VON REUMONT’S ESTIMATE OF LORENZO
Lorenzo de’ Medici was called from this world at the age of forty-three years—a short life in which to have accomplished so much, to have achieved fame so widespread and enduring. In the character of this remarkable man, the foremost representative of a remarkable period, we find the irresistible onward impulse of creative power united to a deep knowledge of the stages that succeed each other in the development of the new; we find the highest degree of receptivity combined with a student’s seriousness and capacity for taking pains; we see a keen and joyous appreciation of art go hand in hand with the practical sense necessary to the proper conduct of life; we find him to possess, in a word, all the qualities that go to make the statesman, the poet, the citizen, and the prince.
He knew no fatigue under the multiplicity of public affairs that fell to him as head of a peculiarly constituted state; with sure and rapid view he could take cognisance of the whole mass of business while giving his attention to the smallest details. In his later years he became wary and discreet, never acting save as the result of deep reflection, holding steadfastly to the goal he had set himself, conscious, but not unduly, of the dignity of his position and that of the state he represented. In his home and family life he was gay and companionable. As a husband he was not above reproach, it is true; but he was tenderly attached to the wife he had not chosen, devoted to the excellent mother with whom he had many qualities in common, and to his children he was always a generous provider, a wise counsellor and guide. He had the faculty of attracting to himself people of the widest diversity of character, and was capable of forming warm and lasting friendships; amid all the cares of state he was never too busy to render assistance to a friend, and was as ready to exert himself in behalf of the low as of the high.
It is not to be denied, however, that he possessed a share of the weaknesses and failings of his times, which were chiefly apparent in his political life, superior as it was in consistency and honesty of purpose to that of most foreign or Italian statesmen of his day. His interior policy, in particular, has received sharp blame, as much for its refashioning of the constitution to permit an increase in personal power as for the corrupt methods employed to gain undisputed control over the state funds. As regards the latter charge it is difficult to see how in later years—had longer life been granted to Lorenzo—a catastrophe could have been avoided, unless a protracted peace had allowed the maintenance of a perfect balance in the state expenditures. In respect to the first shortcoming many contemporaries expressed the opinion that Lorenzo’s fixed and secret aim was to create for himself a principality, to attain which end he was merely awaiting a favourable opportunity—the appointment to the office of gonfalonier, for example, when he should have reached the proper age.
When all has been weighed and judged, undoubtedly the worst evil in the rule of Lorenzo the Magnificent is just this lack of agreement between form and fact, this diversion of the highest authority from its proper centre. Personality had become the most powerful factor in all departments of the administration—the political, the financial, the judicial. Nevertheless if Florence was free from the excesses that disgraced every other Italian state, if Lorenzo’s rule was mild and blameless compared to that of Cosmo, not only the continuance of peace, the assured position of the country, and the habit on the part of the people of submitting to such a rule were to be thanked for it, but the views and ability of the man who stood at the head. Lorenzo de’ Medici was determined to be obeyed, but he was no tyrant: on the one hand too keen-sighted a reader of men, and too well-versed in the traditions of his people; on the other he was of a nature too magnanimous and richly endowed, too open, too necessitous of friendship to fall into an extreme of despotism. Above all he was a citizen of Florence, and if left to himself, would have allowed nothing in his outer circumstances to distinguish him from the rest of his fellow-citizens; but after the Pazzi conspiracy it was deemed necessary that he should be accompanied everywhere by a guard, formed at first of four trusted friends, later of twelve paid members of the nobility.
As regards his arbitrary administration of the state finances opinions varied even in his own time. Had he not diverted to his own purposes a portion of the public funds, argued some, he would have been ruined, and his ruin would have entailed that of countless others. All that he took from first to last, as well to preserve his credit as to carry on an extravagant mode of life, was as nothing compared to the losses an incompetent ruler would have brought upon the state; one ill-considered or untimely public regulation alone would have cost the treasury dearer than Lorenzo’s entire rule. The final aim of all the Medici, so ran the general opinion, was their own profit or advancement, but they remained Florentine citizens to the end, and in most cases their interests and those of their city were identical. To the kindly disposed who rendered this judgment after Lorenzo’s death, the answer was indeed given that the aim of the Medici had been none the less sole dominion, because it was given the form of democracy by the destruction of the patrician influence, and the raising to favour of members of the lower classes; that a subtle, crafty tyranny, like that of Cosmo de’ Medici, or one tempered by generosity and benevolence, like Lorenzo’s, was the more dangerous for the people inasmuch as it paved the way for a severer form.
In the ninth chapter of his History of Florence Guicciardini[q] gives a masterly summing up of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s influence over the city that gave him birth. “Florence,” he says, “did not become free under Lorenzo de’ Medici, but a better master no city could have had. Incalculable good resulted to it as the outpouring of his own benevolent nature, while the evils that are inseparable from tyranny in any form were limited in their workings—rendered almost harmless, in fact, when his will came into play. There were doubtless many who rejoiced at his death; but all who took any part in the administration regretted it deeply, even those who thought they had grounds of complaint against him, for none could tell what a change of rulers might bring about.”[c]
Pope Leo IV arresting the Conflagration
(By Raphael)