FOOTNOTES:
[1] Vasari, in Michelozzo’s Life (Vite, Lemonnier’s edition, Flor. 1846, ff., iii. p. 271); and in Brunelleschi’s Life, a. a. O., p. 228. Michelozzo was born about the year 1391. It is generally understood that the building of the Palace took place before Cosimo’s exile, and they quote from Migliore (Firenze Illustrata, Flor. 1684, p. 198 ff.), which specifies ‘circa all’Anno 1430.’ There is no foundation for this statement. Moreover, Michelozzo was not in Florence in the year supposed (Fantozzi, Guida di Firenze, Flor. 1842, p. 457).
[2] Vasari in the Life of Lorenzo di Bicci, a. a. O., ii. p. 225. The house came afterwards to the Ughi family. At present it is all built round, even the adjoining Lorenzi Palace, which up to our day preserved its ancient, solemn aspect.
[3] Ordinamenta justitiæ communis et populi Florentiæ anni 1293, a Francisco Bonainio edita, in Archivio Storico Italiano, serie ii. i. p. 1-93 [1855]. C. Hegel, Die Ordnungen der Gerechtigkeit in der Florentinischen Republik, Erlangen 1867. Compare P. Capei, Arch. Stor. Ital. ser. iii. vii. p. 132.
[4] Fr. Bonaini, Della Parte Guelfa in Firenze, in Giornale Storico degli Archivi Toscani (Flor. 1857), ii. p. 171, 257; iii. p. 77, 167; iv. p. 3. Unfortunately this laborious work remains incomplete. The oldest constitution of the Capitani and the Guelf party was in 1335, and is printed in Bonaini, i. p. 1-41. The office was in existence up to the year 1769.
[5] Gio. Villani, xi. chap. 92, 93.
[6] G. Canestrini, La Scienza e l’Arte di Stato desunta dagli Atti Officiali della Repubblica Florentina e dei Medici. Parte 1, L’imposta sulla ricchezza mobile e immobile. Florenz. 1862. No more has appeared of this work, which was to be the economical and administrative history of the Republic and of the first Medici period. The first part treats of the Estimo, of the Cadastre, and of the Decima of 1494. Cf. L. Banchi in the Archivio Stor. Ital., serie iii. i. p. 90 (G. F. Pagnini). Della Decima e delle altre gravezze imposte dal Commune di Firenze (Lucca, 1763) has in its first volume, p. 10, a short account of Florentine taxation, up to the introduction of the decima (p. 214-231.—Provision of May 22, 1427, for the formation of the cadastre).
[7] The Peruzzi in 1325 were an instance of this. Storia del Commercio e dei Banchieri di Firenze. Flor. 1868, p. 197.
[8] Varchi, Storia Fiorentina, at the end of book xiii. (Edit. Arbib. Flor. 1844, iii. p. 36.)
[9] ‘Ipse quidem nescit si fructus sequetur, vel non; sed, auditis aliis civibus, idem secutus est.’ ‘Consulta’ of May 12, 1427, by P. Berti, Nuovi documenti intorno al Catasto florentino, in the Giorn. Stor. degli archivi Toscani, iv. 32. Giovanni Cavalcanti (Storia Fiorentina, Flor. 1838, i. 196.)—a contemporary, who has left us the most lifelike description of that period, but who must be used with great caution on account of his decided and enthusiastic party views—has been followed by all later writers in his opinion of the Medici. At the head of these is Machiavelli, who took him as the principal source of information for those times.
[10] Gio. Cavalcanti, l. c. p. 262.
[11] Domenico Moreni, Continuazione delle Memorie della Basilica di S. Lorenzo. Flor. 1816, i. p. 27.
[12] Monuments Sépulcraux de Toscane, Flor. 1821. Table xiii. The inscription is as follows:
‘Cosmus et Laurentius de Medicis v. d. Joanni Averardi f. et Picardæ Adovardi f. carissimis parentibus hoc Sepulchrū faciendum curarunt. Obiit autem Johannes x. Kl. Martias MCCCCXXVIII. Picarda vero xiii. Kl. Maias quinquennio post e vita migravit.
Si merita in patriam, si gloria, sanguis et omni
Larga manus nigra libera morte forent,
Viveret heu patriæ casta cum coniuge felix
Auxilium miseris portus et aura suis;
Omnia sed quando superantur morte, Johannes,
Hoc mausoleo tuque Picarda iaces,
Ergo senex mœret, invenis, puer, omnis et ætas,
Orba parente suo patria mœsta gemit.
[13] G. Cavalcanti, l. c. p. 269.
[14] The xv. and xvi. cantos of Il Paradiso contain eloquent descriptions of historical importance, to the explanation of which the translation of Philalethes has contributed valuable materials.
[15] G. F. Berti, Cenni storico-artistici di S. Miniato al Monte, Flor. 1850. The MSS. of Bishop Hildebrand of the year 1013 show that the reconstruction of the church had already begun at that time.
[16] V. Marchese, Memorie dei più insigni pittori, scultori, e architetti Domenicani. Flor. 1845. I. p. 44 ff. F. Moisè, Santa Croce di Firenze, Flor. 1845. I. p. 42 et seq.
[17] L. Passerini, La Loggia di Or San Michele, l. c. p. 113 ff.
[18] Regesta florentina internam Reipublicæ historiam spectantia ab a. MCCXXV, ad a. MD., by Gaye, Carteggio inedito d’Artisti, i. 413 et seq.
[19] M. Rastrelli, Illustrazione istorica del Palazzo della Signoria. Flor. 1792. F. Moisè, Illustrazione storico-artistica del Palazzo de’ Priori. Flor. 1843.
[20] Fr. Becchi, Sulle Stinche di Firenze, in Illustratore fiorentino. Flor. 1840.
[21] Inferno xix. 17 (‘in my beautiful San Giovanni’). Purgatory xii. 100. Even with the present transformation of the hillside a great flight of steps is to be seen hard by.
[22] Concerning the various kinds of the macigni (Dante uses the expression, Inferno xv. 63, speaking of the obdurate nature of the Florentines of his time), the pietra forte, pietra fina, serena, bigia, see Targioni, Viaggi per la Toscana, i. p. 18 et seq.
[23] The opinion expressed in the book of the Carmelite, P. Fr. M. Soldini—Delle eccellenze e grandezze della nazione fiorentina (Flor. 1780),—respecting the palace Tosinghi on the old market-place, destroyed, according to Gio. Villani, in the party wars of the middle of the 13th century, is, no doubt, a modern conjecture.
[24] Gaye, l. c. p. 498 (Anno 1344).
[25] Baldinucci, Professori del disegno (D. M. Manni’s Ausg.), vol. i. p. 24, Gaye l. c. p. 483.
[26] G. Masselli and G. P. Lasinio, Il Tabernacolo della Madonna d’Orsanmichele: Flor. 1851.
[27] L. Passerini, La Loggetta del Bigallo, l. c. p. 89 et seq.
[28] Benedetto Dei, in Varchi, Storia Fiorentina, book ix. (ii. p. 116), names twenty-one loggias on private houses in the latter half of the 15th century. Lastro, Osservatore Fiorentino (published Flor. 1821), iii. p. 203 et seq.
[29] Cronaca di Matteo Villani, book vii. chap. 41.
[30] L. Passerini, La Loggia della Signoria l. c. p. 99. Gaye l. c. p. 527.
[31] Passerini l. c.; after him Il. Semper in A. v. Zahn’s Fine Arts Annals, iii. p. 35-37. The tradition respecting Orcagna is in Lemonnier’s Vasari, ii. p. 130.
[32] G. Aiazzi ‘Illustrazione della Capella gentilizia della Famiglia Rinuccini,’ in the Ricordi di Filippo Rinuccini: Flor. 1840, p. 304-327.
[33] Gaye l. c. p. 536.
[34] C. Guasti, La Cupola di Sta. Maria del Fiore: Flor. 1857, p. 9, 37, 89.
[35] Plan and sketch in the Osservatore Fiorentino, ii. p. 167.
[36] Book of Statutes, part vii. book 4.
[37] Inscription on the back: ‘Clarissimi viri Cosmas et Laurentius fratres neglectas diu Sanctorum reliquias martyrum religioso studio ac fidelissima pietate suis sumptibus æneis loculis condendas colendasque curarunt.’ Figured in the Monuments Sépulcraux, Table xx. In the time of the French invasion broken up and destined to be melted down, but rescued and restored, and now in the National Museum in the Palace of the Podestà.
[38] Pagnini, Della decima, etc., ii. p. 80. S. L. Peruzzi, p. 61. Osservatore fiorentino, iii. p. 185, vi. p. 157.
[39] Gio. Villani, xi. chap. 93.
[40] P. Berti, Documenti riguardanti il commercio dei Fiorentini in Francia nei secoli xiii. e xiv. in the Giornale storico degli Arch. Tosc. i. pp. 163, 217. The most abundant material is contained in Francesco Balducci Pegolotti’s Pratica della Mercatura, 14th century, and Pagnini, iii.
[41] Osservatore fiorentino, iv. p. 124. F. Fantozzi, Notizie biografiche di Bernardo Cennini, Flor. 1839, p. 33. Fantozzi regards the Calimaruzza as the former Via Francesca, where the magazines of foreign cloth were, and the Calimala as the place for the sale of the native fabrics.
[42] G. Gargioli, L’Arte della Seta in Firenze trattato del secolo xv., Flor. 1868. The lists from 1225 to 1337 are printed p. 282-290. L. Venturi, Filippo Matteoni (the biography of one of the most intelligent silk-weavers of our time), in verse and prose, Flor. 1871, p. 321. S. Bongi, Della Mercatura dei Lucchesi nei sec. xiii. e xiv. Osservatore fior. iv. p. 103; vi. p. 36. Peruzzi, p. 36, where there are also the portraits of a crimson-dyer and a silk-spinner, after a MS. in the Laurentiana.
[43] L’Inferno, xvii. 43. Compare E. Morpurgo, I prestatori di denaro al tempo di Dante, in Dante e Padua, Studj storico-critici, Padua, 1865, p. 193.
[44] Divine Comedy, ‘Paradise,’ xix. 119.
[45] Kervyn de Lettenhove, Les Argentiers Florentins, in the Bulletins de l’Académie r. de Belgique, 1861, pp. 295-312. Compare also his treatise, Recherches sur la part que l’ordre de Citeaux et le Comte de Flandre prirent à la lutte de Boniface VIII. et de Philippe le Bel, in the Mémoires of the same Academy, xxviii. On the Franzesi family see Repetti, Dizionario della Toscana, article ‘Figline, Staggia.’
[46] Vol. x. chap. 88.
[47] Fr. Balducci Pegolotti, in Pagnini, p. 198.
[48] Bartolommeo Cerretani, in Fabroni M. Cosmi Med. Vita, ii. 63. Concerning this still unprinted chronicler, see Moreni, Bibliografia della Toscana, i. 249.
[49] Del Migliore, p. 6. See Gaye, p. 424.
[50] Extracts in Gaye, in the registers.
[51] Paradiso xv. 97. Purgat. xvi. 117.
[52] L. Mehus: Ambrosii Traversarii Epistolæ et Orationes. Flor. 1759, ccclxxiv.
[53] On the Bardi see Ademollo, Marietta de Ricci, 2nd edit. by L. Passerini, Flor, 1815, iii. 1135.
[54] ‘Io confesso—che il concilio non è per me. Ma che debbo fare, se haggio uno fato che mi ci tira?’—Luca della Robbia, Vita di Bartolommeo Valori, in the Arch. Stor. Ital. iv. part i. 262.
[55] Documenti relativi alla liberazione dalla prigionia di Giovanni XXIII., in the Arch. Stor. Ital. 429. Writings of Averardo di Medici to Michele Cossa, Flor. Dec. 31, 1419. Fabroni as above, ii. 11.
[56] Ciacconio: Historia Pontificum, etc., Rome, 1677, ii. 795, and the Monuments sépulcraux, plate xi., give an illustration. From Michelozzo’s Survey-Declaration in Gaye, as above, 117, we see that the monument was still unfinished in 1427, and the price agreed upon had been 800 florins.
[57] L. Passerini: Gli Alberti di Firenze, Flor. 1870, i. 118; ii. 227.
[58] Commissioni di Rinaldo degli Albizzi per il comune di Firenze dal 1399 al 1433. Edited by Cesare Guasti. 3 vols. Flor. 1867-73.
[59] Gio. Cavalcanti, 319: Albizzi Family. See Ademollo, as above, ii. 695. Genealogij, by Gius. Ajazzi, MS. in possession of the author.
[60] Niccolò’s conversation with Niccolò Barbadoro, in Cavalcanti as above, p. 380 (copied, with alterations, by Machiavelli in the 4th book of the Florentine Hist.), gives the best insight into the feelings of the party.
[61] Vasari: Life of Lorenzo di Bicci, ii. p. 229. The building of the Sapienza already begun, served later as a cage for lions, and is now employed as an educational institution.
[62] Vasari: Life of Masaccio, vol. iii. p. 160.
[63] Vitæ CIII. Virorum Illustrium qui sæculo xv. extiterunt, auctore coævo Vespasiano Florentino. (In the Spicilegium Romanum, edited by Cardinal Angelo Mai.) Rome, 1839, reprint. Vite di nomini illustri del secolo xv. scritte da Vespasiano da Bisticci, stampate nuovamente da Adolfo Bartoli. Flor. 1859. Palla di Noferi Strozzi, p. 271. Messer Leonardo is Leonardo Bruni.
[64] Vespasiano da Bisticci as above, 278.
[65] Commissioni di Rinaldo degli Albizzi, iii. 507.
[66] Gio. Cavalcanti as above, 320-327.
[67] Fabroni as above, i. 27; ii. 31, 58.
[68] L. Passerini: Genealogia e storia della famiglia Guadagni, Flor. 1874, p. 52.
[69] Cosimo’s own memoranda, Fabroni as above, ii. 96, which give no information as to the grounds and form of the action, must be compared with Cavalcanti’s relation, 507, which supplied Machiavelli with his materials. The protocols of the Signory give no information as to these proceedings.
[70] Gio. Cavalcanti as above, 558, 610.
[71] Storia Fiorentina dai tempi di Cosimo de’ Medici a quelli del gonfaloniere Soderini. Flor. 1859. Vol. i. of the Opere inedite di Fr. Guicciardini, illustrate da G. Canestrini, p. 4.
[72] ‘Fermare lo Stato’—to give a settled form to a Government, introduced by the sovereign or a political party. ‘Stato’ means in this case the rule with which they exercise it.
[73] I Capitoli del Comune di Firenze Inventario e Regesto, i. Flor. 1866.
[74] Published by D. M. Manni, Flor. 1720. Constantine Höfler has in his history of King Rupert (Freiburg, 1861) placed the activity of Buonaccorso Pitti in its right light.
[75] Printed by D. M. Manni Cronachette Antiche, Florence, 1733. The history of the conquest of Pisa, printed there likewise, is probably by his son Neri.
[76] Storia Fiorentina, chap. i.
[77] P. Litta: Genealogy of the Acciaiuoli. L. Taufani: Nicola Acciaiuoli, Florence, 1863. Gaye has published in the Carteggio inedita d’Artisti, i. 57-69, the remarkable letters of the seneschal for the years 1355-56, on the building of the Certosa. Vespasiano da Bisticci as above, 351 (on Agnolo Acciaiuoli).
[78] Vespasiano da Bisticci as above, 332. Angiolo Segni: Vita di Donato Acciaiuoli, edited by Tommaso Tonelli, Florence, 1841.
[79] Franc. Guicciardini: Recordi di Famiglia, in his Opere inedite, x.
[80] Description and narrative which Vespasiano da Bisticci, 525, gives of Alessandra de Bardi Strozzi and her sad fate, give a deep insight into the miseries of this time.
[81] Commissioni di Rinaldo degli Albizzi, iii. 651, 669.
[82] Commissioni, iii. 672, 677.
[83] Idem, 680.
[84] Vespasiano de Bisticci as above, 417.
[85] L. Basserini: Baldaccio da Anghiari, in the Arch. Stor. Ital., 3, iii. 131, 166. The author is of the opinion that the connections of Baldaccio to the Pope Gregory IV., still residing in Florence, were the cause of the Medicean party wishing to get rid of him.
[86] Gio. Cavalcanti, I. c. ii. 195.
[87] Register of 1458, Canestrini, as above, 168. Progressive scale, id. 213.
[88] Gio. Cavalcanti as above, ii. 210.
[89] Etiam nobis esset reputatio et utilitas si Papa hic veniret. Rinaldo degli Albizzi, Commissioni, iii. 589.
[90] C. Milanesi, ‘Osservazioni intorno agli esemplari del decreto d’unione della chiesa Greca con la Latina che si conservano nella biblioteca Mediceo-Laurenziana o nell’Archivio di Stato,’ with Greek and Latin text of the decree of union, in the Giorn. stor. degli Arch. tosc. i. 196-225. This is not the place to refer to the newest historico-critical literature on this subject.
[91] Fabroni as above, ii. 163.
[92] Life of Eugenius IV. as above, 16.
[93] Life of Agnolo Acciaiuoli as above, p. 357.
[94] Giannone, Storia civile del Regno di Napoli, book xxvi. chap. 2.
[95] Ricordi storici di Filippo di Cino Rinuccini dal 1282 al 1460, colla continuazione di Alamanno e Neri suoi figli fino al 1506 per cura di G. Aiazzi, Flor. 1840, lxxxix.
[96] Letter of Pius II., and his answer, in Fabroni, ii. 254.
[97] Document of the purchase of the ‘sclava,’ twenty-two years old, for the price of 60 ducats, Fabroni, ii. 214.
[98] Fabroni as above, ii. 251.
[99] Idem, 253.
[100] The list of the masses ordered by Piero de’ Medici after his father’s death, and the grants for mourning habits to the members and servants of his family, among them five chamber-women and four maids (schiave), are given by Fabroni, ii. 254.
[101] M. Ficino, Epistol. i. 85.
[102] Fabroni, ii. 257.
[103] Litta, ‘Family Tornabuoni,’ in the Famiglie celebri Ital., Ademollo as above, iv. 1200. The Tornabuoni became extinct in 1635, and the name and inheritance of the Tornaquinci, extinct in 1790, passed to the branch of the Medici which is still flourishing in Florence.
[104] January 1, 1448, after Florentine style (annus ab incarnatione, i.e. from March 25), is the same day 1449.
[105] Laurentii Medicis Vita, per Nicolaum Valorium edita ad Leonem X.P.M. First printed by L. Mehus after a Laurentian MS., Flor. 1749; more recently in Philippi Villani Liber de civitatis Florentiæ famosis civibus et de Florentinorum litteratura principes fere synchroni scriptores. Ed. G. C. Galletti. Flor. 1847, p. 161. An Italian translation had already appeared, Flor. 1568. Niccolò Valori was a pupil of Marsilio Ficino, and a member of the Platonic Academy.
[106] On Gentile of Urbino, as he was commonly called, see A. M. Bandini, Specimen literaturæ Florentinæ, sæc. xv., Flor. 1752, i. 182; ii. 111. Desjardins-Canestrini, Négotiations diplomatiques de la France avec la Toscane, Paris 1859, i. 317. Embassy of Becchi and Piero Soderini to King Charles VIII., 1493, idem, 321-365. Address to Pope Innocent VIII. on occasion of the Neapolitan war of the Barons, 1485, p. 205-214. Gentile, bishop of Arezzo 1473, died April 19, 1497.
[107] Fabroni, Laur. Med. Magnif. Vita, Pisa, 1784, ii. 9.
[108] N. Valori as above, 166.
[109] Politian, Conjuratio Pactiana, at the end.
[110] Litta, Family Pazzi, Ademollo, as above, iv. 1228.
[111] As above, 372.
[112] For documents referring to the embassy, see Desjardins, as above, 109, 135.
[113] Vespasiano, as above, 375.
[114] L. Passerini, Genealogia e storia della famiglia Rucellai, Flor. 1861.
[115] L. Passerini, Genealogy of the Soderini, continuation of Litta’s Famiglie celebri.
[116] Vasari, Life of Donatello, iii. 250. For illustration see Litta.
[117] Cronica di Napoli di Notar Giacomo, pubbl. da P. Garzilli, Naples, 1845, p. 100. Giovan. Pietro Cagnola, Storia di Milano (‘Cronache Milanesi,’ in the Arch. stor. ital. iii. Flor. 1842), informs us (p. 170) of Don Federigo’s arrival and the causes of the delay of the wedding, which was connected with Jacopo Piccinino’s affairs (see below, p. 219). Ippolita arrived on September 14 at Naples, after having waited two months in Siena, till her father permitted her to proceed. (Cronica di Notar Giacomo, 112; Cagnola, 171.)
[118] Rinuccini, Ricordi, xcv.
[119] Luigi Pulci’s letter, see Roscoe, App. ix., but more correct in the Lettere di Luigi Pulci a Lorenzo il Magnifico e ad altri (edited by Salvatore Bongi), Lucca, 1868, p. 1. There are various notices of the writer here, but unfortunately no notes to the letters, which are often unintelligible, and will probably remain so, in spite of all notes, with regard to various persons mentioned.
[120] Fabroni, l. e., ii. 51 seq.
[121] Rinuccini, Ricordi, xcvi.
[122] Fabroni as above, ii. 47; letter of March 22, idem, 49.
[123] Desjardins as above, 136-141.
[124] Guicciardini, in whom the traditions of grandfather and granduncle are united in cap. ii. of the Storia fiorentina, p. 18; Machiavelli, who, in consequence of the death of Girolamo, his ancestor in Cosimo’s time, could not be very favourable to Luca Pitti and his adherents, in book vii. of his history. G. M. Bruto, Florentinæ historiæ, book ii.
[125] On this affair, which has never been fully cleared up, see Ricotti, Storia delle Compagnie di Ventura, iii. 191, where the judgment of contemporaries is referred to; and Canestrini, Documenti per servire alla storia della Milizia italiana, Flor. 1851 (Arch. stor. ital. xv.), series lxxviii. 179-184, where the letters of Francesco Sforza and the King are to be found.
[126] Vespasiano da Bisticci as above, p. 360.
[127] Rinuccini, Ricordi, xcix.
[128] Lettera di Jacopo Acciaiuoli ad Agnolo, Naples, September 6, 1466. See Fabroni as above, ii. 28. The time of Lorenzo’s journey cannot be precisely fixed, but it must have taken place before or towards the middle of August, for the later events leave no time. Jacopo writes: ‘Lorenzo di Piero fu quà. Il S. Rè li fece carezze assai.’
[129] Paradiso, xv. 109.
[130] Francis Joseph Sloane, who died in 1871. The villa passed by inheritance to the Russian family Boutourlin.
[131] The name Camaldoli, which is borne in Florence by two districts of the city inhabited by the poorer classes—that of San Frediano and that behind San Lorenzo—is derived from the Camaldulensian church of San Salvatore, pulled down in 1529, which stood near the city walls on the left bank of the Arno. To the district of San Lorenzo the name was transferred from the other behind Sta. Croce, and at Porta San Niccolò there are other districts so named.
[132] The prevailing opinion among the opponents of the Medici of the events of 1466 is expressed decidedly in the notices of Alamanno Rinuccini, who continued those of his father Filippo from the year 1460, as above, coll. xcix.
[133] Cronachetta Volterrana di autore anomino del 1362 al 1478, given by M. Tabarrini in the Arch. Stor. Ital. App. iii. 317.
[134] The history of the conspiracy, in Machiavelli, b. vii., entirely reverses the chronology of the occurrences, excepting the speeches and letters, which correspond but little to the reality. Jacopo Pitti Istoria fiorentina, p. 19, seq., gives a clear narrative of the proceedings. G. M. Banto, in his third book, is diffuse and tedious with his imaginary speeches. The version of Cardinal Ammanati in the Rerum suo tempore gestarum Commentarii, Milan, 1506, is to be consulted. Scipione Ammirato gives in his twenty-third book, as usual, a useful but very dry relation. The remarkable letters and other writings of the Acciaiuoli and Neroni, as well as the letters of King Ferrante’s private secretary, Antonello Petrucci, to Lorenzo, November 10, 1466 (see Fabroni as above, ii. 28-38), reveal the persons and circumstances better than the declamations of antiquated historians. The conspiracy in itself would scarcely justify a detailed account if it did not afford so clear a view of the manœuvres of the political parties in Florence at that time.
[135] Fabroni as above, ii. 38.
[136] Both letters, see Desjardins as above, p. 141 seq.
[137] Fabroni as above.
[138] Letter of January 10, 1467, to the ambassadors Antonio Ridolfi and Giovanni Canigiani; see Desjardins, as above, p. 144.
[139] Instruction for Fr. Nori, do. p. 147.
[140] Diotisalvi to Pigello, Malpaga, October 8, 1466; see Fabroni as above, ii. 38.
[141] Inferno, xxvii. 37. The translation of Philalethe gives in the historical sketch appended to this canto a careful view of the confused condition of the Romagna in Dante’s days. We have in the continuation of Litta’s work by L. Passerini the genealogies of most of the great families of Romagna, the Malatesta, Ordelaffi, Manfredi, and Da Polenta.
[142] Instead of the exceedingly numerous works on the history of Ferrara, only Litta’s Genealogy will be quoted here.
[143] R. Reposati Della Zecca di Gubbio, Bologna, 1772. James Dennistoun, Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino, London, 1851. F. Ugolino Storia dei Conti e Duchi d’Urbino, Flor. 1859.
[144] N. Ratti Della Famiglia Sforza, i. 144 seq.; Litta, Sforza Family.
[145] Fabroni, Cosm. Med. Vita, ii. 169.
[146] Giovanni Gozzadini, Memorie per la Vita di Giovanni II. Bentivoglio, Bologna, 1839.
[147] The most abundant material for the history of the war and peace of 1467-68 is afforded by Fr. Trinchera, Codice Aragonese, i. (Naples 1866), which contains King Ferrante’s correspondence. S. Romanin, Storia di Venezia, b. xi. (vol. iv.) gives the account, having used D. Malipiero’s Annali, Veneti i.
[148] Rinuccini, Ricordi, s. cv.
[149] Malipiero as above, p. 215.
[150] Compiègne, September 18, 1468; see Desjardins as above, p. 151.
[151] Guichenon in his Histoire de la maison de Savoye rather doubts the strange fact, contrary to Corio. See Muratori, Annali, 1468.
[152] Vespasiano da Bisticci as above, p. 228.
[153] The inscription reads:
‘Detisalvio . Neronis . f . equiti. floren. viro.
integerr. qui. domi. forisq. multa. pro.
rep. optime. gessit. patriae. libertatem.
vehementer. amavit. demum. inter. fortunæ.
procellas. summa. cum. laude. vixit.
ann. LXXXI. mens. VI. dies XII. filii.
unanimes. patri. pient se. et. b. m.
pos. obiit. anno Christi MCCCCLXXXIIIIII. kl. Aug.’
In an elegy to Lorenzo de’ Medici, probably written after the end of the Colleonic war, Angelo Poliziano (Prose volgari inedite, &c., p. 219) refers to this man’s fate:
‘Diotisalvi left in hasty flight his home;
Pining in exile now, he mourns the slow-footed time.’
[154] Cronachetta Volterrana as above, p. 326. Pecori, Storia di San Gemignano, Flor. 1853, p. 242.
[155] Rinuccini, Ricordi, s. cviii.
[156] L. Pulci, Lettere, p. 31.
[157] See A. Cappelli, Lettere di Lorenzo de’ Medici conservate nell’Archivio palatino di Modena in Atti e Memorie delle R. R. Deputationi di storia pratria per le provincie Modenesi Parmensi, i. 249.
[158] Purgatorio xxv. 13. Par. iii. 46.
[159] Ricordi d’una giostra fatta a Firenze a dì 7 Febbraio 1481 (1469), after a Magliabechi MS. printed by P. Fanfani in Il Borghini, vol. ii. (Flor. 1864) pp. 473-483, 533-542. Tournaments were also publicly proclaimed, as at the carnival, 1467, at Perugia. See Giornale d’erudizione artistica, ii. 208.
[160] In the elegy to Lorenzo mentioned above (p. 260), Politian alludes to the tournament, which is also sung by Ugolino Vieri (Verino).
[161] See Litta, Fam. Orsini, table ix. xxiii. In San Salvator in lauro at Rome, where Latino Orsini lies buried (his monument belongs to the seventeenth century) the beautiful monument of Clarice’s mother is to be seen, with a statue of her reposing in death, and beneath, Magdalena Ursina pudicitiæ exemplum; in the niches, statuettes of the Madonna, St. Benedict (missing), and St. Scholastica; above, the Orsini arms, with the inscription:
Ranaldus. Vrsin. archiepus. florent. parenti. b. m. pientiss. p.
For illustration see Litta.
[162] Tre lettere di Lucrezia Tornabuoni a Piero de’ Medici ed altre lettere di vari concernenti al matrimonio di Lorenzo il Magnifico con Clarice Orsini. (After the MSS. of the Flor. Archives edited by Cesare Gnasti), Florence, 1859.
[163] The persons named in the letter are: Giovanni Tornabuoni; Cardinal Latino Orsini, also called Monsignore, the title (Illustrissimo e Reverendissimo Monsignore) which the cardinals bore to the times of Urban VIII.; Clarice’s two brothers—Orso (called Organtino, who married a Savelli), and Rinaldo (afterwards Archbishop of Florence); Clarice’s uncle Lorenzo, lord of Monterotondo; her uncles Latino, Giovanni, Archbishop of Irani and Abbot of Farsa, Napoleon, lord of Bracciano, and Roberto, mentioned above. Of the three young girls mentioned, Maria can only be Piero’s natural daughter, the wife of Leonetto de Rossi and mother of Luigi de Rossi, created a cardinal by Leo X.; Bianca is the wife of Guglielmo de’ Pazzi. Who Lucrezia is, is obscure. Guasti (as above, p. 10) is mistaken in thinking all three to be daughters of Piero and Lucrezia. In the Ricordo quoted by him (Fabroni, Laur. Med. Vita, ii. 9), Lorenzo only mentions Bianca and Nannina Rucellai.
[164] Guasti, as above, 12.
[165] Guasti, as above, p. 12.
[166] Fabroni, as above, ii. 39.
[167] The different letters, see Guasti, as above, pp. 14-16.
[168] The description of the marriage in Delle Nozze di Lorenzo de’ Medici con Clarice Orsini nel 1469 informazione di Piero Parenti Fiorentino, Flor. 1870. The writer says at the beginning that he has the details from Cosimo Bartoli, one of the speakers at the festivities. The Magliabechi MS., from which the writing is taken (Strozzi MSS. xxv. cod. 574), mentions no author; the list of the MSS., however, gives Piero, the son of Marco Parenti, the author of a chronicle which has remained in MS., which will again be mentioned. A similarity between the writings of the latter and this ‘Information’ would be hard to discover, however. The opinion of the unmentioned editor, that the report was addressed to Filippo Strozzi the elder then in Naples, has slight foundation.
[169] This valuable little book is enumerated as No. 27 in the inventory of valuables found in Lorenzo’s house after his death.
[170] A letter written from Careggi on July 13 by Piero to his wife, who was in town, and which is difficult to understand on account of allusions to unknown circumstances, arouses the suspicion that Piero was not quite pleased with this embassy. ‘Tu sai che mal volentieri decti licentia a Lorenzo per molti rispecti et maxime per non fare dimostratione di questa mandata. Di a Lorenzo che non esca dello ordine in cosa alcuna e non faccia tante melarancie non essendo imbasciadore ch’io non determino che paperi menino a bere l’oche’ (Med. Arch.).
[171] Fabroni, as above, ii. 53.
[172] As above, p. 56.
[173] Vasari in Verrocchio’s Life, as above, v. 142. Monuments sépulcraux, Plate XIV.
[174] Fabroni, as above, ii. 42.
[175] Storia Fiorentina, chap. ii.
[176] ‘Discorso di Alessandro de’ Pazzi al cardinale Giulio de’ Medici’ (Pope Clement VII.) anno 1522 in the supplement to Jacopo Pitti’s Istoria Fiorentina (Arch. stor. Ital. i. Flor. 1842), p. 420 seq., and Introduction to the same by Gino Capponi, 413 seq.
[177] Del Reggimento di Firenze, libri ii. In the Opere inedite, ii. Flor. 1858, 1-234.
[178] Beside Machiavelli, Gio. Mich. Bruto has this story in his book, and according to custom made Piero deliver a speech to his partisans, filling many pages (‘Ita ad illos loquutus fertur,’ i. 380 seq.). But this author cannot be considered as an authority. A better one is Vespasiano da Bisticci, who, however, limits the project of recall to Agnolo Acciaiuoli. The Neapolitan ambassador, Marino Tomacelli, is said to have been present at Piero’s interview with the heads of the party.
[179] Despatch of King Ferrante to Antonio Cicinello and Marino Tomacelli, February 26, 1467; see Trinchera (as above), 65.
[180] Despatch of August 14: Trinchera, 209.
[181] Del Reggimento di Firenze, as above, 34, 64, 97.
[182] Niccolo Roberti to Duke Borso, Florence, December 4, 1469; see Cappelli, as above, i. 250. ‘I quali due ultime (i.e. Pitti and Martelli) soggiunsero che si aveva a riconoscere uno signore e superiore che avesse unanime a trattare tutte le cose occorrenti concernenti lo Stato di questa eccelsa Signoria.’
[183] Guicciardini, Storia Fiorentina, chap. ii. Machiavelli has embellished the story in his fashion, and spoken of Lorenzo and Giuliano as being present at the consultation, which is very unlikely. Roscoe, chap, iii., has been led by this incongruous statement and Lorenzo’s notices to believe the whole affair to be fictitious. On the day after the consultation they went to the Medici.
[184] Rinuccini, Ricordi, s. cxiii. cxiv. cxviii.; Guicciardini, Storia Fiorentina, chap. iii.
[185] Fabroni, as above, ii. 47.
[186] The Medicean Archives (divisione avanti il principato), contain an endless series of letters from princes and great men, which afford a proof of the widely-spread and intimate connections of Lorenzo and his family.
[187] Luigi Pulci, Lettere, p. 38, and later.
[188] Bern, Corio, b. vi. chap. ii. Rinuccini, Ricordi, s. cxv. cxvi. L. Pulci, Lettere, p. 51 (Letter from Naples, March 19). G. Tommasi, Sommario della Storia di Lucca, Flor. 1847 (vol. x. of the Arch. Stor. Ital.) 336.
[189] Rinuccini, Ricordi, s. cxxii. The king is called ‘Re di Dacia o signore di Norvecia.’ Beneath the arch of the Porta San Gallo, we read on a marble tablet a remembrance of a successor of Christiern, King Frederick IV., who visited Venice and Florence in 1708, and had great pleasure in contemplating the treasures of art. The Medici, whom his predecessors had seen rise so brilliantly, were then almost extinct.
[190] L. Pulci, Lettere, p. 96 (Letter of June 16, 1475).
[191] Fabroni, as above, ii. 66 seq. Desjardins, 161 seq. The Dauphin, afterwards King Charles VIII. was born in 1470, Beatrice of Aragon in 1457. In 1476 she married Mathias Corvinus, King of Hungary.
[192] L. Pulci, as above, p. 63 (Fuligno, May 20, 1472).
[193] Med. Arch. Filza, 34.
[194] Cosimo Rucellai, Bernardo’s son and Lucrezia’s grandson; born 1468, died 1495. The marriage with Madonna Argentina, daughter of Gabriel Malaspina, Marchesa of Fosdinovo, took place only in 1492. (The widow married Piero Soderini, later Gonfaloniere for life.) The expression ‘nuova di zecca,’ or ‘zecca al gitto’ for unexpected news, is still used in Tuscany at the present day.
[195] L. Pulci, as above, p. 83.
[196] When Muratori, in vol. xxiii. of the Scriptores rer. Ital., printed the Commentariolus de bello Volaterrano, a. 1472, by Antonio Ivano (Hyvaniss) of Sarzana, then Chancellor of Volterra, he remarks with his usual insight how cautiously one must proceed in employing this apologetic official account, evidently ordered in Florence, of a man not well spoken of. (Ivano came to Florence in March, 1473, as ambassador from Sarzana; see Gaye, Carteggio inedito, vol. i. p. 251. There is a description by him of the ruins of Luni.) The anonymous ‘Cronachetta Volterrana’ already quoted, which M. Tabarrini gives in the Arch. Stor. Ital., App. vol. iii., is also favourable to the Florentines. Machiavelli and G. M. Bruto, who copied from him, have an account not only insufficient but incorrect, in respect to the causes which led to the quarrel; Alamanno Rinuccini, as above, s. cxx., has only short notices of the war; Scipione Ammirato has no desire of agreeing with Machiavelli. How Raffael Maffei (Volterranus) regarded the matter is shown by his ‘Comment. Urb.’ and the whole of his proceedings towards the Medici. Stan. Gatteschi has in his translation of Bruto (vol. ii. p. 90, seq.) investigated the origin of the whole conflict with the help of documents. The name of Lorenzo de’ Medici is not to be found in the contract which mentions the members of the trading company, but in the contemporary ‘Ricordi’ of Zaccharia Zucchi (see Fabroni, as above, vol. ii. p. 62). Francesco Guicciardini (Stor. Fior. chap, iii.), who had the traditions of his own house at his disposal, although he remarks that the fact was unknown to him, also speaks of Lorenzo’s selfish intentions in the affair, and how he oppressed the Volterrans, because he feared a diminution of their general respect if he did not succeed in his purpose. Louis XI.’s letter to the Florentines of June 3O, wherein he complains of the silence of the Republic about the Volterran affairs, is in Desjardins, as above, p. 157; the letter from the Signori of July 1, p. 58; and the answer to the first of July 30, p. 160.
[197] Fabroni, as above, vol ii. p. 63.
[198] Lorenzo to Sixtus IV., November 21, 1472. See Fabroni, vol. ii. p. 61 (Quello che essa ha a me tanto liberalmente in questa causa promessa). The letters of Cardinal Ammanati from 1473, idem. pp. 58-61.
[199] Rinuccini, Ricordi, s. cxxi., cxxii.; Cronaca di Notar. Giacomo, p. 126. Angelo Politiano refers to the presence of Eleonore in his beautiful elegy on the death of Albiera degli Albizzi—Prose volgari inedite, &c., p. 140. (‘Cum celebres linquens Sirenum nomine muros—Herculeumque petens regia nata torum,’ &c.)
[200] Med. Arch.
[201] See Cappelli, as above, p. 251.
[202] L. Passerini, Manfredi Family. Ratti, Della Famiglia Sforza, vol. ii. p. 35, seq.
[203] Litta, Vitelli Family. A. Fabretti, Capitani venturieri dell’Umbria, vol. iii. p. 37, seq. Roberto Orsi, De obsidione Tifernatum Città di Castello, 1538, reprinted by D. M. Manni in vol. ii. of J. M. Tartini’s Supplements to the Muratori Collection.
[204] June 28, 1474: Fabroni, as above, vol. ii. p. 105.
[205] Florence, December 25, 1475. See D. Moreni, Lettere di Lorenzo il Magnifico al S. P. Innocenzo VIII. Flor., 1830, p. 1, seq. The letter addressed to Sixtus IV. is here incomprehensibly referred to his successor.
[206] Ricordi, s. cxxiii. cxxiv.
[207] Chronicle of Piero di Marco Parenti, MS. of the Magliabechiana; Letter of Angelo Poliziano to Madonna Lucrezia de’ Medici of May 31, 1477, in Poliziano’s Prose Volgari Inedite, &c. p. 49.
[208] Cronaca di Notar Giacomo, pp. 134-137.
[209] The date results from Morelli’s Chronicle. See T. Dellungo in G. Carducci’s edition of Poliziano’s Italian Poems, Flor. 1863, p. xxvii. Piero de’ Medici mentions the desire of his younger son in a letter to Lorenzo, then at Milan, Fabroni, l.c. vol. ii. p. 52.
[210] Vasari, vol. x. p. 293. C. Quarti, Le Ville Bandinelli a Pizzidimonte, in Belle Arti Opuscoli descritivi e biografici, Florence 1874, p. 345, &c.
[211] Ricordi, s. cxxv.
[212] L. Pulci, l. c. p. 99.
[213] Rinuccini, Ricordi, s. cxxvi.
[214] Rome, Oct. 15, 1474, Med. Arch.
[215] ‘Ad Franciscum Salviatum,’ 1473, in the Prose Volgari, &c. p. 113. He calls him ‘dulcis Salviate,’ and says ‘Parva peto, dare magna soles; da parva petenti.’
[216] Niccolò Bendedei to Ercole d’Este. See A. Cappelli. l. c. p. 252.
[217] Chronicles of Giovanni di Juzzo, in the Cronache e Statuti della Città di Viterbo, ed. Ignazio Ciampi, Flor. 1872, p. 414. Fabretti, Capitani dell’Umbria, vol. ii. p. 307.
[218] Sixtus IV. to Federigo di Montefeltro, Rome, June 9, 1477. (Arch. of Urbino, in the Tuscan Central Arch., Cl. I. Div. G., Filza, 104.)
[219] Malavolti, Historia di Siena, part iii. book 4, p. 71.
[220] Med. Arch., Filza 34.
[221] Fabroni, 1. c. vol. ii. p. 106.
[222] A 1. c. p. 160.
[223] Guicciardini, Storia Fior., p. 34, and Ricordi di Famiglia. Jacopo de’ Pazzi’s letters to Lorenzo, Fabroni, 1. cit. vol. ii. p. 104.
[224] Fabroni, 1. c. vol. ii. p. 105.
[225] The confession of Giovan Batista da Montesecco, in the Excusatio Florentinorum, drawn up by the Chancellor Bartolommeo Scala in Fabroni, vol. ii. p. 167, gives the clearest insight into the course of the conspiracy, and the measure of Pope Sixtus IV’s. share in it. We have not the least ground to doubt the truth of the statements contained in this document. The best-known contemporary account of the occurrences is Angelo Poliziano’s De Coniuratione Pactiana Commentarius, printed in the year of the conspiracy, and extremely rare, reprinted in the edition of Poliziano’s works which appeared at Bâle, 1553, and then carefully re-edited, with many valuable additions by Giovanni Adimari. A translation made, as it seems, after the middle of the sixteenth century, was printed in the Prose Volgari inedite, &c., di Angelo Poliziano, Flor. 1867, pp. 87-105. There was no lack of later translation. The relation of the facts is undoubtedly correct; the opinions regarding the acting persons are those of a partizan. The later ones follow that of Poliziano in all essentials, whom, however, G. M. Bruto rightly accuses of partizanship. The best and most reliable representation, according to the documents, is that in Scipione Ammirato, in the twenty-fourth book of his Florentine History, printed separately with remarks, Flor. 1826. Fabroni, as usual, has selected the most important from the documentary materials, as far as they were at his disposal in Florence.
[226] Med. Archiv.
[227] Rome, January 15, 1478. (The delivery of the letter followed on the 22nd, according to Lorenzo.) Med. Arch.
[228] Med. Archiv.
[229] List of Filippo Strozzi after a Riccardi MS. in Vita di Filippo Strozzi il vecchio, scritta da Lorenzo suo figlio, per cura di Giuseppe Bini e Pietro Bigazzi. Flor. 1851, p. 55, seq.
[230] Piero di Marco Parenti, Flor. Hist. MS. of the Magliabechiana. See above, p. 277.
[231] Filippo Strozzi relates that Nori was slain by the side of Giuliano.
[232] Concerning the different sentences pronounced on command of the Magnifici Octoviri from April 28 to May 18 and August 3rd, 1478, see Sententiæ Dni. Matthæi de Toscanis de Mediolano Potestatis, Florentiæ, 1477-1478, from the Strozzi MSS. G. Adimari, l. c. pp. 136-155. A less correct list of those executed and killed after a Magliabechian MS. in the Appendix to the separate imprint of Scip. Ammirato’s Report, pp. 86-88. On June 9, 1478, Sforza degli Oddi wrote to Lorenzo to recommend to him Madonna Andrea, widow of Messer Gentile de Graziani, a Peruginese emigrant, who had perished in the tumult (Med. Arch., Filza 36, see Cronache di Perugia, vol. ii. p. 589).
[233] Letter of May 22, 1478, Med. Arch.
[234] Fabroni, p. 111. (Ex cod. 170, Provision. Reip. Flor.).
[235] See book v. The palace in the Borgo degli Albizzi, belonging to a branch of the family in the present day, with the large garden, whose portal in the Via dell’Orinolo was ascribed to Donatello, has lately disappeared in building the National Bank.
[236] Vasari’s assertion that these libellous pictures are by the hand of Andrea del Castagno arises from an anachronism.
[237] Vasari, in the Life of Verrocchio, vol. v. p. 152. According to this description, one might suppose that the figures were still existing at Vasari’s time. Other Medicean portraits (Voti), in the Annunziata were destroyed after the revolution of 1527.
[238] Letter to Gio. Lanfredini of August 18, 1487, Med. Archiv. The priorate of Capua came later to Leone Strozzi, the son of Filippo and Clarice de’ Medici, Lorenzo’s granddaughter.
[239] Vespasiano da Bisticci, l. c. p.
[240] Fabroni, l. c., ii. 116.
[241] Romanin, iv. 389.
[242] In the document, Synodus florentina, cap. ix.
[243] Allegretto Allegretti, Diarj Senesi; Muratori, R. It. Scr., xxiii. col. 784.
[244] Bull, see Rainaldi, Annales Eccl., x. 582 et seq., and Fabroni, l. c. ii. 121 et seq.
[245] Rome, June 1478, Med. Arch.
[246] Instructio pro. R. Card. Mantuano, &c. Copy without date. MSS. Capponi, cod. xxii. cat. no. 1230.
[247] Letter of the Doge Andrea Vendramin. Capponi MSS. cod. cccxiii.
[248] Romanin, l. c., iv. 390.
[249] Cronaca di Notar Giacomo, pp. 128-132. The statement of Barante (Histoire des ducs de Bourgogne, ‘Charles the Bold,’ b. iv.), that Campobasso came to France with the Anjou prince, is erroneous according to this. The condottiere belonged to the Aragonese party. In Naples the defeat at Nancy was ascribed to his treason, Cronaca, 1. c. p. 133.
[250] Idem, p. 129.
[251] See first, Fabroni, p. 119; also Desjardins, p. 171; French, in Kervyn de Lettenhove, Lettres et Négociations de Philippe de Commines, i. 173.
[252] The documents relative to Commines’ mission. See Kervyn de Lettenhove, i. 173-182.
[253] Florence, June 19, 1478. See Fabroni, p. 132.
[254] Kervyn de Lettenhove, iii. 11.
[255] Mémoires, vi. chap. v.
[256] Archives of Urbino (Tuscan. Central Arch.), class i. div. iv. 104.
[257] Brief of Sixtus IV. to the parish of Perugia, Rome, June 10, 1478, in the Cronache e Storie di Perugia, ii. 580.
[258] Divine Comedy, Purg. xiv. 48.
[259] Divine Comedy, Inferno, xxix. 46.
[260] The best details of the campaign of 1478-9 are given in Allegretti’s Diarj Senesi Sanesi, 1. c., 784-797.
[261] Rainaldi, Ann. Eccl., 1. c., p. 585.
[262] Roscoe, Illustrations, Doc. v., Heidelberg edit., iv. 199.
[263] Fabroni, ii. 136-166. See above, p. 387.
[264] Letter of July 25, 1478, in Fabroni, ii. 130.
[265] G. M. Canale, Nuova Istoria della Republica di Genova, iv. 212.
[266] Rosmini, Istoria di Gian Jacopo Trivulzio, Mil. 1815, i. 31 seq.; ii. 31 seq.
[267] Rainaldi, Ann. Eccl., 1. c., p. 591; Kervyn de Lettenhove, 1. c., iii. 12.
[268] Kervyn de Lettenhove, l. c., i. 185.
[269] Mémoires, 1, vi. chap. 5.
[270] Warrant of Louis XI. for Lorenzo de’ Medici and Commines, July 13, 1478. Warrant for Commines to grant the investiture of the same date, in Kervyn de Lettenhove, i. 185-188. Despatches of the Milanese ambassadors at Florence, &c., ib. iii. 13-29.
[271] Ib., 1. c., pp. 190, 191.
[272] Letter of the Signoria, August 23, 1478; Desjardins, 1. c., p. 172; Kervyn de Lettenhove (French), i. 190; Letter of Lorenzo in Kervyn, p. 191. When Commines says in his memoirs, ‘Je demourai au dit lieu de Florence un an, ou dans leurs territoires,’ this is incorrect. He did not arrive at Turin much before the middle of June; went from thence to Milan, Florence, and Rome; and at the beginning of October was again in Lyons.
[273] Letter of Louis XI. to Lorenzo de’ Medici, November 1, 1478, and instructions for the ambassadors, from the Medici Archives, Desjardins, 1. c., vol. i. pp. 174-184.
[274] Rainaldi, Ann. Eccl., l. c., pp. 588-590.
[275] Malipiero, Annali Veniti, i. 247; Romanin, l. c., iv. 391
[276] The demand that the caricature of the Archbishop of Pisa should be erased is dated February 9, 1479. Gaye, 1. c., p. 574.
[277] Romanin, 1. c., iv. 382.
[278] Notices of the treaties in Rome from the documents of the Medicean Archives, Desjardins, 1. c., i. 184-186; Scip. Ammirato, 1. c., pp. 131-136; Rainaldi, Ann. Eccl. x. 587 seq.
[279] Cronache Ec. di Viterbo, p. 420 seq.
[280] Scipione Ammirato, book xxiv. Pezzana, Storia di Parma, iv. 86-128.
[281] Vincenzo Acciaiuoli, Vita di Piero Capponi, in the Arch. Stor. Ital., iv. pt. 2, p. 17. Tommasi, Storia di Lucca, p. 338.
[282] Rosmini, Storia di Milano, iii. 82. Pezzana, 1. c. p. 144 seq.
[283] Despatches of December 30, 1478, January 13, and July 18, 1479, in Kervyn de Lettenhore, l. c. i. 232, 239, 271.
[284] Despatches of Visconti and Cagnola, Orleans, September 1, 1479, l. c. p. 283 seq.
[285] Letter of Antonio Pucci to Lorenzo de’ Medici, Flor. June 18, 1479; see Fabroni, l. c. p. 199.
[286] Med. Arch.
[287] D. Malipiero, l. c. i. 482.
[288] Mémoires, 1. vii. c. 2.
[289] Cronache Milanesi, pp. 186, 187.
[290] Molini (G. Capponi), Documenti di Storia Italiana, Flor. 1836, i. 297.
[291] Instructio D. Nicolai Martelli ituri ad Laur. Medicem, see Fabroni, l. c. ii. 189 seq. ‘Inter os et offam multa accidere possent.’ ‘Jactet aleam.’
[292] Pier Filippo Pandolfini to the Magistracy of Ten, Milan, November 22, 1479. Fabroni, pp. 196-199.
[293] See above, Bk. 3, ch. i. Filippo says: ‘Che totalmentegli si rimetteva nelle braccia e che in quello modo Sua Maestà lo volessi o grande o basso dentro o fuori, era contento, di modo che S. M. rendesse pacie alla città e le terre tolte.’—Idem. l. c. p. 58.
[294] Guicciardini, Storia Fiorentina, cap. vi.
[295] The danger which Lorenzo de’ Medici exposed himself to has been made much greater in later times than it really was. Jacopo Pitti (l. c. p. 25) says clearly that safety had been promised him both by the king and the pope (?); but it was believed that he gave himself into Ferrante’s power unconditionally (liberamente), in order to increase the fame of the latter and the splendour of his own patriotism. The danger lay less in what might happen at Naples than what might occur at Florence from a longer absence. Guicciardini hints at this (p. 59). Confidence shown in a man like the king was never without danger however.
[296] Lettere de’ Principi (Venet. edit. 1581), i. 3. Translated by Roscoe, i. 221.
[297] Lettere di Lorenzo de’ Medici from the Modena Archives, edited by A. Cappelli. Atti e Memorie della R. Diputazione di Storia patria per le prov. Modenesi e Parmensi, i. 230.
[298] Malavotti, Historia di Sienna, part iii. p. 176.
[299] B. Scala’s Letter (see Fabroni, p. 205) has the date of December 5, which must be a mistake, as the Signoria was first informed on the 7th.
[300] Lorenzo de’ Medici to the Ferrarese ambassador Antonio Montecatino, Pisa, December 10; see Cappelli, l. c. p. 240.
[301] Cronaca di Notar Giacomo, p. 145.
[302] Fabroni, i. 103 seq., has an address to the king spoken by Lorenzo, evidently a later oratorical production.
[303] Guicciardini, l. c. chap. vi. p. 58.
[304] Fabroni, l. c. ii. 201, 202. Agnolo della Stufa to Lorenzo de’ Medici, January 4, 1480; Idem. pp. 207-210.
[305] Carlo Visconti to the regency at Milan, Tours, January 30, 1480; see Kervyn de Lettenhove, i. 318.
[306] Guicciardini, l. c.
[307] Bart. Scala to Lorenzo de’ Medici, January 12, 1480; see Fabroni, l. c. ii. 202-204.
[308] Lorenzo de’ Medici to the Ten, Naples, January 3, 1480; Fabroni, l. c. ii. 206.
[309] Capponi MSS. xxii. p. 68 seq. (Catalogo, No. 1212). The date is wanting in the copy; but the instruction must be of 1459, as this year is spoken of as the present one.
[310] Fabroni, l. c. ii. 207-210.
[311] Letter of Ippolita Maria, Castel Capuano, July 3, 1480; Fabroni, 1. c. ii. 223.
[312] (Ratti) Della Famiglia Sforza, ii. 11. See above, p. x. Lascaris’ Greek grammar, dedicated to Ippolita, appeared at Milan 1476.
[313] Diarium Parmense, see Muratori, R. It. Scr. vol. xxiii. col. 335.
[314] Alamanno Rinuccini, l. c. s. cxxxi.
[315] Agnolo della Stufa, l. c.
[316] Ercole d’Este to Ant. Montecatini, March 19, 1480; see Cappelli, l. c. p. 253.
[317] Jacobi Volaterrani, Diarium Rom., ad. a. 1479 (1480); see Muratori, R. It. Scr. vol. xxiii. col. 100.
[318] Ferrante to Lorenzo, Castelnuovo, March 1, 1480; Fabroni, ii. 213-216.
[319] Jacobi Volat. Diar., 1. c.
[320] Ercole d’Este to Ant. Montecatini, April 20, 1480; Cappelli, 1. c. p. 253.
[321] Cronaca di Notar. Giacomo, p. 146.
[322] Angelo di Costanzo mentions the suspicion in his History of Naples; but an author of the second half of the sixteenth century is no authority. That Lorenzo, in a letter to Albino, the Duke of Calabria’s secretary, who entertained the same suspicion (see Fabroni, l. c. ii. 216), rejoices over Alfonso’s success and speaks of cani Turchi, proves as little on the other side.
[323] See Fabroni, l. c. ii. 217.
[324] Jac. Volaterr, l. c. pp. 113, 118.
[325] Regola del Governo di Cura Familiare del B. Giovanni Dominici, pubbl. da Donato Salvi, Flor., 1860.
[326] L. Mehus, Epistola di M. Lapo da Castiglionchio, Bologna, 1653. Fr. Bocchi, Elogia, in G. E. Galletti’s edit. of Philippi Villani, Liber de civitatis Florentiæ famosis civibus, et de Florentinorum Litteratura principes fere synchroni Scriptores, Flor. 1847, pp. 9, 12.
[327] In the decree of August 27 (Gaye, l. c. i. 573) we read: ‘Cogitantes magnifici viri priores artium et vexillifer virtutem supremam, vitam sinceram, mores honestos et in omnibus exemplares, religionis integritatem, doctrinam sanctam utilem et decoram, ac vere sancte et summæ eloquentiæ vas habundans venerabilis et omni tempore cum laude memorandi magistri Loysii de Marsiliis de Florentiæ’, &c.
[328] The students were then placed on an equal footing with the burghers by law, ‘tractentur ut cives populares.’ See Gaye, l. c. i. 461; Prezziner, Storia del Pubblico Studio di Firenze, Flor. 1810, i. 3; Fabroni, Historia Academiæ Pisanæ, i. 46.
[329] Extract of the decree of August 7, 1348, apud Gaye, 1.c. p. 499.
[330] L. Mehus, Ambrosii Traversarii, &c.; Latinæ Epistolæ accedit eiusdem Ambrosii vita, &c., Flor. 1759, i. 356.
[331] G. Shepherd, Vita di Poggio Bracciolini, trad. da T. Tonelli, Flor. 1825. The numerous corrections and additions made by the translator of the English work which appeared in 1802 are based on careful investigation. Tonelli arranged later a complete edition of Poggio’s letters, the first volume of which appeared at Florence in 1831 (Poggii Epistolæ ed. a Th. Tonellio), the second long after the editor’s death, while the third is still wanting.
[332] Mehus, Ambr. Travers. Epist. i. 178.
[333] Savigny, History of Roman Law, &c., iii. 583 and elsewhere. A. Kirchhoff, the manuscript collector of the Middle Ages, in Naumann’s Serapeum, 1852, p. 17 seq. Fr. Bonaini, I libri, gli Stazionari, i Peciari, i Copisti, &c., in the Giornale Stor. degli Archiv. Tosc. iv. 97 seq. The price of the Corpus Juris, from the legacy quondam Cristofani judicis, amounted to 112 Sienese liri.
[334] Lettere della B. Chiara Gambacorta Pisana (edited by Cesare Guasti), Pisa, 1871.
[335] Commissioni, i. 86.
[336] Lettere della B. Chiara Gambacorta, p. 59.
[337] Marco Foscarini, Dei Veneziani raccoglitori di Codici, in the Appendix to his Storia Arcana, Flor. 1843, vol. v. of the Archiv. Storico Italiano.
[338] Gayo, l. c. i. 533.
[339] Information respecting Leonardo Bruni has been collected by C. Monzani: Leonardo Bruni Aretino, in the Archivio Stor. Ital., series ii. vol. v. (reprinted in Istoria Fiorentina di Leon. Aretino, tradotta in volgare da Donato Acciaiuoli, Flor. 1861). L. Mehus’ edition of the letters appeared at Flor. 1741. The literary Academy of Arezzo planned (Flor. 1856) a reprint of the Florentine history which had first appeared in 1610, with Acciaiuoli’s version opposite, which, completed in 1473, had been published at Venice three years later, while the original remained so long inedited.
[340] With a Latin translation by B. Moneta, Flor. 1755; German by C. F. Neumann, Frankfort, 1822; and new revision of the text by L. W. Hasper, Leipsig, 1841.
[341] Gaye, 1. c. i. 545, 554, 560.
[342] Fabroni, Magni Cosmi Med. Vita, ii. 217.
[343] L. Mehus, Ambrosii Traversarii, &c.; Latinæ Epistolæ, &c.
[344] Vespasiano da Bisticci, l. c. p. 240.
[345] Vespasiano da Bisticci, 1. c. p. 439. Letters of Nicholas V. to Marsuppini and the Signoria, October 24, 1452, p. 441.
[346] Detailed Latin biography by Naldo Naldi, Muratori, Scr. r. Ital. vol. xx.; Vespasiano da Bisticci, 1. c. p. 444 seq. For the introduction to the latter by Bernardo del Nero, with a short outline and list of Manetti’s writings, as well as an Italian extract from Naldi by one of the Ricci family, see Galletti, 1. c. p. 129 seq. Compare Apostolo Zeno Dissertaz., Voss, i. 170 seq.
[347] The original of the Statuta Populi et Communis Florentiæ is to be found, with the MSS. of numerous other statutes, in the Florentine archives; printed in three volumes, said to be at Freiburg, 1778-83. See Lami, Antichità Toscane, i. 522, and N. Salvetti, Antiquitates Florentinæ jurisprudentiam Etruriæ illustrantes, Flor. 1777.
[348] Vespasiano da Bisticci, l. c. p. 283.
[349] Tractatus quo concluditur: Nullam Gentilium scientiam chatolicæ fidei christianæ esse contrariam, addressed to Malatesta de’ Malatesti by Pesaro as umpire, Rinaldo is termed therein, ‘Nobilis florentinus juvenis Rainaldus domini Masii de Albicis de Florentia.’ There is a tract by the same author, De electione medici ad nobilem florentinum juvenem Cosmum Johannis Bitii de Medicis; see Commissioni di R. d. A. iii. 601 seq.; Mehus, 1. c. p. 394.
[350] On the sonnet generally ascribed to Burchiello, ‘O umil popol mio, tu non ti avvedi,’ see Commissioni, iii. 647.
[351] Rosmini, Vita di Francesco Filelfo da Tolentino, Milan, 1808, i. 35.
[352] Fabroni, l. c. ii. 69.
[353] Phil. Sat. ii. 3; iv. 1; Shepherd, l. c. i. 238. Rosmini, p. 75, has no desire to dwell on revolting subjects.
[354] Vespasiano da Bisticci, l. c. p. 246.
[355] L. Mehus, l. c. p. 18; Poggio, Opera, p. 278.
[356] Epist. I. iii. 29 (in Tonelli’s edit. i. 269).
[357] Idem., iv. 16, 17 (i. 333, 339).
[358] Shepherd, l. c. i. 155, 222.
[359] Tiraboschi, Stor. lett. vi. 1 (vol. vii.), p. 263. A. Peruzzi, in Hercolani’s Biografie d’illustri Piceni, i. 27, very superficial. L. Mehus’ edition of Kyriaci Anconitani Itinerarium, Flor. 1742, is insufficient; information about him has been carefully collected in the preface and in Traversari’s life. For the opinion of Alberto degli Alberti respecting the state of Rome in Pope Eugenius IV.’s time in a letter to Giovanni de’ Medici, Cosimo’s son, see Fabroni, 1. c. ii. 165.
[360] Vespasiano da Bisticci, 1. c. p. 511; G. Cantalamessa, Hercolani, i. 117 seq.
[361] G. Voigt, Die Wiederbelebung des classischen Alterthums, p. 361.
[362] Mehus, 1. c. ii. 335.
[363] Apostolo Zeno, 1. c. i. 318; Fabroni, 1. c. i. 136, ii. 223.
[364] Histor. de var. Fort. p.92; Traversari, Epist. v. 10 (ii. 245).
[365] Fr. Schulze, Geschichte der Philosophie der Renaissance, i. Jena, 1874.
[366] Gio. Corsi, Marsilii Ficini Vita, with introduction and notes by A. M. Bandini, Pisa, 1771; reprinted by Galletti Philippi Villani, Liber, &c., pp. 183-214. L. Galeotti, Saggio intorno alla vita e agli scritti di M. F. in the Arch. Stor. Ital., series ii., ix. 2, 25 seq. (A careful collection of Ficino’s opinions, especially on religion and particularly from his letters.) Edit. of the Works, Basle, 1576, with twelve books of letters in vol. i. There is an Italian translation of the letters, Lettere di M. F., tradotte per M. Felice, Figliucci Senese, Venice, 1556. Ficino composed his commentary to Plato’s Banquet and his book on the Christian religion in Italian also. Edit. of the first, Flor. 1544; the second, Flor. 1568 (Gamba, Testi di Lingua, 1097, 1098).
[367] M. Ficino, Epistolæ, book i.; see vol. i. p. 192; vol. ii. p. 29 seq.
[368] In Lord Vernon’s illustrated edition of the Inferno there is a representation of Landino’s grave and the body.
[369] A. M. Bandini, Specimen literaturæ Florentinæ sæculi XV. Flor. 1748 (History and Monuments of the Florentine Literature of the second half of the Fifteenth Century, in the form of a biography of Landino); see vol. ii. p. 40 seq.
[370] Ad Jacobum Salvettum de laudibus M. Cosmi, Bandini, i. 102.
[371] Lettere di Sant’Antonino, Flor. 1859, pp. 126, 193. On the embassies to Rome entrusted to the Archbishop in the years 1455 and 1458: Due Legazioni al Sommo Pontefice per il Comune di Firenze, presedute da Sant’Antonino arcivescovo (edited by Cesare Guasti), Flor. 1857. Of the works of the Saint, for which see Brunet’s Manuel bibliographique, i. 330, we need only mention here, Opera a ben vivere di S. A., messa a luce con altri suoi ammaestramenti e una giunta di antiche orazioni Toscane, da Fr. Palermo, Flor. 1858.
[372] L. c. p. 193.
[373] Fabroni, l. c.
[374] Vespasiano da Bisticci, l. c. p. 291.
[375] Vespasiano da Bisticci, l. c. p. 482.
[376] Gaye, l. c. i. 545; see above, p. 528.
[377] Shepherd, l. c. i. 255.
[378] Idem. p. 261.
[379] Vespasiano da Bisticci, pp. 210, 213, 402.
[380] ‘Protonotaio apostolico inghilese,’ ‘Messer Andrea Ols,’ l. c. p. 238.
[381] See vol. ii. pp. 141, 142.
[382] Inscription:
SOCIETATI MEDICEÆ
APUD DEUM
FRATRES ET STUDIOSI OMNES
LINGUIS ANIMISQUE
FAVERE TENEMUR
QUOD SUA IMPENSA
LOCUM BIBLIOTHECÆ
OMNI CULTU ET ORNATU
JOANNE LANFREDINO SOCIO
FACIUNDUM CURAVIT.
The bitter words in the sonnet mentioned on page 451, after the recall of the decree of 1434, ‘del tuo gran tesoro—ti vota sempre, e empie a Marco il seno,’ refer to Cosimo’s munificence at Venice.
[383] Plan of San Marco in (Aurelio Gotti’s) le Gallerie de Firenze.
[384] Mehus, Ambr. Trav. Epist. i. 63.
[385] ‘Ex hereditate doctissimi viri Nicolai de Nicolis de Florentia.’ These and similar words we read in the MSS. also.
[386] ‘Inventarium Nicolai p. v. quod ipso composuit ad instantiam Cosmæ de Medicis ut ab ipso Cosma audivi die xii Nov. 1463. Ego frater Leonardus Ser. Uberti de Florentia ord. præd.’ &c. MSS. of the same library. See Mehus, Traversari, i. 65, where are a number of details respecting the history of the Collection partly from Fra Roberto Ubaldini’s Annales Marciani.
[387] ‘Liber Colucii Pierii de Salutatis cancellarii florentini Liber Cosmæ Johannis de Medicis de Florentia.’ Such is the inscription on such Codices.
[388] Vespasiano da Bisticci, l. c. p. 382.
[389] Vespasiano da Bisticci, l. c. p. 252.
[390] (N. Anziani) Della Biblioteca Mediceo-Laurenziana in Firenze, Flor. 1872, pp. 4, 6, 22, 24.
[391] In a MS. of the Epistles of St. Paul (Codd. Fiesolani Laur. cod. v.) we read the following inscription: Magnifici viri Cosmae de Medicis ingens liberalitas, eximia virtus et charitas prope singularis ex omni parte sese ostendit. Sacras has ædificavit ædes, his religiosis viris canonicis regularibus quæ ad usum vitæ necessaria erant paravit, postremo illis has epistolas Pauli dono dedit ut nihil relinqueretur quod esset ab illis ulterius expetendum. Adsit igitur clementissimus Deus et benedicat ei omnibus diebus vitæ suæ. Ex hereditate Joannis filii sui.’
In a MS. of the works of the Fathers of the Church (cod. lv.) we find: ‘Has Sanctorum Patrum Collationes quas Joannes Cassianus luculentissime edidit Magnificus Cosmus Medices viginti aureis emit et huic Divi Bartholomæi fesulano monasterio quod a fundamentis erexit sua pietate dedit anno MCCCCLXII. Inter orandum eius animæ memores estote. Timotheus Veronensis.’ In the Cod. lxxii.: ‘In hoc volumine quisquis legendo profecerit Petro Mediceo Cosmi filio acceptum referri debebit qui eximiam patris pietatem atque religionem prosequutus hoc ipso multisque aliis præclarissimis libris bibliothecam istam ornavit, cui æternum munus cumulatamque mercedem reddat Deus opt. max.’ In the cod. clvii.: ‘Laurentius Medices Petri filius eiusque virtutis et gloriæ æmulator felicissimus codicem hunc illustri suo nomine ab auctore dicatum huic preciosæ librorum supellectili avita paternaque magnificentia ac liberalitate institutæ addendum merito duxit ut et eam hoc munere locupletiorem ornatioremque redderet et opus eius scriptorisque nomine insigne ipsa quoque sede illustrius fieret ac multorum ingeniis deserviret. Orato itaque lector ut gloria et divitiæ sint in domo eius justitia eius et maneat in sæculum sæculi.’
[392] Descrizione del palazzo d’Urbino in versi e prose di Bernardino Baldi, Flor. 1859.
[393] Vespasiano da Bisticci in the Life of Federigo, l. c. 94 seq. The inventory of the library of Urbino by Federigo Veterano in the Giornale stor. degli Arch. tosc. vi. and vii.
[394] Giorn. stor. degli Arch. tosc. ii. 240.
[395] Med. Arch. passim.
[396] Vite di illustri Italiani (Arch. stor. Ital. iv.) i. 305. Many portions of Vespasiano’s Correspondence are found in the Laurentian library.
[397] Vespasiano da Bisticci, l.c. p. 99.
[398] Poliziano, Prose volgari inedite, &c. p. 83. ‘Recentes enim mendosique sunt libri.’
[399] Mehus, Traversari, p. 67.
[400] See A. Bartoli in his preface to the Florentine edition of the Biographies, where an extract is given from the registers of the heirs of Filippo di Leonardo da Bisticci (Vespasiano’s father) of the year 1430, which answers Mehus’ and Cardinal Mai’s doubts regarding the name.
[401] Colomb de Batines, Bibliografia Dantesca, ii. 62; (L. Passerini) Cenni storico-bibliografici della R. Biblioteca nazionale di Firenze, Flor. 1872, p. 23.
[402] Batines, l. c. ii. 41, 42; Mehus, Traversari, p. 180.
[403] Mehus, l. c. p. 320.
[404] Shepherd, l. c. ii. 45.
[405] Vite di illustri Italiani, i. 306.
[406] The Medicean Archives, filza xlvi., contains the following letter of Bessarion (B. episcopus Sabin. card. patr. Constant. Nicænus sedis apost. legatus) to Lorenzo de’ Medici: ‘Illustrious and noble lord, dear friend,—The bookseller, Vespasiano di Filippo, whom we mentioned shortly before at the close of a letter addressed to you, has now sent us information about the works of Augustine that he had written for us, with an estimate of the expense with which we are entirely satisfied. He writes us he has divided the work in question into nine volumes, with miniatures, bindings, and all that belongs to it. One volume is wanting to complete the collection, respecting which he writes that he will hasten to finish it, which we also desire. For payment he has still to receive eighty-seven ducats, besides the four hundred which your bank has accredited to him in our name. We request you to pay him this remainder and to place it to our account. Take the books to yourself and keep them in a suitable place till we write to you about them. May it be well with your Magnificence! Frascati, May 23, 1472.’ The learned ecclesiastic perhaps never saw the books, for he died on November 19 of the same year. The copy is in the Marciana, where, however, only seven volumes are found. It is decorated with Bessarion’s arms, and in the fourth volume we find the name of the copyist, Francesco degli Ugolini, Fiorentino, 1471. G. Valentinelli speaks of this manuscript in his catalogue of the MSS. of the Marciana, ii. 30.
[407] Vespasiano da Bisticci, l. c. pp. 113, 217, 403. See above, p. 469, ii. Bk. iv. pt. 3. c. 6.
[408] ‘Vespasiano cartolare’ was buried in Sta. Croce on July 27, 1498. Giornale Sior. degli Arch. Tosc. ii. 241. On the first Florentine printers see ii. 133 seq.
[409] Vespasiano da Bisticci, l. c. p. 99.
[410] L. Passerini, Gli Alberti di Firenze, i. 87 seq. Madonna Bartolommea, the daughter of Tommaso degli Obizzi, of a distinguished family of Northern Italy, a general of Pope Urban V. and the King of Italy, and first Italian knight of the Garter, married Antonio degli Alberti in 1390, and died about 1426.
[411] Opere volgari di Leon Bat. Alberti, pubbl. da Anicio Bonucci, vol. ii. Flor. 1844. A portion of this work has been repeatedly printed under the title Trattato del Governo della Famiglia, as a work of Agnolo Pandolfini, of which we have spoken above (p. 467; see Gamba’s Testi di Lingua, 700, 701) a question of authorship, the discussion of which can have no place here, and which was lately revived in the introduction to Il Padre di Famiglia, dialogo di L. B. Alberti rimesso in luce sopra un nuovo codice palatino da Fr. Palermo, Florence 1871.
[412] Orazione facta per Cristoforo Landino da Pratovecchio, ec.; see Fr. Corrazzini, Miscellanea di cose inedite o rare. Flor. 1853, p. 125 seq.
[413] L. B. Alberti, Opere volgari, i. pp. xvii.-xix., clvii.-ccxxxiv., where these sorry productions are given.
[414] A. M. Biscioni has collected a considerable number of these writings in the Lettere di Santi e Beati Fiorentini, Flor. 1736. C. Guasti’s edition of the Lettere della B. Chiara Gambacorti has been mentioned above. He also printed in his Miscellanea Pratese, No. 5, the touching letter of Sister Costanza Ciaparelli on the death of Feo Belcari’s daughter (Prato, 1861). For more on Feo. Belcari’s letters, see back. The letters of the two St. Caterinas of Siena and de’ Ricci lie beyond the scope of the present work.
[415] D. M. Manni, Sigilli antichi, xix. 127; xx. 39. Poccianti: Chronicon rerum s. ord. Servorum B. M. Virginis, Flor. 1569, p. 3. In Florence there are still a few memorials of the Laudesi. On the Cathedral (formerly Sta. Reparata) is an inscription on the side turned towards the Campanile: ‘S. Societatis Laudensium B. M. Virginis qui congregantur in ecclesia Ste. Reparate, anno Dom. MCCCX. de mense Novemb.’ (see Firenze, antica e moderna illustrata, ii. 112). In Via dello Pappe, now Via Folco Portinari: ‘Questa casa è de la compagnia de Laudesi di Sancta Maria che si raguna in Sancta Liperata.’ The chapel of the Laudesi of Sta. Croce was where the splendid Niccolini chapel began to be built in 1585 (F. Moisè, Santa Croce di Firenze p. 198). In the Decameron (Giorn. vii. Nov. 1) the Laudesi of Sta. Maria Novella and their good-natured superintendent, Gianni Lottaringhi, is mentioned (D. M. Manni, Istoria del Decamerone, p. 460; Fr. Sansovino, in his edition of the Decameron, Ven. 1549); see Fr. Cionacci, Rime sacre di Lorenzo de’ Medici, 2nd edit. Bergamo, 1760, p. xxi.
[416] Laudi spirituali del Bianco da Siena povero Gesuato del sec. XIV. (edited by Telesforo Bini), Lucca, 1851. Feo Belcari’s Vita del B. Giovanni Columbini et di alcuni Jesuati, composed in 1448, but first printed towards 1480 (Gamba, Testi di lingua, 100 seq.). On the Jesuates, G. B. Uccelli, I Convento di S. Giusto alla mura e i Gesuati, Flor. 1865; see ii. 163. The order was dissolved in 1668 by Pope Clement IX.
[417] The most perfect collection of Lauds, especially of the fourteenth century, including Belcari, Lorenzo de’ Medici and his mother, &c., is called Laude spirituali di Feo Belcari, di Lorenzo de’ Medici, di Francesco d’Albizzo, di Castellano Castellani, e di altri, comprese nelle quattro più antiche raccolte, con alcune inedite e con nuove illustrazioni (by G. C. Galletti), Florence 1863, with woodcuts. On the older editions, see Gamba, Testi di Lingua, 105 seq., 576 seq. The hymns of Ugo Panziera were printed by P. Fanfani in the translation of Ozanam’s Poëtes Franciscains, Prato, 1854, and C. Guasti, I Cantici spirituali del B. Ugo Panziera da Prato de’ Frati Minori, Prato 1861 (Miscellanea Pratese, No. iii.). Another collection of hymns to the Virgin and the Saints, edited by Eug. Cecconi: Laudi di una Compagnia fiorentina del secolo XIV, Florence 1870.
[418] D. Moreni, Lettere di Feo Belcari, Flor. 1825. The most complete account of the mysteries, in the literature of which Feo Belcari takes an important place, is given by Colombs de Batines, Bibliografia delle antiche rappresentazioni italiane sacre e profane stampate nei secoli XV e XIV in P. Fanfani’s Etruria, ii. (Flor. 1852), 193. A copious collection of these mysteries was published by Alessandro d’Ancona: Sacre Rappresentazioni dei secoli XIV, XV, XVI, Flor. 1872, three vols.; see J. L. Klein, Geschichte der Drama, iv. Leipsig, 1866.
[419] See Mazzuchelli, Scrittori d’Italia, vol. ii. div. ii. p. 860 seq. for list of his writings.
[420] Florence, November 1, 1530, in G. Milanesi’s edition of the Varchi.
[421] In San Marco. Inscription of the two graves:—
JOANNES IACET HIC MIRANDULA CETERA NORUNT
ET TAGUS ET GANGES FORSAN ET ANTIPODES.
OBITT AN. SAL. MCCCCLXXXXIV. VIXIT AN. XXXIII.
HIERONYMUS BENIVENIUS NE DISIUNCTUS
POST MORTEM LOCUS OSSA TENERET QUORUM IN
VITA ANIMOS CONJUNXIT AMOR HAC
HUMO SUPPOSITA PONENDUM CUR. OBIIT AN.
MDILII. VIXIT AN. LXXXIX.
[422] See the oldest edition of the Laudi di Feo Belcari, Florence 1485, printed three years after Lucrezia’s death, and Fr. Cionacci’s Rime sacre di Lorenzo de’ Medici unitamente a quelle di Madonna Lucrezia sua madre, Flor. 1680 and Bergamo 1760, as well as the Galletti collection before mentioned. Crescimbeni (Della volgar poesia, ii. 277) is inclined to place Lucrezia above most, if not all, poets of her time; but Crescimbeni is a weak critic. The Lauds begin: (I.) ‘Ecco ’l Messia’ (resembling the ‘Venite adoremus’ of the Church); (II.) ‘Venite pastori’; (III.) ‘Contempla le mie pene o peccatore;’ (IV.) ‘Ecco il Re forte;’ (V.) ‘Vien il messagio;’ (VI.) ‘Ben venga Osanna.’
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.
—The transcriber of this project created the book cover image using the title page of the original book. The image is placed in the public domain.