ii. 312. Cf. i. 405.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_327_327" id="Footnote_327_327"></a><a href="#FNanchor_327_327"><span class="label">[327]</span></a></span> -Gregorovius, l. c. [purchase of Cerveteri, June 14, 1487]. Lorenzo to Lanfredini -(1490), in Fabroni, ii. 388. Nibby, <i>Diutorni di Roma</i> (Rome, 1848), -i. 348.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_328_328" id="Footnote_328_328"></a><a href="#FNanchor_328_328"><span class="label">[328]</span></a></span> -The palace (afterwards called Quaratesi) and the villa (for a time Catalani-Valabrègue, -now Lavaggi) passed after the death of Franceschetto’s son Lorenzo, -to the latter’s natural son, Ottavio, with a reservation of the usufruct to Lorenzo’s -sister Caterina, the widowed Duchess of Camerino. The villa belonged for a time -to Eleonora Cybò, daughter of Lorenzo, and wife of Gian Luigi Fiesco, Count of -Lavagna, the hero of the conspiracy of 1547.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_329_329" id="Footnote_329_329"></a><a href="#FNanchor_329_329"><span class="label">[329]</span></a></span> -<i>Med. Arch.</i>, fol. 57. The bull of Innocent VIII. is dated December 5, 1487.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_330_330" id="Footnote_330_330"></a><a href="#FNanchor_330_330"><span class="label">[330]</span></a></span> -Letters of December 9 and 10, 1487, February 23, March 9, April 14, 1488, -in the above-mentioned <i>Ricordi di lettere</i>.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_331_331" id="Footnote_331_331"></a><a href="#FNanchor_331_331"><span class="label">[331]</span></a></span> -<i>Med. Arch.</i>, fol. 59. Cf. Isid. del Lungo, <i>Una Lettera di Ser Matteo Franco</i>, -in <i>Arch. Stor. Ital.</i>, s. iii. ix. 32 <i>et seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_332_332" id="Footnote_332_332"></a><a href="#FNanchor_332_332"><span class="label">[332]</span></a></span> -Poliziano, <i>Prose volgari inedite</i>, p. 74.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_333_333" id="Footnote_333_333"></a><a href="#FNanchor_333_333"><span class="label">[333]</span></a></span> -<i>Med. Arch.</i>, fol. 59.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_334_334" id="Footnote_334_334"></a><a href="#FNanchor_334_334"><span class="label">[334]</span></a></span> -A. Guidoni in Cappelli, l. c. p. 292. Fabroni, l. c. i. 172, 173; ii. 316. On -Roberto Orsini, see Litta, <i>Fam. Orsini</i>, table 23.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_335_335" id="Footnote_335_335"></a><a href="#FNanchor_335_335"><span class="label">[335]</span></a></span> -A. Guidoni in Cappelli, l. c. p. 301.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_336_336" id="Footnote_336_336"></a><a href="#FNanchor_336_336"><span class="label">[336]</span></a></span> -<i>Med. Arch.</i>, fol. 57.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_337_337" id="Footnote_337_337"></a><a href="#FNanchor_337_337"><span class="label">[337]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. ii. 386.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_338_338" id="Footnote_338_338"></a><a href="#FNanchor_338_338"><span class="label">[338]</span></a></span> -<i>Med. Arch.</i>, fol. 57.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_339_339" id="Footnote_339_339"></a><a href="#FNanchor_339_339"><span class="label">[339]</span></a></span> -<i>Med. Arch.</i>, fol. 57. Cf. <i>post</i>, p. 380 <i>et seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_340_340" id="Footnote_340_340"></a><a href="#FNanchor_340_340"><span class="label">[340]</span></a></span> -<i>Med. Arch.</i>, fol. 57.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_341_341" id="Footnote_341_341"></a><a href="#FNanchor_341_341"><span class="label">[341]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. ii. 384. A. Guidoni, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 302, 303.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_342_342" id="Footnote_342_342"></a><a href="#FNanchor_342_342"><span class="label">[342]</span></a></span> -From the <i>Med. Arch.</i>, in A. Gelli, Lorenzo de’ Medici, in the <i>Arch. Stor. -Ital.</i>, s. iii. xvii. 431.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_343_343" id="Footnote_343_343"></a><a href="#FNanchor_343_343"><span class="label">[343]</span></a></span> -<i>Lettere di Lorenzo il Magnifico al S. P. Innocenzo VIII.</i> [ed. by D. Moreni, -Flor. 1830], p. 18.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_344_344" id="Footnote_344_344"></a><a href="#FNanchor_344_344"><span class="label">[344]</span></a></span> -<i>Med. Arch.</i>, fol. 57.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_345_345" id="Footnote_345_345"></a><a href="#FNanchor_345_345"><span class="label">[345]</span></a></span> -<i>Med. Arch.</i>, fol. 57. On Maria [not Maddalena] de’ Medici, cf. Litta, -<i>Fam. Medici</i>, table 7, and Passerini, <i>Fam. Malatesta</i>, table 7.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_346_346" id="Footnote_346_346"></a><a href="#FNanchor_346_346"><span class="label">[346]</span></a></span> -Del Lungo, <i>Lettere di Ser Matteo Franco</i>, l. c.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_347_347" id="Footnote_347_347"></a><a href="#FNanchor_347_347"><span class="label">[347]</span></a></span> -<i>Cronaca di Notar Giacomo</i>, p. 167.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_348_348" id="Footnote_348_348"></a><a href="#FNanchor_348_348"><span class="label">[348]</span></a></span> -<i>Cronaca di Notar Giacomo</i>, p. 169. Tristani Calchi, <i>Nuptiæ Mediolanens. -Ducum</i>; cf. Ratti, <i>Della Famiglia Sforza</i>, ii. 54-60. Fabroni, l. c. i. 168, ii. 295-298. -Several letters of Alamanni relating to these festivities are in the <i>Med. -Arch.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_349_349" id="Footnote_349_349"></a><a href="#FNanchor_349_349"><span class="label">[349]</span></a></span> -G. A. Vespucci to Lorenzo, Rome, September 25 and December 14, 1584, in -Fabroni, l. c. ii. 316-318.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_350_350" id="Footnote_350_350"></a><a href="#FNanchor_350_350"><span class="label">[350]</span></a></span> -<i>Ricordi di Lorenzo</i>, in Fabroni, l. c. ii. 299.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_351_351" id="Footnote_351_351"></a><a href="#FNanchor_351_351"><span class="label">[351]</span></a></span> -Letters of Lodovico and Cecco dell’Orso, April 19, and of Stefano da Castrocaro, -April 21, in Fabroni, ii. 318-325.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_352_352" id="Footnote_352_352"></a><a href="#FNanchor_352_352"><span class="label">[352]</span></a></span> -A. Guidoni, in Cappelli, p. 298-301. The date of the despatch at p. 298 is -wrong; it should probably be April 23 instead of 3.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_353_353" id="Footnote_353_353"></a><a href="#FNanchor_353_353"><span class="label">[353]</span></a></span> -Letter of Lorenzo to Giovanni Bentivoglio, Cafaggiuolo, July 1, 1481, in -Cappelli, l. c. p. 242. Galeotto Manfredi had been with him at the villa, and the -matter had been arranged there.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_354_354" id="Footnote_354_354"></a><a href="#FNanchor_354_354"><span class="label">[354]</span></a></span> -Florence, March 29, 1489, in Moreni, <i>Lettere</i>, <i>ec.</i>, p. 21.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_355_355" id="Footnote_355_355"></a><a href="#FNanchor_355_355"><span class="label">[355]</span></a></span> -Letters of Piero Nasi and Dionigi Pucci, in Fabroni, ii. 325-328. To this -project refers a letter of Giovanni Bentivoglio to Lorenzo, September 7, 1489 -(<i>Med. Arch.</i>), and one of Caterina Riario Sforza, January 21, 1490 (<i>ibid.</i>). The -latter begs for a decisive answer, ‘cum un bel si o cum bel non.’</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_356_356" id="Footnote_356_356"></a><a href="#FNanchor_356_356"><span class="label">[356]</span></a></span> -Bologna, December 19, 1489. <i>Med. Arch.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_357_357" id="Footnote_357_357"></a><a href="#FNanchor_357_357"><span class="label">[357]</span></a></span> -Letter of Franceschetto, Rome, March 10, 1488, in Fabroni, ii. 334-337, -Lorenzo to Andrea da Fojano, <i>ibid.</i> p. 334.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_358_358" id="Footnote_358_358"></a><a href="#FNanchor_358_358"><span class="label">[358]</span></a></span> -Pecci, <i>Memorie ec. della Città di Siena che servono alla vita civile di Pandolfo -Petrucci</i> (Siena, 1755), p. 64 <i>et seq.</i> Letter of Fr. Cybò, l. c. Andrea da Fojano to -Lorenzo, Siena, October 19, 1489, <i>ibid.</i> p. 331-334.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_359_359" id="Footnote_359_359"></a><a href="#FNanchor_359_359"><span class="label">[359]</span></a></span> -A. Rinuccini, <i>Ricordi</i>, in anno 1470, Fabroni, l. c. p. cxiii.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_360_360" id="Footnote_360_360"></a><a href="#FNanchor_360_360"><span class="label">[360]</span></a></span> -Lorenzo de’ Medici to the Signoria of Siena, Flor. June 27, 1489, MS. in the -Sienese Arch. A. Guidoni, Flor., January 19, 1489, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 305.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_361_361" id="Footnote_361_361"></a><a href="#FNanchor_361_361"><span class="label">[361]</span></a></span> -Tommasi, l. c. p. 341. Mazzarosa, <i>Storia di Lucca</i>, ii. 25. Documents, -June 3 to July 18, 1490, in the Lucchese State Archives. Cf. Bongi, <i>Inventario -del R. Archivio di Stato in Lucca</i>, i. 164.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_362_362" id="Footnote_362_362"></a><a href="#FNanchor_362_362"><span class="label">[362]</span></a></span> -Brief addressed by the Pope to the Priori, July 9, 1488.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_363_363" id="Footnote_363_363"></a><a href="#FNanchor_363_363"><span class="label">[363]</span></a></span> -<i>Cronaca del Graziani</i>, in anno 1488 <i>et seq.</i>, in <i>Cronache e Storie della Città di -Perugia</i>, i. 677 <i>et seq.</i> Lorenzo de’ Medici to G. Lanfredini, 1489, in Fabroni, -i. 329, 330.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_364_364" id="Footnote_364_364"></a><a href="#FNanchor_364_364"><span class="label">[364]</span></a></span> -<i>Cronache della Città di Fermo</i> (Flor. 1870) p. 215 <i>et seq.</i> Ugolini, <i>Storia dei -Conti e Duchi d’Urbino</i>, ii. 60, 65. Reposati, <i>Zecca di Gubbio</i>, i. 291. Fabroni, -l. c. ii. 330.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_365_365" id="Footnote_365_365"></a><a href="#FNanchor_365_365"><span class="label">[365]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. ii. 359.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_366_366" id="Footnote_366_366"></a><a href="#FNanchor_366_366"><span class="label">[366]</span></a></span> -Ferrante to Ant. di Gennaro, April 24, 1493, in Trinchera, <i>Codice Aragon.</i> -vol. ii pt. i. p. 381.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_367_367" id="Footnote_367_367"></a><a href="#FNanchor_367_367"><span class="label">[367]</span></a></span> -<i>Commissioni di Rinaldo degli Albizzi</i>, iii. 681.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_368_368" id="Footnote_368_368"></a><a href="#FNanchor_368_368"><span class="label">[368]</span></a></span> -<i>Med. Arch.</i>—<i>Ricordi di lettere</i>, February 28, March 2 and 6, 1483. Lorenzo’s -instructions to his son Piero, 1484, in Fabroni, l. c. ii. 268.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_369_369" id="Footnote_369_369"></a><a href="#FNanchor_369_369"><span class="label">[369]</span></a></span> -Cf. i. 288, and <i>ante</i>, p. 238.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_370_370" id="Footnote_370_370"></a><a href="#FNanchor_370_370"><span class="label">[370]</span></a></span> -G. Cambi l. c. ii. 65.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_371_371" id="Footnote_371_371"></a><a href="#FNanchor_371_371"><span class="label">[371]</span></a></span> -Cappelli, l.c. p. 248.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_372_372" id="Footnote_372_372"></a><a href="#FNanchor_372_372"><span class="label">[372]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, vol. ii. p. 376. In another letter on the same subject preserved in -the <i>Med. Arch.</i> fol. 51, he says: ‘Alexandro da Farnese, il quale dà opera alle -lettere Greche et è persona dotta e molto gentile.’</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_373_373" id="Footnote_373_373"></a><a href="#FNanchor_373_373"><span class="label">[373]</span></a></span> -Guicciardini, <i>Del reggimento di Firenze</i>, p. 44; <i>Storia fiorentina</i>, cap. 9.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_374_374" id="Footnote_374_374"></a><a href="#FNanchor_374_374"><span class="label">[374]</span></a></span> -G. Cambi, l. c. p. 68.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_375_375" id="Footnote_375_375"></a><a href="#FNanchor_375_375"><span class="label">[375]</span></a></span> -G. Cambi (son of Neri), l.c. p. 41. A. Rinuccini, <i>Ricordi</i>, p. cxliv (very -hostile to the Gonfaloniere). F. Guicciardini, <i>Storia fior.</i>, ch. viii.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_376_376" id="Footnote_376_376"></a><a href="#FNanchor_376_376"><span class="label">[376]</span></a></span> -Cambi, l. c. p. 60. Pagnini, <i>Delia Decima</i>, i. 162 <i>et seq.</i> contains details -on the relative value of the coins.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_377_377" id="Footnote_377_377"></a><a href="#FNanchor_377_377"><span class="label">[377]</span></a></span> -N. Valori, l. c. p. 174. ‘Proventus certiores et justiores, nec principe viro -indigni.’ On his finances see <i>ante</i>, Bk. 5, ch. 1.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_378_378" id="Footnote_378_378"></a><a href="#FNanchor_378_378"><span class="label">[378]</span></a></span> -Cappelli, l. c. p. 315, 316. In his correspondence with Lanfredini in Rome -the alum-farming plays a great part.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_379_379" id="Footnote_379_379"></a><a href="#FNanchor_379_379"><span class="label">[379]</span></a></span> -Gaye, l. c. p. 583.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_380_380" id="Footnote_380_380"></a><a href="#FNanchor_380_380"><span class="label">[380]</span></a></span> -Contracts and receipts of the Medici-Sassetti and Medici-Tornabuoni bank, -Lyons, for 1478, 1485, 1494, in (Molini’s) <i>Documenti di Storia Ital.</i>, i. 13-16.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_381_381" id="Footnote_381_381"></a><a href="#FNanchor_381_381"><span class="label">[381]</span></a></span> -Guicciardini, l. c. ch. ix.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_382_382" id="Footnote_382_382"></a><a href="#FNanchor_382_382"><span class="label">[382]</span></a></span> -Guicciardini, l. c. ch. ix. J. Nardi, <i>Istorie di Firenze</i>, book i. (ed. by L. -Arbib, Flor. 1842), i. 26.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_383_383" id="Footnote_383_383"></a><a href="#FNanchor_383_383"><span class="label">[383]</span></a></span> -Rinuccini, l. c. p. cxlviii.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_384_384" id="Footnote_384_384"></a><a href="#FNanchor_384_384"><span class="label">[384]</span></a></span> -Cf. <i>ante</i>, p. 193.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_385_385" id="Footnote_385_385"></a><a href="#FNanchor_385_385"><span class="label">[385]</span></a></span> -Varchi, book xiii., conclusion (iii. 37 <i>et seq.</i>).</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_386_386" id="Footnote_386_386"></a><a href="#FNanchor_386_386"><span class="label">[386]</span></a></span> -Canestrini, l. c. p. 163. Cambi, l. c. p. 55.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_387_387" id="Footnote_387_387"></a><a href="#FNanchor_387_387"><span class="label">[387]</span></a></span> -<i>Ricordi</i>, p. cxlvi.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_388_388" id="Footnote_388_388"></a><a href="#FNanchor_388_388"><span class="label">[388]</span></a></span> -<i>Ricordi di lettere</i>, for the said years.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_389_389" id="Footnote_389_389"></a><a href="#FNanchor_389_389"><span class="label">[389]</span></a></span> -Commines, <i>Mémoires</i>, book vii. ch. ix.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_390_390" id="Footnote_390_390"></a><a href="#FNanchor_390_390"><span class="label">[390]</span></a></span> -Molini, l. c. i. 13. Kervyn de Lettenhove, l. c. vol. ii.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_391_391" id="Footnote_391_391"></a><a href="#FNanchor_391_391"><span class="label">[391]</span></a></span> -Kervyn de Lettenhove, l. c. p. 70. Date, end of 1489, or beginning of -1490.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_392_392" id="Footnote_392_392"></a><a href="#FNanchor_392_392"><span class="label">[392]</span></a></span> -Kervyn de Lettenhove, l. c. ii. 71.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_393_393" id="Footnote_393_393"></a><a href="#FNanchor_393_393"><span class="label">[393]</span></a></span> -In Desjardins, <i>Négociations</i>, i. 417, there is a letter of Commines to this -Spinelli, dated Vienne, August 6, 1494, relating to the affairs of Piero de’ Medici. -Spinelli, whom Commines (<i>Mémoires</i>, book vii. ch. vii.) calls <i>homme de bien en son -estat et assey nourri en France</i>, had just then been sent out of France at the -beginning of the war. Piero sent him to negotiate with Charles VIII. on his -approach.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_394_394" id="Footnote_394_394"></a><a href="#FNanchor_394_394"><span class="label">[394]</span></a></span> -Kervyn de Lettenhove, l. c. ii. 83. The Metz affair was the unsuccessful -and fearfully punished treachery of Jean de Laudremont, one of the provosts of the -city; see Philippe de Vigneulles, in the book of <i>Memorials of Metz</i> edited by H. -Michelant, p. 115 <i>et seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_395_395" id="Footnote_395_395"></a><a href="#FNanchor_395_395"><span class="label">[395]</span></a></span> -From the <i>Cronaca di Benedetto Dei</i>, 1470-1492; MS. in the Magliabecchianæ, -printed in Pagnini, l. c. ii. 135 <i>et seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_396_396" id="Footnote_396_396"></a><a href="#FNanchor_396_396"><span class="label">[396]</span></a></span> -Daru, <i>Histoire de Venise</i>, ii. 295 <i>et seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_397_397" id="Footnote_397_397"></a><a href="#FNanchor_397_397"><span class="label">[397]</span></a></span> -Scip. Ammirato, book xviii. ii. 998. Pagnini, l. c. ii. 124.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_398_398" id="Footnote_398_398"></a><a href="#FNanchor_398_398"><span class="label">[398]</span></a></span> -Pagnini, l. c. ii. 203 <i>et seq.</i> (Molini) <i>Documenti di Storia Italiana</i>, i. 101 <i>et -seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_399_399" id="Footnote_399_399"></a><a href="#FNanchor_399_399"><span class="label">[399]</span></a></span> -Wadding, <i>Annales Minorum</i>, vii. 323.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_400_400" id="Footnote_400_400"></a><a href="#FNanchor_400_400"><span class="label">[400]</span></a></span> -L. Cibrario, <i>Legione sopra alcuni vocaboli usati nei registri della guardaroba -Medicea, in Arch. stor. Ital.</i>, third series, vi. 152 <i>et seq.</i> <i>Ricordi di ariente ed -altre cose prestate, Arch. Med.</i> fol. lxii.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_401_401" id="Footnote_401_401"></a><a href="#FNanchor_401_401"><span class="label">[401]</span></a></span> -Borghini, <i>Discorsi</i> (Flor. 1755), ii. 164.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_402_402" id="Footnote_402_402"></a><a href="#FNanchor_402_402"><span class="label">[402]</span></a></span> -Borghini, l. c. p. 166.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_403_403" id="Footnote_403_403"></a><a href="#FNanchor_403_403"><span class="label">[403]</span></a></span> -<i>Ricordi d’una giostra</i>, etc., (cf. i. 267). Borghini, l. c. On the Salutati -family cf. Mazzuchelli, in the notes to Filippo Villani, <i>Vite d’uomini illustri -Fiorentini</i> (ed. Flor. 1826) p. 83 <i>et seq.</i>, and G. Palagi, in <i>Il Convito fatto ai -figliuoli del Re di Napoli da Benedetto Salutati e compagni mercanti fiorentini il 16 -Febbrajo del 1476</i> (Flor. 1873).</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_404_404" id="Footnote_404_404"></a><a href="#FNanchor_404_404"><span class="label">[404]</span></a></span> -Pietro of Aragon died in 1491, aged nineteen. Giovanni was made a cardinal -in 1477, and died in 1483. Arrigo, Ferrante’s eldest natural son, died in 1478.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_405_405" id="Footnote_405_405"></a><a href="#FNanchor_405_405"><span class="label">[405]</span></a></span> -The Italian account has the expression <i>mummeria</i>, which corresponds with -the German, English, and French words, but is not admitted by Della Crusca. -Annibal Caro uses the word <i>mommeare</i>.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_406_406" id="Footnote_406_406"></a><a href="#FNanchor_406_406"><span class="label">[406]</span></a></span> -<i>Giorn. stor. degli arch. tosc.</i>, i. 96. <i>Arch. stor. ital.</i> third series, xx. 187.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_407_407" id="Footnote_407_407"></a><a href="#FNanchor_407_407"><span class="label">[407]</span></a></span> -<i>Il Padre di Famiglia</i>, ed. 1872, p. 67 <i>et seq.</i> On the villa-life cf. i. 508.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_408_408" id="Footnote_408_408"></a><a href="#FNanchor_408_408"><span class="label">[408]</span></a></span> -Gaye, l. c. i. 417.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_409_409" id="Footnote_409_409"></a><a href="#FNanchor_409_409"><span class="label">[409]</span></a></span> -Rinuccini, <i>Ricordi</i>, p. cxxv.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_410_410" id="Footnote_410_410"></a><a href="#FNanchor_410_410"><span class="label">[410]</span></a></span> -Cena di famiglia, in the <i>Opere volgari</i>, vol. i.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_411_411" id="Footnote_411_411"></a><a href="#FNanchor_411_411"><span class="label">[411]</span></a></span> -V. da Bisticci, l. c. p. 176.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_412_412" id="Footnote_412_412"></a><a href="#FNanchor_412_412"><span class="label">[412]</span></a></span> -Cappelli, l. c. p. 301. <i>Prolog. in Plauti comædiam Menæchmos</i>, in <i>Prose -volg.</i> p. 281 <i>et seq.</i> Politian indulges in a side hit at the modern authors who -write in prose.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_413_413" id="Footnote_413_413"></a><a href="#FNanchor_413_413"><span class="label">[413]</span></a></span> -Vasari, iii. 232, v. 36 <i>et seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_414_414" id="Footnote_414_414"></a><a href="#FNanchor_414_414"><span class="label">[414]</span></a></span> -L. Cibrario, l. c. p. 153.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_415_415" id="Footnote_415_415"></a><a href="#FNanchor_415_415"><span class="label">[415]</span></a></span> -Varchi, l. c. ii. 107.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_416_416" id="Footnote_416_416"></a><a href="#FNanchor_416_416"><span class="label">[416]</span></a></span> -A. M. Biscioni, notes to Lorenzo Lippi’s <i>Malmantile racquistato</i> (Flor. 1831), -canto iii. stanza 8.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_417_417" id="Footnote_417_417"></a><a href="#FNanchor_417_417"><span class="label">[417]</span></a></span> -<i>I Capitoli della Compagnia del Broncone, pubblicati per cura di Giuseppe -Palagi</i> (Flor. 1872). [Cf. I. del Lungo in the <i>Arch. stor. Ital.</i>, s. iii. vol. xvii. -p. 147 <i>et seq.</i>] Lorenzo the younger was the head of the Compagnia del Broncone, -and Giuliano that of the Compagnia del Diamante. There are still to be seen in -Florence, in the Church of St. Ambrogio, in the Canto alia Mela, and the Canto -di Monteloro, some inscribed tablets recalling the Potenze; but they are of rather -late date.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_418_418" id="Footnote_418_418"></a><a href="#FNanchor_418_418"><span class="label">[418]</span></a></span> -<i>Tutti i Trionfi, Carri, Canti carnascialeschi, etc.</i> (Flor. 1550; also <i>Cosmopoli</i>, -1750). The shows themselves were called <i>Canti</i> from these songs. Cf. <i>ante</i>, p. -22, 23. In 1475 the Florentines at Naples represented the triumph of Petrarch.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_419_419" id="Footnote_419_419"></a><a href="#FNanchor_419_419"><span class="label">[419]</span></a></span> -<i>Canzona d’un Piagnone pel bruciamento delle vanità nel carnevale del 1498, -aggiuntavi la descrizione del bruciamento fatta da Girolamo Benvieni</i> (ed. by I. del -Lungo, Flor. 1864). [’<i>Canzona che fa uno Fiorentino a carnasciale, trovandolo -fuggirsi con un asinello carico di sue masserizie e col fardello in spalla.</i>’] Carnaval -complains that his idols are broken, the red Cross and the Name of Christ have -conquered, and he must yield to a mightier king.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_420_420" id="Footnote_420_420"></a><a href="#FNanchor_420_420"><span class="label">[420]</span></a></span> -Vasari, ix. 218. Naldo Naldi, <i>Carmina</i>, vi. 436.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_421_421" id="Footnote_421_421"></a><a href="#FNanchor_421_421"><span class="label">[421]</span></a></span> -From the MS. in the Miscellanea Uguccione Strozzi, vol. cvi. in the Flor. -Archives; printed by P. Fanfani in the Borghini, ii. 542 <i>et seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_422_422" id="Footnote_422_422"></a><a href="#FNanchor_422_422"><span class="label">[422]</span></a></span> -On the Piovano Arlotto, who died in 1483, see D. M. Manni, <i>Veglie Piacevoli</i> -(3rd ed., Flor. 1816), where are many details of the jests and buffooneries. The -<i>Novella del Grasso Legnaiuolo</i> has been often printed and imitated; there is an -edition with introduction by D. Moreni (Flor. 1820). Gaye (l. c. i. 169) has -produced some original documents which cast some doubt on the accounts of the -‘fat cabinet-maker’ collected by Manni; the claims of Antonio Manetti, known -from his connection with the Dante-literature (cf. <i>ante</i>, p. 51), to the authorship -of the story have been lately vindicated. Cf. Papanti, <i>Catalogo dei Novellieri</i> -(Livorno, 1871), vol. ii. 11. The story of Bianco Alfani is in Manni’s edition of -the <i>Cento novelle anticke</i> (Flor. 1782), i. 211 <i>et seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_423_423" id="Footnote_423_423"></a><a href="#FNanchor_423_423"><span class="label">[423]</span></a></span> -B. Varchi, l. c., book ix. (ii. 122 <i>et seq.</i>).</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_424_424" id="Footnote_424_424"></a><a href="#FNanchor_424_424"><span class="label">[424]</span></a></span> -<i>Cena di Famiglia</i>, l. c. p. 173, 174. G. Dominici, <i>Regola del governo, etc.</i>, -p. 164. Cf., <i>ante</i>, i. 483.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_425_425" id="Footnote_425_425"></a><a href="#FNanchor_425_425"><span class="label">[425]</span></a></span> -<i>Notizie di illustre donne</i>, in the <i>Arch. stor. Ital.</i>, iv. 439 et seq. <i>Vite d’uomini -illustri</i>, p. 525 <i>et seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_426_426" id="Footnote_426_426"></a><a href="#FNanchor_426_426"><span class="label">[426]</span></a></span> -The names are copied from a Strozzi document in the Magliabecchiana, in E. -Branchi’s treatise <i>Della croce vermiglia in campo bianco, insegna dei Cavalieri di -popolo</i>, in the <i>Periodico di numismatico e sfragista</i>, iv. 75 <i>et seq.</i> (Flor. 1872.) -This treatise contains numerous quotations from chronicles and histories relating -to knighthood in the commonwealth, particularly in 1378.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_427_427" id="Footnote_427_427"></a><a href="#FNanchor_427_427"><span class="label">[427]</span></a></span> -<i>Memorie storiche di Ser Naldo da Montecatini</i> (in the <i>Delizie degli Eruditi -toscani</i>, xviii. 99).</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_428_428" id="Footnote_428_428"></a><a href="#FNanchor_428_428"><span class="label">[428]</span></a></span> -<i>Il viaggio degli Ambasciatori fiorentini al Re di Francia nel 1461</i>, in the -<i>Arch. stor. Ital.</i>, s. iii. vol. i. p. 7 <i>et seq.</i> Cf. <i>ante</i>, i. 173.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_429_429" id="Footnote_429_429"></a><a href="#FNanchor_429_429"><span class="label">[429]</span></a></span> -<i>Mémoires</i>, vol. vii. ch. 9. B. Rucellai, who was as much at home in that -house as in his own, describes in his Commentary <i>De Bello Italico</i> (p. 52), the -plundering of books and other valuables, ‘quorum pars a Gallis, pars a paucis e -nostris, rem turpissimam, honesta specie praetendentibus, furacissime subrepta -sunt, intimis abditisque locis ædium, ubi illi reconditi fuerant, perscrutatis.’</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_430_430" id="Footnote_430_430"></a><a href="#FNanchor_430_430"><span class="label">[430]</span></a></span> -L. c. p. 168.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_431_431" id="Footnote_431_431"></a><a href="#FNanchor_431_431"><span class="label">[431]</span></a></span> -Gaye, l. c. i. 285, 286, 290.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_432_432" id="Footnote_432_432"></a><a href="#FNanchor_432_432"><span class="label">[432]</span></a></span> -Vasari, <i>Life of Giuliano</i>, vii. 213.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_433_433" id="Footnote_433_433"></a><a href="#FNanchor_433_433"><span class="label">[433]</span></a></span> -Gaye, l. c. p. 304.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_434_434" id="Footnote_434_434"></a><a href="#FNanchor_434_434"><span class="label">[434]</span></a></span> -Cf. <i>ante</i>, p. 228. The earlier appearance of the square may be seen in Richa, -vii. 113.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_435_435" id="Footnote_435_435"></a><a href="#FNanchor_435_435"><span class="label">[435]</span></a></span> -Kervyn de Lettenhove, ii. 279.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_436_436" id="Footnote_436_436"></a><a href="#FNanchor_436_436"><span class="label">[436]</span></a></span> -Description of ‘Ambra mei Laurentis amor’ in the third Sylva, lines 594 <i>et -seq.</i>; <i>Prose volgari</i>, p, 365. G. Fargioni Fozzetti, <i>Viaggi per la Toscana</i> (Flor. -1773 <i>et seq.</i>), v. 56 <i>et seq.</i>, where also is Verino’s letter. Cf. <i>ante</i>, p. 13.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_437_437" id="Footnote_437_437"></a><a href="#FNanchor_437_437"><span class="label">[437]</span></a></span> -Repetti, l. c. i. 380. Palla Strozzi paid 7,390 gold florins for Poggio a -Cajano; and his beautiful villa of Petraja, which he had bought of the Brunelleschi, -served as security for the purchase. In the next century, after the attempt of the -Strozzi and their friends against Duke Cosimo had failed, Petraja was confiscated -and became state property. Angiullesi’s <i>Notizie storiche dei palazzi e ville -appartenenti alla R. Corona di Toscana</i> (Pisa, 1815) contain no notice of the -earlier history of Poggio a Cajano.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_438_438" id="Footnote_438_438"></a><a href="#FNanchor_438_438"><span class="label">[438]</span></a></span> -Vasari, <i>Life of Sarto</i>, viii. 276; of <i>Franciabigo</i>, ix. 101; of <i>Pontormo</i>, xi. -46. The compositions of the former are engraved in the work on the frescoes of -the grand-ducal palaces (Flor. 1751).</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_439_439" id="Footnote_439_439"></a><a href="#FNanchor_439_439"><span class="label">[439]</span></a></span> -A. Condivi, in the biography prefixed to the <i>Rime e lettere di M. A. Buonarotti</i> -(Flor. 1858), p. 26.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_440_440" id="Footnote_440_440"></a><a href="#FNanchor_440_440"><span class="label">[440]</span></a></span> -Bandini, <i>Specimen</i>, ii. 105 <i>et seq.</i> The names of the two Greeks sound like -<i>noms de guerre</i>.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_441_441" id="Footnote_441_441"></a><a href="#FNanchor_441_441"><span class="label">[441]</span></a></span> -Borghini, l. c. ii. 167.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_442_442" id="Footnote_442_442"></a><a href="#FNanchor_442_442"><span class="label">[442]</span></a></span> -Reuchlin, dedication of the <i>De arte cabalistica</i> (1517) to Leo X. Manlius, -<i>Locorum communium collectanea</i> (Bautzen, 1565), p. 271. Stälin, <i>Wirtemberg</i>. -<i>Geschichte</i>, iii. 591. Cf. <i>ante</i>, p. 27.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_443_443" id="Footnote_443_443"></a><a href="#FNanchor_443_443"><span class="label">[443]</span></a></span> -<i>Ricordi di Lettere, etc.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_444_444" id="Footnote_444_444"></a><a href="#FNanchor_444_444"><span class="label">[444]</span></a></span> -From Poliziano’s account, in Valori, p. 177.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_445_445" id="Footnote_445_445"></a><a href="#FNanchor_445_445"><span class="label">[445]</span></a></span> -A. Montecatino, in Cappelli, l.c. p. 252.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_446_446" id="Footnote_446_446"></a><a href="#FNanchor_446_446"><span class="label">[446]</span></a></span> -<i>Med. Arch.</i>, passim. Gaye, <i>Carteggio</i>, i. 302.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_447_447" id="Footnote_447_447"></a><a href="#FNanchor_447_447"><span class="label">[447]</span></a></span> -Cappelli, l.c. p. 303. (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 1490). Letter of the Anziani of Lucca, September -16, 1490; Lucch. Arch.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_448_448" id="Footnote_448_448"></a><a href="#FNanchor_448_448"><span class="label">[448]</span></a></span> -Lorenzo to Ercole, February 11, 1481, January 9, 1482, in Cappelli, p. 242, -243, with notes. Ferrante to Lorenzo, June 5, 1477, in Gaye, l. c. i. 302. The -same to the Knights of St. John, Ferrante Ribadeneira, Juan Gasco, and others, -December 27, 1467. In Trinchera, Cod. Aragonese, i. 373; in this work are -many letters relating to the <i>falconi</i> and <i>girifalchi</i>.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_449_449" id="Footnote_449_449"></a><a href="#FNanchor_449_449"><span class="label">[449]</span></a></span> -Prose <i>volgari</i>, p. 45. Cf. <i>ante</i>, p. 14.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_450_450" id="Footnote_450_450"></a><a href="#FNanchor_450_450"><span class="label">[450]</span></a></span> -Valori, l. c. p. 174. Viani, l. c. p. 24. In Fabroni, ii. 73, is a list of the -Medici estates in the Pisa territory, with an estimate of their revenues.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_451_451" id="Footnote_451_451"></a><a href="#FNanchor_451_451"><span class="label">[451]</span></a></span> -April 8. <i>Prose volgari</i>, p. 47.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_452_452" id="Footnote_452_452"></a><a href="#FNanchor_452_452"><span class="label">[452]</span></a></span> -Piero, <i>Parenti’s Chronicle</i>. Cf. Poliziano, l. c. p. 49. Cf. <i>Cronaca di Notar. -Giacomo</i>, p. 134 (June 1, 1477).</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_453_453" id="Footnote_453_453"></a><a href="#FNanchor_453_453"><span class="label">[453]</span></a></span> -Pulci, <i>Lettere</i>, p. 28, 31.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_454_454" id="Footnote_454_454"></a><a href="#FNanchor_454_454"><span class="label">[454]</span></a></span> -L. Fanfani, <i>Notizie inedite di Sta. Maria del Pontenovo</i>, p. 148. Cf. <i>ante</i>, -p. 257.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_455_455" id="Footnote_455_455"></a><a href="#FNanchor_455_455"><span class="label">[455]</span></a></span> -Guicciardini, l. c. ch. ix.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_456_456" id="Footnote_456_456"></a><a href="#FNanchor_456_456"><span class="label">[456]</span></a></span> -Rinuccini, <i>Ricordi</i>, p. cxliii. Cappelli, l. c. p. 297.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_457_457" id="Footnote_457_457"></a><a href="#FNanchor_457_457"><span class="label">[457]</span></a></span> -M. Amari, <i>I Diplomi Arabi del R. Archivio fiorentino</i> (Flor. 1863), lx, lxxxvi, -and the original Arabic and Italian documents, p. 181, 184, 363, 372, 374, 382. -Cf. Pagnini, l. c. ii. 205 <i>et seq.</i> Bandini, <i>Collectio veterum monumentorum</i>, p. 12 -<i>et seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_458_458" id="Footnote_458_458"></a><a href="#FNanchor_458_458"><span class="label">[458]</span></a></span> -Ser Piero Dovizj to Madonna Clarice, Fabroni, ii. 337.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_459_459" id="Footnote_459_459"></a><a href="#FNanchor_459_459"><span class="label">[459]</span></a></span> -Pecori, <i>Storia di San Gemignano</i>, p. 285.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_460_460" id="Footnote_460_460"></a><a href="#FNanchor_460_460"><span class="label">[460]</span></a></span> -<i>Med. Arch.</i> Such supplies were needed at these places.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_461_461" id="Footnote_461_461"></a><a href="#FNanchor_461_461"><span class="label">[461]</span></a></span> -From the Med. Arch. fol. 88, in Del Lungo, <i>Un viaggio di Clarice Orsini -de Medici nel 1485 descritto da Ser Matteo Franco</i> (Bologna, 1868).</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_462_462" id="Footnote_462_462"></a><a href="#FNanchor_462_462"><span class="label">[462]</span></a></span> -Gualandi, <i>Nuova Raccolta di lettere sulla pittura, ec.</i> (Bologna, 1844), i. 14.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_463_463" id="Footnote_463_463"></a><a href="#FNanchor_463_463"><span class="label">[463]</span></a></span> -Vasari, <i>Life of Simone Pollaiuolo</i>, viii. 119.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_464_464" id="Footnote_464_464"></a><a href="#FNanchor_464_464"><span class="label">[464]</span></a></span> -Ficino, <i>Epist.</i> x. 37.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_465_465" id="Footnote_465_465"></a><a href="#FNanchor_465_465"><span class="label">[465]</span></a></span> -Valori, l. c. p. 176.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_466_466" id="Footnote_466_466"></a><a href="#FNanchor_466_466"><span class="label">[466]</span></a></span> -‘... Diu templi vox fuit ille tui.’ <i>Prose volgari</i>, p. 155. Cf. <i>ante</i>, p. 140, -165.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_467_467" id="Footnote_467_467"></a><a href="#FNanchor_467_467"><span class="label">[467]</span></a></span> -<i>Med. Arch.</i> February 5, 1473, August 20, 1483.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_468_468" id="Footnote_468_468"></a><a href="#FNanchor_468_468"><span class="label">[468]</span></a></span> -Poliziano to Lorenzo, October 17, 1477. <i>Prose volgari</i>, p. 54.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_469_469" id="Footnote_469_469"></a><a href="#FNanchor_469_469"><span class="label">[469]</span></a></span> -C. Guasti, <i>Di un maestro d’organi del sec.</i> <span class="smcap">xv.</span> in <i>Belle Arti ec.</i>, p. 229 <i>et seq.</i> -<i>Ricordi di lettere, etc.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_470_470" id="Footnote_470_470"></a><a href="#FNanchor_470_470"><span class="label">[470]</span></a></span> -Condivi, l. c., p. 30. It was this ‘Cardiere’ (from <i>cardatore</i>, wool-comber) -who was said to have seen an apparition of the dead Lorenzo.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_471_471" id="Footnote_471_471"></a><a href="#FNanchor_471_471"><span class="label">[471]</span></a></span> -<i>Prose volgari</i>, p. 78.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_472_472" id="Footnote_472_472"></a><a href="#FNanchor_472_472"><span class="label">[472]</span></a></span> -Poliziano to M. Lucrezia, Fiesole, July 18, 1479. <i>Prose volgari</i>, p. 72.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_473_473" id="Footnote_473_473"></a><a href="#FNanchor_473_473"><span class="label">[473]</span></a></span> -Epist. l. ii. ep. 13.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_474_474" id="Footnote_474_474"></a><a href="#FNanchor_474_474"><span class="label">[474]</span></a></span> -Carducci, Introduction to Poliziano’s poems, p. cxxxii. The remarkable -political sonnets published by O. Fargioni-Tozzetti (Livorno, 1863) are by this -Antonio Cammelli.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_475_475" id="Footnote_475_475"></a><a href="#FNanchor_475_475"><span class="label">[475]</span></a></span> -Poggio a Cajano, September 11, 1485, in Fabroni, l. c. ii. 298.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_476_476" id="Footnote_476_476"></a><a href="#FNanchor_476_476"><span class="label">[476]</span></a></span> -Satire VI. ‘Quella famiglia d’allegrezza piena.’</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_477_477" id="Footnote_477_477"></a><a href="#FNanchor_477_477"><span class="label">[477]</span></a></span> -Lasca, <i>Le Cene</i>, iii. 10.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_478_478" id="Footnote_478_478"></a><a href="#FNanchor_478_478"><span class="label">[478]</span></a></span> -Epist. l. iii. 6.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_479_479" id="Footnote_479_479"></a><a href="#FNanchor_479_479"><span class="label">[479]</span></a></span> -Valori, l. c. p. 167.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_480_480" id="Footnote_480_480"></a><a href="#FNanchor_480_480"><span class="label">[480]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. i. 22.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_481_481" id="Footnote_481_481"></a><a href="#FNanchor_481_481"><span class="label">[481]</span></a></span> -Fr. Serdonati, <i>Vita di P. Innocenzo VIII.</i> (Milan, 1829) p. 75.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_482_482" id="Footnote_482_482"></a><a href="#FNanchor_482_482"><span class="label">[482]</span></a></span> -Moreni, <i>Lettere</i>, p. 5.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_483_483" id="Footnote_483_483"></a><a href="#FNanchor_483_483"><span class="label">[483]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. ii. 389-391.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_484_484" id="Footnote_484_484"></a><a href="#FNanchor_484_484"><span class="label">[484]</span></a></span> -Desjardins, l. c. p. 189. <i>Ibid.</i> another letter of Louis, dated February 17; also -in Fabroni, l. c. ii. 298.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_485_485" id="Footnote_485_485"></a><a href="#FNanchor_485_485"><span class="label">[485]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. ii. 299.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_486_486" id="Footnote_486_486"></a><a href="#FNanchor_486_486"><span class="label">[486]</span></a></span> -A letter to G. Lanfredini, February 16, 1489, recommending an Archdeacon, -Mario of Osimo (<i>Med. Arch.</i> F. 57), is signed <i>Johannes Laurentii de Medicis -prothonotarius apostolicus</i>.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_487_487" id="Footnote_487_487"></a><a href="#FNanchor_487_487"><span class="label">[487]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. ii. 374; <i>Vita Leonis X. P. M.</i>, p. 245. Fosti, <i>Storia della -Badia di Monte Cassino</i>, iii. 199. It is but too well known how greatly the -convent went to ruin through the misdoings of its commanders.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_488_488" id="Footnote_488_488"></a><a href="#FNanchor_488_488"><span class="label">[488]</span></a></span> -Desjardins, l. c. p. 214.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_489_489" id="Footnote_489_489"></a><a href="#FNanchor_489_489"><span class="label">[489]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. ii. 374.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_490_490" id="Footnote_490_490"></a><a href="#FNanchor_490_490"><span class="label">[490]</span></a></span> -Moreni, <i>Lettere</i>, p. 8. Cf. <i>ante</i>, p. 326.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_491_491" id="Footnote_491_491"></a><a href="#FNanchor_491_491"><span class="label">[491]</span></a></span> -Roscoe, <i>Life and Pontificate of Leo X.</i> Ap. II. (iii. 385.)</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_492_492" id="Footnote_492_492"></a><a href="#FNanchor_492_492"><span class="label">[492]</span></a></span> -<i>Ibid.</i>, Ap. III. p. 387.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_493_493" id="Footnote_493_493"></a><a href="#FNanchor_493_493"><span class="label">[493]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. ii. 374.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_494_494" id="Footnote_494_494"></a><a href="#FNanchor_494_494"><span class="label">[494]</span></a></span> -Letters, from the <i>Med. Arch.</i>, in Fabroni, <i>Vita Leonis X.</i>, and Roscoe, l. c., -App. IV. V. VI. VII.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_495_495" id="Footnote_495_495"></a><a href="#FNanchor_495_495"><span class="label">[495]</span></a></span> -Burcard, l. c. 110-112. He names the five publicly nominated Cardinals. -Giacconio, <i>Vitæ Pontif.</i>, vol. iii. col. 124-144, where all the eight are mentioned. -On March 9, the Ferrarese ambassador at Florence announced the signature by the -Cardinals of the bull for Giovanni, and thought its publication would follow with -that of the others.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_496_496" id="Footnote_496_496"></a><a href="#FNanchor_496_496"><span class="label">[496]</span></a></span> -Letters in <i>Med. Arch.</i>: that of La Balue (<i>Andegavensis</i>—Bishop of Angers) -in Roscoe, l. c., Ap. VIII.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_497_497" id="Footnote_497_497"></a><a href="#FNanchor_497_497"><span class="label">[497]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, <i>Laur. Med. Vita</i>, ii. 300.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_498_498" id="Footnote_498_498"></a><a href="#FNanchor_498_498"><span class="label">[498]</span></a></span> -A. Politiani <i>Epist.</i> l. viii. ep. 5. Lorenzo to Lanfredini, March 14, 1489, in -Roscoe, l. c., Ap. XI.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_499_499" id="Footnote_499_499"></a><a href="#FNanchor_499_499"><span class="label">[499]</span></a></span> -Moreni, <i>Lettere</i>, p. 14. (Dated wrong and placed out of right order).</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_500_500" id="Footnote_500_500"></a><a href="#FNanchor_500_500"><span class="label">[500]</span></a></span> -Desjardins, l. c. p. 215.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_501_501" id="Footnote_501_501"></a><a href="#FNanchor_501_501"><span class="label">[501]</span></a></span> -Burcard, l. c. p. 110. The hints given as to the cause of death are a nice -specimen of the town-talk recorded by a Papal master of the ceremonies.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_502_502" id="Footnote_502_502"></a><a href="#FNanchor_502_502"><span class="label">[502]</span></a></span> -Roscoe, iv. 318 (wrongly dated).</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_503_503" id="Footnote_503_503"></a><a href="#FNanchor_503_503"><span class="label">[503]</span></a></span> -January 21, 1489. <i>Med. Arch.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_504_504" id="Footnote_504_504"></a><a href="#FNanchor_504_504"><span class="label">[504]</span></a></span> -Cappelli, l. c. p. 307.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_505_505" id="Footnote_505_505"></a><a href="#FNanchor_505_505"><span class="label">[505]</span></a></span> -Roscoe, l. c. Ap. X.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_506_506" id="Footnote_506_506"></a><a href="#FNanchor_506_506"><span class="label">[506]</span></a></span> -Burcard, l. c. p. 133. Adinolfi, <i>Portica di S. Pietro</i>, does not mention the -house of the Acciaiuoli.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_507_507" id="Footnote_507_507"></a><a href="#FNanchor_507_507"><span class="label">[507]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. p. 375.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_508_508" id="Footnote_508_508"></a><a href="#FNanchor_508_508"><span class="label">[508]</span></a></span> -<i>Med. Arch.</i> F. 72. Fabroni, l. c.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_509_509" id="Footnote_509_509"></a><a href="#FNanchor_509_509"><span class="label">[509]</span></a></span> -<i>Med. Arch.</i> F. 59.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_510_510" id="Footnote_510_510"></a><a href="#FNanchor_510_510"><span class="label">[510]</span></a></span> -August 11, 1489, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 307.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_511_511" id="Footnote_511_511"></a><a href="#FNanchor_511_511"><span class="label">[511]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. ii. p. 361. The letter goes on to treat of many other things.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_512_512" id="Footnote_512_512"></a><a href="#FNanchor_512_512"><span class="label">[512]</span></a></span> -Bull in Fabroni, l. c. ii. 340.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_513_513" id="Footnote_513_513"></a><a href="#FNanchor_513_513"><span class="label">[513]</span></a></span> -Burcard, p. 126, 127. The details of these events may be completed from -Infessura.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_514_514" id="Footnote_514_514"></a><a href="#FNanchor_514_514"><span class="label">[514]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. p. 365.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_515_515" id="Footnote_515_515"></a><a href="#FNanchor_515_515"><span class="label">[515]</span></a></span> -The war with Granada had begun.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_516_516" id="Footnote_516_516"></a><a href="#FNanchor_516_516"><span class="label">[516]</span></a></span> -January, 1490. Burcard, p. 135, 136. [’Portavit (heraldus) literas regi, a -quo penitus nihil habuit, neque bonum verbum.’]</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_517_517" id="Footnote_517_517"></a><a href="#FNanchor_517_517"><span class="label">[517]</span></a></span> -January 29, 1490, in De Cherrier, i. 341.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_518_518" id="Footnote_518_518"></a><a href="#FNanchor_518_518"><span class="label">[518]</span></a></span> -M. Manfredi, Flor. May 4, 1490, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 307, 308.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_519_519" id="Footnote_519_519"></a><a href="#FNanchor_519_519"><span class="label">[519]</span></a></span> -Burcard, l. c. p. 143.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_520_520" id="Footnote_520_520"></a><a href="#FNanchor_520_520"><span class="label">[520]</span></a></span> -P. F. Pandolfini. Fabroni, l. c. p. 352.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_521_521" id="Footnote_521_521"></a><a href="#FNanchor_521_521"><span class="label">[521]</span></a></span> -Pierre de Beaujeu had been Duke of Bourbon since the death of his brother, -Jean II., in 1488.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_522_522" id="Footnote_522_522"></a><a href="#FNanchor_522_522"><span class="label">[522]</span></a></span> -Pandolfini, Rome, June 28, 1490, l. c. p. 353.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_523_523" id="Footnote_523_523"></a><a href="#FNanchor_523_523"><span class="label">[523]</span></a></span> -Manfredi, July 3, 1491, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 309.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_524_524" id="Footnote_524_524"></a><a href="#FNanchor_524_524"><span class="label">[524]</span></a></span> -Nasi, Naples, July 7, 1491, in Fabroni, l. c. p. 350.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_525_525" id="Footnote_525_525"></a><a href="#FNanchor_525_525"><span class="label">[525]</span></a></span> -Letter to K. Ferrante II. (Ferrandino), February 9, 1495, in Colangelo, <i>Vita -del Sannazzaro</i> (2nd edit. Naples, 1819).</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_526_526" id="Footnote_526_526"></a><a href="#FNanchor_526_526"><span class="label">[526]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. ii. 350.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_527_527" id="Footnote_527_527"></a><a href="#FNanchor_527_527"><span class="label">[527]</span></a></span> -K. Ferrante to Pontano, October 2, 1491, and other letters relating to these -disturbances, in <i>Codice Arag.</i> vol. ii. part i. p. 1 <i>et seq.</i> Cf. <i>ante</i>, p. 311.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_528_528" id="Footnote_528_528"></a><a href="#FNanchor_528_528"><span class="label">[528]</span></a></span> -October 5, 1491. Bandini, <i>Coll. vet. mon.</i>, p. 20.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_529_529" id="Footnote_529_529"></a><a href="#FNanchor_529_529"><span class="label">[529]</span></a></span> -P. Nasi to Lorenzo, Naples, November 18, 1491, in Fabroni, l. c. ii. 363.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_530_530" id="Footnote_530_530"></a><a href="#FNanchor_530_530"><span class="label">[530]</span></a></span> -Burcard, l. c. p. 157. M. Manfredi, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 310.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_531_531" id="Footnote_531_531"></a><a href="#FNanchor_531_531"><span class="label">[531]</span></a></span> -How, in the face of this long disagreement, Giannone (<i>Storia civile</i>, book -xxviii.) could say that after the peace of 1486, Innocent VIII. remained the -king’s friend during his remaining years, is incomprehensible.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_532_532" id="Footnote_532_532"></a><a href="#FNanchor_532_532"><span class="label">[532]</span></a></span> -<i>Codice Aragon.</i>, vol. ii. part i. p. 43-46, 49, 52-54.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_533_533" id="Footnote_533_533"></a><a href="#FNanchor_533_533"><span class="label">[533]</span></a></span> -Burcard, p. 154, 155.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_534_534" id="Footnote_534_534"></a><a href="#FNanchor_534_534"><span class="label">[534]</span></a></span> -<i>Traité des droits du Roy Charles VIII aux royaumes de Naples, Sicile et -Aragon, mis par escript en 1491 du commandement du Roy par Léonard Barounet, -maistre des comptes</i>; in Godefroy, <i>Histoire de Charles VIII, preuves</i>, p. 675.—Ascanio -Sforza to the Duke of Milan, Rome, March 6, 1486, <i>Arch. stor. Ital.</i>, vol. -iv. part ii. p. 70.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_535_535" id="Footnote_535_535"></a><a href="#FNanchor_535_535"><span class="label">[535]</span></a></span> -Manfredi, Flor. May 4, 1490, in Cappelli, p. 307, 308.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_536_536" id="Footnote_536_536"></a><a href="#FNanchor_536_536"><span class="label">[536]</span></a></span> -Rosmini, l. c. p. 189, ii. 190.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_537_537" id="Footnote_537_537"></a><a href="#FNanchor_537_537"><span class="label">[537]</span></a></span> -In Giovio, Corio, and also in more recent authors (Ratti, <i>Fam. Sforza</i>, ii. 63; -Niccolini, <i>Lodovico Sforza, Trag. Opere</i>, i. 242) will be found Isabella’s letter to -her father. The two copies, Italian and Latin, differ somewhat; but the rhetorical -form of both gives them the air of imitated documents.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_538_538" id="Footnote_538_538"></a><a href="#FNanchor_538_538"><span class="label">[538]</span></a></span> -Sc. Ammirato, book xxvii. (ii. 187.)</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_539_539" id="Footnote_539_539"></a><a href="#FNanchor_539_539"><span class="label">[539]</span></a></span> -<i>Cod. Aragon.</i>, l. c. p. 38.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_540_540" id="Footnote_540_540"></a><a href="#FNanchor_540_540"><span class="label">[540]</span></a></span> -Farcelli, <i>Storia del monastero degli Angioli</i> (Lucca, 1710), p. 66 <i>et seq.</i> -<i>Libretto MS. nel quale D. Guido priore nota i possessi ec.</i>, in the collection of -G. Palagi. Florence.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_541_541" id="Footnote_541_541"></a><a href="#FNanchor_541_541"><span class="label">[541]</span></a></span> -N. L. Cittadella, <i>La nobile Famiglia Savonarola in Padova ed in Ferrara</i> -(Ferrara, 1867); <i>La Casa di Fra Girolamo Savonarola in Ferrara</i> (<i>ibid.</i> 1873). -[The house in which Girolamo was born was afterwards thrown into a house of -the Strozzi, now belonging to the municipality]. P. Villari, <i>La Storia di Girolamo</i> -Savonarola (Flor. 1850-61). The Paduan branch of the family became extinct -about 1816, the Ferrarese in 1844.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_542_542" id="Footnote_542_542"></a><a href="#FNanchor_542_542"><span class="label">[542]</span></a></span> -Among the <i>Poesie di Fra Girolamo Savonarola</i>, published by Cesare Guasti -(Flor. 1862) from the autographs in the house of the Borromeo at Milan, see -especially the canzonet (written about 1475) <i>De ruina Ecclesiae</i> (‘Vergine casta, -benchè indegno figlio—Pur son di membri dell’eterno Sposo.’)</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_543_543" id="Footnote_543_543"></a><a href="#FNanchor_543_543"><span class="label">[543]</span></a></span> -Moreni, <i>Con torni di Firenze</i>, iii. 34 <i>et seq.</i> Cf. <i>ante</i>, p. 135.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_544_544" id="Footnote_544_544"></a><a href="#FNanchor_544_544"><span class="label">[544]</span></a></span> -Poliziano to Tristano Calco, Flor. April 22, 1489. (Fra Mariano was then -preaching in Milan.) Poliziano had previously, as he mentions in this letter, -praised the Augustinian’s learning, eloquence, and morals in the introduction to -his Miscellanies. N. Valori speaks of him, l. c. p. 76. Cf. Tiraboschi, ix. (vi. 3), -1677-1685.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_545_545" id="Footnote_545_545"></a><a href="#FNanchor_545_545"><span class="label">[545]</span></a></span> -Baluz, <i>Miscellan.</i> ed. Mansi, i. 530. [’A sua posta (Fra Mariano) aveva le -lagrime, le quali cadendogli dagli occhi per il viso, le raccoglieva tal volta e -gittavale al popolo.’] Benivieni on Savonarola’s teachings and prophecies, in a -letter to Clement VII. (Villari, i. 70).</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_546_546" id="Footnote_546_546"></a><a href="#FNanchor_546_546"><span class="label">[546]</span></a></span> -The <i>Storia fiorentina</i>, ch. xii.-xvii. contains many remarks on Savonarola, -specially valuable on account of the author’s position and corresponding views.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_547_547" id="Footnote_547_547"></a><a href="#FNanchor_547_547"><span class="label">[547]</span></a></span> -Prose volgare inedite p. 283. Cf. <i>ante</i> p. 351.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_548_548" id="Footnote_548_548"></a><a href="#FNanchor_548_548"><span class="label">[548]</span></a></span> -Lettera di un Anonimo circa alcune prediche fatte da Fra Mariano da -Genazzano in Roma, in Villari, ii. clxxvi.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_549_549" id="Footnote_549_549"></a><a href="#FNanchor_549_549"><span class="label">[549]</span></a></span> -L. Passerini, <i>Storia e Genealogia delle famiglie Passerini e Rilli</i> (Flor. 1874), -p. 24.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_550_550" id="Footnote_550_550"></a><a href="#FNanchor_550_550"><span class="label">[550]</span></a></span> -Letter of C. Borgia to Piero de’ Medici, written after the accession of -Alexander VI., from Spoleto, October 5, 1492, printed from <i>Med. Arch.</i> in <i>Arch. -stor. Ital.</i>, s. iii. vol. xvii. p. 510.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_551_551" id="Footnote_551_551"></a><a href="#FNanchor_551_551"><span class="label">[551]</span></a></span> -<i>Med. Arch.</i> F. 51.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_552_552" id="Footnote_552_552"></a><a href="#FNanchor_552_552"><span class="label">[552]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. i. 301.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_553_553" id="Footnote_553_553"></a><a href="#FNanchor_553_553"><span class="label">[553]</span></a></span> -Cf. <i>ante</i>, p. 331.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_554_554" id="Footnote_554_554"></a><a href="#FNanchor_554_554"><span class="label">[554]</span></a></span> -Guicciardini, l. c. ch. viii.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_555_555" id="Footnote_555_555"></a><a href="#FNanchor_555_555"><span class="label">[555]</span></a></span> -Rome, October 5, 1490, in Roscoe’s Leo X., Ap. XIII.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_556_556" id="Footnote_556_556"></a><a href="#FNanchor_556_556"><span class="label">[556]</span></a></span> -Rome, October 19, 1490, in Fabroni, l. c. p. 302.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_557_557" id="Footnote_557_557"></a><a href="#FNanchor_557_557"><span class="label">[557]</span></a></span> -Ricordi di Lettere.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_558_558" id="Footnote_558_558"></a><a href="#FNanchor_558_558"><span class="label">[558]</span></a></span> -Matteo Bosso to the Canon Arcangelo of Vicenza, Fiesole, March 14, 1492, -in the <i>Recuperationes Fezulanae</i>, Ep. cx., and in Roscoe’s <i>Lor. de Med.</i>, Ap. No. -XXV. Pietro Delfino to Giovanni, the Superior of the Hermitage of Camaldoli, -Flor. March 11, 1492, in Fabroni, l. c. ii. 305. M. Manfredi, Flor., March 13, in -Cappelli, l. c. p. 311.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_559_559" id="Footnote_559_559"></a><a href="#FNanchor_559_559"><span class="label">[559]</span></a></span> -Rome, April 7, 1492, in Fabroni, l. c. ii. 306 <i>et seq.</i>; also in Roscoe, Leo X., -and Gennarelli’s Burcard. On the reception at Rome and the solemnities there, -see Burcard, p. 166 <i>et seq.</i> Letter from Giovanni to his father, Rome, March 25, -in Roscoe, l. c. Ap. XVII.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_560_560" id="Footnote_560_560"></a><a href="#FNanchor_560_560"><span class="label">[560]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. ii. 308 <i>et seq.</i></p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_561_561" id="Footnote_561_561"></a><a href="#FNanchor_561_561"><span class="label">[561]</span></a></span> -M. Manfredi, Flor. August 31, in Cappelli, l. c. p. 309.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_562_562" id="Footnote_562_562"></a><a href="#FNanchor_562_562"><span class="label">[562]</span></a></span> -Cappelli, l. c. p. 316. Manfredi’s reports give the most details, but unfortunately -there is a blank in the last days of Lorenzo.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_563_563" id="Footnote_563_563"></a><a href="#FNanchor_563_563"><span class="label">[563]</span></a></span> -Cod. Aragonese, l. c. p. 39.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_564_564" id="Footnote_564_564"></a><a href="#FNanchor_564_564"><span class="label">[564]</span></a></span> -M. Manfredi to the Duchess of Ferrara, Flor., April 5, 1492, in Cappelli, l. c. -p. 312. Ercole arrived at Rome on April 13. Burcard, l. c. p. 177.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_565_565" id="Footnote_565_565"></a><a href="#FNanchor_565_565"><span class="label">[565]</span></a></span> -Valori, l.c. p. 181.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_566_566" id="Footnote_566_566"></a><a href="#FNanchor_566_566"><span class="label">[566]</span></a></span> -The story of Lorenzo’s last days may be read in the long letter written by -Poliziano from the villa at Fiesole on May 18, 1492, to Jacopo Antiquario of -Perugia, <i>Pol. Epist.</i> 1. iv. ep. 2, in Fabroni, l. c. i. 199-212, and in Roscoe, Ap. -No. LXXVII. Cf. G. B. Vermiglioli, <i>Memoire di Jacopo Antiquario</i> (Perugia, 1813). -Politian’s letter is a rhetorical composition full of unctuous phrases, but highly -valuable as containing the testimony of an eye-witness.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_567_567" id="Footnote_567_567"></a><a href="#FNanchor_567_567"><span class="label">[567]</span></a></span> -See Appendix III. p. 487.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_568_568" id="Footnote_568_568"></a><a href="#FNanchor_568_568"><span class="label">[568]</span></a></span> -See Appendix III. p. 488.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_569_569" id="Footnote_569_569"></a><a href="#FNanchor_569_569"><span class="label">[569]</span></a></span> -On the prodigies see Politian’s letter, also Rinuccini, l. c., and Cambi, p. 63, -where are given details of the disastrous effects of the lightning. See also -Burcard, p. 175.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_570_570" id="Footnote_570_570"></a><a href="#FNanchor_570_570"><span class="label">[570]</span></a></span> -Guicciardini, l. c. ch. ix.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_571_571" id="Footnote_571_571"></a><a href="#FNanchor_571_571"><span class="label">[571]</span></a></span> -Ricordi, p. cxlvi.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_572_572" id="Footnote_572_572"></a><a href="#FNanchor_572_572"><span class="label">[572]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. ii. 398. Cerretani reports that of the whole number in the -Council 483 voted Aye and 63 No. ‘Herein was seen a token of harmony and -secure hope for the future; but it all came from the popularity of Lorenzo, who -was lamented not only by his fellow-citizens and the people, but by all Italy.’</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_573_573" id="Footnote_573_573"></a><a href="#FNanchor_573_573"><span class="label">[573]</span></a></span> -Burcard, p. 171-178. On the appointment as legate cf. Stefano da -Castrocaro’s letter to Piero, Rome, April 15, 1402; Fabroni, <i>Vita Leonis X.</i> p. 13, -and note 10; Roscoe, <i>Leo X.</i> Ap. xxiv.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_574_574" id="Footnote_574_574"></a><a href="#FNanchor_574_574"><span class="label">[574]</span></a></span> -<i>Cod. Aragon.</i>, l. c. p. 74, 75.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_575_575" id="Footnote_575_575"></a><a href="#FNanchor_575_575"><span class="label">[575]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, l. c. ii. 396.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_576_576" id="Footnote_576_576"></a><a href="#FNanchor_576_576"><span class="label">[576]</span></a></span> -Fabroni, <i>Laur. Med. Vita</i>, i. 212. There is no better warrant for this speech -than for that on the election of Pope Alexander VI.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_577_577" id="Footnote_577_577"></a><a href="#FNanchor_577_577"><span class="label">[577]</span></a></span> -Diary of Paris de’ Grassi, in Fabroni, <i>Vita Leonis X.</i>, p. 95.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_578_578" id="Footnote_578_578"></a><a href="#FNanchor_578_578"><span class="label">[578]</span></a></span> -Moreni, <i>Descrizione istorico-critica delle tre Cappelle Medicee in S. Lorenzo</i> -(Flor. 1813), p. 103. At the revolution of 1494 the party hostile to the Medici -did not entirely spare even the monuments, for the inscription on the tomb of -Cosimo the elder was removed on account of the ‘<i>Pater patriæ</i>’; in 1497, -during the Savonarola excitement, all the Medici coats of arms were taken away -or covered, and replaced by the red cross of the people. The reappearance of the -ball-escutcheon after the revolution of 1512 was referred to in an epigram by the -father of Benvenuto Cellini, wherein he prophesies the attainment of the Papal -dignity by one of the family:—</p> -<p class="pfn8">‘Quest’arme, che sepolta è stata tanta,<br /> -Sotta la croce mansueta,<br /> -Mostra hor la faccia gloriosa e lieta,<br /> -Aspettando di Pietro il sacro ammanto.’</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_579_579" id="Footnote_579_579"></a><a href="#FNanchor_579_579"><span class="label">[579]</span></a></span> -This curious monody, so unlike Politian’s other Latin compositions, stands at -the end of his works in the edition of 1498. [In <i>Del Lungo</i>, p. 274.] The poem -in terza rima, on Lorenzo’s death, printed in the edition of his Italian poems -published at Florence in 1814, from a Riccardi MS. (in Carducci’s ed. p. 382 <i>et seq.</i>) -is unquestionably not Politian’s.</p> - -<p class="pfn4"><span class="ln1"><a name="Footnote_580_580" id="Footnote_580_580"></a><a href="#FNanchor_580_580"><span class="label">[580]</span></a></span> -The object of this table is simply to facilitate a survey of the chronological -sequence of the different parts of the work.</p></div></div> - -</div> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lorenzo De' Medici, the Magnificent -(vol. 2 of 2), by Alfred von Reumont - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LORENZO DE' MEDICI *** - -***** This file should be named 50625-h.htm or 50625-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/0/6/2/50625/ - -Produced by Giovanni Fini, Hélène de Mink, Bryan Ness and -the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned -images of public domain material from the Google Books -project.) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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