Cosimo de’ Medici did not content himself with rendering his old opponents harmless; he took care also that none of his adherents should become too powerful and dangerous to him. Therefore, remarks Francesco Guicciardini, he retained the Signoria, as well as the taxes, in his hand, in order to be able to promote or oppress individuals at will. In other things the citizens enjoyed greater freedom and acted more according to their own pleasure than later, in the days of his grandson, for he let the reins hang loose if he was only sure of his own position. It was just in this that his great art lay, to guide things according to his will, and yet to make his partisans believe that he shared his authority with them. It was necessary, however, that there should be one against the others, as was the case with Neri Capponi. To weaken the respect in which the latter was held when his name was in all mouths after the great victory over the Duke of Milan in 1440, Cosimo is said to have commanded the murder of the captain, Baldaccio da Anghiari, who remained in the service of the Republic, and was an intimate friend of Neri. The sanguinary deed was executed in the palace, whither the unsuspecting man had been summoned by command of the Gonfaloniere Bartolommeo Orlandini. Thus the share of Cosimo and his motives are veiled in obscurity, but the suspicion has never been removed from him.[85] The name of the Casa Annalena still recalls Baldaccio’s widow, of the family of the Malateste of Rimini, who founded here a convent for destitute women and girls, the extensive buildings and gardens of which were employed for other purposes at the dissolution of the monastic orders in 1808.
When Neri Capponi, who still acted as a counterbalance, though a very weak one, to the Medicean authority, died, November 22, 1457, at the age of sixty-nine, the prevailing party had already begun to divide. The old opponents were entirely annihilated, most of their chiefs dead and their families impoverished; the anxieties in which the long wars, first with the Visconti, then with Venice, had kept the government and the people, had been ended by the peace of 1454, which we shall mention later. Those who had held together in the face of danger, relaxed after safety had been gained. Cosimo’s supremacy was burdensome to the aristocratic partizans of the Medici. They demanded that the extraordinary powers with which he had governed since 1434 should be terminated. Cosimo consented. The Balia, renewed only two years ago, was declared extinct in the summer of 1455, and the members of the Signoria were again drawn by lot like other magistrates. Giovanni Rucellai, a deserving man, was the first who thus received the office of Gonfaloniere. The people, who hated every appearance of arbitrary power, desired a return to the old forms as much as those who had caused the changes, but the latter soon perceived that the greater freedom was more apparent than real; for when the ballot-boxes were filled with the names of such as held to Cosimo, the latter attained his ends without appearing on the stage. The revision of the registers revealed this. Then, according to the decree laid down when these were instituted, a revision ought to have been held every three years, but this had only happened in 1433. One of the restrictions put upon the extraordinary commission (Balia) of that year had been that it neither had power to change the ballot-boxes nor to abolish the registers, but at Cosimo’s return no such limits were put to the authority of his partisans, and they returned indeed to the ancient arbitrary system which the law of 1427 had been meant to do away with. Instead of a firm base of taxation, party spirit and party manœuvres prevailed. The measures resorted to had the double aim of ruining antagonists, or such as were suspected, and of gaining the lower classes. The most offensive of these measures, one which had been in contemplation during the mob-government of 1378, was the adoption of a progressive scale, which, by dividing the citizens into fourteen classes, ascended from a trifling imposition to fifty per cent of the supposed income, which was fixed by arbitration. Moreover, taxation was not limited as to time, but depended entirely on the want of means alleged by Government. The continuous wars which led the enemy at times into the interior of the country, caused a constant drain upon the revenue. One war-tax after another was proclaimed, and the results by no means corresponded always with the demand. In the summer of 1442 no less than 180,000 gold florins were paid as a reward to Francesco Sforza for his support of René of Aragon against Alfonso of Aragon—a vain expenditure, since Alfonso took besieged Naples, and established himself so firmly that all the enterprises of Anjou against him, and his son and successor Ferrante, were frustrated. The distribution of the taxes was a perpetual means for the faction to oppress those whom they disliked. Many people were entirely ruined. A number of considerable citizens had left the city and retired to villas, to escape the immoderate exactions, as the country had less to pay than Florence, but it availed them little. It was said of Cosimo de’ Medici, that instead of the dagger, the usual weapon, he employed the taxes to rid himself of his enemies. He retained the instrument, or, as Francesco Guicciardini says, the dishonesty of the taxes, in his own hands, in order to ruin those in whom he saw declared opponents, to bring down to poverty others whom he mistrusted or who were inconvenient to him, and to favour partisans. The members of the commission entrusted with laying on the taxes were either his creatures or dependent on him. Lightening the burdens of the lower classes was only the pretext, and the humiliation of the independent burghers the real aim. This aim was attained by Cosimo, his son, and his grandson. ‘It is well known,’ remarks the statesman and historian just mentioned, in his reflections on the Florentine administration, ‘how much nobility and wealth were destroyed by Cosimo and his descendants by taxation. The Medici never allowed a fixed method and legal distribution, but always reserved to themselves the power of bearing heavily upon individuals according to their pleasure. Had they only employed this weapon to protect themselves against enemies and suspicious persons, they would have been to a certain extent excusable; but as they did not succeed by other means, or by appealing to their ambition and vanity, in attaching to themselves peaceful citizens more intent on their own business than on affairs of State, they made use of the taxes to win them over, and to set themselves up as lords of all, while they forced the people to seek to divine their will even in trifles.’ The most striking example of the abuse of the power of taxation is the history of Giannozzo Manetti. After a life spent in the service of the State and of science, the veneration shown him both at home and abroad, as well as his inclination for Venice, brought on him the disfavour of Cosimo and his adherents, and he saw himself reduced to beggary by taxes which reached the incredible height of 135,000 gold florins. Abandoning house, property, and State-papers he went into voluntary exile, to drag out the few days still remaining to him, by means of first a Papal, and later a Neapolitan pension.
The shameless enrichment of many of Cosimo’s personal adherents, and the discontent evinced in the city, made it at last appear advisable to many of the ruling party to make an end of the system which had lasted since 1434. It was asserted of Puccio Pucci that he had acquired 50,000 gold florins of the public moneys by usury and dishonest administration. It was calculated that a certain Giovanni Corsini, who began with scarcely the necessary means of life, had cheated Government of 20,000 florins. Florence was rife with evil tales of dishonest upstarts, of theft at the public cost, of dirty actions and extortion.[86] With Cosimo’s silent consent (without this nothing could have been done), the Signoria at last commanded, on January 11, 1458, a revision of the registers, indicating, as far as it seemed advisable to them, the prevailing evils.[87] Scarcely was the measure decreed than many of Cosimo’s party, and precisely those who had sought to fetter him by withdrawing the former extraordinary powers, were seized with a violent terror. For they saw themselves not merely obliged to declare the increase on moveable and immoveable property, which in a quarter of a century was immense with many of them, but the progressive scale employed in the new declaration threatened them with a double weight. Only from Cosimo could they expect assistance. The same people who had attempted to weaken his authority three years before, now entreated him to resume it, and proceed to action—that is, summon a parliament, and cause extraordinary powers to be granted by it. They had already formed the plan of doing away with the ballot-boxes, in order to effect new elections more favourable to them, but Cosimo declined to do their will. It suited him that those for whom his power was too great should perceive that they not only gained nothing by the independence more apparent than real of the Government, but sacrificed their authority while his own remained undiminished. He had ready the convenient explanation that extraordinary measures were only permissible in the case of highest need and danger, that now the heavy debts contracted in the long wars would be paid, the numerous changes in property taken into account, the irregularities in the valuation of movable property done away with, and the regular payment of the interest of the national debt be re-established. As long as Alfonso of Aragon lived, who never lost sight of Tuscany, it did not seem advisable to undertake alterations which might arouse displeasure among the people. For Cosimo was never certain of this people, and in times of dearth, bad harvests, storms, contagious disease, which repeatedly occurred, or under oppressive war-taxes, the easily moved crowd was not to be trusted. It was by no means always on Cosimo’s side. His measureless riches aroused much envy and evil-speaking. If he built much, and expended large sums in particular on churches and convents, it was said, We pay for his hypocrisy, which is, moreover, full of spiritual pride, by emptying our own purses. Even the secret cells of the brethren in the cloister he fills with the balls of his coat-of-arms! His palace might bear a comparison with the Colosseum. Who would not build splendidly could he but employ other people’s money for it? It was said that the money-boxes at the city gates were emptied in the house of the Medici. When Cosimo, says a contemporary, advanced to the commune far greater sums than he took, nothing was remarked upon it. He did this certainly, but he kept an exact account of it, and it could hardly be said that the partnership between the State and the Medici was solely to the advantage of the former. One morning the doors of Cosimo’s palace were found stained with blood.[88]
Such things occurred long before the time we are now considering. Cosimo had meanwhile no wish to remain passive after his haughty partisans had received a wholesome lesson. The license to which the lower classes inclined more and more, might have risen to such a point that his own authority would be endangered. He himself did not appear, but the tool was readily found. On July 1, 1458, Luca Pitti undertook the office of Gonfalonier. Three days before, King Alfonso had died; from his son—Ferrante—who had a difficult position in Naples on account of his illegitimate birth, and who did not, like his father, command the powers of Sicily and Aragon—there was for the time nothing to fear. Neither reform of registers nor drawing the magistrates by lot were to the taste of the new Gonfalonier; and urged by his friends, but with consideration for Cosimo, who wished to avoid open violence, he sought to induce priors and colleges to proceed to new elections, and choose new magistrates. When he met with opposition in this, he determined to employ the usual violent means. On August 9 he caused the palace and square to be surrounded by mercenaries, had the neighbouring streets secured, and summoned the people by ringing the great bell. That the Gonfalonier could do this in opposition to the priors, or at least to the majority of them, is an evident sign how weak the laws were. The Parliament, however it might be composed, granted to the Senate, and 250 of the burghers proposed by the party, the extraordinary powers demanded. These now proceeded to the new elections, and appointed a commission of eight citizens to preside at all elections for the future. It is easily understood that all actual authority was now more than ever in the hands of the heads of the faction, who filled the offices at their pleasure, and when the priors of the guild were after this called priors of freedom, it was in bitter irony. All opponents of the measures, several of whom endured torture, and a number of people who were either not trusted, or of whom one or other of the new wielders of power had to complain, were banished. In the months next following, exile and exclusion from office were but too common, and if in this way justice was sometimes done, as on the dishonest tax officials in Florence, Pisa, Arezzo, yet this made but a poor show in the presence of so many deeds of violence. According to the reform of taxation, the mercantile order was to be obliged to show their account books; an agreement was then made with them, agreeably to which a fixed sum of movable capital was declared, which was not the means to find out the real amount, or to ensure the just distribution of the burdens. Luca Pitti became a great man. The Signoria granted him the dignity of knighthood, and Cosimo made him rich presents, in which others imitated him. His momentary splendour eclipsed that of Medici; not he, but Luca seemed to stand at the head of the State, and if his nature inclined generally to pomp and power, he now allowed it free scope. His arbitrary and unjust administration was to find its punishment years after.
In the last years of his life, Cosimo had no longer the guidance of his party in his hands, as formerly. What he had always feared and long managed to prevent, now happened: his most distinguished adherents grew too strong for him. He had always feared to place himself in a clear light; what would once have aided him, when it was a question of arousing no envy, now injured him, as others employed it to outshine him. His continual illness combined to render his share in affairs more difficult. He allowed much to pass that he could not hinder, but, crafty and accustomed to rule as he was, he would not confess that he could not hinder it. Thus, as people like Luca Pitti and his companions stood far below him, and knew nothing of that kind of prudent and calculated moderation which lay in his character, a grasping and unconscientious party-government was formed, such as Florence, with the exception of transient periods of disturbances and passion, had never known.
It is easy to conceive that, with such a government, and with men at its head ever ready to infringe or to corrupt the laws and constitution, the magistrates of the Republic enjoyed but a small measure of authority, which was allowed to them by the chiefs on whom they depended. The machinery of government remained the same as it had been in former days, but real power rested elsewhere. The oligarchy, which obtained a firm footing in Cosimo’s last years, which tried to overthrow his son, and yielded to his grandson’s consummate skill, kept in its hands the reins even when its own independence was most doubtful. The thirst for public offices continued immoderate. These offices preserved ostensibly their dignity, and secured advantages of various kinds; but they no longer, as such, had any influence upon politics. The majority of them had been established between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; some had been added during the fifteenth. The upper magistracy, generally called the Signory, was the College of Priors of the Guilds, or of Freedom, as they were called after 1458. It had been established in 1282, and though afterwards transformed, was originally composed of eight members chosen every two months, with the Gonfalonier (vexillifer justitiæ) at their head.
In him was vested the highest power, which he, apart from the executive, shared with the colleges, with the Buonuomini appointed in 1312, with the assessors of the priors, and with the sixteen bannerets of the militia companies, at whose head was the Capitano del Popolo.
There has been a question raised as to the original military character of this institution. The projects of law agreed to by the Signory and the colleges were carried to three councils; first to the council of the people, which consisted of a hundred members, chosen originally only from the higher class of citizens, the popolo grasso. Then they went to the council of the ‘Credenza,’ which was formed of the same number of members, and in which sat all the consuls and other officials of the guilds; lastly, to the Podestà’s council, composed of the judges and legal functionaries, nobles and citizens, ninety in number. When a bill had passed through these three courts, it was brought before a General Assembly of them all, and not until then became law.
Forms, indeed, were duly observed, but these forms did not prevent the adoption of laws which fatally attacked the constitution from within. For the consideration of bills relating to foreign affairs, to peace and war, two other consultative bodies were established after 1411, when greater care seemed to be necessary, on account of the heavy burdens caused by the dissensions of the great Schism. The one was the Council of Two Hundred, to which only those could be elected who had occupied the highest offices of State, and to which legislative proposals were sent before they came to the Council of a Hundred and Thirty-one—in which sat the members of the Signory and of the colleges, the ‘Capitani di parte Guelfa’, the ‘War Ten,’ the six councils of the craftsmen, the consuls of the guilds, and forty-eight other citizens. The bills had to be accepted in these two assemblies before they reached the first-mentioned councils. From such a mass of incongruous materials was the machine of State compiled.
The chief judicial functionary, and until Luca Pitti’s reform the first dignitary, was the Podestà, assisted as he was by the Capitano del Popolo—whose rights and privileges were often changed—and by the executor of legal ordinances. All three were strangers: the first two noble personages learned in the law, the third a man of the people, of Guelfish family, holding office for one year. The Podestà’s court included several adjuncts who took turn with the chief. The armed guard of the latter were under the chief bailiff or Bargello. Attached to these were the Magistracy of Eight (Otto di Guardia), who were nominated by the Signory, and installed in office for four months. They had to try criminal and police cases, and were conservators of the law—a sort of appeal court for the revision of the decisions of the Podestà’s court. Much of their time, however, was spent in detecting the artifices and evasions of the tax-payers. The uncertain line of demarcation between the jurisdiction of the several co-existing law courts has always been one of the most serious evils of the constitution of Florence. For the separate branches of the constitution different functionaries were appointed. Foreign affairs and war were in the hands of the ‘Peace and War Ten,’ who were appointed in 1423 during the campaign against Milan. There had indeed been, half a century earlier, a similar magistracy, nicknamed by popular wit, the ‘Eight Saints,’ because they conducted warlike operations against Pope Gregory XI. It was as secretary of the ten that Niccolò Machiavelli manifested that activity which, together with the literary talents which he afterwards developed, made the ‘Segretario fiorentino’ so celebrated. The influence exercised by this committee upon military operations was often most unfortunate, and in the peaceful times of 1480, we see it replaced by the ‘Otto di Pratica.’