Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent (vol. 1 of 2)

by Alfred von Reumont

CHAPTER IX.

MILAN, GENOA, AND SIENA.

During these events, which, however, promised no quiet time, the inhabitants of Florence had lived for long years as merrily as if their state and all Italy were secured against foreign enemies and internal dissensions. One could see that a young man held the rudder, however much political affairs and plans and party questions might claim his attention. In respect to his intellectual pursuits, no time was so rich in fruits as this. His style of living became more and more splendid. The many visits of princely personages, for whom his house served as a lodging, led him to incur expenses of various kinds, in purchases of works of art as well as for his daily requirements, while they were an encouragement to luxury for the distinguished citizens who could not let the Medici act as sovereigns, and accustomed the people to pastimes and good living. All this had its dark sides. The income of the Medici was all the more insufficient because strict supervision was lacking; their foreign business was too widely spread and dependent on conjunctures of the moment. The waste of public money, which afterwards was so prevalent, had already begun. Everything seemed allowable when it was a question of satisfying ambition.

To this time belongs the tournament of Giuliano de’ Medici, which was still more famous than that of his brother, because the most gifted poet of the Medicean circle, Angelo Poliziano (not sixteen years old, as has been believed in consequence of a chronological error, but still only two-and-twenty[209]) sang this knightly diversion in the renowned verses which he dedicated to Lorenzo. This tournament took place on January 28, 1475, probably in the square of Sta. Croce. Giuliano, who rode a horse named Orso, and wore a rich suit of armour, obtained the prize. When we consider that he was powerful and practised in knightly dexterity, an accomplishment which then belonged to the education of distinguished young Italians, even if he had not devoted himself to the art of war, as the Florentines seldom did, one need not suppose that this victory was agreed upon beforehand. Already, when a boy of twelve, Giuliano had wished, much against his father’s inclination, to show his prowess and skill at the time of the visit of the Duchess of Calabria. Giuliano’s arms and helmet were beautifully wrought by Michel Angelo of Gaiole, father of the sculptor Baccio Bandinelli, a clever goldsmith, who during many years served the Medici with equal zeal and fidelity, and was employed by Lorenzo especially in setting his gems and other precious stones.[210] Poliziano’s mythological poem does not, like that of Pulci, give us a description of the event, nor the names of the combatants; and if we hear much in praise of both brothers and of the whole Medicean house in their harmonious but somewhat pedantically antiquated octosyllabics, they teach us little which can give a knowledge of the time or of the persons. Fifteen months after the tournament, the lady of Giuliano’s heart, Simonetta, the nymph of the poem, died; it was in the night from April 26 to 27, 1476, while Lorenzo resided at Pisa, where he continually received news of the course of the illness and the end of the beautiful girl who had charmed his brother and whom he himself lamented. Neither he nor Giuliano dreamed what cruel fate should befall one of them and threaten the other on the same day two years later.

Another terrible fate was rapidly approaching, which did not immediately concern the family of the Medici, but exercised a decided influence on the political position of Italy; and which when Lorenzo had scarcely quitted the world’s stage, overthrew in its results the edifice which he had reared and watched over with such care.

On St. Stephen’s day in 1476, Galeazzo Maria Sforza, at the age of thirty-two, fell in the church of the saint to whom the day was consecrated, beneath the daggers of three Milanese noblemen, inspired by indignation against the cruel and immoral reign of the degenerate son of an excellent father, who had oppressed the people with taxes in order to support a luxury, which had bordered on madness. The deed was tyrannicide after the old classical style; and as the conspirators had no ulterior projects nor any support or adherents among the people, the most distinguished councillor of the deceased, Cecco Simonetta, succeeded in preserving the people in their devotion to their ducal house, and proclaimed the son of Galeazzo Maria, Gian Galeazzo, then six years old, as duke, under the guardianship of his mother Bona. How some of the Florentines judged of the matter may be seen from the words with which Alamanno Rinuccini, a distinguished man, accompanies the news of the event recorded in his notices. ‘It was a worthy, laudable, manly deed, which should be imitated by all who live under a tyrant or anything similar. But the cowardice and depravity of the men were to blame, that the example bore little or no fruit, and those who had acted well must suffer death. Nevertheless, they freed the earth from the most worthless monster, who was stained with more shameful sins than any in his time and long before.’[211] But that Lorenzo de’ Medici, who received the first news of the event from Tommaso Soderini, at that time ambassador in Milan, was much struck by it, is easily understood. He had made the policy of his grandfather and father his own in reference to the Sforza family, and connected himself closely with them. The league of 1474 had drawn the tie still closer. An understanding with Venice was always precarious; that with Milan seemed certain. It was now threatened with sudden dissolution, for even if they could rely upon a regency, the duchess was in various ways dangerous; especially under the family circumstances known to all. Lorenzo must have perceived all this in a moment, and could not be without serious apprehension. ‘I have heard of the duke’s death,’ wrote Luigi Pulci to him from Mugello, where he was residing on his estate, on January 3, 1477.[212] ‘I am sorry, imagining that you are so. I have not been in the city, for I fear that it would avail nothing. Wherever I may be, you know that you have a servant who is always ready to obey you; and if you wish that I should go to our lord Roberto (Sanseverino), or elsewhere, I will mount at the first signal. In many respects I think it well that the aforesaid lord is there; he cannot want for ways and means. All the better am I pleased, therefore, that he is quite in your interests, and you can dispose of him there or here as you will.’

In regard to this last, however, Luigi Pulci was much mistaken. Roberto da Sanseverino, who had exercised so great an influence on the development of Milanese affairs, was not the man Pulci thought him. He was descended from one of the most illustrious families of Naples, that of the Princes of Salerno and Bisignano, who had made themselves a name on other fields than those of policy and war. He was the son of Leonetto da Sanseverino and of Lisa Attendolo of Cotignola, daughter of Sforza, the famous condottiere, a woman who had inherited the heroism of her father, and he was born about the year 1420. Trained to be an excellent soldier under his uncle, Francesco Sforza, he rose quickly to a position of distinction, when the former had become Duke of Milan. When in the barons’ war against Ferrante of Aragon, he led a Milanese auxiliary corps to Naples, the king made him Count of Cajazzo, in gratitude for his services. He was a man of restless mind, to whom the confusion, more personal than political, which had ensued after Galeazzo Maria’s death offered a wide field of activity. It was he who had principally assisted in disturbing Lorenzo’s Milanese policy. This policy tended to support the duchess-dowager and preserve the existing government. For this purpose Messer Luigi Guicciardini was commissioned to be active. He had been sent to Milan immediately after the duke’s death, where, with Soderini, who afterwards remained alone there, he was of great service, from the authority of the Republic and his personal distinction. Bona of Savoy saw her position soon endangered by her brothers-in-law and their party. Galeazzo Maria had left no less than five brothers, Sforza, Filippo, Lodovico, Ascanio, Ottaviano. Except the second, who had a taste for cultivating science and a quiet life, they were all characters calculated to inspire the head of a newly-risen family with anxiety. Ascanio dedicated himself to the ecclesiastical order and became apostolic pronotary, but this did not restrain the restless ambition which made the life of this man, afterwards so much spoken of, a chain of negotiations, intrigues, and vicissitudes of fortune. Sforza, who had inherited from his father the dukedom of Bari in Apulia, granted him by King Ferrante, and Lodovico, who obtained an inglorious celebrity under the surname of Il Moro, had been banished to France by the suspicious duke. From thence they returned as soon as they heard of his death, in the hopes of obtaining a share in the government. Simonetta managed to make them harmless beforehand by transferring to them the presidency in the senate of justice, and setting a considerable sum apart for all the uncles of the heir-apparent. Nothing, however, but the representations of the Marquis of Mantua and the foreign ambassadors persuaded the ambitious young men to comply with this arrangement, and it was to be foreseen that affairs would not remain so. Events in Genoa soon lent a pretext for executing the plans of the malcontents.

The history of Genoa is the counterfoil to that of Venice. Since the end of the thirteenth century, peace and stability at home and great territorial and political power, long secured for the latter; while for the former, constant and sudden changes, which must have had an unfavourable effect on the position obtained abroad in the days of maritime greatness; the Genoese power on land being restricted to a narrow strip of coast, partly fertile indeed, and rich in good mariners, but mountainous and inaccessible. The Genoese could not even retain their national and political independence. Weakened by foreign wars and internal feuds, they had acknowledged first the supremacy of France, then that of the Visconti, and, having rebelled against both, they had submitted to Francesco Sforza, who, after having come to an understanding with King Louis XI. in 1464, united all Liguria to the Duchy of Milan. But even then the Genoese did not remain quiet, and after Galeazzo Maria’s death the faction of the Fregosi and Fieschi brought on a new insurrection, in consequence of which only the fort called Castelletto remained in the hands of the Milanese troops. But it served as a central point for the attack, when 12,000 Milanese troops advanced against Genoa under the command of Roberto da Sanseverino, with whom were Lodovico and Ottaviano Sforza. A defeat of the rebels soon led to a pacification, as the city was, as usual, divided. On April 11, 1477, Prospero Adorno was acknowledged as governor, and peace was restored. In Florence, where Milanese affairs were watched with great excitement, this result awakened great rejoicing. The Signoria had the bells rung and bonfires lighted on April 14, as if for a victory of the Republic.[213] But things soon took another turn: Lodovico, Sforza, and Ottaviano could as little remain quiet as the Genoese, and their influence in the army threatened the government itself immediately after their return. On command of the regent, one of their confidants, Donato del Conte, an old companion of Duke Francesco, was taken prisoner. The attempt of the brothers to liberate him by exciting a rebellion in Milan was defeated. Roberto Sanseverino, for whom had been destined the military management of a conspiracy which was to place Lodovico in his sister-in-law’s place, fled to Asti. Ottaviano Sforza was drowned on his flight in the Adda. The other brothers submitted, and were pardoned. But when the trial of Donato del Conte had brought the full extent of the conspiracy to light, they were banished from Milan, Sforza to Bari, Lodovico to Pisa, and Ascanio to Perugia. This was at the beginning of June 1477.

For the time the duchess-regent retained the power in her own hand. But it was clear that the foundations of her government were weak, while such dissensions prevailed in the ducal family, the nominal ruler being a feeble child, and those nearest the throne ambitious young men with many adherents at home and abroad. Lorenzo de’ Medici saw this clearly, and strove to support the regent from the beginning. But it is entirely incomprehensible how, in such a critical moment, while his hold on Milan was so uncertain, he could think of giving neighbours whom he already knew to have a grudge against him cause for complaint. And yet he did so. The discontent of the Pope he increased in a twofold manner. Filippo de’ Medici, Archbishop of Pisa, who was entirely devoted to the interest of his relations, had died in 1474. Instead of consulting with the Republic respecting a successor, Sixtus IV. had made a new choice, of a Florentine indeed, but a man certainly not very agreeable to the party then prevailing, and of whom little is known before the catastrophe which cost him his life. That Sixtus IV. made choice of him with the intention of insulting the Republic and the Medici, cannot be supposed; but that he knew it was unwelcome to them we see from a letter of the Cardinal of Mantua to Lorenzo, in which Salviati is recommended to the latter, and it is emphatically added that the promotion was not meant to be displeasing to his Magnificence.[214] That the Pope held fast by his new appointment was in accordance with the principles and proceedings of the Holy See. The opposition to the Medici faction is explained by the fact that, in consequence of the special circumstances of Pisa, they thought they required a trustworthy and devoted man there. The new archbishop moreover had been very serviceable to the State, and as regards family and position, nothing was to be said against Francesco Salviati. The part acted by him in 1478 has justified the accusations of his enemies. But we must not forget that he was then embittered by years of opposition, and allowed free course to evil passions at a time when so many prelates preferred secular to sacred pursuits, and seized the sword instead of the crozier. What incited Lorenzo against him is unknown; Angelo Poliziano had once appealed with most abject flatteries to the protection of a man against whom he afterwards hurled the severest and most insulting accusations.[215] Lorenzo had twice thwarted him. When Cardinal Riario died, Francesco Salviati had sought to obtain the archbishopric of Florence, but was obliged to yield to the brother-in-law of the all-powerful Rinaldo Orsini. It was said in Rome that the Pope, who had presented Count Girolamo with the rich possessions of his brother the cardinal, and yet was obliged to pay his debts, had offered his benefices, among which was the archbishopric, valued at three thousand gold florins, to the highest bidder, by which means money was raised. This, however, was not to be regarded as simony.[216] Francesco had only received the lesser consecration, and may have had no vocation for the priesthood; but this was not the objection raised against him in Florence, and the man preferred to him did not do his spiritual dignity the least credit. When, therefore, the Pope invested him with Pisa, the most important and wealthy bishopric of Tuscany, the Republic refused to allow him to assume it for three years, and he nursed his hatred in Rome, where soon others shared it with him. That this hatred was personal and directed against Lorenzo de’ Medici is easily to be understood, and even excusable under existing circumstances. They had accustomed themselves to regard Lorenzo as the head of the State, and to ascribe good and evil to his influence.

Another complication arose, all the more serious because, not to mention pope and king, whose suspicions it increased, it excited another and a neighbour state against the Republic.