The other partizans of the conspiracy fared no better.[232] Antonio Maffei and Stefano da Bagnone had taken refuge in the Benedictine abbey. For two days they were vainly sought for by crowds of people, who when they discovered them, mutilated their noses and ears and then killed them. The monks were preserved with difficulty from ill-treatment. Giovan Batista da Montesecco was seized in flight on May 1. A long trial was begun of the man who was not groundlessly suspected of knowing a good deal about the connections of the accomplices at Rome. In this the judges were not deceived, for the revelations which Batista made of the consultations of the Pazzi and the archbishop with Pope Sixtus and Girolamo Riario, enable us to perceive the truth and falsehood in the unmeasured accusations hurled against the Pope by the Florentines, as they furnish the proper preface to the conspiracy as it has been represented above. Had Pope Sixtus IV. played another part in this story, and stooped to what was ascribed to him, Montesecco, who must above all have sought to diminish his own guilt, would certainly not have kept silence upon the subject. In spite of these revelations, which bore the visible stamp of truth, which have been half taken in their real sense and half arbitrarily construed, it has been the fashion, even to the present day, to accuse the Pope of a share in the guilt of the murder. That the evil effect of the revelations was feared in Rome, is seen from a subsequent letter of the Florentine ambassador, Pier Filippo Pandolfini, who advised their dissemination in order to oppose the Roman accusations. On May 4, Montesecco was beheaded in the court of the palace of the Podestà. Eighteen days later Donato Acciaiuoli, Napoleone Orsini, and the Archbishop Rinaldo Orsini, who had witnessed the bad effect produced in Rome by the trial and execution, advised that Batista’s property should be restored to his brother Leone, who was residing there.[233] Napoleone Franzesi fled with the assistance of Piero Vespucci, who dearly paid for the aid he afforded him. Bernardo Bandini, who had at first concealed himself in the tower of the cathedral, reached Constantinople, was given up by command of the Sultan, and in 1479 shared the fate of his accomplices during Lorenzo’s absence. Antonio de’ Medici, a distant relation of Cosimo’s line, had been sent to Constantinople to thank Mohammed II., and bring the prisoner home in chains. The deliverance of Bandini, more, perhaps than any other circumstance, contributed to increase the idea of Lorenzo’s greatness in the eyes of his fellow-citizens.
Lorenzo de’ Medici must have feared somewhat that his adherents would go too far, rather than that they would do too little. The whole city assisted him. Many who were, perhaps, disinclined in their hearts to the family and their supremacy, showed themselves as their friends when they knew how the wind blew. In the first moment a pole with a decapitated head had been erected before the Medici’s house, partly to serve as the signal for all to flock around one whose life had been preserved in such a wonderful manner. A numerous crowd of people soon filled the street, and all called for Lorenzo. Notwithstanding his wound, he appeared, and was received with acclamations. In his speech he first complained of the envy and hatred of those who, instead of opposing him in open fight, attacked him unawares. His own safety was nothing to him where it was a question of the dignity and position of the State, for which he would be willing to give up his position and submit to all. He was most sincerely grateful to those who had protected and saved him; but the avenging interposition of the people must now be restrained in order not to afford the enemies of the Republic a pretext for complaints and attacks. Insurrections and internal party-strife were bad, but some good results sprung therefrom. When ill-intentioned citizens had the worst of it, secret evils were disclosed; yet, in punishing and suppressing wrong-doing, they must not exceed due measure, but reserve the fulness of their anger for foreign foes who threatened the frontier. The words had their desired effect; Lorenzo was famed for his moderation, while he might be certain that, even without his aid, everything would happen which could promote his aims.
When the wild justice of the crowd had sacrificed their victims, and their passions had had time to calm in some degree, a decree of the Signoria, May 23, promulgated by the Gonfaloniere Giacomo degli Alessandri and the priors, disclosed the penal sentence against the Pazzi.[234] The name and coat-of-arms of the family should cease to exist; the localities distinguished by the former should be changed, and the latter should be erased from all houses and churches; new names and new insignia to be introduced into the register of the rebels, and everyone punished who should even pronounce the old name. The property of the family was confiscated. Whoever should marry into it should be excluded from public offices. The old ceremony of the Colombina should cease in respect to the family. Thus ran the sentence. Many of its provisions were never carried out on account of their exaggeration, and others only too well. The arms of the Pazzi—two dolphins in a field covered with crosses—are still seen on many houses in the Borgo degli Albizzi and elsewhere, which still partly belong to the family; the name has remained with the beautiful chapel in the cloisters of Sta. Croce; and the intersection of the streets at the Palazzo Quaratesi, which once belonged to Messer Jacopo de’ Pazzi, is still popularly termed the Palazzo della Congiura. But a considerable part of their possessions fell into strange hands—this same palace, for instance, and the villa of Montughi, which will be spoken of later.[235] Another decree of the Signoria ordained, according to the custom in such cases, that the sharers in the conspiracy should be painted on the wall of the tower of the Podestà, as hanged men with their heads downwards.[236] On the other hand, life-size statues of Lorenzo, with the head and hands of wax, in his usual dress and strikingly resembling him, was set up in SS. Annunziata and the convent church in Via San Gallo, as well as in the Madonna degli Angeli below Assisi. Andrea del Verrocchio furnished the drawing for the figures, which were executed by a clever sculptor in wax called Orsini. The figure in Via San Gallo was attired in the robes which Lorenzo had worn when he appeared in his wounded state before the crowd.[237]
The solemn interment of Giuliano had taken place on the fourth day following the deed in the church of San Lorenzo. His mortal remains rest in the porphyry sarcophagus which had received those of his father and uncle and were destined to contain his brother’s. The corpse showed nineteen wounds. The grief at his loss was unfeigned, especially among the young men, and many wore mourning. Giuliano de’ Medici left one son, respecting whose birth and origin different reports have been circulated. Many assert that he came into the world after his father’s death. According to others, Antonio da San Gallo, the architect, is said to have informed Lorenzo shortly afterwards that his brother had a son, who was now about a year old, by a girl of a burgher family, whose house was opposite his own in the Borgo Pinti. Lorenzo, so it is said, repaired to the said house, and, listening to the entreaties of the mother, took the child home with him and had him educated with his own sons. When Giulio de’ Medici, which was the name of the child, who afterwards became the head of the family, was raised by his cousin Leo X. to the archbishopric of Florence, the Pope granted him a dispensation for his lack of the legitimacy required by the canon. But when, shortly afterwards, he received the red hat, witnesses appeared who declared that his mother Fioretta, the daughter of one Antonio, had been united to Giuliano by a marriage of conscience. In 1487 Lorenzo wrote a letter to the ambassadors in Rome, with the consent of King Ferrante, to recommend the boy, then ten years old, for the rich priorate of the knights of St. John in Capua, remarking that his mother had been unmarried.[238] But in the time of Lorenzo de’ Medici nothing else was known of Giulio de’ Medici than that he grew up with his cousins a grave, well-educated boy. Later on, Florentine history learned to know him only too well.
CHAPTER II.
ALLIANCES AND COUNTER ALLIANCES. PREPARATION FOR THE CONFLICT.
In the speech which he addressed to the people after the murder of his brother, Lorenzo alluded to the danger then threatening the Republic from foreign enemies. His anxiety was only too well founded. Girolamo Riario had taken measures to support the enterprise of the conspirators. Giovan Francesco da Tolentino advancing with a band of a thousand foot from the district of Imola, had already passed the Florentine boundary, and Lorenzo Giustini had set out from Umbria with an equal number of armed men. Lorenzo’s first thought was to cover the passes of the Apennines, thus rendering any attack on that side very difficult for the enemy, as the German freebooters experienced to their misfortune about the middle of the fourteenth century. However, the first news of the events in Florence sufficed to induce the intruders to retreat. But Lorenzo was not at ease. The revelations of Montesecco had fully explained to him Riario’s fierce hatred and the Pope’s dangerous indulgence towards his nephews. It was necessary to prevent future plots, either by reconciling opponents or by rendering them harmless, and to gain friends abroad Lorenzo spared no labour. The city was provisioned, the guards at the gates were strengthened, and a sharp eye was kept on all who passed in and out. A band of armed men whom Giovanni Bentivoglio caused to advance as far as the Mugello, for the protection of Florence, secured the Apennine side from a sudden attack. Lorenzo took care to win over those who belonged to families involved in the plot, and who were in continual dread of discovery. He calmed and assured by friendly advances Averardo Salviati, a near relation of the archbishop, who kept hidden from fear.
His chief cause of anxiety was Sixtus IV. A cardinal was in the palace of the Signoria deprived of his freedom. An archbishop had been shamefully killed without a trial, and several ecclesiastics had lost their lives.