On the day after his arrival the duke made a visit of ceremony to the Signoria, accompanied by many distinguished citizens, after having announced himself, and expressed the wish to meet the most illustrious men of the State. The Signori went across the Piazza to meet him, and escorted him into the festively decorated council-hall, where all took their places, Galeazzo Maria beside the Gonfaloniere. The Duke now spoke in detail of recent events, explained and justified his conduct at and after the conclusion of the general confederacy, offered to maintain the number of troops for the Republic which she had bound herself to keep up, and declared his readiness to go with the Florentine people in everything. On the following day the Signori repaired with him to the house of the Medici. The exclusiveness imposed upon the members of the highest magistracy during their term of office did not hold good in such cases. To celebrate the visit the city caused three sacred dramas to be acted in churches. In San Felice the Annunciation was given, in Carmine the Ascension, and in Sto. Spirito the Descent of the Holy Ghost. Unfortunately, fire broke out during the last festival, which seriously injured the interior of the beautiful church, and necessitated a restoration, for which the duke expended two thousand gold florins. The visit of the Milanese prince and the Florentine festivals were much spoken of at foreign courts; Giovanni Bentivoglio and the lords of Romagna were expected, but did not appear. The duke and duchess, after eight days’ residence, left the city and the hospitable house with gratitude and affectionate remembrance, and went to Lucca, where they were also received with rejoicing. The Lucchesi actually made a new gate in the city wall, in eternal commemoration of so great an event! Sforza’s all-powerful private secretary, Cecco Simonetta, received the right of citizenship. It was very important to the little Republic to remain on good terms with the son of the man to whom they owed perhaps the maintenance of their existence as a state, and they had willingly taken part in the new confederacies. The ducal pair returned to Milan by Genoa.[188]
For the sake of contrast, after the extravagant pomp of a duke belonging to a family which had just arisen, may be mentioned the simplicity with which a Northern sovereign appeared in Florence three years later, by no means to his prejudice in the eyes of reasonable men. It was King Christiern,[189] with whom, in 1449, the house of Oldenburg ascended the Danish-Norwegian throne. The wars for Sweden, which had withdrawn from the Colmar union of the three kingdoms, the difficulties with the dukedoms of Schleswig and Holstein, which he did not succeed in uniting to the Danish throne, and the disputes with the Hanseatic League, which had the trade of Norway in its hands, had preyed upon the king’s strength and courage, when at the age of fifty he resolved upon a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Through Spain, where he had visited the shrine of San Jago di Compostella, and Milan, where he had been entertained by the Duke Galeazzo Maria, he reached Florence on the afternoon of March 29, 1474. His suite consisted of about a hundred and forty riders, mostly noblemen and prelates, with but little baggage; he had accomplished a considerable part of the way on foot. At the gate of San Gallo he was met by the Signoria, with the Gonfaloniere, Donato Acciaiuoli, at their head, as was the custom with crowned heads; but the king would not advance under the canopy offered him, nor enter the city before the magistrates and government had returned to their palace. He also refused a guard of honour as he rode through the streets. On the following day he inspected the city, paid a visit to the Signoria, and begged to be allowed to see the Greek manuscript of the Gospels, which had been brought from Constantinople, and the Codex of Pandects preserved at Pisa. He regarded these books with veneration, and said these were the true treasures for princes, which was thought to be an allusion to the extravagant splendour at the court of Galeazzo Maria. Christiern was a grave man, with a long grey beard, and his whole bearing was calm and sensible. In Rome, where Pope Sixtus presented him with the golden rose, and released him from the vow of pilgrimage to the Holy Land, he remained for several weeks, greatly honoured. On May 3 he came again to Florence, and was once more received by the Signoria, but declined all ceremonies. In Sta. Maria Novella, where he was lodged, the priors, with the Gonfaloniere, Maso degli Albizzi, visited him. On the 6th he quitted the city, pleased with the reception accorded to him here, and rode to Bologna over the Apennines. One result of his residence at Rome was the founding of the University of Copenhagen, for which he had obtained Papal privileges. There is no mention of a meeting between the king and the Medici in the records of the time.
How the Medici stood in relation to the lords of Bologna we have already seen. Giovanni Bentivoglio, who held a similar position to that of Lorenzo, not only shared his preference for domestic splendour, but surpassed him in his love of tournaments and festal processions; and if these are not so celebrated as those of Florence, it was not because they were less splendid. It was because the blind poet, Francesco, a Florentine residing in Cento, who celebrated the tournament at Bologna, in 1470, in 200 stanzas, which unite Madonna and the saints with Mars and Minerva, was neither a Pulci nor a Politian. As well as the Varani and the Aragonese, the poet of the Morgante counted also Bentivoglio among his patrons, and was repeatedly with him from 1473 to 1475. Lorenzo seems by no means to have been always on friendly terms with his Bolognese friend. Pulci was once charged to declare to the latter that he (Lorenzo) would do all that lay in his power for him, but could not prevent his being himself censured in Rome as well as Florence, as the city had always been jealous of her freedom.[190] This probably referred to a vexatious circumstance in Bologna, in which Bentivoglio had come out rather too arrogantly as an arbitrary ruler.
The most telling proof of the princely esteem which Lorenzo enjoyed, even in his youthful years, was afforded by the mediation sought by King Louis XI. respecting the marriage of the Dauphin. Louis d’Amboise, the king’s councillor, and later Bishop d’Albi, brother of the Cardinal-Archbishop of Rouen, who was all-powerful under Louis XII., and even believed the dignity of pope to be within his grasp, had been in Florence on his return from Rome, and seems to have described Lorenzo’s position—it was after the events which will be alluded to presently—in the most glowing colours. On June 19, 1473, the king addressed a remarkable letter from Amboise to the Florentine. He had heard, he writes, that King Ferrante intended to marry his eldest daughter to the young Duke of Savoy, under guarantee of a dowry of 300,000 ducats. It seemed to him, however, more suitable to mutual interests that an alliance between the princess and his son, the Dauphin of Vienne, should be brought about. The amount of the dowry might be fixed by Lorenzo, in case Ferrante should be at all inclined to accede to the proposal. The family connection should go hand in hand with a political league; friends and foes should be common to both monarchs. The Neapolitan king would be aided by the league against the house of Anjou; he, Louis, against the ruler of Aragon. If Lorenzo would take the matter in hand, let him send a confidential messenger to France, to consult with himself about the matter, to the exclusion of all princes of the blood and other distinguished men, while royal ambassadors would proceed to Florence. Ferrante’s answer to Lorenzo, dated August 9, from Castel Nuovo at Naples, was a decided refusal. He recognised with due appreciation the good intention of Medici, as he esteemed the advantage and honour which would arise to him and his house from a connection with the most powerful king of the world. The conditions, however, he added, were contrary to his honour. Neither against his uncle of Aragon nor his ally the Duke of Burgundy would he ever act, and respecting Anjou, King Louis must judge himself what chastisement he had to inflict on one who was his own enemy. He was not to take it ill that he, Ferrante, was determined to preserve his honour and knightly word as well as the best of his family, instead of drawing distrust and contempt upon himself. He ought to be content with his beautiful kingdom, and thank God that it was at peace, instead of longing for the possessions of others. If Lorenzo could make more honourable conditions, acceptable to the king, he would be well inclined to accede to such.[191] The affair went no farther. By Louis XI. the proposal could hardly have been seriously intended, but was only a feeler. That he exposed himself, however, to such sharp observations as those of the Neapolitan might excite surprise, were it not that the language adopted in the diplomatic writings of the time, and the communications of princes with one another, was not particularly measured or courteous.
While foreign rulers had such intercourse with Lorenzo, his fellow-citizens did not yield to strangers in the honours they showed to him. They were accustomed to the pre-eminence which he and his house assumed. In December 1470, the Commune determined to bestow the dignity of knighthood for services to the State on the Gonfaloniere, at that time Bongianni Gianfigliazzi, an elderly man, of an illustrious and rich family, whose houses, near the bridge of Sta. Trinità, enclosed the church of the same name on both sides; and Lorenzo was chosen, notwithstanding his youth, as syndic of the people, according to custom, to perform the ceremony, which was usually done either by princes of reigning houses or by wise and distinguished men who were themselves knights. When the same distinction had been shown the year before to the retiring Gonfaloniere, Jacopo de’ Pazzi, uncle of Lorenzo’s brother-in-law, Tommaso Soderini, upon whom Pope Paul II. had conferred this dignity, represented the Commune, and the ceremony took place in the Baptistery, on a scaffolding built over the great font, well known from Dante’s time downwards. House and villas were always full of guests. Lorenzo divided his time between his residences in the city and the country, especially Careggi and Cafaggiuolo, which was the most agreeable residence in the hot summer on account of its high situation and shady woods. In Piero’s lifetime we already find him and his brother in the grey mountain convents, whose natural beauty was enhanced by the historical reminiscences of the founders of Holy Orders—in Vallombrosa on the Pratomagno, the foundation of St. John Gualbert; and in Camaldoli in the Casentino, which St. Romualdo of Ravenna founded in the days of the Emperor Otto III. and Henry II. Of the visit of the last-mentioned a literary trace has remained in the Camaldulensian conversations of Cristoforo Landino.
It is unnecessary to say that the members of his family shared in the honours shown to him. In the spring of 1472 Madonna Clarice visited her Roman relations, and among her escort was Luigi Pulci, who had also resided in Umbria shortly before. One of his letters to Lorenzo[192] describes most delightfully the visit which Clarice made in May at Fuligno to the daughter of the despot of Morea, Zoe Palæologus. This man’s father, Thomas, a brother of the last Greek emperor, after unhappy quarrels in his own family, not silenced by the threatened danger from the Turks, had lost his possessions to Mohammed II. In the spring of 1461 he came to Rome, where a tabernacle, with the statue of the Apostle Andrew, in the vicinity of the Milvian bridge, indicates the spot on which Cardinal Bessarion, in the name of Pope Pius II., received the head of the saint from his hands. Thomas died four years later at Rome, where his three children were educated under Bessarion’s superintendence, as their mother, Caterina Centurione, of a Genoese family transplanted to the Levant, had died before him. There was abundant opportunity in Italy of becoming acquainted with distinguished Levanters; and yet their appearance and demeanour always appeared singular to the Italians, as is shown, among others, by Pope Pius II.’s description of Charlotte of Lusignan, who yet appears to have been very much Europeanised in comparison to the Princess Palæologus. ‘I saw a mountain of fat before me,’ writes Pulci. ‘Never should I have thought that there was the like in Germany or Sardinia. Her two eyes might do duty for four, and a little mouth lay between fat red cheeks.’ The figure was equally striking to our Florentine. This Oriental beauty married not long afterwards a Muscovite grand duke, who promised to reconquer the Morea for her brothers, one of whom died in Rome, and the other escaped from the executioners of his imperial uncle. A few days later Pulci wrote from Rome as follows: ‘We have spent some time at Monterotondo, where we were truly received most brilliantly. Yesterday (June 5) we arrived at Rome with about eighty horses. Our Madonna Clarice has done you honour everywhere, and has not herself been neglected. I go in two days to the frontiers, and then back to you. The residence of your wife here will be short, for there is no wedding taking place just now, and the little Lucrezia and Pierino are strong magnets for their mother.’
The health of Lorenzo’s mother made repeated journeys to baths necessary, which seem to have led her mostly, if not always, to the Bagno a Morba. She carried on a constant correspondence with her son, and her letters to him show equally her sincere affection and a certain deference to the head of the family and the State. In June 1477, she wrote from Bagno,[193] which she had reached not without difficulty on account of the badness of the roads. ‘Hail to you, my dearest son (Salvus sis mi suavissime fili)! To-day the letter written in your name has reached me; and it has been a joy and consolation to me to learn that you are well, and, with you, your whole family, for which God be praised. With the greatest satisfaction I received the news of the betrothal of Cosimino Rucellai with the daughter of the Marchese Gabriello, which was for me most unexpected news, fresh as the coin from the mint.[194] I think it is a happy event, the result of which will justify the good beginning, and which we will celebrate here joyfully with the whole society of the place. God give His blessing! Now to other matters: I am well, Heaven be praised, and the baths are doing me good. If God will, I purpose setting out on the 21st inst. and passing the night at Madame Tita’s, the widow of Martino Cortesi, at San Gemignano. She stayed here several days in order to beg me to do so, and then sent her son, who has gone away early this morning, to obtain my certain promise, which I could not refuse to repeated requests, and, as she is a wife and widow, without offending you. So we have agreed to make a short stay without ceremonies, in order to be in Florence on Monday, the eve of the feast of St. John. I shall not come before, because I am rather weak and languid from the bath. Should it be necessary, however, for me to come earlier, tell me so, and I will leave all else. Send me the horses when you like, so that they arrive here on the 19th, and may rest on the 20th, as we think of setting out on the 21st, as I have said. We need seven horses; nothing else. I commend myself to you.—In haste, on June 9, Lucrezia, in the Bagno a Morba.’
Cosimo’s widow lived in the house of her grandson till the autumn of 1473. Luigi Pulci, who had been to Bologna on an errand for Lorenzo, wrote from Florence, to Madonna Lucrezia at Careggi, on October 26,[195] ‘I have returned and found our Madonna Contessina no more. This grieved me much. Would that I had at least been permitted to see her once more! I pray God to receive her soul to His mercy, and preserve those left, whom I enjoin to submit with patience.’ How much this woman had seen in the fifty-nine years since Cosimo de’ Medici, her husband, had accompanied Pope John XXIII. to the Council of Constance!